APPENDIX I (continued 2)

These houses were all clearly extremely immoral, but there is evidence of less extreme trouble in other houses in the same diocese. At Arden Joan de Punchardon had become a mother in 1306 and Clarice de Speton confessed herself guilty with the bailiff of Bulmershire in 1311[1723]. At Thicket Alice Darel of Wheldrake was an apostate in 1303 and in 1334 Joan de Crackenholme was said to have left her house several times[1724]. At Wilberfoss Agnes de Lutton was in trouble in 1312[1725]. At Esholt Beatrice de Haukesward left the house pregnant in 1303[1726]. At Hampole Isabella Folifayt was guilty in 1324, and Alice de Reygate in 1358[1727]. At Nunappleton Maud of Ripon apostatised in 1309 and in 1346 Katherine de Hugate, a nun, went away pregnant and a lay sister was said to have been several times in the same condition[1728]. At St Stephen’s, Foukeholm, a nun Cecilia, who had run away with a chaplain, returned of her own accord in 1293 and another apostate, Elena de Angrom, returned in 1349[1729]. Agnes de Bedale, an apostate, was sent back in 1286; and in 1343 Margaret de Fenton, who left the house pregnant, had her penance mitigated “because she had only done so once,” a startling commentary on the state of the Yorkshire houses[1730]. At Rosedale an apostate Isabella Dayvill was sent back to do penance in 1321[1731]. Of Nunmonkton there is little record during the first half of the century, but it was in a bad state at the end[1732]; at Wykeham also there seems to have been no case of apostasy in the fourteenth century, but in the fifteenth century the Prioress Isabella Wykeham was removed for serious immorality in 1444 and in 1450 two nuns had gone on an unlicensed pilgrimage to Rome, which had led to one of them living with a married man in London[1733].

NOTE H.

THE DISAPPEARANCE OR SUPPRESSION OF EIGHT NUNNERIES PRIOR TO 1535.

It seems clear that even before the Dissolution proper decay was manifest in some of the smaller nunneries; numbers were dwindling and morals were not always beyond suspicion. At all events in the forty years before Henry VIII’s first act of dissolution, no less than eight nunneries[1734], all of which had at one time been reasonably flourishing, faded away or were dissolved. Something may, and indeed must, be allowed for the ulterior motives of those who desired the revenue of these houses; but it is impossible to suspect men like John Alcock, Bishop of Ely, John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, even Cardinal Wolsey, of being willing without any excuse to suppress helpless nunneries in order to endow their new collegiate foundations with the spoils. Some truth there must be in the allegations of ill behaviour brought against certain of these houses; and the reduction in numbers seems to point to a decay, more spontaneous than forced.

The first of the houses thus to be dissolved was St Radegund’s, Cambridge, the accounts of which we have so often quoted. In 1496 John Alcock, Bishop of Ely, visited the house and found but two sisters left there; and he thereupon obtained letters patent from Henry VII to convert the nunnery into a college, founded (like the nunnery) in honour of the Virgin, St John the Evangelist and St Radegund, but called henceforward Jesus College. Some light is thrown by these letters patent on the condition of the convent in 1496. It is therein stated that the king,

as well by the report of the Bishop as by public fame, that the priory ... together with all its lands, tenements, rents, possessions and buildings, and moreover the properties, goods, jewels and other ecclesiastical ornaments anciently of piety and charity given and granted to the same house or priory, by the neglect, improvidence, extravagance and incontinence of the prioresses and women of the said house, by reason of their proximity to the university of Cambridge, have been dilapidated, destroyed, wasted, alienated, diminished, and subtracted; in consequence of which the nuns are reduced to such want and poverty that they are unable to maintain and support divine services, hospitality and other such works of mercy and piety, as by the primary foundation and ordinance of their founders are required; that they are reduced in number to two only, of whom one is elsewhere professed, the other is of ill-fame, and that they can in no way provide for their own sustenance and relief, insomuch as they are fain to abandon their house and leave it in a manner desolate[1735].

The next nunneries to disappear were Bromhale in Windsor Forest and Lillechurch or Higham in Kent. Their dissolution was begun in 1521 and completed in 1524, when their possessions were granted to St John’s College, Cambridge, the foundation of which was then being carried out by John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, as executor of the Lady Margaret. Only three nuns were left in Bromhale and Wolsey directed the Bishop of Salisbury to “proceed against enormities, misgovernance and slanderous living, long time heretofore had, used and continued by the prioress and nuns”[1736]; but there is no further evidence as to the moral condition of the convent. The moral as well as the financial decay of Lillechurch is more certain, for the resignations of the three nuns who remained, together with the depositions of those who accused them of want of discipline, have survived. Their revenues were stated to be in great decay and divine service, hospitality and almsgiving had almost ceased. Moreover it was said that “the same priory was situated in a corner out of sight of the public and was much frequented by lewd persons, especially clerks, whereby the nuns there were notorious for the incontinence of their life,” two of them having borne children to one Edward Sterope, vicar of Higham. Some witnesses were heard as to one of them, including a nurse who had taken charge of her baby and a former servant of the nunnery, who had been sent by the bishop to investigate the matter. “He entered the cloister of the aforesaid priory, where he saw the lady sitting and weeping and said to her ‘Alas madam, howe happened this with you?’ and she answered him, ‘And [if] I had been happey [i.e. lucky] I myght a caused this thinge to have ben unknowen and hydden’”[1737].

