Copy 1, Volume 1
Essays on subjects connected with the literature, popular superstitions, and history of England in the Middle Ages / By Thomas Wright.
- Thomas Wright
- Date:
- 1846
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Essays on subjects connected with the literature, popular superstitions, and history of England in the Middle Ages / By Thomas Wright. Source: Wellcome Collection.
203/324 page 187
![A tranquil life, devoid of strife, this peaceful order leadeth, Unless, I ween, some cause be seen, or place that striving breedeth - And barrenness is not their vice, so long as youth endureth, Though maidenly their converse be, as downcast mien assureth.” Or, as it is in the original, — “ Omnibus auretenus licet his nutrire capillos, Sed non ulterius, regula namque vetat : Utuntur niveis agni de corpore sumptis Pellibus intonsis, pallia nigra gerunt. He caput abscondunt omnes sub tegmine nigro, Sub tunicis nigris candida membra latent. Cingula nulla ferunt, sed nec femoralibus uti Consuedo fuit, nescio si modo sit. Nunquam rixantur, nisi cum locus exigit aut res, Sed neque percutiunt, sit nisi causa gravis. Harum sunt quedam steriles, queedam parturientes ; Virgineoque tamen nomine cuncta tegunt ; Que pastoralis baculi dotatur honore, Illa quidem melius fertiliusque paret. Vix etiam quevis sterilis reperitur in illis, Donec eis ztas talia posse negat.”* * The following unpublished epigram of this period seems to cast a general reflection upon the loose manners of the nuns. Perhaps the rigid virtue of the clercs, which it seems to presume, existed only in the mind of its writer, who may have been one of that order :-— “‘ Versus de clerico et monacha. [Monacha.] Cum sit par nobis genus, «tas, forma duobus, Uret et igne pari pectora nostra Venus. Me tibi teque mihi genus, zetas, et decor equant, Cur non ergo sumus sic in amore pares ? Clericus. § Non mihi veste places: aliis nigra vestis ametur ; Que nigra sunt fugio, candida semper amo. Monacha. § Sum sub veste nigra, niveam tamen aspice carnem; Si vestem fugias, candida crura pete.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b33097963_0001_0203.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
