Disputing with a Dominican

Disputing with a Dominican

Pregeth y Brawd Du

 

The friar preaches diatribes

On deadly sin: this I despise.

Nought but bread within his nook,

The breviary his only book,

Berry-bald, lives like a wretch

And subsists on seeds of vetch,

In mousy habit, dank, drear,

Forever bending Mair’s ear,

Bold protector when he spies

Motes in other people’s eyes.

 

The friar’s sermon: “Lad, forswear

Your pert maid with pretty hair,

She for whom you lilt in verse,

For time will lapse, cast its curse

On woman’s wiles. Spend your days

Penning odes in God’s praise.

The Lord’s Prayer in seven pleas,

The Paternoster – keep to these

By Mair and Peter. Forthwith

Renounce the clamour of cywydd!”

 

Churl in habit like a hive

Of angry bees that sting and strive

To prod your pique: Friar’s curse

To bear the brunt of Iolo’s verse

With face as blue as berries. Stick

To bothering Saint Dominic,

Bliss of paradise to know –

Fly there like a black-winged crow

And clap your beak, your cowl raise

To ring your hollow bell of praise,

Tolling “Jesus” like the knell

That summons piebald friars to hell.

Tonsured crow who hides his vice

And caws, and prates of paradise,

 

Pious prig, pursue your mission

Of prudery and prohibition;

Heaven wither your grim heart,

But leave me to my loving art!

 

Source material: A poem from the Dafydd ap Gwilym apocrypha, paraphrased by Giles Watson. One manuscript attributes this poem to Madog Benfras (fl. 1320-60), but the other manuscripts do not cite an author. Friars were unpopular in fourteenth century Wales, because their preaching zeal was not always combined with exemplary living, and another poem (Gwae fi na wyr y forwyn) which certainly was the work of Dafydd ap Gwilym, lampoons a grey friar or Franciscan. As mentioned here, Dafydd’s younger contemporary, Iolo Goch, also wrote two fierce satires against this order, and it is clear that the bards, who had so fervently embraced the traditions of courtly love, had every reason to resist the moralizing teachings of the Friars. The present poem tackles a Dominican, a member of the Preaching Friars, an order whose mission was to combat heresy through preaching, and ultimately through the Inquisition. In Wales, the friars tended to base themselves in the Marches and the royal boroughs, and were thus perhaps seen as an English incursion on Welsh spirituality. By the fifteenth century, however, friars had a bad reputation in England as well: a fact attested by the appearance of carvings of preaching foxes in friars’ habits in church wood-carvings. The friars were also resented by the secular clergy because of their open competition for preferment and for offerings, but here, as elsewhere, the charge is also one of hypocrisy and spiritual pride.

 

Done