Chapter LI: Part I: chs. 1-16 of a very interesting little book, the Traite de la (3)

[1471] Joan Trimelet of Cannington was to be shut up for a year, fasting thrice a week on bread and water, _suos calores macerans juveniles_. Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 416. Margaret de Tang of Arthington was "if need be to be bound by the foot with a shackle, but without hurting her limbs or body." _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 189. The runaway Agnes de Flixthorpe was similarly to be bound, see above, p. 444; Anne Talke was imprisoned for a month. Liveing, _Records of Romsey Abbey_, p. 244. Joan Hutton of Esholt, who had had a child (1535), for two years unless the Archbishop relaxed her penance. _Yorks. Arch. Journ._ XVI. p. 453.

[1472] _Yorks. Arch. Journ._ XVI, pp. 456-7. The recorded penances given by Archbishop Melton are all very severe, though it must be admitted that the state of the nunneries in his diocese gave him cause for severity and that the penitents were all hardened sinners. Compare penances given by him in _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 175, 189. There is an extremely severe penance imposed by Archbishop Zouche on a nun who had several times run away from Thicket, _ib._ p. 124, and another by Archbishop Lee in 1535 cited in the last note.

[1473] Jessopp, _Visit. in Dioc. Norwich_, p. 110.

[1474] _V.C.H. Suffolk_, II, p. 84.

[1475] "Expresse inhibentes, ne infuturum aliqua monialis de crimine incontinencie conuicta vel publice diffamata, antequam de innocencia sic diffamate constiterit, ad aliquod officium domus predicte et precipue ad ostiorum custodiam admittatur." Lambeth, _Reg. Courtenay_, I, f. 336. Injunction to Elstow in 1390 and repeated by Bishop Flemyng in 1421. See above, p. 396. Compare the charge against Margaret Fairfax, Prioress of Nunmonkton, in 1397: "_Item_, moniales quae lapsae fuerint in fornicatione faciliter restituit." Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 194.

[1476] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 239.

[1477] _Ib._ p. 183.

[1478] _Ib._ p. 120. For those Yorkshire cases see below, Note G, _passim_.

[1479] Liveing, _op. cit._ pp. 213-6.

[1480] See below, Note F.

[1481] _Cal. of Papal Letters_, X, p. 471. The dispensation mentions that she "has secretly lost her virginity and has not yet been publicly defamed."

[1482] _Ib._ V, p. 161 and VII, p. 373.

[1483] The Pope writes to Mitford, Bishop of Salisbury, desiring him to restore Alice Wilton, nun of Shaftesbury, to the position which she had forfeited by the sin of incontinence. The Bishop reinstates the nun and declares her eligible for all offices except that of Abbess. _V.C.H. Dorset_, II, p. 78, note 93.

[1484] See Chs. IX, X, above.

[1485] See below, p. 491.

[1486] Bede, _Eccles. Hist._ Book IV, ch. 25.

[1487] Benedict of Peterborough, _Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi_, ed. Stubbs (Rolls Series, 1867), I, pp. 135-6. Ralph Niger describes the transaction thus: "Juratus se tria monasteria constructurum, duos ordines transvertit, personas de loco ad locum transferens, meretrices alias aliis, cenomannicas Anglicis substituens." _Ib._ II, p. XXX.

[1488] "Et quod indignum scribi, ad domos religiosarum veniens, fecit exprimi mammillas earundem, ut sic physice si esset inter eas corruptela experiretur" [1251]. Matt. Paris, _Chron. Majora_, ed. H. R. Luard (Rolls Series, 1880), V, p. 227. In 1248 he had deposed an abbess of Godstow, Flandrina de Bowes, and Adam Marsh writes to him: "Plurimum credo fore salutiferam visitationem quam in domo Godestowe fieri fecistis. Paternitatis vestrae sollicitudinem largitio divina remuneret." _Monumenta Franciscana_, ed. J. S. Brewer (Rolls Series, 1858), p. 117. If Matthew Paris' account of his procedure be true it would seem almost to rival the behaviour of Layton and Legh, however different the character and motive which inspired it.

[1489] The earliest list of _comperta_ which we possess is the result of Archbishop Walter Giffard's visitation of Swine in 1268. Though there is no charge of actual immorality the house was in a thoroughly unsatisfactory state. The Archbishop's two sisters, the one Prioress of Elstow and the other Abbess of Shaftesbury, were both in serious trouble in 1270 and 1298 respectively, their nuns being also involved, and in 1296 there occurred the famous Giffard abduction from Wilton. Peckham's injunctions to nunneries show widespread breach of enclosure and some suspicious conduct during the '80s, a nun of Lymbrook is guilty with a monk of Leominster in 1282, and besides Matthew Paris' account of Grosseteste's proceedings in the diocese of Lincoln in 1251, we have notice of apostates there in 1295, 1296 and 1298 and in the York diocese in 1286, 1287, 1293 and 1299. See this chapter and notes, _passim_.

[1490] For the disappearance or suppression of eight small nunneries prior to 1535 see Note H below.

[1491] At Chicksand, for instance, Layton "fownde two of the nunnes not baron," and at Harrold "one of them hade two faire chyldren, another one and no mo"; but is this so much worse than what Alnwick found at Catesby and St Michael's, Stamford, in the same diocese a century before? Or take Layton's description of the Prior of Maiden Bradley, quoted above; is it not much less serious than the description of Alexander Black of Selby in one of Archbishop Giffard's visitation _detecta_ in 1275? "Alexander Niger, monachus, tenet Cristinam Bouere et Agnetem filiam Stephani, de qua suscitavit prolem, et quamdam mulierem nomine Anekous, de qua suscitavit vivam prolem apud Crol, et aliam apud Sneyth quae vocatur Nalle, et alias infinitas apud Eboracum et Akastre et alibi, et quasi in qualibet villa unam; et fetidissimus est, et recte modo captus fuit cum quadam muliere in campis, sicut audivit." _Reg. Walter Giffard_, p. 326. Or than what Alnwick discovered at the New Collegiate Church at Leicester in 1440? Layton's general charges against the monks and nuns of Yorkshire are pure gossip or invention; but we should not have been deeply surprised to find them in a York archiepiscopal register of the early fourteenth century.

[1492] Of some of the Anglo-Saxon kings it was said, and said with horror, that they most willingly chose their mistresses from convents. See a letter from St Boniface to Ethelbald King of Mercia on this point, instancing the similar habits and evil fates of Ceolred of Mercia and Osred of Northumbria (_Bon. Epis._ XIX).

[1493] For these ladies, see references in p. 451, note 5, and below, p. 501, note 3.

[1494] _Memoires de J. Casanova de Seingalt_ (edition Garnier, 1910), tt. II, III, IV.

[1495] Dugdale, _Mon._ III, pp. 365-6. Compare a _detectum_ at Crabhouse (1514): "Item, the younger nuns are disobedient and when the seniors charge them with their faults the prioress punishes alike the reformers and the sinners." _Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich_, ed. Jessopp, p. 109.

[1496] _Linc. Visit._ I, p. 50. Compare _Reg. Walter Giffard_, p. 249; _Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich_, ed. Jessopp ("Item Dna. A. D. et Dna. G. S. ... revelant secreta religionis et correctionis factae in conventu") _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Bokyngham_, ff. 397, 397_d_ ("Et quod nullum decetero capitulum in domo capitulari in presencia secularis seu extranee persone quoquomodo teneatur sub pena iniunccionis nostre infrascripta").

