First appearing in the Pugillus Facetiarum (Strasbourg, 1608) the image of the nun — the armes nonnelein — looking enviously at the lovers kissing under the tree was taken up by the album amicorum painters, the glass-painters and even issued as a medal…(the so-called Coburger Kusstaler)

Hijacked by a monk!

Here a monk seems to answer the littlle nun’s complaint as to who kisses her! The usual German couplet to the left — but I’m hoping some reader versed in early modern German cursive scripts will be able to read the other couplet for us! [Please use the Comment function on here if you can — all help gratefully acknowledged]

The ‘Coburger Kussthaler‘

A legend — I think it can hardly be anything else! — has grown up that a satirical medal was issued by Herzog Johann Casimir von Sachsen-Gotha (1564-1633) who had divorced his first wife under suspicion of adultery in 1593 and banished her to a nunnery, and then remarried in 1599. This supposed medal is illustrated here:

There is at least one early-looking specimen in the Veste Coburg collection, but there have evidently been modern reproductions

I’m no numismatist, but it does seem to me that the Pugillus Facetiarum plate of 1608 has not been recognised in connexion with this ‘medal’ and — to my mind, at least — is itself sufficient reason to debunk the traditional connexion with Johann Casimir!

I kiss the nun!

An amusing facetious response to the nun’s complaint — “Who kisses me, poor little nun?” has a sturdy peasant answer, Ich mit meinem …. Schlegelein ! [Me with my … mallet!]

But perhaps the motif earlier involved not an envious nun, but a monk. This c. 1590 image from the Scheller album — though sadly uncaptioned — has the same homicidal malllet-wielding peasant, but a monk instead of the Pugillus nun.