The next nunneries to be suppressed were a group which went to enrich Cardinal Wolsey’s foundations. The Cardinal’s policy of dissolving small decayed houses in order to devote their revenues to collegiate foundations, especially to his new college at Oxford, was by no means generally approved and a passage in Skelton’s bitterly hostile Colin Clout refers particularly to the case of the nunneries:

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 the chansons de nonnes and on account of their persistence into modern times. The earliest examples (with the exception of the two old French poems quoted in the text) occur in German literature, always rich in folk song. With the song from the Limburg Chronicle and the Latin Plangit nonna fletibus should be compared the following amusing little poem:

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

A thirteenth century poem, hailing from Bavaria or Austria, strikes a more tragic note:

Alas for my young days, alas for my plaint. They would force me into a convent. Nevermore then shall I see the grass grow green and the green clover flowers, nevermore hear the little birds sing. Woe it is, and dead is my joy, for they would part me from my true love, and I die of sorrow. Alas, alas for my grief, which I must bear in secret! Sisters, dear sisters, must we be parted from the world? Deepest woe it is, since I may never wear the bridal wreath and must make moan for my sins, when I would fain be in the world and would fain wear a bright wreath upon my hair, instead of the veil that the nuns wear. Alas, alas for my grief, which I must bear in secret! I must take leave of the world, since the day of parting is come. I must look sourly upon all joy, upon dancing and leaping and good courage, birds singing and hawthorn blooming. If the little birds had my sorrow well might they sit silent in the woods and upon the green branches. Alas, alas for my grief, which I must bear in silence[1744].

A sixteenth century French song has something of the same serious tone, though it is more sophisticated and less poignant than the medieval German version:

One day after Compline she was sitting alone and lamenting her fate and she called on the Virgin to shorten her life, which she could endure no longer:

If I were married to my love, who has so desired me, whom I have so desired, all the night long he would hold me in his arms and would tell me all his thought and I would tell him mine. If I had believed my love and the sweet words he said to me, alack, alack, I should be wedded now. But since I must die in this place let me die soon. O poor heart, that must die a death so bitter! Fare you well, abbess of this convent, and all the nuns therein. Pray for me when I am dead, but never tell my thought to my true love. Fare you well, father and mother and all my kinsfolk; you made me a nun in this convent; in life I shall never have any joy; I live unhappy, in torment and in pain[1745].

Usually, however, the chanson de nonne is more frivolous than this and all ends happily. A well defined group contains songs in the form of a round with a refrain, meant to be sung during a dance[1746]. One of the prettiest has a refrain rejecting the life of a nun for the best of reasons:

Another (first found in a version belonging to the year 1602) has the dance-refrain:

and the words seem to trip of themselves:

Another song of the same date has the refrain:

and tells the same tale:

The passage of years never diminished the popularity of these gay little songs; age could not wither them, and when nineteenth century scholars began to collect the folk songs sung in the provinces of France, they found many chansons de nonnes still upon the lips of the people. In Poitou there is a round whose subject is still the old distaste of the girl for the convent:

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:

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”:

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?”:

“No, mother, to a convent I will not go; never will I leave the lad I love”; as she speaks her lover enters. “Fair one, will you keep your promise?” “I will keep all the promises I ever made to you, in my youth I will keep them; it is only my mother who does not wish it—but all the same, do not trouble yourself, for it shall be so. My father is very gentle when he sees me cry; I shall speak to him of love and I shall soon make him see that without any more delay I must have a lover”[1752]. In another of these dialogues the seventeen-year-old girl begs her mother to find her a husband. “You bold wicked girl,” says the mother:

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”:

Another group of songs (in narrative form and more banal than the rounds and dialogues) deals with the escape from the convent. Among folk-songs collected in Velay and Forez there is one in which the girl is shut in a nunnery, whence her lover rescues her by the device of dressing himself as a gardener and getting employment in the abbess’s garden[1754]; and another in which a soldier returns from the Flemish wars to find his mistress in a convent and takes her away with him in spite of the remonstrances of the abbess[1755]. In a version from Low Normandy (which probably goes back to the seventeenth century) the lover invokes the help of a chimney sweep, who goes to sweep the convent chimneys and pretends to be seized with a stomach-ache, so that the abbess hurries away for a medicine bottle and enables him to pass the young man’s letter to his mistress; on a second visit the sweep carries the girl out in his sack, under the very nose of the reverend mother[1756]. An Italian version is less artificial:

In this city there is a little maid, a little maid in love. They wish to chastise her until she loves no more. Says her father to her mother: “In what manner shall we chastise her? Let us array her in grey linen and put her into a nunnery.” In her chamber the fair maiden stood listening. “Ah, woe is me, for they would make me a nun!” Weeping she wrote a letter and when she had sealed it well, she gave it to her serving man, and bade him bear it to her lover. The gentle gallant read the letter and began to weep and sigh: “I had but one little love and now they would make her a nun!” He goes to the stable where his horses are and saddles the one he prizes most. “Arise, black steed, for thou art the strongest and fairest of all; for one short hour thou must fly like a swallow down by the sea.” The gentle gallant mounts his horse and spurs forward at a gallop. He arrives just as his fair one is entering the nunnery. “Hearken to me, mother abbess, I have one little word to say.” As he spake the word to the maiden, he slipped the ring on her finger. “Is there in this city no priest or no friar who will marry a maiden without her banns being called?” “Goodbye to you, Father, goodbye to you, Mother, goodbye to you all my kinsfolk. They thought to make me a nun, but with joy I am become a bride”[1757].

