Chapter XIII · (continued 2)

After further reflections in this strain, he bursts into a long panegyric of virginity and then passes on to attack the manners of the friars.

Far more interesting than Gower’s conventional moralising is a poem entitled Why I can’t be a Nun, and written early in the fifteenth century[1631]. The favourite device of a ghostly abbey, peopled by personified qualities, is here employed, but the inmates of the convent are chiefly vices and such virtues as have a place among the nuns are treated with scant respect by their companions. The poem is unfortunately incomplete and begins abruptly in the middle of a sentence, but the gist of the missing introduction is clear enough. The author represents herself as a young girl named Katherine, whose desire to become a professed nun has been opposed by her father. The father charges a number of messengers to visit all the nunneries of England and the poem opens with the departure of these messengers, full of zeal to accomplish their task, and their return with the news that the nuns were ready to do his will. Whereupon her father told Katherine that she could not be a nun, and merely laughing at her protests, went his way. Then she mourned and was sad and thought that fortune was against her; and one May morning, when her sorrow was more than she could bear, she walked in a fair garden, where she was wont to go daily to watch the flowers and the birds with their bright feathers, singing and making merry on the green bough; and going into an arbour, she set herself upon her knees and prayed to God to help her in her distress.

At last she fell asleep in the garden and in her sleep a fair lady came to her and called her by her name and bade her awake and be comforted. This lady was called Experience and told Katherine that she had come to take pity on her and teach her, saying:

Then they went through a green meadow till they came to a beautiful building and entered boldly by the gates; and it was a house of nuns, “of dyuers orderys bothe old and yong,” but not well governed, after the rule of sober living, for self-will reigned there and caused discord and debate:

Then follows an enumeration of the inmates of the convent:

There was also another lady, Dame Disobedience, and says Katherine:

Of all the faults that Experience showed me, this lack of obedience grieved me most, so that I might no longer abide for shame, for I saw that they had obedience in no reverence and that few or none took heed of her; and I sped at great speed out of the gates, to escape from that convent so full of sin.

Then Katherine and the Lady Experience sat down upon the grass, where they could behold the place, and they began to talk:

There Experience departed and Katherine awakened from her dream, determined never to be a nun, unless the faults that she had seen were amended.

Then follows a long exhortation to the nuns. They are adjured (by the well-worn example of Dinah) not to wander from their convents, and are reminded that the habit does not make the nun:

The poem ends as abruptly as it began with a catalogue of holy women, whose lives are worthy of imitation, St Clare, St Edith, St Scolastica and St Bridget, “that weren professed in nunnes habyte,” and a bevy of English saints, St Audrey, St Frideswide, St Withburg, St Mildred, St Sexburg and St Ermenild. Whether or not the author really was a woman, the poem seems to show some knowledge of monastic life; and a certain sincerity and rugged directness render it more impressive than Gower’s long-winded accusations.

There remain to be considered two satires which were written on the very eve of the Reformation and perhaps have a particular significance by reason of the cataclysm, which was so soon to effect what all the denunciations of the moralists had failed to do. These are the dialogues on “The Virgin averse to Matrimony” and “The Penitent Virgin” in Erasmus’ Colloquies (c. 1526) and a morality (which has already been mentioned) by the Scottish poet Sir David Lyndesay, entitled Ane Pleasant Satyre of the Thrie Estaits, in commendatioun of vertew and vituperatioun of vyce (c. 1535). Erasmus’ dialogues are (as might be expected) strongly anti-monastic and the two which concern nuns are intended to attack those “kidnappers” as he calls them:

that by their allurements draw young men and maids into monasteries, contrary to the minds of their parents, making a handle either of their simplicity or superstition, persuading them there is no hope of salvation out of a monastery.

The dialogue entitled “The Virgin averse to Matrimony”[1632] takes place between Eubulus and a seventeen-year old girl, Katherine, who like that other Katherine, the heroine of Why I can’t be a Nun, has set her heart upon entering a convent, but has encountered the opposition of her parents:

“What was it,” asks Eubulus, “that gave the first rise to this fatal resolution?” “Formerly,” replies Katherine, “when I was a little girl, they carried me into one of these cloisters of virgins, carried me all about it and shewed me the whole college. I was mightily taken with the virgins, they looked so charmingly pretty, just like angels; the chapels were so neat and smelt so sweet, the gardens looked so delicately well-ordered, that, in short, which way soever I turned my eye everything seemed delightful. And then I had the prettiest discourse with the nuns; and I found two or three that had been my play-fellows when I was a child and I have a strange passion for that sort of life ever since.”

