1413-14. "Item received from William Roby for the board of his daughter on

the Feast of the Holy Trinity vj s viij d. Item received from Robert

Penell for the board of his daughter on the same day v s. Item received

for the board of Cecily Nevell on St James' Day in part payment vj s viij

d" (p. 7).

1414-15. "Item received from Giles Jurdon for the board of his daughter in

Whitsun week vij s. Item received from Thomas Hinte for the food of a

certain daughter of his, in part payment of liij s iiij d,--xl s. Item

received for the board of Isabel Jurdon xj s, Alice Strelley xxij s, Alice

Grey xiij s iiij d, Robert Drewe xxvj s iiij d, Philip Scargell xxxiij s

vj d, Alice Smyth, iij s iiij d and Dame Joan Scargell iiij s--cxiij s ix

d" (p. 79). There is a supplementary list for this year written on a loose

sheet: "Item, first, received for the board of Isabel Jurdon for the half

year, in part payment ix s. Item received for the board of Alice Strelley

from the feast of the Finding of the Holy Cross to the feast of [St Peter]

in Chains in the following year, vj s viij d. Item received for the board

of Alice Gray from the feast of the Holy Trinity to the feast of the

Purification of the blessed Virgin Mary xiij s iiij d. Item received for

the board of Alice Strelley for ij quarters of the year and v weeks, at

the Feast of St Gregory xv s iiij d. Item received for the board of the

daughter of Robert Drowe for half a year, xxvj s viij d. Item received for

the board of Philip Scargell, in part payment, from the feast of St John

etc., paid for the quarter xxij s iiij d, whence at the Feast of Corpus

Christi xxij s iiij d. Item received for the board of Isabel Jurdon at the

feast of the Translation of St Thomas of Canterbury, in part payment--ij

s. Item received for the board of Alice Smyth in part payment at vj s viij

d for the quarter, iij s iiij d. Item received for the board of Dame

Skargeyle for two weeks, ij s per week, iiij s. Item received for the

board of Philyppe Skergell from the feast of St Laurence to the feast of

St Michael, for the half quarter xj s ij d. Total, cxiij s x d."

1416-17. "Item received for the board of the daughter of William Rowby, as

for the purchase of one ox--xiij s iiij d."

1417-18. "Item received for the board of Mary de Ecton on the feast of All

Saints, in part payment of a larger sum, xxxiij s iiij d. Item received

for the board of Joan Vilers on the Feast of St Andrew the Apostle vj s

viij d. Item received for the board of Katerine Standych on the morrow of

the Epiphany vj s viij d. Item received for the board of the daughters of

Robert Nevell, knight, on the feast of St Hilary x s. Item received for

the board of Joan Villars on the feast of St Hilary xx d. Item received

for the board of Mary de Ecton on the Sunday next before the feast of St

Valentine xx s. Item received from Joan Villers for her board on the

second sunday of Lent vj s viij d. Item received from Katerine Standych in

full payment of her board on Whitsunday x s. Item received for the board

of the daughters of Robert Neuel on Good Friday x s. Item received from

Mary Ecton for her board on the feast of the Purification of the B.V. then

owing vj s. Item received from Joan Colyar in part payment of xx s owing

for J. Dalby xij s" (p. 179).

These accounts obviously contain ordinary adult boarders as well as

children. Moreover in some cases the visitors seem merely to have come for

the great feasts and not to have stayed for any length of time, a practice

which does not suggest schooling. Mr Coulton has analysed the accounts

closely. He writes: "The records of four years give us, at the most

liberal interpretation, only nineteen children, whose total sojourn

amounted to 648 weeks; that is an average of three pupils all the year

round and one extra for two or three months of the time." He adds: "I

have, of course ruled out 'Dame Joan Scargill,' who paid 2_s._ a week, or

four times the sum paid by a child, and Philip Scargill, who paid eighteen

pence and was pretty evidently the Dame's husband; but I have included

five others on p. 89, though they are distinctly labelled as

_perhendinantes_, and the sums they pay would in any case have suggested

boarders rather than schoolgirls. If these were omitted (and I note that

Abbot Gasquet also interprets them as merely boarders), this would bring

down the average of actual children to about two at any given time."

(_Monastic Schools in the Middle Ages_, p. 27.) He infers the weekly rate

of pay (where it can be inferred with any certainty) to be 6_d._ a week

for children and 1_s._ or more for their elders. (_Ib._ p. 39.)

1440-1. At Bishop Alnwick's visitation the prioress deposed "that a male

child of seven years sleeps in the dorter with the cellaress." Alnwick

makes an injunction forbidding boarders, "save childerne, males the ix and

females the xiij yere of age, whome we licencede yow to hafe for your

relefe." _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 119, 125.

18. _Langley._

1440. At Bishop Alnwick's visitation Dame Margaret Mountgomerey "says that

secular children, female only, do lie of a night in the dorter." The

Bishop forbids boarders "men, women ne childerne" without licence. _Linc.

Visit._ II, pp. 175-6.

LINCOLNSHIRE.

19. _Heynings._

1347. Bishop Gynewell writes to Heynings: "Item we command you on your

obedience that henceforth no secular female child who has passed the tenth

year of her age and no male child, of whatever age he may be, be received

to dwell among you; and that no child lie in your dorter with the ladies,

nor anywhere else whereby the convent might be disturbed." (_Linc. Epis.

Reg. Memo. Gynewell_, f. 34_d_.)

1387. Bishop Bokyngham writes: "Item, for the removal of all fleshly

wantonness (_carnis pruritus quoscumque_), we will and ordain that secular

children and especially males shall henceforth in no wise be permitted to

sleep with the nuns, but let an honest place be set aside for them outside

the cloister, if by our recent and special grace they should chance to be

staying there." (_Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Bokyngham_, f. 397_d_.)

1442. Alnwick enjoins at his visitation and afterwards in his written

injunctions "that fro this day forthe ye receyve no sudeiournauntes that

passe a man x yere, a woman xiiij yere of age, wythowten specyalle leve of

hus or our successours bysshops of Lincolne asked and had." (_Linc.

Visit._ II, pp. 134-5.)

20. _Gokewell._

1440. At Alnwick's visitation the Prioress "says that they have no

boarders above ten years of age of female and eight years of male sex."

(_Linc. Visit._ II, p. 117.)

21. _Legbourne._

1440. Alnwick ordains "that fro hense forthe ye suffre no seculere

persone, woman ne childe, lyg be night in the dormytorye." (_Alnwick's

Visit._ MS. f. 68.)

22. _Nuncoton._

1531. Bishop Longland enjoins: "and that ye suffre nott eny men children

to be brought upp, nor taught within your monastery, nor to resorte to eny

of your susters, nouther to lye within your monastery, nor eny person

young ne old to lye within your dorter, but oonly religious women."

(_Archaeologia_, XLVII, p. 58.)

23. _Stixwould._

1440. At Alnwick's visitation: "Dame Alice Thornton says that young

secular folk female, of eight or ten years old, do lie in the dorter, but

in separate beds.... Also she says that, as she believes, there are males

and females, about eighteen in number, who board with divers nuns, not

passing fourteen or sixteen years in age.... Dame Maud Shirwode speaks of

the children that lie in the dorter." Alnwick in his injunctions forbids

seculars ("women ne childern") to lie in the dorter or to be received as

boarders without licence. (_Alnwick's Visit._ MS. 75_d_, 76.)

MIDDLESEX.

24. _St Helen's, Bishopsgate (London)._

1298. The Prioress' account for 25-6 Edward I, contains the following

items which probably refer to child boarders. "And by xx s received from

Dionisia Miles for her daughter [_gap_] ... after the Nativity of St John

the Baptist. And by one mark received for the niece of Robert Morton [?]."

_P.R.O. Ministers' Accounts_, 1258/2.

1432. The injunctions sent by the Dean and Chapter of St Paul's to St

Helen's contain the item: "Also we ordeyne and injoyne yow, prioresse and

convent, that noo seculere be lokkyd with inne the boundes of the

cloystere; ne no seculere persones come withinne aftyr the belle of

complyne, except wymment servaunts and mayde childeryne lerners.... Also

we ordeyne and injoine that nonne have ne receyve noo schuldrin wyth hem

into the house forseyde, but yif that the profite of the comonys turne to

the vayle of the same howse." (Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, pp. 553-4, wrongly

dated 1439.)

*25. _Stratford "atte Bowe."_

1346. In the will of John Hamond, pepperer, occurs the legacy: "To his

niece the daughter of Thomas Hamond, residing with the nuns of Stratford,

he leaves a sum of money for her maintenance." (Sharpe, _Cal. of Wills ...

in the Court of Hustings, London_, I, p. 516.) The girl _may_ have been a

nun, but if so the legacy is curiously worded.

NORFOLK.

26. _Carrow._

In Rye, W., _Carrow Abbey_ (1889), pp. 49-52, is a list of boarders at

Carrow, compiled by Norris from account rolls now lost. Some of these were

almost certainly children; I should suggest that those described as "son

of" or "daughter of" N. or M. are children. On these lists, see G. G.

Coulton, _Mon. Schools in the Mid. Ages_ (Med. Studies, No. 10), p. 7.

27. _Thetford._

1532. At Nykke's visitation it was discovered that "John Jerves,

gentleman, has a daughter being brought up (_nutritam_) in the priory and

he pays nothing." (_Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich_, ed. Jessopp (Camden

Soc.), p. 304.)

NORTHAMPTONSHIRE.

28. _Catesby._

1442. At Alnwick's visitation the Prioress, Margaret Wavere, deposed that

"sister Agnes Allesley has six or seven young folk of both sexes that do

lie in the dorter." Alnwick makes the usual injunction against boarders,

"ouer thage of x yeere, if thei be men, wommene ouer thage of a xj yere."

_Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 46, 51.

29. _St Michael's, Stamford._

1440. At Alnwick's first visitation the sacrist "says that the prioress

has seven or eight children, some male, some female, of twelve years of

age and less, to her board and to teach them." Alnwick forbids secular

persons ("women ne childrene") to lie in the dorter and boarders ("yong ne

olde") to be received without licence. (_Alnwick's Visit._ MS. ff.

83-83_d_.)

1442. At Alnwick's second visitation: "Dame Maud Multone says that little

girls of seven or five years of age do lie in the dorter, contrary to my

lord's injunction." (_Ib._ f. 39_d_.)

OXFORDSHIRE.

30. _Godstow._

1358. Bishop Gynewell writes: "Item we ordain that no lady of your said

house shall have children, save only one or two females sojourning with

them." (_Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell_, f. 100.)

1445. Bishop Alnwick forbids boarders to be received "but if ye hafe lefe

of hus or our successours, bysshope of Lincolne, but if it be yong

childerne, a man not ouere ix yere of age and a woman of xii yere of age."

(_Linc. Visit._ II, p. 115.)

31. _Littlemore._

1445. The Prioress says that "the daughter of John fitz Aleyn, steward of

the house, and Ingram Warland's daughter are boarders in the house and

each of them pays fourpence a week." These are clearly children, for

another boarder "sometime the serving woman of Robert fitz Elys" is

mentioned and she pays eightpence a week. Alnwick makes the usual

injunction forbidding boarders "ouere the age of a man of nyne yere ne

woman of xij yere, ne noght thaym wythe owten specyalle lefe of vs or our

successours." (_Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 217-8.)

STAFFORDSHIRE.

32. _Fairwell._

1367. Bishop Robert Stretton of Lichfield enjoined that "no nun was to

keep with her for education more than one child, nor any male child over

seven years of age and even that may not be done without the Bishop's

leave. If any have more they are to be removed before the Feast of

Purification next." (_Reg. Robert de Stretton_, II, p. 119.)

SOMERSET.

33. _Cannington._

1407. The will of Thomas Woth contains the following legacy: "To the

Prioress of Canyngton 40 marks to provide (_inveniendum_) Elizabeth my

daughter, if she shall happen to live to the age of ten years." He also

leaves Elizabeth 11 marks as a marriage dowry. (_Somerset Medieval Wills_,

ed. F. W. Weaver (Somerset Rec. Soc.), I, p. 28.)

SUFFOLK.

34. _Redlingfield._

1514. At Bishop Nykke's visitation Dame Grace Sampson deposed that "boys

(_pueri_) sleep in the dorter and are harmful to the convent," and another

nun said the same. The Bishop ordained "that boys shall not lie in the

dorter." (_Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich_, ed. Jessopp (Camden Soc.), pp.

139-40.)

WARWICKSHIRE.

35. _Polesworth._

1537. Henry VIII's commissioners addressed a letter to Cromwell on behalf

of this house, representing among other things "the repayre and resort

that ys made to the gentylmens childern and studiounts that ther doo lif,

to the nombre sometyme of xxx{ti} and sometyme xl{ti} and moo, that their

be right vertuously brought upp." (Dugdale, _Mon._ II, p. 363.) The house

at this time contained an abbess and twelve nuns.

YORKSHIRE.

36. _Arden._

1306. Archbishop Greenfield decreed that no girls or boarders were to be

taken without special licence of the Archbishop. All girls staying in the

house without authority were to be removed within eight days. (_V.C.H.

Yorks._ III, p. 113.)

37. _Arthington._

1315. Archbishop Greenfield decreed that no boys or secular persons were

to sleep in the dorter with the nuns.

1318. Archbishop Melton repeated the decree. (_V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p.

188.)

38. _Esholt._

1315. Archbishop Greenfield decreed that all women boarders over the age

of twelve were to be removed within six days and no more taken without

special licence.

1318. Archbishop Melton repeated the decree. (_V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p.

161.)

1537. Among the debts owing to the Priory at the Dissolution was one of

33_s._ from Walter Wood of Timble, in the parish of Otley, for his child's

board for a year and a half, ended at Lent, 28 Hen. VIII. (_Yorks.

Archaeol. Journ._ IX, p. 321, note 23.)

39. _Hampole._

1313. Archbishop Greenfield granted the convent licence to receive a young

girl Agnes de Langthwayt as a boarder, at the instance "nobilis viri Ade

de Everyngham."

1314. He issued a decree that no male children over five years of age

should be permitted in the house, "as the Archbishop finds has been the

practice." (_V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 163-4.)

40. _Marrick._

1252. Archbishop Gray forbade any girl or woman to be taken as boarder or

to be taught without special licence. (_V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 117.)

41. _Moxby._

1314. Archbishop Greenfield forbade boarders or girls over twelve to be

taken without licence. (_V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 239.)

42. _Nunappleton._

1489. Archbishop Rotheram enjoined: "Item şat yee take noe perhendinauntes

or sogerners into your place from hensforward, but if şei be children or

ellis old persones, by which availe by liklyhod may growe to your place."

(_V.C.H. Yorks._ III, 173, and Dugdale, _Mon._ V, p. 654).

43. _Nunburnholme._

1318. Archbishop Melton forbade persons of either sex over twelve years of

age to be maintained as boarders. (_V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 119.)

44. _Nunkeeling._

1314. Archbishop Greenfield forbade boarders to be taken, or girls to be

kept in the house after the age of twelve years. (_V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p.

120.)

*45. _Nunmonkton._

1429. Isabel Salvayn leaves "xiij s iiij d to be paid for Alice Thorp at

Nunmunkton for her board." (_Test. Ebor._ I, p. 419.)

46. _Rosedale._

1315. Archbishop Greenfield decreed, under pain of the greater

excommunication, that no nun was to cause a girl or boy to sleep under any

consideration in the dorter, and if any nun broke this command, the

Prioress, under pain of deposition, was to signify her name without delay

to the Archbishop. (_V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 174.)

47. _St Clement's, York._

1310. Archbishop Greenfield forbade girls over twelve as boarders.

1317. Archbishop Melton forbade little girls, or males of any age, or

secular women to sleep in the dorter with the nuns. (_V.C.H. Yorks._ III,

p. 129.)

48. _Sinningthwaite._

1315. Archbishop Greenfield enjoined the Prioress and Subprioress not to

permit boys or girls to eat flesh meat in Advent or Sexagesima, or during

Lent eggs or cheese, in the refectory, contrary to the honesty of

religion, but at those seasons when they ought to eat such things, they

were to be assigned other places in which to eat them.

1319. Archbishop Melton forbade girls over twelve to be retained without

special licence. (_V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 177.)

*49. _Swine._

1345. Peter del Hay of Spaldynton leaves in his will "to Joan my daughter

residing (_manenti_) in Swyn vj s viij d." (_Test. Ebor._ I, p. 12.) This

is probably a boarder in the convent, perhaps a child.

15th century. Thorold Rogers (_Six Centuries of Work and Wages_ (1909), p.

166), says: "During the course of the [fifteenth] century I find it was

the practice of country gentlefolks to send their daughters for education

to the nunneries, and to pay a certain sum for their board. A number of

such persons are enumerated as living _en pension_ at the small nunnery of

Swyn in Yorkshire. Only one roll of expenditure for this religious house

survives in the Record Office, but it is quite sufficient to prove and

illustrate the custom." I have been unable to trace this roll in the

Record Office.

NOTE C.

NUNNERY DISPUTES.

Other instances of nunnery disputes may be quoted, among which Peckham's

letter to the Holy Sepulchre, Canterbury, is a good example: "If there be

any nun above you who is quarrelsome and sharp and is of custom unbearable

towards her sisters, we order her to be separated from the communion of

the convent according to the form of the rule, and to be kept in some

solitary place (so that meanwhile no man or woman have conversation with

or access to her) until she shall be brought back to humility of spirit

and show herself amiable and devout to all. Therefore let there cease

among you quarrels, altercations and sharp words, which stain and deform

the splendours of monastic honour. And for such contumelious members who

have to be separated as aforesaid we assign that dark room under the

dorter, if you have none other more suitable"[1658]. The nuns of Wroxall

in 1338 were warned to "cease from scoldings, reproofs and other evil

words" and were particularly told not to speak "en reproce ne en vilenie"

of a certain Dame Margaret de Acton, who had evidently been guilty of some

serious fault, but had been duly corrected by the Visitor[1659]; and in

the same year it was ordained at Sopwell that "if it happen that any one

scold ... let her be placed in silence by all and do penance for three

days"[1660]. At Heynings in 1392 Bokyngham ordered "that all the nuns

treat their sisters affably, not with an austere but with a benignant

countenance and with sisterly affection, nor visit them with railing and

hurtful words in public, especially in the presence of laymen, nor

threaten or scold them, on pain, etc"[1661]. At Elstow in 1421-2 there was

an injunction against the formation of cliques, upon the need for which

light is thrown by the _detecta_ at Alnwick's visitation of

Gracedieu[1662], "That no nun make any secret cabals or say or imagine

anything by way of insinuation or disparagement, whereby charity, unity or

the comeliness of religion may be hindered or troubled in the

convent"[1663].

The _detecta_ at visitations often give details as to the ill-temper or

insubordination of individuals. At Wothorpe in 1323 Bishop Burghersh

"ordered inquiry into certain irregularities within the priory, caused by

the discords raised among the nuns by sister Joan de Bonnwyche"[1664]. At

Littlemore one of the nuns deposed that Dame Agnes Marcham "is very

quarrelsome and rebellious and will not do her work like the others"; it

appears that the convent resented the fact that although she had worn the

habit of profession for twelve years she was not expressly professed and

refused to make public profession; she on her part asserted that "she does

not mean to make express profession while she stays in that place, because

of the ill-fame which is current thereabouts concerning that place and

also because of the barrenness and poverty which in likelihood will betake

the place on account of the slenderness of the place's revenues," and she

proceeded to give details of the access to the priory of two scholars of

Oxford and a parish chaplain[1665]. It is difficult to tell who was in the

right; Littlemore certainly was a place of ill-repute and went from bad to

worse, but Agnes Marcham had stayed there for half her lifetime (she had

entered at the age of thirteen and was twenty-six or twenty-eight at the

time of the visitation) and it looks as though she had really no intention

of departing, but found the threat to do so useful[1666]. At Godstow in

the same year it was sister Maud, a laywoman, who caused trouble; she was

very rebellious against the abbess and rumour ran high in the convent that

she had "obtained a bull from the apostolic see to the prejudice of the

monastery and without the abbess's knowledge"[1667]. At Easebourne (1524)

the subprioress Alice Hill said that three of the younger nuns were

disobedient to her in the absence of the Prioress; but the three

delinquents and another nun deposed that "Lady Alice Hill is too haughty

and rigorous and cannot bear patiently with her sisters" and the Visitor

apparently considered that the complaint was justified, for

afterwards Lady Alice Hill, subprioress, appeared and humbly submitted

herself to correction, in the presence of the said prioress and

co-sisters, upon what has been discovered against her in the

visitation. Afterwards my lord enjoined her that from henceforth she

should conduct herself well and religiously in all things towards the

said prioress and nuns; and as to the other portion of her penance he

adjourned it for a time. After doing which (he) enjoined all to be

obedient to the Lady Prioress and in her absence to the said

subprioress[1668].

The difficulty was perhaps the old one, that crabbed age and youth cannot

live together. At Rusper, when the same Visitor came there, it was found

that the four sisters were disturbed by the intrigues of an external

visitor, for the nuns deposed "that a certain William Tychenor hath

frequent access to the said priory and there sows discord between the

prioress, sisters and other persons living there"[1669]; sometimes the lay

servants of a house seem to have stirred up quarrels among their

mistresses and in 1302 John of Pontoise ordered the nuns of Wherwell "to

punish well secular persons, both sisters and others, whoever they may be,

who reply improperly and impudently to the religious ladies, and

especially those who sow quarrels and disputes among the ladies"[1670].

Injunctions as to the making of corrections usually had in view the

prevention of ill feeling, by ensuring that such corrections should not be

made in a harsh or unfair manner and should take place only in the

chapter-house and not in the presence of strangers. It will be remembered

that the wicked prioress of Catesby, Margaret Wavere, used to rebuke and

reproach her nuns before secular folk, and treat them with great cruelty;

her the Bishop charged

vnder payne of cursyng that moderly and benygnely ye trete your

susters, specyally in correctyng thaire defautes, so that ye make your

correcyones oonly in the chaptre hous of suche defautz and excesse as

be open and in presence of your sustres[1671].

Bokyngham sent a long and detailed injunction on the subject to Elstow in

1387:

In making corrections the abbess, prioress, and others of superior

rank shall so observe a moderate and modest temperance and an

equitable reasonableness, that having laid aside all hatred and malice

and excessive rigour, they shall in charitable zeal proceed to (deal

with) the complaints, offences and faults reported to them and shall

hear the accused parties, silencing or repelling their excuses,

punishing, correcting and reforming their offences and excesses, grave

and venial, without harshness or railing words and quarrels or abuse,

according as the quality of the fault, the compunction of the

delinquents and the repetition or frequency of the offence demand it.

And when faults and offences have been punished and excesses corrected

let them not reiterate fresh reproaches, but treat their fellow-nuns

affably, not with an austere but with a benignant countenance, nor

visit them with railing and insulting words in public, especially in

the presence of laymen, nor scold them when they have committed

excesses, but only in the chapter deal with all that concerns the

discipline of regular observance[1672].

For an injunction to the nuns on obedience see Woodlock's injunction to

Romsey in 1311:

Item, because they are unaware that amongst the vows of religion the

vow of obedience is the greater, it is ordered that the younger

ladies reverently obey the seniors and especially their presidents

and if any rebels are found they shall be sharply rebuked in chapter

before all and, the fault growing, the penalty of disobedience shall

be increased[1673].

At Rosedale, where in 1306 the nuns had been warned not to quarrel, it was

enacted nine years later that

any nun disobedient or rebellious in receiving correction was for each

offence to receive a discipline from the president in chapter and say

the seven penitential psalms with the litany, and if still rebellious

the archbishop would impose a still more severe penance[1674].

It is to be feared that these quarrels sometimes got to blows. Besides the

notorious instances of Margaret Wavere and Katherine Wells, the

excommunication of three nuns of St Michael's, Stamford, for laying

violent hands upon a novice may be quoted[1675]. Of another kind were the

assaults of a certain nun of Romsey, who was excommunicated for attacking

a vicar in church[1676], and of a Prioress of Rowney. It appears from the

court rolls of Munden Furnivall (1370) that the latter "had been guilty of

a hand to hand scuffle with a chaplain, called Alexander of Great Munden;

each was fined for drawing blood from the other and the lady also for

raising the hue and cry unjustly"[1677]. In both cases the nun was blamed,

but it is perhaps permissible to quote in this connection an anecdote told

by Thomas of Chantimpre:

When I was in Brussels, the great city of Brabant, there came to me a

maiden of lowly birth, but comely, who besought me with many tears to

have mercy upon her. When therefore I had bidden her tell me what

ailed her, then she cried out amidst her sobs: "Alas, wretched that I

am! for a certain priest would fain have ravished me by force, and he

began to kiss me against my will; wherefore I smote him with the back

of my hand, so that his nose bled; and for this, as the clergy now

tell me, I must needs go to Rome." Then I, scarce withholding my

laughter, yet speaking as in all seriousness, affrighted her as though

she had committed a grievous sin; and at length, having made her swear

that she would fulfil my bidding, I said, "I command thee, in virtue

of thy solemn oath, that if this priest or any other shall attempt to

do thee violence with kisses or embraces, then thou shalt smite him

sore with thy clenched fist, even to the striking out, if possible, of

his eye; and in this matter thou shalt spare no order of men, for it

is as lawful for thee to strike in defence of thy chastity, as to

fight for thy life." With which words I moved all that stood by, and

the maiden herself, to vehement laughter and gladness[1678].

The list of faults given in the "Additions to the Rules" of Syon Abbey,

contains several references to ill temper, though such references are, to

be sure, no more proof that the faults were committed than are the model

forms of self-examination ("Have I committed murder?") sometimes given

to-day to children in preparation for the Communion service. Among

"greuous defautes" are mentioned, "if any suster say any wordes of

despyte, reprefe, schame or vylony to any suster or brother," "if any sowe

dyscorde amonge the sustres and brethren," "if any be founde a preuy

rouner or bakbyter." Among "more greuous defautes" are:

if any whan thei fal chydyng or stryuyng togyder, if the souereyne or

priores, or any serche say thus--"_Sit nomen domini benedictum_" wyl

not cese, knokkyng themselfe upon their brestes, answerynge and saynge

mekely, and withe a softe spyryte "_Mea culpa_" ... and so utterly

cese, if any manesche by chere or wordes to smyte another at any tyme,

or for to auenge her own injurye, or els by ungodly wordes repreve

another of her contre, or kynrede, or of any other sclaunderous

fortune, or chaunse fallen at any tyme.

Among "most greuous defautes" are:

If any ley vyolente hande upon her souereyne or spituosly smyte or

wounde her or elles make any profer to smyte be sygne or token

leftying up her fest, stykke, staffe, stone, or any other wepen what

ever it be, or else schofte, pusche, or sperne any suster from her

withe armes or scholders, handes or fete, violently, in wrekyng of her

oun wrethe[1679].

NOTE D.

GAY CLOTHES.

A council at London in 1200 had restrained the black nuns from wearing

coloured headdresses[1680] but the standard English decree on the subject

was that issued by the council of Oxford in 1222.

Since it is necessary that the female sex, so weak against the wiles

of the ancient enemy, should be fortified by many remedies, we decree

that nuns and other women dedicated to divine worship shall not wear a

silken wimple, nor dare to carry silver or golden tiring-pins in their

veil. Neither shall they, nor monks nor regular canons, wear belts of

silk, or adorned with gold or silver, nor henceforth use burnet or any

other unlawful cloth. Also let them measure their gown according to

the dimension of their body, so that it does not exceed the length of

the body, but let it suffice them to be clad, as beseems them, in a

robe reaching to the ankles; and let none but a consecrated nun wear a

ring and let her be content with one alone[1681].

Fifteen years later a synod declared:

Item, we forbid to monks, regular canons and nuns coloured garments or

bed clothes, save those dyed black. And when they ride, let them use

decent saddles and bridles and saddle-cloths[1682]. And nuns are not

to use trained and pleated dresses, or any exceeding the length of

the body, nor delicate or coloured furs; nor shall they presume to

wear silver tiring-pins in their veil[1683].

These regulations were repeated almost word for word by William of Wykeham

in his injunctions to Romsey and Wherwell in 1387[1684]. With them may be

compared the rule as to dress in force at Syon Abbey in the fifteenth

century:

whiche (clothes) in nowyse schal be ouer curyous, but playne and

homly, witheoute weuynge of any straunge colours of silke, golde or

syluer, hauynge al thynge of honeste and profyte, and nothyng of

vanyte, after the rewle; ther knyves unpoynted and purses beyng double

of lynnen clothe and not of sylke[1685].

The unsuccessful efforts of monastic Visitors to enforce these rules have

been described; a few instances may be added here to show the directions

in which the nuns erred. Peckham wrote to Godstow:

Concerning the garments of the nuns let the rule of St Benedict be

carefully observed. For which reason we forbid them ever in future to

wear cloth of burnet, nor gathered tunics nor to make themselves

garments of an immoderate width with excessive pleats (_nec etiam

birrorum immoderantia vestes sibi faciant latitudine fluctuantes_);

with this nevertheless carefully observing what was aforetime ordained

in such matters by the Council of Oxford[1686].

