Chapter XXXV: Appendix: I (2)

At Rosedale, where in 1306 the nuns had been warned not to quarrel, it was enacted nine years later that

any nun disobedient or rebellious in receiving correction was for each
offence to receive a discipline from the president in chapter and say
the seven penitential psalms with the litany, and if still rebellious
the archbishop would impose a still more severe penance[1674].

It is to be feared that these quarrels sometimes got to blows. Besides the notorious instances of Margaret Wavere and Katherine Wells, the excommunication of three nuns of St Michael's, Stamford, for laying violent hands upon a novice may be quoted[1675]. Of another kind were the assaults of a certain nun of Romsey, who was excommunicated for attacking a vicar in church[1676], and of a Prioress of Rowney. It appears from the court rolls of Munden Furnivall (1370) that the latter "had been guilty of a hand to hand scuffle with a chaplain, called Alexander of Great Munden; each was fined for drawing blood from the other and the lady also for raising the hue and cry unjustly"[1677]. In both cases the nun was blamed, but it is perhaps permissible to quote in this connection an anecdote told by Thomas of Chantimpre:

When I was in Brussels, the great city of Brabant, there came to me a
maiden of lowly birth, but comely, who besought me with many tears to
have mercy upon her. When therefore I had bidden her tell me what
ailed her, then she cried out amidst her sobs: "Alas, wretched that I
am! for a certain priest would fain have ravished me by force, and he
began to kiss me against my will; wherefore I smote him with the back
of my hand, so that his nose bled; and for this, as the clergy now
tell me, I must needs go to Rome." Then I, scarce withholding my
laughter, yet speaking as in all seriousness, affrighted her as though
she had committed a grievous sin; and at length, having made her swear
that she would fulfil my bidding, I said, "I command thee, in virtue
of thy solemn oath, that if this priest or any other shall attempt to
do thee violence with kisses or embraces, then thou shalt smite him
sore with thy clenched fist, even to the striking out, if possible, of
his eye; and in this matter thou shalt spare no order of men, for it
is as lawful for thee to strike in defence of thy chastity, as to
fight for thy life." With which words I moved all that stood by, and
the maiden herself, to vehement laughter and gladness[1678].

The list of faults given in the "Additions to the Rules" of Syon Abbey, contains several references to ill temper, though such references are, to be sure, no more proof that the faults were committed than are the model forms of self-examination ("Have I committed murder?") sometimes given to-day to children in preparation for the Communion service. Among "greuous defautes" are mentioned, "if any suster say any wordes of despyte, reprefe, schame or vylony to any suster or brother," "if any sowe dyscorde amonge the sustres and brethren," "if any be founde a preuy rouner or bakbyter." Among "more greuous defautes" are:

if any whan thei fal chydyng or stryuyng togyder, if the souereyne or
priores, or any serche say thus--"_Sit nomen domini benedictum_" wyl
not cese, knokkyng themselfe upon their brestes, answerynge and saynge
mekely, and withe a softe spyryte "_Mea culpa_" ... and so utterly
cese, if any manesche by chere or wordes to smyte another at any tyme,
or for to auenge her own injurye, or els by ungodly wordes repreve
another of her contre, or kynrede, or of any other sclaunderous
fortune, or chaunse fallen at any tyme.

Among "most greuous defautes" are:

If any ley vyolente hande upon her souereyne or spituosly smyte or
wounde her or elles make any profer to smyte be sygne or token
leftying up her fest, stykke, staffe, stone, or any other wepen what
ever it be, or else schofte, pusche, or sperne any suster from her
withe armes or scholders, handes or fete, violently, in wrekyng of her
oun wrethe[1679].

NOTE D.

GAY CLOTHES.

A council at London in 1200 had restrained the black nuns from wearing coloured headdresses[1680] but the standard English decree on the subject was that issued by the council of Oxford in 1222.

Since it is necessary that the female sex, so weak against the wiles
of the ancient enemy, should be fortified by many remedies, we decree
that nuns and other women dedicated to divine worship shall not wear a
silken wimple, nor dare to carry silver or golden tiring-pins in their
veil. Neither shall they, nor monks nor regular canons, wear belts of
silk, or adorned with gold or silver, nor henceforth use burnet or any
other unlawful cloth. Also let them measure their gown according to
the dimension of their body, so that it does not exceed the length of
the body, but let it suffice them to be clad, as beseems them, in a
robe reaching to the ankles; and let none but a consecrated nun wear a
ring and let her be content with one alone[1681].

Fifteen years later a synod declared:

Item, we forbid to monks, regular canons and nuns coloured garments or
bed clothes, save those dyed black. And when they ride, let them use
decent saddles and bridles and saddle-cloths[1682]. And nuns are not
to use trained and pleated dresses, or any exceeding the length of
the body, nor delicate or coloured furs; nor shall they presume to
wear silver tiring-pins in their veil[1683].

These regulations were repeated almost word for word by William of Wykeham in his injunctions to Romsey and Wherwell in 1387[1684]. With them may be compared the rule as to dress in force at Syon Abbey in the fifteenth century:

whiche (clothes) in nowyse schal be ouer curyous, but playne and
homly, witheoute weuynge of any straunge colours of silke, golde or
syluer, hauynge al thynge of honeste and profyte, and nothyng of
vanyte, after the rewle; ther knyves unpoynted and purses beyng double
of lynnen clothe and not of sylke[1685].

The unsuccessful efforts of monastic Visitors to enforce these rules have been described; a few instances may be added here to show the directions in which the nuns erred. Peckham wrote to Godstow:

Concerning the garments of the nuns let the rule of St Benedict be
carefully observed. For which reason we forbid them ever in future to
wear cloth of burnet, nor gathered tunics nor to make themselves
garments of an immoderate width with excessive pleats (_nec etiam
birrorum immoderantia vestes sibi faciant latitudine fluctuantes_);
with this nevertheless carefully observing what was aforetime ordained
in such matters by the Council of Oxford[1686].

Buckingham's injunction to Elstow in 1387 gives some interesting details; he forbade the nuns to wear any other veil than that of profession, or to "adorn their countenances" by arranging it in a becoming fashion, spreading out the white veil, which was meant to be worn underneath:

(Ainsi qu'il est pour le monde et les cours
Un art, un gout de modes et d'atours,
Il est aussi des modes pour le voile;
Il est un art de donner d'heureux tours[1687]
A l'etamine, a la plus simple toile.)[1688]

They were not to wear gowns of black wide at the bottom, or turned back with fur at the wrists[1689], and they were in no wise to use "wide girdles or belts plaited (_spiratis_) or adorned with silver, nor wear these above their tunics open to the gaze of man"[1690]. Curious details are also given by Bishop Spofford, writing to the nuns of Lymbrook in 1437; their habit was to "be formed after relygyon in sydnesse and wydnesse, forbedyng long traynes in mantellys and kyrtellys and almaner of spaires and open semes in the same kyrtellys"[1691]. "Large collars, barred girdles and laced shoes" were forbidden at Swine in 1298[1692], red dresses and long supertunics "like secular women" at Wilberfoss in 1308[1693]; at Nunmonkton in 1397 (after Margaret Fairfax's fashionable clothes had been discovered) a general injunction was made to the nuns "not to use henceforth silken clothes, and especially silken veils, nor precious furs, nor rings on their fingers, nor tunics laced-up or fastened with brooches nor any robes, called in English 'gownes,' after the fashion of secular women"[1694]. These Northern houses were continually in need of admonition, sometimes their slashed tunics, sometimes their barred girdles, sometimes their shoes being condemned[1695]. Bishop Alnwick found silken veils at Langley, Studley and Rothwell[1696]; Bishop Fitzjames forbade silver and gilt pins and kirtles of fustian or worsted at Wix in 1509[1697]; and at Carrow in 1532 the subprioress complained that some of the nuns not only wore silk girdles, but had the impudence to commend the use thereof[1698].

Nor could nuns always resist the temptation to let their shorn hair grow again, e.g. at the visitation of Romsey by the commissary of the Prior of Canterbury in 1502, the cellaress deposed "that Mary Tystede and Agnes Harvey wore their hair long"[1699]. Eudes Rigaud had some difficulty in this matter with the frivolous nuns of his diocese of Rouen; at Villarceaux in 1249 he recorded: "They all wear their hair long to their chins," and at Montivilliers he had to condemn ringlets[1700]. One is reminded of the scene in _Jane Eyre_, where Mr Brocklehurst visits Lowood:

Suddenly his eye gave a blink, as if he had met something that either
dazzled or shocked its pupil; turning, he said in more rapid accents
than he had hitherto used: "Miss Temple, Miss Temple, what--_what_ is
that girl with curled hair? Red hair, ma'am, curled--curled all over?"
and extending his cane he pointed to the awful object, his hand
shaking as he did so. "It is Julia Severn," replied Miss Temple, very
quietly. "Julia Severn, ma'am! And why has she, or any other, curled
hair? Why, in defiance of every precept and principle of this house,
does she conform to the world so openly--here in an evangelical,
charitable establishment--as to wear her hair a mass of curls?... Tell
all the first form to rise up and direct their faces to the wall."...
He scrutinised the reverse of these living medals some five minutes,
then pronounced sentence. These words fell like the knell of doom:
"All those top-knots must be cut off."

Or, as Eudes Rigaud expressed it some seven centuries earlier: "Quod comam non nutriatis ultra aures."

NOTE E.

CONVENT PETS IN LITERATURE.

It would be possible to compile a pretty anthology of convent pets, which have played a not undistinguished part in literature. The best known of all, perhaps, are Madame Eglentyne's little dogs, upon which Chaucer looked with a kindly unepiscopal eye:

Of smale houndes had she, that she fedde
With rosted flesh, or milk and wastel-breed,
But sore weep she if oon of hem were deed,
Or if men smoot it with a yerde smerte:
And al was conscience and tendre herte[1701].

The tender-hearted Prioress risked a terrible fate by so pampering her dogs, if we are to believe the awful warning related by the knight of La Tour-Landry, to wean his daughters from similar habits:

Ther was a lady that had two litell doggis, and she loued hem so that
she toke gret plesaunce in the sight and feding of hem. And she made
euery day dresse and make for her disshes with soppes of mylke, and
after gaue hem flesshe. But there was ones a frere that saide to her
that it was not wel done that the dogges were fedde and made so fatte,
and the pore pepill so lene and famished for hunger. And so the lady,
for his saieing, was wrothe with hym, but she wolde not amende it. And
after she happed she deied, and there fell a wonder meruailous sight,
for there was seyn euer on her bedde ij litell blake dogges, and in
her deyeng thei were about her mouthe and liked it, and whanne she was
dede, there the dogges had lyked it was al blacke as cole, as a
gentillwoman tolde me that sawe it and named me the lady[1702].

Poor Madame Eglentyne!

The anthologist would, however, have to go further back than Chaucer, into the eleventh century, and begin with that ill-fated donkey, which belonged to sister Alfrad of Homburg, and which the wit of a nameless goliard and the devotion of the monks of St Augustine's, Canterbury, have preserved for undying fame[1703]:

Est unus locus There is a township
Hoinburh dictus, (Men call it Homburg)
in quo pascebat There 'twas that Alfrad
asinam Alfrad Pastured her she-ass,
viribus fortem Strong was the donkey,
atque fidelem. Mighty and faithful.

Que dum in amplum And as it wandered
exiret campum, Out to the meadow,
vidit currentem It spied a greedy
lupum voracem, Wolf that came running,
caput abscondit, Head down and tail turned,
caudam ostendit. Off the ass scampered.

Lupus occurrit: Up the wolf hurried,
caudam momordit, Seized tail and bit it.
asina bina Quickly the donkey
levavit crura Lifted its hind legs,
fecitque longum With the wolf bravely,
cum lupo bellum. Long did it battle.

Cum defecisse Then when at last it
vires sensisset, Felt its strength failing,
protulit magnam Raised it a mighty
plangendo vocem Noise of lamenting,
vocansque suam Calling its mistress,
moritur domnam. So died the donkey.

Audiens grandem Hearing the mighty
asine vocem Voice of her donkey
Alfrad cucurrit, Alfrad came running.
"sorores," dixit, "Come, sisters" cried she
"cito venite, "Sisters, come quickly,
me adiuvate! Come now and help me!

Asinam caram My darling donkey
misi ad erbam. Out to grass put I.
illius magnum I hear a mighty
audio planctum, Sound of complaining.
spero cum sevo Sure with a cruel
ut pugnet lupo." Wolf is it fighting!"

Clamor sororum Heard is her crying
venit in claustrum, In the nuns' cloister,
turbe virorum Men come and women,
ac mulierum Crowding together,
assunt, cruentum All that the bloody
ut captent lupum. Wolf may be taken.

Adela namque Adela also,
soror Alfrade, sister of Alfrad,
Rikilam querit, Rikila seeketh,
Agatham invenit, Agatha findeth,
ibant ut fortem All go to vanquish
sternerent hostem. The mighty foeman.

At ille ruptis But he tore open
asine costis Sides of the donkey,
sanguinis undam Flesh and blood gobbled
carnemque totam All up together,
simul voravit, Then helter-skeltered
silvam intravit. Back to the forest.

Illud videntes And when they saw him
cuncte sorores Wept all the sisters,
crines scindebant, Tearing their tresses,
pectus tundebant, Beating their bosoms,
flentes insontem Weeping the guiltless
asine mortem. Death of their donkey.

Denique parvum Long time a tiny
portabat pullum; Foal it had carried.
illum plorabat Sadly wept Alfrad
maxime Alfrad, Thinking upon it,
sperans exinde All her hopes ended
prolem crevisse. Of rearing the offspring.

Adela mitis Adela gentle,
Fritherunque dulcis Fritherun charming,
venerunt ambe, Both came together,
ut Alverade That they might strengthen
cor confirmarent Sad heart of Alfrad,
atque sanarent. Strengthen and heal it.

"Delinque mestas, "Leave now thy gloomy
soror, querelas! Wailing, O sister!
lupus amarum Wolf never heedeth
non curat fletum: Thy bitter weeping.
dominus aliam, The Lord will give thee
dabit tibi asinam." Another donkey."

Exquisite ending! "The Lord will give thee another donkey." With what delighted applause must the unknown jongleur have been greeted by the monks or nobles, who first listened after dinner to this little masterpiece of humour.

All the convent pets who are famed in literature came by a coincidence to a bad end. Our anthologist would seize on two other hapless creatures, both of them birds, Philip Sparrow and the never-to-be-forgotten Vert-Vert. Philip Sparrow needs no introduction to English readers; Skelton was never in happier vein than when he sang the dirge of that pet of Joanna Scrope, boarder at Carrow Priory, dead at the claws of a "vylanous false cat." Space allows only a few lines of the long poem to be quoted here. It begins with the office for the dead, sung by the mourning mistress over her bird:

_Pla ce bo_,
Who is there, who?
_Di le xi_,
Dame Margery;
_Fa, re, my, my_,
Wherefore and why, why?
For the sowle of Philip Sparowe,
That was late slayn at Carowe,
Among the Nones Blake,
For that swete soules sake,
And for all sparowes soules,
Set in our bederolles
_Pater noster qui_,
With an _Ave Mari_,
And with the corner of a Crede
The more shalbe your mede.

Whan I remembre agayn
How mi Philyp was slayn,
Neuer halfe the payne
Was betwene you twayne,
Pyramus and Thesbe,
As than befell to me:
I wept and I wayled,
The tearys doune hayled;
But nothynge it auayled
To call Phylyp agayne,
Whom Gyb our cat hath slayne.

* * * *

It was so prety a fole,
It wold syt on a stole,
And lerned after my scole
For to kepe his cut,
With, Phyllyp, kepe your cut!
It had a veluet cap,
And wold syt upon my lap,
And seke after small wormes,
And somtyme white bred crommes;
And many tymes and ofte
Betwene my brestes softe
It wolde lye and rest;
It was propre and prest.
Somtyme he wolde gaspe
Whan he sawe a waspe;
A fly or a gnat,
He wolde flye at that;
And prytely he wold pant
Whan he saw an ant;
Lord, how he wolde pry
After the butterfly!
Lorde, how he wolde hop
After the grassop!
And whan I sayd, Phyp, Phyp,
Than he wold lepe and skyp,
And take me by the lyp.
Alas, it wyll me slo,
That Phillyp is gone me fro!
_Si in i qui ta tes_,
Alas, I was euyll at ease!
_De pro fun dis cla ma vi_,
Whan I sawe my sparowe dye!

* * * *

That vengeaunce I aske and crye,
By way of exclamacyon,
On all the hole nacyon
Of cattes wyld and tame;
God send them sorowe and shame!
That cat specyally
That slew so cruelly
My lytell prety sparowe
That I brought vp at Carowe ...[1704].

It is impossible for a cat-lover to leave the whole nation of cats under this terrific curse. Yet literature will supply no nunnery cat beside the unhappy Gyb and the uncharacterised cat of the _Ancren Riwle_. We must needs turn to the monks, and borrow the truer estimate of feline qualities made in the eighth century by an exiled Irish student, who sat over his books in a distant monastery of Carinthia, and wrote upon the margin of his copy of St Paul's Epistles this little poem on his white cat:

I and Pangur Ban, my cat,
'Tis a like task we are at;
Hunting mice is his delight,
Hunting words I sit all night.

Better far than praise of men
'Tis to sit with book and pen;
Pangur bears me no ill-will,
He, too, plies his simple skill.

'Tis a merry thing to see
At our tasks how glad are we,
When at home we sit and find
Entertainment to our mind.

Oftentimes a mouse will stray
In the hero Pangur's way;
Oftentimes my keen thought set
Takes a meaning in its net.

'Gainst the wall he sets his eye
Full and fierce and sharp and sly;
'Gainst the wall of knowledge I
All my little wisdom try.

When a mouse darts from its den,
O! how glad is Pangur then;
O! what gladness do I prove
When I solve the doubts I love.

So in peace our task we ply,
Pangur Ban, my cat, and I;
In our arts we find our bliss,
I have mine and he has his.

Practice every day has made
Pangur perfect in his trade;
I get wisdom day and night,
Turning darkness into light[1705].

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

Two little tragedies of the cloister are concerned with parrots--yet with what different birds and what different mistresses! In the twelfth century Nigel Wireker tells of an ill-bred and ill-fated parrot, kept in a nunnery, who told tales about the nuns and was poisoned by them for his pains:

Saepe mala
Psittacus in thalamum domina redeunte puellas
Prodit et illorum verba tacenda refert;
Nescius ille loqui; sed nescius immo tacere
Profert plus aequo Psittacus oris habens.
Hinc avibus crebro miscente aconita puella
Discat ut ante mori quam didicisse loqui;
Sunt et aves aliae quae toto tempore vitae
Religiosorum claustra beata colunt[1706].

Quite other was the fate of Vert-Vert, whose tragedy told with exquisite irony by Gresset in the eighteenth century deserves a place on every shelf and in every heart which holds _The Rape of the Lock_. Vert-Vert was a parrot who belonged to the nuns of Nevers, the most beautiful, most amiable, the most devout parrot in the world. The convent of Nevers spoiled Vert-Vert as no bird has ever been spoiled:

Pas n'est besoin, je pense, de decrire
Les soins des soeurs, des nonnes, c'est tout dire;
Et chaque mere, apres son directeur,
N'aimait rien tant. Meme dans plus d'un coeur,
Ainsi l'ecrit un chroniqueur sincere,
Souvent l'oiseau l'emporta sur le pere.
Il partageait, dans ce paisible lieu,
Tous les sirops dont le cher pere en Dieu,
Grace aux bienfaits des nonnettes sucrees,
Reconfortait ses entrailles sacrees.
Objet permis a leur oisif amour,
Vert-Vert etait l'ame de ce sejour....
Des bonnes soeurs egayant les travaux,
Il bequetait et guimpes et bandeaux;
Il n'etait point d'agreable partie
S'il n'y venait briller, caracoler,
Papillonner, siffler, rossignoler;
Il badinait, mais avec modestie;
Avec cet air timide et tout prudent
Qu'une novice a meme en badinant.

He fed in the frater, and between meals the nuns' pockets were always full of bon-bons for his delectation. He slept in the dorter, and happy the nun whose cell he honoured with his presence; Vert-Vert always chose the young and pretty novices. Above all he was learned; he talked like a book, and all the nuns had taught him their chants and their prayers:

Il disait bien son Benedicite,
Et _notre mere_, et _votre charite_; ...
Il etait la maintes filles savantes
Qui mot pour mot portaient dans leurs cerveaux
Tous les noels anciens et nouveaux.
Instruit, forme par leurs lecons frequentes,
Bientot l'eleve egala ses regentes;
De leur ton meme, adroit imitateur
Il exprimait la pieuse lenteur,
Les saints soupirs, les notes languissantes
Du chant des soeurs, colombes gemissantes.
Finalement Vert-Vert savait par coeur
Tout ce que sait une mere de choeur.

Small wonder that the fame of this pious bird spread far and wide; small wonder that pilgrims came from all directions to the abbey parlour to hear him talk. But alas, it was this very fame which led to his undoing. The physical tragedy of Philip Sparrow, an unlearned bird of frivolous tastes, pales before the moral tragedy of Vert-Vert. One day his renown reached the ears of a distant convent of nuns at Nantes, many miles further down the river Loire; and they conceived a violent desire to see him:

Desir de fille est un feu qui devore,
Desir de nonne est cent fois pire encore.

They wrote to their fortunate sisters of Nevers, begging that Vert-Vert might be sent in a ship to visit them. Consternation at Nevers. The grand chapter was held; the younger nuns would have preferred death to parting with the darling parrot, but their elders judged it impolitic to refuse and to Nantes must Vert-Vert go for a fortnight. The parrot was placed on board a ship; but the ship

Portait aussi deux nymphes, trois dragons,
Une nourrice, un moine, deux Gascons:
Pour un enfant qui sort du monastere,
C'etait echoir en dignes compagnons.

At first Vert-Vert was confused and silent among the unseemly jests of the women and the Gascons and the oaths of the boatmen. But too soon his innocent heart was acquainted with evil; desiring always to please he repeated all that he heard; no evil word escaped him; by the end of his journey he had forgotten all that he had learned in the nunnery, but he had become a pretty companion for a boatload of sinners. Nantes was reached; Vert-Vert (all unwilling) was carried off to the convent, and the nuns came running to the parlour to hear the saintly bird. But horror upon horrors, nothing but oaths and blasphemies fell from Vert-Vert's beak. He apostrophised sister Saint-Augustin with "la peste te creve," and

Jurant, sacrant d'une voix dissolue,
Faisant passer tout l'enfer en revue,
Les B, les F, voltigeaient sur son bec.
Les jeunes soeurs crurent qu'il parlait grec.

The scandalised nuns dispatched Vert-Vert home again without delay. His own convent received him in tears. Nine of the most venerable sisters debated his punishment; two were for his death; two for sending him back to the heathen land of his birth; but the votes of the other five decided his punishment:

On le condamne a deux mois d'abstinence,
Trois de retraite et quatre de silence;
Jardins, toilette, alcove et biscuits,
Pendant ce temps, lui seront interdits.

Moreover the ugliest lay sister, a veiled ape, an octogenarian skeleton, was made the guardian of poor Vert-Vert, who had always preferred the youngest and coyest of the novices. Little remains to be told. Vert-Vert, covered with shame and taught by misfortune, became penitent, forgot the dragoons and the monk, and showed himself once more "plus devot qu'un chanoine." The happy nuns cut short his penance; the convent kept fete, the dorters were decked with flowers, all was song and tumult. But alas, Vert-Vert, passing too soon from a fasting diet to the sweets that were pressed upon him:

Bourre de sucre, et brule de liqueurs
Vert-Vert, tombant sur un tas de dragees,
En noir cypres vit ses roses changees[1707].

Doubtless so godly an end consoled the nuns for his untimely death. Yet one hardly knows which to prefer, the regenerate or the unregenerate Vert-Vert. The appreciative reader, remembering the inspired volubility with which (after such short practice) he greeted the nuns of Nantes, is almost moved to regret the destruction of what one of Kipling's soldiers would call "a wonderful gift of language." There is an apposite passage in Jasper Mayne's comedy of _The City Match_ (1639), in which a lady describes the missionary efforts of her Puritan waiting-woman:

Yesterday I went
To see a lady that has a parrot: my woman
While I was in discourse converted the fowl,
And now it can speak nought but Knox's works;
_So there's a parrot lost_.

NOTE F.

THE MORAL STATE OF LITTLEMORE PRIORY IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

Littlemore Priory, near Oxford, in the early sixteenth century, was in such grave disorder that it may justly be described as one of the worst nunneries of which record has survived. Its state was, as usual, largely due to a particularly bad prioress, Katherine Wells. The following account of it is taken from the record of Bishop Atwater's visitations in 1517 and 1518, the first held by his commissary Edmund Horde, the second by the bishop in person[1708].

The _comperta_ are that the prioress had ordered the five nuns under
her to say that all was well; she herself had an illegitimate
daughter, and was still visited by the father of the child, Richard
Hewes, a priest in Kent[1709]; that she took the "pannes, pottes,
candilsticks, basynes, shetts, pelous, federe bedds etc." the property
of the monastery, to provide a dowry for this daughter; that another
of the nuns had, within the last year, an illegitimate child by a
married man of Oxford; that the prioress was excessive in punishments
and put the nuns in stocks when they rebuked her evil life; that
almost all the jewels were pawned, and that there was neither food,
clothing nor pay for the nuns; that one who thought of becoming a nun
at Littlemore was so shocked by the evil life of the prioress that she
went elsewhere. A few months afterwards the bishop summoned the
prioress to appear before him, and after denying the charges brought
against her, she finally admitted them; her daughter, she said, had
died four years before, but she owned that she had granted some of the
plate of the monastery to Richard Hewes. In her evidence she stated
that though these things had been going on for eight years, no inquiry
had been made, and, as it seems, no visitation of the house had been
held; only, on one occasion, certain injunctions of a general kind had
been sent her. As a punishment she was deposed from the post of
prioress, but was allowed to perform the functions of the office for
the present, provided that she did nothing without the advice of Mr
Edmund Horde.

But some months later when the bishop himself made a visitation "to
bring about some reformation," things were as scandalous as ever. The
prioress complained that one of the nuns "played and romped
(_luctando_)" with boys in the cloister and refused to be corrected.
When she was put in the stocks, three other nuns broke the door and
rescued her, and burnt the stocks; and when the prioress summoned aid
from the neighbourhood, the four broke a window and escaped to
friends, where they remained two or three weeks; that they laughed and
played in church during mass, even at the elevation. The nuns
complained that the prioress had punished them for speaking the truth
at the last visitation; that she had put one in the stocks without any
cause; that she had hit another "on the head with fists and feet,
correcting her in an immoderate way," and that Richard Hewes had
visited the priory within the last four months. From the evidence it
is clear that the state of things was well known in Oxford, where each
party seems to have had its adherents.

Several morals may be drawn from this lurid story. It shows how inadequate, in some cases, was the episcopal machinery for control and reform of religious houses. It shows that the "scandalous _comperta_" of Henry VIII's commissioners some sixteen years later were in no way untrue to type. It shows also that Wolsey was not entirely unjustified in his desire to dissolve the house and to use its revenues for educational purposes; he may have been no more disinterested than was his master later, but in the case of Littlemore at least it is difficult not to approve him.

NOTE G.

THE MORAL STATE OF THE YORKSHIRE NUNNERIES IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.

It is possible to study in some detail the nunneries in the diocese of York during the first half of the fourteenth century, or roughly between the years 1280 and 1360. The Archbishops' Registers for most of the period have survived, and have either been printed or drawn upon very fully in the admirable accounts of monastic houses given in the _Victoria County History of Yorkshire_. As these accounts are not very widely known and as Yorkshire contained an unusual number of nunneries (twenty-seven) it is worth while to give some description of the state of these houses during a troubled period in their career.

Reasons have been suggested elsewhere for some of the disorder which prevailed among the monastic houses of the North. They were most of them both small and poor and, what is of greater significance, they lay in the border country, exposed to the forays of the Scots, and continually disturbed by English armies or raiders, riding north to take revenge. Life was not easy for nuns who might at any moment have to flee before a raid and whose lands were constantly being ravaged; they grew more and more miserably poor and as usual poverty seemed to go hand in hand with laxity. Moreover the conditions of life set its stamp upon the character of the ladies from whom convents were recruited. These Percies and Fairfaxes and Mowbrays and St Quintins schooled their hot blood with difficulty to obedience and chastity and the Yorkshire nunneries were apt to reflect the fierce passions of the Border, quick to love and quick to fight. There were no more quarrelsome nunneries in the kingdom, witness their election fights[1710], and none in which discipline was more lax. During these sixty years nineteen out of the twenty-seven houses came before the Archbishop of York's notice, at one time or another, in connection with cases of immorality and apostasy.

It is evident at once, from a study of the registers, that seven houses, i.e., Basedale, Keldholme, Kirklees and Swine of the Cistercian order, Arthington and Moxby of the Cluniac order and St Clement, York, of the Benedictine order were in a serious condition[1711]. At Basedale in 1307 the Prioress Joan de Percy was deprived for dilapidation of the goods of the house and perpetual and notorious misdeeds; whereupon she promptly left the nunnery, taking some of her partisans among the nuns with her. The Archbishop wrote to his official, bidding him warn them to return and not to go outside the cloister precincts and "in humility to take heed to the salutary monitions of their prioress"; but humility dwelt not in the breast of a Percy and in 1308 Joan was packed off to Sinningthwaite, "as she had been disobedient at Basedale." The troubles of the house were not ended; for the same year Agnes de Thormondby a nun, confessed that she had on three separate occasions allowed herself to be "deceived by the temptations of the flesh," a vivid commentary on the _regime_ of Joan Percy. In 1343 another well-born Prioress is in trouble at the house and the Archbishop issues a commission "to inquire into the truth of the articles urged against Katherine Mowbray and if her demerits required it to depose her, and the commission was repeated two years later, nothing apparently having been done"[1712].

The state of Keldholme was even worse. In 1287 Archbishop Romanus ordered the nuns to receive back an apostate, Maud de Tiverington. In 1299 a similar order was issued on behalf of Christiania de Styvelington. In 1308 began the violent election struggle over Emma of York and Joan of Pickering, which has already been described. In the course of the struggle four nuns were sent as rebels to other convents in 1308 and two in 1309, and from the nature of the penance imposed on the last two it would seem that they had been guilty of immorality. In 1318 Mary de Holm, who was one of the ejected rebels of 1308 and had been censured for disobedience to the new prioress in 1315, was sentenced to do penance "for the vice of incontinence committed by her with Sir William Lyly, chaplain"[1713]; and in 1321, Maud of Terrington (who may be the Maud of Tiverington who apostatised in 1287), was given a heavy penance for incontinence and apostasy[1714]. The history of the house during the stormy years from 1308 to 1321 shows how far from being a home of peace and good living a nunnery might be; and illustrates well the difficulty of reforming it while even one incorrigible rebel and sinner such as Mary de Holm dwelt there.

The state of Arthington was very similar. Here in 1303 Custance de Daneport of Pontefract had apostatised and was to be received back; trouble seems to have begun in that year, for the Prioress Agnes de Screvyn resigned. In 1307 a visitation revealed considerable disorder and Dionisia de Hevensdale and Ellen de Castleford were forbidden to go outside the convent precincts. In 1312 the subprioress and convent were ordered to render due obedience to the Prioress Isabella de Berghby, who was given Isabella Couvel as a coadjutress. Evidently she resented having to share her authority in temporal matters with another nun, for soon afterwards Isabella de Berghby and Margaret de Tang are said to have cast off their habits and left the convent. Eighteen months later a new prioress was appointed and the two runaways returned and did penance. In 1315 there is mention of quarrels among the nuns and in 1319 Margaret de Tang once more engaged the attention of the Archbishop and was sent to Nunkeeling and prescribed the usual penalty for immorality. In 1321 she was again in trouble; she had apostatised and committed grave misdemeanours; and was again sent back to her convent, to be imprisoned and if necessary chained there, until she showed signs of repentance. In 1349 Isabella de Berghby, in spite of her past apostasy, was once more elected Prioress[1715].

At Moxby, the other Cluniac house in the diocese, Archbishop Greenfield ordered the Prioress to receive back Sabina de Apelgarth, who had apostatised, but was returning in a state of penitence. Her penitence was of the usual type of these Yorkshire ladies and her reputation did not prevent her from rising to the high rank in the convent, for in 1318 Archbishop Melton ordered her to be removed from office and ordained that henceforward no one convicted of incontinence was to hold any office[1716]. In 1321 a penance was pronounced on Joan de Brotherton for having been twice in apostasy; but a note in the margin of the register where the penance is entered takes her history a stage further: "Memorandum quod dominus Walterus de Penbrige, stans cum domina regina, postea impregnavit eandem"[1717]. The next year a Scottish raid dispersed the nuns; Sabina de Apelgarth and Margaret de Neusom were sent to Nunmonkton; Alice de Barton, the Prioress, to Swine; Joan de Barton and Joan de Toucotes to Nunappleton; Agnes Ampleford and Agnes Jarkesmill to Nunkeeling; Joan de Brotherton and Joan Blaunkfront to Hampole[1718]. This disturbance did not improve their morals. In 1325 the Prioress Joan de Barton resigned, having been found guilty of incontinence with the inevitable chaplain. The nuns could find no better successor for her than Sabina de Apelgarth and in 1328 that lady was once more in difficulties; the Archbishop removed her "for certain reasons" and imposed the usual penance for immorality and Joan de Toucotes became Prioress in her stead. At the same time Joan Blaunkfront's penance was relaxed, so she too had apparently fallen; lovely and white-browed she must have been, from her name ("But sikerly she hadde a fair foreheed"), nor could she bear to hide her beauties beneath the hideous garb of a nun. Seventeen long years afterwards, when the forehead was growing wrinkled and the beauty fading, she wished to reconcile herself with the God whom she had flouted. She had powerful friends and could afford to petition the Pope himself, and in 1345 Clement VI gave orders for Joan Blankefrontes, nun of Moxby, who had left her order, to be reconciled to it[1719].

Kirklees, known to romance as the house where a wicked prioress bled Robin Hood to death, was in a deplorable state about the same time. In 1306 Archbishop Greenfield wrote to the house bidding them take back Alice Raggid, who, several times led astray by the temptations of the flesh, had left her convent for the world; in 1313 a similar order was made for Elizabeth de Hopton. The two nuns seem, however, to have been incorrigible, for in 1315 the Archbishop wrote to the Prioress saying that public rumour had reached his ears that some of the nuns of the house, and especially Elizabeth de Hopton, Alice "le Raggede" and Joan de Heton, were wont to admit both secular and religious men into the private parts of the house and to hold many suspicious conversations with them. He forbids these or any other nuns to admit or talk with any cleric or layman save in a public place and in the presence of the Prioress, subprioress or two other nuns; and he specially warns a certain Joan de Wakefeld to give up the private room, which she persists in inhabiting by herself. He refers also to the fact that these and other nuns were disobedient to the Prioress, "like rebels refusing to accept her discipline and punishment." On the same day he imposed a special penance on Joan de Heton for incontinence with Richard del Lathe and Sir Michael, "called Scot," a priest, and on the unhappy Alice Raggid for the same sin with William de Heton of Mirfield, possibly a relative of her fellow nun[1720]. Here again we have an incorrigible offender, guilty of apostasy and immorality off and on during ten years. Swine was not much better. In 1289 a nun of the great St Quintin family was in disgrace, probably (though not certainly) for immorality. In 1290 there was the usual trouble over a new Prioress and Elizabeth de Rue was sent to Nunburnholme under the charge of a brother of the house and a horseman, apparently for immorality as well as contumacy. At the same time another nun, Elizabeth Darrains, had part of her penance lightened; but in 1291 she was sent away to Wykeham Priory. In 1306 John, son of Thomas the Smith, of Swine, was charged with having seduced Alice Martel, a nun of the house, and in 1310 Elizabeth de Rue (whom we have seen was in trouble twenty years before) was said to have sinned with two monks from the Abbey of Meaux. The house had evidently not improved very much at a later date, for in 1358 Alice de Cawode had twice been out in apostasy[1721].

