Medieval English Nunneries c. 1275 to 1535 Part 33

Lovely Doette, she weeps a husband fair.

"O count, my lord, frank wast thou, debonair!

For thy dear love I'll wear a shirt of hair, Never again be clad in robe of vair.

Great grief have I.

Now in St Paul's a nun I'll live and die.

For thy dear love an abbey I will raise.

And when therein first sounds the song of praise If one shall come who falsely love betrays Ne'er shall she find an entrance all her days.

Great grief have I.

Now in St Paul's a nun I'll live and die.

Lovely Doette, she makes her abbey so.

Great now it is and greater still shall grow.

And lovers all into that church shall go Who for love's sake know pain and bitter woe.

Great grief have I.

Now in St Paul's a nun I'll live and die."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Par les degrez de pierre, que moult pris, En hault montames Ou bel hostel royal, que nous trouvames Moult bien pare, et en sa chambre entrames De grant beaulty.

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

Et de belles plusiers y a comme angelz.

Si ne vestent chemises, et sus langes Gisent de nuis; n'ont pas coultes a franges Mais materas Qui sont couvers de biaulx tapis d'Arras Bien ordenees, mais ce n'est que baras, Car ils sont durs et emplis de bourras, Et la vestues Gisent de nuis celles dames rendues, Qui se lievent ou elles sont batues A matines; la leurs chambres tendues En dortouer Ont pres a pres, et en refectouer Disnent tout temps, ou a beau lavourer.

Et en la court y a le parlouer Ou a trellices De fer doubles a fenestres coulices, Et la en droit les dames des offices A ceulz de hors parlent pour les complices Et necessaires Qu'il leur convient et fault en leurs affaires.

Si ont prevosts, seigneuries et maires, Villes, Chastiaulx, rentes de plusieurs paires Moult bien a.s.sises; Et riches sont, ne nulles n'y sont mises Fors par congie de roy qui leurs franchises Leur doit garder et maintes autres guises A la en droit.

Christine then tells how the Prioress invited the party to "desjuner" and how in a fair room they were served with rich wines and meats, in vessels of gold, and were waited upon by the nuns. Then the nuns led them through the buildings and grounds of the convent, showing them all the beauties of this "paradise terestre." She gives an extremely minute and interesting picture of Poissy as it was in 1400, the vaulted cloister with its carven pillars, surrounding a square lawn with a tall pine in the middle; the s.p.a.cious frater, with gla.s.s windows; the fine chapter house; the stream of fresh water carried in pipes through all the different buildings; the great storehouses, cellars, ovens and other offices; the large, airy dorter; and finally the magnificent church, with its tall pillars and vaulted roof, its hangings, images, paintings and ornaments of glittering gold. She tells of the services held there, when the nuns knelt within a screen in the nave and the townsfolk and visitors and priests outside it.

She gives a detailed account of the clothes worn by the nuns; a woman she, and not to be content with Malory's simple "white clothes and black."

Finally she describes the wide gardens and woods of the convent, surrounded by a high wall and full of fruit-trees and birds and deer and coneys, with two fishponds, well-stocked with fish. In the exploration of these delights the day pa.s.sed quickly. The gay party retired at nightfall to a neighbouring inn and early the next day paid a farewell visit to the hospitable nuns, who gave them gifts of belts and purses embroidered by themselves:

Et reprendre De leurs joyaulx Il nous covint, non fermillez n'aniaulx Mais boursetes ouvrees a oysiaulx D'or et soies, ceintures et laz biaulx, Moult bien ouvrez, Qui autre part ne sont telz recouvrez.

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

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

Ther was also a Nonne, a Prioresse, That of her smyling was ful simple and coy; Hir grettest ooth was but by seynt loy; And she was cleped madame Eglentyne.

Ful wel she song the service divyne, Entuned in hir nose ful semely; And Frensh she spak ful faire and fetisly, After the scole of Stratford atte Bowe, For Frensh of Paris was to hir unknowe.

At mete wel y-taught was she with-alle; She leet no morsel from hir lippes falle, Ne wette hir fingres in hir sauce depe.

Wel coude she carie a morsel and wel kepe, That no drope ne fille up-on hir brest.

In curteisye was set ful muche hir lest.

Hir over lippe wyped she so clene, That in hir coppe was no ferthing sene Of grece, whan she dronken hadde hir draughte.

Ful semely after hir mete she raughte, And sikerly she was of greet disport, And ful plesaunt and amiable of port, And peyned hir to countrefete chere Of court, and been estatlich of manere, And to be holden digne of reverence.

But, for to speken of hir conscience, She was so charitable and so pitous, She wolde wepe, if that she sawe a mous Caught in a trap, if it were deed or bledde.

Of smale houndes had she, that she fedde With rosted flesh, or milk and wastel-breed.

But sore weep she if oon of hem were deed, Or if men smoot it with a yerde smerte: And al was conscience and tendre herte.