Another very ribald Italian folk-song of the fourteenth or fifteenth century is specially interesting because it is founded upon Boccaccio’s famous tale of the Abbess and the breeches. It is somewhat different from the usual nun-song; less plaintive and more indecent, as befits its origin in a conte gras; it is a fabliau rather than a song, but it is worth quoting:

One characteristic form of the nun-theme has already been referred to in the text: the dialogue between the clerk and the nun, in which one prays the other for love and is refused. A terse version in which the nun is temptress exists in Latin and evidently enjoyed a certain popularity:

Nonna. Te mihi meque tibi genus, aetas et decor aequa[n]t: Cur non ergo sumus sic in amore pares?

Clericus. Non hac ueste places aliis nec uestis ametur: Quae nigra sunt, fugio, candida semper amo.

N. Si sim ueste nigra, niueam tamen aspice carnem: Quae nigra sunt, fugias, candida crura petas.

C. Nupsisti Christo, quem non offendere fas est: Hoc uelum sponsam te notat esse Dei.

N. Deponam uelum, deponam cetera quaeque: Ibit et ad lectum nuda puella tuum.

C. Si uelo careas, tamen altera non potes esse: Vestibus ablatis non mea culpa minor.

N. Culpa quidem, sed culpa leuis tamen ipsa fatetur Hoc fore peccatum, sed ueniale tamen.

C. Uxorem uiolare uiri graue crimen habetur, Sed grauius sponsam te uiolare Dei.

N. Cum non sit rectum uicini frangere lectum Plus reor esse reum zelotypare Deum[1759].

In the Cambridge Manuscript there is a famous dialogue, half-Latin and half-German, in which a clerk prays a nun to love him in springtime, while the birds sing in the trees, but she replies: “What care I for the nightingale? I am Christ’s maid and his betrothed.” Almost the whole of the dialogue, in spite of the nun’s irreproachable attitude, has been deleted with black ink by the monks of St Augustine’s, Canterbury, who were accustomed thus to censor matter which they considered unedifying; but modern scholars have been at infinite pains to reconstruct it[1760].

It is rare to find in popular songs the idea of the convent as a refuge for maidens crossed in love; but some pretty poems have this theme. In a sixteenth century song a girl prefers a convent, if she cannot have the man she loves best, but she wishes her lover could be with her there:

Somewhat similar is the song (first printed in 1640) of the fifteen year-old girl married to a husband of sixty:

A round, with the refrain

goes with a delightful swing:

In another song, with the refrain

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”:

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:

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:

Folk-songs, like flowers, spring up—or perhaps are transplanted—in the same form in different lands and under different skies; they laugh at political divisions and are a living monument to the solidarity of Europe. Thus a song taken down from the lips of a Piedmontese contadina in the nineteenth century is almost exactly the same as the sixteenth century French poem just quoted, even to such details as the olive and the fowler:

Another version, still sung in many parts of France, is called The Ferry Woman. In this a girl ferrying a gentleman from court across a stream, promises him her love in return for two thousand pounds, but bids him wait till they land and can climb to the top room of a house. But when the gallant leaps ashore she pushes off her boat, taking the money with her and crying: “Galant, j’t’ai passé la rivière:

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:

Again in Le Canard Blanc occur the question and answer:

One very curious song deserves quotation, a Florentine carnival song of the time of Lorenzo the Magnificent, written by one Guglielmo called Il Giuggiola. It retails the woes of some poor “Lacresine” or “Lanclesine” who have come to Rome on a pilgrimage and been robbed of all their money on the way, and the ingenious suggestion has been made that “Lacresine” is a corruption of “Anglesine” and that the song is supposed to be sung by English nuns; certainly it is in broken Italian, such as foreigners would use:

“Pity and charity for poor English ladies, who have spent and used up all their money on the road. From the land of low Germany, where we have had great difficulties, all we poor sisters are on our way to Rome, but because it has rained so hard, we have not been able to continue our road. Therefore, good sirs, give alms to us poor English ladies. In the district of Milan ill-used were we, for thieves and strangers stole all our goods; so buffetted were we, never again will we go on such a journey. Therefore, good sirs, give alms to us poor English ladies. Poor Anastasia was so knocked about, that in shame she hides her ill and must needs continue her road limping. Therefore, good sirs, give alms to us poor English ladies. Whoever is a devotee of St Pancras, who is so powerful in heaven, whoever wishes to have his grace, let him give us money, so that we poor miserable creatures may get to our journey’s end; therefore, good sirs, give alms to us poor English ladies.”

Sometimes the nun is found playing a part in the romantic ballad-literature of Europe. A Rhineland legend of the dance of death, interesting because it embodies the names and dates of the actors, has for its setting a convent; it is thus summarised by Countess Martinengo-Cesaresco[1773]:

In the fourteenth century Freiherr von Metternich placed his daughter Ida in a convent on the island of Oberwörth, in order to separate her from her lover, one Gerbert, to whom she was secretly betrothed. A year later the maiden lay sick in the nunnery, attended by an aged lay sister. “Alas!” she said “I die unwed though a betrothed wife.” “Heaven forfend!” cried her companion, “then you would be doomed to dance the death-dance.” The old sister went on to explain that betrothed maidens who die without having either married or taken religious vows, are condemned to dance on a grassless spot in the middle of the island, there being but one chance of escape, the coming of a lover, no matter whether the original betrothed or another, with whom the whole party dances round and round till he dies; then the youngest of the ghosts makes him her own and may henceforth rest in her grave. The old nun’s gossip does not delay the hapless Ida’s departure, and Gerbert, who hears of her illness on the shores of the Boden See, arrives at Coblenz only to have tidings of her death. He rows over to Oberwörth; it is midnight in midwinter. Under the moonlight dance the unwed brides, veiled and in flowing robes; Gerbert thinks he sees Ida among them. He joins the dance; fast and furious it becomes, to the sound of a wild unearthly music. At last the clock strikes and the ghosts vanish—only one, as it goes, seems to stoop and kiss the youth, who sinks to the ground. There the gardener finds him on the morrow, and in spite of all the care bestowed upon him by the sisterhood, he dies before sundown.

