"Give me that gold cross!  All your belongings and future inheritances are now property of the convent. 
And that fine dress.  Take it  and all the rest of your clothes off.  It will be sold to the benefite of the poor. 
We will provide you will all, what you will nead for the future in the convent ! 
 Your name will from now on be sister Aurela.  
You must forget all about your former name and life !"
 

"She is ready for the journey brother Magnus. "

"The chains are for you own safety sister Aurela.  They will protect you against the devil´s temptations, until you are safely locked up at the convent, where you are going to stay !" 
  

Celine sits down on the cold stones in her new home.  The journey had been long, and she believes, they have been sailing some of the way, but as she had been locked into a closed carrige all the way, she don´t know where she is, and will never be told.  

After the heavy door is slammed and the nuns turned the keys in th lock, she is surrounded by an overwhelming stillness.  The smallest movements make her nech chain rattle loudly, and in between she believes, she can hear another girl crying somewhere. 
Hungry and homesick Celine lies down on the cold floor and cries herself to sleep in first night in the convent.
 

Every sunday a sister comes into her cell 
to teach her  humility. 

"Twenty more Ava Marias sister Aurela, and 
this time louder and clearer !
And then I will give you twenty more strockes. 
Your corrupt flesh must be punish, so you can gain a pure mind !"
 

Let alone to a life in loneliness, boredom , pain and need, the only thing to do, is to try to sleep and dream herself out of the misery. 
 
She thinks of the warm beds her elder sisters right now are sleeping in,  and their full stomachs.

But every time Celine, now sister Aurela, awakenes from her dreams, she is still in this awfull cell, and still wearing the awfull iron collar. 

"I am so hungry and thirsty, and it hurts all over. 
Why did they have me send to this terrible place ? 
I have done nothing wrong, 
I have never harmed anybody.
I want to go home -  please will someone help me?"
 

 

But nobody knowing she is there 
dreams of helping her.  

Every time the door opens, the only thing she can expect is more pain and humiliations. 
 

Isabella entered a convent by the same reason as poor Celine .  However because Isabella came from an important family, she was to become a real nun, as we know them, instead of been thrown into a dungeon as the more insignificant girls were. 

Unfortunately Isabella couldn´t forget her former life outside the walls.  Every Sunday at noon,  a handsome young man, she had been in love with, before she knew, she had to become a nun, came to the convent wall to see his beloved. 
 

One day they were discovered.
 
Isabella was at once taken before the mother superior. 

The sentence was hard: 
 Isabella was from now on to be locked up in the basement, just as the insignificant girls.  Her family was only to be told, she had moved to another convent, and would never find out, what really had happened. 
 

"Come here, you slut ! " 
 
"We will see to, that your sinfull fleash will never again temp any innocent young men."
 

"Down the stairs girl ! " 

 

"No ! - You can´t leave me chained like this ! 
Please come back - I will be obedient ! 
Come back - Please !"
 

Unluckily the nuns did come back.  Because to Isabella their return didn´t mean any realief, but only more pain and humiliations.  

She was brought to another cell, where she had to pray before a skull of  nun, who once as a  beautiful young woman, had been forced into the convent, and had spend her life in these cells. 
 

"Oh - No !  Will some poor girls, not yet born, sometime in the future be forced to pray before my skull ?"

"Will my eyes also become empty dark holes,
as this unlucky woman`s?"
  

The nun had been listening at the door.  She told the mother superior, that Isabella hadn´t been praying, as she had been told to, but had been whimpering instead, and had called the woman, who had died in the same cell long ago, unlucky ! 

Isabella was from now on to be treated just like 
the insignificant girls and condemned to suffer the same fate, as poor Celine and countless others through the centuries. 

 Naked and in chains she was to spend her life in loneliness.  Forgotten by everybody, who had ever felt anything for her. 

Days and months´ passes in boredom.
 

The only interruptions are when she has to go to the toilet, which consists of the floor of her cell, where her wastes mixes with the bodily wastes of all the girls, who have spend their lives here before her. 
 

 - And when the nuns each sunday come to her cell to inflict a punishment on her.
 

Every time she has been beaten, she spends the night crying. 
 

The days goes slowly one after another.  
 

Isabella tries, as so many before her,  to dream herself out of the missery. 
 

Someone is comming.  Isabella can hear faint noises, of doors slamming and she can hear other girls crying in the neighbouring cells. 
 
