Friar Laurence, my lord;
Now holy water help us:
Some witch or some devil is sent to delude us:
Haud credo, Laurentius,
That thou shouldst be pen’d thus
In the press of a nun:
We are all undone,
And brought to discredence,
If thou be Friar Laurence.
Philip’s comment is pertinent:
How goes this gear? the friar’s chest fill’d with a sausen nun.
The nun again locks friar up to keep him from the sun.
Belike the press is purgatory, or penance passing grievous:
The friar’s chest a hell for nuns! How do these dolts deceive us?
Is this the labour of their lives, to feed and live at ease?
To revel so lasciviously as often as they please?
I’ll mend the fault, or fault my aim, if I do miss amending;
’Tis better burn the cloisters down than leave them for offending.
Eventually, Friar Laurence buys his freedom for a hundred pounds[1794].
In conclusion may be mentioned the entertaining little English fabliau, which was at one time attributed to Lydgate, called The Tale of the Lady Prioress and her three Suitors; this is not a conte gras, but recounts the adroit expedient, by which a prioress succeeded in ridding herself of her three wooers, a knight, a parson and a merchant[1795].
NOTE K.
NUNS IN THE DIALOGUS MIRACULORUM OF CAESARIUS OF HEISTERBACH.
The Dialogus Miraculorum, written between 1220 and 1235 by Caesarius, Prior and Teacher of the Novices in the Cistercian Abbey of Heisterbach in the Siebengebirge, is one of the most entertaining books of the middle ages[1796]. Caesarius in a prologue describes how it came to be written and the plan upon which it is arranged, taking as his text a quotation from John vi. 12: “Gather up the fragments lest they perish”:
Since I was wont to recite to the novices, as in duty bound, some of the miracles which have taken place in our time and daily are taking place in our order, several of them besought me most instantly to perpetuate the same in writing. For they said that it would be an irreparable disaster if these things should perish from forgetfulness which might be an edification to posterity. And since I was all unready to do so, now for lack of the Latin tongue, now by reason of the detraction of envious men, there came at length the command of my own abbot, to say naught of the advice of the abbot of Marienstatt, which it is not lawful for me to disobey. Mindful also of the aforesaid saying of the Saviour, while others break up whole loaves for the crowd (that is to say, expound difficult questions of the Scriptures or write the more signal deeds of modern days) I, collecting the falling crumbs, from lack not of good will but of scholarship, have filled with them twelve baskets. For I have divided the whole book into as many divisions. The first division tells of conversion, the second of contrition, the third of confession, the fourth of temptation, the fifth of demons, the sixth of the power of simplicity, the seventh of the blessed Virgin Mary, the eighth of divers visions, the ninth of the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, the tenth of miracles, the eleventh of the dying, the twelfth of the pains and glories of the dead. Moreover in order that I might the more easily arrange the examples, I have introduced two persons in the manner of a dialogue, to wit a novice asking questions and a monk replying to them.... I have also inserted many things which took place outside the [Cistercian] order, because they were edifying, and like the rest had been told to me by religious men. God is my witness that I have not invented a single chapter in this dialogue. If anything therein perchance fell about otherwise than I have written it, the fault should rather be imputed to those who told it to me[1797].