Buckingham's injunction to Elstow in 1387 gives some interesting details;

he forbade the nuns to wear any other veil than that of profession, or to

"adorn their countenances" by arranging it in a becoming fashion,

spreading out the white veil, which was meant to be worn underneath:

(Ainsi qu'il est pour le monde et les cours

Un art, un gout de modes et d'atours,

Il est aussi des modes pour le voile;

Il est un art de donner d'heureux tours[1687]

A l'etamine, a la plus simple toile.)[1688]

They were not to wear gowns of black wide at the bottom, or turned back

with fur at the wrists[1689], and they were in no wise to use "wide

girdles or belts plaited (_spiratis_) or adorned with silver, nor wear

these above their tunics open to the gaze of man"[1690]. Curious details

are also given by Bishop Spofford, writing to the nuns of Lymbrook in

1437; their habit was to "be formed after relygyon in sydnesse and

wydnesse, forbedyng long traynes in mantellys and kyrtellys and almaner of

spaires and open semes in the same kyrtellys"[1691]. "Large collars,

barred girdles and laced shoes" were forbidden at Swine in 1298[1692],

red dresses and long supertunics "like secular women" at Wilberfoss in

1308[1693]; at Nunmonkton in 1397 (after Margaret Fairfax's fashionable

clothes had been discovered) a general injunction was made to the nuns

"not to use henceforth silken clothes, and especially silken veils, nor

precious furs, nor rings on their fingers, nor tunics laced-up or fastened

with brooches nor any robes, called in English 'gownes,' after the fashion

of secular women"[1694]. These Northern houses were continually in need of

admonition, sometimes their slashed tunics, sometimes their barred

girdles, sometimes their shoes being condemned[1695]. Bishop Alnwick found

silken veils at Langley, Studley and Rothwell[1696]; Bishop Fitzjames

forbade silver and gilt pins and kirtles of fustian or worsted at Wix in

1509[1697]; and at Carrow in 1532 the subprioress complained that some of

the nuns not only wore silk girdles, but had the impudence to commend the

use thereof[1698].

Nor could nuns always resist the temptation to let their shorn hair grow

again, e.g. at the visitation of Romsey by the commissary of the Prior of

Canterbury in 1502, the cellaress deposed "that Mary Tystede and Agnes

Harvey wore their hair long"[1699]. Eudes Rigaud had some difficulty in

this matter with the frivolous nuns of his diocese of Rouen; at

Villarceaux in 1249 he recorded: "They all wear their hair long to their

chins," and at Montivilliers he had to condemn ringlets[1700]. One is

reminded of the scene in _Jane Eyre_, where Mr Brocklehurst visits Lowood:

Suddenly his eye gave a blink, as if he had met something that either

dazzled or shocked its pupil; turning, he said in more rapid accents

than he had hitherto used: "Miss Temple, Miss Temple, what--_what_ is

that girl with curled hair? Red hair, ma'am, curled--curled all over?"

and extending his cane he pointed to the awful object, his hand

shaking as he did so. "It is Julia Severn," replied Miss Temple, very

quietly. "Julia Severn, ma'am! And why has she, or any other, curled

hair? Why, in defiance of every precept and principle of this house,

does she conform to the world so openly--here in an evangelical,

charitable establishment--as to wear her hair a mass of curls?... Tell

all the first form to rise up and direct their faces to the wall."...

He scrutinised the reverse of these living medals some five minutes,

then pronounced sentence. These words fell like the knell of doom:

"All those top-knots must be cut off."

Or, as Eudes Rigaud expressed it some seven centuries earlier: "Quod comam

non nutriatis ultra aures."

NOTE E.

CONVENT PETS IN LITERATURE.

It would be possible to compile a pretty anthology of convent pets, which

have played a not undistinguished part in literature. The best known of

all, perhaps, are Madame Eglentyne's little dogs, upon which Chaucer

looked with a kindly unepiscopal eye:

Of smale houndes had she, that she fedde

With rosted flesh, or milk and wastel-breed,

But sore weep she if oon of hem were deed,

Or if men smoot it with a yerde smerte:

And al was conscience and tendre herte[1701].

The tender-hearted Prioress risked a terrible fate by so pampering her

dogs, if we are to believe the awful warning related by the knight of La

Tour-Landry, to wean his daughters from similar habits:

Ther was a lady that had two litell doggis, and she loued hem so that

she toke gret plesaunce in the sight and feding of hem. And she made

euery day dresse and make for her disshes with soppes of mylke, and

after gaue hem flesshe. But there was ones a frere that saide to her

that it was not wel done that the dogges were fedde and made so fatte,

and the pore pepill so lene and famished for hunger. And so the lady,

for his saieing, was wrothe with hym, but she wolde not amende it. And

after she happed she deied, and there fell a wonder meruailous sight,

for there was seyn euer on her bedde ij litell blake dogges, and in

her deyeng thei were about her mouthe and liked it, and whanne she was

dede, there the dogges had lyked it was al blacke as cole, as a

gentillwoman tolde me that sawe it and named me the lady[1702].

Poor Madame Eglentyne!

The anthologist would, however, have to go further back than Chaucer, into

the eleventh century, and begin with that ill-fated donkey, which belonged

to sister Alfrad of Homburg, and which the wit of a nameless goliard and

the devotion of the monks of St Augustine's, Canterbury, have preserved

for undying fame[1703]:

Est unus locus There is a township

Hoinburh dictus, (Men call it Homburg)

in quo pascebat There 'twas that Alfrad

asinam Alfrad Pastured her she-ass,

viribus fortem Strong was the donkey,

atque fidelem. Mighty and faithful.

Que dum in amplum And as it wandered

exiret campum, Out to the meadow,

vidit currentem It spied a greedy

lupum voracem, Wolf that came running,

caput abscondit, Head down and tail turned,

caudam ostendit. Off the ass scampered.

Lupus occurrit: Up the wolf hurried,

caudam momordit, Seized tail and bit it.

asina bina Quickly the donkey

levavit crura Lifted its hind legs,

fecitque longum With the wolf bravely,

cum lupo bellum. Long did it battle.

Cum defecisse Then when at last it

vires sensisset, Felt its strength failing,

protulit magnam Raised it a mighty

plangendo vocem Noise of lamenting,

vocansque suam Calling its mistress,

moritur domnam. So died the donkey.

Audiens grandem Hearing the mighty

asine vocem Voice of her donkey

Alfrad cucurrit, Alfrad came running.

"sorores," dixit, "Come, sisters" cried she

"cito venite, "Sisters, come quickly,

me adiuvate! Come now and help me!

Asinam caram My darling donkey

misi ad erbam. Out to grass put I.

illius magnum I hear a mighty

audio planctum, Sound of complaining.

spero cum sevo Sure with a cruel

ut pugnet lupo." Wolf is it fighting!"

Clamor sororum Heard is her crying

venit in claustrum, In the nuns' cloister,

turbe virorum Men come and women,

ac mulierum Crowding together,

assunt, cruentum All that the bloody

ut captent lupum. Wolf may be taken.

Adela namque Adela also,

soror Alfrade, sister of Alfrad,

Rikilam querit, Rikila seeketh,

Agatham invenit, Agatha findeth,

ibant ut fortem All go to vanquish

sternerent hostem. The mighty foeman.

At ille ruptis But he tore open

asine costis Sides of the donkey,

sanguinis undam Flesh and blood gobbled

carnemque totam All up together,

simul voravit, Then helter-skeltered

silvam intravit. Back to the forest.

Illud videntes And when they saw him

cuncte sorores Wept all the sisters,

crines scindebant, Tearing their tresses,

pectus tundebant, Beating their bosoms,

flentes insontem Weeping the guiltless

asine mortem. Death of their donkey.

Denique parvum Long time a tiny

portabat pullum; Foal it had carried.

illum plorabat Sadly wept Alfrad

maxime Alfrad, Thinking upon it,

sperans exinde All her hopes ended

prolem crevisse. Of rearing the offspring.

Adela mitis Adela gentle,

Fritherunque dulcis Fritherun charming,

venerunt ambe, Both came together,

ut Alverade That they might strengthen

cor confirmarent Sad heart of Alfrad,

atque sanarent. Strengthen and heal it.

"Delinque mestas, "Leave now thy gloomy

soror, querelas! Wailing, O sister!

lupus amarum Wolf never heedeth

non curat fletum: Thy bitter weeping.

dominus aliam, The Lord will give thee

dabit tibi asinam." Another donkey."

Exquisite ending! "The Lord will give thee another donkey." With what

delighted applause must the unknown jongleur have been greeted by the

monks or nobles, who first listened after dinner to this little

masterpiece of humour.

All the convent pets who are famed in literature came by a coincidence to

a bad end. Our anthologist would seize on two other hapless creatures,

both of them birds, Philip Sparrow and the never-to-be-forgotten

Vert-Vert. Philip Sparrow needs no introduction to English readers;

Skelton was never in happier vein than when he sang the dirge of that pet

of Joanna Scrope, boarder at Carrow Priory, dead at the claws of a

"vylanous false cat." Space allows only a few lines of the long poem to be

quoted here. It begins with the office for the dead, sung by the mourning

mistress over her bird:

_Pla ce bo_,

Who is there, who?

_Di le xi_,

Dame Margery;

_Fa, re, my, my_,

Wherefore and why, why?

For the sowle of Philip Sparowe,

That was late slayn at Carowe,

Among the Nones Blake,

For that swete soules sake,

And for all sparowes soules,

Set in our bederolles

_Pater noster qui_,

With an _Ave Mari_,

And with the corner of a Crede

The more shalbe your mede.

Whan I remembre agayn

How mi Philyp was slayn,

Neuer halfe the payne

Was betwene you twayne,

Pyramus and Thesbe,

As than befell to me:

I wept and I wayled,

The tearys doune hayled;

But nothynge it auayled

To call Phylyp agayne,

Whom Gyb our cat hath slayne.

* * * *

It was so prety a fole,

It wold syt on a stole,

And lerned after my scole

For to kepe his cut,

With, Phyllyp, kepe your cut!

It had a veluet cap,

And wold syt upon my lap,

And seke after small wormes,

And somtyme white bred crommes;

And many tymes and ofte

Betwene my brestes softe

It wolde lye and rest;

It was propre and prest.

Somtyme he wolde gaspe

Whan he sawe a waspe;

A fly or a gnat,

He wolde flye at that;

And prytely he wold pant

Whan he saw an ant;

Lord, how he wolde pry

After the butterfly!

Lorde, how he wolde hop

After the grassop!

And whan I sayd, Phyp, Phyp,

Than he wold lepe and skyp,

And take me by the lyp.

Alas, it wyll me slo,

That Phillyp is gone me fro!

_Si in i qui ta tes_,

Alas, I was euyll at ease!

_De pro fun dis cla ma vi_,

Whan I sawe my sparowe dye!

* * * *

That vengeaunce I aske and crye,

By way of exclamacyon,

On all the hole nacyon

Of cattes wyld and tame;

God send them sorowe and shame!

That cat specyally

That slew so cruelly

My lytell prety sparowe

That I brought vp at Carowe ...[1704].

It is impossible for a cat-lover to leave the whole nation of cats under

this terrific curse. Yet literature will supply no nunnery cat beside the

unhappy Gyb and the uncharacterised cat of the _Ancren Riwle_. We must

needs turn to the monks, and borrow the truer estimate of feline qualities

made in the eighth century by an exiled Irish student, who sat over his

books in a distant monastery of Carinthia, and wrote upon the margin of

his copy of St Paul's Epistles this little poem on his white cat:

I and Pangur Ban, my cat,

'Tis a like task we are at;

Hunting mice is his delight,

Hunting words I sit all night.

Better far than praise of men

'Tis to sit with book and pen;

Pangur bears me no ill-will,

He, too, plies his simple skill.

'Tis a merry thing to see

At our tasks how glad are we,

When at home we sit and find

Entertainment to our mind.

Oftentimes a mouse will stray

In the hero Pangur's way;

Oftentimes my keen thought set

Takes a meaning in its net.

'Gainst the wall he sets his eye

Full and fierce and sharp and sly;

'Gainst the wall of knowledge I

All my little wisdom try.

When a mouse darts from its den,

O! how glad is Pangur then;

O! what gladness do I prove

When I solve the doubts I love.

So in peace our task we ply,

Pangur Ban, my cat, and I;

In our arts we find our bliss,

I have mine and he has his.

Practice every day has made

Pangur perfect in his trade;

I get wisdom day and night,

Turning darkness into light[1705].

O cat! even at the cost of relevancy we have done thee honour.

Two little tragedies of the cloister are concerned with parrots--yet with

what different birds and what different mistresses! In the twelfth century

Nigel Wireker tells of an ill-bred and ill-fated parrot, kept in a

nunnery, who told tales about the nuns and was poisoned by them for his

pains:

Saepe mala

Psittacus in thalamum domina redeunte puellas

Prodit et illorum verba tacenda refert;

Nescius ille loqui; sed nescius immo tacere

Profert plus aequo Psittacus oris habens.

Hinc avibus crebro miscente aconita puella

Discat ut ante mori quam didicisse loqui;

Sunt et aves aliae quae toto tempore vitae

Religiosorum claustra beata colunt[1706].

Quite other was the fate of Vert-Vert, whose tragedy told with exquisite

irony by Gresset in the eighteenth century deserves a place on every shelf

and in every heart which holds _The Rape of the Lock_. Vert-Vert was a

parrot who belonged to the nuns of Nevers, the most beautiful, most

amiable, the most devout parrot in the world. The convent of Nevers

spoiled Vert-Vert as no bird has ever been spoiled:

Pas n'est besoin, je pense, de decrire

Les soins des soeurs, des nonnes, c'est tout dire;

Et chaque mere, apres son directeur,

N'aimait rien tant. Meme dans plus d'un coeur,

Ainsi l'ecrit un chroniqueur sincere,

Souvent l'oiseau l'emporta sur le pere.

Il partageait, dans ce paisible lieu,

Tous les sirops dont le cher pere en Dieu,

Grace aux bienfaits des nonnettes sucrees,

Reconfortait ses entrailles sacrees.

Objet permis a leur oisif amour,

Vert-Vert etait l'ame de ce sejour....

Des bonnes soeurs egayant les travaux,

Il bequetait et guimpes et bandeaux;

Il n'etait point d'agreable partie

S'il n'y venait briller, caracoler,

Papillonner, siffler, rossignoler;

Il badinait, mais avec modestie;

Avec cet air timide et tout prudent

Qu'une novice a meme en badinant.

He fed in the frater, and between meals the nuns' pockets were always full

of bon-bons for his delectation. He slept in the dorter, and happy the nun

whose cell he honoured with his presence; Vert-Vert always chose the young

and pretty novices. Above all he was learned; he talked like a book, and

all the nuns had taught him their chants and their prayers:

Il disait bien son Benedicite,

Et _notre mere_, et _votre charite_; ...

Il etait la maintes filles savantes

Qui mot pour mot portaient dans leurs cerveaux

Tous les noels anciens et nouveaux.

Instruit, forme par leurs lecons frequentes,

Bientot l'eleve egala ses regentes;

De leur ton meme, adroit imitateur

Il exprimait la pieuse lenteur,

Les saints soupirs, les notes languissantes

Du chant des soeurs, colombes gemissantes.

