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Virgins on the cutting-room floor
Excerpt from Chapter Nine: Heaven and Earth
An excellent case study of public attitudes toward women monastics in the late middle ages is the famous early fifteenth-century middle-English narrative poem, “Why I Can’t Be a Nun.” In this lengthy work, a pious young girl named Katherine tells her father that she wants to be a nun, only to be warned by her father warns her that convents are corrupt places, and that a convent is no place for a girl who wants to live a good life. Katherine accepts the warning out of obedience and respect for her father, but she still hungers for the cloister.
Then one May morning she goes and lies down in her garden, on a “benche of camomylle” and proceeds, in a manner not unlike Lewis Carroll’s Alice several centuries later, to have a most astonishing dream. A beautiful lady, Dame Experience, comes to take Katherine on a tour of a convent, where Katherine finds to her horror that it is populated by a feminized bevy of greater and lesser sins. Sister Pride, Sister Hippocrate, Sister Envy, Sister Sloth, Sister Vainglory, Sister Lust, Sister Wanton, and others are all in evidence, even unto the wickedest of the lot, “Dame Dysobedyent.” Virtuous sisters like Meekness and Devotion, are scarcely to be seen, and Patience and Charity have even taken up isolated quarters to keep them apart from their sinful cloistermates. Poor Katherine is horrified, but understands that Lady Experience has been sent to show her that her father really was right, and true holiness is not to be found in the monastery.
Clearly allegorical, “Why I Can’t Be a Nun” is like the many other popular tales of corrupt convents and disobedient nuns in that it is, in the mock-documentary manner of the urban legend, a social and cultural satire.
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Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.
I welcome anyone interested in translating any or all of these excerpts to do so, as long as you put them up on the Web and notify me of where they can be found. I plan to link all translated versions from this page.
Photos by Hanne. Site by Jhames