This mnemonic saying in rhythmic prose expresses cynicism about human nature and the condition of society. The kingdom rots from above, starting with a monarch’s unsound governance. From the corrupt head, immorality infects the estates (judge, priest, bishop, noble, servant), the ages (old man, young man, child), and the genders (man, woman). The vision is anarchic — a lawless land — and it is summed up in a saying attributed to the Venerable Bede, author of An Ecclesiastical History of England: “Wo there theode” (Woe be the nation, line 14). A political view emerges, as in When Holy Church Is Under Foot (art. 12), expressed as the general complaint of a moral pessimist. As such, Ten Abuses fits with the more purely admonitive lyrics in Jesus 29, preaching that the corrupt world leads one off the path to salvation.

The taciturn wit of Ten Abuses suggests its life as an oft-repeated saying. All told, Jesus 29 provides a tidy collection of such poems. The others are Weal, Signs of Death, and Three Sorrowful Tidings (arts. 6, 22, 23), along with Will and Wit (art. 9) contributed by the Cotton MS. As a saw attributed to Bede, moreover, Ten Abuses adds to the storehouse of native proverbs touted by Jesus 29, most of them attributed to King Alfred in The Owl and the Nightingale and The Proverbs of Alfred (arts. 2, 24), and also to a tradition that Bede authored the views on sin, hell, and Doomday recorded in The Saws of Saint Bede (art. 4).

The theme of Ten Abuses survives in a host of related lyrics. On the tradition, see especially Louis, MWME, 9:3045 [393–402], and Robbins, ed., Historical Poems, pp. 144, 328. The other copy of the poem surviving in MS Cotton Caligula A.ix is viewable at http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Cotton_MS_Caligula_A_IX(Opens in a new tab or window).

[Fol. 184v. NIMEV 4051. DIMEV 6475. Louis, MWME, 9:3015, 3384 [243]. Quire: 4. Meter: 14 lines (2–3 stresses), irregular rhyme or blank verse. Layout: Written as prose with ends of lines punctuated. Edition from MS Jesus 29: Morris, p. 185. One other MS: London, BL, MS Cotton Caligula A.ix, fol. 248v (Wright, p. 80; Morris, p. 184).]