Another German ballad, taken down from oral recitation, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, opens with a good swing:

“I stood upon a high mountain and looked out over the Rhine, and I saw three knights come sailing in a little boat. The youngest was a lord’s son, and fain would have wed me, young as he was. He drew a little golden ring from off his finger, “Take this, my fair, my lovely one, but do not wear it till I am dead.” “What shall I do with the little ring, if I may not wear it?” “O say you found it out in the green grass.” “O that would be a lie and evil. Far sooner would I say that the young lord was my husband.” “O maiden, were you but wealthy, came you but of noble kin, were we but equals, gladly would I wed you.” “Though I may not be rich yet am I not without honour, and my honour I will keep, until one who is my equal comes for me.” “But if your equal never comes, what then?” “Then I will go into a convent and become a nun.” There had not gone by a quarter of a year when the lord had an evil dream; it seemed to him that the love of his heart was gone into a convent. “Rise up, rise up, my trusty man, saddle horses for thee and me. We will ride over mountains and through valleys—the maid is worth all the world.” And when they came to the convent, they knocked at the door of the tall house, “Come forth, my fair, my lovely one, come forth for but a minute.” “Wherefore should I come forth? Short hair have I, my locks they have cut off—for a long year has passed.” Despair filled the lord’s heart; he sank upon a stone and wept glittering tears and could never be glad again. With her snow-white little hands she dug the lord a grave and the tears fell for him out of her brown eyes. And to all young men this happens who seek after great wealth. They set their love upon beautiful women; but beauty and riches go not always hand in hand”[1774].

It is a strange thing that in all the ballad and folk-song literature of England and Scotland there should be one and only one reference to a nun. But that reference is a profoundly interesting one, for it is to be found in the fine ballad of the Death of Robin Hood, which tells how the great outlaw came to his end through the treachery of the Prioress of Kirklees:

Then Robin, locked in the room and too weak to escape by the casement, blew three weak blasts upon his horn, and Little John came hurrying to Kirklees and burst open two or three locks and so found his dying master. “A boon, a boon!” cried Little John:

So died bold Robin Hood. The English boy nurtured on his country’s ballads, has little cause to love the memory of the nun.

NOTE J.

THE THEME OF THE NUN IN LOVE IN MEDIEVAL POPULAR LITERATURE.

It may be of interest to note some further examples of the nun in love as a theme for medieval tales, and in particular: (1) other versions of the eloping nun theme, (2) the story of the abbess who was with child and was delivered by the Virgin, and (3) some other contes gras.

(1) Various versions of the eloping nun tale enjoyed popularity, though never as great popularity as was enjoyed by the story of Beatrice the Sacristan. An old French version in the form of a miracle play tells of a knight, who loved a nun and persuaded her to leave her convent with him; but she saluted the Virgin’s image in passing and twice the image descended from its pedestal and barred her way when she tried to pass the door, until at last she ran by without saluting it and escaped with her lover. They married and had two children and lived happily together for several years. Then one day Our Lady came down from heaven to seek her faithless friend. She bade the nun return and the husband, hearing this, was moved in his heart and said “since for love of me thou didst leave thy convent, for love of thee I will leave the world and become a monk.” Thus they departed together and their babies were left to cry for mother and father in vain[1776].

In another story the nun, trying to insert the key of the convent into the lock and make her escape, was prevented by some invisible object, which formed a barrier between her and the lock; she beat and pushed in vain and at last turned to go, and saw in her path, the Virgin with white hands bleeding. “Behold,” said the Virgin, “it was I who withstood thee and see what thou hast done to me”[1777]. In another a nun, the sacristan of a convent, was tempted by a clerk and agreed to meet him after Compline. But when she was trying to pass through the door of the chapel, she saw Christ standing in the arch, with hands outspread, as though upon the cross. She ran to another doorway and to another and to another, but in each she found the crucifix. Then, coming to herself, she recognised her sin and flung herself before an image of the Virgin to ask pardon. The image turned away its face; then, as the trembling nun redoubled her entreaties, stretched out its arm and dealt her a buffet saying: “Foolish one, whither wouldst thou go? return to thy dorter.” And so powerful was the Virgin’s blow that the nun was knocked down thereby and lay unconscious upon the floor of the chapel until morning[1778]. In another version the nun falls asleep on the night upon which the elopement is fixed and has a vivid dream of the pains of hell, from which she is rescued by the Virgin, who exhorts her to chastity, so that she awakes and sends away her lover’s messenger[1779]. In another the Virgin’s image prevents the nun from going through one door, but she escapes by another and is seduced[1780]. A more rational version makes the nun strike her head so violently against the lintel of the door, by which she is trying to escape, that she is rendered unconscious and when she recovers her senses the temptation has gone from her and she returns to her bed[1781]. In another the nun packs her clothes into two bundles and passes them out of the window to her lover, climbing out after them herself; but thieves intercept her and her bundles and carry them off into a wood. The unhappy nun calls upon the Virgin for help and forthwith falls into a deep sleep, from which she awakes to find herself back in her dorter, with the bundles beside her[1782]. A rather different tale of the nun turned courtesan makes her return after many years to her convent, where by meditating upon the childhood of Christ she is reconverted[1783].

