Medieval English Nunneries c. 1275 to 1535 Part 31

Of him is hope, G.o.d is wot, To be soon father abbot!

But whoever will come to this delectable country must first serve a hard penance; seven years must he wade in swines' muck up to the chin ere he win there. Fair and courteous lordings, good luck to you in the test!

More of a fairy tale than a satire, this jovial and good humoured poem was immensely popular in the middle ages. Another thirteenth century lampoon on the monastic orders, written in French in the reign of Edward I, is less well known, possibly because its satire, while still essentially gay, is more obvious than that of _The Land of c.o.kaygne_. The poem is known as _L'Ordre de Bel-Eyse_[1618]. The author has had the happy idea (not however a new one)[1619] of combining all the characteristic vices of the different orders into one glorious Order of Fair Ease, to which belong many a gentleman and many a fair lady, but no ribald nor peasant. From the Order of Sempringham it borrows one custom, that of having brothers and sisters together, but while at Sempringham there must be between them ("a thing which displeases many") ditches and high walls, in the Order of Fair Ease there must be no wall and no watchword to prevent the brethren from visiting the sisters at their pleasure; their intimacy must be separated by nothing, says this precursor of Rabelais, not by linen nor wool, nor even by their skins! And all who enter the order must feast well and in company, thrice a day and oftener. From the canons of Beverley they have taken the custom of drinking well at their meat and long afterwards (the pun is on _bever_, to drink), from the Hospitallers that of going clad in long robes and elegant shoes, riding upon great palfreys that amble well.

From the Canons they borrow the habit of eating meat, but whereas the canons eat it thrice a week these brethren are bound to eat it daily. From the Black Monks (as from the canons of Beverley) they take their heavy drinking, and if a brother be visited by a friend who shall know how to carouse in the evening, he shall sleep late in the morning (for the sake of his eyesight), till the evil fumes have issued from his head. From the secular Canons ("who willingly serve the ladies") they have taken a rule which is more needful than any other to solace the brethren--that each brother must make love to a sister before and after matins; a point which is elaborated with cheerful indecency, under the guise of borrowing from the Grey Monks their manner of saying prayers. From the Carthusians they take the custom of shutting each monk up in his cell to repose himself, with fair plants on his window-ledge for his solace, and his sister between his arms. The Friars Minor are founded in poverty, which they seek by lodging ever with the chief baron, or knight, or churchman of the countryside, where they can have their full; and so must the brethren of Fair Ease do likewise. The Preachers go preaching in shoes and if they are footsore they ride at ease on horseback; but the brethren of Fair Ease are vowed always to ride, and always they must preach within doors and after they have dined. This is our Order of Fair Ease; he who breaks it shall be chastised and he who makes good use of it shall be raised to the dignity of abbot or prior to hold it in honour, for thus do the Augustine canons, who know so many devices. Now ends our Order, which agrees with all good orders, and may it please many all too well![1620]

The inventors of these two imaginary orders were not serious or embittered moralists. c.o.kaygne lies upon the bonny road to Elfland; and Bel Eyse is a coa.r.s.er, stupider Abbey of Theleme[1621], whose inmates lack that instinct for honour and n.o.ble liberty which makes Gargantua's "Fais ce que vouldras" an ideal as well as a satire. As a rule the medieval satirists of monasticism deal in grave admonitions, or in violent reproaches. But one contemporary poem, hailing this time from France, may be added to the two English works in which the frailties of nuns are treated in a jesting spirit. This is a piece by the famous trouvere Jean de Conde ent.i.tled _La messe des oisiaus et li plais des chanonesses et des grises nonains_[1622]. The poem begins with an account of a ma.s.s sung in due form by all the birds and followed by a feast presided over by the G.o.ddess Venus. After this unwieldy introduction comes the main theme, which consists of a lawsuit brought by the n.o.bly born canonesses against the grey Cistercian nuns, for the judgment of Venus. A canoness speaks first on behalf of her order, attended by several gentlemen and knights, who are proud to claim her acquaintance:

