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is- ST. BIRGITTA AT ROME AND IN THE EAST. 135
The peculiar feature of the plan was one which naturally
arose from Birgitta s own experience of the value of co
operation between men and women. Her "
Order of the
Holy Saviour
"
was to be lodged in a double-cloister. It
was to be
"
first and principally
"
for women, but a certain
body of men, mostly priests, was to be settled beside it
The two bodies were hardly to meet except in church,
and even then were not to see one another, but each sex
\vas to supply its proper gifts for the advantage of
the whole. The idea was not a new one, having
been carried out in England in Saxon times, and more
recently in the twelfth century by St. Gilbert of Semp-
ringham and elsewhere. There were to be thirteen priests
to represent the twelve apostles and St. Paul ;
four
deacons to represent the four Latin doctors ; eight lay-
brothers, and sixty nuns the deacons, lay-brothers and
nuns forming a body of seventy-two to represent the Lord s
evangelists. No nun was to be admitted younger than
eighteen years; no man under twenty-five. Entrance
was to be after repeated requests during a year s probation.
The nuns were admitted with a marriage ring and crown,
but carried out of church upon a bier. An open grave in
the cloister and a coffin in the church were perpetual re
minders of death. The rules as to fasting and poverty
were, however, not too strict. Vadstena itself was in the
diocese of Linkoping, and subject to the bishop of that see
as the other houses were to the diocesan bishops. All
this and much else was supposed to be matter of divine
revelation. The object of the order was naturally not
merely the edification of the members, but the promotion of
learning and education, and the instruction of the people
by popular preaching in the mother tongue. Attention
was also paid to improved methods of cultivation, and to
various kinds of husbandry and home industry, such as
lace-making, which is still carried on at Vadstena.
With these two plans in mind Birgitta journeyed south
wards, and reached Rome after a difficult journey. Here
she was joined, after a time, by her son Birger and her
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