(2) Another theme, which is almost as widespread as that of the eloping nun, is that known as l’abbesse grosse. In this an abbess, who was famed for the strict discipline which she kept among her nuns, fell in love with her clerk and became his mistress, so that she soon knew herself to be with child:

Then it happened that she waxed great and drew near her time and her sisters the nuns perceived, and were passing fain thereof, because she was so strait unto them, that they might have a cause to accuse her in. And her accusers gart write unto the bishop and let him wit thereof and desired him to come unto their place and see her. So he granted and the day of him coming drew near. And this abbess, that was great with child, made mickle sorrow and wist never what she might do; and she had a privy chapel within her chamber, where she was wont daily as devoutly as she couth [knew how] to say Our Lady’s matins. And she went in there and sparred the door unto her and fell devoutly on knees before the image of Our Lady and made her prayer unto her and wept sore for her sin and besought Our Lady for to help her and save her, that she were not shamed when the bishop came. So in her prayers she happened to fall on sleep, and Our Lady, as her thought, appeared unto her with two angels, and comforted her and said unto her in this manner of wise: “I have heard thy prayer and I have gotten of my son forgiveness of thy sin and deliverance of thy confusion.” And anon she was delivered of her child and Our Lady charged these two angels to have it unto an hermit and charged him to bring it up unto it was seven years old; and they did as she commanded them; and anon Our Lady vanished away. And then this abbess wakened and felt herself delivered of her child and whole and sound.

In the sequel the bishop came to the house and could find no sign that the abbess was with child and was about to punish her accusers, when she told him the whole tale. He sent messengers to the hermit and there the child was found; and (in fairy tale phrase, for what are these but religious fairy tales), they all lived happy ever afterwards[1784].

(3) Ribald stories on the same theme are, naturally enough, common in medieval literature, which never spared the Church. A few of the more interesting may here be added to those quoted or referred to in the text. The Cento Novelle Antiche contains a curious tale of a Countess and her maidens, who, having disgraced themselves with a porter, retired to hide their shame in a nunnery; the story continues thus:

They became nuns and built a convent that is called the Convent of Rimini. The fame of this convent spread and it became very wealthy. And this story is narrated as true, viz. they had a custom that when any cavaliers passed by that had rich armour the abbess and her attendants met them on the threshold and served them with all sorts of good fare and accompanied them to table and to bed. In the morning they provided them with water for washing and then gave them a needle and thread of silk for them to thread and if they could not accomplish this in three tries, she took from them all their armour and accoutrement and sent them away empty, but if they succeeded she allowed them to retain their possessions and gave them presents of jewellery, etc.[1785]

Francesco da Barberino in his book of deportment, Del reggimento e costumi di donne, has a tale of a convent in Spain, which Satan receives permission to tempt; accordingly his emissary Rasis sends into the house three young men, disguised as nuns, to whom all the nuns and the Abbess in turn succumb[1786]. In one Italian version of an extremely widespread theme, found among the Novelle of Masuccio Guardata da Salerno (1442-1501), a Dominican friar deceives a devout and high-born nun. The story is thus summarised by A. C. Lee:

In one of her books of devotion were some pictures of saints, amongst others the third person of the Trinity; from the mouth of this figure he makes proceed the words in letters of gold, “Barbara, you will conceive of a holy man and give birth to the fifth evangelist.” He acts as the holy man and on the lady becoming enceinte he deserts her[1787].

Among medieval French stories may be mentioned those which occur in Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles, a fifteenth century collection of tales, probably written by Antoine de la Sale in imitation of the Cento Novelle. No. XV, concerning the relations between two neighbouring houses of monks and nuns respectively, is too gross to be summarised; No. XXI is the story of the sick abbess, who was recommended by her physician to take a lover and out of respect for her all her nuns did the same; No. XLVI is one of the many tales of a Jacobin friar, who haunted a convent and obtained the favours of a nun[1788]. These are really prose fabliaux; and verse fabliaux on this theme are not wanting, for example Watriquet Brassenal’s story of The Three Canonesses of Cologne[1789] and the most indecent fabliau of The Three Ladies[1790]. There is a rather delightful and merry little German poem called Daz Maere von dem Sperwaere, which is a version of the popular French fabliau of The Crane[1791]. In this thirteenth century poem a little nun, who has never seen the world, looks over her convent wall and sees a knight with a sparrow hawk; she begs for it and he says he will sell it her for “love,” a thing of which she has never heard. He teaches her what it is and gives her the sparrow hawk. But the nun, her schoolmistress, is so angry with her, that she watches on the wall again and next time the knight passes, she makes him give her back her “love” and take the sparrow hawk again[1792].

English versions of these tales are extremely rare; for the English were always less adroit than the French and the Italians in the matter of contes gras. The nun theme occasionally appears, however, in the sixteenth century; Boccaccio’s “breeches” story is in Thomas Twyne’s The Schoolmaster (1576)[1793] and the behaviour of nuns and “friars” at Swineshead Abbey forms a comic interlude in The Troublesome Raigne of King John (1591), which was one of the sources used by Shakespeare in his more famous play. In Scene X of the old play Philip Falconbridge comes to Swineshead, with his soldiers, and bids a friar show him where the abbot’s treasure is hid. They break open a chest and a nun is discovered inside it. The friar cries:

Philip remarks:

The nun begs for the life of the first friar and offers in exchange to show Philip a chest containing the hoard of an ancient nun. They pick the lock and discover a friar within. The first friar cries:

Philip’s comment is pertinent:

Eventually, Friar Laurence buys his freedom for a hundred pounds[1794].

