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 ordenées, 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 près a près, 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 assises;
Et riches sont, ne nulles n’y sont mises
Fors par congié 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 spacious frater, with glass 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 passed 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