in 
and Art. 
Literatzzre 
175 
their arrival, " the abbot," fays the complainant, " goes to Gt at the top, 
and the prior next to him, but I flood always in the back place among 
the low people." 
Abba: ire fedefurjiem, 
Er Priuris juxta ipfum ; 
Eg0_fcmper_fia'ui drnfum 
inter rafmlilia. 
The wme was ferved liberally to the prior and the abbot, but "nothing 
was glve to us poor folks-everything was for the rich." 
Vinum wenit fang-uinntis 
Ad prioris er abbari: ; 
Nilxil rwbi: paupertaris, 
fed ad di-vex amnia. 
When fome di{Tatisfa6tion was difplayed by the poor monks, which the 
great men treated with contempt, "Ihid the prior to the abbot, 'They have 
wine enough; will you give all our drink to the poor? What does their 
poverty regard us? they have little, and that is enough, iince they came 
uninvited to our feaftf " 
Prior dixit ad abbatis, 
' Ifjfi habmt vinum fati: ; 
V ultis dare paupzrtatis 
infer pom: amnia .7 
Quid nos fpeilat jmuprrtwis .7 
Pqjiquam wenit rmn wacati: 
ad nolier  
Thus through feveral pages this amuhng poem goes on to defcribe the 
gluttony and drunkennefs of the abbot and prior, and the ill-treatment of 
their inferiors. This competition belongs to the clofe of the thirteenth 
century. A fong very iimilar to it in character, but much fhorter, is 
found in a manufcript of the middle of the fifteenth century, and printed 
with the other contents of this manufcript in a little volume iffued by the 
Percy Society? The Writer complains that the abbot and prior drunk 
good 
" " Songs and Carob, now first printed from a Manuscript of the Fifteenth 
Century-" Edited by Thomas Wright, Esq. 8vo., London, 134.7, p 2-