"Queen," she says, "Deign to hear us and to receive us favourably, for we have ever been thy faithful subjects and we shall continue ever to serve thee with ardour. For long n.o.blemen held it glorious to have our love; the honour cost them nothing and was celebrated by round-tables, feasts and tourneys. But now the grey nuns are stealing our lovers from us. They are easy mistresses, exacting neither many attentions nor long service and sometimes men are base enough to prefer them to us. We demand justice. Punish their insolence, that henceforward they may not raise their eyes to those who were created for us and for whom we alone are made."

Venus then bids a grey nun speak and the grey nun's words are dry and to the point:

Has not nature made us too for love? are not there among us many who are as fair, as young, as attractive and as loving as they. Do not doubt it. True their dress is finer than ours, but in affairs of the heart we serve as well as they. They say we steal their lovers. In truth it is they who by their pride and haughtiness drive those lovers away; we do but reconquer them by courtesy and gentleness. We do not seek them in love; but we have pleased them and they return to us.

And, if they are to be believed, that studied elegance, which must be costly, has sometimes offered them a love less pure and disinterested than that which they find with us.

This last charge p.r.i.c.ks the canonesses and their faces grow scarlet with rage:

What? do these serving girls add insult to injury? Do they dare to claim to be as good lovers as we, who have ever had the usage and maintenance of love? Their bodies, clad in wool, are not of such lordship as to be compared to ours and grave shame were it if a man knew not how to choose the highest. Bold and foolish grey-robes, great ill have you done. Without your importunities and officious advances no great lord or knight or man of honour would think of you. This is your secret and to the shame of love it is spoken, for you degrade thus the joys which he would have true lovers long desire in vain. You have your monks and lay brothers; love them, give them heavy alms and share your pittances with them: you are welcome to them for our part.

But as to gentlemen, leave them to us, who are gentlewomen.

The grey nun replies quietly that her cause is too good to be weakened by insults, which can only offend the a.s.sembly and the respect due to the G.o.ddess, and that love considers neither birth nor wealth:

Our grey robes of Citeaux are not as fine as your vair-lined mantles and rich adornments; but in such things we do not wish to compare ourselves with you. It is in the heart and in love that we claim to be as good as you.

There follows a hum of discussion in the a.s.sembly, some taking one side and some the other, but most favouring the grey nuns. Then Venus rises to give judgment and makes a long speech on the theme that all are equal in her eyes:

"White-robed canonesses," she concludes, "I have always held your services dear. Your grace, your elegance, your fine manners will always bring you lovers; keep them, but do not drive from my court these modest nuns, who serve me with so much constancy and whose hearts burn for me the more ardently, owing to the constraint under which they live. You are finer and know better, perhaps, how to entertain; but sometimes the labourer's humble hackney goes further than the palfrey of the knight. It lies with yourselves alone to keep your lovers. Imitate your rivals and be gentle and gracious as they are and you will not have to fear for the fidelity of a single lord."

Obviously hitherto the poem has had none of the characteristics of a moral piece. The _debat_ was a common literary device, the law court presided over by Venus a favourite literary theme. Jean de Conde is merely concerned to amuse the court of Hainault with a polished poem cast in this familiar mould, just as at other times he might regale it with the _fabliau_ of _Les Braies au Prestre_ or the _dit_ of _La Nonnette_. Any satirical value which the poem has is due simply to the implication in his choice of parties to the suit; that is to say it is no more a satire than are the numerous _fabliaux_, which have for their subject the peccadillos of the Church. But the trouvere, even an aristocrat of the confraternity, such as Jean, who would have held in utter scorn the mere buffoon at the street corner, was never able to forget that he plied a dangerous trade, a "trop perilous mester." He was continually aware of the necessity to put himself right with Heaven, lest haply Auca.s.sin spoke truth and to h.e.l.l went the harpers and singers; for the Church's condemnation of his tribe was unequivocal. Therefore at the end of Venus' speech Jean de Conde abruptly tacks on a most untimely moral, which gives a sudden seriousness to his poem. He will sit in the seat of the moralists. So he interprets the whole debate according to a theological and moral allegory, even going so far as to compare the strife between the canonesses and the grey nuns with the resentment of the first workers against those who came last, in the parable of the Vineyard! He concludes with a bitter reproach against moral disorders among the nuns, accusing them of paying service to Venus to their d.a.m.nation, and bidding "canonesses, canons, priests, monks, nuns and all folk of their sort" to give up the evil love of the world, which pa.s.ses away like a dream, and to cling to the love of G.o.d which endureth for ever. A strange point of view; but one which would strike no sense of incongruity in an audience accustomed to the moralisation of the _Gesta Romanorum_ and of many another profane story, forced to do pious service as an _exemplum_. It is the spirit which built cathedrals and filled them with grotesques.

