As you say, both are probably right. I do recall a literary
reference (in Welsh) to the floor of a royal hall which was
so dirty that branches had to be put down for people to walk on: but
I think the point about this was that it was worthy of comment and
therefore arguably unusual.
A trailing dress would get pretty filthy walking down a modern
street!
On another subject: all those naughty nuns. A few people
questioned the use of the word pornographic to describe the poetry
in question. I suppose I used the word lightly but I can't really
think of another. Most of it is pretty mild and has been regarded
as part of the Welsh tradition of lyric love poetry but it can get
quite explicit. I used the word pornographic because of this
descriptive aspect and because of the way in which it sees the
religious habit and the vow of chastity as titillating.
I'm really conducting this discussion at
second hand as the original argument was Jane Cartwright's. She saw
the existence of so much of this poetry in medieval Wales as evidence
of a specifically Welsh lack of sympathy with the ideals of the
religious life for women. This might in turn explain the paucity of
Welsh houses for religious women - two Cistercian and one
Benedictine, both very small.Poetry in praise of women tends to focus
on the piety, charity &c of women living in the world, often married:
though I would argue that this might be because it was these women
who would have been in a position to patronise the bards who wrote
the poetry.
I am presenting a short paper on the Cistercian women's
house at Llanllugan at our spring conference on the Cistercians. The
main focus of the conference is the archaeology and economic side of
the history of the order in Wales but I want to make a few points
about the relationship of the women's houses to secular society and
I wondered whether Jane's evidence was really so unusual. Most of the
references people have contributed to this list seem to be slightly
different, being scandalous stories rather than erotic poetry
directed (ostensibly) to the nuns themselves, but they certainly
suggest that the ideas behind the poetry are fairly common. I will
pass all this on to Jane when I am in touch with her and see what she
thinks.
Maddy
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