There was also another lady, Dame Disobedience, and says Katherine:
Of all the faults that Experience showed me, this lack of obedience grieved me most, so that I might no longer abide for shame, for I saw that they had obedience in no reverence and that few or none took heed of her; and I sped at great speed out of the gates, to escape from that convent so full of sin.
Then Katherine and the Lady Experience sat down upon the grass, where they could behold the place, and they began to talk:
And than I prayed experience for to have wyst
Why sche schewed me thys nunery,
Sche seyde “now we bene here in rest,
I thenk for to tellen the why,
Thy furst desyre and thyne entent
Was to bene a nune professede,
And for thy fader wolde not consent,
Thyne hert wyth mornyng was sore oppressede,
And thow wyst not what to do was best;
And I seyde, I wolde cese thy grevaunce,
And now for the most part in every cost
I have schewed the nunnes gouernawnce.
For as thou seest wythin yonder walle
Suche bene the nunnes in euery warde,
As for the most part, I say not alle,
God forbede, for than hyt were harde,
For sum bene devowte, holy and towarde,
And holden the ryȝt way to blysse;
And sum bene feble, lewde and frowarde,
Now god amend what ys amys!
And now keteryne, I have alle do
For thy comfort that longeth to me,
And now let vs aryse and go
Vn-to the herber there I come to the.
There Experience departed and Katherine awakened from her dream, determined never to be a nun, unless the faults that she had seen were amended.
Then follows a long exhortation to the nuns. They are adjured (by the well-worn example of Dinah) not to wander from their convents, and are reminded that the habit does not make the nun:
Yowre barbe, your wympplle and your vayle,
Yowre mantelle and yowre devowte clothyng,
Maketh men wythowten fayle
To wene ȝe be holy in levyng.
And so hyt ys an holy thyng
To bene in habyte reguler;
Than, as by owtewarde array in semyng,
Beth so wythin, my ladyes dere.
A fayre garland of yve grene
Whyche hangeth at a tavern dore,
Hyt ys a false token as I wene,
But yf there by wyne gode and sewer;
Ryȝt so but ȝe your vyes forbere,
And alle lewde custom be broken,
So god me spede, I yow ensewer
Ellys yowre habyte ys no trew token.
The poem ends as abruptly as it began with a catalogue of holy women, whose lives are worthy of imitation, St Clare, St Edith, St Scolastica and St Bridget, “that weren professed in nunnes habyte,” and a bevy of English saints, St Audrey, St Frideswide, St Withburg, St Mildred, St Sexburg and St Ermenild. Whether or not the author really was a woman, the poem seems to show some knowledge of monastic life; and a certain sincerity and rugged directness render it more impressive than Gower’s long-winded accusations.
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, entitled 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 superstition, persuading them there is no hope of salvation out of a monastery.