Even close to the city of York itself, the Benedictine house of St Clement's or Clementhorpe did not escape the prevalent decay of morals. In 1300 the Archbishop rehearses unsympathetically a romantic tale of how "late one evening certain men came to the priory gate, leading a saddled horse; here Cecily a nun, met them and, throwing off her nun's habit, put on another robe and rode off with them to Darlington, where Gregory de Thornton was waiting for her; and with him she lived for three years and more." In 1310 Greenfield mitigated a penance, of the kind usually imposed for immorality, upon another nun Joan de Saxton. In 1318 there is mention of Joan of Leeds, another apostate, and in 1324 the Prioress resigned after serious trouble in the house, details of which have not been preserved. In 1331 Isabella de Studley (who had been made a nun there by express permission of the primate in 1315) was found guilty of apostasy and fleshly sin, besides blasphemy and other misdeeds; she had apparently been sent to Yedingham for a penance some time before and was now allowed to return, with the warning that if she disobeyed, quarrelled or blasphemed any more she would be transferred permanently to another house[1722].

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

NOTE H.

THE DISAPPEARANCE OR SUPPRESSION OF EIGHT NUNNERIES PRIOR TO 1535.

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

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

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

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

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

And the selfe same game
Begone ys nowe with shame
Amongest the sely nonnes:
My lady nowe she ronnes,
Dame Sybly our abbesse,
Dame Dorothe and lady Besse,
Dame Sare our pryoresse,
Out of theyr cloyster and quere
With an heuy chere,
Must cast vp theyr blacke vayles[1738].

The nunneries dissolved were Littlemore (1525), Wix (1525), Fairwell (1527), and St Mary de Pre, St Albans, of which all went to Cardinal College, except Fairwell, which went to Lichfield Cathedral. Of these Littlemore, under the evil prioress Katherine Wells, had been in a state of great disorder since 1517[1739], while Cardinal Morton's famous letter of 1490 showed that there was at least suspicion of immoral relations between the nuns of St Mary de Pre and the monks of St Albans[1740]. Of the other two nunneries little is known at this time, save that they were very small; there were four nuns at Wix. Another house, Davington in Kent, vanished only a few months before the act would have dissolved it; in 1535 it was found before the escheator of the county that no nuns were left in it[1741].

NOTE I.

CHANSONS DE NONNES.

The theme of the nun in popular poetry deserves a more detailed study than it has yet received, both on account of the innate grace of the _chansons de nonnes_ and on account of their persistence into modern times. The earliest examples (with the exception of the two old French poems quoted in the text) occur in German literature, always rich in folk song. With the song from the _Limburg Chronicle_ and the Latin _Plangit nonna fletibus_ should be compared the following amusing little poem:

Ich solt ein nonne werden
ich hatt kein lust dazu
ich ess nicht gerne gerste
wach auch nicht gerne fru;
gott geb dem klaeffer unglueck vil
der mich armes maegdlein
ins kloster haben wil!

Ins kloster, ins kloster
da kom ich nicht hinein,
da schneidt man mir die har ab,
das bringt mir schwaere pein;
gott geb dem klaeffer unglueck vil
der mich armes maegdlein
ins kloster haben wil!

Und wenn es komt um mitternacht
das gloecklein das schlecht an,
so hab ich armes maegdlein
noch keinen schlaf getan;
gott geb dem klaeffer unglueck vil
der mich armes maegdlein
ins kloster haben wil!

Und wenn ich vor die alten kom
so sehn sie mich sauer an,
so denk ich armes maegdlein
hett ich ein jungen man
und der mein staeter bule sei
so war ich armes maegdlein
des fasten und betens frei.

Ade, ade feins kloesterlein,
Ade, nu halt dich wol!
ich weiss ein herz allerliebsten mein
mein herz ist freuden vol;
nach im stet all mein zuversicht,
ins kloster kom ich nimmer nicht,
ade, feins kloesterlein![1742]

From the time of the Minnesingers comes a charming, plaintive little song, which rings its double refrain on the words "Lonely" and "O Love, what have I done?" It tells how the nun, behind a cold grating, thinks of her lover as she chants her psalter; and how her father and mother visit her and pray together, clad like gay peacocks, while she is shrouded in cord and cowl; and how

At even to my bed I go--
The bed in my cell is lonely.
And then I think (God, where's the harm?)
Would my true love were in my arm!
O Love--what have I done?[1743]

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