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Authors: Donna Fletcher Crow
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than a cluster of houses. Father Peter, priest from a nearby parish, his cassock blowing in the breeze, was waiting for Antony at the end of a narrow, wooded, lane. Antony leaned across the seat to open the door for him to get in the car, but the priest waved him onward. “Two more vehicles to arrive, I’m told. Don’t want them to miss the turning, it’s easily done.” So Antony continued on to the village green where Mike, Lenny and the other technicians were setting things up for the days’ shoot.
Antony found Fred sitting in a canvas chair under a winter-bare tree, his wrapped ankle elevated. “Are you all right?”
“I’ll do. Got Ginger repaired, that’s the main thing.” Antony quizzed him in more detail about the accident, but couldn’t learn anything of seeming importance.
A short time later the last vehicles rolled up and parked at the top of the lane. Tara approached, make-up kit at the ready. Harry began barking directions and everyone jumped to attention. Except Fred who more hobbled. Father Peter was first to come under the camera’s gaze. As the local expert he directed attention to a broken, stone gatepost in an overgrown field and a few scattered stones. “I’m afraid that’s all that remains of the medieval priory where the prioress invited Richard Rolle to come be their spiritual director in 1340.”
Father Peter walked across the rough ground, followed by Lenny, who had temporarily abandoned his lighting panel to Simon. With a camera balanced on his shoulder, a mic on a boom and a heavy power pack slung over his shoulder, Lenny stooped to get close-up shots of the stones as the narrator continued.
“St. Mary’s was a Cistercian nunnery, very small and probably very poor. And life would have been uncertain. Here in the border country it would have been exposed to the back and forth forays of the Scots and English armies. At any moment the nuns might have to flee before a raid, and their lands were constantly ravaged. Although Hampole was not on a direct battle line of the Scots wars, it would have received fugitive nuns from other sacked nunneries.
“Richard came to live in a cell on the grounds of the nunnery. Here he could maintain his solitary life of meditating and writing and also serve as spiritual adviser to the nuns. It was here that he wrote his masterpiece
The Fire of Love.”
Now it was Antony’s turn. At Harry’s direction he took his stance under the bare branches of the tree in the centre of the tiny green. “And so we come to the story of Margaret Kirkby who was a young nun when Richard came to Hampole. Perhaps through the influence of Richard, who served as her spiritual director, Margaret left the community and became an anchoress. She lived in a sealed cell attached to the side of a church where she spent her days in prayer, meditation, writing and reading, and counseling those who came to her window for guidance. This was a fairly common practice in those days and some scholars think Margaret’s actions might have influenced Julian of Norwich to take up a similar life a generation later.
“We are told that Richard was wont to instruct Margaret in the art of loving God. Richard has been called ‘the English St. Francis’ and some suggest that Margaret was a friend and inspiration to Richard such as Clare was to Francis.”
Having set the stage, Antony could now abandon his memorized text and take up the narrative style he so preferred for his lectures. He knew the producers would use most of this narration as voice-over with robed actors pantomiming the action as he described it.
His head filled with heavenly music, Richard was going about his joyful task of preparing for the Maundy Thursday service the parish priest would be celebrating for the sisters when the messenger arrived. Mud-spattered and drenched with the early April rains, the man squelched his way into the tiny church.
Antony followed his own words with pictures in his mind, the dripping
Antony found Fred sitting in a canvas chair under a winter-bare tree, his wrapped ankle elevated. “Are you all right?”
“I’ll do. Got Ginger repaired, that’s the main thing.” Antony quizzed him in more detail about the accident, but couldn’t learn anything of seeming importance.
A short time later the last vehicles rolled up and parked at the top of the lane. Tara approached, make-up kit at the ready. Harry began barking directions and everyone jumped to attention. Except Fred who more hobbled. Father Peter was first to come under the camera’s gaze. As the local expert he directed attention to a broken, stone gatepost in an overgrown field and a few scattered stones. “I’m afraid that’s all that remains of the medieval priory where the prioress invited Richard Rolle to come be their spiritual director in 1340.”
Father Peter walked across the rough ground, followed by Lenny, who had temporarily abandoned his lighting panel to Simon. With a camera balanced on his shoulder, a mic on a boom and a heavy power pack slung over his shoulder, Lenny stooped to get close-up shots of the stones as the narrator continued.
“St. Mary’s was a Cistercian nunnery, very small and probably very poor. And life would have been uncertain. Here in the border country it would have been exposed to the back and forth forays of the Scots and English armies. At any moment the nuns might have to flee before a raid, and their lands were constantly ravaged. Although Hampole was not on a direct battle line of the Scots wars, it would have received fugitive nuns from other sacked nunneries.
“Richard came to live in a cell on the grounds of the nunnery. Here he could maintain his solitary life of meditating and writing and also serve as spiritual adviser to the nuns. It was here that he wrote his masterpiece
The Fire of Love.”
Now it was Antony’s turn. At Harry’s direction he took his stance under the bare branches of the tree in the centre of the tiny green. “And so we come to the story of Margaret Kirkby who was a young nun when Richard came to Hampole. Perhaps through the influence of Richard, who served as her spiritual director, Margaret left the community and became an anchoress. She lived in a sealed cell attached to the side of a church where she spent her days in prayer, meditation, writing and reading, and counseling those who came to her window for guidance. This was a fairly common practice in those days and some scholars think Margaret’s actions might have influenced Julian of Norwich to take up a similar life a generation later.
“We are told that Richard was wont to instruct Margaret in the art of loving God. Richard has been called ‘the English St. Francis’ and some suggest that Margaret was a friend and inspiration to Richard such as Clare was to Francis.”
Having set the stage, Antony could now abandon his memorized text and take up the narrative style he so preferred for his lectures. He knew the producers would use most of this narration as voice-over with robed actors pantomiming the action as he described it.
His head filled with heavenly music, Richard was going about his joyful task of preparing for the Maundy Thursday service the parish priest would be celebrating for the sisters when the messenger arrived. Mud-spattered and drenched with the early April rains, the man squelched his way into the tiny church.
Antony followed his own words with pictures in his mind, the dripping
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