[1514]V.C.H. Yorks.III, p. 176 (quoting Dugdale,Mon.V, pp. 464-5 andReg. Giffard(Surtees Soc.), p. 295).
[1515]SeeLinc. Visit.II,passim, and also the Editor’s admirable introduction toLinc. Visit.I, pp. ix-xiii.
[1516]See above, p.250.
[1517]Linc. Visit.II, pp. 119. 126-7.
[1518]Sometimes the bishop’s clerk summarises the information given as to the financial state of the house, which would seem to indicate that the prioress gave and the bishop accepted merely a verbal account. SeeAlnwick’s Visit.MS. f. 38. InLinc. Epis. Reg. Atwater, f. 42, is a brief account of a visitation of Ankerwyke in 1519, to which is added thestatus domusas submitted by the nuns, comprising an inventory.
[1519]Linc. Visit.II, pp. 49-50.
[1520]See e.g. the case of Denise Loweliche at Markyate in 1433,Linc. Visit.I, pp. 83-5.
[1521]Reg. Epis. Johannis Peckham,II, pp. 706-8 (injunctions), 708-9 (mandate to commissary). Compare the proceedings at Ankerwyke six months after Alnwick’s visitation.Linc. Visit.II, p. 7.
[1522]Linc. Visit.I, pp. 82-3.
[1523]G. G. Coulton inEng. Hist. Review(1914), p. 37. “Thelocus classicushere is the Evesham Chronicle, in which one of the most admirable abbots of the thirteenth century tells us how solemnly he and his brethren had promised to conceal all their former abbot’s blackest crimes from the visiting bishop; and how they would never have complained even to the legate (whose jurisdiction they did recognize) if only the sinner had kept his pact with them in money matters.”
[1524]Linc. Visit.II, pp. 47, 48, 49, 52. At Heynings (where nothing seriously amiss transpired) one nun said that “the prioress reproaches her sisters, saying that if they say aught to the bishop, she will lay on them such penalties that they shall not easily bear them.”Ib.p. 133. The wicked Prioress of Littlemore was found in 1517 to have ordered her nuns on virtue of their obedience to reveal nothing to the commissioners and in 1518 it was stated that she had punished them for speaking the truth at the visitation.V.C.H. Lincs.II, p. 75. At Flixton in 1514 it was said: “The sisters scarce dare to depose the truth on account of the fierceness of the prioress.”Visit. of the Dioc. of Norwich, ed. Jessopp (Camden Soc.), p. 143. For episcopal injunctions against revealing or quarrelling overdetectamade at the visitation, seeLinc. Visit.II, pp. 51, 124, etc.,Yorks. Arch. Journ.XVI, p. 442,Reg. Epis. Johannis Peckham,II, p. 661.
[1525]Linc. Visit.II, pp. 184-5.
[1526]Ib.p. 4.
[1527]Ib.pp. 120, 122, 123-4.
[1528]V.C.H. Lincs.II, p. 76.
[1529]Alnwick’s Visit.MS. ff. 83, 39d, 96. Similarly at Ankerwyke, where there was great discord between Prioress and nuns, he prorogued his visitation for six months and then sent down commissioners to expound his injunctions, inquire how they were followed and deal with further grievances.Linc. Visit.II, pp. 6-8.
[1530]V.C.H. Lincs.II, pp. 76-7.
[1531]Alnwick’s Visit.MS. f. 39d.
[1532]See above, pp.388-9,460.
[1533]See above, p.469.
[1534]Liveing,Records of Romsey Abbey, p. 220.
[1535]Linc. Visit.II, p. 5.
[1536]As full reports containingdetectaorcompertaare specially valuable, it may be useful to indicate those concerning nunneries, which have been published: (1) The earliestcompertaextant are those of Archbishop Giffard’s visitation of Swine in Yorkshire in 1267-8; the individualdetectaare absent, but there is a fine set of injunctions, issued two months later, the earliest English nunnery injunctions which we possess,Reg. Walter Giffard(Surtees Soc.), pp. 147-8, 248-9. (2) Thecompertaof Archbishop Wittlesey’s metropolitan visitation of St Radegund’s, Cambridge (including onlyinteriminjunctions) have been published in Gray,Priory of St Radegund, Cambridge, pp. 35-6. (3) TheSede Vacantevisitation of Arden in 1396 includesdetectabut no injunctions,Test. Ebor.I, pp. 283-5 (note) and that of Nunmonkton in the same year includescompertaand injunctions, Dugdale,Mon.IV, p. 194; both of these are concerned almost entirely with charges against the respective prioresses. (4) The finest collection in existence is Alnwick’s book of Lincoln visitations, which is in the course of publication,Linc. Visit.IIandIII(in the press). (5) Records of visitations of Rusper and Easebourne from the Chichester registers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries containdetectaand some injunctions,Sussex Arch. Coll.VandIX,passim. (6) Records of the visitations of monastic houses in the diocese of Norwich by Bishops Goldwell (1492-3) and Nykke (1514-32) includedetectaandinjunctions(sometimes onlyinterim),Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich, ed. Jessopp,passim. (7) Dr Hede’sSede Vacantevisitations of the four houses in the diocese of Winchester in 1501-2, summarised inV.C.H. Hants.II,passim, includedetecta, but not injunctions. (8) Archbishop Warham’s visitations of houses in the diocese of Canterbury (Holy Sepulchre, Canterbury, the hospital of St James, Canterbury, Sheppey and Davinton) in 1511 includedetectaand sometimes injunctions,Eng. Hist. Review,VI. When more registers are published otherdetectaandcompertawill doubtless appear; there are some valuable sets, still in manuscript inLinc. Epis. Reg. Visit. Atwaterandib.Reg. Visit. Longland.
[1537]Linc. Visit.II, p. xlviii; for an admirable and detailed discussion of the whole question, in the light of Alnwick’s records, Mr Hamilton Thompson’s introduction to this volume (especially pp. xliv-li) should be studied. See also the learned article by Mr Coulton on “The Interpretation of Visitation Documents,”E.H.R.1914, pp. 16-40.