Eubulus argues with the girl. She can live as purely in her father’s house as in a nunnery; more purely indeed—and he makes a grave indictment against the morality of nuns[1633]. Moreover she has no right to run contrary to the wishes of her parents and to exchange their authority for that of a fictitious father and a strange mother:

“The matter in question here,” he says, “is only the changing of a habit or of such a course of life, which in itself is neither good nor evil. And now consider but this one thing, how many valuable privileges you lose together with your liberty. Now, if you have a mind to read, pray or sing, you may go into your own chamber as much and as often as you please. When you have enough of retirement you may go to church, hear anthems, prayers and sermons and if you see any matron or virgin remarkable for piety, in whose company you may get good, if you see any man that is endowed with singular probity from whom you may learn what will make for your bettering, you may have their conversation; and you may choose that preacher that preaches Christ most purely. When once you come into a cloister all these things, which are the greatest assistance in the promotion of true piety, you lose at once.” “But,” says Katherine, “in the meantime I shall not be a nun.” “What signifies the name?” replies Eubulus. “Consider the thing itself. They make their boast of obedience and will you not be praiseworthy in being obedient to your parents, your bishop and your pastor, whom God has commanded you to obey? Do you profess poverty? And may not you too, when all is in your parents’ hands? Although the virgins of former times were in an especial manner commended by holy men for their liberality towards the poor; but they could never have given anything if they had possessed nothing. Nor will your charity be ever the less for living with your parents. And what is there more in a convent than these? A veil, a linen shift turned into a stole, and certain ceremonies, which of themselves signify nothing to the advancement of piety and make nobody more acceptable in the eyes of Christ, who only regards the purity of the mind.” “Are you then against the main institution of a monastic life?” asks Katherine. “By no means,” answers Eubulus. “But as I will not persuade anybody against it that is already engaged in this sort of life to endeavour to get out of it, so I would most undoubtedly caution all young women, especially those of generous tempers, not to precipitate themselves unadvisedly into that state from whence there is no getting out afterwards. And the rather because their charity is more in danger in a cloister than out of it; and beside that, you may do whatever is done there as well at home.”

But Katherine remains unpersuaded.

In the next dialogue, called “The Penitent Virgin”[1634] Eubulus and Katherine meet again, and Katherine informs her friend how she has entered the nunnery, but has repented and gone home to her parents before being fully professed:

“How did you get your parents’ consent at last?” asks Eubulus. “First by the restless solicitations of the monks and nuns and then by my own importunities and tears, my mother was at length brought over; but my father stood out stiffly still. But at last being plyed by several engines, he was prevailed upon to yield; but yet, rather like one that was forced than that consented. The matter was concluded in their cups, and they preached damnation to him, if he refused to let Christ have his spouse.... I was kept close at home for three days; but in the mean time there were always with me some women of the college that they call convertites, mightily encouraging me to persist in my holy resolution and watching me narrowly, lest any of my friends or kindred should come at me and make me alter my mind. In the meanwhile my habit was making ready, and the provision for the feast.” “Did not your mind misgive you yet?” asks Eubolus. “No, not at all; and yet I was so horridly frightened that I had rather die ten times over than suffer the same again.... I had a most dreadful apparition.” “Perhaps,” remarks Eubulus slyly, “it was your evil genius that pushed you on to this.” “I am fully persuaded it was an evil spirit,” replies Katherine. “Tell me what shape it was in? Was it such as we use to paint with a crooked beak, long horns, harpies claws and swinging tail?” “You can make game of it,” says poor Katherine, “but I had rather sink into the earth than see such another.” “And were your women solicitresses with you then?” “No, nor I would not so much as open my lips of it to them, though they sifted me most particularly about it, when they found me almost dead with the surprise.” “Shall I tell you what it was?” says Eubulus. “These women had certainly bewitched you, or conjured your brain out of your head rather[1635]. But did you persist in your resolution for all this?” “Yes, for they told me that many were thus troubled upon their first consecrating themselves to Christ; but if they got the better of the Devil that bout, he’d let them alone for ever after.” “Well, what pomp were you carried out with?” “They put on all my finery, let down my hair and dressed me just as if it had been for my wedding.... I was carried from my father’s house to the college by broad daylight and a world of people staring at me.” “O these Scaramouches,” interrupts Eubulus, “how they know how to wheedle the poor people!”

Katherine then tells him that she remained only twelve days in the nunnery, and after six changed her mind and besought her father and mother to take her away, which they eventually did. But what she saw that made her recant she refuses to tell Eubulus, though he announces himself well able to guess what it was. The dialogue ends on a significant note, “In the meanwhile you have been at a great charge.” “Above four hundred crowns.” “O these guttling nuptials!”[1636]