In conclusion may be mentioned the entertaining little English fabliau, which was at one time attributed to Lydgate, called The Tale of the Lady Prioress and her three Suitors; this is not a conte gras, but recounts the adroit expedient, by which a prioress succeeded in ridding herself of her three wooers, a knight, a parson and a merchant[1795].

NOTE K.

NUNS IN THE DIALOGUS MIRACULORUM OF CAESARIUS OF HEISTERBACH.

The Dialogus Miraculorum, written between 1220 and 1235 by Caesarius, Prior and Teacher of the Novices in the Cistercian Abbey of Heisterbach in the Siebengebirge, is one of the most entertaining books of the middle ages[1796]. Caesarius in a prologue describes how it came to be written and the plan upon which it is arranged, taking as his text a quotation from John vi. 12: “Gather up the fragments lest they perish”:

Since I was wont to recite to the novices, as in duty bound, some of the miracles which have taken place in our time and daily are taking place in our order, several of them besought me most instantly to perpetuate the same in writing. For they said that it would be an irreparable disaster if these things should perish from forgetfulness which might be an edification to posterity. And since I was all unready to do so, now for lack of the Latin tongue, now by reason of the detraction of envious men, there came at length the command of my own abbot, to say naught of the advice of the abbot of Marienstatt, which it is not lawful for me to disobey. Mindful also of the aforesaid saying of the Saviour, while others break up whole loaves for the crowd (that is to say, expound difficult questions of the Scriptures or write the more signal deeds of modern days) I, collecting the falling crumbs, from lack not of good will but of scholarship, have filled with them twelve baskets. For I have divided the whole book into as many divisions. The first division tells of conversion, the second of contrition, the third of confession, the fourth of temptation, the fifth of demons, the sixth of the power of simplicity, the seventh of the blessed Virgin Mary, the eighth of divers visions, the ninth of the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, the tenth of miracles, the eleventh of the dying, the twelfth of the pains and glories of the dead. Moreover in order that I might the more easily arrange the examples, I have introduced two persons in the manner of a dialogue, to wit a novice asking questions and a monk replying to them.... I have also inserted many things which took place outside the [Cistercian] order, because they were edifying, and like the rest had been told to me by religious men. God is my witness that I have not invented a single chapter in this dialogue. If anything therein perchance fell about otherwise than I have written it, the fault should rather be imputed to those who told it to me[1797].

It will be seen from this sketch that the book is really a collection of stories grouped round certain subjects which they are intended to illustrate and connected by a slender thread of dialogue. Such collections of exempla are nearly always valuable, but the work of Caesarius is particularly so, because he does not confine himself to “stock” stories, but relates many with details of time and place, drawn from his own experience and from that of his friends. The book is full of local colour and gives an exceedingly vivid picture of lay and ecclesiastical life in medieval Germany. For our purpose it is interesting because it contains many exempla concerning nuns, and any reader attracted by this particular class of didactic literature may be glad to add some more stories to those quoted in the text.

Caesarius has much to say of the devil, a very visible and audible and tangible devil and one who can be smelt with the nose. His tales of devil-haunted nuns display a side of convent life about which English records are in the main silent; but that they represent with fair accuracy the sufferings of some half-hysterical, half-mystical women cannot be doubted by anyone familiar with the lives of medieval saints and mystics, such as Mary of Oignies, Christina of Stommeln and Lydwine of Schiedam. He tells in his section on “Confession” of a nun Alice or Aleidis, who had led an ill life in the world, but had repented her when her lover, a priest, hanged himself, and had taken the veil at Langwaden in the diocese of Cologne:

Once when she was standing in the dorter and looking out of the window, she beheld a young man, nay rather a devil in the form of a young man, standing hard by a well, which was near the wall of the dorter; who in her sight set one foot upon the wooden frame which surrounded the well, and as it were flying with the other, conveyed himself to her in the window, and tried to seize her head with his extended hand; but she fell back stricken with terror and almost in a faint, and cried out and hearing her call, her sisters ran to her and placed her upon her bed. And when they had gone away again and she had recovered her breath and lay alone, the demon was once more with her, and began to tempt her with words of love, but she denied him, understanding him to be an evil spirit. Then he answered “Good Aleidis, do not say so, but consent to me, and I will cause you to have a husband, honest, worthy, noble and rich. Why do you torture yourself with hunger in this poor place, killing yourself before your time by vigils and many other discomforts? Return to the world and use those delights which God created for man; you shall want for nothing under my guidance.” Then said she, “I grieve that I followed thee for so long; begone for I will not yield to thee.”

Then the foul fiend blew with his nostrils and spattered her with a foul black pitch and vanished. Neither the sign of the cross, nor sprinkling with holy water, nor censing with incense prevailed against this particular demon; he would retreat for a time and return again as soon as Aleidis ceased to employ these weapons against him. She was in despair, when one day

One of the sisters, of maturer years and wisdom than the others, persuaded her when the demon tried to approach her to hurl the angelic salutation[1798] in a loud voice in his face; and when she had done so the devil, as though struck by a dart or driven by a whirlwind, fled away and from that hour never dared to approach her.

