Obs. Also 3–6 convers. [a. F. convers, -se, ad. L. conversus turned, pa. pple. of convertĕre to CONVERT.]
A. adj. Converted in mind or feeling.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 19736 (Cott.). Fra þat time men cald him ai Conuers paule in godds lai.
1436. Pol. Poems (1859), II. 203. That oure verry foo Mow be to us convers and torned.
B. sb. 1. A convert.
1388. Wyclif, 1 Chron. xxii. 2. Conuersis fro hethenesse to the lawe of Israel.
1483. Caxton, Gold. Leg., 178/3. Somme converses of the Jewes wold mynysshe the bounte of the grace of god.
2. Eccl. A lay member of a convent; a lay brother or sister.
Orig. applied to those who were converted from a secular to ‘religious’ life in adult age, as opposed to the nutriti who had been brought up in the monastic life from childhood: see Du Cange.
14[?]. Prose Leg., in Anglia, VIII. 135. In þe steppes of þe conuerses or monkes.
1483. Caxton, Golden Leg., 240/2. A frere conuerse began to be tormented of the deuyl.
c. 1500. Melusine, 100. Thabbot and an houndred monkkis, beside the convers.
1512. C’tess Richmond, in Nichols, Royal Wills (1780), 368. Oon perpetuell brother, called a converse … specially to serve the same monks at their masses.
1691. trans. Emilianne’s Observ. Journ. Naples, 178. The Fifth Monastery … contains the Brothers Converses.
ǁ b. Often in the L. form conversus, pl. -i.
1777. Archæol., IV. 38. He was conversus, a lay-brother.
1863. J. R. Wallran, Mem. Fountains Abbey (Surtees), 71. It [South Park Abbey] contained not less than sixty-six monks and one hundred and fifty conversi.