Shall I try to talk to one of the nuns ? 
They can´t hurt me more, than they already do. 
I have to try !   I don´t whant to die in here. 
Oh please God - Let them show some mercy.
 

"Sister - I am the daughter of a very wealthy man.  I will pay you anything, if you can help me out from here !"
 

"Ha !   And with what are you going to pay ? 
You don´t possess anything.  Have you forgotten, you at your arrival signed over all your belongings and future inheritances to the convent ?  

Tomorrow you will be punished for your stupid attempt. You will realize, there is no escape from here!"
 

That night Isabella spend in despair.  
Is she never again to see anything but this filthy cell.  Is she going to be torment by chronically hunger and thirst, and suffer from the constant itching from having to lie in her own and long dead girls excrements for the rest of her life ?  How many years will she survive ?

Oh no - Tomorrow she would be punished !"
 

Isabella couldn´t sleep that night.  As she saw, the first morning light through the small barred window of her cell, she knew it would not be long, before the mother superior would arrive to her cell.
 

"We must punish your sinfull fleash, but this time I will be merciful.  Every Sunday for three months you will be birched, before receiving your normal Sunday caning. 

But if you ever again try in any way to get out from here, I will have both your legs brocken" 
 

"It is for your own good ! 
Don´t cry over your sinfull fleash.  Your body means nothing.  We must beat the Devil out of you, so he will never temp you again !

 

The rest of the day Isabella spend crying more, than usually after a beating.  She had never in her life been a real believer.  She had only entered the convent because she had been persuaded to do so by her family.  
 

Why mom and dad - 
Why did you have me send here ? 
  

None of us really believed in all that nonsense. 
We only went to church every Sunday, because all others did !  Why did I have to enter the convent - Why ? 
 

Isabella receive no answeres for her questions.  The only sounds, she hear in her cell durring the long days and nights, are her own breathing, the constant buzzing from the flies and a rattle from her chains, every time she moves a bit. 
 

So go the first year and the second, only interrupted by the meagre meals, always leaving her hungry, and the regular beatings with the cane, which all the girls in the basement cells receive each Sunday. 
 
Until suddently one morning a nun enters her cell - 
 

"Get up - Lazy slut ! 
Your honourable sister Lady Mendoza is here to pay you a visit.

Put on this shift, 
so her Ladyship will not be disturbed ." 

What - A visitor -  My sister ! 
But - Mendoza, that is the name of my fiancé ???

"Candice  -  Please !" 

"Be quiet or you will be punished  !
 You must only talk if asked !  
Now make a deap curtsy for your honourable sister.  You must be deeply grateful to her.  It was your sister, who arranged your admission to this convent, and saved the family honour." 

"Hello Isabella !   I must say, you look much different now, than when we lived together at home.  I am married to Ramos now, and are carrying his child." 

"Candice !  You did this only to steal him from me ! 
It is ME he love.
You have ruined my life ! 
 Do you know how it is to lie in chains for years in a dirty cell hungry and beaten ? 
Do you know how - - - "
 

"Get up disobedient slut !  
Or you will be birched before your caning !
Your four hours of sleep is over for tonight !"

As a punishment for insulting her sister, Isabella from now on had to stand up all day every day, only allowed four hours of sleep each night. 

On top of this, she also had to receive twenty strockes with the cane every morning. "
  

Isabella spend the rest of her life in the cell standing or leaning against the wall twenty hours every day. 

Her back and bottom soon became as hardened as a cow´s hide, so the nuns  regulary had to rip up her skin with a iron scraper, so she again was able to feel the full pain from the daily cainings. 

About half of the girls which entered the cloistered convents lived to become thirty.  About ten percent reached the age of forty.  One morning as a nun came into her cell to kick her awake, Isabella didn´t get up.  She was then 42 years old, but looked much older. 

The very same afternoon a new young girl, is lead into the cell, and  the iron collar, Isabella had worn, is locked around her slim neck.
 

"What is this place?  Why am I here?" 

"Undress immediately -  You will not need that fine dress here, nor your undergarments. 
You must also hand over all your jewellery. 
 All your belongings and future inheritances are now property of the convent. " 
  

"Keep going down -
You are not allowed to stop and look back. 
You will be punished for this!" 
 
Afraid of what is awaiting her in the basement,
not understanding why this is happening,  
Jane has stopped and turned to the nuns 
taking her to her cell. 