The racy dialogues of Erasmus illustrate the characteristic hostility of the new learning towards contemporary monastic orders, and embody the main charges which were customarily made against them, viz. the undue pressure brought to bear upon young people to take vows for which they were not necessarily suited, the avarice of the convents and the immorality of their inmates. Sir David Lyndesay’s Satyre of the Thrie Estaits dwells more specifically upon the latter accusation. In this lively castigation of the vices of the day, which was acted for nine hours before the court of King James V of Scotland at Cupar in 1535, Chastity comes upon the stage, lamenting that she has long been banished, unheeded and unfriended and that neither the temporal estate, nor the spiritual estate nor the Princes will befriend her. Diligence bids her seek refuge among the nuns, who are sworn to observe chastity, pointing to a Prioress of renown, sitting among the other spiritual lords. “I grant,” says Chastity,

But the Prioress has given her allegiance to the notorious Lady Sensuality, who, serving Queen Venus, has corrupted the court of King Humanity and especially his clergy. “Pass hynd, Madame,” she says,

Chastity then applies in vain to the Lords of Spirituality for shelter; an abbot jeers at her and a parson bids her

to which Chastity replies:

At the end of the play the evil counsellors of King Humanity and corruptors of his Estates are punished by Sir Commonweal, with the assistance of Good Counsel and Correction. Correction, with his Scribe, examines the spiritual lords as to how they keep their vows, and thus interrogates the Prioress:

and the Prioress replies:

The punishment of Flattery the Friar, the Prioress and the other prelates follows; and the Sergeants proceed to divest her of her habit, gaily adjuring her:

Cum on, my Ladie Priores. We sall leir ȝow to dance— And that within ane lytill space— Ane new pavin of France (Heir sall thay spuilȝe the Priores; and scho sall haue ane kirtill of silk under hir habite.) Now, brother, be the Masse! Be my iudgement, I think This halie Priores Is turnit in ane cowclink[1639]. [courtesan

The Prioress then makes a lament, which has already been quoted, blaming her friends for making her a nun, and declaring that nuns are not necessary to Christ’s congregation and would be better advised to marry. Finally the Acts of Parliament of King Correction and King Humanity, for the better regulation of the realm, are proclaimed; and these include a condemnation of nunneries:

The date when these words were first proclaimed from a stage is significant; it was 1535, the year of the visitation of the monasteries in England. The confiscation of those rents was soon to be an accomplished fact; but it was a king rather than a commonweal that reaped the benefit.

There remains for consideration only one other class of literature which speaks of the nun. It is interesting to see the part which she plays in literature proper, outside popular songs and stories, or popular and didactic works written for purposes of edification. Considering the important part played by monastic institutions in the life of the upper classes it is perhaps surprising that the part played by the nun in secular literature is so small. But the explanation lies in the definitely romantic basis of the greater part of such literature, combined with the fact that it was aristocratic in origin and therefore inherited a respect for the nunneries, which prevented a romantic treatment of the nun, such as is found in the chansons de nonnes. Even so it is to be remarked that the treatment is romantic with a difference; the nun is willingly professed, pious, aloof, but it is because death or misfortune has put an end to lovers’ joys; the type of nun who appears in this literature has retreated to a convent at the close of a life spent in the world. If the nun unwillingly professed has always been a favourite theme, so also has the broken-hearted wife or lover, hiding her sorrows in the silent cloister; from the twelfth to the nineteenth century she remains unchanging, from Belle Doette and Guinevere to the Lady Kirkpatrick:

The anonymous twelfth century romance of Belle Doette contains some charming verses, describing her grief at her husband’s death and her determination to enter a cloister:

To English readers the supreme representative of this type must always be Malory’s Guinevere:

And when queen Guenever understood that king Arthur was slain, and all the noble knights, Sir Mordred and all the remnant, then the queen stole away and five ladies with her, and so she went to Almesbury, and there she let make herself a nun, and wore white clothes and black, and great penance she took, as ever did sinful lady in this land, and never creature could make her merry, but lived in fasting, prayers and alms-deeds, that all manner of people marvelled how virtuously she was changed. Now leave we queen Guenever in Almesbury a nun in white clothes and black, and there she was abbess and ruler as reason would.

There follows that incomparable chapter of parting, when Launcelot seeks his queen in her nunnery:

and then was queen Guenever ware of Sir Launcelot as he walked in the cloister, and when she saw him there she swooned thrice, that all the ladies and gentlewomen had work enough to hold the queen up. So when she might speak, she called ladies and gentlewomen to her, and said, Ye marvel, fair ladies, why I make this fare. Truly, she said, it is for the sight of yonder knight that yonder standeth: wherefore, I pray you all, call him to me. When Sir Launcelot was brought to her, then she said to all the ladies, Through this man and me hath all this war been wrought, and the death of the most noblest knights of the world; for through our love that we have loved together is my noble lord slain. Therefore, Sir Launcelot, wit thou well I am set in such a plight to get my soul’s health; and yet I trust, through God’s grace, that after my death to have a sight of the blessed face of Christ and at doomsday to sit at his right side, for as sinful as ever I was are saints in heaven. Therefore, Sir Launcelot, I require thee and beseech thee heartily, for all the love that ever was betwixt us, that thou never see me more in the visage; and I command thee on God’s behalf that thou forsake my company and to thy kingdom thou turn again and keep well thy realm from war and wrack. For as well as I have loved thee, mine heart will not serve me to see thee; for through thee and me is the flower of kings and knights destroyed.

