“A certain nun, a woman of advanced age, and, as was supposed, of great holiness, was so overcome by the vice of melancholy (tristitiae) and so vexed with a spirit of blasphemy, doubt and distrust, that she fell into despair. And she began altogether to doubt those things which she had believed from infancy and which it behoved her to believe, nor could she be induced by anyone to take the holy sacraments; and when her sisters and also her nieces in the flesh besought her why she was thus hardened, she answered “I am of the lost, of those who shall be damned.” One day the Prior, growing angry, said to her, “Sister, unless you recover from your unbelief, when you die I will have you buried in a field.” And she, hearing him, was silent but kept his words in her heart. One day, when certain of the sisters were to go on a journey I know not whither, she secretly followed them to the banks of the river Moselle, whereon the monastery is situated, and when the ship, which was carrying the sisters, put off, she threw herself from the shore into the river. Those who were in the ship heard the sound of a splash, and looking out thought her body to be a dog, but one of them, desiring (by God’s will) to know more certainly what it was, ran quickly to the place and seeing a human being, entered the river and drew her out. Then when they perceived that it was the aforesaid nun, already wellnigh drowned, they were all frightened, and when they had cared for her and she had coughed up the water and could speak, they asked her, “Why, sister, didst thou act thus cruelly?” and she replied, pointing to the Prior, “My lord there threatened that I should be buried when dead in a field, wherefore I preferred to be drowned in the flood rather than to be buried like a beast in the field.” Then they led her back to the monastery and guarded her more carefully. Behold what great evil is born of melancholy (tristitia). That woman was brought up from infancy in the monastery. She was a chaste, devout, stern and religious virgin, and, as the mistress [of the novices] of a neighbouring monastery told me, all the maidens educated by her were of better discipline and more devout than others”[928].
The other anecdote tells of an old lay brother, who at the end of a long life fell into despair:
“I know not,” says Caesarius, “by what judgment of God he was made thus sad and fearful, that he was so greatly afraid for his sins and despaired altogether of the life eternal. He did not indeed doubt in his faith, but rather despaired of salvation. He could be cheered by no scriptural authorities and brought back to the hope of forgiveness by no examples. Yet he is believed to have sinned but little. When the brothers asked him, ‘What makes you fear, why do you despair?’ he answered, ‘I cannot pray as I was used to do, and so I fear hell.’ Because he laboured with the vice of tristitia, therefore he was filled with accidia, and from each of these was despair born in his heart. He was placed in the infirmary and on a certain morning he prepared him for death, and came to his master, saying, ‘I can no longer fight against God.’ And when his master paid but little attention to his words, he went forth to the fish pond of the monastery near by and threw himself into it and was drowned”[929].
Only a small minority, it is needless to say, was driven to this anguish of despair. For the majority the strain of conventual life found outlet, not in these black moods, but in a tendency to bicker one with another, to get excitement by exaggerating the small events of daily existence into matter for jealousies and disputes. For the strain was a double one; to monotony was added the complete lack of privacy, the wear and tear of communal life; not only always doing the same thing at the same time, but always doing it in company with a number of other people. The beauty of human fellowship, the happy friendliness of life in a close society are too obvious to need description.
For if heuene be on this erthe · and ese to any soule,
It is in cloistere or in scole · by many skilles I fynde;
For in cloistre cometh no man · to chide ne to fiȝte,
But alle is buxomnesse there and bokes · to rede and to lerne,
In scole there is scorne · but if a clerke wil lerne,
And grete loue and lykynge · for eche of hem loueth other[930].
But it is necessary also to remember the other side of the picture. Personal idiosyncrasies were no less apt to jar in the middle ages than they are today; there are unfortunates who are born to be unpopular; there are tempers which will lose themselves; and in conventual life there is no balm of solitude for frayed nerves. These nuns were very human people; a mere accident of birth had probably sent them to a convent rather than to the care of husband and children in a manor-hall; just as in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries a mere accident of birth made one son the squire, another the soldier and a third the parson. No special saintliness of disposition was theirs and no miracle intervened to render them immune from tantrums when they crossed the convent threshold. Nothing is at once more striking and more natural than the prevalence of little quarrels, sometimes growing into serious disputes, among the inmates of monasteries. Browning’s Spanish Cloister was no mere figment of his inventive brain; indeed it is, if anything, less startling than the medieval Langland’s description of the convent, where Wrath was cook and where all was far from “buxomnesse.” Certainly Langland’s indictment is a violent one; the satirist must darken his colours to catch the eye; and, had Chaucer been the painter, we might have had a dispute couched in more courteous terms and more “estatlich of manere.” But the satirist’s account is significant, because his very office demands that he shall exaggerate only what exists; his words are a smoke which cannot rise without fire. So Langland may speak through the lips of Wrath, with two white eyes:
I have an aunte to nonne · and an abbesse bothe,
Hir were leuere swowe or swelte · þan suffre any peyne.
I haue be cook in hir kichyne · and þe couent serued
Many monthes with hem · and with monkes bothe.
I was þe priouresses potagere · and other poure ladyes
And made hem ioutes of iangelynge · þat dame Iohanne was a bastard,
And dame Clarice a kniȝtes douȝter · ac a kokewolde was hire syre,
And dame Peronelle a prestes file · Priouresse worth she neuere
For she had childe in chirityme · all owre chapitere it wiste ·
Of wycked wordes I, Wrath · here wortes imade,
Til “thow lixte” and “thow lixte” lopen oute at ones,
And eyther hitte other · vnder the cheke;
Hadde thei had knyves, by Cryst · her eyther had killed other[931].
From “thow lixte” to “Gr-r-r you swine” how little change!
Sober records bear out Langland’s contention that Wrath was at home in nunneries. Some of the worst cases have already been described; election disputes, disputes arising from a prioress’s favouritism, Margaret Wavere dragging her nuns about the choir by their hair, and screaming insults at them, Katherine Wells hitting them on the head with fists and feet[932]. Doubtless quarrels seldom got as far as blows; but bad temper and wordy warfare were common. Insubordination was sometimes at the root of the discord; nuns refused to submit meekly to correction after the proclamation of their faults in chapter, or to obey their superiors. The words of another satirist show that the monastic vow of obedience sometimes sat lightly upon their shoulders:
Also another lady there was
That hyȝt dame dysobedyent
And sche set nowȝt by her priores.
Ans than me thowȝt alle was schent,
For sugettys schulde euyr be dylygent
Bothe in worde, in wylle and dede,
To plese her souerynes wyth gode entent,
And hem obey, ellys god forbede.
And of alle the defawtes that I cowde se
Thorowȝ schewyng of experience,
Hyt was one of the most that grevyd me,
The wantyng of obedyence
For hyt schulde be chese in consciens
Alle relygius rule wytnesseth the same
And when I saw her in no reverence,
I myȝt no lenger abyde for schame,
For they setten not by obedyence.
And than for wo myne hert gan blede
Ne they hadden her in no reuerence,
But few or none to her toke hede[933].