Jean de Conde was not really a moralist, even in the sense in which the authors of _The Land of c.o.kaygne_ and _The Order of Fair Ease_ deserve the name. But there were a number of genuine moralists in the last three centuries of the middle ages, who shook sober heads over the misdeeds of nuns[1623]. In two thirteenth century French "Bibles," by Guiot de Provins and the Seigneur de Berze respectively[1624], their chast.i.ty is impugned and the author of _Les Lamentations de Matheolus_ (c. 1290) goes to the root of the matter and attributes their immorality to the ease with which they are able to wander about outside their convents. They are continually inventing stories, he says, in order to escape for a moment from the cloister; their father, mother, cousin, sister, brother is ill; so they receive _conge_ to wander about where they will--"par le pais s'en vont esbattre." Moreover he has hard words for the rapacity of nuns in love; distrust them, he warns, for they pluck and shear their lovers worse than thieves or than Breton pirates; you must be always giving, giving, giving with those ladies--it is the usage of their convent; you have to reward the messenger and the mistress, the chambermaid, the matron and the companion[1625]. The mention of the companion shows that the precaution of sending the nuns out in twos was not always successful, and Gui de Mori (writing about the same time) has the same tale to tell; the nun's lover has to give to two at least, to her and to her companion; and since nuns have plenty of spare time, they are fond of feeding love by the exchange of messages, which mean more _douceurs_ from the purse of the luckless gallant[1626].

The most interesting of all French moralists who deal with nuns is, however, Gilles li Muisis, Abbot of the Benedictine monastery of St Martin of Tournai, who began about 1350 to write a "Register" of his thoughts upon contemporary life and morality, one section of which concerns "Les maintiens des nonnains"[1627]. Like Matheolus, Gilles li Muisis considers that the root of all evils is the ease with which nuns are able to leave their convents:

"Of old," he says, "the nun was approved by G.o.d and man, when she kept her cloister and wandered little in the world; but now I see them go out often, whereat I am greatly displeased, for if this thing were stopped many scandals would cease and it were greatly to the profit of their souls."

He represents the "tres doulces nonnains" as behaving "like ladies"; they keep open house for visitors; and the young men go in more easily than the old and guilty love is born. They exchange messages and letters with their lovers; moreover they very often take _conge_ without any other reason than the desire to meet these young men, and the sight of nuns upon every road sets men's tongues chattering. They ought to sit at home, spinning and sewing and mending their wimples: instead they hurry from stall to stall, spending their money on fine cloths and collars. The Pope would do well if he enclosed them. The young nuns are the worst of all; they are forever pestering their abbesses for leave to go out; they will have all their elders at their will, cellaress, treasuress, subprioress. Everything is topsy-turvy now and all are in the same rank, those who are lettered and those who are not; the young desire to have a finger in every pie.

