He went, nor more again was seen, Sharp were his pains, full well I ween.1 FROM THE TALE OF THE MERCIFUL KNIGHT.' Two knights were in mortal feud. The son of the one, whose father had been slain, besieged the other in his castle so straitly, that for twelve months he never dared to come out of it. Now it was in the Lententide, When men should leave their wrath and pride. 'Ah!' thought the knight, 'long time has gone, Whate'er God's will for me shall werche [work], On his way to church, his foeman met him, and was about to slay him in vengeance for his father's death. But the knight asked mercy 'for His sake Who suffered death on the rood-tree His enemy listened, and stayed his hand, And said, 'Since thou hast me besought And in good love he kissed the knight: 'Now are we friends that erst were wroth; So go we now to the church both, In love and perfect charity, For His sake that bade peace to be.' Amid the joy of all the company, they went in: In worship of the Lord's passion. 1 Handlyng Synne, 3556-3617: Ther was a man of relygyun.' And lo! a marvel; for The crucifix that there was laid His arms up from the cross uprai'd, And caught that knight his arms betwixt, The miracle was told of everywhere: So every man in that country And all the sooner men forgave What wrath to others they might have.1 I add a few lines from the story of Pers the Usurer. He had been hard and extortionate; but his heart (the story relates how) became softened, and one day he gave the kirtle he was wearing to a poor man who came to him naked. The man went and sold the garment, and Pers was troubled. But he slept, and in a dream he thought he saw God sitting in that kirtle clad, Which the poor man of him had had; He writes of the slothful and indifferent, the rich sluggards who lie abed when the bell is calling to church, and of all who live for self-indulgence and ease: 1 They think not of what men may spell [read] Of the Lord's word in the Gospel. 'Be waking!' thus he saith to all, 'What time your Lord who comes will call ' For then may hap when least ye ween He will call you look ye be clean; For if ye sleep at His calling, Ye come not in at the wedding. Handlyng Synne, 3800-3903: And hyt was yn the lentyn tyde.' 2 Id. 5728-38: 'Syttyng yn hys kyrtyl clade.' Thus the Lord calls us every day, With preacher's voice all that He may. But ye are slow, and lie asleep, When in your ears the preachers threpe [chide].1 My last quotation from De Brunne shall be of good Bishop Grosseteste's love of music: Next his chambér 'by his study,' Unto the cross will liken it. How much more joy then must be there, Where God Himself, my Maker, is.' 2 The next two extracts are from poems which were attributed by Warton and Ritson to Adam Davy, the marshal, writer of some Dreams about King Edward the Second (1307-27), copied in the same manuscript. Mr. Furnivall, their editor, differs from this opinion. In any case they belong to the fourteenth century. One of these poems is A Book of Moral Precepts taken from Ecclesiasticus. I give a short extract :— 1 - If that thou lovest wisdom, let the right have thy love; 6 Handlyng Synne, 4342: They thoghté nat of that men spelle.' 2 Id. 4748-67 : 'Next hys chaumbre besyde hys stody.' Keep not thy wisdom hidden; never withstand the right; In A Song of Joy for Christ's Coming, referring to the verse' Many prophets and kings,' etc., he says: But they that such grace had not, they that before us died, William de Shoreham, Vicar of Chart-Sutton in Kent, in the time of Edward II. (1307-27), wrote a poem on the Sacraments, the Commandments, the deadly sins, and other religious and moral subjects. The following are a few verses from it :— Methinks the rightful dwelling-place But we are heavy; heaven high up— By ladder? How may that be? How climb up there, That may to heaven leste [reach]; Lying asleep at rest. Now see ye this That ladder it is charity; Its rail clean living is. Jesus hath climbed there before, To teach us climb thereby. Now hie thee, man! and follow well, 1 Poems from the Laud MS. 622 (Bod.), ed. by F. J. Furnival for .E.T.S. 69. A Book of Precepts, etc. 15: Gif thou lovest wisdom, look thou rigth loue; Unbuxum ne be thou nougth to them that ben above. 2 Id. A Story of Joy, etc. 146: Ac thai that suich grace ne hadden, that to fore us come, For if thou wilt not upward thus Of heaven thou hast failed.1 Richard Rolle, the Yorkshire hermit, retired from the world in the middle of Edward the Third's reign. In the seclusion of the priory at Hampole, four miles from Doncaster, he wrote some works in prose and verse which were for some time very popular. He died in I 369. The Pricke of Conscience, written, as he says, for a spur to make the conscience tender, and to drive it to dread and meekness, is a long poem of nearly 10,000 lines. It is not a book from which much can be gathered that commends itself to the religious feeling of our time. It is true to its name as 'a goad,' composed in an age in which incentives of fear were applied in a manner which now seems wholly repugnant both to the conscience and to the understanding. Yet here and there are some lines worth quoting. Thus, he says, of the hideousness of sin, if it could be truly realised :Sin is so foul, and such a grisly thing, That if a man might truly see his sin In the own very likeness it is in, He should for fear more quickly from it flee The following extract is taken from a passage in which he puts a spiritual construction on the jewels and gold of the heavenly city: Such gold of heaven, lustrous, bright, and clean, Yet, rightly judged, I deem these stones may be 1 Religious Poems of William de Shoreham, edited by T. Wright, Percy Society, 3: Me seithe the rigte woneyynge Ine hevene hyt is to manne. 2 Rolle de Hampole's Pricke of Conscience, edited by Morris for the Philological Society; 1. 2353: That syn es swa foule and swa grisly thing.' |