Reply to Renihan - 3
Hello again! Here's another piece of devotional writing which was going
around in your day. Somehow I don't think it would have been your scene;
but see what you think:
Iesu swete iesu . mi druth . mi derling . mi drihtin . mi healend . mi
huniter . mi haliwei . Swetter is munegunge of the then mildeu o muthe. Hwa
ne mei luue the luueli leor? Hwat herte is swa hard that ne mei to melte
ithe munegunge of the? Ah hwa ne mej luue the luueliche iesu?
"Jesus, sweet Jesus, my dear, my darling, my lord, my saviour, my honey, my
balm. Sweeter is your memory than honey in the mouth. Who may not love
your lovely face? What hard is so hard that it may not melt in the memory
of you? Ah who may not love you, lovely Jesus?"
As I say, you may have found that a bit over the top, and there are reasons
for thinking it was written by a rather overheated nun. It just goes to
show that there were a lot of opinions, a lot of tastes, in the middle ages,
and we mustn't suppose that everybody was dragooned into thinking or feeling
the same things.
Actually though the piece above ("The Wooing of our Lord") has a very
respectable ancestry: it derives from the tradition of the mystical
marriage of the Heavenly Bridegroom - Jesus - with Holy Church/the human
soul, found in the Gospels (e.g. Matthew 9:15, Mark 2:19, Luke 5:34, Matthew
25:1-13, John 3:29), the Letters of St Paul (cf. Ephesians 5:32), the Book
of Revelation (19:7, 21:2, 21:9, 22:17) and enriched with the language of
the Song of Songs. It came into English via the Latin writings of some very
gifted saints and scholars, such as St Anselm, St Bernard, and Hugh of St
Victor.
But I think you would have been more likely to use a quite new devotion
which you learned recently from a visiting Dominican Friar, Brother Hubert.
Hubert comes to your church from time to time and preaches at the invitation
of your Parish Priest, Brictric. Hubert is a much more learned man than
Brictric: he has studied in Paris and at the new University in Oxford. The
last time he was in your village he was telling you all about a this new
devotion, called the Rosary.
And I'll tell you about it, tomorrow.
Bill.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
