medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
In my post of this morning, I slightly misquoted (I was going from memory),
and so I'll be more precise. In the early sixteenth century, Elizabeth
Sampson was accused of saying:
"Our Lady of Willesdon was a brent ars Elfe and a brent ars Stocke; and yf
she myght have holpen men and women which go to hyre of pilgrimage she wolde
not have sufferd hyr tayle to have byn brent; and what shold folke wurshippe
our lady of Willesdon or our lady of Crome for, the tone is but a brent ars
stoke and tother is but a popet." London, Guildhall Library, MS 9531/9 (Reg.
Fitzjames), fol. 4r.
As those of use who work a lot on 15th- or early 16th-century English know,
the OED is by no means complete when it comes to late medieval usage,
relying as it does only on published texts. "Brent-arsed" [and note that
"brent" is simply an obsolete form of "burned"; see OED s.v. "burn"] was
used colloquially to mean a person who suffered from venereal disease (Laura
Gowing, *Domestic Dangers* [Oxford, 1996] has a discussion of this). Poppet
(the primary meaning of which, of course, was doll) was more likely a
derogatory way to speak of the image. But the "brent-arsed" indicates sexual
promiscuity, and there are other occasions on which the Virgin was referred
to as a whore by Lollards (see, e.g. London, Guildhall Library, MS 9064/3,
fol. 162v). So perhaps not particularly "over the top" after all.
Shannon McSheffrey
Associate Professor of History
Concordia University
LB-601, 1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd. W.
Montreal, QC Canada H3G 1M8
[log in to unmask]
http://alcor.concordia.ca/~shannon
-----Original Message-----
From: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Christopher Crockett
Sent: March 5, 2003 10:01 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [M-R] [Re: [M-R] pilgrimage to St Paul's in London]
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Shannon McSheffrey <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>...Similarly colourful-- or over-the-top -- was a later reference to a
statue
of the Virgin as a "brent-arse poppet," i.e. a prostitute infected with
venereal disease.
mmmm... the O.E.D. doesn't know this meaning for "poppet" :
2.
[obsolete sense]
c. Contemptuously applied to an image used in worship; hence, any material
thing worshipped; an idol, a maumet. Obs.
1550 Bale Image Both Ch. i. Pref. A vj b, Bablynges, brawlinges,
processyons,
popettes, and suche other mad masteries.
1553 Becon Reliques of Rome (1563) 88 He [Nicephorus] also destroied al her
[Irene's] poppets, sufferyng no images to remayne in the temples.
1687 Dryden Hind. & P; iii. 780 You..will endeavour in succeeding space,
Those
houshold Poppits on our hearths to place.
1880 Webb Goethe's Faust iii. vii. 164 And knead and mould your poppet well
As
many a foreign tale will tell.
poppet deity (sense 2 c),
A. 1641 Bp. Mountagu Acts & Mon; iii. (1642) 184 To appease the fury,
forsooth, of their angry *poppet Deities.
'poppet v. trans., to treat as a poppet, to carry like an image or effigy.
Obs.
1748 Richardson Clarissa (1810) V. ii. 15 These lines of Rowe have got into
my
head; and I shall repeat them very devoutly all the way the chairmen shall
poppet me towards her by-and-by.
whereas "brent" is :
2. Of the forehead:
a. Lofty, straight up, prominent.
b. Unwrinkled, smooth.
1513 Douglas Æneis viii. xii. 14 From his blyth browis [L. tempora læta]
brent and athyr ene The fyre twinkling.
1629 Z. Boyd Last Battle 678 (Jam.) At the first sight of that angrie
Majestie, with brent browes and sterne countenance.
A. 1758 Ramsay Poems (1800) II. 17 (Jam.) Her fair brent brow, smooth as th'
unrunkled deep.
1789 Burns J. Anderson i, Your bonie brow was brent.
so, "a prostitute infected with venereal disease" is a bit over-the-top, as
a
translation, it seems to me.
best from here,
christopher
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