And so on, through the last parting, and the last kiss refused, and the lamentation “as they had been stung with spears,” through the six long years of fasting and penance, till the day when Guinevere died and a vision bade Launcelot seek her corpse.

And when Sir Launcelot was come to Almesbury, within the nunnery, queen Guenever died but half an hour before. And the ladies told Sir Launcelot that queen Guenever told them all, or she passed, that Sir Launcelot had been priest near a twelvemonth—And hither he cometh as fast as he may to fetch my corpse; and beside my lord king Arthur he shall bury me. Wherefore the queen said in hearing of them all, I beseech Almighty God that I may never have power to see Sir Launcelot with my worldly eyes. And thus, said all the ladies, was ever her prayer these two days, till she was dead[1643].

This is a different romance from that of the gay chansons de nonnes, but it is romance all the same. There is little in common between Queen Guinevere and the lady who was loved and rescued by a king in the Ancren Riwle[1644].

One of the last—as it is one of the most graceful—pieces of courtly literature concerned with a convent is the delightful Livre du dit de Poissy, in which the French poetess Christine de Pisan tells of a journey, which she took in 1400, to visit her daughter, a nun at the famous convent of Poissy. This Dominican abbey, founded in 1304, was exceedingly rich and the special favourite of the kings of France, for it had been put under the protection of St Louis. The number of nuns, originally fixed at a hundred and twenty, soon rose to two hundred, and the aristocratic character of the house was very marked, for its inmates had to be of noble birth and to receive a special authorisation from the king before they could be admitted. At the time of Christine de Pisan’s visit Marie de Bourbon, aunt of Charles VI, was prioress, and the convent also contained the nine year old Marie de France, his daughter (who took the veil at the age of five) and her cousin Catherine d’Harcourt. There were no nunneries so large and so rich in England at this late date; but Christine’s description may serve to suggest what great houses like Shaftesbury and Romsey must have been like in the earlier days of their prime. Her account of the convent, with its fine buildings and gardens, its church, its rich lands and its gracious and dignified way of life forms a useful counterpoise to the bald and unidealised picture presented by the comperta of visitations; for assuredly truth lies somewhere between the comperta, which deal solely with faults, and the poem, which deals solely with virtues.

Christine describes the brilliant cavalcade of lords and ladies riding in the spring morning through beautiful scenery, enlivening their journey with laughter and song and talk of love, until they came to the great abbey of Poissy. She describes their reception by the Prioress Marie de Bourbon and by the king’s little daughter “joenne et tendre”:

The Prioress’ lodging was evidently such as befitted a royal princess, even though she were a humble nun. Christine describes the manner of life of the nuns, how no man might enter the precincts to serve or see them, save a relative, and how they never left the convent and seldom saw strangers from the world:

Christine then tells how the Prioress invited the party to “desjuner” and how in a fair room they were served with rich wines and meats, in vessels of gold, and were waited upon by the nuns. Then the nuns led them through the buildings and grounds of the convent, showing them all the beauties of this “paradise terestre.” She gives an extremely minute and interesting picture of Poissy as it was in 1400, the vaulted cloister with its carven pillars, surrounding a square lawn with a tall pine in the middle; the spacious frater, with glass windows; the fine chapter house; the stream of fresh water carried in pipes through all the different buildings; the great storehouses, cellars, ovens and other offices; the large, airy dorter; and finally the magnificent church, with its tall pillars and vaulted roof, its hangings, images, paintings and ornaments of glittering gold. She tells of the services held there, when the nuns knelt within a screen in the nave and the townsfolk and visitors and priests outside it. She gives a detailed account of the clothes worn by the nuns; a woman she, and not to be content with Malory’s simple “white clothes and black.” Finally she describes the wide gardens and woods of the convent, surrounded by a high wall and full of fruit-trees and birds and deer and coneys, with two fishponds, well-stocked with fish. In the exploration of these delights the day passed quickly. The gay party retired at nightfall to a neighbouring inn and early the next day paid a farewell visit to the hospitable nuns, who gave them gifts of belts and purses embroidered by themselves:

Then lords and ladies took horse again and, debating of love, rode back to Paris[1645].

Against this courtly idyll of monastic life one more picture of a nun must be set as complement and as contrast. It is deservedly well known; but no study of the nun in medieval literature would be complete without quoting in full Chaucer’s description of Madame Eglentyne, a masterpiece of humorous observation, sympathetic without being idealised, gently sarcastic without being bitter. It is a fitting note on which to close this book: