The early Tudor jest-book, A Hundred Merry Tales, has a story of a country curate "which was not very learned" who sent to a neighboring cleric on Easter eve to know what Mass to celebrate. His boy is told the Mass of the Resurrection, but forgets the word on the way home and can recall only it begins with R. [Q]uoth the priest, "I trow thou sayest truth, for now I remember well it must be 'requiem aeternam,' for God almighty died as on yesterday, and now we must say mass for His soul [!]."
--Eamonn Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars, p. 43
What do you think of that book? I've had it on my Amazon wish list for ages but wondered if it was a bit too scholarly for a non-historian like myself. The topic sounds fascinating.
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ReplyDeleteI suppose this is a joke about medieval nerdism, rather than a medieval nerd-joke, but I once read of an anecdote about Gilbert de La Porree (the only man I know who won a victory over St. Bernard of Clairvaux, though I think Gilbert was in the wrong, and probably a Sabellian) where he thrashed a student because he said "I got you know, Master Gilbert Porretta" whereas the modifier must come before the noun...
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