Even their vow of poverty these nuns will not keep. They will have incomes of their own and if they have none they grumble until they obtain one somehow: "It is for this reason," they say, "that we desire the money--our houses are growing poor and everywhere we grow weak." But it is not so, for they want it in order to be able to go out more often. "I recognise,"

says Gilles, "and it is true, that nuns have many duties to fulfil, for there is great resort of guests to their houses, and if it were possible without harm to diminish these expenses, one might do something to help them." But it is necessary to remember that the ownership of private property is a sin; canon law condemns it, and if there is a rule permitting these private incomes I have never met it. Moreover one sees every day the evil results of such possessions.

What is the result of this laxity of morals, of this continual wandering of nuns in the world? Secular folk everywhere talk about them and miscall them:

"Religious ladies," says Gilles, "if you often heard what people say about many of you, the hearts of good nuns would be dismayed, for the world has but a poor opinion of you. And why? because men see the nuns wandering so often; see them packing up all these goods in their carts and going up and down the hills and dales. It is not you alone who are slandered; everywhere it is the same; the folk of holy church are held in little respect and men complain because they have so many possessions and such fat endowments. But be a.s.sured, all of you, when you go along the highways, that people look and see how well you are shod and how daintily you are clad; and they hurl evil words against you. 'Look at those nuns, who are more like fairies. They are attired even better than other women. They go about the roads, so that men may gaze upon them; what they covet is to be well stared at. G.o.d! well they know how to entertain men. They have left their cloisters and are going to enjoy themselves. Better were it for them if they prayed for people, instead of going to chatter with their friends.'"

Even those who keep company with these nuns are at the same time disturbed and a little dismayed by their behaviour. "Such men go about with them and have their will of them; but pay them behind their backs with fierce slanders...." So the worthy abbot continues, and every word that he says is borne out by the unimpeachable evidence of the visitation reports. His long lament is the most interesting of all moral works which have the behaviour of nuns as their subject and it would be possible to annotate almost every verse with a visitation _compertum_ or injunction.

Serious writers in condemnation of nuns were not lacking in England as well as in France in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when, as Gilles li Muisis complained, "les gens de Saint-Eglise pet.i.ts sont deportees." Langland's pungent satire on the convent where Wrath was Potager has already been quoted[1628]. Gower, for whom the world was still more out of joint, has a long pa.s.sage concerning nuns in that portentous monument of dulness, the _Vox Clamantis_, and draws a pessimistic picture of their weakness and the readiness with which they yield to temptation[1629]. Like monks, he says, the nuns are bound to chast.i.ty, but since they are by nature more frail than man, they must not be punished as severely as men if they break their vows; for the foot of woman cannot stand or step firmly like the foot of man and she has none of those virtues of learning, understanding, constancy and moral excellence, with which the more admirable s.e.x is endowed:

Nec scola, nec sensus, constancia nullaque virtus Sicut habent homines, in muliere vigent!

He proceeds to ill.u.s.trate the moral superiority of the male by the statement that nuns are often led astray by priests, who enter their convents as confessors or visitors, and under guise of a reforming visitation make the frail women worse than they were before. "I should hold this a most d.a.m.nable crime," says Gower, "were it not that--really, woman falls so easily!"

Hoc genus incesti dampnabile grande putarem Sit nisi quod mulier de leuitate cadit[1630].

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

Far more interesting than Gower's conventional moralising is a poem ent.i.tled _Why I can't be a Nun_, and written early in the fifteenth century[1631]. The favourite device of a ghostly abbey, peopled by personified qualities, is here employed, but the inmates of the convent are chiefly vices and such virtues as have a place among the nuns are treated with scant respect by their companions. The poem is unfortunately incomplete and begins abruptly in the middle of a sentence, but the gist of the missing introduction is clear enough. The author represents herself as a young girl named Katherine, whose desire to become a professed nun has been opposed by her father. The father charges a number of messengers to visit all the nunneries of England and the poem opens with the departure of these messengers, full of zeal to accomplish their task, and their return with the news that the nuns were ready to do his will.