Ful semely hir wimpel pinched was; Hir nose tretys; hir eyen greye as glas; Hir mouth ful smal, and ther-to softe and reed; But sikerly she hadde a fair forheed; It was almost a spanne brood, I trowe; For, hardily, she was nat undergrowe.

Ful fetis was hir cloke, as I was war.

Of smal coral aboute hir arm she bar A peire of bedes, gauded al with grene; And ther-on heng a broche of gold ful shene, On which ther was first write a crouned A, And after, _Amor vincit omnia_[1646].

APPENDIX I

ADDITIONAL NOTES TO THE TEXT

NOTE A.

THE DAILY FARE OF BARKING ABBEY.

The _Charthe_ [charter] _longynge to the office of the Celeresse of the Monasterye of Barkinge_[1647] is one of the most interesting domestic doc.u.ments which has survived from the middle ages. The _Menagier de Paris_ gives a first rate account of the work of a housewife who has to provide for a private household. The _Charthe_ sets forth the duties of a housewife who has to feed a large inst.i.tution. No bursar of a college or housekeeper of a school can fail to read it with a sympathetic smile. Like a good business woman the nameless cellaress, who drew it up for the guidance of her successors, sets out first of all the sources of revenue by which the charges of her office were supported. These are of three sorts: (1) the rents from thirteen rural manors, together with certain annual rents from the canons of St Paul's, the priory of St Bartholomew's and the lessees of various tenements in London, which were supposed to yield her a little over 95 per annum; (2) "the issues of the Larder," to wit all the ox skins, "inwards" of oxen, tallow coming from oxen and messes of beef, which she sells; and (3) "the foreyn receyte," to wit the money received for the sale of hay at any farm belonging to her office.

These represent only her money revenues; but she also received the greater part of meat and dairy produce consumed by the convent from the home farm and from the demesnes of the manors appropriated to her. The _Charthe_ warns her to be certain of hiring pasture for her oxen at such times as it is needful, to see that her hay is duly mown and made and to keep all the buildings belonging to her office in repair, both those within the monastery and those at the outlying manors and farms.

The _Charthe_ throws some light upon the domestic staff employed in working the department. An important gentleman called the steward of the household had the general supervision of its business affairs; he kept an eye on the bailiffs and rent collectors of the cellaress's manors and presided at their courts. The cellaress solemnly presented him with a "reward" of 20_d._ every time that he returned with the pecuniary proceeds of justice, and on Christmas day. The management of the department was done by the head cellaress herself, with an under-cellaress to a.s.sist her and a clerk to keep her accounts and write her business letters, at a wage of 13_s._ 4_d._ The kitchen was in the special charge of a nun kitchener and the actual cooking was done by a "yeoman cook," a "groom cook" and a "pudding wife"[1648]; she paid her yeoman cook a wage of 26_s._ 8_d._, her pudding wife, 2_s._ a year and bought her groom cook a gown at Christmas. She wisely gave a Christmas box to each of the underlings, great and small, with whom she had to do, 20_d._ to the Abbess' gentlewoman, 16_d._ to every gentleman, "and to every yoman as it pleaseth her for to doo, and gromes in like case"; moreover it was her pleasant duty to hand to herself as cellaress and to her under-cellaress 20_d._ apiece.

The _Charthe_ gives exceedingly minute directions as to the conventual housekeeping. Barking Abbey was a large house, consisting at the time this doc.u.ment was drawn up of thirty-seven ladies. The Abbess dwelt in state in her own apartments, with a gentlewoman to wait upon her and a private kitchen, with its own staff, which was not under the control of the cellaress. The cellaress, however, sent in to the Abbess 4 lbs. of almonds and eight cakes called "russheaulx" in Lent, eight chickens at Shrovetide, one pottle of wine called Tyre[1649] on Maundy Thursday and a sugar loaf on Christmas Day; while the Abbess' kitchen had to provide the convent with "pittances" and "liveries" of pork, bacon, mutton or eggs on certain days of the year, as will appear hereafter. From the convent kitchen the cellaress had to purvey for: (1) the ladies of the convent, (2) the prioress, two cellaresses and kitchener, who receive a double allowance of almost all food given out, and (3) the priory.

The _Charthe_ sets forth exactly how much is to be delivered to each person, the separate allowances of meat being called "messes." It will be convenient to consider the stores to be provided under the five headings of: (1) meat, (2) grain, (3) b.u.t.ter and eggs, (4) fish and condiments for Advent and Lenten fare, and (5) pittances, or extra delicacies provided on certain days of the year. It is to be noted that the _Charthe_ deals for the most part with the special fare appropriate to special occasions.

There is no mention of the daily allowance of bread and beer made on the premises; the only fish mentioned is salt fish for Lent; the only vegetables are dried peas and beans; the only fowls are for a special pittance on St Alburgh's day.

