[1586] Boccaccio, Decameron, 9th day, novel 2. But the story is older than Boccaccio, who constantly uses old tales. There is a French version by Jean de Condé: “Le Dit de la Nonnete” (Montaiglon et Raynaud, op. cit. t. VI, pp. 263-9). It was often afterwards copied in various forms in French, German and Italian jest- and story-books and there is an extremely gross dramatic version entitled “Farce Nouvelle a cinq personnages, c’est a sçavoir l’Abesse, sœur de Bon Cœur, seur Esplourée, seur Safrete et seur Fesne” in a collection of sixteenth century French farces (Rec. de farces, moralités et sermons joyeux, ed. Le Roux de Lincy et Francisque Michel, Paris, 1837, vol. II). It is also referred to in Albion’s England:
It was at midnight when a Nonne, in trauell of a childe,
Was checked of her fellow Nonnes, for being so defilde;
The Lady Prioresse heard a stirre, and starting out of bed,
Did taunt the Nouasse bitterly, who, lifting up her head,
Said “Madame, mend your hood” (for why, so hastely she rose,
That on her head, mistooke for hood, she donde a Channon’s hose).
For these and references to other analogues see A. C. Lee, The Decameron, its Sources and Analogues (1909), pp. 274-7. See also a curious folk-song version, below, p. [611]. La Fontaine founded his fable of Le Psautier on Boccaccio’s version.
[1587] Boccaccio, Decameron (3rd day, novel 1). For analogues and imitations, see A. C. Lee, op. cit. pp. 59-62. The story is the source of La Fontaine’s Mazet de Lamporechio. For other ribald stories about nuns see [Note J], below, p. [624].
[1588] I have made no attempt to describe the many treatises in praise of virginity composed by the fathers of the church. These include works by Evagrius Ponticus, St Athanasius, Sulpicius Severus, St Jerome, St Augustine, St Caesarius of Arles and others. Among the most interesting is one of English origin, the De Laudibus Virginitatis of Aldhelm († 709). For short analyses of these works, see A. A. Hentsch, De la Littérature Didactique du Moyen Age, s’adressant spécialement aux Femmes (Cahors, 1903), passim. From the eleventh century onwards several imitations of these treatises occur. A few of the more interesting will be noted later.
[1589] Uhland, Alte hoch und niederdeutsche Volkslieder (1845), II, pp. 857-62 (No. 331). The first verse may be quoted to give the style:
Es war ein jungfrau edel
Si war gar wol getan,
in ainen schonen paungarten
wolt si spacieren gan,
in ainen schonen paungarten
durnach stuont ir gedank,
nach pluomen mangerlaie,
nach vogelein suessem gesank.
[1590] Uhland, op. cit. II, p. 852 (No. 326). See also Nos. 332 and 334.
[1591] An Old English Miscellany, ed. R. Morris [E.E.T.S. 1872], pp. 93-99.
[1592] Printed in The Stacions of Rome, etc., ed. F. J. Furnivall (E.E.T.S. 1867), and again in Minor Poems of the Vernon MS., Part II, ed. F. J. Furnivall (E.E.T.S. 1901), No. XLII, pp. 464-8.