[1538]Liveing,op. cit., pp. 99, etc.
[1539]Revelationes Gertrudianae ac Mechthildianae, ed. Oudin (Paris, 1875). See also Preger,Geschichte der deutschen Mystik im Mittelalter(1874),I, pp. 70-132; Eckenstein,Woman under Mon.pp. 328-53; Taylor,The Medieval Mind,I, pp. 481-6; A. M. F. Robinson (Mme Darmesteter),The End of the Middle Ages(1889), pp. 45-72 (the Convent of Helfta); A. Kemp-Welch,Of Six Medieval Women(1913), pp. 57-82 (Mechthild of Magdeburg); G. Ledos,Ste Gertrude(Paris, 1901). The name of the Abbess Gertrude of Hackeborn, who ruled the house during the greater part of the time that these three mystics lived there, deserves to be added to theirs. For her life seeRevelationes, etc.,I, pp. 497 ff.
[1540]See her life by Thomas of Chantimpré,Acta SS. Jun., t.III, pp. 234 ff. See also Taylor,op. cit.I, pp. 479-81.
[1541]See E. Gilliat Smith,St Clare of Assisi, her Life and Legislation(1914); Mrs Balfour,Life and Legend of the Lady St Clare, with introd. by Father Cuthbert (1910); Fr. Marianus Fiege,The Princess of Poverty(Evansville, Ind. 1900) which contains a translation of Thomas of Celano’sLife of St Clare(Acta SS. Aug.t.II, pp. 754-67), Paschal Robinson,Life of St Clare(1910), Locatelli,Ste Claire d’Assise(Rome, 1899-1900). AlsoLa Vie et Légende de Madame Sainte Claire par Frère Françoys de Puis, 1563, ed. Arnauld Goffin (Paris, 1907).
[1542]Acta SS. Mar.t.I, pp. 501-31. See also Jentsch,Die Selige Agnes von Böhmen.She is always regarded as a saint but was never officially canonised.
[1543]Pirckheimer,B. Opera, ed. Goldast (1610). See also, T. Binder,Charitas Pirkheimer(1878), and Eckenstein,op. cit.pp. 458-76.
[1544]The Life of St Theresa of Jesus, written by Herself, tr. D. Lewis, ed. Zimmerman (1904).The Letters of St Theresa, tr. J. Dalton (1902). See also G. Cunningham Grahame,Santa Teresa, 2 vols. (1894).
[1545]See A. Gagnière,Les Confessions d’une Abbesse du xviesiècle(Paris, 1888), based on a manuscript at Ravenna (“Vita della Madre Donna Felice Rasponi, Badessa di S. Andrea, scritta da una Monaca”) which the author considers to be an autobiography. Some interesting details as to the scandalous condition of Italian convents at the end of the century are to be found in J. A. Symonds’Renaissance in Italy: The Catholic Reaction, pt. I (1886), pp. 341-70, dealing with the careers of Virginia Maria de Leyva, in the convent of S. Margherita at Monza and Lucrezia Buonvisi (sister Umilia) in the convent of S. Chiara at Lucca.
[1546]La Vie de Ste. Douceline, fondatrice des béguines de Marseille, ed. J. H. Albanès (Marseille, 1879). See also A. Macdonell,Saint Douceline(1905).
[1547]Acta SS. Aprilis, t.II, pp. 266-365. See also Huysmans,Ste. Lydwine de Schiedam(3rd ed. Paris, 1901).
[1548]Acta SS. Jun.t.IV, pp. 270 ff. See also Th. Wollersheim,Das Leben der ekstatischen Jungfrau Christina von Stommeln(Cologne, 1859); and Renan,Nouvelles Études d’Histoire Religieuse(1884) (Une Idylle Monacale au xiiiesiècle: Christine de Stommeln), pp. 353-96. Extracts from Christina’s correspondence and life by Peter of Sweden are translated in Coulton,Med. Garn.pp. 402-21.
[1549]On these saintly and learned women see Eckenstein,op. cit.cc.IIIandIV, and Montalembert,The Monks of the West(introd. Gasquet), vol.IV, BookXV. The great fourteenth century mystic Julian of Norwich (1343-c. 1413) was, it is true, connected with Carrow Priory, but she was an anchoress and never a nun there; see above, p.366.
[1550]On these songs see A. Jeanroy,Les Origines de la Poésie Lyrique en France au moyen âge(2nd ed. 1904), pp. 189-92; and P. S. Allen inModern Philology,V(1908), pp. 432-5. The songs themselves have to be collected from various sources; see below,Note I.
[1551]Langland,Piers Plowman, ed. Skeat. C text, PassusX, 72-5.
[1552]There was (as usual) however, more chance for a man than for a woman of villein status to enter a monastery and even to rise to the highest ecclesiastical dignities. A villein who could save enough to pay a fine to his lord might put his son to school and might buy that son’s enfranchisement, so that he would be eligible for a place in a monastery. And though it was forbidden by canon and by temporal law to ordain a serf, once ordained he was free. Pollock and Maitland,Hist. of Engl. Law(1911),I, p. 429; the lower ranks of the clergy probably contained many men of low or villein birth (see e.g. Chaucer’s Poor Parson, whose brother was a ploughman and the complaint in “Pierce the Plouman’s Crede” that beggars’ brats become bishops). Sometimes, though very rarely, a villein rose high, for once he was a churchman, it wasla carrière ouverte aux talents: Bishop Grosseteste was of very humble, probably of servile, origin; and Sancho Panza’s motto will be remembered: “I am a man and I may be Pope.” For a woman, however, the Church offered no such chance of advancement through the religious orders; the nunneries were essentially upper and middle class institutions.
[1553]From a charming round, sung in Saintonge, Aunis and Bas-Poitou.
“Dans l’jardin de ma tantePlantons le romarin!Y’a-t-un oiseau qui chante,Plantons le romarin,Ma mie,Au milieu du jardin, etc.”
Bujeaud, J.,Chants et chansons populaires des provinces de l’ouest(1866),I, pp. 136-7.
