Medieval English Nunneries c. 1275 to 1535 Part 32

There remain to be considered two satires which were written on the very eve of the Reformation and perhaps have a particular significance by reason of the cataclysm, which was so soon to effect what all the denunciations of the moralists had failed to do. These are the dialogues on "The Virgin averse to Matrimony" and "The Penitent Virgin" in Erasmus'

_Colloquies_ (c. 1526) and a morality (which has already been mentioned) by the Scottish poet Sir David Lyndesay, ent.i.tled _Ane Pleasant Satyre of the Thrie Estaits, in commendatioun of vertew and vituperatioun of vyce_ (c. 1535). Erasmus' dialogues are (as might be expected) strongly anti-monastic and the two which concern nuns are intended to attack those "kidnappers" as he calls them:

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

The dialogue ent.i.tled "The Virgin averse to Matrimony"[1632] takes place between Eubulus and a seventeen-year old girl, Katherine, who like that other Katherine, the heroine of _Why I can't be a Nun_, has set her heart upon entering a convent, but has encountered the opposition of her parents:

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

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

"The matter in question here," he says, "is only the changing of a habit or of such a course of life, which in itself is neither good nor evil. And now consider but this one thing, how many valuable privileges you lose together with your liberty. Now, if you have a mind to read, pray or sing, you may go into your own chamber as much and as often as you please. When you have enough of retirement you may go to church, hear anthems, prayers and sermons and if you see any matron or virgin remarkable for piety, in whose company you may get good, if you see any man that is endowed with singular probity from whom you may learn what will make for your bettering, you may have their conversation; and you may choose that preacher that preaches Christ most purely. When once you come into a cloister all these things, which are the greatest a.s.sistance in the promotion of true piety, you lose at once." "But," says Katherine, "in the meantime I shall not be a nun." "What signifies the name?" replies Eubulus.

"Consider the thing itself. They make their boast of obedience and will you not be praiseworthy in being obedient to your parents, your bishop and your pastor, whom G.o.d has commanded you to obey? Do you profess poverty? And may not you too, when all is in your parents'

hands? Although the virgins of former times were in an especial manner commended by holy men for their liberality towards the poor; but they could never have given anything if they had possessed nothing. Nor will your charity be ever the less for living with your parents. And what is there more in a convent than these? A veil, a linen shift turned into a stole, and certain ceremonies, which of themselves signify nothing to the advancement of piety and make n.o.body more acceptable in the eyes of Christ, who only regards the purity of the mind." "Are you then against the main inst.i.tution of a monastic life?"

asks Katherine. "By no means," answers Eubulus. "But as I will not persuade anybody against it that is already engaged in this sort of life to endeavour to get out of it, so I would most undoubtedly caution all young women, especially those of generous tempers, not to precipitate themselves unadvisedly into that state from whence there is no getting out afterwards. And the rather because their charity is more in danger in a cloister than out of it; and beside that, you may do whatever is done there as well at home."

But Katherine remains unpersuaded.

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

"How did you get your parents' consent at last?" asks Eubulus. "First by the restless solicitations of the monks and nuns and then by my own importunities and tears, my mother was at length brought over; but my father stood out stiffly still. But at last being plyed by several engines, he was prevailed upon to yield; but yet, rather like one that was forced than that consented. The matter was concluded in their cups, and they preached d.a.m.nation to him, if he refused to let Christ have his spouse.... I was kept close at home for three days; but in the mean time there were always with me some women of the college that they call _convert.i.tes_, mightily encouraging me to persist in my holy resolution and watching me narrowly, lest any of my friends or kindred should come at me and make me alter my mind. In the meanwhile my habit was making ready, and the provision for the feast." "Did not your mind misgive you yet?" asks Eubolus. "No, not at all; and yet I was so horridly frightened that I had rather die ten times over than suffer the same again.... I had a most dreadful apparition." "Perhaps,"

remarks Eubulus slyly, "it was your evil genius that pushed you on to this." "I am fully persuaded it was an evil spirit," replies Katherine. "Tell me what shape it was in? Was it such as we use to paint with a crooked beak, long horns, harpies claws and swinging tail?" "You can make game of it," says poor Katherine, "but I had rather sink into the earth than see such another." "And were your women solicitresses with you then?" "No, nor I would not so much as open my lips of it to them, though they sifted me most particularly about it, when they found me almost dead with the surprise." "Shall I tell you what it was?" says Eubulus. "These women had certainly bewitched you, or conjured your brain out of your head rather[1635].