[1497] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, 120, 167-8.

[1498] See below, Note F.

[1499] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 164.

[1500] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 47, 120.

[1501] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 118.

[1502] For an account of the house, see _V.C.H. Herts._ IV, pp. 428-32. The regulations made by Abbot Richard de Wallingford (1328-36) are given in _Gesta Abbat._ II, pp. 213-4 and those by Abbot Michael or his successor Thomas de la Mare in Cott. MS. Nero D. i. ff. 173-4_d_; regulations by Thomas de la Mare (1349-96) occur in _Gesta Abbat._ II, p. 402. See also W. Page, "Hist. of the Monastery of St Mary de Pre" (_St Albans and Herts. Arch. Soc. Trans._ (New Series) I).

[1503] For an account of the house, see _V.C.H. Herts._ IV, pp. 422-6.

[1504] The accounts of the warden of St Mary de Pre for 1341-57 are preserved in the Public Record Office (_Mins. Accts._, bundle 867, Nos. 21-6) and are described in _V.C.H. Herts._ IV, p. 430 (notes). In the second half of the fifteenth century the accounts seem to have been kept by the Prioress; those for 1461-93 have survived. _Ib._ p. 431 (note).

[1505] See _Gesta Abbat._ II, p. 212.

[1506] Quoted from _P.R.O. Early Chancery Proceedings_, 181/4 in _V.C.H. Herts._ IV, pp. 424-5.

[1507] Wilkins, _Concilia_, III, p. 632.

[1508] _V.C.H. Herts._ IV, p. 425.

[1509] Printed in Dugdale, _Mon._ III, pp. 365-6 and _Gesta Abbat._ ed. Riley, II, App. D. pp. 511-19.

[1510] _Gesta Abbat._ III, p. 519.

[1511] See _V.C.H. Northants._ II, pp. 98-101.

[1512] _E.H.R._ 1914, p. 38 (note 60).

[1513] The religious houses were also subject to metropolitan visitation by the Archbishop. Among important records of visitations of nunneries by the Archbishop of Canterbury or by his commissioners are Peckham's visitations (_Reg. Epis. Johannis Peckham_, _passim_) in the last quarter of the thirteenth century, Courtenay's visitations in the last quarter of the fourteenth century (see Lambeth, _Reg. Courtenay_, I, f. 335_d_, for his injunctions to Elstow in 1389, used by Flemyng as a model for his own injunctions in 1421-2, _Linc. Visit._ I, p. 48) and Archbishop Morton's visitations in the last quarter of the fifteenth century (see Liveing, _Records of Romsey Abbey_, pp. 217-22 for the visitation of Romsey in 1492). The visitations of the Winchester diocese by Dr Hede, commissary of the Prior of Canterbury, during the vacancy of the sees of Canterbury and Winchester in 1501-2 were made in the same right (see _V.C.H. Hants._ II, pp. 124, 129, 135, 151).

[1514] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 176 (quoting Dugdale, _Mon._ V, pp. 464-5 and _Reg. Giffard_ (Surtees Soc.), p. 295).

[1515] See _Linc. Visit._ II, _passim_, and also the Editor's admirable introduction to _Linc. Visit._ I, pp. ix-xiii.

[1516] See above, p. 250.

[1517] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 119. 126-7.

[1518] Sometimes the bishop's clerk summarises the information given as to the financial state of the house, which would seem to indicate that the prioress gave and the bishop accepted merely a verbal account. See _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 38. In _Linc. Epis. Reg. Atwater_, f. 42, is a brief account of a visitation of Ankerwyke in 1519, to which is added the _status domus_ as submitted by the nuns, comprising an inventory.

[1519] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 49-50.

[1520] See e.g. the case of Denise Loweliche at Markyate in 1433, _Linc. Visit._ I, pp. 83-5.

[1521] _Reg. Epis. Johannis Peckham_, II, pp. 706-8 (injunctions), 708-9 (mandate to commissary). Compare the proceedings at Ankerwyke six months after Alnwick's visitation. _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 7.

[1522] _Linc. Visit._ I, pp. 82-3.

[1523] G. G. Coulton in _Eng. Hist. Review_ (1914), p. 37. "The _locus classicus_ here is the Evesham Chronicle, in which one of the most admirable abbots of the thirteenth century tells us how solemnly he and his brethren had promised to conceal all their former abbot's blackest crimes from the visiting bishop; and how they would never have complained even to the legate (whose jurisdiction they did recognize) if only the sinner had kept his pact with them in money matters."

[1524] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 47, 48, 49, 52. At Heynings (where nothing seriously amiss transpired) one nun said that "the prioress reproaches her sisters, saying that if they say aught to the bishop, she will lay on them such penalties that they shall not easily bear them." _Ib._ p. 133. The wicked Prioress of Littlemore was found in 1517 to have ordered her nuns on virtue of their obedience to reveal nothing to the commissioners and in 1518 it was stated that she had punished them for speaking the truth at the visitation. _V.C.H. Lincs._ II, p. 75. At Flixton in 1514 it was said: "The sisters scarce dare to depose the truth on account of the fierceness of the prioress." _Visit. of the Dioc. of Norwich_, ed. Jessopp (Camden Soc.), p. 143. For episcopal injunctions against revealing or quarrelling over _detecta_ made at the visitation, see _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 51, 124, etc., _Yorks. Arch. Journ._ XVI, p. 442, _Reg. Epis. Johannis Peckham_, II, p. 661.

[1525] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 184-5.

[1526] _Ib._ p. 4.

[1527] _Ib._ pp. 120, 122, 123-4.

[1528] _V.C.H. Lincs._ II, p. 76.

[1529] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. ff. 83, 39_d_, 96. Similarly at Ankerwyke, where there was great discord between Prioress and nuns, he prorogued his visitation for six months and then sent down commissioners to expound his injunctions, inquire how they were followed and deal with further grievances. _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 6-8.

[1530] _V.C.H. Lincs._ II, pp. 76-7.

[1531] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 39_d_.

[1532] See above, pp. 388-9, 460.

[1533] See above, p. 469.

[1534] Liveing, _Records of Romsey Abbey_, p. 220.

[1535] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 5.

[1536] As full reports containing _detecta_ or _comperta_ are specially valuable, it may be useful to indicate those concerning nunneries, which have been published: (1) The earliest _comperta_ extant are those of Archbishop Giffard's visitation of Swine in Yorkshire in 1267-8; the individual _detecta_ are absent, but there is a fine set of injunctions, issued two months later, the earliest English nunnery injunctions which we possess, _Reg. Walter Giffard_ (Surtees Soc.), pp. 147-8, 248-9. (2) The _comperta_ of Archbishop Wittlesey's metropolitan visitation of St Radegund's, Cambridge (including only _interim_ injunctions) have been published in Gray, _Priory of St Radegund, Cambridge_, pp. 35-6. (3) The _Sede Vacante_ visitation of Arden in 1396 includes _detecta_ but no injunctions, _Test. Ebor._ I, pp. 283-5 (note) and that of Nunmonkton in the same year includes _comperta_ and injunctions, Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 194; both of these are concerned almost entirely with charges against the respective prioresses. (4) The finest collection in existence is Alnwick's book of Lincoln visitations, which is in the course of publication, _Linc. Visit._ II and III (in the press). (5) Records of visitations of Rusper and Easebourne from the Chichester registers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries contain _detecta_ and some injunctions, _Sussex Arch. Coll._ V and IX, _passim_. (6) Records of the visitations of monastic houses in the diocese of Norwich by Bishops Goldwell (1492-3) and Nykke (1514-32) include _detecta_ and _injunctions_ (sometimes only _interim_), _Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich_, ed. Jessopp, _passim_. (7) Dr Hede's _Sede Vacante_ visitations of the four houses in the diocese of Winchester in 1501-2, summarised in _V.C.H. Hants._ II, _passim_, include _detecta_, but not injunctions. (8) Archbishop Warham's visitations of houses in the diocese of Canterbury (Holy Sepulchre, Canterbury, the hospital of St James, Canterbury, Sheppey and Davinton) in 1511 include _detecta_ and sometimes injunctions, _Eng. Hist. Review_, VI. When more registers are published other _detecta_ and _comperta_ will doubtless appear; there are some valuable sets, still in manuscript in _Linc. Epis. Reg. Visit. Atwater_ and _ib._ _Reg. Visit. Longland_.

[1537] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. xlviii; for an admirable and detailed discussion of the whole question, in the light of Alnwick's records, Mr Hamilton Thompson's introduction to this volume (especially pp. xliv-li) should be studied. See also the learned article by Mr Coulton on "The Interpretation of Visitation Documents," _E.H.R._ 1914, pp. 16-40.

[1538] Liveing, _op. cit._, pp. 99, etc.

[1539] _Revelationes Gertrudianae ac Mechthildianae_, ed. Oudin (Paris, 1875). See also Preger, _Geschichte der deutschen Mystik im Mittelalter_ (1874), I, pp. 70-132; Eckenstein, _Woman under Mon._ pp. 328-53; Taylor, _The Medieval Mind_, I, pp. 481-6; A. M. F. Robinson (Mme Darmesteter), _The End of the Middle Ages_ (1889), pp. 45-72 (the Convent of Helfta); A. Kemp-Welch, _Of Six Medieval Women_ (1913), pp. 57-82 (Mechthild of Magdeburg); G. Ledos, _Ste Gertrude_ (Paris, 1901). The name of the Abbess Gertrude of Hackeborn, who ruled the house during the greater part of the time that these three mystics lived there, deserves to be added to theirs. For her life see _Revelationes, etc._, I, pp. 497 ff.

[1540] See her life by Thomas of Chantimpre, _Acta SS. Jun._, t. III, pp. 234 ff. See also Taylor, _op. cit._ I, pp. 479-81.

[1541] See E. Gilliat Smith, _St Clare of Assisi, her Life and Legislation_ (1914); Mrs Balfour, _Life and Legend of the Lady St Clare_, with introd. by Father Cuthbert (1910); Fr. Marianus Fiege, _The Princess of Poverty_ (Evansville, Ind. 1900) which contains a translation of Thomas of Celano's _Life of St Clare_ (_Acta SS. Aug._ t. II, pp. 754-67), Paschal Robinson, _Life of St Clare_ (1910), Locatelli, _Ste Claire d'Assise_ (Rome, 1899-1900). Also _La Vie et Legende de Madame Sainte Claire par Frere Francoys de Puis_, 1563, ed. Arnauld Goffin (Paris, 1907).

[1542] _Acta SS. Mar._ t. I, pp. 501-31. See also Jentsch, _Die Selige Agnes von Boehmen._ She is always regarded as a saint but was never officially canonised.

[1543] Pirckheimer, _B. Opera_, ed. Goldast (1610). See also, T. Binder, _Charitas Pirkheimer_ (1878), and Eckenstein, _op. cit._ pp. 458-76.

[1544] _The Life of St Theresa of Jesus, written by Herself_, tr. D. Lewis, ed. Zimmerman (1904). _The Letters of St Theresa_, tr. J. Dalton (1902). See also G. Cunningham Grahame, _Santa Teresa_, 2 vols. (1894).

[1545] See A. Gagniere, _Les Confessions d'une Abbesse du xvi{e} siecle_ (Paris, 1888), based on a manuscript at Ravenna ("Vita della Madre Donna Felice Rasponi, Badessa di S. Andrea, scritta da una Monaca") which the author considers to be an autobiography. Some interesting details as to the scandalous condition of Italian convents at the end of the century are to be found in J. A. Symonds' _Renaissance in Italy: The Catholic Reaction_, pt. I (1886), pp. 341-70, dealing with the careers of Virginia Maria de Leyva, in the convent of S. Margherita at Monza and Lucrezia Buonvisi (sister Umilia) in the convent of S. Chiara at Lucca.

[1546] _La Vie de Ste. Douceline, fondatrice des beguines de Marseille_, ed. J. H. Albanes (Marseille, 1879). See also A. Macdonell, _Saint Douceline_ (1905).

[1547] _Acta SS. Aprilis_, t. II, pp. 266-365. See also Huysmans, _Ste. Lydwine de Schiedam_ (3rd ed. Paris, 1901).

[1548] _Acta SS. Jun._ t. IV, pp. 270 ff. See also Th. Wollersheim, _Das Leben der ekstatischen Jungfrau Christina von Stommeln_ (Cologne, 1859); and Renan, _Nouvelles Etudes d'Histoire Religieuse_ (1884) (_Une Idylle Monacale au xiii{e} siecle: Christine de Stommeln_), pp. 353-96. Extracts from Christina's correspondence and life by Peter of Sweden are translated in Coulton, _Med. Garn._ pp. 402-21.

[1549] On these saintly and learned women see Eckenstein, _op. cit._ cc. III and IV, and Montalembert, _The Monks of the West_ (introd. Gasquet), vol. IV, Book XV. The great fourteenth century mystic Julian of Norwich (1343-c. 1413) was, it is true, connected with Carrow Priory, but she was an anchoress and never a nun there; see above, p. 366.

[1550] On these songs see A. Jeanroy, _Les Origines de la Poesie Lyrique en France au moyen age_ (2nd ed. 1904), pp. 189-92; and P. S. Allen in _Modern Philology_, V (1908), pp. 432-5. The songs themselves have to be collected from various sources; see below, Note I.

[1551] Langland, _Piers Plowman_, ed. Skeat. C text, Passus X, 72-5.

[1552] There was (as usual) however, more chance for a man than for a woman of villein status to enter a monastery and even to rise to the highest ecclesiastical dignities. A villein who could save enough to pay a fine to his lord might put his son to school and might buy that son's enfranchisement, so that he would be eligible for a place in a monastery. And though it was forbidden by canon and by temporal law to ordain a serf, once ordained he was free. Pollock and Maitland, _Hist. of Engl. Law_ (1911), I, p. 429; the lower ranks of the clergy probably contained many men of low or villein birth (see e.g. Chaucer's Poor Parson, whose brother was a ploughman and the complaint in "Pierce the Plouman's Crede" that beggars' brats become bishops). Sometimes, though very rarely, a villein rose high, for once he was a churchman, it was _la carriere ouverte aux talents_: Bishop Grosseteste was of very humble, probably of servile, origin; and Sancho Panza's motto will be remembered: "I am a man and I may be Pope." For a woman, however, the Church offered no such chance of advancement through the religious orders; the nunneries were essentially upper and middle class institutions.

[1553] From a charming round, sung in Saintonge, Aunis and Bas-Poitou.

"Dans l'jardin de ma tante
Plantons le romarin!
Y'a-t-un oiseau qui chante,
Plantons le romarin,
Ma mie,
Au milieu du jardin, etc."

Bujeaud, J., _Chants et chansons populaires des provinces de l'ouest_ (1866), I, pp. 136-7.

[1554] M. Vattasso, _Studi Medievali_, I (1904), p. 124. A long poem of seven verses, much mutilated in parts.

[1555] Uhland, _Alte hoch- und niederdeutsche Volkslieder_ (1844-5), t. II, p. 854 (No. 328). A slightly modernised version. Also printed in _Des Knaben Wunderhorn_, ed. von Arnim and Brentano (Reclam ed.), p. 25, and in _Deutsches Leben im Volkslied um 1530_, ed. Liliencron (1884), p. 226. Translation by Bithell, _The Minnesingers_, I (1909), p. 200, except the last two lines, which are by Mr Coulton; there is another in Coulton, _Med. Garn._ p. 476.

[1556] Ferrari, _Canzone per andare in maschera per carnesciale_, pp. 31-2. Referred to in Jeanroy, _op. cit._ I have been unable to consult the book.

[1557] Bartsch, _Altfranzoesische Romanzen und Pastourellen_ (1870), pp. 28-9 (No. 33).

[1558] Bartsch, _op. cit._ pp. 29-30 (No. 34).

[1559] _Oeuvres Completes d'Eustache Deschamps_ (Soc. des Anc. Textes Fr.), IV, pp. 235-6. (Virelay, DCCLII, sur une novice d'Avernay.)

[1560] Blade, J. F. _Poesies populaires de la Gascogne_ (1882), III, pp. 372-4. Also in Lenac-Moncaut, _Litterature populaire de la Gascogne_ (1868), pp. 291-2.

[1561] Damase Arbaud, _Chants Populaires de la Provence_ (1862-4), II, pp. 118-22.

[1562] See below, p. 611.

[1563] _The Court of Love in Chaucer's Poetical Works_, ed. R. Morris (1891), IV, pp. 38-40.

[1564] Lydgate's _Temple of Glas_, ed. J. Schick (E.E.T.S. 1891), p. 8.

[1565] _The Kingis Quair in Medieval Scottish Poetry_, ed. G. Eyre-Todd (1892), p. 47.

[1566] _Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaits_, by Sir David Lyndesay, ed. Small, Hall and Murray (E.E.T.S., 2nd ed., 1883), p. 514.

"And seis thou now yone multitude, on rawe
Standing behynd yon trauerse of delyte?
Sum bene of thayme that haldin were full lawe
And take by frendis, nothing thay to wyte,
In youth from bye into the cloistre quite;
And for that cause are cummyn, recounsilit,
On thame to pleyne that so thame had begilit."

[1567] _An Alphabet of Tales_, ed. M. M. Banks (E.E.T.S.). No. CCCCLXVIII, pp. 319-20. (In this and the following quotations from this work in this chapter I have modernised the spelling.) This version is translated from Caesarius of Heisterbach. _Dial. Mirac._, ed. Strange, II, pp. 42-3, which is the original version of all the widespread legends on this theme. From Caesarius it found its way into many other collections of miracles, in prose and in verse, in Latin, French, Spanish, German, Icelandic, Dutch and English. Perhaps the most beautiful is the Dutch poem (c. 1320) published by W. J. A. Jenckbloet, _Beatriij_ (Amsterdam, 1846-59) and re-edited with a grammatical introduction and notes in English by A. J. Barnouw (_Pub. of Philol. Soc._ III, 1914). An edition with illustrations by Ch. Doudelet accompanied by a translation into French by H. de Marez was published in Antwerp (1901) and was also issued with an English translation by A. W. Sanders vaz Loo. The best English translations are those in prose by L. Simons and L. Housman in _The Pageant_, ed. C. H. Shannon and J. W. Gleeson White (1896) pp. 95-116 and in verse by H. de Wolf Fuller (_Harvard Coop. Soc._, Cambridge, U.S.A. 1910). Modern writers have retold the tale almost as often as their medieval forebears; see for example Maeterlinck's play, _Soeur Beatrice_, John Davidson's poem, _The Ballad of a Nun_, one of Villier de l'Isle-Adam's _Contes Cruels_ (_Soeur Natalia_), one of Charles Nodier's _Contes de la Veillee_ (_La Legende de Soeur Beatrice_), and one of Gottfried Keller's _Sieben Legenden_ (_Die Jungfrau und die Nonne_). For a study of the Beatrice story see Heinrich Watenphul, _Die Geschichte der Marienlegende von Beatrix der Kuesterin_ (Neuwied, 1904); also P. Toldo, _Die Sakristanin_ (with bibliography by J. Bolte) in _Zeitschrift des Vereins fuer Volkskunde_ (1905), J. van der Elst, _Bijdrage tot de Geschiedenis der Legende van Beatrijs_ in _Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsche Taal- en Letterkunde_, XXXII, pp. 51 ff., and Mussafia, _Studien zu den Mittelalterlichen Marienlegenden_ (Vienna, 1887), I, p. 73. See also A. Cotarelo y Valledor, _Una Cantiga celebre del Rey Sabio, fuentes y desarollo de la leyenda de sor Beatriz, principalmente en la literatura espanola_ (1914). For other variants of the _Nonne Enlevee_ see below, Note J.

[1568] Chambers and Sidgwick, _Early English Lyrics_ (1907), No. XC, p. 163. But perhaps the most beautiful of medieval English poems which moralise on this theme is the _Luue Ron_ which Thomas of Hales wrote in the thirteenth century for a nun:

"Hwer is Paris and Heleyne
That weren so bryght and feyre on bleo?
Amadas, Tristram and Dideyne,
Yseude and alle theo,
Ector with his scharpe meyne,
And Cesar riche of worldes feo?
Heo beoth iglyden ut of the reyne,
So the scheft is of the cleo,"

--they have passed away as a shaft from the bowstring. It is as if they had never lived. All their heat is turned to cold. (_An Old English Miscellany_, ed. R. Morris (E.E.T.S. 1872), p. 95.) This catalogue of the lovely dead was a favourite device, immortalised later by "ung povre petit escollier, qui fust nomme Francoys Villon" (who certainly was not a moralist) in his _Ballade des Dames du Temps jadis_.

[1569] For an entertaining and stimulating account of the popular cult of the Virgin see Henry Adams, _Mont St Michel and Chartres_ (1913), especially chs. VI and XIII.

[1570] Modern poets who have written upon the same theme have drawn this moral more overtly than the medieval authors. Maeterlinck's Virgin in _Soeur Beatrice_ sings:

Il n'est peche qui vive
Quand l'amour a prie;
Il n'est ame qui meure
Quand l'amour a pleure....

Davidson's sacristan (in _A Ballad of a Nun_) cries:

"I care not for my broken vow;
Though God should come in thunder soon,
I am sister to the mountains now
And sister to the sun and moon,"

and the Virgin, welcoming her back on her return, tells her:

"You are sister to the mountains now,
And sister to the day and night;
Sister to God." And on her brow
She kissed her thrice, and left her sight.

[1571] "Cum in hyemis intemperie post cenam noctu familia divitis ad focum, ut potentibus moris est, recensendis antiquis gestis operam daret." _Gesta Romanorum_, ed. Oesterley (1872), ch. CLV. Quoted in Jusserand, _Lit. Hist. of the Eng. People_, I, p. 182.

[1572] One particular kind of story, the _fabliau_ (defined by Bedier as "un conte a rire en vers") was brought to great perfection by French jongleurs. See Montaiglon and Raynaud, _Recueil general et complet des Fabliaux_ (Paris, 1872-90), 6 vols.; and Bedier, _Les Fabliaux_ (Paris, 1873).

[1573] See Dante, _Paradiso_, XXIX, 11, for a violent attack on the practice. Compare the decree of the Council of Paris in 1528: "Quodsi secus fecerint, aut si populum more scurrarum vilissimorum, dum ridiculas et aniles fabulas recitant, ad risus cachinnationesque excitaverint, ... nos volumus tales tam ineptos et perniciosos concionatores ab officio praedicationis suspendi," etc., quoted in _Exempla of Jacques de Vitry_, ed. T. F. Crane (1890), Introd. p. lxix. The great preacher Jacques de Vitry himself, while advocating the use of _exempla_, adds "infructuosas enim fabulas et curiosa poetarum carmina a sermonis nostris debemus relegare ... scurrilia tamen aut obscena verba vel turpis sermo ex ore predicatoris non procedant." _Ib._ Introd., pp. xlii, xliii.

[1574] For instance _exempla_ were much used by Jacques de Vitry (see _op. cit._). Etienne de Bourbon (see _Anecdotes Historiques, etc., d'Etienne de Bourbon_, ed. A. Lecoy de la Marche (Soc. de l'Hist. de France)), and John Herolt. On the whole subject of _exempla_ see the Introduction to T. F. Crane's edition of the _Exempla of Jacques de Vitry_, and the references given there.

[1575] The most famous is the _Gesta Romanorum_. _Gesta Romanorum_, ed. Oesterley (Berlin, 1872); and see _The Early English Version of the Gesta Romanorum_, ed. S. J. H. Herrtage (E.E.T.S. 1879). The largest is the _Summa Praedicantium_ of John Bromyard, a fourteenth century English Dominican. See also an interesting fifteenth century English translation of a similar collection, the _Alphabetum Narrationum_ (which used to be attributed to Etienne de Besancon), _An Alphabet of Tales_, ed. M. M. Banks (E.E.T.S. 1904-5); many of the _exempla_ in this come from Caesarius of Heisterbach. Specimens of _exempla_ from these and other sources are collected in Wright's _Latin Stories_ (Percy Soc. 1842), and many tales from Caesarius of Heisterbach, Jacques de Vitry, Etienne de Bourbon, Thomas of Chantimpre, etc., are translated in Coulton, _Med. Garn._

[1576] For instance Caesarius of Heisterbach, _Dialogus Miraculorum_, ed. Strange (1851); Thomas of Chantimpre (Cantimpratanus), _Bonum Universale de Apibus_ (Douay, 1597); and the knight of la Tour Landry, who wrote a book of deportment for his daughters, copiously illustrated with stories. _The Book of the Knight of la Tour Landry_, ed. T. Wright (E.E.T.S. revised ed. 1906). For some account of Caesarius of Heisterbach's stories, other than those quoted in the text, see below Note K.

[1577] Collections of stories, such as those of the _Decameron_, the _Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_, the _Il Pecorone_ of Ser Giovanni, the _Novelle_ of Bandello, the _Heptameron_ of Margaret of Navarre, became very popular. But individual stories have also given plots to many great writers from the middle ages to the present day; it is only necessary to mention Chaucer, Shakespeare, Moliere and La Fontaine, to illustrate the use which has been made of them.

[1578] For examples of medieval mission sermons, with their colloquialisms, interruptions from the audience and strings of stories, the reader cannot do better than turn to the sermons of Berthold of Regensburg (1220-72) and of St Bernardino of Siena (1380-1444). Specimens of these are translated in Coulton, _Med. Garn._ pp. 348-64, 604-19. See also for Berthold, Coulton, _Medieval Studies_, 1st series. No. II ("A Revivalist of Six Centuries Ago") and for St Bernardino, Paul Thureau-Dangin, _St Bernardine of Siena_, trans. Baroness von Huegel (1906), and A. G. Ferrers Howell, _St Bernardino of Siena_ (1913).

[1579] Chaucer, _Cant. Tales, Wife of Bath's Prol._ ll. 556-8.

[1580] Translated from Jacques de Vitry (_Exempla ..._, ed. T. F. Crane, p. 22) in _An Alphabet of Tales_ (E.E.T.S.), p. 95 (No. CXXXVI). The story is a very old one, first found in the _Vitae Patrum_, X, cap. 60. It is sometimes attributed to St Bridget of Ireland, but Etienne de Bourbon, who repeats the story twice, tells it of Richard King of England and "a certain nun" (_Anec. Hist., etc., d'Etienne de Bourbon_, ed. Lecoy de la Marche, Nos. 248 and 500); and other medieval versions make the persecuting lover "a king of England." (See T. F. Crane, _op. cit._ p. 158.)

[1581] _Exempla of Jacques de Vitry_, No. LVIII, pp. 22-3. For other versions of this story, see _ib._ p. 159.

[1582] Caesarius of Heisterbach, _Dial. Mirac._ ed. Strange, I, p. 389. I have used the translation by Mr Coulton, _Med. Garn._ p. 124. The story is a variant of the theme of "the novice and the geese," one of the most popular of medieval stories (see Coulton, _ib._ p. 426); for analogues, see A. C. Lee, _The Decameron, its Sources and Analogues_, pp. 110-16.

[1583] Robert of Brunne's _Handlyng Synne_, ed. F. J. Furnivall (Roxburghe Club, 1862), pp. 50-52. (This is an amplified translation of William of Wadington's _Le Manuel des Pechiez_.) See also _Exempla of Jacques de Vitry_, No. CCLXXII, p. 113, which is translated in _An Alphabet of Tales_ (E.E.T.S.), p. 303.

[1584] _Exempla of Jacques de Vitry_, No. CXXX, p. 59. For other versions, see _ib._ p. 189. There is an English version in _An Alphabet of Tales_ (E.E.T.S.), p. 78 (No. CVIII).

[1585] Caesarius of Heisterbach, II. pp. 160-1. Compare the tale of Abbess Sophia whose small beer was miraculously turned into wine. _Ib._ p. 229.

[1586] Boccaccio, _Decameron_, 9th day, novel 2. But the story is older than Boccaccio, who constantly uses old tales. There is a French version by Jean de Conde: "Le Dit de la Nonnete" (Montaiglon et Raynaud, _op. cit._ t. VI, pp. 263-9). It was often afterwards copied in various forms in French, German and Italian jest- and story-books and there is an extremely gross dramatic version entitled "Farce Nouvelle a cinq personnages, c'est a scavoir l'Abesse, soeur de Bon Coeur, seur Esplouree, seur Safrete et seur Fesne" in a collection of sixteenth century French farces (_Rec. de farces, moralites et sermons joyeux_, ed. Le Roux de Lincy et Francisque Michel, Paris, 1837, vol. II). It is also referred to in _Albion's England_:

It was at midnight when a Nonne, in trauell of a childe,
Was checked of her fellow Nonnes, for being so defilde;
The Lady Prioresse heard a stirre, and starting out of bed,
Did taunt the Nouasse bitterly, who, lifting up her head,
Said "Madame, mend your hood" (for why, so hastely she rose,
That on her head, mistooke for hood, she donde a Channon's hose).

For these and references to other analogues see A. C. Lee, _The Decameron, its Sources and Analogues_ (1909), pp. 274-7. See also a curious folk-song version, below, p. 611. La Fontaine founded his fable of _Le Psautier_ on Boccaccio's version.

[1587] Boccaccio, _Decameron_ (3rd day, novel 1). For analogues and imitations, see A. C. Lee, _op. cit._ pp. 59-62. The story is the source of La Fontaine's _Mazet de Lamporechio_. For other ribald stories about nuns see Note J, below, p. 624.

[1588] I have made no attempt to describe the many treatises in praise of virginity composed by the fathers of the church. These include works by Evagrius Ponticus, St Athanasius, Sulpicius Severus, St Jerome, St Augustine, St Caesarius of Arles and others. Among the most interesting is one of English origin, the _De Laudibus Virginitatis_ of Aldhelm ([dagger] 709). For short analyses of these works, see A. A. Hentsch, _De la Litterature Didactique du Moyen Age, s'adressant specialement aux Femmes_ (Cahors, 1903), _passim_. From the eleventh century onwards several imitations of these treatises occur. A few of the more interesting will be noted later.

[1589] Uhland, _Alte hoch und niederdeutsche Volkslieder_ (1845), II, pp. 857-62 (No. 331). The first verse may be quoted to give the style:

Es war ein jungfrau edel
Si war gar wol getan,
in ainen schonen paungarten
wolt si spacieren gan,
in ainen schonen paungarten
durnach stuont ir gedank,
nach pluomen mangerlaie,
nach vogelein suessem gesank.

[1590] Uhland, _op. cit._ II, p. 852 (No. 326). See also Nos. 332 and 334.

[1591] _An Old English Miscellany_, ed. R. Morris [E.E.T.S. 1872], pp. 93-99.

[1592] Printed in _The Stacions of Rome_, etc., ed. F. J. Furnivall (E.E.T.S. 1867), and again in _Minor Poems of the Vernon MS._, Part II, ed. F. J. Furnivall (E.E.T.S. 1901), No. XLII, pp. 464-8.

[1593] _Hali Meidenhad_, ed. O. Cockayne (E.E.T.S. 1866).

[1594] See on this point Taylor, _The Medieval Mind_ (2nd ed. 1914), I, pp. 475 ff.

[1595] _Hali Meidenhad_, ed. O. Cockayne (E.E.T.S. 1866), p. 20.

[1596] _Hali Meidenhad_, ed. O. Cockayne (E.E.T.S. 1866), p. 22.

[1597] _Ib._ pp. 8, 30.

[1598] _Ib._ p. 36.

[1599] See e.g. p. 28. "Under a man's protection thou shalt be sore vexed for his and the world's love, which are both deceptive and must lie awake in many a care not only for thyself as God's spouse must, but for many others and often as well for the detested as the dear; and be more worried than any drudge in the house, or any hired hind and take thine own share often with misery and bitterly purchase it. Little do blessed spouses of God know of thee here, that in so sweet ease without such trouble in spiritual grace and in rest of heart love the true love and in his only service lead their life."

[1600] The _Ancren Riwle_ was translated and edited by J. Morton for the Camden Soc. (1853). I quote from the cheap and convenient reprint of the translation, with introduction by Gasquet, in The King's Classics, 1907. For the most recent research as to the different versions, authorship, etc., see article by G. C. Macaulay, "The _Ancren Riwle_" in _Modern Language Review_, IX (1914), pp. 63-78, 145-60, 324-31, 464-74, Father MacNabb's article _ib._ XI (1916), and Miss Hope Emily Allen's thesis, _The Origin of the Ancren Riwle_ (Publications of the Mod. Lang. Assoc. of Amer. XXXIII, 3, Sept. 1918); see also her note in _Mod. Lang. Review_ (April 1919), XIV, pp. 209-10, and Mr Coulton's review of her thesis, _ib._ (Jan. 1920), XV, p. 99; also Father MacNabb's attack on her theory, _ib._ (Oct. 1920) XV and her reply, _ib._ Research is gradually pushing the date of the first English translation (if indeed it be not after all the original) further and further back.

[1601] _Ancren Riwle_ (King's Classics), p. 12.

[1602] _Ancren Riwle_, p. 259.

[1603] Pp. 164-5.

[1604] Pp. 294-6.

[1605] Pp. 313-4.

[1606] Pp. 317-8.

[1607] P. 68.

[1608] Pp. 319-20.

[1609] Pp. 316-19, _passim_.

[1610] P. 325-6.

[1611] _The Myroure of Oure Ladye_, ed. J. H. Blunt (E.E.T.S. 1873, 1898).

[1612] _Op. cit._ pp. 65-9, _passim_.

[1613] As for instance the various other books written or translated for the nuns of Syon (on which see Eckenstein, _op. cit._ pp. 394-5) and the mystical treatise "Ego dormio et cor meum vigilat," which was written by Richard Rolle of Hampole for a nun of Yedingham. Rolle was kindly cherished by the nuns of Hampole, where he settled; they often sought his advice during his lifetime and after his death they tried to obtain his canonisation; an office for his festival was composed and a collection of his miracles made. (See _Cambridge Hist. of Engl. Lit._ II, pp. 45, 48.) For similar treatises of foreign origin, see the _Opusculum_ of Hermann der Lahme (1013-54), Francesco da Barbarino's _Del Reggimento e Costumi di Donne_ (which contains a section dealing with nuns), (c. 1307-15), Francisco Ximenes' _Libre de les dones_ ([dagger] 1409) and John Gerson's ([dagger] 1429) letter to his sister. See Hentsch, _op. cit._ pp. 39, 114, 151, 152.

[1614] Printed from the Thornton MS. in _Religious Pieces in Prose and Verse_, ed. G. G. Perry (E.E.T.S. 1867, 1914), No. III, pp. 51-62. Compare _Brit. Mus. MS._ Add. 39843 (La Sainte Abbaye), some pictures from which are reproduced in this book.

[1615] Mechthild von Magdeburg, _Offenbarungen, oder Das fliessende Licht der Gottheit_, ed. Gall Morel (1869), pp. 249 ff.; see Eckenstein, _op. cit._ p. 339. The same idea is found in a little German Volkslied:

Wir wellen uns pawen ein heuselein
Und unser sel ain klosterlein,
Jesus Crist sol der maister sein,
Maria jungfraw die schaffnerein.
Goetliche Forcht die pfortnerein,
Goetliche Lieb die kelnerein,
Diemuetikait wont wol do pei
Weisheit besleust daz laid all ein.

--Uhland, _Alte hoch- und niederdeutsche Volkslieder_, II, pp. 864-5.

[1616] English text in Furnivall, _Early English Poems_ (Berlin, 1862), printed in _Trans. of Philological Soc._ 1858, pt. II, pp. 156-61; and in Goldbeck and Maetzner, _Altenglische Sprachproben_ (Berlin, 1867). pt. I, p. 147; W. Heuser, _Die Kildare-Gedichte_ (Bonn, 1904), p. 145; and in a slightly modernised form in Ellis, _Specimens of Early English Poets_, 1801, I, pp. 83 ff., who took it from Hickes' _Thesaurus_, pt. I, p. 231. I have here used the modernised version for the sake of convenience. An attempt has been made to identify the religious houses mentioned in the poem with real monasteries in Kildare; the poem is certainly of Anglo-Irish origin and occurs in the famous "Kildare Manuscript" (MS. Harl. 913). See W. Heuser, _op. cit._ pp. 141-5. There is a French version in Barbazon et Meon, _Fabliaux_ III, p. 175.

[1617] "It is not until French wit flashes across English seriousness that we travel to the Land of Cokaygne," G. Hadow, _Chaucer and His Times_, p. 35. Stories of a food country are, however, common in medieval literature, being sometimes legends of a vanished golden age, as in the Irish "Vision of MacConglinne" (late twelfth century), and sometimes ideal pictures of a life of lazy luxury, as in the French and English Lands of Cokaygne and the German Schlaraffenland. On the whole subject, see Fr. Joh. Poeschel, _Das Maerchen von Schlaraffenland_ (Halle, 1878), and the introduction by W. Wollner to _The Vision of MacConglinne_, ed. Kuno Meyer (1892).

[1618] _Polit. Songs of England_, ed. T. Wright (Camden Soc. 1839), pp. 137-48.

[1619] The idea of the _Ordre de Bel-Eyse_ is probably taken from the twelfth century Anglo-Latin poem by Nigel Wireker entitled _Speculum Stultorum_, which tells the story of the ass Burnellus, who goes out into the world to seek his fortune. At one point Burnellus decides to retire to a convent and passes the different orders under review, to see which will suit him. This gives the author an opportunity for some pointed satire, including a reference to nuns; "they never quarrel save for due cause, in due place, nor do they come to blows save for grave reasons"; their morals are very questionable, "Harum sunt quaedam steriles et quaedam parturientes, virgineoque tamen nomine cuncta tegunt. Quae pastoralis baculi dotatur honore, illa quidem melius fertiliusque parit. Vix etiam quaevis sterilis reperitur in illis, donec eis aetas talia posse negat." Finally Burnellus decides to found a new order; from the Templars he will borrow their smoothly pacing horses, from the Cluniacs and the black Canons their custom of eating meat, from the order of Grandmont their gossip, from the Carthusians the habit of saying mass only once a month, from the Premonstratensians their warm and comfortable clothes, from the nuns their custom of going ungirdled; and in this order every brother shall have a female companion, as in the first order which was instituted in Paradise. _Anglo-Latin Satirical Poets of the Twelfth Century_, ed. T. Wright (Rolls Series, 1872), I, pp. 94-6.

[1620] With these two highly successful _jeux d'esprit_ at the expense of monastic luxury may be compared a passage in the curious thirteenth century poem entitled "A Disputison bytwene a cristene mon and a Jew," in which an incidental shaft is perhaps aimed at nunneries, which affected the habits of Cokaygne and Fair Ease. _The Minor Poems of the Vernon MS._, pt. II, ed. F. J. Furnivall (E.E.T.S. 1901), No. XLVI, p. 490.

[1621] See e.g. Rabelais, _Gargantua_, cap. LII (Comment Gargantua fit bastir pour le moine l'abbaye de Theleme).

[1622] Text in _Dits et Contes de Badouin de Conde et de son fils Jean de Conde_, pub. par Aug. Scheler, Ac. Roy. de Belgique, Brussels, 1866-7, III, No. XXXVII, pp. 1-48. The portion of the poem containing the lawsuit is translated in part into modern French by Le Grand d'Aussy, in _Fabliaux et Contes_, ed. Le Grand d'Aussy et Renouard, 1829, I, pp. 326-36.

[1623] A convenient collection of these is summarised in an excellent little book by Ch.-V. Langlois, entitled _La Vie en France au Moyen Age d'apres quelques Moralistes du Temps_ (2me ed. 1911).

[1624] The text of both _La Bible Guiot_ and _La Bible au Seigneur de Berze_ is printed in _Fabliaux et Contes_, ed. Barbazon-Meon, t. II (Paris, 1808), and both are fully analysed, with extracts in Langlois, _op. cit._ pp. 30-88. The text of _La Bible Guiot_ is also printed in San Marte, _Parcival Studien_ (Halle, 1861), with a translation into German verse.

[1625] _Les Lamentations de Matheolus_, pub. A. G. Van Hamel (_Bib. de l'Ecole des Chartes_, 1892, t. I, pp. 89-90). See also the analysis in Langlois, _op. cit._ pp. 223-75, especially p. 248.

[1626] Langlois, _op. cit._ pp. 248-9, Note 2.

[1627] _Poesies de Gilles li Muisis_, pub. Kervyn de Lettenhove (Louvain, 1882), t. I, pp. 209-36. The whole register is analysed in Langlois, _op. cit._ pp. 305-53.

[1628] See above, p. 298.

[1629] See _Vox Clamantis_, Lib. IV, ll. 578-676 in _The Complete Works of John Gower_, ed. G. C. Macaulay, _Latin Works_ (1902), pp. 181-5. The same subject is treated more shortly by Gower in his _Mirour de l'Omne_, ll. 9157-68. (_Ib._ _French Works_, p. 106.)

[1630] Compare the priestly logic of Alvar Pelayo who enumerates the abuse of the confessional among the habitual sins of _women_! _De Planctu Ecclesiae_, Lib. II, Art. 45, n. 84. (See Lea, _Hist. of Sacerdotal Celibacy_, I, 435-6 for this and other medieval complaints of the corruption of nuns by their confessors.)

[1631] Text in Furnivall, _Early Engl. Poems_ (Berlin, 1862), printed in _Trans. of Philological Soc._ 1858, pt. II, pp. 138-48 (from Cotton MS. Vesp. D. IX, f. 179).

[1632] _All the Familiar Colloquies of Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam_, trans. N. Bailey (2nd ed. 1733), pp. 147-55.

[1633] "Nec omnes virgines sunt, mihi crede, quae velum habent.... Nisi fortasse elogium, quod nos hactenus judicavimus esse Virgini matri proprium, ad plures transiit, ut dicantur et a partu virgines ... quin insuper, nec alioqui inter illas virgines sunt omnia virginea ... quia plures inveniuntur, quae mores aemulentur Sapphus, quam quae referant ingenium." Erasmus, _Colloquia, accur. Corn. Schrevelio_ (Amsterdam, 1693), p. 196.

[1634] _Op. cit._ pp. 155-7.

[1635] This account of Katherine's experiences, whether they were due (as the translator suggests) to "the crafty tricks of the monks, who terrify and frighten unexperienced minds into their cloysters by feigned apparitions and visions," or (as was more probably Erasmus' meaning) to the mere power of suggestion upon a hysterical girl, should be compared with the numerous accounts of such apparitions seen by novices or intending novices, which are to be found in lives of saints and in edifying _exempla_. See the examples quoted from Caesarius of Heisterbach, below, pp. 628 _sqq._

[1636] For the expenses incidental to taking the veil, see above, pp. 19-20.

[1637] _Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaits_, in Sir David Lyndesay's _Poems_, ed. Small, Hall and Murray (E.E.T.S. 2nd ed., 1883), pp. 421-3.

[1638] _Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaits_, in Sir David Lyndesay's _Poems_, ed. Small, Hall and Murray (E.E.T.S. 2nd ed., 1883), p. 506.

[1639] _Ib._ p. 514.

[1640] _Ib._ p. 521.

[1641] Quoted from the ballad by Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe ("The Murder of Caerlaverock") in McDowall, W., _Chronicles of Lincluden_, p. 28.

[1642] Constans, _Chrestomathie de l'Ancien Francais_ (1890), pp. 178-9.

[1643] Malory, _Morte Darthur_, ed. Strachey (Globe ed., 1893), pp. 481-5.

[1644] See above, p. 529.

