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privacy of speech to a priest in confession and to a Visitator con- cerning the common life and the regular observance of discipline. However, even this should not be done unless there are at least two persons sitting not far away who can see those confessing or talking and likewise be seen by them. Even the Abbess herself should diligently guard this law of speaking, so that all matter for detraction may be removed. However, when she finds it expedi- ent, she can speak privately or publicly at convenient hours with her sisters about those things that need expression.
7The Sisters are bound to the following observance of fasting: they should fast daily at all times, abstaining likewise on Wednesdays and Fridays outside of Lent from fruit or vegetables and wine, unless a principal feast of some saint occurs and should be celebrated on those days.a If fruit or fresh vegetables are avail- able on these Wednesdays and Fridays, they should be served to sustain the sisters. But they should fast on bread and water for four days a week during the greater Lent, and for three days a week during the Lent of Saint Martin.b They may also do this of their own free will on all solemn vigils. However, the very young sisters or the old and those who are altogether debilitated physically or mentally should not be permitted to observe this law of fast and abstinence. They should be mercifully dispensed in regard to food and fasting according to their debility.
8Let the greatest care and diligence be afforded the sick.c The sick should be served kindly and solicitously in a spirit of charity according to what is possible and appropriate both in the food which their sickness requires as well as in other necessary things. Those who are sick should have their own place, if this is ever possible, where they may remain separated from the healthy, so that
- Caroline Walker Bynum, who has written extensively on the religious significance of food to religious women, maintains that fasting was a central issue of female piety in the Middle Ages. Such a thesis is confirmed by the tensions in interpreting this and subsequent legislation provided by Hugolino, as Cardinal or as Pope. Cf. Caroline Walker Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women (Berkeley, LosAngeles, London: University of California Press, 1987), 13-69.
- Toward the end of the fifth century a custom grew up in the diocese of Tours whereby the feast of St. Martin, November 11, initiated a fast that was observed three days of the week. The custom spread so that a penitential season prior to Christmas began on November 11 which was called the “Feast of St. Martin.”
- Cf. These directives reflect the Benedictine Rule XXXVI 1-4.