Flen flyys (

Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English p ...

: "Fleas and flies") is the colloquial name and first words of an anonymous, untitled poem, written about 1475 or earlier, famous for containing an early written usage in

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

of the vulgar verb "

fuck ''Fuck'' is an English-language expletive. It often refers to the act of sexual intercourse, but is also commonly used as an intensifier or to convey disdain. While its origin is obscure, it is usually considered to be first attested to aro ...

". In fact the usage was "fuccant", a hybrid of an English

root In vascular plants, the roots are the organs of a plant that are modified to provide anchorage for the plant and take in water and nutrients into the plant body, which allows plants to grow taller and faster. They are most often below the sur ...

with a

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

conjugation Conjugation or conjugate may refer to: Linguistics * Grammatical conjugation, the modification of a verb from its basic form * Emotive conjugation or Russell's conjugation, the use of loaded language Mathematics * Complex conjugation, the chang ...

, and was disguised in the text by a simple code, in which each letter was replaced with the next letter in the alphabet of the time (so that ''fuccant'' is written as ''gxddbou''). Written half in English and half in

, the poem satirised

Carmelite , image = , caption = Coat of arms of the Carmelites , abbreviation = OCarm , formation = Late 12th century , founder = Early hermits of Mount Carmel , founding_location = Mount Car ...

friar A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders founded in the twelfth or thirteenth century; the term distinguishes the mendicants' itinerant apostolic character, exercised broadly under the jurisdiction of a superior general, from the ol ...

s in the

English county The counties of England are areas used for different purposes, which include administrative, geographical, cultural and political demarcation. The term "county" is defined in several ways and can apply to similar or the same areas used by each ...

Cambridgeshire Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a Counties of England, county in the East of England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and North ...

. The poem takes its name from the opening line ''Flen, flyys and freris'' meaning "fleas, flies and friars". The famous line reads "Non sunt in coeli, quia gxddbov xxkxzt pg ifmk." meaning "They he friarsare not in heaven, since ..." followed by words that when decoded, taking in account the alphabet of the time (where u and v were interchangeable, as were i and j, and uu represented w), read "fvccant vvivys of heli", a Latin/English mix that means "...they fuck the wives of

Ely Ely or ELY may refer to: Places Ireland * Éile, a medieval kingdom commonly anglicised Ely * Ely Place, Dublin, a street United Kingdom * Ely, Cambridgeshire, a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, England ** Ely Cathedral Ely Cathedral, formal ...

" (Ely being a city near Cambridge) as well as being a

pun A pun, also known as paronomasia, is a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use of homophoni ...

on the word "hell". The poem also contains the lines "Fratres cum knyvys goth about and txxkxzv nfookt xxzxkt." With the last three words decoded in the same way as "svvivyt mennis vvyvis," it may be translated as "Friars with knives go about and swive (have sex with) men's wives." The poem is found in British Library, Harley MS 3362, and was first edited in T. Wright & J. O. Halliwell, ''Reliquiæ Antiquæ'' (1841) 1.91. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (online edition) cites ''Flen flyys'' in square brackets, since the form ''fuccant'' is Anglo-Latin and not strictly speaking English.

Footnotes

{{reflist Middle English poems