Finalement Vert-Vert savait par coeur

Tout ce que sait une mere de choeur.

Small wonder that the fame of this pious bird spread far and wide; small

wonder that pilgrims came from all directions to the abbey parlour to hear

him talk. But alas, it was this very fame which led to his undoing. The

physical tragedy of Philip Sparrow, an unlearned bird of frivolous tastes,

pales before the moral tragedy of Vert-Vert. One day his renown reached

the ears of a distant convent of nuns at Nantes, many miles further down

the river Loire; and they conceived a violent desire to see him:

Desir de fille est un feu qui devore,

Desir de nonne est cent fois pire encore.

They wrote to their fortunate sisters of Nevers, begging that Vert-Vert

might be sent in a ship to visit them. Consternation at Nevers. The grand

chapter was held; the younger nuns would have preferred death to parting

with the darling parrot, but their elders judged it impolitic to refuse

and to Nantes must Vert-Vert go for a fortnight. The parrot was placed on

board a ship; but the ship

Portait aussi deux nymphes, trois dragons,

Une nourrice, un moine, deux Gascons:

Pour un enfant qui sort du monastere,

C'etait echoir en dignes compagnons.

At first Vert-Vert was confused and silent among the unseemly jests of the

women and the Gascons and the oaths of the boatmen. But too soon his

innocent heart was acquainted with evil; desiring always to please he

repeated all that he heard; no evil word escaped him; by the end of his

journey he had forgotten all that he had learned in the nunnery, but he

had become a pretty companion for a boatload of sinners. Nantes was

reached; Vert-Vert (all unwilling) was carried off to the convent, and the

nuns came running to the parlour to hear the saintly bird. But horror upon

horrors, nothing but oaths and blasphemies fell from Vert-Vert's beak. He

apostrophised sister Saint-Augustin with "la peste te creve," and

Jurant, sacrant d'une voix dissolue,

Faisant passer tout l'enfer en revue,

Les B, les F, voltigeaient sur son bec.

Les jeunes soeurs crurent qu'il parlait grec.

The scandalised nuns dispatched Vert-Vert home again without delay. His

own convent received him in tears. Nine of the most venerable sisters

debated his punishment; two were for his death; two for sending him back

to the heathen land of his birth; but the votes of the other five decided

his punishment:

On le condamne a deux mois d'abstinence,

Trois de retraite et quatre de silence;

Jardins, toilette, alcove et biscuits,

Pendant ce temps, lui seront interdits.

Moreover the ugliest lay sister, a veiled ape, an octogenarian skeleton,

was made the guardian of poor Vert-Vert, who had always preferred the

youngest and coyest of the novices. Little remains to be told. Vert-Vert,

covered with shame and taught by misfortune, became penitent, forgot the

dragoons and the monk, and showed himself once more "plus devot qu'un

chanoine." The happy nuns cut short his penance; the convent kept fete,

the dorters were decked with flowers, all was song and tumult. But alas,

Vert-Vert, passing too soon from a fasting diet to the sweets that were

pressed upon him:

Bourre de sucre, et brule de liqueurs

Vert-Vert, tombant sur un tas de dragees,

En noir cypres vit ses roses changees[1707].

Doubtless so godly an end consoled the nuns for his untimely death. Yet

one hardly knows which to prefer, the regenerate or the unregenerate

Vert-Vert. The appreciative reader, remembering the inspired volubility

with which (after such short practice) he greeted the nuns of Nantes, is

almost moved to regret the destruction of what one of Kipling's soldiers

would call "a wonderful gift of language." There is an apposite passage in

Jasper Mayne's comedy of _The City Match_ (1639), in which a lady

describes the missionary efforts of her Puritan waiting-woman:

Yesterday I went

To see a lady that has a parrot: my woman

While I was in discourse converted the fowl,

And now it can speak nought but Knox's works;

_So there's a parrot lost_.

NOTE F.

THE MORAL STATE OF LITTLEMORE PRIORY IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

Littlemore Priory, near Oxford, in the early sixteenth century, was in

such grave disorder that it may justly be described as one of the worst

nunneries of which record has survived. Its state was, as usual, largely

due to a particularly bad prioress, Katherine Wells. The following

account of it is taken from the record of Bishop Atwater's visitations in

1517 and 1518, the first held by his commissary Edmund Horde, the second

by the bishop in person[1708].

The _comperta_ are that the prioress had ordered the five nuns under

her to say that all was well; she herself had an illegitimate

daughter, and was still visited by the father of the child, Richard

Hewes, a priest in Kent[1709]; that she took the "pannes, pottes,

candilsticks, basynes, shetts, pelous, federe bedds etc." the property

of the monastery, to provide a dowry for this daughter; that another

of the nuns had, within the last year, an illegitimate child by a

married man of Oxford; that the prioress was excessive in punishments

and put the nuns in stocks when they rebuked her evil life; that

almost all the jewels were pawned, and that there was neither food,

clothing nor pay for the nuns; that one who thought of becoming a nun

at Littlemore was so shocked by the evil life of the prioress that she

went elsewhere. A few months afterwards the bishop summoned the

prioress to appear before him, and after denying the charges brought

against her, she finally admitted them; her daughter, she said, had

died four years before, but she owned that she had granted some of the

plate of the monastery to Richard Hewes. In her evidence she stated

that though these things had been going on for eight years, no inquiry

had been made, and, as it seems, no visitation of the house had been

held; only, on one occasion, certain injunctions of a general kind had

been sent her. As a punishment she was deposed from the post of

prioress, but was allowed to perform the functions of the office for

the present, provided that she did nothing without the advice of Mr

Edmund Horde.

But some months later when the bishop himself made a visitation "to

bring about some reformation," things were as scandalous as ever. The

prioress complained that one of the nuns "played and romped

(_luctando_)" with boys in the cloister and refused to be corrected.

When she was put in the stocks, three other nuns broke the door and

rescued her, and burnt the stocks; and when the prioress summoned aid

from the neighbourhood, the four broke a window and escaped to

friends, where they remained two or three weeks; that they laughed and

played in church during mass, even at the elevation. The nuns

complained that the prioress had punished them for speaking the truth

at the last visitation; that she had put one in the stocks without any

cause; that she had hit another "on the head with fists and feet,

correcting her in an immoderate way," and that Richard Hewes had

visited the priory within the last four months. From the evidence it

is clear that the state of things was well known in Oxford, where each

party seems to have had its adherents.

Several morals may be drawn from this lurid story. It shows how

inadequate, in some cases, was the episcopal machinery for control and

reform of religious houses. It shows that the "scandalous _comperta_" of

Henry VIII's commissioners some sixteen years later were in no way untrue

to type. It shows also that Wolsey was not entirely unjustified in his

desire to dissolve the house and to use its revenues for educational

purposes; he may have been no more disinterested than was his master

later, but in the case of Littlemore at least it is difficult not to

approve him.

NOTE G.

THE MORAL STATE OF THE YORKSHIRE NUNNERIES IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE

FOURTEENTH CENTURY.

It is possible to study in some detail the nunneries in the diocese of

York during the first half of the fourteenth century, or roughly between

the years 1280 and 1360. The Archbishops' Registers for most of the period

have survived, and have either been printed or drawn upon very fully in

the admirable accounts of monastic houses given in the _Victoria County

History of Yorkshire_. As these accounts are not very widely known and as

Yorkshire contained an unusual number of nunneries (twenty-seven) it is

worth while to give some description of the state of these houses during a

troubled period in their career.

Reasons have been suggested elsewhere for some of the disorder which

prevailed among the monastic houses of the North. They were most of them

both small and poor and, what is of greater significance, they lay in the

border country, exposed to the forays of the Scots, and continually

disturbed by English armies or raiders, riding north to take revenge. Life

was not easy for nuns who might at any moment have to flee before a raid

and whose lands were constantly being ravaged; they grew more and more

miserably poor and as usual poverty seemed to go hand in hand with laxity.

Moreover the conditions of life set its stamp upon the character of the

ladies from whom convents were recruited. These Percies and Fairfaxes and

Mowbrays and St Quintins schooled their hot blood with difficulty to

obedience and chastity and the Yorkshire nunneries were apt to reflect the

fierce passions of the Border, quick to love and quick to fight. There

were no more quarrelsome nunneries in the kingdom, witness their election

fights[1710], and none in which discipline was more lax. During these

sixty years nineteen out of the twenty-seven houses came before the

Archbishop of York's notice, at one time or another, in connection with

cases of immorality and apostasy.

It is evident at once, from a study of the registers, that seven houses,

i.e., Basedale, Keldholme, Kirklees and Swine of the Cistercian order,

Arthington and Moxby of the Cluniac order and St Clement, York, of the

Benedictine order were in a serious condition[1711]. At Basedale in 1307

the Prioress Joan de Percy was deprived for dilapidation of the goods of

the house and perpetual and notorious misdeeds; whereupon she promptly

left the nunnery, taking some of her partisans among the nuns with her.

The Archbishop wrote to his official, bidding him warn them to return and

not to go outside the cloister precincts and "in humility to take heed to

the salutary monitions of their prioress"; but humility dwelt not in the

breast of a Percy and in 1308 Joan was packed off to Sinningthwaite, "as

she had been disobedient at Basedale." The troubles of the house were not

ended; for the same year Agnes de Thormondby a nun, confessed that she had

on three separate occasions allowed herself to be "deceived by the

temptations of the flesh," a vivid commentary on the _regime_ of Joan

Percy. In 1343 another well-born Prioress is in trouble at the house and

the Archbishop issues a commission "to inquire into the truth of the

articles urged against Katherine Mowbray and if her demerits required it

to depose her, and the commission was repeated two years later, nothing

apparently having been done"[1712].

The state of Keldholme was even worse. In 1287 Archbishop Romanus ordered

the nuns to receive back an apostate, Maud de Tiverington. In 1299 a

similar order was issued on behalf of Christiania de Styvelington. In 1308

began the violent election struggle over Emma of York and Joan of

Pickering, which has already been described. In the course of the struggle

four nuns were sent as rebels to other convents in 1308 and two in 1309,

and from the nature of the penance imposed on the last two it would seem

that they had been guilty of immorality. In 1318 Mary de Holm, who was one

of the ejected rebels of 1308 and had been censured for disobedience to

the new prioress in 1315, was sentenced to do penance "for the vice of

incontinence committed by her with Sir William Lyly, chaplain"[1713]; and

in 1321, Maud of Terrington (who may be the Maud of Tiverington who

apostatised in 1287), was given a heavy penance for incontinence and

apostasy[1714]. The history of the house during the stormy years from 1308

to 1321 shows how far from being a home of peace and good living a nunnery

might be; and illustrates well the difficulty of reforming it while even

one incorrigible rebel and sinner such as Mary de Holm dwelt there.

The state of Arthington was very similar. Here in 1303 Custance de

Daneport of Pontefract had apostatised and was to be received back;

trouble seems to have begun in that year, for the Prioress Agnes de

Screvyn resigned. In 1307 a visitation revealed considerable disorder and

Dionisia de Hevensdale and Ellen de Castleford were forbidden to go

outside the convent precincts. In 1312 the subprioress and convent were

ordered to render due obedience to the Prioress Isabella de Berghby, who

was given Isabella Couvel as a coadjutress. Evidently she resented having

to share her authority in temporal matters with another nun, for soon

afterwards Isabella de Berghby and Margaret de Tang are said to have cast

off their habits and left the convent. Eighteen months later a new

prioress was appointed and the two runaways returned and did penance. In

1315 there is mention of quarrels among the nuns and in 1319 Margaret de

Tang once more engaged the attention of the Archbishop and was sent to

Nunkeeling and prescribed the usual penalty for immorality. In 1321 she

was again in trouble; she had apostatised and committed grave

misdemeanours; and was again sent back to her convent, to be imprisoned

and if necessary chained there, until she showed signs of repentance. In

1349 Isabella de Berghby, in spite of her past apostasy, was once more

elected Prioress[1715].

At Moxby, the other Cluniac house in the diocese, Archbishop Greenfield

ordered the Prioress to receive back Sabina de Apelgarth, who had

apostatised, but was returning in a state of penitence. Her penitence was

of the usual type of these Yorkshire ladies and her reputation did not

prevent her from rising to the high rank in the convent, for in 1318

Archbishop Melton ordered her to be removed from office and ordained that

henceforward no one convicted of incontinence was to hold any

office[1716]. In 1321 a penance was pronounced on Joan de Brotherton for

having been twice in apostasy; but a note in the margin of the register

where the penance is entered takes her history a stage further:

"Memorandum quod dominus Walterus de Penbrige, stans cum domina regina,

postea impregnavit eandem"[1717]. The next year a Scottish raid dispersed

the nuns; Sabina de Apelgarth and Margaret de Neusom were sent to

Nunmonkton; Alice de Barton, the Prioress, to Swine; Joan de Barton and

Joan de Toucotes to Nunappleton; Agnes Ampleford and Agnes Jarkesmill to

Nunkeeling; Joan de Brotherton and Joan Blaunkfront to Hampole[1718]. This

disturbance did not improve their morals. In 1325 the Prioress Joan de

Barton resigned, having been found guilty of incontinence with the

inevitable chaplain. The nuns could find no better successor for her than

Sabina de Apelgarth and in 1328 that lady was once more in difficulties;

the Archbishop removed her "for certain reasons" and imposed the usual

penance for immorality and Joan de Toucotes became Prioress in her stead.

At the same time Joan Blaunkfront's penance was relaxed, so she too had

apparently fallen; lovely and white-browed she must have been, from her

name ("But sikerly she hadde a fair foreheed"), nor could she bear to hide

her beauties beneath the hideous garb of a nun. Seventeen long years

afterwards, when the forehead was growing wrinkled and the beauty fading,

she wished to reconcile herself with the God whom she had flouted. She had

powerful friends and could afford to petition the Pope himself, and in

1345 Clement VI gave orders for Joan Blankefrontes, nun of Moxby, who had

left her order, to be reconciled to it[1719].

Kirklees, known to romance as the house where a wicked prioress bled Robin

Hood to death, was in a deplorable state about the same time. In 1306

Archbishop Greenfield wrote to the house bidding them take back Alice

Raggid, who, several times led astray by the temptations of the flesh, had

left her convent for the world; in 1313 a similar order was made for

Elizabeth de Hopton. The two nuns seem, however, to have been

incorrigible, for in 1315 the Archbishop wrote to the Prioress saying that

public rumour had reached his ears that some of the nuns of the house, and

especially Elizabeth de Hopton, Alice "le Raggede" and Joan de Heton, were

wont to admit both secular and religious men into the private parts of the

house and to hold many suspicious conversations with them. He forbids

these or any other nuns to admit or talk with any cleric or layman save in

a public place and in the presence of the Prioress, subprioress or two

other nuns; and he specially warns a certain Joan de Wakefeld to give up

the private room, which she persists in inhabiting by herself. He refers

also to the fact that these and other nuns were disobedient to the

Prioress, "like rebels refusing to accept her discipline and punishment."

