(3) Ribald stories on the same theme are, naturally enough, common in medieval literature, which never spared the Church. A few of the more interesting may here be added to those quoted or referred to in the text. The Cento Novelle Antiche contains a curious tale of a Countess and her maidens, who, having disgraced themselves with a porter, retired to hide their shame in a nunnery; the story continues thus:
They became nuns and built a convent that is called the Convent of Rimini. The fame of this convent spread and it became very wealthy. And this story is narrated as true, viz. they had a custom that when any cavaliers passed by that had rich armour the abbess and her attendants met them on the threshold and served them with all sorts of good fare and accompanied them to table and to bed. In the morning they provided them with water for washing and then gave them a needle and thread of silk for them to thread and if they could not accomplish this in three tries, she took from them all their armour and accoutrement and sent them away empty, but if they succeeded she allowed them to retain their possessions and gave them presents of jewellery, etc.[1785]
Francesco da Barberino in his book of deportment, Del reggimento e costumi di donne, has a tale of a convent in Spain, which Satan receives permission to tempt; accordingly his emissary Rasis sends into the house three young men, disguised as nuns, to whom all the nuns and the Abbess in turn succumb[1786]. In one Italian version of an extremely widespread theme, found among the Novelle of Masuccio Guardata da Salerno (1442-1501), a Dominican friar deceives a devout and high-born nun. The story is thus summarised by A. C. Lee:
In one of her books of devotion were some pictures of saints, amongst others the third person of the Trinity; from the mouth of this figure he makes proceed the words in letters of gold, “Barbara, you will conceive of a holy man and give birth to the fifth evangelist.” He acts as the holy man and on the lady becoming enceinte he deserts her[1787].
Among medieval French stories may be mentioned those which occur in Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles, a fifteenth century collection of tales, probably written by Antoine de la Sale in imitation of the Cento Novelle. No. XV, concerning the relations between two neighbouring houses of monks and nuns respectively, is too gross to be summarised; No. XXI is the story of the sick abbess, who was recommended by her physician to take a lover and out of respect for her all her nuns did the same; No. XLVI is one of the many tales of a Jacobin friar, who haunted a convent and obtained the favours of a nun[1788]. These are really prose fabliaux; and verse fabliaux on this theme are not wanting, for example Watriquet Brassenal’s story of The Three Canonesses of Cologne[1789] and the most indecent fabliau of The Three Ladies[1790]. There is a rather delightful and merry little German poem called Daz Maere von dem Sperwaere, which is a version of the popular French fabliau of The Crane[1791]. In this thirteenth century poem a little nun, who has never seen the world, looks over her convent wall and sees a knight with a sparrow hawk; she begs for it and he says he will sell it her for “love,” a thing of which she has never heard. He teaches her what it is and gives her the sparrow hawk. But the nun, her schoolmistress, is so angry with her, that she watches on the wall again and next time the knight passes, she makes him give her back her “love” and take the sparrow hawk again[1792].
English versions of these tales are extremely rare; for the English were always less adroit than the French and the Italians in the matter of contes gras. The nun theme occasionally appears, however, in the sixteenth century; Boccaccio’s “breeches” story is in Thomas Twyne’s The Schoolmaster (1576)[1793] and the behaviour of nuns and “friars” at Swineshead Abbey forms a comic interlude in The Troublesome Raigne of King John (1591), which was one of the sources used by Shakespeare in his more famous play. In Scene X of the old play Philip Falconbridge comes to Swineshead, with his soldiers, and bids a friar show him where the abbot’s treasure is hid. They break open a chest and a nun is discovered inside it. The friar cries:
Oh, I am undone
Fair Alice the nun
Hath took up her rest
In the Abbot’s chest.
Santa benedicite,
Pardon my simplicity
Fie, Alice, confession
Will not salve this transgression.
Philip remarks:
What have we here? a holy nun? so keep me God in health,
A smooth-faced nun, for aught I know, is all the abbot’s wealth.
The nun begs for the life of the first friar and offers in exchange to show Philip a chest containing the hoard of an ancient nun. They pick the lock and discover a friar within. The first friar cries: