The devil in a nunnery, and other mediaeval tales

Buckingham is as pleasant a shire as a man shall see on a seven days’ journey. Neither was it any less pleasant in the days of our Lord King Edward, the third of that name, he w...

‘Oh Philip,’ she answered, ‘this is a sight for my poor eyes. But I didn’t hope that thou wouldst dare come. Oh, and if my father finds us together, he will be mad with rage.’

‘By thy leave,’ continued the Doctor, ‘I married one Mistress Beatbush. She had some small jointure; I was her third husband, but at first she did not seem to be so vile. Howeve...

There was no one who knew Thomas very well, for he came seldom to the village except on Court days or Market, and he was by nature a silent man. He was tall above usual and stou...

Then he asked that he might die in the manner which is customary with the Order, if he were so far thought worthy. So having spread a cross of ashes on the floor, they laid him...

When the news got about the town that old Master Matthew was minded to marry a young wench, great was the talk thereof. Some asked what an old wretch, who had enough to do with...

‘What, pretty Peter,’ she cried to him, ‘art home again, good fellow? Thou ’rt welcome, by my troth. Come now and sup with me at the Pair of Oars. There is pretty company there,...

‘Vill Beaumont was utterly given over to all kinds of wretchedness and distress, for it lay close under the castle, and the men-at-arms were wont often to come down thither and...

‘Nay then, ’tis worth nothing,’ said the Bailey, ‘for Hob of the Cross and Sim of the Wry-Mouth and the rest of the upland fellows yonder are selling as good as thine for tenpen...

When folk come into Roodborough for the market ’tis easy to tell the Blewberry people from all other. For these, when they will take oath in their talk, say ‘By blessed Peter,’...

It chanced that he officiated at the churching of Robert’s wife of Haydock, and after the churching he was asked to the ale, whither many gossips had repaired to celebrate the o...