[1645] See _Le Livre du Dit de Poissy_, ll. 220-698, _passim_, in _Oeuvres Poetiques de Christine de Pisan_, ed. Maurice Roy (Soc. des Anc. Textes Fr. 1891), t. II, pp. 160-80. With this may be compared another, but much slighter "courtly" description of a nunnery, contained in the _roman d'aventure_, _L'Escoufle_, written at the close of the twelfth century. At the beginning of the poem the author describes the service of the mass in the Abbey of Montivilliers (see below, p. 637), on the occasion of the departure of the Count of Montivilliers on a crusade; the Archbishop of Rouen and the Bishop of Lisieux took part in the service and a large concourse of lords and ladies was present. The author describes the singing of the service,

Li couvens avoit ja la messe
Commencie et l'abbesse
Commanda a ij damoiseles
Des mix cantans et des plus beles
Les cuer a tenir, por mix plaire
Et por la feste grignor faire.

He describes the rich offerings made at the altar by the Count and the rest of the congregation; and the stately visit of farewell paid by them afterwards to the nuns in the chapter house, when the Count asked for their prayers and in return gave them an annual rent of 20 or 30 silver marks. _L'Escoufle_, ed. H. Michelant and P. Meyer (Soc. des Anc. Textes Fr. 1894), pp. 7-9, _passim_. The other notable twelfth century description of a nunnery (in Raoul de Cambrai) is very different. See above. pp. 433-5.

[1646] Chaucer, Prologue to _The Canterbury Tales_, ed. Skeat. ll. 118-64.

[1647] See Dugdale, _Mon._ I, pp. 442-5.

[1648] 'Pudding' was a sausage.

[1649] Tyre was a favourite sweet wine in the middle ages; "if not of Syrian growth [it] was probably a Calabrian or Sicilian wine, manufactured from the species of grape called _tirio_." _Early Eng. Meals and Manners_, ed. Furnivall (E.E.T.S. 1868), p. 90.

[1650] Sowce (Lat. _salsagium_, verjuice) was a sort of pickle for hog's flesh. _Promptorium Parvulorum_, ed. A. L. Mayhew (E.E.T.S. 1908), notes, p. 701. See the rather ominous verse in Tusser:

Thy measeled bacon, hog, sow, or thy bore,
Shut up for to heale, for infecting thy store:
Or kill it for bacon, or sowce it to sell,
For Flemming, that loues it so deintily well.

Tusser, _Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie_ (Eng. Dialect Soc. 1878), p. 52. The word is still in use in the north of England for a concoction of mincemeat, vegetables, cloves and vinegar and in 'soused herrings' i.e. herrings cooked in vinegar.

[1651] I.e. St Ethelburga, for whom the Abbey was founded by her brother Erconwald, Bishop of London, in 666.

[1652] Probably _gris_, i.e. a little pig. Compare _Piers Plowman_, Prol. l. 226:

Cokes and here knaues crieden, 'hote pies, hote!
Gode gris and gees gowe dyne, gowe!'

[1653] "White worts," was a kind of _potage_ ("potage is not so moche used in all Chrystendome as it is used in Englande. Potage is made of the licour in the whiche flesshe is sod in, with puttynge to, chopped herbes and Otmell and salte," _Early Eng. Meals and Manners_, p. 97). This is a recipe for _White Worts_, written down, c. 1420: "Take of the erbys as thou dede for _jouutes_ and sethe hem in water tyl they ben neyshe; thanne take hem up, an bryse hem fayre on a potte an ley hem with flowre of Rys; take mylke of almaundys and cast therto and hony, nowt to moche, that it be nowt to swete, an safron and salt; an serve it forth ynne, rygth for a good potage." The herbs used for _jouutes_ are "borage, violet, mallows, parsley, young worts, beet, avens, buglos and orach"; and it is recommended to use two or three marrow bones in making the broth. _Two Fifteenth Century Cookery Books_, ed. T. Austen (E.E.T.S. 1888), pp. 5, 6.

[1654] Frumenty or Furmety (Lat. _frumentum_, wheat) is wheat husked and boiled soft in water, then boiled in milk, sweetened and spiced. Here is a recipe for it from the same book as that for white worts: "Take whete and pyke it clene and do it in a morter, an caste a lytel water theron; an stampe with a pestel tyl it hole [hull, lose husks]; than fan owt the holys [hulls, husks], an put it in a potte, an let sethe tyl it breke; than set yt douun, an sone after set it ouer the fyre an stere it wyl; an whan thow hast sothyn it wyl, put therinne swete mylke, an sethe it yfere, an stere it wyl; and whan it is ynow, coloure it wyth safron, an salt it euene, and dresse it forth." _Op. cit._ pp. 6-7. See the rhymed recipe in the _Liber cure cocorum_ (c. 1460), ed. Morris (Phil. Soc. 1862), p. 7.

[1655] Crisps (Mod. Fr. _crepe_) were fritters. Here is a recipe for them in a cookery book written c. 1450: "Take white of eyren [eggs], Milke, and fyne flowre, and bete hit togidre and drawe hit thorgh a streynour, so that hit be rennyng, and noght to stiff; and caste thereto sugar and salt. And then take a chaffur ful of fressh grece boyling; and then put thi honde in the batur and lete the bater ren thorgh thi fingers into the chaffur; And whan it is ren togidre in the chaffre, and is ynowe, take a skymour and take hit oute of the chaffur, and putte oute al the grece, And lete ren; and putte hit in a faire dissh and cast sugur thereon ynow and serue it forth." _Op. cit._ p. 93.

[1656] Buns. Compare the instructions to the cellaress of Syon: "On water days [i.e. days when the sisters drank water instead of beer] sche schal ordeyne for bonnes or newe brede." Aungier, _Hist. and Antiq. of Syon Mon._ p. 393.

[1657] Here is a recipe: "_Risshewes._ Take figges and grinde hem all rawe in a morter and cast a litull fraied oyle there-to; and then take hem vppe yn a versell, and caste thereto pynes, reysyns of corance, myced dates, sugur, Saffron, pouder ginger, and salt: And then make Cakes of floure, Sugur, salt and rolle the stuff in thi honde and couche it in the cakes, and folde hem togidur as risshewes, and fry hem in oyle, and serue hem forth." _Op. cit._ p. 93. There are other recipes, _ib._ pp. 43, 45, 97. The word survives in _rissole_.

[1658] _Reg. Epis. Peckham_, II, p. 706.

[1659] _Worc. Sede Vac. Reg._ p. 276.

[1660] Dugdale, _Mon._ III, p. 366.

[1661] _Linc. MS. Reg. Bokyngham Mem._ f. 397_d_.

[1662] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 120-1.

[1663] _Ib._ I, p. 51.

[1664] _V.C.H. Northants._ II, p. 101.

[1665] See above, p. 397.

[1666] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 115.

[1667] _Ib._ p. 115.

[1668] Sussex Arch. Soc. Coll. IX, pp. 25-7.

[1669] Sussex Arch. Soc. Coll. V, p. 257.

[1670] _Reg. J. de Pontissara_, I, p. 125.

[1671] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 51.

[1672] _Linc. Reg. Memo. Bokyngham_, f. 343. Compare Buckingham's similar injunction to Heynings, _ib._ f. 397, Gynewell's injunction to Elstow in 1359, _ib._ _Reg. Gynewell_, ff. 139_d_-140, Pontoise's injunction to Wherwell in 1302, _Reg. J. de Pontissara_, I, p. 125, and Peckham's injunction to the Holy Sepulchre, Canterbury, in 1284, _Reg. Ep. Peckham_. II, p. 706.

[1673] Liveing, _op. cit._ p. 104.