[1554]M. Vattasso,Studi Medievali,I(1904), p. 124. A long poem of seven verses, much mutilated in parts.
[1555]Uhland,Alte hoch- und niederdeutsche Volkslieder(1844-5), t.II, p. 854 (No. 328). A slightly modernised version. Also printed inDes Knaben Wunderhorn, ed. von Arnim and Brentano (Reclam ed.), p. 25, and inDeutsches Leben im Volkslied um 1530, ed. Liliencron (1884), p. 226. Translation by Bithell,The Minnesingers,I(1909), p. 200, except the last two lines, which are by Mr Coulton; there is another in Coulton,Med. Garn.p. 476.
[1556]Ferrari,Canzone per andare in maschera per carnesciale, pp. 31-2. Referred to in Jeanroy,op. cit.I have been unable to consult the book.
[1557]Bartsch,Altfranzösische Romanzen und Pastourellen(1870), pp. 28-9 (No. 33).
[1558]Bartsch,op. cit.pp. 29-30 (No. 34).
[1559]Oeuvres Complètes d’Eustache Deschamps(Soc. des Anc. Textes Fr.),IV, pp. 235-6. (Virelay,DCCLII, sur une novice d’Avernay.)
[1560]Bladé, J. F.Poésies populaires de la Gascogne(1882),III, pp. 372-4. Also in Lénac-Moncaut,Littérature populaire de la Gascogne(1868), pp. 291-2.
[1561]Damase Arbaud,Chants Populaires de la Provence(1862-4),II, pp. 118-22.
[1562]See below, p.611.
[1563]The Court of Love in Chaucer’s Poetical Works, ed. R. Morris (1891),IV, pp. 38-40.
[1564]Lydgate’sTemple of Glas, ed. J. Schick (E.E.T.S. 1891), p. 8.
[1565]The Kingis Quair in Medieval Scottish Poetry, ed. G. Eyre-Todd (1892), p. 47.
[1566]Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaits, by Sir David Lyndesay, ed. Small, Hall and Murray (E.E.T.S., 2nd ed., 1883), p. 514.
“And seis thou now yone multitude, on raweStanding behynd yon trauerse of delyte?Sum bene of thayme that haldin were full laweAnd take by frendis, nothing thay to wyte,In youth from bye into the cloistre quite;And for that cause are cummyn, recounsilit,On thame to pleyne that so thame had begilit.”
[1567]An Alphabet of Tales, ed. M. M. Banks (E.E.T.S.). No.CCCCLXVIII, pp. 319-20. (In this and the following quotations from this work in this chapter I have modernised the spelling.) This version is translated from Caesarius of Heisterbach.Dial. Mirac., ed. Strange,II, pp. 42-3, which is the original version of all the widespread legends on this theme. From Caesarius it found its way into many other collections of miracles, in prose and in verse, in Latin, French, Spanish, German, Icelandic, Dutch and English. Perhaps the most beautiful is the Dutch poem (c. 1320) published by W. J. A. Jenckbloet,Beatriij(Amsterdam, 1846-59) and re-edited with a grammatical introduction and notes in English by A. J. Barnouw (Pub. of Philol. Soc.III, 1914). An edition with illustrations by Ch. Doudelet accompanied by a translation into French by H. de Marez was published in Antwerp (1901) and was also issued with an English translation by A. W. Sanders vaz Loo. The best English translations are those in prose by L. Simons and L. Housman inThe Pageant, ed. C. H. Shannon and J. W. Gleeson White (1896) pp. 95-116 and in verse by H. de Wolf Fuller (Harvard Coop. Soc., Cambridge, U.S.A. 1910). Modern writers have retold the tale almost as often as their medieval forebears; see for example Maeterlinck’s play,Sœur Béatrice, John Davidson’s poem,The Ballad of a Nun, one of Villier de l’Isle-Adam’sContes Cruels(Sœur Natalia), one of Charles Nodier’sContes de la Veillée(La Légende de Sœur Béatrice), and one of Gottfried Keller’sSieben Legenden(Die Jungfrau und die Nonne). For a study of the Beatrice story see Heinrich Watenphul,Die Geschichte der Marienlegende von Beatrix der Küsterin(Neuwied, 1904); also P. Toldo,Die Sakristanin(with bibliography by J. Bolte) inZeitschrift des Vereins für Volkskunde(1905), J. van der Elst,Bijdrage tot de Geschiedenis der Legende van BeatrijsinTijdschrift voor Nederlandsche Taal- en Letterkunde,XXXII, pp. 51 ff., and Mussafia,Studien zu den Mittelalterlichen Marienlegenden(Vienna, 1887),I, p. 73. See also A. Cotarelo y Valledor,Una Cantiga celebre del Rey Sabio, fuentes y desarollo de la leyenda de sor Beatriz, principalmente en la literatura española(1914). For other variants of theNonne Enlevéesee below,Note J.
[1568]Chambers and Sidgwick,Early English Lyrics(1907), No.XC, p. 163. But perhaps the most beautiful of medieval English poems which moralise on this theme is theLuue Ronwhich Thomas of Hales wrote in the thirteenth century for a nun:
“Hwer is Paris and HeleyneThat weren so bryght and feyre on bleo?Amadas, Tristram and Dideyne,Yseude and alle theo,Ector with his scharpe meyne,And Cesar riche of worldes feo?Heo beoth iglyden ut of the reyne,So the scheft is of the cleo,”
—they have passed away as a shaft from the bowstring. It is as if they had never lived. All their heat is turned to cold. (An Old English Miscellany, ed. R. Morris (E.E.T.S. 1872), p. 95.) This catalogue of the lovely dead was a favourite device, immortalised later by “ung povre petit escollier, qui fust nommé Francoys Villon” (who certainly was not a moralist) in hisBallade des Dames du Temps jadis.
[1569]For an entertaining and stimulating account of the popular cult of the Virgin see Henry Adams,Mont St Michel and Chartres(1913), especially chs.VIandXIII.