(1) _Meat._ The chief meat food of the convent, eaten three times a week (on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday), except in Advent and Lent and on vigils, was beef. The cellaress had to purvey 22 "gud oxen" by the year for the convent. These oxen were fed on her own pastures, and, says the cellaress, "she shall slay but every fortnyght and yf sche be a good huswyff"; accordingly at the end of the first week, she must look and see if she has enough beef to last out the fortnight and if not she must buy what she needs in the market. It would seem that besides the beef provided by the cellaress from the convent kitchen the convent had an extra allowance of beef provided from some source not mentioned in the _Charthe_, or else that they did not always eat each week what was delivered to them. For the cellaress sets down as follows the entry which her clerk is to make in her book each week: on Sat.u.r.day 20 Sept.

(doubtless the day on which she was writing) she answers for four or five messes remaining in store of the week before, and of 63 messes of beef from an ox slain the same week, also of 80 messes of beef bought by her of the convent "of that they lefte behynd of ther lyvere, paying for every mess 1-1/2_d._," total 147 messes, whereof she delivers to each lady for the three meat days three messes and to the priory six messes. After beef the meat food most commonly eaten consisted in various forms of pig's flesh. At Martinmas the cellaress had to ask at the abbess' kitchen for a pittance of pork for each lady and also a livery of "sowsse"[1650], thus defined: "every lady to have three thynges, that is to sey, the cheke, the ere and the fote is a livery; the groyne and two fete ys anodyer leveray; soe a hoole hoggs sowsse shall serve three ladyes." At the same time she had to give them "of sowce of hyre owne provisione two thynges to every lady, so that a hoole hog sowce do serve four ladyes." She also had to provide pork from her own kitchin for two anniversary pittances (of which more anon) and she notes that every hog yields 20 messes. Moreover on Christmas Day she had to ask at the abbess' kitchen for "livery bacon" for the convent, four messes for each lady; a flitch was reckoned to provide ten messes. Of mutton the convent ate very little. Three times a year, between the feasts of the a.s.sumption (Aug. 15) and of St Michael (Sept.

29), the abbess' kitchen had to provide "pittance mutton" for the ladies, a mess to each, "and every mutton yields twelve messes"; and twice a year on certain anniversaries the cellaress had to provide a similar allowance out of her own kitchen.

(2) _Grain._ Under this heading comes three quarters of malt, to be brewed into ale for the festal seasons of St Alburgh's[1651] (or Foundress') Day (Oct. 11) and Christmas; one quarter and seven bushels of wheat to be baked into bread or cakes for various pittances; two bushels of dried peas to be eaten in Lent and one bushel of dried beans "against Midsummer." The brewer and baker were paid a tip of 20_d._ and 6_d._ respectively, when they had to make the extra pittance beer and bread. The convent also had a livery of oatmeal from the cellaress, four dishes delivered once a month.

(3) _b.u.t.ter and Eggs._ The cellaress had to provide the convent with b.u.t.ter at certain times, to every lady and double one "cobet," every dish containing three cobets. What was called "feast b.u.t.ter" was payable on St Alburgh's Day, Easter, Whitsunday and Trinity Sunday. What was called "storing b.u.t.ter" was payable five times a year, "to wit Advent and four times after Christmas." What was called "fortnight b.u.t.ter" was payable once for every fortnight lying between Trinity Sunday and Holy Rood Day (Sept. 14). The cellaress was also responsible for providing the convent with money to buy eggs ("ey silver"); each lady had weekly from Michaelmas (Sept. 29) to All Hallows' Day (Nov. 1), 1-1/2_d._, from All Hallows' Day to Advent, 1-3/4_d._, from Advent to Childermas Day (Dec. 28), 1-1/4_d._, from Childermas Day to Ash Wednesday, 1-3/4_d._, and from Easter to Michaelmas, 1-1/2_d._; also an extra allowance of 1/2_d._ on each vigil of the year, when no meat was eaten. Out of this "ey silver" the nuns had to purvey eggs for themselves as best they might; but the cellaress had to give the priory each week in the year 32 eggs or else 2-3/4_d._ in money, except in the four Advent weeks when she provided only 16 and in Lent, when none were due; for every vigil she gave them eight eggs, "or else 1-3/4_d._ and the fourth part of 1/4_d._" in money. At the five princ.i.p.al feasts of the year the abbess left her hall and dined in state in the frater, to wit on Easter Day, Whit Sunday, a.s.sumption Day, St Alburgh's Day and Christmas Day; and on these occasions the cellaress had to ask the clerk of the abbess' kitchen for "supper eggs" for the convent, two for each lady.

(4) _Lenten Fare._ For Lent and Advent the cellaress had to provide the convent with their diet of fish, enlivened for their comfort with dried fruits and rice. She laid in two cades of red herring for Advent, a cade being 600 (counting six score to the 100).