On the same day he imposed a special penance on Joan de Heton for

incontinence with Richard del Lathe and Sir Michael, "called Scot," a

priest, and on the unhappy Alice Raggid for the same sin with William de

Heton of Mirfield, possibly a relative of her fellow nun[1720]. Here again

we have an incorrigible offender, guilty of apostasy and immorality off

and on during ten years. Swine was not much better. In 1289 a nun of the

great St Quintin family was in disgrace, probably (though not certainly)

for immorality. In 1290 there was the usual trouble over a new Prioress

and Elizabeth de Rue was sent to Nunburnholme under the charge of a

brother of the house and a horseman, apparently for immorality as well as

contumacy. At the same time another nun, Elizabeth Darrains, had part of

her penance lightened; but in 1291 she was sent away to Wykeham Priory. In

1306 John, son of Thomas the Smith, of Swine, was charged with having

seduced Alice Martel, a nun of the house, and in 1310 Elizabeth de Rue

(whom we have seen was in trouble twenty years before) was said to have

sinned with two monks from the Abbey of Meaux. The house had evidently not

improved very much at a later date, for in 1358 Alice de Cawode had twice

been out in apostasy[1721].

Even close to the city of York itself, the Benedictine house of St

Clement's or Clementhorpe did not escape the prevalent decay of morals. In

1300 the Archbishop rehearses unsympathetically a romantic tale of how

"late one evening certain men came to the priory gate, leading a saddled

horse; here Cecily a nun, met them and, throwing off her nun's habit, put

on another robe and rode off with them to Darlington, where Gregory de

Thornton was waiting for her; and with him she lived for three years and

more." In 1310 Greenfield mitigated a penance, of the kind usually imposed

for immorality, upon another nun Joan de Saxton. In 1318 there is mention

of Joan of Leeds, another apostate, and in 1324 the Prioress resigned

after serious trouble in the house, details of which have not been

preserved. In 1331 Isabella de Studley (who had been made a nun there by

express permission of the primate in 1315) was found guilty of apostasy

and fleshly sin, besides blasphemy and other misdeeds; she had apparently

been sent to Yedingham for a penance some time before and was now allowed

to return, with the warning that if she disobeyed, quarrelled or

blasphemed any more she would be transferred permanently to another

house[1722].

These houses were all clearly extremely immoral, but there is evidence of

less extreme trouble in other houses in the same diocese. At Arden Joan de

Punchardon had become a mother in 1306 and Clarice de Speton confessed

herself guilty with the bailiff of Bulmershire in 1311[1723]. At Thicket

Alice Darel of Wheldrake was an apostate in 1303 and in 1334 Joan de

Crackenholme was said to have left her house several times[1724]. At

Wilberfoss Agnes de Lutton was in trouble in 1312[1725]. At Esholt

Beatrice de Haukesward left the house pregnant in 1303[1726]. At Hampole

Isabella Folifayt was guilty in 1324, and Alice de Reygate in 1358[1727].

At Nunappleton Maud of Ripon apostatised in 1309 and in 1346 Katherine de

Hugate, a nun, went away pregnant and a lay sister was said to have been

several times in the same condition[1728]. At St Stephen's, Foukeholm, a

nun Cecilia, who had run away with a chaplain, returned of her own accord

in 1293 and another apostate, Elena de Angrom, returned in 1349[1729].

Agnes de Bedale, an apostate, was sent back in 1286; and in 1343 Margaret

de Fenton, who left the house pregnant, had her penance mitigated "because

she had only done so once," a startling commentary on the state of the

Yorkshire houses[1730]. At Rosedale an apostate Isabella Dayvill was sent

back to do penance in 1321[1731]. Of Nunmonkton there is little record

during the first half of the century, but it was in a bad state at the

end[1732]; at Wykeham also there seems to have been no case of apostasy in

the fourteenth century, but in the fifteenth century the Prioress Isabella

Wykeham was removed for serious immorality in 1444 and in 1450 two nuns

had gone on an unlicensed pilgrimage to Rome, which had led to one of them

living with a married man in London[1733].

NOTE H.

THE DISAPPEARANCE OR SUPPRESSION OF EIGHT NUNNERIES PRIOR TO 1535.

It seems clear that even before the Dissolution proper decay was manifest

in some of the smaller nunneries; numbers were dwindling and morals were

not always beyond suspicion. At all events in the forty years before Henry

VIII's first act of dissolution, no less than eight nunneries[1734], all

of which had at one time been reasonably flourishing, faded away or were

dissolved. Something may, and indeed must, be allowed for the ulterior

motives of those who desired the revenue of these houses; but it is

impossible to suspect men like John Alcock, Bishop of Ely, John Fisher,

Bishop of Rochester, even Cardinal Wolsey, of being willing without any

excuse to suppress helpless nunneries in order to endow their new

collegiate foundations with the spoils. Some truth there must be in the

allegations of ill behaviour brought against certain of these houses; and

the reduction in numbers seems to point to a decay, more spontaneous than

forced.

The first of the houses thus to be dissolved was St Radegund's, Cambridge,

the accounts of which we have so often quoted. In 1496 John Alcock, Bishop

of Ely, visited the house and found but two sisters left there; and he

thereupon obtained letters patent from Henry VII to convert the nunnery

into a college, founded (like the nunnery) in honour of the Virgin, St

John the Evangelist and St Radegund, but called henceforward Jesus

College. Some light is thrown by these letters patent on the condition of

the convent in 1496. It is therein stated that the king,

as well by the report of the Bishop as by public fame, that the priory

... together with all its lands, tenements, rents, possessions and

buildings, and moreover the properties, goods, jewels and other

ecclesiastical ornaments anciently of piety and charity given and

granted to the same house or priory, by the neglect, improvidence,

extravagance and incontinence of the prioresses and women of the said

house, _by reason of their proximity to the university of Cambridge_,

have been dilapidated, destroyed, wasted, alienated, diminished, and

subtracted; in consequence of which the nuns are reduced to such want

and poverty that they are unable to maintain and support divine

services, hospitality and other such works of mercy and piety, as by

the primary foundation and ordinance of their founders are required;

that they are reduced in number to two only, of whom one is elsewhere

professed, the other is of ill-fame, and that they can in no way

provide for their own sustenance and relief, insomuch as they are fain

to abandon their house and leave it in a manner desolate[1735].

The next nunneries to disappear were Bromhale in Windsor Forest and

Lillechurch or Higham in Kent. Their dissolution was begun in 1521 and

completed in 1524, when their possessions were granted to St John's

College, Cambridge, the foundation of which was then being carried out by

John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, as executor of the Lady Margaret. Only

three nuns were left in Bromhale and Wolsey directed the Bishop of

Salisbury to "proceed against enormities, misgovernance and slanderous

living, long time heretofore had, used and continued by the prioress and

nuns"[1736]; but there is no further evidence as to the moral condition of

the convent. The moral as well as the financial decay of Lillechurch is

more certain, for the resignations of the three nuns who remained,

together with the depositions of those who accused them of want of

discipline, have survived. Their revenues were stated to be in great decay

and divine service, hospitality and almsgiving had almost ceased. Moreover

it was said that "the same priory was situated in a corner out of sight of

the public and was much frequented by lewd persons, especially clerks,

whereby the nuns there were notorious for the incontinence of their life,"

two of them having borne children to one Edward Sterope, vicar of Higham.

Some witnesses were heard as to one of them, including a nurse who had

taken charge of her baby and a former servant of the nunnery, who had been

sent by the bishop to investigate the matter. "He entered the cloister of

the aforesaid priory, where he saw the lady sitting and weeping and said

to her 'Alas madam, howe happened this with you?' and she answered him,

'And [if] I had been happey [i.e. lucky] I myght a caused this thinge to

have ben unknowen and hydden'"[1737].

The next nunneries to be suppressed were a group which went to enrich

Cardinal Wolsey's foundations. The Cardinal's policy of dissolving small

decayed houses in order to devote their revenues to collegiate

foundations, especially to his new college at Oxford, was by no means

generally approved and a passage in Skelton's bitterly hostile _Colin

Clout_ refers particularly to the case of the nunneries:

And the selfe same game

Begone ys nowe with shame

Amongest the sely nonnes:

My lady nowe she ronnes,

Dame Sybly our abbesse,

Dame Dorothe and lady Besse,

Dame Sare our pryoresse,

Out of theyr cloyster and quere

With an heuy chere,

Must cast vp theyr blacke vayles[1738].

The nunneries dissolved were Littlemore (1525), Wix (1525), Fairwell

(1527), and St Mary de Pre, St Albans, of which all went to Cardinal

College, except Fairwell, which went to Lichfield Cathedral. Of these

Littlemore, under the evil prioress Katherine Wells, had been in a state

of great disorder since 1517[1739], while Cardinal Morton's famous letter

of 1490 showed that there was at least suspicion of immoral relations

between the nuns of St Mary de Pre and the monks of St Albans[1740]. Of

the other two nunneries little is known at this time, save that they were

very small; there were four nuns at Wix. Another house, Davington in Kent,

vanished only a few months before the act would have dissolved it; in 1535

it was found before the escheator of the county that no nuns were left in

it[1741].

NOTE I.

CHANSONS DE NONNES.

The theme of the nun in popular poetry deserves a more detailed study than

it has yet received, both on account of the innate grace of the _chansons

de nonnes_ and on account of their persistence into modern times. The

earliest examples (with the exception of the two old French poems quoted

in the text) occur in German literature, always rich in folk song. With

the song from the _Limburg Chronicle_ and the Latin _Plangit nonna

fletibus_ should be compared the following amusing little poem:

Ich solt ein nonne werden

ich hatt kein lust dazu

ich ess nicht gerne gerste

wach auch nicht gerne fru;

gott geb dem klaeffer unglueck vil

der mich armes maegdlein

ins kloster haben wil!

Ins kloster, ins kloster

da kom ich nicht hinein,

da schneidt man mir die har ab,

das bringt mir schwaere pein;

gott geb dem klaeffer unglueck vil

der mich armes maegdlein

ins kloster haben wil!

Und wenn es komt um mitternacht

das gloecklein das schlecht an,

so hab ich armes maegdlein

noch keinen schlaf getan;

gott geb dem klaeffer unglueck vil

der mich armes maegdlein

ins kloster haben wil!

Und wenn ich vor die alten kom

so sehn sie mich sauer an,

so denk ich armes maegdlein

hett ich ein jungen man

und der mein staeter bule sei

so war ich armes maegdlein

des fasten und betens frei.

Ade, ade feins kloesterlein,

Ade, nu halt dich wol!

ich weiss ein herz allerliebsten mein

mein herz ist freuden vol;

nach im stet all mein zuversicht,

ins kloster kom ich nimmer nicht,

ade, feins kloesterlein![1742]

From the time of the Minnesingers comes a charming, plaintive little song,

which rings its double refrain on the words "Lonely" and "O Love, what

have I done?" It tells how the nun, behind a cold grating, thinks of her

lover as she chants her psalter; and how her father and mother visit her

and pray together, clad like gay peacocks, while she is shrouded in cord

and cowl; and how

At even to my bed I go--

The bed in my cell is lonely.

And then I think (God, where's the harm?)

Would my true love were in my arm!

O Love--what have I done?[1743]

A thirteenth century poem, hailing from Bavaria or Austria, strikes a more

tragic note:

Alas for my young days, alas for my plaint. They would force me into a

convent. Nevermore then shall I see the grass grow green and the green

clover flowers, nevermore hear the little birds sing. Woe it is, and

dead is my joy, for they would part me from my true love, and I die of

sorrow. _Alas, alas for my grief, which I must bear in secret!_

Sisters, dear sisters, must we be parted from the world? Deepest woe

it is, since I may never wear the bridal wreath and must make moan for

my sins, when I would fain be in the world and would fain wear a

bright wreath upon my hair, instead of the veil that the nuns wear.

_Alas, alas for my grief, which I must bear in secret!_ I must take

leave of the world, since the day of parting is come. I must look

sourly upon all joy, upon dancing and leaping and good courage, birds

singing and hawthorn blooming. If the little birds had my sorrow well

might they sit silent in the woods and upon the green branches. _Alas,

alas for my grief, which I must bear in silence_[1744].

A sixteenth century French song has something of the same serious tone,

though it is more sophisticated and less poignant than the medieval German

version:

Une jeune fillette

de noble coeur

gratieuse et honeste

de grand valeur,

contre son gre l'on a rendu nonette

point ne le voloit estre

par quoy vit en langueur.

One day after Compline she was sitting alone and lamenting her fate and

she called on the Virgin to shorten her life, which she could endure no

longer:

If I were married to my love, who has so desired me, whom I have so

desired, all the night long he would hold me in his arms and would

tell me all his thought and I would tell him mine. If I had believed

my love and the sweet words he said to me, alack, alack, I should be

wedded now. But since I must die in this place let me die soon. O poor

heart, that must die a death so bitter! Fare you well, abbess of this

convent, and all the nuns therein. Pray for me when I am dead, but

never tell my thought to my true love. Fare you well, father and

mother and all my kinsfolk; you made me a nun in this convent; in life

I shall never have any joy; I live unhappy, in torment and in

pain[1745].

Usually, however, the _chanson de nonne_ is more frivolous than this and

all ends happily. A well defined group contains songs in the form of a

round with a refrain, meant to be sung during a dance[1746]. One of the

prettiest has a refrain rejecting the life of a nun for the best of

reasons:

Derriere chez mon pere

Il est un bois taillis

(Serai-je nonnette, oui ou non?

Serai-je nonnette? je crois que non!)

Le rossignol y chante

Et le jour et la nuit.

Il chante pour les filles

Qui n'ont pas d'ami,

Il ne chante pas pour moi,

J'en ai un, dieu mercy[1747].

Another (first found in a version belonging to the year 1602) has the

dance-refrain:

Trepignez vous, trepignez,

Trepignez vous comme moy,

and the words seem to trip of themselves:

Mon pere n'a fille que moy--

Il a jure la sienne foy

Que nonnette il fera de moy,

Et non feray, pas ne voudray.

J'amerois mieux mary avoir

Qui me baisast la nuit trois fois.

L'un au matin et l'autre au soir,

L'autre a minuit, ce sont les trois[1748].

Another song of the same date has the refrain:

Je le diray,

Je le diray, diray, ma mere,

Ma Mere, je le diray,

and tells the same tale:

Mon pere aussi ma mere

Ont jure par leur foy

Qu'ils me rendront nonnette

Tout en despit de moy.

La partie est mal faite

Elle est faite sans moy.

J'ay un amy en France

Qui n'est pas loin de moy,

Je le tiens par le doigt.

La nuit quand je me couche

Se met aupres de moy,

M'apprend ma patenostre,

Et aussi mon _ave_,

Et encore autre chose

Que je vous celeray.