 Soon after she is sitting in Isabella´s stools, 
with her iron collar around her neck, 
facing her new life of endless boredom, 
weekly punishments, hunger and sickness. 
 

Her mother, Irene, is still alive imprisonned in her 
tower cell.  Being here as a madwoman, she is not 
 to suffer, but only to be kept locked up. 

Only virgins is allowed to suffer for mankind 
in the basement cells. 

Up here there is freash air, and even 
it is hot in the sommer and very cold durring the winter, 
it is much healthier, than down in the stinking 
basement cells. 

She never knows her beloved and long missed daughter 
now is living in irons only 30 m under her, and 
is like herself destined to die in chains 
behind these walls. 
 

The mother superior is 
deaply suprised, when she one day sees 
one of the girls from the basement cells
walking around at the first floor. 

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING UP HERE? 
GET  BACK DOWN TO YOUR CELL AT ONCE !" 

"But sister Clarence allowed me to..." 

"KEEP QUIET ! 
You know you are never allowed to talk. 
You will suffer a lot for this."
 

"Sister Clarence.
You have commited a mortal sin by letting 
this girl see the daylight again.

All the virgins placed in our care are by fate destined 
to give their lives to suffer  for mankind, 
 and it is our duty to carry out  their torment
as officious as possible.

You must know, that allowing these girls any relief 
from their need and pain, will worsen 
the sufferings for the poor sinful souls down in hell. 

Devouted people pays us to keep their daughters in pain, 
so their relatives in hell can be relieved.  
 

Deaply ashamed sister Clarence 
goes to receive her punishement, 
dragging her new chains through 
the corridors with a clanking sound.

She realizes it was the devil, who 
made her feel compassion for that girl. 

The girl had been crying for her mom every
day sins she was imprisoned, and 
had pleaded for seeing some light, 
telling she always had been afraid of sleeping 
in the dark.  

At last she had tuched sister Clarece heart, 
but it had only been the devil trying to tempt her. 
 

Sister Clarence´s punishment is 
one month standing in a cage, 
and she has to wear chains for 
three years. 

It is a very light punishment according to her big sin. 
Only because it is her first punishment, and 
she confessed her sin at once, she 
is not punished harder. 

Sister Clarence has learned her lesson. 
She will never again show any mercy 
against any of the basement girls.  
 

Only daughters from very 
influential families become real nuns like 
sister Clarence, and gain authority over 
the insignificant girls in the basement cells. 

Those from the less influent belongs to 
a lowere class of nuns, and have 
to wear chains, and are used for
all the cleaning, cooking and other work 
done in the convent. 
  

They do have a bed to sleep in, but 
they are are held secured at night, so they 
can´t do sinful things. 

There dosn´t pass a single week without 
a new young woman or girl 
is standing before the  mother superior, 
stripped off all her former wealth and identity, 
to begine a new life in pain. 
 

Generations of yong virgin females have 
prayed for mankind before the skulls of their 
predecessors, knowing sometime in the 
future, their own skulls will be placed 
in the walls, and their descendants 
would be forced to pray before them. 
  

"No auntie - Please don´t leave me here -
I will do anything, you ask me to, but please not this!" 

Many girls like Louise were forced to enter 
the convent, by familly members, who wanted 
them out of the way. 

Two months later: 

"You must pray for your honourable aunt. 
It´s entirely due to her, you are here and 
can spend your life suffering for mankind. 
You must always be deaply gratefull to her!" 
  

Others were brought here only because 
of their good looks. 

It´s difficult to see it now, but only 2 years ago, 
this girl made all people turn their heads 
after her, when she walked down the main street.

Also the bishop had a hard time trying to 
keep his eyes away from the always 
cheerful and smiling straw blond girl. 

This was of course a great sin. 
The girl had to suffer for this! 


 

Very few entered voluntary. 

Reneé was one of them. 
She had been very religious, and was 
very frightened, when she fell in love with 
a handsome young man. 

She had been raised with, this was a great sin, and 
believed it was the devil tempting her. 

She did not have enough money to enter 
the convent as a nun, but her priest told 
her, she could enter the cloistered convent, if she 
gave the church all she had. 

The nuns are very happy with her. 
 Every time they looks into her cell, they can see, she 
through starvation and denial, is 
trying to punish her own wicked body 
for all the sinfull feelings.