“See how evil are the ways of the world,” says our preacher; “how much better to be simple and unworldly, like that nun of whom you may read in the book of the wise Caesarius which he wrote to instruct novices. I will tell you of her,”
In the diocese of Trèves is a certain convent of nuns named Lutzerath, wherein by ancient custom no girl is received, but at the age of seven years or less; which constitution hath grown up for the preservation of that simplicity of mind, which maketh the whole body to shine. There was lately in that monastery a maiden full-grown in body, but such a child in worldly matters that she scarce knew the difference twixt a secular person and a brute beast, since she had had no knowledge of secular folk before her conversion. One day a goat climbed upon the orchard wall, which when she saw, knowing not what it might be, she said to a sister that stood by her: “What is that?” The other, knowing her simplicity, answered in jest to her wondering question, “That is a woman of the world,” adding, “when secular women grow old they sprout to horns and beards.” She, believing it to be the truth, was glad to have learned something new[1582].
All this time the preacher has been illustrating his sermon with any story that came into his head. But he has been doing more; he has been describing for the information of posterity the raw material (so utterly different in different individuals), out of which the unchanging pattern of the nun had to be moulded. However we are not (for the moment) posterity; and we grow weary of this praise of austerity and simplicity. But, brother John, we say (interrupting) here are we, living in the world; you would not have us tear out our eyes when our husbands would be fondling us? You would not have us take our good Dame Alison for a goat, which is (heaven save us) but a brute beast and no Christian? and what if we cry cuckoo sometimes, we girls, for a lover? there are some we know that have married five husbands at the church door, and still think themselves right holy women, and make pilgrimages to St James beyond the sea, and will ever go first to the offering on Sunday. What have your nuns to do with us? Tell us rather what we young fresh folk may do to be saved; or how we good housewives should bear ourselves day by day. And that I will (says the preacher with some acerbity). Shame upon you, with your chattering tongues. You cannot even keep quiet at mass; and at home it is well known to me how ye pester your husbands, with your screeching and scolding, and how ye chatter all day to your gossips, not minding what lewd words ye speak. Remember therefore holy St Gregory’s example of the nun who spake naughty words, which brother Robert of Brunne of the order of Sempringham found in the French book and set into fair English rhymes:
Seynt Gregori of a nunne tellys
Þat ȝede to helle for no þyng ellys
But for she spake ever vyleyny
Among her felaws al ahy.
Þys nunnë was of dedys chaste,
But þat she spake wurdys waste
She madë many of here felawys
Þenke on synnë for here sawys.
And then she died, and she was buried at the steps of the altar; and in the night the sacristan of the place was awakened by a great crying and weeping, and beheld fiends around that wretched nun, who burnt half her body and left the other half unscathed:
Seynt Gregorye seyþ þat hyt was synge
Þat half here lyfë was nat dygne;
for þoghe here dedys werë chaste,
Here wurdys were al vyle and waste.
······
See how her tungge madë here slayn
and foulë wurdys broghte here to payn[1583].
Mind therefore your tongues, and do not whisper so lightly among yourselves when you sit in the tavern (unknown to your husbands, fie upon you!), and stuff yourselves with capons and Spanish wine. Nay more, have a care that greed does not destroy you. Gula, he is one of the seven sins that be most deadly. Look to it lest you one day receive the devil into your bodies, with a mouthful of hot spices:
For the same blessed Gregory “telleth of a certain nun who omitted to make the sign of the cross when she was eating a lettuce, and the devil entered into her; and when he was ordered by a holy man to come forth he replied: ‘What fault is it of mine and why do you rebuke me? I was sitting upon the lettuce and she did not cross herself and so ate me with it’”[1584]. How different, now, was the reward of that saintly nun of whom Caesarius telleth. For when “a pittance, to wit fried eggs, was being distributed by the cellaress to the whole convent, she was by some chance neglected. But indeed I deem not that it befel by chance, but rather by divine ordering, that the glory of God might be manifest in her. For she bore the deprivation most patiently, rejoicing in the neglect, and therefore, when she was returning thanks to God, that great Father-Abbot set before her an invisible pittance; whereof the unspeakable sweetness so filled her mouth, her throat and all her body, that never in her life had she felt aught like to it. This was bodily sweetness, but next God visited her mind and soul so copiously with spiritual sweetness ... that she desired to go without pittances for all the days of her life”[1585].
Thus our preacher might be supposed to speak, but all nun tales are not so edifying; the ribald jongleur was fond of them too. A good example of the nun theme used as a conte gras is Boccaccio’s famous tale of the abbess, who went in the dark to surprise one of her nuns with a lover; but having, when aroused, had with her in her own cell a priest (brought thither in a chest) she inadvertently put upon her head instead of her veil the priest’s breeches. She called all her nuns, seized the guilty girl and came to the chapter house to reprimand her; and
“the girl happened to raise her eyes, when she saw what the abbess bore upon her head, and the laces of the breeches hanging down on each side of her neck, and being a little comforted with that, as she conjectured the fact, she said: “Please, madam, to button your coif, and then tell me what you would have.” “What coif is it that you mean,” replied she, “you wicked woman, you? Have you the assurance to laugh at me? Do you think jests will serve your turn in such an affair as this?” The lady said once more, “I beg, madam, that you would first button your coif and then speak as you please.” Whereupon most of the sisterhood raised up their eyes to look at the abbess, and she herself put up her hand. The truth being thus made evident, the accused nun said, “The abbess is in fault likewise,” which obliged the mother to change her manner of speech from that which she had begun, saying that it was impossible to resist the temptations that assail the flesh. Therefore she bade them, as heretofore, secretly to make the best possible use of their time”[1586].