[1570]Modern poets who have written upon the same theme have drawn this moral more overtly than the medieval authors. Maeterlinck’s Virgin inSœur Béatricesings:
Il n’est péché qui viveQuand l’amour a prié;Il n’est âme qui meureQuand l’amour a pleuré....
Davidson’s sacristan (inA Ballad of a Nun) cries:
“I care not for my broken vow;Though God should come in thunder soon,I am sister to the mountains nowAnd sister to the sun and moon,”
and the Virgin, welcoming her back on her return, tells her:
“You are sister to the mountains now,And sister to the day and night;Sister to God.” And on her browShe kissed her thrice, and left her sight.
[1571]“Cum in hyemis intemperie post cenam noctu familia divitis ad focum, ut potentibus moris est, recensendis antiquis gestis operam daret.”Gesta Romanorum, ed. Oesterley (1872), ch.CLV.Quoted in Jusserand,Lit. Hist. of the Eng. People,I, p. 182.
[1572]One particular kind of story, thefabliau(defined by Bédier as “un conte à rire en vers”) was brought to great perfection by French jongleurs. See Montaiglon and Raynaud,Recueil général et complet des Fabliaux(Paris, 1872-90), 6 vols.; and Bédier,Les Fabliaux(Paris, 1873).
[1573]See Dante,Paradiso,XXIX, 11, for a violent attack on the practice. Compare the decree of the Council of Paris in 1528: “Quodsi secus fecerint, aut si populum more scurrarum vilissimorum, dum ridiculas et aniles fabulas recitant, ad risus cachinnationesque excitaverint, ... nos volumus tales tam ineptos et perniciosos concionatores ab officio praedicationis suspendi,” etc., quoted inExempla of Jacques de Vitry, ed. T. F. Crane (1890), Introd. p. lxix. The great preacher Jacques de Vitry himself, while advocating the use ofexempla, adds “infructuosas enim fabulas et curiosa poetarum carmina a sermonis nostris debemus relegare ... scurrilia tamen aut obscena verba vel turpis sermo ex ore predicatoris non procedant.”Ib.Introd., pp. xlii, xliii.
[1574]For instanceexemplawere much used by Jacques de Vitry (seeop. cit.). Etienne de Bourbon (seeAnecdotes Historiques, etc., d’Etienne de Bourbon, ed. A. Lecoy de la Marche (Soc. de l’Hist. de France)), and John Herolt. On the whole subject ofexemplasee the Introduction to T. F. Crane’s edition of theExempla of Jacques de Vitry, and the references given there.
[1575]The most famous is theGesta Romanorum.Gesta Romanorum, ed. Oesterley (Berlin, 1872); and seeThe Early English Version of the Gesta Romanorum, ed. S. J. H. Herrtage (E.E.T.S. 1879). The largest is theSumma Praedicantiumof John Bromyard, a fourteenth century English Dominican. See also an interesting fifteenth century English translation of a similar collection, theAlphabetum Narrationum(which used to be attributed to Etienne de Besançon),An Alphabet of Tales, ed. M. M. Banks (E.E.T.S. 1904-5); many of theexemplain this come from Caesarius of Heisterbach. Specimens ofexemplafrom these and other sources are collected in Wright’sLatin Stories(Percy Soc. 1842), and many tales from Caesarius of Heisterbach, Jacques de Vitry, Etienne de Bourbon, Thomas of Chantimpré, etc., are translated in Coulton,Med. Garn.
[1576]For instance Caesarius of Heisterbach,Dialogus Miraculorum, ed. Strange (1851); Thomas of Chantimpré (Cantimpratanus),Bonum Universale de Apibus(Douay, 1597); and the knight of la Tour Landry, who wrote a book of deportment for his daughters, copiously illustrated with stories.The Book of the Knight of la Tour Landry, ed. T. Wright (E.E.T.S. revised ed. 1906). For some account of Caesarius of Heisterbach’s stories, other than those quoted in the text, see belowNote K.
[1577]Collections of stories, such as those of theDecameron, theCent Nouvelles Nouvelles, theIl Pecoroneof Ser Giovanni, theNovelleof Bandello, theHeptameronof Margaret of Navarre, became very popular. But individual stories have also given plots to many great writers from the middle ages to the present day; it is only necessary to mention Chaucer, Shakespeare, Molière and La Fontaine, to illustrate the use which has been made of them.
[1578]For examples of medieval mission sermons, with their colloquialisms, interruptions from the audience and strings of stories, the reader cannot do better than turn to the sermons of Berthold of Regensburg (1220-72) and of St Bernardino of Siena (1380-1444). Specimens of these are translated in Coulton,Med. Garn.pp. 348-64, 604-19. See also for Berthold, Coulton,Medieval Studies, 1st series. No.II(“A Revivalist of Six Centuries Ago”) and for St Bernardino, Paul Thureau-Dangin,St Bernardine of Siena, trans. Baroness von Hügel (1906), and A. G. Ferrers Howell,St Bernardino of Siena(1913).
[1579]Chaucer,Cant. Tales, Wife of Bath’s Prol.ll. 556-8.
[1580]Translated from Jacques de Vitry (Exempla ..., ed. T. F. Crane, p. 22) inAn Alphabet of Tales(E.E.T.S.), p. 95 (No.CXXXVI). The story is a very old one, first found in theVitae Patrum,X, cap. 60. It is sometimes attributed to St Bridget of Ireland, but Etienne de Bourbon, who repeats the story twice, tells it of Richard King of England and “a certain nun” (Anec. Hist., etc., d’Etienne de Bourbon, ed. Lecoy de la Marche, Nos. 248 and 500); and other medieval versions make the persecuting lover “a king of England.” (See T. F. Crane,op. cit.p. 158.)
[1581]Exempla of Jacques de Vitry, No.LVIII, pp. 22-3. For other versions of this story, seeib.p. 159.
[1582]Caesarius of Heisterbach,Dial. Mirac.ed. Strange,I, p. 389. I have used the translation by Mr Coulton,Med. Garn.p. 124. The story is a variant of the theme of “the novice and the geese,” one of the most popular of medieval stories (see Coulton,ib.p. 426); for analogues, see A. C. Lee,The Decameron, its Sources and Analogues, pp. 110-16.
