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 Béatrice_, 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 Veillée_ (_La Légende de Soeur Béatrice_), 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 Küsterin_ (Neuwied, 1904); also P. Toldo, _Die Sakristanin_ (with bibliography by J. Bolte) in _Zeitschrift des Vereins für 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 española_ (1914). For other variants of the _Nonne Enlevée_ 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 nommé 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 Béatrice_ sings:

Il n'est péché qui vive Quand l'amour a prié; Il n'est âme qui meure Quand l'amour a pleuré....

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 Bédier as "un conte à rire en vers") was brought to great perfection by French jongleurs. See Montaiglon and Raynaud, _Recueil général et complet des Fabliaux_ (Paris, 1872-90), 6 vols.; and Bédier, _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 Besançon), _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 Chantimpré, etc., are translated in Coulton, _Med. Garn._

[1576] For instance Caesarius of Heisterbach, _Dialogus Miraculorum_, ed. Strange (1851); Thomas of Chantimpré (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, Molière 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 Hügel (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 Condé: "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 sçavoir l'Abesse, soeur de Bon Coeur, seur Esplourée, seur Safrete et seur Fesne" in a collection of sixteenth century French farces (_Rec. de farces, moralités 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 Littérature Didactique du Moyen Age, s'adressant spécialement 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. Götliche Forcht die pfortnerein, Götliche 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 Mätzner, _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 Méon, _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 Märchen 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 Condé et de son fils Jean de Condé_, 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'après quelques Moralistes du Temps_ (2me éd. 1911).

[1624] The text of both _La Bible Guiot_ and _La Bible au Seigneur de Berzé_ is printed in _Fabliaux et Contes_, ed. Barbazon-Méon, 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] _Poésies 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 Français_ (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 Poétiques 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.