Thus through several pages this amusing poem goes on to describe the gluttony and drunkenness of the abbot and prior, and the ill-treatment of their inferiors. This composition belongs to the close of the thirteenth century. A song very similar to it in character, but much shorter, is found in a manuscript of the middle of the fifteenth century, and printed with the other contents of this manuscript in a little volume issued by the Percy Society.[58] The writer complains that the abbot and prior drunk good and high-flavoured wine, while nothing but inferior stuff was usually given to the convent; “But,” he says, “it is better to go drink good wine at the tavern, where the wines are of the best quality, and money is the butler.”
Bonum vinum cum sapore
Bibit abbas cum priore;
Sed conventus de pejore
semper solet bibere.
Bonum vinum in taberna,
Ubi vina sunt valarna (for Falerna),
Ubi nummus est pincerna,
Ibi prodest bibere.