[1583]Robert of Brunne’sHandlyng Synne, ed. F. J. Furnivall (Roxburghe Club, 1862), pp. 50-52. (This is an amplified translation of William of Wadington’sLe Manuel des Pechiez.) See alsoExempla of Jacques de Vitry, No.CCLXXII, p. 113, which is translated inAn Alphabet of Tales(E.E.T.S.), p. 303.
[1584]Exempla of Jacques de Vitry, No.CXXX, p. 59. For other versions, seeib.p. 189. There is an English version inAn Alphabet of Tales(E.E.T.S.), p. 78 (No.CVIII).
[1585]Caesarius of Heisterbach,II.pp. 160-1. Compare the tale of Abbess Sophia whose small beer was miraculously turned into wine.Ib.p. 229.
[1586]Boccaccio,Decameron, 9th day, novel 2. But the story is older than Boccaccio, who constantly uses old tales. There is a French version by Jean de Condé: “Le Dit de la Nonnete” (Montaiglon et Raynaud,op. cit.t.VI, pp. 263-9). It was often afterwards copied in various forms in French, German and Italian jest- and story-books and there is an extremely gross dramatic version entitled “Farce Nouvelle a cinq personnages, c’est a sçavoir l’Abesse, sœur de Bon Cœur, seur Esplourée, seur Safrete et seur Fesne” in a collection of sixteenth century French farces (Rec. de farces, moralités et sermons joyeux, ed. Le Roux de Lincy et Francisque Michel, Paris, 1837, vol.II). It is also referred to inAlbion’s England:
It was at midnight when a Nonne, in trauell of a childe,Was checked of her fellow Nonnes, for being so defilde;The Lady Prioresse heard a stirre, and starting out of bed,Did taunt the Nouasse bitterly, who, lifting up her head,Said “Madame, mend your hood” (for why, so hastely she rose,That on her head, mistooke for hood, she donde a Channon’s hose).
For these and references to other analogues see A. C. Lee,The Decameron, its Sources and Analogues(1909), pp. 274-7. See also a curious folk-song version, below, p.611. La Fontaine founded his fable ofLe Psautieron Boccaccio’s version.
[1587]Boccaccio,Decameron(3rd day, novel 1). For analogues and imitations, see A. C. Lee,op. cit.pp. 59-62. The story is the source of La Fontaine’sMazet de Lamporechio. For other ribald stories about nuns seeNote J, below, p.624.
[1588]I have made no attempt to describe the many treatises in praise of virginity composed by the fathers of the church. These include works by Evagrius Ponticus, St Athanasius, Sulpicius Severus, St Jerome, St Augustine, St Caesarius of Arles and others. Among the most interesting is one of English origin, theDe Laudibus Virginitatisof Aldhelm († 709). For short analyses of these works, see A. A. Hentsch,De la Littérature Didactique du Moyen Age, s’adressant spécialement aux Femmes(Cahors, 1903),passim. From the eleventh century onwards several imitations of these treatises occur. A few of the more interesting will be noted later.
[1589]Uhland,Alte hoch und niederdeutsche Volkslieder(1845), II, pp. 857-62 (No. 331). The first verse may be quoted to give the style:
Es war ein jungfrau edelSi war gar wol getan,in ainen schonen paungartenwolt si spacieren gan,in ainen schonen paungartendurnach stuont ir gedank,nach pluomen mangerlaie,nach vogelein suessem gesank.
[1590]Uhland,op. cit.II, p. 852 (No. 326). See also Nos. 332 and 334.
[1591]An Old English Miscellany, ed. R. Morris [E.E.T.S. 1872], pp. 93-99.
[1592]Printed inThe Stacions of Rome, etc., ed. F. J. Furnivall (E.E.T.S. 1867), and again inMinor Poems of the Vernon MS., PartII, ed. F. J. Furnivall (E.E.T.S. 1901), No.XLII, pp. 464-8.
[1593]Hali Meidenhad, ed. O. Cockayne (E.E.T.S. 1866).
[1594]See on this point Taylor,The Medieval Mind(2nd ed. 1914),I, pp. 475 ff.
[1595]Hali Meidenhad, ed. O. Cockayne (E.E.T.S. 1866), p. 20.
[1596]Hali Meidenhad, ed. O. Cockayne (E.E.T.S. 1866), p. 22.
[1597]Ib.pp. 8, 30.
[1598]Ib.p. 36.
[1599]See e.g. p. 28. “Under a man’s protection thou shalt be sore vexed for his and the world’s love, which are both deceptive and must lie awake in many a care not only for thyself as God’s spouse must, but for many others and often as well for the detested as the dear; and be more worried than any drudge in the house, or any hired hind and take thine own share often with misery and bitterly purchase it. Little do blessed spouses of God know of thee here, that in so sweet ease without such trouble in spiritual grace and in rest of heart love the true love and in his only service lead their life.”
[1600]TheAncren Riwlewas translated and edited by J. Morton for the Camden Soc. (1853). I quote from the cheap and convenient reprint of the translation, with introduction by Gasquet, in The King’s Classics, 1907. For the most recent research as to the different versions, authorship, etc., see article by G. C. Macaulay, “TheAncren Riwle” inModern Language Review,IX(1914), pp. 63-78, 145-60, 324-31, 464-74, Father MacNabb’s articleib.XI(1916), and Miss Hope Emily Allen’s thesis,The Origin of the Ancren Riwle(Publications of the Mod. Lang. Assoc. of Amer.XXXIII, 3, Sept. 1918); see also her note inMod. Lang. Review(April 1919),XIV, pp. 209-10, and Mr Coulton’s review of her thesis,ib.(Jan. 1920),XV, p. 99; also Father MacNabb’s attack on her theory,ib.(Oct. 1920)XVand her reply,ib.Research is gradually pushing the date of the first English translation (if indeed it be not after all the original) further and further back.
[1601]Ancren Riwle(King’s Classics), p. 12.
[1602]Ancren Riwle, p. 259.
[1603]Pp. 164-5.
[1604]Pp. 294-6.
[1605]Pp. 313-4.
[1606]Pp. 317-8.
[1607]P. 68.
[1608]Pp. 319-20.
[1609]Pp. 316-19,passim.
[1610]P. 325-6.
[1611]The Myroure of Oure Ladye, ed. J. H. Blunt (E.E.T.S. 1873, 1898).
[1612]Op. cit.pp. 65-9,passim.
[1613]As for instance the various other books written or translated for the nuns of Syon (on which see Eckenstein,op. cit.pp. 394-5) and the mystical treatise “Ego dormio et cor meum vigilat,” which was written by Richard Rolle of Hampole for a nun of Yedingham. Rolle was kindly cherished by the nuns of Hampole, where he settled; they often sought his advice during his lifetime and after his death they tried to obtain his canonisation; an office for his festival was composed and a collection of his miracles made. (SeeCambridge Hist. of Engl. Lit.II, pp. 45, 48.) For similar treatises of foreign origin, see theOpusculumof Hermann der Lahme (1013-54), Francesco da Barbarino’sDel Reggimento e Costumi di Donne(which contains a section dealing with nuns), (c. 1307-15), Francisco Ximenes’Libre de les dones(† 1409) and John Gerson’s († 1429) letter to his sister. See Hentsch,op. cit.pp. 39, 114, 151, 152.
[1614]Printed from the Thornton MS. inReligious Pieces in Prose and Verse, ed. G. G. Perry (E.E.T.S. 1867, 1914), No.III, pp. 51-62. CompareBrit. Mus. MS.Add. 39843 (La Sainte Abbaye), some pictures from which are reproduced in this book.
[1615]Mechthild von Magdeburg,Offenbarungen, oder Das fliessende Licht der Gottheit, ed. Gall Morel (1869), pp. 249 ff.; see Eckenstein,op. cit.p. 339. The same idea is found in a little German Volkslied:
Wir wellen uns pawen ein heuseleinUnd unser sel ain klosterlein,Jesus Crist sol der maister sein,Maria jungfraw die schaffnerein.Götliche Forcht die pfortnerein,Götliche Lieb die kelnerein,Diemuetikait wont wol do peiWeisheit besleust daz laid all ein.
—Uhland,Alte hoch- und niederdeutsche Volkslieder,II, pp. 864-5.
[1616]English text in Furnivall,Early English Poems(Berlin, 1862), printed inTrans. of Philological Soc.1858, pt.II, pp. 156-61; and in Goldbeck and Mätzner,Altenglische Sprachproben(Berlin, 1867). pt.I, p. 147; W. Heuser,Die Kildare-Gedichte(Bonn, 1904), p. 145; and in a slightly modernised form in Ellis,Specimens of Early English Poets, 1801,I, pp. 83 ff., who took it from Hickes’Thesaurus, pt.I, p. 231. I have here used the modernised version for the sake of convenience. An attempt has been made to identify the religious houses mentioned in the poem with real monasteries in Kildare; the poem is certainly of Anglo-Irish origin and occurs in the famous “Kildare Manuscript” (MS. Harl. 913). See W. Heuser,op. cit.pp. 141-5. There is a French version in Barbazon et Méon,FabliauxIII, p. 175.
[1617]“It is not until French wit flashes across English seriousness that we travel to the Land of Cokaygne,” G. Hadow,Chaucer and His Times, p. 35. Stories of a food country are, however, common in medieval literature, being sometimes legends of a vanished golden age, as in the Irish “Vision of MacConglinne” (late twelfth century), and sometimes ideal pictures of a life of lazy luxury, as in the French and English Lands of Cokaygne and the German Schlaraffenland. On the whole subject, see Fr. Joh. Poeschel,Das Märchen von Schlaraffenland(Halle, 1878), and the introduction by W. Wollner toThe Vision of MacConglinne, ed. Kuno Meyer (1892).
[1618]Polit. Songs of England, ed. T. Wright (Camden Soc. 1839), pp. 137-48.
[1619]The idea of theOrdre de Bel-Eyseis probably taken from the twelfth century Anglo-Latin poem by Nigel Wireker entitledSpeculum Stultorum, which tells the story of the ass Burnellus, who goes out into the world to seek his fortune. At one point Burnellus decides to retire to a convent and passes the different orders under review, to see which will suit him. This gives the author an opportunity for some pointed satire, including a reference to nuns; “they never quarrel save for due cause, in due place, nor do they come to blows save for grave reasons”; their morals are very questionable, “Harum sunt quaedam steriles et quaedam parturientes, virgineoque tamen nomine cuncta tegunt. Quae pastoralis baculi dotatur honore, illa quidem melius fertiliusque parit. Vix etiam quaevis sterilis reperitur in illis, donec eis aetas talia posse negat.” Finally Burnellus decides to found a new order; from the Templars he will borrow their smoothly pacing horses, from the Cluniacs and the black Canons their custom of eating meat, from the order of Grandmont their gossip, from the Carthusians the habit of saying mass only once a month, from the Premonstratensians their warm and comfortable clothes, from the nuns their custom of going ungirdled; and in this order every brother shall have a female companion, as in the first order which was instituted in Paradise.Anglo-Latin Satirical Poets of the Twelfth Century, ed. T. Wright (Rolls Series, 1872),I, pp. 94-6.
[1620]With these two highly successfuljeux d’espritat the expense of monastic luxury may be compared a passage in the curious thirteenth century poem entitled “A Disputison bytwene a cristene mon and a Jew,” in which an incidental shaft is perhaps aimed at nunneries, which affected the habits of Cokaygne and Fair Ease.The Minor Poems of the Vernon MS., pt.II, ed. F. J. Furnivall (E.E.T.S. 1901), No.XLVI, p. 490.
[1621]See e.g. Rabelais,Gargantua, cap.LII(Comment Gargantua fit bastir pour le moine l’abbaye de Theleme).
[1622]Text inDits et Contes de Badouin de Condé et de son fils Jean de Condé, pub. par Aug. Scheler, Ac. Roy. de Belgique, Brussels, 1866-7,III, No.XXXVII, pp. 1-48. The portion of the poem containing the lawsuit is translated in part into modern French by Le Grand d’Aussy, inFabliaux et Contes, ed. Le Grand d’Aussy et Renouard, 1829,I, pp. 326-36.
[1623]A convenient collection of these is summarised in an excellent little book by Ch.-V. Langlois, entitledLa Vie en France au Moyen Age d’après quelques Moralistes du Temps(2me éd. 1911).
[1624]The text of bothLa Bible GuiotandLa Bible au Seigneur de Berzéis printed inFabliaux et Contes, ed. Barbazon-Méon, t.II(Paris, 1808), and both are fully analysed, with extracts in Langlois,op. cit.pp. 30-88. The text ofLa Bible Guiotis also printed in San Marte,Parcival Studien(Halle, 1861), with a translation into German verse.
[1625]Les Lamentations de Matheolus, pub. A. G. Van Hamel (Bib. de l’Ecole des Chartes, 1892, t.I, pp. 89-90). See also the analysis in Langlois,op. cit.pp. 223-75, especially p. 248.
[1626]Langlois,op. cit.pp. 248-9, Note 2.
[1627]Poésies de Gilles li Muisis, pub. Kervyn de Lettenhove (Louvain, 1882), t.I, pp. 209-36. The whole register is analysed in Langlois,op. cit.pp. 305-53.
[1628]See above, p.298.
[1629]SeeVox Clamantis, Lib.IV, ll. 578-676 inThe Complete Works of John Gower, ed. G. C. Macaulay,Latin Works(1902), pp. 181-5. The same subject is treated more shortly by Gower in hisMirour de l’Omne, ll. 9157-68. (Ib.French Works, p. 106.)
[1630]Compare the priestly logic of Alvar Pelayo who enumerates the abuse of the confessional among the habitual sins ofwomen!De Planctu Ecclesiae, Lib.II, Art. 45, n. 84. (See Lea,Hist. of Sacerdotal Celibacy,I, 435-6 for this and other medieval complaints of the corruption of nuns by their confessors.)
[1631]Text in Furnivall,Early Engl. Poems(Berlin, 1862), printed inTrans. of Philological Soc.1858, pt.II, pp. 138-48 (from Cotton MS. Vesp. D.IX, f. 179).
[1632]All the Familiar Colloquies of Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam, trans. N. Bailey (2nd ed. 1733), pp. 147-55.
[1633]“Nec omnes virgines sunt, mihi crede, quae velum habent.... Nisi fortasse elogium, quod nos hactenus judicavimus esse Virgini matri proprium, ad plures transiit, ut dicantur et a partu virgines ... quin insuper, nec alioqui inter illas virgines sunt omnia virginea ... quia plures inveniuntur, quae mores aemulentur Sapphus, quam quae referant ingenium.” Erasmus,Colloquia, accur. Corn. Schrevelio(Amsterdam, 1693), p. 196.
[1634]Op. cit.pp. 155-7.
[1635]This account of Katherine’s experiences, whether they were due (as the translator suggests) to “the crafty tricks of the monks, who terrify and frighten unexperienced minds into their cloysters by feigned apparitions and visions,” or (as was more probably Erasmus’ meaning) to the mere power of suggestion upon a hysterical girl, should be compared with the numerous accounts of such apparitions seen by novices or intending novices, which are to be found in lives of saints and in edifyingexempla. See the examples quoted from Caesarius of Heisterbach, below, pp.628sqq.
[1636]For the expenses incidental to taking the veil, see above, pp.19-20.
[1637]Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaits, in Sir David Lyndesay’sPoems, ed. Small, Hall and Murray (E.E.T.S. 2nd ed., 1883), pp. 421-3.
[1638]Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaits, in Sir David Lyndesay’sPoems, ed. Small, Hall and Murray (E.E.T.S. 2nd ed., 1883), p. 506.
[1639]Ib.p. 514.
[1640]Ib.p. 521.
[1641]Quoted from the ballad by Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe (“The Murder of Caerlaverock”) in McDowall, W.,Chronicles of Lincluden, p. 28.
[1642]Constans,Chrestomathie de l’Ancien Français(1890), pp. 178-9.
[1643]Malory,Morte Darthur, ed. Strachey (Globe ed., 1893), pp. 481-5.
[1644]See above, p.529.
[1645]SeeLe Livre du Dit de Poissy, ll. 220-698,passim, inOeuvres Poétiques de Christine de Pisan, ed. Maurice Roy (Soc. des Anc. Textes Fr. 1891), t.II, pp. 160-80. With this may be compared another, but much slighter “courtly” description of a nunnery, contained in theroman d’aventure,L’Escoufle, written at the close of the twelfth century. At the beginning of the poem the author describes the service of the mass in the Abbey of Montivilliers (see below, p.637), on the occasion of the departure of the Count of Montivilliers on a crusade; the Archbishop of Rouen and the Bishop of Lisieux took part in the service and a large concourse of lords and ladies was present. The author describes the singing of the service,
Li couvens avoit ja la messeCommencie et l’abbesseCommanda a ij damoiselesDes mix cantans et des plus belesLes cuer a tenir, por mix plaireEt por la feste grignor faire.
He describes the rich offerings made at the altar by the Count and the rest of the congregation; and the stately visit of farewell paid by them afterwards to the nuns in the chapter house, when the Count asked for their prayers and in return gave them an annual rent of 20 or 30 silver marks.L’Escoufle, ed. H. Michelant and P. Meyer (Soc. des Anc. Textes Fr. 1894), pp. 7-9,passim. The other notable twelfth century description of a nunnery (in Raoul de Cambrai) is very different. See above. pp.433-5.
[1646]Chaucer, Prologue toThe Canterbury Tales, ed. Skeat. ll. 118-64.
[1647]See Dugdale,Mon.I, pp. 442-5.
[1648]‘Pudding’ was a sausage.