Whereupon her father told Katherine that she could not be a nun, and merely laughing at her protests, went his way. Then she mourned and was sad and thought that fortune was against her; and one May morning, when her sorrow was more than she could bear, she walked in a fair garden, where she was wont to go daily to watch the flowers and the birds with their bright feathers, singing and making merry on the green bough; and going into an arbour, she set herself upon her knees and prayed to G.o.d to help her in her distress.

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

Kateryne, thys day schalt thow see An howse of wommen reguler, And diligent loke that thow be, And note ryght welle what ou seest there.

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

And what in that place I saw That to religion schulde not long, Peradventure ghe wolde desyre to know, And who was dwellyng hem among.

Sum what counseyle kepe I schalle, And so I was tawght whan I was yong, To here and se, and sey not all.

Then follows an enumeration of the inmates of the convent:

But there was a lady, that hyght dame pride; In grete reputacion they her toke And pore dame mekenes sate be syde To her vnnethys ony wolde loke, But alle as who sethe I her forsoke, And set not by her nether most ne lest; Dame ypocryte loke vpon a boke And bete her selfe vpon the brest.

On every syde than lokede vp I And fast I cast myne ye abowte; Yf I cowde se, beholde or aspy, I wolde have sene dame deuowte.

And sche was but wyth few of that rowght; For dame slowthe and dame veyne glory By vyolens had put her owte; And than in my hert I was fulle sory.

But dame envy was there dwellyng The whyche can sethe stryfe in every state.

And a nother lady was there wonnyng That hyght dame love vnordynate, In that place bothe erly and late Dame l.u.s.t, dame wantowne, and dame nyce, They ware so there enhabyted, I wate, That few token hede to G.o.ddys servyse.

Dame chastyte, I dare welle say, In that couent had lytylle chere, But oft in poynt to go her way, Sche was so lytelle beloved there; But sum her loved in hert fulle dere, And there weren that dyd not so, And sum set no thyng by her, But ghafe her G.o.de leue for to go....

And in that place fulle besyly I walked whyle I myght enduer, And saw how dame enevy In every corner had grete cure; Sche bare the keyes of many a dore.

And than experience to me came, And seyde, kateryne, I the ensuer, Thys lady ys but seldom fro home.

Than dame pacience and dame charyte In that nunry fulle sore I sowght; I wolde fayne have wyst where they had be, For in that couent were they nowght; But an owte chamber for hem was wrowght, And there they dweldyn wyth-owtyn stryfe, And many G.o.de women to them sowght And were fulle wylfulle of her lyfe.

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

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

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

And than I prayed experience for to have wyst Why sche schewed me thys nunery, Sche seyde "now we bene here in rest, I thenk for to tellen the why, Thy furst desyre and thyne entent Was to bene a nune professede, And for thy fader wolde not consent, Thyne hert wyth mornyng was sore oppressede, And thow wyst not what to do was best; And I seyde, I wolde cese thy grevaunce, And now for the most part in every cost I have schewed the nunnes gouernawnce.

For as thou seest wythin yonder walle Suche bene the nunnes in euery warde, As for the most part, I say not alle, G.o.d forbede, for than hyt were harde, For sum bene devowte, holy and towarde, And holden the ryght way to blysse; And sum bene feble, lewde and frowarde, Now G.o.d amend what ys amys!

And now keteryne, I have alle do For thy comfort that longeth to me, And now let vs aryse and go Vn-to the herber there I come to the.

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

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

Yowre barbe, your wympplle and your vayle, Yowre mantelle and yowre devowte clothyng, Maketh men wythowten fayle To wene ghe be holy in levyng.

And so hyt ys an holy thyng To bene in habyte reguler; Than, as by owtewarde array in semyng, Beth so wythin, my ladyes dere.

A fayre garland of yve grene Whyche hangeth at a tavern dore, Hyt ys a false token as I wene, But yf there by wyne G.o.de and sewer; Ryght so but ghe your vyes forbere, And alle lewde custom be broken, So G.o.d me spede, I yow ensewer Ellys yowre habyte ys no trew token.

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