De peur que ne l'oublie

Je le recorderay![1749]

The passage of years never diminished the popularity of these gay little

songs; age could not wither them, and when nineteenth century scholars

began to collect the folk songs sung in the provinces of France, they

found many _chansons de nonnes_ still upon the lips of the people. In

Poitou there is a round whose subject is still the old distaste of the

girl for the convent:

Dans Paris l'on a fait faire

Deux ou trois petits couvents.

Mon pere ainsi que ma mere

Veulent me mettre dedans,

(Point de couvent, je ne veux, ma mere,

C'est un amant qu'il me faut vraiment.)

She begs her parents to wait another year; perhaps at the end of a year

she will find a lover; and she will take him quickly enough:

Il vaut mieux conduire a vepres

Son mari et ses enfants,

Que d'etre dedans ces cloetres

A faire les yeux dolents;

A jeuner tout le careme,

Les quatre-temps et l'avent;

Et coucher dessus la dure

Tout le restant de son temps.

Serais-je plus heureuse

Dans les bras de mon amant?

Il me conterait ses peines,

Ses peines et ses tourments.

Je lui conterais les miennes,

Ainsi passerait le temps[1750].

Another round from the same district sings the plaint of a girl whose

younger sister has married before her; "lads are as fickle as a leaf upon

the wind, girls are as true as silver and gold; but my younger sister is

being married. I am dying of jealousy, for they are sending me into a

convent":

Car moi, qui suis l'ainee

On me met au couvent.

Si ce malheur arrive

J'mettrai feu dedans!

(Vous qui menez la ronde,

Menez-le rondement.)[1751]

Many folk-songs take the form of a dialogue between a mother and daughter,

sometimes (as in two of the rounds quoted above) preserved only in the

refrain. An old song taken down at Fontenay-le-Marmion contains a

charmingly frivolous conversation. "Mother," says the daughter of fifteen,

"I want a lover." "No, no, no, my child, none of that," says her mother,

"you shall go to town to a convent and learn to read." "But tell me,

mother, is it gay in a convent?":

"Dites-moi, ma mere, ah! dites-moi donc,

Dedans ce couvent, comme s'y comporte-t-on?

Porte-t-on des fontanges et des beaux habits,

Va-t-on a la danse, prend-on ses plaisis?"

"Non, non, non, ma fille, point de tout cela;

Une robe noire et elle vous servira,

Une robe noire et un voile blanc;

Te voila, ma fille, a l'etat du couvent."

"No, mother, to a convent I will not go; never will I leave the lad I

love"; as she speaks her lover enters. "Fair one, will you keep your

promise?" "I will keep all the promises I ever made to you, in my youth I

will keep them; it is only my mother who does not wish it--but all the

same, do not trouble yourself, for it shall be so. My father is very

gentle when he sees me cry; I shall speak to him of love and I shall soon

make him see that without any more delay I must have a lover"[1752]. In

another of these dialogues the seventeen-year-old girl begs her mother to

find her a husband. "You bold wicked girl," says the mother:

Effrontee, helas! que vous etes!

Si je prends le manche a balai,

Au couvent de la soeur Babet

Je te mets pour la vie entiere,

Et a grands coups de martinet

On apaisera votre caquet!

But "Mother," says the girl, "When you were my age, weren't you just the

same? When love stole away your strength and your courage, didn't you love

your sweetheart so well that they wanted to put you into a convent? don't

you remember, mother, that you once told me that it was high time my dear

father came forward, for you had more than one gallant?" The horrified

mother interrupts her, "I see very well that you have a lover":

Mariez-vous, n'en parlons plus

Je vais vous compter mille ecus![1753]

Another group of songs (in narrative form and more _banal_ than the rounds

and dialogues) deals with the escape from the convent. Among folk-songs

collected in Velay and Forez there is one in which the girl is shut in a

nunnery, whence her lover rescues her by the device of dressing himself as

a gardener and getting employment in the abbess's garden[1754]; and

another in which a soldier returns from the Flemish wars to find his

mistress in a convent and takes her away with him in spite of the

remonstrances of the abbess[1755]. In a version from Low Normandy (which

probably goes back to the seventeenth century) the lover invokes the help

of a chimney sweep, who goes to sweep the convent chimneys and pretends to

be seized with a stomach-ache, so that the abbess hurries away for a

medicine bottle and enables him to pass the young man's letter to his

mistress; on a second visit the sweep carries the girl out in his sack,

under the very nose of the reverend mother[1756]. An Italian version is

less artificial:

In this city there is a little maid, a little maid in love. They wish

to chastise her until she loves no more. Says her father to her

mother: "In what manner shall we chastise her? Let us array her in

grey linen and put her into a nunnery." In her chamber the fair maiden

stood listening. "Ah, woe is me, for they would make me a nun!"

Weeping she wrote a letter and when she had sealed it well, she gave

it to her serving man, and bade him bear it to her lover. The gentle

gallant read the letter and began to weep and sigh: "I had but one

little love and now they would make her a nun!" He goes to the stable

where his horses are and saddles the one he prizes most. "Arise, black

steed, for thou art the strongest and fairest of all; for one short

hour thou must fly like a swallow down by the sea." The gentle gallant

mounts his horse and spurs forward at a gallop. He arrives just as his

fair one is entering the nunnery. "Hearken to me, mother abbess, I

have one little word to say." As he spake the word to the maiden, he

slipped the ring on her finger. "Is there in this city no priest or no

friar who will marry a maiden without her banns being called?"

"Goodbye to you, Father, goodbye to you, Mother, goodbye to you all my

kinsfolk. They thought to make me a nun, but with joy I am become a

bride"[1757].

Another very ribald Italian folk-song of the fourteenth or fifteenth

century is specially interesting because it is founded upon Boccaccio's

famous tale of the Abbess and the breeches. It is somewhat different from

the usual nun-song; less plaintive and more indecent, as befits its origin

in a _conte gras_; it is a _fabliau_ rather than a song, but it is worth

quoting:

Kyrie, kyrie, pregne son le monache!

lo andai in un monastiero,

a non mentir ma dir el vero,

ov' eran done secrate:

diezi n' eran tute inpiate,

senza [dir de] la badesa,

che la tiritera spesa

faceva con un prete.

Kyrie, etc.

Or udirete bel sermona:

ciascuna in chiesa andone,

lasciando il dileto

che si posava in sul leto;

per rifare la danza

ciascuno aspetta l' amanza

che die retonare.

Kyrie, etc.

Quando matutin sonava

in chiesa nesuna andava,

[poi] ch' eran acopiate

qual con prete e qual con frate:

con lui stava in oracione

e ciascuno era garzone

che le serviva bene.

Kyrie, etc.

Sendo in chiesia tute andate,

e tute erano impregnate,

qual dal prete e qual dal frate,

l' una e l' altra guata;

ciascuna cred' esser velata

lo capo di benda usata;

avrino in capo brache.

Kyrie, etc.

E l' una a l' altra guatando

si vengon maravigliando;

credean che fore celato,

alor fu manifestato

questo eale convenente:

a la badessa incontenente

ch' ognun godesse or dice.

Kyrie, etc.

Or ne va, balata mia,

va a quel monastiero,

che vi si gode in fede mia

e questo facto e vero;

ciascuna non li par vero,

e quale [e] la fanziulla

ciascuna si trastulla

col cul cantano kyrie.

Kyrie, etc.[1758]

One characteristic form of the nun-theme has already been referred to in

the text: the dialogue between the clerk and the nun, in which one prays

the other for love and is refused. A terse version in which the nun is

temptress exists in Latin and evidently enjoyed a certain popularity:

_Nonna._ Te mihi meque tibi genus, aetas et decor aequa[n]t:

Cur non ergo sumus sic in amore pares?

_Clericus._ Non hac ueste places aliis nec uestis ametur:

Quae nigra sunt, fugio, candida semper amo.

_N._ Si sim ueste nigra, niueam tamen aspice carnem:

Quae nigra sunt, fugias, candida crura petas.

_C._ Nupsisti Christo, quem non offendere fas est:

Hoc uelum sponsam te notat esse Dei.

_N._ Deponam uelum, deponam cetera quaeque:

Ibit et ad lectum nuda puella tuum.

_C._ Si uelo careas, tamen altera non potes esse:

Vestibus ablatis non mea culpa minor.

_N._ Culpa quidem, sed culpa leuis tamen ipsa fatetur

Hoc fore peccatum, sed ueniale tamen.

_C._ Uxorem uiolare uiri graue crimen habetur,

Sed grauius sponsam te uiolare Dei.

_N._ Cum non sit rectum uicini frangere lectum

Plus reor esse reum zelotypare Deum[1759].

In the Cambridge Manuscript there is a famous dialogue, half-Latin and

half-German, in which a clerk prays a nun to love him in springtime, while

the birds sing in the trees, but she replies: "What care I for the

nightingale? I am Christ's maid and his betrothed." Almost the whole of

the dialogue, in spite of the nun's irreproachable attitude, has been

deleted with black ink by the monks of St Augustine's, Canterbury, who

were accustomed thus to censor matter which they considered unedifying;

but modern scholars have been at infinite pains to reconstruct it[1760].

It is rare to find in popular songs the idea of the convent as a refuge

for maidens crossed in love; but some pretty poems have this theme. In a

sixteenth century song a girl prefers a convent, if she cannot have the

man she loves best, but she wishes her lover could be with her there:

Puis que l'on ne m'at donne

A celuy que j'aymois tant,

avant la fin de l'annee

quoy que facent mes parens,

je me rendray capucine

capucine en un couvent.

Si mon amis vient les feste

a la grille regardant,

je luy feray de la teste

la reverence humblement

come pauvre capucine;

je n'oserois aultrement.

S'il se pouvait par fortune

se couler secretement

dedans ma chambre sur la brune,

je lui dirois mon tourment

que la pauvre capucine

pour luy souffre en ce couvent.

Mon dieu, s'il se pouvoit faire

que nous deux ensemblement

fussions dans ung monastere

pour y passer nostre temps,

capucin et capucine

nous vindrions tous deux content.

L'on me vera attissee

d'ung beau voille de lin blanc;

mais je seray bien coiffee

dans le coeur tout aultrement,

puis que l'on m'a capucine

mise dedans ce couvent.

N'est ce pas une grand raige

quand au gre de ses parens

il faut prendre en mariaige

ceulx qu'on n'ayme nullement?

j'ameroy mieulx capucine

estre mise en ce couvent[1761].

Somewhat similar is the song (first printed in 1640) of the fifteen

year-old girl married to a husband of sixty:

M'irai-je rendre nonette

Dans quelque joly couvent,

Priant le dieu d'amourette

Qu'il me donne allegement

Ou que j'aye en mariage

Celuy la que j'aime tant?[1762]

A round, with the refrain

Ah, ah, vive l'amour!

Cela ne durera pas toujours,

goes with a delightful swing:

Ce matin je me suis levee

Plus matin que ma tante;

J'ai descendu dans mon jardin

Cueillire la lavande.

Je n'avais pas cueilli trois brins

Que mon amant y rentre;

Il m'a dit trois mots en latin:

Marions nous ensemble.

--Si mes parents le veul' bien,

Pour moi je suis contente.

Si mes parents ne le veul' pas

Dans un couvent j'y rentre.

Tous mes parents le veul' bien,

Il n'y a que ma tante.

Et si ma tante ne veut pas

Dans un couvent je rentre.

Je prierai Dieu pour mes parents

Et le diable pour ma tante![1763]

In another song, with the refrain

Je ne m'y marieray jamais

Je seray religieuse,

the girl laments her own coyness which has lost her her lover[1764].

Sometimes, on the other hand, it is the lover's falseness which drives her

to enter a convent. In a song, which first occurs about 1555, the maiden

laments "qu'amours sont faulses":

Je m'en iray rendre bigotte

Avec les autres,

Et porteray le noir aussi le gris

(sont les couleurs de mon loyal amy)

si porteray les blanches patenostres

comme bigotte[1765].

In another very graceful little ditty the lover goes through the world in

rain and wind, seeking his true love and finds her at last in a green

valley:

Je luy ay dit "doucette,

ou vas tu maintenant?

(m'amour)"

"m'en vois rendre nonnette

(helas)

en un petit couvent.

Puis que d'aultre que moy

vous estes amoureux.

(m'amour)

qui faict qu'en grand esmoy

(helas)

mon coeur soit langoureux.

Helas, toute vestue

je seray de drap noir

(m'amour)

monstrant que despourveue

(helas)

je vis en desespoir"[1766].

Moreover the convent also plays its part in that numerous class of folk

songs, which tells of the discomfiture of a too bold gallant by the wits

of a girl. An early example occurs in 1542:

L'autrier, en revenant de tour

Sus mon cheval qui va le trou,

Par dessoubs la couldrette

L'herbe y croit folyette.

Je m'en entray en ung couvent

Pour prendre mes esbatemens.

Par ung petit guinchet d'argent

Je vis une nonnette,

Vray Dieu, tant jolyette.

Dessoubz les drabs quand je la vys

Blanche comme la fleur du lys,

Je masseitys aupres du lit

En lui disans: nonnette

Serez vous ma miette?

Chevalier, troup me detenez,

D'en faire a vostre voulente

Si m'en laissez ung peu aller,

Tant que je soye paree,

Tost seray retournee.

Sire chevalier, rassemblez

A l'esperirer vous resemblez,

Qui tient la proye enmy ses pieds

Et puis la laisse enfuire

Ainsi faictes vous, sire.

La nonnette si s'en alla

A son abbesse racompta

La en ces bois a ung musart

Qui d'amour m'a priee,

Je luy suis eschappee.

Le chevallier il demeura

Soulz la branche d'ung olivier

Attendant la nonnette--

Encore y peust il estre![1767]

Folk-songs, like flowers, spring up--or perhaps are transplanted--in the

same form in different lands and under different skies; they laugh at

political divisions and are a living monument to the solidarity of Europe.

Thus a song taken down from the lips of a Piedmontese _contadina_ in the

nineteenth century is almost exactly the same as the sixteenth century

French poem just quoted, even to such details as the olive and the fowler:

Gentil galant cassa'nt el bosc,

S'e riscuntra-se'nt uena munia,

L'era tan bela, fresca e biunda.

Gentil galant a j'a ben dit:

--Sete-ve si cun mi a l'umbreta,

Mai pi viu sari munigheta.

--Gentil galant, spetei-me si,

Che vada poze la tunicheta

Poi turnro con vui a l'umbreta--

A l'a speta-la tre di, tre noit

Sut a l'umbreta de l'oliva.

E mai pi la munia veniva.

Gentil galant va al munaste,

L'a pica la porta grandeta;

J'e sorti la madre badessa.

--Coza cerchei-vo, gentil galant?

--Mi ma cerco na munigheta,

Ch'a m'a promess d'avni a l'umbreta.

--J'avie la quaja dnans ai pe,

V'la si lassa-v-la vule via.

Cozi l'a fait la munia zolia[1768].