[1649]Tyre was a favourite sweet wine in the middle ages; “if not of Syrian growth [it] was probably a Calabrian or Sicilian wine, manufactured from the species of grape calledtirio.”Early Eng. Meals and Manners, ed. Furnivall (E.E.T.S. 1868), p. 90.
[1650]Sowce (Lat.salsagium, verjuice) was a sort of pickle for hog’s flesh.Promptorium Parvulorum, ed. A. L. Mayhew (E.E.T.S. 1908), notes, p. 701. See the rather ominous verse in Tusser:
Thy measeled bacon, hog, sow, or thy bore,Shut up for to heale, for infecting thy store:Or kill it for bacon, or sowce it to sell,For Flemming, that loues it so deintily well.
Tusser,Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie(Eng. Dialect Soc. 1878), p. 52. The word is still in use in the north of England for a concoction of mincemeat, vegetables, cloves and vinegar and in ‘soused herrings’ i.e. herrings cooked in vinegar.
[1651]I.e. St Ethelburga, for whom the Abbey was founded by her brother Erconwald, Bishop of London, in 666.
[1652]Probablygris, i.e. a little pig. ComparePiers Plowman, Prol. l. 226:
Cokes and here knaues crieden, ‘hote pies, hote!Gode gris and gees gowe dyne, gowe!’
[1653]“White worts,” was a kind ofpotage(“potage is not so moche used in all Chrystendome as it is used in Englande. Potage is made of the licour in the whiche flesshe is sod in, with puttynge to, chopped herbes and Otmell and salte,”Early Eng. Meals and Manners, p. 97). This is a recipe forWhite Worts, written down, c. 1420: “Take of the erbys as thou dede forjouutesand sethe hem in water tyl they ben neyshe; thanne take hem up, an bryse hem fayre on a potte an ley hem with flowre of Rys; take mylke of almaundys and cast therto and hony, nowt to moche, that it be nowt to swete, an safron and salt; an serve it forth ynne, rygth for a good potage.” The herbs used forjouutesare “borage, violet, mallows, parsley, young worts, beet, avens, buglos and orach”; and it is recommended to use two or three marrow bones in making the broth.Two Fifteenth Century Cookery Books, ed. T. Austen (E.E.T.S. 1888), pp. 5, 6.
[1654]Frumenty or Furmety (Lat.frumentum, wheat) is wheat husked and boiled soft in water, then boiled in milk, sweetened and spiced. Here is a recipe for it from the same book as that for white worts: “Take whete and pyke it clene and do it in a morter, an caste a lytel water theron; an stampe with a pestel tyl it hole [hull, lose husks]; than fan owt the holys [hulls, husks], an put it in a potte, an let sethe tyl it breke; than set yt douun, an sone after set it ouer the fyre an stere it wyl; an whan thow hast sothyn it wyl, put therinne swete mylke, an sethe it yfere, an stere it wyl; and whan it is ynow, coloure it wyth safron, an salt it euene, and dresse it forth.”Op. cit.pp. 6-7. See the rhymed recipe in theLiber cure cocorum(c. 1460), ed. Morris (Phil. Soc. 1862), p. 7.
[1655]Crisps (Mod. Fr.crêpe) were fritters. Here is a recipe for them in a cookery book written c. 1450: “Take white of eyren [eggs], Milke, and fyne flowre, and bete hit togidre and drawe hit thorgh a streynour, so that hit be rennyng, and noght to stiff; and caste thereto sugar and salt. And then take a chaffur ful of fressh grece boyling; and then put thi honde in the batur and lete the bater ren thorgh thi fingers into the chaffur; And whan it is ren togidre in the chaffre, and is ynowe, take a skymour and take hit oute of the chaffur, and putte oute al the grece, And lete ren; and putte hit in a faire dissh and cast sugur thereon ynow and serue it forth.”Op. cit.p. 93.
[1656]Buns. Compare the instructions to the cellaress of Syon: “On water days [i.e. days when the sisters drank water instead of beer] sche schal ordeyne for bonnes or newe brede.” Aungier,Hist. and Antiq. of Syon Mon.p. 393.
[1657]Here is a recipe: “Risshewes.Take figges and grinde hem all rawe in a morter and cast a litull fraied oyle there-to; and then take hem vppe yn a versell, and caste thereto pynes, reysyns of corance, myced dates, sugur, Saffron, pouder ginger, and salt: And then make Cakes of floure, Sugur, salt and rolle the stuff in thi honde and couche it in the cakes, and folde hem togidur as risshewes, and fry hem in oyle, and serue hem forth.”Op. cit.p. 93. There are other recipes,ib.pp. 43, 45, 97. The word survives inrissole.
[1658]Reg. Epis. Peckham,II, p. 706.
[1659]Worc. Sede Vac. Reg.p. 276.
[1660]Dugdale,Mon.III, p. 366.
[1661]Linc. MS. Reg. Bokyngham Mem.f. 397d.
[1662]Linc. Visit.II, pp. 120-1.
[1663]Ib.I, p. 51.
[1664]V.C.H. Northants.II, p. 101.
[1665]See above, p.397.
[1666]Linc. Visit.II, p. 115.
[1667]Ib.p. 115.
[1668]Sussex Arch. Soc. Coll.IX, pp. 25-7.
[1669]Sussex Arch. Soc. Coll.V, p. 257.
[1670]Reg. J. de Pontissara,I, p. 125.
[1671]Linc. Visit.II, p. 51.
[1672]Linc. Reg. Memo. Bokyngham, f. 343. Compare Buckingham’s similar injunction to Heynings,ib.f. 397, Gynewell’s injunction to Elstow in 1359,ib.Reg. Gynewell, ff. 139d-140, Pontoise’s injunction to Wherwell in 1302,Reg. J. de Pontissara,I, p. 125, and Peckham’s injunction to the Holy Sepulchre, Canterbury, in 1284,Reg. Ep. Peckham.II, p. 706.
[1673]Liveing,op. cit.p. 104.
[1674]V.C.H. Yorks.III, p. 174.
[1675]V.C.H. Northants.II, p. 99.
[1676]Liveing,op. cit.p. 168.