But did you persist in your resolution for all this?" "Yes, for they told me that many were thus troubled upon their first consecrating themselves to Christ; but if they got the better of the Devil that bout, he'd let them alone for ever after." "Well, what pomp were you carried out with?" "They put on all my finery, let down my hair and dressed me just as if it had been for my wedding.... I was carried from my father's house to the college by broad daylight and a world of people staring at me." "O these Scaramouches," interrupts Eubulus, "how they know how to wheedle the poor people!"

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

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

ghon Ladie hes vowit Chast.i.tie For hir professioun; thairto sould accord.

Scho maid that vow for ane Abesie, Bot nocht for Christ Jesus our Lord.

Fra tyme that thay get thair vows, I stand for'd, Thay banische hir out of thair c.u.mpanie: With Chast.i.tie thay can mak na concord, Bot leids thair lyfis in Sensualitie.

I sall obserue our counsall, gif I may.

c.u.m on, and heir quhat ghon Ladie will say, My prudent, l.u.s.tie, Ladie Priores, Remember how ghe did vow Chast.i.tie.

Madame, I pray ghow, of your gentilnes, That ghe wald pleis to haif of me pitie, And this ane nicht to gif me harberie: For this I mak ghow supplicacioun.

Do ghe nocht sa, Madame, I dreid, perdie!

It will be caus of depravatioun.

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

Be Christ I ghe c.u.m nocht heir: ghe are contrair to my c.u.mplexioun ...

Dame Sensuall hes geuin directioun ghow till exclude out of my c.u.mpany.

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

Pas hame amang the Nunnis and dwell, Quhilks ar of Chast.i.tie the well.

I traist thay will, with Buik and bell Ressaue ghow in thair Closter;

to which Chast.i.ty replies:

Sir, quhen I was the Nunnis amang, Out of thair dortour thay mee dang, And wold nocht let me bide se lang To say my Pater noster[1637].

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

Quhat say ghe now, my Ladie Priores?

How have ghe vsit ghour office, can ghe ges?

Quhat was the caus ghe refusit harbrie To this young l.u.s.tie Ladie Chast.i.tie?

and the Prioress replies:

I wald have harborit hir, with gude intent; Bot my complexioun therto wald not a.s.sent.

I do my office efter auld vse and wount: To ghour Parliament I will mak na mair count[1638].

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

c.u.m on, my Ladie Priores.

We sall leir ghow to dance-- And that within ane lytill s.p.a.ce-- Ane new pavin of France

(_Heir sall thay spuilghe the Priores; and scho sall haue ane kirtill of silk under hir habite._)

Now, brother, be the Ma.s.se!

Be my iudgement, I think This halie Priores Is turnit in ane _cowclink_[1639]. [courtesan

The Prioress then makes a lament, which has already been quoted, blaming her friends for making her a nun, and declaring that nuns are not necessary to Christ's congregation and would be better advised to marry.

Finally the Acts of Parliament of King Correction and King Humanity, for the better regulation of the realm, are proclaimed; and these include a condemnation of nunneries:

Because men seis, plainlie, This wantoun Nunnis ar na way necessair Till Common-weill, not ghit to the glorie Of Christ's kirk, thocht thay be fat and fair.

And als, that fragill ordour feminine Will nocht be missit in Christ's Religioun; Thair rents vsit till ane better fyne For Common-weill of all this Regioun[1640].

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

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

To sweet Lincluden's holy cells Fu' dowie I'll repair: There peace wi' gentle patience dwells-- Nae deadly feuds are there.

In tears I'll wither ilka charm, Like draps o' balefu' dew, And wail a beauty that could harm A knight sae brave and true[1641].

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

Bele Doette a pris son duel a faire: "Tant mari fustes, cuens Do, frans de bon aire!

Por vostre amor vestirai je la haire, Ne sor mon cors n'avra pelice vaire.

E or en ai dol.

Por vos devenrai nonne en l'eglyse Saint Pol.

Por vos ferai une abbaie tele Quant iert li jors que la feste iert nomee Se nus i vient qui ait s'amor fausee Ja del mostier ne savera l'entree.

E or en ai dol.

Por vos devenrai nonne en l'eglyse Saint Pol.

Bele Doette prist s'abaise a faire, Qui mout est grande et ades sera maire: Toz cels et celes vodra dedans atraire Qui por amor sevent peine et mal traire.

E or en ai dol.

Por vos devenrai nonne en l'eglyse Saint Pol"[1642].