Another version, still sung in many parts of France, is called _The Ferry

Woman_. In this a girl ferrying a gentleman from court across a stream,

promises him her love in return for two thousand pounds, but bids him wait

till they land and can climb to the top room of a house. But when the

gallant leaps ashore she pushes off her boat, taking the money with her

and crying: "Galant, j't'ai passe la riviere:

Avec ton or et ton argent

Je vais entrer dans un couvent,

Dans un couvent de filles vertueuses

Pour etre un jour aussi religieuse!

"Si je passe par le couvent,

J'irai mettre le feu dedans,

Je brulerai la tour et la tourniere

Pour mieux bruler la belle bateliere"[1769].

Occasionally the references to nuns in folk-songs have even less

significance. Thus one of the metamorphoses gone through by the girl, who

(in a very common folk theme) assumes different shapes to elude her lover,

is to become a nun:

"Si tu me suis encore

Comme un amant

Je me ferai nonne

Dans un convent,

Et jamais tu n'auras

Mon coeur content."

"Si tu te fais nonne

Dans un couvent

Je me ferai

Moine chantant

Pour confesser la nonne

Dans le couvent"[1770].

Again in _Le Canard Blanc_ occur the question and answer:

Que ferons nous de tant d'argent?

Nous mettrons nos filles au couvent

Et nos garcons au regiment.

Si nos fill's ne veul' point d'couvent

Nous les marierons richement[1771].

One very curious song deserves quotation, a Florentine carnival song of

the time of Lorenzo the Magnificent, written by one Guglielmo called _Il

Giuggiola_. It retails the woes of some poor "Lacresine" or "Lanclesine"

who have come to Rome on a pilgrimage and been robbed of all their money

on the way, and the ingenious suggestion has been made that "Lacresine" is

a corruption of "Anglesine" and that the song is supposed to be sung by

English nuns; certainly it is in broken Italian, such as foreigners would

use:

Misericordia et caritate

Alle pofer Lacresine

Che l'argente pel chammine

Tutt'a spese et consumate.

Del paese basse Magne,

Dove assai fatiche afute

Tutte noi pofer compagne

Per ir Rome sian fenute.

Ma per tanto esser piofute,

Non pofer Lanclesine.

Nelle parte di Melane

State noi mal governate,

Che da ladri et gente strane

Nostre robe star furate;

Talche noi tutte bitate

[Non mai piu far tal chammine.]

Pero pofer Lanclesine

Buon messer da caritate.

Queste pofer Nastasie

Le fu tutte rotte stiene

Talche sue gran malattie

Per vergognia sotto tiene.

Cosi zoppe far conviene

Con fatiche suo chammine

Pero pofer Lanclesine

Buon messer da caritate.

Chi e dijote San Branchatie

Che star tant' in ciel potente,

Per afer sue sancte gratie

Voglia a noi donare argente,

Che le pofer malcontente

Pessin compier lor chammine,

Pero pofer Lanclesine

Buon messer da caritate[1772].

"Pity and charity for poor English ladies, who have spent and used up

all their money on the road. From the land of low Germany, where we

have had great difficulties, all we poor sisters are on our way to

Rome, but because it has rained so hard, we have not been able to

continue our road. _Therefore, good sirs, give alms to us poor English

ladies._ In the district of Milan ill-used were we, for thieves and

strangers stole all our goods; so buffetted were we, never again will

we go on such a journey. _Therefore, good sirs, give alms to us poor

English ladies._ Poor Anastasia was so knocked about, that in shame

she hides her ill and must needs continue her road limping.

_Therefore, good sirs, give alms to us poor English ladies._ Whoever

is a devotee of St Pancras, who is so powerful in heaven, whoever

wishes to have his grace, let him give us money, so that we poor

miserable creatures may get to our journey's end; _therefore, good

sirs, give alms to us poor English ladies_."

Sometimes the nun is found playing a part in the romantic

ballad-literature of Europe. A Rhineland legend of the dance of death,

interesting because it embodies the names and dates of the actors, has for

its setting a convent; it is thus summarised by Countess

Martinengo-Cesaresco[1773]:

In the fourteenth century Freiherr von Metternich placed his daughter

Ida in a convent on the island of Oberwoerth, in order to separate her

from her lover, one Gerbert, to whom she was secretly betrothed. A

year later the maiden lay sick in the nunnery, attended by an aged lay

sister. "Alas!" she said "I die unwed though a betrothed wife."

"Heaven forfend!" cried her companion, "then you would be doomed to

dance the death-dance." The old sister went on to explain that

betrothed maidens who die without having either married or taken

religious vows, are condemned to dance on a grassless spot in the

middle of the island, there being but one chance of escape, the coming

of a lover, no matter whether the original betrothed or another, with

whom the whole party dances round and round till he dies; then the

youngest of the ghosts makes him her own and may henceforth rest in

her grave. The old nun's gossip does not delay the hapless Ida's

departure, and Gerbert, who hears of her illness on the shores of the

Boden See, arrives at Coblenz only to have tidings of her death. He

rows over to Oberwoerth; it is midnight in midwinter. Under the

moonlight dance the unwed brides, veiled and in flowing robes; Gerbert

thinks he sees Ida among them. He joins the dance; fast and furious it

becomes, to the sound of a wild unearthly music. At last the clock

strikes and the ghosts vanish--only one, as it goes, seems to stoop

and kiss the youth, who sinks to the ground. There the gardener finds

him on the morrow, and in spite of all the care bestowed upon him by

the sisterhood, he dies before sundown.

Another German ballad, taken down from oral recitation, at the beginning

of the nineteenth century, opens with a good swing:

Stund ich auf hohen bergen

Und sah ich ueber den Rhein

Ein Schifflein sah ich fahren,

Drei Ritter waren drein.

"I stood upon a high mountain and looked out over the Rhine, and I saw

three knights come sailing in a little boat. The youngest was a lord's

son, and fain would have wed me, young as he was. He drew a little

golden ring from off his finger, "Take this, my fair, my lovely one,

but do not wear it till I am dead." "What shall I do with the little

ring, if I may not wear it?" "O say you found it out in the green

grass." "O that would be a lie and evil. Far sooner would I say that

the young lord was my husband." "O maiden, were you but wealthy, came

you but of noble kin, were we but equals, gladly would I wed you."

"Though I may not be rich yet am I not without honour, and my honour I

will keep, until one who is my equal comes for me." "But if your equal

never comes, what then?" "Then I will go into a convent and become a

nun." There had not gone by a quarter of a year when the lord had an

evil dream; it seemed to him that the love of his heart was gone into

a convent. "Rise up, rise up, my trusty man, saddle horses for thee

and me. We will ride over mountains and through valleys--the maid is

worth all the world." And when they came to the convent, they knocked

at the door of the tall house, "Come forth, my fair, my lovely one,

come forth for but a minute." "Wherefore should I come forth? Short

hair have I, my locks they have cut off--for a long year has passed."

Despair filled the lord's heart; he sank upon a stone and wept

glittering tears and could never be glad again. With her snow-white

little hands she dug the lord a grave and the tears fell for him out

of her brown eyes. And to all young men this happens who seek after

great wealth. They set their love upon beautiful women; but beauty and

riches go not always hand in hand"[1774].

It is a strange thing that in all the ballad and folk-song literature of

England and Scotland there should be one and only one reference to a nun.

But that reference is a profoundly interesting one, for it is to be found

in the fine ballad of the _Death of Robin Hood_, which tells how the

great outlaw came to his end through the treachery of the Prioress of

Kirklees:

When Robin Hood and Little John

_Down a-down, a-down, a-down_,

Went o'er yon bank of broom

Said Robin Hood to Little John,

"We have shot for many a pound:

_Hey down, a-down, a-down_.

"But I am not able to shoot one shot more,

My broad arrows will not flee;

But I have a cousin lives down below,

Please God, she will bleed me."

"I will never eat nor drink," he said,

"Nor meat will do me good,

Till I have been to merry Kirkleys

My veins for to let blood.

"The dame prior is my aunt's daughter,

And nigh unto my kin;

I know she wo'ld me no harm this day

For all the world to win."

"That I rede not," said Little John,

"Master, by th' assent of me,

Without half a hundred of your best bowmen

You take to go with yee."

"An thou be afear'd, thou Little John,

At home I rede thee be."

"An you be wrath, my deare master

You shall never hear more of me."

Now Robin is gone to merry Kirkleys

And knocked upon the pin;

Up then rose Dame Prioress

And let good Robin in.

Then Robin gave to Dame Prioress

Twenty pounds in gold,

And bade her spend while that did last,

She sho'ld have more when she wo'ld.

"Will you please to sit down, cousin Robin;

And drink some beer with me?"--

"No, I will neither eat nor drink

Till I am blooded by thee."

Down then came Dame Prioress

Down she came in that ilk,

With a pair of blood-irons in her hand,

Were wrapped all in silk.

"Set a chafing dish to the fire," she said,

"And strip thou up thy sleeve."

--I hold him but an unwise man

That will no warning 'leeve.

She laid the blood-irons to Robin's vein,

Alack the more pitye!

And pierc'd the vein, and let out the blood

That full red was to see.

And first it bled the thick, thick blood,

And afterwards the thin,

And well then wist good Robin Hood

Treason there was within.

And there she blooded bold Robin Hood

While one drop of blood wou'd run;

There did he bleed the livelong day,

Until the next of morn.

Then Robin, locked in the room and too weak to escape by the casement,

blew three weak blasts upon his horn, and Little John came hurrying to

Kirklees and burst open two or three locks and so found his dying master.

"A boon, a boon!" cried Little John:

"What is that boon," said Robin Hood

"Little John, thou begs of me?"--

"It is to burn fair Kirkleys-hall

And all their nunnerye."

"Now nay, now nay," quoth Robin Hood,

"That boon I'll not grant thee;

I never hurt woman in all my life,

Nor men in their company."

"I never hurt maid in all my time,

Nor at mine end shall it be;

But give me my bent bow in my hand,

And a broad arrow I'll let flee;

And where this arrow is taken up

There shall my grave digg'd be"[1775].

So died bold Robin Hood. The English boy nurtured on his country's

ballads, has little cause to love the memory of the nun.

NOTE J.

THE THEME OF THE NUN IN LOVE IN MEDIEVAL POPULAR LITERATURE.

It may be of interest to note some further examples of the nun in love as

a theme for medieval tales, and in particular: (1) other versions of the

eloping nun theme, (2) the story of the abbess who was with child and was

delivered by the Virgin, and (3) some other _contes gras_.

(1) Various versions of the eloping nun tale enjoyed popularity, though

never as great popularity as was enjoyed by the story of Beatrice the

Sacristan. An old French version in the form of a miracle play tells of a

knight, who loved a nun and persuaded her to leave her convent with him;

but she saluted the Virgin's image in passing and twice the image

descended from its pedestal and barred her way when she tried to pass the

door, until at last she ran by without saluting it and escaped with her

lover. They married and had two children and lived happily together for

several years. Then one day Our Lady came down from heaven to seek her

faithless friend. She bade the nun return and the husband, hearing this,

was moved in his heart and said "since for love of me thou didst leave thy

convent, for love of thee I will leave the world and become a monk." Thus

they departed together and their babies were left to cry for mother and

father in vain[1776].

In another story the nun, trying to insert the key of the convent into the

lock and make her escape, was prevented by some invisible object, which

formed a barrier between her and the lock; she beat and pushed in vain and

at last turned to go, and saw in her path, the Virgin with white hands

bleeding. "Behold," said the Virgin, "it was I who withstood thee and see

what thou hast done to me"[1777]. In another a nun, the sacristan of a

convent, was tempted by a clerk and agreed to meet him after Compline. But

when she was trying to pass through the door of the chapel, she saw Christ

standing in the arch, with hands outspread, as though upon the cross. She

ran to another doorway and to another and to another, but in each she

found the crucifix. Then, coming to herself, she recognised her sin and

flung herself before an image of the Virgin to ask pardon. The image

turned away its face; then, as the trembling nun redoubled her entreaties,

stretched out its arm and dealt her a buffet saying: "Foolish one, whither

wouldst thou go? return to thy dorter." And so powerful was the Virgin's

blow that the nun was knocked down thereby and lay unconscious upon the

floor of the chapel until morning[1778]. In another version the nun

falls asleep on the night upon which the elopement is fixed and has a

vivid dream of the pains of hell, from which she is rescued by the Virgin,

who exhorts her to chastity, so that she awakes and sends away her lover's

messenger[1779]. In another the Virgin's image prevents the nun from going

through one door, but she escapes by another and is seduced[1780]. A more

rational version makes the nun strike her head so violently against the

lintel of the door, by which she is trying to escape, that she is rendered

unconscious and when she recovers her senses the temptation has gone from

her and she returns to her bed[1781]. In another the nun packs her clothes

into two bundles and passes them out of the window to her lover, climbing

out after them herself; but thieves intercept her and her bundles and

carry them off into a wood. The unhappy nun calls upon the Virgin for help

and forthwith falls into a deep sleep, from which she awakes to find

herself back in her dorter, with the bundles beside her[1782]. A rather

different tale of the nun turned courtesan makes her return after many

years to her convent, where by meditating upon the childhood of Christ she

is reconverted[1783].

(2) Another theme, which is almost as widespread as that of the eloping

nun, is that known as _l'abbesse grosse_. In this an abbess, who was famed

for the strict discipline which she kept among her nuns, fell in love with

her clerk and became his mistress, so that she soon knew herself to be

with child:

Then it happened that she waxed great and drew near her time and her

sisters the nuns perceived, and were passing fain thereof, because she

was so strait unto them, that they might have a cause to accuse her

in. And her accusers gart write unto the bishop and let him wit

thereof and desired him to come unto their place and see her. So he

granted and the day of him coming drew near. And this abbess, that was

great with child, made mickle sorrow and wist never what she might do;

and she had a privy chapel within her chamber, where she was wont

daily as devoutly as she couth [knew how] to say Our Lady's matins.

And she went in there and sparred the door unto her and fell devoutly

on knees before the image of Our Lady and made her prayer unto her and

wept sore for her sin and besought Our Lady for to help her and save

her, that she were not shamed when the bishop came. So in her prayers

she happened to fall on sleep, and Our Lady, as her thought, appeared

unto her with two angels, and comforted her and said unto her in this

manner of wise: "I have heard thy prayer and I have gotten of my son

forgiveness of thy sin and deliverance of thy confusion." And anon

she was delivered of her child and Our Lady charged these two angels

to have it unto an hermit and charged him to bring it up unto it was

seven years old; and they did as she commanded them; and anon Our Lady

vanished away. And then this abbess wakened and felt herself delivered

of her child and whole and sound.

In the sequel the bishop came to the house and could find no sign that the

abbess was with child and was about to punish her accusers, when she told

him the whole tale. He sent messengers to the hermit and there the child

was found; and (in fairy tale phrase, for what are these but religious

fairy tales), they all lived happy ever afterwards[1784].

