St Leonard's Priory, Bromley

I called at the site of St Leonard’s Priory in London’s Bromley-by-Bow in the summer. Little remains, but some old foundations and a romantic, Victorian gateway. Geoffrey Chaucer, the great writer of the Canterbury Tales, once mocked its Prioress for the inaccuracy of her French and the old fashioned pronunciation of its words:

Ther was also a nonne, a prioresse,

That of hir smylyng was ful symple and coy;

Hire gretteste ooth was but by seinte loy;

And she was cleped madame eglentyne.

Ful weel she soong the service dyvyne,

Entuned in hir nose ful semely,

And frenssh she spak ful faire and fetisly,

After the scole of stratford atte bowe,

For frenssh of parys was to hire unknowe.

(There was also a nun, a prioress,

Who, in her smiling, modest was and coy;

Her greatest oath was but "By Saint Eloy!"

And she was known as Madam Eglantine.

Full well she sang the services divine,

Intoning through her nose, becomingly;

And fair she spoke her French, and fluently,

After the school of Stratford-at-the-Bow,

For French of Paris was not hers to know.) (Fordham University’s modern translation)

It is sometimes tempting to mock people who mispronounce words, stressing the wrong syllable or emphasising the wrong part. This is not because they are stupid, nor uneducated. It means they have gained their vocabulary by reading rather than hearing, so give them credit for trying. As church pulpits fall silent, Sunday Schools become a thing of the past and state schools dumb down their Religious Education, increasing numbers of people may only gain their knowledge of the gospel by reading rather than hearing. Like the 1520s and 30s, perhaps, when secret copies of the scriptures were read and pored over by enquiring minds, it may be by the written word rather than speech by which God primarily draws folk to Himself. So, if ‘Capernaum’, ‘Zaccheus’ and ‘Corinthians’ are all vocalised in an unfamiliar way, do not mock the speaker, but applaud him.

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