women would bring her and lay her down on the bank of the river and go away. Then certain brethren would cross over in a boat and bring her over with the [singing of] psalms and with lighted candles, and with great ceremony and honour, and when they had brought her over they would lay her in their cemetery; without elder or deacon no man could go to that nunnery, and then only from one Sunday to the other (i.e., they could go only on Sundays). Now it happened that a certain tailor, who was a stranger, came to that nunnery looking for work, and one of the sisters went forth to talk with him, and she said unto him, “We have our own tailor”; and one of the sisters saw her speaking with him, and she held her peace and informed no one concerning the matter. And after a short time the two women had a dispute about a certain matter, and the sister who had seen the other talking to the tailor went and brought an accusation against the other before all the sisters, saying about her in an evil manner, “This is the Satan who hath sown the strife among us”; and then many of the women having heard [these things] believed [them]. And the sister, not being able to endure the accusation wherewith she had been accused without cause, by reason of her distress went and cast herself into the river and was drowned; and when the sister who had made the accusation against the other perceived this, seeing that she had calumniated her evilly, and that she had caused the sisters pain in a most serious manner, she also secretly drowned herself. And the elder who had been made [guardian] of them, knowing this matter, commanded one of them that none of the sisters who had believed that sister who had made the accusation against her companion should receive the Offering, and he was not reconciled unto them, and prevented them from [participating in] the Offering for seven years.
Now in that same nunnery there was a certain sister who was a virgin, and she made herself an object of contempt, and she had had a devil in her; and the [other] sisters used to treat her so contemptuously that they would not even allow her to eat with them. And the woman herself was well content at this [treatment], and she would go into the refectory and serve the food and wait upon the whole company [there], and she became the broom of the whole nunnery; and indeed she made manifest that which is written [in the Book of] the blessed Apostle (1 Corinthians 3:18), who said, “Whosoever wisheth to become a wise man in this world, let him become a fool in order that he may become wise.” And this woman used to throw over her head a roughly cut piece of cloth, whilst the other women wore veils, well cut and well made, according to