(3) Ribald stories on the same theme are, naturally enough, common in

medieval literature, which never spared the Church. A few of the more

interesting may here be added to those quoted or referred to in the text.

The _Cento Novelle Antiche_ contains a curious tale of a Countess and her

maidens, who, having disgraced themselves with a porter, retired to hide

their shame in a nunnery; the story continues thus:

They became nuns and built a convent that is called the Convent of

Rimini. The fame of this convent spread and it became very wealthy.

And this story is narrated as true, viz. they had a custom that when

any cavaliers passed by that had rich armour the abbess and her

attendants met them on the threshold and served them with all sorts of

good fare and accompanied them to table and to bed. In the morning

they provided them with water for washing and then gave them a needle

and thread of silk for them to thread and if they could not accomplish

this in three tries, she took from them all their armour and

accoutrement and sent them away empty, but if they succeeded she

allowed them to retain their possessions and gave them presents of

jewellery, etc.[1785]

Francesco da Barberino in his book of deportment, _Del reggimento e

costumi di donne_, has a tale of a convent in Spain, which Satan receives

permission to tempt; accordingly his emissary Rasis sends into the house

three young men, disguised as nuns, to whom all the nuns and the Abbess

in turn succumb[1786]. In one Italian version of an extremely widespread

theme, found among the _Novelle_ of Masuccio Guardata da Salerno

(1442-1501), a Dominican friar deceives a devout and high-born nun. The

story is thus summarised by A. C. Lee:

In one of her books of devotion were some pictures of saints, amongst

others the third person of the Trinity; from the mouth of this figure

he makes proceed the words in letters of gold, "Barbara, you will

conceive of a holy man and give birth to the fifth evangelist." He

acts as the holy man and on the lady becoming _enceinte_ he deserts

her[1787].

Among medieval French stories may be mentioned those which occur in _Les

Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_, a fifteenth century collection of tales,

probably written by Antoine de la Sale in imitation of the _Cento

Novelle_. No. XV, concerning the relations between two neighbouring houses

of monks and nuns respectively, is too gross to be summarised; No. XXI is

the story of the sick abbess, who was recommended by her physician to take

a lover and out of respect for her all her nuns did the same; No. XLVI is

one of the many tales of a Jacobin friar, who haunted a convent and

obtained the favours of a nun[1788]. These are really prose fabliaux; and

verse fabliaux on this theme are not wanting, for example Watriquet

Brassenal's story of _The Three Canonesses of Cologne_[1789] and the most

indecent fabliau of _The Three Ladies_[1790]. There is a rather delightful

and merry little German poem called _Daz Maere von dem Sperwaere_, which

is a version of the popular French fabliau of _The Crane_[1791]. In this

thirteenth century poem a little nun, who has never seen the world, looks

over her convent wall and sees a knight with a sparrow hawk; she begs for

it and he says he will sell it her for "love," a thing of which she has

never heard. He teaches her what it is and gives her the sparrow hawk. But

the nun, her schoolmistress, is so angry with her, that she watches on the

wall again and next time the knight passes, she makes him give her back

her "love" and take the sparrow hawk again[1792].

English versions of these tales are extremely rare; for the English were

always less adroit than the French and the Italians in the matter of

_contes gras_. The nun theme occasionally appears, however, in the

sixteenth century; Boccaccio's "breeches" story is in Thomas Twyne's _The

Schoolmaster_ (1576)[1793] and the behaviour of nuns and "friars" at

Swineshead Abbey forms a comic interlude in _The Troublesome Raigne of

King John_ (1591), which was one of the sources used by Shakespeare in his

more famous play. In Scene X of the old play Philip Falconbridge comes to

Swineshead, with his soldiers, and bids a friar show him where the abbot's

treasure is hid. They break open a chest and a nun is discovered inside

it. The friar cries:

Oh, I am undone

Fair Alice the nun

Hath took up her rest

In the Abbot's chest.

_Santa benedicite_,

Pardon my simplicity

Fie, Alice, confession

Will not salve this transgression.

Philip remarks:

What have we here? a holy nun? so keep me God in health,

A smooth-faced nun, for aught I know, is all the abbot's wealth.

The nun begs for the life of the first friar and offers in exchange to

show Philip a chest containing the hoard of an ancient nun. They pick the

lock and discover a friar within. The first friar cries:

Friar Laurence, my lord;

Now holy water help us:

Some witch or some devil is sent to delude us:

_Haud credo, Laurentius_,

That thou shouldst be pen'd thus

In the press of a nun:

We are all undone,

And brought to discredence,

If thou be Friar Laurence.

Philip's comment is pertinent:

How goes this gear? the friar's chest fill'd with a sausen nun.

The nun again locks friar up to keep him from the sun.

Belike the press is purgatory, or penance passing grievous:

The friar's chest a hell for nuns! How do these dolts deceive us?

Is this the labour of their lives, to feed and live at ease?

To revel so lasciviously as often as they please?

I'll mend the fault, or fault my aim, if I do miss amending;

'Tis better burn the cloisters down than leave them for offending.

Eventually, Friar Laurence buys his freedom for a hundred pounds[1794].

In conclusion may be mentioned the entertaining little English _fabliau_,

which was at one time attributed to Lydgate, called _The Tale of the Lady

Prioress and her three Suitors_; this is not a _conte gras_, but recounts

the adroit expedient, by which a prioress succeeded in ridding herself of

her three wooers, a knight, a parson and a merchant[1795].

NOTE K.

NUNS IN THE _DIALOGUS MIRACULORUM_ OF CAESARIUS OF HEISTERBACH.

The _Dialogus Miraculorum_, written between 1220 and 1235 by Caesarius,

Prior and Teacher of the Novices in the Cistercian Abbey of Heisterbach in

the Siebengebirge, is one of the most entertaining books of the middle

ages[1796]. Caesarius in a prologue describes how it came to be written

and the plan upon which it is arranged, taking as his text a quotation

from John vi. 12: "Gather up the fragments lest they perish":

Since I was wont to recite to the novices, as in duty bound, some of

the miracles which have taken place in our time and daily are taking

place in our order, several of them besought me most instantly to

perpetuate the same in writing. For they said that it would be an

irreparable disaster if these things should perish from forgetfulness

which might be an edification to posterity. And since I was all

unready to do so, now for lack of the Latin tongue, now by reason of

the detraction of envious men, there came at length the command of my

own abbot, to say naught of the advice of the abbot of Marienstatt,

which it is not lawful for me to disobey. Mindful also of the

aforesaid saying of the Saviour, while others break up whole loaves

for the crowd (that is to say, expound difficult questions of the

Scriptures or write the more signal deeds of modern days) I,

collecting the falling crumbs, from lack not of good will but of

scholarship, have filled with them twelve baskets. For I have divided

the whole book into as many divisions. The first division tells of

conversion, the second of contrition, the third of confession, the

fourth of temptation, the fifth of demons, the sixth of the power of

simplicity, the seventh of the blessed Virgin Mary, the eighth of

divers visions, the ninth of the sacrament of the body and blood of

Christ, the tenth of miracles, the eleventh of the dying, the twelfth

of the pains and glories of the dead. Moreover in order that I might

the more easily arrange the examples, I have introduced two persons in

the manner of a dialogue, to wit a novice asking questions and a monk

replying to them.... I have also inserted many things which took place

outside the [Cistercian] order, because they were edifying, and like

the rest had been told to me by religious men. God is my witness that

I have not invented a single chapter in this dialogue. If anything

therein perchance fell about otherwise than I have written it, the

fault should rather be imputed to those who told it to me[1797].

It will be seen from this sketch that the book is really a collection of

stories grouped round certain subjects which they are intended to

illustrate and connected by a slender thread of dialogue. Such

collections of _exempla_ are nearly always valuable, but the work of

Caesarius is particularly so, because he does not confine himself to

"stock" stories, but relates many with details of time and place, drawn

from his own experience and from that of his friends. The book is full of

local colour and gives an exceedingly vivid picture of lay and

ecclesiastical life in medieval Germany. For our purpose it is interesting

because it contains many _exempla_ concerning nuns, and any reader

attracted by this particular class of didactic literature may be glad to

add some more stories to those quoted in the text.

Caesarius has much to say of the devil, a very visible and audible and

tangible devil and one who can be smelt with the nose. His tales of

devil-haunted nuns display a side of convent life about which English

records are in the main silent; but that they represent with fair accuracy

the sufferings of some half-hysterical, half-mystical women cannot be

doubted by anyone familiar with the lives of medieval saints and mystics,

such as Mary of Oignies, Christina of Stommeln and Lydwine of Schiedam. He

tells in his section on "Confession" of a nun Alice or Aleidis, who had

led an ill life in the world, but had repented her when her lover, a

priest, hanged himself, and had taken the veil at Langwaden in the diocese

of Cologne:

Once when she was standing in the dorter and looking out of the

window, she beheld a young man, nay rather a devil in the form of a

young man, standing hard by a well, which was near the wall of the

dorter; who in her sight set one foot upon the wooden frame which

surrounded the well, and as it were flying with the other, conveyed

himself to her in the window, and tried to seize her head with his

extended hand; but she fell back stricken with terror and almost in a

faint, and cried out and hearing her call, her sisters ran to her and

placed her upon her bed. And when they had gone away again and she had

recovered her breath and lay alone, the demon was once more with her,

and began to tempt her with words of love, but she denied him,

understanding him to be an evil spirit. Then he answered "Good

Aleidis, do not say so, but consent to me, and I will cause you to

have a husband, honest, worthy, noble and rich. Why do you torture

yourself with hunger in this poor place, killing yourself before your

time by vigils and many other discomforts? Return to the world and use

those delights which God created for man; you shall want for nothing

under my guidance." Then said she, "I grieve that I followed thee for

so long; begone for I will not yield to thee."

Then the foul fiend blew with his nostrils and spattered her with a foul

black pitch and vanished. Neither the sign of the cross, nor sprinkling

with holy water, nor censing with incense prevailed against this

particular demon; he would retreat for a time and return again as soon as

Aleidis ceased to employ these weapons against him. She was in despair,

when one day

One of the sisters, of maturer years and wisdom than the others,

persuaded her when the demon tried to approach her to hurl the angelic

salutation[1798] in a loud voice in his face; and when she had done

so the devil, as though struck by a dart or driven by a whirlwind,

fled away and from that hour never dared to approach her.

Another time the same Aleidis went to confession, hoping thus to rid

herself forever of her tormentor:

And behold as she was hastening along the road, the devil stood in her

path and said: "Aleidis, whither away so fast?" And she replied: "I go

to confound myself and thee." Then said the devil: "Nay, Aleidis, do

not so! Turn again!" And she replied: "Oft hast thou put me to

confusion, now will I confound thee. I will not turn back." And when

he could turn her back neither by blandishments nor by threats, he

followed her to the place of confession flying in the air above her in

the form of a kite; and as soon as she bent her knee before the Prior

and opened her lips in confession, he vanished, crying and howling and

was never seen or heard by her from that hour. Behold here ye have a

manifest example of what virtue lieth in a pure confession. These

things were told to me by the lord Hermann, Abbot of

Marienstatt[1799].

In his section "De Daemonibus" Caesarius has a yet more startling

collection of stories about devils. The trials of sister Euphemia are

described as having been related to him by the nun herself, at the

instance of her abbess:

When the aforesaid nun was a little maid in her father's house, the

devil ofttimes appeared to her visibly in divers shapes, and in divers

ways affrighted and saddened her tender age. And since she feared to

be driven mad she expressed her wish to be converted[1800] into our

order. One night the devil appeared to her in the form of a man and

tried to dissuade her, saying: "Euphemia, do not be converted, but

take a young and handsome husband and with him thou shalt taste the

joys of the world. Thou shalt not want for rich garments and delicate

meats. But if thou enter the order, thou wilt be forever poor and

ragged, thou wilt suffer cold and thirst, nor will it ever be well

with thee henceforth in this world." To which she replied: "How would

it be with me if I should die amidst those delights, which thou dost

promise me?" To these words the devil made no reply, but seizing the

maid and carrying her to the window of the chamber wherein she was

lying, he sought to throw her out. And when she said the angelic

salutation the enemy let her go, saying, "If thou goest to the

cloister, I will ever oppose thee. For hadst thou not in that hour

called upon _that woman_ I should have slain thee." And having spoken

thus, squeezing her tightly, he sprang out of the window in the shape

of a great dog and was seen no more. Thus was the virgin delivered by

invoking the Virgin Mother of God. How harassing the devil is to those

who have been converted and in how many and divers ways he vexes and

hinders them, the following account shall show. When the aforesaid

maiden had been made a nun, one night as she lay in her bed and was

wakeful, she saw around her many demons in the form of men. And one of

them of an aspect most foul was standing at her head, two at her feet

and the fourth opposite her. And he cried in a loud voice to the

others: "Why are you standing still? Take her wholly up as she lies

and come." And they replied: "We cannot. She has called upon _that

woman_."... Now the same demon, after she had said the angelic

salutation, seized the maiden by her right arm, and squeezed her so

tightly as he dragged at it, that his grasp was followed by a swelling

and the swelling by a bruise. Now when she had her left hand free, she

in her great simplicity dared not make the sign of the cross

therewith, deeming that a sign with the left hand would avail her

nought. But now, driven by necessity, she signed herself with that

hand, and put the demons to flight. Delivered from them she ran half

fainting to the bed of a certain sister, and, breaking silence, told

her what she had seen and suffered. Then, as I was informed by the

lady Elizabeth of blessed memory, abbess of the same convent, the

sisters laid her in her bed, and reading over her the beginning of the

Gospel of St John, found her restored on the morrow. Now in the

following year, in the dead of night when the same nun was lying awake

on her couch, she saw at a distance the demons in the shape of two of

the sisters who were most dear to her; and they said to her: "Sister

Euphemia, arise, come with us to the cellar to draw beer for the

convent." But she suspecting them, both on account of the lateness of

the hour and of their breach of silence, began to tremble, and,

burying her head in the bedclothes, replied nothing. Straightway one

of the malignant spirits drew near and laying hold of her breast with

his hand, squeezed it until the blood burst forth from her mouth and

nose. Then the demons, taking the shape of dogs, leaped out of the

window. When the sisters, rising for matins, beheld her worn out, as

it were pale and bloodless, they inquired of her the reason by signs;

and when they had learned it from her, they were much perturbed, both

on account of the cruelty of the demons and of the distress of the

virgin. Two years before this, when a new dorter had been made for the

convent and the beds had been placed therein, the same nun saw a demon

in the shape of a deformed and very aged mannikin, going round the

whole dorter and touching each of the beds, as though to say: "I will

take careful note of each place, for they shall not be without a visit

from me"[1801].

The abbey of Hoven, which sheltered Euphemia, seems to have been subjected

to a continual siege by devils; or perhaps, as the more materially-minded

might suggest, Euphemia's malady was contagious. Sister Elizabeth of the

same house had a short way with such gentry: