Thecompertaare 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.
Thecompertaare 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 “scandalouscomperta” 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 theVictoria 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 in1308 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 therégimeof 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 apostatisedand 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 1313a 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 afterserious 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].
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 hostileColin Cloutrefers particularly to the case of the nunneries:
And the selfe same gameBegone ys nowe with shameAmongest 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 quereWith an heuy chere,Must cast vp theyr blacke vayles[1738].
The nunneries dissolved were Littlemore (1525), Wix (1525), Fairwell (1527), and St Mary de Pré, 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 Pré 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 thechansons de nonnesand 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 theLimburg Chronicleand the LatinPlangit nonna fletibusshould be compared the following amusing little poem:
Ich solt ein nonne werdenich hatt kein lust dazuich ess nicht gerne gerstewach auch nicht gerne fru;gott geb dem kläffer unglück vilder mich armes mägdleinins kloster haben wil!Ins kloster, ins klosterda kom ich nicht hinein,da schneidt man mir die har ab,das bringt mir schwäre pein;gott geb dem kläffer unglück vilder mich armes mägdleinins kloster haben wil!Und wenn es komt um mitternachtdas glöcklein das schlecht an,so hab ich armes mägdleinnoch keinen schlaf getan;gott geb dem kläffer unglück vilder mich armes mägdleinins kloster haben wil!Und wenn ich vor die alten komso sehn sie mich sauer an,so denk ich armes mägdleinhett ich ein jungen manund der mein stäter bule seiso war ich armes mägdleindes fasten und betens frei.Ade, ade feins klösterlein,Ade, nu halt dich wol!ich weiss ein herz allerliebsten meinmein herz ist freuden vol;nach im stet all mein zuversicht,ins kloster kom ich nimmer nicht,ade, feins klösterlein![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].
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 fillettede noble cœurgratieuse et honestede grand valeur,contre son gré l’on a rendu nonettepoint ne le voloit estrepar 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].
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, thechanson de nonneis 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:
Derrière chez mon pèreIl est un bois taillis(Serai-je nonnette, oui ou non?Serai-je nonnette? je crois que non!)Le rossignol y chanteEt le jour et la nuit.Il chante pour les fillesQui 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:
Trépignez vous, trépignez,Trépignez vous comme moy,
and the words seem to trip of themselves:
Mon père n’a fille que moy—Il a juré la sienne foyQue nonnette il fera de moy,Et non feray, pas ne voudray.J’amerois mieux mary avoirQui 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 mère,Ma Mère, je le diray,
and tells the same tale:
Mon père aussi ma mèreOnt juré par leur foyQu’ils me rendront nonnetteTout en despit de moy.La partie est mal faiteElle est faite sans moy.J’ay un amy en FranceQui n’est pas loin de moy,Je le tiens par le doigt.La nuit quand je me coucheSe met auprès de moy,M’apprend ma patenostre,Et aussi monave,Et encore autre choseQue je vous celeray.De peur que ne l’oublieJe 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 manychansons de nonnesstill 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 faireDeux ou trois petits couvents.Mon père ainsi que ma mèreVeulent me mettre dedans,(Point de couvent, je ne veux, ma mère,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 à vêpresSon mari et ses enfants,Que d’être dedans ces cloétresA faire les yeux dolents;A jeûner tout le carême,Les quatre-temps et l’avent;Et coucher dessus la dureTout le restant de son temps.Serais-je plus heureuseDans 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’aînéeOn me met au couvent.Si ce malheur arriveJ’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 mère, 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 à 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 voilà, ma fille, à l’état 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 notwish 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:
Effrontée, hélas! que vous êtes!Si je prends le manche à balai,Au couvent de la sœur BabetJe te mets pour la vie entière,Et à grands coups de martinetOn 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 plusJe vais vous compter mille écus![1753]
Another group of songs (in narrative form and morebanalthan 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].
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 aconte gras; it is afabliaurather 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 spesafaceva con un prete.Kyrie, etc.Or udirete bel sermona:ciascuna in chiesa andone,lasciando il diletoche si posava in sul leto;per rifare la danzaciascuno aspetta l’ amanzache diè retonare.Kyrie, etc.Quando matutin sonavain chiesa nesuna andava,[poi] ch’ eran acopiatequal con prete e qual con frate:con lui stava in oracionee ciascuno era garzoneche 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 velatalo capo di benda usata;avrino in capo brache.Kyrie, etc.E l’ una a l’ altra guatandosi vengon maravigliando;credean che fore celato,alor fu manifestatoquesto eale convenente:a la badessa incontenentech’ ognun godesse or dice.Kyrie, etc.Or ne va, balata mia,va a quel monastiero,che vi si gode in fede miae questo facto è vero;ciascuna non li par vero,e quale [è] la fanziullaciascuna si trastullacol 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:
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 donneA celuy que j’aymois tant,avant la fin de l’anneequoy que facent mes parens,je me rendray capucinecapucine en un couvent.Si mon amis vient les festea la grille regardant,je luy feray de la testela reverence humblementcome pauvre capucine;je n’oserois aultrement.S’il se pouvait par fortunese couler secretementdedans ma chambre sur la brune,je lui dirois mon tourmentque la pauvre capucinepour luy souffre en ce couvent.Mon dieu, s’il se pouvoit faireque nous deux ensemblementfussions dans ung monasterepour y passer nostre temps,capucin et capucinenous vindrions tous deux content.L’on me vera attisseed’ung beau voille de lin blanc;mais je seray bien coiffeedans le cœur tout aultrement,puis que l’on m’a capucinemise dedans ce couvent.N’est ce pas une grand raigequand au gre de ses parensil faut prendre en mariaigeceulx qu’on n’ayme nullement?j’ameroy mieulx capucineestre 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 nonetteDans quelque joly couvent,Priant le dieu d’amouretteQu’il me donne allegementOu que j’aye en mariageCeluy là 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 levéePlus matin que ma tante;J’ai descendu dans mon jardinCueillire la lavande.Je n’avais pas cueilli trois brinsQue 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’ pasDans un couvent j’y rentre.Tous mes parents le veul’ bien,Il n’y a que ma tante.Et si ma tante ne veut pasDans un couvent je rentre.Je prierai Dieu pour mes parentsEt le diable pour ma tante![1763]
In another song, with the refrain
Je ne m’y marieray jamaisJe 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 bigotteAvec les autres,Et porteray le noir aussi le gris(sont les couleurs de mon loyal amy)si porteray les blanches patenostrescomme 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,où vas tu maintenant?(m’amour)”“m’en vois rendre nonnette(helas)en un petit couvent.Puis que d’aultre que moyvous estes amoureux.(m’amour)qui faict qu’en grand esmoy(helas)mon cœur soit langoureux.Helas, toute vestueje 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 tourSus mon cheval qui va le trou,Par dessoubs la couldretteL’herbe y croit folyette.Je m’en entray en ung couventPour prendre mes esbatemens.Par ung petit guinchet d’argentJe vis une nonnette,Vray Dieu, tant jolyette.Dessoubz les drabs quand je la vysBlanche comme la fleur du lys,Je masseitys aupres du litEn lui disans: nonnetteSerez vous ma miette?Chevalier, troup me detenez,D’en faire a vostre voulenteSi m’en laissez ung peu aller,Tant que je soye parée,Tost seray retournée.Sire chevalier, rassemblezA l’ésperirer vous resemblez,Qui tient la proye enmy ses piedsEt puis la laisse enfuireAinsi faictes vous, sire.La nonnette si s’en allaA son abbesse racomptaLà en ces bois a ung musartQui d’amour m’a priée,Je luy suis eschappée.Le chevallier il demeuraSoulz la branche d’ung olivierAttendant 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 Piedmontesecontadinain 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 ël bosc,S’è riscuntrà-se’nt üna múnia,L’era tan bela, frësca e biunda.Gentil galant a j’à ben dit:—Setè-ve sì cun mi a l’umbreta,Mai pi viu sarì munigheta.—Gentil galant, spetei-me sì,Che vada pozè la tunichetaPoi turnrò con vui a l’umbreta—A l’à spetà-la tre dì, tre nóitSut a l’umbreta de l’oliva.E mai pi la múnia veniva.Gentil galant va al munastè,L’à pica la porta grandeta;J’e sortì la madre badessa.—Coza cerchei-vo, gentil galant?—Mi ma cerco na munigheta,Ch’a m’à promess d’avnì a l’umbreta.—J’avie la quaja dnans ai pè,V’la sì lassà-v-la vulè via.Cozi l’à faít la múnia zolia[1768].
Another version, still sung in many parts of France, is calledThe 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 passé la rivière:
Avec ton or et ton argentJe vais entrer dans un couvent,Dans un couvent de filles vertueusesPour être un jour aussi religieuse!“Si je passe par le couvent,J’irai mettre le feu dedans,Je brûlerai la tour et la tournièrePour mieux brûler la belle batelière”[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 encoreComme un amantJe me ferai nonneDans un convent,Et jamais tu n’aurasMon cœur content.”“Si tu te fais nonneDans un couventJe me feraiMoine chantantPour confesser la nonneDans le couvent”[1770].
Again inLe Canard Blancoccur the question and answer:
Que ferons nous de tant d’argent?Nous mettrons nos filles au couventEt nos garçons au régiment.Si nos fill’s ne veul’ point d’couventNous 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 calledIl 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 caritateAlle pofer LacresineChe l’argente pel chammineTutt’a spese et consumate.Del paese basse Magne,Dove assai fatiche afuteTutte noi pofer compagnePer ir Rome sian fenute.Ma per tanto esser piofute,Non pofer Lanclesine.Nelle parte di MelaneState noi mal governate,Che da ladri et gente straneNostre robe star furate;Talche noi tutte bitate[Non mai più far tal chammine.]Pero pofer LanclesineBuon messer dà caritate.Queste pofer NastasieLe fu tutte rotte stieneTalchè sue gran malattiePer vergognia sotto tiene.Così zoppe far convieneCon fatiche suo chamminePerò pofer LanclesineBuon messer dà caritate.Chi è dijote San BranchatieChe star tant’ in ciel potente,Per afer sue sancte gratieVoglia a noi donare argente,Che le pofer malcontentePessin compier lor chammine,Però pofer LanclesineBuon messer dà caritate[1772].