Another time the same Aleidis went to confession, hoping thus to rid herself forever of her tormentor:

And behold as she was hastening along the road, the devil stood in her path and said: “Aleidis, whither away so fast?” And she replied: “I go to confound myself and thee.” Then said the devil: “Nay, Aleidis, do not so! Turn again!” And she replied: “Oft hast thou put me to confusion, now will I confound thee. I will not turn back.” And when he could turn her back neither by blandishments nor by threats, he followed her to the place of confession flying in the air above her in the form of a kite; and as soon as she bent her knee before the Prior and opened her lips in confession, he vanished, crying and howling and was never seen or heard by her from that hour. Behold here ye have a manifest example of what virtue lieth in a pure confession. These things were told to me by the lord Hermann, Abbot of Marienstatt[1799].

In his section “De Daemonibus” Caesarius has a yet more startling collection of stories about devils. The trials of sister Euphemia are described as having been related to him by the nun herself, at the instance of her abbess:

When the aforesaid nun was a little maid in her father’s house, the devil ofttimes appeared to her visibly in divers shapes, and in divers ways affrighted and saddened her tender age. And since she feared to be driven mad she expressed her wish to be converted[1800] into our order. One night the devil appeared to her in the form of a man and tried to dissuade her, saying: “Euphemia, do not be converted, but take a young and handsome husband and with him thou shalt taste the joys of the world. Thou shalt not want for rich garments and delicate meats. But if thou enter the order, thou wilt be forever poor and ragged, thou wilt suffer cold and thirst, nor will it ever be well with thee henceforth in this world.” To which she replied: “How would it be with me if I should die amidst those delights, which thou dost promise me?” To these words the devil made no reply, but seizing the maid and carrying her to the window of the chamber wherein she was lying, he sought to throw her out. And when she said the angelic salutation the enemy let her go, saying, “If thou goest to the cloister, I will ever oppose thee. For hadst thou not in that hour called upon that woman I should have slain thee.” And having spoken thus, squeezing her tightly, he sprang out of the window in the shape of a great dog and was seen no more. Thus was the virgin delivered by invoking the Virgin Mother of God. How harassing the devil is to those who have been converted and in how many and divers ways he vexes and hinders them, the following account shall show. When the aforesaid maiden had been made a nun, one night as she lay in her bed and was wakeful, she saw around her many demons in the form of men. And one of them of an aspect most foul was standing at her head, two at her feet and the fourth opposite her. And he cried in a loud voice to the others: “Why are you standing still? Take her wholly up as she lies and come.” And they replied: “We cannot. She has called upon that woman.”... Now the same demon, after she had said the angelic salutation, seized the maiden by her right arm, and squeezed her so tightly as he dragged at it, that his grasp was followed by a swelling and the swelling by a bruise. Now when she had her left hand free, she in her great simplicity dared not make the sign of the cross therewith, deeming that a sign with the left hand would avail her nought. But now, driven by necessity, she signed herself with that hand, and put the demons to flight. Delivered from them she ran half fainting to the bed of a certain sister, and, breaking silence, told her what she had seen and suffered. Then, as I was informed by the lady Elizabeth of blessed memory, abbess of the same convent, the sisters laid her in her bed, and reading over her the beginning of the Gospel of St John, found her restored on the morrow. Now in the following year, in the dead of night when the same nun was lying awake on her couch, she saw at a distance the demons in the shape of two of the sisters who were most dear to her; and they said to her: “Sister Euphemia, arise, come with us to the cellar to draw beer for the convent.” But she suspecting them, both on account of the lateness of the hour and of their breach of silence, began to tremble, and, burying her head in the bedclothes, replied nothing. Straightway one of the malignant spirits drew near and laying hold of her breast with his hand, squeezed it until the blood burst forth from her mouth and nose. Then the demons, taking the shape of dogs, leaped out of the window. When the sisters, rising for matins, beheld her worn out, as it were pale and bloodless, they inquired of her the reason by signs; and when they had learned it from her, they were much perturbed, both on account of the cruelty of the demons and of the distress of the virgin. Two years before this, when a new dorter had been made for the convent and the beds had been placed therein, the same nun saw a demon in the shape of a deformed and very aged mannikin, going round the whole dorter and touching each of the beds, as though to say: “I will take careful note of each place, for they shall not be without a visit from me”[1801].

The abbey of Hoven, which sheltered Euphemia, seems to have been subjected to a continual siege by devils; or perhaps, as the more materially-minded might suggest, Euphemia’s malady was contagious. Sister Elizabeth of the same house had a short way with such gentry:

“In the same monastery,” says Caesarius, “was a nun named Elizabeth, who was oftentimes haunted by the devil. One day she saw him in the dorter, and since she knew him, she boxed his ears. Then said he: ‘Wherefore dost thou strike me so hardly?’ and she replied: ‘Because thou dost often disturb me,’ to which the devil replied: ‘Yesterday I disturbed thy sister the chantress far more, but she did not hit me.’ Now she had been much agitated all day, from which it may be gathered that anger, rancour, impatience, and other vices of the sort are often sent by the devil. On another occasion when the same Elizabeth, very late for matins (owing, as afterwards appeared, to the machinations of the devil), was hurrying along to the belfry, bearing a lighted candle in her hand, just as she was about to enter the door of the chapel, she saw the devil in the shape of a man, dressed in a hooded tunic, standing in front of her. Thinking that some man had got in, she recoiled in alarm and fell down the dorter stairs, so that for some days she lay ill of the sudden fright as well as of the fall.... And when she was asked the cause of her fall and her scream and had expounded this vision, she added: ‘If I had known that it was the devil and not a man, I would have given him a good cuff.’ By that time, however, she had girded her loins with strength and strengthened her arm against the devil”[1802].

Not all the visions seen by these nuns of whom Caesarius writes were evil visions. He has several tales to tell of appearances of the Virgin Mary and of the saints. Besides the well-known story of Sister Beatrice and of the nun whose ears were boxed by the Virgin, the most charming Mary-miracle related by Caesarius tells of a nun who genuflected with such fervour to the blessed Mother that she strained her leg; and as she lay asleep in the infirmary, she saw before her the Virgin, bearing a pyx of ointment in her hand; and the Virgin anointed her knee with it, till the sweet odour brought the sisters running to find out the cause; but the nun held her peace and bade them leave her. Sleeping again, she found herself once more in the company of the Virgin, who led her into the orchard, and

placing her hand beneath the nun’s chin, said to her, “Now do thou kneel down upon thy knee”; and when she had done so our Lady added: “Henceforth do thou bow thy knee thus, modestly and in a disciplined manner,” showing her how. And she added: “Every day thou shouldst say to me the sequence ‘Ave Dei Genitrix,’ and at each verse thou shouldst bow thy knee. For I take great delight therein.” And the nun, waking, looked upon her knee, to see whether aught had been accomplished in the vision, and in great surprise she saw that it was whole[1803].

Another pretty story tells how, when a certain sister was reading her psalter before a wooden statue of the Virgin and child, “the little boy suddenly came to her and as though he would know what she was reading, peeped into her book and went back again”[1804].

Sometimes it is not the Virgin or her Son but a patron saint who appears to a nun who holds him in veneration. Caesarius tells the following tale of a nun who specially venerated St John the Baptist:

More than all the saints she took delight in him. Nor did it suffice her to think upon him, to honour him with prayers and devotions, to declare his prerogatives to her sisters, but in order to perpetuate his memory she made verses concerning his annunciation and nativity and the joy of his parents. For she was learned and sought therefore to describe in verse anything which she had read concerning his sanctity. Moreover she exhorted and besought all secular persons with whom she spoke to call their children John or Zacharias, if they were boys, Elizabeth if they were girls. Now when she was about to die John a monk of the Cloister came to visit her, and knowing her affection towards St John, said: “My aunt, when you are dead, which mass would you have me say first for your soul, the mass for the dead or of St John the Baptist?” To which she without any hesitation replied: “Of St John, of St John!” And when she was at the point of death, having compassion upon the sister who was tending her, she said: “Go upstairs, sister, and rest for a little.” When the sister had done so and was resting in a light sleep, she heard in her slumber a voice saying, “Why liest thou here? St John the Baptist is below with Sister Hildegunde”—for that was her name. Roused by this voice the sister, not waiting to put on her clothes, came down in her shift and found the nun already dead; and round her was so sweet a perfume that the sister doubted not that St John had been there, to accompany the soul of his beloved to the angelic host[1805].

Some of Caesarius’ anecdotes show an amusing rivalry, if not among the company of heaven, at least among their votaries on earth. Two delightful stories may be quoted to show how deep-rooted is the competitive instinct, which, baulked in one direction by the prohibition of property, showed itself in hot disputes as to the rival merits of patron saints:

There were and I think still are, in Fraulautern in the diocese of Trèves, two nuns, of whom one took special delight in St John the Baptist and the other in St John the Evangelist. Whenever they met, they contended together concerning which was the greater, so that the mistress was scarce able to restrain them. The one declared the privileges of her beloved in the presence of all, the other set up against them the very real prerogatives of hers.

One night, however, before matins St John the Baptist appeared to his worshipper in her sleep and set forth a list of the virtues of the other St John, declaring that the latter was far greater than he, and bidding her the next morning call her sister before the mistress and seek her pardon for having so often annoyed her because of him. That morning after matins, however, St John the Evangelist also visited his champion in her sleep and after retailing all St John the Baptist’s claims to superiority, assured her that the latter was far greater and gave her a similar order to ask pardon of her sister:

“On the morrow,” says Caesarius, “they came separately to the mistress and revealed what they had seen. Then together prostrating themselves and asking pardon of each other as they had been bidden, they were reconciled by the mediation of their spiritual mother, who warned them that henceforth they should not contend about the merits of the saints, which are known to God alone”[1806].

In spite of this excellent moral, however, Caesarius has very clear ideas himself as to the respective merits of certain saints; and, if we are to believe him, even St John the Evangelist was sometimes guilty of a scandalous neglect of duty:

“It is not long ago,” says he, “that a certain nun of the monastery of Rheindorf near Bonn, by name Elizabeth, went the way of all flesh. Now this monastery is of the rule of St Benedict the Abbot. But the said Elizabeth delighted specially in St John the Evangelist, lavishing on him all the honour she could. She had a sister in the flesh in the same monastery, who was called Aleidis. One night when the latter was sitting upon her bed after matins and saying the office of the dead for the soul of her sister, she heard a voice near her. And when she demanded who was there, the voice replied, ‘I am Elizabeth, thy sister.’ Then said she, ‘How is it with thee, sister, and whence comest thou?’ and it answered, ‘Ill indeed has it been with me, but now it is well.’ Aleidis asked, ‘Did St John in whom thou didst so ardently delight avail thee aught?’—and it replied, ‘Truly, naught. It was our holy father Benedict who stood by me. For he bent his knee on my behalf before God’”[1807].

St John the Evangelist, it will be perceived, suffered from the incalculable disadvantage of never having thought of founding a monastic order.

Caesarius narrates a great many other exempla concerning nuns, but I have quoted the most characteristic. There never was a book so full of meat; and it is greatly to be regretted that no translation has as yet placed it within the reach of all who are interested, not only in medieval life but in the medieval point of view[1808].