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Title: Medieval English Nunneries c. 1275 to 1535
Author: Eileen Edna Power
Release Date: April 25, 2012 [EBook #39537]
Language: English
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CAMBRIDGE STUDIES
IN MEDIEVAL LIFE AND THOUGHT
Edited by G. G. COULTON, M.A.
Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge
and University Lecturer in English
MEDIEVAL ENGLISH NUNNERIES
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
C. F. CLAY, MANAGER
LONDON: FETTER LANE, E.C. 4
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO.
BOMBAY }
CALCUTTA } MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD.
MADRAS }
TORONTO: THE MACMILLAN CO.
OF CANADA, LTD.
TOKYO: MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
[Illustration: PLATE I
PAGE FROM _LA SAINTE ABBAYE_
(At the top of the picture a priest with two acolytes prepares the
sacrament; behind them stand the abbess, holding her staff, her chaplain
and the sacristan, who rings the bell; behind them a group of four nuns,
including the cellaress with her keys. At the bottom is a procession of
priest, acolytes and nuns in the quire.)]
MEDIEVAL ENGLISH NUNNERIES
c. 1275 to 1535
BY EILEEN POWER
SOMETIME FELLOW AND LECTURER
OF GIRTON COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE
[Illustration: MADAME EGLENTYNE (From the Ellesmere MS.)]
CAMBRIDGE
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
1922
TO M. G. J.
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
GENERAL PREFACE
There is only too much truth in the frequent complaint that history, as
compared with the physical sciences, is neglected by the modern public.
But historians have the remedy in their own hands; choosing problems of
equal importance to those of the scientist, and treating them with equal
accuracy, they will command equal attention. Those who insist that the
proportion of accurately ascertainable facts is smaller in history, and
therefore the room for speculation wider, do not thereby establish any
essential distinction between truth-seeking in history and truth-seeking
in chemistry. The historian, whatever be his subject, is as definitely
bound as the chemist "to proclaim certainties as certain, falsehoods as
false, and uncertainties as dubious." Those are the words, not of a modern
scientist, but of the seventeenth century monk, Jean Mabillon; they sum up
his literary profession of faith. Men will follow us in history as
implicitly as they follow the chemist, if only we will form the chemist's
habit of marking clearly where our facts end and our inferences begin.
Then the public, so far from discouraging our speculations, will most
heartily encourage them; for the most positive man of science is always
grateful to anyone who, by putting forward a working theory, stimulates
further discussion.
The present series, therefore, appeals directly to that craving for
clearer facts which has been bred in these times of storm and stress. No
care can save us altogether from error; but, for our own sake and the
public's, we have elected to adopt a safeguard dictated by ordinary
business commonsense. Whatever errors of fact are pointed out by reviewers
or correspondents shall be publicly corrected with the least possible
delay. After a year of publication, all copies shall be provided with such
an erratum-slip without waiting for the chance of a second edition; and
each fresh volume in this series shall contain a full list of the errata
noted in its immediate predecessor. After the lapse of a year from the
first publication of any volume, and at any time during the ensuing twelve
months, any possessor of that volume who will send a stamped and addressed
envelope to the Cambridge University Press, Fetter Lane, Fleet Street,
London, E.C. 4, shall receive, in due course, a free copy of the _errata_
in that volume. Thus, with the help of our critics, we may reasonably hope
to put forward these monographs as roughly representing the most accurate
information obtainable under present conditions. Our facts being thus
secured, the reader will judge our inferences on their own merits; and
something will have been done to dissipate that cloud of suspicion which
hangs over too many important chapters in the social and religious history
of the Middle Ages.
G. G. C.
_October, 1922._
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
The monastic ideal and the development of the monastic rule and orders
have been studied in many admirable books. The purpose of the present work
is not to describe and analyse once again that ideal, but to give a
general picture of English nunnery life during a definite period, the
three centuries before the Dissolution. It is derived entirely from
pre-Reformation sources, and the tainted evidence of Henry VIII's
commissioners has not been used; nor has the story of the suppression of
the English nunneries been told. The nunneries dealt with are drawn from
all the monastic orders, except the Gilbertine order, which has been
omitted, both because it differed from others in containing double houses
of men and women and because it has already been the subject of an
excellent monograph by Miss Rose Graham.
It remains for me to record my deep gratitude to two scholars, in whose
debt students of medieval monastic history must always lie, Mr G. G.
Coulton and Mr A. Hamilton Thompson. I owe more than I can say to their
unfailing interest and readiness to discuss, to help and to criticise. To
Mr Hamilton Thompson I am specially indebted for the loan of his
transcripts and translations of Alnwick's Register, now in course of
publication, for reading and criticising my manuscript and finally for
undertaking the arduous work of reading my proofs. I gratefully
acknowledge suggestions received at different times from Mr Hubert Hall,
Miss Rose Graham and Canon Foster, and faithful criticism from my friend
Miss M. G. Jones. I have also to thank Mr H. S. Bennett for kindly
preparing the index, and Mr Sydney Cockerell, Director of the Fitzwilliam
Museum, for assistance in the choice of illustrations.
EILEEN POWER.
GIRTON COLLEGE,
CAMBRIDGE.
_September 1922_
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I. THE NOVICE
Situation, income and size of the English nunneries 1
Nuns drawn from (1) the nobles and gentry 4
(2) the middle class 9
Nunneries in medieval wills 14
The dowry system 16
Motives for taking the veil:
(1) a career and a vocation for girls 25
(2) a 'dumping ground' for political prisoners 29
(3) for illegitimate, deformed or half-witted girls 30
(4) nuns forced unwillingly to profess by their relations 33
(5) a refuge for widows and occasionally for wives 38
CHAPTER II. THE HEAD OF THE HOUSE
Superiors usually women of social standing 42
Elections and election disputes 43
Resignations 56
Special temptations of a superior:
(1) excessive independence and comfort 59
(2) autocratic government 64
(3) favouritism 66
The superior a great lady in the country side 68
Journeys 69
Luxurious clothes and entertainments 73
Picture of heads of houses in Bishop Alnwick's Lincoln
visitations (1436-49) 80
Wicked prioresses 82
Good prioresses 89
General conclusion: Chaucer's picture borne out by the records 94
CHAPTER III. WORLDLY GOODS
Evidence as to monastic property in
(1) the _Valor Ecclesiasticus_ 96
(2) monastic account rolls 97
Variation of size and income among houses 98
Methods of administration of estates 99
Sources of income:
(1) rents from land and houses 100
(2) manorial perquisites and grants 103
(3) issues of the manor 109
(4) miscellaneous payments 112
(5) spiritualities 113
Expenses 117
(1) internal expenses of the convent 119
(2) divers expenses 123
(3) repairs 123
(4) the home farm 125
(5) the wages sheet 129
CHAPTER IV. MONASTIC HOUSEWIVES
The obedientiaries 131
Allocation of income and obedientiaries' accounts 134
Chambresses' accounts (clothes) 137
Cellaresses' accounts (food) 137
Servants 143
(1) chaplain 144
(2) administrative officials 146
(3) household staff 150
(4) farm labourers 150
Nunnery households 151
Relations between nuns and servants 154
Occasional hired labour 157
Villages occasionally dependent upon nunneries for work 158
CHAPTER V. FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES
Poverty of nunneries 161
(1) prevalence of debt 162
(2) insufficient food and clothing 164
(3) ruinous buildings 168
(4) nuns begging alms 172
Reasons for poverty:
(1) natural disasters 176
(2) ecclesiastical exactions and royal taxes 183
(3) feudal and other services 185
(4) right of patrons to take temporalities during voidance 186
(5) right of bishop and king to nominate nuns on certain
occasions 188
(6) pensions, corrodies, grants and liveries 194
(7) hospitality 200
(8) litigation 201
(9) bad management 203
(10) extravagance 211
(11) overcrowding with nuns 212
Methods adopted by bishops to remedy financial distress:
(1) devices to safeguard expenditure by the head of the house 217
(2) episcopal licence required for business transactions 225
(3) appointment of a _custos_ 228
CHAPTER VI. EDUCATION
The education of the nuns:
Learning of Anglo-Saxon nuns, and of German nuns at a later
date 237
Little learning in English nunneries during the later middle
ages 238
Nunnery libraries and nuns' books 240
Education of nuns 244
Latin in nunneries 246
Translations for the use of nuns 251
Needlework 255
Simple forms of medicine 258
Nunneries as schools for children:
The education of novices 260
The education of secular children 261
Boys 263
Limitations:
(1) not all nunneries took children 264
(2) only gentlefolk taken 265
(3) disapproval and restriction of nunnery schools by the
ecclesiastical authorities 270
What did the nuns teach? 274
Life of school children in nunneries 279
'Piety and breeding' 281
CHAPTER VII. ROUTINE AND REACTION
Division of the day by the Benedictine Rule 285
The Benedictine combination of prayer, study and labour breaks
down 288
Dead routine 289
The reaction from routine 290
(1) carelessness in singing the services 291
(2) _accidia_ 293
(3) quarrels 297
(4) gay clothes 303
(5) pet animals 305
(6) dancing, minstrels and merry-making 309
CHAPTER VIII. PRIVATE LIFE AND PRIVATE PROPERTY
The monastic obligation to (1) communal life, (2) personal
poverty 315
The breakdown of communal life: division into _familiae_ with
private rooms 316
The breakdown of personal poverty 322
(1) the annual _peculium_ 323
(2) money pittances 323
(3) gifts in money and kind 324
(4) legacies 325
(5) proceeds of a nun's own labour 330
Private life and private property in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries 331
Attitude of ecclesiastical authorities 336
CHAPTER IX. FISH OUT OF WATER
Enclosure in the Benedictine Rule 341
The movement for the enclosure of nuns 343
The Bull _Periculoso_ 344
Attempts to enforce enclosure in England 346
Attempts to regulate and restrict the emergence of nuns from
their houses 353
The usual pretexts for breaking enclosure:
(1) illness 361
(2) to enter a stricter rule 363
(3) convent business 367
(4) ceremonies, processions, funerals 368
(5) pilgrimages 371
(6) visits to friends 376
(7) short walks, field work 381
The nuns wander freely about in the world 385
Conclusion 391
CHAPTER X. THE WORLD IN THE CLOISTER
Visitors in the cloister are another side of the enclosure
problem 394
The scholars of Oxford and Cambridge and the neighbouring
nunneries 395
Regulations to govern the entrance of seculars into nunneries:
(1) certain persons not to be admitted 401
(2) certain parts of the house and certain hours forbidden 402
(3) unsuccessful attempts to regulate the reception of
boarders 409
The nuns and political movements 419
Robbery and violence 422
Border raids in Durham and Yorkshire 425
The strange tale of Sir John Arundel's outrage on a nunnery 429
The sack of Origny in _Raoul de Cambrai_ 432
CHAPTER XI. THE OLDE DAUNCE
Nuns and the celibate ideal 436
Sources of evidence for the moral state of the English nunneries 439
Apostate nuns 440
Nuns' lovers 446
Nuns' children 450
Disorder in two small houses, Cannington (1351) and Easebourne
(1478) 452
Disorder in the great abbeys of Amesbury and Godstow 454
Moral state of the nunneries in the diocese of Lincoln at two
periods 456
Attempted statistical estimate of cases of immorality in
Lincoln (1430-50), Norwich (1514) and Chichester (1478, 1524)
dioceses 460
Punishment of offenders 462
General conclusions 471
CHAPTER XII. THE MACHINERY OF REFORM
The chapter meeting 475
Reform by external authorities:
(1) a parent house 478
(2) the chapter general of the order 481
(3) the bishop of the diocese 482
The episcopal visitation and injunctions 483
How far was this control adequate?
(1) concealment of faults 488
(2) visitation too infrequent 490
(3) difficulty of enforcing injunctions 492
Value of visitation documents to the historian 493
CHAPTER XIII. THE NUN IN MEDIEVAL LITERATURE
Value of literary evidence 499
Autobiographies and biographies of nuns 500
Popular poetry (_chansons de nonnes_) 502
Popular stories (_fabliaux_, _exempla_) 515
Didactic works addressed to nuns 523
Satires and moral treatises 533
Secular literature in general 555
APPENDICES
I. ADDITIONAL NOTES TO THE TEXT:
A. The daily fare of Barking Abbey 563
B. School children in nunneries 568
C. Nunnery disputes 581
D. Gay clothes 585
E. Convent pets in literature 588
F. The moral state of Littlemore Priory in the sixteenth
century 595
G. The moral state of the Yorkshire nunneries in the first
half of the fourteenth century 597
H. The disappearance or suppression of eight nunneries prior
to 1535 602
I. _Chansons de Nonnes_ 604
J. The theme of the nun in love in medieval popular
literature 622
K. Nuns in the _Dialogus Miraculorum_ of Caesarius of
Heisterbach 627
II. VISITATIONS OF NUNNERIES IN THE DIOCESE OF ROUEN BY
ARCHBISHOP EUDES RIGAUD (1248-1269) 634
III. FIFTEENTH CENTURY SAXON VISITATIONS BY JOHANN BUSCH 670
IV. LIST OF ENGLISH NUNNERIES, C. 1275-1535 685
BIBLIOGRAPHY 693
INDEX 704
LIST OF PLATES
PLATE
I Page from _La Sainte Abbaye_ FRONTISPIECE
(Brit. Mus. MS. Add. 39843. Folio 6vº.)
TO FACE PAGE
II Abbess receiving the pastoral staff from a bishop 44
(From _The Metz Pontifical_, 82(b)vº and 90vº,
in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.)
III Page from _La Sainte Abbaye_ 144
(Folio 29.)
IV Brass of Ela Buttry, the stingy Prioress of Campsey
([dagger] 1546), in St Stephen's Church, Norwich 168
(From _Norfolk Archaeology_, Vol. VI; Norf. and
Norwich Archaeol. Soc. 1864.)
V Page from _La Sainte Abbaye_ 260
(Folio 1vº.)
VI Dominican nuns in quire 286
(From Brit. Mus. Cott. MSS. Dom. A XII f.)
VII The nun who loved the world 388
(From _Queen Mary's Psalter_, Brit. Mus. Royal MS.
2 B. VII.)
VIII Plan of Lacock Abbey 403
(From _Archaeologia_, LVII, by permission of the
Society of Antiquaries and Mr Harold Brakspear.)
MAP
Map showing the English Nunneries in the later middle ages AT END
MEDIEVAL ENGLISH NUNNERIES
CHAPTER I
THE NOVICE
Then, fair virgin, hear my spell,
For I must your duty tell.
First a-mornings take your book,
The glass wherein yourself must look;
Your young thoughts so proud and jolly
Must be turn'd to motions holy;
For your busk, attires and toys,
Have your thoughts on heavenly joys:
And for all your follies past,
You must do penance, pray and fast.
You shall ring your sacring bell,
Keep your hours and tell your knell,
Rise at midnight to your matins,
Read your psalter, sing your Latins;
And when your blood shall kindle pleasure,
Scourge yourself in plenteous measure.
You must read the morning mass,
You must creep unto the cross,
Put cold ashes on your head,
Have a hair cloth for your bed,
Bind your beads, and tell your needs,
Your holy Aves and your Creeds;
Holy maid, this must be done,
If you mean to live a nun.
_The Merry Devil of Edmonton._
There were in England during the later middle ages (c. 1270-1536) some 138
nunneries, excluding double houses of the Gilbertine order, which
contained brothers as well as nuns. Of these over one half belonged to the
Benedictine order and about a quarter (localised almost entirely in
Lincolnshire and Yorkshire) to the Cistercian order. The rest were
distributed as follows: 17 to the order of St Augustine and one (Minchin
Buckland), which belonged to the order of St John of Jerusalem and
followed the Austin rule, four to the Franciscan order, two to the Cluniac
order, two to the Premonstratensian order and one to the Dominican order.
There was also founded in the fifteenth century a very famous double house
of the Brigittine order, Syon Abbey. Twenty-one of these houses had the
status of abbeys; the rest were priories. They were distributed all over
the country, Surrey, Lancashire, Westmorland and Cornwall being the only
counties without one, but they were more thickly spread over the eastern
than over the western half of the island. They were most numerous in the
North, East and East Midlands, to wit, in the dioceses of York, Lincoln
(which was then very large and included Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire,
Rutland, Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, Leicestershire, Buckinghamshire,
Oxfordshire and part of Hertfordshire) and Norwich; there were 27 houses
in the diocese of York, 31 in the diocese of Lincoln, ten in the diocese
of Norwich and in London and its suburbs there were seven. On the other
hand if nunneries were most plentiful in the North and East Midlands it
was there that they were smallest and poorest. The wealthiest and most
famous nunneries in England were all south of the Thames. Apart from the
new foundation at Syon, which very soon became the largest and richest of
all, the greatest houses were the old established abbeys of Wessex,
Shaftesbury, Wilton, St Mary's Winchester, Romsey and Wherwell, which,
together with Barking in Essex were all of Anglo-Saxon foundation; and
Dartford in Kent, founded by Edward III. The only houses north of the
Thames which approached these in importance were Godstow and Elstow
Abbeys, in Oxfordshire and Bedfordshire respectively; the majority were
small priories with small incomes.
An analysis of the incomes and numerical size of English nunneries at the
dissolution gives interesting and somewhat startling results. Out of 106
houses for which information is available only seven had in 1535 a gross
annual income of over £450 a year. The richest were Syon and Shaftesbury
with £1943 and £1324 respectively; then came Barking with £862, Wilton
with £674, Amesbury with £595, Romsey with £528 and Dartford with £488.
Five others (St Helen's Bishopsgate, Haliwell and the Minories all in
London, Elstow and Godstow) had from £300 to £400; nine others (Nuneaton,
Clerkenwell, Malling, St Mary's Winchester, Tarrant Keynes, Canonsleigh,
Campsey, Minchin Buckland and Lacock) had from £200 to £300. Twelve had
between £100 and £200 and no less than 73 houses had under £100, of which
39 actually had under £50; and it must be remembered that the net annual
income, after the deduction of certain annual charges, was less still[1].
An analysis of the numerical size of nunneries presents more difficulties,
for the number of nuns given sometimes differs in the reports referring to
the same house and it is doubtful whether commissioners or receivers
always set down the total number of nuns present at the visitation or
dissolution of a house; while lists of pensions paid by the crown to
ex-inmates after dissolution are still more incomplete as evidence. A
rough analysis, however, leaves very much the same impression as an
analysis of incomes[2]. Out of 111 houses, for which some sort of
numerical estimate is possible, only four have over thirty inmates, viz.
Syon (51), Amesbury (33), Wilton (32) and Barking (30). Eight (Elstow, the
Minories, Nuneaton, Denny, Romsey, Wherwell, Dartford and St Mary's
Winchester) have from 20 to 30; thirty-six have from 10 to 20 and
sixty-three have under 10. These statistics permit of certain large
generalisations. First, that the majority of English nunneries were small
and poor. Secondly, that, as has already been pointed out, the largest and
richest houses were all in London and south of the Thames; only four
houses north of that river had gross incomes of over £200 and only three
could boast of more than 20 inmates. Thirdly, the nunneries during this
period owned land and rents to the annual value of over £15,500 and
contained perhaps between 1500 and 2000 nuns.
To understand the history of the English nunneries during the later middle
ages it is necessary not only to understand the smallness and poverty of
many of the houses and the high repute of others; it is necessary also to
understand what manner of women took the veil in them. From what social
classes were the nuns drawn, and for what reason did they enter religion?
What function did monasticism, so far as it concerned women, fulfil in
the life of medieval society?
It has been shown that the proportion of women who became nuns was very
small in comparison with the total female population. It has indeed been
insufficiently recognised that the medieval nunneries were recruited
almost entirely from among the upper classes. They were essentially
aristocratic institutions, the refuge of the gently born. At Romsey Abbey
a list of 91 sisters at the election of an abbess in 1333 is full of
well-known county names[3]. The names of Bassett, Sackville, Covert,
Hussey, Tawke and Farnfold occur at Easebourne[4]; Lewknor, St John,
Okehurst, Michelgrove and Sidney at Rusper[5], the two small and poor
nunneries in Sussex. The return of the subsidy in 1377 enumerates the
sisters of Minchin Barrow and, as their historian points out, "among the
family names of these ladies are some of the best that the western
counties could produce"[6]. The other Somerset houses were equally
aristocratic, and an examination of the roll of prioresses for almost any
medieval convent in any part of England will give the same result, even in
the smallest and poorest nunneries, the inmates of which were reduced to
begging alms[7]. These ladies appear sometimes to have had the spirit of
their race, as they often had its manners and its tastes. For 21 years
Isabel Stanley, Prioress of King's Mead, Derby, refused to pay a rent due
from her house to the Abbot of Burton; at last the Abbot sent his bailiff
to distrain for it and she spoke her mind in good set terms. "Wenes these
churles to overlede me," cried this worthy daughter of a knightly family,
"or sue the lawe agayne me? They shall not be so hardy but they shall avye
upon their bodies and be nailed with arrows; for I am a gentlewoman, comen
of the greatest of Lancashire and Cheshire, and that they shall know right
well"[8]. A tacit recognition of the aristocratic character of the
convents is to be found in the fact that bishops were often at pains to
mention the good birth of the girls whom, in accordance with a general
right, they nominated to certain houses on certain occasions. Thus Wykeham
wrote to the Abbess of St Mary's Winchester, bidding her admit Joan
Bleden, "quest de bone et honeste condition, come nous sumes enformes"[9].
More frequently still the candidates were described as "domicella" or
"damoysele"[10]. At least one instance is extant of a bishop ordering that
all the nuns of a house were to be of noble condition[11].
The fact that the greater portion of the female population was unaffected
by the existence of the outlet provided by conventual life for women's
energies is a significant one. The reason for it--paradoxical as this may
sound--lies in the very narrowness of the sphere to which women of gentle
birth were confined. The disadvantage of rank is that so many honest
occupations are not, in its eyes, honourable occupations. In the lowest
ranks of society the poor labourer upon the land had no need to get rid of
his daughter, if he could not find her a husband, nor would it have been
to his interest to do so; for, working in the fields among his sons, or
spinning and brewing with his wife at home, she could earn a supplementary
if not a living wage. The tradesman or artisan in the town was in a
similar position. He recognised that the ideal course was to find a
husband for his growing girl, but the alternative was in no sense that she
should eat out her heart and his income during long years at home; and if
he were too poor to provide her with a sufficient dower, he could and
often did apprentice her to a trade. The number of industries which were
carried on by women in the middle ages shows that for the burgess and
lower classes there were other outlets besides marriage; and then, as now,
domestic service provided for many. But the case of the well-born lady was
different. The knight or the county gentleman could not apprentice his
superfluous daughters to a pursemaker or a weaver in the town; not from
them were drawn the regrateresses in the market place and the harvest
gatherers in the field; nor was it theirs to make the parti-coloured bed
and shake the coverlet, worked with grapes and unicorns, in some rich
vintner's house. There remained for him, if he did not wish or could not
afford to keep them at home and for them, if they desired some scope for
their young energies, only marriage or else a convent, where they might go
with a smaller dower than a husband of their own rank would demand.
To say that the convents were the refuge of the gently born is not to say
that there was no admixture of classes within them. The term gentleman was
becoming more comprehensive in the later middle ages. It included the
upper class proper, the families of noble birth; and it included also the
country gentry. The convents were probably at first recruited almost
entirely from these two ranks of society, and a study of any collection of
medieval wills shows how large a proportion of such families took
advantage of this opening for women. A phrase will sometimes occur which
shows that it was regarded as the natural and obvious alternative to
marriage. Sir John Daubriggecourt in 1415 left his daughter Margery 40
marks, "if she be wedded to a worldly husband, and if she be caused to
receive the sacred veil of the order of holy nuns" ten pounds and twenty
shillings rent[12], and Sir John le Blund in 1312 bequeathed an annuity to
his daughter Ann, "till she marry or enter a religious house"[13]. The
anxiety of the upper classes to secure a place for their children in
nunneries sometimes even led to overcrowding. At Carrow the Prioress was
forced to complain that "certain lords of England whom she was unable to
resist because of their power" forced their daughters upon the priory as
nuns, and in 1273 a papal bull forbade the reception of more inmates than
the revenues would support[14]. Archbishop William Wickwane addressed a
similar mandate to two Yorkshire houses, Wilberfoss and Nunkeeling, which
public rumour had informed him to be overburdened with nuns and with
secular boarders "at the instance of nobles"[15]; and in 1327 Bishop
Stratford wrote to Romsey Abbey that the house was notoriously burdened
with ladies beyond the established number, and that he had heard that the
nuns were being forced to receive more "damoyseles" as novices, which he
forbade without special licence[16]. A very strong personal connection
must in time have been established between a nunnery and certain families
from which, in each generation, it received a daughter or a niece and her
dower. Such was the connection between Shouldham and the Beauchamps[17]
and between Nunmonkton and the Fairfaxes[18]. A close link bound each
nunnery to the family of its patron. Thus we find a Clinton at Wroxall and
a Darcy at Heynings; nor is it unlikely that these noble ladies sometimes
expected privileges and homage more than the strict equality of convent
life would allow, if it be permissible to generalise from the behaviour of
Isabel Clinton[19] and from the fact that Margaret Darcy received a rather
severe penance from Bishop Gynewell in 1351 and a special warning against
going beyond the claustral precincts or speaking to strangers[20], while
in 1393 there occurs the significant injunction by Bishop Bokyngham that
no sister was to have a room to herself except Dame Margaret Darcy
(doubtless the same woman now grown elderly and ailing) "on account of the
nobility of her race"; an old lady of firm will and (despite his careful
mention of extra pittances and of tolerating for a while) a somewhat
sycophantic prelate[21].
It is worthy of notice that Chaucer has drawn an unmistakable "lady" in
his typical prioress. There is her delicate behaviour at meals:
At mete wel ytaught was she with-alle;
She leet no morsel from her lippes falle,
Ne wette hir fingres in hir sauce depe.
Wel coude she carie a morsel, and wel kepe,
That no drope ne fille upon hir brest.
In curteisye was set ful muche hir lest.
Hir over lippe wyped she so clene,
That in hir coppe was no ferthing sene
Of grece, whan she drunken hadde hir draughte.
Ful semely after hir mete she raughte[22].
This was the _ne plus ultra_ of feudal table manners; Chaucer might have
been writing one of those books of deportment for the guidance of
aristocratic young women, which were so numerous in France. So the _Clef
d'Amors_ counsels ladies who would win them lovers[23], and even so Robert
de Blois depicts the perfect diner. Robert de Blois' ideal, the
chivalrous, frivolous, sensuous ideal of "courtesy," which underlay the
whole aristocratic conception of life and the attainment of which was the
criterion of polite society, is the ideal of the Prioress also:
"Gardez vous, Dames, bien acertes,"
"Qu'au mengier soiez bien apertes;
C'est une chose c'on moult prise
Que là soit dame bien aprise.
Tel chose torne à vilonie
Que toutes genz ne sevent mie;
Se puet cil tost avoir mespris
Qui n'est cortoisement apris[24]."
Later he warns against the greedy selection of the finest and largest
titbit for oneself, on the ground that "n'est pas _cortoisie_." The same
consideration preoccupies Madame Eglentyne at her supper: "in _curteisye_
was set ful muche hir lest." Good manners, elegant deportment, the polish
of the court, all that we mean by nurture, these are her aim:
And sikerly she was of greet disport,
And ful plesaunt, and amiable of port,
And peyned her to countrefete chere
Of court, and been estatlich of manere,
And to be holden digne of reverence.
Her pets are the pets of ladies in metrical romances and in illuminated
borders; "smale houndes," delicately fed with "rosted flesh, or milk and
wastel-bread." Her very beauty
(Hir nose tretys; hir eyen greye as glas,
Hir mouth ful smal, and ther-to soft and reed;
But sikerly she hadde a fair forheed;
It was almost a spanne brood, I trowe;
For, hardily, she was nat undergrowe)
conforms to the courtly standard. Only the mention of her chanting of
divine service (through the tretys nose) differentiates her from any other
well-born lady of the day; and if Chaucer had not told us whom he was
describing, we might never have known that she was a nun. It was in these
ideals and traditions that most of the inmates of English convents were
born and bred.
During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, however, another class rose
into prominence and, perhaps because it was originally drawn to a great
extent from the younger sons of the country gentry, found amalgamation
with the gentry easy. The development of trade and the new openings for
the employment of capital had brought about the rise of the English
merchant class. Hitherto foreigners had financed the English crown, but
during the first four years of the Hundred Years' War it became clear that
English merchants were now rich and powerful enough to take their place;
and the triumph of the native was complete when, in 1345, Edward III
repudiated his debts to the Italian merchants and the Bardi and Peruzzi
failed. Henceforth the English merchants were supreme; on the one hand
their trading ventures enriched them; on the other they made vast sums out
of farming the customs and the war subsidies in return for loans of ready
money, and out of all sorts of government contracts. The successful
campaigns of Crécy and Poitiers were entirely financed by these English
capitalists. Not only trade but industry swelled the ranks of the
_nouveaux riches_ and the clothiers of the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries grew rich and prospered. Evidences of the wealth and importance
of this middle class are to be found on all sides. The taxation of
movables, which from 1334 became an important and in time the main source
of national revenue, indicates the discovery on the part of the government
that the wealth of the nation no longer lay in land, but in trade. The
frequent sumptuary acts, the luxury of daily life, bear witness to the
wealth of the _nouveaux riches_; and so also do their philanthropic
enterprises, the beautiful churches which they built, the bridges which
they repaired, the gifts which they gave to religious and to civic
corporations. And it was in the fourteenth century that there began that
steady fusion between the country gentry and the rich burgesses, which was
accomplished before the end of the middle ages and which resulted in the
formation of a solid and powerful middle class. The political amalgamation
of the two classes in the lower house of Parliament corresponded to a
social amalgamation in the world outside. The country knights and squires
saw in business a career for their younger sons; they saw in marriage with
the daughters of the mercantile class a way to mend their fortunes; the
city merchants, on the other hand, saw in such alliances a road to the
attainment of that social prestige which went with land and blood, and
were not loath to pay the price. "Merchants or new gentlemen I deem will
proffer large," wrote Edmund Paston, concerning the marriage of one of his
family. "Well I wot if ye depart to London ye shall have proffers
large"[25].
This social amalgamation between the country gentry and the "new
gentlemen," who had made their money in trade, was naturally reflected in
the nunneries. The wills of London burgesses, which were enrolled in the
Court of Husting, show that the daughters of these well-to-do citizens
were in the habit of taking the veil. There is even more than one trace of
the aristocratic view of religion as the sole alternative to marriage.
Langland, enumerating the good deeds which will win pardon for the
merchant, bids him "marie maydens or maken hem nonnes"[26]. At Ludlow the
gild of Palmers provided that:
If any good girl of the gild of marriageable age, cannot have the
means found by her father, either to go into a religious house or to
marry, whichever she wishes to do, friendly and right help shall be
given her out of our common chest, towards enabling her to do
whichever of the two she wishes[27].
Similarly at Berwick-on-Tweed the gild "ordained by the pleasure of the
burgesses" had a provision entitled, "Of the bringing up of daughters of
the gild," which ran: "If any brother die leaving a daughter true and
worthy and of good repute, but undowered, the gild shall find her a dower,
either on marriage or on going into a religious house"[28]. So also John
Syward, "stockfisshmongere" of London, whose will was proved at the Court
of Husting in 1349, left, "To Dionisia his daughter forty pounds for her
advancement, so that she either marry therewith or become a religious at
her election, within one year after his decease"[29]; and William Wyght,
of the same trade, bequeathed "to each of his daughters Agnes, Margaret,
Beatrix and Alice fifty pounds sterling for their marriage or for entering
a religious house" (1393)[30]; while William Marowe in 1504 bequeathed to
"Elizabeth and Katherine his daughters forty pounds each, to be paid at
their marriage or profession"[31]. Sometimes, however, the sound burgess
sense prevailed, as when Walter Constantyn endowed his wife with "the
residue of his goods, so that she assist Amicia, his niece, ... towards
her marriage or to some trade befitting her position"[32].
The mixture of classes must have been more frequent in convents which were
situate in or near a large town, while the country gentry had those lying
in rural districts more or less to themselves. The nunnery of Carrow, for
instance, was a favourite resort for girls of noble and of gentle birth,
but it was also recruited from the daughters of prosperous Norwich
citizens; among nuns with well-known county names there were also ladies
such as Isabel Barbour, daughter of Thomas Welan, barber, and Joan his
wife, Margery Folcard, daughter of John Folcard, alderman of Norwich, and
Catherine Segryme, daughter of Ralph Segryme, another alderman; the latter
attained the position of prioress at the end of the fifteenth century[33].
These citizens, wealthy and powerful men in days when Norwich was one of
the most important towns in England, probably met on equal terms with the
country gentlemen of Norfolk, and both sent their daughters with handsome
dowries to Carrow. The nunneries of London and of the surrounding district
contained a similar mixture of classes, ranging from some of the noblest
ladies in the land to the daughters of city magnates, men enriched by
honourable trade or by the less honourable capitalistic ventures of the
king's merchants. The famous house of Minoresses without Aldgate
illustrates the situation very clearly. It was always a special favourite
of royalty; and the storm bird, Isabella, mother of Edward III, is by some
supposed to have died in the order. She was certainly its constant
benefactress[34] as were Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester and his
wife, whose daughter Isabel was placed in the nunnery while only a child
and eventually became its abbess[35]. Katherine, widow of John de Ingham,
and Eleanor Lady Scrope were other aristocratic women who took the veil at
the Minories[36]. But this noble connection did not prevent the house from
containing Alice, sister of Richard Hale, fishmonger[37], Elizabeth,
daughter of Thomas Padyngton, fishmonger[38], Marion, daughter of John
Charteseye, baker[39], and Frideswida, daughter of John Reynewell,
alderman of the City of London[40], girls drawn from the _élite_ of the
burgess class. An investigation of the wills enrolled in the Court of
Husting shows the relative popularity of different convents among the
citizens of London. Between the years 1258 and the Dissolution, 52 wills
contain references to one or more nuns related to the testators[41]. From
these it appears that the most popular house was Clerkenwell in Middlesex,
which is mentioned in nine wills[42]. Barking in Essex comes next with
eight references[43], and St Helen's Bishopsgate with seven[44]; the house
of Minoresses without Aldgate is five times mentioned[45], Haliwell[46] in
London and Stratford-atte-Bowe[47] outside, having five and four
references respectively, Kilburn in Middlesex three[48], Sopwell in
Hertfordshire two[49], Malling[50] and Sheppey[51] in Kent two each. Other
convents are mentioned once only and in some cases a testator leaves
legacies to nuns by name, without mentioning where they are professed. All
these houses were in the diocese of London and either in or near the
capital itself; they lay in the counties of Middlesex, Kent, Essex,
Hertford and Bedford[52]. It was but rarely that city girls went as far
afield as Denny in Cambridgeshire, where the famous fishmonger and mayor
of London, John Philpott, had a daughter Thomasina.
Thus the nobles, the gentry and the superior rank of burgess--the upper
and the upper-middle classes--sent their daughters to nunneries. But nuns
were drawn from no lower class; poor girls of the lowest rank--whether the
daughters of artisans or of country labourers--seem never to have taken
the veil. A certain degree of education was demanded in a nun before her
admission and the poor man's daughter would have neither the money, the
opportunity, nor the leisure to acquire it. The manorial fine paid by a
villein when he wished to put his son to school and make a religious of
him, had no counterpart in the case of girls[53]; the taking of the veil
by a villein's daughter was apparently not contemplated. The chief barrier
which shut out the poor from the nunneries was doubtless the dower which,
in spite of the strict prohibition of the rule, was certainly required
from a novice in almost every convent. The lay sisters of those nunneries
which had lay sisters attached were probably drawn mainly from the lower
class[54], but it must have been in the highest degree exceptional for a
poor or low-born girl to become a nun.
Medieval wills (our most trusty source of information for the _personnel_
of the nunneries) make it possible to gauge the extent to which the upper
and middle classes used the nunneries as receptacles for superfluous
daughters. In these wills, in which the medieval paterfamilias laboriously
catalogues his offspring and divides his wealth between them, it is easy
to guess at the embarrassments of a father too well-blessed with female
progeny. What was poor Simon the Chamberlain of the diocese of Worcester
to do, with six strapping girls upon his hands and sons Robert and Henry
to provide for too? Fortunately he had a generous patron in Sir Nicholas
de Mitton and it was perhaps Sir Nicholas who provided the dowers, when
two of them were packed off to Nuneaton; let us hope that Christiana,
Cecilia, Matilda and Joan married themselves out of the legacies which he
left them in his will, when he died in 1290[55]. William de Percehay, lord
of Ryton, who made his will in 1344, had to provide for five sons and one
is therefore not surprised to find that two of his three daughters were
nuns[56]. It is the same with the rich citizens of London and elsewhere;
Sir Richard de la Pole, of a great Hull merchant house (soon to be
ennobled), mentions in his will two sons and two daughters, one of whom
was a nun at Barking while the other received a legacy towards her
marriage[57]; Hugh de Waltham, town clerk, mentions three daughters, one
at St Helen's[58]; John de Croydon, fishmonger, leaves bequests to one son
and four daughters, one at Clerkenwell[59]; William de Chayham kept Lucy,
Agnes and Johanna with him, but made Juliana a nun[60]. The will of Joan
Lady Clinton illustrates the proportion in which a large family of girls
might be divided between the convent and the world; in 1457 she left
certain sums of money to Margaret, Isabel and Cecily Francyes, on
condition that they should pay four pounds annually to their sisters Joan
and Elizabeth, nuns[61]. It was not infrequent for several members of a
family to enter the same convent, as the lists of inmates given in
visitation records, or in the reports of Henry VIII's commissioners, as
well as the evidence of the wills, bear witness[62]. The case of
Shouldham, already quoted, shows that different generations of a family
might be represented at the same time in a convent[63], but it was perhaps
not usual for so many sisters to become nuns as in the Fairfax family; in
1393 their brother's will introduces us to Mary and Alice, nuns of
Sempringham, and Margaret and Eleanor, respectively prioress and nun of
Nunmonkton[64]. Margaret (of whom more anon) took convent life easily; it
is to be feared that she had all too little vocation for it. Sometimes
these family parties in a nunnery led to quarrels; the sisters
foregathered in cliques, or else they continued in the cloister the
domestic arguments of the hearth; there was an amusing case of the kind at
Swine in 1268[65], and some years later (in 1318) an Archbishop of York
had to forbid the admission of more than two or three nuns of one family
to Nunappleton, without special licence, for fear of discord[66].
Probably the real factor in determining the social class from which the
convents were recruited, was not one of rank, but one of money. The
practice of demanding dowries from those who wished to become nuns was
strictly forbidden by the monastic rule and by canon law[67]. To spiritual
minds any taint of commerce was repugnant; Christ asked no dowry with his
bride. The didactic and mystical writers of the period often draw a
contrast between the earthly and the heavenly groom in this matter. The
author of _Hali Meidenhad_ in the thirteenth century, urging the convent
life upon his spiritual daughter, sets against his picture of Christ's
virgin-brides that of the well-born girl, married with disparagement
through lack of dower:
What thinkest thou of the poor, that are indifferently dowered and
ill-provided for, as almost all gentlewomen now are in the world, that
have not wherewith to buy themselves a bridegroom of their own rank
and give themselves into servitude to a man of low esteem, with all
that they have? Wellaway! Jesu! what unworthy chaffer[68].
Thomas of Hales' mystical poem _A Luue Ron_, in the same century, also
lays stress upon this point, half in ecstatic praise of the celibate
ideal, half as a material inducement[69], and the same idea is repeated at
the end of the next century in _Clene Maydenhod_:
He asketh with the nouther lond ne leode,
Gold ne selver ne precious stone.
To such thinges hath he no neode,
Al that is good is with hym one,
Gif thou with him thi lyf wolt lede
And graunte to ben his owne lemman[70].
In ecclesiastical language the same sentiment is expressed by the
injunction of Archbishop Greenfield of York, who forbade the nuns of Arden
to receive any one as a nun by compact, since that involved guilt of
simony, but only to receive her "from promptings of love"[71].
This sentiment was, however, set aside in practice from early times; and a
glance at any conventual register, such as the famous Register of Godstow
Abbey, shows something like a regular system of dowries, dating certainly
from the twelfth century. The Godstow Register contains 19 deeds, ranging
between 1139 and 1278, by which grants are made to the nunnery on the
entrance of a relative of the grantor, the usual phrase being that such
and such a man gave such and such rent-charges, pasture-rights, lands or
messuages, "with" his mother or sister or daughter "to be a nun"[72]. One
very curious deed dated 1259, shows that the reception of a girl at
Godstow was definitely a pecuniary matter. Ralph and Agnes Chondut sold to
the nunnery a piece of land called Anfric,
for thys quite claime and reles, the seyd abbas and holy mynchons of
Godstowe gafe to the seyde raph and Agnes hys wyfe liiiº marke, and
made Katherine the sustur of the seyd Agnes (wyfe of the seyd raph)
Mynchon in the monasteri of Godstowe, with the costys of the hows, ...
and the seyd holy mynchons of Godstowe shold pay to the seyd raph and
Agnes hys wyfe xxv marke of the forseyd liii marke in that day in
whyche the foreseyd Katerine should be delyuerd to hem to be norysshed
and to be mad mynchon in the same place and in the whyche the seyd
penyes shold be payd,
and a second instalment at a place to be agreed upon when confirmation of
the grant is obtained[73]. That is to say the price of the land was £35.
6_s._ 8_d._ together with the cost of receiving Katherine, which was
equivalent to a further sum of money, unfortunately not specified.
Any collection of wills provides ample evidence of this dowry system. Not
only do they frequently contain legacies for the support of some
particular nun during the term of her life, but bequests also occur for
the specific purpose of paying for the admission of a girl to a nunnery,
in exactly the same way as other girls are provided with dowries for their
marriage. The Countess of Warwick, in 1439, left a will directing "that
Iane Newmarch have cc mark in gold, And I to bere all Costes as for her
bryngynge yn-to seynt Katrens, or where-ever she woll be elles"[74]. Even
the clergy, who should have been the last to recognise a system so
flagrantly contrary to canon law, followed the general custom; William
Peke, rector of Scrivelsby, left one Isabella ten marks to make her a nun
in the Gilbertine house of Catley[75] and Robert de Playce, rector of the
church of Brompton, made the following bequest:
Item I bequeath to the daughter of John de Playce my brother 100_s._
in silver, for an aid towards making her a nun in one of the houses of
Wickham, Yedingham or Muncton, if her friends are willing to give her
sufficient aid to accomplish this, but if, through lack of assistance
from friends, she be not made a nun,
she was to have none of this bequest (1345)[76]. Sometimes, as has already
been noted, the money is left alternatively to marry the girl or to make
her a nun, which brings out very clearly the dower-like nature of such
bequests[77]. The accounts of great folk often tell the same tale. When
Elizabeth Chaucy--probably a relative of the poet Chaucer--became a nun at
Barking Abbey in 1381, John of Gaunt paid £51. 8_s._ 2_d._ in expenses and
gifts on the occasion of her admission[78], and the privy purse expenses
of Elizabeth of York contain the item, "Delivered to thabbesse of
Elnestowe by thands of John Duffyn for the costes and charges of litle
Anne Loveday at the making of her nonne there £6. 13_s._ 4_d._"[79].
It is possible to determine the exact nature of these costs and charges
from an account of the expenses of the executors of Elizabeth Sewardby,
who died in 1468. This lady, the widow of William Sewardby of Sewardby,
had left a legacy of £6. 13_s._ 4_d._ to her namesake, little Elizabeth
Sewardby, to be given her if she should become a nun. The executors record
certain payments made to the Prioress of Nunmonkton during the period when
Elizabeth was a boarder there, before taking the vows, and then follows a
list of "expenses made for and concerning Elizabeth Sewardby when she was
made a nun at Monkton":
They say that they paid and gave to the Prioress and Convent of
Monkton, for a certain fee which the said Prioress and Convent _claim
by custom to have and are wont to have from each nun at her entrance_
£3. And in money paid for the habit of the said Elizabeth Sewardby and
for other attire of her body and for a fitting bed, £3. 13_s._
6-1/2_d._ And in expenditure made in connection with the aforesaid
Prioress and Convent and with the friends of the aforesaid Elizabeth
coming together on the Sunday next after the feast of the Nativity of
the Blessed Virgin Mary A.D. 1460, £3. 11_s._ 4_d._ In a gratuity
given to brother John Hamilton, preaching a sermon at the aforesaid
Monkton on the aforesaid Sunday, 2_s._ And in a certain remuneration
given to Thomas Clerk of York for his wise counsel concerning the
recovery of the debts due to the said dame Elizabeth Sewardby,
deceased, 12_d._ Total £10. 7_s._ 10-1/2_d._[80]
It will be noticed that Elizabeth took with her not only a lump sum of
money, but also clothes and a bed, the cost of which more than doubled the
dowry. Canon law specifically allowed the provision of a habit by friends,
when the poverty of a house rendered this necessary; and it is clear from
other sources that it was not unusual for a novice to be provided also
with furniture. The inventory of the goods belonging to the priory of
Minster in Sheppey, at the Dissolution, contains, under the heading of
"the greate Chamber in the Dorter," a note of
stuff in the same chamber belonging to Dame Agnes Davye, _which she
browghte with her_; a square sparver of payntyd clothe and iiij peces
hangyng of the same, iij payre of shets, a cownterpoynt of corse
verder and i square cofer of ashe, a cabord of waynscott carved, ij
awndyrons, a payre of tonges and a fyer panne.
And under "Dame Agnes Browne's Chamber" is the entry:
_Stuff given her by her frends_:--A fetherbed, a bolster, ij pyllowys,
a payre of blankatts, ij corse coverleds, iiij pare of shets good and
badde, an olde tester and selar of paynted clothes and ij peces of
hangyng to the same; a square cofer carvyd, with ij bad clothes upon
the cofer, and in the wyndow a lytill cobard of waynscott carvyd and
ij lytill chestes; a small goblet with a cover of sylver parcel gylt,
a lytill maser with a bryme of sylver and gylt, a lytyll pece of
sylver and a spone of sylver, ij lytyll latyn candellstyks, a fire
panne and a pare of tonges, ij small aundyrons, iiij pewter dysshes, a
porrenger, a pewter bason, ij skyllots, a lytill brasse pot, a
cawdyron and a drynkyng pot of pewter.
She had apparently been sent into the house with a complete equipment in
furniture and implements[81].
Throughout the middle ages a struggle went on between the Church, which
forbade the exaction of dowries, and the convents which persisted in
demanding them, sometimes in so flagrant a manner as to incur the charge
of simony. The earliest prohibition of dowries in English canon law
occurred at the Council of Westminster in 1175[82] and was repeated at the
Council of London in 1200[83] and at the Council of Oxford in 1222[84];
this last had been anticipated by a decree of the fourth Lateran Council.
The history of the struggle to apply it is to be gathered from
visitational records. Archbishop Walter Giffard, visiting Swine in 1268,
finds that Alicia Brun and Alicia de Adeburn were simoniacally veiled[85];
Bishop Norbury has to rebuke the Prioress of Chester for the simoniacal
receipt of bribes to admit nuns[86]; Bishop Ralph of Shrewsbury has heard
that the Prioress of Cannington received four women as sisters of that
house for £20 each, falling into the pravity of simony[87]; William of
Wykeham writes to the nuns of Romsey in 1387 that
in our said visitations it was discovered and declared that, on
account of the reception of certain persons as nuns of your said
monastery, several sums of money were received by the Abbess and
Convent by way of covenant, reward and compact, not without stain of
the pravity of simony and, if it were so, to the peril of your souls,
and he proceeds to forbid the exaction of a dowry "on pretext of any
custom (_consuetudinis_) whatsoever, which is rather to be esteemed a
corruption (_corruptela_)," a significant phrase, which shows that the
practice was well established[88]. Bishop Buckingham of Lincoln warns the
nuns of Heynings against "the reception or extortion of money or of
anything else by compact for the reception of anyone into religion"
(1392)[89]; and Bishop Flemyng enjoins at Elstow in 1422
that hereafter fit persons be received as nuns; for whose reception or
entrance let no money or aught else be demanded; but without any
simoniacal bargain and covenant of any sum of money or other thing
whatsoever, which were accustomed to be made by the crime of simony,
let them henceforth be admitted to your religion purely, simply and
for nothing[90].
But the most detailed information as to the prevalence of the dowry-system
is contained in the records of Bishop Alnwick's visitations of religious
houses in the diocese of Lincoln in 1440[91]. When the Bishop came to
Heynings (which had already been in trouble under Bokyngham) one of the
nuns, Dame Agnes Sutton, gave evidence to the effect that
her friends came to the Prioress and covenanted that she should be
received as a nun for twelve marks and the said money was paid down
before she was admitted, and she says that no one is admitted before
the sum agreed upon for her reception is paid.
She added that nothing was exacted save what was a free offering, but from
her previous words it is obvious that no nuns were received at Heynings
without a dowry. Similarly at Langley Dame Cecily Folgeham said that her
friends gave ten marks to the house "when she was tonsured, but not by
covenant." The most interesting case of all was that of Nuncoton. The
Subprioress, Dame Ellen Frost, said "that it was the custom in time past
to take twenty pounds or less for the admission of nuns, otherwise they
would not be received." The Bishop proceeded to examine other members of
the house; Dame Maud Saltmershe confirmed what the Subprioress had said
about the price for the reception of nuns; two other ladies, who had been
in religion for fifteen and eight years respectively, deposed to having
paid twenty pounds on their entrance and Dame Alice Skotte said that she
did not know how much she had paid, but that she thought it was twenty
pounds. Clearly there was a fixed entrance fee to this nunnery and it was
impossible to become a nun without it; all pretence of free-will
offerings had been dropped. When it is considered that this entrance fee
was twenty pounds (i.e. about £200 of modern money) it is easy to see why
poor girls belonging to the lower orders never found their way into
convents; such a luxury was far beyond their means.
In each of these cases and at two other houses (St Michael's Stamford, and
Legbourne) Alnwick entered a stern prohibition, on pain of
excommunication, against the reception of anything except free gifts from
the friends of a novice. His injunction to Heynings may be quoted as
typical of those made by medieval bishops on such occasions:
For as mykelle as we founde that many has been receyvede here afore
into nunne and sustre in your sayde pryory by covenaunt and paccyons
made be fore thair receyvyng of certeyn moneys to be payed to the
howse, the whiche is dampnede by alle lawe, we charge yowe under the
payn of the sentence of cursyng obove wrytene that fro hense forthe ye
receyve none persons in to nunne ne sustre in your sayde pryore by no
suche couenant, ne pactes or bargaines made before. Whan thai are
receyvede and professede, if thaire frendes of thaire almesse wylle
any gyfe to the place, we suffre wele, commende and conferme hit to be
receyvede[92].
But the efforts at reform made by Alnwick and other visitors were never
very successful; Nuncoton evidently continued to demand its entrance fee,
for in 1531 the practice was once more forbidden by Bishop Longland[93].
Moreover it is easy to see that the distinction between the reception of
what was willingly offered by friends (which was specifically permitted by
the rule of St Benedict and by synods and visitors throughout the middle
ages), and what was given by agreement as payment for the entry of a
novice (which was always forbidden) might become a distinction without a
difference, as it clearly was in the case of Heynings quoted above. The
Prioress of Gokewell, who declared to Alnwick that "they take nothing for
the admission of nuns, save that which the friends of her who is to be
created offer of their free-will and not by agreement"[94], may have acted
in reality not very differently from her erring sisters of Heynings,
Nuncoton and Langley. The temptation was in fact too great. The clause of
the Oxford decree, which permitted poor houses if necessary to receive a
sum sufficient for the vesture of a new member and no more, broadened the
way already opened by the permission of free-will offerings. The
concluding words of Bishop Flemyng's prohibition of dowries at Elstow in
1422 show that this permission had been abused; "if they must be clothed
at their own or their friends' expense, let nothing at all be in any sort
exacted or required, beyond their garments or the just price of their
garments"[95]. Throughout the later middle ages an increase in the cost of
living went side by side with a decrease in the monastic ideal of poverty,
showing itself on the one hand in the constant breach of the rule against
private property, on the other in the exaction of money with novices,
until the dowry system (although never during the middle ages recognised
by law) became in practice a matter of course.
Lest it should seem that everyone who had enough money could become a nun,
it must, however, be added that the bishops took some pains that the
persons who were received as novices should be suitable and pleasing to
their sisters. They seldom exercised their right of nomination without
some assurance that their nominee was of honest life and station,
"Mulierem honestam, ut credimus"[96], "bonae indolis, ut credimus,
juvenculam"[97], "jeovene damoisele et de bone condicion, come nous sumez
enformez"[98], "competeter ad hujusmodi officii debitum litterate"[99].
They were always ready to hear complaints if unsuitable persons had been
admitted by the prioress; and they sometimes made special injunctions upon
the matter. Bokyngham at Heynings in 1392 ordered "that they receive no
one to the habit, nor even to profession, unless she be first found by
diligent inquisition and approbation to be useful, teachable, capable, of
legitimate age, discreet and honest"[100]. At Elstow Bishop Gray made a
very comprehensive injunction:
Furthermore we enjoin and charge you the Abbess ... that henceforward
you admit no one to be a nun of the said monastery, unless with the
express consent of the greater and sounder part of the same convent;
and no one in that case, unless she be taught in song and reading and
the other things requisite herein, or probably may be easily
instructed within short time, and be such that she shall be able to
bear the burdens of the quire (with) the rest that pertain to
religion[101].
Nevertheless, for all their precautions, some strange inmates found their
way into the medieval nunneries.
The novice who entered a nunnery, to live there as a nun for the rest of
her natural life, might do so for very various reasons. For those who
entered young and of their own will, religion was either a profession or a
vocation. They might take the veil because it offered an honourable career
for superfluous girls, who were unwilling or unable to marry; or they
might take it in a real spirit of devotion, with a real call to the
religious life. For other girls the nunnery might be a prison, into which
they were thrust, unwilling but often afraid to resist, by elders who
wished to be rid of them; and many nunneries contained also another class
of inmates, older women, often widows, who had retired thither to end
their days in peace. A career, a vocation, a prison, a refuge; to its
different inmates the medieval nunnery was all these things.
The nunnery as a career and as a vocation does not need separate
treatment. It has already been shown that in large families it was a very
usual custom to make one or more of the daughters nuns. Indeed the youth
of many of the girls who took the veil is in itself proof that anything
like a vocation, or even a free choice, was seldom possible and was hardly
anticipated, even in theory. The age of profession was sixteen, but much
younger children were received as novices and prepared for the veil; they
could withdraw if they found the life distasteful, but as a rule, being
brought up from early childhood for this career, they entered upon it as a
matter of course; moreover the Church was rather apt to regard the
withdrawal of novices as apostasy. Sir Guy de Beauchamp in his will (dated
1359) describes his daughter Katherine as a nun of Shouldham and Dugdale
notes that Katherine, aged seven years, and Elizabeth, aged about one
year, were found to be daughters and heirs of the said Guy, who died in
the following year[102]. It might be supposed that this child of seven was
being brought up as a lay boarder in the convent, but legacies left to
Katherine "a nun at Shouldham" by her grandfather and by her uncle, in
1369 and in 1400 respectively, show that she had been thus vowed in
infancy to a religious life[103]. One of the daughters of Thomas of
Woodstock Duke of Gloucester, was "in infancy placed in the monastery (of
the Minoresses without Aldgate) and clad in the monastic habit" and in
1401 the Pope gave her permission to leave it if she wished, but she
remained and became its abbess[104]. Bishops' registers constantly give
evidence of the presence of mere children in nunneries. When Alnwick
visited Ankerwyke in 1441, three of the younger nuns complained that they
lacked a teacher (_informatrix_) to teach them "reading, song, or
religious observance"; and at the end of the visitation the Bishop noted
that he had examined all the nuns save three, whom he had omitted "on
account of the heedlessness of their age and the simplicity of their
discretion, since the eldest of them is not older than thirteen
years"[105]. At Studley in 1445 he found a girl who had been in religion
for two years and was then thirteen; she complained that one of the
maid-servants had slapped a fellow nun (doubtless also a child) in
church![106] At Littlemore there was a certain Agnes Marcham, who had
entered at the age of thirteen, and had remained there unprofessed for
thirteen years; she now refused to take the full vows[107]. Some of the
nuns at Romsey in 1534 were very young, two being fourteen and one
fifteen[108]. Indeed the reception of girls at a tender age was rather
encouraged than otherwise by the Church. Archbishop Greenfield gave a
licence to the Prioress of Hampole to receive Elena, daughter of the late
Reyner Sperri, citizen of York, who was eight years old, and (he added
solemnly) "of good conversation and life"[109], and Archbishop John le
Romeyn described Margaret de la Batayle, whom he sent to Sinningthwaite,
as "_juvencula_"[110]. The great Peckham went out of his way to make a
specific defence of the practice in 1282, when the Prioress and Convent of
Stratford sought to excuse themselves from veiling a little girl called
Isabel Bret, by reason of her youth, "since on account of this minority
she is the more able and capable to learn and receive those things which
concern the discipline of your order"[111].
It is impossible to make the generalisation that even children professed
at such an early age could have had no consciousness of a vocation for the
religious life; the history of some of the women saints of the middle ages
would be enough to disprove this[112]. The German monk Caesarius of
Heisterbach, who is to be equalled as a gossip only by the less pious
Salimbene, has some delightful stories of youthful enthusiasts in the
_Dialogus Miraculorum_, which he wrote between 1220 and 1235 for the
instruction of the novices in his own Cistercian house. One child,
destined for a worldly match, protests daily that she will wed Christ
only; and, when forced to wear rich garments, asserts "even if you turn me
to gold you cannot make me change my mind," until her parents, worn out by
her prayers, allow her to enter a nunnery where, although very young, she
is soon made governess of the novices. Her sister, given to an earthly
husband while yet a child, is widowed and, "_ipsa adhuc adolescentula_"
enters the same house. Another girl, fired by their example, escapes to a
nunnery in man's clothes; her sister, trying to follow, is caught by her
parents and married, "but I hope," says the appreciative Caesarius, "that
God may not leave unrewarded so fervent a desire to enter religion"[113].
But the most charming tale of all is that of the conversion of Helswindis,
Abbess of Burtscheid[114].
She, although the daughter of a powerful and wealthy man ... burned so
from her earliest childhood with zeal to be converted (i.e. to become
a nun), that she used often to say to her mother: "Mother, make me a
nun." Now she was accustomed with her mother to ascend Mount St.
Saviour, whereon stood at that time the convent of the sisters of
Burtscheid. One day she climbed secretly in through the kitchen
window, went up to the dorter and putting on the habit of one of the
maidens, entered the choir with the others. When the Abbess told this
to her mother, who wanted to go, she, thinking that it was a joke,
replied "Call the child; we must go." Then the child came from within
to the window, saying: "I am a nun; I will not go with thee." But the
mother, fearing her husband, replied: "Only come with me now, and I
will beg thy father to make thee a nun." And so she went forth. It
happened that the mother (who had held her peace) once more went up
the mountain, leaving her daughter asleep. And when the latter rose
and sought her mother in vain in the church, she suspected her to be
at the convent, followed her alone, and, getting in by the same
window, once more put on the habit. When her mother besought her to
come away she replied: "Thou shalt not deceive me again," repeating
the promise that had been made to her. Then indeed her mother went
home in great fear, and her father came up full of rage, together with
her brothers, broke open the doors and carried off his screaming
daughter, whom he committed to the care of relatives, that they might
dissuade her. But she, being (as I believe) not yet nine years of age,
answered them so wisely that they marvelled. What more? The Bishop of
Liège having excommunicated her father and those by whom she had been
taken away, she was restored to the place and after a few years was
elected Abbess there[115].
After these examples of infant zeal it is impossible to assert that even
the extreme youth of many novices made a real vocation for religious life
impossible. But there is no doubt that such a vocation was less probable,
than in cases when a girl of more mature years entered a convent. And it
is also certain that the tendency to regard monasticism as the natural
career for superfluous girls and as the natural alternative to marriage,
was capable of grave abuse. When medieval convents are compared
unfavourably with those of the present day, and when the increasing laxity
with which the rule was kept in the later middle ages is condemned, it has
always to be remembered that the majority of girls in those days (unlike
those of today) entered the nunneries as a career, without any particular
spiritual qualification, because there was nothing else for them to do.
Even in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries monasticism produced
saintly women and great mystics (especially in Germany); but it is
remarkable that in England, although there must have been many good
abbesses like Euphemia of Wherwell, there are no outstanding names.
Monasticism was pre-eminently a respectable career.
It has been said that this tendency to regard monasticism as a career was
capable of abuse; and there were not wanting men to abuse it and to use
the nunnery as a "dumping ground" for unwanted and often unwilling girls,
whom it was desirable to put out of the world, by a means as sure as death
itself and without the risk attaching to murder. Kings themselves were
wont thus to immure the wives and daughters of defeated rebels. Wencilian
(Gwenllian) daughter of Llewelyn was sent to Sempringham as a child, after
her father's death in 1283, and died a nun there in 1337, and the two
daughters of Hugh Despenser the elder were forced to take the veil at the
same convent after their father's fall[116]. The nunnery must often have
served the purpose of lesser men, desirous of shaking off an encumbrance.
The guilty wife of Sir Thomas Tuddenham, unhappily married for eight years
and ruined by an intrigue with her father's servant, was sent to
Crabhouse, where she lived for some forty years; and none thought kindly
of her save--strangely enough--her husband's sister[117]. Sir Peter de
Montfort, dying in 1367, left ten shillings to the lady Lora Astley, a nun
at Pinley, called by Dugdale "his old concubine"[118]. Illegitimate
children too were sometimes sent to convents. One remembers Langland's
nunnery, where
Dame Iohanne was a bastard,
And dame Clarice a knightes doughter · ac a kokewolde was hire syre.
Nor were the clergy loath to embrace this opportunity of removing the
fruit of a lapse from grace. Hugh de Tunstede, rector of Catton, left ten
shillings and a bed to his daughter Joan, a nun of Wilberfoss[119], and at
the time of the Dissolution there was a child of Wolsey himself at
Shaftesbury[120]. It is significant that it was sometimes necessary to
procure the papal dispensation of an abbess- or prioress-elect for
illegitimacy, before she could hold office. The dispensation in 1472 of
Joan Ward, a nun of Esholt, who afterwards became prioress, is
interesting, for the Wards were patrons of the house and her presence
illustrates one of the uses to which such patronage could be put[121]. The
diocese of York affords other instances (they were common enough in the
case of priests) of dispensation "_super defectu natalium_"; in 1474 one
was granted to Cecily Conyers, a nun at Ellerton, "born of a married man
and a single woman"[122] and in 1432 Alice Etton received one four days
before her confirmation as Prioress of Sinningthwaite[123]. At St Mary's
Neasham in 1437, the Bishop of Durham appointed Agnes Tudowe prioress and
issued a mandate for her dispensation for illegitimacy and her
installation on the same day[124].
Less defensible from the point of view of the house was the practice,
which certainly existed, of placing in nunneries girls in some way
deformed, or suffering from an incurable defect.
Now earth to earth in convent walls,
To earth in churchyard sod.
I was not good enough for man,
And so am given to God.
It will be remembered that the practice roused the disapprobation of
Gargantua, whose abbey of Thélème contained only beautiful and amiable
persons.
Item, parcequ'en icelluy temps on ne mettoit en religion des femmes,
sinon celles qu'estoyent borgnes, boiteuses, bossues, laides,
deffaictes, folles, insensees, maleficiees et tarees, ... ("a propos,
dist li moyne, une femme qui n'est ny belle, ny bonne, a quoi vault
elle?--A mettre en religion, dist Gargantua.--Voyre, dist le moine, et
a faire des chemises.") ... feut ordonne que la (i.e. à Thélème) ne
seroyent receues, sinon les belles, bien formees et bien naturees, et
les beaux, bien formez et bien naturez[125].
Occasionally the nuns seem to have resented or resisted these attempts to
foist the deformed and the half-witted upon them. One of the reasons urged
by the obstinate inmates of Stratford against receiving little Isabel Bret
was that she was deformed in her person[126]. It was complained against
the Prioress of Ankerwyke at Alnwick's visitation in 1441 that she made
_ideotas_ and other unfit persons nuns[127]; and in 1514 the Prioress of
Thetford was similarly charged with intending shortly to receive
illiterate and deformed persons as nuns and especially one Dorothy
Sturges, a deaf and deformed gentlewoman. Her designs were frustrated, but
the nuns of Blackborough were less particular and in 1532 Dorothy answered
among her sisters that nothing was in need of reform in that little
house[128].
At the time of the Dissolution the Commissioners found that one of the
nuns of Langley was "in regard a fool"[129]; and a certain Jane Gowring
(the name of whose convent has not been preserved) sent a petition to
Cromwell, demanding whether two girls of twelve and thirteen, the one deaf
and dumb and the other an idiot, should depart or not[130]. At Nuncoton
in 1440 a nun informed Bishop Alnwick that two old nuns lay in the fermery
and took their meals in the convent's cellar "and likewise the infirm,
_the weak minded_ (_imbecilles_) and they that are in their seynies do eat
in the same cellar"[131]. Complaints of the presence of idiots were fairly
frequent. It is easy to understand the exasperation of Thetford over the
case of Dorothy Sturges, when one finds Dame Katherine Mitford complaining
at the same visitation that Elizabeth Haukeforth is "_aliquando
lunatica_"[132]; but a few years later Agnes Hosey, described as
"_ideota_," gave testimony with her sisters at Easebourne and excited no
adverse comment[133]. In an age when faith and superstition went hand in
hand a mad nun might even bring glory to her house; the tale of Catherine,
nun of Bungay, illustrates this. In 1319 an inquiry was held into the
miracles said to have been performed at the tomb of the saintly Robert of
Winchelsea, Archbishop of Canterbury, whose canonisation was ardently
desired by the English; among these miracles was the following:
Sir Walter Botere, chaplain, having been sworn, says that the miracle
happened thus, to wit that he saw a certain Catherine, who had been
(so they say) a nun of Bungay, in the diocese of Norwich, mad
(_furiosam_) and led to the tomb of the said father; and there she was
cured of the said madness and so departed sane; and he says that there
is public talk and report of this.
Three other witnesses also swore to the tale[134]. Even cases of violent
and dangerous madness seem at times to have occurred, judging from a note
at Alnwick's visitation of Stainfield in 1440, in which it is said that
all the nuns appeared separately before the Bishop, "with the exception of
Alicia Benyntone, who is out of her mind and confined in chains"[135].
Lay and ecclesiastical opinion alike condemned another practice, which
seems to have been fairly widespread in medieval England, that of forcing
into convents children too young to realise their fate, or even girls old
enough to resist, of whom unscrupulous relatives desired to be rid,
generally in order to gain possession of their inheritance; for a nun,
dead in the eyes of the law which governed the world, could claim no share
in her father's estate[136]. It is true that influential people, who could
succeed in proving that a nun was unwillingly professed, might obtain her
release[137]; but many little heiresses and unwanted children must have
remained for ever, without hope of escape, in the convents to which they
had been hurried, for it is evident that the religious houses themselves
did all they could to discourage the presentation of such petitions, or
the escape of unwilling members. The _chanson de nonne_, the song of the
nun unwillingly professed, is a favourite theme in medieval popular
poetry[138]; and dry documents show that it had its foundation in fact. It
is possible to collect from various sources a remarkable series of legal
documents which illustrate the practice of putting girls into nunneries,
so as to secure their inheritance.
As early as 1197 there is a case at Ankerwyke, where a nun who had been
fifteen years professed returned to the world and claimed a share of her
father's property, on the ground that she had been forced into the
monastery by a guardian, who wished to secure the whole inheritance. Her
relatives energetically resisted a claim by which they would have been the
losers and appealed to the Pope. The runaway nun was excommunicated and
her case came into the Curia Regis, but the result has not survived and it
is impossible to say whether her story was true[139]. The case of Agnes,
nun of Haverholme, illustrates at once the reason for which an unwilling
girl might be immured in a nunnery and the obstacles which her order would
place in the way of escape. She enters history in a papal mandate of 1304,
by which three ecclesiastics are ordered to take proceedings in the case
of Agnes, whose father and stepmother (how familiar and like a fairy tale
it sounds) in order to deprive her of her heritage, shut her up in the
monastery of Haverholme. "The canons and nuns of Sempringham (to which
order Haverholme belonged) declare," continues the mandate, "that she took
the habit out of devotion, but refuse to confirm their assertion by
oath"[140]. The inference is irresistible. Another case, the memory of
which is preserved in a petition to Chancery, concerns Katherine and Joan,
the two daughters of Thomas Norfolk, whose widow Agnes married a certain
Richard Haldenby. Agnes was seised of certain lands and tenements in
Yorkshire to the value of £40 a year, as the nearest friend of the two
girls, whose share of their father's estate the lands were. But her
remarriage roused the wrath of the Norfolk family and an uncle, John
Norfolk, dispossessed her of the land and took the children out of her
guardianship, "with great force of armed men against the peace of our lord
the king," breaking open their doors and carrying away the deeds of their
possessions. Then, according to the petition of Agnes and her second
husband, "did he make the said Katherine a nun, when she was under the age
of nine years, at a place called Wallingwells, against her will, and the
other daughter of the aforesaid Thomas Norfolk he hath killed, as it is
said." The mother begs for an inquiry to be held[141].
But the most vivid of all these little tragedies of the cloister are those
concerned with Margaret de Prestewych and Clarice Stil. The case of
Margaret de Prestewych has been preserved in the register of Robert de
Stretton, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield; and it is satisfactory to know
that one energetic girl at least succeeded in making good her protests and
in escaping from her prison. In her eighth year or thereabouts, according
to her own petition to the Pope, her friends compelled her against her
will to enter the priory of the nuns of Seton, of the order of St
Augustine, and take on her the habit of a novice. She remained there, as
in a prison, for several years, always protesting that she had never made
nor ever would willingly make any profession. And then, seeing that she
must by profession be excluded from her inheritance, she feigned herself
sick and took to her bed. But this did not prevent her being carried to
the church at the instance of her rivals and blessed by a monk, in spite
of her cries and protests that she would not remain in that priory or in
any other order. On the first opportunity she went forth from the priory
without leave and returned to the world, which in heart she had never
left, and married Robert de Holand, publicly after banns, and had issue.
The bishop, to whom the case had been referred by the Pope, found upon
inquiry that these things were true, and in 1383 released her from the
observance of her order[142].
Within a few years of this high spirited lady's escape the case of little
Clarice Stil engaged the attention of the King's court. The dry-as-dust
pages of the medieval law-books hide many jewels for whoever has patience
to seek them, but none brighter than this story. It all arose out of a
writ of wardship sued by one David Carmayngton or Servyngton against
Walter Reynold, whom he declared to have unjustly deforced him of the
wardship of the land and heir of Robert Stil, the heir being Clarice.
Walter, however, said that no action lay against him, because Clarice had
entered into the order of St John of Jerusalem, of which the Prioress of
Buckland was prioress, and had been professed in that order on the very
day of the purchase of the writ. In answer David unfolded a strange story.
He alleged that William Stil, the father of Robert, had married twice; by
his first wife Constance he had one daughter Margaret, who was now the
wife of Walter Reynold; by his second wife Joan he had two children,
Robert and Clarice. William died seised of certain tenements which were
inherited by Robert, who died without an heir of his body; whereupon
(David alleged) Walter, by connivance with the Prioress of Buckland and in
order to disinherit Clarice (in which case his own wife Margaret would be
the next of kin), took Clarice after her brother's death and conveyed her
to Buckland Priory, she being then eight years of age, and kept her there
under guard. David's counsel gave a dramatic account of the proceeding:
Sir, we say that the same Walter by covinage to compel the said
Clarice to be professed, took the said Clarice when she was between
the ages of seven and eight years, to the house of nuns at Buckland,
and in that place were two ladies, nuns, who were of his assent to
cause the infant to be professed, and they told the child that if she
passed the door the devil would carry her away.
It was furthermore pleaded that on the day of purchase of the writ,
Clarice was within the age of twelve years and that she was still within
that age, and that therefore she could not be considered professed by the
law of the land. By this time one's sympathies are all on the side of
David, and of terrified little Clarice, with whom the devil was to run
away. Unfortunately the judges referred the matter to an ecclesiastical
court and ordered a writ to be sent to the Bishop of Bath and Wells. The
Bishop made his return
that the said Clarice on August 1st, 1383, of her own free will, was
taken to the said Prioress of Buckland by Stephen Joseph, rector of
the church of Northeleye, without any connivance on the part of the
said Walter and the said Prioress, and she remained at the said priory
for two years to see if the life would please her. Afterwards, on
October 18th, 1385, she assumed the religious habit and made
profession according to the manners and customs of the said house. And
on the day when Clarice entered the house she was more than eight
years old and on the day of purchase of the writ more than twelve
years old, and at the present time is more than fourteen years old,
and is well contented with the religious life.
The Bishop also found that no guards had been placed over Clarice by
Walter, or by the Prioress. So David lost his suit and was in mercy for a
false claim; and he also lost, upon a technical point, another suit which
he had brought against the Prioress of Buckland. Nevertheless one's
sympathies remain obstinately on his side. That touch about the devil
assuredly never sprang even from the fertile brain of a lawyer[143].
The illegitimate, the deformed, the feeble-minded and the unwilling
represent a not very pleasant side of the conventual system. The nunneries
contained other and less tragic inmates, who may be distinguished from the
majority; for to them went in voluntary retirement a large number of
widows[144]. If the nun unwillingly professed has always been a favourite
theme in popular literature, so also has the broken-hearted wife or lover,
Guinevere hiding her sorrows in the silent cloister.
Many of the widows who took the veil were, however, less romantic figures.
Although their presence as secular boarders was discouraged, because it
brought too much of the world within cloister walls, those who desired to
make regular profession were willingly received, the more so as they often
brought a substantial dower with them. Thus when Margaret, Countess of
Ulster, assumed the habit at Campsey in 1347, she took with her, by
licence of the Crown, the issues of all her lands and rents in England for
a year after her admission, and after that date 200 marks yearly were to
be paid for her sustenance[145]. Such widows often enjoyed a respect
consonant with their former position in society and not infrequently
became heads of their houses. Katherine de Ingham and Eleanor Lady Scrope
both entered the Minories in their widowhood and eventually became
abbesses[146]. But it does not need much imagination, nor an unduly
cynical temperament, to guess that this element of convent life must
occasionally have been a disturbing one. The conventual atmosphere did not
always succeed in killing the profaner passions of the soul; and the
advent of an opinionated widow, ripe in the experience of all those things
which her sisters had never known, with the aplomb of one who had long
enjoyed an honoured position as wife and mother and lady of the manor,
must at times have caused a flutter among the doves; such a situation, for
instance, as Bishop Cobham found at Wroxall when he visited it in
1323[147]. Isabel Lady Clinton of Maxstoke, widow of the patron of the
house, had retired thither and had evidently taken with her a not too
modest opinion of her own importance. She found it impossible to forget
that she was a Clinton and to realise that she, who had in time gone by
given her easy patronage to the nuns and lodged with them when she would,
was now a simple sister among them. Was she to submit to the rule of
Prioress Agnes of Alesbury, she without whose goodwill Prioress Agnes had
never been appointed? Was she to listen meekly to chiding in the dorter,
and in the frater to bear with sulks? Impossible. How she comported
herself we know not, but the bishop "found grave discord existing between
the Prioress and dame Isabel Clinton, some of the sisters adhering to one
and some to the other." Evidently a battle royal. The bishop, poor man,
did his best. He enjoined peace and concord among the inmates; the sisters
were to treat the prioress with reverence and obedience; those who had
rebelled against her were to desist and the prioress was to behave
amicably to all in frater, dorter, and elsewhere. And so my lord went his
way. He may have known the pertinacity of the late patroness; and it was
perhaps with resignation and without surprise that he confirmed her
election as prioress on the death of the harassed Agnes.
The occasional cases in which wives left their husbands to enter a convent
were less likely to provoke discord. Such women as left husband and
children to take the veil must have been moved by a very strong vocation
for religion, or else by excessive weariness. Some may perhaps have found
married life even such an odious tale, "a licking of honey off thorns," as
the misguided realist who wrote _Hali Meidenhad_ sought to depict it. In
any case, whether the mystical faith of a St Bridget drew her thither, or
whether matrimony had not seemed easy to her that had tried it, the
presence of a wedded wife was unlikely to provoke discord in the convent;
the devout and the depressed are quiet bedeswomen. It was necessary for a
wife to obtain her husband's permission before she could take the veil,
since her action entailed celibacy on his part also, during her lifetime.
Sometimes a husband would endow his wife liberally on her entry into the
house which she had selected. There are two such dowers in the Register of
Godstow Nunnery. About 1165 William de Seckworth gave the tithes of two
mills and a grant of five acres of meadow to the convent, "for the helth
of hys sowle and of hys chyldryn and of hys aunceters, with hys wyfe also,
the whyche he toke to kepe to the forseyd holy mynchons to serve
god"[148]; and a quarter of a century later Geoffrey Durant and Molde his
wife, "whan þe same Moole yelded herself to be a mynchon to the same
chirch," granted one mark of rent to be paid annually by their son Peter,
out of certain lands held by him, "which were of the mariage of the said
Moolde"[149]. Nor did Walter Hauteyn, citizen of London, in his solicitude
for his son and three daughters, forget the mother who had left her
husband and children for the service of God; to Alice his wife, a nun of
St Sepulchre's Canterbury, he bequeathed in 1292 his dwelling place and
rents upon Cornhill for life, with remainder to his heirs[150].
CHAPTER II
THE HEAD OF THE HOUSE
"My lady Prioresse, by your leve
So that I wiste I sholde you not greve,
I wolde demen that ye tellen sholde
A tale next, if so were that ye wolde.
Now wol ye vouche-sauf, my lady dere?"
"Gladly" quod she, and seyde as ye shal here.
CHAUCER.
It usually happened that the head of a nunnery was a woman of some social
standing in her own right. All nuns were Christ's brides, but an earthly
father in the neighbourhood, with broad acres and loose purse strings, was
not to be despised. If a great lady retired to a nunnery she was very like
to end as its head; Barking Abbey in Essex had a long line of well-born
abbesses, including three queens and two princesses; and when Katherine de
la Pole (the youngest daughter of that earl of Suffolk who was slain at
Agincourt) is found holding the position of abbess at the tender age of
twenty-two, it is an irresistible inference that her birth was a factor in
the choice[151]. The advantage in having a woman of local influence and
rich connections as prioress is illustrated in the history of Crabhouse
nunnery under Joan Wiggenhall[152]; how she worked and built "be the grace
of oure Lord God an be the helpe of Edmund Perys, Person of Watlington,"
her cousin; and how
whanne this good man beforeseyde was passid to God, oure Lord that is
ful graciouse to alle his servauntis that have nede and that troste on
hym, sente hem anothir goode frende hem to helpe and comforte in her
nede, clepid Mayster Jon Wygenale, Doctoure of Canon and person of
Oxborow, and Cosyn to the same Prioresse;
and how
in the xix yere of the same Prioresse, ffel a grete derth of corne,
wherefore sche muste nedis have lefte werke with oute relevynge and
helpe of sum goode creature, so, be the steringe of oure Lord, Mayster
Jon Wygenale befor sayde sente us of his charite an 100 cowmbe malte
and an 100 coumbe Barly and besyde this procurid us xx mark. And for
the soule of my lord of Exetyr, of whos soule God of hys pyte he wil
have mercy, we had of him xl pounte and v mark to the same werke,
whiche drewe ccc mark, without mete and drinke. And within these vij
yere that the dortoure was in makynge the place at Lynne clepped
Corner Bothe was at the gate downe and no profite came to the place
many yeris beforne. So that maystir Jon before seyde of hys gret
charite lente the same prioresse good to make it up ageyne and
procured hir xx mark of the sekatouris of Roger Chapeleyn[153].
The election of a superior was a complicated business, as may be gathered
from the list of seventeen documents relating to the election of Alice de
la Flagge as Prioress of Whiston in 1308, and enrolled in the _Sede
Vacante_ Register of Worcester diocese[154]. Indeed there were so many
formalities to be fulfilled that the nuns seem often to have found great
difficulty in making a canonical election, and there are frequent notices
in the episcopal registers that their election has been quashed by the
Bishop on account of some technical fault; in such cases, however, the
Bishop's action was merely formal and he almost always reappointed the
candidate of their choice[155]. An election was, moreover, not only
complicated but expensive; it began with a journey to the patron to ask
for his _congé d'élire_ and it ended with more journeys, to the patron and
to the Bishop, to ask for confirmation, so that the cost of travel and the
cost of paying a clerk to draw up the necessary documents were sometimes
considerable; moreover a fee was payable to the Bishop's official for the
installation of the new head. The account of Margaret Ratclyff, Prioress
of Swaffham Bulbeck in 1482, contains notice of payments "to the official
of the lord bishop, at the installation of the said prioress for his fee
i. li." and to one Bridone "for the transcript of the decree of election
of the prioress v. s."[156]. An account roll of St Michael's Stamford for
the year 1375-6 illustrates the process in greater detail; under the
heading of "expenses de nostre Elit" are the following items:
Paid for the hire of horses with expenses going to the abbot of
Peterborough [the patron] to get licence to elect our choice 9-1/2_d._
Paid for the hire of horses going to the bishop of Lincoln and to the
abbot of Peterborough and for their expenses at our election 4_s._
8-1/2_d._ Paid for bread, ale and meat for our election on the
election day 2_s._ 11-1/2_d._ Paid for a letter to the abbot of
Peterborough for a licence to elect 3_d._ Paid for the installation of
our elect, 10_s._[157] Total 18_s._ 8-1/2_d._[158]
The only necessary qualifications for the head of a house were that she
should be above the age of twenty-one[159], born in wedlock and of good
reputation; a special dispensation had to be obtained for the election of
a woman who was under age or illegitimate.
[Illustration: PLATE II
ABBESS RECEIVING THE PASTORAL STAFF FROM A BISHOP
BENEDICTION OF AN ABBESS BY A BISHOP]
As a rule the nuns possessed the right of free election, subject to the
_congé d'élire_ of their patron and to the confirmation of the bishop, and
they secured without very much difficulty the leader of their choice.
Often enough it must have been clear, especially in small communities,
that one of the nuns was better fitted to rule than her sisters, and, as
at Whiston, they
unanimously, as if inspired by the Holy Spirit[160], chose dame Alice
de la Flagge, a woman of discreet life and morals, of lawful age,
professed in the nunnery, born in lawful matrimony, prudent in
spiritual and temporal matters, of whose election all approved, and
afterwards, solemnly singing Te Deum Laudamus, carried the said elect,
weeping, resisting as much as she could, and expostulating in a high
voice, to the church as is the custom, and immediately afterwards,
brother William de Grimeley, monk of Worcester, proclaimed the
election. The said elect, after being very often asked, at length,
after due deliberation, being unwilling to resist the divine will,
consented[161].
But Jocelin of Brakelond has taught us that a monastic election was not
always a foregone conclusion, that discussion waxed hot and barbed words
flew in the season of blood-letting "when the cloistered monks were wont
to reveal the secrets of their hearts in turn and to discuss matters one
with another," and that "many men said many things and every man was fully
persuaded in his own mind." Nuns were not very different from monks when
it came to an election, and the chance survival of a bishop's register and
of another formal document among the muniments of Lincoln, has preserved
the record of an election comedy at Elstow Abbey, almost worthy to rank
with Jocelin's inimitable account of the choice of Samson the subsacrist.
After the death of Abbess Agnes Gascoigne in July 1529, the nineteen nuns
of Elstow, having received Henry VIII's _congé d'élire_, assembled in
their chapter house on August 9th, to elect her successor. They chose
Master John Rayn "_utriusque juris doctorem_," as director, Edward Watson,
notary public as clerk, and the Prior of Caldwell and the rectors of Great
Billing and Turvey as witnesses. Three novices and other lay persons
having departed, the director and the other men explained the forms of
election to the nuns in the vulgar tongue and they agreed to proceed by
way of scrutiny. Matilda Sheldon, subprioress, Alice Boifeld,
_precentrix_, and Anne Preston, _ostiaria_ (doorkeeper) were chosen as
scrutineers and withdrew into a corner of the chapter house, with the
notary and witnesses. There Matilda Sheldon and Anne Preston nominated
Cecilia Starkey, _refectoraria_, while Alice Boifeld nominated Elizabeth
Boifeld, sacrist, evidently a relative. The three scrutineers then called
upon the other nuns to give their votes; Anne Wake, the prioress, named
Cecilia Starkey; Elizabeth Boifeld and Cecilia Starkey (each unable to
vote for herself, but determined not to assist the other) voted for a
third person, the subsacrist Helen Snawe; and Helen Snawe and all the
other nuns, except two, gave their votes in favour of Elizabeth Boifeld.
Consternation reigned among the older nuns, prioress, subprioress,
_refectoraria_ and doorkeeper, when this result was announced. "Well,"
said the Prioress, "some of thies yong Nunnes be to blame," and on the
director asking why, she replied: "For they wolde not shewe me so muche;
for I asked diverse of them before this day to whome they wolde gyve their
voices, but they wolde not shewe me." "What said they to you?" asked the
director. "They said to me," replied the flustered and indignant prioress,
"they wolde not tell to whome they wolde gyve their voices tyll the tyme
of thellection, and then they wolde gyve their voices as God shulde put
into their mynds, but this is by counsaill. And yet yt wolde have beseemed
them to have shewn as much to me as to the others." And then she and Dame
Cecilia said, "What, shulde the yong nunnes gyve voices? Tushe, they
shulde not gyve voices!" Clearly the situation was the same which Jocelin
of Brakelond had described over three centuries before: "The novices said
of their elders that they were invalid old men and little capable of
ruling an abbey." However the Prioress was obliged to admit that the
younger nuns had voted in the last election and the subprioress thereupon,
in the name of the scrutineers, announced the election of Dame Elizabeth
Boifeld by the "more and sounder part of the convent" (poor Anne Wake!).
But the Prioress and disappointed Dame Cecilia still showed fight; the
votes must be referred to the Bishop of Lincoln. Further discussion; then
Dame Cecilia gracefully gave way; she consented to the election of Dame
Elizabeth Boifeld and would not proceed further in the matter. Master John
Rayn published the election at the steps of the altar. Helen Snawe (whom
after events showed to be a leading spirit in the affair) and Katherine
Wingate were chosen as proctors, to seek confirmation from the Bishop, and
Dame Elizabeth was taken to the altar (amid loud chanting of _Te Deum
Laudamus_ by the triumphant younger nuns) and her election announced. She,
however, preserved that decorous semblance of unwillingness, or at least
of indifference, which custom demanded from a successful candidate, even
when she had been pulling strings for days, for when the proctors came to
her at two o'clock "in a certain upper chamber called Marteyns, in our
monastery" and asked her consent to her election, "she neither gave it nor
refused." Away went the proctors, without so much as a wink to each other;
let us leave our elect to meditate upon the will of God. At four p.m. they
came to her "in a certain large garden, called the Pond Yard, within our
monastery"; and at their repeated instances she gave her consent.
"Wherefore we, the above-named nuns, pray the Lord Bishop to ratify and
confirm our election of the said Elizabeth Boyfeld as our Abbess." Which
the Lord Bishop did[162].
But this was by no means the end of the matter. A year later the whole
nunnery was in an uproar[163]. The bishop, for reasons best known to
himself, had removed the prioress Dame Anne Wake and had appointed Dame
Helen Snawe in her place; perhaps Dame Anne had said "Tush" once too
often under the new _régime_; perhaps she was getting too old for her
work; or perhaps Abbess Elizabeth Boifeld had only commanded Dame Snawe's
intrigues at a price; evidently the subsacrist was no less adroit than
that other subsacrist of Bury St Edmund's. At any rate Dame Anne Wake was
put out of her office and Dame Helen Snawe ruled in her stead. It might
have been expected that this change would be welcomed by the nuns,
considering how strong the Boifeld faction had been at the election of the
Abbess. But no; during the year of triumph Helen Snawe had aroused the
hearty dislike of her sisters; led by Dames Barbara Gray (who had voted
against the Abbess at the last election) and Alice Bowlis they had
strenuously opposed her substitution for the old Prioress; they had been
impertinent to the Abbess of their own choice (indeed she was only a
figure-head); they had written letters to their friends and refused to
show them to her; and finally when the election of Dame Snawe was
announced, they had risen in a body and left the chapter-house as a
protest. This was intolerable, and the Bishop's vicar-general came down to
examine the delinquents. Matilda Sheldon, the subprioress, admitted to
having left the chapter, but denied that she had done so for the reason
attributed and said that she did not know of the departure of the other
nuns, until she saw them in the dorter. Margaret Nicolson showed more
spirit; she said that she went out "because she wold not consent that my
lady Snawe shulde be priores," and that "ther was none that ded councell
hir to goo" and that "my lady abbes did commaunde them to tary, that not
withestandyng they went forthe"; and she gave the names of eight nuns who
had followed the subprioress out. Dame Barbara Gray was next asked "yf she
ded aske licence of my Lady Abbas to wryte letters to hir frends," and
replied "that she ded aske licens to wryte to hir frends and my Lady Abbas
sade, 'Yf ye showe me what ye wryte I am content,' and she saide agene, 'I
have done my devoir to aske licence, and yf ye wyll nede see it I will
wryte noo letters.'" Asked whether she had left the chapter house, this
defiant young woman declared that "yf it were to do agene she wolde soo
doo," and moreover "that she cannot fynde in hir hert to obbey my lady
Snawe as priores, and that she wyll rather goo out of the house by my
lord's licence, or she wyll obbey hir ... and that she wyll never obbey
hir as priores, for hir hert cannot serve hir." Asked for her objection to
Dame Snawe, she said that "she wyll shewe noo cause at thys tyme wherfor
she cannot love hir"; but after a little pressure she declared with heat
that "the priores maks every faute a dedly syne"[164], treats all of them
ill except her own self and if she "doo take an oppynyon she wyll kepe
itt," whether it be right or wrong. Dame Margery Preston was next examined
and was evidently rather frightened at the result of her actions; she said
that she had left the chapter-house as a protest against the deposition of
the old prioress and not for any ill will that she bore Dame Snawe, "and
she sais," the record continues, "that she ys well content to obbey my
lady Snawe as priores. And she desiers my lord to be a good lord to the
olde priores, because of her age." Ill-used Dame Cecilia Starkey, so
unkindly circumvented by Dame Snawe a year ago, next appeared before the
vicar-general and said "that she went forthe of the chapter howse, but she
sais she gave noo occasion to eny of hir susters to goo forthe. And says
she knewe not howe many of hir susters went forthe whyle she come intoo
the dorter; saynge that she cannot fynde in hir hert nor wyll not accepte
and take my lady Snawe as priores" (an amusing comment on her vote in
1529). Next came Dame Alice Foster, who admitted to having left the
chapter-house
and sais that they war commanded by the Abbes to tare styll. But she
and other went forth because the olde priores was put done [i.e. down]
wrongfully and my lady Snawe put in agenst ther wylle, saynge that she
wyll never agre to hir as long as she lyvys; she says the sub-prioress
went forthe of the chapiter howse fyrst and then she and other
folowyde;
and evidence in almost the same words was given by Dame Anne Preston and
by Dame Elizabeth Sinclere, the latter adding that "she wyll take tholde
priores as priores as longe as she levys and no other, and she says yf my
lord commaunde vs to take my lady Snawe to be priores, she had lever goo
forthe of the howse to sum other place and wyll not tare ther." Dame Alice
Bowlis, another young rebel, asked
yf she ded aske lycence of the Abbes to wryte, she sais she ded aske
licens to wryte and my lady Abbes seyde "My lord hathe gevyn vs soo
strate commaundement that none shuld wryte no (letter) but ye shewe it
to me, what ye doo wryte"; and she sais she mayde aunswer agene to
thabbes, "It hathe not bene soo in tymis paste and I have done my
dewty. I wyll not wryte nowe at this tyme"; she admitted that she left
the chapter house, "but she says that nobody ded move hyr to goo
forthe; she says that she must neds nowe obbey the priores at my lords
commaundement, saynge that my lady Snawe ys not mete for that offes,
butt she wolde shewe noo cause wherfor."
Two other nuns declared with great boldness "That my lord ded not
commaunde vs to tak my lady Snawe as priores, but he saide, 'Yf ye wyll
not take hir as priores I wyll make hir priores'" and that "they was wont
to have the priores chosyn by the Abbes and the convent, and not by my
lord, after seynte Bennet's rule," one of them remarking cryptically "that
she wyll take my lady Snawe as priores as other wyll doo" and not
otherwise. Meek little Dame Katherine Cornwallis was then interrogated and
said,
"that she was going forthe of the chapiter house wt. other of hir
susters and then when she herde my lady abbes commaund them to tary,
she ded tary behynde, but she sais that she thynks that none of the
oder susters that went forthe ded here hyr, but only she" (kind little
Dame Katherine), "and she is sory that tholde priores ys put out of
hir offes. She says that my lady abbes ded tare styll and domina
Alicia Boyfelde, domina Snawe, domina Katherina Wyngate, domina
Dorothia Commaforthe, domina Elizabethe Repton, and domina Elizabeth
Stanysmore."
Finally the ill-used abbess made her complaint; she had bidden saucy Dame
Alice Bowlis and others to stand up at matins, according to the custom of
the house, "and went out of hir stall to byde them soo doo, and lady
Bowlis ded make hir awnswer agene that, 'ye have mayde hir priores that
mayde ye abbes!', brekyng her silence ther." Evidently poor Elizabeth
Boifeld had not succeeded in living down the intrigues which had preceded
her election, and the convent suspected her of rewarding a supporter at
the expense of an old opponent.
Here was a pretty state of affairs in the home of buxomness and peace. But
the vicar-general acted firmly. Barbara Gray and Alice Bowlis were given a
penance for their disobedience; they were to keep silence; neither of them
was to come within "the howse calde the misericorde" (where meat was
allowed to be eaten), but they were always to have their meals in the
frater; neither of them was to write any letters; and they were to take
the lowest places of all among the sisters in "processions and in other
placys." Finally all the nuns were enjoined to be obedient to the abbess
and to the hated prioress. Their protests that they would never obey Dame
Alice Snawe, while the old prioress lived, were all in vain; and when some
ten years later the Reformation put an end to their dissensions by casting
them all upon the world, Dame Elizabeth Boyvill (_sic_), "abbesse,"
received an annual pension of £50, Dame Helen Snawe, "prioresse," one of
£4 and Dame Anne Wake, "prioresse quondam," one of 66_s._ 8_d._[165]
The turbulent diocese of York provides us with an even more striking
picture of an election-quarrel. In 1308, after a vacancy, the election of
the Prioress of Keldholme lapsed to the Archbishop, who appointed Emma of
York. But the nuns would have none of Emma. Six of them refused obedience
to the new prioress and, six being probably at least half of the whole
convent, Emma of York resigned. Not to be daunted the Archbishop returned
to the charge; on August 5th he wrote to the Archdeacon of Cleveland
stating that as he found no one in the house capable of ruling it he had
appointed Joan de Pykering, a nun of Rosedale, to be Prioress.
As a number of persons (named) had openly and publicly obstructed the
appointment of the new prioress the Archdeacon was to proceed
immediately to Keldholme and give her corporal possession and at the
same time he was to admonish other dissentient nuns (named) that they
and all others must accept Joan de Pykering as prioress and reverently
obey her.
It is clear in this case that the feuds of the convent had spread beyond
its walls, for the Archbishop at the same time warned all lay folk to
cease their opposition on pain of excommunication and shortly afterwards
imposed a penance upon one of those who had interfered. But pandemonium
still reigned at Keldholme and he went down in person to interview the
refractory nuns; the result of his visitation appears in a mandate issued
to the official of Cleveland on September 3rd, stating that he had found
four nuns, Isabella de Langetoft, Mary de Holm, Joan de Roseles and
Anabilla de Lokton (all had been among the original objectors to Emma of
York) incorrigible rebels. They were therefore to be packed off one after
another, Isabella to Handale, Mary to Swine, Joan to Nunappleton and
Anabilla to Wallingwells, there to perform their penances. In spite of
this ruthless elimination of the discordant elements, the convent of
Keldholme refused to submit. On February 1st following the Archbishop
wrote severely to the subprioress and convent bidding them at once to
direct a letter under their common seal to their patroness, declaring that
they had unanimously elected Joan de Pykering as prioress; on February 5th
he issued a commission to correct the crimes and excesses revealed at his
visitation; and on February 17th he directed the commissioners "to enquire
whether Joan de Pickering" (luckless exile in the tents of Kedar) "desired
for a good reason, of her own free will, to resign and if they found that
she did to enjoin the subprioress and convent to proceed to the canonical
election of a new prioress"; and on March 7th the triumphant convent
elected Emma of Stapelton. At the same time the Archbishop ordered the
transference of two other nuns to do penance at Esholt and at Nunkeeling,
perhaps for their share in these disorders but more probably for
immorality.
But this was not the end. Emma of York could not forget that she had once
been prioress; Mary de Holm (who had either returned from or never gone to
Swine) was a thoroughly bad character; and in 1315 the Archbishop
directed Richard del Clay, _custos_ of the monastery, to proceed at
once to Keldholme and to summon before him in the chapter Emma of
York and Mary de Holm, who like daughters of perdition were
disobedient and rebels against the Prioress. Having read the
Archbishop's letter in the mother tongue in the chapter, he was to
admonish the two nuns for the first, second and third times that they
must humbly obey the Prioress in all lawful and canonical injunctions.
They were not to meddle with any internal or external business of the
house in any way, or to go outside of the enclosure of the monastery,
or to say anything against the Prioress, on pain of expulsion and of
the greater excommunication.
At the end of the year, however, harassed Archbishop Greenfield went where
the wicked cease from troubling; and the two malcontents at Keldholme
seized the opportunity to triumph. Scarcely a couple of months after his
death Emma of Stapelton resigned; she said she was "oppressed by age," but
since Emma of York was at once elected and confirmed in her place, it is
probable that the rage, like Joan de Pickering's free will, was something
of a euphemism; her reason doubtless took a concrete and menacing shape
and wore a veil upon its undiminished head. The last we hear of these very
unsaintly ladies is in 1318, when the new Archbishop enjoined a penance on
Mary de Holm for incontinence with a chaplain[166]. It is noticeable that
this was the second case of the kind which had occurred in the diocese of
York within fifteen years. At Swine in 1290 the appointment by Archbishop
Romeyn of Josiana de Anlaby as Prioress had been followed by similar
disorders and he ordered an inquiry to be held and the rebellious nuns to
be sent to Rosedale[167].
Much trouble might arise within a convent over the election of its head,
as these stories show. But sometimes external persons interfered; great
ladies used their influence and their wealth to secure the coveted post
for a protégée of their own; and the protégée herself was not averse to
oiling the palms of those in authority with good marks of silver;
"blood-abbesses," Ensfrid of Cologne would have called them ("that is,
foisted in by their kinsfolk") or "jester-abbesses" ("that is, such as had
been thrust in by the power of great folks") or "simoniacs, who had crept
in through money or through worldly services"[168]. In these cases there
was likely to be more trouble still, for great ladies were not always
careful of the character of a friend or relative whom they wished to
settle comfortably as head of a convent. In 1528 the Abbess of Wilton died
and Mr John Carey thought he would like the appointment for his sister
Eleanor, one of the nuns. He was brother-in-law to lovely Anne Boleyn, and
a word in her ear secured her warm support; the infatuated King wished to
please Anne; and Wolsey, steering his bark in troubled waters, wished to
please the King; so he promised that the lady should have the post, the
election to which had been placed in his hands by the nuns. It seemed that
all would go well with Dame Eleanor Carey, when Anne Boleyn pulled the
strings; but trouble arose, and the action taken by the Cardinal and by
the future oppressor of the monasteries is greatly to the credit of them
both, for both had much to lose from Anne. "As touching the matter of
Wilton" Henry wrote to her
My lord cardinal hath had the Nuns before him, and examined them, Mr.
Bell being present; which hath certified me, that for a truth that she
hath confessed herself, (which we would have had abbesse) to have had
two children by two sundry priests; and furder, since, hath been kept
by a servant of the Lord Broke, that was, and that not long ago;
wherefore I would not for all the gold in the world clog your
conscience nor mine to make her a ruler of a house, which is of so
ungudly demeanor, nor I trust you would not that neither for brother
nor sister I should so destain mine honor or conscience. And as
touching the prioress [Isabel Jordan] or Dame Eleanor's eldest sister,
though there is not any evident case proved against them, and that the
prioress is so old that of many years she could not be as she was
named [ill-famed]: yet notwithstanding to do you pleasure I have done
that neither of them shall have it, but that some other good and well
disposed woman shall have it, whereby the house shall be the better
reformed (whereof I ensure you it had much need) and God much the
better served[169].
Wolsey, however, gave the appointment to Isabel Jordan, who in spite of
her having been the subject of some scandal in her youth, was favoured by
the greater part of the convent as being "ancient, wise and discreet";
whereupon he brought down upon himself a severe rebuke from Henry, who had
"both reported and promised to divers friends of Dame Elinor Carey that
the Prioress should not have it"[170]. Without doubt pretty Mistress Anne
was sulking down at Hever.
Not only did outside persons thus concern themselves in a conventual
election; the nuns themselves were not always unwilling to bribe, where
they desired advancement. A series of letters written by Margaret Vernon
to Cromwell, concerning the office of Prioress of St Helen's, Bishopsgate,
throws a lurid light upon the methods which were sometimes employed:
"Sir," she wrote to her powerful friend in 1529, "Pleaseth it you to
understand that there is a goldsmith in this town, named Lewys, and he
sheweth me that Mr. More hath made sure promise to parson Larke that
the subprioress of St. Helen's shall be prioress there afore
Christmas-day. Sir, I most humbly beseech you to be so good master
unto me, as to know my lord's grace's [the king's] pleasure in this
case and that I may have a determined answer whereto I shall trust,
that I may settle myself in quietness; the which I am far from at this
hour. And farthermore if it might like you to make the offer to my
said lord's grace of such a sum of money as we were at a point for, my
friends thinketh that I should surely be at an end."
Soon afterwards she wrote again:
Sir, it is so that there is divers and many of my friends that hath
written to me that I should make labour for the said house unto your
mastership, showing you that the King's grace hath given it to master
Harper, who saith that he is proffered for his favour two hundred
marks of the King's saddler, for his sister; which proffer I will
never make unto him, nor no friend for me shall, for the coming in
after that fashion is neither godly nor worshipful. And beside all
this must come by my lady Orell's favour, which is a woman I would
least meddle with. And thus I shall not only be burdened in conscience
for payment of this great sum, but also entangled and in great
cumbrance to satisfy the avidity of this gentlewoman. And though I
did, in my lord cardinal's days, proffer a hundred pounds for the said
house, I beseech you consider for what purpose it was made. Your
mastership knoweth right well that there was by my enemies so many
high and slanderous words, and your mastership had made so great
instant labour for me, that I shamed so much the fall thereof that I
foresaw little what proffer was made; but now, I thank our Lord, that
blast is ceased, and I have no such singular love unto it; for now I
have two eyes to see in this matter clearly, the one is the eye of my
soul, that I may come without burthen of conscience and by the right
door, and, laying away all pomp and vanity of the world, looking
warily upon the maintenance and supportation of the house, which I
should take in charge, and cannot be performed, master Harper's
pleasure and my lady Orell's accomplished. In consideration whereof I
intend not willingly, nor no friend of mine shall not, trouble your
mastership in this case.
In another letter she mentions a saying of Master Harper, that from the
good report he has heard of her, he would rather admit her without a groat
than others who offer money; but her conscientious scruples were not
rewarded with St Helen's, though she almost immediately obtained an
appointment as prioress at Little Marlow, and on the dissolution of that
house among the lesser monasteries, received and held for a brief space
the great Abbey of Malling[171]. It is true that these instances of simony
and of the use of influence belong to the last degenerate years of the
monasteries in England. But cases hardly less serious undoubtedly occurred
at an early date. The gross venality of the papal _curia_[172], even in
the early thirteenth century, is not a very happy omen for the behaviour
of private patrons; smaller folk than the Pope could summon a wretched
abbot "Amice, ut offeras"; nor was it only abbots who thus bought
themselves into favour. The thirteenth century jurist Pierre Du Bois,
whose enlightened plans for the better education of women included the
suppression of the nunneries and the utilisation of their wealth to form
schools or colleges for girls, mentioned the reception of nuns for money
and rents, by means of compacts (i.e. the dowry system) and the election
of abbesses and prioresses by the same illicit bargains, as among the
abuses practised in nunneries[173].
Once having been installed, the head of a house held office until she
died, resigned or was deprived for incompetence or for ill behaviour.
Sometimes prioresses continued to hold office until a very great age, as
did Matilda de Flamstead, Prioress of Sopwell, who died in 1430 aged
eighty-one, having lived in the rules of religion for over sixty
years[174]. But the cases (quoted below) of the prioresses of St Michael's
Stamford and of Gracedieu prove that an aged and impotent head was bad for
the discipline of the house, and it appears that a prioress who was too
old or in too weak health to fulfil her arduous duties, was often allowed
to resign or was relieved of her office[175]. Sometimes an ex-superior
continued to live a communal life as an ordinary nun, under her successor,
but sometimes she was granted a special room and a special allowance of
food and attendance. In some houses certain apartments were reserved for
the occupation of a retired superior. Sir Thomas Willoughby, writing to
Cromwell on behalf of his sister-in-law, who had resigned her office as
Abbess of Malling, begs that she may
have your letter to my lady abbess of Malling (her successor), that
she at your contemplation will be so good to her as to appoint her
that room and lodging within the said monastery that she and other of
her predecessors that hath likewise resigned hath used to have, and as
she had herself a little space, or else some other meet and convenient
lodging in the same house[176].
When Katherine Pilly, Prioress of Flixton, "who had laudably ruled the
house for eighteen years," resigned in 1432 because of old age and
blindness, the Bishop of Norwich made special arrangements for her
sustenance:
she was to have suitable rooms for herself and her maid; each week she
and the maid were to be provided with two white loaves, eight loaves
of "hool" bread and eight gallons of convent beer, with a daily dish
for both from the kitchen, the same as for two nuns in the refectory,
and with two hundred faggots and a hundred logs and eight pounds of
candles a year. Cecilia Crayke, one of the nuns, was to read divine
service to her daily and to sit with her at meals, having her portion
from the refectory[177].
These aged ladies probably ended their days peacefully, withdrawn from the
common life of the house. But sometimes a prioress resigned while still
young enough to miss her erstwhile autocracy and to torment her unlucky
successor. Then indeed the new head could do nothing right and feuds and
factions tore the sisterhood. Such a case occurred at Nunkeeling early in
the fourteenth century. Avice de la More resigned in 1316, and the
Archbishop wrote to the nuns making the usual provision for her; she had
"for a long period laudably and usefully superintended the house"; she was
to have a chamber to herself and one of the nuns assigned to her by the
Prioress as a companion; and daily she was to receive the portion of two
nuns in bread, ale and victuals and her associate that of one nun; an end,
one might suppose, of Avice de la More. But the Yorkshire nuns were
quarrelsome ladies; and two years later the Archbishop addressed a severe
letter to Avice, threatening to remove the provision made for her if she
persisted in her "conspiracies, rebellions and disobedience to the
prioress" and imposing a severe penance upon her. But seven penitential
psalms with the litany upon Fridays, a discipline in chapter and fasting
diet could not calm the temper of Avice de la More; she stirred up the
nuns to rebellion and spread the tale of her grievances "to seculars and
adversaries outside." There was some family feud perhaps between her
relatives and the St Quintins to whose house the unhappy Prioress
belonged; at any rate "clamorous information" reached the Archbishop
concerning the intrigues of certain of the nuns. Once more he wrote to
Avice "with a bitter heart." She had broken her vow of obedience in
arrogancy and elation of heart towards her prioress, "who was placed in
charge of her soul and body and without whom she had no free will"; let
her desist at once and study to live according to the rule; and a
commission was sent to inquire into the misdeeds of the rebellious nuns of
Keeling. But alas, the finding of that commission has long since powdered
into dust and we hear no further news of Avice de la More[178].
The head of a house was an important person and enjoyed a considerable
amount of freedom, in relation both to her convent and to the outside
world. In relation to her convent her position laid her open to various
temptations: she was, for instance, beset by three which must be faced by
all who rule over communities. The first was the temptation to live with
too great luxury and independence, escaping from the daily routine of
communal life, to which her vows bound her. The second was the temptation
to rule like an autocrat, instead of consulting her sisters. The third was
the temptation to let human predilections have their way and to show
favouritism. To begin with the first of these temptations, it is obvious
that the fact that the superior nearly always had a separate room, or
suite of rooms[179], and servants, and had the duty of entertaining
important guests, gave her much freedom within her house, especially if
she were the head of one of the great abbeys. The Abbess of St Mary's
Winchester, at the Dissolution, had her own house and a staff consisting
of a cook, an undercook, a woman servant and a laundress, and she had also
a gentlewoman to wait upon her, like any great lady in the world[180]. The
Abbess of Barking had her gentlewoman, too, and her private kitchen; she
dined in state with her nuns five times a year, and "the under celeresse
must remember," says the _Charthe longynge to the Office of Celeresse_,
at eche principall fest, that my lady sytteth in the fraytour; that is
to wyt five times in the yere, at eche tyme schall aske the clerke of
the kychyn soper eggs for the covent, and that is Estir, Wytsontyd,
the Assumption of our Lady, seynt Alburgh and Cristynmasse, at eche
tyme to every lady two eggs, and eche double two egges, that is the
priorisse, the celeresse and the kychener[181].
The stern reformer Peckham was forced to take in hand the conduct of the
Abbesses of Barking, Wherwell and Romsey, who were abusing their
independence of ordinary routine. The Abbess of Barking was forbidden to
remain in her private room after sunset, at which hour all doors were to
be locked and all strangers excluded; she might do so only very rarely, in
order to entertain distinguished guests or to transact important business;
and he ordered her to eat with the convent as often as possible,
"especially on solemn days" (i.e. great feasts)[182]. The Abbess of
Wherwell had apparently stinted her nuns in food and drink, but caused
magnificent feasts to be prepared for her in her own room, and Peckham
ordered that whenever there was a shortage of food in the convent, she was
to dine with the nuns, and no meal was to be laid in her chamber for
servants or strangers, but all visitors were to be entertained in the
exterior guest-hall; if at such times she were in ill health, and unable
to use the common diet, she might remain in her room, in the company of
one or two of the nuns. At times when there was no lack of food in the
convent and when she was entertaining guests in her own room, all
potations were to cease and all servants and visitors to depart at the
hour of compline[183]. About the same time (1284) Peckham wrote two
letters to the Abbess of Romsey, who had evidently been guilty of the same
behaviour. She was not to keep "a number of" dogs or monkeys, or more than
two maid servants, and she was not to fare splendidly in her own rooms
while the nuns went short; his injunctions to her are couched in almost
precisely the same language as those which he addressed to the Abbess of
Wherwell[184].
According to the Benedictine rule the superior, when not entertaining
guests, was permitted to invite the nuns in turn to dine with her in her
own room, for their recreation, and notices of this custom sometimes occur
in visitation reports; at Thicket (1309) the Prioress was enjoined to have
them one by one when she dined in her room[185]; at Elstow (1421-2) the
Abbess was to invite those nuns whom she knew to be specially in need of
refreshment[186]; at Gracedieu (1440-1) the Prioress was ordered
that ye do the fraytour be keppede daylye ... item that no mo of your
susters entende up on yowe, save onely your chapeleyn, and otherwhile,
as your rule wylle, ye calle to your refeccyone oon or two of your
susters to thair recreacyone[187];
at Greenfield (1519) there was a complaint that the Prioress did not
invite the nuns to her table in due order, and at Stainfield it was said
that she frequently invited three young nuns to her table and showed
partiality to them and she was ordered to invite all the senior sisters in
order[188]. In Cistercian and Cluniac houses the superior was supposed to
dine in the frater and to sleep in the dorter with the other nuns, and
even in Benedictine houses it was considered desirable that she should do
so. But the temptation to live a more private life was irresistible, and
visitation records contain many complaints that the head of the house is
lax in her attendance at dorter and frater and even in following the
divine services in the choir[189]. Bishops frequently made injunctions
like that given by Alnwick to the Prioress of Ankerwyke in 1441:
that nyghtly ye lygge in the dormytorye to ouersee your susters how
thai are there gouernede after your rewle, and that often tyme ye come
to matynes, messe and other houres ... also that oftentymes ye come to
the chapitere for to correcte the defautes of your susters ... also
that aftere your rewle ye kepe the fraytour but if resonable cause
excuse yowe there fro[190].
Sometimes a minimum number of attendances was demanded. At St Michael's
Stamford Alnwick ordered the old Prioress
that nyghtly ye lyg in the dormytorye emong your susters and that
euery principale double fest and festes of xij or ix lessouns ye be at
matynes, but if grete sekenes lette yowe; and that often tymes ye be
at other howres and messes in the qwere, and also that ye be present
in chapitres helpyng the supprioresse in correctyng and punisshyng of
defautes[191].
It was further attempted to restrict the dangerous freedom of a superior's
life, by ordering her always to have with her one of the nuns as a
companion and as witness to her behaviour. So Peckham ordered the Abbess
of Romsey to "elect a suitable companion for herself and to change her
companions yearly, to the end that her honesty should be attested by many
witnesses"[192]. Usually the nun whose duty it was to accompany the
superior acted as her chaplain. It will be remembered that Chaucer says of
his Prioress "another Nonne with hir hadde she, That was hir
chapeleyne"[193], and episcopal registers contain frequent allusions to
the office. William of Wykeham gave a comprehensive account of its purpose
when he wrote to the Abbess of Romsey in 1387,
since, according to the constitutions of the holy fathers, younger
members must take a pattern from their rulers (_prelati_) and those
prelates ought to have a number of witnesses to their own behaviour,
we strictly order you (lady abbess) in virtue of obedience, that you
annually commit the office of chaplain to one of your nuns ... and
thus the nuns themselves, who shall have been with you in the
aforesaid office, shall (by means of laudable instruction) be the
better enabled to excel in religion, while you will be able
immediately to invoke their testimony to your innocence, if (which God
forbid) any crime or scandal should be imputed to you by the malice of
any person[194].
So at Easebourne in 1478 the Prioress was ordered
that every week, beginning with the eldest ... she should select for
herself in due course and in turns, one of her nuns as chaplain for
divine services and to wait upon herself[195].
The Norwich visitations of Bishop Nykke afford further information; at
Flixton discontented Dame Margaret Punder complained that the Prioress had
no sister as chaplain, but slept alone as she pleased, in a chamber
(_cubiculo_) outside the dorter, "without the continual testimony of her
sisters," and the visitors enjoined that henceforth she should have with
her one sister in the office of chaplain for a witness, and especially
when she slept outside the dorter[196]. At Blackborough one of the nuns
complained that the Prioress had kept the same chaplain for three
years[197] and at Redlingfield it was said that she never changed her
chaplain[198]; the Abbess of Elstow in 1421-2[199] and the Prioress of
Markyate in 1442[200] were ordered to change their chaplains every year,
and this seems to have been the customary arrangement. The title of
"chaplain" is sometimes found after the name of a nun in lists of the
inmates of nunneries[201].
Besides the temptation to live too independent an existence the head of a
house had also the temptation to abuse the considerable power given to her
by the monastic rule. She was apt to govern autocratically, keeping the
business of the house entirely in her own hands, instead of consulting her
sisters (assembled in chapter) before making any important decision. There
were constant complaints by the nuns that the Prioress kept the common
seal in her own custody and performed all business without consulting
them. Peckham's letter to the Abbess of Romsey illustrates the variety of
matters which might thus be settled without any reference to the nuns; she
had evidently been misusing her power, for he wrote sternly:
Know that thou art not mistress of the common goods, but rather the
dispenser and mother of thy community, according to the meaning of the
word abbess.... We strictly command thee that thou study to transact
all the more important business of the house with the convent. And by
the more important business we intend those things which may entail
notable expenditure in temporalities or in spiritualities, with which
we wish to be included the provision of a steward; we order for the
peace of the community, that H. de Chalfhunte, whom thou hast for long
kept in the office of steward contrary to the will of the convent, no
longer intermeddle in any way with this or with any other bailiff's
office (_bajulatu_) of the monastery. Moreover we make the same order
concerning John le Frikiere. Let each of them, having accounted for
his office before Master Philip our official ... look out for an abode
elsewhere. Besides this thou shalt transact all minor business of the
church according to the rule with at least twelve of the senior
ladies. And because thou hast been wont to do much according to the
prompting of thine own will, we adjoin to thee three coadjutresses of
laudable testimony, to wit dames Margery de Verdun, Philippa de Stokes
and Johanna de Revedoune, without whose counsel and attempt thou shalt
not dare attempt anything pertaining to the rule of the convent in
temporalities or in spiritualities. And whensoever thou shalt
wittingly do the contrary in any important matter, thou shalt know
thyself to be on that account suspended from the office of
administration. And we mean by an important matter the provision of
bailiffs of the manors and internal obedientiaries, the punishment of
delinquents, all alienation of goods in gifts or presents, or in any
other ways, the sending forth of nuns and the assignment of companions
to those going forth, the beginning of lawsuits and all manner of
church business. And if it befall that any of the aforesaid three be
ill or absent, do thou receive in her stead Dame Leticia de
Montegomery or Dame Agnes de Lidyerd, having called into consultation
the others according to the number fixed above. And whenever thou
shalt happen to fare forth upon the business of the church, thou shalt
always take with thee the aforesaid three ladies, whom we have joined
with thee as coadjutresses in the rule of the monastery both within
and without; and if ever thou goest forth for recreation thou shalt
always have with thee two; in such wise that thou shalt in no manner
concern thyself to pursue any business without the three[202].
The danger of autocratic government to the convent is obvious; and it is
significant that a really bad prioress is nearly always charged with
having failed to communicate with her sisters in matters of business,
turning all the revenues to any use that she pleased. Moreover the head of
a house not only sometimes failed to consult her convent; she constantly
also omitted to render an annual account of her expenditure, and by far
the most common complaint at visitations was the complaint that the
Prioress _non reddidit compotum_. At Bishop Nykke's Norwich visitations
the charge was made against the heads of Flixton, Crabhouse, Blackborough
and Redlingfield[203]. At Bishop Alnwick's Lincoln visitations it was
made against the heads of Ankerwyke, Catesby, Gracedieu, Harrold,
Heynings, St Michael's Stamford, Stixwould, Studley; at Ankerwyke Dame
Clemence Medforde had not accounted since her arrival at the house; at St
Michael's Stamford the Prioress had held office for twelve years and had
never done so; at Studley it was said that the last Prioress who ruled for
58 years never once rendered an account during the whole of that period,
nor had the present Prioress yet done so, though she had been in office
for a year[204]. Sometimes the delinquent gave some excuse to the Bishop;
the Prioress of Catesby said she had no clerk to write the account[205];
at Blackborough one of the nuns said that her object had been to avoid the
expense of an auditor and another that she gave the convent a verbal
report of the state of the house[206]. Sometimes she flatly refused, and
the bishop's repeated injunctions on the subject seem to have been of
little avail; the Prioress of Flixton had not rendered account since her
installation _et dicit quod non vult reddere_; she was superseded, but six
years later the same complaint was made against her successor and the
visitors ordered the latter to amend her ways, _sub poena privationis,
quia dixit se nolle talem reddere compotum_[207]. The bishops always
inquired very carefully into the administration of the conventual income
and possessions by the head of each house, and invented a variety of
devices for controlling her actions[208].
There remains to be considered the third pitfall into which the head of a
house was liable to fall. The wise Benedictine rule contained a special
warning against favouritism, for indeed human nature cannot avoid
preferences and it is the hardest task of a ruler to subdue personal
predilections to perfect fairness. The charge of favouritism is a fairly
common one in medieval visitations. Alnwick met with an amusing case when
he visited Gracedieu in 1440-1. The elder nuns complained that the old
prioress did not treat all equally; some of them she favoured and others
she treated very rigorously; Dame Philippa Jecke even said that
corrections were made so harshly and so fussily that all charity and all
happiness had gone from the house. Moreover there were two young nuns whom
she called her disciples and who were always with her; these nuns had many
unsuitable conversations, so their sisters thought, with the Prioress'
secular visitors; worse than this, they acted as spies upon the other nuns
and told the Prioress about everything that was said and done in the
convent, and then the Prioress scolded more severely than ever[209]; but
her disciples could do no wrong. These nuns, indeed, were among the most
voluble that Alnwick visited, and he must have remarked with a smile that
the two disciples were the only ones who answered "Omnia bene"; but he did
not intend to let them off without a rebuke.
"Agnes Poutrelle and Isabel Jurdane" runs the note in his Register,
"who style themselves the Prioress's disciples, are thereby the cause
of quarrel between her and her sisters, forasmuch as what they hear
and see among the nuns they straightway retail to the prioress. They
both appeared, and, the article having been laid to their charge,
expressly deny it and all things that are contained therein; wherefore
they cleared themselves without compurgators; howbeit, that they may
not be held suspect hereafter touching these matters or offend herein,
they both sware upon the holy gospels of God that henceforth they will
discover to the prioress concerning their sisters nothing whereby
cause of quarrel or incentive to hatred may be furnished among them,
unless they be such matters as may tend to the damage of the prioress'
body or honour"[210].
At two other houses there were complaints against the head; at Legbourne
Dame Sibil Papelwyk said that the Prioress was not indifferent in making
corrections, but treated some too hardly and others too favourably; and at
Heynings Dame Alice Porter said that the Prioress was an accepter of
persons in making corrections,
for those whom she loves she passes over lightly, and those whom she
holds not in favour she harshly punishes ... and she encourages her
secular serving-women, whom she believes more than her sisters, in
their words, to scold the same her sisters, and for this cause
quarrels do spring up between her and her sisters[211].
In neither of these cases, however, was the charge corroborated by the
evidence of the other nuns. Probably the two malcontents considered
themselves to have a grievance against their ruler; at Legbourne Dame
Sibil's complaint that the Prioress would not let her visit a dying parent
gives a clue to her annoyance. Another charge sometimes made was that the
Prioress gave more credence to the young nuns than to those who were older
and wiser[212]. Injunctions that the head of a house was to show no
favouritism were often made by visitors. One of Alnwick's injunctions may
stand as representative:
Also we charge yow, prioress, vnder payn of contempte and vndere the
peynes writen here benethe, that in your correccions ye be sad, sowbre
and indifferent, not cruelle to some and to some fauoryng agayn your
rule, but that ye procede and treet your susters moderly, the qualytee
and the quantitee of the persons and defautes wythe owten accepcyone
of any persone euenly considerede and weyed (Legbourne)[213].
So far the position of a superior has been considered solely from the
point of view of internal government, of her power over the convent and of
the peculiar temptations by which she was assailed. But the head of a
house was an important person, not only in her own community, but also in
the circumscribed little world without her gates; though here the degree
of importance which she enjoyed naturally varied with the size and wealth
of her house. In the middle ages fame and power were largely local
matters; roads were bad and news moved slowly and a man might live no
further away than the neighbouring town and be a foreigner. The country
gentry were not great travellers; occasionally they jaunted up to London,
to court, or to parliament or to the law-courts; sometimes they followed
the King and his lords to battles over sea or on the Scottish border; but
for the most part they stayed at home and died in the bed wherein their
mother bore them. The comfortable burgesses of the town travelled still
less; perhaps they betook themselves upon a pilgrimage, "clothed in a
liveree of a solempne and greet fraternitee," and bearing a cook with
them, lest they should lack the "chiknes with the marybones," the
"poudre-marchant tart," the "galingale," the "mortreux," the "blankmanger"
of their luxurious daily life; but they seldom had the Wife of Bath's
acquaintance with strange streams. And the lesser folk--peasants and
artisans--looked across the chequered expanse of the common fields at a
horizon, which was in truth a barrier, an impassable line drawn round the
edge of the world. The fact that life was lived by the majority of men
within such narrow limits gave a preeminent importance to the local
magnate; and among the most local of local magnates (since a corporation
never moved and never expired and never relaxed the grip of its dead
fingers) must be reckoned the heads of the monastic houses. Socially in
all cases, and politically when their houses were large and rich, abbots
and abbesses, priors and prioresses, ranked among the great folk of the
country side. They enjoyed the same prestige as the lords of the
neighbouring manors and some extra deference on account of their religion.
It was natural that the Prioress of a nunnery should be "holden digne of
reverence." The gentlemen whose estates adjoined her own sent their
daughters to her as novices, or (if her house were poor and the Bishop not
too strict) as school girls to receive their "nortelrye"; and they did not
themselves scorn the discreet entertainment of her guest-chamber and a
dinner of capons and wine and gossip at her hospitable board. The artisans
and labourers on her land lived by her patronage. All along the muddy
highroads the beggars coming to town passed word to each other that there
stood a nunnery in the meadows, where they might have scraps left over
from the convent meals and perhaps beer and a pair of shoes. The head of a
house, indeed, was an important person from many points of view, as a
neighbour, as a landlord and as a philanthropist.
The journeys which a prioress was sometimes obliged to take upon the
business of the convent offered many occasions of social intercourse with
her neighbours. It is, indeed, striking how great a freedom of movement
was enjoyed by these cloistered women. There are constant references to
journeys in account rolls. When Dame Christian Bassett, Prioress of St
Mary de Pré, rode to London for the suit against her predecessor in the
Common Pleas, she was accompanied on one occasion by her priest, a woman
and two men; on two other occasions she took four men; and during the
whole time that the suit dragged on, she was continually riding about to
take counsel with great men or with lawyers and journeying to and fro
between St Albans and London. On another occasion the account notes a
payment
in expenses for the prioresse and the steward with their servants and
for hors hyre and for the wages of them that wente to kepe the courte
wyth the prioresse atte Wynge atte two tymes xvj_s_ v_d_, whereof the
stewards fee was that of vj_s_ viij_d_; item paid to the fermour of
Wynge for his expenss ix_d_[214].
The accounts of St Michael's Stamford are full of items such as "in the
expenses of the Prioress on divers occasions going to the Bishop, with
hire of horses 3_s._" "in the expenses of the Prioress going to Rockingham
about our woods 1_s._ 2-1/2_d._," "paid for the hire of two horses for the
prioress and her expenses going to Liddington to the Bishop for a
certificate 2_s._ 8_d._," "paid for the expenses of the Prioress at Burgh
(i.e. Peterborough) for two days 5_s._ 8_d._"; twice the Prioress went
very far afield, as usual (it would appear) on legal business, for in
1377-8 there is an entry, "Item for the expenses of the Prioress and her
companions at London for a month and more, in all expenses £5. 13_s._
4_d._" (a large sum, a long distance and a lengthy stay), and in 1409-10
there is another payment "to the Prioress for expenses in London
15_s._"[215]
In spite of repeated efforts to enforce stricter enclosure upon nuns, it
is evident that the head of the house rode about on the business of the
convent and overlooked its husbandry in person, even where (as at St
Michael's Stamford) there was a male prior or _custos_ charged with the
ordering of its temporal affairs. The general injunction that an abbess
was never to leave her house save "for the obvious utility of the
monastery or for urgent necessity"[216] was capable of a very wide
interpretation, and it is clear from the evidence of visitations and
accounts that it was interpreted to include a great deal of temporal
business outside the walls. If a house possessed a male _custos_ the
Prioress would have less occasion and less excuse for journeys, though for
important affairs her presence was probably always necessary; Bishop
Drokensford, appointing a _custos_ to Minchin Barrow, warns the Prioress
no longer "to intermeddle with rural business (_negociis campestribus_)
and other secular affairs" but to leave these to the _custos_ and to
devote herself to the service of God and to the stricter enforcement of
the rule[217]. But in houses where no such official existed the prioress
doubtless undertook a certain amount of general estate management. One of
Alnwick's orders to the Prioress of Legbourne in 1440 was "that ye bysylly
ouersee your baylly, that your husbandry be sufficyently gouernede to the
avayle of your house"[218]; and in the intervals of their long struggle to
keep nuns within their cloisters, the Bishops seem to have recognised the
necessity for some travel on the part of the heads of houses, and to have
facilitated such travel by granting them dispensations to have divine
service celebrated wherever they might be. Thus in 1400 the Prioress of
Haliwell obtained a licence to hear divine service in her oratory within
her mansion of Camberwell, or elsewhere in the diocese, during the next
two years[219], and in 1406 the Abbess of Tarrant Keynes was similarly
allowed to have the service celebrated for herself and her household
anywhere within the city and diocese of Salisbury[220].
It is significant that among the arguments used to oppose Henry VIII's
injunction that monks and nuns should be strictly enclosed (which was, for
the nuns, only a repetition of Pope Boniface's decree of three centuries
earlier) was that of the difficulty of supervising the husbandry of a
house, if its head were confined to cloistral precincts.
"Please it you to be advertised," wrote Cecily Bodenham, the last
Abbess of Wilton, to Cromwell in 1535, "that master doctor Leigh, the
King's grace's special visitor and your deputy in this behalf,
visiting of late my house, hath given injunction that not only all my
sisters, but I also, should continually keep and abide within the
precincts of my house: which commandment I am right well content with
in regard of my own person, if your mastership shall think it so
expedient; but in consideration of the administration of mine office
and specially of this poor house which is in great debt and requireth
much reparation and also which without good husbandry is not like, in
long season, to come forward, and in consideration that the said
husbandry cannot be, by my poor judgment, so well by an other overseen
as by mine own person, it may please your mastership of your goodness
to license me, being associate with one or two of the sad and discreet
sisters of my house, to supervise abroad such things as shall be for
the profit and commodity of my house. Which thing though,
peradventure, might be done by other, yet I ensure you that none will
do it so faithfully for my house's profit as mine own self. Assuring
your mastership that it is not, nor shall be at any time hereafter, my
mind to lie forth of my monastery any night, except by inevitable
necessity I cannot then return home"[221].
It is, however, very plain that the journeys taken by abbesses and
prioresses were not always strictly concerned with the business of their
convents, or at least they combined business most adroitly with pleasure.
These ladies were of good kin and they took their place naturally in local
society, when they left their houses to oversee their husbandry, to
interview a bishop or a lawyer about their tithes, or quite openly to
visit friends and relatives. They emerged to attend the funerals of great
folk; the Prioress of Carrow attended the funeral of John Paston in
1466[222], and Sir Thomas Cumberworth in his will (1451) left the
injunction:
I will that Ilke prior and priores that comes to my beryall at y{t}
day hafe iii_s_ iiij_d_ and ilke chanon and Nune xij_d_ ... and Ilke
prior and priores that comes to the xxx day (the month's-mind) hafe
vj_s_ viij_d_ and Ilke chanon or none that comes to the said xxx day
haf xx_d_[223].
Sometimes they attended the deathbeds of relatives; among witnesses to the
codicil to the will of Walter Skirlaw, Bishop of Durham, in 1404 was
"religiosa femina Domina Johanna Priorissa de Swyna, soror dicti domini
episcopi"[224]; and it was not unusual for an abbess or prioress to be
made supervisor or executrix of a will[225]. Nor was the sad business of
deathbeds the only share taken by these prioresses in public life.
Clemence Medforde, Prioress of Ankerwyke, went to a wedding at Bromhale;
and unfortunately a sheepfold, a dairy and a good timber granary chose
that moment to catch fire and burn down, setting fire also to the
smouldering indignation of her nuns; whence many recriminations when the
Bishop came on his rounds[226]. Stranger still at times were the matters
for which their friends sought their good offices. The aristocratic Isabel
de Montfort, Prioress of Easebourne, was one of the ladies by whose oath
Margaret de Camoys purged herself on a charge of adultery in 1295[227].
The fact that these ladies were drawn from the wealthy classes and
constantly associated on terms of equality with their friends and
relatives, sometimes led them to impart a most unmonastic luxury into
their own lives. They came from the homes of lords like Sir John Arundel,
who lost not only his life but "two and fiftie new sutes of apparell of
cloth of gold or tissue," when he was drowned off the Irish coast; or
Lord Berkeley who travelled with a retinue of twelve knights, twenty-four
esquires "of noble family and descent" and a hundred and fifty
men-at-arms, in coats of white frieze lined with crimson and embroidered
with his badge; or else of country squires and franklins, like the
white-bearded gentleman of whom Chaucer says that
To liven in delyt was ever his wone,
For he was Epicurus owne sone,
* * * * *
Withoute bake mete was never his hous,
Of fish and flesh, and that so plentevous
It snewed in his hous of mete and drinke,
Of alle deyntees that men coude thinke;
or else their fathers were wealthy merchants, living in great mansions
hung with arras and lighted with glass windows, rich enough to provoke
sumptuary laws and to entertain kings. It is perhaps not surprising that
abbesses and prioresses should have found it hard to change the way of
life, which they had led before they took the veil and which they saw all
around them, when they rode about in the world. Carousings, gay garments,
pet animals, frivolous amusements, many guests, superfluous servants and
frequent escapes to the freedom of the road, are found not only at the
greater houses but even at those which were small and poor. The diverting
history of the flea and the gout shows that the luxurious abbess was
already a byword early in the thirteenth century.
The tale runs as follows:
The lopp (flea) and the gout on a time spake together, and among other
talking either of them asked [the] other of their lodging and how they
were harboured and where, the night next before. And the flea made a
great plaint and said, "I was harboured in the bed of an abbess,
betwixt the white sheets upon a soft mattress and there I trowed to
have had good harbourage, for her flesh was fat and tender, and
thereof I trowed to have had my fill. And first, when I began for to
bite her, she began to cry and call on her maidens and when they came,
anon they lighted candles and sought me, but I hid me till they were
gone. And then I bit her again and she came again and sought me with a
light, so that I was fain to leap out of the bed; and all this night I
had no rest, but was chased and chevied ['charrid'] and scarce gat
away with my life." Then answered the gout and said, "I was harboured
in a poor woman's house and anon as I pricked her in her great toe she
rose and wetted a great bowl full of clothes and went with them unto
the water and stood therein with me up to her knees; so that, what for
cold and for holding in the water, I was nearhand slain." And then the
flea said, "This night will we change our harbourage"; and so they
did. And on the morn they met again and then the flea said unto the
gout, "This night have I had good harbourage, for the woman that was
thine host yesternight was so weary and so irked, that I was sickerly
harboured with her and ate of her blood as mickle as I would." And
then answered the gout and said unto the flea: "Thou gavest me good
counsel yestereven, for the abbess underneath a gay coverlet, and a
soft sheet and a delicate, covered me and nourished me all night. And
as soon as I pricked her in her great toe, she wrapped me in furs, and
if I hurt her never so ill she let me alone and laid me in the softest
part of the bed and troubled me nothing. And therefore as long as she
lives I will be harboured with her, for she makes mickle of me." And
then said the flea, "I will be harboured with poor folk as long as I
live, for there may I be in good rest and eat my full and nobody let
[hinder] me"[228].
The Durham man, William of Stanton, who went down St Patrick's hole on
September 20th, 1409, and was shown the souls in torment there, has much
the same tale to tell. He witnessed the trial of a prioress, whose soul
had come there for judgment, and
the fendis accusid hir and said that she come to religion for pompe
and pride and for to have habundaunce of the worldes riches, and for
ese of hir bodi and not for deuocion, mekenesse and lowenesse, as
religious men and women owte to do; and the fendes said, "It is wel
knowen to god and to al his angels of heven and to men dwellyng in
that contree where she dwellid ynne, and all the fendes of hell, that
she was more cosluer (_sic_) in puler [fur] weryng, as of girdelles of
siluer and overgilt and ringes on hir fingers, and siluer bokeles and
ouergilt on hir shone, esy lieng in nyghtes as it were [a quene] or an
emprise in the world, not daynyng hir for to arise to goddis
servis[229]; and with all delicate metes and drinkes she was fedde ...
and then the bisshop [her judge] enioyned hir to payne enduryng
evermore til the day of dome"[230].
Our visitation documents show us many abbesses and prioresses like the
gout's hostess or the tormented lady in St Patrick's Purgatory. In the
matter of dress the accusations brought against Clemence Medforde,
Prioress of Ankerwyke, in 1441, will suffice for an example:
The Prioress wears golden rings exceeding costly with divers precious
stones and also girdles silvered and gilded over and silken veils, and
she carries her veil too high above her forehead, so that her
forehead, being entirely uncovered, can be seen of all, and she wears
furs of vair.... Also she wears shifts of cloth of Reynes which costs
sixteen pence the ell.... Also she wears kirtles laced with silk and
tiring pins of silver and silver gilt and has made all the nuns wear
the like.... Also she wears above her veil a cap of estate furred with
budge. Item she has round her neck a long cord of silk, hanging below
her breast and on it a gold ring with one diamond.
She confessed all except the cloth of Rennes, which she totally denied,
but pleaded that she wore fur caps "because of divers infirmities in the
head." Alnwick made an injunction carefully particularising all these
sins:
And also that none of yow, the prioresse ne none of the couente, were
no vayles of sylke ne no syluere pynnes ne no gyrdles herneysed with
syluere or golde, ne no mo rynges on your fyngres then oon, ye that be
professed by a bysshope, ne that none of yow vse no lased kyrtels, but
butoned or hole be fore, ne that ye vse no lases a bowte your nekkes
wythe crucyfixes or rynges hangyng by thame, ne cappes of astate abowe
your vayles ... and that ye so atyre your hedes that your vayles come
down nyghe to your yene[231].
If anyone doubts the truth of Chaucer's portrait of a prioress, or its
satirical intent, he has only to read that incomparable observer's words
side by side with this injunction of Alnwick:
But sikerly she hadde a fair forheed;
It was almost a spanne brood, I trowe;
For, hardily, she was nat undergrowe.
Ful fetis was her cloke, as I was war.
Of smale coral aboute hir arm she bar
A peire of bedes, gauded al with grene;
And ther-on heng a broche of gold ful shene,
On which ther was first write a crowned A
And after, _Amor vincit omnia_.
Margaret Fairfax of Nunmonkton (1397) and the lady (her name is unknown)
who ruled Easebourne in 1441 are other examples of worldly prioresses;
they clearly regarded themselves as the great ladies they were by birth,
and behaved like all the other great ladies of the neighbourhood. Margaret
Fairfax used divers furs, including even the costly grey fur (gris)--the
same with which the sleeves of Chaucer's monk were "purfiled at the hond";
she wore silken veils and "she frequently kept company with John Munkton
and invited him to feasts in her room ... and John Munkton (by whom the
convent had for long been scandalised) frequently played at tables" (the
fashionable game for ladies, a kind of backgammon) "with the Prioress in
her room and served her with drink." No wonder she had to sell timber in
order to procure money[232]. The Prioress of Easebourne was even more
frivolous; the nuns complained that the house was in debt to the amount of
£40 and this principally owing to her costly expenses:
because she frequently rides abroad and pretends that she does so on
the common business of the house, although it is not so, with a train
of attendants much too large, and tarries long abroad, and she feasts
sumptuously both when abroad and at home, and she is very choice in
her dress, so that the fur trimmings of her mantle are worth a hundred
shillings,
as great a scandal as Clemence Medforde's cloth of Rennes at sixteen pence
the ell. The Bishop took strong measures to deal with this worldly lady;
she was deposed from all administration of the temporal goods of the
priory, which administration was committed to "Master Thomas Boleyn and
John Lylis, Esquire, until and so long as when the aforesaid house or
priory shall be freed from debt." It was also ordered
that the Prioress with all possible speed shall diminish her excessive
household and shall only retain, by the advice and with the assent of
the said John and Thomas, a household such as is merely necessary and
not more. Also that the Prioress shall convert the fur trimmings,
superfluous to her condition and very costly, to the discharge of the
debts of the house. Also that if eventually it shall seem expedient to
the said Masters Thomas and John at any time, that the Prioress should
ride in person for the common business of the house, on such occasions
she shall not make a lengthened stay abroad, nor shall she in the
interval incur expenses in any way costly beyond what is needful, and
thus when despatched to go abroad she must and ought rightly to
content herself with four horses only;
and those perhaps "bothe foul and lene," like the jade ridden by the
Nonnes Preeste when Chaucer met him on the Canterbury road[233].
The charge of gadding about the country side, sometimes (as in the
Prioress of Easebourne's case) with a retinue which better beseemed the
worldly rank they had abjured, was one not infrequently made against the
heads of nunneries[234]. The Prioress of Stixwould was accused, in 1519,
of spending the night too often outside the cloister with her secular
friends and the Bishop ordered that in future she should sleep within the
monastery, but might keep a private house in the precincts, for her
greater refreshment and for receiving visitors[235]. The Prioress of
Wroxall was ordered to stay more at home in 1323[236], and in 1303 Bishop
Dalderby even found that the Prioress of Greenfield had been absent from
her house for two years[237]. Even more frequent was the charge that
abbesses and prioresses repaid too lavishly the hospitality which they
doubtless received at neighbouring manors. Many abbesses gave that
"dyscrete enterteynement," which Henry VIII's commissioners so much
admired at Catesby[238]; but others entertained too often and too well, in
the opinion of their nuns; moreover family affection sometimes led them to
make provision for their kinsfolk at the cost of the house. In 1441 one of
the nuns of Legbourne deposed that many kinsmen of the prioress had
frequent access to the house, though she did not know whether it was
financially burdened by their visits; Alnwick ordered
that ye susteyn none of your kynne or allyaunce wythe the commune
godes of the house, wythe owten the hole assent of the more hole parte
of the couent, ne that ye suffre your saide kynne or allyaunce hafe
suche accesse to your place, where thurghe the howse shall be
chargeede[239].
A similar injunction had been made at Chatteris in 1345, where the abbess
was warned not to bestow the convent rents and goods unlawfully upon any
of her relatives[240]. The charge was, however, most common in later
times, when discipline was in all ways relaxed. At Easebourne in 1478 one
of the nuns complained "that kinsmen of the prioress very often and for
weeks at a time frequent the priory and have many banquets of the best
food, while the sisters have them of the worst"[241]. The neighbouring
nunnery of Rusper was said in 1521 to be ruinous and "greatly burdened by
reason of friends and kinsmen of the lady prioress who continually
received hospitality there"[242]; at Studley in 1520 there were complaints
that the brother of the prioress and his wife stayed within the monastery,
and ten years later it was ordered that no corrody should be given to the
prioress' mother, until more was known of her way of life[243]. At Flixton
in the same year one of the nuns asserted that the mother of the prioress
had her food at the expense of the house, but whether she paid anything or
not was unknown; it appears, however, that she was in charge of the dairy,
so that she may have been boarded in return for her services. A
characteristic instance is preserved in Bishop Longland's letter to the
Prioress of Nuncoton in 1531, charging her
that frome hensforth ye do nomore burden ne chardge your house with
suche a nombre of your kinnesfolks as ye haue in tymes past used. Your
good mother it is meate ye haue aboute yow for your comforte and hirs
bothe. And oon or ij moo of suche your saddest kynnes folke, whome ye
shall thynk mooste conuenyent but passe not.... And that ye give
nomore soo lyberally the goods of your monastery as ye haue doon to
your brother george thomson and your brodres children, with grasing of
catell, occupying your lands, making of Irneworke to pleugh, and
carte, and other like of your stuff and in your forge[244].
Much information about the conduct of abbesses and prioresses may be
obtained from a study of episcopal registers, and in particular of
visitation documents. An analysis of Bishop Alnwick's visitations of the
diocese of Lincoln (1436-49) gives interesting results. In all but four
houses there were few or no complaints against the head. Sometimes it was
said that she failed to dine in the frater or to sleep in the dorter,
sometimes that she was a poor financier, and in two cases the charge of
favouritism was made; but the complaints at these sixteen houses were, on
the whole, insignificant. The four remaining heads were unsatisfactory.
The Prioress of St Michael's Stamford was so incompetent (owing to bodily
weakness) that she took little part in the common life of the house and
regularly stayed away from the choir, dined and slept by herself, though
the Bishop refused to give her a dispensation to do so. The administration
of the temporalities of the house was committed by Alnwick to two of the
nuns, but when he came back two years later one of these had had a child
and the other was unpopular on account of her autocratic behaviour. The
moral condition of the house (one nun was in apostasy with a man in 1440,
and in 1442 and 1445 two nuns were found to have borne children) must in
part be set down to the lack of a competent head[245]. The Prioress of
Gracedieu was also old and incompetent; her subprioress deposed that
by reason of old age and incapacity the prioress has renounced for
herself all governance of matters temporal, nor does she take part in
divine service, so that she is of no use; but if she makes any
corrections, she makes them with words of chiding and abuse.... She
makes the secrets of their religious life common among the secular
folk that sit at table with her ... and under her religious discipline
almost altogether is at an end.
Other nuns gave similar evidence and all complained of her favouritism for
two young nuns, whom she called her disciples. Here, as at St Michael's
Stamford, the autocratic behaviour of the nun who was in charge of the
temporalities had aroused the resentment of her sisters and the whole
convent was evidently seething with quarrels[246]. The Prioress of
Ankerwyke, Clemence Medforde, was equally unpopular with her nuns. The
ringleader against her was a certain Dame Margery Kirkby, who poured out a
flood of complaints when Alnwick came to the house. The chief charge
against her was that of financial mismanagement. She was obliged to admit
that she received, paid and administered everything without consulting the
convent, keeping the common seal in her own custody all the year round and
never rendering account. She was also said to have allowed the sheepfold,
dairy and granary to be burned down owing to her carelessness, one result
of which was that all the grain had to stand in the church. She had
alienated the plate and psalters of the house, having lent three of the
latter and pawned a chalice; another chalice and a thurible had been
broken up to make a drinking cup, but, as she had been unable to pay the
sum demanded, the pieces remained in the hands of a monk, who had
undertaken to get the work done. She was charged with having alienated
timber in large quantities and with having cut down trees at the wrong
time of year, so that no new wood grew again; but she denied this
accusation. Another charge made against her by Margery Kirkby, that of
wearing jewels and rich clothes, has already been described; she admitted
it and the fault was the more grave in that she omitted to provide
suitable clothes for the nuns, who went about in rags. It was also
complained that she behaved with undue severity to her sisters; she made
difficulties about giving them licence to see their friends; and she had a
most trying habit of coming late to the services, and then making the nuns
begin all over again. It is obvious that she was greatly disliked by the
convent, perhaps because she was a stranger in their midst, having been
imported from Bromhale to be Prioress; she evidently sought relief from
the black looks of her sisters by visiting her old home, for she was away
at a wedding in Bromhale when the farm buildings caught fire, and one of
the missing psalters had been lent to the prioress of that place. Her
_régime_ at Ankerwyke had been fraught with ill results to the convent,
for no less than six nuns had (without her knowledge, so she said) gone
into apostasy; perhaps to escape from her too rigorous sway. Nevertheless
one cannot help feeling that Margery Kirkby may have been a difficult
person to live with; the Prioress complained that the nuns were often
very easily moved against her and that Dame Margery had called her a thief
to her face; and though it may have been conducive to economy that the
triumphant accuser (elected by the convent) should share with the Prioress
the custody of the common seal, it can hardly have been conducive to
harmony[247]. At any rate poor luxury-loving Clemence died in the
following year and Margery Kirkby ruled in her stead[248].
But the most serious misdemeanours of all were brought to light when
Alnwick visited Catesby in 1442[249]. Here the bad example of the
Prioress, Margaret Wavere, seems to have contaminated the nuns, for all of
them were in constant communication with seculars and one of them had
given birth to a child. The Prioress' complaint that she dared not punish
this offender is easily intelligible in the light of her own evil life.
The most serious charge against her was that she was unduly intimate with
a priest named William Taylour, who constantly visited the nunnery and
with whom she had been accustomed to go into the gardens in the village of
Catesby; and one of the younger nuns had surprised the two _in flagrante
delicto_. She was a woman of violent temper; two nuns deposed that when
she was moved to anger against any of them she would tear off their veils
and drag them about by the hair, calling them beggars and harlots[250],
and this in the very choir of the church; if they committed any fault she
scolded and upbraided them and would not cease before seculars or during
divine service; "she is very cruel and severe to the nuns and loves them
not," said one; "she is so harsh and impetuous that there is no pleasing
her," sighed another; "she sows discord among the sisters," complained a
third, "saying so-and-so said such-and-such a thing about thee, if the one
to whom she speaks has transgressed." More serious still, from the
visitor's point of view, were the threats by which she sought to prevent
the nuns from revealing anything at the visitation; two of them declared
that she had beaten and imprisoned those who gave evidence when Bishop
Gray came to the house, and sister Isabel Benet whispered that the
Prioress had boasted of having bribed the bishop's clerk with a purse of
money, to reveal everything that the nuns had said on that occasion. Her
practice of compelling the nuns to perform manual labour was greatly
resented--why should they
Swinken with hir handes and laboure
As Austin bit? How shal the world be served?
Lat Austin have his swink to him reserved.
It appeared, however, that they were anxious to
studie and make hemselven wood
Upon a book in cloistre alwey to poure,
or so they informed Alnwick. One Agnes Halewey complained that, though she
was young and wished to be instructed in her religion and such matters,
the Prioress set her to make beds and to sew and spin; another sister
declared that when guests came the Prioress sent the young nuns to make up
their beds, which was "full of danger and a scandal to the house"[251];
another deposed that the choir was not properly observed, because the
Prioress was wont to employ the younger nuns upon her own business. There
were also the usual charges of financial mismanagement and of wasting the
goods of the convent; she had let buildings fall to ruin for want of
repair and two sheepfolds had stood roofless for two whole years, so that
the wood rotted and the lambs died of the damp. Whereas thirteen years
ago, when she became prioress, the house was worth £60 a year, now it was
worth a bare £50 and was in debt, owing to the bad rule of the Prioress
and of William Taylour, and this in spite of the fact that she had on her
entry received from Joan Catesby a sack and a half of wool and twelve
marks, with which to pay debts and make repairs. She had cut down woods.
She had pawned a sacramental cup and other silver pieces; the tablecloths
"fit for a king" (_mappalia conueniencia pro seruiendo regi_), and the set
of a dozen silver spoons which she had found at the priory, all had
vanished away. She had not provided the nuns with clothes and money for
their food for three quarters of the year, and she never rendered an
account to them. Moreover all things in the house were ordered by her
mother and by a certain Joan Coleworthe, who kept the keys of all the
offices; and both the Prioress and her mother revealed the secrets of the
chapter to people in the village. Examined upon these separate counts, the
Prioress denied the majority of them; she said that she had not been cruel
to the nuns or laid violent hands upon them, or called them liars and
harlots or sowed discord among them; that she had not set them to make
beds or to do other work; that she had never punished the nuns for giving
evidence at the last visitation or bribed the Bishop's clerk; that she had
never allowed her mother and Joan to rule everything; and that she had
never revealed the secrets of the chapter; on the contrary those secrets
were spread abroad by the secular visitors of the nuns. She admitted her
failure to render account, and gave as a reason that she had no clerk to
write it for her; she said that she had pawned the cup with the consent of
the convent, in order to pay tithes, and that she had cut down trees for
the use of the house, partly with and partly without the consent of the
house; as to the ruinous buildings, she said that some had been repaired
and some not, and as to the outside debts she professed herself ready to
render an account. The most serious charge of all, concerning William
Taylour, she entirely denied. The Bishop thereupon gave her the next day
to purge herself with four of her sisters for the things which she denied;
but she was unable to produce any compurgatresses[252] and Alnwick
accordingly found her guilty and obliged her to abjure all intercourse
with Taylour in the future.
It might be imagined that such a case as that of Margaret Wavere was in
the highest degree exceptional, likely to occur but once in a century.
Unfortunately it appears to have occurred far more often. In the fifty
years, between 1395 and 1445, Margaret Wavere can be matched, in different
parts of the country, by no less than six other prioresses guilty of
immorality and bad government; and it must be realised that this is
probably an understatement, because so much evidence has been destroyed,
or is as yet unexplored in episcopal registries. Of these cases two belong
to the diocese of York, one (besides the case of Margaret Wavere) to the
diocese of Lincoln, one to the diocese of Salisbury, one to the diocese of
Winchester and one to the diocese of Norwich. Fully as bad a woman as
Margaret Wavere was Eleanor, prioress of Arden, a little Yorkshire house
which contained seven nuns, when it was visited by Master John de Suthwell
in 1396 (during the vacancy of the see of York)[253]. The nuns were
unanimous and bitter in their complaints. The Prioress kept the convent
seal in her possession, sometimes for a year at a time, and did everything
according to her own will without consulting her sisters. She sold woods
and trees and disposed of the money as she would, and all rents were
similarly received and expended by her. When she assumed office the house
was in good condition, owing some five marks only, but now it owed great
sums to divers people, amounting to over £16 in the detailed list given by
the nuns[254], and this in spite of the fact that she had received many
alms and gifts during her year of office--£18. 13_s._ 4_d._ in all; indeed
the two marks which had been given her by Henry Arden's executors that the
convent might pray for his soul, had been concealed by her from the nuns,
"to the deception of the said Henry's soul, as it appeared to them." She
had pawned the goods of the house, at one time a piece of silver with a
cover and a maser worth 40_s._, at another time a second maser and the
Prioress' seal of office itself, for which she got 5_s._; even the sacred
vestments were not safe in her rapacious hands and a new suit was pawned,
with the result that it was soiled and worn and not yet consecrated. The
walls and roof of the church and dorter and the rest of the house were in
ruins; there were no waxen candles round the altar, no lights for matins
or for the other canonical hours, no Paschal candles; when she first took
office she found ten pairs of sheets of good linen cloth (cloth of "lake"
and "inglyschclath," to wit) and now they were worn out and in all her
time not one new pair had been made; the nuns had only two sacred albs and
one of them had been turned to secular uses, viz. to "bultyng mele," and
on several occasions had been found on the beds of laymen in the stable.
The allowances of bread and beer due to the nuns were inadequately and
unpunctually paid; sometimes she would withdraw them altogether and the
sisters would be reduced to drinking water[255]. She was not even a good
bargainer, for by her negligence a bushel of corn was bought by an
agreement for 11_d._, when it could have been had in the public market for
9_d._, 8_d._ or 7_d._ Domineering she was, too, and sent three young nuns
out haymaking, so that they did not get back before nightfall and divine
service could not be said until then; and she provoked secular boys and
laymen to chatter in the cloister and church in contempt of the nuns.
There were graver charges against her in connection with a certain married
man, John Bever, with whom she was wont to go abroad, resting in the same
house by night; and once they lay alone within the priory, in the
Prioress' chamber by night; and during the whole summer she slept alone in
her principal room outside the dorter and was much suspected on account of
John Bever. It will be noticed that this case presents many points of
similarity with that of Margaret Wavere, the chief difference being that
at Arden the Prioress alone seems to have been in grave fault; she made no
accusation against her nuns, save that they talked in the choir and in the
offices and that the sacrist was negligent about ringing the bell for
divine service. Nor had they anything to say against each other. The other
Yorkshire case came to light in 1444, when Archbishop Kemp stated that at
his visitation of the Priory of Wykeham very grave defaults and crimes had
been detected against the Prioress, Isabella Westirdale, "who after she
had been raised to that office had been guilty of incontinence with many
men, both within and outside the monastery"; she was deprived and sent to
do penance at Nunappleton.
After the case of Eleanor of Arden the next scandal concerning a prioress
was discovered in 1404 at Bromhale in Berkshire. The nuns complained in
that year to the Archbishop of Canterbury that the Prioress Juliana had
for twenty years led an exceedingly dissolute life and of her own temerity
and without their consent had usurped the rule of Prioress, in which
position she had wasted, alienated, consumed and turned to her own
nefarious uses the chalices, books, jewels, rents and other property of
the house[256]. The next year an even more serious case occurred at
Wintney in Hampshire, if the charges contained in a papal commission of
1405 were true[257]. The Archdeacon of Taunton and a canon of Wells were
empowered to visit the house:
the Pope having heard that Alice, who has been Prioress for about
twenty years, has so dilapidated its goods, from which the Prioress
for the time being is wont to administer to the nuns their food and
clothing, that it is 200 marks in debt; that she specially cherishes
two immodest nuns one of whom, her own (_suam_) sister, had
apostatized and left the monastery and, remaining in the world, had
had children, the other like the first in evil life and lewdness but
not an apostate, and feeds and clothes them splendidly, whilst she
feeds the other honest nuns meanly and for several years past has not
provided them with clothing; that she has long kept and keeps Thomas
Ferring, a secular priest, as companion at board and in bed (_in
commensalem et sibi contubernalem_), who has long slept and still
sleeps, contrary to the institutes of the order, within the monastery,
beneath the dorter, in a certain chamber (_domo_), in which formerly
no secular had ever been wont to sleep and in which the said priest
and Alice meet together at will by day and night, to satisfy their
lust (_pro explenda libidine_), on account of which and other enormous
and scandalous crimes, which Alice has committed and still commits,
there is grave and public scandal against her in those parts, to the
great detriment of the monastery.
If these things were found to be true the commissioners were ordered to
deprive the Prioress. In 1427 there occurred another very serious case of
misconduct in a Prioress, which (as at Catesby) seems to have tainted the
whole flock and is a still further illustration of the fact that a bad
prioress often meant an ill-conducted house. By her own admission Isabel
Hermyte, Prioress of Redlingfield in Suffolk, had never been to confession
nor observed Sundays and principal double feasts since the last
visitation, two years before. She and Joan Tates, a novice, had not slept
in the dorter with the other nuns, but in a private chamber. She had laid
violent hands on Agnes Brakle on St Luke's day; and she had been alone
with Thomas Langeland, bailiff, in private and suspicious places, to wit
in a small hall with closed windows "and sub heggerowes." Nor was the
material condition of the house safer in her hands. There were only nine
nuns instead of the statutory number of thirteen and only one chaplain
instead of three; no annual account had been rendered, obits had been
neglected, goods alienated and trees cut down without the knowledge and
consent of the convent. Altogether she confessed that she was neither
religious nor honest in conversation and the effect of her conduct upon
her charges was only too apparent, for the novice Joan Tates confessed to
incontinence and asserted that it had been provoked by the bad example of
the Prioress. The result of this exposure was the voluntary resignation of
the guilty woman, in order to save a scandal, and her banishment to the
priory of Wix; the whole convent was ordered to fast on bread and beer on
Fridays, and Joan Tates was to go in front of the solemn procession of the
convent on the following Sunday, wearing no veil and clad in white
flannel[258].
It is the darker side of convent life that these ancient scandals call up
before our eyes. The system produced its saints as well as its sinners; we
have only to remember the German nunnery of Helfta to be sure of that. The
English nunneries of the later middle ages produced no great mystics, but
there have come down to us word-pictures of at least two heads of houses
worthy to rank with the best abbesses of any age; not women of genius, but
good, competent housewives, careful in all things of the welfare of their
nuns, practical as well as pious. The famous description of the Abbess
Euphemia of Wherwell (1226-57) is too well-known to be quoted here in
full[259]:
"It is most fitting," says her convent chartulary, "that we should
always perpetuate the memory, in our special prayers and suffrages, of
one who ever worked for the glory of God, and for the weal of both our
souls and bodies. For she increased the number of the Lord's handmaids
in this monastery from forty to eighty, to the exaltation of the
worship of God. To her sisters, both in health and sickness, she
administered the necessaries of life with piety, prudence, care and
honesty. She also increased the sum allowed for garments by 12_d._
each. The example of her holy conversation and charity, in conjunction
with her pious exhortations and regular discipline, caused each one to
know how, in the words of the Apostle, to possess her vessel in
sanctification and honour. She also, with maternal piety and careful
forethought, built, for the use of both sick and sound, a new and
large farmery away from the main buildings and in conjunction with it
a dorter and other necessary offices. Beneath the farmery she
constructed a watercourse, through which a stream flowed with
sufficient force to carry off all refuse that might corrupt the air.
Moreover she built there a place set apart for the refreshment of the
soul, namely a chapel of the Blessed Virgin, which was erected outside
the cloister behind the farmery. With the chapel she enclosed a large
place, which was adorned on the north side with pleasant vines and
trees. On the other side, by the river bank, she built offices for
various uses, a space being left in the centre, where the nuns are
able from time to time to enjoy the pure air. In these and in other
numberless ways, the blessed mother Euphemia provided for the worship
of God and the welfare of her sisters."
Nor was she less prudent in ruling secular business: "she also so
conducted herself with regard to exterior affairs," says the admiring
chronicler, "that she seemed to have the spirit of a man rather than of a
woman." She levelled the court of the abbey manor and built a new hall,
and round the walled court "she made gardens and vineyards and shrubberies
in places that were formerly useless and barren and which now became both
serviceable and pleasant"; she repaired the manor-houses at Tufton and at
Middleton; when the bell tower of the dorter fell down, she built a new
one "of commanding height and of exquisite workmanship"; and one of the
last acts of her life was to take down the unsteady old presbytery and to
lay with her own hands, "having invoked the grace of the Holy Spirit, with
prayers and tears," the foundation stone of a new building, which she
lived to see completed:
These and other innumerable works our good superior Euphemia performed
for the advantage of the house, but she was none the less zealous in
works of charity, gladly and freely exercising hospitality, so that
she and her daughters might find favour with One Whom Lot and Abraham
and others have pleased by the grace of hospitality. Moreover, because
she greatly loved to honour duly the House of God and the place where
His glory dwells, she adorned the church with crosses, reliquaries,
precious stones, vestments and books.
Finally, she "who had devoted herself when amongst us to the service of
His house and the habitation of His glory, found the due reward for her
merits with our Lord Jesus Christ," and died amid the blessings of her
sisters.
Less famous is the name of another mighty builder, who ruled, some two
centuries later, the little Augustinian nunnery of Crabhouse in
Norfolk[260]. Joan Wiggenhall was (as has already been pointed out) a lady
of good family and had influential friends; she was installed as Prioress
in 1420, and began to build at once. In her first year she demolished a
tumble-down old barn and caused it to be remade; this cost £45. 9_s._
6_d._, irrespective of the timber cut upon the estate and of the tiles
from the old barn, but the friends of the house helped and Sir John
Ingoldesthorpe gave £20 "to his dyinge," and the Archdeacon of Lincoln 10
marks. Cheered by this, the Prioress continued her operations; in her
second year she persuaded the Prior of Shouldham to co-operate with her
in roofing the chancel of Wiggenhall St Peter's, towards which she paid 20
marks, and she also made the north end of her own chamber for 10 marks,
and in her third year she walled the chancel of St Peter's and completed
the south end of her chamber. Then she began the great work of her life,
the church of the nunnery itself, and for three years this was the chief
topic of conversation in all the villages round, and the favourite charity
of all her neighbours:
"Also in the iiij yere of the same Jone Prioresse," runs the account
in Crabhouse Register, "Ffor myschefe that was on the chyrche whiche
myght not be reparid but if it were newe maid, with the counseyle of
here frendys dide it take downe, trostynge to the helpe of oure Lorde
and to the grete charite of goode cristen men and so with helpe of the
persone before seyde (her cousin, Edmund Perys, the parson of
Watlington) and other goode frendes as schal be shewyd aftyrward, be
the steringe of oure Lorde and procuringe of the person forseyde sche
wrowght there upon iij yere and more contynuali and made it, blessyd
be God, whiche chirche cost cccc mark, whereof William Harald that
lithe in the chapel of Our Lady payde for the ledynge of the chirch
vij skore mark. And xl li. payede we for the roofe, the whiche xl li.
we hadde of Richard Steynour, Cytesen of Norwiche, and more hadde we
nought of the good whiche he bequeathe us on his ded-bedde in the same
Cyte, a worthly place clepyd Tomlonde whiche was with holde fro us be
untrewe man his seketoures. God for his mekyl mercy of the wronge make
the ryghte."
The indignant complaint of the nuns, balked of their "worthly place clepyd
Tomlonde," is very typical; there was always an executor in hell as the
middle ages pictured it, and a popular proverb affirmed that "too secuturs
and an overseere make thre theves"[261]. In this case, however, other
friends were ready to make up for the deficiencies of those untrue men:
And the stallis with the reredose, the person beforeseyde payde fore
xx pounde of his owne goode. And xxvi mark for ij antiphoneres whiche
liggen in the queer. And xx li. Jon Lawson gaf to the chirche. And xx
mark we hadde for the soule of Jon Watson. And xx mark for the soule
of Stevyn York to the werkys of the chirche and to other werkys doon
before. And xxi mark of the gylde of the Trinite which Neybores helde
in this same chirche. The glasynge of the chirche, the scripture
maketh mencyon; onli God be worshipped and rewarde to all cristen
soules.
After the death of the good parson of Watlington, another cousin of the
Prioress, Dr John Wiggenhall, came to her aid, and in her ninth year, she
set to work once more upon the church, and she
arayed up the chirche and the quere, that is for to seye, set up the
ymagis and pathed the chirche and the quere, and stolid it and made
doris, which cost x pownde, the veyl of the chirche with the
auterclothis in sute cost xl_s._[262]
During the building of the church the Prioress had not neglected other
smaller works and a long chamber on the east side of the hall was built;
but it was not until her tenth year, when the building and "arraying" of
the church was finished, that she had time and money to do much; then she
made some necessary repairs to the barn at St Peter's and built a new
malt-house, which cost ten marks. In her twelfth year "for mischeef that
was on the halle she toke it downe and made it agen"; but alas, on the
Tuesday next after Hallowmas 1432, a fire broke out and burned down the
new malt-house, and another malt-house with a solar above, full of malt.
This misfortune (so common in the middle ages) only put new heart into
Joan Wiggenhall:
thanne the same prioresse in here xiij yere with the grace of owre
Lord God and with the helpe of mayster Johnne Wygenale beforseyd, and
with helpe of good cristen men which us relevid made a malthouse with
a Doffcote, that now ovyr the Kylne, whiche house is more than eyther
of thoo that brent. And was in the werkynge fulli ij yere tyl her
xiiij yere were passyd out, which cost l pounde. Also the same
prioresse in her xv yere, sche repared the bakhous an inheyned
[heightened] it and new lyngthde it, which cost x marc. And in the
same yere she heyned the stepul and new rofyd it and leyde therupon a
fodyr of led whiche led, freston, tymbur and werkmanshipe cost x
pounde. Also in the same yere sche made the cloystir on the Northe
syde and slattyd it, and the wal be the stepul, which cost viij li.
Then she began her greatest work, after the building of the church:
Also in the xvj yere of the occupacion of the same prioresse (1435)
the dortoure that than was, as fer forthe as we knowe, the furste that
was set up on the place, was at so grete mischeef and at the
gate-downe [falling down], the Prioresse dredyinge perisschyng of her
sistres whiche lay thereinne took it downe for drede of more harmys
and no more was doon thereto that yere, but a mason he wande[263] with
hise prentise, and in that same yere the same prioresse made the litil
soler on the sowthe ende of here chaumber stondyng in to the paradise,
and the wal stondinge on the weste syde of the halle, with the lityl
chaumber stondynge on the southe syde, and the Myllehouse with alle
the small houses dependynge there upon, the Carthouse, and the
Torfehouse, and ij of stabulys and a Beerne stondynge at a tenauntry
of oure on the Southe syde of Nycolas Martyn. Alle these werkys of
this yere with the repare drewe iiij skore mark. In the xvij yere of
the same Prioresse, be the help of God and of goode cristen men sche
began the grounde of the same dortoure that now stondith, and wrought
thereupon fulli vij yere betymes as God wolde sende hir good.
In the twenty-fourth year of her reign Joan Wiggenhall saw the last stone
laid in its place and the last plank nailed. The future was hid from her
happy eyes; she could not foresee the day, scarcely a century later, when
the walls she had reared so carefully should stand empty and forlorn, and
the molten lead of the roof should be sold by impious men. She must have
said with Solomon, as she looked upon her great church, "I have surely
built thee an house to dwell in, a settled place for thee to abide in for
ever"; and no flash of tragic prescience showed her the sheep feeding
peacefully over the spot where its "heyned stepul" pointed to the sky. In
1451 she departed to the heaven she knew best, a house of many mansions;
and her nuns, who for four and twenty years had lived a proud but
uncomfortable life in clouds of sawdust and unending noise, buried her
(one hopes) under a seemly brass in her church.
The mind preserves a pleasant picture of Euphemia of Wherwell and of Joan
Wiggenhall, when Margaret Wavere, Eleanor of Arden, Isabel Hermyte and the
rest are only dark memories, not willingly recalled. Which is as it should
be. The typical prioress of the middle ages, however, was neither Euphemia
nor Margaret. As one sees her, after wading through some hundred and fifty
visitation reports or injunctions, she was a well-meaning lady, doing her
best to make two ends of an inadequate income meet, but not always
provident; ready for a round sum in hand to make leases, sell corrodies,
cut down woods and to burden her successor as her predecessor had burdened
her. She found it difficult to carry out the democratic ideal of convent
life in consulting her sisters upon matters of business; she knew, like
all rulers, the temptation to be an autocrat; it was so much quicker and
easier to do things herself: "What, shulde the yong nunnes gyfe voices?
Tushe, they shulde not gyfe voices!" So she kept the common seal and
hardly ever rendered an account. She found that her position gave her the
opportunity to escape sometimes from that common life, which is so trying
to the temper; and she did not always keep the dorter and the frater as
she should. She was rarely vicious, but nearly always worldly; she could
not resist silks and furs, little dogs such as the ladies who came to stay
in her guest-room cherished, and frequent visits to her friends. When she
was a strong character the condition of her house bore witness, for good
or evil, to her strength; when she was weak disorder was sure to follow.
Very often she won a contented "omnia bene" from her nuns, when the Bishop
came; at other times, she said that they were disobedient and they said
that she was harsh, or impotent, or addicted to favourites. In the end it
is to Chaucer that we turn for her picture; as the Bishops found her, so
he saw her, aristocratic, tender-hearted, worldly, taking pains to
"countrefete chere of court," smiling "ful simple and coy" above her
well-pinched wimple; a lady of importance, attended by a nun and three
priests, spoken to with respect and reverence by the not too mealy-mouthed
host (no "by Corpus Dominus," or "cokkes bones," or "tel on a devel wey!"
for her, but "cometh neer my lady prioresse," and "my lady prioresse, by
your leve"); clearly enjoying a night at the Tabard and some unseemly
stories on the road (though her own tale was exquisite and fitting to her
state). Religious? perhaps; but save for her singing the divine service
"entuned in her nose ful semely" and for her lovely address to the Virgin,
Chaucer can find but little to say on the point:
But for to speken of hir conscience
She was so charitable and so pitous--
that she would weep over a mouse in a trap or a beaten puppy! For charity
and pity we must go to the poor Parson, not to friar or monk or nun. A
good ruler of her house? doubtless; but when Chaucer met her the house was
ruling itself somewhere at the "shires ende." The world was full of fish
out of water in the fourteenth century, and, by sëynt Loy, Madame
Eglentyne (like Dan Piers) held a certain famous text "nat worth an
oistre." So we take our leave of her--characteristically, on the road to
Canterbury.
CHAPTER III
WORLDLY GOODS
Tomorrows shall be as yesterdays;
And so for ever! saints enough
Has Holy Church for priests to praise;
But the chief of saints for workday stuff
Afield or at board is good Saint Use,
Withal his service is rank and rough;
Nor hath he altar nor altar-dues,
Nor boy with bell, nor psalmodies,
Nor folk on benches, nor family pews.
MAURICE HEWLETT, _The Song of the Plow_.
In many ways the most valuable general account of monastic property at the
close of the middle ages is to be found in the great _Valor
Ecclesiasticus_, a survey of all the property of the church, compiled in
1535 for the assessment of the tenth lately appropriated by the King[264].
It is true that only 100 out of the 126 nunneries then in existence are
described with any detail and that the amount of detail given varies very
much for different localities. Nevertheless the record is of the highest
importance, for in order to assess the tax the gross income of each house
is given (often with the sources from which it is drawn, classified as
temporalities and spiritualities) and the net income, on which the tenth
was assessed, is obtained by subtracting from the gross income all the
necessary charges upon the house, payments of synodals and procurations,
rents due to superior lords, alms and obits which had to be maintained
under the will of benefactors, and the fees of the regular receivers,
bailiffs, auditors and stewards.
Such a survey as the _Valor Ecclesiasticus_, though valuable, could not by
its nature give more than the most general indication of the main classes
of receipts and expenditure of the nunneries. The accounts kept by the
nuns themselves, on the other hand, are a mine of detailed information on
these subjects. Every convent was supposed to draw up an annual balance
sheet, to be read before the nuns assembled in chapter, and though it was
a constant source of complaint against the head of a house that she failed
to do so, nevertheless enough rolls have survived to make it clear that
the practice was common. Indeed it would have been impossible to run a
community for long without keeping accounts. The finest set of these rolls
which has survived from a medieval nunnery is that of St Michael's
Stamford, in Northamptonshire[265]. There are twenty-four rolls, beginning
with one for the year 32-3 Edward I, and ranging over the greater part of
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. A study of them enables the
material life of the convent for two centuries to be reconstructed and
gives a vivid picture of its difficulties, for though the nuns only once
ended the year without a deficit and a list of debts, yet the debts owed
by various creditors to them were often larger than those which they owed.
A very good series also exists for St Mary de Pré, near St Albans, kept by
the wardens 1341-57 and by the Prioress 1461-93[266]; and there is in the
Record Office a valuable little book of accounts kept by the treasuresses
of Gracedieu (Belton) during the years 1414-18, which has been made
familiar to many readers by the use made of it by Cardinal Gasquet in
_English Monastic Life_[267]. Very full and interesting accounts have
also survived from St Radegund's Cambridge (1449-51, 1481-2)[268], Catesby
(1414-45)[269] and Swaffham Bulbeck (1483-4)[270]. These are all
prioresses' or treasuresses' accounts of the total expenditure of the
different houses; but there are in existence also a few obedientiaries'
accounts, chambresses' accounts from St Michael's Stamford and Syon and
cellaresses' accounts from Syon[271]. An analysis of these accounts shows,
better than any other means of information, the various sources from which
a medieval nunnery drew its income, and the chief classes of expenditure
which it had to meet. It will therefore be illuminating to consider in
turn the credit and debit side of a monastic balance sheet.
It is perhaps unnecessary to postulate that since monastic houses differed
greatly in size and wealth, the sources of their income would differ
accordingly. A very poor house might be dependent upon the rents and
produce of one small manor; a large house sometimes had estates all over
England. The entire income of Rothwell in Northamptonshire was derived
from one appropriated rectory, valued in the _Valor_ at £10. 10_s._ 4_d._
gross and at £5. 19_s._ 8_d._ net per annum[272]. The Black Ladies of
Brewood (Staffs.) had an income of £11. 1_s._ 6_d._ derived from demesne
in hand, rents and alms[273]. On the other hand Dartford in Kent held
lands in Kent, Surrey, Norfolk, Suffolk, Wiltshire, Wales and London[274],
the Minoresses without Aldgate held property in London, Hertfordshire,
Kent, Berkshire, Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire,
Norfolk and the Isle of Wight[275]. The splendid Abbey of Syon held land
as far afield as Lancashire and Cornwall, scattered over twelve
counties[276]. Similarly the proportionate income derived from house-rents
and land-rents would differ with the geographical situation of the
nunnery. London convents, for instance, would draw a large income from
streets of houses, whereas a house in the distant dales of Yorkshire would
be dependent upon agriculture. At the time of the _Valor_ twenty-two
nunneries were holding urban tenements in fifteen towns, amounting in
total value to £1076. 0_s._ 7_d._, but of this sum £969. 11_s._ 10_d._ was
held by the seven houses in London[277]. With this proviso the conclusion
may be laid down that the money derived from the possession of
agricultural land, and in particular the rents paid by tenants in
freehold, copyhold, customary and leasehold land, was the mainstay of the
income paid into the hands of the treasuress.
A word may perhaps be said as to the method by which the nuns administered
their estates. Miss Jacka distinguishes two main types of administration,
discernible in the _Valor_:
The London houses, except Syon and a number, chiefly, of the smaller
nunneries scattered throughout the country, had a single staff of
officials, steward, bailiff, auditor, receiver; their revenues were
drawn from scattered rents and other profits rather than from entire
manors. There seem to have been about forty houses of this type in
addition to the London houses. The second group comprises the great
country nunneries in the south of England, including Syon and a number
of smaller houses whose revenues were reckoned under the headings of
various manors each managed by its own bailiff.... The staff of Syon
may be taken as an unusually complete and elaborate example of the
usual system, whose principle appears worked out on a smaller scale,
in the case of smaller nunneries. The nuns had in the first place what
may be called a central staff, a steward at £3. 6_s._ 8_d._, a steward
of the hospice at £23. 15_s._ 4_d._, a general receiver at £19. 13_s._
4_d._ and an auditor at £8. 3_s._ 4_d._ Their lands in Middlesex were
managed by their steward of Isleworth, Lord Wyndesore, whose fee was
£3, a steward of courts at £1 and a bailiff at £2. 13_s._ 4_d._, who
had a separate fee of 13_s._ 4_d._ as bailiff of the chapel of the
Angels at Brentford. Their extensive possessions in Sussex were
managed by a receiver and a steward of courts for the whole county,
whose fees were £3 and £2 respectively, by four stewards for various
districts with fees from £1. 6_s._ 8_d._ down to 13_s._ 4_d._ and by
13 bailiffs arranged under the stewards, of whom one received £2.
3_s._ 4_d._ and the rest from £1 to 6_s._ 8_d._ Their one manor in
Cambridgeshire was managed by a steward at 13_s._ 4_d._ and a bailiff
at £1. With the central staff was reckoned a receiver for Somerset,
Dorset and Devon, whose fee was £6. 13_s._ 4_d._; the ladies held no
temporalities in Somerset; in Dorset they had a chief steward, £1.
6_s._ 8_d._, a steward of courts, 6_s._ 8_d._, and a bailiff, 11_s._,
and their large possessions in Devon were managed by two stewards (£2.
13_s._ 4_d._), two stewards of courts (13_s._ 4_d._, 6_s._ 8_d._),
six bailiffs, with fees ranging from 4_s._ to £2 and an auditor,
3_s._ 4_d._ They received £100 a year from unspecified holdings in
Lancashire and had there a steward of courts at £1. Their possessions
in Lincolnshire were mainly spiritual, but they employed a receiver,
whose fee was 13_s._ 4_d._ In Gloucestershire they had large
possessions. The two chief stewards of Cheltenham received each £3.
6_s._ 8_d._ and the chief steward of Minchinhampton £2. Two stewards
of courts each received £1. 6_s._ 8_d._ and the two stewards at
Slaughter £1. Three bailiffs received £2. 13_s._ 4_d._, £2 and 13_s._
4_d._, with livery. A bailiff and receiver of profits arising from the
sale of woods was paid £4 and the steward of the abbot of Cirencester
was paid 6_s._ 8_d._ for holding the abbess' view of frankpledge. In
Wiltshire the nuns held a manor and a rectory and paid £1 to a steward
for both: they seem to have been leased. In counties where all their
possessions were spiritual they had no local officials; in Somerset
both the rectories they held were leased and in Kent, although that is
not stated, it is suggested by the round sums which were received
(£26. 13_s._ 4_d._, £10, £20). The leasing of property for a fixed sum
of course made the administration of it very much simpler. All the
temporalities of the Minoresses without Aldgate were leased and their
staff consisted of a chief steward, Lord Wyndesore, whose fee was £2.
13_s._ 4_d._, a receiver at £4. 5_s._ 10_d._ and an auditor at 13_s._
4_d._[278]
A closer analysis of the chief sources of income of a medieval nunnery, as
they may be distinguished in the _Valor_ and in various account rolls, is
now possible. They may be classified as follows: _Temporalities_,
comprising: (1) rents from lands and houses, (2) perquisites of courts,
fairs, mills, woods and other manorial perquisites, (3) issues of the
manor, i.e. sale of farm produce, (4) miscellaneous payments from
boarders, gifts, etc.; and _Spiritualities_, comprising (5) tithes from
appropriated benefices, alms, mortuaries, etc. The distinction between
temporalities and spiritualities is a technical one and there was
sometimes little difference between the sources of the two kinds of
income, but the temporal revenues were usually larger[279].
(1) _Rents from lands and houses._ A house which possessed several manors
besides its home farm would either lease them to tenants ("farm out the
manor" as it was called), or put in bailiffs, who were responsible for
working the estates and handing over to the convent the profits of their
agriculture, and who may also have collected rents where no separate rent
collector was employed. For besides the profits arising from the demesne
land (of which some account will be given below), the convent derived a
much more considerable income from the rents of all tenants (whatever the
legal tenure by which they held) who held their land at a money rent. The
number of such tenants was likely to increase by the commutation of
customary services for money payments; since, except in the particular
manor or manors wherein the produce of the demesne was reserved for the
actual consumption of the community, it was to the interest of a convent
to lease a great part of the demesne land to tenants at a money rent and
so save itself the trouble of farming the land under a bailiff[280]. In
addition to these rents from agricultural land an income was sometimes
derived, as has already been pointed out, from the rent of tenements in
towns.
In most account rolls a careful distinction was drawn between "rents of
assize" and "farms." The former were the payments due from the tenants
(whether freehold or customary) who held their holdings at a money rent;
these rents were collected by the different collectors of the nunnery or
brought to the treasurers by the tenants themselves. "Farms" were leases,
i.e. payments for land or houses which were held directly in demesne by
the nunnery, but instead of being worked by a bailiff, or occupied by the
household, were "farmed out" at an annual rent. A "farmer" might thus hold
in farm an entire manor, and, for the payment of an annual sum to the
nuns, he would have the right to the produce of the demesne and to the
rents of rent-paying tenants. He might be quite a small person and hold in
farm only a few acres of the demesne (in addition perhaps to an ordinary
tenant's holding on the manor). He might hold the farm of a mill, or a
stable, or a single house[281]. In any case he paid a rent to the nuns and
made what he could out of his "farm"; while they much preferred these
regular payments to the trouble of superintending the cultivation of
distant lands, in an age when communication was difficult and slow.
Nevertheless the rents were not always easy to collect, for all the
diligence of the bailiff and of the various rent-collectors[282]. There
are some illuminating entries in the accounts of St Radegund's Cambridge.
In 1449-50 the indignant treasuress debits herself with "one tenement in
Walleslane lately held by John Walsheman for 6_s._ 8_d._ a year, the which
John fled out of this town within the first half of this year, leaving
nought behind him whereby he could be distrained save 7_d._, collected
therefrom"; and in the following year she again debits herself "for part
of a tenement lately held by John Webster for 12_s._ a year, whence was
collected only 7_s._ for that the aforesaid John Webster did flit
[literally, _devolavit_] by night, leaving naught behind him whereby he
could be distrained." Yet these nuns seem to have been indulgent
landlords; in this year the treasuress debits herself "for a tenement
lately held by Richard Pyghtesley, because it was too heavily charged
before, 2_s._ 3_d._, ... and for a portion of the rent owed by Stephen
Brasyer on account of the poverty and need of the said Stephen, by grace
of the lady Prioress this time only, 15_d._" and there are other instances
of lowered rents in these accounts[283]. Other account rolls sometimes
make mention of meals and small presents of money given to tenants
bringing in their rents.
(2) _Various manorial perquisites and grants._ Besides the rents from land
and houses the position of a religious community as lord of a manor gave
it the right to various other financial payments. Of these the most
important were the perquisites of the manorial courts. These varied very
much according to the extent and number of the liberties which had been
granted to any particular house. To Syon, beloved of kings, vast liberties
had been granted (notably in 1447), so that the tenants upon its estates
were almost entirely exempt from royal justice. The abbess and convent had
view of frankpledge, leets, lawe-days and wapentakes for all people,
tenants resiant and other resiants aforesaid, in whatsoever places, by
the same abbess or her successors to be limited, where to them it
shall seem most expedient within the lordships, lands, rents, fees and
possessions aforesaid, to be holden by the steward or other officers.
They had the assizes of bread and ale and wine and victuals and weights
and measures. They had all the old traditional emoluments of justice,
which lords had striven to obtain since the days before the conquest,
soc, sac, infangentheof, outfangentheof, waif, estray, treasure-trove,
wreck of the sea, deodands, chattels of felons and fugitives, of
outlaws, of waive, of persons condemned, of felons of themselves
[suicides], escapes of felons, year day waste and estrepement and all
other commodities, forfeitures and profits whatsoever.
They had the right to erect gallows, pillory and tumbrel for the
punishment of malefactors. They even had
all issues and amercements, redemptions and forfeitures as well before
our [the king's] heirs and successors, as before the chancellor,
treasurer and barons of our exchequer, the justices and commissioners
of us, our heirs or successors whomsoever, made, forfeited or adjudged
... of all the people ... in the lordships, lands, tenements, fees and
possessions aforesaid[284].
In the eyes of the middle ages justice had one outstanding characteristic:
it filled the pocket of whoever administered it. "Justitia magnum
emolumentum est," as the phrase went. All the manifold perquisites of
justice, whether administered in her own or in the royal courts, went to
the abbess of Syon if any of her own tenants were concerned. It is no
wonder that out of a total income of £1944. 11_s._ 5-1/4_d._ the
substantial sum of £133. 0_s._ 6_d._ was derived from perquisites of
courts[285].
Few houses possessed such wholesale exemption from royal justice, but all
possessed their manorial courts, at which tenants paid their heriots in
money or in kind as a death-duty to the lord, or their fines on entering
upon land, and at which justice was done and offenders amerced (or fined
as we should now call it). Most houses possessed the right to hold the
assize of bread and ale and to fine alewives who overcharged or gave short
measure. Some possessed the right to seize the chattels of fugitives, and
the abbess of Wherwell was once involved in a law suit over this liberty,
which she held in the hundred of Mestowe and which was disputed by the
crown officials. One Henry Harold of Wherwell had killed his wife Isabel
and fled to the church of Wherwell and the Abbess had seized his chattels
to the value of £35. 4_s._ 8_d._ by the hands of her reeve[286]. A less
usual privilege was that of the Abbess of Marham, who possessed the right
of proving the wills of those who died within the precincts or
jurisdiction of the house[287]. The courts at which these liberties were
exercised were held by the steward of the nunnery, who went from manor to
manor to preside at their sittings; but sometimes the head of the house
herself would accompany him. Christian Bassett, the energetic Prioress of
Delapré (St Albans), not content with journeying up to London for a
lawsuit, went twice to preside at her court at Wing[288].
In rather a different class from grants of jurisdictional liberties were
special grants of free warren, felling of wood and fairs. Monasteries
which possessed lands within the bounds of a royal forest were not allowed
to take game or to cut down wood there without a special licence from the
crown; but such grants to exercise "free warren" (i.e. take game) and to
fell wood were often granted in perpetuity, as an act of piety by the
king, or for special purposes. The Abbess of Syon had free warren in all
her possessions, and in 1489 it was recorded that the Abbess of Barking
had free chase within the bailiwick of Hainault to hunt all beasts of the
forest in season, except deer, and free chase within the forest and
without to hunt hares and rabbits and fox, badger, cat and other
vermin[289]. Grants of wood were more often made on special occasions;
thus in 1277 the keeper of the forest of Essex was ordered to permit the
Abbess of Barking and her men to fell oak-trees and oak-trunks in her
demesne woods within the forest to the value of £40[290], while in 1299
the Abbess of Wilton was given leave to fell sixty oaks in her own wood
within the bounds of the forest of Savernake, in order to rebuild some of
her houses, which had been burnt down[291]. The grant of fairs and markets
was even more common and more lucrative, for the convent profited not only
from the rents of booths and from the entrance-tolls, but not infrequently
from setting up a stall of its own, for the sale of spices and other
produce[292]. Henry III granted the nuns of Catesby a weekly market every
Monday within their manor of Catesby and a yearly fair for three days in
the same place; and almost any monastic chartulary will provide other
instances of such rights[293].
The majority of the special perquisites which have been described would
originate in special grants from the Crown; but it must be remembered that
every manorial lord could count on certain perquisites _ex officio_, for
which no specific grant was required. For his manor provided him with more
than agricultural produce on the one hand and rents and farms on the
other. Through the manor court he also received certain payments due to
him from all free and unfree tenants, in particular those connected with
the transfer of land, the heriot and the fines already mentioned. From
unfree tenants he could also claim various other dues, the mark of their
status; merchet, when their daughters married off the estate, leyrwite,
when they enjoyed themselves without the intermediary of that important
ceremony, a fine when they wished to send their sons to school and a
number of other customary payments, exacted at the manor court and varying
slightly from manor to manor. Moreover the tolls from the water- or
wind-mill at which villeins had to grind their corn all went to swell the
purse of the lord[294]. This is not the place for a detailed description
of manorial rights, which can be studied in any text-book of economic
history[295]; a word must, however, be said about the mortuary system,
which did not a little to enrich the medieval church.
When a peasant died the lord of the manor had often the right to claim his
best animal or garment as a mortuary or heriot, and by degrees there grew
up a similar claim to his second best possession on the part of the parish
priest.
"It was presumed," says Mr Coulton, "that the dead man must have
failed to some extent in due payment of tithes during his lifetime and
that a gift of his second best possession to the Church would
therefore be most salutary to his soul"[296].
From these claims, partly manorial and partly ecclesiastical, religious
houses benefited very greatly, and their accounts sometimes mention
mortuary payments. The Prioress of Catesby in the year 1414-15 records how
her live stock was enriched by one horse, one mare and two cows coming as
heriots, while she received a payment of 20_s._ for two oxen coming as
heriot of Richard Sheperd[297]. In the chartulary of Marham is recorded a
mortuary list of sixteen people, who died within the jurisdiction of the
house, and the mortuaries vary from a sorrel horse and a book to numerous
gowns and mantles[298]. The system was obviously capable of great abuse,
and Mr Coulton considers that it did much to precipitate the Reformation,
for the unhappy peasant resented more and more bitterly the greed of the
church, which chose his hour of sorrow to wrest from him the best of his
poor possessions; it must have seemed hard to him that his horse or his ox
should be driven away, if he could not buy it back, to the well-stocked
farm of a community which was vowed to poverty, far harder than if his
lord were a layman, as free as he was himself to accumulate possessions
without soiling the soul. When the parish priest followed the convent with
a claim upon what was best, his despair must have grown deeper and his
resentment more bitter. It was often difficult to collect these payments,
just as it was often difficult to collect tithes, even when a priest was
less loth to curse for them than Chaucer's poor parson. Vicars were
obliged to sue their wretched parishioners in the ecclesiastical courts,
and monasteries were sometimes fain to commute such payments for an annual
rent, collected by the tenants[299]. But the best ecclesiastics recognised
that the system was somewhat out of keeping with Christian charity.
Caesarius of Heisterbach has a story of Ulrich, the good head of the
monastery of Steinfeld, who one day
came to one of his granges, wherein, seeing a comely foal, he enquired
of the [lay] brother whose it was or whence it came. To whom the
brother answered, "such and such a man, our good and faithful friend,
left it to us at his death." "By pure devotion," asked the provost,
"or by legal compulsion?" "It came through his death," answered the
other, "for his wife, since he was one of our serfs, offered it as a
heriot." Then the provost shook his head and piously answered:
"Because he was a good man and our faithful friend, therefore hast
thou despoiled his wife. Render therefore her horse to this forlorn
woman; for it is robbery to seize or detain other men's goods, since
the horse was not thine before [the man's death]"[300].
(3) _Issues of the manor._ Before passing on to sources of income of a
more specifically ecclesiastical character, some account must be given of
the third great class of receipts which came to a convent in its capacity
of landowner, to wit the "issues of the manor." Attached to almost every
nunnery was its home farm, which provided the nuns with the greater part
of their food[301]. A large nunnery would thus reserve for its own use
several manors and granges, but usually other manors in its possession
would be farmed by bailiffs, who sold the produce at market and paid in
the profits to the treasuress or to one of the obedientiaries; or else a
manor would be leased to a tenant. The surplus produce of the home farm,
which could not be used by the nuns, was also sold. The treasuress usually
entered the receipts and expenditure of the home farm in her household
account and she had to keep two sets of records, the one a careful account
of all the animals and agricultural produce on the farm, with details as
to the use made of them; and the other (under the heading of "issues of
the manor") a money record of the sums obtained from sales of live stock,
wool or grain. An analysis of the produce of the home farm of Catesby
(1414-5)[302] shows that the chief crops grown were wheat and barley. Of
these a certain proportion was kept for seed to sow the new crops; almost
all the rest of the wheat was paid in food allowances to the servants and
1 qr. 3 bushels in alms "to friars of the four orders and other poor";
most of the barley was malted, except 6 qrs. delivered to the swineherd to
feed hogs; and what remained was stored in the granaries of the convent.
Oats and peas were also grown and part of the crop used for seed, part for
food-allowances to the servants and oatmeal for the nuns. The Prioress
also kept a most meticulous account of the livestock on her farm. All were
numbered and classified, cart-horses, brood-mares, colts, foals, oxen,
bulls, cows, stirks (three-year old), two-year old, yearlings, calves,
sheep, wethers, hogerells, lambs, hogs, boars, sows, hilts, hogsters and
pigs. In each class it was carefully set down how many animals remained in
stock at the end of the year and what had been done with the others. We
know something of the consumption of meat by the nuns of Catesby and their
servants in this year of grace 1414-5, when the old rule against the
eating of meat was relaxed; and we see something of the cares of a
medieval housewife in those days before root-crops were known, when the
number of animals which could be kept alive during the winter was strictly
limited by the amount of hay produced on the valuable meadow land. Only in
summer could the convent have fresh meat; and on St Martin's day (Nov. 11)
the business of killing and salting the rest of the stock for winter food
began[303]. From good Dame Elizabeth Swynford's account it appears that
five oxen, one stirk, thirty hogs and one boar were delivered to the
larderer to be salted; in summer time, when the convent could enjoy fresh
meat, five calves, fourteen sheep, ten hogs and twelve pigs were sent in
to the kitchen; and twenty cows were divided between the larder and the
kitchen, to provide salt and fresh beef. There is unfortunately no record
of the produce of the dairy, which supplied the convent with milk, cheese,
eggs and occasional chickens.
But the home-farm served the purpose of providing money as well as food.
The hides of the oxen and the "wool pells" of the sheep, which had been
killed for food or had fallen victim to that curse of medieval farming,
the murrain, were by no means wasted. Five hides belonging to animals
which had died of murrain were tanned and used for collars and other cart
gear on the farm; but all the rest were sold, thirty-six of them in all.
Most lucrative of all, however, was the sale of wool pells and wool, and
Dame Elizabeth Swynford is very exact; eighteen wool pells, from sheep
which the convent had eaten as mutton, sold before shearing for 35_s._
10_d._, thirty-eight sold after shearing for 9_s._ 6_d._, thirty-six lamb
skins for 1_s._; and 6_d._ was received "for wynter lokes sold." Moreover
the convent also sold one sack and eight weight of wool at £5. 4_s._ the
sack, for a total of £6. 16_s._ Altogether the "issues of the manor"
amounted to the substantial sum of £24. 8_s._ 8_d._, chiefly derived from
these sales of wool and wool pells and from the sale of some timber for
£6. 13_s._ 4_d._[304] These details about wool are interesting, for it is
well known that the monastic houses of England, especially in the northern
counties, were great sheep farmers. Most accounts mention this important
source of revenue and in the series of rolls kept by the treasuresses of
St Michael's Stamford, it is regularly entered under the heading "Fermes,
dismes, leynes et pensions," a somewhat miscellaneous classification[305].
In the thirteenth-century _Pratica della Mercatura_ of Francesco
Pergolotti there is incorporated a list of monasteries which sell wool,
compiled for the use of Italian wool merchants and giving the prices per
sack of the different qualities of wool at each house. The list contains a
section specially devoted to nunneries, in which twenty houses are
mentioned, all but two of them in Lincolnshire or Yorkshire[306]. Armed
with this information the Italians would journey from nunnery to nunnery
and bargain with the nuns for their wool: the whole crop would sometimes
be commissioned by them in advance, sold on the backs of the sheep. The
English distrusted these dark smooth-spoken foreigners; many years later
the author of the _Libel of English Policie_ charged them with dishonest
practices and complained of the freedom with which they were allowed to
buy in England:
In Cotteswold also they ride about,
And all England, and buy withouten doubte
What them list with freedome and franchise,
More than we English may gitten many wise[307].
But it must have been a great day for the impoverished nuns of Yorkshire
when slim Italian or stout Fleming came riding down the dales under a
spring sun to bargain for their wool crop. What a bustling hither and
thither there would be, and what a confabulation in the parlour between my
lady Prioress and her steward and her chaplain and the stranger sitting
opposite to them and speaking his reasons "ful solempnely." What a careful
distinguishing of the best and the medium and the worst kind of wool,
which the Italian calls _buona lana_ and _mojano lana_ and _locchi_. What
a haggling over the price, which varies from nunnery to nunnery, but
always allows the merchant to sell at a good profit in the markets of
Flanders and Italy. What sighs of relief when the stranger trots off
again, sitting high on his horse and taking with him a silken purse, or a
blood-band or a pair of gloves in "courtesy" from the nuns. What blessings
on the black-faced sheep, when the sorely-needed silver is locked up in
the treasury chest and debts begin to look less terrible, leaking roofs
less incurable, pittances less few and far between.
(4) _Miscellaneous payments._ A last source of temporal revenue consisted
in the sums paid for board and lodging by visitors, regular boarders and
schoolchildren. Though such visitors were frowned at by bishops as
subversive of discipline, the nuns welcomed their contributions to the
lean income of the convent, and in most nunnery accounts payments by
boarders will be found among other miscellaneous receipts.
(5) _Spiritualities._ In the revenues which have hitherto been considered,
the monastic rent-rolls differed in no way from those of any lay owner of
land. The source of revenue now to be distinguished was more specifically
ecclesiastical. All monasteries derived a more or less large income from
certain grants made to them in their capacity as religious houses. Most
important of these was the appropriation of benefices to their use. When a
church was appropriated to a monastery, the monastery was usually supposed
to put in a vicar at a fixed stipend to serve the parish, and the great
tithes (which would otherwise have supported a rector) were taken by the
corporation. Sometimes half a church was so appropriated and half the
tithes were taken. The practice of appropriating churches was widespread;
not only the king and other lay patrons, but also the bishops used this
means of enriching religious bodies and the favourite petition of an
impecunious convent was for permission to appropriate a church[308]. Over
and over again the gift of the advowson of a church to a monastery is
followed by appropriation[309]. The permission of the bishop of the
diocese and of the pope was necessary for the transaction, but it seems
rarely to have been refused; and
it has been calculated that at least a third part of the tithes of the
richest benefices in England were appropriated either in part or
wholly to religious and secular bodies, such as colleges, military
orders, lay hospitals, guilds, convents; even deans, cantors,
treasurers and chancellors of cathedral bodies were also largely
endowed with rectorial tithes[310].
The practice of appropriation became a very serious abuse, for not all
monasteries were conscientious in performing their duties to the parishes
from which they derived such a large income, and ignorant and underpaid
vicars often enough left their sheep encumbered in the mire, or swelled
with their misery and discontent the democratic revolution known by the
too narrow name of the Peasants' Revolt[311]. Moreover there is no doubt
that sometimes the monks and nuns neglected even the obvious duty of
putting in a vicar, and the hungry sheep looked up and were not fed. The
_Valor Ecclesiasticus_ throws an interesting light on this subject. The
nuns of Elstow Abbey held no less than eleven rectories, from which they
derived £157. 6_s._ 8_d._, but they paid stipends to four vicars only, and
the total of the four was £6. 6_s._ 8_d._[312] The nuns of Westwood
received £12. 12_s._ 10_d._ from two rectories and paid to a deacon in one
of them 11_s._ 4_d._[313] The Minoresses without Aldgate held four
rectories; from that of Potton (Beds.) they received £16. 6_s._ 8_d._ and
paid the vicar £2; from that of Kessingland, Suffolk, £9 and paid the
vicar £2. 4_s._ 4_d._[314] Another very common practice which cannot have
conduced to the welfare of the parishioners was that of farming out the
proceeds of appropriated churches, just as manors were farmed out. The
farmer paid the nuns a lump sum annually and took the proceeds of the
tithes. The purpose of such an arrangement was convenience, since it saved
the convent the trouble of collecting the revenues and tithes. It was open
to objection from all points of view; for on the one hand the nuns might,
and often did, make bad bargains, and on the other they were still less
likely to care for the spiritual welfare of the unfortunate parishioners,
whose souls were to all intents and purposes farmed out with their tithes;
though the payment of a vicar was sometimes made by the nuns or stipulated
for in the agreement with the farmer. The _Valor Ecclesiasticus_ gives the
total spiritual revenue of the 84 nunneries holding spiritualities as
£2705. 17_s._ 5_d._ and of this sum spiritualities to the value of £1075.
0_s._ 6_d._, belonging to 33 houses were entered as being at farm[315].
Account rolls often throw a flood of light upon the income derived from
appropriated churches. To the nuns of St Michael's Stamford had been
assigned by various abbots of Peterborough the churches of St Martin, St
Clement, All Souls, St Andrew and Thurlby, and in the reign of Henry II
two pious ladies gave them the moieties of the church of Corby and chapel
of Upton[316]. Moreover in 1354, after the little nunnery of Wothorpe had
been ruined by the Black Death, all its possessions were handed over to St
Michael's and included the appropriation of the church of Wothorpe; the
bishop stipulated that the proceeds of the priory with the rectory should
be applied to the support of the infirmary and kitchen of St Michael's and
that the nuns should keep a chaplain to serve the parish church of
Wothorpe[317]. Corby and Thurlby were afterwards farmed out by the
nuns[318] and in 1377-8 they brought in £19 and £20 respectively, while
the nuns got £26. 0_s._ 8_d._ from "the church of All Saints beyond the
water," £1. 13_s._ 4_d._ from the parson of Cottesmore and a pension of
6_s._ 8_d._ from the church of St Martin. They paid the vicar of Wothorpe
a stipend of £2 a year[319]. Over half their income was usually derived
from "farms, tithes and pensions," i.e. from ecclesiastical sources of
revenue.
It was also very common to make grants of tithes out of piety to a
monastery, even when a grant of the advowson of the church was not made. A
lord would make over to it the tithes of wheat, or a portion of the
tithes, in certain parishes, or perhaps the tithes of his own demesne
land. Sometimes the rector of a parish would pay the monks or nuns an
annual rent in commutation of their tithes; sometimes he would dispute
their claim and the tedious altercation would drag on for years, ending
perhaps in the expense of a law-suit[320]. Besides advowsons and tithes
various other pensions and payments were bestowed upon religious houses by
benefactors, who would leave an annual pension to a monastery as a charge
upon a particular piece of land, or church, or upon another
monastery[321].
Another "spiritual" source of revenue consisted in alms and gifts given to
the nuns as a work of piety. Sometimes a nunnery possessed a famous relic,
and the faithful who visited it showed their devotion by leaving a gift at
the shrine. The _Valor_ sometimes gives very interesting information about
these cherished possessions, described under the unkind heading
_Superstitio_. The Yorkshire nuns possessed among them a great variety of
relics, some of them having the most incongruous virtues. At
Sinningthwaite was to be found the arm of St Margaret and the tunic of St
Bernard "believed to be good for women lying in"[322], at Arden was an
image of St Bride, to which women made offerings for cows that had
strayed or were ill. The nuns of Arthington had a girdle of the Virgin and
the nuns of St Clement's York and Basedale both had some of her milk; at
St Clement's pilgrimages were made to the obscure but popular St
Syth[323]. In other parts of the country it was the same. St Edmund's
altar in the conventual church of Catesby was a place of pilgrimage, for
he had bequeathed his pall and a silver tablet to his sister Margaret
Rich, prioress there[324]; and in 1400 Boniface IX granted an indult to
the Abbess of Barking to have mass and the other divine offices celebrated
in an oratory called "Rodlofte" (rood-loft), in which was preserved a
cross to which many people resorted[325]. The nuns of St Michael's
Stamford not infrequently record sums received from a pardon held at one
of their churches, and almost every year they received sums of money in
exchange for their prayers for the souls of the dead. "Almes et
aventures," souls and chance payments, was a regular heading in their
account roll, and the name of the person for whose soul they were to pray
was entered opposite the money received. Miscellaneous alms from the
faithful were always a source of revenue, though necessarily a fluctuating
source[326].
Such were the chief sources from which a medieval nunnery derived its
income. We must now consider the chief expenses which the nuns had to meet
out of that income. It has already been shown that the total income of a
nunnery was paid into the hands of the treasuress or treasuresses, save
when the office of treasuress was filled by the head of the house, or when
a male _custos_ was appointed by the bishop to undertake the business. It
has also been shown that the treasuress paid out certain sums to the chief
obedientiaries (notably to the cellaress), to whose use certain sources of
income were indeed sometimes earmarked, and that these obedientiaries
kept their separate accounts. The majority of nunnery accounts which have
survived are, however, treasuresses' accounts; that is to say they
represent the general balance sheet at the end of the year, including all
the chief items of income and expenditure. The different houses adopt, as
is natural, different methods of classifying their expenses[327]. The
great abbey of Romsey classifies thus: (1) _The Convent_, including sums
for clothing, for the kitchen expenses and for pittances, amounting in all
to £105. 17_s._ 10_d._ (2) _The Abbess_, who kept her separate household
in state; this includes provisions for herself and for her household and
divers of their expenses, a sum of £8. 12_s._ in gifts, a sum in liveries
for the household and spices for the guest-house and a sum in servants'
wages, amounting to £108. 17_s._ in all. (3) _Divers outside expenses_,
including repairs of houses belonging to the Romsey mills, a sum for legal
pleas, another for annuities to the convent and to the king's clerks, who
had stalls in the abbey, over £40 in royal taxes and £1. 14_s._ 8_d._ in
procurations, amounting to £108 in all. (4) _Miscellaneous expenses_
include £8. 19_s._ 4_d._ in alms to the poor, £6. 13_s._ 4_d._ in wine for
nobles visiting the abbess, a sum for mending broken crockery, a sum for
shoeing the horses of the Abbess' household, and in horse-hire and
expenses of men riding on her business, 14_s._ in oblations of the Abbess
and her household and £10 in gift to Henry Bishop of Winchester on his
return from the Holy Land. (5) _Repairs_ and other expenses at six manors
belonging to this wealthy house, amounting to £77. 2_s._ 6-1/2_d._ The
total expenses of the abbey this year (1412) came to £431. 18_s._ 8_d._,
against a revenue of £404. 6_s._ 1_d._, drawn from six manors and
including rents, the commutation fees for villein services, the sale of
wool, corn and other stores and the perquisites of the courts. The deficit
is characteristic of nunneries[328].
An interesting picture of many sides of monastic life is given by a
general analysis of the chief classes of expenditure usually mentioned in
account rolls. They may be classified as follows: (1) internal expenses of
the convent, (2) divers miscellaneous expenses connected with external
business, (3) repairs, (4) the expenses of the home farm and (5) the
wage-sheet.
(1) _The internal expenses of the convent._ The details of this
expenditure are sometimes not given very fully, because they were set
forth at length in the accounts of the cellaress and chambress; but a
certain amount of food and of household goods and clothes was bought
directly by the treasuress and occasionally the office of cellaress and
treasuress was doubled by the same nun, whose account gives more detail.
Expenditure on clothing appears in one of two forms, either as
dress-allowances paid annually to the nuns[329], or as payments for the
purchase of linen and cloth and for the hiring of work-people to spin and
weave and make up the clothes[330]. Expenditure on food is usually
concerned with the purchase of fish and of spices, the only important
foods which could not be produced by the home farm.
Among other internal expenses are the costs of the guest-house and the
alms, in money and in kind, which were given to the poor. Account rolls
sometimes throw a side light on the fare provided for visitors: for
instance the treasuress of St Radegund's, Cambridge, enters upon her roll
in 1449-50 the following items under the heading _Providencia Hospicii_:
And paid to William Rogger, for beef, pork, mutton and veal bought for
the guest house, by the hand of John Grauntyer, 24_s._ 8_d._ And for
bread, beer, beef, pork, mutton, veal, sucking pigs, capons, chickens,
eggs, butter and fresh and salt fish, bought from day to day for the
guest house during the period of the account, as appears more fully
set out in detail, in a paper book examined for this account, £11.
7_s._ 4-1/2_d._ And for one cow bought of Thomas Carrawey for the
guest house vj s viij d. Total: £13. 8_s._ 8-1/2_d._[331]
In this year the total receipts were £77. 8_s._ 6-1/2_d._ and the
expenditure £72. 6_s._ 4-3/4_d._, so that quite a large proportion of the
nuns' income was spent on hospitality. On the other hand the food was no
doubt partly consumed by these "divers noble persons," who paid the
convent £8. 14_s._ 4_d._ this year for their board and lodging. It is a
great pity that the separate guest-house account book referred to has not
survived. At St Michael's Stamford the roll for 15-16 Richard II contains
a payment of 26_s._ 10_d._ "for the expenses of guests for the whole
year," and 6_s._ 8_d._ "for wine for the guests throughout the year"[332];
this is a very small amount out of a total expenditure of £116. 15_s._
4-1/2_d._ and it seems likely that the greater part of the food used for
guests was not accounted for apart from the convent food.
The expenditure of nuns on alms is interesting, since almsgiving to the
poor was one of the functions enjoined upon them by their rule; and many
houses held a part of their property on condition that they should
distribute certain alms. Some information as to these compulsory alms,
though not of course as to the voluntary almsgiving of the nuns, is given
in the _Valor Ecclesiasticus_. A few entries may be taken at random. St
Sepulchre's, Canterbury, paid 6_s._ 8_d._ for one quarter of wheat to be
given for the soul of William Calwell, their founder, the Thursday next
before Easter[333]. Dartford was allowed £5. 12_s._ 8_d._ for alms given
twice a week to thirteen poor people[334]; Haliwell distributed 12_s._
8_d._ in alms to poor folk every Christmas day in memory of a Bishop of
Lincoln[335]. Nuneaton was allowed "for certain quarters of corn given
weekly to the poor and sick at the gate of the monastery at 12_d._ a week,
by order of the foundress, £2. 12_s._ 0_d._; for certain alms on Maundy
Thursday in money, bread, wine, beer and eels by the foundation, to poor
and sick within the monastery, £2. 5_s._ 4_d._"[336] Polesworth gave "on
Maundy Thursday at the washing of the feet of poor persons, in drink and
victuals, by the foundation £1. 6_s._ 0_d._"[337] A chartulary of the
great Abbey of Lacock, drawn up at the close of the thirteenth century,
contains an interesting list of alms payable to the poor and pittances to
the nuns themselves on certain feasts and anniversaries. It runs:
We ought to feed on All Souls' day as many poor as there are ladies,
to each poor person a dry loaf and as a relish two herrings or a slice
of cheese, and the convent the same day shall have two courses. On the
anniversary of the foundress (24 Aug. 1261) 100 poor each shall have a
wheaten loaf and two herrings, be it a flesh-day or not, and the
convent shall have to eat simnels and wine and three courses and two
at supper. On the anniversary of her father (17 April 1196) each year
thirteen poor shall be fed. On the anniversary of her husband thirteen
poor shall be fed, and the convent shall have half a mark for a
pittance. On the anniversary of Sir Nicholas Hedinton they should
distribute to the poor 8_s._ and 4_d._, or corn amounting to as much
money, i.e. wheat, barley and beans, and the convent half a mark for a
pittance. The day of the burial of a lady of the convent 100 poor, to
each a mite or a dry loaf.... The day of the Last Supper, after the
Maundy, they shall give to each poor person a loaf of the weight of
the convent loaf, and of the dough of full bread, and half a gallon of
beer and two herrings, and half a bushel of beans for soup[338].
Account rolls sometimes contain references to food or money distributed to
the poor on the great almsgiving day of Maundy Thursday, or on special
feast days. The nuns of St Michael's Stamford regularly bought herrings to
be given to the poor on Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, St Laurence's day,
St Michael's day and St Andrew's day. The nuns of St Radegund's,
Cambridge, in 1450-1 distributed 2_s._ 1_d._ among the poor on Maundy
Thursday and gave 10_d._ "to certain poor persons lately labouring in the
wars of the lord king"[339]. The Prioress of St Mary de Pré, St Albans,
has an item "paid in expenses for straungers, pore men lasours, tennents
and fermours for brede and ale and other vitaills xxxvj_s_ viij_d_"[340].
It is interesting to note that nunneries are not infrequently found giving
alms in money or kind to the mendicant friars. The Prioress of Catesby
gave away 1 qr. 3 bushels of wheat "to brethren of the four orders and
other poor" in 1414-5[341]. The Oxford friary received from Godstow in
memory of the soul of one Roger Whittell fourteen loaves every fortnight
and 3_s._ 4_d._ in money and one peck of oatmeal and one of peas in Lent.
The Friars Minor of Cambridge were sometimes sent a pig by the Abbess of
Denny[342]. It will be seen in a later chapter that the poor Yorkshire
nunneries of St Clement's York and Moxby were considerably burdened by the
obligation to pay 14 loaves weekly to the friars of York[343]. In general,
however, it is difficult to form any just estimate as to how much
almsgiving was really done by the nuns. There is no evidence as to whether
they daily gave away to the poor, as their rule demanded, the fragments
left over from their own meals; for such almsgiving would be entered
neither in account rolls nor in chartularies and surveys dealing with
endowments earmarked for charity.
Another class of gifts which deserves some notice consists of gratuities
to friends, well-wishers or dependents of the house, for benefits
solicited or received. No one in the middle ages was too dignified to
receive a tip. The nuns of St Michael's, Stamford, regularly give what
they euphemistically term "gifts" or "courtesies" to a large number of
persons, ranging from their own servants at Christmas to men of law,
engaged in the various suits in which they were involved. To the high and
mighty they present wine, or a capon, or money discreetly jingling in the
depths of a silken purse. To the lowly they present a plain unvarnished
tip. The nuns of St Radegund's, Cambridge, pay 12_d._ "for a crane bought
and given to the chancellor of the university of Cambridge, for his good
friendship in divers of my lady's affairs in the interest of the convent";
and "the four waits of the Mayor of Cambridge" receive a Christmas box of
2_s._ 3_d._ "for their services to the lady Prioress and convent." _Dono
Data_ is a regular heading in their accounts, and in 1450-1 there is a
long list of small gifts to dependents, ranging from 1_d._ to 10_d._, and
a sum of 2_s._ for linen garments bought for gifts at Christmas[344].
Similarly the cellaress of Syon in 1536-7 gave her servants at Christmas a
reward of 20_s._ "with their aprons"[345]. Whether to ensure that a
lawsuit should go in favour of the convent, or merely to reward faithful
service or to celebrate a feast, such payments were well laid out and no
careful housekeeper could afford to neglect them.
(2) _Divers expenses_ include payments for various fines, amercements and
legal expenses and also for the numerous journeys undertaken by the
prioress or by their servants on convent business. The legal expenses
which fell upon the nuns of St Michael's, Stamford, ranged from a big suit
in London and various cases over disputed tithes at the court of the
bishop of Lincoln, to divers small amercements, when the convent pigs
"trespassed in Castle meadow"[346]. The payments for journeys often give a
vivid picture of nuns inspecting their manors and visiting their
bishop[347]. Under this heading is also included a payment for ink and
parchment and for the fee of the clerk who wrote out the account.
(3) _Repairs_ were a very serious item in the balance sheet of every
monastic house, and in spite of the amount of money, which account rolls
show to have been spent upon them, visitation reports have much to say
about crumbling walls and leaking roofs. It was seldom that a year passed
without several visits from the plumbers, the slaters and the thatchers,
to the precincts of a nunnery; and once arrived they were not easy to
dislodge. If perchance the nunnery buildings themselves stood firm, then
the houses of the tenants would be falling about their ears; and once more
the distracted treasuress must summon workmen. Usually the nuns purchased
the materials used for repairs and hired the labour separately, and the
workers were sometimes fed in the nunnery kitchen; for it was customary at
this time to include board with the wages of many hired workmen.
The accounts of St Radegund's, Cambridge, in 1449-50 will serve as an
example of the expenditure under this heading[348]. It was a heavy year,
for the nuns were having two tenements built in "Nunneslane" adjoining
their house, and the accounts give an interesting picture of the building
of a little medieval house of clay and wattle, with stone foundations,
whitewashed walls and thatched roof. First of all Henry Denesson,
carpenter, a most important person, was hired to set up all the woodwork
at a wage of 23_s._ 4_d._ for the whole piece of work; he had an assistant
John Cokke, who was paid 14_d._ for ten days' work; Simon Maydewell was
kept hard at work sawing timber for his use for ten days at 14_d._ and
over a cart load and a half of "splentes" (small pieces of wood laid
horizontally in a stud wall) were purchased at a cost of 6_s._ 2_d._ Henry
and John spent ten days setting up the framework of the two cottages, but
they were not the only workers. The "gruncill" (or beam laid along the
ground for the rest to stand on) had to be laid firmly on a stone
foundation; the walls had to be filled between the beams with clay,
strengthened with a mixture of reeds and sedge and bound with hemp nailed
firmly to the beams. The account tells us all about these operations:
and in hemp with nails bought for binding the walls 16_d._, and in
stone bought from Thomas Janes of Hynton to support the gruncill 6_s._
8_d._, and in one measure of quicklime bought for the same work 3_s._,
and in six cartloads of clay bought of Richard Poket of Barnwell
18_d._, and in the hire of Geoffrey Sconyng and William Brann, to lay
the gruncill of the aforesaid tenements and to daub the walls thereof
(i.e. to make them of clay), for the whole work 17_s._ 3_d._ And in
reeds bought of John Bere, "reder," for the aforesaid tenements 2_s._
4_d._, and in "1000 de les segh" (sedge) for the same work 5_s._ And
in 22 bunches of wattles 22_d._, and in boards bought at the fair of
St John the Baptist to make the door and windows 2_s._ 10_d._, and in
1000 nails for the said work, together with 1000 more nails bought
afterwards 2_s._ 8-1/2_d._
Finally the houses had to be roofed with a thatch of straw and a fresh set
of workmen were called in:
and for the hire of John Scot, thatcher, hired to roof with straw the
two aforesaid tenements, for 12 days, taking 4_d._ a day, at the board
of the Lady (Prioress) 4_s._ And for the hire of Thomas Clerk for
8-1/2 days and of Nicholaus Burnefygge for 10 days, carrying straw and
serving the said thatcher 3_s._ 1_d._; and in the hire of Katherine
Rolf for the same work (women often acted as thatchers' assistants)
for 12 days at 1-1/2_d._ a day, 18_d._
And behold two very nice little cottages.
But let not the ignorant suppose that this completed the expenditure of
the nuns on building and repairs. Henry Denesson, the indispensable, soon
had to be hired again to set up some woodwork in a tenement in Precherch
Street, and to build a gable there. A kitchen had to be built next to
these tenements, and the business of hiring carpenters, daubers and
thatchers was repeated; John Scot and John Cokke once more scaled the
roofs. Then a house in Nun's Lane was burnt and sedge had to be bought to
thatch it. Then three labourers had to be hired for four days to mend the
roofs of the hall, kitchen and other parts of the nunnery itself, taking
5_d._ a day and their board. Then the roofs of the frater and the granary
began to leak and the same labourers had to be hired for four more days.
Then, just as the treasuress thought that she had got rid of the
ubiquitous Henry Denesson for good, back he had to be called with a
servant to help him, to set up the falling granary again. Then a lock had
to be made for the guests' kitchen and for three other rooms in the
nunnery; and when John Egate, tiler, and John Tommesson, tenants of the
nuns, got wind that locks were being made, they must needs have some for
their tenements. Then a defect in the church had to be repaired by John
Corry and a cover made for the font. There was more purchase of reeds and
sedge, boards and "300 nails (12_d._) and 100 nails (2_d._) bought at
Stourbridge Fair" for 14_d._ Last came the inevitable plumber:
And for a certain plumber hired to mend a gutter between the tenement
wherein Walter Ferror dwells and a tenement of the Prior of Barnwell,
with lead found by the said Prior, together with the mending of a
defect in the church of St Radegund 14_d._ And in the hire of the
aforesaid plumber to mend a lead pipe extending from the font to the
copper in the brewhouse, together with the solder of the said plumber
8_d._
In all the cost of repairs and buildings came to £8. 3_s._ 7_d._ out of a
total expenditure of £72. 6_s._ 4-3/4_d._
(4) _Expenses of the home farm._ The home farm was an essential feature of
manorial economy and particularly so when the lord of the manor was a
community. The nuns expected to draw the greater part of their food from
the farm; livestock, grain and dairy all had to be superintended. A
student of these account rolls may see unrolled before him all the
different operations of the year, the autumn ploughing and sowing, the
spring ploughing and sowing, the hay crop mown in June and the strenuous
labours of the harvest. He may, if he will, know how many sheep the
shepherd led to pasture and how many oxen the oxherd drove home in the
evening, for the inventory on the back of an account roll enumerates
minutely all the stock. There is something homely and familiar in lists
such as the tale of cattle owned by the nuns of Sheppey at the
Dissolution:
v contre oxen and iij western oxen fatt, ... xviij leane contre oxen
workers, xij leane contre sterys of ij or iij yere age, xxviij
yeryngs, xxxviii kene and heifors ... xxvi cattle of thys yere, an
horse, j olde baye, a dunne, a whyte and an amblelyng grey, vj
geldings and horse for the plow and harowe, with v mares, xliij hogges
of dyvers sorts, in wethers and lammys cccc{xxx}, ... and in beryng
ewes vij{c}, ... in twelvemonthyngs, ewes and wethers vi{c}xxxv ... in
lambys at this present daye v{c}lx[349].
How these lean country oxen, the "one old bay, a dun, a white and an
ambling grey," bring the quiet English landscape before the reader's eyes.
Time is as nothing; and the ploughman trudging over the brown furrows, the
slow, warm beasts, breathing heavily in the darkness of their byre, are
little changed from what they were five hundred years ago--save that our
beasts to-day are larger and fatter, thanks to turnips and Mr Bakewell.
Kingdoms rise and fall, but the seasons never alter, and the farm servant,
conning these old accounts, would find nothing in them but the life he
knew:
This is the year's round he must go
To make and then to win the seed:
In winter to sow and in March to hoe
Michaelmas plowing, Epiphany sheep;
Come June there is the grass to mow,
At Lammas all the vill must reap.
From dawn till dusk, from Easter till Lent
Here are the laws that he must keep:
Out and home goes he, back-bent,
Heavy, patient, slow as of old
Father, granfer, ancestor went
O'er Sussex weald and Yorkshire wold.
O what see you from your gray hill?
The sun is low, the air all gold,
Warm lies the slumbrous land and still.
I see the river with deep and shallow,
I see the ford, I hear the mill;
I see the cattle upon the fallow;
And there the manor half in trees,
And there the church and the acre hallow
Where lie your dead in their feretories....
I see the yews and the thatch between
The smoke that tells of cottage and hearth,
And all as it has ever been
From the beginning of this old earth[350].
The farm labourer to-day would well understand all these items of
expenditure, which the monastic treasuress laboriously enters in her
account. He would understand that heavy section headed "Repair of Carts
and Ploughs." He would understand the purchases of grain for seed, or for
the food of livestock, of a cow here, a couple of oxen there, of whip-cord
and horse-collars, traces and sack-cloth and bran for a sick horse. Farm
expenses are always the same. The items which throw light on sheep-farming
are very interesting, in view of the good income which monastic houses in
pastoral districts made by the sale of their wool. The Prioress of
Catesby's account for 1414-5 notes:
In expences about washing and shearing of sheep v s vj d. In ale
bought for caudles ij s. In pitchers viij d. In ale about the carriage
of peas to the sheepcote iv d ob. In a tressel bought for new milk
viij d. In nails for a door there iv d ob. In thatching the sheepcote
viij d. In amending walls about the sheepcote ix d;
and in her inventory of stock she accounts for
118 sheep received of stock, whereof there was delivered to the
kitchen after shearing by tally 14, in murrain before shearing 12, and
there remains 101; and for 5 wethers of stock and 2 purchased, whereof
in murrain before shearing 3, and there remains 4; and for 144 lambs
of issues of all ewes, whereof in murrain 23; and there remains
121[351].
The nuns of Gracedieu in the same spring had a flock of 103 ewes and 52
lambs; and there is mention in their accounts of the sale of 30 stone of
wool to a neighbour[351]; and the nuns of Sheppey, as the inventory quoted
above bears witness, had a very large flock indeed.
Some of the most interesting entries in the accounts are the payments for
extra labour at busy seasons, to weed corn, make hay, shear sheep, thresh
and winnow. The busiest season of all, the climax of the farmer's year,
was harvest time; and most monastic accounts give it a separate heading.
The nuns of St Michael's, Stamford, year after year record the date "when
we began to reap" and the payments to reapers and cockers for the first
four or five weeks and to carters for the fortnight afterwards. Extra
workers, both men and women, came in from among the cottagers of the manor
and of neighbouring manors; in some parts of the country migrant
harvesters came, as they do to-day, from distant uplands to help on the
farms of the rich cornland. To oversee them a special reap-reeve was hired
at a higher rate (the nuns of St Michael's paid him 13_s._ 8_d._ in 1378);
gloves were given to the reapers to protect them from thistles[352];
special tithers were hired to set aside the sheaves due to the convent as
tithes (the convent paid "to one tither of Wothorpe," an appropriated
church, "10_s._, and to two of our tithers 13_s._ 4_d._"). The honest
Tusser sets out the usage in jingling rhyme:
Grant haruest lord more by a penie or twoo
to call on his fellowes the better to doo:
Giue gloues to thy reapers, a larges to crie,
and dailie to loiterers haue a good eie.
Reape wel, scatter not, gather cleane that is shorne,
binde faste, shock apace, haue an eie to thy corne.
Lode safe, carrie home, follow time being faire,
goue iust in the barne, it is out of despaire.
Tithe dulie and trulie, with hartie good will
that God and his blessing may dwell with thee still:
Though Parson neglecteth his dutie for this,
thank thou thy Lord God, and giue erie man his[353].
Usually the workers got their board during harvest and very well they
fared. The careful treasuresses of St Michael's get in beef and mutton and
fish for them, to say nothing of eggs and bread and oatmeal and foaming
jugs of beer. Porringers and platters have to be laid in for them to feed
from; and since they work until the sun goes down, candles must be bought
to light the board in the summer dusk. At the end of all, when the last
sheaf was carried to the barn and the last gleaner had left the fields,
the nuns entertained their harvesters to a mighty feast.
It was a time for hard work and for good fellowship. Says Tusser:
In haruest time, haruest folke, seruants and all,
should make all togither good cheere in the hall:
And fill out the black boule of bleith to their song,
and let them be merie all haruest time long.
Once ended thy haruest let none be begilde,
please such as did helpe thee, man, woman and childe.
Thus dooing, with alway such helpe as they can,
those winnest the praise of the labouring man[354].
The final feast was associated with the custom of giving a goose to all
who had not overturned a load in carrying during harvest, and the nuns of
St Michael's always enter it in their accounts as "the expenses of the
sickle goose" or harvest goose.
For all this good feasting, yet art thou not loose
till ploughman thou giuest his haruest home goose.
Though goose go in stubble, I passe not for that,
let goose haue a goose, be she leane, be she fat[355].
An echo of old English gaiety sounds very pleasantly through these harvest
expenses.
(5) _The wages sheet._ The last set of expenses which the monastic
housewife entered upon her roll was the wages sheet of the household, the
payments for the year, or for a shorter period, of all her male and female
dependents, together with the cost of their livery and of their allowance
of "mixture," when the convent gave them these. We saw in the last chapter
that the nuns were the centre of a small community of farm and household
servants, ranging from the reverend chaplains and dignified bailiff
through all grades of standing and usefulness, down to the smallest
kitchen-maid and the gardener's boy.
Such is the tale of the account rolls. It may be objected by some that
this talk of tenement-building, and livestock, ploughshares and
harvest-home has little to do with monastic life, since it is but the
common routine of every manor. But this is the very reason for describing
it. The nunneries of England were firmly founded on the soil and the nuns
were housewives and ladies of the manor, as were their sisters in the
world. This homely business was half their lives; they knew the kine in
the byre and the corn in the granary, as well as the service-books upon
their stalls. The sound of their singing went up to heaven mingled with
the shout of the ploughmen in the field and the clatter of churns in the
dairy. When a prioress' negligence lets the sheepfold fall into disrepair,
so that the young lambs die of the damp, it is made a charge against her
to the bishop, together with more spiritual crimes. The routine of the
farm goes on side by side with the routine of the chapel. These account
rolls give us the material basis for the complicated structure of monastic
life. This is how nuns won their livelihood; this is how they spent it.
CHAPTER IV
MONASTIC HOUSEWIVES
Some respit to husbands the weather may send,
But huswiues affaires haue neuer an end.
TUSSER, _Fiue Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie_ (1573).
Every monastic house may be considered from two points of view, as a
religious and as a social unit. From the religious point of view it is a
house of prayer, its centre is the church, its _raison d'être_ the daily
round of offices. From the social point of view it is a community of human
beings, who require to be fed and clothed; it is often a landowner on a
large scale; it maintains a more or less elaborate household of servants
and dependents; it runs a home farm; it buys and sells and keeps accounts.
The nun must perforce combine the functions of Martha and of Mary; she is
no less a housewife than is the lady of the manor, her neighbour. The
monastic routine of bed and board did not work without much careful
organisation; and it is worth while to study the method by which this
organisation was carried out.
The daily business of a monastery was in the hands of a number of
officials, chosen from among the older and more experienced of the inmates
and known as _obedientiaries_. These obedientiaries, as Mr C. T. Flower
has pointed out in a useful article[356], fall into two classes: (1)
executive officials, charged with the general government of a house, such
as the abbess, prioress, subprioress and treasuress, and (2) nuns charged
with particular functions, such as the chantress, sacrist, fratress,
infirmaress, mistress of the novices, chambress and cellaress. The number
of obedientiaries differed with the size of the house. In large houses the
work had naturally to be divided among a large number of officials and
those whose offices were heaviest had assistants to help them. A list of
the twenty-six nuns of Romsey in 1502, for instance, distinguishes besides
the abbess, a prioress, subprioress, four chantresses, an almoness,
cellaress, sacrist and four subsacrists, kitcheness, fratress, infirmaress
and mistress of the school of novices[357]. But in a small house there was
less need of differentiation, and though complaint is sometimes made of
the doubling of offices (perhaps from jealousy or a desire to participate
in the doubtful sweets of office), one nun must often have performed many
functions. It is common, for instance, to find the head of the house
acting as treasuress, a practice which undoubtedly had its dangers.
The following were the most important obedientiaries, whose duties are
distinguished in the larger convents. (1) The _Treasuress_, or more often
two treasuresses. Her duty was to receive all the money paid, from
whatever source, to the house and to superintend disbursements; she had
the general management of business and held the same position as a college
bursar to-day. (2) The _Chantress_ or _Precentrix_ had the management of
the church services, trained the novices in singing and usually looked
after the library. (3) The _Sacrist_ had the care of the church fabric,
with the plate, vestments and altar cloths and of the lighting of the
whole house, for which she had to buy the wax and tallow and wicks and
hire the candle-makers. (4) The _Fratress_ had charge of the frater or
refectory, kept the chairs and tables in repair, purchased the cloths and
dishes, superintended the laying of meals and kept the lavatory clean. (5)
The _Almoness_ had charge of the almsgiving. (6) The _Chambress_ ordained
everything to do with the wardrobe of the nuns; the _Additions to the
Rules of Syon_ thus describe her work:
The Chaumbress schal haue al the clothes in her warde, that perteyne
to the bodyly araymente of sustres and brethern, nyghte and day, in
ther celles and fermery, as wel of lynnen as of wollen; schapynge,
sewynge, makyng, repayryng and kepyng them from wormes, schakyng them
by the help of certayne sustres depute to her, that they be not
deuoured and consumed of moughtes. So that sche schal puruey for
canuas for bedyng, fryses, blankettes, schetes, bolsters, pelowes,
couerlites, cuschens, basens, stamens, rewle cotes, cowles, mantelles,
wymples, veyles, crounes, pynnes, cappes, nyght kerchyfes, pylches,
mantel furres, cuffes, gloues, hoses, schoes, botes, soles, sokkes,
mugdors, gyrdelles, purses, knyues, laces, poyntes, nedelles, threde,
wasching bolles and sope and for al suche other necessaryes after the
disposicion of the abbes, whiche in no wyse schal be ouer curyous, but
playne and homly, witheoute weuynge of any straunge colours of sylke,
golde, or syluer, hauynge al thynge of honeste and profyte, and
nothyng of vanyte, after the rewle; ther knyues unpoynted and purses
beyng double of lynnen clothe and not of sylke[358].
(7) The _Cellaress_ looked after the food of the house and the domestic
servants, and usually superintended the management of the home farm. It
was her business to lay in all stores, obtaining some from the home farm
and some by purchase in the village market, or at periodical fairs. She
had to order the meals, to engage and dismiss servants and to see to all
repairs. As one writer very well says, her "manifold duties appear to have
been a combination of those belonging to the offices of steward, butler
and farmer's wife"[359]. The _Rules_ of Syon again deserves quotation:
The Celeres schal puruey for mete and drynke for seke and hole, and
for mete and drynke, clothe and wages, for seruantes of householde
outwarde, and sche shall haue all the vessel and stuffe of housholde
under her kepynge and rewle, kepynge it klene, hole and honeste. So
that whan sche receyueth newe, sche moste restore the olde to the
abbes. Ordenyng for alle necessaryes longynge to al houses of offices
concernyng the bodyly fode of man, in the bakhows, brewhows, kychen,
buttry, pantry, celer, freytour, fermery, parlour and suche other,
bothe outewarde and inwarde, for straungers and dwellers, attendyng
diligently that the napery and al other thynge in her office be
honest, profitable and plesaunte to al, after her power, as sche is
commaunded by her souereyne[360].
A very detailed set of instructions how to cater for a large abbey is to
be found in a Barking document called the _Charthe longynge to the office
of the Celeresse of the Monasterye of Barkinge_[361]. (8) The _Kitcheness_
superintended the kitchen, under the direction of the cellaress. (9) The
_Infirmaress_ had charge of the sick in the infirmary; the author of the
_Additions to the Rules_ of Syon, a person of all too vivid imagination,
charges her often to
chaunge ther beddes and clothes, geue them medycynes, ley to ther
plastres and mynyster to them mete and drynke, fyre and water and al
other necessaryes, nyghte and day, as nede requyrethe, after counsel
of the phisicians, ... not squames to wasche them, and wype them, nor
auoyde them, not angry nor hasty, or unpacient thof one haue the
vomet, another the fluxe, another the frensy, which nowe syngethe, now
wel apayde, ffor ther be some sekenesses vexynge the seke so gretly
and prouokynge them to ire, that the mater drawen up to the brayne
alyenthe the mendes[362].
(10) The _Mistress of the Novices_ acted as schoolmistress to the novices,
teaching them all that they had to learn and superintending their general
behaviour.
Certain of these obedientiaries, more especially the cellaress, chambress
and sacrist, had the control and expenditure of part of the convent's
income, because their departments involved a certain number of purchases;
indeed while the treasuress acted as bursar, the housekeeping of the
convent was in the hands of the cellaress and chambress. Every well
organised nunnery therefore divided up its revenues, allocating so much to
the church, so much to clothing, so much to food, etc. Rules for the
disposition of the income of a house were sometimes drawn up by a more
than usually thrifty treasuress for the guidance of her successors, and
kept in the register or chartulary of the nunnery. The Register of
Crabhouse Priory contains one such document written (in the oddest French
of Stratford-atte-Bowe) during the second half of the fourteenth century:
"The wise men of religion who have possessions," says this careful
dame, "consider according to the amount of their goods how much they
can spend each year and according to the sum of their income they
ordain to divers necessities their portions in due measure. And in
order that when the time comes the convent should not fail to have
what is necessary according to the sum of our goods, we have ordained
their portions to divers necessary things. To wit, for bread and beer,
all the produce of our lands and tenements in Tilney and all the
produce of our half church of St Peter in Wiggenhall, and, if it be
necessary, all the produce of our land in Gyldenegore. For meat and
fish and for herrings and for _feri_ and _asser_[363] and for cloves
is set aside all the produce of our houses and rents in Lynn and in
North Lynn and in Gaywood. For clothing and shoes all the produce of
our meadow in Setchy, ... and the remnant of the land in Setchy and in
West Winch is ordained for the purchase of salt. For the prioress'
chamber, for tablecloths and towels and _tabites_[364] in linen and
saye, and for other things which are needed for guests and for the
household, is set aside all the produce of our land and tenements in
Thorpland and in Wallington. For the repair of our houses and of our
church in Crabhouse and for sea dykes and marsh dykes and for the
wages of our household and for other petty expenses is ordained all
the produce of our lands, tenements and rents in Wiggenhall, with the
exception of the pasture for our beasts and of our fuel. Similarly the
breeding of stock, and all the profits which may be drawn from our
beasts in Tilney, in Wiggenhall and in Thorpland, and in all other
places (saving the stock for our larder, and draught-beasts for carts
and ploughs and saving four-and-twenty cows and a bull) are assigned
and ordained for the repair of new houses and new dykes, to the common
profit of the house[365]."
This practice of earmarking certain sources of income may be illustrated
from almost any monastic chartulary, for it was common for benefactors to
earmark donations of land and rent to certain special purposes, more
especially for the clothing of the nuns, for the support of the infirmary,
or for a special pittance from the kitchen[366]. Similarly bishops
appropriating churches to monastic houses sometimes set aside the proceeds
for special purposes[367]. The result of the practice was that the
obedientiaries of certain departments, more especially the cellaress,
chambress and sacrist, had to keep careful accounts of their receipts and
expenditure, which were submitted annually to the treasuress, when she was
making up her big account. Very few separate obedientiaries' accounts
survive for nunneries, partly because the majority were small and the
treasuress not infrequently acted as cellaress and did the general
catering herself. Cellaresses' accounts, however, survive for Syon and
Barking, chambresses' accounts for Syon and St Michael's Stamford (the
latter merely recording the payment to the nuns of their allowances) and
sacrists' accounts for Syon and Elstow[368]. In one column these accounts
set out the sources from which the office derives its income. This might
come to the obedientiary in one of two ways, either directly from the
churches, manors or rents appropriated to her, or by the hands of the
treasuress, who received and paid her the rents due to her office, or if
no revenues were appropriated to it, allocated her a lump sum out of the
general revenues of the house. Thus at Syon the cellaress drew her income
from the sale of hides, oxhides and fleeces (from slaughtered animals and
sheep at the farm), the sale of wood, and the profits of a dairy farm at
Isleworth, while the chambress simply answered for a sum of £10 paid to
her by the treasuresses. In another column the obedientiary would enter
her expenditure. This might take two forms. According to the Benedictine
rule and to the rule of the newly founded and strict Brigittine house of
Syon, all clothes and food were provided for the nuns by the chambress and
cellaress; and accordingly their accounts contain a complete picture of
the communal housekeeping. In the later middle ages, however, it became
the almost universal custom to pay the nuns a money allowance instead of
clothing, a practice which deprived the office of chambress of nearly all
its duties and possibly accounts for the rarity of chambresses' account
rolls. The Syon chambress' account is an example of the first or regular
method; the St Michael's, Stamford, account of the second. More rarely the
nuns received money allowances for a portion of their food. The growth of
this custom of paying money allowances will be described in a later
chapter[369]; here it will suffice to consider the housekeeping of a
nunnery in which that business was entirely in the hands of the chambress
and cellaress.
The accounts throw an interesting light on the provision of clothes for a
convent and its servants. An account of Dame Bridget Belgrave, chambress
of Syon (who had to look after the brothers as well as the sisters of the
house) has survived for the year 1536-7. It shows her buying "russettes,"
"white clothe," "kerseys," "gryce," "Holand cloth and other lynen cloth,"
paying for the spinning of hemp and flax, for the weaving of cloth, for
the dressing of calves' skins and currying of leather, and for 3000
"pynnes of dyuerse sortes." She pays wages to "the yoman of the
warderobe," "the grome," the skinner and the shoemakers and she tips the
"sealer" of leather in the market place[370]. Treasuresses' accounts also
often give interesting information about the purchase and making up of
various kinds of material. At St Radegund's, Cambridge, the nuns were in
receipt of an annual dress allowance, but the house made many purchases of
stuff for the livery of its household and in 1449-50 the account records
payments
to a certain woman hired to spin 21 lbs. of wool, 22_d._; and to Alice
Pavyer hired for the same work, containing in the gross 36 lbs. of
woollen thread 6_s._; and paid to Roger Rede of Hinton for warping
certain woollen thread 1-1/2_d._; and to the same hired to weave 77
ells of woollen cloth for the livery of the servants 3_s._ 5_d._; and
paid to the wife of John Howdelowe for fulling the said cloth 3_s._
6_d._; and paid to a certain shearman for shearing (i.e. finishing the
surface of) the said cloth 14-1/2_d._
The next year the nuns make similar payments for cleaning, spinning,
weaving, warping, fulling and shearing wool (an interesting illustration
of the subdivision of the cloth industry) and disburse 9_s._ 9_d._ to
William Judde of St Ives for dyeing and making up this cloth into green
and blue liveries for the servants of the house[371].
The cellaresses' accounts, which show us how the nun-housekeeper catered
for the community, are even more interesting than the chambresses'
accounts. The convent food was derived from two main sources, from the
home farm and from purchase. The home farm was usually under the
management of the cellaress and provided the house with the greater part
of its meat, bread, beer and vegetables, and with a certain amount of
dairy produce (butter, cheese, eggs, chickens). Anything which the farm
could not produce had to be bought, and in particular three important
articles of consumption, to wit the salt and dried fish eaten during the
winter and in Lent, the salt for the great annual meat-salting on St
Martin's day, and the spices and similar condiments used so freely in
medieval cooking and eaten by convents more especially in Lent, to relieve
the monotony of their fasting fare. The nuns of St Radegund's, Cambridge,
used to get most of their salt fish at Lynn, whence it was brought up by
river to Cambridge. From the accounts of 1449-51 it appears that the
senior ladies made the occasion one for a pleasant excursion. There is a
jovial entry in 1450-1 concerning the carriage by water from Lynn to
Cambridge of one barrel[372] and a half of white herrings, two cades[373]
of red herrings, two cades of smelts, one quarter of stockfish and one
piece of timber called "a Maste" out of which a ladder was to be made
(2_s._ 4_d._), together with the fares and food of Dame Joan Lancaster,
Dame Margaret Metham, Thomas Key (the bailiff) and Elene Herward of Lynn
to Cambridge (2_s._ 8_d._). Another entry displays to us Dame Joan
Lancaster bargaining for the smelts and the stockfish at Lynn. Fish was
usually bought from one John Ball of Lynn, who seems to have been a
general merchant of considerable custom, for the nuns also purchased from
him all the linen which they needed for towels and tablecloths, and some
trenchers. Occasionally, also, however, they purchased some of their fish
at one or other of the fairs held in the district; in 1449-50 they thus
bought 8 warp[374] of ling and 6 warp of cod from one John Antyll at Ely
fair and 14 warp of ling from the same man at Stourbridge fair, an
interesting illustration of how tradesmen travelled from fair to fair. At
St John Baptist's fair in the same year they bought a horse for 9_s._
6_d._, 2 qrs. 5 bushels of salt, some timber boards and three "pitcheforke
staves." In the following year they bought timber, pewter pots, a churn,
10 lbs. of soap and 3 lbs. of pepper at the famous fair of Stourbridge,
and salt and timber at the fair of St John Baptist. In 1481-2 they bought
salt fish, salt, iron nails, paper, parchment and "other necessities" at
the fairs of Stourbridge and of St Etheldreda the Virgin[375].
The fish-stores illustrate a side of medieval housekeeping, which is
unfamiliar to-day. Fresh fish was eaten on fish-days whenever it could be
got. Most monastic houses had fishing rights attached to their demesnes,
or kept their own fish-pond or stew. The nuns of St Radegund's had fishing
rights in a certain part of the Cam known as late as 1505 as
"Nunneslake"[376]. But a great deal of dried and salted fish was also
eaten. In their storehouse the nuns always kept a supply of the dried cod
known as stockfish for their guest-house and for the frater during the
winter. It was kept in layers on canvas and was so dry that it had to be
beaten before it could be used; it is supposed to have derived its name
from the _stock_ on which it was beaten, or, as Erasmus preferred to say,
"because it nourisheth no more than a dried stock"[377]. For Lent the
chief articles of food were herrings and salt salmon, but the list of
_salt store_ purchased by the cellaress of Syon in 1536-7 shows a great
variety of fish, to wit 200 dry lings, 700 dry haberden (salted cod), 100
"Iceland fish," 1 barrel of salt salmon, 1 barrel of [white] herring, 1
cade of red herring and 420 lbs. of "stub" eels[378]. The chief food
during Lent, besides bread and salt fish, was dried peas, which could be
boiled or made into pottage. Thus Skelton complains of the monks of his
day:
Saltfysshe, stocfysshe, nor heryng,
It is not for your werynge;
Nor in holy Lenton season
Ye wyll nethyr benes ne peason[379].
In Lent also were eaten dried fruits, in particular almonds and raisins
and figs, the latter being sometimes made into little pies called
_risschewes_[380]. The nuns of Syon purchased olive oil and honey with
their other Lenten stores. The list of condiments which they bought during
the year, for ordinary cooking purposes, or for consumption as a relief to
their palates in Lent, or as a pittance on high days and holidays,
includes, in 1536-7, sugar (749-3/4 lb.), nutmegs (18 lb.), almonds (500
lb.), currants (4 lb.), ginger (6 lb.), isinglass (100 lb.), pepper (6
lb.), cinnamon (1 lb.), cloves (1 lb.), mace (1 lb.), saffron (2 lb.),
rice (3 qrs.), together with figs, raisins and prunes[381]. Surely the
poor clown, whom Autolycus relieved so easily of his purse, was sent to
stock a convent storehouse, not to furnish forth a sheep-shearing feast
and the sister who sent him was a sister in Christ:
Let me see, what am I to buy...? Three pound of sugar; five pound of
currants; rice,--what will this sister of mine do with rice?... I must
have saffron, to colour the warden pies; mace, dates,--none; that's
out of my note; nutmegs seven; a race or two of ginger,--but that I
may beg;--four pound of prunes and as many of raisins of the sun[382].
Lent fare was naturally not very pleasant, for all the mitigations of
almonds and figs. At other times of the year the convent ate on fish-days
fresh fish, when they could get it, otherwise dried or salt fish, and on
meat-days either beef or some form of pig's flesh, eaten fresh as pork,
cured and salted as bacon, or pickled as _sowce_[383]. Mutton was also
eaten, though much more seldom, for the sheep in the middle ages was
valued for its wool, rather than for its meat, and was indeed a scraggy
little animal, until the discovery of winter crops and the experiments of
Bakewell revolutionised stock-breeding and the English food-supply in the
eighteenth century. The nuns also had fowls on festive occasions, eggs,
cheese and butter from the dairy and vegetables from the garden. The
staple allowance of bread and beer made on the premises was always
provided by the convent, even when the nuns had a money allowance to cater
for themselves in other articles of food[384]. Some idea of the menu of an
average house is given in the Syon rule:
For the sustres and brethren sche [the cellaress] shal euery day for
the more parte ordeyne for two maner of potages, or els at leste for
one gode and that is best of alle. If ther be two, that one be sewe
[broth] of flesche and fische, after [according to what] the day is;
and that other of wortes or herbes, or of any other thing that groweth
in the yerthe, holsom to the body, as whete, ryse, otemele, peson and
suche other. Also sche schal ordeyne for two sundry metes, of flesche
and of fysche, one fresche, another powdred [salted], boyled, or
rosted, or other wyse dyghte, after her discrecion, and after the day,
tyme and nede requyreth, as the market and purse wylle stretche. And
thys schal stonde for the prebende, which is a pounde of brede, welle
weyed, with a potel of ale and a messe of mete.... On fysche dayes
sche schal ordeyn for whyte metes, yf any may be hadde after the
rewle, be syde fysche metes, as it is before seyd. Also, ones a wyke
at the leste, sche schal ordeyn that the sustres and brethren be
serued withe newe brede, namely on water dayes, but neuer withe newe
ale, nor palled or ouer sowre, as moche as sche may. For supper sche
schal ordeyn for some lytel sowpyng, and for fysche and whyte mete, or
for any other thynge suffred by the rewle, lyghte of dygestyon
equyualente, and as gode to the bodyly helthe.... On water dayes sche
schal ordeyne for bonnes or newe brede, water grewel, albreys and for
two maner of froytes at leste yf it may be, that is to say, apples,
peres or nuttes, plummes, chiryes, benes, peson, or any suche other,
and thys in competent mesure, rosten or sothen, or other wyse dyghte
to the bodyly helthe, and sche must se that the water be sothen with
browne brede in maner of a tysan, or withe barley brede, for coldenes
and feblenes of nature, more thys dayes, than in dayes passed
regnynge[385].
On certain special days the nuns received a pittance, or extra allowance
of food, sometimes taking the shape of some special delicacy consecrated
to the day. On Shrove Tuesday they often had the traditional pancakes, or
fritters, called _crisps_ at Barking[386] and _flawnes_ at St Michael's,
Stamford[387]. Maundy Thursday, otherwise called Shere Thursday (the
Thursday before Easter) was the great almsgiving day of the year. On this
day the kings and queens of England, as well as the greatest dignitaries
of the church and of the nobility, were accustomed to give gowns, food and
money to the poor, who clustered round their gates in expectance of the
event, and ceremonially to wash the feet of a certain number of poor men
and women, to commemorate Christ's washing of His disciples' feet.
Benefactors who left land to monastic houses for purposes of almsgiving
often specified Maundy Thursday as the day on which the alms were to be
distributed. It was customary also for monks and nuns to receive a
pittance on this day; and welcome it must have been after the long Lenten
fast. The nuns of Barking had baked eels, with rice and almonds and wine.
The nuns of St Mary de Pré (St Albans) had "Maundy ale" and "Maundy money"
given to them. The nuns of St Michael's, Stamford, had beer and wafers and
spices[388]. There was always a feast on Christmas day and on most of the
great feasts of the church and the various feasts connected with the
Virgin. There was a pittance on the dedication day of the convent and
sometimes on other saints' days. There were also pittances on the
anniversaries of benefactors who had left money for this purpose to the
convent, and sometimes also on profession-days, which were "the official
birthdays of the nuns"[389]. In the monotonous round of convent life these
little festivities formed a pleasant change and were looked forward to
with ardour; in some of the larger houses a special obedientiary known as
the _Pittancer_ had charge over them.
Food is one of the housekeeper's cares; servants are another; and between
them they must have wrinkled many a cellaress' brow, though the servant
problem at least was a less complicated one in the middle ages than it is
to-day. The persons to whom regular yearly wages were paid by a convent
fall into four classes: (1) the chaplains, (2) the administrative
officials, steward, rent-collectors, bailiff, (3) the household staff and
(4) the hinds and farm-servants.
(1) _The chaplains._ The account rolls of a nunnery of average size
usually contain payments to more than one priest. The nuns had to pay the
stipend of their own chaplain or mass-priest, of any chaplains or vicars
whom they were bound to provide for appropriated churches, and sometimes
of a confessor. The number of chaplains naturally varied with the size of
the house and with the number of appropriated churches. Great houses such
as Barking, Shaftesbury and Wilton had a body of resident chaplains
attached to the nunnery church and paid the stipends of priests
ministering to appropriated parishes. Poor and small nunneries, such as
Rusper, paid the fee of one resident chaplain. It is worthy of note that
certain important and old established abbeys in Wessex had canons'
prebends attached to their churches. At each of the abbey churches of
Shaftesbury, St Mary's Winchester, Wherwell and Wilton there were four
prebendary canons, at Romsey there were two (one of whom was known as
sacrist). Moreover at Malling in Kent there were two secular prebends,
known as the prebends of _magna missa maioris altaris_ and _alta missa_.
These prebends were doubtless originally intended for the maintenance of
resident chaplains, but as early as the thirteenth century the prebends
were almost invariably held by non-residents and pluralists as sinecures,
the reason being, as Mr Hamilton Thompson points out, "the rise in value
of individual endowments and the consequent readiness of the Crown, as
patron of the monasteries, to discover in them sources of income for
clerks in high office." Thus these great abbeys also followed the usual
custom of hiring chaplains to celebrate in their churches, though some of
the wealthier prebends were taxed with stipendiary payments towards the
cost of these[390].
[Illustration: PLATE III
PAGE FROM _LA SAINTE ABBAYE_
(In the top left hand corner is a nun at confession; in the other corners
are visions appearing to a nun at prayer.)]
The chaplain of a house usually resided on the premises, sometimes
receiving his board from the nuns; occasionally inventories mention his
lodgings, which were outside the nuns' cloister. Thus the Kilburn
Dissolution inventory, after describing all the household offices, goes on
to describe the three chambers for the chaplain and the hinds, the
"confessor's chamber" and the church[391]. At Sheppey the chamber over
the gatehouse was called "the confessor's chamber" and was furnished forth
with
a hangyng of rede clothe, a paynted square sparver of lynen, with iij
corteyns of lynyn clothe, a good fetherbed, a good bolster, a pece of
blanketts and a good counterpeynt of small verder, in the lowe bed a
fetherbed, a bolster, a pece of blanketts olde, and an image coverled,
a greate joynyd chayer of waynscot, an olde forme, and a cressar of
iron for the chymneye[392].
The relations between the nuns and their priest were doubtless very
friendly; he would be their guide, philosopher and friend, sometimes
acting as _custos_ of their temporal affairs and always ready with advice.
Madame Eglentyne, it will be remembered, took three priests with her upon
her eventful pilgrimage to Canterbury, and one was the
never-to-be-forgotten Sir John, whom she mounted worse than his inimitable
skill as a _raconteur_ deserved:
Than spak our host, with rude speche and bold
And seyde un-to the Nonnes Preest anon,
"Com neer, thou preest, com hider thou sir John,
Tel us swich thing as may our hertes glade,
Be blythe, though thou ryde up-on a jade.
What though thyn hors be bothe foule and lene,
If he wol serve thee, rekke not a bene;
Look that thyn herte be mery evermo."
"Yis, sir" quod he, "yis, host, so mote I go,
But I be mery, y-wis I wol be blamed":--
And right anon his tale he hath attamed,
And thus he seyde unto us everichon,
This swete preest, this goodly man, sir John[393].
Certainly the convent never went to sleep in a sermon which had the tale
of Chauntecleer and Pertelote for its _exemplum_.
Yet the nuns were not always happy in their priests. There is the case
(not, it must be admitted, without its humour) of Sir Henry, the chaplain
of Gracedieu in 1440-41. Sir Henry was an uncouth fellow, it seems, who
was more at home in the stable than at the altar. He went out haymaking
alone with the cellaress, and in the evening brought her back behind him,
riding on the same lean jade. Furthermore "Sir Henry the chaplain busies
himself with unseemly tasks, cleansing the stables, and goes to the altar
without washing, staining his vestments. He is without devotion and
irreverent at the altar and is of ill reputation at Loughborough and
elsewhere where he has dwelt." Poor Sir Henry,--
See, whiche braunes hath this gentil Preest,
So greet a nekke, and swich a large breest!
He loketh as a sperhauk with his yën;
Him nedeth nat his colour for to dyen
With brasil, ne with greyn of Portingale.
The bishop swore him to "behave himself devoutly and reverently
henceforward at the altar in making his bow after and before his
masses"[394].
(2) _The administrative officials._ These varied in number with the size
of the house and the extent of its possessions. The chief administrative
official was the _steward_, who is not, however, found at all houses.
Sometimes the office of steward was complimentary and the fee attached was
nominal. The _Valor Ecclesiasticus_ shows that great men did not disdain
the post; Andrew Lord Windsor was steward of the Minoresses without
Aldgate, of Burnham and of Ankerwyke[395]. Henry Lord Daubeney was steward
of Shaftesbury[396], George Earl of Shrewsbury of Wilton[397], Henry
Marquess of Dorset of Nuneaton[398], Sir Thomas Wyatt of Malling[399], Sir
W. Percy of Hampole, Handale and Thicket[400], Lord Darcy of Swine[401],
the Earl of Derby of St Mary's Chester[402], and Mr Thomas Cromwell
himself of Syon and Catesby[403]. Some houses, such as Wilton, had more
than one steward, and Syon maintained stewards as well as bailiffs in most
of the counties in which it had land. Some of these great men were
obviously not working officials; but many of the houses maintained
stewards at a good salary, who superintended their business affairs, kept
the courts of their manors, and were sometimes lodged on the
premises[404]. The larger houses also paid one or more receivers and
rent-collectors and sometimes an auditor, but in the average house the
most important administrative official was the bailiff.
While large landowners kept bailiffs at each of the different manors which
they held, most nunneries employed a single bailiff, an invaluable
factotum who performed a great variety of business for them, besides
collecting rents from their tenants and superintending the home farm.
Thomas Key, the bailiff of St Radegund's Cambridge, 1449-51, is an active
person; he receives a stipend of 13_s._ 4_d._ per annum and an occasional
gift from the nuns; he rides about collecting their rents in
Cambridgeshire; he accompanies them to Lynn on the annual journey to buy
the winter stock of salt fish, or sometimes goes alone; he can turn his
hand to mending rakes and ladders (for which he gets 8_d._ for four days'
work), or to making the barley mows at harvest time, taking 3_d._ a day
for his pains; and indeed he is regularly hired to work during harvest, at
a fee of 6_s._ 8_d._ and two bushels of malt[405]. Often the bailiff's
wife was also employed by the nuns; the nuns of Sheppey paid their
bailiff, his wife and his servant all substantial salaries[406]. Some
nunneries had a lodging set apart for him in the convent buildings,
outside the nuns' cloister[407].
Evidence often crops up from a variety of sources concerning the relations
between the nuns and this important official. That these might be very
pleasant can well be imagined. Sometimes a bailiff of substance and
standing will place his daughter in the nunnery which he serves[408];
sometimes when he dies he will remember it in his will[409]. But all
bailiffs were not good and faithful servants. Mr Hamilton Thompson
considers that male stewards and bailiffs were often "responsible for the
financial straits to which the nunneries of the fifteenth century were
reduced, and ... certainly did much to waste the goods of the monasteries,
generally in their own interests"[410]. Such a man was Chaucer's Reeve,
though he did not waste land, for the reason that one does not kill the
goose that lays the golden eggs:
His lordes sheep, his neet, his dayerye,
His swyn, his hors, his stoor and his pultrye,
Was hoolly in this reves governing,
And by his covenaunt yaf the rekening....
His woning was ful fair upon an heeth,
With grene treës shadwed was his place.
He coude bettre than his lord purchace.
Ful riche he was astored prively,
His lord wel coude he plesen subtilly,
To yeve and lene him of his owne good,
And have a thank, and yet a cote and hood[411].
Several records of law-suits are extant, in which prioresses are obliged
to sue their bailiffs in the court of King's Bench for an account of their
periods of service[412], and visitation documents sometimes give a sorry
picture of the convent bailiff. The bailiff of Godstow (1432) went about
saying that there was no good woman in the nunnery[413]; the bailiff of
Legbourne (1440) persuaded the prioress to sell him a corrody in the house
and yet he "is not reckoned profitable to the house in that office, for
several of his kinsfolk are serving folk in the house, who look out for
themselves more than for the house"[414]; the bailiff of Redlingfield
(1427) was the prioress's lover[415].
Romsey Abbey seems at various times to have been peculiarly unfortunate in
its administrative officials. In 1284 Archbishop Peckham had to write to
the abbess Agnes Walerand and bid her remove two stewards, whom she had
appointed in defiance of the wishes of the convent and who were to give an
account of their offices to his official[416]. At the close of the
fifteenth century, when the abbey was in a very disorderly state under
Elizabeth Broke, there was serious trouble again. In 1492 this Abbess was
found to have fallen under the influence of one Terbock, whom she had made
steward. She herself confessed that she owed him the huge sum of 80_l._
and the nuns declared that in part payment of it she had persuaded them to
make over to him for three years a manor valued at 40_l._ and had given
him a cross and many other things. His friends haunted her house,
especially one John Write, who begged money from her for Terbock. The nuns
suspected him of dishonesty, asked that the rolls of account for the years
of his stewardship might be seen and declared that the house was brought
to ill-fame by him[417]. In 1501 Elizabeth Broke had fallen under the
influence of another man, this time a priest called Master Bryce, but she
died the next year. Her successor Joyce Rowse was equally unsatisfactory
and equally unable to control her servants. Bishop Foxe's vicar-general in
1507 enjoined that a nun should be sought out and corrected for having
frequent access, suspiciously and beyond the proper time, to the house of
the bailiff of the monastery, and others who went with her were to be
warned and corrected too; moreover he summoned before him Thomas Langton,
Christopher George and Thomas Leycrofte, bailiffs, and Nicholas Newman,
_villicum agricultorem_, and admonished them to behave better in their
offices on pain of removal[418].
(3) The _household staff_ naturally varied in size with the size of the
nunnery. The Rule of St Benedict contemplated the performance of a great
deal if not all of the necessary domestic and agricultural work of a
community by the monks themselves. But this tradition had been largely
discarded by the thirteenth century, and if the nuns of a small convent
are found doing their own cooking and housework, it is by reason of their
poverty and they not infrequently complain at the necessity. They were of
gentle birth and ill accustomed to menial tasks. The weekly service in the
kitchen would seem to have disappeared completely. The larger houses
employed a male cook, sometimes assisted by a page, or by his wife, and
supervised by the cellaress, or by the kitcheness, where this obedientiary
was appointed. There were also a maltster, to make malt, and a brewer and
baker, to prepare the weekly ration of bread and ale; sometimes these
offices were performed by men, sometimes by women. There was a _deye_ or
dairy-woman, who milked the cows, looked after the poultry, and made the
cheeses. There was sometimes a _lavender_ or laundress, and there were one
or more women servants, to help with the housework and the brewing. The
gate was kept by a male porter; and there was sometimes also a gardener.
In large houses there would be more than one servant for each of these
offices; in small houses the few servants were men or maids of all work
and extra assistance was hired when necessary for making malt or washing
clothes. In large houses it was not uncommon for each of the chief
obedientiaries to have her own servant attached to her _checker_ (office)
and household, who prepared the meals for her mistress and for those nuns
who formed her _familia_ and messed with her. The head of the house nearly
always had her private servant when its resources permitted her to do so,
and sometimes when they did not.
(4) _The farm labourers._ Finally every house which had attached to it a
home farm had to pay a staff of farm labourers. These hinds, whose work
was superintended by the bailiff and cellaress, always included one or two
ploughmen, a cowherd and oxherd, a shepherd, probably a carter or two and
some general labourers. Again the number varied very considerably
according to the size of the house and was commonly augmented by hiring
extra labour at busy seasons. The farm was cultivated partly by the work
of these hired servants, partly by the services owed by the villeins.
The nuns, with their domestic and farm servants, were the centre of a busy
and sometimes large community, and a very good idea of their social
function as employers may be gained from the lists of wage-earning
servants to be found in account rolls or in Dissolution inventories. We
may take in illustration the large and famous abbey of St Mary's,
Winchester, and the little house of St Radegund's, Cambridge. St Mary's,
Winchester, had let out the whole of its demesne in 1537, and the
inventory drawn up by Henry VIII's commissioners therefore contains no
list of farm labourers. The household consisted of the Abbess and
twenty-six nuns, thirteen "poor sisters," twenty-six "chyldren of lordys
knyghttes and gentylmen browght vp yn the sayd monastery," three
corrodians and five chaplains, one of whom was confessor to the house, and
twenty-nine officers and servants. The Abbess had her own household,
consisting of a gentlewoman, a woman servant and a laundress, and the
prioress, subprioress, sacrist and another of the senior nuns each had her
private woman servant "yn her howse." There were also two laundresses for
the convent. The male officers and servants were Thomas Legh, _generall
Receyver_ (who also held a corrody and had two little relatives at school
in the convent), Thomas Tycheborne _clerke_ (who likewise had two little
girl relatives at school and a boy who will be mentioned), Lawrens Bakon,
_Curtyar_ (officer in charge of the secular buildings of the nunnery),
George Sponder, _Cater_ (caterer or manciple, who purchased the victuals
for the community), William Lime, _Botyler_, Rychard Bulbery, _Coke_, John
Clarke, _Vndercoke_, Richard Gefferey, _Baker_, May Wednall, _convent
Coke_, John Wener, _vndercovent Coke_, John Hatmaker, _Bruer_, Wylliam
Harrys, _Myller_, Wylliam Selwod, _porter_, Robert Clerke, _vnderporter_,
William Plattyng, _porter of Estgate_, John Corte and Hery Beale,
_Churchemen_, Peter Tycheborne, _Chyld of the hygh aulter_, Rychard
Harrold, _seruaunt to the receyver_ and John Serle, _seruaunt to the
Clerke_[419].
St Radegund's, Cambridge, in 1450 was a much smaller community, numbering
about a dozen nuns. In the treasurers' accounts the wage-earning household
is given as follows, together with the annual wages paid by the nuns. The
confessor of the house came from outside and was a certain friar named
Robert Palmer, who received 6_s._ 8_d._ a year for his pains; they also
paid a salary of 5_l._ a year to their mass-priest, John Herryson, 2_s._
4_d._ to John Peresson, the chaplain celebrating (but only _per vices_,
from time to time) at the appropriated church of St Andrew's, and 13_s._
4_d._ to the "clerk" of that church, a permanent official. Thomas Key, the
invaluable bailiff and rent-collector mentioned above, got the rather
small salary of 13_s._ 4_d._, but added to it by exactly half as much
again during harvest. Richard Wester, baker and brewer to the house,
received 26_s._ 8_d._, John Cokke, maltster (and probably also cook, as
his name suggests) received 13_s._ 4_d._ The women servants included one
of those domestic treasures, who effectively run the happy household which
possesses them, or which they possess: her name was Joan Grangyer and she
is described as dairy-woman and purveyor or housekeeper to the Prioress;
the nuns paid her 20_s._ in all, including 6_s._ 8_d._ for her livery and
2_s._ 4_d._ as a special fee for catering for the Prioress. Then there was
Elianore Richemond, who seems to have been an assistant dairy-maid, for in
the following year the nuns had replaced her by another woman, hired "for
all manner of work in milking cows, making cheese and butter," etc.; her
wages were 8_s._ 4_d._, including a "reward" or gift of 20_d._ The other
women servants were Elizabeth Charterys, who received 3_s._ 1_d._ for her
linen and woollen clothes and her shoes, but no further wages, and
Dionisia _yerdwomman_, who received 9_s._ and doubtless did the rough
work. This completed the domestic household of the nuns. Their hinds
included three ploughmen, John Everesdon (26_s._ 8_d._), Robert Page
(16_s._) and John Slibre (13_s._ 4_d._ and 2_s._ 6_d._ for livery); the
shepherd, John Wyllyamesson, who received 22_s._ 8_d._ and 8_d._ for a
pair of hose; the oxherd Robert Pykkell, who took 6_s._ 8_d._; and Richard
Porter, husbandman, who was hired to work from Trinity Sunday to
Michaelmas for 13_s._ 4_d._[420]
It will thus be seen that the size of a convent household might vary
considerably. The twenty-six nuns of St Mary's Winchester had gathered
round themselves a large household of nine women servants, five male
chaplains and twenty male officers and servants; but they boarded and
educated twenty-six children, gave three corrodies and supported thirteen
poor sisters (who may however have done some of the work of the house).
The twelve nuns of St Radegund's lived more economically, with three male
and four female servants and six hinds, besides the chaplains; but even
their household seems a sufficiently large one. The ten nuns of Whitney
Priory employed two priests, a waiting maid for the prioress, nine other
women servants and thirteen hinds[421]. It is notable that the maintenance
of a larger household than the revenues of the house could support is not
infrequently censured in injunctions as responsible for its financial
straits. At Nuncoton in 1440 the Prioress said that the house employed
more women servants than was necessary[422] and a century later Bishop
Longland spoke very sternly against the same fault:
that ye streight upon sight herof dymynishe the nombre of your
seruants, as well men as women, which excessyve nombre that ye kepe of
them bothe is oon of the grette causes of your miserable pouertye and
that ye are nott hable to mayntene your houshold nouther reparacons of
the same, by reason whereof all falleth to ruyne and extreme decaye.
And therefore to kepe noo moo thenne shalbe urged necessarye for your
said house[423].
On the other hand many nunneries could by no means be charged with keeping
up an excessive household. Rusper, which had leased all its demesnes, had
only two women servants in its employ at the Dissolution[424], and nuns
sometimes complained to their visitors that they were too poor to keep
servants and had to do the work of the house themselves, to the detriment
of their religious duties in the choir. At Ankerwyke one of the nuns
deposed that
they had not serving folk in the brewhouse, bakehouse or kitchen from
the last festival of the Nativity of St John the Baptist last year to
the Michaelmas next following, in so much that this deponent, with the
aid of other her sisters, prepared the beer and victuals and served
the nuns with them in her own person.
At Gracedieu there was no servant for the infirmary and the subcellaress
had to sleep there and look after the sick, so that she could not come to
matins. At Markyate and Harrold the nuns had no washerwoman; at the former
house it was said "that the nuns have no woman to wash their clothes and
to prepare their food, wherefore they are either obliged to be absent from
divine service or else to think the whole time about getting these things
ready"; at the latter a nun said "that they have no common washerwoman to
wash the clothes of the nuns, save four times a year, and at other times
the nuns are obliged to go to the bank of the public stream to wash their
clothes"[425]. It was probably on account of the poverty of Sinningthwaite
that Archbishop Lee ordered "the susters and the nonys there [that] they
kepe no seculer women to serve them or doe any busynes for them, but yf
sekenes or oder necessitie doe require"[426].
As to the relations between the servants and their mistresses both
visitation reports and account rolls sometimes give meagre scraps of
information, which only whet the appetite for more. The payment of the
servants was partly in money, partly in board or in allowances of food,
partly in livery; stock-inventories constantly make mention of allowances
of wheat, peas, oats or oatmeal and maslin (a mixture of wheat and rye)
paid to this or that servant, and account rolls as constantly mention a
livery, a pair of hose, a pair of shoes, or the money equivalent of these
things, as forming part of the wage. The more important agricultural
servants had also sometimes the right to graze a cow, or a certain number
of sheep on the convent's pastures. Some servants, however, received wages
without board, others wages without livery. Account rolls seem to bear
witness to pleasant relations; there is constant mention of small tips or
presents to the servants and of dinners made to them on great occasions.
This was Merry England, when the ploughman's feasts enlivened his hard
work and comfortless existence; he must have his Shrovetide pancakes, his
sheep-shearing feast, his "sickle goose" or harvest-home, and his
Christmas dinner; and the household servants must as often as may be have
a share in the convent pittance. The very general custom of allowing the
female servants to sleep in the dorter (against which bishops were
continually having to make injunctions) must have made for free and easy
and close relations between the nuns and the secular women who served
them; and sometimes one of these would save up and buy herself a corrody
in the house to end her days[427]. Occasionally these close relations led
to difficulties; a trusted maid would gain undue influence over the
prioress and the nuns would be jealous of her. Thus at Heynings in 1440 it
was complained that the prioress "encourages her secular serving women,
whom she believes more than her sisters in their words, to scold the same
her sisters"[428]. Sometimes also a servant would act as a go-between
between the nuns and the outside world, smuggling in and out tokens and
messages and sundry _billets doux_[429].
On the other hand there were sometimes difficulties of a different nature.
The servants got out of hand; they brought discredit on the nuns by the
indiscretions of their lives; they gossiped about their mistresses in the
neighbourhood, or were quarrelsome and pert to their faces. At Gracedieu
in 1440-41 a nun complained "that a Frenchwoman of very unseemly
conversation is their maltstress, also that the secular serving folk hold
the nuns in despite; she prays that they may be restrained; and chiefly
are they rebellious in their words against the kitchener"[430]; evidently
the author of the _Ancren Riwle_ spake not utterly from his imagination
when he bade his ladies "be glad in your heart if ye suffer insolence from
Slurry, the cook's boy, who washeth dishes in the kitchen"[431]. At
Markyate also the servants had to be warned "that honestly and not
sturdyly ne rebukyngly thai hafe thaym in thaire langage to the
sustres"[432] and at Studley a maidservant had boxed the ears of a novice
of tender age[433]. At Sheppey in 1511 it was said that "the men servants
of the prioress do not behave properly to the prioress, but speak of the
convent contemptuously and dishonestly, thus ruining the convent"[434].
The peculiar difficulties suffered in this respect by an important house,
which maintained a large body of servants, are best illustrated, however,
in the case of Romsey Abbey. At this house in 1302 Bishop John of Pontoise
ordained
that a useless, superfluous, quarrelsome and incontinent servant and
one using insolent language to the ladies shall be removed within a
month, ... and especially John Chark, who has often spoken ill and
contumaciously in speaking to and answering the ladies, unless he
correct himself so that no more complaints be made to the bishop[435].
John Chark possibly learned to bridle his tongue, but the tone among the
Romsey servants was not good, for in 1311 Bishop Henry Woodlock ordered
that "no women servants shall remain unless of good conversation and
honest; pregnant, incontinent, quarrelsome women and those answering the
nuns contumaciously, all superfluous and useless servants, [are] to be
removed within a month"[436]. In 1387 the difficulties were of another
order; writes William of Wykeham:
the secular women servants of the nuns are wont too often to come into
the frater, at times when the nuns are eating there, and into the
cloister while the nuns are engaged there in chapter meetings,
contemplation, reading or praying, and there do make a noise and
behave otherwise ill, in a way which beseems not the honesty of
religion. And these secular women often keep up their chattering,
carolling (_cantalenas_) and other light behaviour, until the middle
of the night, and disturb the aforesaid nuns, so that they cannot
properly perform the regular services. Wherefore we ... command you
that you henceforth permit not the aforesaid things, nor any other
things which befit not the observances of your rule, to be done by the
said servants or by others, and that you permit not these servants to
serve you henceforth in the frater, and a servant or any other secular
person who does the contrary shall be expelled from the monastery.
Moreover we forbid on pain of the greater excommunication that any
servants defamed for any offence be henceforth admitted to dwell among
you, or having been admitted, be retained in your service, for from
such grave scandals may arise concerning you and your house[437].
We have spoken hitherto about the regular hired servants of the house; but
it must not be forgotten that nuns normally had a larger community
dependent in part upon them. From time to time they were wont to hire such
additional labour as they required, whether servants in husbandry taken on
for the haymaking and harvest season, artificers hired to put up or repair
buildings, workers in various branches of the cloth industry to make the
liveries of the servants, itinerant candle-makers to prepare the winter
dips, or a variety of casual workers hired at one time or another for
specific purposes. The nuns of St Radegund's, Cambridge, entered in their
accounts a large number of payments besides those to their regular
servants. In moments of stress they were wont to fall back upon a paragon
named Katherine Rolf. We first meet her in 1449-50 weeding the garden for
four days, for the modest sum of 4-1/2_d._; but soon afterwards behold her
on the roof, aiding the thatchers to thatch two tenements, at 1-1/2_d._ a
day for twelve days. In the next year she is more active still; first of
all she is found helping the candle-makers to make up 14 lbs. of tallow
candles for the guest-house. Then she combs and cleans a pound of wool for
spinning. Then she appears in the granary helping the maltster to thresh
and winnow grain. In the midst of these activities she turns an honest
penny by selling fat chickens to the convent. The nuns also disburse small
sums of money to the man who cleanses the convent privies, to the
_slawterman_ for killing beasts for the kitchen, to Richard Gardyner for
beating stockfish, to Thomas Osborne for making malt, to Thomas the Smith
for providing a variety of iron implements and _cart-clowtes_, for shoeing
the horses and for mending the ploughshares, and for "blooding the horses
on St Stephen's day" (Dec. 26), to Thomas Boltesham, _cowper_, for mending
wooden utensils, to Thomas Speed for helping in the kitchen on fair-day
and to John Speed for working in the garden. Besides these they hire
various day-labourers to work in the fields during the sowing season,
hay-making and harvest, or to lop trees round the convent and hew up
firewood, or to prune and tie up the vines (for there were English
vineyards in those days). Then there is a long list of carpenters,
builders, thatchers, and plumbers engaged in making and repairing the
buildings of the convent and its tenants. Finally there are the various
cloth workers, spinners, weaver, fuller, shearman, dyer and tailor hired
to make the servants' clothes, concerning whom something has already been
said[438].
Thus many persons came to depend upon a nunnery for part of their
livelihood, who were not the permanent servants of the house, and this
goes further than any imagined reverence for the lives and calling of
their inmates to explain the anxiety shown in some places for the
preservation of nunneries when the day of dissolution came. The convents
were not only inns and boarding-houses for ladies of the upper class and
occasionally schools for their daughters; they were the great employers
and consumers of their districts, and though their places must sooner or
later be taken by other employers and consumers, yet at the moment many a
husbandman and artificer must have seen his livelihood about to slip away
from him. The nuns of Sheppey, in their distant and lonely flats, clearly
employed a whole village[439]. They could not count on hiring carpenter
and thatcher for piece-work when they wanted them in that thinly populated
spot, so they must hire them all the year round. Twenty-six hinds and
seven women they had in all, working in their domestic offices or on the
wide demesne, most of which they farmed themselves, for food was far to
buy if they did not grow it. Three shepherds kept their large flock, a
cowherd drove their kine and hogs, a horse-keeper looked to their 17
horses. All the other men and women were busy with the beasts and the
crops in the field, or with work in the brew house, the "bultyng howse,"
the bakehouse and the dairy. So also at the abbey of Polesworth, where
fifteen nuns employed in all thirty-eight persons, women servants, yeomen
about the household and hinds. "In the towne of Pollesworth," said the
commissioners, who were gentlemen of the district and not minded to lose
the house:
ar 44 tenementes and never a plough but one, the resydue be
artifycers, laborers and vitellers, and lyve in effect by the said
house.... And the towne and nonnery standith in a harde soile and
barren ground, and to our estymacions, yf the nonnery be suppressed
the towne will shortely after falle to ruyne and dekaye, and the
people therin, to the nombre of six or seven score persones, are nott
unlike to wander and to seke their lyvyng as our Lorde Gode best
knowith[440].
So also at St Mary's, Winchester, whose household we have described:
the seid Monastery ... standith nigh the Middell of the Citye, of a
great and large Compasse, envyroned with many poore housholdes which
haue theyr oonly lyuynge of the seid Monastery, And have no demaynes
whereby they may make any prouysion, butt lyue oonly by theyr landes,
making theyr prouysion in the markettes[441].
The old order changeth, yielding place to new, and a livelihood fulfils
itself in many ways; yet many labouring folk as well as gentlemen must
have felt like the commissioners at Polesworth and St Mary's, Winchester,
when the busy monastic housewives were dispersed and the grain and cattle
sold out of barn and byre. There is no-one so conservative as your
bread-winner, and for the best of reasons.
CHAPTER V
FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen, nineteen,
six; result, happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual
expenditure twenty pounds, ought and six; result, misery.
_Mr Micawber._
In the history of the medieval nunneries of England there is nothing more
striking than the constant financial straits to which they were reduced.
Professor Savine's analysis of the _Valor Ecclesiasticus_ has shown that
in 1535 the nunneries were on an average only half as rich as the men's
houses, while the average number of religious persons in them was
larger[442]; and yet it is clear from the evidence of visitation documents
that even the men's houses were continually in debt. It is therefore not
to be wondered at that there was hardly a nunnery in England, which did
not at one time or another complain of poverty. These financial
difficulties had already begun before the end of the thirteenth century
and they grew steadily worse until the moment of the Dissolution. The
worst sufferers of all were the nunneries of Yorkshire and the North, a
prey to the inroads of the Scots, who time after time pillaged their lands
and sometimes dispersed their inmates; Yorkshire was full of nunneries and
almost all of them were miserably poor. But in other parts of the country,
without any such special cause, the position was little better. When
Bishop Alnwick visited the diocese of Lincoln in the first half of the
fifteenth century, fourteen out of the twenty-five houses which he
examined were in financial difficulties. Moreover not only is this true of
small houses, inadequately endowed from their foundation and less likely
to weather bad times, but the largest and richest houses frequently
complained of insufficient means. It is easy to understand the distress of
the poor nuns of Rothwell; their founder Richard, Earl of Gloucester, had
died before properly endowing the house, and the prioress and convent
could expend for their food and clothing only four marks and the produce
of four fields of land, in one of which the house was situated[443]. But
it is less easy to account for the constant straits of the great Abbey of
Shaftesbury, which had such vast endowments that a popular saying had
arisen: "If the Abbot of Glastonbury could marry the Abbess of
Shaftesbury, their heir would hold more land than the King of
England"[444]. It is comprehensible that the small houses of Lincolnshire
and the dangerously situated houses of Yorkshire should be in
difficulties; but their complaints are not more piteous than those of
Romsey, Godstow and Barking, richly endowed nunneries, to which the
greatest ladies of the land did not disdain to retire.
The poverty of the nunneries was manifested in many ways. One of these was
the extreme prevalence of debt. On the occasion of Bishop Alnwick's
visitations, to which reference has been made above, no less than eleven
houses were found to be in debt[445]. At Ankerwyke the debts amounted to
£40, at Langley to £50, at Stixwould to 80 marks, at Harrold to 20 marks,
at Rothwell to 6 marks. Markyate was "indebted to divers creditors for a
great sum." Heynings was in debt owing to costly repairs and to several
bad harvests, and about the same time a petition from the nuns stated that
they had "mortgaged for no short time their possessions and rents and thus
remain irrecoverably pledged, have incurred various very heavy debts and
are much depressed and brought to great and manifest poverty"[446]. In
some cases the prioresses claimed to have reduced an initial debt; the
Prioress of St Michael's, Stamford, said that on her installation twelve
years previously the debts stood at £20 and that they were now only 20
marks; the Prioress of Gracedieu said that she had reduced debts from £48
to £38; the Prioress of Legbourne said that the debts were now only £14
instead of £63[447]. But from the miserable poverty of some of these
houses (for instance Gokewell, where the income in rents was said to be
£10 yearly and Langley, where it was £20, less than half the amount of the
debts) it may be inferred that the struggle to repay creditors out of an
already insufficient income was a hopeless one; and the effort to do so
out of capital was often more disastrous still. Nothing is more striking
than the lists of debts which figure in the account rolls of medieval
nunneries. In thirteen out of seventeen account rolls belonging to St
Michael's Stamford[448] and ranging between 1304 and 1410, the nuns end
the year with a deficit; and in fourteen cases there is a schedule of
debts added to the account. Sometimes the amount owed is small, but
occasionally it is very large. In the first roll which has survived
(1304-5) the deficit on the account is some £5 odd; the debts are entered
as £23. 1_s._ 11_d._ on the present year (which were apparently afterwards
paid, because the items were marked "vacat pour ceo ke le deners sount
paye") and fifteen items amounting to £52. 3_s._ 8_d._ and described as
"nos auncienes dettes estre cest aan"; in fact the debts amount to
considerably more than the income entered in the roll[449]. Similarly in
1346-47 the debts amount to £51 odd and in 1376-77 to £53 odd, and in
other years to smaller sums. In some cases a list of debts due to the
convent is also entered in the account, but in only four of these does the
money owed to the house exceed the amount owing by it; and "argent
aprompté" or "money borrowed" is a regular item in the credit account.
Similarly the treasuresses' accounts of Gracedieu end with long schedules
of debts due by the house[450]. Nor was it only the small houses which got
into debt. Tarrant Keynes was quite well off, but as early as 1292 the
nuns asked the royal leave to sell forty oaks to pay their debts[451].
Godstow was rich, but in 1316 the King had to take it under his protection
and appoint keepers to discharge its debts, "on account of its poverty and
miserable state," and in 1335 the profits during vacancy were remitted to
the convent by the King "because of its poverty and misfortunes"[452]. St
Mary's, Winchester, was a famous house, but it also was in debt early in
the fourteenth century[453]. It should be noticed that the last cases (and
that of St Michael's Stamford, 1304-5) are anterior to the Black Death, to
whose account it has been customary to lay all the financial misfortunes
of the religious houses. It is undeniable that the Black Death completed
the ruin of many of the smaller houses, and that matters grew steadily
worse during the last half of the fourteenth and throughout the fifteenth
century; but there is ample evidence that the finances of many religious
houses, both of men and of women, had been in an unsatisfactory condition
at an earlier date; and even the golden thirteenth century can show cases
of heavy debt[454].
In the smaller houses the constant struggle with poverty must have
entailed no little degree of discomfort and discouragement. Sometimes the
nuns seem actually to have lacked food and clothes, and it seems clear
that in many cases the revenues of these convents were insufficient for
their support and that they were dependent upon the charity of friends. A
typical case is that of Legbourne, where one of the nuns informed Bishop
Alnwick (1440) that since the revenues of the house did not exceed £40 and
since there were thirteen nuns and one novice, it was impossible for so
many of them to have sufficient food and clothing from such inadequate
rents, unless they received assistance from secular friends[455]. Fosse
in 1341 was said to be so slenderly endowed that the nuns had not enough
to live on without external aid[456]; and in 1440 Alnwick noted "all the
nuns complain ever of the poverty of the house and they receive nothing
from it save only food and drink"[457]. Of Buckland it was stated that
"its possessions cannot suffice for the sustenance of the said sisters
with their household, for the emendation of their building, for their
clothes and for their other necessities without the help of friends and
the offering of alms"[458]. Cokehill in 1336 was excused a tax because it
was so inadequately endowed that the nuns had not enough to live upon
without outside aid[459]. Davington in 1344 was in the same position;
although the nuns were reduced to half their former number, they could not
live upon their revenues without the charity of friends[460]. Alnwick's
visitations, indeed, show quite clearly that in poor houses the nuns were
often expected to provide either clothes or (on certain days) food for
themselves, out of the gift of their friends[461]. At Sinningthwaite, in
the diocese of York, the position appears even more clearly; in 1319 it
was declared that the nuns who had no elders, relatives or friends, lacked
the necessary clothes and were therefore afflicted with cold, whereupon
the Archbishop ordered them to have clothes provided out of the means of
the house[462]. The clause of the Council of Oxford which permitted poor
houses to receive a sum sufficient for the vesture of a new member was
evidently stretched to include the perpetual provision of clothing by
external friends, and this is sometimes indicated in the wording of
legacies. Thus Roger de Noreton, citizen and mercer of York, left the
following bequest in 1390:
I bequeath to Isabel, my daughter, a nun of St Clement's, York, to buy
her black flannels (_pro flannelis suis nigris emendis_), according to
the arrangement of my wife Agnes and of my other executors, at fitting
times, according to her needs, four marks of silver[463].
Sir Thomas Cumberworth, dying in 1451, specifically directed that "ye blak
Curteyne of lawne be cut in vailes and gyfyn to pore nones"[464].
The nuns were not always able to obtain adequate help from external
friends in the matter of food and clothes; and evidence given at episcopal
visitations shows that they sometimes went cold and hungry. Complaints are
common that the allowance paid to the nuns (in defiance of canon law) for
the provision of food and of garments had been reduced or withdrawn; and
so also are complaints that the quality of beer provided by the convent
was poor, though here the propensity of all communities to grumble at
their food has to be taken into account[465]. But more specific
information is often given; and though it is clear that financial
mismanagement was often as much to blame as poverty, the sufferings of the
nuns were not for that reason any less real. The Yorkshire nunnery of
Swine is a case in point. It was never rich, but at Archbishop Giffard's
visitation in 1268 the nuns complained that the maladministration of their
fellow canons[466] had made their position intolerable. Although the means
of the house, if discreetly managed, sufficed to maintain them, they
nevertheless had nothing but bread and cheese and ale for meals and were
even served with water instead of ale twice a week, while the canons and
their friends were provided for "abundantly and sumptuously enough"; the
nuns were moreover insufficiently provided with shoes and clothes; they
had only one pair of shoes each year[467] and barely a tunic in every
three and a cloak in every six years, unless they managed to beg more from
relatives and secular friends[468]. Fifty years later there was still
scarcity at Swine, for the Prioress was ordered to see that the house was
reasonably served with bread, ale and other necessities[469]. At Ankerwyke
(1441) the frivolous and incompetent Prioress, Clemence Medforde, reduced
her nuns to similar discomfort. Margery Kirkby, whose tongue nothing
could stop, announced that "she furnishes not nor for three years' space
has furnished fitting habits to the nuns, insomuch that the nuns go about
in patched clothes. The threadbareness of the nuns" added the bishop's
clerk "was apparent to my lord. (_Patebat domino nuditas monialium._)"
Three of the younger nuns also made complaints; Thomasine Talbot had no
bedclothes "insomuch that she lies in the straw," Agnes Dychere "asks that
sufficient provision be made to her in clothing for her bed and body, that
she may be covered from the cold, and also in eatables, that she may have
strength to undergo the burden of religious observance and divine service,
for these hitherto had not been supplied to her"; and Margaret Smith also
complained of insufficient bedclothes. Poor little sister Thomasine also
remarked sadly that she had no kirtle provided for her use[470].
The history of Romsey shows that even the rich houses suffered from
similar inconveniences. In 1284 Peckham speaks of a scarcity of food in
the house and forbids the Abbess to fare sumptuously in her chamber, while
the convent went short[471]; in 1311 it was ordered that the bread should
be brought back to the weight, quantity and quality hitherto used[472];
and in 1387 William of Wykeham rather severely commanded the Abbess and
officiaries to provide for the nuns bread, beer and other fit and proper
victuals, according to ancient custom and to the means of the house[473].
Campsey was another flourishing house, but in 1532 a chorus of complaint
greeted the ears of the visitor, and (as in so many cases) the ills were
all put down to the mismanagement of the Prioress, Ela Buttry. She was not
too luxurious, but too stingy; Katherine Symon said that noble guests,
coming to the priory, complained of the very great parsimony of the
Prioress; Margaret Harmer said that the sisters were sometimes served with
very unwholesome food; Isabel Norwich said that the friends of the nuns,
coming to the house, were not properly provided for; Margaret Bacton said
that dinner was late through the fault of the cook and that the meat was
burnt to a cinder; Katherine Grome said that the beef and mutton with
which the nuns were served were sometimes bad and unwholesome and that
within the past month a sick ox, which would otherwise have died, had been
killed for food, and that the Prioress was very sparing both in her own
meals and in those with which she provided the nuns; and four other
sisters gave evidence to the same effect[474]. One has the impression that
the nuns were elderly and fussy, but there was evidently a basis for their
unanimous complaint, and it is easy to imagine that food may sometimes
have been very bad in convents which (unlike Campsey) were burdened with
real poverty[475].
Another sign of the financial distress of the nunneries was the ruinous
condition of their buildings. The remark written by a shivering monk in a
set of nonsense verses may well stand as the plaint of half the nunneries
of England:
Haec abbathia ruit, hoc notum sit tibi, Christe,
Intus et extra pluit, terribilis est locus iste.
("This abbey falleth in ruins, Christ mark this well! It raineth within
and without; how fearful is this place!")[476]. Time after time
visitations revealed houses badly in need of repair and roofs letting in
rain or even tumbling about the ears of the nuns; time after time
indulgences were granted to Christians who would help the poor nuns to
rebuild church or frater or infirmary. The thatched roofs especially were
continually needing repairs. It will be remembered how the Abbess Euphemia
of Wherwell rebuilt the bell tower above the dorter,
which fell down through decay one night, about the hour of mattins,
when by an obvious miracle from heaven, though the nuns were in the
dorter, some in bed and some in prayer before their beds, all escaped
not only death but any bodily injury[477].
[Illustration: PLATE IV
Brass of Ela Buttry, the stingy Prioress of Campsey ([dagger] 1546), in St
Stephen's Church, Norwich. Stingy even in death, she has appropriated to
her own use the brass of a 14th century laywoman.]
At Crabhouse in the time of Joan Wiggenhall
the dortour that than was, as fer forthe as we knowe, the furste that
was set up on the place, was at so grete mischeef and, at the
gate-downe, the Prioresse dredyinge perisschyng of her sistres whiche
lay thereinne took it doune for drede of more hermys,
and next year "sche began the grounde of the same dortoure that now
stondith and wrought thereupon fulli vij yere betymes as God wolde sende
hir good[478]." The Prioress of Swine was ordered in 1318 to have the
dorter covered without delay, so that the nuns might quietly and in
silence enter it, without annoyance from storms, and to have the roofs of
the other buildings repaired as soon as might be[479]. At St Radegund's
Cambridge, in 1373, the Prioress was charged with suffering the frater to
remain unroofed, so that in rainy weather the sisters were unable to take
their meals there, to which she replied that the nunnery was so burdened
with debts, subsidies and contributions, that she had so far been unable
to carry out repairs, but would do so as quickly as possible[480]. At
Littlemore in 1445 the nuns did not sleep in the dorter for fear it should
fall[481]. At Romsey in 1502 the wicked Abbess Elizabeth Broke had allowed
the roofs of the chancel and dorter to become defective, "so that if it
happened to rain the nuns were unable to remain either in the quire in
time of divine service or in their beds and the funds that the abbess
ought to have expended on these matters were being squandered on Master
Bryce"; the fabric of the monastery in stone walls was also going to decay
through her neglect, and so were various tenements belonging to the house
in the town of Romsey[482]. Over a hundred and twenty years before,
William of Wykeham had found Romsey hardly less dilapidated, with its
church, infirmary and nuns' rooms "full of many enormous and notable
defects," and the buildings of the monastery itself and of its different
manors in need of repair[483]. Of the unfortunate houses within the area
of Scottish inroads, Arden, Thicket, Keldholme, Rosedale, Swine, Wykeham,
Arthington and Moxby were all ruinous at the beginning of the fourteenth
century; the monotonous list includes the church, frater and chapter house
of Arden, the cloister of Rosedale, the bakehouse and brewhouse of Moxby,
the dorter and frater of Arthington[484].
In the sixteenth century the distress was, as usual, at its worst. At the
visitation of the Chichester diocese by Bishop Sherburn in 1521 the
cloister of Easebourne needed roofing and Rusper was "in magno decasu";
six years later Rusper was still "aliqualiter ruinosa"[485]. At the
Norwich visitations of Bishop Nykke the church of Blackborough was in
ruins, and the roofs of cloister and frater at Flixton were defective;
while at Crabhouse buildings were in need of repair and the roof of the
Lady chapel was ruinous[486]; Joan Wiggenhall must have turned in her
grave. Bishop Longland's visitations of the diocese of Lincoln show a
similar state of affairs. In 1531 he commanded the Abbess of Elstow "that
suche reparacons as be necessarye in and upon the buildinges within the
said monasterye, and other houses, tenements and fearmes thereto
belonging, be suffycyently doon and made within the space of oon yere,"
and the Prioress of Nuncoton, "that ye cause your firmary, your chirche
and all other your houses that be in ruyne and dekaye within your
monastery to be suffycyently repayred within this yere if itt possible
may"; and reminded the nuns of Studley that they "muste bestowe lardge
money upon suche reparacons as are to be doon upon your churche, quere,
dortor and other places whiche ar in grete decaye"[487]. At Goring, also,
the nuns all complained that the buildings were utterly out of repair,
especially the choir, cloister and dorter[488].
The frequency of fires in the middle ages was probably often to blame for
the ruin of buildings. There were then no contrivances for extinguishing
flames, and the thatched and wooden houses must have burned like stubble.
Thus it was that "thorow the negligens of woman[489] with fyre brent up a
good malt-house with a soler and alle her malt there" at Crabhouse, and
Joan Wiggenhall had to repair it at a cost of five pounds[490]. There is a
piteous appeal to Edward I from the nuns of Cheshunt, who had been
impoverished by a fire and sought "help from the King of his special grace
and for God's sake"; but "_Nihil fiat hac vice_," replied red tape[491];
an undated petition in the Record Office says that the house, church and
goods of the nuns had twice been burned and their charters destroyed[492].
In 1299 the Abbess of Wilton received permission to fell fifty oaks in the
forest of Savernake "in order to rebuild therewith certain houses in the
abbey lately burnt by mischance"[493]. At Wykeham, in Edward III's reign,
the priory church, cloisters and twenty-four other buildings were
accidentally burned down and all the books, vestments and chalices of the
nuns were destroyed[494]. Similarly the nuns of St Radegund's, Cambridge,
lost their house and all their substance by fire at the beginning of the
fourteenth century, and in 1376 their buildings were again said to have
been burned; either they had never recovered from their first disaster or
a second fire had broken out[495]. The nuns of St Leonard's, Grimsby,
apparently lost their granaries in 1311, for they sought licence to beg on
the ground that their houses and corn had been consumed by fire, and in
1459 they asked for a similar licence, because their buildings had been
burnt, and their land inundated[496]. The convent of St Bartholomew's,
Newcastle, gave misfortune by fire as one reason for wishing to
appropriate the hospital or chapel of St Edmund the King in
Gateshead[497].
Sometimes poverty, misfortune and mismanagement reduced the nuns to
begging alms. About 1253 the convent of St Mary of Chester wrote to Queen
Eleanor, begging her to confirm the election of a prioress "to our
miserable convent amidst its multiplied desolations; for so greatly are we
reduced that we are compelled every day to beg abroad our food, slight as
it is"[498]. Similarly the starving nuns of Whitehall, Ilchester, were
reduced to "begging miserably," after the _régime_ of a wicked prioress
at the beginning of the fourteenth century[499]. In 1308 the subprioress
and convent of Whiston mentioned, in asking for permission to elect Alice
de la Flagge, that the smallness of their possessions had compelled the
nuns formerly to beg, "to the scandal of womanhood and the discredit of
religion"[500]. In 1351 Bishop Edyndon of Winchester "counted it a
merciful thing," to come to the assistance of the great Abbeys of Romsey
and St Mary's Winchester, "when overwhelmed with poverty, and when in
these days of increasing illdoing and social deterioration they were
brought to the necessity of secret begging"[501]. At Cheshunt in 1367 the
nuns declared that they often had to beg in the highways[502]. At Rothwell
in 1392 the extreme poverty of the nuns compelled some of them "to incur
the opprobrium of mendicity and beg alms after the fashion of the
mendicant friars"[503]. In all these cases it is evident that objection
was taken to personal begging by the nuns, and it is clear that such a
practice, which took the nuns out into the streets and into private
houses, was likely to be subversive of discipline. The custom of begging
through a proctor was open to no such objection; and it was common for
bishops to give to the poorer houses licences, allowing them to collect
alms in this manner. Early in the fifteenth century the nuns of Rowney in
Hertfordshire petitioned the Chancellor for letters patent for a proctor
to go about the country and collect alms for them, and their request was
granted[504]. Many such licences to beg occur in episcopal registers;
Bishop Dalderby of Lincoln granted them to Little Marlow (1300 and
1311)[505], St Leonard's Grimsby (1311)[506], and Rothwell (1318)[507];
and St Michael's Stamford (1359) and Sewardsley (1366) received similar
licences from his successors[508]. The distinction between begging by the
nuns and begging by a proctor is clearly drawn in the licence granted by
Bishop Dalderby to Rothwell. Addressing the clergy in the Archidiaconates
of Northampton and Buckingham he writes:
Pitying, with paternal affection, the want of the poor nuns of
Rothwell in our diocese, who are oppressed by such scarcity that they
are obliged to beg the necessities of life, we command and straitly
enjoin you, that when there shall come to you suitable and honest
secular proctors or messengers of the same nuns (not the nuns
themselves, that they may have no occasion for wandering thereby), to
seek and receive the alms of the faithful for their necessities, ye
shall receive them kindly and expound the cause of the said nuns to
the people in your churches, on Sundays, and feast days during the
solemnisation of mass, and promote the same by precept and by example
once every year for the next three years, delivering the whole of
whatever shall be collected to these proctors and messengers[509].
The Bishops sought to relieve necessitous convents by offering particular
inducements to the faithful to give alms, when they were thus requested.
Along with mending roads and bridges, ransoming captives, dowering poor
maidens, building churches and endowing hospitals, the assistance of
impecunious nunneries was generally recognised as a work of Christian
charity, and indulgences were often offered to those who would aid a
particular house[510]. The same Bishop Dalderby, for instance, granted
indulgences for the assistance of Cheshunt, Flamstead[511], Sewardsley,
Catesby, Delapré[512], Ivinghoe[513], Fosse[514], St James' outside
Huntingdon and St Radegund's, Cambridge[515]. Archbishop Kemp of York
granted an indulgence of a hundred days valid for two years to all who
should assist towards the repair of Arden (1440) and of Esholt (1445), and
Archbishop William Booth (1456) granted an indulgence of forty days to
penitents contributing to the repair of Yedingham[516]; indeed it is
probable that the money for the much needed work of roofing a building
could be collected only by means of such special appeals. The Popes also
sometimes granted indulgences; Boniface IX did so to penitents who on the
feasts of dedication visited and gave alms towards the conservation of the
churches and priories of Wilberfoss, St Clement's, York, and Handale[517].
The history of St Radegund's, Cambridge, will serve to illustrate the
method by which the Church thus organised the work of poor-relief in the
middle ages; and it will be noticed that this nunnery was an object of
care to Bishops of other dioceses beside that of Ely[518]. In 1254 Walter
de Suffield, Bishop of Norwich, granted a relaxation of penance for
twenty-five days to persons contributing to the aid of the nuns; in 1268
Richard de Gravesend, Bishop of Lincoln, ordered collections to be made in
the churches of the Archidiaconates of Northampton and Huntingdon on their
behalf; in 1277 Roger de Skerning, Bishop of Norwich, ordered collections
to be made in his diocese for the repair of the church; in 1313 the
Official of the Archdeacon of Ely wrote to the parochial clergy of the
diocese recommending the nuns to them as objects of charity, having lost
their house and goods by fire, and in the same year Bishop Dalderby
granted an indulgence on their behalf for this reason[519]; while in 1314
John de Ketene, Bishop of Ely, confirmed the grants of indulgence made by
his brother bishops to persons contributing to their relief and to the
rebuilding of the house. The next indulgence mentioned is one of forty
days granted by Thomas Arundel, Bishop of Ely, in 1376, also on the
occasion of a fire; in 1389 Bishop Fordham of Ely granted another forty
days indulgence for the repair of the church and cloister and for the
relief of the nuns[520], and in 1390 William Courtenay, Archbishop of
Canterbury, made a similar grant, mentioning that the buildings had been
ruined by violent storms; finally in 1457 Bishop Grey of Ely granted a
forty days indulgence for the repair of the bell-tower and for the
maintenance of books, vestments and other church ornaments[521]. There is
no need to suppose that St Radegund's was in any way a particularly
favoured house; and such a list of grants shows that the Church fulfilled
conscientiously the duty of organising poor-relief and that the objects
for which indulgences were granted were not always as unworthy as has
sometimes been supposed[522].
The financial straits to which the smaller convents were continually and
the greater convents sometimes reduced grew out of a number of causes; and
it is interesting to inquire what brought the nuns to debt or to begging
and why they were so often in difficulties. A study of monastic documents
makes it clear that a great deal of this poverty was in no sense the fault
of the nuns. Apart from obvious cases of insufficient endowment, the
medieval monasteries suffered from natural disasters, which were the lot
of all men, and from certain exactions at the hands of men, which fell
exclusively upon themselves. Of natural disasters the frequency of fires
has already been mentioned. Another danger, from which houses situated in
low lying land near a river or the sea were never free, was that of
floods. The inundation of their lands was declared one of the reasons for
appropriating the church of Bradford-on-Avon to Shaftesbury in 1343; and
in 1380 the nuns were allowed to appropriate another church, in
consideration of damage done to their lands by encroachments of the sea
and losses of sheep and cattle[523]. In 1377 Barking suffered the
devastation by flood of a large part of its possessions along the Thames
and never recovered its former prosperity[524]; and in 1394 Bishop
Fordham of Ely granted an indulgence for the nuns of Ankerwyke, whose
goods had been destroyed by floods[525]. In the north the lands of St
Leonard's, Grimsby, were flooded in 1459[526]; in 1445 the nuns of Esholt
suffered heavy losses from the flooding of their lands near the river
Aire, which had been cultivated at great cost and from which they derived
their maintenance[527]; and in 1434 Archbishop Rotherham appealed for help
for the nuns of Thicket, whose fields and pasturages had been inundated
and who had suffered much loss by the death of their cattle[528]. Heavy
storms are mentioned as contributing to the distress of Shaftesbury in
1365[529] and of St Radegund's, Cambridge, in 1390[530]. Moreover some
houses suffered by their situation in barren and unproductive lands.
Easebourne in 1411 complained of "the sterility of the lands, meadows and
other property of the priory, which is situated in a solitary, waste and
thorny place"[531]; Heynings put forward the same plea in 1401[532]; and
Flamstead in 1380[533].
But far more terrible than fire and flood were those two other scourges,
with which nature afflicted the men of the middle ages, famine and
pestilence. The Black Death of 1348-9 was only one among the pestilences
of the fourteenth century; it had the result of "domesticating the bubonic
plague upon the soil of England"; for more than three centuries afterwards
it continued to break out at short intervals, first in one part of the
country and then in another[534]. The epidemics of the fourteenth century
were so violent that in forty years the chroniclers count up five great
plagues, beginning with the Black Death, and Langland, in a metaphor of
terrible vividness, describes the pestilence as "the rain that raineth
where we rest should." The Black Death was preceded by a famine pestilence
in 1317-8, when there was "a grievous mortalitie of people so that the
sicke might vnneath burie the dead." It was followed in 1361 by the Second
Plague, which was especially fatal among the upper classes and among the
young. The Third Plague in 1368-9 was probably primarily a famine
sickness, mixed with plague. The Fourth plague broke out in 1375; and the
Fifth, in 1390-1 was so prolonged and so severe as to be considered
comparable with the Black Death itself. Moreover these are only the great
landmarks, and scattered between them were smaller outbreaks of sickness,
due to scarcity or to spoiled grain and fruit. The pestilences continued
in the fifteenth century (more than twenty-one are recorded in the
chronicles), but, except perhaps for the great plague of 1439, they were
seldom universal and came by degrees to be confined to the towns, so that
all who could used to flee to the country when the summer heat brought out
the disease in crowded and insanitary streets. But if country convents
escaped the worst disease, those situated in borough towns ran a heavy
risk.
Often enough these plagues were preceded and accompanied by famines,
sometimes local and sometimes general. The English famines had long been
notorious and were enshrined in a popular proverb: "Tres plagae tribus
regionibus appropriari solent, Anglorum fames, Gallorum ignis, Normannorum
lepra"[535]. The three greatest outbreaks took place in 1194-6, in 1257-9
and in 1315-6 (before the plague of 1318-9). The dearth which culminated
in the last of these famines had begun as early as 1289; and the misery in
1315 was acute:
"The beastes and cattell also," says Stow, translating from Trokelowe,
"by the corrupt grane whereof they fed, dyed, whereby it came to passe
that the eating of flesh was suspected of all men, for flesh of beasts
not corrupted was hard to finde. Horse-flesh was counted great
delicates the poore stole fatte dogges to eate; some (as it was sayde)
compelled through famine, in hidden places did eate the flesh of their
owne children, and some stole others, which they devoured. Theeves
that were in prisons did plucke in peeces those that were newly
brought among them and greedily devoured them halfe alive."
There was another severe famine in 1322, and in 1325 a great drought, so
that the cattle died for lack of water. Famine accompanied the pestilences
of 1361, 1369, 1391 and 1439; and these are only the more outstanding
instances. Here again, however, the fourteenth century was on the whole
worse off than the fifteenth; almost every year was a year of scarcity and
the average price of wheat during the period 1261 to 1400 was nearly six
shillings (i.e. nearly six pounds of modern money)[536]. Moreover the
ravages of murrain among cattle and sheep were hardly intermittent from
the end of the thirteenth to the middle of the fifteenth century[537]. The
fatal years 1315-9 included not only a famine and a plague but also
(1318-9) a murrain among the cattle, which was so bad that dogs and
ravens, eating the dead bodies, were poisoned and died, and no man dared
eat any beef. In the year of the Black Death also there was "a great
plague of sheep in the realm, so that in one place there died in pasturage
more than five thousand sheep and so rotted that neither beast nor bird
would touch them"; and murrains accompanied the four other great plagues
of the century. Indeed dearth, murrain and pestilence went hand in hand,
in that unhappy time we call the "good old days."
These natural disasters could not but have an adverse effect upon the
fortunes of the monastic houses; and many charters and petitions contain
clauses which specifically attribute the distress of this or that nunnery
to one of the three causes described above. During the famine years of
1314-5 Walter Reynolds, Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote to the Bishop of
Winchester, urging him to take some steps for the relief of the nuns of
Wintney, who were dispersing themselves in the world, because no proper
provision was made for their food[538], and about the same time the
convent of Clerkenwell addressed a petition to Queen Isabel, stating that
they were "moet enpouerees par les durs annez" and begging her to procure
for them the King's leave to accept certain lands and rents to the value
of twenty pounds[539]. In 1326 (after the great drought) the nuns of
King's Mead, Derby, begged the King to take them under his special
protection, granting the custody of the house to two _custodes_, on the
ground that, owing to the badness of past years and the unusually heavy
mortality among cattle their revenues were reduced and they were unable to
meet the claims made by guests upon their hospitality[540]. The ravages of
the Black Death were most severe of all and many houses never recovered
from it[541]. In the diocese of Lincoln the nunnery of Wothorpe lost all
its members save one, whom the Bishop made Prioress; and in 1354 it was
annexed to St Michael's Stamford[542]. Greenfield Priory, when he visited
it in 1350, "per tres menses stetit et stat priorisse solacio
destituta"[543]; and other houses in this large diocese which lost their
heads were Fosse, Markyate, Hinchinbrooke, Gracedieu, Rothwell, Delapré,
Catesby, Sewardsley, Littlemore and Godstow[544]. In the diocese of York
the prioresses of Arthington, Kirklees, Wallingwells and St Stephen's
Foukeholm died; the latter house, like Wothorpe, failed to recover and is
never heard of again[545]. Other parts of the country suffered in the same
way. At Malling Abbey in Kent the Bishop made two abbesses in succession,
but both died and only four professed nuns and four novices remained, to
one of whom the Bishop committed the custody of the temporalities and to
another that of the spiritualities, because there was no fit person to be
made Abbess[546]. At Henwood, in August 1349, there was no Prioress, "and
of the fifteen nuns who were lately there, three only remain"[547].
The death of the nuns themselves was, moreover, the least disastrous
effect of the pestilence; it left a legacy of neglected lands, poverty and
labour troubles which lasted for long after a new generation of sisters
had forgotten the fate of their predecessors. The value of Flixton
dwindled after the Black Death to half its former income, and the house
was never prosperous again[548]. In 1351 the nuns of Romsey petitioned for
leave to annex certain lands and advowsons and gave as one of the reasons
for their impoverishment "the diminution or loss of due and appointed
rents, because of the death of tenants, carried off by the unheard of and
unwonted pestilence"[549], and in 1352 the house of St Mary's Winchester
made special mention, in petitioning for the appropriation of a church, of
the reduction of its rents and of the cattle plague[550]. The other great
plagues of the century aggravated the distress. St Mary's Winchester and
Shaftesbury mentioned the pestilence (of 1361) in petitions to the King
three years later[551]. Four of the sixteen nuns of Carrow died in the
year of the third pestilence (1369)[552], and in 1378, three years after
the fourth pestilence, the licence allowing Sewardsley to appropriate the
church of Easton Neston, recites that the value of its lands had been so
diminished by the pestilence that they no longer sufficed to maintain the
statutory numbers[553]. In 1381 (mentioned as a plague and famine year in
some of the chronicles) a bull of Urban IV, appropriating a church to
Flamstead, after recapitulating the slender endowments of the house,
repeats the complaint that
the servants of the said priory are for the most part dead, and its
houses and tenants and beasts are so destroyed that its lands and
possessions remain as it were sterile, waste and uncultivated,
wherefore, unless the said Prioress and Convent be by some remedy
succoured, they will be obliged to beg for the necessities of life
from door to door[554].
In 1395, four years after the "Fifth" pestilence and itself a year of bad
plague and famine, the nuns of Legbourne complained that their lands and
tenements were uncultivated, "on account of the dearth of cultivators and
rarity of men, arising out of unwonted pestilences and epidemics"[555].
The outbreak of 1405-7 was followed by a petition from Easebourne for
licence to appropriate two churches, on the ground of "epidemics, death of
men and of servants," and because
the lands and tenements of the Prioress and Convent notoriously suffer
so great ruin that few tenants can be found willing to occupy the
lands in these days, and the said lands, ever falling into a worse
state, are so poor that they cannot supply the religious women with
sufficient support for themselves or for the repair of their ruinous
buildings.[556]
The worst of these natural disasters was not the actual damage done by
each outbreak, but the fact that famine, murrain and pestilence followed
upon pestilence, murrain and famine with such rapidity, that the poorer
houses had no chance of recovery from the initial blow dealt them by the
Black Death. The nuns of Thetford, for instance, were excused from the
taxation of religious houses under Henry VI, on the ground that their
revenues in Norfolk and in Suffolk were much decreased by the recent
mortality and had so continued since 1349[557]. Even the well-endowed
houses found recovery difficult, and the history of the great abbey of
Shaftesbury illustrates the situation very clearly. In 1365, shortly after
the _pestis secunda_, the nuns received a grant of the custody of their
temporalities on the next voidance, and losses by pestilence were
mentioned as one reason for the decline in their fortunes. In 1380 their
lands were flooded and they suffered heavy losses in sheep and cattle. In
1382 (the year of the fifth plague) they were obliged to petition once
again for help, representing that although their house was well-endowed,
toutes voies voz dites oratrices sont einsi arreriz a jour de huy,
quoy par les pestilences en queles lours tenantz sont trez toutz a poy
mortz, et par murryne de lour bestaille a grant nombre et value,
_nemye tant seulement a une place et a une foitz, einz a diverses
foitz en toutes leurs places_, quoy par autres grandes charges quelles
lour convient a fine force de jour en autre porter et sustenir, q'eles
ne purront, sinoun qe a moelt grant peine, sanz lour endangerer al
diverses bones gentz lours Creditours, mesner l'an a bon fyn[558].
Again towards the middle of the fifteenth century Bishop Ayscough
sanctioned the appropriation of a church to the abbey, which had pleaded
its great impoverishment through pestilence, failure of crops, want of
labourers, and through the excessive demands of such labourers as could
be obtained[559]. If Shaftesbury found recovery so difficult, it may
easily be imagined what was the effect of the natural disasters of the
fourteenth century upon smaller and less wealthy houses.
The revenues of the nunneries, often scant to begin with and liable to
constant diminution from the ravages of nature, were still more heavily
burdened by a variety of exactions on the part of the authorities of
Church and State. The procurations payable to the Bishop on his visitation
fell heavily upon the smaller houses; hence such a notice as that which
occurs in Bishop Nykke's Register under the year 1520: "Item the reverend
father with his colleagues came down to the house of nuns that afternoon,
and having seen the priory he dissolved his visitation there, on account
of the poverty of the house"[560]. St Mary Magdalen's, Bristol, was on
account of its poverty exempt from the payment of such procurations[561]
and the Bishops doubtless often exercised their charity upon such
occasions[562]. Papal exactions were even more oppressive; John of
Pontoise, Bishop of Winchester, pleaded with the papal nuncio in 1285 that
he would forbear to exact procurations from the poor nuns of Wintney, whom
the Bishop himself excused from all charges in view of their deep
poverty[563]; and in 1300 Bishop Swinfield of Hereford made a similar
appeal to the commissary of the nuncio, and secured the remission of
procurations due from the nuns of Lingbrook and the relaxation of the
sentence of excommunication, which they had incurred through
non-payment[564]. The obligation to pay tithes also fell heavily upon the
poorer houses; it was for this reason that Archbishop John le Romeyn
appealed to the Prior of Newburgh in 1286 not to exact tithes from the
food of animals in Nether Sutton, belonging to the poor nuns of
Arden[565]; and in 1301 the Prior of Worcester desired his commissary to
spare the poverty of the nuns of Westwood and not to exact tithes or any
other things due to him from them or from their churches[566]. Added to
ecclesiastical exactions were the taxes due to the Crown. In 1344 the nuns
of Davington addressed a petition to Edward III, representing that, owing
to their great poverty, they were unable to satisfy the King's public aids
without depriving themselves of their necessary subsistence, a plea which
was found to be true[567]. The frequency with which such petitions for
exemption from the payment of taxes were made and granted, is in itself a
proof that the burden of taxation was a real one, for the Crown would not
have excused its dues, unless the need for such an act of charity had been
great[568]; and it is obvious that the sheer impossibility of collecting
the money from a poverty-stricken house must often have left little
alternative. The houses that did contribute were not slow to complain.
"The unwonted exactions and tallages with which their house and the whole
of the English Church has been burdened" were pleaded by the nuns of
Heynings as in part responsible for their poverty in 1401[569]; similarly
"the necessary and very costly exactions of tenths and other taxes and
unsupportable burdens" occurs in a complaint by Romsey in 1351; and the
Abbess and Convent of St Mary's, Winchester, stated in 1468, that they
were so burdened with the repair of their buildings and with the payment
of imposts, that they could not fulfil the obligations of their order as
to hospitality[570].
Nor was taxation for public purposes the only demand made upon the
religious houses. Abbeys holding of the King in chief had to perform many
services appertaining to tenants in chief, which seem oddly incongruous in
the case of nunneries. The Abbesses of Shaftesbury, St Mary's Winchester,
Wilton and Barking, were baronesses in their own right; the privilege of
being summoned to parliament was omitted on account of their sex; but the
duty of sending a quota of knights and soldiers to serve the King in his
wars was regularly exacted[571]. In 1257 Agnes Ferrar, Abbess of
Shaftesbury, was summoned to Chester to attend the expedition against
Llewelyn ap Griffith, and her successor, Juliana Bauceyn, was also
summoned in 1277 to attack that intrepid prince[572]. The Abbess of Romsey
had to find a certain number of men-at-arms with their armour for the
custody of the maritime land in the county of Southampton; she resisted
when an attempt was made to exact an archer as well and successfully
showed the King "that she has only two marks' rent in Pudele Bardolveston
in that county"[573]. Less lawful exactions were even more burdensome, and
the nunneries suffered with the rest of the nation under the demand for
loans and the burden of purveyance[574]. In December 1307 the Abbess of
Barking, in common with the heads of ten other religious houses, was
requested to lend the King
two carts and horses to be at Westminster early on the day of St
Stephen to carry vessels and equipments of the King's household to
Dover, the King having sent a great part of his carts and sumpter
horses to sea, so that he may find them ready when he arrives[575];
it is true that he engaged to pay out of his wardrobe the costs of the men
leading the carts and of the horses going and returning, but meanwhile the
Abbey lost their services, and carts and horses were very necessary on a
manor; moreover it was common complaint that the tallies given by the
King's servants for what they took were sometimes of no more value than
the wood whereof they were made:
I had catell, now have I none;
They take my beasts and done them slon,
And payen but a stick of tree.
Similarly in June 1310 the King sent out a number of letters to the heads
of religious houses, requesting the "loan" of various amounts of victuals
for his Scottish expedition, and among the houses upon whom this call was
made were the nunneries of Catesby, Elstow, St Mary's Winchester, Romsey,
Wherwell, Barking, Nuneaton, Shaftesbury and Wilton[576].
The nunneries also suffered considerable pecuniary loss by the right
possessed in certain cases by the patron of a house, to take the profits
of its temporalities during voidance through the death or resignation of
its superior, sometimes enjoying them himself and sometimes granting the
custody of the house to someone else[577]. It is obvious that serious loss
might be entailed upon the community, if the patron refrained for some
time from granting his _congé d'élire_. It was for this reason that the
Convent of Whiston wrote in 1308 to the Bishop-elect of Worcester, their
patron, praying that "considering the smallness of the possessions of the
nuns of Whiston, in his patronage, which compelled the nuns formerly to
beg, and for the honour of religion and the frailness of the female sex"
he would grant them licence to elect a new prioress and would confirm the
same election; and the Prior of Worcester also addressed a letter to the
commissary-general on their behalf[578]. The King exercised with great
regularity his rights of patronage, and the direct pecuniary loss,
sustained by a house in being deprived of the profits of its
temporalities, seems to have been the least of the evils which resulted,
if the state of affairs described in the petition addressed to the crown
by the Abbess and Convent of Shaftesbury in 1382 was at all common. After
a moving description of the straits to which they were reduced[579], they
begged that the King would, on future occasions of voidance, allow the
community to retain the administration of the Abbey and of its
temporalities, rendering the value thereof to the King while the voidance
lasted, so that no escheator, sheriff or other officer should have power
to meddle with them:
understanding, most redoubtable lord, that by means of your grace in
this matter great relief and amendment, please God, shall come to your
same house, and no damage can ensue to you or to your heirs, nor to
any other, save only to your officers, who in such times of voidance
are wont to make great destructions and wastes and to take therefrom
great and divers profits to their own use, whence nothing cometh to
your use, as long as the said voidance endures, if only for a short
time[580].
St Mary's, Winchester, also pleaded the royal administration of its
temporalities as one reason for its impoverishment, when petitioning the
Pope for leave to appropriate the church of Froyle in 1343 and 1346[581].
Sometimes the abbeys found it cheaper to compound with the King for a
certain sum of money and thus to purchase the right of administering their
own temporalities, saving to the King, as a rule, knights' fees,
advowsons, escheats and sometimes wards and marriages. Romsey Abbey
secured this privilege, after the escheator had already entered, in 1315,
for a fine of forty marks; but in 1333, when there was another voidance,
the convent had to agree to pay £40 for the first two months and _pro
rata_ for such time as the voidance continued, saving to the King knights'
fees, advowsons and escheats[582]. In 1340 the royal escheator was ordered
to let the Prioress and Convent of Wherwell have the custody of their
temporalities, in accordance with a grant made some years previously, by
which the house was to render £230 for a year and _pro rata_[583]. In 1344
a similar order was made in the case of Wilton, whose late Abbess (prudent
woman) had seized the opportunity to purchase the right for £60 from the
King, when he lay at Orwell before crossing the sea[584]. Similarly, the
next year, Shaftesbury received the custody of its temporalities in
consideration of a fine of £100, made with the King by its Abbess, in the
second year of his reign[585]. With four great abbeys falling vacant in
little over ten years, the royal exchequer reaped a good harvest; and
though the payment of a lump sum was better than falling into the hands of
the escheator, and though the nuns would make haste to elect a new abbess
as soon as possible, a voidance was always a costly matter.
But perhaps the most serious tax upon the resources of the nunneries was
the right, possessed by some dignitaries (notably the King and the Bishop
of the diocese), to nominate to houses in their patronage persons whom the
nuns were obliged to receive as members of their community or to support
as corrodians, pensioners or boarders. The right of nominating a nun might
be exercised upon a variety of occasions. The Archbishop might do so to
certain houses in his province on the occasion of his consecration, and
this right was energetically enforced by Peckham, who nominated girls to
Wherwell, Castle Hedingham, Burnham, Stratford, Easebourne and
Catesby[586]. A Bishop possessed, in some cases, a similar right on the
occasion of his consecration. Rigaud d'Assier, Bishop of Winchester, sent
nuns to Romsey, St Mary's Winchester and Wherwell[587]; Ralph of
Shrewsbury, Bishop of Bath and Wells, nominated to Minchin Barrow and to
Cannington[588]; Stephen Gravesend, Bishop of London, sent a girl to
Barking[589]; and the successive bishops of Salisbury exercised the
prerogative of placing an inmate in Shaftesbury Abbey and of appointing
one of the nuns to act as her instructor[590]. The existence of this right
seems to have varied with different dioceses and its exaction with
different bishops, if it is possible to judge from the absence of
commendatory letters in some registers and their presence in others. The
Bishop of a diocese also sometimes had the right of presenting a nun to a
house when a new superior was created there. This was the case at Romsey,
where nuns were thus nominated in 1307, 1333 and 1397[591], and at Romsey
also there occurs one instance (the only one of the kind which search has
yet yielded) of the nomination of a nun by the bishop, because of "a
profession of ladies of that house which he had lately made." Bishop
Stratford thus appointed Jonette de Stretford (perhaps a poor relative)
"en regard de charite" in 1333, a month after having appointed Alice de
Hampton by reason of the Abbess' creation[592].
The King possessed in houses under his patronage rights of nomination
corresponding to those of the Bishop. That of presenting a nun on the
occasion of his coronation was frequently exercised. Edward II sent ladies
to Barking, Wherwell and St Mary's Winchester[593]; Barking received nuns
from Richard II, Henry IV and Henry VI[594] and Shaftesbury from Richard
II, Henry V and Henry VI[595]. He also possessed the right in certain
abbeys of presenting a nun on the occasion of a voidance and there are
many such letters of presentation enrolled upon the Close rolls; for
instance Joan de la Roche was sent to Wilton in 1322[596], Katherine de
Arderne to Romsey in 1333[597] and Agnes Turberville to Shaftesbury in
1345[598].
Sometimes similar rights to these were exercised by private persons, who
held the patronage of a house or with whom it was connected by special
ties; the family of le Rous of Imber, for example, had the right
(resigned in 1313) of presenting two nuns, with a valet, to Romsey
Abbey[599]. But the royal rights were always the most burdensome and,
though such privileges as those described above, and the even more
burdensome right to demand corrodies and pensions, normally affected only
great abbeys such as Barking, Romsey, St Mary's Winchester, and
Shaftesbury, the smaller houses (not under royal patronage) were not
always exempt from sudden demands--witness the case of Polsloe below--and
a wide range of nunneries was affected by archiepiscopal and episcopal
rights. Moreover even the great houses, in spite of their large
endowments, were crippled by the system, as may be gathered from their
constant complaints of poverty and of overcrowding. The obligation to
receive fresh inmates by nomination was especially burdensome when it was
incurred on more than one occasion by the same house and coincided with
other exactions. The case of Shaftesbury is noticeable in this connection;
the King claimed the right to administer its temporalities during
voidance, to nominate a nun on his own coronation and on the election of
an Abbess, to demand a pension for one of the royal clerks on the latter
occasion, and to send boarders or corrodians for maintenance; and the
Bishop of Salisbury could nominate a nun on his own promotion to the see
and could demand a benefice for one of his clerks on the election of an
Abbess. It is, of course, possible that all these prerogatives were not
invariably exercised and that a new inmate was not sent to Shaftesbury
every time a King was crowned, a Bishop consecrated or an Abbess elected;
but it was exercised sufficiently often to be a strain upon the house.
Even when the right of nomination was confined to one occasion, it seems
to have been generally resented and frequently resisted. The reason for
resistance lay in the fact that the house was forced to support another
inmate without the hope of receiving the donation of land or rents, which
medieval fathers gave to the convents in which their daughters took the
veil; and as the dowry system became more and more common, the hardship
of having to receive a nun for nothing would soon appear intolerable. In
some cases a sturdy resistance against this "dumping" of nuns finds an
echo in the bishops' Registers. Four houses out of the six to which
Peckham nominated new inmates attempted a refusal, and the excuses which
they offered are interesting. Two years after his consecration the nuns of
Burnham were still refusing to receive his protégée, Matilda de Weston;
they had begun by trying to question his right to nominate and he seems to
have taken legal action against them, after which they pleaded poverty
(resulting from an unsuccessful lawsuit) and also an obligation to receive
no novice without the consent of Edmund Earl of Cornwall, son of their
founder. The Archbishop directed a stern letter to them, rejecting both
their excuses and announcing his intention of pursuing his right, but the
end of the matter is not known[600]. An equally determined resistance was
offered by the Prioress of Stratford, who had been ordered to receive
Isabel Bret. In 1282 Peckham wrote to her for the third time, declaring
that her excuses were frivolous; she had apparently objected that the girl
was too young and that her house was too heavily burdened with nuns, lay
sisters and debts for another inmate to be received, but the Archbishop
declared the youth of the candidate to be rather a merit than a defect and
pointed out that, so far from being a burden to their house, she would
bring it honour, for by receiving her they would multiply distinguished
friends and benefactors and would be able to rely on his own special
protection in their affairs[601]. A further letter to the Bishop of London
is interesting, because it mentions a third objection made by the
recalcitrant nunnery.
"We have received your letter," writes Peckham, "in favour of the
Prioress and Convent of Stratford, urgently begging us to moderate our
purpose concerning a certain burden which is alleged to be threatening
them from us, on account of the insupportable weight and the poverty
of the house and the deformity of the person, whom we have presented
to them for admission. Concerning which we would have you know that
already in the lifetime of your predecessor of good memory, we had
ordered them to receive that same person and for two years we
continued to believe that they would yield to our wishes in the
matter, yet without burden to themselves, by the provision of the
parents of the said little maid; especially seeing that never yet have
we been burdensome to any monastery making a truthful plea of
indigence. We believe that what they allege about deformity would be
an argument in favour of our proposal; would that not only these women
of Stratford, concerning whom so many scandals abound, but also all
who so immodestly expose themselves to human conversation and company,
were or at least appeared notable for such deformity that they should
tempt no one to crime! We have moreover heard that the greater part of
the convent would willingly consent to the reception of the girl, were
they not hindered by the malice of the prioress; nevertheless, lest we
should seem deaf to your entreaties, we suspend the whole business
until we come to London, to ascertain how our purpose may be carried
out without notable damage to them[602]."
The Archbishop had his way however; for eleven years later the will of
Robert le Bret was enrolled in the Court of Husting and contained a legacy
of rents on Cornhill "to Isabella his daughter, a nun of Stratford"[603].
Peckham also wrote in a tone of strained patience to the nuns of Castle
Hedingham, who had refused to receive Agnes de Beauchamp, warning them
that besides incurring severe punishment at his own hands, further
obstinacy would offend the Queen of England, at whose instance he had
undertaken the promotion of the said Agnes[604]. The Prioress of Catesby
was equally troublesome and as late as 1284 the Archbishop wrote
reprimanding her for her inconstancy and feigned excuses, because, after
promising to receive the daughter of Sir Robert de Caynes and after
repeated requests on his part that they should admit the girl, she and her
nuns had written asking to be allowed to admit another person in her
stead[605].
Real poverty often nerved the nuns to such bold resistance. In the
Register of Bishop Grandisson of Exeter there is a letter from Polsloe
Priory, written in 1329 and addressed to Queen Philippa, on the subject of
a certain Johanete de Tourbevyle[606], whom she had requested the nuns to
receive as a lay sister. Written in the French of their daily speech, with
no attempt at formal phraseology, their naive plea still rings with the
agitation of the "poor and humble maids," torn between anxiety not to
burden their impecunious house, and fear of offending the new-made Queen
of England:
To their very honourable and very powerful and redoubtable lady, my
lady Dame Philippa, by the grace of God queen of England, etc., her
poor and humble maids, the nuns of Polsloe, in all that they may of
reverence and honour; beseeching your sweet pity to have mercy on our
great poverty. Our very noble dame, we have received your letters, by
the which we understand that it is your will that we receive Johanete
de Tourbevyle among us as sister of the house, to take the dress of a
nun in secular habit. Concerning the which matter, most debonair lady,
take pity upon us, if it please you, for the love of God and of His
mother. For certainly never did any queen demand such a thing before
from our little house; though mayhap they be accustomed to do so from
other houses, founded by the kings and holding of them in chief; but
this do not we, wherefore it falls heavily upon us. And if it please
your debonair highness to know our simple estate, we are so poor (God
knows it and all the country) that what we have suffices not to our
small sustenance, who must by day and night do the service of God,
were it not for the aid of friends; nor can we be charged with
seculars without reducing the number of us religious women, to the
diminution of God's service and the perpetual prejudice of our poor
house. And we have firm hope in God and in your great bounty that you
will not take it ill that this thing be not done to the peril of our
souls; for to entertain and to begin such a new charge in such a small
place, a charge which would endure and would be demanded for ever
afterwards, would be too great a danger to your soul, my Lady, in the
sight of God, wherefrom God by His grace defend you! Our most blessed
Lady, may God give you a long and happy life, to His pleasure and to
the aid and solace of ourselves and of other poor servants of God on
earth; and we should have great joy to do your behests, if God had
given us the power[607].
The nuns evidently asked the support of the Bishop (which accounts for the
presence of their letter in his Register) for about the same time
Grandisson also wrote an informal letter in French to the King, begging
him to give up his design to place his cousin Johanete de Tourbevyle at
Polsloe, on the ground that the nuns held all that they possessed in frank
almoign and were so poor that it would be unpardonable to entail upon
them a charge, which would become a precedent for ever:
"Wherefore, dear Sire," he continued, "If it please you, hold us
excused of this thing and put this thought from you. And for love of
you, to whom we are much beholden aforetime, and to show you that we
make no feigned pretence, ordain, if it please you, elsewhere for her
estate, and we will very willingly give somewhat reasonable out of our
own goods towards it; for this we may safely do[608]."
It is not impossible that the disinclination of the nunneries to receive
royal and episcopal nominees was in part due to dislike of taking an
entirely unknown person into the close life of the community, in which so
much depended upon the character and disposition of the individual. The
right seems nearly always to have been exercised in favour of well-born
girls, but though the bishops endeavoured to send only suitable novices,
their knowledge of the character of their protégées would sometimes appear
to have rested upon hearsay rather than upon personal acquaintance--"_ut
credimus_," "_come nous sumez enformez_." On at least one occasion the
nuns who resisted a bishop's nominee were to our knowledge justified by
later events. In 1329 Ralph of Shrewsbury, the new Bishop of Bath and
Wells, wrote to the Prioress and Convent of Cannington, desiring them to
receive Alice, daughter of John de Northlode, to whom he had granted the
right, "par resoun de nostre premiere creacion," on the request of Sir
John Mautravers; four years later he was obliged to repeat the order,
because the convent "had not yet been willing to receive the said Alice."
The end of the story is to be found in the visitation report of 1351[609].
It is impossible to say whether the convent corrupted Alice or Alice the
convent; but it is unfortunate that the Bishop's nominee should have been
implicated.
The obligation to receive a nun on the nomination of the king or the
bishop was not the only burden upon the finances of the nunneries. Abbeys
in the patronage of the Crown were upon occasion obliged also to find
maintenance for other persons, men as well as women, who never became
members of their community. The right to demand a pension for one of the
royal clerks was sometimes exercised on the occasion of a voidance, and
the money had in most cases to be paid until such time as the young man
was provided with a suitable benefice by the Abbey. The Abbess of Romsey
was ordered to give a pension to William de Dereham in 1315 by reason of
her new election[610]; John de St Paul was sent to the same house in
1333[611], William de Tydeswell in 1349[612]. The right is also found in
exercise at Wherwell[613], St Mary's, Winchester[614], Shaftesbury[615],
Wilton[616], Delapré (Northampton)[617], Barking[618] and Elstow[619]. In
certain cases the Bishop possessed a similar right on the occasion of his
own consecration; for instance John of Pontoise, Bishop of Winchester,
wrote to the Abbess of St Mary's, Winchester, in 1283, complaining
that whereas his predecessors had by a laudable custom presented their
own clerks to the first benefice in the patronage of a religious house
vacant after their establishment in the bishopric, they (the nuns) had
recently presented a nominee of their own to a benefice then vacant.
Two years later the Abbess and Convent of Wherwell wrote to him,
voluntarily offering him the next vacant benefice in their patronage for
one of his clerks; and in 1293 he reminded the nuns of Romsey that they
were bound by agreement to do likewise[620]. Similarly Simon of Ghent,
Bishop of Salisbury, directed the Abbess of Shaftesbury to provide for
Humphrey Wace in 1297[621]. The demand to pension a clerk, like the demand
to receive a nun, was sometimes resisted by the convents. In the early
part of his reign Edward II ordered the Sheriff of Bedford
to distrain the Abbess of Elstow by all her lands and chattels in his
bailiwick and to answer to the King for the issues and to have her
body before the King at the octaves of Hilary next, to answer why,
whereas she and her convent, by reason of the new creation of an
Abbess, were bound to give a pension to a clerk, to be named by the
King and he had transferred the option to his sister Elizabeth
Countess of Hereford and had asked the Abbess to give it to her
nominee they had neglected to do so[622].
The end of the story is contained in a petition printed in the _Rolls of
Parliament_, wherein the Abbess and Convent of "Dunestowe" (Elstow)
informed the King in 1320
que, come il les demaunde par son Brief devant Sire H. le Scrop et ses
compaignons une enpensione pur un de ses clerks par reson de la novele
Creacion la dite Abbesse et tiel enpensione unqs devant ces temps ne
fust demaunde ne donee de la dite meson, fors tant soulement que la
dereyn predecessere dona a la requeste nostre Seigneur le Roy a la
Dameysele la Countesse de Hereford, un enpension de c s. Par qi eles
prient que nostre Seigneur le Roy voet, si lui plest, comander de
soursere de execucion faire de la dite demaunde, que la dite Abbay est
foundee de Judit, jadis Countess de Huntingdon, et la dite enpension
unques autrement done[623].
The reference to the Countess of Hereford's "dameysele" shows that the
pension was not invariably given to a clerk, and it appears that the King
tried to substitute corrodies, pensions and reception as a nun for each
other according to the exigencies of the moment. In 1318 he sent Simon de
Tyrelton to the Abbess and Convent of Barking,
they being bound to grant a pension to one of the King's clerks, by
reason of the new creation of an abbess, and the King having requested
them to grant in lieu of such pension the allowance of one of their
nuns to Ellen, daughter of Alice de Leygrave, to be received by her
for life, to which they replied that they could not do so, for certain
reasons[624].
In 1313, in pursuance of his right to nominate a nun on the new creation
of an abbess, he had sent Juliana de Leygrave "niece of the King's
foster-mother, who suckled him in his youth," to St Mary's, Winchester, in
order that she might be given a nun's corrody for life (the value of which
was to be given her wherever she might be) and a suitable chamber within
the nunnery for her residence, whenever she might wish to stay
there[625].
The obligation to provide corrodies for royal nominees pressed more
heavily than the duty of pensioning royal clerks. A corrody was originally
a livery of food and drink given to monks and nuns, but the term was
extended to denote a daily livery of food given to some person not of the
community and frequently accompanied by suitable clothing and a room in
which to live. Hence corrodians were often completely kept in board and
lodging, having the right to everything that a nun of the house would have
(a "nun's corrody") and sometimes allowed to keep a private servant, who
had the right to the same provision as the regular domestics of the house
(a "servant's corrody"). The King, indeed, looked upon the monastic houses
of his realm as a sort of vast Chelsea Hospital, in which his broken-down
servants, yeomen and officials and men-at-arms, might end their days. Thus
he obtained their grateful prayers without putting his hand into his
purse. There must have been hundreds of such old pensioners scattered up
and down the country, and judging from the number of cases in which one
man is sent to receive the maintenance lately given to another, deceased,
some houses had at least one of them permanently on the premises. Many a
hoary veteran found his way into the quiet precincts of a nunnery:
His helmet now shall make a hive for bees;
And, lovers' sonnets turn'd to holy psalms,
A man-at-arms must now serve on his knees,
And feed on prayers, which are Age his alms.
In the intervals between feeding on prayers he must have been vastly
disturbing and enthralling to the minds of round-eyed novices, with his
tales of court and camp, of life in London town or long campaigns in
France, or of how John Copeland had the King of Scots prisoner and what
profit he got thereby.
In the last three months of 1316 Edward II sent seventeen old servants to
various religious houses, and among them Henry de Oldyngton of the avenary
was sent to Barking, to receive such maintenance as William de Chygwell,
deceased, had in that house[626]. In 1328 Roger atte Bedde, the King's
yeoman, who served the King and his father, was sent to St Mary's,
Winchester, instead of James le Porter, deceased[627]; and in 1329 the
Abbess and Convent of Shaftesbury were requested to admit to their house
Richard Knight, spigurnel of the King's chancery, who had long served the
King and his father in that office, and to administer to him for his life
such maintenance in all things as Robert le Poleter, deceased, had in
their house[628]. The unlucky convent of Wilton apparently had to support
two pensioners, for in 1328 Roger Liseway was sent there in place of Roger
Danne and the next year John de Odiham, yeoman of the chamber of Queen
Philippa, took the place of John de Asshe[629].
It was doubtless even more common for the widows of the King's dependents
to be sent to nunneries, and he must often have received such a petition
as was addressed by Agnes de Vylers to Edward III:
A nostre Seigneur le Roi et a son Conseil, prie vostre poure veve
Agneys, qi fut la femme Fraunceys de Vylers, jaditz Bachiler vostre
piere, qe vous pleise de vostre grace avoir regard du graunt service
qe le dit Fraunceys ad fait a vostre dit piere et ed vostre ayel, en
la Terre Seinte, Gascoigne, Gales, Escoce, Flaundres et en Engleterre,
et graunter au dit Agneys une garisoun en l'Abbeye de Berkyng, c'est
assaver une mesoun & la droite de une Noneyme pour la sustinaunce de
lui et de sa file a terme de lour vie, en allegaunce de l'alme vostre
dit piere, qi promist al dit Fraunceys eide pour lui, sa femme et ses
enfaunz.
"Il semble a conseil q'il est almoigne de lui mander ou aillours, s'il
plest a Roi," was the reply; so Agnes and her daughter might end their
days in peace, and Barking be the poorer for their appetites[630]. At
Barking the King had the right to claim a corrody at each new election of
an abbess, as Agnes de Vylers doubtless knew; as early as 1253 its Abbess
was exempted from being charged with _conversi_ and others, because she
had granted food and vesture for life to Philippa de Rading and her
daughter[631]. Other nunneries in the royal patronage were under a similar
obligation. In 1310 Juliana la Despenser was sent to Romsey, to be
provided with fitting maintenance for herself and for her maid during her
lifetime[632] and in 1319 Mary Ridel was sent to Stainfield to be
maintained for life[633]. There were the usual attempts to escape from a
costly and burdensome obligation; Romsey seems to have been successful in
repelling Juliana la Despenser, for in the following month the King sent
her to Shaftesbury, requesting the nuns to "find her for life the
necessities of life according to the requirements of her estate, for
herself and for the damsel serving her, and to assign her a chamber to
dwell in, making letters patent of the grant"[634]. Stainfield was less
successful in the matter of Mary Ridel; the usual plea of poverty was
considered insufficient and the convent was ordered to receive her, to
supply her with food, clothing and other necessities and to make letters
patent, specifying what was due to her[635].
Certain convents were in addition handicapped by the obligation to make
certain grants or liveries, in kind or in money, to other monastic houses.
The nunneries of St Clement's, York, and Moxby seem to have involved
themselves--as a condition, perhaps, of some past benefaction--in a
curious obligation to the friars of their districts. At a visitation of
the former house in 1317, Archbishop Melton found that the Friars Minor of
York, every alternate week of the year, and the Friars Preachers of York
in the same manner, had for a long time been receiving fourteen conventual
loaves; the nuns were ordered to show the friars the Archbishop's order
and to cease from supplying the loaves as long as their own house was
burdened with debt; and in no case was the grant to be made without
special leave from the Archbishop[636]. The next year, on visiting Moxby,
Melton was obliged to make an injunction as to the bread and ale called
"levedemete," which the Friars Minor were accustomed to receive from the
house; if it were owed to them it was to be given as due, if not it was
not to be given without the will of the head[637]. At Alnwick's first
visitation in 1440 the Prioress of St Michael's, Stamford, declared that
the house was burdened with the payment of an annual pension of 60_s._ to
the monastery of St Mary's, York, "and that for tithes not worth more than
forty pence annually; also it is in arrears for twenty years and
more"[638]. The nuns also had to pay various small sums to Peterborough
Abbey, by which they had been founded and to which they always remained
subordinated[639].
The support of resident corrodians and the payment of pensions and
liveries were, however, less onerous than the duty of providing
hospitality for visitors, which the nunneries performed as one of their
religious obligations. _Date_ and _Dabitur_ did not always accompany each
other. The great folk who held the Pope's indult to enter the houses of
Minoresses were probably generous donors; but the unenclosed orders had to
lodge and feed less wealthy guests and often enough they found the
obligation a strain upon their finances. When the nuns of King's Mead,
Derby, in 1326, petitioned the King to take the house into his special
protection, they explained that great numbers of people came there to be
entertained, but that owing to the reduction in their revenue they were
unable to exercise their wonted hospitality[640]; and the number of guests
was mentioned by the nuns of Heynings in 1401 as one reason for their
impoverishment[641]. At Nunappleton in 1315 the Archbishop of York had to
forbid two sets of guests to be received at the same time, until the house
should be relieved of debt; and at Moxby (which was also in debt) he
ordained that relatives of the nuns were not to visit the house for a
longer period than two days; Nunappleton was evidently a favourite resort,
for in 1346 another archbishop speaks of guests flocking--_hospites
confluentes_--to the priory and orders them to be admitted to a hostelry
constructed for the purpose. At Marrick in 1252 it was ordered that
guests were not to stay for more than one night, because the means of the
house barely sufficed for the maintenance of the nuns, sisters and
brethren[642].
Another charge which fell heavily upon the nunneries, sometimes not
entirely by their own fault, was that of litigation. This was only an
occasional expense, but when it occurred it was heavy, and a suit once
begun might drag on for years. Moreover the incidental expenses in
journeys and bribes, which all had to be paid out of the current income of
a house already (perhaps) charged with the payment of tithes and taxes and
badly in need of repair, were often almost as heavy as the costs of the
litigation. For instance an account of Christian Bassett, Prioress of St
Mary de Pré (near St Albans), contains the following list of expenses
incurred by her in the prosecution of a law suit in 1487, during the rule
of her predecessor Alice Wafer:
Item when I ryde to London for the suyt that was taken ayenst dame
Alice Wafer in the commen place, for myself and my preest and a woman
and ij men, their hyre and hors hyre and mete and drynke, in the terme
of Ester ye secunde yere of the regne of kyng Henry the vij{th} xx. s.
Item paid aboute the same suyt at Mydsomer tyme, for iiij men, a woman
and iiij horses xvi s. Item paid for the costs of a man to London at
Mighelmas terme to Master Lathell, to have knowledge whethir I shuld
have nede to come to London or not xij d[643]. Item for the same suyt
of Dame Alice Wafer for herself and a suster wt. her, ij men, ij
horses, in costs at the same time xiiij s. Item for the same suyt when
I cam from London to have councell of Master More and men of lawe for
the same ple x s. Item whan I went to Master Fforster to the Welde to
speke wt. him, to have councell for the wele of the place, for a
kercher geven to hym, ij s. Item on other tyme for a couple of capons
geven to Master Fforster ij s. Item for a man rydyng to London at
Candilmas to speke wt. Master Lathell and Master More and for iiij
hennys geven to them and for the costs of the same man and his hors
iij s. iiij d. Item whan I went to London to speke wt. Master Lathell
for to renewe our charter of the place and other maters of our place
xj s. Item in expenses made upon Master Ffortescue atte dyvers tymes,
whan I wente to hym to have his councell for the same suyt in the
common place xiij s. iiij d. Item paid to a man to ryde to Hertford to
speke wt. Norys, that he shuld speke to Master Ffortescue for the same
ple viij d. Item in costs for a man to go to Barkhamsted to Thomas
Cace viij d. Item whan I went to Master Ffortescue to his place, for
mens hire and hors hire for the same mater ij s. Item whan I went to
London at an other tyme for the same plee, for iiij men and iiij hors
hire xvj s.[644]
After this one does not wonder that in 1517 the convent of Goring pleaded
that owing to lawsuits it was too poor to repair its buildings[645].
The account rolls of the Priory of St Michael's, Stamford, are full of
references to expenses incurred in legal business. On one occasion the
nuns bought a "bill" in the Marshalsea "to have a day of accord" and the
roll for 1375-6 contains items such as,
Paid for a purse to the wife of the Seneschal of the Marshalsea xx d.
Paid for beer bought for the Marshalsea by the Prioress ij s. ij d.
Paid for capons and chickens for the seneschal of the Marshalsea xxiij
d. ob.[646]
Poor Dames Margaret Redynges and Joan Ffychmere "del office del tresorie,"
ending the year £16. 8_s._ 8-1/2_d._ in debt, must often have sighed with
Langland
Lawe is so lordeliche. and loth to make ende,
Withoute presentz or pens. she pleseth wel fewe.
Nor was it only the expenses of great lawsuits which bore heavily upon the
nunneries; a great deal of lesser legal business had to be transacted from
year to year. The treasuresses' accounts of St Michael's, Stamford,
contain many notices of such business; the expenses of Raulyn at the
sessions, expenses of the clerks at the Bishop's court or at the last
session at Stamford, a suit against a neighbouring parson over tithes,
four shillings to Henry Oundyl for suing out writs; and innumerable
entries concerning the inevitable "presentz or pens," a douceur to the
Bishop's clerk, a courtesy to the king's escheator, a present to the
clerks at the sessions, a gift "to divers men of law for their help on
divers occasions." All nunneries had constantly to meet such petty
expenses as these; and if we add an occasional suit on a larger scale the
total amount of money devoured by the Law is considerable.
So far mention has been made only of such reasons for their poverty as
cannot be considered the fault of the nuns. The inclemency of nature, the
rapacity of lay and ecclesiastical authorities and the law's delays could
not be escaped, however wisely a Prioress husbanded her resources.
Nevertheless it cannot be doubted that the nuns themselves, by bad
management, contributed largely to their own misfortunes. Bad
administration, sometimes wilful, but far more often due to sheer
incompetence, was constantly given as a reason for undue poverty. It was
"negligence and bad administration" which nearly caused the dispersion of
the nuns of Wintney during the famine year of 1316[647]; and those of
Hampole in 1353[648]. At Davington in 1511 one of the nuns deposed that
"the rents and revenues of the house decrease owing to the guilt of the
officers"[649]. The fault was often with the head of the house, who loved
to keep in her own hands the disposal of the convent's income, omitted to
consult the chapter in her negotiations, retained the common seal and did
not render accounts. An illustration of the straits to which a house might
be reduced by the bad management of its superior is provided by the
history of Malling Abbey in the early part of the fourteenth century, as
told by William de Dene in his _Historia Roffensis_. In 1321 an abbess had
been deposed, ostensibly on the complaint of her nuns and because the
place had been ruined by her; but too much importance must not be assigned
to the charge, for she was a sister of Bartholomew de Badlesmere, at that
time a leader of the baronial party against Edward II, and it was by the
King's command that Hamo of Hythe, Bishop of Rochester, visited Malling
and deprived her[650]; her deposition was probably a political move. The
same cannot however be said of Lora de Retlyng, who became abbess in 1324.
"The Bishop," says William de Dene, "although unwilling, knowing her
to be insufficient and ignorant, set Lora de Retlyng in command as
abbess, a woman who lacked all the capacity and wisdom of a leader and
ruler, the nuns enthusiastically applauding; and the next day he
blessed her, which benediction was rather a malediction for the
convent. Then the Bishop forbade the Abbess to give a corrody to her
maid-servant, as it had been the ill custom to do, and he sequestrated
the common seal, forbidding it to be used, save when his licence had
been asked and obtained"[651].
Twenty-five years passed and in 1349 the chronicler writes:
The Bishop of Rochester visited the abbeys of Lesnes and Malling, and
he found them so ruined by longstanding mismanagement, that it is
thought they never can recover so long as this world lasts, even to
the day of judgment[652].
Malling had suffered severely from the Black Death in the previous year,
but our knowledge of the character of Lora de Retlyng and the plain
statement of William de Dene ("destructa per malam diutinam custodiam"),
make it clear that bad management and not the pestilence was to blame for
its poverty[653].
Financial mismanagement was, indeed, the most frequent of all charges
brought against superiors at the episcopal visitations. When Alnwick
visited his diocese of Lincoln several cases of such incompetence came to
light. At St Michael's, Stamford (1440), it was found that the Prioress
had never rendered an account during the whole of her term of office, and
one of the nuns declared that she did not rule and supervise temporal
affairs to the benefit of the house; two years later the Bishop visited
the convent again and the Prioress herself pleaded bodily weakness, adding
that since she was impotent to rule the temporalities, nor had they
any industrious man to supervise these and to raise and receive the
produce of the house, and since the rents of the house remained unpaid
in the hands of the tenants, she begged that two nuns might be deputed
to rule the temporalities, and to be responsible for receipts and
payments.
In 1445, however, one of the appointed treasuresses, Alice de Wyteryng,
admitted that she neither wrote down nor accounted for anything concerning
her administration, and another nun complained that, if Wyteryng were to
die, it would be impossible for any of them to say in what state their
finances stood[654]. At the poor and heavily indebted house of Legbourne
(1440) the Prioress, unknown to the Bishop, but with the consent of the
Convent, had sold a corrody to the bailiff of the house, Robert Warde, who
was nevertheless not considered useful to the house in this post; the
tenements and leasehold houses belonging to the house were ruinous and
like to fall through the carelessness of the Prioress and bailiff, and one
aggrieved nun stated that "the prioress is not circumspect in ruling the
temporalities and cares not whether they prosper, but applies all the
common goods of the house to her own uses, as though they were her
own[655]." At Godstow also it was complained that the steward had an
annual fee of ten marks from the house and was useless[656]. At Heynings
(1440) the Prioress was charged with never rendering accounts and with
cutting down timber unnecessarily, but she denied the last charge and said
she had done so only for necessary reasons and with the express consent of
the convent[657]. At Nuncoton corrodies had been sold and bondmen
alienated without the knowledge of the nuns[658]. At Harrold it was found
that no accounts were rendered, that a corrody had been sold for twenty
marks, and that when the Prioress bought anything for the convent, no
tallies or indentures were made between the contracting parties, so that
after a time the sellers came and demanded double the price agreed upon;
one nun also asked that the Bishop should prevent the selling or
alienation of woods[659]. At Langley (which was miserably poor) there was
a similar complaint of the sale of timber[660]. These are the less serious
cases of financial mismanagement; the cases of Gracedieu, Ankerwyke and
Catesby have already been considered. Sometimes the extravagance or
incompetence of a Prioress became so notorious as to necessitate her
suspension or removal; as at Basedale in 1307[661], Rosedale in 1310[662],
Hampole in 1353[663], Easebourne in 1441[664] and St Mary de Pré at the
end of the fifteenth century[665]. But more frequently the bishops
endeavoured to hem in expenditure by elaborate safeguards, which will be
described below.
Besides cases of incompetence and cases of misappropriation of revenues by
an unscrupulous prioress, the mismanagement of the nuns may usually be
traced to a desperate desire to obtain ready money. One means by which
they sought to augment their income was by the sale of corrodies in return
for a lump sum[666]. A man (or woman) would pay down a certain sum of
money, and in return the convent would engage to keep him in board and
lodging for the rest of his natural life; at Arden for instance, in 1524,
Alice widow of William Berre paid twelve pounds and was granted "mett and
drynke as their convent hath" at their common table, or when sick in her
own room, and "on honest chamber with sufficient fyer att all tyme, with
sufficient apperell as shalbe nedful"[667]. Obviously, however, such an
arrangement could only be profitable to the nuns, if the grantee died
before the original sum had been expended in boarding her. The convent, in
fact, acted as a kind of insurance agency and the whole arrangement was
simply a gamble in the life of the corrodian. The temptation to extricate
themselves from present difficulties by means of such gambles, was one
which the nuns could never resist. They would lightly make their grant of
board and lodging for life and take the badly needed money; but it would
be swallowed up only too soon by their creditors and often vanish like
fairy gold in a year. Not so the corrodian. Long-lived as Methusaleh and
lusty of appetite, she appeared year after year at their common table,
year after year consumed their food, wore their apparel, warmed herself
with their firewood. Alice Berre was still hale and hearty after twelve
years, when the commissioners came to Arden and would doubtless have
lasted for several more to come, if his Majesty's quarrel with Rome had
not swept her and her harassed hostesses alike out of their ancient home;
but she must long before have eaten through her original twelve
pounds[668]. There is an amusing complaint in the Register of Crabhouse;
early in the fourteenth century Aleyn Brid and his wife persuaded the nuns
to buy their lands for a sum down and a corrody for their joint and
separate lands. But the lands turned out barren and the corrodians went on
living and doubtless chuckling over their bargain, and "si cher terre de
cy petit value unkes ne fut achate," wrote the exasperated chronicler of
the house[669]. Bishop Alnwick found two striking instances of a bad
gamble during his visitations in 1440-1; at Langley the late Prioress had
sold a corrody to a certain John Fraunceys and his wife for the paltry sum
of twenty marks, and they had already held it for six years[670]; worse
still, at Nuncoton there were two corrodians, each of whom had originally
paid twenty marks, and they had been there for twelve and for twenty
years respectively[671].
In the face of cases like these it is difficult not to suspect that
unscrupulous persons took advantage of the temporary difficulties of the
nuns and of their lack of business acumen. There is comedy, though not for
the unhappy Convent, in the history of a corrody which, in 1526, was said
to have been granted by Thetford to "a certain Foster." Six years later
there was a great to-do at the visitation. The nuns declared that John
Bixley of Thetford, "bocher," had sold his corrody in the house to Thomas
Foster, gentleman, who was nourishing a large household on that pretext,
to wit six persons, himself, his wife, three children and a maid; but
Bixley said that he had never sold his corrody and there in public
displayed his indenture. What happened we do not know; Thomas Foster,
gentleman, must be the same man who had a corrody in 1526, and how John
Bixley came into it is not clear. It looks as though the Convent (which
was so poor that the Bishop had dissolved his visitation there some years
previously) was trying by fair means or foul to get rid of Thomas Foster
and his family; doubtless they had not bargained for a wife, three
children and a maid when they rashly granted him one poor corrody[672]. It
is easy to understand why medieval bishops, at nearly every visitation,
forbade the granting of fees, corrodies or pensions for life or without
episcopal consent; "forasmoche as the graunting of corrodyes and lyveryes
hath bene chargious, bardynouse and greuouse unto your monastery" wrote
Longland to Studley in 1531:
As itt apperithe by the graunte made to Agnes Mosse, Janet bynbrok,
Elizabeth todde and other whiche has right soore hyndrede your place,
In consideracon therof I charge you lady priores upon payne of
contempte and of the lawe, that ye give noo moo like graunts, and that
ye joutt away Elizabeth Todde her seruant ... and that Elizabeth
Todde haue noo kowe going nor other bestes within eny of your
grounds[673];
and Dean Kentwood, visiting St Helen's Bishopsgate in 1432 found that
"diverce fees perpetuelle, corrodies and lyuers have been grauntyd befor
this tyme to diverce officers of your house and other persones, which have
hurt the house and be cause of delapidacyone of the godys of youre seyde
house"[674]. Even the nuns themselves sometimes realised that the sale of
corrodies had brought them no good; they often complained at visitations
that the Prioress had made such grants without consulting them; and the
convent of Heynings gave "the multiplication of divers men who have
acquired corrodies in their house," as one reason for their extreme
poverty, when they petitioned for the appropriation of the church of
Womersley[675].
The nuns were wont to have recourse to other equally improvident
expedients for obtaining money without regard to future embarrassment.
They farmed their churches and alienated their lands and granges or let
them out on long leases. These practices were constantly forbidden in
episcopal injunctions[676]; at the visitation of Easebourne in 1524 the
Prioress, Dame Margaret Sackfelde, being questioned as to what grants they
had made under their convent seal, said that they had made four, to wit,
one to William Salter to farm the rectory there, another of the proceeds
of the chapel of Farnhurst, another of the proceeds of the chapel of
Midhurst and another to William Toty for his corrody; this was
corroborated by the subprioress, who also mentioned a grant of the
proceeds of the church of Easebourne to a rather disreputable person
called Ralph Pratt; and this is only a typical case[677]. The nunnery of
Wix was reduced to such penury in 1283 on account of various alienations
that Pope Martin IV granted the nuns a bull declaring all such grants
void:
It has come to our ears that our beloved daughters in Christ, the
Prioress and convent of the monastery of Wix (who are under the rule
of a prioress), of the order of St Benedict, in the diocese of London,
as well as their predecessors, have conceded tithes, rents, lands,
houses, vineyards, meadows, pastures, woods, mills, rights,
jurisdictions and certain other goods belonging to the said monastery
to several clerks and laymen, to some of them for life, to some for no
short time, to others in perpetuity at farm or under an annual
payment, and have to this effect given letters, taken oaths, made
renunciations, and drawn up public instruments, to the grave harm of
the said monastery; and some of the grantees are said to have sought
confirmatory letters in common form, concerning these grants, from the
apostolic see[678].
This comprehensive catalogue gives some indication of the losses which a
house would suffer from reckless grants. The sale of timber and the
alienation or pawning of plate were other expedients to which the nuns
constantly resorted and which were as constantly prohibited by the
bishops[679]. The Prioress of Nunmonkton in 1397, "alienated timber in
large quantities to the value of a hundred marks"[680]; the cutting down
of woods was charged against the Prioresses of Heynings, Harrold, Langley,
Gracedieu, Catesby and Ankerwyke at Alnwick's visitations; at Langley it
was moreover found that the woods were not properly fenced in after the
trees were felled and so the tree-stumps were damaged[681]; the necessity
for raising the money was sometimes specifically pleaded, as at Markyate,
where a small wood had been sold "to satisfy the creditors of the
house"[682]. These sales of timber were a favourite means of obtaining
ready money; but too often the loss to the house by the destruction of its
woods far outweighed the temporary gain and the Abbeys of St Mary's
Winchester and Romsey made special mention of this cause of impoverishment
in the middle of the fourteenth century[683]. The alienation or pawning of
plate and _jocalia_ was often resorted to in an extremity. At Gracedieu in
1441 the jewels of the house had been pawned without the knowledge of the
convent, so that the nuns (as one of them complained) had not one bowl
from which to drink[684]; the next year it was asserted that the Prioress
of Catesby "pawned the jewels of the house for ten years, to wit one cup
for the sacrament, which still remained in pawn, and also other pieces of
silver"[685]. When Bishop Longland visited Nuncoton in 1531 he found that
the Prioress had in times past sold various goods belonging to her house,
"viz. a bolle ungilte playn with a couer, oon nutt gilte with a couer, ij
bolles white without couers, oon Agnus of gold, oon bocle of gold, oon
chalice, oon maser and many other things"[686]; and in 1436 it was ordered
that the chalices, jewels and ornaments of St Mary's Neasham, which were
then in the hands of sundry creditors, were to be redeemed[687]. In the
case of Sinningthwaite in 1534 the convent was in such a reduced state
that Archbishop Lee was actually obliged to give the nuns licence to
pledge jewels to the value of £15[688]. The charge of pawning or selling
jewels for their own purposes was often made against prioresses whose
conduct in other ways was bad; for instance against Eleanor of Arden in
1396[689], Juliana of Bromhale in 1404[690], Agnes Tawke of Easebourne in
1478[691] and Katherine Wells of Littlemore in 1517[692].
To financial incompetence and to the employment of improvident methods of
raising money, the nuns occasionally added extravagance. The bishops
forbade them to wear gay clothes for reasons unconnected with finance;
nevertheless their silks and furs must have cost money which could ill be
spared, and it is amusing to notice that even at Studley, Rothwell and
Langley, which were among the smallest and poorest houses in the diocese
of Lincoln and in debt, the nuns had to confess to silken veils. The
maintenance of a greater number of servants than the revenues of the house
could support was another not uncommon form of extravagance[693].
Instances of luxurious living on the part of the heads of various houses
have been given elsewhere[694]; it need only be remarked that a
self-indulgent prioress might cripple the resources of a house for many
years to come, whether by spending its revenues too lavishly, or by
raising money by the alienation of its goods.
One other cause of the poverty of nunneries must be noticed, before
turning to the attempts of bishops and other visitors to find a remedy.
Overcrowding was, throughout the earlier period under consideration, a
common cause of financial distress; and the admission of a greater number
of nuns than the revenues of the convent were able to support was
constantly forbidden in episcopal injunctions. Certainly this was not
invariably the fault of the nuns. They suffered (as we have seen) from the
formal right of bishop or of patron to place a nun in their house on
special occasions, and they suffered still more from the constant pressure
to which they were subjected by private persons, anxious to obtain
comfortable provision for daughters and nieces. It was sometimes
impossible and always difficult to resist the importunity of influential
gentlemen in the neighbourhood, whose ill-will might be a serious thing,
whether it showed itself in open violence or in closed purses. The
authorities of the church had sometimes to step in and rescue houses which
had thus been persuaded to burden themselves beyond their means. In 1273
Gregory X issued a bull to the Priory of Carrow, with the intention of
putting a stop to the practice.
Your petition having been expounded to us, containing a complaint that
you have, at the instant requests of certain lords of England, whom
you are unable to resist on account of their power, received so many
nuns already into your monastery, that you may scarce be fitly
sustained by its rents, we therefore, by the authority of these
present letters, forbid you henceforth to receive any nun or sister to
the burden of your house[695].
Some nine years later Archbishop Wickwane wrote in the same strain to the
nuns of Nunkeeling and Wilberfoss:
Because we have learned from public rumour that your monastery is
sometimes burdened by the reception of nuns and by the visits of
secular women and girls, at the instance of great persons, to whom you
foolishly and unlawfully grant easy permission, we order you ...
henceforward, to receive no one as nun or sister of your house, or to
lodge for a time in your monastery, without our special licence[696].
Bishop Stratford, in his visitation of Romsey in 1311, forbade additions
to the nuns, the proper number having been exceeded, and again in 1327 he
wrote:
It is notorious that your house is burdened with ladies beyond the
established number which used to be kept; and I have heard that you
are being pressed to receive more young ladies (_damoyseles_) as nuns,
wherefore I order you strictly that no young lady received by you be
veiled, nor any other received, until the Bishop's visitation, or
until they have special orders from him[697].
The situation at the great Abbey of Shaftesbury was the same. As early as
1218 the Pope had forbidden the community to admit nuns beyond the number
of a hundred because they were unable to support more or to give alms to
the poor; in 1322 Bishop Mortival wrote remonstrating with them for their
neglect of the Pope's order and repeating the prohibition to admit more
nuns until the state of the Abbey was relieved, on the ground that the
inmates of the house were far too many for its goods to support; and in
1326 (in response to a petition from the Abbess asking him to fix the
statutory number) the Bishop issued an order stating that the house was
capable of maintaining a hundred and twenty nuns and no more and that no
novices were to be received until the community was reduced to that
number[698].
Episcopal prohibitions to receive new inmates without special licence were
very common, especially in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth
centuries. Bishops realised that overcrowding only increased the growing
poverty of the nunneries. In the poor diocese of York, between 1250 and
1320, the nuns were over and over again forbidden to receive nuns, lay
sisters or lay brothers without the licence of the Archbishop. Injunctions
to this effect were issued to Marrick (1252), Swine (1268), Wilberfoss
(1282), Nunappleton (1282, 1290, 1346), Hampole (1267, 1308, 1312), Arden
(1306), Thicket (1309, 1314), Nunkeeling (1282, 1314), Nunburnholme
(1318), Esholt (1318), Arthington (1318) and Sinningthwaite (1319)[699].
At Swine, after the visitation by Archbishop Walter Giffard in 1267-8, it
was noted among the _comperta_
that the house of Swine cannot sustain more nuns or sisters than now
are there, inasmuch as those at present there are ill provided with
food, as is said above, and that the house nevertheless remains at
least a hundred and forty marks in debt; wherefore the lord Archbishop
decreed that no nun or sister should thenceforward be received there,
save with his consent[700].
A very severe punishment was decreed at Marrick, where the Archbishop
announced that any man or woman admitted without his licence would be
expelled without hope of mercy, the Prioress would be deposed and any
other nuns who agreed condemned to fast on bread and water for two months
(except on Sundays and festivals)[701]. In other dioceses the bishops
pursued a similar policy. But it was not easy to enforce these
prohibitions. Four years after Archbishop Greenfield's injunction to
Hampole (1308) he was obliged to address another letter to the convent,
having heard that the prioress had received
a little girl (_puellulam_), by name Maud de Dreffield, niece of the
Abbot of Roche, and another named Jonetta, her own niece, at the
instance of Sir Hugh de Cressy, her brother, that after a time they
might be admitted to the habit and profession of nuns[702].
The predicament of the Prioress is easily understood; how was she to
refuse her noble brother and the Abbot of Roche? They could bring to bear
far more pressure than a distant archbishop, who came upon his visitations
at long intervals. Moreover the ever present need of ready money made the
resistance of nuns less determined than it might otherwise have been; for
a dowry in hand they were, as usual, willing to encumber themselves with a
new mouth to feed throughout long years to come.
Prohibitions from increasing the number of nuns become more rare in the
second half of the fourteenth and during the fifteenth century. Even when
the population recovered from the havoc wrought by the Black Death, the
numbers in the nunneries continued steadily to decline. Perhaps fashion
had veered, conscious that the golden days of monasticism were over; more
likely the growing poverty of the houses rendered them a less tempting
retreat. A need for restricting the number of nuns still continued,
because the decline in the revenues of the nunneries was swifter than the
decline in the number of the nuns. Thus in 1440-1 Alnwick included in his
injunctions to seven houses a prohibition to receive more nuns than could
competently be sustained by their revenues[703], and the evidence given at
his visitations shows the necessity for such a restriction. The injunction
to Heynings is particularly interesting:
For as mykelle as we fonde that agayn the entente and the forbedyng of
the commune lawe there are in your saide pryorye meo nunnes and
susters professed then may be competently susteyned of the revenews of
your sayde pryorye, the exilitee of the saide revenews and charitees
duly considered, we commaunde, ordeyn, charge and enioyne yowe vnder
payne etc. etc. that fro this day forthe ye receyve no mo in to nunnes
ne sustres in your saide pryory wyth owte the advyse and assent of hus
(and) of our successours bysshope of Lincolne, so that we or thai,
wele informed of the yerely valwe of your saide revenews may ordeyn
for the nombre competente of nunnes and susters[704].
Nevertheless even at Nuncoton, one of the houses to which a similar
injunction was sent, a nun gave evidence "that in her oun time there were
in the habit eighteen or twenty nuns and now there are only fourteen," and
the Bishop himself remarked that "ther be but fewe in couent in regarde of
tymes here to fore"[705]. Everywhere this decline in the number of nuns
went steadily on during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries[706]. And
from the beginning of the fifteenth century there appear, here and there
among visitatorial injunctions, commands of a very different nature; here
and there a Bishop is found trying, not to keep down, but to keep up the
number of nuns. Instead of the repeated prohibitions addressed to Romsey
at the beginning of the fourteenth century, there is an injunction from
William of Wykeham in 1387, ordering the Abbess to augment the number of
nuns, which had fallen far below the statutory number[707]. Similarly in
1432 Bishop Gray wrote to Elstow,
since the accustomed number of nuns of the said monastery has so
lessened, that those who are now received scarcely suffice for the
chanting of divine service by night and day according to the
requirement of the rule, we will and enjoin upon you the abbess, in
virtue of obedience and under the penalties written above and beneath,
that, with what speed you can, you cause the number of nuns in the
said monastery to be increased in proportion to its resources[708].
At Studley in 1531, although the house was badly in debt, the nuns were
ordered to live less luxuriously and "to augment your nombre of ladyes
within the yere"[709]. In this connection Archbishop Warham's visitation
of Sheppey in 1511 is significant. The Prioress, when questioned as to the
number of nuns in the house, said that "she had heard there were
seventeen; she knew of fourteen; she herself wished to increase the number
to fourteen if she could find any who wished to enter into religion"[710].
It is an interesting reflection that Henry VIII may simply have
accelerated, by his violent measure, a gradual dissolution of the
nunneries through poverty and through change of fashion.
This account of the attempts of medieval bishops to prevent the nunneries
from burdening themselves with inmates, beyond the number which could be
supported by their revenues, leads to a consideration of the other methods
employed by them to remedy the financial distress in which the nuns so
often found themselves. These methods may be divided into three classes;
(1) arrangements to safeguard expenditure by the head of the house and to
impose a check upon autocracy, (2) arrangements to prevent rash
expenditure or improvident means of raising money, by requiring episcopal
consent before certain steps could be taken, and (3) if the incompetence
of the nuns were such that even these restrictions were insufficient, the
appointment of a male _custos_, master or guardian, to manage the finances
of the house.
Arrangements for safeguarding expenditure by the head of the house were of
four kinds: (1) provision for the consultation of the whole convent in
important negotiations, (2) provision for the safe custody of the common
seal, (3) provision for the regular presentation of accounts, and (4) the
appointment of coadjutresses to the Prioress, or of two or three
treasuresses, to be jointly responsible for receipts and expenditure. It
was a common injunction that the whole convent, or at least "the more and
sounder part of it," should be consulted in all important negotiations,
such as the alienation of property, the leasing of land and farms, the
cutting down of woods, the incurring of debts and the reception of
novices[711]. It has already been shown that Prioresses acted
autocratically in performing such business on their own initiative, and
the injunction sent by Peckham to the Abbess of Romsey shows the lengths
to which this independence might lead them[712]. Flemyng's injunction to
Elstow in 1421-2 is typical:
That the Abbess deliver not nor demise to farm appropriated churches,
pensions, portions, manors or granges belonging to the monastery, nor
do any other such weighty business, without the express consent of the
greater and sounder part of the convent[713].
At Arthington in 1318 the Prioress was specially ordered to consult the
convent in sales of wool and other business matters[714]; the Prioress of
Sinningthwaite the next year was told to take counsel with the older nuns
and in all writings under the common seal to employ a faithful clerk and
to have the deed read, discussed and sealed in the presence of the whole
convent, those who spoke against it on reasonable grounds being heard and
the deed if necessary corrected[715]. Provision for the safe custody of
the common seal, and for the assent of the whole convent to all writings
which received its imprint, was a necessary corollary to the demand that
the Prioress should consult her nuns in matters of business. Medieval
superiors were constantly charged with keeping the common seal in their
own custody[716] and nuns and bishops alike objected to a custom which
rendered the convent responsible for any rash agreement into which the
Prioress might enter. Elaborate arrangements for the custody of the seal
are therefore common in visitatorial injunctions. In 1302 Bishop John of
Pontoise wrote to Romsey that
whereas from the bad keeping of the common seal many evils to the
house have hitherto happened (as the Bishop has now learned from the
experience of fact), and also may happen unless wholesome remedy be
applied, three at least of the discreeter ladies shall be appointed by
the Abbess and by the larger and wiser part of the convent to keep the
seal; and when any letter shall be sealed with the common seal in the
chapter before the whole convent, it shall be read and explained in an
intelligible tongue to all the ladies, publicly, distinctly and openly
and afterwards sealed in the same chapter, (not in corners or
secretly, as has hitherto been the custom,) and signed as it is read,
so that what concerns all may be approved by all. Which done the seal
shall be replaced in the same place under the said custody[717].
These injunctions were repeated by Bishop Woodlock nine years later, but
in 1387 William of Wykeham laid down much more stringent rules. The seal
was to be kept securely under seven, or at least five locks and keys, of
which one key was to be in the custody of the abbess and the others to
remain with some of the more prudent and mature nuns, nominated by the
convent; no letter was to be sealed without first being read before the
whole convent in the vulgar tongue and approved by all or by the greater
and wiser part of the nuns[718]. Seven locks was an unusually large
number; usually three, or even two, were ordered. At Malling, where, as we
have seen, Bishop Hamo of Hythe unwillingly confirmed an "insufficient and
ignorant" woman as Abbess, he took the extreme step of sequestrating the
common seal and forbidding it to be used without his permission[719].
Another method of keeping some control over the expenditure not only of
the head or treasurers of the house, but also of the other obedientiaries,
was by ordering the regular presentation of accounts before the whole
convent; and in spite of the injunctions of councils and of bishops no
regulation was more often broken. Bishop Stapeldon's rules, drawn up for
the guidance of Polsloe and Canonsleigh, afford a good example of these
injunctions, and deal with the presentation of accounts by the bailiffs
and officers of the house, as well as by the Prioress:
Item, let the accounts of all your bailiffs, reeves and receivers,
both foreign and denizen, be overlooked every year, between Easter and
Whitsuntide, and between the Feast of St Michael and Christmas, after
final account rendered in the Priory before the Prioress, or before
those whom she is pleased to put in her place, and before two or three
of the most ancient and wise ladies of the said religion and house,
assigned by the Convent for this purpose; and let the rolls of the
accounts thus rendered remain in the common treasury, so that they may
be consulted, if need shall arise by reason of the death of a
Prioress, or of the death or removal of bailiffs, receivers or reeves.
Item, let the Prioress each year, between Christmas and Easter, before
the whole convent, or six ladies assigned by the convent for this
purpose, show forth the state of the house, and its receipts and
expenses, not in detail but in gross (_ne mie par menue parceles mes
par grosses sommes_), and the debts and the names of the debtors and
creditors for any sum above forty shillings. And all these things are
to be put into writing and placed in the common treasury, to the
intent that it may be seen each year how your goods increase or
decrease[720].
Bishop Pontoise ordered that at Romsey an account should be rendered twice
a year and at the end thereof the state of the house should be declared by
the auditors of the convent, or at least by the seniors of the convent,
but finding the practice in abeyance in 1302 he ordered the account to be
rendered once a year[721]; his ordinance was repeated by Bishop Woodlock
in 1311[722] and by William of Wykeham in 1387[723], both of whom
specially refer to the rendering of accounts by officials and
obedientiaries as well as by the Abbess[724]. More frequently, especially
in the smaller houses, the Bishops confined their efforts to extracting
the main account from the Prioress, with the double object, so
ungraciously expressed by Archbishop Lee, "that it may appere in whate
state the housse standith in, and also that it may be knowen, whethur she
be profitable to the house or not"[725]. How far it was a common practice
that the accounts should be audited by some external person, it is
impossible to say. Our only evidence lies in occasional injunctions such
as those sent by Bishops Pontoise and Woodlock to Romsey, or by Bishop
Buckingham to Heynings; or an occasional remark, such as the Prioress of
Blackborough's excuse that she did not render account in order "to save
the expenses of an auditor"[726]; or an occasional order addressed by a
Bishop to some person bidding him go and examine the accounts of a house.
In 1314 William, rector of Londesborough, was made _custos_ of
Nunburnholme on peculiar terms, being ordered to go there three times a
year and hear the accounts of the ministers and _prepositi_ of the house;
his duties were thus, in effect, those of an unpaid auditor and no
more[727]. It is probable that the accounts of bailiffs and other servants
were audited by the _custos_, in those houses to which such an official
was attached[728]; whether his own accounts were scrutinised is another
matter. In 1309 Archbishop Greenfield wrote to his own receiver, William
de Jafford, to audit the accounts of Nunappleton[729], and after the
revelations of Margaret Wavere's maladministration at Catesby in 1445, a
commission for the inspection of the accounts was granted to the Abbot of
St James, Northampton[730]. In some cases the annual statement of
accounts was ordered to be made before the Bishop of the diocese, as well
as the nuns of the house, and in such cases he would act as auditor
himself[731].
It was also a common practice for the Visitor to demand that the current
balance sheet and inventory (the _status domus_) of a monastic house
should be produced, together with its foundation charter and various other
documents, before he took the evidence of the inmates at a visitation. The
register of Bishop Alnwick's visitations shows the procedure very clearly;
usually there is simply a note to the effect that the Prioress handed in
the _status domus_, but at some houses the Bishop encountered
difficulties. At St Michael's Stamford, in 1440, the old Prioress (who, it
will be remembered, had rendered no account at all during her twelve years
of office) was unable to produce a balance sheet, or one of the required
certificates, and Alnwick was obliged to proceed with her examination
"hiis exhibendis non exhibitis." He made shift however to extract some
verbal information from her; she said that the house was in debt £20 at
her installation and now only 20 marks, that it could expend £40, besides
10 marks appropriated to the office of pittancer and besides "the
perquisites of the stewardship"; she said also "that they plough with two
teams and they have eight oxen, seven horses, a bailiff, four
serving-folk, a carter for the teams, and a man who is their baker and
brewer, whose wife makes the malt"[732]. At Legbourne also the Prioress
showed the state of the house, as it now stands, as they say, but not
annual charges, etc.... She says that the house owed £43 at the time
of her confirmation and installation and now only £14; nevertheless
because the state of the house is not fully shown, she has the next
day at Louth to show it more fully[733].
At Ankerwyke also Clemence Medforde gave in an incomplete balance sheet:
she shewed a roll containing the rents of the house, which, after
deducting rent-charges, reach the total of £22. 6. 7. Touching the
stewardship of the temporalities and touching the other receipts, as
from alms and other like sources, she shews nothing, and says that at
the time of her preferment the house was 300 marks in debt, and now is
in debt only £40, and she declares some of the names of the creditors
of this sum[734].
A special demand for a complete statement of accounts was sometimes made
in cases where gross maladministration was charged against a prioress.
Thus in 1310 Archbishop Greenfield ordered an investigation of certain
charges (unspecified, but clearly of this nature) made against the
Prioress of Rosedale; her accounts,
as well as those of all bailiffs and other officials and servants who
were bound to render accounts, were to be examined and the prioress
was ordered to render to the commissioners full and complete accounts
from the time of her promotion, as well as a statement of the then
position of the house,
and a further letter from the Archbishop to the Subprioress and nuns
ordered them to display the _status domus_ to the commissioners, as it was
when the Prioress took office and as it was at the time he wrote. She
resigned shortly afterwards, _sentiens se impotentem_; but in 1315 her
successor was enjoined to draw up a certified statement showing the credit
and debit accounts of the house and to send it to the Archbishop before a
certain date[735]. Usually the Bishop demanded not only the account roll
of a house, but also an inventory, doubtless in order that he might see
whether anything had been alienated, and these inventories sometimes
remain attached to the account of the visitation preserved in the
episcopal register[736].
If a Prioress were found to be hopelessly incompetent or unscrupulous, but
not bad enough to be deprived of her position, Bishops sometimes took the
extreme measure of appointing one or more coadjutresses, to govern the
house in conjunction with her; and often (even when there was no complaint
against the Prioress) the nuns were ordered to elect treasuresses, to
receive and disburse the income of the house from all sources. One of the
_comperta_ at the visitation of Swine in 1268 was to the effect that
the sums of money which are bestowed in charity upon the convent, for
pittances and garments and other necessary uses, are received by the
Prioress; which ought the rather to be in the custody of two honest
nuns and distributed to those in need of them, and in no wise
converted to other uses[737].
At Nunkeeling in 1314 it was ordained that all money due to the house
should be received by two bursars, elected by the convent[738], and in
1323 Bishop Cobham of Worcester made a similar injunction at Wroxall, that
two sisters were to be chosen by the chapter, to do the business of the
convent in receiving rents, etc.[739] Elaborate arrangements for the
appointment of treasuresses were made by Bishop Bokyngham at Elstow and at
Heynings, in 1388 and 1392 respectively, and by Bishop Flemyng at Elstow
in 1421-2[740]. It will suffice here to quote the much earlier arrangement
made by Archbishop Peckham at Usk in 1284:
"Since," he wrote, "lately visiting you by our metropolitan right, we
found you in a most desolate state (_multipliciter desolatas_),
desiring to avoid such desolation in future, we order, by the counsel
of discreet men, that henceforth two provident and discreet nuns be
elected by the consent of the prioress and community; into whose hands
all the money of the house shall be brought, whether from granges, or
from appropriated churches, or coming from any other offerings, to be
carefully looked after by their consent. And as well the Prioress as
the other nuns shall receive (money for) all necessary expenses from
their hands and in no manner otherwise. And we will that these nuns be
called Treasuresses, which Treasuresses thrice in the year, to wit in
Lent, Whitsuntide and on the Feast of St Michael, shall render account
before the Prioress for the time being and before five or six elders
of the chapter."
In addition they were to have a priest as _custos_ or administrator of
their temporal and spiritual possessions[741].
The appointment of a coadjutress to the head of a house in the
administration of its affairs is of the same nature. The appointment of
coadjutresses was a favourite device with Archbishop Peckham, to check an
extravagant or incapable head. At the great abbey of Romsey three
coadjutresses were appointed, without whose testimony and advice the
Abbess was to undertake no important business[742]. At Wherwell one
coadjutress only, a certain J. de Ver, was appointed in 1284, and the same
year the Archbishop wrote to his commissary on the subject of the Priory
of the Holy Sepulchre, Canterbury:
Since by the carelessness and neglect of the Prioress the goods of the
house are said to be much wasted, we wish you to assign to her two
coadjutresses, to wit Dame Sara and another of the more honest and
wise ladies; but let neither be Benedicta, who is said to have greatly
offended the whole community by her discords.
Here, as at Usk, Peckham appointed in addition a master to look after
their affairs[743]. At the disorderly house of Arthington Isabella Couvel
was in 1312 associated with the Prioress Isabella de Berghby, but the
Prioress seems to have resented the appointment and promptly ran
away[744]. In the Exeter diocese Bishop Stapeldon made Joan de Radyngton
coadjutress to Petronilla, Abbess of Canonsleigh in 1320[745]; and in the
diocese of Bath and Wells Bishop Ralph of Shrewsbury in 1335 appointed two
coadjutresses to Cecilia de Draycote, Prioress of White Hall, Ilchester,
and in 1351, when his visitation had revealed many scandals at Cannington,
including the simoniacal admission of nuns and unauthorised sale of
corrodies by the Prioress, the Bishop, instead of depriving her "tempered
the rigour of the law with clemency" and appointed two coadjutresses
without whose consent she was to do nothing[746]. Bishop Alnwick made use
of this method of controlling a superior in several cases where serious
mismanagement had come to light at his visitation[747], and other
instances of this method of controlling the administration of a superior
might be multiplied from the episcopal registers.
The appointment of treasuresses and of coadjutresses and the provision for
due consultation of the chapter, custody of the common seal and
presentment of accounts had the purpose of safeguarding the nuns against
reckless expenditure or maladministration by the head of the house, and,
where the injunctions of the Visitor were carried out, such precautions
doubtless proved of use. Some further check was, however, necessary, to
safeguard the nuns against themselves, and to prevent the whole convent
from rash sales of land, alienation of goods and from all those other
improvident devices for obtaining ready money, to which they were so much
addicted. The Bishop often attempted to impose such a check by forbidding
certain steps to be taken without his own consent. The business for which
an episcopal licence was necessary usually comprised the alienation of
land or its lease for life or for a long term of years, the sale of any
corrodies or payment of any fees or pensions, and (as has already been
pointed out) the reception of new inmates, who might overcrowd the house
and thus impose a strain upon its revenues[748]. Other business, such as
the sale of woods, was sometimes included[749]. The prohibition of
corrodies, fees and pensions was doubtless intended to protect the nuns
against the exactions of patrons and other persons, who claimed the right
to pension off relatives or old servants by this means, as well as against
their own improvidence in selling such doles for inadequate sums of ready
money. As typical of such prohibitions may be quoted Alnwick's injunction
(given in two parts) to Harrold in 1442-3:
Also we enioyne yow, prioresse, and your sucessours vndere payne of
pry[v]acyone and perpetuelle amocyone fro your and thaire astate and
dygnyte that fro hense forthe ye ne thai selle, graunte ne gyfe to ony
persone what euer thai be any corrody, lyverye, pensyone or anuyte to
terme of lyve, certeyn tyme or perpetuelly, but if ye or thai fyrste
declare the cause to vs or our successours bysshoppes of Lincolne, and
in that case have our specyalle licence or of our saide successours
and also the fulle assent of the more hole parte of your couent. Also
we enioyne yow prioresse and your successours vndere the payne of
priuacyone afore saide that ye ne thai selle, gyfe, aleyne, ne felle
no grete wode or tymbere, saue to necessary reparacyone of your place
and your tenaundryes, but if ye and thai hafe specyalle licence ther
to, of vs or our successours bysshoppes of Lincolne and the cause
declared to vs or our successours[750].
An exceptionally conscientious Bishop would sometimes send even more full
and elaborate instructions to a nunnery on the management of its property,
and examples of such minute regulations are to be found in the injunctions
sent to Elstow Abbey at different times by Bishop Bokyngham (1387)[751],
Archbishop Courtenay (1389)[752] and Bishop Flemyng (1421-2)[753]. Bishop
Bokyngham also sent very full injunctions to Heynings in 1392 and these
may be quoted to illustrate the care which the Visitors sometimes took to
set a house upon a firm financial footing, so far as it was possible to do
so by the mere giving of good advice:
The Prioress, indeed, shall attempt to do nothing without the counsel
of two nuns, elected by the convent to assist her in the government
of the aforesaid priory, both within and without; and when any
important business has to be done concerning the state of the priory,
the same Prioress shall expound it to the convent in common, and shall
settle and accomplish it according to their counsel, to the advantage
of the aforesaid house. And each year the receiver shall display fully
in chapter to the convent in common the state of the house and an
account of the administration of its goods, clearly and openly
written.... Item we command and ordain that the common seal and
muniments of the house be faithfully kept under three locks, of which
one key shall be in the custody of the prioress, another of the
subprioress and the third of a nun elected for this purpose by the
convent.... Item we enjoin and command that two receivers be each year
elected by the chapter, who shall receive all money whatsoever,
forthcoming from the churches, manors or rents of the said priory, the
which two elected (receivers), together with the Prioress and with an
auditor deputed in the name of the convent, shall hear and receive in
writing the computation, account and reckoning of all bailiffs without
the precincts of the house, who receive any moneys, or any other goods
whatsoever in the name of the said convent, from churches, manors or
rents. And afterwards the same two elected receivers, before the
Prioress and two other of the greater, elder and more prudent nuns,
elected to this end by the convent, shall faithfully render at least
twice every year the account and computation of all the receipts and
expenses of the same (receivers) within the precincts of the aforesaid
house, to the said Prioress and two sisters elected and deputed in the
name of the convent. And when this has been done, we will and enjoin
that twice in every year the Prioress of the aforesaid house show the
whole state of the aforesaid house in chapter, the whole convent being
assembled on a certain day for this purpose. And we will that the roll
of the aforesaid balance sheet, or paper of account or reckoning,
remain altogether in the archives of the aforesaid house, that the
prioress and the elder and more prudent (nuns) of the aforesaid house
may be able easily to learn the state of the same in future years and
whenever any difficulty may arise. And let bailiffs be constituted of
sufficient faculties and of commendable discretion and fidelity, the
best that can be found, and let them similarly render due account
every year before the same prioress and convent.... Furthermore we
will that the Prioress and convent of the aforesaid house do not sell
or concede in perpetuity or grant for a term corrodies, stipends,
liveries or pensions to clerics or to laymen, save with our licence
first sought and obtained[754].
At Elstow Bokyngham gave a more detailed injunction about the appointment
of bailiffs and other officers.
Let the Abbess for the government of the aforesaid monastery have
faithful servants, in especial for the government and supervision
without waste of the husbandry and the manors and stock and woods of
the aforesaid house; the which the Abbess herself is bound, if she
can, to supervise each year in person, or else let her cause them to
be industriously supervised by others; and to look after the external
and internal business of the house and to prosecute it outside let her
appoint also some man of proven experience and of mature age[755].
The purpose of those regulations and restrictions which have hitherto been
described, was to assist the nuns in managing their own finances. But the
nuns were never very good business women, and they were moreover in theory
confined to the precincts of the cloister, so that it was difficult for
them to manage their own business, unless they imperilled their souls by
excursions into the world. During the thirteenth and early fourteenth
centuries, therefore, a common method of extricating them from their
difficulties was by appointing a male guardian, known in different places
as Custos, Prior, Warden or Master, to supervise the temporal affairs of a
house and to look after its finances. In the early history of Cistercian
nunneries each house was governed jointly by a Prior and Prioress and in
some cases a few canons are found holding the temporalities jointly with
the nuns. Of these Cistercian houses Mr Hamilton Thompson says:
As in the case of the Gilbertine priories, such nunneries are rarely
found outside Lincolnshire and Yorkshire: they were under the bishop's
supervision and their connexion with the order of Cîteaux was nominal.
Their geographical distribution, as well as the fact that St Gilbert
attempted to affiliate his nunneries to the Cistercian order and
modelled them upon its rule, provokes the suspicion that such houses
were a result of the growth of the Gilbertine order, and, if not
intended to become double houses, were at any rate imitations of the
corporations of nuns at Sempringham and elsewhere[756].
References to canons occur in connection with the houses of Stixwould,
Heynings and Legbourne in Lincolnshire[757], Catesby in
Northamptonshire[758] and Swine in Yorkshire[759]. The _comperta_ of
Archbishop Giffard's visitation of Swine in 1267-8 show that the house at
that time closely resembled the double houses belonging to the Gilbertine
order.
_Item compertum est_, that the two windows, by which the food and
drink of the canons and lay brothers are conveyed (to them), are not
at all well guarded by the two nuns who are called janitresses,
inasmuch as suspicious conversations are frequently held there between
the canons and lay brothers on the one hand and the nuns and sisters
on the other. _Item compertum est_ that the door which leads to the
church is not at all carefully kept by a certain secular boy, who
permits the canons and lay brothers to enter indiscriminately in the
twilight, that they may talk with the nuns and sisters, the which door
was wont to be guarded diligently by a trusty and energetic lay
brother.
It has already been described how the ill-management of the canons and lay
brothers ("who dissipate and consume, under colour of guardianship, the
goods outside, which were wont to be committed to the guardianship of one
of the nuns") caused the nuns to go short in clothes and food and even to
be reduced to drinking water instead of beer twice a week, though the
canons and their friends "did themselves very well" (_satis habundanter et
laute procurantur_)[760]. In most cases this double constitution of nuns
and canons was in abeyance in Cistercian houses before the fourteenth
century, though a prior and canons are mentioned at Stixwould in 1308[761]
and Richard de Staunton, "canon of Catesby," was made master of that
house as late as 1316[762].
In other houses where no trace of canons has survived there are often
references to the resident Prior, especially in the dioceses of York and
Lincoln, and this official is sometimes found in Benedictine houses (e.g.
Godstow[763], St Michael's Stamford[764], and King's Mead, Derby[765]). He
seems to have acted as senior chaplain and confessor to the nuns as well
as supervising their financial business. In cases where a nunnery was in
some sort of dependence upon an abbey or priory of monks, it is usual to
find a religious of that house acting as _custos_ of the nuns. At St
Michael's Stamford, for instance, the abbots of Peterborough had the right
of nominating a resident prior, subject to the approval of the Bishop of
Lincoln, and the office was often held by a monk of Peterborough[766].
Similarly a monk of St Albans acted as _custos_ of Sopwell[767] and a
canon of Newhouse dwelt at Brodholme "to say daily mass for the sisters
and to overlook their temporalities"[768]. The joint rule of Cistercian
houses by a Prior and Prioress seems to have died out in most cases by the
end of the thirteenth century, but it was customary for some secular or
regular cleric to be appointed in most of the small and poor houses of
York and Lincoln to look after their business[769]. Usually the _custos_
appointed was the vicar or rector of some neighbouring parish. Archbishop
Romeyn, for instance, placed Sinningthwaite, Wilberfoss and Arthington
under the guardianship of the rectors of Kirk Deighton, Sutton-on-Derwent
and Kippax respectively, and he made the vicars of Thirkleby and Bossall
successively masters of Moxby[770]. Bishop Dalderby of Lincoln appointed
neighbouring rectors and vicars to be masters of Legbourne, Godstow,
Rowney, Sewardsley, Fosse, Delapré, St Leonard's Grimsby, and
Nuncoton[771].
Sometimes, on the other hand, canons or monks of religious houses in the
vicinity were charged with looking after the affairs of nunneries. Swine
was managed by Robert de Spalding, a canon of the Premonstratensian house
of Croxton, and in 1289-90 Archbishop Romeyn wrote remonstrating with the
Abbot of Croxton for recalling him, and begging that he might be allowed
to continue at Swine, "cum idem vester canonicus proficuos labores ibidem
impenderit ad relevacionem probabilem depressionis notorie dicte domus";
but the capable Robert was not allowed to return and in 1290 John Bustard,
canon of St Robert's Knaresborough, was appointed in his place. John was
not a success and the next year the Abbot removed him; in 1295 Robert of
Spalding became master again and in 1298 the rector of Londesborough was
appointed[772]. At Catesby in 1293 the office of master was held by a
certain Robert de Wardon, a canon of Canons Ashby, who had apparently left
the nuns and gone back to his own house, to the great detriment of the
nunnery, for Bishop Sutton wrote in 1293 to the Prior of Canons Ashby,
bidding him send back the truant[773]. Similarly a canon of Wellow is
found as warden of St Leonard's Grimsby in 1232 and in 1303[774], a monk
of Whitby as guardian of Handale and Basedale in 1268[775], a canon of
Newburgh at Arden in 1302[776] and a canon of Lincoln at Heynings in 1291:
concerning the latter Bishop Sutton wrote to the nuns that since, "because
of private business and various other impediments he is prevented from
looking after your business as much as it requires, the vicar of Upton
your neighbour is to look after your affairs in his absence," and in 1294
he was definitely replaced by the rector of Blankney[777]. It is clear
from this letter that the masters of nunneries could be non-resident and
this was no doubt usually the case when the office was held by the rector
of a neighbouring parish. Indeed sometimes the same man would be master of
more than one nunnery; as in the case of the monk of Whitby mentioned
above. It was probably rare after the beginning of the fourteenth century
for a _custos_ to reside at a nunnery, as the early Cistercian priors had
done[778].
The appointment of _custodes_ to manage the finances of nunneries was a
favourite policy with Archbishop Peckham, doubtless because it facilitated
the enforcement of strict enclosure upon the nuns. At Godstow there was
already at the time a master, but Peckham also gave the custody of
Davington to the vicar of Faversham in 1279, and that of Holy Sepulchre,
Canterbury, to the vicar of Wickham in 1284, while at Usk in 1284 he
ordered the nuns to have "some senior priest circumspect in temporal and
in spiritual affairs to be, with the consent of the diocesan, master of
all your goods, internal and external, temporal and spiritual"[779]. At
other times a _custos_ would be appointed to meet a particular difficulty
when the financial state of a house had become specially weak. About 1303,
for instance, a monk of Peterborough was made for a season special warden
of St Michael's, Stamford, "with full powers over the temporalities and of
adjudicating and ordering all temporal matters both within and without the
convent as he should think profitable"; the appointment is specially
interesting because there was at the time a resident prior at St Michael's
and the "spiritual disposition of all things concerning the house" is
reserved to this prior and to the prioress[780]. A more serious crisis
occurred at the Priory of White Hall, Ilchester, which was evidently in a
disorderly condition at the beginning of the fourteenth century. In 1323
Bishop John of Drokensford wrote to Henry of Birlaunde, rector of Stoke
and to John de Herminal, announcing that the Prioress, Alice de Chilterne,
was defamed of incontinence with a chaplain and had so mismanaged and
turned to her own nefarious uses the revenues of the house that her
sisters were compelled to beg their bread; she had however submitted
herself to the Bishop, but as public affairs called him to London and as
he did not wish to leave the nunnery unprovided for, he committed the
custody to these two men, ordering them to administer the necessities of
life to the Prioress and sisters, according to the means of the house,
until his return[781]. Some ten years later Bishop Ralph of Shrewsbury
similarly gave the custody of White Hall, Ilchester, to the rectors of
Limington and St John's Ilchester[782]. The nunnery of Barrow, near
Bristol, was also in a disorderly condition; in 1315 John of Drokensford
wrote to the Prioress ordering her to leave the management of secular
matters to a _custos_ appointed by him, and the same day appointed William
de Sutton; and in 1324-5, when he had been obliged to remove the Prioress
Joanna Gurney, he committed the custody of the house to William, rector of
Backwell, ordering him to do the best he could with the advice of the
subprioress and one of the nuns[783]. More often sheer financial distress,
rather than moral disorder, was the reason for which a _custos_ was
appointed to a house. At St Sepulchre's Canterbury, the rector of
Whitstable was made _custos_, "by reason of the miserable want and extreme
poverty of the said house" (1359) and for the same reason another secular
cleric received the "supervision, custody or administration" of the same
house in 1365[784]. In 1366 Thomas Hatfield, Bishop of Durham,
pitying the miserable state of St Bartholomew's at Newcastle-on-Tyne,
both as to spirituals and temporals, and dreading the immediate ruin
thereof, unless some speedy remedy should be applied, committed it to
the care of Hugh de Arnecliffe, priest in the church of St Nicholas in
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, strictly enjoining the prioress and nuns to be
obedient to him in every particular and trusting to his prudence to
find relief for the poor servants of Christ here, in their poverty and
distress.[785]
Sometimes the nuns themselves begged for a _custos_ to assist them, in
terms which show that they found the management of their own finances too
much for them. At Godstow in 1316 the King was obliged, at the request of
the Abbess and nuns, to take the Abbey into his special protection "on
account of its miserable state," and he appointed the Abbot of Eynsham and
the Prior of Bicester as keepers, ordering them to pay the nuns a certain
allowance and to apply the residue to the discharging of their debts[786].
Similarly in 1327 the Prioress and nuns of King's Mead, Derby, represented
themselves as much reduced, and begged the King to take the house into his
special protection, granting the custody of it to Robert of Alsop and
Simon of Little Chester, until it should be relieved. Three months later
Edward III granted it protection for three years and appointed Robert of
Alsop and Simon of Little Chester custodians, who, after due provision for
the sustenance of the prioress and nuns, were to apply the issues and
rents to the discharge of the liabilities of the house and to the
improvement of its condition[787]. Some interesting evidence in this
connection was given during Alnwick's visitations of the diocese of
Lincoln. When Clemence Medforde, the Prioress of Ankerwyke, was asked
whether she had observed the Bishop's injunctions, she answered
that such injunctions were, and are, well observed as regards both her
and her sisters in effect and according to their power, except the
injunction whereby she is bound to supply to her sisters sufficient
raiment for their habits, and as touching the non-observance of that
injunction she answers that she cannot observe it, because of the
poverty and insufficiency of the resources of the house, which have
been much lessened by reason of the want of a surveyor or steward
(_yconomus_). Wherefore she besought my lord's good-will and
assistance that he would deign with charitable consideration to make
provision of such steward or director.... And when these nuns, all and
several, had been so examined and were gathered together again in the
chapter house, the said Depyng (the Visitor) gave consideration to two
grievances, wherein the priory and nuns alike suffer no small damage,
the which, as he affirmed, were worthy of reform above the rest of
those that stood most in need of reform, to wit the lack of raiment
for the habit, of bedclothes and of a steward or seneschal, but in
these matters, as he averred, he could not apply a remedy for the
nonce without riper deliberation and consultation with my lord[788].
Similarly the old Prioress of St Michael's Stamford, when asking for the
appointment of two nuns as treasuresses, complained "that she herself is
impotent to rule temporalities, nor have they an industrious man to
supervise these and to raise and receive (external payments)"; another nun
said that "they have not a discreet layman to rule their temporalities,"
and a third also complained of the lack of a "receiver"[789]. At Gokewell,
on the other hand, the Prioress said "that the rector of Flixborough is
their steward (_yconomus_) and he looks after the temporalities and not
she"; he was evidently a true friend to the nuns, for she said "that the
house does not exceed £10 in rents and is greatly in debt to the rector of
Flixborough"[790]. The terms of appointment of _custodes_ often specify
the inexpertness of the nuns, or their need for someone to supervise the
management of their estates[791]. Perhaps the fullest set of instructions
to a _custos_ which have survived are those given by Archbishop Melton to
Roger de Saxton, rector of Aberford, in making him _custos_ of Kirklees in
1317:
Trusting in your industry, we by tenour of the present (letters) give
you power during our pleasure to look after, guard and administer the
temporal possessions of our beloved religious ladies, the Prioress and
convent of Kirklees in our diocese, throughout their manors and
buildings (_loca_) wherever these be, and to receive and hear the
account of all servants and ministers serving in the same, and to make
those payments (_allocandum_) which by reason ought to be made, as
well as to remove all useless ministers and servants and to appoint in
their place others of greater utility, and to do all other things
which shall seem to you to be to the advantage of the place, firmly
enjoining the said prioress and convent, as well as the sisters and
lay brothers of the house, in virtue of holy obedience, that they
permit you freely to administer in all and each of the aforesaid
matters[792].
It must have been of great assistance to the worried and incompetent nuns
to have a reliable guardian thus to look after their temporal affairs, and
it is difficult to understand why the practice of having a resident prior
died out at the Cistercian houses and at Benedictine houses (e.g. St
Michael's, Stamford) which had such an official in the thirteenth and
early fourteenth centuries. Even the appointment of neighbouring rectors
as _custodes_ of nunneries in the York and Lincoln dioceses ceased,
apparently, to be common by the middle of the fourteenth century[793]. It
is a curious anomaly that this remedy should have been applied less and
less often during the very centuries when the nunneries were becoming
increasingly poor, and stood daily in greater need of external assistance
in the management of their temporal affairs.
CHAPTER VI
EDUCATION
Abstinence the abbesse myn a. b. c. me taughte.
_Piers Plowman._
The Benedictine ideal set study together with prayer and labour as the
three bases of monastic life and in the short golden age of English
monasticism women as well as men loved books and learning. The tale of the
Anglo-Saxon nuns who corresponded with St Boniface has often been told.
Eadburg, Abbess of Thanet, wrote the Epistles of St Peter for him in
letters of gold and sent books to him in the wilds of Germany. Bugga,
Abbess of a Kentish house, exchanged books with him. The charming Lioba,
educated by the nuns of Wimborne, sent him verses which she had composed
in Latin, which "divine art" the nun Eadburg had taught her, and begged
him to correct the rusticity of her style. Afterwards she came into
Germany to help him and became Abbess of Bischofsheim and her biographer
tells how
she was so bent on reading that she never laid aside her book except
to pray or to strengthen her slight frame with food and sleep. From
childhood upwards she had studied grammar and the other liberal arts,
and hoped by perseverance to attain a perfect knowledge of religion,
for she was well aware that the gifts of nature are doubled by study.
She zealously read the books of the Old and New Testaments and
committed their divine precepts to memory; but she further added to
the rich store of her knowledge by reading the writings of the holy
Fathers, the canonical decrees and the laws of the Church.
So also an anonymous Anglo-Saxon nun of Heidenheim wrote the lives of
Willibald and Wunebald[794].
The Anglo-Saxon period seems, however, to have been the only one during
which English nuns were at all conspicuous for learning. There is indeed
very scant material for writing their history between the Norman Conquest
and the last years of the thirteenth century, when Bishops' Registers
begin. It is never safe to argue from silence and some nuns may still
have busied themselves over books; but two facts are significant: we have
no trace of women occupying themselves with the copying and illumination
of manuscripts and no nunnery produced a chronicle. The chronicles are the
most notable contribution of the monastic houses to learning from the
eleventh to the fourteenth centuries; and some of the larger nunneries,
such as Romsey, Lacock, and Shaftesbury, received many visitors and must
have heard much that was worth recording, besides the humbler annals of
their own houses. But they recorded nothing. The whole trend of medieval
thought was against learned women and even in Benedictine nunneries, for
which a period of study was enjoined by the rule, it was evidently
considered altogether outside the scope of women to concern themselves
with writing. While the monks composed chronicles, the nuns embroidered
copes; and those who sought the gift of a manuscript from the monasteries,
sought only the gift of needlework from the nunneries.
It is not, perhaps, surprising that the nuns should have written no
chronicles and copied few, if any, books. But it is surprising that
England should after the eighth century be able to show so little record
of gifted individuals. Even if the rule of a professedly learned order
were unlikely to prevail against the general trend of civilisation and to
produce learned women, still it might have been expected that here and
there a genius, or a woman of some talent for authorship, might have
flourished in that favourable soil; or even that a whole house might have
enjoyed for a brief halcyon period the zest for learning, when "alle was
buxomnesse there and bokes to rede and to lerne." In Germany, at various
periods of the middle ages, this did happen. The Abbey of Gandersheim in
Saxony was renowned for learning in the tenth century and here lived and
flourished the nun Roswitha, who not only wrote religious legends in Latin
verse, but even composed seven dramas in the style of Terence, a poem on
the Emperor Otto the Great and a history of her own nunnery. From the
internal evidence of her works it has been thought that this nun was
directly familiar with the works of Virgil, Lucan, Horace, Ovid, Terence
and perhaps Plautus, Prudentius, Sedulius, Fortunatus, Martianus Capella
and Boethius; but apart from this evidence of learning, her plays show
her to have been a woman of originality and some genius; they are strange
productions to have emanated from a tenth century convent[795]. It was in
Germany again, at Hohenburg in Alsace, that the Abbess Herrad in the
twelfth century compiled and decorated with exquisite illuminations the
great encyclopedia known as the _Hortus Deliciarum_. This book, one of the
finest manuscripts which had survived from the middle ages and a most
invaluable source of information for the manners and appearance of the
people of Herrad's day, was destroyed in the German bombardment of
Strasburg in 1870[796]. The same century saw the lives of the two great
nun-mystics, St Hildegard of Bingen and St Elisabeth of Schönau, who saw
visions, dreamed dreams and wrote them down[797]. In the next century the
convent of Helfta in Saxony was the home of several literary nuns and
mystics and was distinguished for culture; its nuns collected books,
copied them, illuminated them, learned and wrote Latin, and three of them,
the béguine Mechthild, the nun Saint Mechthild von Hackeborn and the nun
Gertrud the Great, have won considerable fame by their mystic
writings[798]. Even in the decadent fifteenth century examples are not
wanting of German nuns who were keenly interested in learning; and in the
early sixteenth century Charitas Pirckheimer, nun of St Clare at Nuremberg
and sister of the humanist Wilibald Pirckheimer, was in close relations
with her brother and with many of his friends and full of enthusiasm for
the new learning[799].
It is strange that in England there is no record of any house which can
compare with Gandersheim, Hohenburg or Helfta; no record of any nun to
compare with the learned women and great mystics who have been mentioned.
The air of the English nunneries would seem to have been unfavourable to
learning. The sole works ascribed to monastic authoresses are a _Life of
St Catherine_, written in Norman-French by Clemence, a nun of Barking, in
the late twelfth century[800], and _The Boke of St Albans_, a treatise on
hawking, hunting and coat armour, printed in 1486, by one Dame Juliana
Berners, whom a vague and unsubstantiated tradition declares to have been
Prioress of Sopwell. Nor do nuns seem to have been more active in copying
manuscripts. Several beautiful books, which have come down to our own day,
can be traced to nunneries, but there is no evidence that they were
written there and all other evidence makes it highly improbable that they
were. It is true that in 1335 we find this entry among the issues of the
Exchequer:
To Isabella de Lancaster, a nun of Amesbury, in money paid to her by
the hands of John de Gynewell for payment of 100 marks, which the lord
the King commanded to be paid her for a book of romance purchased from
her for the King's use, which remains in the chamber of the lord the
King, 66 l. 13 s. 4 d[801],
but it is unlikely that the book thus purchased by the King from his noble
kinswoman was her own work.
This period of the later ages was, indeed, unfavourable to learning among
monks as well as among nuns. As the universities grew, so the monasteries
declined in lustre; learning had no longer need to seek refuge behind
cloister walls, and the most promising monks now went to the universities,
instead of studying at home in their own houses. The standard of the
chronicles rapidly declined and the best chronicler of the fourteenth
century was not a monk like Matthew Paris, but a secular, a wanderer, a
hanger-on of princes, Froissart. As the fifteenth century passed learning
declined still further; and it is evident from the visitations of the time
that the monks, whatever else they might be, were not scholars. We should
expect the decline in learning to be more marked still among the nuns,
considering how little they had possessed in preceding centuries; and the
matter is worth some study, because it concerns not only the education of
the nuns themselves, but the education which they were qualified to give
to the children who were sent to school with them.
A word may first be said on the subject of nunnery libraries. Concerning
these we have very little information; and, such as it is, it does not
leave the impression that nunneries were rich in books. No catalogue of a
nunnery library[802] has come down to us and such references to libraries
as occur in inventories show great poverty in this respect, the books
being few and chiefly service-books. An inventory of the small and poor
convent of Easebourne, taken in 1450, shows what was doubtless quite a
large library for a house of its size. It contained two missals, two
_portiforia_ (breviaries), four antiphoners, one large _Legenda_, eight
psalters, one book of collects, one tropary, one French Bible, two
_ordinalia_ in French, one book of the Gospels and one martyrology[803].
The inventories of Henry VIII's commissioners give very little information
as to books and seem to have found few that were of any value. The books
found at Sheppey are thus described: "ij bokes with ij sylver clapses the
pece, and vj bokes with one sylver clasp a pec, l bokes good and bad" (in
the church), "vij bokes, whereof one goodly mase boke of parchement and
dyvers other good bokes" (in the vestry), and "an olde presse full of old
boks of no valew" (in a chapel in the churchyard) and "a boke of Saynts
lyfes" (in the parlour)[804]. At Kilburn were found "two books of _Legenda
Aurea_, one in print, the other written, both English, 4_d._"; the one in
print must have been Caxton's edition, thus valued, together with a
manuscript, at something like 6_s._ 8_d._ in present money for the pair!
Also "two mass books, one old written, the other in print, 20_d._, four
processions in parchment (3_s._) and paper (10_d._), two Legends in
parchment and paper, 8_d._, and two chests, with divers books pertaining
to the church, of no value"[805]. It will be noted that the books are
almost always connected with the church services. It is perhaps
significant that in only one list of the inmates of a house is a nun
specifically described as librarian[806].
Something may be gleaned also from the legacies of books left to nuns in
medieval wills. These again are nearly always psalters or service books of
one kind or another; and indeed the average layman was more likely to
possess these than other books, for all alike attended the services of the
church. Thus Sir Robert de Roos in 1392 leaves his daughter, a nun, "a
little psalter, that was her mother's"[807]; Sir William de Thorp in 1391
leaves his sister-in-law, a nun of Greenfield, a psalter[808]; William
Stow of Ripon in 1430 leaves the Prioress of Nunmonkton a small
psalter[809], William Overton of Helmsley in 1481 leaves his niece Elena,
a nun of Arden, "one great Primer with a cover of red damask"[810], and so
on. There may be some significance in the fact that John Burn, chaplain at
York Cathedral, leaves the Prioress and Convent of Nunmonkton "an English
book of Pater Noster"[811]. It strikes a strange and pleasant note when
Thomas Reymound in 1418 leaves the Prioress and Convent of Polsloe 20_s._
and the _Liber Gestorum Karoli, Regis Francie_[812], and when Eleanor Roos
of York in 1438 leaves Dame Joan Courtenay "unum librum vocatum
Mauldebuke," whatever that mysterious tome may have contained[813].
Some light is also thrown backward upon their possessors by isolated books
which have come down to our own day and are known to have belonged to
nuns. These come mostly, as might be expected, from the great abbeys of
the south, where the nuns were rich and of good birth, from Syon and
Barking, Amesbury, Wilton and Shaftesbury, St Mary's Winchester, and
Wherwell[814]. Sometimes the MS. records the name of the nun owner. Wright
and Halliwell quote from a Latin breviary, in which is an inscription to
the effect that it belonged to Alice Champnys, nun of Shaftesbury, who
bought it for the sum of 10_s._ from Sir Richard Marshall, rector of the
parish church of St Rumbold of Shaftesbury. There follows this prayer for
the use of the nun:
Trium puerorum cantemus himnum quem cantabant in camino ignis
benedicentes dominum. O swete Jhesu, the sonne of God, the endles
swetnesse of hevyn and of erthe and of all the worlde, be in my herte,
in my mynde, in my wytt, in my wylle, now and ever more, Amen. Jhesu
mercy, Jhesu gramercy, Jhesu for thy mercy, Jhesu as I trust to thy
mercy, Jhesu as thow art fulle of mercy, Jhesu have mercy on me and
alle mankynde redemyd with thy precyouse blode. Jhesu, Amen[815].
A manuscript of Capgrave's _Life of St Katharine of Alexandria_, which
belonged to Katherine Babyngton, subprioress of Campsey in Suffolk, has a
very different inscription:
Iste liber est ex dono Kateryne Babyngton quondam subpriorisse de
Campseye et si quis illum alienauerit sine licencia vna cum consensu
dictarum [sanctimonialium] conuentus, malediccionem dei omnipotentis
incurrat et anathema sit[816].
Sometimes the owner of a manuscript is known to us from other sources.
There is a splendid psalter, now in St John's College, Cambridge, which
belonged to the saintly Euphemia, Abbess of Wherwell from 1226 to 1257,
whose good deeds were celebrated in the chartulary of the house[817]. In
the Hunterian Library at Glasgow there is a copy of the first English
translation of Thomas à Kempis's _Imitatio Christi_, which belonged to
Elizabeth Gibbs, Abbess of Syon from 1497 to 1518; it is inscribed
O vos omnes sorores et ffratres presentes et futuri, orate queso pro
venerabili matre nostra Elizabeth Gibbis, huius almi Monasterii
Abbessa [_sic_], necnon pro deuoto ac religioso viro Dompno Willielmo
Darker, in artibus Magistro de domo Bethleem prope sheen ordinis
Cartuciensis, qui pro eadem domina Abbessa hunc librum conscripsit;
the date 1502 is given[818].
The books known to have been in the possession of nuns throw, as will be
seen, but a dim light upon the educational attainments of their owners.
More specific evidence must be sought in bishops' registers, and in such
references to the state of learning in nunneries as occur in the works of
contemporary writers. It is clear that nuns were expected to be
"literate"; bishops sending new inmates to convents occasionally assure
their prospective heads that the girls are able to undertake the duties of
their new state[819]. What to be sufficiently lettered meant, from the
convent point of view, appears in injunctions sent to the
Premonstratensian house of Irford, forbidding the reception of any nun
"save after such fashion as they are received at Irford and Brodholme, to
wit that they be able to read and to sing, as is contained in the statute
of the order"[820]; and again in injunctions sent by Bishop Gray to Elstow
about 1432:
We enjoin and charge you the abbess and who so shall succeed you ...
that henceforward you admit no one to be a nun of the said monastery
... unless she be taught in song and reading and the other things
requisite herein, or probably may be easily instructed within a short
time[821].
Further light is thrown on the question by an episode in the life of
Thomas de la Mare, Abbot of St Albans from 1349 to 1396. At that time the
subordinate nunnery of St Mary de Pré consisted of two grades of inmates,
nuns and sisters, who were never on good terms. The Abbot accordingly
transformed the sisters into nuns and ordained that no more sisters should
be received, but only "literate nuns." But hitherto the nuns also had been
illiterate; "they said no service, but in the place of the Hours they said
certain Lord's Prayers and Angelic Salutations." The Abbot therefore
ordered that they should be taught the service and that in future they
should observe the canonical hours, saying them without chanting, but
singing the offices for the dead at certain times. Since they had
apparently no books, from which to read the services, he gave them six or
seven ordinals, belonging to the Abbey of St Albans, which caused not a
little annoyance among the monks. In order that nuns should not be rashly
and easily admitted, he ordered that henceforth all who entered the house
were to profess the rule of St Benedict in writing[822].
The requirements seem to be that the nun should be able to take part in
the daily offices in the quire, for which reading and singing were
essential. It was not, it should be noted, essential to write, though
Abbot Thomas de la Mare required the nuns of St Mary de Pré to profess the
rule in writing and about 1330 the nuns of Sopwell (another dependency of
St Albans) were enjoined by the commissary of a previous Abbot to give
their votes for a new Prioress in writing[823]. Nevertheless, strange as
this may appear to many who are wont to credit the nuns with teaching
reading, writing, arithmetic and a number of other accomplishments to
their pupils, it is probable that some of the nuns of the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries were unable to write. The form of profession of three
novices at Rusper in 1484 has survived and ends with the note "Et quelibet
earum fecit tale signum crucis manu sua propria [Maltese cross]"[824]
which might possibly imply that these nuns could not write their names. It
is significant that the official business of convents, their annual
accounts and any certificates which they might have to draw up, were done
by professional clerks, or sometimes by their chaplains. Payment to the
clerk who made the account occurs regularly in their account rolls; and
the Visitations of Bishop Alnwick, to which reference will be made below,
show that they were often completely at a loss, when writing had to be
done and there was no clerk to do it.
Again it would seem clear that the nun who was fully qualified to "bear
the burden of the choir" ought to be able to understand what she read, as
well as to read it, and this raises at once the study of Latin in
nunneries. Here again the nuns do not emerge very well from inquiry. Some
there were no doubt who knew a little Latin, even in the fourteenth,
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; but the more the inquirer studies
contemporary records, the more he is driven to conclude that the majority
of nuns during this period knew no Latin; they must have sung the offices
by rote and though they may have understood, it is to be feared that the
majority of them could not construe even a _Pater Noster_, an _Ave_ or a
_Credo_. Let us take the evidence for the different centuries in turn. The
language of visitation injunctions affords some clue to the knowledge of
the nuns. It must be remembered that throughout the whole period Latin was
always the learned and ecclesiastical language; and the communications
addressed by a bishop to the monastic houses of his district, notices of
visitation, mandates and injunctions would normally be in Latin; and when
he was addressing monks they were in fact almost always in this tongue.
After Latin the language next in estimation was French. This had been the
universal language of the upper class and up till the middle of the
fourteenth century it was still _par excellence_ the courtly tongue. But
it was rapidly ceasing to be a language in general use and the
turning-point is marked by a statute of 1362, which ordains that
henceforth all pleas in the law courts shall be conducted in English,
since the French language "is too unknown in the said realm." At the close
of the century even the upper classes were ceasing to speak French and the
English ambassadors to France in 1404 had to beseech the Grand Council of
France to answer them in Latin, French being "like Hebrew" to them[825].
In the fifteenth century French was a mere educational adornment, which
could be acquired by those who could get teachers.
The linguistic learning of English nuns at different periods was similar
to that of the gentry outside the convent. It was not possible after the
beginning of the fourteenth century (perhaps even during the last half of
the thirteenth century) to assume in them that acquaintance with Latin,
the learned and ecclesiastical tongue, which was generally assumed in
their brothers the monks. Their learning was similar to that of
contemporary laymen of their class, rather than of contemporary monks; and
it went through exactly the same phases as did the coronation oath. About
1311 the King's oath occurs in Latin among the State documents, with the
note appended that "if the King were illiterate" he was to swear in
French, as Edward II did in 1307; but in 1399 when Henry IV claimed the
throne, he claimed it in English, "In the name of the Fadir, Son and Holy
Gost, I Henry of Lancastre, chalenge þis Rewme of Yngland"[826]. Similarly
towards the close of the thirteenth century the English bishops begin to
write to their nuns in French, because they are no longer "literate," in
the sense of understanding Latin. Throughout this century the nuns are
able to speak the courtly tongue; they use it for their petitions; and
Chaucer's Prioress boasts it among her accomplishments at the close of the
century,
And Frensh she spak ful faire and fetisly
After the scole of Stratford atte Bowe,
For French of Paris was to her unknowe.
But French, like Latin, is beginning to die away. It hardly ever occurs in
petitions after the end of the century; and in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries the Bishops almost invariably send their injunctions to the nuns
in English. The majority of nuns during these two centuries would seem to
have understood neither French nor Latin[827].
The evidence of the bishops' registers is worth considering in more
detail. The bishops were genuinely anxious that the reforms set forth in
their injunctions should be carried out by the nuns, and they were
therefore at considerable pains to send the injunctions in language which
the nuns could understand. There are few surviving injunctions belonging
to the thirteenth century; and their evidence is missed. Archbishop Walter
Giffard in 1268[828] and Archbishop Newark in 1298[829] write to the nuns
of Swine in Latin, a language which they seem to have employed habitually
when writing to nunneries. Archbishop Peckham sometimes writes to the
Godstow nuns in Latin (1279) and sometimes in French (1284)[830]; it is to
be noted that his French letter is of a more familiar type. Bishop
Cantilupe of Hereford writes about 1277 to the nuns of Lymbrook in Latin,
but his closing words raise considerable doubt as to whether an
understanding of Latin can be generally assumed in nunneries at this
period, for he says "you are to cause this our letter to be expounded to
you several times in the year by your penancers, in the French or English
tongue, whichever you know best"[831].
The evidence for the next century is even less ambiguous, for nearly all
injunctions are in French and sometimes it is specifically mentioned that
the nuns do not understand Latin. Bishop Norbury in 1331 translates his
injunctions to Fairwell into French[832], because the nuns do not
understand the original in Latin, and Bishop Robert de Stretton, writing
to the same house in 1367, orders his decree to be "read and explained in
the vulgar tongue by some literate ecclesiastical person on the day after
its receipt"[833]. Bishop Stapeldon's interesting injunctions to Polsloe
and Canonsleigh in 1319 are in French, but he seems to assume some
knowledge of Latin in the nuns, for he orders that if it be necessary to
break silence in places where silence is ordained, speech should be held
in Latin, though not in grammatically constructed sentences, but in
isolated words[834]. In 1311 Bishop Woodlock sending a set of Latin
injunctions to the great Abbey of Romsey, announces that he has caused
them to be translated into French, that the nuns may more easily
understand them[835]; but Wykeham writes to them in Latin in 1387[836]. In
the Lincoln diocese during this century the custom of the bishops varies.
Gynewell writes to Heynings and to Godstow in French, but to Elstow in
Latin[837]; Bokyngham writes to both Heynings and Elstow in Latin, but in
ordering the nuns of Elstow in 1387 to keep silence at due times, he adds
"Et vulgare gallicum addiscentes inter se eo utantur colloquentes"[838], a
significant contrast to Stapeldon's recommendation of Latin in similar
circumstances some seventy years earlier.
When we pass from the fourteenth to the fifteenth century it is clear that
even French was becoming an unknown tongue to the nuns; nearly all
injunctions are from this time forward written in English. At Redlingfield
in 1427, the seven nuns and two novices were assembled in the chapter
house, where the deputy visitor read his commission, first in Latin and
then in the vulgar tongue, in order that the nuns might better understand
it[839]. It is true that Bishops Flemyng and Gray send Latin injunctions
to Elstow and Delapré Abbeys in 1422 and 1433 respectively; but Flemyng
orders "that the premises, all and sundry, be published and read openly
and in the vulgar mother tongue eight times a year"[840], and Gray writes
that his injunctions are to be translated into the mother tongue and
fastened in some conspicuous place[841]. The best evidence of all for the
state of learning in nunneries during the first half of the fifteenth
century is to be found in the invaluable records of Alnwick's visitations
of the Lincoln diocese. Now it should be noted that when Alnwick visited
houses of monks or canons, the sermon, which was generally preached on
such occasions by one of the learned clerics who accompanied him, was
invariably preached in Latin. Moreover, all injunctions sent to male
houses after visitation were sent in Latin also. The assumption still was
that these monasteries were homes of learning and acquainted with the
language of learning. With the nunneries it was otherwise. The sermons
were always preached "in the vulgar tongue" and the injunctions were
always sent in English. It was not even pretended that the nuns would
understand Latin. Moreover it is quite plain that when the preliminary
notices of visitation had been sent in Latin, they had been very
imperfectly understood; and that when it was necessary for a Prioress
herself to draw up a certificate in writing, she was often quite unable to
do so.
A few extracts from Alnwick's records will illustrate the complete
ignorance of Latin and general illiteracy in these houses. At Ankerwyke
(1441) it is noted:
And then when request had been made of the prioress by the reverend
father for the certificate of his mandate conveyed to the said
prioress for such visitation, the same prioress, instead of the
certificate delivered the original mandate itself to the said reverend
father, affirming that she did not understand the mandate itself, nor
had she any man of skill or other lettered person to instruct what she
should do in this behalf[842].
At Markyate (1442), when the same certificate was asked for, the Prioress
said that she had not a clerk who was equipped for writing such a
certificate, on the which head she submitted herself to my lord's
favour and then showed my lord in lieu of a certificate the original
mandate itself and the names of the nuns who had been summoned[843].
Similarly the Prioress of Fosse showed the original mandate in place of
the certificate, and the Prioresses of St Michael's Stamford and Rothwell
had failed to draw up the certificate[844]. The Prioress of Gokewell
(1440) was said to be "exceedingly simple," all the temporalities of the
house being ruled by a steward; she also declared that "she knows not how
to compose a formal certificate, in that she has no lettered persons of
her counsel who are skilled in this case," and she had been unable to find
the document reciting the confirmation of her election[845]. The poor
convent of Langley seems to have been reduced to complete confusion by the
episcopal mandate. The Prioress
says that she received my lord's mandate on the feast of St Denis
last. Interrogated whether she has a certificate touching execution
thereof, she says no, because she did not understand it, nor did her
chaplain also, to whom she showed it; concerning the which she
surrendered herself to my lord's favour. Wherefore, when the original
mandate had been delivered to my lord and read through in the vulgar
tongue, my lord asked her if she had executed it. She says yes, as
regards the summons of herself and her sisters.... Interrogated if she
has the foundation charter of the house and who is the founder, she
says that Sir William Pantolfe founded the house, but because they are
unversed in letters they cannot understand the writings[846].
It is unnecessary to multiply the evidence of visitation records for the
rest of the fifteenth and for the early sixteenth century: the general
effect is to show us nuns who know only the English language[847]. Let us
turn to the interesting corroborative evidence provided by those who were
at pains to make translations for their use. It must be admitted that this
evidence only confirms the suggestion made above that the nuns often did
not understand the very services which they sang, let alone the Latin
version of their rule, or the Latin charters by which they held their
lands. That they often sang the services uncomprehendingly like parrots is
actually stated by Sir David Lyndesay, the Scottish poet, in his _Dialog
concerning the Monarché_ (1553). He apologises for writing in his native
tongue, unlike those clerks, who wish to prohibit the people from reading
even the scriptures for themselves, and adds
Tharefore I thynk one gret dirisioun
To heir thir Nunnis & Systeris nycht and day
Syngand and sayand psalmes and orisoun,
Nocht vnderstandyng quhat thay syng nor say,
Bot lyke one stirlyng or ane Papingay
Quhilk leirnit ar to speik be lang usage
Thame I compair to byrdis in ane cage[848].
Several translations of the rule of St Benet were made for the special use
of nuns, who knew no Latin. A northern metrical version of the early
fifteenth century explains
Monkes and als all leryd men
In Latin may it lyghtly ken,
And wytt tharby how they sall wyrk
To sarue god and haly kyrk.
Bott tyll women to mak it couth,
That leris no latyn in thar youth,
In inglis is it ordand here,
So that thay may it lyghtly lere[849].
About a century later, in 1517, Richard Fox, the Bishop of Winchester,
published for the benefit of the nuns of his diocese another English
translation of the Rule of St Benedict. In the preface he rehearses how
nuns are professed under the Rule and are bound to read, learn and
understand it:
and also after their profession they should not onely in them selfe
kepe observe execute and practise the said rule but also teche other
and heir sisters the same, and so moche that for the same intent they
daily rede and cause to be rede some parte of the sayd rule by one of
the sayd sisters amonges them selfe as well in their Chapiter House
after the redinge of the Martyrologe as some tyme in their Fraitur in
tyme of refections and collacions, at the which reding is always don
in the latin tonge, whereof they have no knowledge nor understandinge
but be utterly ignorant of the same, whereby they do not only lose
their tyme but also renne into the evident danger and perill of the
perdicion of their soules.
He adds that in order to save the souls of his nuns, and in particular to
ensure that novices understand the Rule before profession,
so that none of them shall nowe afterward probably say that she wyste
not what she professed, as we knowe by experience that some of them
have sayd in tyme passed, for these causes at thinstant requeste of
our ryght dere and well-beloved daughters in oure Lorde Jhesu, the
Abbasses of the Monasteries of Rumsay, Wharwel, Seynt Maries within
the Citie of Winchester and the Prioresses of Wintnay, our right
religious diocesans, we have translated the sayd rule unto our moders
tonge; comune, playne rounde Englishe, easy and redy to be understande
by the sayde devoute religiouse women[850].
The inconvenience of not being able to read the foundation charter and
other legal documents of the house, as confessed by the Prioress of
Langley at Alnwick's visitation, was very great; and about 1460 Alice
Henley, the Abbess of Godstow, caused a translation to be made of the
Latin register, in which were copied all the charters of her abbey. The
translator's preface to the work is interesting:
The wyseman tawht hys chyld gladly to rede bokys and hem well
vndurstonde for, in defaute of vndyrstondyng, is ofttymes caused
neclygence, hurte, harme and hynderaunce, as experyence prevyth in
many a place. And for as muche as women of relygyone in redynge bokys
of latyn, byn excusyd of grete vndurstandyng, where it is not her
modyr tonge; Therfore, how be hyt that they wolde rede her bokys of
remembraunce of her munymentys wryte in latyn, for defaute of
undurstondyng they toke ofte tymes grete hurt and hyndraunce; and,
what for defaute of trewe lernyd men that all tymes be not redy hem to
teche and counsayl, and feere also and drede to shewe her euydence
opynly (that oftyntyme hath causyd repentaunce). Hyt wer ryht
necessary, as hyt semyth to the undyrstondyng of suche relygyous
women, that they myght haue, out of her latyn bokys, sum wrytynge in
her modyr tonge, wher-by they might haue bettyr knowlyge of her
munymentys and more clerely yeue informacyon to her serauntys, rent
gedurarys, and receyuowrs, in the absent of her lernyd councell.
Wher-fore, a poore brodur and welwyller ... to the goode Abbas of
Godstowe, Dame Alice henley, and to all her couent, the whych byn for
the more party in Englyssh bokys well y-lernyd, hertyly desyryng the
worship, profyt and welfare of that deuoute place, that, for lak of
vndurstondyng her munymentys sholde in no damage of her lyflod
huraftur fallyn, In the worship of our lady and seynt John Baptist
patron of thys seyd monastery, the sentence for the more partyre of
her munymentys conteynd in the boke of her regystr in latyn, aftyr the
same forme and ordyr of the seyd boke, hath purposyd with goddys grace
to make, aftur hys conceyt, fro latyn into Englyssh, sentencyosly, as
foloweth thys symple translacion[851].
It will be noticed that the benevolent translator of this Godstow register
says that the nuns are for the most part well learned in English books.
The same impression is given by the translations which were made for the
nuns of Syon. The most famous of these is the _Myroure of Oure Ladye_,
written for the nuns by Thomas Gascoigne (1403-58) and first printed in
1530. This book contains a devotional treatise on divine service, with a
translation and explanation of the "Hours" and "Masses" of our Lady, as
they were used at Syon. The author explains his purpose thus:
Forasmoche as many of you, though ye can synge and rede, yet ye can
not se what the meanynge therof ys; therefore to the onely worshyp
and praysyng of oure lorde Jesu chryste and of hys moste mercyfull
mother oure lady and to the gostly comforte and profyte of youre
soules, I haue drawen youre legende and all youre seruyce in to
Englyshe, that ye shulde se by the vnderstondyng therof, how worthy
and holy praysynge of oure gloryous Lady is contente therin & the more
deuoutely and knowyngly synge yt & rede yt and say yt to her worshyp.
He adds that he has explained the various parts of the divine service for
"symple soulles to vnderstonde," but that he has translated few psalms,
"for ye may haue them of Rycharde hampoules drawynge, and out of Englysshe
bibles, if ye haue lysence therto"[852].
From a passage in the _Myroure_ it appears that the sisters were
accustomed to spend some of their time in reading and advice is given to
them as to the sort of books to read and the way in which to profit by
them; from this it is quite clear that secular learning had no place among
them, their reading being confined to works of ghostly edification[853].
It was their ignorance of Latin which caused the insertion of English
rubrics in the Latin _Processionale_ of the house and which inspired
Richard Whytford, one of the brothers, to translate the splendid
_Martilogium_, which is now in the British Museum, "for the edificacyon of
certayn religyous persones unlerned that dayly dyd rede the same martiloge
in Latyn, not understandynge what they redde"; his translation was printed
by Wynkyn de Worde in 1526[854]. Gascoigne's mention of English bibles is
interesting. Miss Deanesly, in her study of _The Lollard Bible_, has shown
that "it is likely that English nuns were the most numerous orthodox users
of English bibles between 1408 and 1526," but that the evidence for this
use is slight and drawn almost entirely from Syon and Barking, two large
and important houses[855]. Her conclusion is that
it was not the case that the best instructed nuns used Latin Bibles
and the most ignorant English ones: but that the best instructed nuns
were allowed to use English translations, perhaps by themselves,
perhaps to help in the understanding of the Vulgate, while the smaller
nunneries and least instructed nuns almost certainly did not have them
at all.
This goes to confirm the conclusion that even in the greatest houses,
where the nuns were drawn from the highest social classes and might be
supposed to be best educated, the knowledge of Latin was dying out.
Other occupations besides reading filled the working hours of the nuns and
of these spinning and needlework were the most important. Most women in
the middle ages possessed the art of spinning and Aubrey's Old Jacques may
have remembered aright how "he saw from his house the nuns of the priory
(Kington St Michael) come forth into the nymph-hay with their rocks and
wheels to spin," though his memory misled him sorely as to the number of
these ladies. Sometimes a visitation report gives us a glimpse of the nuns
at work: at Easebourne in 1441 the nuns say that the Prioress "compels her
sisters to work continually like hired workwomen and they receive nothing
whatever for their own use from their work, but the prioress takes the
whole profit"[856] and at Catesby in the following year a young nun
complains that the Prioress "setts her to make beds, to sewing and
spinning and other tasks"[857]. Nevertheless it does not seem that the
nuns were in the habit of spinning the wool and flax for their own and
their servants' clothes and account rolls often contain payments made to
hired spinsters, as well as to fullers and weavers.
It is more probable that they busied themselves with needlework and
embroidery, which were the usual occupations of ladies of gentle
birth[858]. Very few traces have unfortunately survived of the work of
English nuns. In earlier centuries English needlework had been famous and
the nuns had been pre-eminent in the making of richly embroidered
vestments. In the thirteenth century, too, English embroidery far
surpassed that made in other countries and it has been conjectured that
"the most famous embroidered vestments now preserved in various places in
Italy are the handiwork of English embroiderers between 1250 and 1300
though their authorship is not as a rule recognised by their present
possessors"[859]. Some of these may have been made by nuns; it is thought
that the famous Syon cope, for long in the possession of the nuns of Syon,
may have been made in a thirteenth century convent in the neighbourhood of
Coventry; but such examples of medieval embroidery as have survived
usually bear no trace of their origin; since a vestment cannot be signed
like a book and it must be remembered that there was a large class of
professional "embroideresses" in the country.
Some, however, of the splendid vestments and altar cloths possessed by the
richer nunneries were probably the work of the nuns. At Langley in 1485
there were, among other rich pieces of embroidery
iiij fronteys (altar frontals) of grene damaske powdered with swanys
and egyls, ... iiij fronteys of blake powdered with swanys and rosys,
... a vestment of blew silke brodyt complete with all yt longyth to
hyt, a vestment of grene velwett complete with a crucifixe of silver
and gylte apon ye amys, a complete vestiment of red velwet, a
vestiment of swede (sewed) work complete, a vestiment of blake damaske
brodyrt with rosys and sterys, a complete vestiment of white brodyrte
with rede trewlyps (_true-love knots_), ... j gret cloth (banner) of
rede powderyd with herts heds and boturfleys ... a large coverlet of
red and blew with rosys and crossys, a tapett of ye same; j large
coverlett of rede and yowlowe with flowrs de luce, a tapett of ye
same; a large coverlett of blew and better blew with swanys and coks,
a tapett of ye same; a coverlett of grene and yowlowe with borys and
draguyns, a tapett of ye same; ... a coverlett of ostrych fydyrs and
crounyd Emmys (_monogram of the Blessed Virgin Mary_); a coverlet of
grene and yowlowe with vynys and rosys; a coverlet of grene and
yowlowe with lylys and swannys; a coverlet of blew and white whyl
knotts (_wheel knots_) and rosys; a coverlet of red and white with
traylest (_trellis_) and Bryds; a coverlet of red and blew with
sterrys and white rosys in mydste; a coverlet of yowlowe and grene
with egyles and emmys; v coveryngs of bedds, yat hys to sey A coveryng
of red saye, a coveryng of panes (_stripes_) of red and grene and
white saye, a coveryng of red and blake saye, a coveryng of red and
blew poudyrd with white esses and sterys, a blew saye with a red
dragne[860].
Many of these embroideries and tapestries were doubtless legacies or
gifts; but it is impossible not to picture the white fingers of the nuns
at work on swans and roses, harts' heads and butterflies, stars and
true-love knots. One may deduce that the nuns of Yorkshire, at least,
busied themselves in these pursuits from an injunction sent to Nunkeeling,
Yedingham and Wykeham in 1314 that no nun should absent herself from
divine service "on account of being occupied with silk work" (_propter
occupacionem operis de serico_)[861].
Reference to the sale of embroidery by nuns is surprisingly rare in
account rolls. The household roll of the Countess of Leicester in 1265
contains an item, "Paid to the nuns of Wintney, for one cope to be made
for the use of Brother J. Angelus by the gift of the Countess at Panham
10_d._"[862], which small sum must have been a part payment in advance,
perhaps towards the purchase of materials; the nuns of Gracedieu, too,
sold a cope to a neighbouring rector for £10, early in the fifteenth
century[863], and on one occasion the cellaress of Barking derived a part
of her income for the year from the sale of a cope[864], but search has
revealed no further instances. The nuns also probably made little presents
for their friends, such as purses (though the Gracedieu nuns always bought
the purses which they gave to their bailiff, to Lady Beaumont, or to other
visitors) and the so-called "blood-bands." In an age when bleeding was the
most common treatment for almost every illness and when monks, in
particular, were regularly bled several times a year, these little
bandages were common presents, being sometimes made of silk. The author of
the _Ancren Riwle_ thus bade his anchoresses "make no purses to gain
friends therewith, not blodbendes of silk, but shape and sew and mend
church vestments and poor people's clothes"[865]. The nuns of the diocese
of Rouen in the mid-thirteenth century were accustomed to knit or
embroider silken purses, tassels, cushions or needlecases for sale or as
gifts, and Archbishop Eudes Rigaud was continually forbidding them to do
any silk work except for church ornament[866]. There is some reason to
think that the nuns, then as now, sometimes eked out their income by doing
fine needlework for ladies of the world, though there is no mention of it
in nunnery accounts, or indeed in any English records. Among the
correspondence of Lady Lisle in the first half of the sixteenth century,
however, are several letters to and from a certain Antoinette de Favences
at Dunkirk, who would appear to have been a nun, for she signs herself
_sister_ Antoinette de Favences and is addressed by Lady Lisle as _Madame_
and _Dame_. This woman was employed to make caps and coifs for Lady
Lisle's family and friends and there is much correspondence between them
as to night-caps which are too wide, lozenge-work and such matters; in one
letter Lady Lisle speaks of sending "16 rozimbos and 2 half angels of
Flanders, a Carolus of gold," in payment for the caps[867].
What other accomplishments the nuns may have possessed we do not know.
They were possibly skilled in herbs and in the more simple forms of home
medicine and surgery, for it was the function of the lady of the manor to
know something of these things, though doctors were available (for nuns as
well as for lay folk) in more serious illnesses[868]. They doubtless bled
each other as did the monks, else how was the wicked Prioress of Kirklees,
who slew Robin Hood, so skilled?:
Doun then came Dame Priorèss
Doun she came in that ilk,
With a pair of blood-irons in her hand,
Were wrappèd all in silk....
She laid the blood-irons to Robin's vein
Alack the more pitye!
And pierc'd the vein and let out the blood
That full red was to see.
There is an occasional brief reference to the recreation of nuns in their
"seynys" in visitations[869], but the precaution was less necessary and
less frequent than it was in houses of monks[870]. No doubt, also, the
nuns sometimes nursed their boarders, some of whom must have been old and
ailing; wills are occasionally dated from nunneries[871]. The nuns of
Romsey had a hospital attached to the house, in which were received as
sisters any parents and relatives of the nuns, who were poor and ill[872],
but this does not prove that the nuns nursed them, and references in
visitation reports show that even sick nuns were often looked after by lay
servants in the infirmary, or if permanently disabled, occupied a separate
room, with a separate maid to attend them. It is not likely that the nuns
left their convents, save very occasionally, to undertake sick-nursing;
this would have been against the spirit of their rule, for their main
business was not (as was that of the sisters who looked after spitals) to
care for the sick, but to live enclosed in their houses, following the
prescribed round of church services. It is however of interest that the
will of Sir Roger Salwayn, knight of York (1420) contains this legacy:
"Also I will that the Nunne that kepid me in my seknes haue ij nobles, and
that ther be gif into the hous that she wonnes in xxs, for to syng and
pray for me"[873]. Nuns may have emerged sometimes to nurse friends and
relatives, whose sick-beds they were always allowed to attend; but there
is no documentary evidence for the belief of modern writers, who would
fain turn the nun into a district visitor, smoothing the pillows of all
who ailed in her native village.
These then were the educational attainments of the English nuns in the
later middle ages: reading and singing the services of the church,
sometimes but not always writing, Latin very rarely after the thirteenth
century, French very rarely after the fourteenth century; needlework and
embroidery; and perhaps that elementary knowledge of physic, which was the
possession of most ladies of their class. It was, in fact, very little
more than the education possessed by laywomen of the same social rank
outside and there is little trace of anything approaching scholarship. The
study of the education of the nuns during this period leads naturally to
one of the most vexed questions in the field of monastic history, the
extent to which the nunneries acted as girls' schools. There is no doubt
that every nunnery was prepared to educate young girls who entered in
order to take the veil; if the nunnery were fairly large these _scolae
internae_ probably included several novices at a time. At Ankerwyke in
1441 three young nuns complained that they had no governess to instruct
them in "reading, song and religious observance," and mention is made of
three other sisters "of tender age and slender discretion, seeing that the
eldest of them is not more than thirteen years of age"; the Bishop
appointed a nun to be their teacher, "enjoining her to perform the charge
laid upon her and to instruct them in good manners"[874]. Similarly at
Thetford, where there were three novices in 1526, the Bishop found "non
habent eruditricem"[875]. At the larger houses, such as Romsey, the
_magistra noviciarum_ was a regular obedientiary[876].
[Illustration: PLATE V
PAGE FROM _LA SAINTE ABBAYE_
(In the bottom left hand corner the mistress of the novices, with birch in
hand, is instructing two young novices; in the bottom right hand corner
the abbess and a nun are at prayer.)]
The vexed question, however, does not concern these schools for novices.
It has been the custom, not only of writers on monasticism but also of the
man in the street, to assume that the nunneries were almost solely
responsible for the education of girls in the middle ages. There was
little evidence for the assumption, but it was always made, and until the
combined attack made upon it in 1910 by Mr Coulton and Mr Leach it was
unchallenged[877]. With the publication of bishops' registers, however, we
have something more definite to go upon and it is now possible to come to
some sort of conclusion, based on the evidence of visitation injunctions,
account rolls and other miscellaneous sources. This conclusion may be
summarised as follows. It was a fairly general custom among the English
nuns, in the two and a half centuries before the Dissolution, to receive
children for education. But there are four limitations, within which and
only within which, this conclusion is true. _First_, that by no means all
nunneries took children and those which did take them seldom had large
schools; _secondly_, that the children who thus received a convent
education were drawn exclusively from the upper and the wealthy middle
classes, from people, that is to say, of birth and wealth; _thirdly_, that
the practice was a purely financial expedient on the part of the nuns, at
first forbidden, afterwards restricted and always frowned upon by the
bishops, who regarded it as subversive of discipline; and _fourthly_, that
the education which the children received from the nuns, so far as
book-learning as distinct from nurture is concerned, was extremely
exiguous. In fine, though nunneries did act as girls' schools, they
certainly did not educate more than a small proportion even of the
children of the upper classes, and the education which they gave them was
limited by their own limitations[878].
That the custom of receiving schoolgirls was fairly general appears from
the wide area over which notices of such children are spread. The
references range in date from 1282 to 1537; they give us, if a doubtful
reference to King's Mead, Derby, be accepted, the names of forty-nine
convents, which at one time or other had children in residence. These
convents are situated in twenty-one counties. The greater number of
references naturally occur in those dioceses for which the episcopal
registers are most complete; Yorkshire affords fifteen names and two which
are doubtful; Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Buckinghamshire,
Bedfordshire, Oxfordshire, Hertfordshire and Leicestershire, counties in
the large Lincoln diocese, afford seventeen between them, five from
Lincolnshire and two from each of the others. These references do not
prove that the houses in question had continuously throughout their career
a school for girls; sometimes only one or two children are mentioned and
usually the evidence concerns but a single year out of two and a half
centuries. Sometimes, however, a happy chance has preserved several
references to the same house, spread over a longer period, from which it
is perhaps not too rash to conclude that it was the regular practice of
that house to receive children. For Elstow, for instance, there is an
early reference to a boy of five sent there for education by St Hugh,
Bishop of Lincoln, towards the close of the twelfth century. In 1359
Bishop Gynewell prohibited all boarders there, except girls under ten and
boys under six. In 1421 Bishop Flemyng prohibited all except children
under twelve and in 1432 Bishop Gray altered this to girls under fourteen
and boys under ten, and children are mentioned at Alnwick's visitation in
1442. Similarly at Godstow there are references to children in 1358, 1445
and 1538, at Esholt in Yorkshire in 1315, 1318 and 1537, at Sopwell in
1446 and 1537, at Heynings in 1347, 1387 and 1393, at Burnham in 1434 and
1519.
The mention of boys in these references needs perhaps some further
emphasis, for it is not usually recognised that the nunneries occasionally
acted as dame-schools for very young boys. "Abstinence the abbesse myn
a.b.c. me taughte," says Piers Plowman, "And conscience com aftur and
kennide me betere." It is true that a Cistercian statute of 1256-7 forbade
the education of boys in nunneries of that order[879], but the ordinance
soon became a dead letter, and five of the convents at which Alnwick found
schoolboys (c. 1445) were Cistercian houses. Boys were specifically
forbidden at Wherwell in 1284, at Heynings in 1359 and at Nuncoton in
1531, which argues that they were then present, and they are mentioned at
Romsey (1311), at five Yorkshire convents (1314-17), at Burnham (1434), at
Lymbrook (1437), at Swaffham Bulbeck (1483) and at Redlingfield (1514), a
chronologically and geographically wide range of houses. Occasionally some
details as to a particular boy may be gleaned; the five year old Robert de
Noyon, sent by Bishop Hugh to Elstow "to be taught his letters," the two
Tudor boys commended to Katharine de la Pole, the noble Abbess of Barking;
the little son and heir of Sir John Stanley, who made his will in 1527 and
then became a monk, leaving the boy to be brought up until twelve years of
age by another Abbess of Barking, after which he was to pass to the care
of the Abbot of Westminster; and Cromwell's son Gregory and his little
companion, sent to be supervised, though not taught by Margaret Vernon,
Prioress of Little Marlow[880]. But as a rule the boys in nunneries were
very young; it was not considered decorous for them to stay with the nuns
later than their ninth or tenth year; the bishop forbade it and besides,
the education which the good sisters could give them would not have been
considered sufficient. The rule which gives a man child to a man for
education is of very old standing.
Such is the evidence for concluding that the custom of receiving children
for education in nunneries was widespread. It remains to consider
carefully the limitations within which this conclusion is true. In the
first place, not all nunneries received children. It is obviously
impossible, considering the gaps in our evidence, to attempt an exact
estimate of the proportion which did so. Some sort of clue may be obtained
by an analysis of the Yorkshire visitations of Archbishops Greenfield and
Melton at the beginning of the fourteenth century (1306-20) and of
Alnwick's Lincoln visitations (1440-5). The Yorkshire evidence is rather
scanty, being based on the summaries of injunctions, which are given in
the _Victoria County Histories_, and any statistics must needs be
approximate only. The two archbishops between them visited nineteen
nunneries and mention of children is made at twelve, i.e. about
two-thirds. The information given by the invaluable Alnwick is more exact.
From the _detecta_ of some of the nuns and from the number of prohibitions
of this practice, it is obvious that Alnwick was accustomed to ask at his
visitations whether children were sleeping in the nuns' dorter; he also
made careful inquiry as to the boarders. The probability, therefore, is
that we have in his register an exact record of those houses in which
children were received. Analysis shows that of the twenty houses which he
visited he found children, often boys as well as girls, at twelve, i.e. a
little over two-thirds, which is substantially the same result as was
given by the Yorkshire analysis a century earlier. The estimate is
interesting, but it cannot be considered conclusive without the
corroborative evidence from other dioceses, which is unfortunately
lacking. It is a hint, a straw, which shows which way the wind of research
is blowing, for if it is unsafe to argue from silence that the nuns of
other convents did take pupils, it is equally unsafe to argue that they
did not.
The fact is, however, clearly established that all nunneries did not take
children; possibly about two-thirds of them did. The further fact has then
to be recognised that even those nunneries had not necessarily what we
should regard as a school for girls. Not only does it sometimes seem as
though children were taken occasionally and intermittently, rather than
regularly, but the numbers taken were rarely great. Sometimes we do hear
of a house with a large number of pupils. At St Mary's Winchester in 1536
there were as many as twenty-six children, to twenty-six nuns; and at
Polesworth in 1537 Henry VIII's commissioners state vaguely that "repayre
and resort ys made to the gentlemens childern and studiounts that ther doo
lif, to the nombre sometyme of xxx{ti} and sometyme xj{ti} and moo." There
were fifteen nuns in the house at the time and it is likely that the
number of children given is a pardonable exaggeration by local gentlemen
who were interested in preserving the nunnery; but it seems undoubted that
there was a comparatively large school there. At Stixwould, again, in 1440
there were about eighteen children to an equal number of nuns. These,
however, are the largest schools of which we have record. At St Michael's
Stamford in 1440 there were seven or eight children to twelve nuns, at
Catesby in 1442 six or seven children to seven nuns. At Swaffham Bulbeck,
where there were probably eight or nine nuns, there were nine children in
1483. These also are schools, though small schools. But at other houses
there were only one or two children at a time. The accounts of the
Prioress of St Helen's Bishopsgate in 1298 mention only two children,
there were only two at Littlemore in 1445 and two at Sopwell at the time
of the Dissolution. It must be remembered that many nunneries were
themselves very small and their inmates could not have looked after a
large number of children. The examples quoted above suggest that the
number of children hardly ever exceeded the number of nuns. To what
conclusion are we driven when we find that a possible two-thirds of the
convents of England received children and that the largest school of which
we have record numbered only twenty-six children (or thirty if we take the
higher and less probable figure for Polesworth), while most had far fewer?
Surely to represent a majority of girls, or even a majority of girls of
gentle birth, as having received their nurture in convents, would be on
the evidence absurd.
The second limitation of convent education in medieval England is
contained in the words "girls of gentle birth." Tanner's statement that
"the lower rank of people, who could not pay for their learning"[881], as
well as noblemen's and gentlemen's daughters, were educated in nunneries
has not a shred of evidence to support it, though it has been repeated _ad
nauseam_ ever since he wrote it. Every scrap of evidence which has come
down to us goes to prove that the girls educated in nunneries were of
gentle birth, daughters of great lords, or more often daughters of country
gentlemen, or of those comfortable and substantial merchants and
burgesses, who were usually themselves sprung from younger sons of the
gentry. The implication is plain in Chaucer's description, in _The Reves
Tale_, of the Miller's wife, who was "y-comen of noble kin" and daughter
of the parson of the toun, and who "was y-fostred in a nonnerye":
Ther dorste no wight clepen hir but "dame" ...
And eek, for she was somdel smoterlich
She was as digne as water in a dich;
And ful of hoker and of bisemare.
Her thoughte that a lady sholde hir spare,
What for hir kinrede and hir nortelrye
That she had lerned in the nonnerye.
An analysis of some of the schoolgirls whose names have come down to us
confirms this impression. The commissioners who visited St Mary's,
Winchester, in 1536 drew up a list of the twenty-six "chyldren of lordys,
knyghttes and gentylmen brought up yn the saym monastery." They were
Bryget Plantagenet, dowghter unto the lord vycounte Lysley (i.e.
Lisle); Mary Pole, dowghter unto Sir Geffrey Pole knyght; Brygget
Coppeley, dowghter unto Sir Roger Coppeley knyght; Elizabeth Phyllpot,
dowghter unto Sir Peter Phyllpot, knyght; Margery Tyrell; Adrian
Tyrell; Johanne Barnabe; Amy Dyngley; Elizabeth Dyngley; Jane Dyngley;
Frances Dyngley; Susan Tycheborne; Elizabeth Tycheborne; Mary Justyce;
Agnes Aylmer; Emma Bartue; Myldred Clerke; Anne Lacy; Isold Apulgate;
Elizabeth Legh; Mary Legh; Alienor North; Johanne Sturgys; Johanne
Ffyldes; Johanne Ffrances; Jane Raynysford.
The house was evidently at this time a fashionable seminary for young
ladies. It must be remembered that it was a general custom among the
English nobility and gentry to send their children away to the household
of a lord, or person of good social standing, in order to learn breeding
and it was not uncommon to send boys to the household of an abbot. In 1450
Thomas Bromele, Abbot of Hyde, thus entertained in his house eight
"gentiles pueri," there were many "pueri generosi" at Westacre in 1494,
and Richard Whiting, the last Abbot of Glastonbury, is stated by Parsons
to have had, among his 300 servants, "multos nobilium filios"[882]. It was
doubtless much in the same way that the children of lords, knights and
gentlemen were put in the charge of the Abbess of St Mary's Winchester, a
great lady, who had her own "gentlewoman" to attend upon her and her own
private household. It is probable that the nuns taught these children, but
the boys who went as wards to abbeys seem often to have taken their tutors
with them, or at least to have been taught by special tutors. At
Lilleshall, for instance, the commissioners found four "gentylmens sons
and their scolemaster"[883] and it is significant that when little Gregory
Cromwell was sent to be brought up by Margaret Vernon, Prioress of Little
Marlow, he was taught by a private tutor and not by the nun.
Other references to the children received in nunneries confirms the
impression that they were of gentle birth. At Polesworth, as at St Mary's,
Winchester, the commissioners specified "gentylmens childern and
studiounts." At Thetford a daughter of John Jerves, _generosus_, is
mentioned in 1532 and two daughters of Laurens Knight, _gentleman_, were
at Cornworthy, c. 1470. The accounts of Sopwell in 1446 mention the
daughter of Lady Anne Norbery; at Littlemore in 1445 the daughter of John
FitzAleyn, steward of the house, and the daughter of Ingelram Warland are
boarders. Among the Carrow boarders, who may be set down as children, are
the son and two daughters of Sir Roger Wellisham, the daughter of Sir
Robert de Wachesam, a niece of William Bateman, Bishop of Norwich, and
girls with such well-known names as Fastolf, Clere, Baret, Blickling,
Shelton and Ferrers, though the last two may be adult boarders. The
Gracedieu boarders nearly all bear the names of neighbouring gentry and
one was the daughter of Lord Beaumont. In the course of time, as the urban
middle class grew and flourished, the daughters of the well-to-do
_bourgeoisie_ were sometimes sent to convents for their education. Thus
among the Carrow boarders we find a daughter of John de Erlham, a merchant
and citizen of Norwich, and Isabel Barber, daughter of Thomas Welan,
barber, who afterwards, however, became a nun. It is plain from the wills
which have been preserved that the wealthy Norwich burgesses were in the
habit of sending their daughters as nuns to Carrow, and it is a natural
supposition that they should have sent them sometimes as schoolgirls; but
by birth and by wealth these city magnates were not far removed from the
neighbouring gentry. The school at Swaffham Bulbeck in 1483 was less
fashionable than that at Carrow and did not cater for the nobly born; it
was a small house and the names of the children suggest a sound middle
class establishment, perhaps the very one in which Chaucer's Miller's wife
of Trumpington was educated, full of the sons and daughters of the
burgesses of Cambridge, Richard Potecary of Cambridge, William Water,
Thomas Roch, unnamed fathers "of Cambridge," "of Chesterton," Parker "of
Walden," and "the merchant."
None of these examples can possibly be twisted into a case for the free,
or even the cheap, education of the poor. Just as we never find low-born
girls as nuns, so we never find them as schoolgirls and for the same
reason; "dowerless maidens," as Mr Leach says, "were not sought as nuns."
As will be seen hereafter, the reception of school children was
essentially a financial expedient; one of the many methods by which the
nuns sought to raise the wind[884]. The fees paid by these children are
recorded here and there, in nunnery accounts; education was apparently
thrown in with board, and the usual rate for board for children during the
century and a half before the Dissolution seems to have been about 6_d._ a
week, though the charge at Cornworthy c. 1470 was 10_d._ a week and at
Littlemore in 1445 only 4_d._ a week[885]. Occasionally the good nuns
suffered, like so many schoolmistresses since their day, from the
difficulty of extracting fees. Among the debts owing to the nuns of Esholt
at the Dissolution was one of 33_s._ from Walter Wood of Timble in the
parish of Otley for his child's board for a year and a half; and at
Thetford in 1532 the poor nuns complained that "John Jerves, gentleman,
has a daughter being nurtured in the priory and pays nothing." The most
melancholy case of all has been preserved to us owing to the fact that the
nuns, goaded to desperation, sought help from the Chancellor. About 1470
Thomasyn Dynham, Prioress of Cornworthy, made petition to the effect that
Laurens Knyghte, gentleman, had agreed with Margaret Wortham the late
Prioress, that she should take his two daughters "to teche them to scole,"
viz. Elizabeth, aged seven years, and "Jahne," aged ten years, at the
costs and charges of Laurens, who was to pay 20_d._ a week for them. So at
Cornworthy they remained during the life of Margaret, to the great costs
and charges and impoverishing of the said poor place, by the space of five
years and more, until the money due amounted to £21. 13_s._ 4_d._, "the
which sum is not contented ne paid, nor noo peny thereof." Laurense
meanwhile departed this life, leaving his wife "Jahne" executrix, and
Jahne, unnatural mother that she was, married again a certain John
Barnehous and utterly refused to pay for her unhappy daughters. One is
uncertain which to pity most, Thomasyn Dynham, a new Prioress left with
this incubus on her hands, or Elizabeth and Jane Knyghte, trying hard to
restrain their appetites and not to grow out of their clothes under her
justly incensed regard. Jane was by now grown up and marriageable
according to the standards of the time and it is tantalising not to know
the end of the dilemma. A proneness to forget fees seems to have been
shared by greater folk than Mistress Knyghte, as the petition of Katherine
de la Pole, Abbess of Barking, concerning Edmond and Jasper Tudor, whose
"charges, costs and expenses" she had taken upon herself, will show.
Both this matter of fees and the names of schoolgirls which have survived
are against any suggestion that the nuns gave schooling to poor girls.
There is not the slightest evidence for anything like a day school, and
the only hint for any care for village girls on the part of the nuns is
contained in a letter from Cranmer, when fellow of Jesus College, to the
Abbess of Godstow:
Stephen Whyte hath told me that you lately gathered round you a number
of wild peasant maids and did make them a most goodly discourse on the
health of their souls; and you showeth them how goodly a thing it be
for them to go oftentimes to confession. I am mighty glad of your
discourse[886].
But this is obviously an isolated discourse and in any case it has nothing
to do with education. So far as it is possible to be certain of anything
for which evidence is scanty, we may be certain that poor or lower-class
girls were no more received in nunneries for education, than they were
received there as nuns. No single instance has ever been brought of a
lowborn nun or a lowborn schoolgirl, in any English nunnery, for the three
centuries before the nunneries were dissolved.
The third limitation to which convent education was subjected is an
important one; the reception of children by the nuns was never approved
and always restricted by their ecclesiastical superiors. The greater
number of references to schoolchildren which have come down to us are
these restrictive references. The attitude of monastic visitors towards
children was in essence the same as their attitude towards boarders. The
nuns received both, because they were nearly always in low water
financially and wished to add to their scanty finances by the familiar
expedient of taking paying guests. But the bishops saw in all boarders,
whether adults or schoolchildren, a hindrance to discipline; they objected
to them for the same reason that they objected to pet dogs and silver
girdles and with just as little success.
The ecclesiastical case against schoolchildren may be found delightfully
set forth in the words addressed, it is true, to anchoresses, but
expressing the same spirit as was afterwards shown by Eudes Rigaud, Johann
Busch and other great medieval visitors towards nuns. Aelred, the great
twelfth century Abbot of Rievaulx, writes thus:
Allow no boys or girls to have access to you. There are certain
anchoresses, who are busied in teaching pupils and turn their chambers
into a school. The mistress sits at the window, the child in the
cloister. She looks at each of them; and, during their puerile
actions, now is angry, now laughs, now threatens, now soothes, now
spares, now kisses, now calls the weeping child to be beaten, then
strokes her face, bids her hold up her head, and eagerly embracing
her, calls her her child, her love[887].
Similarly the author of the _Ancren Riwle_ warns his three anchoresses:
An anchoress must not become a schoolmistress, nor turn her
anchoress-house into a school for children. Her maiden may, however,
teach any little girl, concerning whom it might be doubtful whether
she should learn among boys, but an anchoress ought to give her
thoughts to God only[888].
The gist of the matter was that the children constituted a hindrance to
claustral discipline and devotion. It is plain, however, that in this, as
in so many other matters, the reformers were only "beating the air" in
vain with their restrictions. Sympathy must be with the needy nuns, for
even if discipline were weakened thereby, the reception of children was in
itself a very harmless, not to say laudable expedient; and so the
neighbouring gentry as well as the nuns considered it.
An analysis of the attitude of medieval visitors to schoolchildren shows
us the usual attempt to limit what it was beyond their power to prohibit.
Eudes Rigaud, the great Archbishop of Rouen, habitually removed all the
girls and boys whom he found in the houses of his diocese, when he visited
them during the years 1249 to 1269. But in England, at least, the nuns
very soon became too strong for the bishops, who gradually adopted the
policy of fixing an age limit beyond which no children might remain in a
nunnery and sometimes of requiring their own licence to be given before
the boys and girls were admitted. Since the danger of secularisation could
not be removed, it was at least reduced to a minimum, by ensuring that
only very young boys and only girls, who had not yet attained a
marriageable age, should be received. The age limit varied a little with
different visitors and different houses. In the Yorkshire diocese early in
the fourteenth century the age limit was twelve for girls; boys are rarely
mentioned, but at Hampole in 1314 the nuns were forbidden to permit male
children over five to be in the house, as the bishop finds has been the
practice. Bishop Gynewell in 1359 allowed girls up to ten and boys up to
six at Elstow, but forbade boys altogether at Heynings. Bishop Gray
allowed girls under fourteen and boys under eight at Burnham in 1434 and
Bishop Stretton in 1367 allowed boys up to seven at Fairwell. The age
limit tended, it will be seen, to become higher in the course of time;
Alnwick writing to Gracedieu in 1440, forbade all boarders "save
childerne, males the ix and females the xiiij yere of age, whom we
licencede you to hafe for your relefe"[889]; he allowed boys often at
Heynings and Catesby and boys of eleven (an exceptionally high age) at
Harrold.
There was a special reason, besides the general interference with
discipline, for which the bishops objected to children in nunneries. It
seems very often to have been the custom for the nuns to take, as it were,
private pupils, each child having its own particular mistress. This custom
grew as the practice of keeping separate households grew. Thus at Catesby
the Prioress complained to Alnwick that sister Agnes Allesley had "six or
seven young folk of both sexes, that do lie in the dorter"; at St
Michael's Stamford, he found that the Prioress had seven or eight
children, at Gracedieu the cellaress had a little boy and at Elstow, where
there were five households of nuns, it was said that "certain nuns"
brought children into the quire. In fact, the nuns would appear to have
kept for their own personal use the money paid to them for the board of
their private pupils. This was a sin against the monastic rule of personal
poverty and the bishops took special measures against such manifestations
of _proprietas_. William of Wykeham in 1387 forbids the nuns of Romsey to
make wills and to have private rooms or private pupils, giving this
specific reason, and at St Helen's Bishopsgate in 1439 Dean Kentwode
enjoined "that no nonne have ne receyve noo schuldrin wyth hem ... but yf
that the profite of the comonys turne to the vayle of the same howse."
Similarly the number of children who might be taken by a single nun was
sometimes limited; Gynewell wrote to Godstow in 1358 "that no lady of the
said house is to have children, save only two or three females sojourning
with them" and at Fairwell in 1367 no nun might keep with her for
education more than one child.
Another habit against which bishops constantly legislated was that of
having the children to sleep in the dorter with the nuns. This practice
was exceedingly common, for many of the nunneries which took children were
small and poor; they had possibly no other room to set aside for them, and
no person who could suitably be placed in charge of them. Moreover in some
cases adult boarders and servants also slept in the dorter. Alnwick was
constantly having to bid his nuns "that ye suffre ne seculere persones,
wymmen ne children lyg by nyghte in the dormytory," but Atwater and
Longland in the sixteenth century still have to make the same injunction.
Bokyngham in 1387 ordered that a seemly place outside the cloister should
be set apart for the children at Heynings; the reason was that (as
Gynewell had expressly stated on visiting this house forty years before)
"the convent might not be disturbed." Indeed little attempt was made by
the nuns to keep the children out of their way. They seem to have dined in
the refectory, when not in the separate rooms of their mistresses, for
Greenfield forbids the Prioress and Subprioress of Sinningthwaite (1315)
to permit boys or girls to eat flesh meat in Advent or Sexagesima, or
during Lent eggs or cheese, in the refectory, "contrary to the honesty of
religion," but at those seasons when they ought to eat such things, they
were to be assigned other places in which to eat them. There are
references, too, to disturbances and diversions created by the children in
the quire. At Elstow in 1442 Dame Rose Waldegrave said that "certain nuns
do sometimes have with them in time of mass the boys whom they teach and
these do make a noise in quire during divine service"[890]. To us the
picture of these merry children breaking the monotony of convent routine
is an attractive one; more attractive even than the pet dogs and the
Vert-Verts. But to stern ecclesiastical disciplinarians it was not so
attractive, and their constant restriction, though it never succeeded in
turning out the children, must have kept down the number who were
admitted.
The evidence which has so far been considered shows that, though the
reception of children to be boarded and taught in nunneries was fairly
common, it was subjected to well marked limitations. There remains to be
considered one more question the answer to which is in some sort a
limitation likewise. What exactly did the nuns teach these children? We
are hampered in answering this question by the difficulty of obtaining
exact contemporary evidence. Most modern English writers content
themselves with a glib list of accomplishments, copied without
verification from book to book, and all apparently traceable in the last
resort to Fuller and John Aubrey, the one writing a century, the other
almost a century and a half after the nunneries had been dissolved. Fuller
(whom Tanner copies) says:
Nunneries also were good Shee-schools, wherein the girles and maids of
the neighbourhood were taught to read and work; and sometimes a little
Latine was taught them therein. Yea, give me leave to say, if such
Feminine Foundations had still continued ... haply the weaker sex
(besides the avoiding modern inconveniences) might be heightened to a
higher perfection than hitherto hath been obtained[891].
Aubrey, speaking of Wiltshire convents says:
There the young maids were brought up ... at the nunneries, where they
had examples of piety, and humility, and modesty, and obedience to
imitate, and to practise. Here they learned needle-work, the art of
confectionary, surgery (for anciently there were no apothecaries or
surgeons--the gentlewomen did cure their poor neighbours: their hands
are now too fine), physic, writing, drawing etc.[892]
One would have thought the familiar note of the _laudator temporis acti_
to be plainly audible in both these extracts. But a host of modern writers
have gravely transcribed their words and even, taking advantage no doubt
of Aubrey's "etc." (much virtue in etc.), improved upon them. In the work
of one more recent writer the list has become "reading, writing, some
knowledge of arithmetic, the art of embroidery, music and French 'after
the scole of Stratford atte Bowe,' were the recognised course of study,
while the preparation of perfumes, balsams, simples and confectionary was
among the more ordinary departments of the education afforded"[893].
Another adds a few more deft touches: "the treatment of various disorders,
the compounding of simples, the binding up of wounds, ... fancy cookery,
such as the making of sweetmeats, writing, drawing, needlework of all
kinds and music, both vocal and instrumental"[894]. The most recent writer
of all gives the list as "English and French ... writing, drawing,
confectionary, singing by notes, dancing, and playing upon instruments of
music, the study also of medicine and surgery"[895]. Though the historian
must groan, the student of human nature cannot but smile to see music
insinuate itself into the list and then become "both instrumental and
vocal"; confectionery extend itself to include perfumes, balsams, simples,
and the making of sweetmeats; arithmetic appear out of nowhere; and (most
magnificent feat of the imagination) dancing trip in on light fantastic
toe. From this compound of Aubrey, memories of continental convents in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and familiarity with the convent
schools of our own day, let us turn to the considered opinion of a more
sober scholar, who bases it only upon contemporary evidence:
"No evidence whatever," says Mr Leach, "has been produced of what was
taught in nunneries. That ... something must have been taught, if only
to keep the children employed, is highly probable. That the teaching
included learning the Lord's Prayer, etc. by heart may be conceded.
Probably Fuller is right in guessing that it included reading; but it
is only a guess. One would guess that it included sewing and spinning.
As for its including Latin, no evidence is forthcoming and it is
difficult to see how those who did not know Latin could teach
it[896]."
Direct evidence is therefore absolutely lacking; all we can do is to
deduce probabilities from what we know of the education of the nuns
themselves, and it must be conceded that this was not always of a very
high order. It is quite certain, from the wording of some of the
visitation injunctions, that the quality and extent of the teaching must
have varied considerably from house to house. It was probably good (as the
education of women then went) at the larger and more fashionable houses,
mediocre at those which were small and struggling. Latin could not have
been taught, because, as has already been pointed out, the nuns at this
period did not know it themselves; but the children were probably taught
the _Credo_, the _Ave_ and the _Pater Noster_ in Latin by rote. They may
have been taught French of the school of Stratford atte Bowe, as long as
that language was fashionable in the outside world and known to the nuns,
but it died out of the convents after the end of the fourteenth century.
It seems pretty certain that the children must have been taught to read.
"Abstinence the abbesse myn a.b.c. me taughte," says Piers Plowman; the
Abbess of St Mary's Winchester buys the matins books for little Bridget
Plantagenet; and it will be remembered that the nuns of Godstow were said
about 1460 (fifteen years after Alnwick visited the house and gave
permission for children to be boarded there) to be "for the more party in
Englyssh bokys well y-lernyd." Caesarius of Heisterbach has a delightful
story, repeated thus in a fifteenth century _Alphabet of Tales_:
Caesarius tellis how that in Freseland in a nonrie ther was ii little
maydens that lernyd on the buke, and euer thai strafe whethur of thaim
shulde lern mor than the toder. So the tane of thaim happened to fall
seke and sho garte call the Priores vnto hur & sayd: "Gude ladie!
suffre nott my felow to lern vnto I cover of my sekenes, and I sall
pray my moder to gif me vj d & that I sall giff you & ye do so, ffor I
drede that whils I am seke, that sho sall pas me in lernyng, & that I
wolde not at sho did." And at this wurde the priores smylid & hadd
grete mervayle of the damysell conseyte[897].
Whether girls were taught to write, as well as to read, is far more
doubtful. It is probable that the nuns did not always possess this
accomplishment themselves, nor did sober medieval opinion consider it
wholly desirable that girls should know how to write, on account both of
the general inferiority of their sex, and of a regrettable proclivity
towards clandestine love letters[898]. Still, writing may sometimes have
formed part of the curriculum; there is no evidence either way. For
drawing (by which presumably the art of illumination must be meant) there
is no warrant; a medieval nunnery was not a modern "finishing" school.
So much for what may be called book learning. Let us now examine for a
moment the other accomplishments with which nunnery-bred young ladies have
been credited. We may, as Mr Leach suggests, make a guess at spinning and
needlework, though here also there is no evidence for their being taught
to schoolgirls. Jane Scroupe, into whose mouth Skelton puts his "Phyllyp
Sparowe," was apparently being brought up at Carrow, and describes how she
sewed the dead bird's likeness on her sampler,
I toke my sampler ones,
Of purpose, for the nones,
To sowe with stytchis of sylke
My sparow whyte as mylke.
Confectionery does not seem very probable, for at this period the cooking
for the convent was nearly always done by a hired male cook and not (as
laid down in the Benedictine rule) by the nuns themselves, who were apt to
complain if they had to prepare the meals. For "home medicine" there is
absolutely no evidence, though all ladies of the day possessed some
knowledge of simples and herb-medicines and the girls may equally well
have learned it at home as among the nuns. It is probable that the
children learned to sing, if the nuns took them into the quire; but for
this there is no definite evidence, nor has any document been quoted to
prove that they learned to play upon instruments of music. It is true that
the flighty Dame Isabel Benet "did dance and play the lute" with the
friars of Northampton[899] and that "a pair of organs" occurs twice in
Dissolution inventories of nunneries[900], but an organ is hardly an
instrument of secular music to be played by the daughter of the house in a
manorial solar; and Dame Benet's escapade with the lute was a lapse from
the strict path of virtue. Finally to suggest that the nuns taught dances
verges upon absurdity. That they did sometimes dance is true, and grieved
their visitors were to hear it[901]; but what Alnwick would have said to
the suggestion that they solemnly engaged themselves to teach dancing to
their young pupils is an amusing subject for contemplation. Evidence for
everything except the prayers of the church and the art of reading is
non-existent; we can but base our opinion upon conjecture and probability;
and the probability for instrumental music is so slight as to be
non-existent. If it be argued that gentlewomen were expected to possess
these arts, it may be replied that the children whom we find at nunneries
probably had opportunity to learn them at home, for they seem sometimes
to have spent only a part of the year with the nuns. It is true that board
is sometimes paid for the whole year, and that little Bridget Plantagenet
stayed at St Mary's Winchester for two or three years, while her parents
were absent in France; moreover we have already heard of poor Elizabeth
and Jane Knyghte, left for over five years at Cornworthy. But an analysis
of the Swaffham Bulbeck accounts shows that the children (if indeed they
are children) stayed for the following periods during the year 1483, viz.,
two for forty weeks, one for thirty weeks, one for twenty-six weeks, two
for twenty-two weeks, one for sixteen weeks, one for twelve weeks and one
for six weeks. It is much more likely that girls were sent to the nuns for
elementary schooling than for the acquirement of worldly accomplishments.
As has already been pointed out, it is difficult to get any specific
information as to the life led by the schoolchildren in nunneries. But by
good fortune some letters written by an abbess shortly before the
Dissolution have been preserved and give a pleasant picture of a little
girl boarding in a nunnery. The correspondence in question took place
between Elizabeth Shelley, Abbess of St Mary's Winchester, and Honor,
Viscountess Lisle, concerning the latter's stepdaughter, the lady Bridget
Plantagenet, who was one of the twenty-six aristocratic young ladies then
at school in the nunnery[902]. Lord Lisle was an illegitimate son of
Edward IV, and had been appointed Lord Deputy of Calais in 1533; and when
he and his wife departed to take up the new office, they were at pains to
find suitable homes for their younger children in England. A stepson of
Lord Lisle's was boarded with the Abbot of Reading and his two younger
daughters, the ladies Elizabeth and Bridget Plantagenet, were left, the
one in charge of her half-brother, Sir John Dudley, and the other in that
of the energetic Abbess of St Mary's Winchester. It must be admitted that
the correspondence between the abbess and Lady Lisle shows a greater
preoccupation with dress than with learning. The Lady Bridget grew like
the grass in springtime; there was no keeping her in clothes.
"After due recommendation," writes the abbess, "Pleaseth it your good
ladyship to know that I have received your letter, dated the 4th day
of February last past, by the which I do perceive your pleasure is to
know how mistress Bridget your daughter doth, and what things she
lacketh. Madam, thanks be to God, she is in good health, but I assure
your ladyship she lacketh convenient apparel, for she hath neither
whole gown nor kirtle, but the gown and kirtle that you sent her last.
And also she hath not one good partlet to put upon her neck, nor but
one good coif to put upon her head. Wherefore, I beseech your ladyship
to send to her such apparel as she lacketh, as shortly as you may
conveniently. Also the bringer of your letter shewed to me that your
pleasure is to know how much money I received for mistress Bridget's
board, and how long she hath been with me. Madam, she hath been with
me a whole year ended the 8th day of July last past, and as many weeks
as is between that day and the day of making this bill, which is
thirty three weeks; and so she hath been with me a whole year and
thirty three weeks, which is in all four score and five weeks. And I
have received of mistress Katherine Mutton, 10_s._, and of Stephen
Bedham, 20_s._; and I received the day of making this bill, of John
Harrison, your servant, 40_s._; and so I have received in all, since
she came to me, toward the payment for her board, 70_s._ Also, madam,
I have laid out for her, for mending of her gowns and for two matins
books, four pair of hosen, and four pairs of shoes, and other small
things, 3_s._ 5_d._ And, good madam, any pleasure that I may do your
ladyship and also my prayer, you shall be assured of, with the grace
of Jesus, who preserve you and all yours in honour and health. Amen."
But for the matins books, sandwiched uncomfortably between gowns and
hosen, there is no clue here as to what the Lady Bridget was learning.
The tenor of the next letter, written about seven months later, is the
same, for still the noble little lady grew:
"Mine singular and special good lady," writes the Abbess, "I heartily
recommend me to your good ladyship; ascertaining you that I have
received from your servant this summer a side of venison and two dozen
and a half of pee-wits."
(What flesh-days there must have been in the refectory!)
"And whereas your ladyship do write that you sent me an ermine cape
for your daughter, surely I see none; but the tawny velvet gown that
you write of, I have received it. I have sent unto you, by the bringer
of your letter, your daughter's black velvet gown; also I have caused
kirtles to be made of her old gowns, according unto your writing; and
the 10_s._ you sent is bestowed for her, and more, as it shall appear
by a bill of reckoning which I have made of the same. And I trust she
shall lack nothing that is necessary for her."
Another letter shows that the wardrobe difficulty was no whit abated, but
the Abbess dealt with it by the rather hard-hearted expedient of sending
poor Bridget away on a visit to her father's steward at Soberton in
Hampshire, in her outgrown clothes, in order that he might be moved to
amend her state. Clearly it was not always easy to get what was requisite
for a schoolgirl from a gay and busy mother, disporting herself across the
sea:
"This is to advertise your ladyship," says the Abbess, "Upon a
fourteen or fifteen days before Michaelmas, mistress Waynam and
mistress Fawkenor came to Winchester to see mistress Bridget Lisle,
with whom came two of my lord's servants, and desired to have mistress
Bridget to sir Anthony Windsor's to sport her for a week. And because
she was out of apparel, that master Windsor might see her, I was the
better content to let her go; and since that time she came no more at
Winchester: Wherein I beseech your ladyship think no unkindness in me
for my light sending of her: for if I had not esteemed her to have
come again, she should not have come there at that time."
The reason why lucky little Bridget was enjoying a holiday appears in a
letter from the steward, Sir Anthony Windsor, to Lord Lisle, in which he
not only takes a firm line over the dress problem (as the Abbess foresaw),
but seems also to cast some aspersion upon the nunnery; the nuns, he
evidently thought, had no idea how to feed a growing girl, or how to spoil
her, as she ought to be spoiled:
Also mistress Bridget recommendeth her to your good lordship, and also
to my lady, beseeching you of your blessing. She is now at home with
me, because I will provide for her apparel such things as shall be
necessary, for she hath overgrown all that she ever hath, except such
as she hath had of late: and I will keep her here still if it be your
lordship's and my lady's pleasure that I shall so do, and she shall
fare no worse that I do, for she is very spare and hath need of
cherishing, and she shall lack nothing in learning, nor otherwise that
my wife can do for her.
Apparently she never went back to the nunnery, and a few years later it
was dissolved:
And when (s)he came to Saynte Marie's aisle
Where nonnes were wont to praie,
The vespers were songe, the shryne was gone,
And the nonnes had passyd awaie.
A word should perhaps be added as to the "piety and breeding," which Lady
Bridget and other little schoolgirls learned from the nuns, for good
sentimentalists of later days often looked back and regretted the loss of
a training, presumably instinct with religion and morality. It is well
nigh impossible to generalise in this matter, so greatly did convents
differ from each other. St Mary's Winchester was of very good repute, and
for this we have not only the testimony of the local gentlemen, who were
commissioned to visit it by Henry VIII in 1536, but also of the visitation
which was held by Dr Hede in 1501. Undoubtedly the aristocratic young
ladies who went there did not lack the precept and example of pious and
well bred mistresses. The statement of the commissioners at Polesworth
that the children there were "right virtuously brought up" has often been
quoted. So also has the plea of Robert Aske, who led the ill-fated
Pilgrimage of Grace, by which the people of Yorkshire sought to bring back
the old religion, and in particular the monastic houses; in the abbeys, he
said, "all gentlemen (were) much succoured in their needs, with many their
young sons there assisted and in nunneries their daughters brought up in
virtue"[903]. Less well-known is the tribute of the reformer Thomas Becon
(1512-67), the more striking in that he was a staunch Protestant, who had
suffered for his faith. Although he refers in disparagement to the
nunneries of his own day, his description of the relations between nuns
and their pupils cannot be founded solely upon an imaginary golden age:
"The young maids," he writes, "were not enforced to wear this or that
apparel; to abstain from this or that kind of meats; to sing this or
that service; to say so many prayers; to shave their heads; to vow
chastity; and for ever to abide in their cloister unto their dying
day. But contrariwise, they might wear what apparel they would, so
that it were honest and seemly and such as becometh maidens that
profess godliness. They might freely eat all kinds of meats according
to the rule of the gospel, avoiding all excess and superfluity, yea,
and that at all times. Their prayers were free and without compulsion,
everyone praying when the Holy Ghost moved their hearts to pray; yea,
and that such prayers as present necessity required, and that also not
in a strange tongue, but in such language as they did right well
understand. To shave their heads and to keep such-like superstitious
observances as our nuns did in times past and yet do in the kingdom of
the pope, they were not compelled. For all that they were commanded to
do of their schoolmistresses and governesses was nothing else than the
doctrine of the gospel and matters appertaining unto honest and civil
manners; whom they most willingly obeyed. Moreover, it was lawful for
them to go out of the cloister when they would, or when they were
required of their friends; and also to marry when and with whom they
would, so that it were in the Lord. And would God there were some
consideration of this matter had among the rulers of the christian
commonwealth, that young maids might be godly brought up, and learn
from their cradles 'to be sober-minded, to love their husbands, to
love their children, to be discreet, chaste, housewifely, good,
obedient to their husbands'"[904].
These eulogies are all necessarily tinged by the knowledge that the
nunneries either were about to disappear, or had disappeared, from
England. They had filled a useful function and men were willing to be to
their faults a little blind. It cannot be doubted that the gentry and the
substantial middle class appreciated them; up to the very eve of the
Dissolution legacies to monastic houses are a common feature in wills.
Only an inadequate conclusion, however, is to be reached from a study of
tributes such as those of the commissioners at St Mary's Winchester and
Polesworth and of Robert Aske. If we turn to pre-Reformation visitation
reports, which are free from the desire to state a case, the evidence is
more mixed. It is only reasonable to conclude that many nunneries did
indeed bring children up, with the example of virtue before their eyes,
and the _omnia bene_ of many reports reinforces such a conclusion. But it
is impossible also to avoid the conviction that other houses were not
always desirable homes for the young, nor nuns their best example. When
Alnwick visited his diocese in the first half of the fifteenth century
there were children at Godstow, where at least one nun was frankly immoral
and where all received visits freely from the scholars of Oxford; nor was
the general reputation of the house good at other periods. There were
children also at Catesby and at St Michael's Stamford, which were in a
thoroughly bad state, under bad prioresses. At Catesby the poor innocents
lay in the dorter, where lay also sister Isabel Benet, far gone with
child; and they must have heard the Prioress screaming "Beggars!" and
"Whores!" at the nuns and dragging them round the cloister by their
hair[905]. At St Michael's Stamford, all was in disorder and no less than
three of the nuns were unchaste, one having twice run away, each time with
a different partner. The visitation of Gracedieu on the same occasion
shows too much quarrelling and misrule to make possible a very high
opinion of its piety or of its breeding. If we turn to another set of
injunctions, the great series for the diocese of York, it must be conceded
that though the gentry of the county doubtless found the convents useful
as schools and lodging houses, it is difficult to see how Aske's plea that
"their daughters (were) brought up in virtue" could possibly have been
true of the fourteenth century, when the morals and manners of the nuns
were extremely bad. There is not much evidence for the period of which
Aske could speak from his own knowledge; but at Esholt, where two children
were at school in 1537, one of the nuns was found to have "lyved
incontinentlie and vnchast and ... broght forth a child of her bodie
begotten" and an alehouse had been set up within the convent gates, in
1535[906]. The only safe generalisation to make about this, as about so
many other problems of medieval social history, is that there can be no
generalisation. The standard of piety and breeding likely to be acquired
by children in medieval nunneries must have differed considerably from
time to time and from house to house.
CHAPTER VII
ROUTINE AND REACTION
Where is the pain that does not become deadened after a thousand
years? or what is the nature of that pleasure or happiness which never
wearies by monotony? Earthly pleasures and pains are short in
proportion as they are keen; of any others, which are both intense and
lasting, we can form no idea.... To beings constituted as we are, the
monotony of singing Psalms would be as great an affliction as the
pains of hell and might even be pleasantly interrupted by them.
JOWETT, Introduction to Plato's _Phaedo_.
St Benedict's common sense is nowhere more strikingly shown than in his
division of the routine of monastic life between the three occupations of
divine service, manual labour and reading. Not only has this arrangement
the merit of developing the different sides of men's natures, spirit, body
and brain, but it fulfils a deep psychological necessity. The essence of
communal life is regularity, but no human being can subsist without a
further ingredient of variety. St Benedict knew well enough that unless he
provided the stimulus of change within the Rule, outraged nature would
seek for it outside. Hence the careful adjustment of occupations to
combine variety with regularity. The services were the supreme joy and
duty of the monk and nun and the life of the convent was centred in its
church. But these services were not excessively long and were divided from
each other by periods of sleep by night and of work, or study, or
meditation by day, after the manner which Crashaw inimitably set forth in
his _Description of a Religious House and Condition of Life_:
A hasty portion of prescribèd sleep;
Obedient slumbers, that can wake and weep,
And sing, and sigh, and work, and sleep again;
Still rolling a round sphere of still-returning pain.
Hands full of hearty labours; pains that pay
And prize themselves; do much, that more they may,
And work for work, not wages; let tomorrow's
New drops wash off the sweat of this day's sorrows.
A long and daily-dying life, which breathes
A respiration of reviving deaths.
The monastic day was divided into seven offices and the time at which
these were said varied slightly according to the season of the year. The
night office began about 2 a.m., when the nuns rose from their beds and
entered their choir, where Matins were said, followed immediately by
Lauds. The next service was Prime, said at 6 or 7 a.m., and then
throughout the day came Tierce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline, with an
interval of about three hours between them. The time of these monastic
Hours (as they were called) changed gradually after the time of St
Benedict, and later None, which should have been at 3 p.m., was said at
noon, leaving the nuns from about 12 midday to 5 p.m. in the winter and 1
p.m. to 8 p.m. in the summer for work. Compline, the last service of all,
was said at 7 p.m. in winter and at 8 p.m. in summer, after which the nuns
were supposed to retire immediately to bed in their dorter, where (in the
words of the Syon _Rule_) "none shal jutte up on other wylfully, nor spyt
up on the stayres, goyng up or down, nor in none other place repreuably,
but yf they trede it out forthwyth"![907] They had in all about eight
hours sleep, broken in the middle by the night service; and they had three
meals, a light repast of bread and beer after Prime in the morning, a
solid dinner to the accompaniment of reading aloud, and a short supper
immediately after vespers at 5 or 6 p.m.[908]
Except for certain specified periods of relaxation, strict silence was
supposed to be observed for a large part of the day, and if it were
necessary for the nuns to communicate with each other, they were urged to
do so in an abbreviated form, or by signs. Thus in 1319 Bishop Stapeldon
of Exeter wrote to the nuns of Polsloe
that silence be kept in due places, according to the Rule and
observances of St Benedict; and, if it be desirable that any word be
spoken in the aforesaid places, for any reasonable occasion, then let
it be gently and so low that it be scarce heard of the other nuns, and
in as few words as may be needed for the comprehension of those who
hear; and better in Latin than in any other tongue; yet the Latin need
not be well-ordered by way of grammar, but thus, _candela_, _liber_,
_missale_, _gradale_, _panis_, _vinum_, _cervisia_, _est_, _non_,
_sic_ and so forth[909].
The nuns of Syon had a table of signs drawn up for them by Thomas Betsone,
one of the brethren of the house, a person of extraordinary ingenuity and
no sense of humour[910]. The sort of dumb pandemonium which went on at the
Syon dinner table must have been more mirth provoking than speech. The
sister who desired fish would "wagge her hande displaied sidelynges in
manere of a fissh taill," she who wanted milk would "draw her left little
fynger in maner of mylkyng"; for mustard one would "hold her nose in the
uppere part of her righte fiste and rubbe it," and another for salt would
"philippe with her right thombe and his forefynger ouere the left thombe";
another, desirous of wine, would "meue her fore fynger vp and downe vpon
the ende of her thombe afore her eghe"; and the guilty sacristan, struck
by the thought that she had not provided incense for the mass, would "put
her two fyngers vnto her nose thirles (nostrils)." There are no less than
106 signs in the table and on the whole it is not surprising that the Rule
enjoins that "it is never leful to use them witheoute some reson and
profitable nede, ffor ofte tyme more hurt ethe an euel sygne than an euel
worde, and more offence it may be to God"[911].
[Illustration: PLATE VI
DOMINICAN NUNS IN QUIRE]
The time set apart in the monastic day for work was divided between brain
work and manual labour. In the golden days of monasticism the time devoted
to reading enabled the monasteries to become homes of learning; splendid
libraries were collected for the use of the monks and in the scriptorium
men skilled in writing and in illumination copied books and maintained the
great series of chronicles, in which the middle ages live again. The nuns
of certain Anglo-Saxon houses, and of certain continental houses at a
later date, had some reputation for learning. In early days, too, the
hours devoted to labour were spent in the fields, or more often in the
workshops of the house; and those who had been skilled in crafts in the
world continued to exercise them. The nuns of Anglo-Saxon England were
famed for the needlework executed during the hours of work. Besides this
labour the Rule ordained that the monks and nuns should take it in turns
to serve their brethren in the kitchen every week and an eleventh century
chronicler records "in the monasteries I saw counts cooking in the
kitchens and margraves leading the pigs out to feed"[912]. It was by
reason of this intellectual and manual labour that the early monks
rendered, as it were incidentally, an immense service to civilisation.
Their aim and purpose was the salvation of their souls, but because the
Rule under which they lived declared that labour was one of the means to
that salvation, they added many of the merits of the active to those of
the contemplative life. The early Benedictines were great missionaries,
ardent scholars, enlightened landowners and even energetic statesmen. The
early Cistercians made the woods and wildernesses, in which they settled,
blossom like a rose. But apart from the social services thus rendered to
civilisation, the threefold division of monastic life into prayer, study
and labour was vital to monasticism itself, since it afforded the
essential element of variety in routine.
The benefits of routine are obvious: any life which exists for the regular
performance of specific duties, above all any life which is carried on in
a community, must depend very largely upon fixed hours and carefully
organised occupations. The Rule of St Benedict made a serious attempt to
render monastic life possible and beneficial to the average human being,
by the combination of regularity and variety which has been described
above. There was constant change of occupation, but there was no waste and
no muddle. It is extremely significant that monasticism broke down
directly St Benedict's careful adjustment of occupations became upset.
With the growing wealth of the monasteries manual labour became
undignified; some orders relied on lay brethren, the majority on servants.
Gone was the day when counts cooked in the kitchens; in the fourteenth
century monks and nuns paid large wages to their cooks and even in a small
nunnery it was regarded as legitimate cause for complaint not to have a
convent servant. Learning also fell away after the growth of the
universities in the twelfth century; the poverty of the monastic
chronicles of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries is one witness to the
fact; the necessity to send injunctions to nunneries first in French and
then in English, as the knowledge of Latin and then of French died out in
them, is another. Of the three occupations, learning, manual labour and
divine service, only the last was left. Is it surprising that that also
began to be looked upon as a weary and monotonous routine, when the monks
and nuns came to it, not fresh from the stimulus of study or of labour,
but from indolence, or from the worldly pleasures of the tavern, the hunt,
the gambling board, the flirtation, the gossip, wherewith they often
filled the spare time, which the wise Benedictine Rule would have filled
with a change of occupation?
All safeguards against a petrifying routine were now broken down. We are
wont to-day to look with disquiet upon the life of a clerk in an office,
endlessly adding up rows of figures, with an interval for luncheon; but
the clerk has his evenings, his Sundays, his annual holiday, his life as
son, or husband, or father. For the medieval monk there was no such
relaxation. When the salutary labour of hand and brain ordained by St
Benedict no longer found a place in his life, he was delivered over bound
to an endless routine of dorter, church, frater and cloister, which
stretched from day to night and from night to day again. For nuns the
monotony was even greater, for they had lost more completely than monks
their early tradition of learning and they could not pass happy years in
study at a university (as a few monks from great abbeys were able to do),
nor find some solace in exercising the functions of a priest; moreover
women were more apt even than men to enter the religious life without any
real vocation for it, since there was hardly any other career for
unmarried ladies of gentle birth. It would be an exaggeration to say that
this uneventful life was necessarily distasteful. To the majority it was
doubtless a happy existence; monotony appears peace to those who love it.
No cruel guard of diligent cares, that keep
Crown'd woes awake, as things too wise for sleep:
But reverent discipline and religious fear,
And soft obedience, find sweet biding here;
Silence and sacred rest; peace and pure joys;
Kind loves keep house, lie close and make no noise.
Here behind the walls of the convent "a common grayness silvered
everything" and all care was remote, save that, never to be escaped by
womankind, of making two ends meet.
Nevertheless the danger was there. Only a minority, one may be sure,
revolted actively against the duties which are sometimes, most
significantly, called "the burthen of religion"[913]. That minority is
known to us, for the sinner and the apostate, whether inspired by lust or
by levity, mere victims to their own weakness, or active rebels against an
intolerable dulness, have left their mark in official documents. But the
number can only be guessed at of those others, who carried in their hearts
for all their staid lives the complaint of the Latin song:
Sono tintinnabulum
Repeto psalterium,
Gratum linquo somnium
Cum dormire cuperem,
Heu misella!
Nichil est deterius tali vita
Cum enim sim petulans et lasciva[914].
The bell I am ringing,
The psalter am singing,
And from my bed creeping
Who fain would be sleeping,
Misery me!
O what can be worse than this life that I dree,
When naughty and lovelorn and wanton I be?
"Nuns fret not at their convent's narrow room" is a charming justification
of the sonnet, but it is neither good psychology nor good history.
It can never be too often repeated that many monks and nuns entered
religion as a career while still children, with no particular vocation for
the religious life. To such, even though they might experience no longing
for the forbidden pleasures of the world, the monotony of the cloister
would often be hard to bear. Their young limbs would kick against its
restrictions and the changing moods of adolescence would turn and twist in
vain within the iron bars of its unadaptable routine. Even to those no
longer young happiness would depend at the best upon the fostering of a
quick spiritual life, at the worst upon lack of imagination and of
vitality. The undaunted daughter of desires, the man in whom religion
burned as a strong fire, could find happiness in the life. But lesser
brethren could not. Ennui, more deadly even than sensual temptation, was
the devil who tormented them. So in the convents of the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries, a sympathetic eye and an understanding mind will
diagnose the fundamental disease as reaction against routine by men and
women in whom Nature, expelled by a pitchfork, had returned a thousand
times more strong.
This reaction from routine took several forms. It is somewhere at the
bottom of all the more serious sins, which the pitchfork method of
attaining salvation brought upon human creatures with bodies as well as
souls. In this chapter, however, we are concerned not with these graver
faults of immorality, but with things less gross, and yet in their
cumulative effect no less fatal to monastic life. Such was the neglect of
that praise of God, which was the primary _raison d'être_ of the monk and
nun, so that services sometimes became empty forms, to be hurried through
with scant devotion, occasionally with scandalous irreverence. Such was
the deadly sin of _accidie_, the name of which is forgotten today, though
the thing itself is with us still. Such were the nerves on edge, the small
quarrels, the wear and tear of communal life; such also the gay clothes,
the pet animals and the worldly amusements, with which nuns sought to
enliven their existence. For all these things were in some sense a
reaction from routine.
Carelessness in the performance of the monastic hours was an exceedingly
common fault during the later middle ages and often finds a place in
episcopal injunctions. Sometimes monks and nuns "cut" the services, as at
Peterborough in 1437, when only ten or twelve of the 44 monks came on
ordinary days to church[915], or at Nuncoton in 1440, where many of the
nuns failed to come to compline, but busied themselves instead in various
domestic offices, or wandered idly in the garden[916]. Often they came
late to matins, a fault which was common in nunneries, for the nuns were
prone to sit up drinking and gossiping after compline, instead of going
straight to bed[917]; and these nocturnal carousals, however harmless in
themselves, did not conduce to wakefulness at one a.m. Consequently they
were somewhat sleepy, _quodammodo sompnolentes_, at matins and found an
almost Johnsonian difficulty in getting up early. At Stainfield in 1519
Atwater found that half an hour sometimes elapsed between the last stroke
of the bell and the beginning of the office and that some of the nuns did
not sing but dozed, partly because they had not enough candles, partly
because they went to bed late; they also performed the offices very
negligently[918]. But most often of all the fault of monks and nuns lay in
gabbling through the services as quickly as possible in order to get them
over. They left out syllables at the beginning and end of words, they
omitted the _dipsalma_ or _pausacio_ between two verses, so that one side
of the choir was beginning the second half, before the other side had
finished the first; they skipped sentences; they mumbled and slurred over
what should have been "entuned in their nose ful semely."
Episcopal injunctions not infrequently animadvert against this irreverent
treatment of the offices. At Catesby in 1442 Isabel Benet asserted that
"divine service is chanted at so great speed that no pauses are made," and
at Carrow in 1526 several of the older nuns complained that the sisters
sang and said the service more quickly than they ought, without due
pauses. A strong injunction sent to Nuncoton in 1531 declares that the
hours have been "doon with grete festinacon, haste and without deuocon,
contrarye to the good manner and ordre of religion"[919]. Indeed so
common was the fault that the Father of Evil was obliged to employ a
special devil called Tittivillus, whose sole business it was to collect
the dropped syllables and gabbled verses and carry them back to his master
in a sack. One rhyme distinguishes carefully between the contents of his
sack:
Hii sunt qui psalmos corrumpunt nequiter almos,
Dangler, cum jasper, lepar, galper quoque draggar,
Momeler, forskypper, forereynner, sic et overleper,
Fragmina verborum Tutivillus colligit horum[920].
A holy Cistercian abbot once interviewed Tittivillus; this is the tale as
the nuns of Syon read it in their _Myroure of Oure Ladye_:
We rede of an holy Abbot of the order of Cystreus that whyle he stode
in the quyer at mattyns, he sawe a fende that had a longe and a greate
poke hangynge about hys necke, and wente aboute the quyer from one to
an other, and wayted bysely after all letters, and syllables, and
wordes, and faylynges, that eny made; and them he gathered dylygently
and putte them in hys poke. And when he came before the Abbot,
waytynge yf oughte had escaped hym, that he myghte have gotten and put
in hys bagge; the Abbot was astoned and aferde of the foulenes and
mysshape of hym, and sayde vnto hym. What art thow; And he answered
and sayd. I am a poure dyuel, and my name ys Tytyuyllus, and I do myne
offyce that is commytted vnto me. And what is thyne offyce sayd the
Abbot, he answeryd I muste eche day he sayde brynge my master a
thousande pokes full of faylynges, and of neglygences in syllables and
wordes, that ar done in youre order in redynge and in syngynge. And
else I must be sore beten[921].
Carelessness in the singing of the services was not, however, the most
serious result of reaction against routine. If the men and women of
sensibility failed to keep intelligence active in the pursuit of spiritual
or temporal duties, if they cared no longer to use brain and spirit as
they performed the daily round, _accidia_[922], that dread disease, half
ennui and half melancholia, which, though common to all men, was
recognised as the peculiar menace of the cloister, lay ever in wait for
them. Against this sin of intellectual and spiritual sloth all the great
churchmen of the middle ages inveigh, recognising in it the greatest
menace of religious life, from which all other sins may follow[923]. If
_accidia_ once laid hold upon a monk he was lost; ceasing to perform with
active mind his religious duties, he would find them a meaningless,
endless routine, filling him with irritation, with boredom and with a
melancholy against which he might struggle in vain. The fourth century
cenobite Cassian has left a detailed description of the effects of
_accidia_ in the cloister, declaring that it was specially disturbing to a
monk about the sixth hour "like some fever which seizes him at stated
times," so that many declared that this was "the sickness that destroyeth
in the noon day," spoken of in the ninetieth psalm[924]. Many centuries
later Dante crystallised it in four unsurpassable lines. As he passed
through the fifth circle of hell he saw a black and filthy marsh, in which
struggled the souls of those who had been overcome by anger; but deeper
than the angry were submerged other souls, whose sobs rose in bubbles
through the muddy water and who could only gurgle their confession in
their throats. These were the souls of men who had fallen victims to the
sin of _accidia_ in their lives
Fitti nel limo dicon: Tristi fummo
Nel' aer dolce che dal sol s' allegra,
Portando dentro accidioso fummo:
Or ci attristiam nella belletta negra.
Fixed in the slime, they say, "Sullen were we in the sweet air, that
is gladdened by the sun, carrying lazy smoke in our hearts; now lie we
sullen here in the black mire"[925].
But the working of the poison is most brilliantly described by Chaucer, in
his _Persones Tale_:
"After the sinnes of Envie and of Ire, now wol I speken of the sinne
of Accidie. For Envye blindeth the herte of a man, and Ire troubleth a
man; and Accidie maketh him hevy, thoghtful and wrawe. Envye and Ire
maken bitternesse in herte; which bitternesse is moder of Accidie and
binimeth him the love of alle goodnesse. Thanne is Accidie the
anguissh of a trouble herte.... He dooth alle thing with anoy and with
wrawnesse, slaknesse and excusacioun, and with ydelnesse and
unlust.... Now comth Slouthe, that wol nat sufre noon hardnesse ne no
penaunce.... Thanne comth drede to biginne to werke any gode werkes;
for certes he that is enclyned to sinne, him thinketh it is so greet
an empryse for to undertake to doon werkes of goodnesse.... Now comth
wanhope, that is despeir of the mercy of God, that comth somtyme of to
muche outrageous sorwe, and somtyme of to muche drede; imagininge that
he hath doon so much sinne, that it wol nat availlen him, though he
wolde repenten him and forsake sinne: thurgh which despeir or drede he
abaundoneth al his herte to every maner sinne, as seith seint
Augustin. Which dampnable sinne, if that it continue unto his ende, it
is cleped sinning in the holy gost.... Soothly he that despeireth him
is lyk the coward champioun recreant, that seith creant withoute nede.
Allas! allas! nedeles is he recreant and nedeles despeired. Certes the
mercy of God is euere redy to every penitent and is aboven alle hise
werkes.... Thanne cometh sompnolence, that is sluggy slombringe, which
maketh a man be hevy and dul in body and in soule; and this sinne
comth of Slouthe."
He proceeds to describe further symptoms,
"Necligence or recchelnesse ... ydelnesse ... the sinne that man
clepen _Tarditas_" and "Lachesse,"
and concludes thus,
"Thanne comth a manere coldnesse, that freseth al the herte of man.
Thanne comth undevocioun, thurgh which a man is so blent, as seith
seint Bernard, and hath swiche langour in soule, that he may neither
rede ne singe in holy chirche, ne here ne thinke of no devocioun, ne
travaille with his handes in no good werk, that it nis him unsavory
and al apalled. Thanne wexeth he slow and slombry, and sone wol be
wrooth, and sone is enclyned to hate and to envye. Thanne comth the
sinne of worldly sorwe, swich as is cleped _tristicia_, that sleeth
man, as seint Paul seith. For certes swich sorwe werketh to the deeth
of the soule and of the body also; for therof comth, that a man is
anoyed of his owene lyf. Wherfore swich sorwe shorteth ful ofte the
lyf of a man, er that his tyme be come by wey of kinde"[926].
This masterly diagnosis of the sin of spiritual sloth and its branches is
illustrated by several stories which bear unmistakably the impress of a
dreadful truth. Johann Busch's account of his early temptations and doubts
has often been quoted. A strong character, he overcame the temptation and
emerged stronger[927]. But Caesarius of Heisterbach has two anecdotes of
weaker brethren which show how exactly Chaucer described the anguish of a
troubled heart. The first is of particular interest to us because it
concerns a woman:
"A certain nun, a woman of advanced age, and, as was supposed, of
great holiness, was so overcome by the vice of melancholy
(_tristitiae_) and so vexed with a spirit of blasphemy, doubt and
distrust, that she fell into despair. And she began altogether to
doubt those things which she had believed from infancy and which it
behoved her to believe, nor could she be induced by anyone to take the
holy sacraments; and when her sisters and also her nieces in the flesh
besought her why she was thus hardened, she answered "I am of the
lost, of those who shall be damned." One day the Prior, growing angry,
said to her, "Sister, unless you recover from your unbelief, when you
die I will have you buried in a field." And she, hearing him, was
silent but kept his words in her heart. One day, when certain of the
sisters were to go on a journey I know not whither, she secretly
followed them to the banks of the river Moselle, whereon the monastery
is situated, and when the ship, which was carrying the sisters, put
off, she threw herself from the shore into the river. Those who were
in the ship heard the sound of a splash, and looking out thought her
body to be a dog, but one of them, desiring (by God's will) to know
more certainly what it was, ran quickly to the place and seeing a
human being, entered the river and drew her out. Then when they
perceived that it was the aforesaid nun, already wellnigh drowned,
they were all frightened, and when they had cared for her and she had
coughed up the water and could speak, they asked her, "Why, sister,
didst thou act thus cruelly?" and she replied, pointing to the Prior,
"My lord there threatened that I should be buried when dead in a
field, wherefore I preferred to be drowned in the flood rather than to
be buried like a beast in the field." Then they led her back to the
monastery and guarded her more carefully. Behold what great evil is
born of melancholy (_tristitia_). That woman was brought up from
infancy in the monastery. She was a chaste, devout, stern and
religious virgin, and, as the mistress [of the novices] of a
neighbouring monastery told me, all the maidens educated by her were
of better discipline and more devout than others"[928].
The other anecdote tells of an old lay brother, who at the end of a long
life fell into despair:
"I know not," says Caesarius, "by what judgment of God he was made
thus sad and fearful, that he was so greatly afraid for his sins and
despaired altogether of the life eternal. He did not indeed doubt in
his faith, but rather despaired of salvation. He could be cheered by
no scriptural authorities and brought back to the hope of forgiveness
by no examples. Yet he is believed to have sinned but little. When the
brothers asked him, 'What makes you fear, why do you despair?' he
answered, 'I cannot pray as I was used to do, and so I fear hell.'
Because he laboured with the vice of _tristitia_, therefore he was
filled with _accidia_, and from each of these was despair born in his
heart. He was placed in the infirmary and on a certain morning he
prepared him for death, and came to his master, saying, 'I can no
longer fight against God.' And when his master paid but little
attention to his words, he went forth to the fish pond of the
monastery near by and threw himself into it and was drowned"[929].
Only a small minority, it is needless to say, was driven to this anguish
of despair. For the majority the strain of conventual life found outlet,
not in these black moods, but in a tendency to bicker one with another, to
get excitement by exaggerating the small events of daily existence into
matter for jealousies and disputes. For the strain was a double one; to
monotony was added the complete lack of privacy, the wear and tear of
communal life; not only always doing the same thing at the same time, but
always doing it in company with a number of other people. The beauty of
human fellowship, the happy friendliness of life in a close society are
too obvious to need description.
For if heuene be on this erthe · and ese to any soule,
It is in cloistere or in scole · by many skilles I fynde;
For in cloistre cometh no man · to chide ne to fighte,
But alle is buxomnesse there and bokes · to rede and to lerne,
In scole there is scorne · but if a clerke wil lerne,
And grete loue and lykynge · for eche of hem loueth other[930].
But it is necessary also to remember the other side of the picture.
Personal idiosyncrasies were no less apt to jar in the middle ages than
they are today; there are unfortunates who are born to be unpopular; there
are tempers which will lose themselves; and in conventual life there is no
balm of solitude for frayed nerves. These nuns were very human people; a
mere accident of birth had probably sent them to a convent rather than to
the care of husband and children in a manor-hall; just as in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries a mere accident of birth made one son
the squire, another the soldier and a third the parson. No special
saintliness of disposition was theirs and no miracle intervened to render
them immune from tantrums when they crossed the convent threshold. Nothing
is at once more striking and more natural than the prevalence of little
quarrels, sometimes growing into serious disputes, among the inmates of
monasteries. Browning's Spanish Cloister was no mere figment of his
inventive brain; indeed it is, if anything, less startling than the
medieval Langland's description of the convent, where Wrath was cook and
where all was far from "buxomnesse." Certainly Langland's indictment is a
violent one; the satirist must darken his colours to catch the eye; and,
had Chaucer been the painter, we might have had a dispute couched in more
courteous terms and more "estatlich of manere." But the satirist's account
is significant, because his very office demands that he shall exaggerate
only what exists; his words are a smoke which cannot rise without fire. So
Langland may speak through the lips of Wrath, with two white eyes:
I have an aunte to nonne · and an abbesse bothe,
Hir were leuere swowe or swelte · þan suffre any peyne.
I haue be cook in hir kichyne · and þe couent serued
Many monthes with hem · and with monkes bothe.
I was þe priouresses potagere · and other poure ladyes
And made hem ioutes of iangelynge · þat dame Iohanne was a bastard,
And dame Clarice a knightes doughter · ac a kokewolde was hire syre,
And dame Peronelle a prestes file · Priouresse worth she neuere
For she had childe in chirityme · all owre chapitere it wiste ·
Of wycked wordes I, Wrath · here wortes imade,
Til "thow lixte" and "thow lixte" lopen oute at ones,
And eyther hitte other · vnder the cheke;
Hadde thei had knyves, by Cryst · her eyther had killed other[931].
From "thow lixte" to "Gr-r-r you swine" how little change!
Sober records bear out Langland's contention that Wrath was at home in
nunneries. Some of the worst cases have already been described; election
disputes, disputes arising from a prioress's favouritism, Margaret Wavere
dragging her nuns about the choir by their hair, and screaming insults at
them, Katherine Wells hitting them on the head with fists and feet[932].
Doubtless quarrels seldom got as far as blows; but bad temper and wordy
warfare were common. Insubordination was sometimes at the root of the
discord; nuns refused to submit meekly to correction after the
proclamation of their faults in chapter, or to obey their superiors. The
words of another satirist show that the monastic vow of obedience
sometimes sat lightly upon their shoulders:
Also another lady there was
That hyght dame dysobedyent
And sche set nowght by her priores.
Ans than me thowght alle was schent,
For sugettys schulde euyr be dylygent
Bothe in worde, in wylle and dede,
To plese her souerynes wyth gode entent,
And hem obey, ellys god forbede.
And of alle the defawtes that I cowde se
Thorowgh schewyng of experience,
Hyt was one of the most that grevyd me,
The wantyng of obedyence
For hyt schulde be chese in consciens
Alle relygius rule wytnesseth the same
And when I saw her in no reverence,
I myght no lenger abyde for schame,
For they setten not by obedyence.
And than for wo myne hert gan blede
Ne they hadden her in no reuerence,
But few or none to her toke hede[933].
Again the colours are darkened, but the eyes of the satirist had seen.
At St Mary's, Winchester, insubordination was evidently the chief fault.
William of Wykeham writes to the Abbess:
By public rumour it has come to our ears that some of the nuns of the
aforesaid house ... care not to submit to or even to obey you and the
deans and other obedientiaries lawfully constituted by you in those
things which concern regular observances nor to show them due
reverence, and that they will not bear or undergo the reproofs and
corrections inflicted upon them by their superiors for their faults,
but break out into vituperation and altercation with each other and in
no way submit to these corrections; meanwhile other nuns of your house
by detractions, conspiracies, confederacies, leagues, obloquies,
contradictions and other breaches of discipline (_insolenciis_) and
laxities (concerning which we speak not at present)
neglect the rule of St Benedict and other due observances. The Abbess is
warned to punish the nuns and to enforce the rule more firmly than
heretofore and to furnish the Bishop with the names of rebels. At the same
time he addresses a letter to the nuns bidding them show obedience to
their superiors and receive correction humbly "henceforth blaming no one
therefore nor altercating one with another, saying that these or those
were badly or excessively punished"[934]. It would seem that discipline
had become lax in the convent and that the Bishop's attempt to introduce
reform by the agency of the abbess was meeting with opposition from unruly
nuns. Visitors were forced constantly to make the double injunction that
nuns should show obedience to their superiors and that those superiors
should be equable and not harsh in correction:
Also we enioyne you, pryoresse, ... that oftentymes ye come to the
chapitere for to correcte the defautes of your susters, and that as
wele then as att other tymes and places ye treyte your said susters
moderlie wyth all resonable fauour; and that ye rebuke ne repreue
thaym cruelly ne feruently at no tyme, specyally in audience of
seculeres, and that ye kepe pryvye fro seculeres your correccyons and
actes of your chapitere.... Also we enioyne yowe of the couent and
eueryche oon of yowe vndere peyn of imprisonyng, that mekely and
buxumly ye obeye the prioresse procedyng discretely in hire
correccyone, and also that in euery place ye do hire dewe reuerence,
absteynyng yowe fro all elacyone of pryde and wordes of disobeysaunce
or debate[935].
Sometimes it was one unruly member who set the convent by the ears. There
is an amusing case at Romsey, which is reminiscent of David Copperfield:
On 16 January 1527 in the chapter house of the monastery of Romsey,
before the vicar general, sitting judicially, Lady Alice Gorsyn
appeared and confessed that she had used bad language with her sisters
[her greatest oath evidently transcended "by sëynt Loy"] and spread
abroad reproachful and defamatory words of them. He absolved her from
the sentence of excommunication and enjoined on her in penance that if
she used bad language in future and spread about defamatory words of
them, a red tongue made of cloth should be used on the barbe under the
chin (_in sua barba alba_) and remain there for a month[936].
a kinder punishment than the scold's bridle or the ducking stool of common
folk. Occasionally an inveterate scold would be removed altogether by the
Bishop and sent to some convent where she was not known; two nuns were
transferred from Burnham to Goring in 1339 "for the peace and quiet of the
house" and in 1298 a quarrelsome nun of Nuncoton was sent to Greenfield to
be kept in solitary confinement as long as she remained incorrigible,
"until according to the discipline of her order she shall know how to live
in a community"[937]. It was more difficult to restore peace when a whole
nunnery was seething with dispute and heart-burnings. General injunctions
to cease quarrelling would seem to show that this was sometimes the case,
and, without having recourse to such an extreme instance as that of
Littlemore in the sixteenth century, it is possible to quote from bishops'
registers documents which go far to bear out even Langland's picture. One
such document may be quoted in illustration, the _comperta_ of Archbishop
Giffard's visitation of Swine in 1268:
It is discovered that Amice de Rue is a slanderer and a liar and
impatient and odious to the convent and a rebel; and so are almost all
the convent when the misdeeds of delinquents are proclaimed in
chapter; wherefore the prioress or whoever is acting for her is not
sufficient, without the help of the lord archbishop, to make
corrections according to the requirements of the rule.... Item, it is
discovered that three sisters in the flesh and spirit, to wit, Sibyl,
Bella and Amy, frequently rebel against the corrections of the
Prioress, and having leagued together with them several other sisters,
they conspire against their sisters, to the great harm of the regular
discipline; and Alice de Scrutevil, Beatrice de St Quintin and Maud
Constable cleave to them.... Item, it is discovered that the Prioress
is a suspicious woman and too credulous and breaks out at a mere word
into correction, and frequently punishes unequally for the same fault
and pursues with long rancour those whom she dislikes, until the time
of their vindication cometh; whence it befals that the nuns, when they
suspect that they are going to be burdened with too heavy a
correction, procure the mitigation of her severity by means of the
threats of their relatives. Item, it is discovered that the nuns and
the sisters are at discord in many things, because the sisters contend
that they are equal to the nuns and use black veils even as the
nuns[938], which is said not to be the custom in other houses of the
same order[939].
Apostasy, _accidia_, quarrels, all rose in part from monotony. The
majority of nuns were probably content with their life, but they strove to
bring some excitement and variety into it, not only unconsciously by
cliques and contentions, but also by a conscious aping of the worldly
amusements which enlivened their mothers and sisters outside the convent
walls. The châtelaine or mistress of a manor, when not busied with the
care of an estate, amused herself in the pursuit of fashion; even the
business-like Margaret Paston hankered after a scarlet robe. She amused
herself with keeping pets, those little dogs which scamper so gaily round
the borders of manuscripts, or play so gallant a part in romances like
the Châtelaine of Vergi. She hawked and she hunted, she danced and she
played at tables[940]. All these occupations served to break the monotony
of daily life. The nuns, always in touch with the world owing to the
influx of visitors and to the neglect of enclosure, remembered these
forbidden pleasures. And they sought to spice their monotonous life, as
they spiced their monotonous dishes. Gay clothes, pet animals, a dance, a
game, a gossip, were to them "a ferthyngworth of fenel-seed for
fastyngdayes." So we find all these worldly amusements in the convent.
Dear to the soul of men and women alike, dear to monks and nuns as well as
to the children of the world, were the gay colours and extravagant modes
of contemporary dress. Popular preachers inveighed against the devils'
trappings of their flocks, but when those trappings flaunted themselves in
the cloister there was matter for more than words. As early as the end of
the seventh century St Aldhelm penned a severe indictment of the
fashionable nuns of his day:
A vest of fine linen of a violet colour is worn, above it a scarlet
tunic with a hood, sleeves striped with silk and trimmed with red fur;
the locks on the forehead and the temples are curled with a crisping
iron, the dark head-veil is given up for white and coloured
head-dresses, which, with bows of ribbon sewn on, reach down to the
ground; the nails, like those of a falcon or sparrow-hawk, are pared
to resemble talons[941].
Synods sat solemnly over silken veils and pleated robes with long trains;
they shook their heads over golden pins and silver belts, jewelled rings,
laced shoes, cloth of burnet and of Rennes, dresses open at the sides, gay
colours (especially red) and fur of _gris_[942]. High brows were
fashionable in the world and the nuns could not resist lifting and
spreading out their veils to expose those fair foreheads ("almost a
spanne brood, I trowe"); when Alnwick visited Goring in 1445 he
saw with the evidence of his own eyes that the nuns do wear their
veils spread out on either side and above their foreheads, (and) he
enjoined upon the prioress ... that she should wear and cause her
sisters to wear their veils spread down to their eyes[943].
The words of Beatrix's maid in _Much Ado About Nothing_ spring to the
mind: "But methinks you look with your eyes as other women do." For three
weary centuries the bishops waged a holy war against fashion in the
cloister and waged it in vain, for as long as the nuns mingled freely with
secular women it was impossible to prevent them from adopting secular
modes. Occasionally a conscientious visitor found himself floundering
unhandily through something very like a complete catalogue of contemporary
fashions. So Bishop Longland at Elstow in 1531:
We ordeyne and by way of Iniuncon commande undre payne of disobedyence
from hensforth that no ladye ne any religious suster within the said
monasterye presume to were ther apparells upon ther hedes undre suche
lay fashion as they have now of late doon with cornered crests, nether
undre suche manour of hight shewing ther forhedes moore like lay
people than religious, butt that they use them without suche crestes
or secular fashions and off a lower sort and that ther vayle come as
lowe as ther yye ledes and soo contynually to use the same, unles itt
be at suche tymes as they shalbe occupied in eny handycrafte labour,
att whiche tymes itt shalbe lefull for them to turne upp the said
vayle for the tyme of suche occupacon. And undre like payne inoyne
that noon of the said religious susters doo use or were hereafter eny
such voyded shoys, nether crested as they have of late ther used, butt
that they be of suche honeste fashion as other religious places both
use and that ther gownes and kyrtells be closse afore and nott so depe
voyded at the breste and noo more to use rede stomachers but other
sadder colers in the same[944].
It is interesting to conjecture how the nuns obtained these gay garments
and ornaments. The growing custom of giving them a money allowance out of
which to dress themselves instead of providing them with clothes in kind
out of the common purse, certainly must have given opportunity for buying
the gilt pins, barred belts and slashed shoes which so horrified their
visitors. We know from Gilles li Muisis that Flemish nuns at least went
shopping[945]. But an even more likely source of supply lies, as we shall
see, in the legacies of clothes and ornaments, which were often left to
nuns by their relatives[946].
Not only in their clothes did medieval nuns seek to enliven existence
after the manner of their lay sisters. The bishops struggled long and
unsuccessfully against another custom of worldly women, the keeping of pet
animals[947]. Dogs were certainly the favourite pets. Cats are seldom
mentioned, though the three anchoresses of the _Ancren Riwle_ were
specially permitted to keep one[948], and Gyb, that "cat of carlyshe
kynde," which slew Philip Sparrow, apparently belonged to Carrow; perhaps
there was spread among the nunneries of England the grisly tradition of
the Prioress of Newington, who was smothered in bed by her cat[949].
Birds, from the larks of the Abbaye-aux-Dames at Caen, to the parrot
Vert-Vert at Nevers, are often mentioned[950]. Monkeys, squirrels and
rabbits were also kept. But dogs and puppies abounded. Partly because the
usages of society inevitably found their way into the aristocratic
convents, partly because human affections will find an outlet under the
most severe of rules:
(Objet permis à leur oisif amour,
Vert-Vert était l'âme de ce séjour),
the nuns clung to their "smale houndes." Archbishop Peckham had to forbid
the Abbess of Romsey to keep monkeys or "a number of dogs" in her own
chamber and she was charged at the same time with stinting her nuns in
food; one can guess what became of the "rosted flesh or milk and
wastel-breed"[951]. At Chatteris and at Ickleton in 1345 the nuns were
forbidden to keep fowls, dogs or small birds within the precincts of the
convent or to bring them into church during divine service[952]. This
bringing of animals into church was a common custom in the middle ages,
when ladies often attended service with dog in lap and men with hawk on
wrist[953]; Lady Audley's twelve dogs, which so disturbed the nuns of
Langley, will be remembered[954]. Injunctions against the bringing of dogs
or puppies into choir by the nuns are also found at Keldholme and Rosedale
early in the fourteenth century[955]. But the most flagrant case of all is
Romsey, to which in 1387 William of Wykeham wrote as follows:
Item, because we have convinced ourselves by clear proofs that some of
the nuns of your house bring with them to church birds, rabbits,
hounds and such like frivolous things, whereunto they give more heed
than to the offices of the church, with frequent hindrance to their
own psalmody and that of their fellow nuns and to the grievous peril
of their souls; therefore we strictly forbid you, all and several, in
virtue of the obedience due unto us, that you presume henceforward to
bring to church no birds, hounds, rabbits or other frivolous things
that promote indiscipline; and any nun who does to the contrary, after
three warnings shall fast on bread and water on one Saturday for each
offence, notwithstanding one discipline to be received publicly in
chapter on the same day.... Item, whereas through the hunting-dogs and
other hounds abiding within your monastic precincts, the alms that
should be given to the poor are devoured and the church and cloister
and other places set apart for divine and secular services are foully
defiled, contrary to all honesty, and whereas, through their
inordinate noise, divine service is frequently troubled, therefore we
strictly command and enjoin you, Lady Abbess, in virtue of obedience,
that you remove these dogs altogether and that you suffer them never
henceforth, nor any other such hounds, to abide within the precincts
of your nunnery[956].
But the crusade against pets was not more successful than the crusade
against fashions. The feminine fondness for something small and alive to
pet was not easily eradicated and it seems that visitors were sometimes
obliged to indulge it. The wording of Peckham's decree leaves an opening
for the retention of one humble and very self-effacing little dog, not
prone to unseemly yelps and capers before the stony eye of my lord the
Archbishop on his rounds; Dean Kentwode in the fifteenth century ordered
the Prioress of St Helen's Bishopsgate, to remove dogs "and content
herself with one or two"[957], and in 1520 the Prioress of Flixton was
bidden to send all dogs away from the convent "except one which she
prefers"[958]. Perhaps the welcome of a thumping tail and damp,
insinuating nose occasionally overcame the scruples even of a Bishop, who
probably kept dogs himself and mourned
if oon of hem were deed,
Or if men smoot it with a yerde smerte.
Dogs kept for hunting purposes come into rather a different category. It
is well known that medieval monks were mighty hunters before the
Lord[959], and the mention of sporting dogs at Romsey and at Brewood
(where Bishop Norbury found _canes venatici_[960]) encourages speculation
as to whether the nuns also were not "pricasours aright" and
yaf not of that text a pulled hen
That seith that hunters been nat holy men.
It is significant that Dame Juliana Berners is supposed by tradition
(unsupported, however, by any other evidence) to have been a prioress of
Sopwell. The gift of hunting rights to a nunnery is a common one; for
instance, Henry II granted to Wix the right of having two greyhounds and
four braches to take hares through the whole forest of Essex[961].
Doubtless these rights were usually exercised by proxy[962]; but
considering the popularity of hunting and hawking as sports for women, a
popularity so great that no lady's education was complete if she knew not
how to manage a hawk and bear herself courteously in the field, it is
surprising that there is not actual mention of these pastimes among nuns
as well as among monks.
Besides gay clothes and pets other frivolous amusements broke at times the
monotony of convent life. Dancing and mumming and minstrelsy were not
unknown and the nuns shared in the merrymaking on feasts sacred and
profane, as is witnessed by the account rolls of St Mary de Pré (1461-90),
with their list of payments for wassail at New Year and Twelfth Night, for
May games, for bread and ale on bonfire nights and for harpers and players
at Christmas[963]. In 1435 the nuns of Lymbrook were forbidden "all maner
of mynstrelseys, enterludes, daunsyng or reuelyng with in your sayde holy
place"[964], and about the same time Dean Kentwode wrote to St Helen's
Bishopsgate: "Also we enioyne you that all daunsyng and reuelyng be
utterly forborne among yow, except Christmasse and other honest tymys of
recreacyone among yowre self usyd in absence of seculars in all
wyse"[965]. The condemnation of dancing in nunneries is not surprising,
for the attitude of medieval moralists generally to this pastime is summed
up in Etienne de Bourbon's aphorism, "The Devil is the inventor and
governor and disposer of dances and dancers"[966]. Minstrels were
similarly under the ban of the church, and clerks were forbidden by canon
law and by numerous papal, conciliar and episcopal injunctions to listen
to their "ignominious art"[967], a regulation which, needless to say, went
unobeyed in an age when many a bishop had his private _histrio_[968], and
when the same stern reformer Grosseteste, who warned his clergy "ne mimis,
ioculatoribus aut histrionibus intendant," loved so much to hear the harp
that he kept his harper's chamber "next hys chaumbre besyde hys
stody"[969]. Langland asserts that churchmen and laymen alike spent on
minstrels money with which they well might have succoured the poor:
Clerkus and knyghtes · welcometh kynges mynstrales,
And for loue of here lordes · lithen hem at festes;
Muche more, me thenketh · riche men auhte
Haue beggars by-fore hem · which beth godes mynstrales[970].
Even in monasteries they found a ready welcome[971] and the reforming
council of Oxford passed an ineffectual decree forbidding their
performances to be seen or heard or allowed before the abbot or monks, if
they came to a house for alms[972]. Indeed there was sometimes need for
care. Where but at one of those minstrelsies or interludes forbidden at
Lymbrook did sister Agnes of St Michael's Priory, Stamford, meet a
jongleur, who sang softly in her ear that Lenten was come with love to
town? The Devil (alas) had all the good tunes, even in the fifteenth
century. "One Agnes, a nun of that place," reported the Prioress, "has
gone away into apostasy cleaving to a harp-player, and they dwell
together, as it is said, in Newcastle-on-Tyne"[973]. For her no longer the
strait discipline of her rule, the black-robed nuns and heaven at the
end. For her the life of the roads, the sore foot and the light heart; for
her the company of ribalds with their wenches, and all the thriftless,
shiftless player-folk; for her, at the last, hell, with "the gold and the
silver and the vair and the gray, ... harpers and minstrels and kings of
the world"[974], or a desperate hope that the Virgin's notorious kindness
for minstrels might snatch her soul from perdition[975].
But the merrymakers in nunneries were not necessarily strange jongleurs or
secular folk. The dancing and revelry, which were forbidden at Lymbrook
and allowed in Christmastime at St Helen's, were probably connected with
the children's feast of St Nicholas. As early as the twelfth century the
days immediately before and after Christmas had become, in ecclesiastical
circles, the occasion for uproarious festivities[976]. The three days
after Christmas were appropriated by the three orders of the Church. On St
Stephen's Day (Dec. 26) the deacons performed the service, elected their
Abbot of Fools and paraded the streets, levying contributions from the
householders and passers-by; on St John the Evangelist's Day (Dec. 27) the
deacons gave way to the priests, who "gave a mock blessing and proclaimed
a ribald form of indulgence"; and on Innocents' Day it was the turn of the
choir or schoolboys to hold their feast. In cathedral and monastic
churches the Boy Bishop (who had been elected on December 5th, the Eve of
St Nicholas, patron saint of schoolboys) attended service on the eve of
Innocents' Day, and at the words of the Magnificat "He hath put down the
mighty from their seat" changed places with the Bishop or Dean or Abbot,
and similarly the canons and other dignitaries of the church changed
places with the boys. On Innocents' Day all services, except the essential
portions of the mass, were performed by the Boy Bishop; he and his staff
processed through the streets, levying large contributions of food and
money and for about a fortnight his rule continued, accompanied by
feasting and merrymaking, plays, disguisings and dances. These Childermas
festivities took place in monastic as well as in secular churches, but
they seem to have been more common in nunneries than in male communities.
Our chief information about the revelries comes from Archbishop Eudes
Rigaud's province of Rouen[977]; but English records also contain
scattered references to the custom. Evidently a Girl Abbess or Abbess of
Fools was elected from among the novices, and at the _Deposuit_ she and
her fellow novices, or the little schoolgirls, took the place of the
Abbess and nuns, just as the Boy Bishop held sway in cathedral churches,
and feasting, dancing and disguising brought a welcome diversion into the
lives of both nuns and children. Even the strict Peckham was obliged to
extend a grudging consent to the _puerilia solemnia_ held on Innocents'
Day at Barking and at Godstow (1279), insisting only that they should not
be continued during the whole octave of Childermas-tide and should be
conducted with decency and in private:
The celebration of the Feast of Innocents by children, which we do not
approve, but rather suffer with disapproval, is on no account to be
undertaken by those children, nor are they to take any part in it,
until after the end of the vespers of St John the Evangelist's Day;
and the nuns are not to retire from the office, but having excluded
from the choir all men and women ... they are themselves to supply the
absence of the little ones lest (which God forbid) the divine praise
should become a mockery[978].
A more specific reference still is found at Carrow in 1526; Dame Joan
Botulphe deposed at a visitation that it was customary at Christmas for
the youngest nun to hold sway for the day as abbess and on that day (added
the soured ancient) was consumed and dissipated everything that the house
had acquired by alms or by the gift of friends[979]. The connection
between these revels and the Feast of Fools appears clearly in the
injunction sent by Bishop Longland to Nuncoton about the same time:
We chardge you, lady priores, that ye suffre nomore hereafter eny
lorde of mysrule to be within your house, nouther to suffre hereafter
eny suche disgysinge as in tymes past haue bene used in your monastery
in nunnes apparell ne otherwise[980].
The admission of seculars dressed up as nuns, and of boys dressed up as
women, the performance of interludes and the wild dancing were reason
enough for the distaste with which ecclesiastical authorities regarded
these festivities. For the nuns clearly did not exclude strangers as
Peckham had bidden. Indeed it seems probable that where they did not elect
a Girl Abbess, they admitted a Boy Bishop, either from some neighbouring
church, or just possibly one of their own little schoolboys. Among the
accounts of St Swithun's monastery at Winchester for 1441 there is a
payment
for the boys of the Almonry together with the boys of the chapel of St
Elizabeth, dressed up after the manner of girls, dancing, singing and
performing plays before the Abbess and nuns of St Mary's Abbey in
their hall on the Feast of Innocents[981];
and the account of Christian Bassett, Prioress of St Mary de Pré, contains
an item "paid for makyng of the dyner to the susters upon Childermasday
iij s iiij d, item paid for brede and ale for seint Nicholas clerks iij
d"[982]. The inventories of Cheshunt and Sheppey at the time of the
Dissolution contain further references to the custom and seem to show that
nunneries occasionally "ran" a St Nicholas Bishop of their own: at
Cheshunt there was found in the dorter "a chisell (chasuble) of white
ffustyan and a myter for a child bysshoppe at xx d"[983], and at Sheppey,
in a chapel, "ij olde myters for S. Nicholas of fustyan brodered"[984].
These childish festivities sound harmless and attractive enough, and
modern writers are sometimes apt to sentimentalise over their abolition by
Henry VIII[985]. But in this, as in his injunction of enclosure, Henry
was fully in accordance with the best ecclesiastical precedent. For the
Boy Bishop was originally a part of the Feast of Fools and the Feast of
Fools had an ancient and disreputable ancestry in the Roman Saturnalia. At
a very early date a regulation made to curtail such performances at St
Paul's declared that "what had been invented for the praise of sucklings
had been converted into a disgrace"[986]. In 1445, at Paris, it was stated
by the Faculty of Theology at the University that the performers
appeared in masks with the faces of monsters or in the dresses of
women, sang improper songs in the choir, ate fat pork on the horns of
the altar, close by the priest celebrating mass, played dice on the
altar, used stinking incense made of old shoes, and ran about the
choir leaping and shouting[987];
and about the same time the Synod of Basle had specifically denounced the
children's festival in hardly less violent terms as
that disgraceful, bad custom practised in some churches, by which on
certain high days during the year some with mitre, staff and
pontifical vestments like Bishops and others dressed as kings and
princes bless the people; the which festival in some places is called
the Feast of Fools or Innocents or Boys, and some making games with
masks and mummeries, others dances and breakdowns of males and
females, move people to look on with guffaws, while others make
drinkings and feasts there[988].
It is only necessary to compare these denunciations with such accounts of
the festivities in nunneries as have survived, to understand that the
revelling and disguising were less harmless than modern writers are apt to
represent them. Mr Leach attributes the schoolboys' feast to the fact that
regular holidays were unknown in the medieval curriculum and that the boys
found in the ribaldries of Childermastide some outlet for their long
suppressed spirits. Similarly the cramped and solemn existence led by the
nuns for the rest of the year probably made their one outbreak the more
violent. Nevertheless one cannot avoid feeling somewhat out of sympathy
with the bishops. "Dost thou think because thou art virtuous there shall
be no more cakes and ale?" Nuns were ever fond of ginger "hot i' the
mouth."
CHAPTER VIII
PRIVATE LIFE AND PRIVATE PROPERTY
All things are to be common to all.
_Rule of St Benedict_, ch. XXXIII.
The Rule of seint Maure or of seint Beneit,
Because that it was old and somdel streit
This ilke monk leet olde thinges pace
And held after the newe world the space.
CHAUCER, Prologue, ll. 173-6.
The reaction from a strict routine of life led monks and nuns to a more
serious modification of the Rule under which they lived than that
represented by pet dogs and pretty clothes, which were after all only
superficial frivolities. They sought also to modify two rules which were
fundamental to the Benedictine ideal. One was the rigidly communal life,
the obligation to do everything in company with everyone else. The other
was the obligation of strict personal poverty. A monastery was in its
essence a place where a number of persons lived a communal life, owning no
private property, but holding everything in the name of the community. The
normal routine of conventual life, as laid down in the Benedictine Rule,
secured this end. The inmates of a house spent almost the whole of their
time together. They prayed together in the choir, worked together in the
cloister, ate together in the frater, and slept together in the dorter.
Moreover the strictest regulations were made to prevent the vice of
private property, one of the most serious sins in the monastic calendar,
from making its appearance. All food was to be cooked in a common kitchen
and served in the common frater, in which no meat was allowed. All clothes
were to be provided out of the common goods of the house, and it was the
business of the chamberer or chambress to see to the buying of material,
the making of the clothes and their distribution to the religious; so
carefully was _proprietas_ guarded against, that all old clothes had to be
given back to the chambress, when the new ones were distributed. Above
all it was forbidden to monks and nuns to possess and spend money, save
what was delivered to them by the superior for their necessary expenses
upon a journey[989].
But this combination of rigid communism with rigid personal poverty was
early discovered to be irksome. It seems as though the craving for a
certain privacy of life, a certain minimum of private property, is a
deeply rooted instinct in human nature. Certainly the attempt of
monasticism to expel it with a pitchfork failed. Step by step the rule was
broken down, more especially by a series of modifications in the
prescribed method of feeding and clothing the community. Here, as in the
enclosure question, the monks and nuns came into conflict with their
bishops, though the conflict was never so severe. Here also, the result of
the struggle was the same. A steady attempt by the bishops to enforce the
rule was countered by a steady resistance on the part of the religious and
the end was usually compromise.
The most marked breakdown of the communal way of life in the monasteries
of the later middle ages is to be seen in the gradual neglect of the
frater, in favour of a system of private messes, and in the increasing
allocation of private rooms to individuals. The strict obligation upon all
to keep frater daily was at first only modified in favour of the head of
the house, who usually had her own lodgings, including a dining hall, in
which the rule permitted her to entertain the guests who claimed her
hospitality and such nuns as she chose to invite for their recreation.
From quite early times, however, there existed in many houses a room known
as the _misericord_ (or indulgence), where the strict diet of the frater
was relaxed. Here the occupants of the infirmary, those in their seynies
and all who needed flesh meat and more delicate dishes to support them,
were served. From the fourteenth century onwards, however, the rules of
diet became considerably relaxed and flesh was allowed to everyone on
three days a week[990]. This meant that the _misericord_ was in constant
use and in many monasteries the frater was divided into two stories, the
upper of which was used as the frater proper, where no meat might be
eaten, and the lower as a _misericord_[991]. According to this
arrangement a nun might sometimes be dining in the upper frater, sometimes
in the _misericord_ and sometimes in the abbess' or prioress' lodgings;
and, of these places, there was a distinct tendency for the upper frater
to fall into disuse, since it could in any case only be used on fish (or,
according to later custom, white meat) days.
But a habit even more subversive of strictly communal life and more liable
to lead to disuse of the frater was rapidly spreading at this period. This
was the division of a nunnery into _familiae_, or households, which messed
together, each _familia_ taking its meals separately from the rest. The
common frater was sometimes kept only thrice a week on fish days,
sometimes only in Advent and Lent, sometimes (it would seem) never. This
meant the separate preparation of meals for each household, a practice
which, though uneconomical, was possible, because each nun's food
allowance was fixed and could be drawn separately. Moreover, as we shall
see hereafter, the growing practice of granting an annual money allowance
to each individual, though used for clothes more often than for food,
enabled the nuns to buy meat and other delicacies (if not provided by the
convent) for themselves. The aristocratic ladies of Polsloe even had their
private maids to prepare their meals[992].
This system was evidently well established at a comparatively early date.
It is mentioned in Peckham's injunctions in 1279 and in Exeter and York
injunctions belonging to the early years of the fourteenth century. To
illustrate how it worked, we may analyse the references to _familiae_ in
Alnwick's visitations of the diocese of Lincoln (1440-5)[993]. The number
of households in a nunnery necessarily differed with the size of the
house and it is not always easy to determine the proportion of households
to nuns, because internal evidence sometimes shows that all the inmates
were not present and enumerated at the visitation. Thus at Elstow the
abbess "says that there are five households of nuns kept in the monastery,
whereof the first is that of the abbess, who has five nuns with her; the
second of the prioress, who has two; the third of the subprioress, who has
two; the fourth of the sacrist, who has three; and the fifth of Dame
Margaret Aylesbury, who has two"; but only thirteen nuns gave
evidence[994]. In this house the frater was kept on certain days of the
week, one nun deposing "that on the days whereon they eat together in
frater, they eat larded food in the morning and sup on flesh, and they eat
capons and other two-footed creatures in frater." At Catesby the prioress
deposed that she had four nuns in her _familia_ and that there were three
other households in the cloister. At Stixwould there were "five separate
and distinct households"; at Nuncoton there were three; at St Michael's
Stamford, the prioress and subprioress each had one, but all ate together
in the frater on fish-days; at Stainfield the prioress, the cellaress and
the nun-sisters each kept a household. At Gokewell and Langley the nuns
were said to keep divers households "by two and two" and at Langley the
prioress added, "but they do eat in the frater every day"; also she says
that she herself has three women who board with her and the subprioress
one; also she says that the nuns receive naught from the house but their
meat and drink and she herself keeps one household on her own account. At
Gracedieu the prioress deposed
that frater is not kept nor has it been kept for seven years and that
the nuns sit in company with secular folk at table in her hall every
day and that they have reading during meals; also she says there are
two households only in the house, to wit in her hall and the
infirmary, where there are three at table together;
here the prioress' hall simply took the place of the frater. There were
four households at Godstow and apparently several at Legbourne.
This division into households which messed separately went hand in hand
with another practice, which also softened the rigours of a strictly
communal life, to wit the allocation of separate rooms to certain nuns.
The obedientiaries of a house often had private offices, or _checkers_, in
which to transact their business, and the custom grew by which the head of
each _familia_ had her own room, in which her household dined. The
visitation reports continually refer to these private cells and to their
use as dining rooms and places of reception for visitors. Sometimes the
nuns even slept in them, though the dorter was always much more strictly
kept than the frater; at Godstow in 1432 for instance, Bishop Gray enjoins
"that the beds in the nuns' lodgings (_domicilia_) be altogether removed
from their chambers, save those for small children" (apparently their
pupils) "and that no nun receive any secular person for any recreation in
the nuns' chambers under pain of excommunication"[995]. Some light is
thrown upon these _camerae_ by the inventories of medieval nunneries. Thus
the inventory of the Benedictine Priory of Sheppey made at the Dissolution
describes the contents of "the greate chamber in the Dorter," which was
used as a treasury in which to keep the linen, vestments and plate of the
house, and in which one of the nuns Dame Agnes Davye seems to have slept;
there follows a description of the chambers of eight nuns, with the
furniture in each, from which it is clear that they had brought their own
furniture with them to the monastery. These "chambers" may have been
separate rooms or may have been partitions of the dorter, but if the
latter they were evidently so large as to be to all intents and purposes
separate rooms, for the furniture commonly includes painted cloth or paper
hangings for the room, a chest and a cupboard, besides the bed; in three
there is mention of windows and in two of fire irons. The most likely
conjecture is that the dorter was used as a treasury and bedroom for one
nun and the other chambers are separate rooms[996]. At some other houses
the dorter is mentioned but was clearly divided into separate cells by
wainscot partitions, and the wainscotting was sometimes sold at the
Dissolution[997].
The attitude of ecclesiastical authorities to the modification of the
communal rule involved in _familiae_ and _camerae_ was, for various
reasons, one of strict disapproval. The custom of providing separate
messes was extremely uneconomical; the passing of much time in private
rooms was open to suspicion, especially when male visitors were received
there; communal life was an essential part of the monastic idea; finally
the amenities of private life were apt (as we shall see) to bring in their
train the amenities of private property. The policy of the bishops was,
for all these reasons, to restore communal life. They made general
injunctions that frater and dorter should duly be kept by all the nuns,
they made special injunctions for the abolition of separate households,
and above all they condemned private rooms:
"Also we enioyne yow, pryoresse," writes Alnwick to Catesby in 1442,
"that ye dispose so for your susters that the morne next aftere
Myghelmasse day next commyng wythe owten any lengare delaye, ye and
thai aftere yowre rewle lyfe in commune, etyng and drynkyng in oon
house, slepyng in oon house, prayng and sarufyng [serving] God in oon
oratorye, levyng vtterly all pryuate hydles [hiding-places], chaumbres
and syngulere housholdes, by the whiche hafe comen and growen grete
hurte and peryle of sowles and noyesfulle sklaundere of your
pryorye"[998].
But such injunctions were not easily enforced, and the politic bishops
sometimes tried to reduce rather than to abolish the households and
private rooms. It was often necessary--and indeed reasonable--to recognise
the three _familiae_ of the abbess' or prioress' lodgings, the
_misericord_ or infirmary and the frater[999]. Sometimes the bishops tried
to enforce the rule, laid down by the legate Ottobon (1268), to limit the
number who dined at the superior's table, viz. that at least two-thirds of
the convent were to eat each day in the frater[1000]. At Godstow Bishop
Gray, in 1432, allowed three households besides that of the frater[1001].
The condemnation of private rooms, and more especially of the reception of
visitors therein, was more severe; but here too, it was necessary in
large convents for the obedientiaries to have their offices, and other
individuals were sometimes given special permission to use separate
_camerae_. Some bishops allowed them to sick nuns, but others enforced the
use of the common infirmary[1002].
It has already been said that this approximation to private life was bound
to bring with it an approximation to private property and it remains now
to analyse the process by which these new methods of providing food, and
even more effectively, new methods of providing clothes, resulted in a
spread of _proprietas_, which was considered perfectly legitimate by the
nuns and within limits condoned by the bishops. The impression left upon
the mind by a study of monastic records during the last two centuries of
the middle ages is that in many houses the rule of strict personal poverty
was in practice almost completely abrogated, for it is quite obvious that
the nuns had the private and individual disposal of money and goods.
Indeed some convents seem almost like the inmates of a boarding house,
each of whom receives lodging and a certain minimum of food from the
house, but otherwise caters for herself out of her private income. This is
a considerable departure from the rule of St Benedict, and it is worth
while to analyse the sources from which the nuns drew the money and goods
of which they disposed. These sources may be classified under five
headings: (1) the annual allowance of pocket money (called _peculium_)
which was allowed to each nun from the funds of the house and out of which
she had to provide herself with clothes and other necessities; (2)
pittances in money; (3) gifts in money and kind from friends; (4)
legacies; (5) the proceeds of their own labour.
(1) The practice of giving a _peculium_ in money out of the common funds
of the house to monks and nuns began at quite an early date (it is
mentioned at the Council of Oxford in 1222) and was so much an established
custom in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries that to withhold it was
considered by bishops a legitimate cause of complaint against superiors.
The amount of the _peculium_ varied at different houses. In the majority
of cases it was intended to be used for clothes and its payment is
sometimes entered in account rolls. At Gracedieu the nuns had "salaries"
of 6_s._ 8_d._ a year each for their vesture and the careful treasuress
enters all their names[1003]. At St Michael's, Stamford, a chambress'
account, which has been preserved among the treasuress' accounts, shows
that in 1408-9 the prioress was paid 5_s._ for her "camise" and all the
other eleven nuns 4_s._ each, while the two lay sisters had 3_s._
each[1004]. Similarly at St Radegund's, Cambridge, a certain pension from
St Clement's Church was ear-marked for the clothing of the nuns and was
paid over directly to them[1005]; and the Prioress of Catesby in 1414-5
includes under "customary payments" money paid "to the lady Prioress and
her six nuns and to one sister and her three brethren by the year for
clothing"[1006]. The fact that the _peculium_ was a payment made from the
common funds and not the privately owned income of an individual allowed
it to escape the charge of _proprietas_, but it was nevertheless an
obvious departure from the Benedictine rule, which forbade the individual
disposal of property and made quite different arrangements for the
provision of clothing.
(2) Another class of payments made to individuals from the convent funds
was that of pittances. A pittance was originally an extra allowance of
food and it was quite common for a benefactor to leave money to a convent
for a pittance on the anniversary of his death. These pittances were,
however, sometimes paid in money and most account rolls will provide
examples of both. The nuns of Barking receive "Ruscheaw silver" as well
as the little pies called "risshowes" in Lent; the nuns of St Mary de Pré
(St Albans) had "Maundy silver" as well as ale and wine on Maundy
Thursday; the nuns of St Michael's Stamford receive their pittances
sometimes in money, sometimes in spices or pancakes, wine or beer. The
nuns of Romsey had a pittance of 6_d._ each on the feast of St Martin and
another of 6_d._ each "when blood is let"[1007].
(3) The third source from which nuns obtained private possessions lay in
the gifts, both in money and in kind bestowed upon them by their friends.
It has already been shown, in Chapter I, that there was a growing tendency
in the later middle ages for a nun to be supported by means of an annuity,
paid by her relatives and often ending with her life. The fact that these
annuities were ear-marked for the support of individuals must have
increased the temptation to regard them as the property of those
individuals, a temptation which was not present in the old days when an
aristocratic nun brought with her a grant of land to the house. One is
tempted to conjecture that individuals occasionally retained in their own
hands the expenditure of part at least of their annuities. Specific
information from English sources is unfortunately rare; but in the diocese
of Rouen in the middle of the thirteenth century Archbishop Eudes Rigaud
sometimes found it necessary to enjoin that certain nuns who possessed
rents which were reserved for their own use, should either transfer them
to the common funds, or else dispose of them only with the consent of the
prioress, a significant modification, which suggests that he was unable to
eradicate a deeply rooted custom, although it was strictly against the
rule[1008]. It was some twenty years later (c. 1277) that Bishop Thomas of
Cantilupe, writing to the nuns of Lymbrook, enjoined:
Let none of you keep in her own hand any possession or rent for
clothing and shoeing herself, even with the consent of the prioress,
albeit such possession or rent may be given to her by parents or
friends, because the goods of your community suffice not thereto; but
let it be given up wholly to your prioress, that out of it she may
minister to those to whom the gift was made, according to their needs;
otherwise they may easily fall into the sin of property and a secular
craving for gifts, thus rashly violating their vow[1009].
There are also occasional references to "poor" nuns, without such
annuities or dress-allowances, which suggest that the annuitants had
personal disposal of their own money. Thus John Heyden, esq., in 1480,
bequeaths "to every nun in Norfolk not having an annuity 40d"[1010], and
Bishop Gray in 1432 refers to "a certain chest within the monastery [of
Godstow] for the relief of needy nuns," to which the sum of a hundred
shillings was to be restored[1011].
But whether or not nuns were in the habit of retaining in their own
possession regular annuities, it is plain that they did so retain the
various gifts in kind and in money, brought to them from time to time by
their friends; and, judging from the constant references in the visitation
reports, these presents must have been fairly numerous. They varied from
the gifts, rewards, letters, tokens and skins of wine, which the
gatekeeper of Godstow smuggled in to the nuns from the scholars of Oxford,
to the more sober presents of money, clothes and food given to them by
fond relatives for their relief "as in hire habyte and sustenaunce."
(4) One kind of gift deserves, however, a more careful consideration, for
the preservation of many thousands of medieval wills allows us to speak in
detail of legacies to individual nuns, which occur sometimes in company
with legacies to the whole community, sometimes alone. These bequests took
many different forms. Sometimes a father leaves an annuity for the support
of his daughter in her convent[1012]. More frequently a nun becomes the
recipient of a lump sum of money and from the wording of the legacies it
is perfectly clear that these sums are to be delivered into her own hands
for her own use. Let us, for instance, analyse the legacies left by Sir
John Depeden, a northern knight who was a good friend to poor nuns. He
first of all leaves twenty shillings each to the following twelve
nunneries, that they may pray for his soul and his wife's: Esholt,
Arthington, Wilberfoss, Thicket, Moxby, Kirklees, Yedingham, Clementhorpe,
Hampole, Keldholme, Marrick (all in Yorkshire) and Burnham (in
Buckinghamshire). He then continues:
And I give and bequeath to dame Joan Waleys, nun of Watton, to her own
use (_ad usum suum proprium_), 40_s._ And I give and bequeath to dame
Margaret Depeden, nun of Barking, to her own use, 5 marks and one salt
cellar of silver. And I give and bequeath to Elizabeth, daughter of
John FitzRichard, nun of Appleton, to her own use, 40_s._;
moreover he leaves to the Prioress of the last mentioned house 6_s._ 8_d._
and to each nun there 2_s._[1013] There is an obvious distinction here
between the lump sums left to the common funds of the twelve nunneries
grouped together and the gifts to individuals which follow. It is moreover
quite common for a testator, who wishes to give money in charity to a
whole house (as distinct from one who makes a bequest to a relative or
friend therein), to distinguish the amounts to be paid to the prioress and
to each of the nuns. Thus John Brompton, merchant of Beverley (n.d., c.
1441-4) while leaving a lump sum of 20_s._ to the nuns of Watton "for a
pittance," 10_s._ to the nuns of Nunkeeling and 5_s._ to the nuns of
Burnham, thus provides for all the inmates of Swine:
Item I bequeath to the Prioress of Swine, 3_s._ 4_d._, and to each nun
of the said house 2_s._, and to the vicar there 3_s._ 4_d._ and to
each chaplain there celebrating divine service in the churches of the
said town 12_d._, item to Hamond, servant there 12_d._, and to each
woman serving the aforesaid nuns within the aforesaid abbey,
6_d._[1014]
Thus also James Myssenden of Great Limber (1529) distinguishes between the
convent and the individual nuns of Nuncoton: "To the monastery of Cotton,
3l. 6s 8d, to Dame Johan Thomson, prioress of the same 40s, to Dame
Margaret Johnson 6s 8d, to Dame Elynor Hylyarde 6s 8d, to every other nun
of the convent 12d"; and Dame Jane Armstrong, vowess, of Corby, in the
same year leaves the nuns of Sempringham 6_s._ 8_d._, "of which Dame Agnes
Rudd is to have 40d"[1015]. Similar instances may be multiplied from any
collection of wills[1016].
Moreover it seems plain that the money thus willed was actually paid over
to individuals by their convent. The account roll of the treasuress of St
Radegund's Cambridge, in 1449-50, contains an item:
And to Dame Alice Patryk lately dead in full payment of all debts
3_s._ 4_d._ from the legacy of Peter Erle, chaplain, lately deceased.
And to Dame Joan Lancaster in part payment of 6_s._ 8_d._ bequeathed
to her by the aforesaid Peter 3_s._ 4_d._, and to Dame Agnes Swaffham,
subprioress, in part payment of 6_s._ 8_d._, 20_d._[1017]
But it was not only money which was bequeathed to nuns. They often
received quite considerable legacies of jewels and plate, robes and
furniture. What would we not give today to look for a moment at the
beautiful things which Walter Skirlaw, Bishop of Durham, left to his
sister Joan, the Prioress of Swine, in 1404?
Item, one large gilded cup, with a cover and a round foot, and in the
bottom a chaplet of white and red roses and a hind carven in the midst
and all round the outside carven with eagles, lions, crowns and other
ingenious devices (_babonibus_), and in the pommel a nest and three
men standing and taking the chicks from the nest, of the weight of 18
marks.... Item a robe of murrey cloth of Ypres (? _yp'n_) containing a
mantle and hood furred with budge (? _purg'_), another hood furred
with ermine, a cloak furred with half vair, a long robe (_garnach'_)
furred with vair.... Item one bed of tapestry work of a white field,
with a stag standing under a great tree and on either side lilies and
a red border, with the complete tester and three curtains of white
boulter[1018].
In the same year Anne St Quintin left the same noble lady "one silken
quilt and one pair of sheets of cloth of Rennes"[1019]. Eleven years
earlier Sir John Fairfax, rector of Prescot, had left his sister Margaret
Fairfax, Prioress of Nunmonkton (of whom we have already heard much that
was not to her good):
one silver gilt cup with a cover, and one silver cup with a cover, one
mazer with a cover of silver gilt, one pix of silver for spices, six
silver spoons, one cloak of black cloth furred with gray, one round
silver basin and ten marks of silver[1020].
Master John de Wodhouse in 1345 leaves Dame Alice Conyers, nun of
Nunappleton, "fifteen marks [and] a long chest standing against my bed at
York, one maser cup with an image of St Michael in the bottom and one cup
of silver, which I had of her gift, with a hand in the bottom holding a
falcon"[1021], and Isabella, widow of Thomas Corp, a London pepperer, in
1356, leaves
to Margaret, sister of William Heyroun, vintner, nun at Barking, a
silver plated cup with covercle, twelve silver spoons, two cups of
mazer and a silver enamelled pix, together with three gold rings, with
emerald, sapphire and diamond respectively and divers household
goods[1022].
Possibly some of these splendid pieces of plate found their way to the
altar, and the cups and spoons to the frater of the house, but the nuns
undoubtedly sometimes kept them for private use in their own _camerae_.
Here also were kept the beds, such as that splendid one left by Bishop
Skirlaw to his sister, the "bed of Norfolk" which Sir Robert de Roos left
to his daughter Joan (1392)[1023], the "bed of worstede with sheets, which
she kindly gave me," left by William Felawe, clerk, to Katherine Slo,
Prioress of Shaftesbury (1411)[1024]. Doubtless Juliana de Crofton, nun
of Hampole, knew what use to make of "six shillings and eightpence and a
cloak lined with blue and two tablets and one saddle with a bridle and two
leather bowls"[1025]; here at one gift was the wherewithal for writing a
letter to announce a visit and for paying that visit on horseback, in gay
and unconventual attire. Indeed the constant legacies of clothes to nuns
go far to explain where it was that they obtained those cheerful secular
garments, against which their bishops waged war in vain. In days when
clothes were made of heavy and valuable stuffs and richly adorned, it was
a very common custom for a woman to divide up her wardrobe between
different legatees, and men also handed on their best garments. When in
1397 Margaret Fairfax is found using "divers furs and even gray fur
(_gris_)"[1026], one remembers, with a sudden flash of comprehension, the
"cloak of black cloth furred with gray" which her brother left her four
years earlier. What did Elizabeth de Newemarche, nun, do with the mantle
of brounemelly left her by Lady Isabel Fitzwilliam?[1027] What did Sir
William Bonevyll's sister at Wherwell do with "his best hoppelond with the
fur"?[1028] What above all did the Prioress of Swine do with all those
costly fur trimmings left her by the Bishop of Durham? Yorkshire nunneries
were apt to be undisciplined and worldly; great ladies there, if
Archbishop Melton is to be believed, sometimes considered that they might
dress according to their rank[1029]. We may safely guess that the Prioress
of Swine, like her contemporary at Nunmonkton, wore the furs; and
visitation records do not lead us to suppose that other nuns sold their
blue-lined cloaks and houppelonds for the sake of their convents, or
bestowed them on the poor.
It is a common injunction that nuns are to wear no other ring than that
which, at their consecration, made them brides of Christ[1030]; but the
rule was often disobeyed and Dame Clemence Medforde's "golden rings
exceeding costly with divers precious stones"[1031] are explained when we
remember the "three gold rings, one having a sapphire, another an emerald
and the third a diamond" which the rich pepperer's widow left to Dame
Margaret Heyroun[1032]. Madame Eglentyne herself may have owed to one of
the many friends, who held her digne of reverence, her "peire of bedes,
gauded al with grene," of small coral. When Sir Thomas Cumberworth died in
1451 he ordered that "the prioris of Coton, of Irford, of Legburn and of
Grenefeld have Ilkon of yam a pare bedys of corall, as far as that I have
may laste, and after yiff yam gette [give them jet] bedes"[1033], and so
also Matilda Latymer left her daughter at Buckland a set of "Bedys de
corall"[1034] and Margerie de Crioll left a nun of Shaftesbury "my
paternoster of coral and white pearls, which the Countess of Pembroke gave
me"[1035].
(5) The fifth and last source from which nuns could derive a private
income was by the work of their own hands and brains. It has been stated
above that very little is known about the sale of fine needlework by nuns,
but a very interesting case at Easebourne seems to show that they
sometimes considered themselves entitled to retain for their own private
use the sums which they earned. In 1441 one of the complaints against the
gay prioress was that she "compels her sisters to work continually like
hired workwomen, and they receive nothing whatever for their own use from
their work, but the prioress takes the whole profit." The bishop's
injunction is extremely significant:
the prioress shall by no means compel her sisters to continual work of
their hands and if they should wish of their own accord to work, they
shall be free to do so, but yet so that they may reserve for
themselves the half part of what they gain by their hands; the other
part shall be converted to the advantage of the house and unburdening
it from debt[1036].
In fine, the Bishop is obliged to acquiesce in a serious breach of the
Benedictine rule: the plea of the nuns to commit the sin of _proprietas_
is considered as a reasonable demand; and the compromise that half their
earnings should go to the common fund is intended rather to check the
prioress than the nuns. From the injunctions of other bishops it would
appear that the private boarders and private pupils taken by individual
nuns sometimes paid their fees to those individuals and not to the
house[1037]; the "household" system made the reception of such boarders
easy.
From whatever source nuns obtained control of money and goods, whether
from the _peculium_, from gifts, from legacies, or from the proceeds of
their own labour, one thing is clear: in a fourteenth or fifteenth century
house, where the system of the _peculium_ and the _familia_ obtained,
there was a considerable approximation to private life and to private
property. The control of money and goods and the division into households,
catering separately for themselves, worked in together. The responsibility
of the convent towards its members was sometimes limited to a bare minimum
of food, such as the staple bread and beer, and perhaps a small dress
allowance. All the rest was provided by the nuns themselves. In strict
theory annuities, gifts and legacies, were put into common stock and
administered by the convent. In practice they were obviously retained in
individual possession and administered as private property by the nuns.
Even legacies of lump sums to a whole convent were probably divided up
between the nuns, an equal sum being paid to each and perhaps double to
the prioress.
An analysis of the conditions revealed at Alnwick's visitation of the
Lincoln diocese in 1440-5 throws an exceedingly interesting side-light,
not only on the vow of monastic poverty, as understood in the fifteenth
century, but also on the domestic economy of the houses, the majority of
which were small and poor. It may also conveniently be compared with the
evidence given by the same visitations as to the system of _familiae_ in
these houses. At some the house supplied all food and clothes or a
_peculium_ for clothes, at some it provided only a bare minimum of food,
at some neither dress nor dress allowance was provided. At Legbourne
every nun has one loaf, one half gallon of beer a day, one pig a year,
18_d._ for beef, every day in Advent and Lent two herrings, and a
little butter in summer and sometimes two stone of cheese a year and
8_d._ a year for raiment and no more;
the sum of 2_s._ 2_d._ a year for beef and clothes was certainly not
excessive[1038]. At Stixwould
every nun receives in the year one pig, one sheep, a quarter of beef,
two stones of butter, three stones of cheese, every day in Advent and
Lent three herrings, six salt fish and twelve doughcakes a year; and
they were wont to have 6_s._ 8_d._ for their raiment, but for several
years back (one nun said for twenty years) as regards raiment they
have received nothing.
At St Michael's Stamford, the house provided only "bread and beer and a
mark for fish and flesh and other things and as to their raiment they
receive naught of the house"; out of the mark the nuns catered for
themselves. Other houses provided still less out of the common funds; at
Gokewell the nuns received nothing from the house but bread and beer and
at Markyate (a poor house, of not unblemished reputation and badly in
debt) "they receive of the house only bread, beer and two marks for their
raiment and what else is necessary for their living, which are less than
enough for their sundry needful wants"; Alnwick ordered all victuals to be
given them "of the commune stores of the house owte of one selare and one
kytchyne" and fixed the dress allowance at a noble yearly, but he did not
say how the house was to raise funds. At Nuncoton the allowance was 8_s._
a year, but when Alnwick came the nuns had received only 1_s._ each. At
Fosse, Langley and Ankerwyke the houses provided meat and drink, but no
dress or dress allowance; and at Catesby it was complained that "the
prioress does not give the nuns satisfaction in the matter of their
raiment and money for victuals and touching the premises the prioress is
in the nuns' debt for three-quarters of the year"[1039]. From these
references it is plain that the nuns usually bought their own clothes and
often catered for themselves in flesh food; also that the poverty of many
houses was so great that the nuns could not have lived decently without
the help of friends, whether because their dress allowances were always in
arrears, or because the house recognised no responsibility to clothe them
from its exiguous funds. Yet as regards food at least, the habit of
catering separately for separate messes was undoubtedly less economical
than the regular maintenance of a common table would have been.
A highly interesting light on the control of money allowances for the
purchase of food by the individual nuns of a convent is thrown by convent
account rolls. These accounts show two different methods of catering in
force. In one all the housekeeping was done by the cellaress, who bought
such stores as were needed to supplement the produce of the home farm and
provided the nuns with the whole of their food. This is the normal method,
which accords with the Rule; it is to be found in the Syon cellaresses'
rolls and in the roll of Elizabeth Swynford, Prioress of Catesby
(1414-15). The latter sets forth: (1) the produce of the home farm, how
many animals were delivered to the larder, how many to the kitchen, how
much grain was malted, etc.; (2) the payments for food bought to
supplement this home produce:
in flesh and eggs bought from the feast of St Michael until Lent
33/0-1/2, and in expenses of the house from Easter unto the feast of
St Michael in beef and eggs bought, £7. 1. 9., ... in 2 barrels 4
kemps of oil and salt fish bought in time of Lent £3. 0. 6,
besides sundry odd purchases of red herrings, pepper, saffron, salt,
garlic and fat[1040].
But some account rolls show an entirely different method of housekeeping.
By this the convent provided the nuns with their daily ration of bread and
beer and perhaps with a certain amount of green food and dairy produce,
but paid them an allowance of money with which to buy their meat and fish
food for themselves. On this system the convent still had to provide the
nuns with their pittances, though often enough these too were paid in
money, and usually also with the bulk of their Lenten fare of salt fish
and spices, which was bought in large quantities at a time and stored. An
extreme example of this system is found in the account of Christian
Bassett, Prioress of St Mary de Pré (St Albans) in 1486-8. Under the
heading _Comyns, Pytances and Partycions_ she pays to herself as prioress:
for her comyns for xxj monethes ... vj l. viij s iiij d. ... Item paid
to dame Alice Wafyr for her comyns for xxj monethes ... vj l. viij s
iiij d. ... Item paid to vij susters of the same place for their
comons for xxj monethis ... xxj li. vj s viij d. Item paid to dame
Johan Knollys for her comyns for v monethis xvj s viij d. ... Item
paid for brede and ale and fewell departyd amongs the susters by a
yere and a half lij s. Item paid for ij bushell of pesyn departyd
amongs the susters in Lente xvj d.
The rest of the section contains notices of special pittances, paid
sometimes in money and sometimes in kind; for instance 10_s._ 6_d._ is
paid for "Maundy Ale" and 10_d._ for wine on two Maundy Thursdays, but the
sisters also get "Maundy money" amounting to 21_d._ One interesting item
runs: "delyvered of the rente in Cambrigge amongs the susters for the tyme
of this accompte xlviij s"; these rents, which are entered among the
receipts, were no doubt ear-marked for the nuns, possibly as _peculia_ for
the purchase of clothes, possibly as a pittance[1041]. The same system of
housekeeping was obviously also in vogue at St Michael's, Stamford, at the
time of Alnwick's visitation; but the account rolls of this house are not
easy to interpret, because although they contain no reference to catering,
other than certain pittances and feasts on Maundy Thursday and other
festal occasions, neither do they contain any reference to commons money.
No separate cellaress' accounts have survived to throw any further light
upon the subject. At Elstow Abbey some years later the practice of paying
"commons" money was well established[1042].
It is tempting to conjecture what considerations may have prevailed to
make some houses substitute money grants for the provision of food in
kind. The tendency certainly grew with the custom of forming _familiae_
which messed separately and it certainly increased with time. Even at
Catesby, which we saw to be a typical example of communal housekeeping in
1414-5, it seems to have become customary to give money for some at least
of the victuals in 1442. The tendency also grew with poverty, as appears
from Alnwick's visitations, though it is not clear whence the nuns
obtained the wherewithal to feed themselves adequately, unless they had
the use of extra funds of their own. It may also be conjectured that the
system would be easier to work in a town than in the depths of the
country. In a town the nuns could buy in the open market, and it was as
easy for individuals to buy in small quantities as for the cellaress to
buy wholesale. In the country, however, the convent would not only be more
dependent on the home farm, but such purchases as had to be made at
occasional fairs and weekly markets could more easily be made in bulk, a
consideration which also accounts for the fact that the barrels and cades
of salt fish for Lent were usually laid in wholesale by the cellaress.
Moreover it would often be convenient for a town house to lease out the
greater number of its demesnes and to depend upon what it could purchase
for its daily fare. St Mary de Pré is particularly interesting in this
respect; the 1486-8 account shows no sign of any home farm; the income of
the house is derived almost entirely from "rents of assise and rents farm"
within the town of St Albans and in other places and from tithes, and the
proportion of farms or leases is noticeably large. Even the bread and beer
distributed among the sisters did not come from a home farm; it was bought
with 52_s._ received from the Abbot of St Albans for that purpose; the
kitchener of the parent abbey similarly provided the nuns with 12_s._,
"for potage money departyd amongs the susters for a yere," and at the
forester's office they received 8_s._ for their fuel.
Occasional references show what a variety of household charges the nuns
sometimes had to bear out of their _peculia_, and the other sources of
their private income. At Campsey in 1532, for instance,
the subprioress says that the prioress will not allow her servants to
go out upon the necessary errands of the nuns, but they hire outsiders
at their own cost and Dame Isabella Norwiche says that sick nuns in
the time of their sickness bear the cost of what is needful to them
and it is not provided at the charge of the house[1043].
At Sheppey also, in 1511, there was no infirmary and when ill the nuns had
to hire women for themselves and pay for them out of their own
money[1044]. At Langley in 1440 Alnwick ordered that each nun should have
yearly a cartload of fuel, cut at the cost of the house, but carried at
the cost of the nuns[1045]. At Wherwell there was a custom by which, on
the first occasion that a nun took her turn in reading from the pulpit, a
certain sum of money or a pittance was exacted from her for the benefit of
the convent, a custom forbidden by Bishop John of Pontoise in 1302[1046];
and there is mention of another pittance in 1311, when Bishop Woodlock
ordered that for digging the grave and preparing the coffin of a nun who
had died and for pittances to the sisters on the day of her burial, the
goods of the deceased nun should not be expended, because she ought not to
have private property, but the common goods of the church were to be
spent; which seems like locking the stable door after the horse has
gone[1047].
It is interesting to trace the attitude of ecclesiastic authorities to
these various manifestations of _proprietas_. The bishops found some
difficulty in persuading nuns, accustomed to expend money for themselves
and to dine in _familiae_ in separate rooms, accustomed also to receive
gifts and legacies in money and kind, that they must hold all things in
common. At Arthington, in 1307, two nuns, Agnes de Screvyn (who had
resigned the post of Prioress in 1303) and Isabella Couvel, asserted that
certain animals and goods belonging to the priory were their private
property and Archbishop Greenfield bids the Prioress admonish them to
resign these within three days "to lawful and honest uses," according to
her judgment[1048]. Similarly Bishop Bokyngham writes to Heynings in 1392:
We order that cows, sows, capons, hens and all animals of any kind
soever, together with wild or tame birds, which are held by certain of
the nuns (whether with or without licence) ... shall be delivered up
to the common use of the convent within three days, without the
alienation or subtraction of any of them[1049].
In the light of these passages it is interesting to find that cows and
pigs are among the legacies sometimes left to nuns[1050]. At Nuncoton, in
1440, where certain nuns were in the habit of wandering in their gardens
and gathering herbs instead of attending Compline,
Dame Alice Aunselle prays that they may all live in common and that no
nun may have anything, such as cups and the like, as her own; but that
if any such there be, they be kept in common by their common servant
and that they may not have houses or separate gardens appointed, as it
were, to them[1051],
which illustrates how easily the household system slid into _proprietas_.
It was sometimes even necessary to forbid nuns to make wills and bequeath
their property. This was forbidden by the Council of Oxford in 1222[1052]
and in 1387 William of Wykeham sent a stern injunction to the nuns of
Romsey, pointing out that by making wills they were falling into the sin
of property[1053]. In 1394, on the death of Joan Furmage, Abbess of
Shaftesbury,
the bishop ordered the Abbey to be sequestrated and annulled the will
by which she had alienated the goods of the house in bequests to
friends, declaring such a disposition to be injurious to the community
and contrary to the usage of religious women[1054].
The history of the attitude of ecclesiastical authorities to two sources
of private income, the _peculium_ and the gifts from friends to
individuals, is of even greater significance than these attempts to cope
with private goods, for it shows how powerless the bishops were against
the steady weakening of discipline in monastic houses. Here, as in the
enclosure struggle and the struggle against _familiae_, they were forced
into compromise at best and at worst into acquiescence. At its first
appearance the custom of giving a _peculium_ to individuals was severely
condemned as a manifest breach of the rule:
"Moneys shall not be assigned to each separately for clothes," says
the Council of Oxford in 1222, "But such shall be diligently attended
to by certain persons deputed to this purpose, chamberers or
chambresses, who according to the need of each and the resources of
the house, shall minister garments to them.... Also it shall not be
lawful for the chamberer or chambress to give to any monk, canon or
nun, monies or anything else for clothes, nor shall it be lawful for
monk, canon or nun to receive anything; otherwise let the chamberer be
deposed from office and the monk, canon or nun go without new clothes
for that year"[1055].
Similarly, in the Constitutions of the legate Ottobon in 1268, the
_peculium_ is grouped with other forms of property; ch. XL enacts that no
religious is to possess property and that the head of the house is to make
diligent search for such property twice a year[1056], and ch. XLI enacts
that no money is to be given to a religious for clothes, shoes and other
necessities, but he is to be given the article itself[1057]. In 1438 a
severe injunction from Bishop Spofford of Hereford to the nuns of Aconbury
shows the close connection between the _peculium_ and the private _camera_
of the nuns[1058]. Yet in 1380 we find a bishop of Salisbury assigning a
weekly allowance of 2_d._ to each nun of Shaftesbury from the issues of
the house[1059]; and in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries nuns
regularly complain to their visitors when their allowances are in arrears
and the bishops regularly ordain that the money is to be paid[1060]. In
the thirteenth century it is a fault in the Prioress to give the nuns a
_peculium_; in the fifteenth century it is a fault to withhold it.
The custom as to presents from friends was that the nuns might receive
gifts, only by the permission of their superior, to whom everything must
be shown[1061]. Thus Archbishop Wickwane writes to Nunappleton in 1281:
"that no nun shall appropriate to herself any gift, garment or shoes of
the gift of anyone, without the consent and assignment of the
prioress"[1062]; Archbishop Greenfield in 1315 forbids the nuns of
Rosedale to accept or give any presents without the consent of the
Prioress[1063]; and Archbishop Bowet in 1411 enacts that any nun of
Hampole receiving gifts or _legacies_ from friends is at once on returning
to reveal them to the Prioress[1064]. Occasionally a Prioress, whether out
of zeal for the Rule or for some other reason, showed herself unwilling to
allow the nuns to receive presents. The nuns of Flixton in 1514
complained: "that they receive no annual pensions and that the prioress is
angry when anything is given to them by their friends"[1065] and Alnwick
in 1441 wrote to the Prioress of Ankerwyke, whose nuns complained both of
insufficient clothes and of her bad temper when their friends came to see
them,
And what euer thise saide frendes wyll gyfe your sustres in relefe of
thaym as in hire habyte and sustenaunce, ye suffre your sustres to
take hit, so that no abuse of euel come therbye noyther to the place
ne to the persones therof[1066].
It was indeed almost a necessity to encourage the reception of presents,
when (as so often happened towards the close of the middle ages) nuns were
dependent for clothes upon their friends. But with Bishop Praty ordering
that the nuns of Easebourne shall receive half the sums paid them for
their work, and with Bishop Alnwick encouraging presents and enforcing the
payment of _peculia_, it is plain that the Lady Poverty had fallen upon
evil days.
CHAPTER IX
FISH OUT OF WATER
De sorte qu'une Religieuse hors de sa clôture est comme une pierre
hors de son centre; comme un arbre hors de terre; comme Adam et Eve
hors du Paradis terrestre; comme le corbeau hors de l'arche qui ne
s'arreste qu'à des charognes; comme un poisson hors de l'eau, selon le
grand Saint Antoine et Saint Bernard; comme une brebis hors de sa
bergerie et en danger d'estre devorée des loups, selon Saint Theodore
Studite; comme un oiseau hors de son nid et une grenouille hors de son
marais, selon le même Saint Bernard; comme un mort hors de son
tombeau, qui infecte les personnes qui s'en approchent, selon Pierre
le Vénérable et la Règle attribuée à Saint Jérôme; et par consequent
dans un état tout à fait opposé à la vie Régulière qu'elle a
embrassée.
J. B. THIERS (1681).
The famous chapter LXVI of the Benedictine Rule enunciated the principle
that the professed monk should remain within the precincts of his cloister
and eschew all wandering in the world[1067]. It is clear, however, that
the Rule allowed a certain latitude and that monks and nuns were to be
allowed to leave their houses under certain conditions and for necessary
causes. Brethren working at a distance or going on a journey may be
excused attendance at the divine office, if they cannot reach the church
in time[1068]. Brethren sent upon an errand are forbidden to accept
invitations to eat outside the house without the consent of their
superior[1069]. Moreover longer journeys are plainly contemplated, in
which they might have to spend a night or more outside their
monastery[1070]. But no one might ever leave the cloister bounds without
the permission of the superior; and it was the obvious intention of St
Benedict to reduce to a minimum all wandering in the world. Strictly
speaking this system of enclosure applied equally to monks and to nuns;
but from the earliest times it was considered to be a more vital necessity
for the well being of the latter; and the history of the enclosure
movement is in effect the history of an effort to add a fourth vow of
claustration to the three cardinal vows of the nun[1071]. The reasons for
this severity are sufficiently obvious, and show that curious
contradiction of ideas which is so common in all general theories about
women. On the one hand the immense importance attached by the medieval
Church to the state of virginity, exemplified in St John Chrysostom's
remarks that Christian virgins are as far above the rest of mankind as are
the angels, made it all important that this priceless jewel should not be
exposed to danger in a wicked world[1072]. On the other hand the medieval
contempt for the fragility of women led to a cynical conviction that only
when they were shut up behind the high walls of the cloister was it
possible to guarantee their virtue; _aut virum aut murum oportet mulierem
habere_[1073]. Both views received support from the deep-rooted idea as
old as the Greeks and an unconscionable time in dying, that "a free woman
should be bounded by the street door"[1074]. Medieval moralists were
generally agreed that intercourse with the world was at the root of all
those evils which dimmed the fair fame of the conventual system, by
affording a constant temptation to frivolity and to grosser misconduct.
Moreover the tongue of scandal was always busy and the nun's reputation
was safe only if she could be placed beyond reproach. Hence those
regulations which Mr Coulton compares to "the minutely ingenious and
degrading precautions of an oriental harem"[1075].
Based upon such considerations as these, the movement for the enclosure of
nuns began very early in their history and continued with unabated vigour
long after the Reformation[1076]. Some years before the compilation of the
Benedictine Rule St Caesarius of Arles, in his Rule for nuns, had
forbidden them ever to leave their monastery; and from the sixth to the
eleventh century decrees were passed from time to time by various
provincial councils, advocating a stricter enclosure of monks and nuns,
but especially of the latter. Already by the twelfth century monasticism
had declined from its first fervour, and it is significant that the
reformed orders which sprang up during the great renaissance of that
century all made a special effort to enforce enclosure upon their nuns.
The nuns of Prémontré and Fontevrault were strictly enclosed and in the
middle of the following century the statutes promulgated by the
Chapter-General of the Cistercian Order (1256-7) contain a clause ordering
nuns to remain in their convents, except under certain specified
conditions, while the rule given by Urban IV to the Franciscan nuns (1263)
went further than any previous enactments in binding them by a vow of
perpetual enclosure, against which no plea of necessity might avail.
Various synods and councils continued to repeat the order that nuns were
not to leave their houses, except for a reasonable cause, but it is plain
from the evidence of ecclesiastics, moralists and episcopal visitations
that the nuns all over Europe paid small heed to their words. Finally, at
the beginning of the new century, came the first general regulation on the
subject which was binding as a law upon the whole church, the famous Bull
_Periculoso_, promulgated by Boniface VIII about the year 1299.
This decree, often afterwards confirmed by Popes and Councils, remained
the standard regulation upon the subject and in view of its cardinal
importance its terms are worthy of notice:
Desiring to provide for the perilous and detestable state of certain
nuns, who, having slackened the reins of decency and having
shamelessly cast aside the modesty of their order and of their sex,
sometimes gad about outside their monasteries in the dwellings of
secular persons, and frequently admit suspected persons within the
same monasteries, to the grave offence of Him to Whom they have, of
their own will, vowed their innocence, to the opprobrium of religion
and to the scandal of very many persons; we by the present
constitution, which shall be irrefragably valid, decree with healthful
intent that all and sundry nuns, present and future, to whatever order
they belong and in whatever part of the world, shall henceforth remain
perpetually enclosed within their monasteries; so that no nun tacitly
or expressly professed in religion shall henceforth have or be able to
have the power of going out of those monasteries for whatsoever reason
or cause, unless perchance any be found manifestly suffering from a
disease so great and of such a nature that she cannot, without grave
danger or scandal, live together with others; and to no dishonest or
even honest person shall entry or access be given by them, unless for
a reasonable and manifest cause and by a special licence from the
person to whom [the granting of such a licence] pertains; that so,
altogether withdrawn from public and mundane sights, they may serve
God more freely and, all opportunity for wantonness being removed,
they may more diligently preserve for Him in all holiness their souls
and their bodies.
The Bull further, in order to avoid any excuse for wandering abroad in
search of alms, forbids the reception into any non-mendicant order of more
sisters than can be supported without penury by the goods of the house;
and, in order to prevent nuns being forced to attend lawcourts in person,
requires all secular and ecclesiastical authorities to allow them to plead
by proctors in their courts; but if an Abbess or Prioress has to do
personal homage to a secular lord for any fief and it cannot be done by a
proctor, she may leave her house with honest and fit companions and do the
homage, returning home immediately. Finally Ordinaries are enjoined to
take order as soon as may be for proper enclosure where there is none to
provide that it is strictly kept according to the terms of the decree, and
to see that all is completed by Ash Wednesday, notifying any reasonable
impediment within eight days of Candlemas[1077].
For the next three centuries Councils and Bishops struggled manfully to
put into force the Bull _Periculoso_, but without success; the constant
repetition of the order that nuns should not leave their convents is the
measure of its failure. In the various reformed orders, which were founded
in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the insistence upon enclosure
bears witness to the importance which was attached to it as a vital
condition of reform: Boniface IX's ordinances for the Dominicans (1402),
St Francis of Paula's rule for his order in Calabria (1435), the rule of
the Order of the Annunciation, founded by Jeanne, daughter of Louis XI, at
the close of the fifteenth century, Johann Busch's reforms in Saxony, the
reformed rules given by Étienne Poncher, Bishop of Paris, to the nuns of
Chelles, Montmartre and Malnouë (1506) and by Geoffrey de Saint Belin,
Bishop of Poitiers, to the nuns of the Holy Cross, Poitiers (1511), all
insist upon strict enclosure[1078]. Similarly a long list might be drawn
up of general and provincial councils and synods which repeated the
ordinance, culminating in the great general Council of Trent, which
renewed the decree _Periculoso_ and was itself followed by another long
series of provincial councils, which endeavoured to put its decree into
force. But these efforts were still attended by very imperfect success,
for the worldly nuns of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries chafed at
the irksome restriction no less than did their predecessors of the middle
ages. When, in 1681, Jean-Baptiste Thiers published his treatise on the
enclosure of nuns he announced his reason to be that no point of
ecclesiastical discipline was in his day more completely neglected and
ignored[1079].
This brief sketch of the enclosure movement in the Western Church is
necessary to a right understanding of the special attempts which were made
in England to keep the nuns in their cloisters by means of an absolute
enforcement of the Benedictine Rule. Visitatorial injunctions on this
subject during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and up to the
Reformation were based upon three enactments: the constitutions of the
legate Ottobon in 1268, the vigorous reforms of Archbishop Peckham
(1279-92) and the Bull _Periculoso_. The Cardinal Legate Ottobon had come
to England in 1265, on the restoration of Henry III after Evesham, with
the purpose of punishing bishops and clergy who had supported the party of
Simon de Montfort and the barons. When peace was finally signed in 1267,
largely by his intervention, he was able to turn his attention to general
abuses prevalent in the English church and one of the reforms which he
attempted to enforce was the stricter enclosure of nuns. Chapter LII of
his _Constitutions_ [_Quod moniales a certis locis non exeant_] is an
amplification of the Benedictine rule of enclosure, made far more rigid
and severe. "Lest by repeated intercourse with secular folk the quiet and
contemplation of the nuns should be troubled," minute regulations were
laid down as to their movements. They were allowed to enter their chapel,
chapter, dorter and frater at due and fixed times; otherwise they were to
remain in the cloister; and none of these places were to be entered by
seculars, save very seldom and for some sufficient reason. No nun was to
converse with any man, except seriously and in a public place, and at
least one other nun was always to be present at such conversations. No nun
was to have a meal outside the house except with the permission of the
superior and then only with a relative, or some person from whose company
no suspicion could arise. All other places, beyond those specified, were
entirely forbidden to the nuns, with the exception, in certain
circumstances, of the infirmary. No nun was to go to the different
offices, except the obedientiaries, whose duties rendered it necessary and
they were never to go without a companion. The Abbess or head of the house
was never to leave it, except for its evident advantage or for urgent
necessity, and she was always to have an honest companion, while the
lesser nuns were never to be given licence to go out, except for some fit
cause and in company with another nun. Finally nuns were not to leave
their convents for public processions, but were to hold their processions
within the precincts of their own houses. The legate strictly enjoined
that "the prelates to whose jurisdiction belonged the visitation of each
nunnery should cause these statutes to be observed"[1080].
It will be realised that these injunctions were exceedingly severe and
that the visitors were not likely to find their task a sinecure. There is
little evidence for determining how far any serious attempt was made to
enforce the legate's Constitutions[1081], but if we may judge from the
language of Peckham, some ten years later, any attempts which may have
been made had not been strikingly successful. One of the first actions of
this energetic archbishop on his elevation to the see of Canterbury was to
carry out a visitation of the nunneries of Barking and Godstow and to
send to both houses injunctions laying great stress on strict enclosure
(1279). In 1281 he followed up these injunctions by two general decrees
for the enclosure of nuns; and in 1284 he visited the three nunneries of
Romsey, Holy Sepulchre (Canterbury) and Usk and sent injunctions enforcing
the Constitutions of 1281[1082]. In these injunctions he laid down with
great exactness the conditions to be observed in granting nuns permission
to leave their convents. The Godstow injunction runs thus:
For the purpose of obtaining a surer witness to chastity, we ordain
that nuns shall not leave the precincts of the monastery, save for
necessary business which cannot be performed by any other persons.
Hence we condemn for ever, by these present [letters] those sojourns
which were wont to be made in the houses of friends, for the sake of
pleasure and of escaping from discipline [_ad solatium et ad
subterfugium disciplinae_]. And when it shall befall any [nuns] to go
out for any necessity, we strictly order these four [conditions] to be
observed. First, that they be permitted to go out only in safe and
mature company, as well of nuns as of secular persons helping them.
Secondly that having at once performed their business, so far as it
can be by them performed, they return to their house; and if the
performance of the business demand a delay of several days, after the
first or second day it shall be left to proctors to finish it. Thirdly
that they never lodge in the precincts of men of religion or in the
houses of clergy, or in other suspected habitations. Fourthly that no
one absent herself from the sight of her companion or companions, in
any place where human conversation might be held, nor listen to any
secret whispering, except in the presence of the nuns her companions,
unless perchance father or mother, brother or sister have something
private to say to her[1083].
The Barking injunctions are slightly different and the first condition
imposed therein is interesting: "That they be sent forth only for a
necessary and inevitable cause, that is in particular the imminent death
of a parent, beyond which cause we can hardly imagine any other which
would be sufficient"[1084]. These injunctions are very severe, since they
limit the occasions upon which a nun might leave her convent to the
performance of some negotiation connected with the business of the house
and to attendance at the deathbeds of relatives and entirely forbid all
visits for pleasure to the houses of friends.
In 1281 Peckham published a mandate directed against the seducers of nuns;
after excommunicating all who committed or attempted to commit this crime
and declaring that absolution for the sentence could be given only by a
Bishop or by the Pope (except on the point of death), he proceeded to deal
with the question of the enclosure of nuns, on the ground that their
wandering in the world gave opportunity for such crimes, and sternly
forbade them to pay visits for the sake of recreation, even to the closest
relatives, or to remain out of their houses for more than two days on
business[1085]. The same year he also dealt with the subject in the course
of a set of constitutions, concerning various abuses, which he considered
to be in need of reform. The language of the chapter in which he treats of
the claustration of nuns is in parts the same as that of the ordinance
against seducers, but it is less severe, for it enacts only that nuns
shall not stay "more than three natural days for the sake of recreation,
or more than six days for any necessary reason, save in case of illness."
Moreover the Archbishop adds: "we do not extend this ordinance to those
who are obliged to beg necessities of life, while they are begging"[1086].
It was this modified version of his ordinance which he tried to impose in
his visitation of 1284, for at Romsey he recognised that the nuns might be
leaving the house for recreation and not merely upon the business of the
convent; the Abbess, for instance, is to take her three coadjutresses with
her when she goes out on business, and two of them if she go _causa
solatii_. At this house he forbade nuns to go out without a companion, or
to stay for more than three days with seculars and condemned their
practice of eating and drinking in the town: no nun, either on leaving or
returning to the convent, was to enter any house in the town of Romsey, or
to eat or drink there, and no cleric or secular man or woman was to give
them any food outside the precincts[1087]. At St Sepulchre (Canterbury)
Peckham regulated the visits of nuns to confessors outside the house, and
at Usk he ordered that no nun was to go out without suitable companions,
or to stay more than three or four days in the houses of secular
persons[1088].
The next effort made in England to enforce enclosure upon nuns was the
result of Boniface VIII's Bull _Periculoso_. Bishops' registers about the
year 1300 sometimes contain copies of this severe enactment. One of the
earliest efforts to carry it out was made by Simon of Ghent, Bishop of
Salisbury, who on November 28th, 1299, issued a long letter to the Abbess
of Wilton (obviously inserted in the register as a specimen of a circular
sent to each nunnery in the diocese), embodying the text of the bull and
ordering her to put it into force, and in 1303 he issued a mandate for the
enclosure of the nuns of Shaftesbury, Wilton, Amesbury, Lacock, Tarrant
Keynes and Kington[1089]. The Register of Godfrey Giffard, Bishop of
Worcester, contains a note in the year 1300:
As to the shutting up of nuns. It is expedient that a letter of
warning be sent according to the form of the constitution and directed
to every house of nuns, that they do what is necessary for their
inclusion and cause themselves to be enclosed this side the Gule of
August.
The Bishop seems however from the beginning to have doubted his capacity
to carry out the decree, for further on the register contains another
note, "As to whether it is expedient to enclose the nuns of the diocese of
Worcester"[1090]. An undated note of _Inhibiciones facte monialibus de
Werewell_ in the Register of John of Pontoise, Bishop of Winchester, among
other documents belonging to 1299-1300, is probably in part a result of
_Periculoso_:
We forbid on pain of excommunication any nun or sister to go outside
the bounds of the monastery until we have made some ordinance
concerning enclosure. Item let no one be received as nun or sister
until we have enquired more fully into the resources of the house.
Item we order the abbess to remove all secular women and to receive
none henceforth as boarders in their house. Item let her permit no
secular clerk or layman to enter the cloister to speak with the
nuns[1091].
But the most detailed information as to the efforts of a conscientious
bishop to enforce Boniface VIII's decree in England is contained in the
Register of Bishop Dalderby of Lincoln. Dalderby was a new broom in the
diocese and he determined to sweep clean. On June 17th, 1300, he directed
a mandate to the archdeacons of his diocese ordering each to associate
with himself some other mature and honest man and to visit the religious
houses in his own archdeaconry, explaining the terms of the new bull
intelligibly to the nuns and ordering them to remain within their
nunneries and to permit no one to enter the precincts contrary to the
tenour of the decree, until the Bishop should be able to visit them in
person; the heads of the houses were to be specially warned to carry out
the decree and for better security a sealed copy of it was to be deposited
in each house by the commissioners[1092].
In the course of the next two months Dalderby visited, either in person or
by commissioners, Marlow, Burnham, Flamstead, Markyate, Elstow, Goring,
Studley, Godstow, Delapré (Northampton) and Sewardsley[1093]. At each
house the bull was carefully explained to the nuns in the vulgar tongue,
they were ordered to obey it and a copy was left with them. But this
campaign was not unattended with difficulties. The nuns were bitterly
opposed to the restriction of a freedom to which they were accustomed and
which they heartily enjoyed, and an entry in Dalderby's Register,
describing his visitation of Markyate, shows that even in the middle ages
a bishop's lot was not a happy one:
On July 3rd, in the first year [of his consecration], the Bishop
visited the house of nuns of Markyate and on the following day he
caused to be recited before the nuns of the same [house] in chapter
the statute put forth by the lord Pope Boniface VIII concerning the
enclosure of nuns, explained it in the vulgar tongue and giving them
a copy of the same statute under his seal, ordered them in virtue of
obedience henceforth to observe it in the matter of enclosure and of
all things contained in it, and especially to close all doors by which
entrance is had into the inner places of their house and to permit no
person, whether dishonest or honest, to enter in to them, without
reasonable and manifest cause and licence from the person to whom [the
granting of such a licence] pertains. Furthermore he specially
enjoined the Prioress to observe the said statute in all its articles
and to cause it to be observed by the others. But when the Bishop was
going away, certain of the nuns, disobedient to these injunctions,
hurled the said statute at his back and over his head, and as well the
Prioress as the convent appeared to consent to those who threw it,
following the bishop to the outer gate of the house and declaring
unanimously that they were not content in any way to observe such a
statute. On account of which, the Bishop, who was then directing his
steps to Dunstable, returned the next day and having made inquisition
as to the matters concerned in the said statute, imposed a penance on
four nuns, whom he found guilty and on the whole convent for their
consent, as is more fully contained in his letters of correction sent
to the aforesaid house.
Afterwards he sent letters to the recalcitrant convent warning them for
the third time (they had already been warned once by the Official of the
Archdeacon of Bedford and a second time at the visitation which has just
been described) to keep the new decree, on pain of the major
excommunication, from which only the Pope could absolve them[1094].
There was opposition at other convents, too, though we hear of no more
attacks on the episcopal shoulders. On August 19th Dalderby wrote as
follows to Master Benedict de Feriby, rector of Broughton, Northants (a
church in the presentation of the Abbess and Convent of Delapré):
It has come to our ears, by clamorous rumour, that some of the nuns of
our diocese, spurning good obedience, slackening the reins of honesty
and shamelessly casting aside the modesty of their sex, despise the
papal statute concerning enclosure directed to them, as well as our
injunctions made to them upon the subject, and frequent cities and
other public places outside their monasteries, and mingle in the
haunts of men;
he proceeded to order Feriby to visit nunneries wherever he considered it
expedient to do so, and to punish those who were guilty of breaking the
statute, signifying to the Bishop, by a certain date, the names of all
who had been accused of doing so, whether they had been found guilty or
not[1095]. This mandate is no doubt in part explained by two other letters
which he dispatched on the same day; one of them was directed to the
Archdeacon of Northampton and set forth (in language which often repeats
_verbatim_ the phrases of the papal bull) that at the Bishop's recent
visitation of Delapré (Northampton) he had found three nuns in apostasy,
having cast off their habits after being a long time professed, and left
their house to live a secular life in the world[1096]. The other letter
contains a sentence of the greater excommunication against a nun of
Sewardsley, for similar conduct[1097]. These cases of apostasy were less
rare than might be imagined; Dalderby had to deal with two others during
his episcopate, one at St Michael's, Stamford[1098], and the other at
Goring[1099]; and during the rule of his predecessor Sutton three nuns had
escaped from Godstow and one from Wothorpe[1100]. They illustrate the
undoubted truth that it was only the existence (already in the thirteenth
century) of very grave disorders, which led reformers like Ottobon,
Peckham and Boniface VIII to "beat the air" with such severe restrictions.
These three documents, the Constitutions of Ottobon and of Peckham and the
Bull _Periculoso_, were the standard decrees on the subject of the
claustration of nuns in England and were used as a model by visitors in
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. William of Wykeham, for example,
in the exceptionally full and formal injunctions which he sent to Romsey
and to Wherwell in 1387 continually refers by name to Ottobon and to
Peckham, and the wording of the Bull _Periculoso_ is followed _verbatim_
in the mandate directed by Bishop Grandisson of Exeter to Canonsleigh in
1329 and in the commission sent by his successor Bishop Brantyngham to two
canons of Exeter in 1376, concerning the wanderings of the nuns of
Polsloe. But a study of the visitation documents of the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries makes it clear that the nuns never really made any
attempt to obey the regulations which imposed a strict enclosure upon
them; and that the bishops upon whom fell the brunt of administering
_Periculoso_ themselves allowed a considerable latitude, directing their
efforts towards regulating the conditions under which nuns left their
convents, rather than to keeping them within the precincts. _Le mieux est
l'ennemi du bien_ and the steady opposition of the nuns forced a
compromise upon their visitors. The canonist John of Ayton, reciting the
decrees of Ottobon and of Boniface, with their injunction that bishops
shall "cause them to be observed," exclaims
Cause to be observed! But surely there is scarce any mortal man who
could do this: we must therefore here understand "so far as lieth in
the prelate's power." For the nuns answer roundly to these statutes or
to any others promulgated against their wantonness, saying "In truth
the men who made these laws sat well at their ease, while they laid
such burdens upon us by these hard and intolerable restrictions!"
Wherefore we see in fact that these statutes are a dead letter or are
ill-kept at the best. Why, then, did the holy fathers thus labour to
beat the air? Yet indeed their toil is none the less to their own
merit; for we look not to that which is but to that which of justice
should be[1101].
Dalderby's experience at Markyate shows that John of Ayton's picture was
not too highly coloured, and since it was impossible to enforce "hard and
intolerable restrictions" without at least a measure of co-operation from
the nuns themselves, the bishops took the only course open to them in
trying to minimise the evil. Their expedients deserve some study, and as a
typical set of episcopal injunctions dealing with journeys by nuns outside
their cloisters it will suffice to quote those sent by Walter Stapeldon,
Bishop of Exeter, to the nunneries of Polsloe and Canonsleigh. These rules
were drawn up in 1319, only twenty years after the publication of the Bull
_Periculoso_, but they are already far removed from the strict ideal of
Boniface VIII. Stapeldon was a practical statesman and he evidently
realised that the enforcement of strict enclosure was impossible in a
diocese where the nuns had been used to considerable freedom and where all
the counties of the West saw them upon their holidays.
The clauses dealing with the subject run as follows:
_De visitacione amicorum._ No lady of religion is to go and visit her
friends outside the priory, but if it be once a year at the most and
then for reasonable cause and by permission; and then let her have a
companion professed in the same religion, not of her own choice, but
whomsoever the Prioress will assign to her and she who is once
assigned to her for companion shall not be assigned the next time, so
that each time a lady goes to visit her friends her companion is
changed; and if she have permission to go to certain places to visit
her friends, let her not go to other places without new permission.
_De absencia Dominarum et regressu earum._ Item, when any lady of
religion eats at Exeter, or in another place near by, for reasonable
cause and by permission, whenever she can she ought to return the same
or the following day and each time let her have a companion and a
chaplain, clerk or serving-man of good repute assigned by the
prioress, who shall go, remain and return with them and otherwise they
shall not go; and then let them return speedily to the house, as they
be commanded, and let them not go again to Exeter, wandering from
house to house, as they have oftentimes done, to the dishonour of
their state and of religion. _De Dominabus "Wakerauntes"_ [i.e.
_vagantibus_]. Item, a lady who goes a long distance to visit her
friends, in the aforesaid form, should return to the house within a
month at the latest, or within a shorter space if it be assigned her
by the Prioress, having regard to the distance or proximity of the
place, where dwell the friends whom she is going to visit, but a
longer term ought the Prioress never to give her, save in the case of
death, or of the known illness of herself or of her near friends.
_Pena Dominarum Vagancium._ And if a lady remain without for a long
time or in any other manner than in the form aforesaid, let her never
set foot outside the outer gate of the Priory for the next two years;
and nevertheless let her be punished otherwise for disobedience, in
such manner as is laid down by the rule and observances of the order
of St Benet for the fault; and leave procured by the prayer of her
friends ought not to excuse her from this penance[1102]. No lady of
your religion, professed or unprofessed, shall come to the external
offices outside the door of the cloister to be bled or for any other
feigned excuse, save it be by leave of the Prioress or of the
Subprioress, and then for a fit reason and let her have with her
another professed lady of your religion, to the end that each of them
may see and hear that which the other shall say and do[1103].
The main lines along which the bishops attempted to regulate the movements
of the nuns outside their houses appear clearly in these injunctions. It
was their invariable practice to forbid unlicensed visits, in accordance
with the Benedictine rule; no nun might leave her house without a licence
from her superior and such licences were not to be granted too
easily[1104] or with any show of favouritism[1105]; sometimes the licence
of the Bishop was required as well[1106]. Such licences were not to be
granted often (once a year is usually the specified rule)[1107] and the
bishops sometimes tried to confine the visits of nuns to parents or to
near relatives[1108]. An attempt was also made to regulate the length of
the visits. A maximum number of days was fixed and the nun was to be
punished if she outstayed her leave[1109], except when she was detained by
illness. This maximum differed from time to time and from place to place.
Bishop Stapeldon, it will be recalled, allowed the nuns in his diocese to
remain away for a month and longer; how he reconciled such laxity with his
conscience and the Bull _Periculoso_ is not plain. Archbishop Greenfield,
at the same date, permitted his Yorkshire nuns a maximum visit of fifteen
days[1110], and in 1358 Bishop Gynewell of Lincoln forbade the nuns of
Godstow to remain away for longer than three weeks[1111]. When Alnwick
visited the diocese of Lincoln in 1440-5, he made careful inquiry into
the length of the visits paid by the nuns and at Goring, Gracedieu,
Markyate, Nuncoton and St Michael's, Stamford, he found that the superior
usually gave the nuns licence to remain away a week, though the Prioress
of Studley gave exeats for three or four days only[1112]. A week does not
seem a very lengthy absence, but Alnwick would have lifted horrified
eyebrows at the action of his predecessor Gynewell, for he ordered the
superiors "that ye gyfe no sustere of yowres leue to byde wythe thaire
frendes whan thai visite thaym, overe thre dayes in helthe, and if thai
falle seke, that he do fecche thaym home wythe yn sex dayes"[1113]. He
shared the views of an even stricter reformer, Peckham[1114]. It was often
stipulated that the nuns, whether they went on long or on short journeys,
were to go only to the place which they had received permission to
visit[1115]; and sometimes they were specially told that if they were
obliged to spend the night away from their friends they were to do so,
whenever possible, in another nunnery[1116]. But they were strictly
forbidden to harbour in the houses of monks, friars, or canons[1117]. On
short journeys, or on errands which could be speedily accomplished, they
were forbidden to eat or drink out of their monasteries or to make
unnecessary delay, but were to return at once and in no case to be out
after nightfall[1118]. Moreover it was invariably ordered that a nun was
on no account to leave her house, without another nun of mature age and
good reputation who would be a constant witness to her behaviour[1119];
and both were to wear monastic dress[1120].
The chief aim of the ecclesiastical authorities was, however, to secure
that leave of absence should be granted only for a reasonable cause. All
conciliar and other injunctions for enclosure added a saving clause of
"manifest necessity" and this gave an opening for an infinite variety of
interpretation. The nuns, indeed, could fall back upon a threefold line of
defence against the intolerable restrictions. They could appeal to the
undoubted fact that strict and perpetual enclosure went beyond the
requirements of their rule. They could adduce the custom by which, as long
as their memory ran, nuns had been allowed to leave their convents under
conditions. Finally they could with a little skill, stretch the "manifest
necessity" clause to cover almost all their wanderings. Thus it happened
that in enforcing the Bull _Periculoso_ the visitors of the later middle
ages found themselves obliged to define, more or less widely according to
local conditions, what was and what was not a reasonable cause, and to
combat one after another certain specific excuses put forward by the nuns.
The sternest reformers were agreed that enclosure might be broken, when
the lives of the nuns were endangered. Fire, flood, famine, war and the
ruin of their buildings were universally accepted as reasonable
excuses[1121]. A nun could leave her house to be superior of another
nunnery (a not infrequent practice), or to found new houses or to
establish reform elsewhere.[1122] Moreover when a culprit stood in need
of condign punishment, she might be and often was sent to another house
to do penance among strangers, who would neither sympathise with her nor
run the risk of being contaminated by her[1123].
At this point, however, agreement ceased. The question of illness was
beset with difficulties. It was agreed that a nun might leave her house,
if she suffered from some contagious disease which threatened the health
of her sisters[1124], but opinions differed as to whether any relaxation
was to be allowed in less severe cases, when only her own health was in
question. The visitors sometimes issued licences for nuns to leave their
houses in order to recruit their health; thus in 1303 Josiana de Anelaby,
Prioress of Swine, had licence to absent herself from her house on account
of ill-health[1125], in 1314 Archbishop Greenfield licenced a nun of
Yedingham, who was suffering from dropsy, to visit friends and relatives
with honest company, for the sake of improving her health[1126] and in
1368 Joan Furmage, Abbess of Shaftesbury, actually received a dispensation
to leave the abbey for a year, and reside in her manors, for the sake of
air and recreation[1127]. It is significant that the _Novellae
Definitiones_ of the Cistercian Order in 1350 strictly forbade nuns to go
to the public baths outside their houses, which shows that they had been
in the habit of doing so[1128]. But strict reformers were always opposed
to such licences, and the specific prohibition of exeats for purposes of
cures and convalescences was common in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, when the practice had become almost universal in France[1129].
Again there was some difference of opinion as to whether a nun might leave
her house, in order to enter one professing a stricter rule. Such a desire
was in theory laudable and by Innocent III's decretal _Licet_ the
principle was laid down that a bishop was bound _de jure_ to grant leave
for migration "sub praetextu majoris religionis et ut vitam ducant
arctiorem," as long as the motive of the petitioner was love of God and
not merely _temeritas_[1130]. But _temeritas_ was often to be suspected;
women, as St Francis de Sales complained, were full of whimsies[1131];
ennui, fancy, a craving for change, a friend in another house, might
masquerade as a desire to lead a stricter life elsewhere. Moreover a nun
who desired to remove herself was not unlikely to encounter opposition
from her own convent. An interesting case of such opposition occurred at
Gracedieu in 1447-8. Margaret Crosse, a nun of that house, desired to be
transferred to the Benedictine Priory of Ivinghoe "of a straiter order of
religion and observance, not for a frivolous or empty reason, but that she
may lead a life altogether and entirely harder." She obtained letters of
admission from the Prioress of Ivinghoe, but when she came to ask for
leave to migrate, the Prioress and Convent of Gracedieu refused to release
her from her obedience and confiscated the letters. Bishop Alnwick then
wrote to Gracedieu, requiring the Prioress either to let her go, or to
furnish him with a reason for their refusal. The Prioress and Convent
replied with some acerbity. Margaret, they said, desired to lead a life of
less and not of more restraint and her real object was to join her sister,
who was at that time Prioress of Ivinghoe, if indeed her request were not
a mere pretext for apostasy; for
the said Margaret Crosse has caused and commanded certain goods,
property and jewels belonging to our priory to be stealthily conveyed
by certain of the said Margaret's friends in the flesh from our priory
to foreign and privy places, and to such conveyance done in her name
has lent her authority, with the purpose, as is strongly suspected, of
taking advantage of the darkness one night ... and transferring
herself utterly and entirely of her own motion to places wholly
strange, without having or asking and against our will[1132].
Moreover had the holy father considered the merits of their house and the
loss to it, if Margaret seceded?
Inasmuch as in our priory according to the observances of the rule God
is served and quire is ruled both in reading and singing and chanting
the psalms and toiling in the vineyard of the Lord of Sabaoth at the
canonical hours by day and night, while we also patiently endure
grievous cares, fastings and watchings and further are instant
together in contemplation, even as the holy Spirit designs to give us
His inspiration. And the said Margaret Crosse, who is sufficiently
trained in such regular observances and is very needful for the
service of God in our priory aforesaid, wherein such regular
observances and contemplations are not so fully kept as in our
aforesaid priory ... would give herself to secular business in all
matters, rather than to such contemplation or observance of the rule;
and thereout shall arise to us and our priory not only grievous ill
repute, but also no small loss, especially in that such chantings and
regular observances would in likelihood suffer damage by reason of the
said Margaret's absence[1133].
There is an air of verisimilitude about the injured convent's argument,
though the visitation report of 1440-1 does not show them as the strict
and pious community which they claim to be; but what came of the affair we
do not know.
One plea to lead a stricter life was, however, less open to suspicion;
that was the request to be enclosed as an anchoress. Sometimes an
anchoress had a companion, sometimes a servant[1134], but in any case her
life was stricter than that of a nun, for she devoted herself to constant
prayer and was bound to remain always in her little cell, which was
usually attached to a church. There are several instances of nuns who left
their communities to lead a solitary life in some anchorage. On one
occasion when the nuns of Coldingham had been dispersed by the Scots,
Beatrice de Hodesak left her convent and with the permission of the
Archbishop and of her Prioress retired to an anchorage at St Edmund's
Chapel, near the bridge of Doncaster; another anchoress Sibil de Lisle was
already living there (c. 1300)[1135]. Twenty years later Archbishop Melton
gave Margaret de Punchardon, nun of Arden, permission to be enclosed, as
an anchoress, in the cell attached to St Nicholas' Hospital at Beverley,
in company with Agnes Migregose [? Mucegrose, i.e. Musgrave] already a
recluse there[1136]. The register of Bishop Gray of Lincoln contains an
interesting commission (1435-6) addressed to the Abbot of Thornton,
bidding him enclose Beatrice Franke, a nun of Stainfield, in the parish
church of Winterton, together with the Abbot's certificate that he has
examined her and found her steadfast in her purpose and therefore
shutting up the aforesaid sister Beatrice in a building and enclosure
constructed on the north side of the church and making fast the door
thereof with bolts, bars and keys, we left her in peace and calm of
spirit, as it is believed by the more part, in the joy of her
Saviour[1137].
Some nunneries themselves had anchorages attached, for instance
Davington[1138], Polesworth[1139] and Carrow; and Julian of Norwich,
anchoress at the parish church of Carrow in the fourteenth century, was
one of the most famous mystical writers of the middle ages[1140].
Anchoresses do not seem always to have been content with their life and
the strict preliminary examination of Beatrice Franke "concerning her
withdrawal from the life of a community to the solitary life, concerning
the length of time wherein she had continued in this purpose, concerning
the perils of them that choose such a life and afterwards repent thereof"
was probably a necessary precaution. The register of Bishop Dalderby of
Lincoln contains a mandate to the nuns of Marlow, to readmit one such
faint-heart, Agnes de Littlemore, a lay sister of the house, who had left
it to become an anchoress and had repented of her decision[1141].
Illness and the desire to embrace a stricter rule were exceptional causes
for a temporary breach of enclosure. The great difficulty in administering
_Periculoso_ arose over more usual pretexts. The least objectionable
occasion for leaving cloistral precincts was when convent business
demanded it and this happened frequently to the superior and the
treasuress or cellaress. The journeys which were frequently taken by the
head of a house have already been considered[1142]; but the obedientiaries
also found much scope for wandering in the duties of their offices. The
treasuress and cellaress might be obliged day by day to visit, in the
course of their duties, offices and buildings which lay outside the walls,
and if they were not sober minded women there were ample opportunities for
lingering and gossiping with secular persons and with servants. The
Constitutions of the Legate Ottobon in 1268 attempted to minimise this
danger by enacting that no nun was to go into the different _officinae_,
except those whose offices rendered it necessary to do so, and they were
never to go unaccompanied[1143]. The complaints brought by the nuns of
Gracedieu in 1440-1 against their self-confident cellaress Margaret Belers
show that some such regulation was necessary; it was said that she was
accustomed to visit all the offices by herself, even the granges and other
places where menfolk were working, and that she went there (good zealous
housewife!) "over early in the morning before daybreak"; whereupon Bishop
Alnwick ordered the Prioress to "suffre none of thaym, officiere ne other,
to go to any house of office wythe owte the cloystere, but if ther be an
other nunne approveded in religyone assigned to go wythe hire, eyther to
be wytnesse of others conversatyon"[1144]. Convent business, however,
frequently took the officials further afield than outlying granges and
they undertook journeys hardly less often than did the head of the house.
The Cistercian statutes of 1256-7, in forbidding nuns to leave their
convents, make exception "for the Abbess with two or at most three nuns
and for the cellaress with one, who are permitted to go forth to look
after the business of the house or for other inevitable causes"[1145]. The
evidence of account rolls is invaluable in this connection and shows us
the nuns going marketing or seeking tithes from recalcitrant farmers, or
interviewing tenants about rent. The Chambress of Syon went to London
three times in 1536, doubtless to buy the russets, white cloth, kerseys,
friezes and hollands which figure so largely in her account and to take
the spectacles to be mended; she was a thrifty lady and her expenses were
only 6_d._, 2_d._ and 20_d._ respectively. Her sister the cellaress also
went to London that year and spent 6_d._ on the jaunt[1146]. The nuns of
St Michael's, Stamford, sometimes took long journeys on convent business;
in 1372-3 Dame Katherine Fitzaleyn went "to London and other places about
our tithes," at the heavy cost of 15_s._ 8_d._[1147] From Stamford to
London was a considerable journey, but the convent could not afford to
lose its tithes. The same business took Dame Katherine to the capital
another year; she hired three horses for six days and a serving man to go
with them and she took with her Dame Ida, in accordance with the
regulations; the whole cost of the expedition was £2. 11_s._, a very large
sum, and we will hope that the tithes brought in more than enough to cover
it[1148].
Sometimes, again, nuns left their houses to take part in ecclesiastical
ceremonies, such as processions. There does not seem much harm in the
whole convent sallying forth on these solemn occasions and indeed bishops
sometimes gave orders that they were to do so. In 1321 Rigaud de Asserio,
Bishop of Winchester, sent a letter to the Prior of St Swithun's monastery
"to pray for peace, with solemn processions"; he was to cause the Abbot
and Convent of Hyde, the Abbess and Convent of St Mary's, Winchester, and
all the other religious houses and parish priests of Winchester to come
together in the Cathedral and then to proceed in solemn procession through
the town[1149]. The strictest disciplinarians, however, looked with
suspicion even upon religious processions and sought to keep nuns within
the precincts of their cloister. Ottobon's Constitutions contain a proviso
that nuns are not to go out for public processions, but are to hold their
processions within the bounds of their own house[1150] and the prohibition
was repeated by Thomas of Cantilupe, Bishop of Hereford, writing to
Lymbrook in 1277[1151], and by William of Wykeham (who specifically based
his words upon Ottobon), writing to Romsey in 1387[1152]. A century later
the custom was forbidden in France at the provincial Council of Sens, in
1460 and again in 1485, where it was referred to as "a dangerous and evil
abuse"[1153]. Some explanation of this severity, which seems excessive,
may perhaps be gleaned from an injunction sent by Bishop Longland to
Elstow in 1531:
Moreover forasmoche as the ladye abbesse and covent of that house be
all oon religious bodye unite by the profession and rules of holy
sainct benedicte, and is nott conuenyent ne religious to be disseuerd
or separate, we will and Inioyne that frome hensforth noon of the said
abbesse seruauntes nor no ther secular person or persones, whatsoeuer
he or they be, goo in eny procession before the said abbesse betwene
hir and hir said covent, undre payne of exccommunycacon, and that the
ladye abbesse ne noon of hir successours hereafter be ladde by the
arme or otherwise in eny procession ther as in tymes paste hath been
used, undre the same payne[1154].
Other religious ceremonies of a less formal nature occasionally called
nuns, in a body or individually, out of their cloister. For instance some
of the greater abbeys were accustomed to receive into their fraternity
benefactors and persons of distinction, both men and women, whom they
wished to honour, nor were kings too proud to call themselves the
_confratres_ of Bury St Edmunds or St Albans and to receive from the monks
the kiss of peace[1155]. The ceremony took place with great solemnity in
the chapter-house and it is recorded that on one occasion (in 1428), when
the Earl of Warwick and the Duke of Gloucester and their households were
received into the Fraternity of St Albans, Cecilia Paynel and Margaret
Ewer, nuns of Sopwell, were also admitted. At another time the Prioress of
Sopwell, together with a certain John Crofton and his wife, were received
and gave the abbey a pittance and wine and a sum of money; while on
another occasion still the Prioress and another nun of St Mary de Pré were
similarly made _consorores_ of the abbey, and marked their appreciation by
the gift of a frontal for the high altar in the lady chapel[1156]. Sopwell
and St Mary de Pré were dependents of St Albans and it is not improbable
that their superiors and seniors often visited it on great occasions such
as this; certainly the great magnates of the realm often called at Sopwell
on their way from St Albans, and nuns of the house figure in its book of
benefactors as donors of embroidery to the church[1157], while in matters
of government the Abbot always kept a tight hand upon both houses. Again
nuns sometimes attended the funerals of great folk; not only priors and
prioresses, but also canons and nuns were expected to be present at Sir
Thomas Cumberworth's funeral and "month's-mind"[1158] and in an account
roll of St Michael's, Stamford, there is an entry "paye a nos
compaygnounes alaunt a Leycestre al enterment la Duchesse ij s"[1159].
Attendance at religious processions and ceremonies might be, and
attendance at funerals undoubtedly was, regarded by the more moderate and
reasonable visitors as a legitimate reason for going outside the precincts
of the cloister. One other excuse of the same nature, however, sometimes
took a nun away from her convent for a considerable length of time and was
never looked upon with any favour by the authorities of the church. Yet it
is an excuse which we have the best of reasons for recognising, which is,
indeed, bound up with all that most people know of the medieval nun--for
Chaucer has taught us that nuns were wont to go upon pilgrimages. All
pilgrimages did not, indeed, involve as long a journey as that taken by
Madame Eglentyne. The ladies of Nuncoton could make a pilgrimage to St
Hugh of Lincoln, without being away for more than a night and the ladies
of Blackborough would not have to follow for a long distance the milky way
to Walsingham[1160]. Nevertheless it is unnecessary to go further than
Chaucer to understand why it was that medieval bishops offered a strenuous
opposition to the practice; one has only to remember some of the folk in
whose company the Prioress travelled and some of the tales they told. If
one could be certain that she rode with her nun and her priests, or at
least between the Knight and the poor Parson! But there were also the
Miller and the Summoner and, worst of all, that cheerful and engaging
sinner the Wife of Bath. If one could be certain that she listened only to
the tale of Griselda, or of Palamon and Arcite, or yawned over Melibeus,
and that she fell discreetly to the rear when the company laughed over the
"nyce cas of Absalon and hende Nicholas"! If one could be certain that it
was to the Wife of Bath alone that the Merchant made his apology
Ladies, I prey yow that ye be nat wrooth;
I can nat glose, I am a rude man.
Certainly the Wife of Bath was a host in herself, but the plural is
ominous and the two nuns were the only other ladies in the company. The
sterner moralists of the middle ages bear out Chaucer's picture of a
typical pilgrimage with most unchaucerian denunciation[1161]. Pilgrims got
drunk at times, as drunk as the Miller, "so that vnnethe up-on his hors he
sat," on the very first day of the journey, as drunk as the "sory palled
gost" of a cook, when the cavalcade reached that
litel toun
Which that y-cleped is Bob-up-&-doun
Under the Blee in Canterbury weye.
Again, there are pilgrims, says Etienne de Bourbon, "who when they visit
holy places sing lecherous lays, whereby they inflame the hearts of such
as hear them and kindle the fire of lechery"; and like an echo rise the
well-known words:
Ful loude he song "Come hider, love, to me,"
This somnour bar to him a stif burdoun
Was never trompe of half so greet a soun,
and shrill and clear sound the miller's bagpipes, bringing the pilgrims
out of town[1162]. No place for a cloistered nun was the inn though one
feels that mine host's wife, "big in arme," would have kept the Tabard
respectable, whatever might be said of the Chequer-on-the-Hoop. No place
for her the road to Canterbury, nor yet Canterbury itself, where the monk
with the holy-water sprinkler was so anxious for a peep at her face and
where she hobnobbed over wine in the parlour, with the hostess and the
Wife of Bath[1163].
Madame Eglentyne, for all her simplicity, must have circumvented her
Bishop before she got there. For the Bishops were quite clear in their
minds that pilgrimages for nuns were to be discouraged. They were of
Langland's way of thinking:
Right so, if thow be religious, renne thow neuere ferther,
To Rome ne to Rochemadore, but as thi reule techeth,
And holde the vnder obedyence, that heigh wey is to heuene[1164].
As early as 791 the Council of Fréjus had forbidden the practice[1165] and
in 1195 the Council of York decreed "In order that the opportunity of
wandering about may be taken from them [the nuns], we forbid them to take
the road of pilgrimage"[1166]. In 1318 Archbishop Melton strictly forbade
the nuns of Nunappleton to leave their house "by reason of any vow of
pilgrimage, which they might have taken; if any had taken such vows she
was to say as many psalters as it would have taken days to perform the
pilgrimage so rashly vowed"[1167]. One has a melancholy vision of Madame
Eglentyne saying psalters interminably through her "tretys" nose, instead
of jogging along so gaily with her motley companions and telling so
prettily her tale of little St Hugh. But the nuns of Nunappleton retained
their taste for pilgrimages and nearly two centuries later (in 1489) we
find Archbishop Rotherham admonishing their successors:
yat ye prioresse lycence none of your susters to goe pilgremage or
visit yer frendes w{t}oute a grete cause, and yen such a sister
lycencyate by you to have w{t} her oon of ye most sadd and well
disposid sistirs to she come home agayne[1168].
At Wix, twenty years later, the nuns were forbidden to undertake
pilgrimages without the consent of the diocesan[1169], and in 1531 Bishop
Longland wrote to the Prioress of Nuncoton:
Forasmoche as by your negligent sufferaunce dyuers of your susters
hath wandred a brode in the world, some under the pretence of
pylgrymage, some to see ther frends, and otherwise whereby hath growen
many Inconuenyences insolent behauiours and moche slaunder, as well to
your house as to those susters, as by the texts of my said visitation
doth euydently appere, I chardge you lady priores that from hensforthe
ye neyther licence ne suffre eny your susters to goo out of your
monastery,
without good cause and company of a "wise sobre and discrete suster," and
an injunction not to "tary out of the monastery in the nighte tyme"[1170].
But most significant of all is a case which occurred at the little
Cistercian priory of Wykeham in Yorkshire in the fifteenth century. In
1450 Archbishop Kemp wrote to the Prioress, bidding her readmit an
apostate nun Katherine Thornyf:
who, seduced by the Angel of Darkness, under the colour of a
pilgrimage in the time of the Jubilee, without leave of the
archbishop, or officials or even of the prioress, set out on a
journey to the court of Rome, in the company of another nun of the
house, who, as it was reported, had gone the way of all flesh and on
whose soul the Archbishop prayed for mercy. After the death of this
nun, Katherine Thornyf had lived in sin with a married man in London.
Then she had been moved to penitence, after who knows what agony of soul,
and had gone to the Archbishop seeking absolution; and so the prodigal,
weary of her husks, came back to the nunnery she had left[1171]. The
melancholy tale is borne out by all we know about medieval pilgrimages.
Centuries before--in 774--an Archbishop of Milan had written to an
Archbishop of Canterbury, advising that the Synod should prohibit women
and nuns from travelling to Rome, on account of the dangers and
temptations of the journey, "for very few are the cities in Lombardy ...
France ... Gaul, wherein there is not to be found a prostitute of English
race"[1172]; and the trouvère Rutebeuf, in the thirteenth century, spoke
with less pity and a more biting satire of the pilgrimages of French nuns
to Paris and Montmartre[1173].
Excursions on convent business or for attendance at ecclesiastical
ceremonies (other than pilgrimages) were regarded as legitimate, though
strict disciplinarians sought to restrict them to occasions of real
urgency. But for the most part we hear about journeys undertaken for
pleasure and not for business, or at any rate the elastic term business is
stretched to cover some very pleasant wandering in the world and much
hobnobbing with friends. In spite of the Bull _Periculoso_[1174] bishops
were never able to prevent nuns from going to stay with their friends, and
sometimes the ladies made very long journeys for this purpose. Bishop
Stapeldon, for instance, ordained that when the nuns of Canonsleigh in
Devon went to visit their friends "in Somerset, Dorset, Devonshire or in
Cornwall" they might not stay for longer than a month; but if they went
outside these four counties the Abbess might allow them to stay longer
still, having regard to the distance of their destination and to the time
which would be spent in travelling[1175]. The bishops indeed were forced
to regard such visits as "reasonable occasions" for a breach of enclosure,
and their efforts, as has already been shown, were confined to regulating
rather than to stopping the practice; for the relatives of the nuns, as
well as the ladies themselves, would have been the first to resent any
interference with their visits. Whatever might be the theory of the Church
on the subject, blood was thicker than holy water; family affections and
family interests persisted in the cloister and the nun was welcomed at
many a hospitable board for her family's sake as well as for her own. All
this seems natural and obvious today and few would think the worse of the
nuns for their opposition to the stricter form of enclosure. Nevertheless
the authorities of the Church had reason for their distrust of these
absences from the convent. Once away from the cloister and staying in a
private house there was nothing to keep a nun from joining in the secular
revelries of friends, and though her behaviour might be exemplary the
convent rule aimed at keeping her unspotted even by temptation. An
anecdote related by Erasmus in his dialogue "Ichthyophagia" shows that the
danger of allowing nuns to visit their friends might be a real one. Two
nuns had gone to stay with their kinsfolk, and at supper
they began to grow merry with wine; they laughed and joked and kissed
and not over-modestly neither, till you could hardly hear what was
said for the noise they made.... After supper there was dancing and
singing of lascivious songs and such doings I am ashamed to speak of,
inasmuch as I am much afraid the night hardly passed very
honestly[1176].
Moreover even if nuns visited their friends for a very short time, staying
only one night, or even returning before nightfall to the convent, there
was danger that they might join in the various revelries practised among
secular folk, and reprobated by the Church as occasions for unseemly and
licentious behaviour. Bishop Spofford of Hereford, indeed, found it
necessary in 1437 to send a special warning against doing so to the nuns
of Lymbrook; the Prioress was to "yife no lycence too noon of hur sustres
her after to go to no port townes, no to noon othir townes to comyn wakes
or festes, spectacles and othir worldly vanytees, and specially on
holy-dayes, nor to be absent lyggying oute by nyght out of thair
monastery, but with fader and moder, except causes of necessytee"[1177].
The words which the Good Wife spoke to her daughter come to mind:
Go not to þe wrastelings ne schotynge at cok
As it were a strumpet or a giggelot,
Wone at hom, doughter, and love þi work myche[1178].
Clemence Medforde, Prioress of Ankerwyke, went to a wedding at
Bromhale[1179]; yet weddings were of all those "comyn wakes and festes"
most condemned by the Church for the unseemly revelries which followed
them. _The Christen State of Matrimony_, written in 1543, throws a flood
of light upon the subject:
When they come home from the Church, then beginneth excesse of eatyng
and dryncking--and as much is waisted in one daye, as were sufficient
for the two newe maried Folkes halfe a yere to lyve upon.... After the
Bancket and Feast, there begynnethe a vayne, madde and unmanerlye
fashion, for the Bryde must be brought into an open dauncynge place.
Then is there such a rennynge, leapynge, and flyngynge among them,
then is there suche a lyftynge up and discoverynge of the Damselles
clothes and other Womennes apparell, that a Man might thynke they were
sworne to the Devels Daunce. Then muste the poore Bryde kepe foote
with al Dauncers and refuse none, how scabbed, foule, droncken, rude
and shameles soever he be. Then must she oft tymes heare and se much
wyckednesse and many an uncomely word; and that noyse and romblyng
endureth even tyll supper[1180].
It may be urged that the Brides of Heaven need not necessarily have
attended these merry-makings after the ceremony; but the example of Isabel
Benet, nun of Catesby, and the tenour of certain episcopal injunctions,
show that nuns by no means despised dancing[1181]. The strict
disciplinarian's view of weddings is shown in the fact that members of the
Tertiary Order of St Francis were forbidden to attend them; and even the
civic authorities of London found it necessary to regulate the disorders
which were prevalent on such occasions[1182].
Again not only weddings, but also christenings, often involved unseemly
revels and this could not fail to affect nuns who, despite canonical
prohibition, were somewhat in demand as godmothers. Christening parties
were gay affairs; the gossips would return to the house of the child's
parents to eat, drink and make merry: "adtunc et ibidem immediate venerunt
in domam suam ad comedendum et bibendum et adtunc sibi revelaverunt de
baptismo"[1183]. If Antoine de la Sale's witty account of the "third joy
of marriage" has any truth[1184], and it is upheld by more sober
documents, bishops did well to mislike the christening parties for nuns;
Mrs Gamp was quite at home in the middle ages; she was probably a crony of
the Wife of Bath. It was in fact forbidden for monks and nuns to become
godparents, not only, as Mr Coulton has pointed out, "because this
involved them in a fresh spiritual relationship incompatible with their
ideal, but because it entangled them with worldly folk and worldly
affairs"[1185]. Thus in 1387 William of Wykeham wrote to the nuns of
Romsey: "We forbid you all and singly to presume to become godmothers to
any child, without obtaining our licence to do so, since from such
relationships expense is often entailed upon religious houses"[1186]. At
Nuncoton in 1440 two nuns asked that their sisters might be forbidden the
practice and Alnwick enjoined "that none of yowe have no children at the
fount ne confirmyng"[1187] and nearly a century later a similar injunction
was sent by Bishop Longland to Studley[1188].
There does indeed seem a certain incongruity in the presence of one who
had renounced the world at a wedding or a christening, even had such
ceremonies not been accompanied by very worldly revels. But they were less
incongruous than was the attendance of Mary, daughter of Edward I, the
nun-princess of Amesbury, upon her step-mother Queen Margaret and later
upon her niece Elizabeth de Burgh, during their confinements. A king's
daughter, however, could not be subjected to ordinary restraints; Mary led
a particularly free life, constantly visiting court and going on
pilgrimages, and there is no reason to suppose that ordinary nuns shared
her privileges[1189].
Naturally occasions when a nun was away from her convent for the night,
whether on business or on pleasure, were comparatively rare. For the most
part the bishops had to deal with casual absences during the day and it
was found extraordinarily difficult to confine such excursions to the
"convent business" and "necessary reasons" laid down by the various
enactments on enclosure. There seems to have been a great deal of
wandering about without any specific purpose. Short errands perhaps took
the nuns out for a few hours, or they went simply for air and exercise.
Their rule and their bishops would have had them hear the "smale fowles
maken melodye" and tread "the smalle, softe, sweete grass" within the
narrow cloister court, or at least in the privacy of their own
gardens[1190]. But the nuns liked highways and hedges, and often in
springtime it was farewell their books and their devotion. Certainly the
convent often did come out to take the air in its own meadows; John Aubrey
(in a much-quoted passage) tells of the nuns of Kington in Wiltshire, and
how "Old Jacques" could see them from his house
come forth into the nymph-hay with their rocks and wheels to spin: and
with their sewing work. He would say that he had told threescore and
ten, but of nuns there were not so many, but in all, with lay sisters
and widows, old maids and young girls, there might be such a
number[1191].
Sometimes, indeed, at the busy harvest-time, when every pair of hands was
needed on the manor farm, the nuns even went hay-making in the meadows.
The visitations of Bishop Alnwick provide two instances of this and show
also the abuses to which it might give rise, since the fields were full of
secular workers. At Nuncoton in 1440 the subprioress deposed that
in the autumn season the nuns go out to their autumn tasks, whereby
the quire is not kept regularly[1192], and ... in seed time the nuns
clear the crops of weeds in the barns, and there secular folks do come
in and unbecoming words are uttered between them and the nuns,
wherefrom, as is feared, there are evil consequences[1193].
At Gracedieu the subprioress mentioned that "sometimes the nuns do help
secular folk in garnering their grain during the autumn season," but the
most amusing revelations concern the conduct of the haughty cellaress
Margaret Belers, who, whether on account of her autocratic government or
because she was of better birth than they, was regarded by her sisters
with the utmost jealousy. Belers, ran one of the _detecta_ to the Bishop,
goes out to work in autumn alone with Sir Henry [the chaplain], he
reaping the harvest and she binding the sheaves, and at evening she
comes riding behind him on the same horse. She is over friendly with
him and has been since the doings aforesaid.
Here was a pretty scandal; the Bishop (hiding, we will hope, a smile) made
inquiries; Sir Henry was charged with the heinous crime of going
hay-making with Dame Belers. But Sir Henry specifically denied his
solitary roaming in the fields with the cellaress; he said however "that
he has been in the fields with the others and Belers, carting hay and
helping to pile the sheaves in stacks in the barns"; and Alnwick contented
himself with enjoining the Prioress "that ye suffre none of your susters
to go to any felde werkes but alle onely in your presence"[1194].
Such field work, when it was undertaken, must have afforded not only
wholesome exercise, but a very pleasant relaxation from the cramping life
of the cloister; and the necessities of harvest overrode all rules.
Whether the nuns took part in farm work at other seasons of the year is
more difficult to discover; one is tempted to think that they must
sometimes have given a helping hand with their own cattle and poultry,
especially at very poor houses. The private cocks and hens which
occasioned such rivalry at Saint-Aubin[1195], the never-to-be-forgotten
donkey of Alfrâd[1196], bear witness not only to the sin of _proprietas_,
but also to the personal care of the nuns for such livestock. But
authority discouraged the practice at a later date, partly because it
encouraged private property, partly because it brought the nuns into too
close contact with the world[1197]. Nowhere has the attitude been better
stated than in the amusing description given in the _Ancren Riwle_ of the
anchoress' cow:
An anchoress that hath cattle appears as Martha was, a better
housewife than anchoress: nor can she in any wise be Mary, with
peacefulness of heart. For then she must think of the cow's fodder and
of the herdsman's hire, flatter the heyward, defend herself when her
cattle is shut up in the pinfold and moreover pay the damage. Christ
knoweth it is an odious thing when people in the town complain of the
anchoresses' cattle. If, however, any one must needs have a cow, let
her take care that she neither annoy, nor harm any one, and that her
own thoughts be not fixed thereon[1198].
The more human bishops made allowance for a natural instinct by giving the
convent permission to go for walks, though as a rule the grounds of the
nunnery were specified:
"Let the door be closed at the right time," wrote Archbishop Courtenay
to Elstow in 1390, "And let no nun go out without licence of the
abbess or other president, yet so that leave of walking for recreation
in the orchard or in any other seemly and close place at suitable
times be not out of malice denied to the nuns provided that the
younger do not go without the society of the elder"[1199].
Bishop Spofford of Hereford went even further; after forbidding any
revelries to be held in the nunnery of Lymbrook, he added:
"and what dysport of walkyng forward in dewe tyme and place, so that
yee kepe the dewe houres and tymes of dyuyne seruyce with inforth, and
with honest company, and with lycence specyally asked and obteyned
[from] the pryoresse or suppryoresse in her absence, and at yee be two
to geder at the leest, we holde us content" (1437)[1200].
So in 1367 Robert de Stretton, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, forbade
any nun of Fairwell to go into Lichfield without the Prioress' leave,
ordering that she should be accompanied by two sisters and should "make no
vain and wanton delays," but added that "this is not intended to interfere
with the laudable custom of the whole or greater part of the convent
walking out together on certain days to take the air"[1201]. This
forerunner of the schoolgirls' "crocodile" was not, however, what the nuns
desired. It was wandering about the roads in twos and threes (sometimes,
alas, in ones also) that they really enjoyed, and against this freedom the
bishops continually fulminated. It must be remembered that walking in the
public streets in the middle ages was very different from what it is
today; it is impossible otherwise, as Mr Coulton has pointed out, to
explain the extraordinary severity of all rules for the deportment of
girls[1202]. The streets were full of rough pastimes, hocking and
hoodsnatching, football and the games of noisy prentices in the town; and
in the country villages they resounded with the still more boorish sports
of country folk and with the shrill quarrels of alewives and regrateresses
and all the good-natured but short-tempered people, whom court rolls show
us raising the hue and cry upon each other and drawing blood from each
other's noses. There is perhaps solicitude for the nuns in the injunction
which Bishop Fitzjames sent in 1509 to the convent of Wix in Essex,
forbidding them to permit "any public spectacles of seculars,
javelin-play, dances or trading in streets or open places"[1203]. Manners
were free in that age and the nuns would see and hear much that were best
hidden from their cloistered innocence. Moreover if once they began to
stop and pass the time of day with their neighbours, religious and
secular, or to go into houses for some more private gossip, there was no
knowing where such perilous familiarity would end; and the outspokenness
with which bishops condemned such conduct by references to Dinah, the
daughter of Jacob, leaves no doubt as to what they feared[1204].
But nothing availed to keep the nuns within their cloisters; and hardly a
set of episcopal injunctions but bears witness to the freedom with which
they wandered about the streets and fields. The nuns of Moxby are not to
go out of the precincts of their monastery often, nor at any time to
wander about the woods[1205]. Alas, poor ladies:
In somer when the shawes be sheyne,
And leves be large and long,
Hit is full mery in feyre foreste
To here the foulys song.
The nuns of Cookhill are more urban; they are not to wander about in the
town (1285)[1206] and the nuns of Wroxall are not to go on foot to
Coventry or to Warwick "cum eles ount fet desordement en ces houres"
(1338)[1207]. The nuns of White Hall, Ilchester, "walk through the strets
and places of the vill of Ilchester and elsewhere, the modesty of their
sex being altogether cast off and they do not fear to enter the houses of
secular men and suspected persons" (1335)[1208]. The nuns of Polsloe are
not to go without permission into Exeter and are to return at once when
their errand is accomplished, instead of "wascrauntes de hostel en hostel,
si come eles unt maynte foiz fait, en deshonestete de lur estat et de la
Religioun" (1319)[1209]--an echo here of the Good Wife's advice, "and run
thou not from house to house, like a St Anthony's pig"[1210], or of the
reminiscences of that other Wife of Bath:
For ever yet I lovede to be gay,
And for to walke, in March, Averille and May,
Fro hous to hous, to here sondry talis[1211].
The nuns of Romsey "enter houses of laymen and even of clerics in the
town, eating and drinking with them" (1284)[1212]. The nuns of Godstow
"have often access to Oxford under colour of visiting their friends"
(1445)[1213]. The nuns of Elstow are a great trial to their diocesan;
Bishop Gynewell finds that "there is excessive and frequent wandering of
nuns to places outside the same monastery, whereby gossip and laxity are
brought about" (1359)[1214]; Bishop Bokyngham boldly particularises:
We order the nuns on pain of excommunication, to abstain from any
dishonest and suspicious conversation with secular or religious men
and especially the access and frequent confabulations and colloquies
of the canons of the Priory of Caldwell or of mendicant friars, in the
monastery or about the public highways and fields adjoining
(1387)[1215].
But the sisters of Elstow remain on good terms with their neighbours;
Bishop Flemyng forbids the nuns "to have access to the town of Bedford or
to the town of Elstow or to other towns or neighbouring places" and
straitly enjoins the canons "that no canon of the said priory, under what
colour of excuse soever, have access to the monastery of the nuns of
Elstow; nor shall the same nuns for any reason whatever be allowed to
enter the said priory, save for a manifest cause, from which reproach or
suspicion of evil could in no way arise; nor even shall the same canons
and nuns meet in any wise one with another, in any separate or private
places; nor shall they talk together anywhere one with another, save in
the presence and hearing of more than one trustworthy, who shall bear
faithful witness of what they say or do" (1421-2)[1216]. The nuns of
Nuncoton in the sixteenth century are even more addicted to the society of
canons and Bishop Longland writes to them in stern language:
And that ye, lady prioresse, cause and compell all your susters (those
oonly excepte that be seke) to kepe the quere and nomore to be absent
as in tymes past they haue been wont to use, being content yf vj haue
been present, the residue to goo att lybertie where they wold, some
att thornton [Augustinian house at Thornton-upon-Humber], some at
Newsom [or Newhouse, a Premonstratensian house close to Nuncoton, in
the same parish of Brocklesby], some at hull, some att other places
att their pleasures, which is in the sight of good men abhomynable,
high displeasur to God, rebuke shame and reproache to religion and due
correction to be doon according unto your religion frome tyme to
tyme[1217].
Indeed these colloquies with monks and canons in their own monastery were
nothing unusual. Bishops and Councils constantly forbade nuns to frequent
houses of monks, or to be received there as guests, but the practice
continued. Sometimes they had an excuse; the nuns of St Mary's,
Winchester, were in the habit of going to St Swithun's monastery to
confess to one of the brothers, who was their confessor and in ill-health,
and Bishop Pontoise appointed another monk in his place, who should come
to the nuns when summoned, thus avoiding the risk of scandal[1218].
Similarly Peckham forbade the nuns of Holy Sepulchre, Canterbury, to enter
"any place of religious men or elsewhere, under colour of confessing,"
unless they had no other confessor, in which case they were to return
directly their business was accomplished and not to stay eating and
drinking there[1219]. But sometimes the nuns had less good reason. At
Elstow, as we know, they gossiped in the fields and highways; and if nuns
were sometimes frivolous, so were monks. What are we to think of that nun
of Catesby (gone to rack and ruin under the evil rule of Margaret Wavere),
who
on Monday last did pass the night with the Austin friars at
Northampton and did dance and play the lute with them in the same
place until midnight (saltauit et citherauit usque ad mediam noctem)
and on the night following she passed the night with the Friars
preachers at Northampton, luting and dancing in like manner[1220].
There rises to the memory an irresistibly comic sonnet of Wordsworth:
Yet more--round many a convent's blazing fire
Unhallowed threads of revelry are spun;
There Venus sits disguised like a nun,--
While Bacchus, clothed in semblance of a friar
Pours out his choicest beverage high and higher
Sparkling, until it cannot choose but run
Over the bowl, whose silver lip hath won
An instant kiss of masterful desire--
To stay the precious waste. Through every brain
The domination of the sprightly juice
Spreads high conceits to madding Fancy dear,
Till the arched roof, with resolute abuse
Of its grave echoes, swells a choral strain,
Whose votive burthen is "Our kingdom's here."
Alack, had the nun of Catesby forgotten that "even as the cow which goeth
before the herd hath a bell at her neck, so likewise the woman who leadeth
the song and dance hath, as it were, the devil's bell bound to hers, and
when the devil heareth the tinkle thereof he feeleth safe, and saith he:
'I have not lost my cow yet'"?[1221] Had she forgotten the awful vision of
that holy man, to whom the devil appeared in the form of a tiny
blackamoor, standing above a woman who was leading a dance, guiding her
about as he wished and dancing on her head?[1222] But indeed Isabel (or
Venus) Benet was not the woman to care for so slight a matter as the rule
of her order or the dreams of holy men[1223]. Her case provides an
admirable illustration of the motives which prompted the extreme severity
of episcopal attempts to enforce enclosure and to cut nuns off from the
society of neighbouring monasteries[1224].
[Illustration: PLATE VII
"Isabel Benet did pass the night with the Austin friars at Northampton and
did dance and play the lute with them." (See page 388.)
The Legend of Beatrice the Sacristan. (See page 511.)
THE NUN WHO LOVED THE WORLD]
Even if they did not often go to such extremes as to spend a night dancing
with friars, the nuns foregathered sometimes in the most strange places.
The complaint that priests and monks and canons were tavern-haunters
occurs with wearisome iteration in medieval visitation documents, but
surely a tavern was the last place where one would expect to find a nun;
"Deus sit propitius isti potatori," were a strange invocation on lips that
prayed to "Our blisful lady, Cristes moder dere." Yet nuns sometimes
abused their liberty to frequent such places. Archbishop Rotherham wrote
to the Prioress of Nunappleton in 1489 "yat noon of your sistirs use ye
alehouse nor ye watirside, wher concurse of straungers dayly
resortes"[1225]; and at Romsey in 1492 Abbess Elizabeth Broke deposed that
she suspected the nuns of slipping into town by the church door and prayed
that they might not frequent taverns and other suspected places, while her
Prioress also said that they frequented taverns and continually went to
town without leave[1226]. Bald statements, but it is easy to call up a
picture of what lies behind them, for of medieval taverns we have many a
description touched by master hands. So we shall see nuns at the tunning
of Elynour Rummynge, edging in by the back way "over the hedge and pale,"
to drink her noppy ale[1227]. Or again we shall see Beton the Brewster
standing in her doorway beneath the ivy bush, hailing Dame Isabel and Dame
Matilda, as they patter along upon their "fete ful tendre"; and we shall
hear her seductive cry "I have good ale, gossip" (no nun ever despised
good ale--only when it was _valde tenuis_ did she object) "I have peper
and piones and a pounde of garlike, A ferthyngworth of fenel-seed for
fasting days." We shall never--thanks to Langland--have any difficulty in
seeing that interior, when the nuns have scuttled through the door, the
heat, the smell of ale and perspiring humanity, the babel of voices as all
the riff-raff of the village greets the nuns and gives them "with glad
chere good ale to hansel"; and the scene that follows, "the laughyng and
lowrying and 'let go the cuppe,'" the singing, the gambling, the drinking,
the invincible good humour and the complete lack of all decency. We can
only hope that Dame Isabel and Dame Matilda left before Glutton got
drunk[1228]. But it is consoling to reflect that the alehouses frequented
by the nuns of Nunappleton and of Romsey were probably less low places,
for it is not easy to picture Chaucer's Prioress on a bench between
Clarice of Cokkeslane and Peronelle of Flanders. Probably their taverns at
the waterside were more like the Chequer-on-the-Hoop, where Madame
Eglentyne and the Wife of Bath pledged each other in the hostess'
parlour[1229]; or like the tavern where the good gossips
Elynore, Jone and Margery
Margaret, Alis and Cecely
met and feasted, all unknown to their husbands and cherished the heart
with muscadel[1230]; or liker still, perhaps, to that lordly tavern kept
by Trick, where the city dames come tripping in the morning, as readily as
to minster or to market and where he draws them ten sorts of wine, all out
of a single cask, crying: "dear ladies, Mesdames, make good cheer, drink
freely your good pleasure, for we have leisure enough"[1231]. But however
select the house, whether they met there buxom city dames drinking away
their husbands' credit, or merely Tim the tinker and twain of his
prentices, whether they were quizzed by "those idle gallants who haunt
taverns, gay and handsome," or hobnobbed with "travellers and tinkers,
sweaters and swinkers," the alehouse was assuredly no place for
nuns[1232].
Enough has been said to show why the authorities of the Church tried so
hard to force enclosure upon nuns, and why they strove at least to limit
excursions to "necessary occasions" and "convent business," to prevent
unlicensed wandering and to provide that no nun went out without a
companion. And enough has perhaps also been said to show how completely
they failed. The modern student of monasticism, bred in an age which
regards freedom as its _summum bonum_ and holds discipline at a discount,
cannot but feel sympathy with the nuns. The enclosure movement did go
beyond the restriction imposed upon them by their rule; they were
themselves so often unsuited to the life into which circumstances, rather
than a vocation, had forced them; and they would have been something less
than human if they had not answered--as John of Ayton made them
answer--"In truth the men who made these laws sat well at their ease while
they laid such burdens upon us." It was the bishops, not the popes and the
councils, who knew where the shoe pinched. Dalderby, rubbing his insulted
shoulders, Alnwick, laboriously framing his minute injunctions, Rigaud,
going away from Saint-Saëns "quasi impaciens et tristis," these had little
time to sit well at their ease; and the compromises which were forced upon
them are the best proof that the ideal of _Periculoso_ was too high.
Nevertheless sympathy with the nuns must not blind us to the fact that
hardly a moralist of the middle ages but inveighs against the wandering of
nuns in the world and adds his testimony to the fact (already clear from
the visitation _comperta_) that all the graver abuses which discredited
monasticism rose in the first instance from the too great ease with which
monks and nuns could leave their convents. "De la clôture," as St François
de Sales wrote long afterwards, "dépend le bon ordre de tout le reste." It
is significant that on the very eve of the Reformation in England a last
attempt was made to enforce a strict and literal enclosure. That ardent
reformer of nunneries, Bishop Fox, frankly pursued the policy in his
diocese of Winchester and was apparently accused of undue severity, for in
1528 he wrote to Wolsey in defence of his action:
Truth it is, my lord, that the religious women of my diocese be
restrained of their going out of their monasteries. And yet so much
liberty appeareth some time too much; and if I had the authority and
power that your grace hath, I would endeavour me to mure and enclose
their monasteries according to the observance of good religion. And in
all other matters, concerning their living or observance of their
religion, I assure your grace they be as liberally and favourably
dealt with as be any religious women within this realm[1233].
Wolsey himself was driven to the same conclusion as to the necessity of
enclosure, and tried to enforce it at Wilton, after the scandals which
came to light there before the election of Isabel Jordan as Abbess. His
chaplain, Dr Benet, who had been sent to reform the nunnery, wrote to him
on July 18th and described his difficulty in "causing to be observed" the
unpopular decree:
Please it your grace to be advertised, that immediately after my
return from your grace I repaired to the monastery of Wilton, where I
have continually made mine abode hitherto and with all diligence
endeavoured myself to the uttermost of my power to persuade and train
the nuns there to the accomplishment of your grace's pleasure for
enclosing of the same; whom I find so untoward and refusal (_sic_) as
I never saw persons, insomuch that in nowise any of them, neither by
gentle means nor by rigorous,--and I have put three or four of the
captains of them in ward,--will agree and consent to the same, but
only the new elect and her sisters that were with your grace; which
notwithstanding, I have closed up certain doors and ways and taken
such an order there that none access, course or recourse of any person
shall be made there.[1234]
About the same time the Abbess-Elect herself wrote to Wolsey, telling him
that:
since my coming home I have ordered me in all things to the best of my
power, according to your gracious advertisement by the advice of your
chancellors and have ofttime motioned my sisters to be reclused within
our monastery; wherein they do find many difficulties and show divers
considerations to the contrary;
she besought him to have patience and promised to "order my sisters in
such religious wise and our monastery according to the rule of religion,
without any such resort as hath been of late accustomed"[1235]. Evidently
nuns had not changed since the day when the sisters of Markyate threw the
Bull _Periculoso_ at Bishop Dalderby's retreating back.
But their struggles were in vain and a worse fate awaited them. The
Dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII was preceded by an order to
his commissioners, that they should enforce enclosure upon the nuns. The
injunction met with the usual resistance at the time and later apologists
of the monastic houses have blamed the King for undue and unreasonable
harshness. But if Henry VIII was too strict, so also was Ottobon, so
Peckham, so Boniface VIII, so almost every bishop and council of the past
three hundred years. In this at least, low as his motives may have been,
the man who was to claim the headship of the English Church was the lineal
descendant of the most masterful of medieval popes. The instructions given
to the commissioners were the last of a long series of injunctions, in
which it was attempted to reform the nunneries by shutting them off from
the world. It is plain that even in the thirteenth century some such
reform was necessary, and the history of the fourteenth, fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries only shows the necessity becoming more urgent.
Whatever may have been Henry VIII's motives, however greedy, however
licentious, however unspiritual, it would be impossible to contend that
his decree of enclosure was not in accordance with the best ecclesiastical
tradition and amply justified by the condition of the monastic houses.
CHAPTER X
THE WORLD IN THE CLOISTER
Ès maisons de nonnains aucun sont bien venut,
Et as gens festyer n'a nul règne tenut;
On y va volentiers et souvent et menut
Mais mieuls sont festyet jovène que li kenut.
GILLES LI MUISIS ([dagger] 1352).
In the last chapter the question of enclosure was considered only from one
point of view, that of keeping the nuns within the precincts of their
cloister. But there was another side to the problem. In order to preserve
them unspotted from the world it was necessary not only that the nuns
should keep within their cloisters, but that secular persons should keep
outside. It was useless to pass regulations forbidding nuns to leave their
houses, if visitors from the world had easy access to them and could move
freely about within the precincts. Ottobon, Peckham, Boniface VIII, Henry
VIII, and all who legislated on the subject from the earliest years to the
Council of Trent, combined a prohibition against the entrance of seculars,
with their prohibition against the exit of nuns[1236]. Some intercourse
with seculars was bound to occur, even in the best regulated nunnery. The
nuns were often served by layfolk and it was a recognised obligation that
they should show hospitality to guests. In both cases they were of
necessity brought in contact with worldly folk, and as usual they made the
most of their opportunity.
Even more disturbing to monastic discipline were the casual visits of
friends in the neighbourhood, coming to see and talk with the nuns for a
few hours. Visitation documents show that there was a steady intercourse
between the convent and the world. Letters and messages passed between the
nuns and their friends outside, and a great many of the private affairs of
the convent found their way to the ears of seculars. "From miln and from
market, from smithy and from nunnery, men bring tidings" ran the
proverb[1237], and complaints were common that the secrets of the chapter
were spread abroad in the country side. At the ill-conducted house of
Catesby in 1442 the Prioress (herself the blackest sheep in all the flock)
complained that
secular folk have often recourse to the nuns' chambers within the
cloister, and talkings and junketings take place there without the
knowledge of the Prioress; ... also the nuns do send out letters and
receive letters sent to them without the advice of the prioress. Also
... that the secrets of the house are disclosed in the neighbourhood
by such seculars when they come there. Also the nuns do send out the
serving-folk of the priory on their businesses and do also receive the
persons for whom they send and with whom they hold parleyings and
conversations, whereof the Prioress is ignorant[1238].
At Goring in 1530 the Prioress complained that one of the nuns persisted
in sending messages to her friends[1239], and at Romsey in 1509 Alice,
wife of William Coke, the cook of the nunnery, was enjoined "that she
shall not be a messenger or bearer of messages or troths or tokens between
any nun and any lay person on pain of excommunication and as much as in
her lies shall hinder communications of lay persons with nuns at the
kitchen window"[1240]. At St Helen's, Bishopsgate, it was even necessary
to order the nuns to refrain from kissing secular persons[1241].
Sometimes the visitation _detecta_ or _comperta_ or injunctions give
specific details as to the visitors who were most assiduous in haunting a
nunnery. It is amusing to follow the reference to scholars of Oxford in
the records of those houses which were in the neighbourhood of the
University. Godstow was the nearest and the students seem to have regarded
it as a happy hunting ground constituted specially for their recreation.
Peckham, in his set of Latin injunctions to the Abbey, wrote after giving
minute regulations as to the terms upon which nuns might converse with
visitors:
When the scholars of Oxford come to talk with you, we wish no nun to
join in such conversations, save with the licence of the Abbess and
unless they be notoriously of kin to her, in the third grade of
consanguinity at least; we order the nuns to refuse to converse with
all scholars so coming; nor shall you desire to be united in any
special tie of familiarity with them, for such affection often excites
unclean thoughts[1242].
The most detailed information, however, is to be found in the injunctions
sent by Bishop Gray to Godstow in 1432:
That no nun receive any secular person for any recreation in the nuns'
chambers under pain of excommunication. For the scholars of Oxford say
they can have all manner of recreation with the nuns, even as they
will desire.... Also that the recourse of scholars of Oxford to the
monastery be altogether checked and restrained.... Also that (neither)
the gatekeeper of the monastery, nor any other secular person convey
any gifts, rewards, letters or tokens from the nuns to any scholars of
Oxford or other secular person whomsoever, or bring back any such
scholars or persons to the same nuns, nay, not even skins containing
wine, without the view and knowledge of the abbess and with her
special licence asked and had, under pain of expulsion from his office
(and) from the said monastery for ever; and if any nun shall do the
contrary she shall undergo imprisonment for a year[1243].
In a commission addressed two years later to the Abbot of Oseney and to
Master Robert Thornton the Bishop spoke in very severe terms of the bad
behaviour of the nuns, and ordered the commissioners to proceed to Godstow
and to inquire whether a nun, who had been with child at the time of his
visitation, had been preferred to any office or had gone outside the
precincts and whether his other injunctions had been obeyed, especially
"if any scholars of the university of Oxford, graduate or non-graduate,
have had access to the same monastery or lodging in the same, contrary to
the form of our injunctions aforesaid"[1244]. But the situation was
unchanged when, thirteen years later, Alnwick came to Godstow. Elizabeth
Felmersham, the Abbess, deposed
that secular folk have often access to the nuns during the divine
office in quire, and to the frater at meal-time.... She cannot
restrain students from Oxford from having common access in her despite
to the monastery and the claustral precincts. The nuns hold converse
with the secular folk that come to visit the monastery, without asking
any leave of the abbess.
Other nuns deposed that sister Alice Longspey[1245] often conversed in the
convent church with Hugh Sadler, a priest from Oxford, who obtained access
to her on the plea that she was his kinswoman and that Dame Katherine
Okeley:
holds too much talk with the strangers that come to the monastery in
the church, in the chapter-house, at the church-door, the hall door
and divers other places; nor is she obedient to the orders and
commands of the abbess according to the rule[1246].
Other houses also found the clerks of Oxford too attractive. At Alnwick's
visitation of Littlemore Dame Agnes Marcham (a lady with a tongue) spoke
of "the ill-fame which is current thereabouts concerning the place," and
said
that a certain monk of Rievaulx, who is a student at Oxford and is of
the Cistercian order, has common and often access to the priory,
eating and drinking with the prioress and spending the night therein,
sometimes for three, sometimes for four days on end. Also she says
that master John Herars, master in arts, a scholar of Oxford and a
kinsman of the prioress, has access in like manner to the priory,
breakfasting, supping and spending the night in the same[1247].
The state of the house in the sixteenth century was infinitely worse and
it well merited its early suppression in 1526[1248]. At another house,
Studley, visited by Alnwick in 1445, the significant request was made:
that the vicar of Bicester, who is reckoned to be of ripe judgment and
age and sufficient knowledge, may be appointed as confessor to the
convent and in no wise an Oxford scholar, since it is not healthy that
scholars of Oxford should have a reason for coming to the
priory[1249].
Nor does the proximity of Cambridge appear to have had a less disturbing
effect upon morals and discipline. In 1373 it was found that the Prioress
of St Radegund's
did not correct Dame Elizabeth de Cambridge for withdrawing herself
from divine service and allowing friars of different orders, as well
as scholars, to visit her at inopportune times and to converse with
her, to the scandal of religion[1250],
and in 1496, when John Alcock, Bishop of Ely, converted the nunnery into
the college afterwards known as Jesus College, its dilapidation was
ascribed to "the negligence and improvidence and dissolute disposition and
incontinence of the religious women of the same house, by reason of the
vicinity of Cambridge University"[1251]. Plainly the scholars who hung
about the portals and tethered their horses in the paddocks of Godstow,
and who gossiped with the sisters of Studley and Littlemore and St
Radegund's, were not of the type of that clerk of Oxenford, who loved his
twenty red and black-clad books better than "robes riche or fithele or gay
sautrye"; and it is to be feared that their speech was not "souninge in
moral vertu." Rather they belonged to the tribe of Absolon, who could trip
and dance in twenty manners:
After the scole of Oxenforde tho,
And with his legges casten to and fro,
And pleyen songes on a small rubible,
or of hende Nicholas ("of derne love he coude and of solas"), or of those
two clerks of Cambridge, Aleyn and John, who harboured with the Miller of
Trumpington, or of "joly Jankin," the Wife of Bath's first husband. The
nuns certainly got no good from these young men of light heart and
slippery tongue.
Sometimes, as it appears from the cases of Alice Longspey, Katherine
Okeley and Elizabeth de Cambridge, certain nuns rendered themselves
particularly conspicuous for intercourse with seculars, or certain men
were assiduous nunnery-haunters and forbidden by name to frequent the
precincts. At a visitation of St Sepulchre's, Canterbury, in 1367-8, it
was found that
Dame Johanna Chivynton, prioress there, does not govern well the rule
nor the religion of the house, because she permits the rector of Dover
Castle and other suspect persons to have too much access to sisters
Margery Chyld and Juliana Aldelesse, who have a room contrary to the
injunction made there on another occasion by the Lord [Archbishop],
and these suspect persons often spend the night there[1252].
At Nuncoton in 1531 Longland writes:
We chardge you, lady prioresse, undere payne of excommunicacon that ye
from hensforth nomore suffre Sir John Warde, Sir Richard Caluerley,
Sir William Johnson, nor parson ..., ne the parson of Skotton, ne Sir
William Sele to come within the precincts of your monasterye, that if
they by chance do unwares to you that ye streight banish them and
suffre not theme ther to tary, nor noone of your sustres to commune
with them or eny of them. And that ye voyde out of your house Robert
lawrence and he nomore resorte to the same[1253].
Incidents such as these can be multiplied from the records of episcopal
visitations[1254] and general complaints are even more common. It appears
that secular persons set at naught the rule which confined them to the
prioress' hall, the parlour and the guest-house, and penetrated at will
into the private parts of the monastery, haunting now the cloister, now
the infirmary, now the frater, now the choir[1255]. Bishop Gynewell's
injunction to Heynings in 1351 called attention to a state of affairs
which was common enough in the century which opened with _Periculoso_:
"Because," he wrote, "we have heard that great disturbance of your
religion hath been made by seculars, who enter into your cloister and
choir, we charge you that henceforth ye suffer no secular man, save
your patron or other great lord[1256] to enter your cloister, nor to
hold therein parley or other dalliance with any sister of your house,
whereby your silence or religion may suffer blame"[1257].
Moreover it is clear that the nuns sometimes escaped to the guest-house to
enjoy a gossip with their visitors; at Alnwick's visitation of Heynings in
1440 a lay sister deposed "that the nuns do hold drinkings of evenings in
the guest-chamber even after compline, especially when their friends come
to visit them" and the Bishop enjoined
for as muche as we founde that there are vsede late drynkynges and
talkyng by nunnes as wele wythe yn as wythe owte the cloystere wythe
seculeres, where thurgh some late ryse to matynes and some come not at
thayme, expressly agayns the rule of your ordere, we charge yow and
yche oon singulere that fro this day forthe ye neyther vse spekyng ne
drynkyng in no place aftere complyne, but that after collacyone and
complyne sayde ych oon of yow go wythe owte lengere tarying to the
dormytorye to your reste[1258].
In the course of time a series of regulations was devised to govern the
entrance of seculars into the nunneries, hardly less detailed than those
which governed the visits of nuns to the world. An attempt was made to
prevent certain classes of persons from being allowed to sleep in a house;
also to keep all visitors out of certain places and during certain hours;
and elaborate rules were made fixing the conditions under which nuns might
hold conversations or exchange letters with seculars. The rule which
forbade nuns to harbour in houses of religious men was often supplemented
by a regulation forbidding friars, or other men belonging to religious
orders, from being received as guests by nuns. At Godstow in 1284 Peckham
forbade the reception of religious men for the night[1259] and in 1358
Bishop Gynewell enjoined the same convent "for certain reasons, that no
friars of any order whatever be harboured by night within the doors of
your house, nor by day save it be for great necessity and reasonable
cause, and not habitually"[1260]. William of Wykeham directed a special
mandate on the subject to Wherwell in 1368:
"Lately," he says, "it has come to our ears by popular report of
trusty men, that contrary to the honesty of religion you admit various
religious men, especially of the mendicant orders, lightly and
promiscuously to pass the night in your habitations, from which grows
much matter for laxity and scandal, since the cohabitation of
religious clerks and nuns is altogether forbidden by the constitutions
of the holy fathers."
He proceeds to forbid the reception of friars or other religious men to
lodge in the abbey, though food might be given them in alms[1261]. As in
the rules regulating visits paid by nuns, attempts were sometimes made
though not insisted upon with any severity, to restrict the visitors who
might spend the night to near relatives. At Godstow, for instance, Bishop
Gray ordered in 1432 that strangers "in no wise pass the night there,
unless they be father and mother, brother and sister of that nun for whose
sake they have so come to the monastery"[1262]; and Archbishop Lee wrote
to Sinningthwaite in 1534 forbidding any visitor to have recourse to the
Prioress or nuns "onles it be their fathers or moders or other ther nere
kynesfolkes, in whom no suspicion of any yll can be thought"[1263].
The chief efforts of the authorities were, however, directed not towards
keeping certain persons altogether out of the nunneries, but towards
keeping all visitors out of certain parts of the house and during certain
hours. The general rule was that no secular was to enter after sunset or
curfew, and elaborate arrangements were made for locking and unlocking the
doors at certain times. At Esholt and Sinningthwaite Archbishop Lee
enjoined
that the prioress provide sufficient lockes and keys to be sett upon
the cloyster doores, incontinent after recept of thies injunctions and
that the same doores surely be lockid every nyght incontinent as
complane is doone, and not to be unlocked in wynter season to vij of
the clock in the mornyng and in sommer vnto vj of the clock in the
mornyng; and that the prioresse kepe the keyes of the same doores, or
committ the custodie of them to such a discrete and religious suster,
that no fault nor negligence may be imputed to the prioresse, as she
will avoyde punyshment due for the same[1264].
[Illustration: PLATE VIII
PLAN OF LACOCK ABBEY]
At the same time, for better security, he ordered the nuns to be locked
into their dorter every night until service time. Sometimes the nuns
objected to being shut in the house so early in the summer time, when the
days were long and the trees in the convent garden green. The nuns of
Sheppey were plaintive on the subject in 1511. Amicia Tanfeld said
that the gate of the cloister is closed immediately after the bell
rings for vespers and remains shut until it rings for prime[1265];
this, in the opinion of the convent is too strict, especially in
summer time, because it might remain open until after supper, as she
says.
Elizabeth Chatok, _cantarista_[1266], said the same "clauditur nimis
tempestive tempore presertim estiuali"; perhaps she was thinking of better
singers than herself, who piped their vespers outside that closed door,
And songen, everich in his wyse
The most solempne servyse
By note, that ever man, I trowe,
Had herd; for som of hem song lowe
Some hye and al of oon accord[1267].
Her sisters agreed with her, but the stern archbishop took no notice of
their plaints[1268].
Strict regulations were also made for keeping secular visitors out of
certain parts of the convent. The dorter, frater, fermery, chapter and
cloister and the internal offices of the house were supposed to be entered
only by the nuns[1269]:
"And in order that the quiet of your cloister be in future observed
better than has been customary," wrote Peckham to the nuns of Wherwell
in 1284, "we order ... that no secular or religious person be
permitted to enter the cloister, nor the interior offices, save for a
manifest and inevitable reason, that is bodily infirmity, for which a
confessor or doctor or near relative may be allowed to enter, but
always in safe and praiseworthy company. So that no one shall hear the
confession of a healthy nun or woman in cloister or chapter or in the
interior offices.... And we consider healthy anyone who is able,
conveniently and without danger to life, to enter the church or the
parlour"[1270].
At Romsey he further ordered four nuns to be made scrutineers: "Who shall
expel from the cloister as suspect all persons of whatsoever condition
wishing to stare at the nuns or to chatter with them"[1271]. But the rule
was constantly broken and it has been shown that seculars penetrated to
all parts of the convents. Injunctions order them to be excluded now from
dorter, now from frater, now from fermery, according as visitation showed
them to be in the habit of entering one part of a house or another.
Sometimes special orders were given for the making and locking of doors
separating the cloister from the outside court, or the nuns' choir from
the rest of the church, a necessary precaution when the nave of a
conventual church was used as a parish church. Bishop Longland wrote to
Elstow (1531):
Forasmoche as the more secrete religious persones be kepte from the
sight and visage of the world and straungers, the more close and
entyer ther mynd and devoc[i]on shalbe unto god, we ordeyn and Inioyne
to the lady abbesse that before the natiuyte of our lorde next
ensewing she cause a doore with two leves to be made and sett upp att
the lower ende of the quere and that doore to be fyve foote in hight
att the leaste and contynually to stand shitt the tymes of dyvyne
seruice excepte it be att comming in or out of eny off the ladyes and
mynystres off the said churche. And under like payne as is afore we
chardge the said ladye abbess that she cause the doore betwene the
convent and the parishe churche contynually to be shitt, unless itt be
oonly the tymes of dyvyne service, and likewise she cause the cloistre
door towardes the outward court to be continually shitt, unles itt be
att suche tymes as eny necessaryes for the convent shall be brought in
or borne out att the same, and thatt she suffre noo other back doures
to be opened butt upon necessarye, grett and urgent causes by her
approved[1272].
Special attempts were made to prevent secret communications between nuns
and secular persons in corners and passages or through windows, and to
block up unnecessary doors by which persons might enter:
"We ordeyn and injoyne yow, prioresse and convent," writes Dean
Kentwode to St Helens, "That ye, ne noone of yowre sustres use nor
haunte any place withinne the priory, thoroghe the wiche evel
suspeccyone or sclaundere mythe aryse; weche places for certeyne
causes that move us, we wryte here inne owre present iniunccyone, but
wole notyfie to yow, prioresse: nor have no lokyng nor spectacles
owtewarde, thorght the wiche ye mythe fall into worldly
dilectacyone[1273]."
Archbishop Lee showed no such desire to spare the feelings of the nuns of
Esholt by not openly specifying the places where they were wont to whisper
with their friends:
Item where there is on the backside of certen chambres, on the south
side of the church where the sustres worke, an open way goyng to the
watirside, and to the brige goyng over the water, without wall or
doore, so that many ylles may be committed by reason hereof; wherfore
in avoyding such inconveniences that myght folow yf it shuld so
remayne, by thies presentes we inioyne the prioresse, that she,
incontinent withoutzt delay aftre the recept herof cause a strong and
heigh wall to be made in the said voyde place[1274].
Above all it was reiterated at visitation after visitation that no nun was
to receive a man in her private chamber or to hold conversations with any
stranger there and that certain conditions were to be observed in all
conversations between the nuns and their visitors. Archbishop Rotherham's
injunction to Nunappleton in 1489 is typical:
Item yat none of your sustirs bring in, receyve or take any laie man,
religiose or secular into yer chambre or any secret place, daye or
knyght, not w{t} yaim in such private places to commyne ete or drynke
w{t}out lycence of you, Prioresse[1275].
At Sopwell in 1338 an interesting addition was made to the ordinary rule:
And because it is seemly that ladies of religion in the presence of
seculars should bear themselves according to rule in dress and in
deportment, we will and ordain that none of you henceforward come to
the parlour to talk with seculars if she have not her cowl and her
headdress of kerchiefs and veil, according to the rule (_son cool et
son covert de cuverchiefs et de veil ordine_), as beseemeth your
religion. And none save honest persons shall be suffered to enter, and
if such person wish to remain for a meal, let him eat in the parlour,
by permission of the confessor, and on no account in the chambers
without our express permission, or that of our own prior, if we be
absent. Concerning the workmen, whom you need for your necessities, to
wit tailors and furriers, we will for that such workmen a place be
ordained near the cloister, where such workmen may do their works, and
that they be by no means called into the chambers, nor into any
private place. And let the workmen be such that no suspicion of evil
may be roused by them[1276].
At Barking Peckham ordered in 1279 that no secular man or woman was to
enter the nuns' chambers, unless a nun were so ill that it was necessary
to speak to her there, in which case a confessor, doctor, father or
brother might have access to her[1277].
The rules laid down for the holding of conversations between nuns and
visitors required that the permission of the head of the house should
first be obtained, and that the meeting should take place in the
_locutorium_ or parlour, or occasionally in the abbess's hall[1278], and
in the hearing of "at least one other nun of sound character," or more
frequently two other nuns. Sometimes it was added that conversations were
not to be too lengthy:
"Let it not be permitted to any nun," wrote Peckham to Romsey, "to
hold converse with any man save either in the parlour or in the side
of the church next the cloister. And in order that all suspicion may
henceforth be removed, we order that any nun about to speak with any
man, save in the matter of confession, have with her two companions to
hear her conversation, in order that they may either be edified by
useful words, if these are forthcoming, or hinder evil words, lest
evil communications corrupt good manners"[1279].
Alnwick's injunction to Godstow in 1445 was couched in very similar terms:
That ye suffre none of your susters to speke wythe any seculere
persone ne religiouse, but all onely in your halle in your presence
and audience, or, by your specyalle licence asked and had, in the
presence of two auncyent nunnes approuved in the religyon so that ye
or the said two nunnes here and see what that say and do, and so that
thaire spekyng to gedre be not longe but in shorte and few
wordes[1280].
It was also attempted to exercise control over communication between the
nuns and the world by means of messages and letters. Alnwick sent
injunctions on this point to Langley, Markyate and St Michael's, Stamford
("ne that ye suffre none of youre sustres to receyve ne sende owte noyre
gyfte ne lettre, but ye see the gyftes and wyte what is contyened in the
lettres")[1281], and in 1432 Dean Kentwode wrote to St Helen's,
Bishopsgate:
Also we ordeyne and injoyne yow, that noone of yow speke, ne comone
with no seculere persone; ne sende ne receyve letteres myssyves or
gyftes of any seculere persone, withowte lycence of the prioresse: ...
and such letters or gyftes sent or receyved, may turne into honeste
and wurchepe and none into velanye or disclaundered of yowre honeste
and religione[1282].
It is common to find among episcopal injunctions to nunneries one to the
effect that no secular woman is to sleep in the dorter with the nuns. The
fact that this injunction had constantly to be repeated shows that it was
as constantly broken. Servants, boarders and school children seem in many
houses to have shared the dorter with the nuns, an arrangement which must
have been exceedingly disturbing to all parties. Alnwick found the
practice at eleven out of the twenty houses which he visited in 1440-5.
At Catesby, Langley, Stixwould and St Michael's, Stamford, little girls,
between the ages of five and ten, used to sleep with the nuns; there were
six or seven of them at that ill-conducted house, Catesby, in the charge
of Agnes Allesley, who was so disobedient to the bishop[1283]. At
Gracedieu the cellaress had a boy of seven with her in the dorter[1284].
At Legbourne a nun complained that "the Prioress suffers secular women,
both boarders and servants, to lie by night in the dorter among the nuns,
against the rule"[1285] and at Heynings (which was much haunted by
visitors) a lay sister deposed that "the infirmary is occupied by secular
folk, to the great disturbance of the sisters; ... also that secular
serving women do lie among the sisters in the dorter, and especially one
who did buy a corrody there"[1286]. At the other houses (Godstow, Nuncoton
and Stainfield) it was simply mentioned that secular persons lay in the
dorter, without details as to whether they were servants, boarders or
children[1287]. In all cases Alnwick strictly forbade the practice, and a
prohibition to this effect is common in episcopal injunctions[1288].
These injunctions against the use of the dorter by seculars illustrate
another aspect of the movement for enclosure. The majority of the other
injunctions which have been quoted were attempts to regulate the
intercourse of nuns with casual visitors, strangers who came for a day, or
perhaps for two or three days. But a far more dangerous menace to the
quiet of the cloister lay in the constant presence of secular boarders and
corrodians, who made their home in a nunnery. Ladies who wished to end
their days in peace sometimes went there as boarders or as corrodians; it
is, no doubt, decent sober women such as these, who are sometimes
exempted by name in episcopal injunctions ordering the exclusion of
boarders from a house. But more often women would seek the temporary
hospitality of a nunnery when, for some reason, they wished to leave their
homes. A monastic house was, on the whole, a safe refuge, and many a
knight going to the wars went with a lighter heart when he knew that his
wife or daughter was sleeping within convent walls. In 1314 John of
Drokensford, Bishop of Bath and Wells, licensed the Prioress of Cannington
to lodge and board the wife and two daughters of John Fychet during his
absence abroad[1289], and in 1372 William of Wykeham sent letters to the
Abbesses of Romsey and Wherwell on behalf of another wife left alone in
England:
"The noble Earl of Pembroke," wrote the Bishop, "has begged us by his
letters to direct our special letters to you on behalf of the noble
and gently-born lady, Lady Elizabeth de Berkele, a kinswoman of the
aforesaid Earl, that she may lodge within your house ... while Sir
Maurice Wytht [_sic_ ? knyght] the same lady's husband, remains in the
company of the aforesaid Earl in parts beyond the sea";
and so, in spite of a recent prohibition to these houses to receive
boarders, they are to take in Lady Berkeley[1290]. Sometimes the wording
of these licences shows that the ladies required only a temporary shelter
and had by no means retired from the world. Bishop Ralph of Shrewsbury
gave leave to Joan Wason and Maude Poer to stay at Cannington from
December 1336 till the following Easter, and Isabel Fychet received a
similar licence; in 1354 Isolda wife of John Bycombe was licensed to stay
there from March till August[1291]. Sometimes these ladies brought their
servants or gentlewomen with them; Joan Wason and Maude Poer had
permission to take two "dammoiselles" and Isabel Fychet one maid to
Cannington; when Lady Margery Treverbyn, a widow, went with every
profession of piety to Canonsleigh in 1328, she was accompanied by "a
certain priest, a squire (_domicellus_) and a damsel (_domicella_)"[1292];
the widow of Sir John Pateshull was licensed to dwell in Elstow with her
daughter and maids in 1350[1293]; the _familia_ of Elizabeth Berkeley is
mentioned in William of Wykeham's licence and in 1291 John le Romeyn,
Archbishop of York, gave the convent of Nunappleton permission to receive
Lady Margaret Percy as a boarder for a year, "provided that her household
during that time shall not be other than respectable (_honesta_)"[1294].
In the list (compiled by Mr Rye) of boarders in Carrow Priory during the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, several ladies are mentioned as being
accompanied by servants; Lady Maloysel and servant, Isabell Argentoin and
servant, the Lady Margaret Kerdeston and woman, Margaret Wryght and
servant, Lady Margaret Wetherby, her servant Matilda and her chaplain
William. The same list shows that not only women but men were received as
boarders, sometimes alone and sometimes accompanied by their wives, and
though some of the names given are doubtless those of little boys, who
were receiving their education in the nunnery, others can be clearly
identified as adults[1295]. The Paston Letters afford a famous case in
which both a girl and her betrothed, who had quarrelled with her parents,
were lodged for a time in a nunnery. Margery Paston had fallen in love
with her brother's bailiff, Richard Calle, to the fury of her family, who
swore that "he should never have their good will for to make her to sell
candle and mustard in Framlingham." The two lovers plighted their troth, a
ceremony as binding in the eyes of the Church as marriage itself, and
Richard Calle appealed to the Bishop of Norwich to set the matter beyond
doubt by an inquiry. The spirited Margery "rehearsed what she had said,
and said, if those words made it not sure, she said boldly that she would
make that surer or than she went thence, for she said she thought in her
conscience she was bound, whatsoever the words were," whereupon her
mother refused to receive her back into her house, and the Bishop himself
was obliged to find a lodging for her. This he did at first with some
friends and afterwards at a nunnery, where Richard Calle also was lodged,
for John Paston mentions him shortly afterwards in a letter to his
brother, "As to his abiding it is in Blakborow nunnery a little fro Lynn
and our unhappy sister's also"[1296].
It is plain from visitation records that the boarders who flocked to the
nunneries were exceedingly disturbing to conventual life and sometimes
even brought disrepute upon their hostesses by behaviour more suited to
the world than to the cloister. Alnwick's register contains some amusing
and instructive evidence on this point. At Langley, a very worldly and
aristocratic person, Lady Audley, was occupying a house or set of rooms
(_domum_) within the Priory, paying 40_s._ yearly and keeping the house in
repair; but she had no intention of giving up the ways of the world; pet
dogs were her hobby, and the helpless Prioress complained to Alnwick (a
Bishop must sometimes have had much ado to keep a straight face at these
revelations):
Lady Audley, who boards in the house, has a great abundance of dogs,
insomuch that whenever she comes to church there follow her twelve
dogs, who make a great uproar in church, hindering them in their
psalmody and the nuns hereby are made terrified![1297]
"Let a warning be directed to Lady Audley to remove her dogs from the
church and the choir," says a note in the Register; and Lady Audley,
followed by her twelve dogs, recedes for ever from our view, unless
reincarnated four centuries later in the person of Hawker of Morwenstow. A
boarder at Legbourne had a different taste in pets. Dame Joan Pavy
informed the Bishop: "That Margaret Ingoldesby, a secular woman, lies of a
night in the dorter among the nuns, bringing with her birds, by whose
jargoning silence is broken and the rest of the nuns is disturbed"[1298].
Exasperated Dame Joan, trying to steal some sleep before groping her way
down to matins! She had never heard of Vert-Vert, nor even of Philip
Sparrow and she would not have been of the young and pretty novices, whose
toilet the immortal parrot superintended with a connoisseur's eye. The
Bishop cut the Gordian knot for her by ordering all seculars to be turned
out of the dorter. At Stixwould there were two widows, Elizabeth Dymmok
and Margaret Tylney, with their maidservants, staying with the Prioress,
and two other adult women staying with the cellaress; and
there is in the same place a certain woman suspect [she was probably a
servant] who dwells within the cloister precincts, Joan Bartone by
name, to whom one William Traherne had had suspicious access, bringing
her therafter before the ecclesiastical judge in a matrimonial suit,
and she is very troublesome to the nuns[1299].
At Gracedieu it was found that the Prioress divulged the secrets of the
house to her secular boarders[1300]. At other houses also it was
complained that the boarders not only disturbed convent life, but
attracted many visitors. At Nuncoton the Subprioress "prays that the
lodgers be removed from the house, so that they mingle not among the nuns,
for if there were none the Prioress might be able to come constantly to
frater; and because there is great recourse of strangers to the lodgers,
to the sore burthen of the house"; another nun also deposed "that there is
great recourse of guests on account of the lodgers" and a third asked that
boarders of marriageable age should be altogether removed from the house,
frater and dorter, "by reason of the divers disadvantages which arise to
the house out of their stay"[1301]. At Godstow in 1432 Bishop Gray
enjoined:
that Felmersham's wife with her whole household, and other women of
mature age be utterly removed from the monastery within one year next
to come, seeing that they are a cause of disturbance to the nuns and
an occasion of bad example by reason of their attire and those who
come to visit them[1302].
It is indeed easy to understand why bishops objected so much to the
reception of these worldly women as boarders. If instead of Felmersham's
wife we read "the wife of Bath" all is explained. That lady was not a
person whom a Prioress would lightly refuse; the list of her pilgrimages
alone would give her the _entrée_ into any nunnery. Smiling her
gat-toothed smile and riding easily upon her ambler, she would enter the
gates and alight in the court, and what a month of excitement would pass
before she rode away again. It is hard not to suspect that it was she who
introduced "caps of estate" (were they "as broad as is a buckler or a
targe"?) to the Prioress of Ankerwyke and crested shoes to the nuns of
Elstow; and it may have been she (alas) who taught some of them to step
"the olde daunce"[1303]. Bad enough for their peace of mind to meet her at
a pilgrimage, but much worse to have her settled in their midst, gossiping
as endlessly as she gossiped in her prologue, and amplifying her
reminiscences for a less sophisticated audience. This was one reason why
the bishops made a special injunction against the reception of married
women. The presence of men was open to even more serious objections. At
Hampole in 1411 the Archbishop of York made the significant injunction
that the Prioress was not to allow any _corrodiarii_ or others to retain
suspected women with them in the house[1304]. At St Michael's, Stamford,
in 1442 Alnwick discovered
that Richard Gray lately boarding in the priory together with his
legitimate wife, _procreavit prolem de domina Elizabetha Wylugby
moniali ibidem_, and boarded there until last Easter against the
injunction of the lord (bishop)[1305].
So also at Easebourne in 1478 it was deposed that "a certain Sir John
Senoke[1306] much frequented the priory or house, so that during some
weeks he passed the night and lay within the priory or monastery every
night, and was the cause ... of the ruin" of two nuns who had gone into
apostasy at the instigation of various men[1307].
The reception of secular women as boarders without the consent of the
diocesan was forbidden as early as 1222 by the Council of Oxford[1308] and
the bishops henceforth pursued a steady policy of ejection:
"Since," wrote Bishop Flemyng to Elstow, "from the manifest
conjectures and assurances of our eyes we have learned that by reason
of the stay of lodgers, especially of married persons, in the said
monastery, the purity of religion (and) pleasantness of honest
conversation and character, (which) in their fragrance in our judgment
far surpass temporal goods, and the destruction of which far exceeds
the waste of temporal wealth, have suffered grave shipwreck, and may
suffer, as is likely, more heavily in future, we ordain, enjoin and
charge you who are now abbess and the other several persons who shall
be abbesses in the said monastery, under pain of deprivation, beside
the other penalties written beneath, which likewise, if you do
contrary to that which we command, it is our will that you incur
thereupon, that henceforward you admit or allow to be admitted or
received to lodge or stay within the limits of the cloister, no
persons male or female, how honest soever they be, who are beyond the
twelfth year of their age, nor any other persons soever, and married
persons in special, without the site of the same monastery, unless you
have procured express and special licence in the cases premised from
ourselves or from our successors, who for the time being shall be
bishops of Lincoln"[1309].
Always the reason given is that these boarders are a disturbance to
conventual discipline:
"Item because religion has been much disturbed among you by reason of
secular women lodging in your house," wrote Bishop Gynewell to
Heynings in 1351, "we forbid on pain of excommunication that after the
feast of St Michael next to come any secular woman be allowed to
remain in your Priory, save your servants who be necessary for your
service"[1310].
"Also for as myche as we fynde detecte," Alnwick wrote nearly a
century later to the same house, "that for the multitude of
sujournauntes wythe [yow] as wele wedded as other ofte tymes the
qwyere and the rest of yowe in your obseruances is troubled, we charge
[yow] pryoresse vnder payne of the sentence of cursyng that fro this
day forthe ye receyve no sodeiyourauntes that pas[se a man] x yere, a
woman xiii yere of age, wytheowten specyalle leve of hus or our
successours bushops of Lincolne asked [and had]"[1311].
But the attempt to clear the convents of secular boarders was entirely
unsuccessful. The bishops had two powerful forces against them, the desire
of the impoverished nuns to make money and the desire of seculars for a
quiet and inexpensive hostel; and the nuns continued to take boarders, in
spite of a series of prohibitions. At Romsey, for instance, Peckham
forbids boarders, c. 1284; in 1311 Bishop Woodlock has to repeat the
prohibition "because of the continual sojourn of seculars we find the
tranquillity of the nuns to be much disturbed and scandals to arise in
your monastery"; in 1346 Edynton orders the removal of all secular persons
within a month; in 1363 he has to write again, complaining that he has
heard by public report that they have not obeyed his former letter and
ordering them to remove all _perhendinatrices_ within fifteen days[1312].
At Godstow injunctions to this effect are made in succession by Gynewell
(1358), Gray (1432-4) and Alnwick (1445)[1313]; at Elstow by Gynewell
(1359), Bokyngham (1387), Flemyng (1421-2) and Gray (c. 1432)[1314].
Moreover the bishops themselves were sometimes obliged to leave the nuns a
loophole of escape, by excepting certain women from the general
prohibition; thus Alnwick excepted the two widows Elizabeth Dymmok and
Margaret Tylney at Stixwould[1315]; Brantyngham excepted "the noble woman
Lady Elizabeth Courtenay, wife of the noble man Sir Hugh de Courtenay,
Knight" at Canonsleigh (1391)[1316]; and Archbishop Rotherham at
Nunappleton (1489) excepted children "or ellis old persones, by which
availe biliklyhood may growe to your place"[1317]. Often too they were
persuaded to grant licences to boarders, at the prayer of influential
persons who must not be offended[1318]. The largest loophole which they
were obliged by the pressure of circumstances to leave open was, however,
the permission to receive small children for education[1319].
It is clear from the evidence of visitation documents that nuns often took
boarders of their own free will, for the sake of the money which thus
accrued to their impecunious houses; certainly no episcopal injunction was
more consistently disobeyed. On the other hand great ladies often thrust
themselves upon a convent, which dared not say them nay, and it is not at
all unusual to find the nuns complaining of the disturbance caused to
their daily life by visitors. The matter was complicated by the fact that
the exercise of hospitality was one of the chief functions of monastic
houses in the middle ages, and was so far regarded as a right by their
neighbours that remonstrances were actually made if the quality of the
entertainment offered was not considered sufficiently good. At Campsey in
1532 one of the nuns declared that "well-born guests (_hospites
generosae_) coming to the priory complained of the excessive parsimony of
the Prioress"[1320]. Complaints by the nuns of the spiritual disturbance
caused by this influx of visitors, show that the right was vigorously
exercised. In 1364 the Pope granted permission to Margaret de Lancaster,
an Augustinian Canoness of the same nunnery of Campsey, to transfer
herself to the Order of St Clare, she having already caused herself to be
enclosed at Campsey in order to avoid the number of nobles coming to the
house[1321]; and in 1375 he commanded the Bishop of St Andrews to make
order concerning the Prioress and nuns of the Benedictine convent of North
Berwick, "who have petitioned for perpetual enclosure, they being much
molested by the neighbourhood and visits of nobles and other secular
persons"[1322]. Even enclosure was not always a protection against
visitors; for the Popes constantly granted indults to great persons,
allowing them to enter, with a retinue, the houses of monks and nuns
belonging to enclosed orders. A few instances may be taken at random. John
of Gaunt in 1371 received an indult to enter any monasteries of religious
men and women once a year, with thirty persons of good repute[1323]; Joan
Princess of Wales in 1372 was given permission to enter monasteries of
enclosed nuns with six honest and aged men and fourteen women and to eat
and drink, but not to pass the night therein[1324]; Thomas of Gloucester
and his wife, the notorious Eleanor de Cobham, had an indult to enter
monasteries of enclosed monks and nuns six times a year, with twenty
persons of either sex[1325]. Sometimes, it is true, the visitors were
forbidden to eat, drink or spend the night in the house[1326], but often
they received special permission to do so; thus in 1408 Philippa, Duchess
of York, was given an indult allowing her to take five or six matrons and
to stay in monasteries of enclosed nuns for three days and nights at a
time[1327] and in 1422 Joan Countess of Westmoreland received one to enter
any nunnery with eight honest women, and to stay there with the nuns,
eating, drinking and talking with them and spending the night[1328]. An
indult granted in 1398 to Margery and Grace de Tylney "noblewomen," to
enter "as often as they please with six honest matrons, the monastery of
enclosed nuns of the Order of St Clare, Denney"[1329], and a faculty
granted in 1371 to "John, Cardinal of Sancti Quatuor Coronati"[1330],
empowering him to give leave to a hundred women of high birth of France
and England, to enter nunneries once a year, accompanied each by four
matrons[1331], give some idea of the extent to which it was usual for
guests to visit even houses belonging to enclosed orders.
Nuns do not seem to have concerned themselves with political movements,
unlike the monks, who in great abbeys were sometimes keen politicians. But
it sometimes happened that the strife and intrigue and tragedy of the
outside world entered into quiet convents, through this custom of using
them as boarding houses. Not otherwise can we account for a curious case
in which the nuns of Sewardsley were involved in 1470, when a certain
Thomas Wake accused Jacquetta, Duchess of Bedford, of making an image of
lead to be used in witchcraft against the King and Queen, which image he
said had been shown to various persons and exhibited in the nunnery of
Sewardsley[1332]. Moreover echoes of great doings came to nuns when the
hapless wives and daughters of the King's enemies were placed in their
custody, a kindlier fate than imprisonment in a fortress or in charge of
some loyal noble's sharp-tongued wife. The course of Edward II's troubled
reign may be traced in the story of the women who were successively sent
as prisoners, or (worse still) as nuns, to various priories. The first to
suffer was the King's niece Margaret; she had been married by him to Piers
Gaveston and had seen her husband miserably slain at Thomas of Lancaster's
behest; she was married again to Sir Hugh Audley and ten years later, poor
pawn in the game of politics, she suffered for her second husband's share
in Lancaster's rebellion, when the crime of Blacklow Hill was expiated on
the hill of Pontefract.
"Margarete countesse de Cornewaille," says the chronicle of
Sempringham, "La femme Sire Hugh Daudelee, e la niece le roi, fu
ordinee a demorer en guarde a Sempringham entre les nonaignes, a quel
lieu ele vint le xvi jour de Mai (1322) e la demorra"[1333].
In the same year the Abbess of Barking was ordered "to cause the body of
Elizabeth de Burgo, late wife of Roger Damory, within her abbey, to be
kept safely and not to permit her to go outside the abbey gates in any
wise until further orders"[1334]. In 1324 another rebel, Roger Mortimer,
broke his prison in the Tower and escaped across the sea to France. But
three poor children, his daughters, could not escape, and on April 7th of
the same year the sheriff of Southampton received an order to cause
Margaret, daughter of Roger Mortimer of Wygmore, to be conducted to the
Priory of Shouldham, Joan, his second daughter, to the Priory of
Sempringham, and Isabella, his third daughter, to the Priory of Chicksand,
"to be delivered to the priors of those places (all were Gilbertine
houses) to stay amongst the nuns in the same priories." The Prior of
Shouldham had 15_d._ weekly for Margaret's expenses and a mark yearly for
her robe, and each of the other two little girls received 12_d._ weekly
for expenses and a mark for her robe[1335]. The she-wolf of France bided
her time, and when the game was hers she was no less swift to avenge her
wrongs; to Sempringham (where her lover's daughter had gone two years
before) now went the two daughters of the elder Hugh Despenser, to pray
for the souls of a father and brother done most dreadfully to death[1336].
The perennial wars with Scotland also found their echo in the nunneries.
In 1306 the Abbess of Barking was ordered "to deliver Elizabeth, sister of
William Olifard [? Olifaunt] Knight, who is in their custody by the King's
permission to Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, the King having granted her
to the said Henry"[1337]; she was doubtless a relative of that "Hugh
Olyfard, a Scot, the King's enemy and rebel," who together with one
"William Sauvage the King's approver" had broken his prison at Colchester
some three years before, and fled into sanctuary in the convent
church[1338]. Barking was a favourite prison, doubtless on account of its
situation, and in 1314 the sheriffs of London were ordered "to receive
Elizabeth, wife of Robert de Brus, from the Abbess of Berkyngg, with whom
she had been staying by the King's order and to take her under safe
custody to Rochester and there deliver her to Henry de Cobham, constable
of the castle"[1339].
The mention of the Scot Hugh Olyfard, who took sanctuary in the church of
Barking, recalls another reason for which the world might break into the
cloister. The terrified fugitive from justice would take sanctuary in a
convent church if it lay nearest to him, and the peace of chanting nuns
would be rudely broken, when that unkempt and desperate figure sprang up
the choir between them and flung itself upon their altar steps. The hand
of a master has drawn for us what the trembling novices saw, peeping from
their stalls:
... the breathless fellow at the altar foot,
Fresh from his murder, safe and sitting there
With the little children round him in a row
Of admiration, half for his beard and half
For that white anger of his victim's son
Shaking a fist at him with one fierce arm,
Signing himself with the other because of Christ
(Whose sad face on the cross sees only this
After the passion of a thousand years),
Till some poor girl, her apron o'er her head
Which the intense eyes looked through, came at eve
On tiptoe, said a word, dropped in a loaf,
Her pair of ear-rings and a bunch of flowers
The brute took growling, prayed and then was gone[1340].
But sometimes more than a momentary disturbance was occasioned to the
nunnery; in 1416, for instance, Edith Wilton, Prioress of Carrow, was
attached, together with one of her nuns, on the charge of harbouring in
sanctuary the murderers of William Koc of Trowse, at the appeal of his
widow Margaret. She was arrested, imprisoned and called to answer at
Westminster, but after the court had adjourned many times she was
acquitted[1341]. An abbess of Wherwell was involved in a lawsuit over a
case of sanctuary for somewhat different reasons; she claimed the right of
seizing chattels of fugitives in the hundred of Mestowe[1342], a right
which was disputed by the crown officials. One Henry Harold of Wherwell
had killed his wife Isabel and fled to the church of Wherwell and the
Abbess had promptly seized his chattels to the value of over £35, by the
hands of her reeve[1343].
These cases of violence will lead us to the consideration of breaches of
enclosure which were in no sense the fault of the unhappy nuns. Visits
from their peaceful friends they welcomed; the sojourn of great folk they
bore; but they would fain have passed their days undisturbed by war's
alarms and by the assault and battery of private feuds. But it was not to
be. Alarums and excursions sometimes shattered their peace and, especially
in the Northern counties, violent attacks at the hands of robbers, lawless
neighbours, or enemies of the realm were only too common. Disorder was
general and grew worse in the course of the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries. The nunnery of Markyate was once assaulted in the night by
fifty robbers and the nuns pillaged and robbed of everything
valuable[1344], and in 1408 the Bishop of Ely gave an indulgence for the
relief of the nuns of Rowney, "whose chalices, books, ornaments and other
goods have been stolen by evil men, so that they have not the wherewithal
to perform the divine office"[1345].
Neighbourly disagreements sometimes developed into petty warfare, as the
Paston Letters show, and an almost exact parallel to the dispute between
John Paston and Lord Molynes over the manor of Gresham is to be found in a
complaint made in 1383 by the Prioress of Brodholme, who asserted that a
gang of men (whom she named)
"had broken her close at Brodholme, felled her trees and underwood,
dug in her soil, carried off earth, trees, underwood and other goods,
depastured her corn and grass, assaulted her servants and besieged her
and her nuns in the Priory and threatened them with death"[1346].
Such instances might be multiplied[1347]. Sometimes the presence of
secular boarders led to unpleasant experiences for the nuns. The Lincoln
registers record two such cases, which incidentally furnish an additional
reason why the reception of boarders was frowned upon by the Church. In
1304 certain
"satellites of Satan whose names we know not" (Bishop Dalderby informs
his official), "lately came in great numbers to the monastery of the
nuns of Goring, where they boldly laid violent hands upon Henry,
chaplain of the parish church and brother John le Walleys, lay brother
of the same place (from whom they drew blood) and upon certain nuns of
the house who struggled to guard their monastery, and then they
entered and rode their horses up to the high altar of the church,
polluting that holy place shamefully with the footprints and dung of
their horses."
Their object was apparently to seize a certain Isabella de Kent, a married
woman then dwelling in the nunnery, and they pursued her to the belfry,
where she had taken refuge and dragged her away with them[1348]. An even
worse disturbance took place at Rothwell in 1421-2. A gang of ruffians
broke open the cloister and doors, seized one Joan (a boarder) and carried
her away to a lonely house, where their leader forcibly violated her, with
every circumstance of brutality. She escaped back to the priory, whereupon
the leader
entering the same priory a second time, like a tyrant and pirate with
a far greater multitude of like henchmen and people untamed and savage
in his company, with naked swords and other sorts of divers weapons of
offence, fell ... upon the same woman, who was then in the presence of
the prioress and the nuns in the hall of the said priory and ...
daringly laid wicked, sacrilegious and violent hands, notwithstanding
the worship both of their persons and of the place, upon the prioress
and nuns of the said place, honourable members of the church and
persons hallowed to God accordingly--who endeavoured gently to appease
their baseness and savagery, so far as their sex as women allowed--and
cudgelled them with cruel strokes, threw them down on the ground and,
trampling on them with their feet, mercilessly kicked them and
violently dragged off their garments of their habits over their heads,
and even as robbers, having caught their prey, carried off the said
woman, dragging her with them out of the priory[1349].
Even more significant is the licence granted to the Abbess and Convent of
Tarrant Keynes in 1343 to cut down two hundred acres of under-wood in
their demesne land, "on their petition setting forth that their house and
possessions in the county of Dorset had been burned and destroyed by an
invasion of the king's enemies in those parts"[1350]; or the permission
given to the Abbess of Shaftesbury in 1367 to crenellate her Abbey,
presumably for purposes of defence[1351]. The south coast was a constant
prey to pirates, and it was still within the memory of man that, at the
beginning of the French war
the Normayns Pycardes and Spanyerdes entred into the toune (of
Southampton) and robbed and pilled the toune, and slewe dyvers and
defowled maydens, and enforced wyves, and charged their vessels with
the pyllage and so entred agayne into their shyppes[1352].
The sanctity which attached to the person of a nun was apt to be forgotten
in the brutal warfare of the day and the Abbess might well fear for her
flock. The English nunneries did not, indeed, experience anything to
compare with the unimaginable sufferings endured by French convents during
the hundred years' war[1353]. But they were by no means immune from the
effects of civil war; Wilton, Wherwell and St Mary's, Winchester, were all
burned during the struggle between Stephen and Matilda[1354], and during
the Wars of the Roses the nuns of Delapré were unwilling witnesses of the
Battle of Northampton (1460), which was held "in the medowys beside the
Nonry"; after the fight was over the King, the Archbishop of Canterbury
and the Bishop of London rested at the nunnery and many of the slain were
buried in its churchyard[1355].
The most striking example of the effect of warfare upon monastic houses in
England is, however, provided by the history of the northern monasteries,
which were throughout their history (but especially during the first part
of the fourteenth century) in danger from the inroads of the Scots. So
great was the destruction wrought in 1318 that it was necessary to make a
new assessment of church property for purposes of taxation, in part of the
province of York[1356]. Nor was the trouble purely material, though the
poverty of the nunneries (in particular) was sometimes abject and the
harrying of their lands must have made prosperity at all times a vain
hope. The moral results of such disorder were even more serious. It was
almost impossible to maintain an ordinary communal life, when at any
moment it might be necessary to disperse the nuns and quarter them in
other houses out of the line of the marauders' march. Even in houses which
were never actually attacked, the prevalent unrest, the lawlessness which
is naturally engendered by border warfare, must have been disorganising
and demoralising. It is easy to understand why cases of immorality and
grave disorder are more prevalent in the convents of the north of England
than in those of any other district.
In 1296 the chronicler of Lanercost describes thus the first great raid of
the Scots:
In this raid they surpassed in cruelty all the fury of the heathen;
when they could not catch the strong and young people, who took
flight, they imbrued their arms, hitherto unfleshed, with the blood of
infirm people, old women, women in childbed and even children two or
three years old, proving themselves apt scholars in atrocity, insomuch
that they raised little span-long children pierced on pikes, to expire
thus and fly away to the heavens. They burnt consecrated churches;
both in the sanctuary and elsewhere they violated women dedicated to
God [i.e. nuns] as well as married women and girls, either murdering
them or robbing them, after gratifying their lust. Also they herded
together a crowd of little scholars in the schools of Hexham and
having blocked the doors set fire to that pile [so] fair [in the sight
of God]. Three monasteries of holy collegiates were destroyed by them,
Lanercost, of the Canons Regular; and Hexham of the same order and
[that] of the nuns of Lambley; of all of these the devastation can by
no means be attributed to the valour of warriors, but to the dastardly
conduct of thieves, who attacked a weaker community, where they would
not be likely to meet with any resistance[1357].
Some allowance must be made for the indignation of a canon of Lanercost,
whose own house had been burnt; but even so it is plain that the religious
houses must have endured terrible things at the hands of the Scots; and
the peril of the nuns was to honour as well as to life and home.
In several cases record of the actual dispersal of the nuns has been
preserved, though such dispersal lasted only for a short time. The priory
of Holystone, which lay right upon the border, was in a particularly
exposed position and in 1313, when Bruce was devastating the northern
counties, a letter from the Bishop of Durham bears vivid testimony to its
miserable plight:
"The house of the said nuns," he says, "situated in the March of
England and Scotland, by reason of the hostile incursions which daily
and continually increase in the March, is frequently despoiled of its
goods and the nuns themselves are often attacked by the marauders,
harmed and pursued and, put to flight and driven from their home, are
constrained miserably to experience bitter suffering. Wherefore we
make these things known to you, that you may compassionate their
poverty, which is increased by the memory of happier things, and that
your pity and benevolence may be shown them, lest (to the disgrace of
their estate) they be forced publicly to beg"[1358].
The expiration of the truce with Scotland in 1322 was followed by another
raid and by Edward II's unsuccessful campaign, in the course of which the
Scots overran Yorkshire and very nearly captured the King at Byland Abbey.
The canons of Bridlington (whither he fled) departed with all their
valuables to Lincolnshire, sending an envoy to purchase immunity from
Bruce at Melton. The poor nuns of Moxby and Rosedale did not escape so
easily. In November Archbishop Melton wrote to the Prioress of Nunmonkton,
ordering her to receive two nuns of the house of Moxby, which had been
"destroyed and devastated by the Scots"; the Prioress tried to excuse
herself, on the plea that it was unseemly for Austin nuns to be received
in a Benedictine convent and that her house barely sufficed to support
herself and her sisters; but the Archbishop sternly replied that he was
sending the nuns for a time only and that it behoved the convent of
Nunmonkton to receive them, in order to avoid their being dispersed in the
world. He added that he had placed a like burden upon other nunneries in
his diocese which had escaped the horrors of the invasion, and a note in
his Register shows that two nuns were sent to Nunappleton, two to
Nunkeeling and two to Hampole, while the Prioress went to Swine. Three
days later he boarded out the nuns of Rosedale, who had received similar
injuries at the hands of the Scots, sending one to each of the houses of
Nunburnholme, Sinningthwaite, Thicket, Wykeham and Hampole[1359]. The
dispersal of the nuns of Rosedale did not extend beyond six months and the
nuns of Moxby probably returned about the same time, for they were back in
their own house in 1325, when their Prioress resigned "super lapsu
carnis"[1360]. The moral record of both houses--and indeed of the majority
of Yorkshire nunneries--is bad at this period, and at least part of the
responsibility must be laid at the door of the Scottish invasions.
Yorkshire also suffered in the invasion which ended with the Battle of
Neville's Cross (1346), when the Scots
went forth brenning and destroying the county of Northumberland; and
their currours ran to York and brent as much as was without the walls
and returned again to their host within a days journey, of
Newcastle-upon-Tyne[1361].
One of these marauding bands ("the most outrageoust people in all the
country," Froissart calls them) came galloping into that lonely and
beautiful dale, where the nunnery of Ellerton stands beside the brown
torrent of Swale. They entered the house and carried away seven charters
and writings, so the nuns complained later[1362]; what else they did in
that quiet spot and whether the nunnery of Marrick on the hill above
escaped them history will not tell us. Such disasters were common enough
in the north. The records of Armathwaite in Cumberland show that an
unlucky proximity to the border might hamper a convent throughout the
whole of its career. In 1318 pasture for cattle in Inglewood Forest was
granted to "the poor nuns of Armathwaite, who had been totally ruined by
the Scots"; in 1331 they were excused a payment of ten pounds for the same
reason; and in 1474 they were obliged to apply for a ratification of their
possessions, because their house had been almost destroyed by the Scots,
who had not only spoiled them of their church ornaments, books, relics and
jewels, but also of all their charters and evidences[1363]. The obscure
little nunnery of Lambley on Tyne suffered in the same way, for in the
Receiver's Account made at its dissolution in 1536 there occurs, under the
heading _Decasus Redditus_, the entry of a tenement in Haltwhistle called
Redepath, "eo quod comburatum (_sic_) per Scottos"[1364].
But the most horrible story of outrage suffered by a nunnery in time of
war is that strange tale reported by the anonymous monk of St Albans, who
wrote a _Chronicon Angliae_ between the years 1376 and 1379[1365]. The
suffering of French nunneries at the hand of Free Companies and English
was not more terrible than the fate of these English nuns at the hand of
their own countrymen. In 1379 an army was mustered in England to replace
Duke John of Brittany upon his throne, which had been annexed by Charles V
of France. The main army, under John FitzAlan of Arundel, Marshal of
England (the same who had "two and fiftie new sutes of apparell of cloth
of gold or tissue") was delayed in England for some months, first by a
difficulty in raising the money to equip it, and then by contrary winds,
and it was December before Sir John was ready to sail. Complaints came
from all hands of the depredations committed along the coast by the
lawless soldiers, but their other misdeeds were insignificant compared
with the crime recorded in the St Albans Chronicle:
"When," says the chronicler, "Sir John Arundel and his companions were
come to the sea and no breeze favoured them, he ordered that a more
favourable wind should be awaited. Meanwhile he proceeded to a certain
monastery of virgin nuns, which stood not far away, and entering with
his men, he asked the mother of the monastery to permit his fellow
soldiers, engaged on the king's service, to lodge there. But the nun,
considering in her mind that danger might arise from such guests and
that his request was absolutely contrary to religion, pointed out to
him with due reverence and humility that many of his followers were
young and might easily be moved to commit an inexpiable crime, which
would not only bring ill fame upon the place but would also be a
danger and an evil to himself and his men, who should shun not only an
offence against chastity but all manner of crimes, if they acted as
befitted men about to go to the wars. But he began to insist with
great fervour, declaring that her suspicions were false and her
imaginings without truth, whereupon she prostrated herself on the
ground before him, and answered, 'My lord, I know that your men are
unbridled and fear not even God. It is expedient neither for us nor
for you that they should enter our cloister. Wherefore I beseech and
counsel you with clasped hands, that you give up this intention and
seek other hosts (who abound in the neighbourhood) for yourself and
for your men.' But he persisted and, contemptuously bidding her arise,
swore that he would in no wise give up his determination to have
hospitality for his people there. Wherefore he straightway ordered his
men to enter the building and to occupy the public and private rooms
until the time came for setting sail. And they, inspired (it is
thought) by a devil, burst into the cloister of the monastery, and as
is the wont of such an undisciplined mob, broke the one into this, the
other into that room, wherein the maidens, daughters of the
neighbouring gentry, were lodged to be taught; and many of these were
already prepared to take upon them the habit of holy religion and had
set their mind on the purpose of virginity. These, scorning reverence
for the place and casting aside the fear of God, the men oppressed and
violated by force. Nor did their lust rage against these alone, for
they feared not to pollute the widow's continence and the conjugal
tie. For many widows had gathered there to receive hospitality, as is
customary in such abbeys, either for lack of property or in order the
more perfectly and safely to preserve their chastity. They forced into
public adultery the married women who had gathered there for the same
reasons, and not content (it is said) with these misdeeds they
subjected the nuns themselves to their lust. Whereupon at first those
who suffered the injury, and soon all who dwelt in the neighbourhood
and who heard the news of so great a crime, heaped very horrible
curses upon their heads and called down upon them whatever misfortune
and whatever adversity God might be able to raise against them."
The chronicler goes on to relate how, undeterred and indeed encouraged by
Sir John Arundel, the men spread over the country-side and pillaged it,
carrying off a bride and stealing plate from the altar of a church, for
which sacrilege they were solemnly excommunicated. At last, however, Sir
John (in spite of the protests of the shipman who was to carry him)
decided to set sail. His men carried off with them the stolen bride and a
number of wives, widows and virgins from the abbey, forced the wretched
women on board and put to sea. But a storm came on and the ships were
driven out into the Atlantic. In the midst of the roaring tempest the
guilty soldiers seemed to see a spectre, more awful than death itself,
which stalked among them on the deck and foretold the loss of all who
sailed upon Sir John Arundel's ship. Even more pitiable was the condition
of the women:
"Hard it is to relate," says the chronicler, "what clamour, what
lamentation, what groans, what tears, arose among the women, who by
force or of their own will had boarded the ship, when buffeted by the
winds and waves they rose to the skies and descended to the depths;
for now they saw not the spectre of death, but death itself among
them, and could not doubt that they must die. What mental anguish,
what bodily fear, what remorse and anxiety assailed the conscience of
the men, who to satisfy their lust had dragged these women into the
peril of the seas, they were best able to describe who, although
sharers in so great a crime, were nevertheless permitted by God's
mercy to reach a port of safety. Wherefore the men were doubtful what
to do in the midst of the clamour, for on the one hand the wind and
storm, on the other the tears and cries of the women, urged them to
action. First, therefore, they tried to lighten the vessel, throwing
overboard first the worthless baggage, then precious things, that
perchance a hope of safety might arise. But when they perceived their
desperate plight to be rather increased than diminished, they cast the
blame of their misfortune upon the women, and in a spirit of madness
they seized hold of them (with the same hands wherewith before they
had sweetly caressed them, the same arms wherewith they had lustfully
embraced them) and threw them into the sea, to be devoured by fishes
and sea beasts, to the number (it is said) of sixty women. But not
even thus was the tempest stayed, but rather it grew greater so that
it deprived them of all hope of escaping the danger of death."
The story is soon ended. The ships were driven onto the coast of Ireland,
Sir John Arundel's vessel ran upon a rock, and he was drowned, with all
his suits of apparel, his goods and his horses; and twenty-five other
vessels of the ill-fated expedition, laden with soldiers and horses and
baggage, also went down in the storm. Public opinion did not fail to
attribute these disasters to the crimes of which Sir John and his troops
had been guilty; and so, with dramatic fitness, ends this tale of the
golden days of chivalry[1366]. Side by side with it must be set another
episode, drawn from an earlier age and from an epic instead of a
chronicle. It was part of the chivalrous convention to show a special
respect to nunneries, in their double character of religious and
aristocratic institutions. Yet the most striking account of a nunnery in
the twelfth century, when this convention was at its height, has for
subject a brutal sacrilege committed by a great baron upon a church of
nuns. This is the famous episode of the burning of Origny in the _chanson
de geste_ "Raoul de Cambrai." The writer of the poem makes Raoul's knights
recoil in shame from a crime in which their allegiance has made them
unwilling partners, and manifests the utmost horror and pity at this
action so opposed to all the ideals of chivalry; but it is only one of the
many proofs that the golden idol had feet of clay. Whether or not the
account was founded upon an actual incident is unknown; but it deserves
quotation because it illustrates all too clearly the fate of nuns when
their quiet houses stood in the way of warring knights. It represents one
side of chivalry as truly as "Queen Guenever in Almesbury, a nun in white
clothes and black" represents another. In the same century that produced
"Raoul de Cambrai" a chronicler, writing of the wars of Stephen and
Matilda in England, records, "Burnt also was the abbey of nuns of Wherwell
by a certain William of Ypres, an evil man, who respected neither God nor
man, because certain supporters of the Empress had taken refuge therein";
and another:
The famous town [of Winchester] was given to the flames, wherein a
convent of nuns with its offices, and more than twenty churches, with
the greater part of the town and the monastery of St Grimbald's and
the dwellings attached to it, were reduced to ashes[1367].
What these bald statements mean the _chanson de geste_ can tell us better.
Raoul de Cambrai, the greatest villain who ever led knights to war, had in
his train a young knight Bernier. One day he set out to pillage Origny, in
which town was a famous convent, where Bernier's fair mother Marcens had
retired to end her days in peace. But as he hurled himself, with four
thousand men, upon the town, the gates of the convent opened
and the nuns came forth from the church, gentle ladies, each with her
psalter, for there they did the service of God. Marcens was there, who
was Bernier's mother. "Mercy, Raoul, in the just God's name! You do
great sin if you allow harm to come to us, for easily can we be driven
forth." In her hand she held a book of the time of Solomon and she was
saying an orison to God.
After a tender inquiry for her son, Marcens proceeded to plead with Raoul
to raise the siege; clearly the burgesses regarded the abbess of the great
convent as their leader and a fit person to negotiate with their enemy.
"Sir Raoul," she said, "shall I beseech you in vain to withdraw you?
We be nuns, by all the saints of Bavaria; we shall never hold lance
nor banner, nor by our hand shall any man be brought to his grave."
But Raoul answered her with a stream of coarse abuse, showing even less
respect for her sex and calling than Sir John Arundel showed to the
abbess who refused him lodging[1368]. Marcens put aside his charges with a
word of dignified denial and proffered him terms of truce:
"Sir Raoul, we know not how to wield arms; easily can you destroy us
and put us to flight. We have neither shield nor lance for our
defence. All our livelihood we have from this altar and within this
town; noble men hold this place dear and send us silver and pure gold.
Therefore do you grant us a truce for hearth and church and go you and
take your ease in our meadows; of our own substance we will feed you
and your knights and your squires shall have corn and oats and plenty
to eat for your steeds." "By the body of St Richier," answered Raoul,
"For love of you and since you ask it, I will grant you the truce,
whoever may dislike it."
But Raoul de Cambrai had no regard for his knightly word; he quarrelled
with the townsfolk and swore to burn Origny about their ears.
"The rooms burn," the _chanson_ continues, "The ceilings crumble: the
barrels catch fire and their hoops burst. Woe and sin it is, for the
children burn too. Evil has Count Raoul done, for the day before he
gave his faith to Marcens that they should not lose so much as a fold
of silk; and on the morrow he burned them in his wrath. In Origny,
that great and rich town, the sons of Herbert, who love the place had
put Marcens, Bernier's mother, and a hundred nuns to pray to God.
Count Raoul, the hot-heart, sets fire to the streets; the houses burn,
the ceilings melt, the wine spills and the cellars flow with it; the
bacon burns, the larders fall, the fat makes the great fire burn more
fiercely. It strikes up to the tower and to the high belfry and the
roofs fall in, so great is the blaze between the two walls. The nuns
are burnt, all hundred of them are burnt (woe it is to tell); burnt is
Marcens that was Bernier's mother, and Clamados the daughter of Duke
Renier. The smell of burning flesh rises from the flames and the brave
knights weep for pity. When Bernier sees the fire grow worse, he is
near mad with grief. Could ye but have seen him sling on his shield!
With drawn sword he comes to the church and sees the flames pouring
from the doors; no man can come within a shaft's throw of the fire.
Bernier sees a rich marble pavement, and upon it lies his mother, with
her tender face laid on the ground and her psalter burning upon her
breast. Then says the boy, 'I am on a foolish errand. Never will any
succour avail her now. Ha! sweet mother, yesterday you kissed me; you
have but a poor heir in me, for I can neither aid nor help you. God,
who will judge the world, keep your soul!'"[1369]
So ends this terrible episode; but that chivalry in this matter at least
suffered no change from the twelfth to the fourteenth century Froissart's
account of the burning of this same Origny-Saint-Benoît by the peerless
John of Hainault and his troops in 1339 will show[1370]. If the code of
knighthood and the fear of God could not save the nuns from mischances
such as these, it is plain that no injunctions against the breach of their
enclosure could have done so. These were the risks of war, which nuns
shared in common with all unhappy women. But the siege of Origny and even
the outrage at Goring were still exceptional events; and the Church found
its chief problem not in these unwelcome incursions, but in the number of
welcome visitors who hung about the nunneries. "The Lord deliver them from
their friends" was in effect the bishop's prayer. The expulsion of these
friends was a necessary corollary to the enclosure movement; and, like the
injunctions to nuns to keep within their cloister, the injunctions to lay
folk to keep outside remained a dead letter. John of Ayton's conclusion is
true here also:
Why, then, did the holy fathers thus labour to beat the air? Yet
indeed their toil is none the less to their own merit; for we look not
to that which is, but to that which of justice should be.
CHAPTER XI
THE OLDE DAUNCE
A child of our grandmother Eve, a female; or, for thy more sweet
understanding, a woman.
_Love's Labour's Lost_, I, i, 266-8.
It is difficult to form any exact impression of the moral state of the
English nunneries during the later middle ages. Certainly there is
widespread evidence of frailty on the part of individuals, and there are
one or two serious cases in which a whole house was obviously in a bad
condition. It is certain also that we retain the record of only a portion
of the cases of immorality which existed; some never came to light at all,
some were hushed up and the records of others are buried in Bishops'
Registers, which are either unpublished or lost. On the other hand it is
necessary to guard against exaggeration. The majority of nuns certainly
kept their lifelong vow of chastity. Moreover when the conditions of
medieval life are taken into account, the lapses of the nuns must, to
anyone who considers them with sympathy and common sense, appear
comprehensible. The routine of the convent was not always satisfying to
the heart, and the temptations to which nuns were submitted were certainly
grosser and more frequent than they are in similar institutions today.
Several considerations may fairly be urged in mitigation of the nuns. The
initial difficulty of the celibate ideal need not be laboured. For many
saints it was the first and necessary condition of their salvation; but
for the average man it has always been an unnatural state and the monastic
orders and the priesthood were full of average men. It is not surprising,
therefore, that the history of ecclesiastical celibacy is one of the
tragedies of religious life. The vow was constantly being broken. The
_focaria_ or priest's mistress is a well-known figure in medieval history
and fiction; and the priest who lived thus with an unofficial wife was
probably less dangerous to his female parishioners than was he who lived
ostensibly alone. A crowd of clerks and chaplains, sometimes attached to
some church, chantry or great man's chapel, sometimes unattached, filled
the country with an "ecclesiastical proletariat," all vowed to chastity;
and any student of the criminal records of the middle ages knows how often
these men were concerned in cases of rape and other crime. A survey of the
monastic visitations of a careful visitor such as Alnwick shows that
consorting with women was a common charge against the monks and there is
some evidence which points to a suspicion of grosser forms of vice. It
would be strange indeed if the nuns were an exception to the rule. Even if
they kept their vow, they kept it sometimes at a cost which psychologists
have only recently begun to understand. The visions which were at once the
torture and the joy of so many mystic women, were sexual as well as
religious in their origin, as in their imagery[1371]. The terrible
lassitude and despair of _accidia_ grew in part at least from the
repression of the most powerful of natural instincts, accentuated by the
absence of sufficient counter interests and employments.
The whole monastic ideal is, however, bound up with the vow of chastity
and, had only women with a vocation entered nunneries, the danger of the
situation would have been small. Unfortunately a large number of the girls
who became nuns had no vocation at all. They were given over to the life
by their families, sometimes from childhood, because it was a reputable
career for daughters who could not be dowered for marriage in a manner
befitting their estate[1372]. They were often totally unsuited for it, by
the weakness of their religions as well as by the strength of their sexual
impulses. The lighthearted _Chansons de Nonnes_[1373], whose theme is the
nun unwillingly professed, had a real basis in fact. If cases of
immorality in convents seem all too frequent, it should be remembered how
young and often how unwilling were those who took the vows:
Je sent les douls mals leis ma senturete
Malois soit de deu ki me fist nonnete.
The blame is justly placed and the wonder is not how many but how few nuns
went astray.
Again the nunneries of the middle ages were subjected to temptations which
rarely occur in our own time. The chief of these was the ease with which
the nuns moved about outside their houses in a world where sex was
displayed good-humouredly, openly, grossly, by the populace, and with all
the subtle charm of chivalry by the upper classes. The struggle to enforce
enclosure had its root in the recognition of this danger, as episcopal
references to the story of Dinah show; and it has already been seen how
unsuccessful that struggle was. Nuns left their precincts, visited their
friends, attended feasts, listened to wandering minstrels, with hardly any
restraint upon their movements. It is true that in church and cloister the
praise of virginity was forever dinned into their ears; but outside in the
world it was not virginity that was praised. Were it a miller's tale or a
wife of Bath's prologue, overheard on a pilgrimage, were it only the lilt
of a passing clerk at a street corner,
Western wind, when wilt thou blow,
The small rain down can rain?
Christ, if my love were in my arms
And I in my bed again,
the nun's mind must often have been troubled, as she turned her steps back
to her cloister. Moreover their guest rooms were full of visitors, men as
well as women; if they copied so eagerly the fine dresses and the pet dogs
of worldly ladies, is it strange that they sometimes copied their lovers
too? Other conditions besides the imperfect enforcement of enclosure
increased the danger. The disorders of the times, ranging from the armed
forays of the Scots in the north to the lawlessness of everyday life in
all parts of the country, were not conducive to a fugitive and cloistered
virtue[1374]. Nor was the constant struggle against financial need,
leading as it did to many undesirable expedients for raising money, really
compatible with either dignity or unworldliness. There is a poverty which
breeds plain living and high thinking, a fair Lady Poverty whom St Francis
wedded. But there is also an unworthy, grinding poverty, which occupies
the mind with a struggle to make two ends meet and dulls it to finer
issues. Too often the poverty of the nunneries was of the last type.
Let it be conceded, therefore, that the celibate ideal was a hard one,
that the nuns were often recruited without any regard for their fitness to
follow it, and that some of the conditions of convent life, insufficiently
withdrawn from the temptations and disorders of the outside world, served
to promote rather than to restrain a breach of it. With these preliminary
warnings, an attempt may be made to estimate the moral state of the
English nunneries. The evidence for such a study falls into three classes,
the purely literary evidence of moralist and story-teller, the general
statements of ecclesiastical councils and the exact and specific evidence
of the Bishops' Registers. The literary evidence will be treated more
fully in a further chapter and need not detain us here. Langland's nun,
who had a child in cherry time, Gower's voice crying against the frailty
of woman kind, the "Dame Lust, Dame Wanton and Dame Nice," who haunted the
imaginary convent of the poem _Why I can't be a Nun_, are all well known,
as are the serious _exempla_, the pretty Mary-miracles, and the ribald
tales, which have for their subject an erring nun. They are useful as
corroborative evidence, but without more exact information they would tell
us little that is of specific value. Similarly the enactments of church
councils and general chapters are quite general. By far the most valuable
evidence as to monastic morals is contained in the Bishops' Registers,
whether in the accounts of visitations and the injunctions which followed
them, or in the special mandates ordering inquiry into a scandal, search
after an apostate, or penance upon a sinner. The visitation documents are
particularly useful. Where full _detecta_ are preserved, the moral state
of a house is vividly pictured; there you may see the unworthy Prioress,
whose bad example or weak rule has led her flock astray; there the nuns
conniving at a love affair and assisting an elopement, or complaining
bitterly of the dishonour wrought upon their house. If the register of
visitations be a full one, it is possible to form an approximately exact
estimate of the moral condition of all the nunneries in a particular
diocese at a particular time, in so far as it was known to the Bishop. If
a diocese possess a long and fairly unbroken series of registers, as at
York and Lincoln, the moral history of the house may be traced over a
long period of years. Supplementary evidence is sometimes also to be found
in the Papal Registers, when the Pope had been petitioned in favour of
some nun, or had heard rumours of the evil state of some nunnery; but
Papal letters on the subject are comparatively rare. The mass of the
information which follows is therefore derived from the invaluable records
of the bishops.
It seems quite clear that the nuns who broke their vows were always
willing parties to the breach. Few men would have been bold enough to
ravish a _Sponsa Dei_. Sometimes a bishop was led to suppose that a nun
had been carried away against her will, but he always found out in the end
that she had been in the plot; all abductions were in reality elopements.
In the Register of Bishop Sutton of Lincoln there is notice of an
excommunication pronounced in 1290 against the persons who abducted Agnes
of Sheen, a nun of Godstow. The Bishop announces that she and another nun
were journeying peacefully towards Godstow in a carriage belonging to
their house, when suddenly, in the very middle of the King's highway at
Wycombe, certain sons of perdition laid violent hands upon them and
dragged the unwilling Agnes out of her carriage and carried her off. But
he seems to have received a different account of the affair later, for in
the following year he announces that Agnes of Sheen, Joan of Carru and "a
certain kinswoman of the Lady Ela, Countess of Warwick," professed nuns of
Godstow, have fled from their house and, casting off their habit, are
living a worldly and dissolute life, to the scandal of the neighbourhood;
and he pronounces excommunication against the nuns and all their
helpers[1375].
Some nuns contrived to meet their lovers secretly, within the precincts of
their own convents, or outside during the visits which they paid so freely
despite the Bull _Periculoso_; they made no effort to leave their order,
and were only discovered if their behaviour were such as to create a
public scandal among the other nuns, or in the neighbouring villages.
Others, smitten deeply by "amor che a nullo amato amar perdona," hailed
insistently by the call of life outside, cast off their habits and left
their convents. They risked their immortal souls by doing so, for the
Church condemned the crime of apostasy far more severely than that of
unchastity, since it involved the breach of all the monastic vows, instead
of only one, and brought religion into dishonour in the eyes of laymen.
The nun who sinned was given a penance; the nun who apostatised was
excommunicated; and there were few who could withstand for long the sense
of utter isolation, even from a God whose love they had scorned. The bride
of Christ who could live happily under the shadow of the ban, who could
marry knowing her union to be unrecognised and even cursed by the
Church[1376], must have been of a most unmedieval scepticism, a most
unfeminine indifference to the scorn of her fellows; or drowned so deep in
love that she counted Heaven well lost. There were not many such; and the
majority of apostates returned to their order, worn out by remorse or by
persecution, or convinced at last that mortal love was but what the author
of _Hali Meidenhad_ named it, "a licking of honey off thorns."
It is no wonder that the majority of these apostates returned. What were
they but individuals? Against them was arrayed the might of two great
institutions, the Church and the State. Sometimes the might of the Church
alone availed to retrieve them; terror brought them of their own free
will, or they found themselves caught in a net of threats and
excommunications, involving not only themselves, but all who helped them.
When Isabel Clouvill, Maud Titchmarsh and Ermentrude Newark, for some time
nuns professed in the house of St Mary in the Meadows (Delapré),
Northampton, left their convent and went to live in sin in the world, they
were excommunicated. Moreover their Bishop ordered the Archdeacon of
Northampton to summon them to return within a week, and all who received
them in their houses or gave them any help and counsel, were to be warned
to desist within three days and to be given a penance. The names of the
villages where they were received were to be notified to the Bishop and
their aiders and abettors were to appear before him[1377]. How many people
would suffer for long the displeasure of the Church for the sake of three
runaway nuns? Lovers might be faithful, but even lovers must eat and drink
and sleep beneath a roof: a nun was no nut-brown maid to live content in
greenwood, "when the shawes be shene." If the pair could escape to a town
where their story was not known, there was some chance for them; but
sooner or later the Church found them out.
Suppose they scorned the Church; suppose powerful friends protected them,
or careless folk who snapped their fingers at the priest and knew too much
about begging friars to hold one amorous nun a monstrous, unexampled
scandal. Then the Church could call in the majesty of the State to help,
and what was a girl to do? Can one defy the King as well as the Bishop? To
a soul in hell must there be added a body in prison? Elizabeth Arundell
runs away from Haliwell in 1382, nor will she return. The Prioress
thereupon petitions the King; let His Highness stretch forth the secular
arm and bring back this lamb which wanders from the fold. His Highness
complies; and his commission goes forth to Thomas Sayvill,
sergeant-at-arms, John Olyver, John York, chaplain, Richard Clerk and John
Clerk to arrest and deliver to the Prioress of Haliwell in the diocese of
London, Elizabeth Arundell, apostate nun of that house[1378]. The
sheriffs of London and Middlesex and Essex and Hertford, as well as a
sergeant-at-arms and three other men, are all set hunting for Joan
Adeleshey, nun of Rowney, who is wandering about in secular dress to the
great scandal of her order[1379]. The net is wide; in the end the nun
nearly always comes back. She comes to the Bishop for absolution. He sends
a letter on her behalf to her convent, bidding them receive her in
sisterly wise, but abate no jot of the penance imposed on her. The
prodigal returns kneeling at the convent gate and begging admission, for
it is an age of ceremony and in these dramatic moments onlookers learn
their lesson[1380]. The gates swing open and close again: Sister Joan is
back.
The most interesting of all the stories of apostasy which have been
preserved is the romantic affair of Agnes de Flixthorpe (alias de
Wissenden), nun of St Michael's, Stamford, which for ten years continually
occupied the attention of Bishop Dalderby of Lincoln[1381]. The story of
this poor woman is a tragic witness to the desperation into which convent
life could throw one who was not suited for it, as well as to the
implacable pursuit of her by the Church; for indeed the Hound of Heaven
appears in it in the aspect of a bloodhound. In 1309 Dalderby
excommunicated Agnes for apostasy and warned all persons against receiving
her into their houses or giving her any help. The next year he was obliged
to call in the secular arm against her. She was then living at Nottingham
and the Archdeacon of Nottingham was instructed to warn her to return.
Shortly afterwards the Bishop wrote to the Abbot of Peterborough, asking
him to see to her being taken back to her house and there imprisoned and
guarded. The combined efforts of the Sheriff, the Archdeacon of Nottingham
and the Abbot of Peterborough would appear to have succeeded. The hapless
woman was taken back to her house by force and still obdurate; and the
Bishop ordered her to be confined in a chamber with stone walls, each of
her legs shackled with fetters until she consented to resume her habit.
Her perseverance seems, however, to have worn out the nuns, and in 1311
the Bishop wrote to one Ada, sister of William de Helewell, instructing
her to take custody of Agnes. The reason for thus placing her in secular
charge was that her case was now _sub judice_, for two months later the
Bishop sent two commissioners to inquire into the whole question of the
apostasy. Agnes had declared that she was never professed at all, because
she had been married to one whose name she refused to give, before she
entered religion; and she still, said the bishop, continued in obstinacy.
But the Church did not easily relax its clutch. After three months the
Bishop wrote to his colleague the Bishop of Exeter, stating that Agnes de
Flixthorpe, after having been professed for twenty years, left her house
and was found wearing a man's gilt embroidered gown, that she was brought
back to her house, excommunicated and kept in solitude, and that she
remained obstinate and would not put on the religious habit. The Bishop,
thinking it desirable that she should be removed from the diocese for a
time, prayed his brother of Exeter that she might be received into the
house of Cornworthy, there to undergo penance and to be kept in safe
custody away from all the sisters. A clerk, Peter de Helewell (the
Helewells seem to have had some special interest in her), duly conveyed
Agnes far away from the level fields of the Midlands and the friends who
had hidden her from her persecutors, to the little Devonshire priory.
Solitude and despair for the moment broke her spirit and the next year,
in 1312, she declared her penitence and the Bishop of Exeter was
commissioned to absolve her; but she was kept in solitary confinement at
Cornworthy until 1314, when Peter de Helewell once more journeyed across
to Devonshire and brought her back to Stamford. Her native air blew hope
and rebellion once more into that wild heart. Four years later Dalderby
addressed a letter to the Prioress stating that Agnes de Flixthorpe had
three times left her order and resumed a secular habit and was now in the
world again and had been for two years past; reiterating once more the
futile injunction that the Prioress "under pain of excommunication and
without any dissimulation" was to bring her back and to keep her in safe
custody and solitude; the unfortunate Prioress had doubtless had more than
enough of Agnes de Flixthorpe and wished for nothing better than to leave
her in the world. The story ends abruptly here and it will never be known
whether Agnes de Flixthorpe was caught again.
It was perhaps merciful to receive again apostates whose hearts failed
them and who besought with tears to be reconciled to the Church. But the
forcible return of a hardened sinner cannot have raised the moral tone of
a house. Sometimes these nuns had lived for two or three years in the
world before they were brought back. Sometimes they broke out again,
yielded their easy virtue to a new lover, or fled once more into the
world. At Basedale (1308) Agnes de Thormondby had three times fallen thus
and left her order[1382]; and cases of more than one lover are not rare.
Sometimes the prioress of a house struggled to preserve her flock from
contagion by refusing to admit the returned sinner; thus the Prioress of
Rothwell in 1414 declined to comply with the Bishop's mandate to receive
back a certain Joan, saying that by her own confession the girl had lived
for three years with one William Suffewyk; whereupon the Bishop cited her
for disobedience and repeated his order[1383]. The only recorded case of a
woman being refused admission concerns a sister and not a professed nun;
in 1346 the Archbishop of York warned the Prioress of Nunappleton on no
account to receive back Margaret, a sister of the house, who had left it
pregnant, as he found that in the past she had on successive occasions
relapsed and been in a similar condition[1384]. It is significant that the
same Archbishop wrote to the Convent of Sinningthwaite (where they
opportunely preserved "the arm of St Margaret and the tunic of St Bernard,
believed to be good for women lying in") concerning one of their nuns
Margaret de Fonten, who had left the house pregnant, that "as she had only
done so once" her penance was to be mitigated[1385]. There can be no
plainer commentary on the literary theme of the nun unwillingly professed
than these cases of recurring frailty and apostasy. In the world these
girls might have been happy wives, each with a lover or two beside their
lords, like the ladies admired by Aucassin; for convents they were totally
unsuited and obeyed their natures only with woe and disgrace to themselves
and to their orders.
The pages of the Registers throw some light upon the partners of their
misdemeanours. In the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the
convents of France and Italy were the haunts of young gallants,
_monachini_, who specialised in intrigues with nuns[1386]. But the
seduction of a _Sponsa Dei_ was not a fashionable pursuit in medieval
England, and it was not as a rule lords and gentlemen who hung about the
precincts. Now we hear of a married man boarding in the house[1387], now
of the steward of the convent[1388], now of the bailiff of a manor[1389],
now of a wandering harp-player[1390], now of a smith's son[1391], now of
this or that layman, married or unmarried. But far more often the theme is
_Clericus et Nonna_. Nuns' lovers were drawn from that great host of
vicars, chaplains and chantry priests, themselves the children of the
Church and under the vow of chastity, whose needs were greatest and whose
very familiarity with the bonds of religion possibly bred contempt. As
visitors in their convents, or as acquaintances outside, the nuns were
constantly meeting members of this band of celibates, who roamed about "as
thick as motes in the sunbeam." They knew well how to sing, with Chaucer's
Pardoner, "Come hider, love, to me," and little enough like priests they
looked with their short tunics, peaked shoes and silvered girdles,
Bucklers brode and swerdes long,
Baudrike with baselardes kene,
Sech toles about her necke they hong,
With Antichrist seche prestes been.
Love would light on Alison, even were the lover a clerk and she a nun, and
sometimes where the priest had tempted he could absolve. What the young
man of fashion was to the Italian convent of the sixteenth century, the
chaplain was to the English convent of the fourteenth and fifteenth.
Sometimes the seducer was attached to the convent as chaplain and even
dwelt within the precincts. Bishop Sutton had to write to the Prioress of
Studley bidding her send away from the house John de Sevekwurth, clerk,
who had borne himself in such unseemly wise while he dwelt there, that he
had seduced two of the nuns[1392]. The chaplain of the house was involved
in cases at White Hall, Ilchester (1323)[1393], Moxby (1325)[1394] and
Catesby (1442)[1395], which may lend some support to the complaints of
Gower[1396] and other medieval moralists and an additional sting to the
good humoured chaff addressed by Chaucer's host to the nun's priest, Sir
John. That the spiritual father of the nuns could thus abuse his position
would seem almost incredible to anyone unfamiliar with medieval sources;
yet Gower goes further still, suggesting that even the visitors of the
convents were not always beyond suspicion[1397].
More often the lover had no connection with the nunnery, but had some post
as chaplain or vicar in the neighbourhood[1398]. Opportunities for a
meeting were not hard to obtain in the houses and gardens of the
town[1399], even in the church and precincts of the priory itself[1400],
as visitation _comperta_ show. Nor were cloistered monks proof against
temptation. They knew only too well what passionate hearts could beat
beneath a monastic habit and they knew the merry rhyme of Cockaygne land,
where every monk had his nun. It has already been shown that nuns and
monks met freely and that Bishops were constantly sending injunctions
against the admission of monks and friars to convents and the visits paid
by nuns to monasteries[1401]. Yet we hear of a nun of St Sepulchre's,
Canterbury, whose name scandal connected with the cellarer of the
Cathedral (1284)[1402]; of a nun of Lymbrook, who was the mistress of
William de Winton, Subprior of Leominster Priory, and not his only
mistress (1282)[1403]; of a nun of Swine, who had had two monks of the
Abbey of Meaux for her lovers (1310)[1404]. Bishop Alnwick's visitation of
the Lincoln diocese brought to light two such cases and in both the monk
was not the nun's sole lover. Agnes Butler (_alias_ Pery _alias_
Northampton) ran away from St Michael's, Stamford, for a day and a night
with Brother John Harreyes, an Austin friar; her secret was kept, but when
Alnwick visited her house in 1440 she had run away again, this time with a
harp-player, and had been living with him a year and a half at
Newcastle-on-Tyne, a far enough cry from Stamford[1405]. In 1445, when the
Bishop went to Godstow, he found Dame Alice Longspey grievously suspected,
by reason of her confabulations alone in the convent church with an Oxford
chaplain, who gave himself out to be her kinsman. A week later, while
visiting Eynsham Abbey, he received a further sidelight on her character
from the evidence of the abbot that
one brother John Bengeworthe, a monk, who had been imprisoned for his
ill desert, brake prison and went into apostasy, taking with him a nun
of Godstow, but he has now been brought back to the monastery and is
still doing penance.
The nun was Alice Longspey and it is significant that this particular
escapade had been concealed from the Bishop at his recent visitation of
Godstow[1406]. The most spirited enterprise of all, however, was the
combined effort of William Fox, parson of Lea (near Gainsborough) and John
Fox and Thomas de Lingiston, Friars Minor of Lincoln, who were indicted
before the Kings Justices at Caistor, because they came to Brodholme
Nunnery (one of the only two Premonstratensian houses in the kingdom) on
January 15th, 1350, and then and there "violently took and carried away,
against the peace of their lord the King, a certain nun, by name Margaret
Everingham, a sister of the said house, stripping her of her religious
habit and clothing her in a green gown of secular habit, taking also
divers goods to the value of 40 shillings"[1407].
Much as the church hated sin, it hated scandal even more and a nun might
often hope to have her frailty concealed by her fellows. Sometimes they
may have condoned it, for they are occasionally found assisting an
elopement[1408]; sometimes they feared episcopal interference and an evil
reputation for their house. But it was not always possible to conceal
these unhallowed unions and when a child was born the wretched nun could
not hope to escape disgrace and punishment[1409].
And dame Peronelle a prestes file--Priouresse worth she neuere
For she had childe in chirityme--all owre chapitere it wiste.
Usually Dame Pernell fled in despair to any friendly asylum which she
could find and only returned to her house after the birth and disposal of
her child. Sometimes she remained there in what privacy she might; and the
affair was managed with as little scandal as possible. The nuns of St
Michael's, Stamford, knew that their sister Margaret Mortimer had had a
child on this side of Easter; but even the Subprioress did not know (or
said she did not know) "of whom she conceived or whether she bare male or
female; howbeit she was absent from quire for a fortnight"[1410]. Once we
hear of an apostate, deserted and pregnant, coming back to St Mary's,
Winchester, and the wise and humane William of Wykeham writes to the
Abbess bidding her receive the girl gently and kindly, and keep her in
safety until the birth of her child, after which he will himself make
ordinance concerning her[1411]. It is hard to discover what became of
these most unwelcome children. It is not surprising that they sometimes
died[1412]. But if they lived their origin probably weighed but lightly on
them in those days, when it was regarded as no dishonour to have bastards,
who were often acknowledged by their fathers and provided for in their
wills side by side with true born sons and daughters. It is true that,
like other illegitimates, they could not be ordained or hold
ecclesiastical preferment, without a special dispensation. But even the
son of a nun could obtain such dispensation[1413] and even the daughter of
a nun did not always go undowered. There were not many monastic parents
like that seventeenth century abbess of Maubuisson who was rumoured to
have twelve children, who were brought up diversely, each according to the
rank of the father[1414], or like the Prior of Maiden Bradley, as
described by Henry VIII's commissioner, "an holy father prior and hath but
vj children and but one dowghter mariede, yet of the goods of the
monasteries trysting shortly to mary the rest, [and] his sones be tale men
waytting upon him"[1415]. Yet we hear of at least one Prioress who sold
the goods of her house to make a dowry for her daughter[1416].
If it be sought to know whether any houses were particularly liable to
scandals and enjoyed a bad name, it must be answered that it is almost
impossible to say. But isolated cases of immorality and apostasy come from
nunneries so widely distributed in different dioceses, that one must
conclude that most of them had at one time or another a sinner in their
midst. Often enough the case was isolated; occasionally there was scandal
about the general condition of a house in its neighbourhood. The
discipline and morals of convents were apt to vary with that of their
heads. It is significant that when a house is in a bad moral state the
fault may nearly always be traced to a weak or immoral prioress. So it was
at Wintney in 1405, at Redlingfield in 1427, at Markyate in 1433, at
Catesby in 1442, at St Michael's, Stamford, in 1445, at Littlemore in
1517, and at several Yorkshire nunneries. It is plain also that when a
convent was very small and poor, it was apt to become lax and disorderly.
The small Yorkshire houses bear witness to this and if further proof be
required the state of Cannington in 1351 and Easebourne in 1478 may be
quoted from among several other instances.
Cannington in Somerset was a small and poor house, but its nuns were drawn
from some of the best county families. In 1351 it was visited by
commissioners of Ralph of Shrewsbury, Bishop of Bath and Wells, and they
found something more like a brothel than a priory. Maud Pelham and Alice
Northlode (a young lady whom the Bishop had forced on the unwilling
convent, on his elevation to the See some twenty years before) were in the
habit of frequently admitting and holding discourse with suspected
persons. The inevitable chaplain was again the occasion for a fall. On
dark nights they held long and suspicious confabulations with Richard
Sompnour and Hugh Willynge, chaplains, in the nave of the convent church.
Hugh was apparently only too willing and Richard was even as Chaucer's
summoner, "as hot he was and lecherous as a sparrow," for (say the
commissioners) "it is suspected by many that as a result of these
conversations they fall into yet worse sin." Moreover
"the said sisters, and in particular the said Maud, not content with
this evil behaviour, are wont _per insolencias, minas et tactus
indecentes_ to provoke many of the serving men of the place to sin,"
and, "to make use of her own words she says that she will never once
say _Mea culpa_ for these great misdeeds, but turning like a virago
upon the prioress and the other sisters who abhor the aforesaid
things, when they reproach her, she threatens to do manly execution
upon them with knives and other weapons."
Nor was this all:
In the said visitation the charge was made, dreadful to say, horrible
to hear, and was proven by much evidence as to notoriety and by
confession, that a certain nun of the said house, Joan Trimelet,
having cast away the reins of modesty ... was found with child, but
not indeed by the Holy Ghost, and afterwards gave birth to offspring,
to the grave disgrace and confusion of her religion and to the scandal
of many.
These were the most serious charges; but the same visitation revealed that
the Prioress was weak and had been guilty of the simoniacal reception of
four nuns, for the sake of scraping together some money, while the
subprioress was incurably lazy, refused to attend matins and other
canonical hours, and neglected to correct her delinquent sisters[1417]. It
is plain that the whole house was utterly demoralised and the
demoralisation was possibly of long standing, for there had been one of
the usual election quarrels in the early part of the century, and in 1328
the then Bishop had issued a commission to inquire into the illicit
wanderings of certain nuns[1418]. Yet the priory was a favourite resort of
boarders.
Easebourne, again, was a poor but very aristocratic house, containing
towards the close of the fifteenth century from six to ten nuns. In 1478
Bishop Story of Chichester visited it and found grave need for his
interference. One of the nuns, Matilda Astom, deposed
that John Smyth, chaplain, and N. Style, a married man in the service
of Lord Arundel, had and were accustomed to have great familiarity
within the said priory, as well as elsewhere, with Dame Joan
Portsmouth and Dame Philippa King, nuns of the said priory, but
whether the said Sir John Smyth and N. Style abducted, or caused to be
abducted, the said Joan Portsmouth and Philippa King she knows not, as
she says.
(Another nun deposed that they did.)
And moreover she says that a certain William Gosden and John Capron of
Easebourne aforesaid, guarded and kept in their own houses the said
Joan and Philippa for some time before their withdrawal from the said
priory and took their departure with them and so were great
encouragers to them in that particular.
Another nun, Joan Stevyn, deposed that the two nuns had each had, long
before their withdrawal, "children or a child." Another said that Sir John
Senoke (i.e. Sevenoaks, clearly the same as John Smyth)
much frequented the priory, so that during some weeks he passed the
night and lay within the priory every night, and was cause, as she
believes, of the ruin of the said Sir John Smyth (_sic_, MS. ? Joan
Portsmouth). Also she says Sir John Smyth gave many gifts to Philippa
King.
All the nuns agreed in blaming the Prioress for not having properly
punished the two sinners and one raked up a vague story that "she had had
one or two children several years ago"; but as she admitted that this was
hearsay and as the Prioress was then at least fifty years old, too much
credit must not be given to it. On the same day a certain "Brother William
Cotnall," evidently attached in some capacity, perhaps as _custos_, to the
house, appeared before the Bishop and confessed that he had sealed a
licence to Joan Portsmouth to go out of the Priory and had himself sinned
with Philippa King. The two priests, Smyth and Cotnall, had not only
debauched the convent, but had done their best to ruin it financially; for
they had persuaded the Prioress to pawn the jewels of the house for
fifteen pounds, in order to purchase a Bull of Capacity for Cotnall, who
had then sealed with the common seal of the convent, against the wish of
the Prioress, a quittance for John Smyth concerning all and every sort of
actions and suits which the convent might have against him, and especially
the matter of the jewels[1419].
But if small houses fell easily into disorder, great abbeys were not
exempt from contagion. Cases of immorality are found at Wilton,
Shaftesbury, Romsey, St Mary's Winchester, Wherwell and Elstow, all of
them abbeys and among them the oldest and richest in the land. It is the
same with two other houses, famous in legend, Amesbury, where Guinevere
"let make herself a nun and wore white clothes and black," and Godstow,
where Fair Rosamond lay buried in the chapter house. Here, where
deathless romance had its dwelling place, it is not strange that the
winged god ever and again took his toll of the nuns. But what sorry
substitutes for Guinevere and Rosamond were the trembling apostates, who
fled into hiding to bear their miserable infants and were haled back by
bishops to do penance in the cloister.
Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean; the world has grown grey from thy
breath.
The ancient house of Amesbury fell into evil ways in the twelfth century.
In 1177 its abbess was said to have borne three children and its nuns were
notorious for their evil lives, whereupon the convent was dissolved, most
of the nuns being placed in other houses, and Amesbury was then
reconstituted as a cell of Fontevrault and peopled with a prioress and
twenty-four nuns, brought over from that house[1420]. Queen Eleanor, widow
of Henry III, took the veil there and by her influence Edward I allowed
his daughter Mary to become a nun there, together with twelve noble
maidens[1421]. But the sin of Guinevere haunted it. About Mary herself
there is an ancient unexplained scandal, for in a papal mandate she is
declared to have been seduced by John de Warenne, the rather disreputable
Earl of Surrey[1422]; and she seems to have been as much out of her house
as in it, for she constantly visited court and went on pilgrimages. Later
still the papal benevolence was exerted on behalf of Margaret Greenfield,
nun of Amesbury, who had borne a child after her profession (1398)[1423],
and Cecily Marmyll, who "after having lived laudably for some time in the
said monastery, allowed herself to be carnally known by two secular
priests and had offspring by each of them" (1424)[1424]. These ladies were
doubtless well born, with wealthy friends, who could afford to petition
the Pope and buy restoration to the monastic dignities and offices, which
they had lost by their fault. The story of Godstow is very similar. There
seems to have been some scandal about the morals of the subprioress in
1284, but Peckham announced that he did not believe a word of it[1425]. In
1290, however, a nun of noble birth was (as we saw) carried off from her
carriage; and she and two others were apostate in the following year.
Another apostate repented and was absolved in 1339. In 1432 a nun was
found by the bishop with child and in 1445 Dame Alice Longspey indulged in
the escapades already described with an Oxford priest and a monk of
Eynsham. All through the career of the convent, it was continually being
warned against the recourse of scholars from Oxford. Both Amesbury and
Godstow enjoyed fame and good repute and at the latter children were
received for education. Their history shows that even the most
aristocratic and popular houses fell sometimes on evil days and sometimes
sheltered unworthy inmates.
It is of considerable interest to study the condition of all the nunneries
in a particular part of the country at a particular date. An analysis of
the references to the Yorkshire houses has been made elsewhere[1426]; here
we may study a diocese in which the conditions of daily life were less
abnormal than they were on the Scottish border. A rather imperfect view of
the state of the diocese of Lincoln between the years 1290 and 1360 may be
gleaned from the registers of Bishops Sutton, Dalderby, Burghersh and
Gynewell; it is imperfect because there are not many visitation records,
and information has chiefly to be derived from episcopal mandates for the
return of apostates[1427], which leave us with little knowledge of the
internal discipline of houses from which nuns did not happen to run away.
The names of eleven out of the four and thirty[1428] nunneries of the
diocese occur in connection with apostates during these years, six
Benedictine, four Augustinian and one Cluniac. The apostasy of three
Godstow nuns in 1290 has already been described[1429]. There was an
apostate at Wothorpe in 1296[1430] and two years later a nun of Harrold
was found guilty of unchastity[1431]. Apostates are also mentioned from
Sewardsley in 1300[1432], from Goring in 1309 and again in 1358[1433],
from Markyate in 1336[1434] and from St Leonard's, Grimsby, in 1337[1435].
At Burnham there is the case of Margery Hedsor, who was excommunicated at
intervals for apostasy between 1311 and 1317[1436]. St Mary in the Meadows
(Delapré), Northampton, seems to have been in a bad state, for in 1300
three nuns, said to have been professed for some years, were
excommunicated for leaving their convent and living in carnal sin in the
world, and in 1311 there was another apostate from the house[1437]. St
Michael's, Stamford, provides the curious story of Agnes de Flixthorpe,
and the almost equally tragic case of Agnes Bowes, ex-Prioress of
Wothorpe, all of whose fellows had died in the Black Death and whose house
had therefore been annexed to St Michael's, Stamford, in 1354. She was
evidently unable to settle down in her new home and she ran away from it
five years later[1438]. In the plague year 1349, Ella de Mounceaux, a nun
of Nuncoton, who had obtained leave of absence and instead of returning
had become the mistress of John Haunsard, appeared with tears before the
Bishop and begged to be sent back to her house[1439].
This list of apostates is, as has been said, necessarily incomplete and
gives no details as to the state of the nunneries absolved. A much more
exact impression can be gained of the diocese a century later, during the
twenty years between 1430 and 1450, when Bishops Gray and Alnwick were
visiting the religious houses under their control; Alnwick's Register is
particularly valuable, since the verbal evidence of the nuns is preserved.
If we take Gray's Register first, we find serious charges of general
misconduct made against three houses, Markyate and Flamstead in 1431 and
Sewardsley in 1432. The Bishop wrote to a canon of Lincoln that
abundant rumour and loud whisperings have brought to our hearing that
in the priories of the Holy Trinity of the Wood by Markyate and of St
Giles by Flamstead ... certain things forbidden, hateful, guilty and
contrary to holy religion and regular discipline are daily done and
brought to pass in damnable wise by the said prioresses, nuns and
other, servingmen and agents of the said places; by reason whereof the
good report of the same places is set in jeopardy, the brightness and
comeliness of religion in the same persons are grievously spotted,
inasmuch as the whole neighbourhood is in commotion herefrom.
The canon is accordingly told to inquire into the scandals and punish
delinquents[1440]. Unfortunately the result of the inquiry has not been
preserved; three years later the Bishop deputed another commissioner to
inquire into the condition of Markyate and from his letters of commission
it is plain that he had himself visited the house, but that the Prioress
and sisters had managed to conceal their misdeeds from him. Since then he
had learnt that one of the nuns, Katherine Tyttesbury, had been guilty of
immorality and apostasy and that the Prioress herself had failed to obey
his injunctions. The commissioner was therefore ordered to go to Markyate,
absolve the apostate if she made submission and, if necessary, depose the
Prioress. The result of the inquiry was that the Prioress, Denise
Loweliche, was charged with having consorted with Richard, the steward of
the Priory, for five years and more, up to the time of his death, so that
"public talk and rumour during the said time were busy touching the
premises in the town of Markyate and other places, neighbouring and
distant, in the diocese of Lincoln and elsewhere." The Prioress denied the
charge and begged to be allowed to clear herself, so the commissioner
ordered her, in addition to her own oath, to find five out of her ten nuns
as compurgatresses, i.e. to swear to her innocence. She sought in vain for
help among her sisters; at the appointed hour she begged for an extension
of time and the commissioner granted her this boon, "so that she might be
able meanwhile to communicate and take counsel with her sisters," and also
"of a more liberal grace," declared himself ready to take the word of four
nuns on her behalf. The picture of the wretched Prioress going from nun
to nun, imploring each to forswear herself, with heaven knows what threats
and entreaties, is a melancholy one. Not even four nuns could be found to
swear to her innocence, so clear and notorious was her guilt, and she laid
her formal resignation in the hands of the bishop[1441].
The other nunnery against which a general charge of immorality was made by
the Bishop in 1434 was the Cistercian house of Sewardsley, of which he
said that the Prioress and nuns,
following the enticements of the flesh and abandoning the path of
religion and casting aside the restraint of all modesty and chastity,
are giving their minds to debauchery, committing in damnable wise in
public and as it were, in the sight of all the people, acts of
adultery, incest, sacrilege and fornication[1442].
The report of the inquiry held has not been preserved, but there was
obviously something seriously amiss. Gray had also to deal with individual
cases of immorality at three other houses. Already at Elstow in 1390
Archbishop Courtenay on his metropolitan visitation had made a general
injunction that
no nun convicted or publicly defamed of the crime of incontinency, be
deputed to any office within the monastery and especially to that of
gatekeeper, until it be sufficiently established that she has made
purgation of her innocence[1443],
an injunction repeated _verbatim_ by Bishop Flemyng of Lincoln in
1421[1444]. Now in 1432 Gray found that a nun named Pernell had been
"several times guilty of fleshly lapse" and was leading an apostate life
in secular dress outside the house; which speaks but ill for the moral
state of an important abbey[1445]. In the same year he found one of the
nuns of Godstow _enceinte_[1446], and in 1433 inquiry showed that Ellen
Cotton, nun of Heynings, had recently had a child[1447].
The worst cases found by Alnwick when he visited the religious houses of
the diocese ten years later have already been described and the evidence
of his register can be summarised briefly. All was well at Elstow,
Heynings and Markyate; Dame Pernell [Gauthorpe], Dame Ellen Cotton and
Dame Katherine Tyttesbury were all dwelling peaceably among their sisters;
even the disreputable Denise Loweliche was still, in spite of her
resignation, ruling as Prioress of Markyate. An echo of old difficulties
remained, however, at this last house and one nun begged the Bishop to
speak to the Prioress, "to the end that she take better heed to the nuns
who have previously erred, so that they be kept more strictly from erring
again than is wont"[1448]; evidently discipline was not strict. At Godstow
disorders had not yet ceased. The nuns received visitors and paid visits
freely and scholars of Oxford still haunted the house; moreover one of the
nuns, Dame Alice Longspey (of whom we have heard before), was of very easy
virtue[1449]. In two other houses Alnwick found great disorder prevailing:
the _régime_ of Margaret Wavere, Prioress of Catesby, has already been
described, her bad language, her temper, her dishonesty and her priestly
lover; and her chief accuser Isabel Benet had borne a child to the
chaplain of the house[1450]. Similarly we have seen into what a
disreputable state St Michael's, Stamford, fell under an aged and impotent
Prioress; how one nun ran away with an Austin friar and then with a
wandering harp-player, and how two others had borne children or were
notoriously held to be unchaste; this is one of the worst houses which the
records of medieval nunneries have brought to light[1451]. Finally there
is the doubtful case of Ankerwyke, where the Prioress is said through
negligence to have allowed no less than six nuns to go into apostasy, a
fact which she freely admitted; but whether they had merely removed
themselves through discontent with an unpopular prioress, or whether they
had eloped it is impossible to say. At any rate they had not
returned[1452].
It is interesting to attempt a statistical estimate of the moral condition
of the Lincoln nunneries during the twenty years from 1430 to 1450. It is
possible to do so with some accuracy because the nuns giving evidence in
each convent are enumerated in Alnwick's reports. If we omit the general
charges against Sewardsley and Flamstead and the ambiguous apostasy of the
six nuns of Ankerwyke, we have twelve out of 220 nuns guilty of immoral
behaviour, or a little over five per cent.; but this is certainly an
understatement, having regard to the loss of the Sewardsley and Flamstead
inquiries and of other visitations by the two bishops, to say nothing of
possible concealment by the nuns. Between them Gray and Alnwick have left
on record visitations or inquiries relating to twenty-four houses and
cases of immorality came to light at eight, that is to say at one-third of
the number visited. All except two of these, Elstow and Heynings, were
very seriously affected, more than one nun having succumbed to sin; and
the Prioress was found guilty in two and probably suspected in two others.
The situation seems a serious one and Alnwick's visitations of the houses
of monks and canons which were in his diocese show that the men were more
lax in their behaviour than the women.
A similar statistical estimate can be made of the condition of convents in
the diocese of Norwich during the visitation by Bishop Nykke or his
commissary in 1514[1453]. Eight convents, containing between them
seventy-two nuns, were visited and only one case of immorality was found,
at Crabhouse[1454]. This is a far more favourable picture than that
presented by the diocese of Lincoln in the previous century. Again in 1501
Dr Hede visited the nunneries of the diocese of Winchester as commissary
of the Prior of Canterbury, during the vacancy of the sees of Canterbury
and Winchester[1455]. The diocese contained only four houses, but three of
them were important abbeys, St Mary's, Winchester, with fourteen nuns,
Wherwell with twenty-two and Romsey with forty; the fourth was Wintney
Priory, with ten nuns. All seem to have been in perfect order except
Romsey, which had fallen into decay under the _régime_ of an abbess who
had herself been guilty of adultery, and where one of the nuns was
charged with incontinence with the vicar of the parish church.
Unfortunately the record of the visitation is left incomplete and there
are no injunctions; hence it is impossible to say whether the last charge
was true, but the abbey had been in a disordered state for some years
past[1456]. Another diocese for which an estimate can be made is
Chichester, but it contained only two nunneries, Rusper and Easebourne. At
Bishop Story's visitation in 1478 all was well at Rusper, a poor and
ruinous little house containing seven nuns; but all was very far from well
at Easebourne, where six nuns remained and two had gone into apostasy
after conducting themselves in the thoroughly dissolute manner described
above[1457]. At Bishop Sherborne's visitation in 1524 the number of nuns
at Rusper had fallen to four, but there was no complaint except that a
certain William Tychenor had frequent access to the priory and sowed
discord between the Prioress and her three sisters. At Easebourne there
were eight nuns, but the house seems not to have recovered its tone after
the scandals of 1524. The subprioress deposed that some twelve years
before a certain Ralph Pratt had seduced a sister; yet the convent had
granted him the proceeds of the church of Easebourne and he still had much
access to the priory[1458]. It is a pity that more of these statistical
estimates, imperfect as they are, cannot be made.
It remains to consider what steps were taken to punish offenders and to
reform evils. The crime of seducing a nun was always considered an
extremely serious one; she was _Sponsa Dei_, inviolable, sacrosanct.
Anglo-Saxon law fined the ravisher heavily, and a law of Edward I declared
him liable to three years imprisonment, besides satisfaction made to the
convent. There is, however, no evidence that the State imprisoned or
otherwise punished persons guilty of this crime, though it was always
ready to issue the writ _De apostata capiendo_, for the recovery of a monk
or nun who had fled. Whenever the lover of a nun is found undergoing
punishment, it is always a punishment inflicted by the Church. If a man
had abducted a nun, or were accused of seducing her, he was summoned
before the Bishop or Archdeacon and required to purge himself of the
charge. If he pleaded "Not guilty" a day was appointed, on which he had
to clear himself by the oath of a number of compurgators. Thus the
Prioress of Catesby's lover, the priest William Taylour, was summoned
before Bishop Alnwick in the church of Brampton; there he denied the crime
and was told to bring five chaplains, of good report, who had knowledge of
his behaviour, in a few days' time to the parish church of Rothwell[1459].
The result of his attempt to find compurgators is not known, but the
Prioress had already failed to get four of her nuns to support her and had
been pronounced guilty. One wonders what happened when the man produced
compurgators and the lady failed to do so: for these misdemeanours _à
deux_ the compurgatorial system would seem a little uncertain.
If a man's guilt were proven by his failure to provide compurgators or to
come before the Bishop, it remained to decree his punishment. The obdurate
were excommunicated until such time as they submitted. The penitent were
adjudged a penance. There is abundant evidence that the penance given by
the Church was always a severe one. The classical instance is that of Sir
Osbert Giffard in 1286. The Giffards were a large and influential West
country family and in the last quarter of the thirteenth century several
of the children of Hugh Giffard of Boyton rose to high positions in the
Church. His eldest son, Walter, became in turn Bishop of Bath and Wells
and Archbishop of York, dying in 1279, and his second son Godfrey became
Bishop of Worcester. Of his daughters one, Juliana, is found as Abbess of
Wilton in 1275, another, Mabel, as Abbess of Shaftesbury in 1291, and a
third, Agatha, would seem to have held a position of some importance at
Elstow, though she was never Abbess there[1460]. These great ladies do not
seem to have had a very good influence in their nunneries, in spite of the
exalted position of their brothers. In 1270 the Bishop of Lincoln writes
apologetically to Walter Giffard, Archbishop of York, concerning scandals
which have arisen in Elstow, "whence more frequently than in any other
house beneath our rule scandals of wicked deeds arise," and it is clear
from his letter that the Abbess and the Bishop's sister were
implicated[1461]. In 1298 also the Abbess and nuns of Shaftesbury had
incurred excommunication "for their offences against God and by the
creation of scandal"[1462]. But the most serious mishap occurred at Wilton
in 1286. Here Juliana Giffard[1463] had under her rule a young relative
named Alice Giffard, and in this year Sir Osbert Giffard, knight (whose
exact relationship to the Abbess and the Bishop and to Alice is not
clear), "with sacrilegious hand ravished and abducted in the silence of
the night sisters Alice Russel and Alice Gyffard, professed according to
the rule of St Benedict in the monastery of Wylton." Archbishop Peckham
and the Bishop of Salisbury forthwith excommunicated Sir Osbert, who
eventually made his submission. It was indeed an unfortunate scandal to
occur in a Bishop's family and created a great stir in the country round.
Godfrey's concern is shown by the appearance in his Worcester Register of
the Bishop of Salisbury's letter to the Sub-dean of Salisbury and others
announcing the penance to be imposed upon the abductor[1464].
This penance was as follows:
The bishop enjoined upon him that he should restore the aforesaid
sisters and all goods of the monastery withdrawn and should make all
the satisfaction that he possibly could to the abbess and convent. And
that on Ash Wednesday in the church of Salisbury, the said crime being
solemnly published before the clergy and people, he should humbly
permit himself to be taken to the door of the church, with bare feet,
in mourning raiment and uncovered head, with other penitents and
should be beaten with sticks about the church on three holy days and
on three Tuesdays through the market of Salisbury and so often and in
like manner about the church of Wylton and through the market there
and he should be likewise beaten about the church of Amesbury and the
market there and about the church of Shaftesbury and the market there.
In his clothing from henceforth there shall not appear any cloaks of
lamb's wool, gilt spurs or horse trappings, or girdle of a knight,
unless in the meantime he should obtain special grace of the king, but
he shall take journey to the Holy Land and there serve for three
years[1465].
The penance was thus severe; but it is another matter to say that it was
always duly performed. A man who had already risked his immortal soul
once, by the seduction of a nun, might well choose to undergo
excommunication and risk it a second time, by refusing to do penance. The
lover of a nun of Harrold in 1298 was thus excommunicated for refusing to
be beaten through the market-place[1466]. Moreover there were endless ways
of delaying the humiliating ceremony. Take the case of Richard Gray, the
married boarder to whom Elizabeth Willoughby bore a child at St Michael's,
Stamford. On July 3rd, 1442, in the parish church of Wellingborough, the
Bishop caused him to swear upon the Holy Book that he would abjure the
priory and all communication with Elizabeth. He then sentenced him to four
floggings round one of the churches of Stamford on four Sundays or feast
days,
carrying in his hand before the procession of the same church a taper
of one pound's worth of wax, being clothed in his doublet and linen
garments only, and on the last of the said four days, after the
procession is finished, he has to offer the said taper to the high
altar of the said Church.
Moreover he was to perform a like penance on four Fridays, going round the
market-place of Stamford, and within a month he was also to make
pilgrimage on horseback to Lincoln Cathedral and when he came within five
miles of Lincoln, to dismount and go barefoot to the cathedral and there
offer to the high altar a taper of one pound's weight. The very evening,
however, that this severe penance was imposed, Richard Gray came before
the Bishop again and made lowly supplication that he would deign to temper
the penance; whereupon Alnwick, "moved with compassion on him," commuted
the penance round the market-place to a payment of twenty shillings to the
nuns of St Michael's, to be paid within a month, and another twenty
shillings to the fabric of the cathedral church, to be paid within six
weeks. Gray was to bring the Bishop letters testimonial as to the payment
of the forty shillings and the performance of the penance at Lincoln, also
within six weeks. But Richard had no intention of buying expensive wax
candles, paying forty shilling fines, catching cold in his shirt at
Stamford or humiliating himself at Lincoln. When summoned to do his
penance he appealed to the court of Canterbury. The Bishop then got
licence from the commissary of the official in that court to proceed
against the delinquent and summoned him to show cause why he had not done
penance. On November 15th, 1442, the slippery Richard appeared by proxy
before the Bishop's commissioner and said that he was "withheld by so many
and so sore infirmities of fevers and other kinds, lying in his bed every
other day, that he could not without grievous bodily harm appear in person
in or on the same day and place." The commissioner postponed his
appearance until December 11th and eventually he appeared on that day, but
showing no cause why he had not performed his penance, and was
excommunicated again by the Bishop, at which point he drops out of
history, with his penance still unperformed[1467].
It was no doubt an easier matter to exact penance from a nun. The apostate
was excommunicated until she made submission and returned to her convent.
Sometimes a very obdurate sinner was transferred to do penance at another
nunnery; the punishment was a common one in the diocese of York[1468] and
a wicked Prioress of Redlingfield was sent to Wix in 1427[1469]; but
nunneries not unnaturally sometimes objected to having to support at their
cost an evilly disposed woman from another house[1470]. More commonly the
sinner did penance in her own house. If particularly obdurate, she was
imprisoned for a time and even, if need be, shackled, in some secure place
in the convent[1471]. A severe penance was imposed in 1321 by Archbishop
Melton upon Maud of Terrington, an apostate nun of Keldholme, who had for
long lived in sin in the world. She was to be last in choir at all the
canonical hours, and when not in choir to be confined in solitude. She was
never to go out of the precincts of the cloister and was to be forever
debarred from speaking with lay folk and from sending or receiving
letters. She was not to be allowed to wear the black Benedictine veil,
which marked her as a nun, until such time as the Archbishop should
mitigate her penance, and should fast with bread and vegetables on
Wednesdays and bread and water on Fridays. For the rest of her life she
was never to wear a shift next her skin. On Wednesdays and Fridays she was
to go barefoot in the presence of the convent round the cloister, all
secular persons having been excluded, and there receive two beatings by
the hand of the Prioress and on each other day of the week she was to
receive one such discipline. Every week she was to say two psalters,
besides _Placebo_ and _Dirige_ and the commendation for the dead, which
she was to say each day for the remission of her sins. She was never to be
present at the daily consultations of the chapter, or at any other
convent business, but "let her lie prone before the convent at the
entrance of the choir, to be spurned by their feet, if they will"[1472].
This was a particularly severe, not to say inhuman, penance and it is
unlikely that such was the rule even in the case of obdurate offenders. A
guilty nun at Crabhouse in 1514 is told to sit last among her sisters for
a month and to say seven psalters during that period[1473] and a novice at
Redlingfield in 1427 is to go in front of the solemn procession of the
convent on Sunday, wearing no veil and clad in white flannel[1474]. The
former was not an apostate, though she had had a child, and the latter was
not yet professed and had been led away by the bad example of her
Prioress; nevertheless these penances seem sufficiently mild, in
comparison with the orthodox view of their offence. Fasting and
penitential psalms and some outward mark of degradation, such as the loss
of the veil and of the place in choir and chapter, to which the nun's
standing in the convent entitled her, were common penances. A guilty nun
was also debarred from holding any conventual office; but it must be
admitted that this salutary precaution was not always strictly carried
out. Occasionally a visitor is obliged to make a general injunction
against the holding of office by nuns convicted or suspected of
incontinence; Archbishop Courtenay mentions specifically the office of
portress[1475], a necessary precaution when one remembers how often the
French and Italian _tourière_ of a later date was little better than a
procuress. Frequently notorious evil-doers retained their position, and it
is surprising to notice how often persons who were obviously unsuitable
and immoral were elected to the headship of a house, or continued to hold
that position after conviction. Sabina de Apelgarth, who had been in
apostasy when a simple nun of Moxby in 1310, is found holding office in
1318, for Archbishop Melton orders her to be removed from all offices and
not to go outside the convent and couples his injunction with a general
prohibition against any office being held by a nun convicted _de lapsu
carnis_. Yet she apparently became Prioress of the house, for her removal
on account of further misconduct is noted in 1328[1476]. Isabel de
Berghby, Prioress of Arthington, apostatised in 1312, but returned
eighteen months later and was re-elected Prioress in 1349[1477]. In 1310
Isabella de St Quintin was ordered to be removed from the office of
cellaress in the presence of the whole convent of Nunkeeling, and the nuns
were ordered not to appoint her to any other office nor allow her to leave
the house; but in 1316 Isabella de St Quintin was elected Prioress[1478].
Denise Loweliche, the Prioress of Markyate, who had been so ready to add
perjury to incontinence in 1433 and had resigned only because she could
not find four nuns to swear to her innocence, was still, despite her
resignation, Prioress when Alnwick visited the house in 1442. Abbess
Elizabeth Broke of Romsey was similarly re-elected, after having been
found guilty of perjury and adultery[1479]. Even the wicked Prioress of
Littlemore (1517) was deprived but "allowed to perform the functions of
her office for the present, provided she did nothing without the advice of
the Bishop's commissary" and she was still acting-Prioress and behaving as
badly as ever when the house was visited again some nine months
later[1480]. Moreover it was possible for an influential sinner to obtain
a dispensation reinstating her to her position and allowing her to hold
office. Some curious papal mandates to this effect are extant. Joan
Goldesburgh, a nun of Nunmonkton, is so dispensed in 1450 "to receive and
hold any dignities, even of Abbess and Prioress, even conventual, of her
order, even if they be elective and have cure of souls"[1481], and two
nuns of Amesbury were restored to their voice and place in stall and
chapter, and rendered eligible for all offices even that of Abbess in 1398
and 1424[1482]. On the other hand such a dispensation shows that the
penance had been rigorously enforced; one of the nuns (a serious offender
who had had children by two priests) is said to have lived laudably in the
nunnery for six years since her condemnation. Occasionally, moreover, the
office of head of the house is specifically excepted in the
dispensation[1483].
Besides punishing offenders, the Bishops took steps to effect a general
reform of convents which they found in an unsatisfactory moral state, by
removing as far as possible the conditions which facilitated immorality.
Such steps usually consisted in forbidding the nuns to wander about freely
outside their houses and in prohibiting the visits of men, except under
safeguards. Sometimes a careful Bishop issues a special injunction against
a particular visitor, sometimes he enumerates painfully a list of
chaplains and others whose access to the precincts of a nunnery is
forbidden. These attempts to enforce enclosure have been dealt with
elsewhere[1484], and a study of convent morals shows how necessary a
principle of monastic life it was and how closely the breach of it was
connected with moral decay. The attempt at reform by stricter enclosure
was, as we know, not a success. The Bishops "beat the air" in vain with
their restrictions. In the nature of the case the control exercised by any
Bishop over the monastic houses of his diocese varied according to his own
energy or leisure. If visitation were made only at rare intervals, abuses
persisted and became public scandals before they were reformed, and even
after visitation it by no means followed that abuses would be
corrected[1485]. The fact is that the medieval bishops were too badly
overworked to be able to keep any systematic control over the monastic
houses in their dioceses, in spite of the energy which some of them gave
to the task and in spite of a liberal use of commissioners.
To pass a final judgment on the moral state of English nunneries, as
revealed by the bishops' registers during the later middle ages, is, as
has already been suggested, a difficult task. From the monastic standard
it cannot be said to have been high, but from the human standard it is not
difficult to excuse these women, professed so young and with so little
regard for vocation, _suos calores macerantes juveniles_. The nun was not
a saint; she was "a child of our grandmother Eve, a female, or for thy
more sweet understanding, a woman"; and only a habit of making allowances
for human nature can give a right understanding of her. The explanation of
the matter seems to be that monasticism as a career is not for _l'homme
moyen sensuel_, or even for _la femme moyenne sensuelle_; and in the later
middle ages many folk of average, or more than average, passions entered
it. Indeed its whole career is from the beginning a magnificent series of
recoveries from a melancholy series of relapses. Even in the Anglo-Saxon
period, the golden age of the English nunneries, the scandal of Coldingham
has to be set against the glory of Whitby[1486]. In the height of the
twelfth century the misdeeds of Amesbury provoke episcopal, royal, and
papal interference and nuns from the new order of Fontevrault are brought
in to reform the house[1487]. In the middle of the splendid thirteenth
century that hammer of the monks, Bishop Grosseteste, who _in religiosos
terribiliter et in religiosas terribilius consuevit fulgurare_, conceived
himself justified in employing measures of incredible brutality for
assuring himself of the virtue of his nuns[1488]; and the evidence of
bishops' registers for the second half of the century does not give an
impression of much greater strictness of life than is found in the
nunneries of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when monasticism had,
by the admission of its apologists, passed its prime[1489].
Nevertheless there was a steady movement downhill in the history of the
monasteries during the last two centuries and a half before the
dissolution[1490]. They shared in the growing degradation of the Church in
its head and members. The "mighty lord who broke the bonds of Rome" may
have been actuated merely by a desire to break the bonds of matrimony, but
there was some need for reform among the monastic houses. It is true that
the so-called scandalous _comperta_ of Henry VIII's visitors cannot be
taken at their face value; these men had been sent to make a black case
and they made it, nor was their own character such as to encourage the
slightest belief in their words. Yet in those _comperta_ themselves there
is nothing which is unfamiliar to the student of episcopal registers for
two centuries before, and charges which a Layton made with levity, an
Alnwick was forced sometimes to make with despair[1491]. Yet this may be
said for the nunneries of the age, over and above the allowance for human
frailty: not all, nor even the majority, were tainted with serious sin,
though all were worldly. We think a house particularly disordered, only
because we have record of its failings; of its virtues we have no record
in inquisitions which were directed towards the discovery of abuses. It is
true that this cuts both ways, and that in dioceses where few or no
registers and reports remain the fair fame of the nuns remains
unblemished, whatever their lives may have been. Happy the nunnery that
has no history. Nevertheless in this as in so many other tales of human
endeavour
The evil that men do lives after them--
The good is oft interred with their bones,
and it will never be known what lives of self-sacrifice and devotion may
be hidden behind the _Omnia bene_ of an obscure visitation record. The
words of the sixteenth century poem are the wisest judgment on medieval
nuns:
For sum bene devowte, holy and towarde,
And holden the right way to blysse;
And sum bene feble, lewde and frowarde,
Now god amend that ys amys.
The dissolution of the monasteries amputated in England a limb of the
Church, which though diseased was yet far from putrid. We have no means of
guessing what the later history of the nunneries might have been. The
English nunneries compare on the whole favourably with contemporary French
and German houses, as revealed by the visitations of Rigaud and Busch, and
they certainly never reached such a laxity of morals and such a complete
absence of any spirituality as was reached by the convents of the Latin
countries at a later date. It was never, in the middle ages, the mode to
be a _monachino_ as it was later in France and Italy[1492]. The life of a
nun had not yet lost all of its original purpose and meaning and the
careers of a Virginia Maria de Leyva, of a Lucrezia Buonvisi, of an
Angélique d'Estrées, even of such a virtuous flirt as Felice Rasponi,
would not have been possible then[1493]. No Casanova could have found in
medieval England opportunity for those astounding intrigues with the M.M.
of Venice and the M.M. of Chambéry, which fill so large a place in his
_Memoirs_ and are so significant a commentary upon monastic life in the
eighteenth century[1494]. The reason lies perhaps in the less inflammable
temperament of the North, but still more in the different standards of the
time. The middle ages expressed and satisfied their passions freely, but
debauchery was then less all-pervading and less elegant. Passion was not
yet degraded to fashion and the lover had not yet become the gallant. The
sins of these fifteenth century nuns are a matter of rude nature and not
of "all the adulteries of art." That which was expelled with a pitchfork
had not yet returned with a fan. The distinction is a relevant one. A vow
broken for love may yet have force and reality; a vow broken for amusement
has none. The medieval nunneries never sank to the moral degradation of a
more refined and artificial age.
CHAPTER XII
THE MACHINERY OF REFORM
And whan they had resceyuede [t]her charge
They spared nether mud ne myer,
But roden over Inglonde brode and large,
To seke owte nunryes in every schyre.
_Why I can't be a Nun_ (15th century).
A community, living together under a somewhat rigid rule and obliged to
concern itself with a large measure of temporal business, has to face many
difficulties and abuses. The strictness of its discipline and the
prosperity of its affairs will necessarily depend very largely upon the
character and intelligence of the individuals who compose it. A diseased
limb may corrupt the whole body politic; or on the other hand a low state
of vitality in the body politic may render the limb liable to corruption.
Again rule and routine inevitably tend in the course of time to become
slackened, as human nature wins its way against the austerity of a
primitive ideal. Every community, therefore, needs some sort of machinery
on the one hand for keeping itself up to the mark and on the other for the
external inspection and regulation of its affairs. The monastic houses of
the middle ages were provided with internal machinery for self-reform in
the daily meeting of the whole convent in the chapter house, to transact
business and to denounce and punish faults. The external machinery was
provided by an elaborate system of visitation by ecclesiastical
authorities, sometimes by a parent house, sometimes by the chapter-general
of the order, sometimes by the bishop of the diocese; by means of such
visitation breaches of discipline and morality could be rectified and the
temporal business of the house could be scrutinised for evidence of
mismanagement.
The daily routine of the chapter house is too well known to need a
detailed description here. The whole monastic community was bound by the
rule to meet every day, usually after Prime, in the chapter house on the
east side of the cloister, with the head of the house (to use modern
terminology) in the chair. At this meeting a chapter of the Rule was
solemnly read, after which the corporate business of the house was
discussed. Leases, sales, and corrodies were approved or disapproved, and
the common seal of the convent was affixed to letters and grants, in the
presence of all the monks or nuns. The neglect to transact common business
by common advice in chapter was not infrequently a legitimate source of
complaint by a convent against its superior. Besides temporal business of
this kind, the moral and spiritual welfare of the convent was considered.
Wrongdoers publicly accused themselves of fault, or were publicly accused
by their fellows, and correction was administered by a "discipline," or by
some other penance. By means of the chapter, a convent of reasonable
seriousness and goodwill could keep up its own standard of life and
control its own backsliders.
Undoubtedly the chapter was a useful instrument of self-reform, but its
efficacy obviously depended entirely on whether the convent as a whole
were desirous of keeping the Rule and punishing black sheep. If the number
of sheep who were black, or even grey, preponderated and if laxity were
general in the community, the chapter would not concern itself to raise
its own standard. From the frequent injunctions of medieval bishops that
the daily meeting in the chapter should not be omitted, it would appear
that not only the public transaction of business, but also the public
confession and punishment of faults was sometimes neglected. Moreover,
unless entered into with modesty and a sense of responsibility, the right
of every member to charge another with fault was a sure source of discord,
for it certainly provided ample opportunity for frail human nature to
exhibit malice. The younger nuns were apt to indulge in what their elders
regarded as impudent criticism; private grudges found an opportunity to
vent themselves; and rival cliques sometimes turned the meeting into an
unseemly hubbub. It was perhaps for this reason that the Abbot of St
Albans, visiting Sopwell in 1338, decreed that
for the avoidance of evils and for the promotion and maintenance of
peace and charity, but three voices shall henceforth be heard in
chapter, to wit those of the president, of the subprioress or of
another official of the order, and of her who shall be challenged or
accused of a fault[1495].
Another common abuse was the gossip to which such revelations in chapter
sometimes gave rise, gossip which was not confined to the ears of the
nuns. Bishop Flemyng's injunction to Elstow in 1421-2 "that the Abbess
shall narrowly espy what secrets of chapter be in any way disclosed,
punishing severely also those who trangress in this matter"[1496] is only
one of many similar injunctions; and visitation reports sometimes show
considerable interference by lay folk in cloister disputes. During the
election quarrel which raged at Nunkeeling from 1316 to 1319 Archbishop
Melton accused certain nuns of revealing the secrets of the chapter to
seculars and adversaries outside, and during a similar quarrel at
Keldholme a number of laymen were cited, together with certain nuns, for
obstructing the appointment of a new prioress in 1308[1497]. One is left
with the impression that the nuns called in the support of their friends
and kinsfolk in the world, if they found themselves at odds with their
Prioress. In the feud between the wicked Prioress of Littlemore and her
nuns (1518) both parties had adherents in Oxford: the Prioress brought in
her friends to subdue the nuns and the nuns fled to theirs, when they
could no longer bear the Prioress[1498]. At Hampole, where Archbishop
Bowet found the Prioress and nuns out of all charity with each other in
1411, he even had to ordain that no nun, having any complaint against the
Prioress, was to ignore the Archbishop's authority and call in the aid of
any secular or regular person. If any sister wished to complain and could
find another to join with her, she was to have access to the Archbishop,
the necessary expenses being given her by the Prioress. If the Prioress
refused leave or delayed it beyond three days, the two nuns were to have
access to the Archbishop, without incurring the charge of apostasy[1499].
Sometimes the revelation of convent _secreta_ was made in a spirit of pure
gossip, rather than with the object of obtaining external aid; the
complaint of the nuns of Catesby in 1442 that the Prioress' mother "knows
well the secrets of the chapter and publishes them in the town; so also
does the Prioress publish them," and that of the nuns of Gracedieu in
1440-1 that "the Prioress makes the secrets of their religious life common
among the secular folk that sit at table with her" are typical of many
others[1500].
The meeting of the chapter, therefore, though a useful instrument of
self-reform, when the necessary goodwill was present, was liable to
abuses. It was apt to be neglected; it gave rise to ill-feeling; and it
sometimes led to undesirable gossip, both inside and outside the house. It
is obvious, moreover, that a measure of external control was necessary to
keep up the standard of life in the many monastic houses of Europe and to
reform common breaches of discipline. This external control was exercised
in the middle ages by three distinct authorities: (1) a parent house, (2)
the chapter general of the Order and (3) the diocesan of the see.
Certain houses, which had founded other houses as offshoots or colonies,
retained the right to visit and reform their daughter-houses. Some
monasteries had small outlying priories, known as "cells," founded
originally to look after distant estates of the house; sometimes such
cells contained only one or two monks, living in an ordinary dwelling
house, and had no real existence apart from the parent house. Sometimes,
however, the cells grew and achieved an independent existence, though
still maintaining their connection with their founders. This frequently
happened to the English cells of foreign houses, and certain cells of
English houses also grew into independent priories. Among nunneries,
originally founded as cells of foreign houses, may be mentioned Lyminster
in Sussex. Few English nunneries had cells; but Seton in Coupland was a
cell of Nunburnholme. The connection between mother house and cell is
illustrated by a licence granted by Archbishop Greenfield to the Prioress
of Nunburnholme in 1313 to visit, "your cell of Seton in Coupland, which
is subject to your monastery," taking with her two honest nuns of the
house, in order to visit the nuns of Seton, and returning without
delay[1501]. The visitation of the cell was usually included in that of
the mother house and the larger independent cells were often subject to
episcopal visitation.
Rather different in origin from a cell was a house founded by a monastery,
less as a colony than as a distinct but dependent institution. The most
interesting example of this is provided by the great Abbey of St Albans,
which founded two nunneries, St Mary de Pré and Sopwell. Both the
nunneries were always very dependent on St Albans and are often mentioned
in the chronicles of that house. St Mary de Pré, having been founded in
the twelfth century as a hospital for leprous women living under a rule,
became later an ordinary nunnery, containing nuns, and both lay sisters
and lay brothers; in the time of Abbot Thomas de la Mare (1349-96) the
rank of sister was abolished and a higher standard of education was
insisted upon for the nuns, who were to profess the rule of St
Benedict[1502]. Sopwell was also founded in the twelfth century as a
Benedictine nunnery[1503]. In both houses nuns were admitted only by
consent of the Abbot of St Albans, who also claimed the right to appoint
their prioress. In both the temporal affairs of the convent were
administered by wardens, appointed by the Abbot from among the monks of
the abbey[1504]. The close connection was not always maintained without
friction. At Sopwell the nuns more than once tried to elect their own
prioress and seem to have found the Abbot somewhat high-handed[1505]. In
1481 Abbot Wallingford sent the archdeacon and subprior of the house to
remove the prioress from office on account of her age and infirmities and
to put Elizabeth Webbe in her place, but some years later the archdeacon
deposed Elizabeth, whereupon she brought an action against him in the
Court of Arches and was reinstated. Thereupon "two monks of St Albans,
sent by the archdeacon, came to the nunnery, broke down Elizabeth's door
with an iron bar, beat her and put her in prison," after which she
appealed to Archbishop Morton as Chancellor[1506]. She may have been at
the bottom of the famous letter written by Morton to the Abbot of St
Albans in 1490, accusing him of changing prioresses at Pré and at Sopwell
as he pleased and deposing good and religious persons for the benefit of
the evil and vicious, and stating that the Prioress of St Mary de Pré,
Helen Germyn, was a married woman who had left her husband for a lover and
that she and some of her nuns were leading immoral lives with monks of St
Albans[1507]. The same letter accused the monks put in as wardens of using
their opportunities to dissipate the goods of the house, and the turbulent
Prioress of Sopwell, Elizabeth, is found complaining to the Chancellor
that a deed of lease by the convent had been secretly altered to their
disadvantage by their "keeper" and his clerk, who had been bribed by a
tenant[1508].
It is difficult to say how much truth there was in these charges and they
certainly do not seem to show overmuch care for the reform of the daughter
houses by their august parent. But it would not be fair to judge St Albans
by this quarrel at the end of its career, and there is evidence to show
that past abbots tried conscientiously to maintain good order in the
dependent nunneries. Among other rights the abbot possessed that of
visitation, and chance has fortunately preserved an interesting set of
injunctions sent by Abbot Michael to Sopwell, after a visitation held in
1338[1509]. The orders given to the Warden of Sopwell by Abbot Thomas
(1349-96) have also been preserved in the _Gesta Abbatum_[1510].
Another nunnery founded by a famous abbey of monks was St Michael's,
Stamford, founded by William of Waterville, Abbot of Peterborough in
1155; and this house remained for long dependent upon its parent
abbey[1511]. In its early years it was customary for the prioress in the
name of the chapter to pay an annual pension of a mark of silver to the
Abbot and to make formal recognition of subjection, once every year, on
the morrow of the Feast of St Michael. The Abbot had the right of
receiving the profession of the sisters and his consent was necessary to
the election of the prioress. He also had the appointment of the warden or
prior, who looked after the temporalities of the house. In 1270 Bishop
Gravesend sanctioned the personal visitation of the house once a year by
the abbot and two or three monks, with power to correct and reform, and
the Register of the Abbey records such visitations in 1297, 1300, 1303 and
1323. The tendency was, however, for the diocesan to oust the abbey from
the control of the house; from time to time he claimed and exercised the
right of instituting the warden, and from the end of the thirteenth
century he regularly instituted the prioress. From this time the bishops'
registers show that the regulation and reform of the house were in the
hands of the bishop and it was duly visited by Alnwick in the fifteenth
century. The accounts of St Michael's, Stamford, show that the nuns still
had dealings with the Abbey; but Peterborough did not retain over this
nunnery the exclusive rights of appointment and visitation, which St
Albans, owing to its exemption from diocesan control, exercised to the end
over Sopwell and St Mary de Pré. There is no mention of either of these
houses in the episcopal registers.
Nunneries subject to visitation by a parent abbey were highly exceptional.
Another exceptional method of external control was visitation by the
chapter-general of the order, to which the nunnery belonged. Nuns as well
as monks were constantly legislated for by these chapters-general, but
they were very rarely visited, because (as we shall see) they were almost
all subject to visitation by the bishop of their diocese. A trace of
visitation by order of the chapter-general seems to survive in a letter
from the Abbot of Stratford (4 December, 1491), preserved among the
Cistercian documents in the archives at Dijon[1512]. The Abbot relates
that he had visited Cokehill, found it in a very unsatisfactory condition
and tried in vain to depose the prioress; at other times, however,
Cokehill was visited by the Bishops of Worcester. The Cistercian order
claimed exemption from episcopal visitation for male houses and we shall
see that it made occasional attempts to exert its right over nunneries
too.
By far the most common method of reforming nunneries from outside was by
means of the control of the bishop of the diocese[1513]. It is an
interesting fact that not even the greatest and most important Benedictine
abbeys of women, such as Shaftesbury, Amesbury and Romsey, succeeded in
obtaining an exemption from episcopal jurisdiction such as was enjoyed by
St Albans and some other houses; and nunneries belonging to "exempt"
orders were invariably under episcopal control. Bishops, who would never
have dreamed of interfering with houses of Cistercian or Cluniac monks,
visited the nuns of those orders as a matter of course and no objection
was as a rule raised by the houses or by the orders. There is, it is true,
one extremely interesting case in which this right of visitation was
contested. In 1276 the nuns of Sinningthwaite contested the right of
Archbishop Giffard of York to visit them and appealed against him to the
Pope. Unfortunately the papal decision is not recorded, but as they were
regularly visited until their dissolution, it was evidently against them.
They possibly acted in collusion with the Cistercian abbots of their
diocese, for in the same year Archbishop Giffard ordered them to have
Friars Minor as their confessors, in spite of the inhibition of Cistercian
abbots, who had no jurisdiction over them[1514]. The Cokehill case quoted
above may represent a similar attempt of the Cistercian chapter-general
to control a nunnery belonging to the order. For the historian of the
English nunneries it is an exceedingly fortunate thing that the diocesans
enjoyed this unchallenged right of visitation over almost all the
nunneries in the kingdom; for the episcopal registers are the best source
of monastic history and an exempt house (save when it was a famous abbey
with a chronicle) is not infrequently a house without history, because
without visitation records.
Since the periodical visitation by the diocesan was not only the main
method of external control and reformation, but also incidentally gave
rise to the records on which so much of this history of nunneries is
based, it is worth while to study what exactly happened when a bishop, or
his commissioners, came to inspect a nunnery. A regular routine was
followed, which can easily be reconstructed from such full records as
those kept by Bishop Alnwick of Lincoln[1515]. A formal summons was sent
by the bishop to the house to be visited, warning the convent to hold
itself in readiness for visitation by himself, or by one or more
commissioners (named). On the appointed day he rode up to the house,
accompanied by his clerks, and was met at the door of the church by the
convent and conducted to the high altar. Here high mass was celebrated and
the bishop, his clerks and the convent then adjourned to the chapter house
for the business of visitation. The proceedings began with the preaching
of a sermon by one of the bishop's clerks; in houses of monks this was
given in Latin until the end of our period, but knowledge of Latin had
died out in nunneries before the fifteenth century and at Alnwick's
visitation the sermon was always preached in the vulgar tongue, on some
such text as "_Go forth, O ye daughters of Zion and behold king Solomon_"
(Cant. iii. 11), "_Present your bodies a living sacrifice ... unto God_"
(Rom. xii. 1), or others less specifically appropriate to nuns. When this
had been finished, the head of the house was required to present a
certificate of receipt of the summons to visitation, which had to be drawn
up according to a common form; and this not infrequently caused some delay
in nunneries, where the inmates were often too ignorant of Latin to draw
up the document correctly, unless they could call in the help of a
clerk[1516]. The head of the house then produced the certificate of her
election, confirmation by the diocesan and installation. Here again there
was sometimes a delay, for prioresses were occasionally all at sea over
documents and the necessary certificates were apt to be lacking at the
last minute. Thus Dame Alice Dunwyche, the incompetent old Prioress of
Gracedieu, was unable to produce any evidence of her confirmation in 1440
and the bishop had to appoint a special commissary to inquire into the
matter; three months later the commissary examined two laymen brought by
her as witnesses to her confirmation and installation[1517]. Meanwhile the
visitation would continue; and the last formality to be observed was the
production by the prioress of the foundation charter of the house, and the
financial balance sheet (or _status domus_) for the year, this last an
important item, since it enabled the bishop to see at a glance whether the
financial affairs of the convent were in a satisfactory condition[1518].
This completed the preliminary business.
There now followed the main business of the visitation, the verbal
examination of the nuns, in order to detect what abuses might stand in
need of reform. Some abuses were patent to the eyes of the bishop; he
could see garments in holes, and veils spread wide to show fair foreheads;
he might have caught the scuttle of little dogs round corners as he rode
in at the gates, or the whisk of a boarder's murrey-coloured skirts behind
a pillar. But the bulk of his information had to be obtained by careful
cross-examination. The chapter house was cleared and he proceeded to
question the nuns separately and in private, beginning with the prioress.
Experience would teach him what were the most common breaches of
discipline about which to make specific inquiry, but the nuns were
encouraged to complain freely and the bishop's clerks were kept busy
scribbling notes of what each shrill tale-bearer told, to be written out
afterwards under her name as _detecta_, or things discovered to the
bishop.
These _detecta_ are an amusing commentary on life in a community and grist
(it must be admitted) to the cynic's mill. Serious charges of immorality
are mingled with trivialities, much as the chroniclers of the period
mingle battles, monastic gossip and sea monsters cast upon the shore. The
beer is too light; swine do come into the churchyard and root up the earth
and befoul the churchyard; all corrections are made with so great
harshness and so much ado that charity and loving-kindness are banished
from the house; the nuns do hold drinkings of evenings in the
guestchamber, even after Compline; the prioress has pawned the jewels of
the house; sister so-and-so is defamed with sir so-and-so, sometime
chaplain in that place and did conceive of him and bear a child; the
buildings and tenements of the priory are dilapidated and many have fallen
to the ground because of default in repairs; secular persons do lie in the
dorter near the nuns; the nuns wear silken veils and robes; in the
prioress' default six nuns have now left the house in apostasy; the nuns
frequent taverns and continually go into town without leave; silence is
not observed in due places; the nuns do help secular folk in garnering
their grain during the autumn season; the nuns are somewhat sleepy and
come late to matins; the prioress does not render an account. Besides this
infinite variety of complaint, the _detecta_ exhibit also an infinite
variety of motive, ranging from the disciplinarian's zeal for reform to
the private grudge of one individual against another. Sometimes the
prioress and the nuns engage in mutual recriminations: she is harsh, or
autocratic, or incompetent, they are lax or disobedient. Sometimes, on the
other hand, a whole convent declares _omnia bene_. About some houses there
still hangs a gentle atmosphere of peace and goodwill, others are rent
with feud and petty bickering, others are in a condition of very lax
morality. Human nature is truly unchanging, for all the types to be met
with in a modern community, be it school or college, ship or government
office, have their prototypes among these medieval monks and nuns. The
amateur in human nature and the social historian alike may find in these
little studied monastic _detecta_ material of more absorbing interest and
entertainment than is to be found in any other class of medieval
documents.
After the bishop had heard the evidence of the nuns, given thus
chaotically, the next business was to summarise, in some sort of order,
the result of the inquiry. Such complaints of the nuns as the bishop
considered worthy of notice were therefore classified as _comperta_, or
things discovered by the bishop. If any member of the convent had been
accused of serious breaches of the rule, she was summoned and the articles
of accusation were read to her, and one by one she was invited to admit or
to deny them. If she pleaded guilty, a penance was enjoined upon her. If
she denied the charge, she was ordered to find a certain number of
compurgators, who would swear to her innocence, and to produce them by a
certain hour. The number of cases in which misconduct was sufficiently
serious to make this necessary was not great. During Alnwick's visitation
it happened at Catesby, where the prioress and Isabel Benet were charged
with immorality; the prioress denied the charge, but was unable to find
four sisters to vouch for her and was adjudged guilty; Isabel Benet
admitted misconduct, but not with the man whose name was coupled with
hers, and she seems to have cleared herself of intercourse with him by the
oath of four of the nuns[1519]. Usually the bishop showed himself lenient
and allowed the agitated sinner an extension of time, if she could not
find her compurgators within the period allotted to her[1520]. Whether
this leniency is to be attributed to Christian charity, or to a desire to
avoid scandal, is not clear; but if a prioress could not in two hours find
four nuns to swear that she was not guilty, the value of their oaths, when
they appeared after four hours' canvassing, would not appear to be very
great. Yet it is impossible not to understand the bishop's desire to give
a sinner the benefit of the doubt; fright and admonition alone might
reform her, and it was exceedingly difficult to deal with a really bad
prioress, when she could not be ejected from her order.
The bishop having dealt with individual offenders, the whole convent was
summoned once more to the chapter house. The _detecta_ and _comperta_ were
read aloud to the nuns and the bishop made verbal injunctions upon points
which stood in special need of reform. He then dissolved the visitation;
or, if any further business remained to be dealt with, prorogued it until
a later date. Then he rode away again, and the fluttered convent settled
down again to gossip and to await further injunctions. For the admonitions
of the bishop at the visitation were only _interim_ injunctions; his
business was not finished until he had sent to the nunnery a set of
written injunctions, embodying the reforms shown to be necessary by the
_comperta_. These written injunctions were sent to the convent shortly
after the visitation. Sometimes the clerk who brought them was ordered to
expound them, or some reverend commissioner was sent to complete at the
same time any special business arising out of the visitation. For
instance, when Peckham sent a set of injunctions on April 20th, 1284, to
the Priory of the Holy Sepulchre, Canterbury, which had been visited by
commissioners on his behalf, he also addressed a letter to his commissary
Martin, bidding him go in person to the house and expound the injunctions
to the nuns. At the same time he was ordered (1) to appoint two
coadjutresses to the prioress, who had been wasting the goods of the
house; one of these was named and Martin was particularly warned against
appointing another nun, who was said to be contumelious; (2) to beseech
the Vicar of Wickham on behalf of the Archbishop to undertake the office
of master of the house, so as to order its temporal affairs; (3) to
receive the compurgation of Isabella de Scorue, who was defamed with the
cellarer of the cathedral church and to forbid all the nuns access to the
cathedral and the cellarer access to the priory[1521]. These pieces of
specific and administrative business were not mentioned in Peckham's more
general injunctions. The injunctions were left in the hands of the convent
and from that moment became as canonically binding upon the nuns, as was
their original rule; any breach of them was liable to punishment by
excommunication. The prioress was usually ordered to display them in a
place where they could be easily read by the sisters, or to have them
solemnly read aloud in chapter a certain number of times each year.
It was by this machinery of visitation and injunction that the diocesans
endeavoured to control and reform the nunneries. But how far was the
control adequate and the reform successful? It is obvious that the
efficacy of the visitation system depended on three things: (1) the
success of the cross-examination in drawing the real state of the convent
from the nuns, (2) the regularity with which visitation was repeated, (3)
the ability of the bishop to enforce his injunctions. As to the first of
these conditions, the extent to which breaches of discipline came to light
depended on the skill of the bishop in cross-examination on the one hand,
and on the other the honesty of the nun's desire to assist him. If a
convent were seriously discontented the chances were that charges would be
freely made: thus Alnwick experienced no difficulty in extracting an
almost unanimous testimony against the Prioress of Catesby. But this did
not always happen; as is shown by Gray's letter bidding his commissary
visit Markyate in 1433:
When we some time ago made actual visitation ... of the priory of the
Holy Trinity of the Wood by Markyate ..., we, making anxious inquiry
touching the state of the same priory and the concerns of religion in
the same, found that in such our visitation certain crimes,
transgressions and offences worthy of reformation were discovered to
us, by occasion whereof ... we enjoined upon the prioress and convent
of the same place certain injunctions.... But ... it has lately come
to our hearing, as loud whispering abounds and the notoriousness of
the fact has made public, that more grievous offences than were
discovered to us in the same our visitation were before the beginning
of the same unhappily brought to pass and done in the same priory, the
which the said prioress and her sisters of their design aforethought
concealed from us undiscovered at the time of such our
visitation[1522].
One of the matters thus concealed was the immorality of the prioress with
the steward of the house, a fact which seems to have been notorious
throughout the neighbourhood.
When such a grave defect could be successfully hidden from the bishop at
his visitation, it is obvious that he could do little against a unanimous
determination on the part of a convent to keep him in the dark. He was
really dependent upon disagreement within the house; a conscientious nun
or a nun with a grudge served him equally well. But it seems likely that
concealment was not seldom practised, for, as Mr Coulton points out,
"among the earliest and most frequently-repeated general chapter statutes
are those providing against (_a_) conspiracy of the Religious against
reformation, or (_b_) vengeance wreaked afterwards upon brethren who have
dared to reveal the truth"[1523]. Some of the _detecta_ at Alnwick's
visitation throw light on the efforts made (usually by the prioress) by
conspiracy and by vengeance to prevent the nuns from testifying. At
Catesby the evil prioress, Margaret Wavere, had excellent reasons for
fearing a disclosure of her way of life. Sister Juliane Wolfe deposed
"that the prioress did threaten that, if the nuns disclosed aught in the
visitation, they should pay for it in prison." Dame Isabel Benet (by no
means a paragon of virtue herself) deposed that "in the last visitation
which was made by the Lord William Graye, the prioress said that for a
purse and certain moneys a clerk of the said bishop made known what every
nun disclosed in that visitation." Sister Alice Kempe said that "because
the nuns at the last visitation disclosed what should be disclosed, the
prioress whipped some of them." All of these articles the prioress denied,
but she was undoubtedly guilty and was unable to find compurgators[1524].
At Legbourne the prioress took a course with which one cannot avoid a
certain sympathy. Dame Joan Gyney deposed that
the prioress, after she received my lord's mandate for the visitation,
called together the chapter and said, if there were aught in need of
correction among them, they should tell it her; because she said it
was more suitable that they should correct themselves than that others
should correct them[1525].
At Ankerwyke Prioress Clemence Medforde, conscious of many misdeeds and of
the cordial dislike of her nuns, "did invite several outside folk from the
neighbourhood to this visitation at great cost to the house, saying to
them, 'Stand on my side in this time of visitation, for I do not want to
resign.'" She admitted the entertainment of her friends, "but it was not
to this end"[1526]. Recriminations after the visitation are even commoner
than preliminary attempts to circumvent it. At Gracedieu the ill-tempered
old prioress confessed, on being confronted with the _detectum_ of one of
her nuns to that effect, that she
since and after the visitation last held therein by his [Alnwick's]
predecessor, did reproach her sisters, because of the disclosures at
the same visitation and did blame them therefore and has held and
holds them in hatred, by reason whereof charity and loving-kindness
were utterly banished and strivings, hatreds, back-bitings and
quarrellings have ever flourished[1527].
The second condition for the efficacy of episcopal visitation as a method
of reform is the regularity of such visitation. Obviously if visitations
are very rare the hold of the diocesan on a house will be weak; for much
water may flow under the bridge between one visitation and the next. The
general rule in vogue in the middle ages was that each house should be
visited once in every three years, which was in theory a very adequate
arrangement. It seems clear, however, that it was not always carried out.
The work was done by one overworked bishop in person or by commissioners
specially appointed by him for the visitation of each house. In a big
diocese, such as Lincoln or York, which abounded in monastic houses, the
work of visitation was a really considerable labour, for it was only one
part of the bishop's multifarious duties; and it is impossible not to
conclude that the regularity of visitation differed very much from diocese
to diocese and from time to time. The bishops themselves varied very much
in energy and conscientiousness, but on the whole it is evident that they
took their duties seriously and honestly endeavoured to keep up the
standard of life in their dioceses. No one can put down the record of
Rigaud's visitations of the diocese of Rouen, Greenfield's visitations of
the diocese of York, and Alnwick's visitations of the diocese of Lincoln,
without a profound respect for those prelates. But though they did much,
they could not do enough.
There is a good deal of incidental evidence in the visitation reports,
which shows that visitations were held too seldom to be really effectual.
Gracedieu, for instance, had not been visited between 1433, when Gray
came, and 1440-1; and by this last date it had fallen into such laxity
that reform must have been difficult. Markyate was unvisited between 1433
and 1442, in spite of the deprivation of the prioress for immorality and
the apostasy of one of the nuns in 1433. There are few houses in the
annals of English nunneries in so bad a state as Littlemore was in 1517;
yet the Prioress, forced at last to confess her misdeeds, which comprised
not only habitual incontinence but the persecution of her nuns, stated
that though these things had been going on for eight years, yet no inquiry
had been made and, as it seems, no visitation of the house had been held;
only on one occasion certain injunctions of a general kind had been sent
her[1528]. On the other hand the registers show that a real attempt was
often made to grapple with a really serious case. St Michael's, Stamford,
for instance, was visited by Alnwick in 1440 and found to be in a
disorderly state; he gave careful _interim_ injunctions on the spot and
sent written injunctions afterwards. The house, however, was ruled by a
thoroughly incompetent prioress, and the bishop seems to have made
inquiries and found that his reforms had not been carried out, for in 1442
he came again,
and then after the cause of such his visitation had been set forth and
explained to the said prioress and nuns by the same reverend father,
to wit because his injunctions at his first visitation ... were not
duly kept, he proceeded to his preparatory inquiry.
This inquiry showed that matters were if anything worse than before; and
in 1445 the bishop visited the house again[1529]. Similarly, when once
Bishop Atwater had awakened to the moral condition of Littlemore in the
next century, he took pains to reform it. The scandals were brought to
light at the visitation by his commissary Dr Horde in 1517; a few months
later the bishop summoned the prioress before him to answer the charges
made against her and after a lapse of nine months the house was visited
again in 1518[1530].
But if visitations were sometimes not held regularly enough to be really
effective, a still greater cause of weakness was the great difficulty
experienced by the bishops in controlling the religious houses in the
period between one visitation and the next and in enforcing their
injunctions. A bishop might send a set of the most salutary injunctions to
an undisciplined house; but how was he to secure that the nuns followed
them, save by the most solemn threats of excommunication, which they seem
often enough to have disregarded. Markyate, St Michael's, Stamford, and
Littlemore went steadily from bad to worse between each of the visitations
made by Gray, Alnwick and Atwater respectively. In 1442
Dame Elizabeth the prioress [of St Michael's], being asked whether she
has observed and caused to be observed by the others my lord's
injunctions made to them at another time, says that, so far as she has
been able she has kept them and caused them to be kept by the others:
howbeit she says that she does not lie in the dorter, or keep frater,
or even keep cloister or church according to my lord's injunction and
this because of her bodily incapacity. And she avers that my lord
granted her a dispensation touching these things, the which my lord
utterly disavows[1531].
These were comparatively trivial faults; since the last visitation one of
the nuns had had a child; and at the next visitation, three years later,
the same fate was found to have overtaken another, which is a significant
commentary on the effectuality of episcopal control.
The fundamental difficulty was that the bishop was obliged in the nature
of things to trust largely to the prioress and to the nuns themselves to
enforce his decrees. _Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?_ Sometimes the very
women whom he singled out for special trust were subsequently found to be
worse than their sisters. Indeed it is sometimes difficult to account for
the principle on which coadjutresses were appointed. It surely seems
somewhat like tempting providence that Alnwick should have selected Isabel
Benet, the only other nun in the house who was defamed of incontinence, to
be administrator in place of the suspended Prioress of Catesby, and it is
not surprising to read of the later escapade of that lady at a dance with
the friars of Northampton and of their refusal to obey his ordinance
against private rooms[1532]. The only intelligible principle of the bishop
would appear to have been that applied by Henry VII to the Earl of
Kildare, "All Ireland cannot rule this man; then he shall rule all
Ireland." It is moreover significant (as has already been pointed
out)[1533] that in the majority of cases a prioress, however wicked, was
suspended rather than deprived; even Denise Loweliche and Katherine Wells
remained in office after their resignation. It was indeed too embarrassing
to know what to do with a sinner. She could not be expelled from her
order; if she were kept in the same house in a subordinate position she
would probably make her successor's life a burden; if she were transferred
to another house she would probably corrupt a hitherto unblemished flock.
The bishops did their best in the face of great difficulties, but it is
plain that the prioresses sometimes thought little enough of their
authority. The rather disreputable old Abbess of Romsey, Joyce Rowse, said
openly to her nuns that when the inquiry (held in 1492) was finished she
would do as she had done before; and she kept her word[1534]. At Ankerwyke
in 1441 one little nun of tender age explained to the bishop "that the
prioress doth not provide this deponent with bed-clothes, insomuch that
she lies in the straw; and when my lord had commanded this deponent to lie
in the dorter, and this deponent asked bed-clothes of the prioress, she
said chidingly to her, 'Let him who gave you leave to lie in the dorter
supply you with raiment'"[1535].
Though the bishops for the most part did their work conscientiously it is
difficult, in the light of the considerations which have been urged above
to conclude that their visitations had a lasting effect. But if the
visitations and the injunctions based on them were sometimes of small
value for their purpose, they have an incidental value to historians which
cannot be overestimated. There have come down to us in the bishops'
registers a comparatively small number of complete visitation reports,
comprising _detecta_ and _comperta_ (or sometimes _comperta_ only) and
injunctions[1536], and a much larger number of injunctions, without the
_comperta_ on which they were based. The similarity in wording of
episcopal injunctions, combined with the fact that the most important
collection of complete reports (Alnwick's visitations) was until recently
unknown, has led many writers to argue that injunctions were mere general
"common form," without any relation to specific abuses found at the house
to which they were sent, "left," as Mr Hamilton Thompson says, "like
portentous visiting cards upon a convent, to show that the diocesan had
duly called"[1537]. The point is of great importance, for it involves the
reliability of injunctions as evidence of the state of a particular
convent at a particular time.
The answer to this view of "common form" is easily found if we study the
process by which injunctions were composed, as revealed in the great
series of visitations by Bishop Alnwick. They were drawn up with great
care by the bishop's registrar and he based them upon two sources, the
_detecta_ and _comperta_ of each visitation, which had been noted down on
the spot by clerks, and the sets of injunctions sent to other religious
houses, which were regularly copied into the episcopal register as models
for future use. It is inherent in the nature of the case that monasteries
subject to the same original rule and statutory regulations and living
under almost identical conditions, should be subject to similar breaches
of discipline. It is only necessary to study those _detecta_ which have
been preserved to perceive how universal, in all dioceses and among both
sexes, were (for instance) the customs of drinking after Compline, forming
separate "households," taking unlicensed boarders, making unwise grants of
corrodies and long leases, wandering abroad in the world, and wearing
worldly garments. The registrar did not wish to invent new wording every
time these offences occurred; he used a common form for them. But "common
form" has here a different sense from that in which it is used by those
who question the value of injunctions as evidence. The registrar never
made an injunction which was not based upon a _detectum_ made at the house
to which the injunction was directed. Injunctions are common form only
because they deal with common errors. If an almost similar set be sent to
two houses, it is because the houses have displayed (as is indeed only
natural) almost similar faults; and where the two sets differ, they differ
not accidentally, but of careful purpose. It was the business of the
registrar to express the injunctions in general terms, even though a fault
may have been that of a single individual, because they were intended to
be canonically binding upon the whole convent. The reason why injunctions
have survived in much greater numbers than the _detecta_ upon which they
were based, is that the clerks copied into the bishop's register only
common forms, which would be likely to be useful. The record of individual
evidence would not help them; but a carefully worded injunction might be
used over and over again, whenever the fault with which it dealt recurred
at the same or another house. No one who has studied the relation of
_detecta_ and injunctions in Alnwick's book of visitations can doubt the
value of the latter as evidence, when they appear alone; the very process
by which "Dame Alice Decun says that only two little girls, of six or
seven years, do lie in the dorter" is transmuted into the common
injunction "that ye suffre ne seculere persones wymmen ne childern lyg by
nyghte in the dormytory" is patent in the register.
If the reliability of the injunctions be thus accepted, it is almost
unnecessary to point out what an invaluable source of evidence is to be
found in the bishops' registers. Controversialists have fought _ad
nauseam_ over the truth or falsehood of the "scandalous _comperta_" of
Henry VIII's commissioners, without understanding that for nearly three
hundred years before the Dissolution the _comperta_ and injunctions in the
registers give a picture of English monasticism coloured by no ulterior
motive. Even after a large number of the registers have been published,
historians are still content to paint monastic life in the later middle
ages from the monastic rule, ignoring the evidence of practice which is
always necessary to supplement the evidence of theory. Not even the
chronicles of an earlier age are more interesting; the record of Alnwick
is as valuable as that of Jocelin of Brakelonde. In dioceses where
registers were regularly kept and have survived uninjured and where
injunctions were punctiliously copied, the history of a house may be
traced throughout the whole period covered by this book. The dioceses of
Winchester, Lincoln and York are most fortunate in this respect. To select
a few examples at random, there are extant records of the visitation of
Romsey Abbey by Archbishop Peckham in 1284, by Bishop John of Pontoise in
1302, by Bishop Henry Woodlock in 1311, by Bishop William of Wykeham in
1387, by Archbishop Morton (through his vicar-general, Robert Shirbourne)
in 1492, by Dr Hede, commissary of the Prior of Canterbury, during the
vacancies of the sees of Canterbury and Winchester in 1502, by Bishop Fox
(through his vicar-general, John Dowman) in 1507, again (through Master
John Incent) in 1523 and again (through the vicar-general) in 1527[1538].
It is thus possible to describe with approximate accuracy the life of
this great convent during the whole period from 1284 to the Dissolution.
Similarly records have survived of visitations of Elstow Abbey by Bishop
Gynewell in 1359, Bishop Buckingham in 1387, Archbishop Courtenay in 1389,
Bishop Flemyng in 1421-2, Bishop Gray in 1434, Bishop Alnwick in 1442-3,
and Bishop Longland in 1530 and 1531. Of Nunappleton Priory there are
recorded visitations by Archbishop Wickwane in 1281, Archbishop Melton in
1318, Archbishop Zouche in 1346, Archbishop Rotherham in 1489 and
Archbishop Lee in 1534. Moreover mandates concerning isolated pieces of
business, elections, permits to receive boarders, orders to reform
specific abuses, are scattered through the registers and provide useful
supplementary information.
All houses are not as well represented. In some dioceses injunctions are
rarely recorded: the fine series of registers for Hereford yield
surprisingly few. Some houses emerge only rarely into the light with a
single set of injunctions; others (and among them important houses such as
Lacock and Amesbury) lack even a single visitation report to rescue their
inmates from oblivion. But the geographical range of the surviving reports
is sufficiently great to enable the formation of an accurate general
account of English nunneries during the later middle ages. One warning
only must be borne in mind by the reader. If it is unhistorical to write
an account of monastic houses based solely upon the rule, it is also
unhistorical to write one based solely on visitation documents. The
_detecta_ made to a bishop were, and were intended to be, revelations of
faults; it was not the function of the bishop's clerk to catalogue
virtues, though sometimes a string of "_omnia bene_," or a curt note to
the effect that my lord, finding little in need of reformation, passed on,
bears positive witness to a convent's good life. It must always be
remembered, in estimating the state of a house from a set of _detecta_ and
injunctions, that though they are indubitably the truth, they are not the
whole truth. Goodness is after all largely a matter of proportion; and
though convents are to be found which were positively bad, in others there
were probably virtues of kindness, piety and a brave struggle against
poverty, which would counterbalance (if we knew them), the unfavourable
impression left by a string of accusations. Moreover by far the larger
number of the _detecta_ witnesses to a growing worldliness and to minor
breaches of the rule, rather than to serious moral defects. If the
community concerned were other than a nunnery ostensibly following a
strict rule, we should hardly consider the faults to be faults at all. The
immorality, bad temper and financial mismanagement revealed at some houses
would be reprehensible in all communities at all ages; but in themselves
boarders, pretty clothes, pet dogs and attendance at christenings are not
heinous crimes. It is necessary, in dealing with medieval nuns as with all
other subjects, to preserve a sense of proportion and a firm hold upon
human nature.
CHAPTER XIII
THE NUN IN MEDIEVAL LITERATURE
"Or dient et content et fablent."
_Aucassin et Nicolette._
"La science," said a wise Frenchman, "atteint l'exactitude; il appartient
à l'art seul de saisir la vérité." And another, "L'histoire vit de
documents, mais les documents sont pareils aux lettres écrites avec les
encres chimiques; ils veulent, pour livrer leur secret, qu'on les
réchauffe, et les éclaire par transparence, à la flamme de la vie." The
quotations are complementary, for what, after all, is literature but a
form of life; the quintessence of many moods and experiences, the diffused
flame concentrated and burning clearly in a polished lamp. The historian
who wishes to reach beyond accuracy to truth must warm those invisible
writings of his at the flame of literature, as well as at his own life. He
must vitalise the visitation reports for himself (it is not difficult,
they move and live almost without him); but he must make use also of the
life of writers long since dead. There is hardly a branch of literature
which has not its contribution for him. The story-teller has his tale,
which holdeth children from play and old men from the chimney corner. The
ballad-man has his own pithy judgment in the guise of an artless rhyme.
The teacher has his admonitions, whence may be learnt what men conceived
to be the nun's ideal and purpose in this cloistered life. The moralist
has his satire, to show wherein she fell short of such lofty heights. And
the poet himself will hold his mirror up to nature, that we may see after
five hundred years what he saw with his searching eyes, when Madame
Eglentyne rode to Canterbury, or when the nuns of Poissy feasted a
cavalcade from court. The world was subject matter for all these, whether
they wrote with a purpose or without one; there is life even in the
crabbed elegiacs of Gower, grumbling his way through the _Vox Clamantis_;
there is much life in the kindly counsels of the _Ancren Riwle_; there is
God's plenty indeed in the stories and songs which the people told. It is
the historian's business to call in these literary witnesses to supplement
his documents. To the account-roll and the bishop's register must be added
the song, the satire and the sermon. Alnwick's visitations, with the story
of "Beatrix the Sacristan" behind them, have twice as much significance;
Madame Eglentyne and Margaret Fairfax lend to each other a mutual
illumination; little captured Clarice Stil needs Deschamps' Novice of
Avernay by her side before her case can be well understood. It is of these
composite portraits that truth is put together and history made.
An analysis of the classes of medieval literature in which there is
mention of nuns shows from how wide a field the historian can draw. The
most obvious of these classes is that which contains biographies and
autobiographies of saints and famous women who were nuns. Such are the
writings of the great trio who made famous the nunnery of Helfta in the
thirteenth century, the béguine Mechthild of Magdeburg and the nuns
Mechthild of Hackeborn and Gertrud the Great[1539]; the lives and writings
of Luitgard of Tongres[1540], of St Clare[1541] and of St Agnes of
Bohemia[1542]; the memoir and letters of Charitas Pirckheimer, Abbess of a
Franciscan convent at Nuremberg, who was a sister of the humanist
Wilibald Pirckheimer and herself a scholar of repute[1543]. The
autobiographies of one or two nuns in the later sixteenth century (for
instance St Theresa[1544] and Felice Rasponi[1545]) have a certain
retrospective value; and the lives of the three béguine mystics, St
Douceline[1546], St Lydwine of Schiedam[1547] and St Christina of
Stommeln[1548] afford supplementary evidence, which is interesting as
showing the similarities and dissimilarities between regular and secular
orders. For present purposes, however, these works may be neglected. Their
interest is always rather particular than general, since they deal with
great individuals, and the information which they give as to the life of
the average nun is conditioned always by the fact that a woman of genius
will mould her surroundings to her own form, even in a convent. This is
true of the medieval saints; while the careers of women such as Charitas
Pirckheimer, Felice Rasponi and St Theresa owe much of their significance
to the special circumstances of the time. An additional reason for
neglecting biographies and autobiographies lies in the fact that the class
is unrepresented in English literature belonging to this period. The short
panegyric of Euphemia of Wherwell is the sole approach to a biography of
an English nun which has survived, unless we are to count the description
of Joan Wiggenhall's building activities. For some reason which it is
impossible to explain, monasticism did not produce in England during the
later middle ages any women of sanctity or genius who can compare with the
great Anglo-Saxon abbesses[1549].
Outside the personal records of great individuals, our informants fall (as
has already been suggested) into four classes: the people, with their
songs and stories, the teachers, with their didactic works, the moralists,
with their satires and complaints, and finally the men of letters, poets
and "makers," for whom the nun is sometimes subject-matter. First, and
perhaps most interesting of all, must come the people and the people's
songs, for in the literature of the continent there exists a class of
lyrics ("Klosterlieder," "Nonnenklagen," "Chansons de Nonnes") which is
specially concerned with nuns[1550]. There is much to be learned about all
manner of things from such popular poetry. So the people feel about life,
and so (reacting upon them) it makes them feel. Songs crooned over the
housework or shouted at the plough steal back into the singer's brain and
subtly direct his conscious outlook; this was the wise man's meaning, who
said that he cared not who made the laws of a nation if he might make its
ballads. Now it is extremely significant that almost all the popular songs
about nuns, the songs which
The spinsters and the knitters in the sun,
And the free maids that weave their thread with bones
Do use to chant,
are upon one theme. They deal always with the nun unwillingly professed.
It was the complaint of the cloistered love-birds which these knitters
sang.
How can a bird that is born for joy
Sit in a cage and sing?
What, one may ask, is the reason for this unanimity of outlook? Why do the
people see a nun only as a love-bird shut within a cage and beating its
wings against the bars? Partly, no doubt, because such songs always "dally
with the innocence of love"; the folk are capable of a deep melancholy, as
of a gaiety which is light as thistledown; but Love is and was their lord
and king, and so even the nun must be in love when they sing her. It may
be, however, that there is a deeper meaning in the _chansons de nonnes_.
The nunneries were aristocratic; the ideal of the religious life was out
of the reach of women who lived among fields and beasts of the field.
These spinsters and these knitters in the sun, who seem so gay and
peaceful, we know what their lives were like:
Poure folke in cotes,
Charged with children, and chef lordes rente,
That thei with spynnynge may spare spenen hit in hous-hyre,
Bothe in mylk and in mele to make with papelotes[1551];
carding and combing, clouting and washing, suffering much hunger and woe
in winter time; no time to think, and hardly time to pray; but always time
to sing. "The wo of those women that wonyeth in cotes" solaced itself in
song; but when the echo of the convent bell came to the singer at her
clouting, or to her husband, as he drove his plough over the convent
acres, they recognised a peace which was founded upon their labours and
which, though it could not exist without them, they could never
share[1552]. If the songs which the slaves of Athens sang among
themselves in the slave quarter at night had come down to us, they would
surely have thrown a new light upon those grave philosophers, artists and
statesmen, to whom the world owes almost all that it cherishes of wisdom
and of beauty. Nor would the Athenians be less great because we knew the
slaves. Even so it is no derogation to the monastic ideal to say that the
common people, shut out of it, looked at it differently from the great
churchmen, who praised it; and, unlike those of the Athenian slaves, their
songs still live. The popular mind (these songs would seem to say) had
little sympathy for that career in which the daughters of the people had
no share. It is immaterial whether they looked upon it with the eye of the
fox in the fable, declaring that the grapes were sour, or whether the
lusty common sense of those living close to nature gave them a contempt
for the bloodless ecstasies they could not understand. At all events the
cloister mirrored in their songs is a prison and a grave:
Mariez-vous, les filles,
Avec ces bons drilles,
Et n'allez jà, les filles,
Pourrir derrièr' les grilles[1553].
That was how the people and the nightingale envisaged it; and no mystic
will be the less wise for pondering that brutal last line, the eternal
revolt of common sense against asceticism.
All over western and southern Europe this theme was set to music, now with
gaiety and insouciance, now with bitterness. The wandering clerk goes
singing on his way:
Plangit nonna fletibus The nun is complaining,
Inenarrabilibus, Her tears are down raining,
Condolens gemitibus She sobbeth and sigheth,
Dicens consocialibus: To her sisters she crieth:
Heu misella! Misery me!
Nichil est deterius O what can be worse than this
Tali vita, life that I dree,
Cum enim sim petulans When naughty and lovelorn,
Et lasciva. and wanton I be.
And he can tell the nun's desire
Pernoctando vigilo All the night long I unwillingly wake,
Cum non vellem How gladly a lad in mine arms would I take.
Iuvenem amplecterer
Quam libenter![1554]
For those who know no Latin it is the same. "In this year," [1359] says a
Limburg chronicle, "Men sang and piped this song":
Gott geb im ein verdorben jar God send to him a lean twelve months
der mich macht zu einer nunnen Who in mine own despite,
und mir den schwarzen mantel gab A sooty mantle put on me,
der weissen rock darunten! All and a cassock white!
Soll ich ein nunn gewerden And if I must become a nun,
dann wider meinen willen Let me but find a page,
so will ich auch einem knaben jung And if he is fain to cure my pain
seinen kummer stillen, His pain I will assuage.
Und stillt he mir den meinen nit His be the loss, then, if he fail
daran mag he verliesen[1555]. To still my amorous rage.
In Italy at Carnival time in the fifteenth century the favourite songs
tell of nuns who leave their convents for a lover[1556]. But above all the
theme is found over and over again in French folk songs: "the note, I
trowe, y maked was in Fraunce." Two little thirteenth century poems have
survived to show how piquant an expression the French singers gave to it.
In one of these the singer wanders out in the merry month of May, that
time in which the "chanson populaire" is always set, in deep and
unconscious memory of the old spring festivals, celebrated by women in the
dawn of European civilisation. He goes plucking flowers, and out of a
garden he hears a nun singing to herself:
ki nonne me fist Jesus lou maldie.
je di trop envie vespres ne complies:
j'amaisce trop muels moneir bone vie
ke fust deduissans et amerousete.
Je sant les douls mals leis ma senturete.
malois soit de deu ki me fist nonnete.
Elle s'escriait comceux esbaihie!
e deus, ki m'ait mis en cest abaie!
maix ieu en istrai per sainte Marie;
ke ne vestirai cotte ne gonnette.
Je sant les douls mals leis ma senturete.
malois soit de deu ki me fist nonnete.
Celui manderai a cui seux amie.
k'il me vaigne querre en ceste abaie;
s'irons a Parix moneir bone vie,
car it est jolis et je seux jonete.
Je sant les douls mals leis ma senturete.
malois soit de deu ki me fist nonnete.
quant ces amis ot la parolle oie,
de joie tressaut, li cuers li fremie,
et vint a la porte do celle abaie:
si en gatait fors sa douce amiete.
Je sant les douls mals leis ma senturete.
malois soit de deu ki me fist nonnete[1557].
"The curse of Jesus on him who made me a nun! All unwillingly say I
vespers and compline; more fain were I to lead a happy life of gaiety
and love. _I feel the delicious pangs beneath my bosom. The curse of
God on him who made me be a nun!_ She cried, God's curse on him who
put me in this abbey. But by our Lady I will flee away from it and
never will I wear this gown and habit. _I feel, etc._ I will send for
him whose love I am and bid him come seek me in this abbey. We will go
to Paris and lead a gay life, for he is fair and I am young. _I feel,
etc._ When her lover heard her words, he leapt for joy and his heart
beat fast. He came to the gate of that abbey, and stole away his
darling love. _I feel, etc._"
In the other song the setting is the same;
L'autrier un lundi matin
m'an aloie ambaniant;
s'antrai an un biau jardin,
trovai nonette seant.
ceste chansonette
dixoit la nonette
"longue demoree
faites, frans moinnes loialz
Se plus suis nonette,
ains ke soit li vespres,
je morai des jolis malz"[1558].
"Lately on a Monday morn as I went wandering, I entered into a fair
garden and there I found a nun sitting. This was the song that the nun
sang: 'Long dost thou tarry, frank, faithful monk. If I have to be a
nun longer I shall die of the pains of love before vespers.'"
The end hardly ever varies. The nun is either taken away by a lover (as in
the first of these songs), or finds occasion to meet one without leaving
her house (as in the second); or else she runs away in the hope of finding
one like the novice of Avernay in Deschamps' poem, who had learned nothing
during her sojourn "fors un mot d'amourette," and who wanted to have a
husband "si comme a Sebilette."
Adieu le moniage:
Jamaiz n'y entreray.
Adieu tout le mainage
Et adieu Avernay!
Bien voy l'aumosne est faitte:
Trop tart me suy retraitte,
Certes, ce poise my,
Plus ne seray nonnette
(Oez de la nonnette
Comme a le cuer joly:
S'ordre ne ly puet plere)[1559].
"Farewell nunhood, never shall I enter thy state. Farewell all the
household and farewell Avernay! The alms are given, too late have I
left the world. Of a truth this wearies me; I will be a nun no more.
(Hear this tale of the nun, whose heart was gay and whose order could
not please her)."
It is but rarely that the singer's sympathy is against the prisoned nun;
and although one or two charming songs may be found which convey a
warning, the moral sits all awry. A Gascon air (intended, like so many, to
accompany a dance and having the favourite refrain "Va léger, légère, va
légèrement") threatens an altogether inadequate punishment for a nun who
enjoys the sweets of this world.
"Down in the meadow, there is a convent. In it a nun lies ill." "Tell
me, little nun, for what do you hunger?" "For white apples and for a
young lad." "Do not eat, little nun, they will bury you not in the
church, nor even in the convent, but out in the graveyard with the
poor people"[1560].
A Provençal song with a haunting air tells how the Devil carried off a nun
who rebelled against her imprisonment:
Dedins Aix l'y a'no moungeto,
Tant pourideto,
Di que s'avie soun bel amic
Sera la reino dou pays....
"In Aix there is a little nun, a wicked little nun; she says that with
her handsome lover she will be queen of all the land. She weeps and
weeps, that wicked little nun, and every day she grows thinner and
thinner, because she may not put off her habit. But her father has
sent her a message, a solemn message, that she cannot do as she would,
that in the convent she must stay. The little nun has cursed her
father, who made her leave her handsome lover and take the veil and
habit. The little nun has cursed the trowel that made the church and
the mason who built it and the men who worked for him. The little nun
has cursed the priest who said mass and the acolytes who served him
and the congregation who listened to him. The little nun has cursed
the cloth which made the veil and the cord of St Francis and the vow
of poverty. One day when she was all alone in her room, the devil
appeared to her. 'Welcome, my love!' 'I am not your love whom you
desire, my pretty. I am the devil, don't you see? I am come to rescue
you from the convent.' 'You must first ask my father and also my
mother and my friends and my kinsmen, to see if they will consent.'
'No, I will not ask your father, nor yet your mother, nor your friends
nor your kinsmen. Now and at once we will go.' 'Farewell, my sister
nuns, so little and young, do not do as I did, but praise God well in
the convent.' The devil has taken the little nun, the wicked little
nun; he has carried her high up into the sky and then he has hurled
her down into hell, down, down into hell"[1561].
There is a moral here to be sure, but it is the moral of a fairy tale, not
of a sermon. As to the many variants of the "Clericus et Nonna" theme in
which sometimes the nun makes love to a clerk and is repulsed and
sometimes the clerk makes love to a nun and is repulsed[1562] it is
possible that the Church had a hand in them all. Wandering clerks and
cloistered monks were capable of the most unabashed love-poetry; but
sometimes they chose to set themselves right with heaven.
In England the theme of the nun unwillingly professed is not found in
popular songs, such as abound in France, Italy and Germany. It received,
however, a literary expression towards the close of the fourteenth
century. In the pseudo-Chaucerian _Court of Love_ the lover sees among
those who do sacrifice to the King and Queen of Love a wailing group of
priests and hermits, friars and nuns:
This is the courte of lusty folke and gladde,
And wel becometh hire abite and arraye;
O why be som so sory and so sadde,
Complaynyng thus in blak and white and graye?
Freres they ben, and monkes, in gode faye:
Alas for rewth! grete dole it is to sene,
To se hem thus bewaile and sory bene.
Se howe thei crye and wryng here handes white,
For thei so sone wente to religion!
And eke the nonnes with vaile and wymple plight,
Here thought is, thei ben in confusion.
"Alas," thay sayn, "we fayne perfeccion,
In clothes wide and lake oure libertie
But all the synne mote on oure frendes be.
For, Venus wote, we wold as fayne do ye,
That ben attired here and wel besene,
Desiren man and love in oure degree
Ferme and feithfull right as wolde the quene:
Oure frendes wikke in tender youth and grene,
Ayenst oure wille made us religious;
That is the cause we morne and waylen thus."
* * * * *
And yet agaynewarde shryked every nonne,
The pange of love so strayneth hem to cry:
"Now woo the tyme" quod thay "that we be boune!
This hatefull order nyse will done us dye!
We sigh and sobbe and bleden inwardly
Fretyng oure self with thought and hard complaynt,
That ney for love we waxen wode and faynt"[1563].
A kindred poem, _The Temple of Glas_, by Lydgate (who seems himself to
have become a monk of Bury at the age of fifteen) contains the same idea.
Among the lovers in the Temple are some who make bitter complaint, youth
wedded to age, or wedded without free choice, or shut in a convent:
And right anon I herd oþer crie
With sobbing teris and with ful pitous soune,
To fore þe goddes, bi lamentacioun,
That were constrayned in hir tender youþe
And in childhode, as it is ofte couþe,
Y-entred were into religioun,
Or þei hade yeris of discresioun,
That al her life cannot but complein,
In wide copis perfeccion to feine,
Ful couertli to curen al hir smert,
And shew þe contrarie outward of her hert.
Thus saugh I wepen many a faire maide,
That on hir freendis al þi wite þei liede[1564].
The same idea is also repeated in King James I of Scotland's poem, _The
King's Quair_[1565], and later (with more resemblance to the continental
songs) in the complaint of the wicked Prioress in Sir David Lyndesay's
morality play, _Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaits_ [c. 1535]:
I gif my freinds my malisoun
That me compellit to be ane Nun,
And wald nocht let me marie.
It was my freinds greadines
That gart me be ane Priores:
Now hartlie them I warie.
Howbeit that Nunnis sing nichts and dayis
Thair hart waitis nocht quhat thair mouth sayis;
The suith I ghow declair.
Makand ghow intimatioun,
To Christis Congregatioun
Nunnis ar nocht necessair.
Bot I sall do the best I can,
And marie sum gude honest man,
And brew gude aill and tun.
Mariage, be my opinioun,
It is better Religioun
As to be freir or Nun[1566].
The concentrated bitterness of _The Court of Love_ and the social satire
of Lindesay are only a literary expression of the theme treated more
lightheartedly in the popular _chansons de nonnes_. The songs are one side
of the popular view of asceticism, the gay side. The serious side may be
found in the famous story of _The Nun who Loved the World_:
Some time there was a nun that hight Beatrice, a passing fair woman,
and she was sacristan of the kirk, and she had great devotion unto our
Lady; and ofttimes men desired her to sin. So at last she consented
unto a clerk to go away with him when compline was done, and ere she
departed she went unto an altar of our Lady and said unto her; "Lady,
as I have been devout unto thee, now I resign unto thee these keys,
for I may no longer sustain the temptation of my flesh." And she laid
the keys on the altar and went her ways unto the clerk. And when he
had defouled her, within a few days he left her and went away; and she
had nothing to live on and thought shame to gang home again unto her
cloister and she fell to be a common woman. And when she had lived in
that vice fifteen years, on a day she came unto the nunnery gate, and
asked the porter if he knew ever a nun in that place that hight
Beatrice, that was sacristan and keeper of the kirk. And he said he
knew her on the best wise and said she was a worthy woman and a holy
from when she was a little bairn, "and ever has kept her clean and in
good name." And she understood not the words of this man and went her
ways. And our Lady appeared unto her and said: "Behold, I have
fulfilled thine office these fifteen years and therefore turn again
now into thy place and be again in thine office as thou wast, and
shrive thee and do thy penance, for there is no creature here that
knows thy trespass, for I have ever been for thee in thy clothing and
in thine habit." And anon she was in her habit and went in and shrove
her and did her penance and told all that was happened unto her[1567].
This tale is interesting, because it is much more than a piece of naïve
piety. The story of Beatrice is intimately connected with the _chansons de
nonnes_; it is the serious, as they are the gay, expression of a whole
philosophy of life. The songs are, indeed, purely materialistic and do not
attempt (how should the spinsters and the knitters in the sun attempt it?)
to give a philosophical justification for their attitude. The miracle is
simple and seems on the surface to draw no moral, save that devotion to
the Virgin will be rewarded. Nevertheless the philosophy and the moral are
there; they are those of the most famous of all medieval songs, _Gaudeamus
igitur, juvenes dum sumus_. The theme of the miracle and of the songs
alike is the revolt against asceticism, the revolt of the body, which
knows how short its beauty and its life, against the spirit which lives
forever, and yet will not allow its poor yokefellow one little hour. The
fact that the story of Beatrice takes the form of a Mary-miracle is itself
significant. For the "Nos habebit humus" argument can be interpreted in
two ways. On the one hand stands the human multitude, gathering rosebuds
while it may, crying up and down the roads of the world to all who pass to
rejoice today, for "ubi sunt qui ante nos in mundo fuere?" On the other
hand stands the moralist, singing the same song:
Were beth they biforen us weren,
Houndes ladden and hauekes beren,
And hadden feld and wode,
That riche _levedies_ in _hoere_ bour, [ladies, their
That wereden gold in hoere tressour,
With hoere _brightle_ rode?-- [complexion
--but drawing how different a moral,
_Dreghy_ here man, thenne, if thou wilt [endure
A luitel _pine_, that me the _bit_ [pain, bid
Withdrau thine _eyses_ ofte[1568]. [ease
Often for long stretches at a time the wandering clerks and the singers
were willing to leave to the moralist this heaven which was to be won by
despising earthly beauty; they were content to go to hell singing with
Aucassin and Nicolete and all the kings of the world. But at other times
they ached for heaven too and would not believe that they might win there
only by the narrow path of righteousness. So they invented a philosophical
justification for their way of life. The Church had forgotten the love
which sat with publicans and sinners; the people rediscovered it, and
attributed it not to the Son but to the Mother. At one blow they outwitted
the moralist by inventing the cult of the Virgin Mary[1569]. In their
hands this Mary worship became more than the worship of Christ's mother;
it became almost a separate religion, a religion under which jongleurs and
thieves, fighters and tournament-haunters and the great host of those who
loved unwisely found a mercy often denied to them by the ecclesiastical
hierarchy. The people created a Virgin to whom justice was nothing and law
less than nothing, but to whom love of herself was all. "Imperatrix
supernorum, supernatrix infernorum," hell was emptied under her rule and
heaven became a new place, filled with her disreputable, faulty, human
lovers. She was not only the familiar friend of the poor and humble, she
was also the confidante of the lover, of all the Aucassins and Nicoletes
of the world. It is not without significance that so great a stress was
always laid upon her personal loveliness. Her cult became the expression
of mankind's deep unconscious revolt against asceticism, their love of
life, their passionate sense of "beauty that must die." The story of
Beatrice has kept its undiminished attraction for the modern world largely
because in it, more than in all the other Mary-miracles, life has
triumphed and has been justified of heaven[1570]. Even the cold garb given
to it by ecclesiastics such as Caesarius of Heisterbach cannot conceal its
underlying idea that all love is akin, the most earthy to the most divine;
the idea which Malory expressed many years later, when he wrote of Queen
Guinevere "that while she lived she was a true lover and therefore she had
a good end." The theme most familiar to us in the didactic literature of
the middle ages is the theme of the soul "here in the body pent"; for the
moralist has his deliberate purpose and sets down his idea more directly
and with more point than do the story-teller and the singer, who have no
aim but to say and speak and tell the tale. But when we have been moved by
the theme of the soul, let us not fail also to recognise when we meet
it--whether in the wandering scholar's _Gaudeamus_ or in the miracle of
the nun who loved the world--the theme of the body, despised and maimed
and always beautiful, crying out for its birthright. Even in the middle
ages the Greeks had not lived in vain.
The miracle of Sister Beatrice leads to the consideration of another type
of popular literature, which throws much light on convent life. Sometimes
the people grow tired of singing to themselves; they want to be told
stories, which they can repeat in the long evenings, when the sun goes
down and the rushlight sends its wan uneven flicker over the floor. Even
in the households of rich men story-telling round the fire is the
favourite after-dinner occupation[1571]. These stories come from every
conceivable source, from the East, from the Classics, from the Lives of
the Fathers, from the Legends of the Saints, from the Miracles of the
Virgin, from the accumulated experience of generations of story-tellers.
At first their purpose is simply to amuse, and the jongleur can always get
a hearing for his _fabliau_; from village green to town market, from the
ale house to the manor and the castle hall he passes with his repertoire
of grave, gay, edifying, ribald, coarse or delightful tales and when he
has gone his enchanted audience repeats and passes on all that he has
said[1572]. Then another professional story-teller begins to compete with
the jongleur, a story-teller whose object is to point a moral rather than
to adorn a tale. The Church, observing that attentive audience, adopts the
practice. Preachers vie with jongleurs in illustrating their sermons by
stories, "examples" they call them. Often they use the same tales;
anything so that the congregation keep awake; and though the examples are
sometimes very edifying, they are sometimes but ill-disguised buffoonery,
and moralists cry out against the preacher, who instead of the Gospel
passes off his own inventions, jests and gibes, so that the poor sheep
return from pasture wind-fed[1573]. But the greatest preachers win many
souls by a judicious use of stories[1574], and diligent clerks make huge
collections of such _exempla_, wherein the least skilled sermon-maker may
find an illustration apt to any text[1575]. Didactic writers and
theologians also adopt the practice; they trust to example rather than to
precept; their ponderous tomes are alive with anecdotes, but one
half-pennyworth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack[1576]. Then the
literary men begin to seize upon the _fabliaux_ and _exempla_ for the
purpose of their art; they borrow plots from this bottomless
treasure-house; and so come the days of Boccaccio and _Les Cent Nouvelles
Nouvelles_ and the short story is made at last[1577]. They all,
jongleurs, preachers, theologians and men of letters repeat each other,
for a tale once told is everyone's property; the people repeat them; and
so the stories circulate from lip to lip through the wide lands of Europe
and down the echoing centuries. And since these tales deal with every
subject under the sun (and with many marvels which the sun never looked
upon), it is not surprising that several of them deal with nuns.
Across six centuries we can, with the aid of a sympathetic imagination,
slip into the skins of these inquisitive and child-like folk, and hear
some of the stories to which they lent such an absorbed attention. Let us
Forget six counties overhung with smoke,
Forget the snorting steam and piston stroke,
Forget the spreading of the hideous town;
Think rather of the pack-horse on the down,
And dream of London, small and white and clean,
The clear Thames bordered by its gardens green.
Or rather, let us imagine not London but some other little English town,
on just such an April morning as moved Chaucer and his fellow-voyagers to
seek the holy blissful martyr by way of the Tabard Inn. Having sloughed
the film of those six hundred years from off our eyes, we can see more
clearly the shadowy forms of our fathers that begat us. We can see a
motley crowd gathered in the market place, chiefly made up of women. There
are girls, demure or wistful or laughing, fresh from their spinning wheels
or from church; there are also bustling wives, in fine well-woven wimples
and moist new shoes, arm in arm with their gossips. By craning a neck we
may see that flighty minx Alison, the carpenter's wife, "long as a mast
and upright as a bolt," casting about her with her bold black eyes and
looking jealously at the miller's wife from across the brook, who is as
pert as a pye and considers herself a lady. There is a good wife of beside
Bath, with a red face and ten pounds' weight of kerchiefs on her head; a
great traveller and a great talker she is--we can hear her chattering
right across the square; it is a pity she is so deaf. There, under her own
sign-board, is the inn-keeper's ill-tempered dame, who bullies her husband
and ramps in his face if her neighbours do not bow low to her in church;
and there is the new-made bride of yonder merchant with the forked
beard--they say she is a shrew too. There is Rose the Regrater, who also
weaves woollen cloth and cheats her spinsters. There is Dame Emma, who
keeps the tavern by the river--our neighbour Glutton's wife would like to
scratch out her eyes, for Glutton always has to be carried home from that
inn. There also are Elinor, Joan and Margery, Margaret, Alice and Cecily,
merry gossips, their hearts well cherished with muscadel. Mingled with
these good wives of the town we see, as we look about us, other folk;
portly burgesses, returning from a meeting of the borough court, full of
wine and merchant law; a couple of friars, their tippets stuffed with
knives and pins, and a fat monk, with a greyhound slinking at his heel; an
ale-taster, reeling home from duties performed too well; a Fleming or two,
ever on the lookout for snarls and sharp elbows from the true-born native
craftsmen; several pretty supercilious ladies "with browen blissful under
hood," squired by a gay young gentleman, embroidered all over with
flowers; two giggling curly-haired clerks (Absolon and Nicholas must be
their names) ogling the carpenter's wife and sniggering at their solemn
faced companion--that youth there, with the threadbare courtepy and a book
of Aristotle under his arm; a bailiff buying tar and salt for the home
farm and selling his butter and eggs to the townsmen; numbers of beggars
and idlers and children; and on the outskirts of the crowd little sister
Joan from St Mary's Convent, who ought not to be out alone, but who cannot
resist stopping to hear the sermon.
For we have all come running together in this year of our Lord 1380 to
hear a sermon[1578]. We look upon sermons as an excellent opportunity "for
to see and eek for to be seen"; in the same spirit, compact one-third of
sociability, one-third of curiosity and one-third of piety, we always
crowd
To vigilies and to processiouns,
To preaching eek and to thise pilgrimages,
To pleyes of miracles and mariages[1579].
There is the preacher under the stone market cross. He is bidding us shun
the snares of the world; if we cannot shut ourselves up in a cloister
(which is best), he says, we must make our hearts a cloister, where no
wickedness will come. He will have to tell us a story soon, for we are
restless folk and do not love to sit still on the cobbles at his feet, but
with a story he can always hold us. Sure enough he has left his theme now
and is giving us an example:
Jacobus de Vetriaco tells how some time there was a mighty prince that
was founder of a nunnery that stood near hand him; and he coveted
greatly a fair nun of the place to have her unto his leman. And not
withstanding neither by prayer nor by gift he could overcome her; and
at the last he took her away by strong force. And when men came to
take her away, she was passing feared and asked them why they took her
out of her abbey, more than her other sisters. And they answered her
again and said, because she had so fair een. And anon as she heard
this she was fain and she gart put out her een anon and laid them in a
dish and brought them unto them and said: "Lo, here is the een that
your master desires and bid him let me alone and lose neither his soul
nor mine." And they went unto him therewith and told him and he let
her alone; and by this mean she kept her chastity. And within three
years after she had her een again, as well as ever had she, through
grace of God[1580].
A shudder of horror and admiration runs through us, but the preacher
continues with a second example:
"How different," he says, "Was this most chaste and wise virgin from
that wretched nun who was sought by a noble knight, that he might
seduce her, and her abbess hid her in a certain very secret place in
the monastery. And when that knight had sought her in all the offices
and corners of the monastery and could in no wise find her he grew at
length weary and tired of the quest and turned to depart. But she,
seeing that he had stopped looking for her, because he had been unable
to find her, began to call 'Cuckoo!', as children are wont to cry when
they are hidden and do not wish to be found. Whereupon the knight,
hearing her, ran to the place, and having accomplished his will
departed therefrom, deriding the miserable girl"[1581].
"See how evil are the ways of the world," says our preacher; "how much
better to be simple and unworldly, like that nun of whom you may read in
the book of the wise Caesarius which he wrote to instruct novices. I will
tell you of her,"
In the diocese of Trèves is a certain convent of nuns named Lutzerath,
wherein by ancient custom no girl is received, but at the age of seven
years or less; which constitution hath grown up for the preservation
of that simplicity of mind, which maketh the whole body to shine.
There was lately in that monastery a maiden full-grown in body, but
such a child in worldly matters that she scarce knew the difference
twixt a secular person and a brute beast, since she had had no
knowledge of secular folk before her conversion. One day a goat
climbed upon the orchard wall, which when she saw, knowing not what it
might be, she said to a sister that stood by her: "What is that?" The
other, knowing her simplicity, answered in jest to her wondering
question, "That is a woman of the world," adding, "when secular women
grow old they sprout to horns and beards." She, believing it to be the
truth, was glad to have learned something new[1582].
All this time the preacher has been illustrating his sermon with any story
that came into his head. But he has been doing more; he has been
describing for the information of posterity the raw material (so utterly
different in different individuals), out of which the unchanging pattern
of the nun had to be moulded. However we are not (for the moment)
posterity; and we grow weary of this praise of austerity and simplicity.
But, brother John, we say (interrupting) here are we, living in the world;
you would not have us tear out our eyes when our husbands would be
fondling us? You would not have us take our good Dame Alison for a goat,
which is (heaven save us) but a brute beast and no Christian? and what if
we cry cuckoo sometimes, we girls, for a lover? there are some we know
that have married five husbands at the church door, and still think
themselves right holy women, and make pilgrimages to St James beyond the
sea, and will ever go first to the offering on Sunday. What have your nuns
to do with us? Tell us rather what we young fresh folk may do to be saved;
or how we good housewives should bear ourselves day by day. And that I
will (says the preacher with some acerbity). Shame upon you, with your
chattering tongues. You cannot even keep quiet at mass; and at home it is
well known to me how ye pester your husbands, with your screeching and
scolding, and how ye chatter all day to your gossips, not minding what
lewd words ye speak. Remember therefore holy St Gregory's example of the
nun who spake naughty words, which brother Robert of Brunne of the order
of Sempringham found in the French book and set into fair English rhymes:
Seynt Gregori of a nunne tellys
Þat ghede to helle for no þyng ellys
But for she spake ever vyleyny
Among her felaws al ahy.
Þys nunnë was of dedys chaste,
But þat she spake wurdys waste
She madë many of here felawys
Þenke on synnë for here sawys.
And then she died, and she was buried at the steps of the altar; and in
the night the sacristan of the place was awakened by a great crying and
weeping, and beheld fiends around that wretched nun, who burnt half her
body and left the other half unscathed:
Seynt Gregorye seyþ þat hyt was synge
Þat half here lyfë was nat dygne;
for þoghe here dedys werë chaste,
Here wurdys were al vyle and waste.
* * * * *
See how her tungge madë here slayn
and foulë wurdys broghte here to payn[1583].
Mind therefore your tongues, and do not whisper so lightly among
yourselves when you sit in the tavern (unknown to your husbands, fie upon
you!), and stuff yourselves with capons and Spanish wine. Nay more, have a
care that greed does not destroy you. _Gula_, he is one of the seven sins
that be most deadly. Look to it lest you one day receive the devil into
your bodies, with a mouthful of hot spices:
For the same blessed Gregory "telleth of a certain nun who omitted to
make the sign of the cross when she was eating a lettuce, and the
devil entered into her; and when he was ordered by a holy man to come
forth he replied: 'What fault is it of mine and why do you rebuke me?
I was sitting upon the lettuce and she did not cross herself and so
ate me with it'"[1584]. How different, now, was the reward of that
saintly nun of whom Caesarius telleth. For when "a pittance, to wit
fried eggs, was being distributed by the cellaress to the whole
convent, she was by some chance neglected. But indeed I deem not that
it befel by chance, but rather by divine ordering, that the glory of
God might be manifest in her. For she bore the deprivation most
patiently, rejoicing in the neglect, and therefore, when she was
returning thanks to God, that great Father-Abbot set before her an
invisible pittance; whereof the unspeakable sweetness so filled her
mouth, her throat and all her body, that never in her life had she
felt aught like to it. This was bodily sweetness, but next God visited
her mind and soul so copiously with spiritual sweetness ... that she
desired to go without pittances for all the days of her life"[1585].
Thus our preacher might be supposed to speak, but all nun tales are not so
edifying; the ribald jongleur was fond of them too. A good example of the
nun theme used as a _conte gras_ is Boccaccio's famous tale of the abbess,
who went in the dark to surprise one of her nuns with a lover; but having,
when aroused, had with her in her own cell a priest (brought thither in a
chest) she inadvertently put upon her head instead of her veil the
priest's breeches. She called all her nuns, seized the guilty girl and
came to the chapter house to reprimand her; and
"the girl happened to raise her eyes, when she saw what the abbess
bore upon her head, and the laces of the breeches hanging down on each
side of her neck, and being a little comforted with that, as she
conjectured the fact, she said: "Please, madam, to button your coif,
and then tell me what you would have." "What coif is it that you
mean," replied she, "you wicked woman, you? Have you the assurance to
laugh at me? Do you think jests will serve your turn in such an affair
as this?" The lady said once more, "I beg, madam, that you would first
button your coif and then speak as you please." Whereupon most of the
sisterhood raised up their eyes to look at the abbess, and she herself
put up her hand. The truth being thus made evident, the accused nun
said, "The abbess is in fault likewise," which obliged the mother to
change her manner of speech from that which she had begun, saying that
it was impossible to resist the temptations that assail the flesh.
Therefore she bade them, as heretofore, secretly to make the best
possible use of their time"[1586].
Another famous tale of Boccaccio's concerns the young man who pretended to
be dumb and was made gardener at a nunnery[1587].
In a different category from these stories sacred and profane are the
didactic works, wherein churchmen set down the reasons for which a
conventual life was to be preferred to all others, or the spirit in which
such a life was to be lived. In this class fall poems and treatises in
praise of virginity and books of devotion or admonition addressed to nuns.
The former are fairly common in the middle ages[1588] and, since they
throw little light on the actual life of a professed nun, need not be
considered at great length. Among the most graceful are a series of little
German songs, probably composed by clerks and generally classed with
folk-songs, though they are as different as possible from the popular
_Nonnenklagen_. The longest of these poems tells of a fair and noble lady
who walked in a garden and cried out at the beauty of the flowers, vowing
that could she but see the artist who created so much loveliness, she
would thank him as he deserved. At that moment a youth entered the garden
and greeted her courteously, answering her cry of surprise by saying that
neither stone walls nor doors could withstand him, and that all the lovely
flowers in the garden were his and he made them, for "I am called Jesus
the flower-maker." Then the lady was stirred to the heart and cried: "O my
dearest lord, with all my faith I love thee and I will ever be true to
thee till my life ends." But "the youth withdrew himself and went his way
to a convent which lay close by, and by reason of his great power he
entered speedily into it." The lady did not linger, but fled after him to
the convent and in great woe knocked upon the gates, crying, "Ye have shut
him in who is mine only joy." Then the nuns in the convent bespake her
wrathfully saying:
"Why dost thou lament so loudly? thou speakest foolishness. Our
convent is locked and no man entered therein. If thou hast lost him,
the loss is thine and thou must bear it." "Ye have let in the man to
whom I am vowed. With mine own eyes I saw him pass through the gate.
Ye have let in mine own dear lord. Were the whole world mine I would
give it up ere I gave up him. Ye have let in the man to whom I am
vowed and truly I say to you that I will have him again. I will keep
the vow which I sware to him and never shall my deathless loyalty
fail."
Then the maidens in the convent became wroth and they said:
"Thou spakest foolish things and against our honour. Our convent is
shut and no man is allowed therein and the dear Lord Jesus knoweth
well that this is true." "How little ye know him," said the lovely
lady, "Ye have spoken the name of mine own dear lord. Ye have named
him and well is he known to me; he is also called Jesus the
flower-maker."
The maidens in the convent deemed then that her words were of God and
marvelled thereat:
"Let Jesus our beloved lord stay with us for ever, for all who are in
this convent have vowed themselves to him." "If all ye who are in the
convent have vowed yourselves to him, then will I stay with you all my
days and I will keep the troth I plighted with him and never will I
waver in my firm faith in him"[1589].
Another song contrasts the love of the lord of many lands with that of the
lord of life, to the disparagement of the former[1590]. A similar contrast
between earthly and heavenly love is the _motif_ of the beautiful English
poem called _A Luue Ron_, made by the Franciscan Thomas of Hales at the
request of a nun[1591]; of a somewhat similar (though poetically inferior)
poem entitled _Clene Maydenhod_[1592]; and of a coarse and brutal treatise
in praise of virginity known as _Hali Meidenhad_[1593]. This alliterative
homily of the thirteenth century is startlingly different from the two
other contemporary works in middle English, with which its subject would
cause it to be compared. It has none of the delicate purity of the _Luue
Ron_, nor even of the mystical, ascetic visions of Mary of Oignies,
Luitgard of Tongres, Mechthild of Magdeburg, and the many saints and song
writers who realised the marriage of the soul with Christ in the concrete
terms of human passion[1594]. Neither, on the other hand, has it the
moderation and urbanity of the _Ancren Riwle_, though the same hand was
once supposed to have written both treatises. The author of _Hali
Meidenhad_ persuades his spiritual daughter to vow her virginity to God by
no better means than a savage and entirely materialistic attack upon the
estate of matrimony. He admits that wedlock is lawful for the weak, for
this the wedded sing, that through God's goodness and mercy of his
grace, though they have driven downwards, they halt in wedlock and
softly alight in the bed of its law, for whosoever falleth out of the
grace of maidenhood, so that the curtained bed of wedlock hold them
not, drive down to the earth so terribly that they are dashed limb
from limb, both joint and muscle[1595].
And again:
of the three sorts, maidenhood and widowhood and thirdly wedlockhood,
thou mayst know by the degrees of their bliss, which and by how much
it [maidenhood] surpasses the others. For wedlock has its fruit
thirtyfold in heaven, widowhood sixtyfold; maidenhood with a
hundredfold overpasses both. Consider then, hereby, whosoever from her
maidenhood descended into wedlock, by how many degrees she falleth
downward[1596].
This comparative moderation of tone does not, however, last long and the
author proceeds to draw a picture of the discomforts of wifehood and of
motherhood so gross and so entirely one-sided that it is difficult to
imagine any sensible girl being converted by it:
Ask these queens, these rich countesses, these saucy ladies, about
their mode of life. Truly, truly, if they rightly bethink themselves
and acknowledge the truth, I shall have them for witnesses that they
are licking honey off thorns. They buy all the sweetness with two
proportions of bitter.... And what if it happen, as the wont is, that
thou have neither thy will with him [thy husband] nor weal either and
must groan without goods within waste walls and in want of bread must
breed thy row of bairns?... or suppose now that power and plenty were
rife with thee and thy wide walls were proud and well supplied and
suppose that thou hadst many under thee, herdsmen in hall, and thy
husband were wroth with thee, and should become hateful, so that each
of you two shall be exasperated against the other, what worldly good
can be acceptable to thee? When he is out thou shalt have against his
return sorrow, care and dread. While he is at home, thy wide walls
seem too narrow for thee; his looking on thee makes thee aghast; his
loathsome voice and his rude grumbling fill thee with horror. He
chideth and revileth thee and he insults thee shamefully; he beateth
thee and mawleth thee as his bought thrall and patrimonial slave. Thy
bones ache and thy flesh smarteth, thy heart within thee swelleth of
sore rage, and thy face outwardly burneth with vexation[1597].
Then, after an unquotable passage, the author considers the supposed joys
of maternity and gives a brutal and painfully vivid account of the
troubles of gestation and childbirth and of the anxieties of the mother,
who has a young child to rear. He seems to feel that some apology is
needed for his brutality, for he adds:
Let it not seem amiss to thee that we so speak for we reproach not
women with their sufferings, which the mothers of us all endured at
our own births; but we exhibit them to warn maidens, that they be the
less inclined to such things and guard themselves by a better
consideration of what is to be done[1598].
The point of view is a strange one. No girl of moderate strength of
character, good sense and idealism would shirk marriage solely for the
purely material reasons set down by the author. One cannot but wonder at
the lack of spiritual imagination which can display convent life as the
easy, comfortable, leisured existence, the primrose path which a harassed
wife and mother cannot hope to follow[1599], thus inevitably securing for
the brides of Christ all who are too lazy and too cowardly to undertake an
earthly marriage. Self-sacrifice and high endeavour alike are outside the
range of the narrow materialist who wrote _Hali Meidenhad_. His treatment
represents the ugly, just as _A Luue Ron_ represents the beautiful side of
medieval praise of virginity and of monastic life.
Of all treatises for the use of nuns the most personal and the most
interesting is the thirteenth century _Ancren Riwle_ (Anchoresses' Rule).
The book was originally written for the use of three anchoresses, but the
language of the original version (the English version is by most scholars
considered to be a translation from a French original), the author and the
anchoresses for whom it was written are alike uncertain[1600]. The
conjecture that it was written by Richard Poore, Bishop of Salisbury from
1217 to 1229, is discredited by recent research. It is usually said that
the book was compiled for the anchoresses of Tarrant Keynes in
Dorsetshire; but this view rests upon the evidence of a rubric attached to
a Latin version of the rule, which states that it was written by Simon of
Ghent Bishop of Salisbury (who died in 1313) for his sisters, anchoresses
at Tarrant; but though the Latin translation was doubtless due to Simon of
Ghent, there is no evidence that the original anchoresses lived at
Tarrant; and the most recent research seeks to identify them with Emma,
Gunilda and Cristina, who were anchoresses at Kilburn about 1130 and whose
settlement developed into Kilburn Priory. The book is certainly of English
origin, though the original seems to have been written in French. It must
be noticed that the women for whom the _Ancren Riwle_ was intended were
anchoresses and not professed nuns; the essence of their life was
solitude, whereas nuns were essentially members of a community. But the
moment an anchoress ceased to live alone and took to herself companions
the distinction between anchorage and convent tended to disappear; several
English nunneries originated in voluntary settlements of two or three
women, who desired to lead a solitary life withdrawn from the world.
Nine-tenths of the _Ancren Riwle_ is equally applicable to a community of
recluses and to a community of nuns and may therefore with advantage be
used to illustrate convent life. The treatise has a dual character. It is
partly a theological work, telling the three sisters how to think and feel
and believe. It is partly a practical guide to the ordering of their
external lives. The author cares for the stalling and feeding of Brother
Ass the Body, as well as of his rider the Soul. His book is divided into
eight parts, of which the first seven are concerned with the religious and
spiritual welfare of the anchoress and the eighth part is (in his own
words) "entirely of the external rule; first of meat and drink and of
other things relating thereto; thereafter of the things that ye may
receive and what things ye may keep and possess; then of your clothes and
of such things as relate thereto; next of your tonsure and of your works
and of your bloodlettings; lastly the rule concerning your maids, and how
you ought kindly to instruct them"[1601]. This mixture of soul and body,
of spiritual and practical, is amusingly illustrated in the chapter on
confession, when he gives the following summary of all mentioned and known
sins,
as of pride, of ambition or of presumption, of envy, of wrath, of
sloth, of carelessness, of idle words, of immoral thoughts, of any
idle hearing, of any false joy, or of heavy mourning, of hypocrisy, of
meat and of drink, too much or too little, of grumbling, of morose
countenance, of silence broken, of sitting too long at the parlour
window, of hours ill said, or without attention of heart, or at a
wrong time; of any false word, or oath; of play, of scornful laughter,
of dropping crumbs, or spilling ale, or letting a thing grow mouldy,
or rusty, or rotten; clothes not sewed, wet with rain, or unwashen; a
cup or a dish broken, or anything carelessly looked after which we are
using, or which we ought to take care of; or of cutting or of
damaging, through heedlessness[1602].
The author of the _Ancren Riwle_ shows throughout true religious feeling,
compact of imagination and passion, but (as the above passage shows) he
never loses hold on reality. He is sober and full of common sense, almost
one had said a man of the world. He brings to his assistance (what writers
on holy maidenhood so often lack) a sound knowledge of human nature, a
sense of humour and a most observant eye. His psychological power appears
in his account of some of the sins to which the nun is exposed, in his
picture of the backbiter, for instance, or in the passage in which he
explains that the worst temptations of the nun come not (as she expects)
during the first two years of her profession, when "it is nothing but
ball-play," but after she has followed the life for several years; for
Jesus Christ is like the mortal lover, gentle when he is wooing his bride,
who begins to correct her faults as soon as he is sure of her love, till
in the end she is as he would have her be and there is peace and great
joy.[1603] Not only is the _Ancren Riwle_ full of flashes of wisdom such
as these. It is illustrated throughout by a profusion of metaphors and
homely illustrations drawn from the author's own observation of the busy
world outside the anchorage. Moreover it contains passages of a high and
sustained eloquence almost unmatched in contemporary literature, such as
the famous allegory of the wooing of the soul by Christ, under the guise
of a king relieving a lady who loved and scorned him from the castle where
she was besieged[1604].
Even more interesting than the spiritual counsels of the _Ancren Riwle_
are its practical counsels. The moderation and humanity of this most
unfanatical author are never more striking than when he is dealing with
the domestic life of the anchoresses. When laying down the general rule
that no flesh nor lard should be eaten, except in great sickness, and that
they should accustom themselves to little drink, he adds: "nevertheless,
dear sisters, your meat and drink have seemed to me less than I would have
it. Fast no day upon bread and water, except ye have leave"[1605], and
again:
Wear no iron, nor haircloth nor hedgehog skins and do not beat
yourselves therewith, nor with a scourge of leather thongs nor leaded;
and do not with holly nor with briars cause yourselves to bleed
without leave of your confessor and do not, at one time, use too many
flagellations[1606].
When he describes the sin of idle gossip, he breaks off with "Would to
God, dear sisters, that all the others were as free as ye are of such
folly"[1607]. Nothing could be more sensible than his regulations for
their behaviour after the quarterly blood-letting:
When ye are let blood ye ought to do nothing that may be irksome to
you for three days; but talk with your maidens and divert yourselves
together with instructive tales. Ye may often do so when ye feel
dispirited, or are grieved about some worldly matter, or sick. Thus
wisely take care of yourselves when you are let blood and keep
yourselves in such rest that long thereafter ye may labour the more
vigorously in God's service and also when ye feel any sickness, for it
is great folly, for the sake of one day, to lose ten or twelve.
He clearly has no belief in the theory of the medieval ascetic that
filthiness is next to godliness, for he bids his dear sisters "wash
yourselves wheresoever it is necessary, as often as ye please"[1608]. Some
of the precepts in this section of the _Riwle_ are obviously more closely
applicable to anchoresses than to nuns; for instance the instructions
against hospitality and almsgiving. Others are equally suitable for both:
Of a man whom ye distrust, receive ye neither less nor more--not so
much as a race of ginger.... Carry ye on no traffic. An anchoress that
is a buyer and a seller selleth her soul to the chapman of hell. Do
not take charge of other men's property in your house, nor of their
cattle, nor their clothes, neither receive under your care the church
vestments, nor the chalice, unless force compel you, or great fear,
for oftentimes much harm has come from such caretaking. Let no man
sleep within your walls.... Because no man seeth you, nor do ye see
any man, ye may be well content with your clothes, be they white, be
they black; only see they be plain and warm and well made--skins well
tawed; and have as many do you need, for bed and also for back....
Have neither ring nor brooch, nor ornamented girdle, nor gloves, nor
any such thing that is not proper for you to have. I am always the
more gratified, the coarser the works are that ye do. Make no purses
to gain friends therewith, nor blodbendes of silk; but shape and sew
and mend church vestments and poor people's clothes.... Ye shall not
send, nor receive, nor write letters without leave. Ye shall have your
hair cut four times a year to disburden your head; and be let blood as
oft and oftener if it is necessary; but if anyone can dispense with
this, I may well suffer it.[1609]
There follows a short account of the kind of servants who should attend
upon the anchoresses and the way in which these must behave and be ruled;
and then the author ends characteristically:
In this book read every day, when ye are at leisure--every day, less
or more; for I hope that, if ye read it often, it will be very
beneficial to you, through the grace of God, or else I shall have ill
employed much of my time. God knows, it would be more agreeable to me
to set out on a journey to Rome, than to begin to do it again.... As
often as ye read anything in this book, greet the Lady with an Ave
Mary for him who made this rule, and for him who wrote it and took
pains about it. Moderate enough I am, who ask so little[1610].
And six centuries later, as we lay down this delightful little book, we
cannot but agree that the claim is "moderate enough."
Other didactic works addressed to nuns may be considered more briefly, for
the majority are purely devotional and throw little light upon the daily
life of the nun. The largest and most important book in English is the
_Myroure of Oure Ladye_, written for the Brigittine sisters of Syon
Monastery at Isleworth by the famous theologian and chancellor of Oxford,
Thomas Gascoigne (1403-58)[1611]. It consists of a devotional treatise on
the divine service, followed by a translation and explanation of the
_Hours and Masses of Our Lady_ as used by the sisters. The first treatise
is profusely illustrated throughout by _exempla_ taken from Caesarius of
Heisterbach and similar sources and makes lively reading. Speaking of
attendance at divine service Gascoigne remarks:
They that have helthe and strengthe and ar nor lettyd by obedience,
they ought to be full hasty and redy to come to this holy seruyce and
lothe to be thense. They ought not to spare for eny slowth or dulnes
of the body, ne yet though they fele some tyme a maner of payne in
the stomacke or in the hed, for lacke of sleape or indygestyon.... For
lyke as they that styrre up themselfe with a quycke and a feruent wyll
thyderwarde ar holpe fourth and comforted by oure lordes good aungels;
right so fendes take power ouer them that of slowthe kepe them thense,
as ye may se by the example of a monke that was suffycyently stronge
in body but he was slepy, and dul to ryse to mattyns. Often he was
spoken to for to amende, and on a nyght he was callyd sharpely to
aryse and come to the quyer. Then he was wrothe and rose up hastly and
wente towarde the pryue dortour. And whan he came to the dore, there
was redy a company of fendes comynge to hym warde, that cryed agenst
hym wyth ferefull noyse and hasty, often saynge and cryyng: Take hym,
take hym, gette hym, holde hym; And with thys the man was sodenly
afrayde and turned agayne and ran to chyrche as fast as he myght, lyke
a man halfe mad and out of hys wytte for dreade. And when he was come
in to hys stalle, he stode a whyle trembelyng and pantyng, and sone
after he fel doune to the grounde, and lay styll as dede a longe tyme
without felyng or sturyng. Then he was borne to the farmery and after
he was come agayne to hym self he tolde his bretherne what him eyled
and from thense fourth he wolde be in the quyer wyth the fyrste. And
so I trowe wolde other that ar now slowthefull, yf they were hastyd on
the same wyse.
The prevalence of such stories shows how common was the misdemeanour
against which they are directed. It may be noted that as preface to the
second part of the _Myroure_ there stands an excellent little dissertation
on the value and method of reading[1612]. It is unnecessary to deal
further with the other didactic works in English intended for the use of
nuns, since their interest is purely religious[1613].
Before leaving the subject of didactic treatises it is however necessary
to mention one little English prose work, for though not addressed to
nuns, it throws some light upon the organisation of a convent and in
particular provides a very complete list of obedientiaries. This is the
_Abbey of the Holy Ghost_, which was printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1500
and has been erroneously attributed to various authors, including Richard
Rolle of Hampole and John Alcock, Bishop of Ely ([dagger] 1480)[1614]. The
allegory of a ghostly abbey seems to have been popular in the middle ages.
It had already been used by the béguine Mechthild in the thirteenth
century and it would be interesting to determine whether there is any
direct connection between her treatise _Von einem geistlichen closter_ and
the _Abbey of the Holy Ghost_. In her convent Charity is abbess, Meekness
her chaplain, Peace prioress, Kindliness subprioress, Hope chantress,
Wisdom schoolmistress, Bounty cellaress, Mercy chambress, Pity
infirmaress, Dread portress and Obedience provost or priest[1615]. The
English book is addressed to men and women who are unable to take regular
vows in some monastic order, and the allegory is carried out in great
detail.
The study of didactic literature addressed to nuns, in order to assist
them in a godly way of life, leads to the consideration of another type of
didactic literature, didactic however with an _arrière-pensée_, being
concerned to point out and to condemn evils which had crept into
monasteries. This is the work of the satirists and moralists, who
castigated by scorn or by condemnation the irregularities of the different
orders. Like didactic writers they describe an ideal, but an ideal which
emerges only from their attack on the dark reality, like sparks of light
which the blacksmith's hammer beats from iron. Occasionally they use the
gay satire of the writer of fabliaux; their condemnation is an
undercurrent beneath a lightly flowing stream, their moral is implicit,
they poke fun at the erring monk or nun, rather than chastise them. It is
so in that delicious poem, _The Land of Cokaygne_[1616], which French wit
begat in the thirteenth century upon English seriousness[1617]. _The Land
of Cokaygne_ is partly an attack on the luxury of monastic houses, and
partly an ebullition of irresponsible gaiety and humour, which might just
as well (one feels) have taken another form. The author has perhaps in his
mind the idea of the imaginary abbey of the Virtues, which was so popular
among serious writers, but he puts it to a very different use. Far in the
sea by West Spain, he says, there is a land which is called Cokaygne
[_coquina_, kitchen]. No land under heaven is like it for goodness.
Paradise may be merry and bright, but Cokaygne is fairer; for what is
there in Paradise but grass and flower and green branches? though there be
joy and great delight there, there is no meat but fruit, no hall or bower
or bench, nothing but water to drink. But in Cokaygne there is plenty of
meat and drink of the best, with no need to labour for it; in Cokaygne
there is muckle joy and bliss and many a sweet sight, for it is always day
there and always life; there is no anger, no animals, no insects
(N'is there fly, flea no louse,
In cloth in town, bed, no house),
no vile worm or snail, no thunder, sleet, hail, rain or wind, no
blindness. All is game and joy and glee there. There are great rivers of
oil and milk and honey and wine--but as for water, it is used only for
washing.
Then the satire becomes slightly more pointed:
There is a well-fair abbey,
Of white monkes and of grey,
There beth bowers, and halls:
All of pasties beth the walls,
Of flesh, of fish, and a rich meat,
The likefullest that man may eat.
Flouren cakes beth the _shingles_ all [tiles
Of church, cloister, bowers and hall.
The pinnes beth fat _puddings_ [sausages
Rich meat to princes and kings.
All may have as much as they will of the food. There is also in the abbey
a fair cloister, with crystal pillars, adorned with green jasper and red
coral. In the meadow near by is a tree, most "likeful for to see."
The root is ginger and galingale,
The scions beth all _sedwale_. [zedoary
_Trie_ maces beth the flower, [choice
The rind, _canel_ of sweet odour; [cinnamon
The fruit _gilofre_ of good smack [cloves
Of _cucubes_ there is no lack. [cubebs (a spice)
There are also red roses and lilies that never fade. There are in the
abbey four springs of _treacle_ (i.e. any rich electuary), _halwei_
(healing water), balsam and spiced wine, ever running in full stream, and
the bed of the stream is all made of precious stones, sapphire, pearl,
carbuncle, emerald, beryl, onyx, topaz, amethyst, chrysolite, chalcedony
and others. There also are many birds, throstle, thrush and nightingale,
goldfinch and woodlark, which sing merrily day and night. Better still
... I do you mo to wit,
The geese y-roasted on the spit,
Flee to that abbey, God it wot,
And _gredith_ "Geese all hot! all hot!" [cry
Hi bringeth garlek, great plentee,
The best y-dight that man may see.
The _leverokes_ that beth _couth_ [larks, well-known
Lieth adown to manis mouth;
Y-dight in stew full _swithe_ well, [quickly
Powder'd with gingelofre and canell.
The writer, having set his monks in the midst of this abundance of good
things, proceeds to describe their daily life. When they go to mass, he
says, the glass windows turn into bright crystal to give them more light,
and when the mass is ended and the books are laid away again, the crystal
turns back again into glass:
The young monkes each day
After meat goeth to play;
N'is there hawk, no fowl so swift,
Better fleeing by the lift,
Than the monkes, high of mood,
With their sleeves and their hood.
When the abbot seeth them flee,
That he holds for much glee,
Ac natheless, all there among,
He biddeth them light to evesong.
And if the monks pursue for too long their airy gambols, he recalls them
by means of an improvised drum, the nature of which is best not indicated
to a more squeamish generation. Then the monks alight in a flock and so
"wend meekly home to drink," in a fair procession.
So far the Paradise has been without an Eve. But the author will provide
these jolly monks with companions worthy of their humour:
Another abbey is thereby,
Forsooth a great fair nunnery:
Up a river of sweet milk,
Where is plenty great of silk.
When the summer's day is hot,
The young nunnes taketh a boat,
And doth them forth in that river,
Both with oarés and with steer.
When they beth far from the abbey
They maketh them naked for to play,
And lieth down into the brim,
And doth them slily for to swim.
The young monks that _hi_ seeeth, [them
They doth them up and forth they fleeeth,
And cometh to the nuns anon.
And each monke him taketh one,
And _snellich_ beareth forth their prey [quickly
To the mochil grey abbey,
And teacheth the nuns an orison
With _jambleue_ up and down. [gambols
The monk that acquits him best among the ladies may have twelve wives in a
year, if he will, and if he can outdo all his companions
Of him is hope, God is wot,
To be soon father abbot!
But whoever will come to this delectable country must first serve a hard
penance; seven years must he wade in swines' muck up to the chin ere he
win there. Fair and courteous lordings, good luck to you in the test!
More of a fairy tale than a satire, this jovial and good humoured poem was
immensely popular in the middle ages. Another thirteenth century lampoon
on the monastic orders, written in French in the reign of Edward I, is
less well known, possibly because its satire, while still essentially gay,
is more obvious than that of _The Land of Cokaygne_. The poem is known as
_L'Ordre de Bel-Eyse_[1618]. The author has had the happy idea (not
however a new one)[1619] of combining all the characteristic vices of the
different orders into one glorious Order of Fair Ease, to which belong
many a gentleman and many a fair lady, but no ribald nor peasant. From the
Order of Sempringham it borrows one custom, that of having brothers and
sisters together, but while at Sempringham there must be between them ("a
thing which displeases many") ditches and high walls, in the Order of Fair
Ease there must be no wall and no watchword to prevent the brethren from
visiting the sisters at their pleasure; their intimacy must be separated
by nothing, says this precursor of Rabelais, not by linen nor wool, nor
even by their skins! And all who enter the order must feast well and in
company, thrice a day and oftener. From the canons of Beverley they have
taken the custom of drinking well at their meat and long afterwards (the
pun is on _bever_, to drink), from the Hospitallers that of going clad in
long robes and elegant shoes, riding upon great palfreys that amble well.
From the Canons they borrow the habit of eating meat, but whereas the
canons eat it thrice a week these brethren are bound to eat it daily. From
the Black Monks (as from the canons of Beverley) they take their heavy
drinking, and if a brother be visited by a friend who shall know how to
carouse in the evening, he shall sleep late in the morning (for the sake
of his eyesight), till the evil fumes have issued from his head. From the
secular Canons ("who willingly serve the ladies") they have taken a rule
which is more needful than any other to solace the brethren--that each
brother must make love to a sister before and after matins; a point which
is elaborated with cheerful indecency, under the guise of borrowing from
the Grey Monks their manner of saying prayers. From the Carthusians they
take the custom of shutting each monk up in his cell to repose himself,
with fair plants on his window-ledge for his solace, and his sister
between his arms. The Friars Minor are founded in poverty, which they seek
by lodging ever with the chief baron, or knight, or churchman of the
countryside, where they can have their full; and so must the brethren of
Fair Ease do likewise. The Preachers go preaching in shoes and if they are
footsore they ride at ease on horseback; but the brethren of Fair Ease are
vowed always to ride, and always they must preach within doors and after
they have dined. This is our Order of Fair Ease; he who breaks it shall be
chastised and he who makes good use of it shall be raised to the dignity
of abbot or prior to hold it in honour, for thus do the Augustine canons,
who know so many devices. Now ends our Order, which agrees with all good
orders, and may it please many all too well![1620]
The inventors of these two imaginary orders were not serious or embittered
moralists. Cokaygne lies upon the bonny road to Elfland; and Bel Eyse is a
coarser, stupider Abbey of Theleme[1621], whose inmates lack that instinct
for honour and noble liberty which makes Gargantua's "Fais ce que
vouldras" an ideal as well as a satire. As a rule the medieval satirists
of monasticism deal in grave admonitions, or in violent reproaches. But
one contemporary poem, hailing this time from France, may be added to the
two English works in which the frailties of nuns are treated in a jesting
spirit. This is a piece by the famous trouvère Jean de Condé entitled _La
messe des oisiaus et li plais des chanonesses et des grises
nonains_[1622]. The poem begins with an account of a mass sung in due form
by all the birds and followed by a feast presided over by the goddess
Venus. After this unwieldy introduction comes the main theme, which
consists of a lawsuit brought by the nobly born canonesses against the
grey Cistercian nuns, for the judgment of Venus. A canoness speaks first
on behalf of her order, attended by several gentlemen and knights, who are
proud to claim her acquaintance:
"Queen," she says, "Deign to hear us and to receive us favourably, for
we have ever been thy faithful subjects and we shall continue ever to
serve thee with ardour. For long noblemen held it glorious to have our
love; the honour cost them nothing and was celebrated by round-tables,
feasts and tourneys. But now the grey nuns are stealing our lovers
from us. They are easy mistresses, exacting neither many attentions
nor long service and sometimes men are base enough to prefer them to
us. We demand justice. Punish their insolence, that henceforward they
may not raise their eyes to those who were created for us and for whom
we alone are made."
Venus then bids a grey nun speak and the grey nun's words are dry and to
the point:
Has not nature made us too for love? are not there among us many who
are as fair, as young, as attractive and as loving as they. Do not
doubt it. True their dress is finer than ours, but in affairs of the
heart we serve as well as they. They say we steal their lovers. In
truth it is they who by their pride and haughtiness drive those lovers
away; we do but reconquer them by courtesy and gentleness. We do not
seek them in love; but we have pleased them and they return to us.
And, if they are to be believed, that studied elegance, which must be
costly, has sometimes offered them a love less pure and disinterested
than that which they find with us.
This last charge pricks the canonesses and their faces grow scarlet with
rage:
What? do these serving girls add insult to injury? Do they dare to
claim to be as good lovers as we, who have ever had the usage and
maintenance of love? Their bodies, clad in wool, are not of such
lordship as to be compared to ours and grave shame were it if a man
knew not how to choose the highest. Bold and foolish grey-robes, great
ill have you done. Without your importunities and officious advances
no great lord or knight or man of honour would think of you. This is
your secret and to the shame of love it is spoken, for you degrade
thus the joys which he would have true lovers long desire in vain. You
have your monks and lay brothers; love them, give them heavy alms and
share your pittances with them: you are welcome to them for our part.
But as to gentlemen, leave them to us, who are gentlewomen.
The grey nun replies quietly that her cause is too good to be weakened by
insults, which can only offend the assembly and the respect due to the
goddess, and that love considers neither birth nor wealth:
Our grey robes of Cîteaux are not as fine as your vair-lined mantles
and rich adornments; but in such things we do not wish to compare
ourselves with you. It is in the heart and in love that we claim to be
as good as you.
There follows a hum of discussion in the assembly, some taking one side
and some the other, but most favouring the grey nuns. Then Venus rises to
give judgment and makes a long speech on the theme that all are equal in
her eyes:
"White-robed canonesses," she concludes, "I have always held your
services dear. Your grace, your elegance, your fine manners will
always bring you lovers; keep them, but do not drive from my court
these modest nuns, who serve me with so much constancy and whose
hearts burn for me the more ardently, owing to the constraint under
which they live. You are finer and know better, perhaps, how to
entertain; but sometimes the labourer's humble hackney goes further
than the palfrey of the knight. It lies with yourselves alone to keep
your lovers. Imitate your rivals and be gentle and gracious as they
are and you will not have to fear for the fidelity of a single lord."
Obviously hitherto the poem has had none of the characteristics of a moral
piece. The _débat_ was a common literary device, the law court presided
over by Venus a favourite literary theme. Jean de Condé is merely
concerned to amuse the court of Hainault with a polished poem cast in this
familiar mould, just as at other times he might regale it with the
_fabliau_ of _Les Braies au Prestre_ or the _dit_ of _La Nonnette_. Any
satirical value which the poem has is due simply to the implication in his
choice of parties to the suit; that is to say it is no more a satire than
are the numerous _fabliaux_, which have for their subject the peccadillos
of the Church. But the trouvère, even an aristocrat of the confraternity,
such as Jean, who would have held in utter scorn the mere buffoon at the
street corner, was never able to forget that he plied a dangerous trade, a
"trop perilous mester." He was continually aware of the necessity to put
himself right with Heaven, lest haply Aucassin spoke truth and to hell
went the harpers and singers; for the Church's condemnation of his tribe
was unequivocal. Therefore at the end of Venus' speech Jean de Condé
abruptly tacks on a most untimely moral, which gives a sudden seriousness
to his poem. He will sit in the seat of the moralists. So he interprets
the whole debate according to a theological and moral allegory, even going
so far as to compare the strife between the canonesses and the grey nuns
with the resentment of the first workers against those who came last, in
the parable of the Vineyard! He concludes with a bitter reproach against
moral disorders among the nuns, accusing them of paying service to Venus
to their damnation, and bidding "canonesses, canons, priests, monks, nuns
and all folk of their sort" to give up the evil love of the world, which
passes away like a dream, and to cling to the love of God which endureth
for ever. A strange point of view; but one which would strike no sense of
incongruity in an audience accustomed to the moralisation of the _Gesta
Romanorum_ and of many another profane story, forced to do pious service
as an _exemplum_. It is the spirit which built cathedrals and filled them
with grotesques.
Jean de Condé was not really a moralist, even in the sense in which the
authors of _The Land of Cokaygne_ and _The Order of Fair Ease_ deserve the
name. But there were a number of genuine moralists in the last three
centuries of the middle ages, who shook sober heads over the misdeeds of
nuns[1623]. In two thirteenth century French "Bibles," by Guiot de Provins
and the Seigneur de Berzé respectively[1624], their chastity is impugned
and the author of _Les Lamentations de Matheolus_ (c. 1290) goes to the
root of the matter and attributes their immorality to the ease with which
they are able to wander about outside their convents. They are continually
inventing stories, he says, in order to escape for a moment from the
cloister; their father, mother, cousin, sister, brother is ill; so they
receive _congé_ to wander about where they will--"par le pais s'en vont
esbattre." Moreover he has hard words for the rapacity of nuns in love;
distrust them, he warns, for they pluck and shear their lovers worse than
thieves or than Breton pirates; you must be always giving, giving, giving
with those ladies--it is the usage of their convent; you have to reward
the messenger and the mistress, the chambermaid, the matron and the
companion[1625]. The mention of the companion shows that the precaution of
sending the nuns out in twos was not always successful, and Gui de Mori
(writing about the same time) has the same tale to tell; the nun's lover
has to give to two at least, to her and to her companion; and since nuns
have plenty of spare time, they are fond of feeding love by the exchange
of messages, which mean more _douceurs_ from the purse of the luckless
gallant[1626].
The most interesting of all French moralists who deal with nuns is,
however, Gilles li Muisis, Abbot of the Benedictine monastery of St Martin
of Tournai, who began about 1350 to write a "Register" of his thoughts
upon contemporary life and morality, one section of which concerns "Les
maintiens des nonnains"[1627]. Like Matheolus, Gilles li Muisis considers
that the root of all evils is the ease with which nuns are able to leave
their convents:
"Of old," he says, "the nun was approved by God and man, when she kept
her cloister and wandered little in the world; but now I see them go
out often, whereat I am greatly displeased, for if this thing were
stopped many scandals would cease and it were greatly to the profit of
their souls."
He represents the "très doulces nonnains" as behaving "like ladies"; they
keep open house for visitors; and the young men go in more easily than the
old and guilty love is born. They exchange messages and letters with their
lovers; moreover they very often take _congé_ without any other reason
than the desire to meet these young men, and the sight of nuns upon every
road sets men's tongues chattering. They ought to sit at home, spinning
and sewing and mending their wimples: instead they hurry from stall to
stall, spending their money on fine cloths and collars. The Pope would do
well if he enclosed them. The young nuns are the worst of all; they are
forever pestering their abbesses for leave to go out; they will have all
their elders at their will, cellaress, treasuress, subprioress. Everything
is topsy-turvy now and all are in the same rank, those who are lettered
and those who are not; the young desire to have a finger in every pie.
Even their vow of poverty these nuns will not keep. They will have incomes
of their own and if they have none they grumble until they obtain one
somehow: "It is for this reason," they say, "that we desire the money--our
houses are growing poor and everywhere we grow weak." But it is not so,
for they want it in order to be able to go out more often. "I recognise,"
says Gilles, "and it is true, that nuns have many duties to fulfil, for
there is great resort of guests to their houses, and if it were possible
without harm to diminish these expenses, one might do something to help
them." But it is necessary to remember that the ownership of private
property is a sin; canon law condemns it, and if there is a rule
permitting these private incomes I have never met it. Moreover one sees
every day the evil results of such possessions.
What is the result of this laxity of morals, of this continual wandering
of nuns in the world? Secular folk everywhere talk about them and miscall
them:
"Religious ladies," says Gilles, "if you often heard what people say
about many of you, the hearts of good nuns would be dismayed, for the
world has but a poor opinion of you. And why? because men see the nuns
wandering so often; see them packing up all these goods in their carts
and going up and down the hills and dales. It is not you alone who are
slandered; everywhere it is the same; the folk of holy church are held
in little respect and men complain because they have so many
possessions and such fat endowments. But be assured, all of you, when
you go along the highways, that people look and see how well you are
shod and how daintily you are clad; and they hurl evil words against
you. 'Look at those nuns, who are more like fairies. They are attired
even better than other women. They go about the roads, so that men may
gaze upon them; what they covet is to be well stared at. God! well
they know how to entertain men. They have left their cloisters and are
going to enjoy themselves. Better were it for them if they prayed for
people, instead of going to chatter with their friends.'"
Even those who keep company with these nuns are at the same time disturbed
and a little dismayed by their behaviour. "Such men go about with them and
have their will of them; but pay them behind their backs with fierce
slanders...." So the worthy abbot continues, and every word that he says
is borne out by the unimpeachable evidence of the visitation reports. His
long lament is the most interesting of all moral works which have the
behaviour of nuns as their subject and it would be possible to annotate
almost every verse with a visitation _compertum_ or injunction.
Serious writers in condemnation of nuns were not lacking in England as
well as in France in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when, as
Gilles li Muisis complained, "les gens de Saint-Eglise petits sont
deportées." Langland's pungent satire on the convent where Wrath was
Potager has already been quoted[1628]. Gower, for whom the world was still
more out of joint, has a long passage concerning nuns in that portentous
monument of dulness, the _Vox Clamantis_, and draws a pessimistic picture
of their weakness and the readiness with which they yield to
temptation[1629]. Like monks, he says, the nuns are bound to chastity,
but since they are by nature more frail than man, they must not be
punished as severely as men if they break their vows; for the foot of
woman cannot stand or step firmly like the foot of man and she has none of
those virtues of learning, understanding, constancy and moral excellence,
with which the more admirable sex is endowed:
Nec scola, nec sensus, constancia nullaque virtus
Sicut habent homines, in muliere vigent!
He proceeds to illustrate the moral superiority of the male by the
statement that nuns are often led astray by priests, who enter their
convents as confessors or visitors, and under guise of a reforming
visitation make the frail women worse than they were before. "I should
hold this a most damnable crime," says Gower, "were it not that--really,
woman falls so easily!"
Hoc genus incesti dampnabile grande putarem
Sit nisi quod mulier de leuitate cadit[1630].
After further reflections in this strain, he bursts into a long panegyric
of virginity and then passes on to attack the manners of the friars.
Far more interesting than Gower's conventional moralising is a poem
entitled _Why I can't be a Nun_, and written early in the fifteenth
century[1631]. The favourite device of a ghostly abbey, peopled by
personified qualities, is here employed, but the inmates of the convent
are chiefly vices and such virtues as have a place among the nuns are
treated with scant respect by their companions. The poem is unfortunately
incomplete and begins abruptly in the middle of a sentence, but the gist
of the missing introduction is clear enough. The author represents herself
as a young girl named Katherine, whose desire to become a professed nun
has been opposed by her father. The father charges a number of messengers
to visit all the nunneries of England and the poem opens with the
departure of these messengers, full of zeal to accomplish their task, and
their return with the news that the nuns were ready to do his will.
Whereupon her father told Katherine that she could not be a nun, and
merely laughing at her protests, went his way. Then she mourned and was
sad and thought that fortune was against her; and one May morning, when
her sorrow was more than she could bear, she walked in a fair garden,
where she was wont to go daily to watch the flowers and the birds with
their bright feathers, singing and making merry on the green bough; and
going into an arbour, she set herself upon her knees and prayed to God to
help her in her distress.
At last she fell asleep in the garden and in her sleep a fair lady came to
her and called her by her name and bade her awake and be comforted. This
lady was called Experience and told Katherine that she had come to take
pity on her and teach her, saying:
Kateryne, thys day schalt thow see
An howse of wommen reguler,
And diligent loke that thow be,
And note ryght welle what þou seest there.
Then they went through a green meadow till they came to a beautiful
building and entered boldly by the gates; and it was a house of nuns, "of
dyuers orderys bothe old and yong," but not well governed, after the rule
of sober living, for self-will reigned there and caused discord and
debate:
And what in that place I saw
That to religion schulde not long,
Peradventure ghe wolde desyre to know,
And who was dwellyng hem among.
Sum what counseyle kepe I schalle,
And so I was tawght whan I was yong,
To here and se, and sey not all.
Then follows an enumeration of the inmates of the convent:
But there was a lady, that hyght dame pride;
In grete reputacion they her toke
And pore dame mekenes sate be syde
To her vnnethys ony wolde loke,
But alle as who sethe I her forsoke,
And set not by her nether most ne lest;
Dame ypocryte loke vpon a boke
And bete her selfe vpon the brest.
On every syde than lokede vp I
And fast I cast myne ye abowte;
Yf I cowde se, beholde or aspy,
I wolde have sene dame deuowte.
And sche was but wyth few of that rowght;
For dame slowthe and dame veyne glory
By vyolens had put her owte;
And than in my hert I was fulle sory.
But dame envy was there dwellyng
The whyche can sethe stryfe in every state.
And a nother lady was there wonnyng
That hyght dame love vnordynate,
In that place bothe erly and late
Dame lust, dame wantowne, and dame nyce,
They ware so there enhabyted, I wate,
That few token hede to goddys servyse.
Dame chastyte, I dare welle say,
In that couent had lytylle chere,
But oft in poynt to go her way,
Sche was so lytelle beloved there;
But sum her loved in hert fulle dere,
And there weren that dyd not so,
And sum set no thyng by her,
But ghafe her gode leue for to go....
And in that place fulle besyly
I walked whyle I myght enduer,
And saw how dame enevy
In every corner had grete cure;
Sche bare the keyes of many a dore.
And than experience to me came,
And seyde, kateryne, I the ensuer,
Thys lady ys but seldom fro home.
Than dame pacience and dame charyte
In that nunry fulle sore I sowght;
I wolde fayne have wyst where they had be,
For in that couent were they nowght;
But an owte chamber for hem was wrowght,
And there they dweldyn wyth-owtyn stryfe,
And many gode women to them sowght
And were fulle wylfulle of her lyfe.
There was also another lady, Dame Disobedience, and says Katherine:
Of all the faults that Experience showed me, this lack of obedience
grieved me most, so that I might no longer abide for shame, for I saw
that they had obedience in no reverence and that few or none took
heed of her; and I sped at great speed out of the gates, to escape
from that convent so full of sin.
Then Katherine and the Lady Experience sat down upon the grass, where they
could behold the place, and they began to talk:
And than I prayed experience for to have wyst
Why sche schewed me thys nunery,
Sche seyde "now we bene here in rest,
I thenk for to tellen the why,
Thy furst desyre and thyne entent
Was to bene a nune professede,
And for thy fader wolde not consent,
Thyne hert wyth mornyng was sore oppressede,
And thow wyst not what to do was best;
And I seyde, I wolde cese thy grevaunce,
And now for the most part in every cost
I have schewed the nunnes gouernawnce.
For as thou seest wythin yonder walle
Suche bene the nunnes in euery warde,
As for the most part, I say not alle,
God forbede, for than hyt were harde,
For sum bene devowte, holy and towarde,
And holden the ryght way to blysse;
And sum bene feble, lewde and frowarde,
Now god amend what ys amys!
And now keteryne, I have alle do
For thy comfort that longeth to me,
And now let vs aryse and go
Vn-to the herber there I come to the.
There Experience departed and Katherine awakened from her dream,
determined never to be a nun, unless the faults that she had seen were
amended.
Then follows a long exhortation to the nuns. They are adjured (by the
well-worn example of Dinah) not to wander from their convents, and are
reminded that the habit does not make the nun:
Yowre barbe, your wympplle and your vayle,
Yowre mantelle and yowre devowte clothyng,
Maketh men wythowten fayle
To wene ghe be holy in levyng.
And so hyt ys an holy thyng
To bene in habyte reguler;
Than, as by owtewarde array in semyng,
Beth so wythin, my ladyes dere.
A fayre garland of yve grene
Whyche hangeth at a tavern dore,
Hyt ys a false token as I wene,
But yf there by wyne gode and sewer;
Ryght so but ghe your vyes forbere,
And alle lewde custom be broken,
So god me spede, I yow ensewer
Ellys yowre habyte ys no trew token.
The poem ends as abruptly as it began with a catalogue of holy women,
whose lives are worthy of imitation, St Clare, St Edith, St Scolastica and
St Bridget, "that weren professed in nunnes habyte," and a bevy of English
saints, St Audrey, St Frideswide, St Withburg, St Mildred, St Sexburg and
St Ermenild. Whether or not the author really was a woman, the poem seems
to show some knowledge of monastic life; and a certain sincerity and
rugged directness render it more impressive than Gower's long-winded
accusations.
There remain to be considered two satires which were written on the very
eve of the Reformation and perhaps have a particular significance by
reason of the cataclysm, which was so soon to effect what all the
denunciations of the moralists had failed to do. These are the dialogues
on "The Virgin averse to Matrimony" and "The Penitent Virgin" in Erasmus'
_Colloquies_ (c. 1526) and a morality (which has already been mentioned)
by the Scottish poet Sir David Lyndesay, entitled _Ane Pleasant Satyre of
the Thrie Estaits, in commendatioun of vertew and vituperatioun of vyce_
(c. 1535). Erasmus' dialogues are (as might be expected) strongly
anti-monastic and the two which concern nuns are intended to attack those
"kidnappers" as he calls them:
that by their allurements draw young men and maids into monasteries,
contrary to the minds of their parents, making a handle either of
their simplicity or superstition, persuading them there is no hope of
salvation out of a monastery.
The dialogue entitled "The Virgin averse to Matrimony"[1632] takes place
between Eubulus and a seventeen-year old girl, Katherine, who like that
other Katherine, the heroine of _Why I can't be a Nun_, has set her heart
upon entering a convent, but has encountered the opposition of her
parents:
"What was it," asks Eubulus, "that gave the first rise to this fatal
resolution?" "Formerly," replies Katherine, "when I was a little
girl, they carried me into one of these cloisters of virgins, carried
me all about it and shewed me the whole college. I was mightily taken
with the virgins, they looked so charmingly pretty, just like angels;
the chapels were so neat and smelt so sweet, the gardens looked so
delicately well-ordered, that, in short, which way soever I turned my
eye everything seemed delightful. And then I had the prettiest
discourse with the nuns; and I found two or three that had been my
play-fellows when I was a child and I have a strange passion for that
sort of life ever since."
Eubulus argues with the girl. She can live as purely in her father's house
as in a nunnery; more purely indeed--and he makes a grave indictment
against the morality of nuns[1633]. Moreover she has no right to run
contrary to the wishes of her parents and to exchange their authority for
that of a fictitious father and a strange mother:
"The matter in question here," he says, "is only the changing of a
habit or of such a course of life, which in itself is neither good nor
evil. And now consider but this one thing, how many valuable
privileges you lose together with your liberty. Now, if you have a
mind to read, pray or sing, you may go into your own chamber as much
and as often as you please. When you have enough of retirement you may
go to church, hear anthems, prayers and sermons and if you see any
matron or virgin remarkable for piety, in whose company you may get
good, if you see any man that is endowed with singular probity from
whom you may learn what will make for your bettering, you may have
their conversation; and you may choose that preacher that preaches
Christ most purely. When once you come into a cloister all these
things, which are the greatest assistance in the promotion of true
piety, you lose at once." "But," says Katherine, "in the meantime I
shall not be a nun." "What signifies the name?" replies Eubulus.
"Consider the thing itself. They make their boast of obedience and
will you not be praiseworthy in being obedient to your parents, your
bishop and your pastor, whom God has commanded you to obey? Do you
profess poverty? And may not you too, when all is in your parents'
hands? Although the virgins of former times were in an especial manner
commended by holy men for their liberality towards the poor; but they
could never have given anything if they had possessed nothing. Nor
will your charity be ever the less for living with your parents. And
what is there more in a convent than these? A veil, a linen shift
turned into a stole, and certain ceremonies, which of themselves
signify nothing to the advancement of piety and make nobody more
acceptable in the eyes of Christ, who only regards the purity of the
mind." "Are you then against the main institution of a monastic life?"
asks Katherine. "By no means," answers Eubulus. "But as I will not
persuade anybody against it that is already engaged in this sort of
life to endeavour to get out of it, so I would most undoubtedly
caution all young women, especially those of generous tempers, not to
precipitate themselves unadvisedly into that state from whence there
is no getting out afterwards. And the rather because their charity is
more in danger in a cloister than out of it; and beside that, you may
do whatever is done there as well at home."
But Katherine remains unpersuaded.
In the next dialogue, called "The Penitent Virgin"[1634] Eubulus and
Katherine meet again, and Katherine informs her friend how she has entered
the nunnery, but has repented and gone home to her parents before being
fully professed:
"How did you get your parents' consent at last?" asks Eubulus. "First
by the restless solicitations of the monks and nuns and then by my own
importunities and tears, my mother was at length brought over; but my
father stood out stiffly still. But at last being plyed by several
engines, he was prevailed upon to yield; but yet, rather like one that
was forced than that consented. The matter was concluded in their
cups, and they preached damnation to him, if he refused to let Christ
have his spouse.... I was kept close at home for three days; but in
the mean time there were always with me some women of the college that
they call _convertites_, mightily encouraging me to persist in my holy
resolution and watching me narrowly, lest any of my friends or kindred
should come at me and make me alter my mind. In the meanwhile my habit
was making ready, and the provision for the feast." "Did not your mind
misgive you yet?" asks Eubolus. "No, not at all; and yet I was so
horridly frightened that I had rather die ten times over than suffer
the same again.... I had a most dreadful apparition." "Perhaps,"
remarks Eubulus slyly, "it was your evil genius that pushed you on to
this." "I am fully persuaded it was an evil spirit," replies
Katherine. "Tell me what shape it was in? Was it such as we use to
paint with a crooked beak, long horns, harpies claws and swinging
tail?" "You can make game of it," says poor Katherine, "but I had
rather sink into the earth than see such another." "And were your
women solicitresses with you then?" "No, nor I would not so much as
open my lips of it to them, though they sifted me most particularly
about it, when they found me almost dead with the surprise." "Shall I
tell you what it was?" says Eubulus. "These women had certainly
bewitched you, or conjured your brain out of your head rather[1635].
But did you persist in your resolution for all this?" "Yes, for they
told me that many were thus troubled upon their first consecrating
themselves to Christ; but if they got the better of the Devil that
bout, he'd let them alone for ever after." "Well, what pomp were you
carried out with?" "They put on all my finery, let down my hair and
dressed me just as if it had been for my wedding.... I was carried
from my father's house to the college by broad daylight and a world of
people staring at me." "O these Scaramouches," interrupts Eubulus,
"how they know how to wheedle the poor people!"
Katherine then tells him that she remained only twelve days in the
nunnery, and after six changed her mind and besought her father and mother
to take her away, which they eventually did. But what she saw that made
her recant she refuses to tell Eubulus, though he announces himself well
able to guess what it was. The dialogue ends on a significant note, "In
the meanwhile you have been at a great charge." "Above four hundred
crowns." "O these guttling nuptials!"[1636]
The racy dialogues of Erasmus illustrate the characteristic hostility of
the new learning towards contemporary monastic orders, and embody the main
charges which were customarily made against them, viz. the undue pressure
brought to bear upon young people to take vows for which they were not
necessarily suited, the avarice of the convents and the immorality of
their inmates. Sir David Lyndesay's _Satyre of the Thrie Estaits_ dwells
more specifically upon the latter accusation. In this lively castigation
of the vices of the day, which was acted for nine hours before the court
of King James V of Scotland at Cupar in 1535, Chastity comes upon the
stage, lamenting that she has long been banished, unheeded and unfriended
and that neither the temporal estate, nor the spiritual estate nor the
Princes will befriend her. Diligence bids her seek refuge among the nuns,
who are sworn to observe chastity, pointing to a Prioress of renown,
sitting among the other spiritual lords. "I grant," says Chastity,
ghon Ladie hes vowit Chastitie
For hir professioun; thairto sould accord.
Scho maid that vow for ane Abesie,
Bot nocht for Christ Jesus our Lord.
Fra tyme that thay get thair vows, I stand for'd,
Thay banische hir out of thair cumpanie:
With Chastitie thay can mak na concord,
Bot leids thair lyfis in Sensualitie.
I sall obserue our counsall, gif I may.
Cum on, and heir quhat ghon Ladie will say,
My prudent, lustie, Ladie Priores,
Remember how ghe did vow Chastitie.
Madame, I pray ghow, of your gentilnes,
That ghe wald pleis to haif of me pitie,
And this ane nicht to gif me harberie:
For this I mak ghow supplicacioun.
Do ghe nocht sa, Madame, I dreid, perdie!
It will be caus of depravatioun.
But the Prioress has given her allegiance to the notorious Lady
Sensuality, who, serving Queen Venus, has corrupted the court of King
Humanity and especially his clergy. "Pass hynd, Madame," she says,
Be Christ I ghe cum nocht heir:
ghe are contrair to my cumplexioun ...
Dame Sensuall hes geuin directioun
ghow till exclude out of my cumpany.
Chastity then applies in vain to the Lords of Spirituality for shelter; an
abbot jeers at her and a parson bids her
Pas hame amang the Nunnis and dwell,
Quhilks ar of Chastitie the well.
I traist thay will, with Buik and bell
Ressaue ghow in thair Closter;
to which Chastity replies:
Sir, quhen I was the Nunnis amang,
Out of thair dortour thay mee dang,
And wold nocht let me bide se lang
To say my Pater noster[1637].
At the end of the play the evil counsellors of King Humanity and
corruptors of his Estates are punished by Sir Commonweal, with the
assistance of Good Counsel and Correction. Correction, with his Scribe,
examines the spiritual lords as to how they keep their vows, and thus
interrogates the Prioress:
Quhat say ghe now, my Ladie Priores?
How have ghe vsit ghour office, can ghe ges?
Quhat was the caus ghe refusit harbrie
To this young lustie Ladie Chastitie?
and the Prioress replies:
I wald have harborit hir, with gude intent;
Bot my complexioun therto wald not assent.
I do my office efter auld vse and wount:
To ghour Parliament I will mak na mair count[1638].
The punishment of Flattery the Friar, the Prioress and the other prelates
follows; and the Sergeants proceed to divest her of her habit, gaily
adjuring her:
Cum on, my Ladie Priores.
We sall leir ghow to dance--
And that within ane lytill space--
Ane new pavin of France
(_Heir sall thay spuilghe the Priores; and scho sall haue
ane kirtill of silk under hir habite._)
Now, brother, be the Masse!
Be my iudgement, I think
This halie Priores
Is turnit in ane _cowclink_[1639]. [courtesan
The Prioress then makes a lament, which has already been quoted, blaming
her friends for making her a nun, and declaring that nuns are not
necessary to Christ's congregation and would be better advised to marry.
Finally the Acts of Parliament of King Correction and King Humanity, for
the better regulation of the realm, are proclaimed; and these include a
condemnation of nunneries:
Because men seis, plainlie,
This wantoun Nunnis ar na way necessair
Till Common-weill, not ghit to the glorie
Of Christ's kirk, thocht thay be fat and fair.
And als, that fragill ordour feminine
Will nocht be missit in Christ's Religioun;
Thair rents vsit till ane better fyne
For Common-weill of all this Regioun[1640].
The date when these words were first proclaimed from a stage is
significant; it was 1535, the year of the visitation of the monasteries in
England. The confiscation of those rents was soon to be an accomplished
fact; but it was a king rather than a commonweal that reaped the benefit.
There remains for consideration only one other class of literature which
speaks of the nun. It is interesting to see the part which she plays in
literature proper, outside popular songs and stories, or popular and
didactic works written for purposes of edification. Considering the
important part played by monastic institutions in the life of the upper
classes it is perhaps surprising that the part played by the nun in
secular literature is so small. But the explanation lies in the definitely
romantic basis of the greater part of such literature, combined with the
fact that it was aristocratic in origin and therefore inherited a respect
for the nunneries, which prevented a romantic treatment of the nun, such
as is found in the _chansons de nonnes_. Even so it is to be remarked that
the treatment is romantic with a difference; the nun is willingly
professed, pious, aloof, but it is because death or misfortune has put an
end to lovers' joys; the type of nun who appears in this literature has
retreated to a convent at the close of a life spent in the world. If the
nun unwillingly professed has always been a favourite theme, so also has
the broken-hearted wife or lover, hiding her sorrows in the silent
cloister; from the twelfth to the nineteenth century she remains
unchanging, from Belle Doette and Guinevere to the Lady Kirkpatrick:
To sweet Lincluden's holy cells
Fu' dowie I'll repair:
There peace wi' gentle patience dwells--
Nae deadly feuds are there.
In tears I'll wither ilka charm,
Like draps o' balefu' dew,
And wail a beauty that could harm
A knight sae brave and true[1641].
The anonymous twelfth century romance of Belle Doette contains some
charming verses, describing her grief at her husband's death and her
determination to enter a cloister:
Bèle Doette a pris son duel a faire:
"Tant mari fustes, cuens Do, frans de bon aire!
Por vostre amor vestirai je la haire,
Ne sor mon cors n'avra pelice vaire.
E or en ai dol.
Por vos devenrai nonne en l'eglyse Saint Pol.
Por vos ferai une abbaie téle
Quant iért li jors que la feste iért nomée
Se nus i vient qui ait s'amor fausee
Ja del mostier ne savera l'entree.
E or en ai dol.
Por vos devenrai nonne en l'eglyse Saint Pol.
Bèle Doette prist s'abaise a faire,
Qui mout est grande et ades sera maire:
Toz cels et celes vodra dedans atraire
Qui por amor sévent peine et mal traire.
E or en ai dol.
Por vos devenrai nonne en l'eglyse Saint Pol"[1642].
Lovely Doette, she weeps a husband fair.
"O count, my lord, frank wast thou, debonair!
For thy dear love I'll wear a shirt of hair,
Never again be clad in robe of vair.
Great grief have I.
Now in St Paul's a nun I'll live and die.
For thy dear love an abbey I will raise.
And when therein first sounds the song of praise
If one shall come who falsely love betrays
Ne'er shall she find an entrance all her days.
Great grief have I.
Now in St Paul's a nun I'll live and die.
Lovely Doette, she makes her abbey so.
Great now it is and greater still shall grow.
And lovers all into that church shall go
Who for love's sake know pain and bitter woe.
Great grief have I.
Now in St Paul's a nun I'll live and die."
To English readers the supreme representative of this type must always be
Malory's Guinevere:
And when queen Guenever understood that king Arthur was slain, and all
the noble knights, Sir Mordred and all the remnant, then the queen
stole away and five ladies with her, and so she went to Almesbury, and
there she let make herself a nun, and wore white clothes and black,
and great penance she took, as ever did sinful lady in this land, and
never creature could make her merry, but lived in fasting, prayers and
alms-deeds, that all manner of people marvelled how virtuously she
was changed. Now leave we queen Guenever in Almesbury a nun in white
clothes and black, and there she was abbess and ruler as reason would.
There follows that incomparable chapter of parting, when Launcelot seeks
his queen in her nunnery:
and then was queen Guenever ware of Sir Launcelot as he walked in the
cloister, and when she saw him there she swooned thrice, that all the
ladies and gentlewomen had work enough to hold the queen up. So when
she might speak, she called ladies and gentlewomen to her, and said,
Ye marvel, fair ladies, why I make this fare. Truly, she said, it is
for the sight of yonder knight that yonder standeth: wherefore, I pray
you all, call him to me. When Sir Launcelot was brought to her, then
she said to all the ladies, Through this man and me hath all this war
been wrought, and the death of the most noblest knights of the world;
for through our love that we have loved together is my noble lord
slain. Therefore, Sir Launcelot, wit thou well I am set in such a
plight to get my soul's health; and yet I trust, through God's grace,
that after my death to have a sight of the blessed face of Christ and
at doomsday to sit at his right side, for as sinful as ever I was are
saints in heaven. Therefore, Sir Launcelot, I require thee and beseech
thee heartily, for all the love that ever was betwixt us, that thou
never see me more in the visage; and I command thee on God's behalf
that thou forsake my company and to thy kingdom thou turn again and
keep well thy realm from war and wrack. For as well as I have loved
thee, mine heart will not serve me to see thee; for through thee and
me is the flower of kings and knights destroyed.
And so on, through the last parting, and the last kiss refused, and the
lamentation "as they had been stung with spears," through the six long
years of fasting and penance, till the day when Guinevere died and a
vision bade Launcelot seek her corpse.
And when Sir Launcelot was come to Almesbury, within the nunnery,
queen Guenever died but half an hour before. And the ladies told Sir
Launcelot that queen Guenever told them all, or she passed, that Sir
Launcelot had been priest near a twelvemonth--And hither he cometh as
fast as he may to fetch my corpse; and beside my lord king Arthur he
shall bury me. Wherefore the queen said in hearing of them all, I
beseech Almighty God that I may never have power to see Sir Launcelot
with my worldly eyes. And thus, said all the ladies, was ever her
prayer these two days, till she was dead[1643].
This is a different romance from that of the gay _chansons de nonnes_, but
it is romance all the same. There is little in common between Queen
Guinevere and the lady who was loved and rescued by a king in the _Ancren
Riwle_[1644].
One of the last--as it is one of the most graceful--pieces of courtly
literature concerned with a convent is the delightful _Livre du dit de
Poissy_, in which the French poetess Christine de Pisan tells of a
journey, which she took in 1400, to visit her daughter, a nun at the
famous convent of Poissy. This Dominican abbey, founded in 1304, was
exceedingly rich and the special favourite of the kings of France, for it
had been put under the protection of St Louis. The number of nuns,
originally fixed at a hundred and twenty, soon rose to two hundred, and
the aristocratic character of the house was very marked, for its inmates
had to be of noble birth and to receive a special authorisation from the
king before they could be admitted. At the time of Christine de Pisan's
visit Marie de Bourbon, aunt of Charles VI, was prioress, and the convent
also contained the nine year old Marie de France, his daughter (who took
the veil at the age of five) and her cousin Catherine d'Harcourt. There
were no nunneries so large and so rich in England at this late date; but
Christine's description may serve to suggest what great houses like
Shaftesbury and Romsey must have been like in the earlier days of their
prime. Her account of the convent, with its fine buildings and gardens,
its church, its rich lands and its gracious and dignified way of life
forms a useful counterpoise to the bald and unidealised picture presented
by the _comperta_ of visitations; for assuredly truth lies somewhere
between the _comperta_, which deal solely with faults, and the poem, which
deals solely with virtues.
Christine describes the brilliant cavalcade of lords and ladies riding in
the spring morning through beautiful scenery, enlivening their journey
with laughter and song and talk of love, until they came to the great
abbey of Poissy. She describes their reception by the Prioress Marie de
Bourbon and by the king's little daughter "joenne et tendre":
Par les degrez de pierre, que moult pris,
En hault montames
Ou bel hostel royal, que nous trouvames
Moult bien pare, et en sa chambre entrames
De grant beaulty.
The Prioress' lodging was evidently such as befitted a royal princess,
even though she were a humble nun. Christine describes the manner of life
of the nuns, how no man might enter the precincts to serve or see them,
save a relative, and how they never left the convent and seldom saw
strangers from the world:
Et de belles plusiers y a comme angelz.
Si ne vestent chemises, et sus langes
Gisent de nuis; n'ont pas coultes a franges
Mais materas
Qui sont couvers de biaulx tapis d'Arras
Bien ordenées, mais ce n'est que baras,
Car ils sont durs et emplis de bourras,
Et la vestues
Gisent de nuis celles dames rendues,
Qui se lievent ou elles sont batues
A matines; la leurs chambres tendues
En dortouer
Ont près a près, et en refectouer
Disnent tout temps, ou a beau lavourer.
Et en la court y a le parlouer
Ou a trellices
De fer doubles a fenestres coulices,
Et la en droit les dames des offices
A ceulz de hors parlent pour les complices
Et necessaires
Qu'il leur convient et fault en leurs affaires.
Si ont prevosts, seigneuries et maires,
Villes, Chastiaulx, rentes de plusieurs paires
Moult bien assises;
Et riches sont, ne nulles n'y sont mises
Fors par congié de roy qui leurs franchises
Leur doit garder et maintes autres guises
A la en droit.
Christine then tells how the Prioress invited the party to "desjuner" and
how in a fair room they were served with rich wines and meats, in vessels
of gold, and were waited upon by the nuns. Then the nuns led them through
the buildings and grounds of the convent, showing them all the beauties of
this "paradise terestre." She gives an extremely minute and interesting
picture of Poissy as it was in 1400, the vaulted cloister with its carven
pillars, surrounding a square lawn with a tall pine in the middle; the
spacious frater, with glass windows; the fine chapter house; the stream of
fresh water carried in pipes through all the different buildings; the
great storehouses, cellars, ovens and other offices; the large, airy
dorter; and finally the magnificent church, with its tall pillars and
vaulted roof, its hangings, images, paintings and ornaments of glittering
gold. She tells of the services held there, when the nuns knelt within a
screen in the nave and the townsfolk and visitors and priests outside it.
She gives a detailed account of the clothes worn by the nuns; a woman she,
and not to be content with Malory's simple "white clothes and black."
Finally she describes the wide gardens and woods of the convent,
surrounded by a high wall and full of fruit-trees and birds and deer and
coneys, with two fishponds, well-stocked with fish. In the exploration of
these delights the day passed quickly. The gay party retired at nightfall
to a neighbouring inn and early the next day paid a farewell visit to the
hospitable nuns, who gave them gifts of belts and purses embroidered by
themselves:
Et reprendre
De leurs joyaulx
Il nous covint, non fermillez n'aniaulx
Mais boursetes ouvrees a oysiaulx
D'or et soies, ceintures et laz biaulx,
Moult bien ouvrez,
Qui autre part ne sont telz recouvrez.
Then lords and ladies took horse again and, debating of love, rode back to
Paris[1645].
Against this courtly idyll of monastic life one more picture of a nun must
be set as complement and as contrast. It is deservedly well known; but no
study of the nun in medieval literature would be complete without quoting
in full Chaucer's description of Madame Eglentyne, a masterpiece of
humorous observation, sympathetic without being idealised, gently
sarcastic without being bitter. It is a fitting note on which to close
this book:
Ther was also a Nonne, a Prioresse,
That of her smyling was ful simple and coy;
Hir grettest ooth was but by seynt loy;
And she was cleped madame Eglentyne.
Ful wel she song the service divyne,
Entuned in hir nose ful semely;
And Frensh she spak ful faire and fetisly,
After the scole of Stratford atte Bowe,
For Frensh of Paris was to hir unknowe.
At mete wel y-taught was she with-alle;
She leet no morsel from hir lippes falle,
Ne wette hir fingres in hir sauce depe.
Wel coude she carie a morsel and wel kepe,
That no drope ne fille up-on hir brest.
In curteisye was set ful muche hir lest.
Hir over lippe wyped she so clene,
That in hir coppe was no ferthing sene
Of grece, whan she dronken hadde hir draughte.
Ful semely after hir mete she raughte,
And sikerly she was of greet disport,
And ful plesaunt and amiable of port,
And peyned hir to countrefete chere
Of court, and been estatlich of manere,
And to be holden digne of reverence.
But, for to speken of hir conscience,
She was so charitable and so pitous,
She wolde wepe, if that she sawe a mous
Caught in a trap, if it were deed or bledde.
Of smale houndes had she, that she fedde
With rosted flesh, or milk and wastel-breed.
But sore weep she if oon of hem were deed,
Or if men smoot it with a yerde smerte:
And al was conscience and tendre herte.
Ful semely hir wimpel pinched was;
Hir nose tretys; hir eyen greye as glas;
Hir mouth ful smal, and ther-to softe and reed;
But sikerly she hadde a fair forheed;
It was almost a spanne brood, I trowe;
For, hardily, she was nat undergrowe.
Ful fetis was hir cloke, as I was war.
Of smal coral aboute hir arm she bar
A peire of bedes, gauded al with grene;
And ther-on heng a broche of gold ful shene,
On which ther was first write a crouned A,
And after, _Amor vincit omnia_[1646].
APPENDIX I
ADDITIONAL NOTES TO THE TEXT
NOTE A.
THE DAILY FARE OF BARKING ABBEY.
The _Charthe_ [charter] _longynge to the office of the Celeresse of the
Monasterye of Barkinge_[1647] is one of the most interesting domestic
documents which has survived from the middle ages. The _Ménagier de Paris_
gives a first rate account of the work of a housewife who has to provide
for a private household. The _Charthe_ sets forth the duties of a
housewife who has to feed a large institution. No bursar of a college or
housekeeper of a school can fail to read it with a sympathetic smile. Like
a good business woman the nameless cellaress, who drew it up for the
guidance of her successors, sets out first of all the sources of revenue
by which the charges of her office were supported. These are of three
sorts: (1) the rents from thirteen rural manors, together with certain
annual rents from the canons of St Paul's, the priory of St Bartholomew's
and the lessees of various tenements in London, which were supposed to
yield her a little over £95 per annum; (2) "the issues of the Larder," to
wit all the ox skins, "inwards" of oxen, tallow coming from oxen and
messes of beef, which she sells; and (3) "the foreyn receyte," to wit the
money received for the sale of hay at any farm belonging to her office.
These represent only her money revenues; but she also received the greater
part of meat and dairy produce consumed by the convent from the home farm
and from the demesnes of the manors appropriated to her. The _Charthe_
warns her to be certain of hiring pasture for her oxen at such times as it
is needful, to see that her hay is duly mown and made and to keep all the
buildings belonging to her office in repair, both those within the
monastery and those at the outlying manors and farms.
The _Charthe_ throws some light upon the domestic staff employed in
working the department. An important gentleman called the steward of the
household had the general supervision of its business affairs; he kept an
eye on the bailiffs and rent collectors of the cellaress's manors and
presided at their courts. The cellaress solemnly presented him with a
"reward" of 20_d._ every time that he returned with the pecuniary proceeds
of justice, and on Christmas day. The management of the department was
done by the head cellaress herself, with an under-cellaress to assist her
and a clerk to keep her accounts and write her business letters, at a
wage of 13_s._ 4_d._ The kitchen was in the special charge of a nun
kitchener and the actual cooking was done by a "yeoman cook," a "groom
cook" and a "pudding wife"[1648]; she paid her yeoman cook a wage of
26_s._ 8_d._, her pudding wife, 2_s._ a year and bought her groom cook a
gown at Christmas. She wisely gave a Christmas box to each of the
underlings, great and small, with whom she had to do, 20_d._ to the
Abbess' gentlewoman, 16_d._ to every gentleman, "and to every yoman as it
pleaseth her for to doo, and gromes in like case"; moreover it was her
pleasant duty to hand to herself as cellaress and to her under-cellaress
20_d._ apiece.
The _Charthe_ gives exceedingly minute directions as to the conventual
housekeeping. Barking Abbey was a large house, consisting at the time this
document was drawn up of thirty-seven ladies. The Abbess dwelt in state in
her own apartments, with a gentlewoman to wait upon her and a private
kitchen, with its own staff, which was not under the control of the
cellaress. The cellaress, however, sent in to the Abbess 4 lbs. of almonds
and eight cakes called "russheaulx" in Lent, eight chickens at Shrovetide,
one pottle of wine called Tyre[1649] on Maundy Thursday and a sugar loaf
on Christmas Day; while the Abbess' kitchen had to provide the convent
with "pittances" and "liveries" of pork, bacon, mutton or eggs on certain
days of the year, as will appear hereafter. From the convent kitchen the
cellaress had to purvey for: (1) the ladies of the convent, (2) the
prioress, two cellaresses and kitchener, who receive a double allowance of
almost all food given out, and (3) the priory.
The _Charthe_ sets forth exactly how much is to be delivered to each
person, the separate allowances of meat being called "messes." It will be
convenient to consider the stores to be provided under the five headings
of: (1) meat, (2) grain, (3) butter and eggs, (4) fish and condiments for
Advent and Lenten fare, and (5) pittances, or extra delicacies provided on
certain days of the year. It is to be noted that the _Charthe_ deals for
the most part with the special fare appropriate to special occasions.
There is no mention of the daily allowance of bread and beer made on the
premises; the only fish mentioned is salt fish for Lent; the only
vegetables are dried peas and beans; the only fowls are for a special
pittance on St Alburgh's day.
(1) _Meat._ The chief meat food of the convent, eaten three times a week
(on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday), except in Advent and Lent and on
vigils, was beef. The cellaress had to purvey 22 "gud oxen" by the year
for the convent. These oxen were fed on her own pastures, and, says the
cellaress, "she shall slay but every fortnyght and yf sche be a good
huswyff"; accordingly at the end of the first week, she must look and see
if she has enough beef to last out the fortnight and if not she must buy
what she needs in the market. It would seem that besides the beef provided
by the cellaress from the convent kitchen the convent had an extra
allowance of beef provided from some source not mentioned in the
_Charthe_, or else that they did not always eat each week what was
delivered to them. For the cellaress sets down as follows the entry which
her clerk is to make in her book each week: on Saturday 20 Sept.
(doubtless the day on which she was writing) she answers for four or five
messes remaining in store of the week before, and of 63 messes of beef
from an ox slain the same week, also of 80 messes of beef bought by her of
the convent "of that they lefte behynd of ther lyvere, paying for every
mess 1-1/2_d._," total 147 messes, whereof she delivers to each lady for
the three meat days three messes and to the priory six messes. After beef
the meat food most commonly eaten consisted in various forms of pig's
flesh. At Martinmas the cellaress had to ask at the abbess' kitchen for a
pittance of pork for each lady and also a livery of "sowsse"[1650], thus
defined: "every lady to have three thynges, that is to sey, the cheke, the
ere and the fote is a livery; the groyne and two fete ys anodyer leveray;
soe a hoole hoggs sowsse shall serve three ladyes." At the same time she
had to give them "of sowce of hyre owne provisione two thynges to every
lady, so that a hoole hog sowce do serve four ladyes." She also had to
provide pork from her own kitchin for two anniversary pittances (of which
more anon) and she notes that every hog yields 20 messes. Moreover on
Christmas Day she had to ask at the abbess' kitchen for "livery bacon" for
the convent, four messes for each lady; a flitch was reckoned to provide
ten messes. Of mutton the convent ate very little. Three times a year,
between the feasts of the Assumption (Aug. 15) and of St Michael (Sept.
29), the abbess' kitchen had to provide "pittance mutton" for the ladies,
a mess to each, "and every mutton yields twelve messes"; and twice a year
on certain anniversaries the cellaress had to provide a similar allowance
out of her own kitchen.
(2) _Grain._ Under this heading comes three quarters of malt, to be brewed
into ale for the festal seasons of St Alburgh's[1651] (or Foundress') Day
(Oct. 11) and Christmas; one quarter and seven bushels of wheat to be
baked into bread or cakes for various pittances; two bushels of dried
peas to be eaten in Lent and one bushel of dried beans "against
Midsummer." The brewer and baker were paid a tip of 20_d._ and 6_d._
respectively, when they had to make the extra pittance beer and bread. The
convent also had a livery of oatmeal from the cellaress, four dishes
delivered once a month.
(3) _Butter and Eggs._ The cellaress had to provide the convent with
butter at certain times, to every lady and double one "cobet," every dish
containing three cobets. What was called "feast butter" was payable on St
Alburgh's Day, Easter, Whitsunday and Trinity Sunday. What was called
"storing butter" was payable five times a year, "to wit Advent and four
times after Christmas." What was called "fortnight butter" was payable
once for every fortnight lying between Trinity Sunday and Holy Rood Day
(Sept. 14). The cellaress was also responsible for providing the convent
with money to buy eggs ("ey silver"); each lady had weekly from Michaelmas
(Sept. 29) to All Hallows' Day (Nov. 1), 1-1/2_d._, from All Hallows' Day
to Advent, 1-3/4_d._, from Advent to Childermas Day (Dec. 28), 1-1/4_d._,
from Childermas Day to Ash Wednesday, 1-3/4_d._, and from Easter to
Michaelmas, 1-1/2_d._; also an extra allowance of 1/2_d._ on each vigil of
the year, when no meat was eaten. Out of this "ey silver" the nuns had to
purvey eggs for themselves as best they might; but the cellaress had to
give the priory each week in the year 32 eggs or else 2-3/4_d._ in money,
except in the four Advent weeks when she provided only 16 and in Lent,
when none were due; for every vigil she gave them eight eggs, "or else
1-3/4_d._ and the fourth part of 1/4_d._" in money. At the five principal
feasts of the year the abbess left her hall and dined in state in the
frater, to wit on Easter Day, Whit Sunday, Assumption Day, St Alburgh's
Day and Christmas Day; and on these occasions the cellaress had to ask the
clerk of the abbess' kitchen for "supper eggs" for the convent, two for
each lady.
(4) _Lenten Fare._ For Lent and Advent the cellaress had to provide the
convent with their diet of fish, enlivened for their comfort with dried
fruits and rice. She laid in two cades of red herring for Advent, a cade
being 600 (counting six score to the 100).
For Lent she purveyed seven cades of red herring and three barrels
(containing 1000 at six score to the hundred) of white herring. To every
lady she gave four a day (i.e. in all 28 a week), and to the priory she
gave four on every day except Sunday, when she gave them fish, and Friday,
when they had figs and raisins. She also had to lay in 18 salt fish
(nature unspecified), out of which she provided each lady with a mess and
the priory with two messes every other week in Lent, each fish producing
seven messes; in the alternate weeks they received salt salmon, of which
she laid in fourteen or fifteen, each salmon yielding nine messes. To
spice this Lenten fare she bought 1200 lbs. of almonds, three "peces" and
24 lbs. of figs, one "pece" of raisins, 28 lbs. of rice and 12 gallons of
mustard. Each lady received 2 lbs. of almonds and 1/2 lb. of rice to last
for the whole of Lent, and every week 1 lb. of figs and raisins.
(5) _Pittances_, or extra allowances of more delicate food, were due to
the nuns on certain feasts of the Church and on the anniversaries of five
benefactors, viz. Sir William Vicar, Dame Alys Merton, "dame Mawte the
kynges daughter," dame Maud Loveland and William Dun. The pittances on the
anniversaries of William Vicar and William Dun were of mutton; on each
occasion the cellaress had to lay in three "carse" of mutton, and for
William Dun's pittance she had to make sure also of 12 gallons of good
ale. For the pittances of Dame Alice Merton and Maud the king's daughter
(which fell in the winter) she had to purvey four bacon hogs, each hog
producing 20 messes, also six _grecys_[1652], six _sowcys_ and six
_inwardys_; also 100 eggs for "white puddings," together with bread,
pepper and saffron for the same, and "marrow bones for white
wortys"[1653]; also three gallons of good ale. Evidently the convent had a
royal feast on those days and had good cause to remember their former
abbesses. There are no details as to Dame Maud Loveland's pittance.
Another red letter day was Foundress' Day (Oct. 11). On this occasion the
abbess' kitchen had to provide each lady of the convent with half a goose,
the two chantresses, as well as the four usual recipients, receiving
doubles, and with a hen or a cock, the fratresses and the subprioress also
receiving doubles. Moreover the cellaress had to give the ladies
"frumenty"[1654], for which she laid in wheat and three gallons of milk.
On the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin (Aug. 15) each received half
a goose. At Shrovetide the cellaress gave each lady "for their
cripcis[1655] and for their crumkakers 2_d._"; she had also to purvey
eight chickens for the abbess and "bonnes"[1656] for the convent and also
four gallons of milk. On Shere or Maundy Thursday she had 12 "stub" eels
and 60 "shaft" eels baked with wheat and 8 lbs. of rice; and she sent the
abbess a bottle of Tyre and the convent two gallons of red wine;
unglorified by a name. On Palm Sunday they had "russheaulx"[1657], for
which she provided 21 lbs. of figs. These were little highly spiced pies
(rather like mince pies), of which the chief ingredients were figs and
flour, and besides providing them in kind on Palm Sunday the cellaress had
to pay the ladies "Ruscheaw silver, by xvj times payable in the yere to
every lady and doubill at eche time 1/2_d._, but it is paid nowe but at
two times, that is to say at Ester and Michelmes." On Easter Eve they had
three gallons of ale and one gallon of red wine. On St Andrew's Day and on
every Sunday in Lent they had fish (doubtless fresh fish, as a welcome
change from salted herrings).
NOTE B.
SCHOOL CHILDREN IN NUNNERIES.
The subject is of such interest from the point of view of educational as
well as of monastic history, that I have thought it worth while to print
in full all the references to convent education in England (c. 1250-1537),
which I have been able to find. For the convenience of the reader I have
translated references in Latin and Old French and have arranged the houses
under counties. Doubtful references are marked with an asterisk.
BEDFORDSHIRE.
1. _Elstow._
Late 12th century. Bishop Hugh of Lincoln sent a little boy, Robert of
Noyon, here. "He seemed to be about five years old, or a little older; and
after a short space of time (the Bishop) sent him to Elstow to be taught
his letters (_literis informandum_)." _Magna Vita S. Hugonis Episcopi
Lincolniensis_ (Rolls Ser.), p. 146.
1359. Gynewell enjoins boarders to be sent away on pain of
excommunication. "But boys up to the completion of their sixth year and
girls up to the completion of their tenth year, ... we do not wish to be
understood or included in the above (prohibition)." _Linc. Epis. Reg.
Memo. Gynewell_, f. 139_d_.
1421-2. Flemyng enjoins "that henceforward you admit or allow to be
admitted or received to lodge or stay within the limits of the cloister,
no persons male or female, ... who are beyond the twelfth year of their
age." _Linc. Visit._ I, p. 49.
c. 1432. Gray enjoins that all secular persons shall be removed from the
cloister precincts, "... males to wit, who have passed their tenth year,
or females who have passed their fourteenth." _Linc. Visit._ I, p. 53.
1442-3. "Dame Rose Waldegrave says that ... certain nuns do sometimes have
with them in the quire in time of mass the boys whom they teach, and these
do make a noise in quire during divine service." _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 90.
2. _Harrold._
1442-3. At Bishop Alnwick's visitation "Dame Alice Decun says that only
two little girls of six or seven years do lie in the dorter." Another nun
says the same. The Bishop forbids adult boarders, "ne childere ouere xj
yere olde men and xij yere olde wymmen wythe owten specyalle leue of us or
our successours bysshops of Lincolne fyest asked and had; ne that ye
suffre ne seculere persones, wymmen ne childern, lyg by nyght in the
dormytory." _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 130-1.
BUCKINGHAMSHIRE.
3. _Burnham._
c. 1431-6. Gray enjoins "that henceforward no secular women who are past
the fourteenth year of their age, and no males at all, be admitted in any
wise to lie by night in the dorter or be suffered so to lie.... That you
henceforth admit or suffer to be admitted and received to lodge in the
said monastery no women after they have completed the fourteenth year of
their age and no males after the eighth year of their age.... That you
remove wholly from the said monastery all ... secular folk, male and
female, who, being lodgers in the said monastery, have passed the ages
aforesaid." _Linc. Visit._ I, p. 24.
1519. Atwater enjoins "that infants and small children be not admitted
into the dorter of the nuns." _Linc. Epis. Reg. Visit. Atwater_, f. 42_d_.
*4. _Little Marlow._
c. 1530? Margaret Vernon, Prioress of Little Marlow and friend of
Cromwell, was entrusted by him with the care of his little son Gregory.
Several of her letters are preserved, but they are undated and it is
difficult to gather from those which refer to Gregory Cromwell whether
they were written before or after the dissolution of Little Marlow. There
was in any case no question of her teaching the boy herself. He had with
him a tutor, Mr Copland, and the Prioress writes to tell Cromwell that Mr
Copland every morning gives Gregory and Nicholas Sadler, his schoolfellow,
their Latin lesson, "which Nicholas doth bear away as well Gregory's
lesson as his own, and maketh him perfect against his time of rendering,
at which their Master is greatly comforted." Master Sadler also had with
him a "little gentlewoman," whom Margaret wished permission to educate
herself. In another letter she speaks of a proposed new tutor for Gregory
and expresses anxiety that he should be one who would not object to her
supervision. "Good master Cromwell, if it like you to call unto your
remembrance, you have promised me that I should have the governance of
your child till he be twelve years of age, and at that time I doubt not
with God's grace but he shall speak for himself if any wrong be offered
unto him, whereas yet he cannot but by my maintenance; and if he should
have such a master which would disdain if I meddled, then it would be to
me great unquietness, for I assure you if you sent hither a doctor of
divinity yet will I play the smatterer, but always in his well doing to
him he shall have his pleasure, and otherwise not." Wood, _Letters of
Royal and Illustrious Ladies_, II, 57-9.
CAMBRIDGESHIRE.
5. _Swaffham Bulbeck._
1483. The following references to boarders in the account roll of the
Prioress Margaret Ratclyff for 22 Edw. IV almost certainly indicate
children. "By Richard Potecary of Cambridge 11_s._ for board for 22 weeks,
at 6_d._ per week. By 11_s._ received from John Kele of Cambridge for 22
weeks, viz. 6_d._ per week. By £1 received from William Water of ... his
son for 40 weeks, viz. 6_d._ per week. By 13_s._ received from Thomas Roch
... his son for 26 weeks, viz. 6_d._ per week. By 15_s._ received from
Manfeld for the board of his son for 30 weeks, viz. 6_d._ per week. By £1
received from ... of Cambridge for the board of his daughter for 40 weeks,
viz. 6_d._ per week. By 8_s._ from ... of Chesterton for the board of his
son for 16 weeks. viz. 6_d._ per week. From ... Parker of Walden for the
board of his son for 12 weeks. By 3_s._ received from ... the merchant
for the board of his daughter for 6 weeks, viz. 6_d._ per week." Dugdale,
_Mon._ IV, pp. 439-60.
*6. _St Radegund's, Cambridge._
1481-2. The account roll for 1481-2 contains the item "And she answers for
20_s._ received from Richard Woodcock for the commons of 2 daughters of
the said Richard, as for [_blank_] weeks, at [_blank_] per week." Gray,
_Priory of St Radegund's, Cambridge_, p. 176. This is probably a child,
because I am inclined to think that payments so worded, as from a father
for a son or daughter, usually refer to children. Unfortunately the nuns
of this priory kept the details of their receipts from boarders on a
separate sheet, and entered only the total, thus: "And by £1. 12. 1
received for the board or repast of divers gentlefolk, particulars of
whose names are noted in the paper book of accounts displayed above this
account." _Ib._ p. 163 (see also, p. 147). These separate papers are
unluckily lost, so no details are available.
DERBYSHIRE.
*7. _King's Mead, Derby._
Dr J. C. Cox says "Evidence of this priory being used as a boarding school
occurs in the private muniments of the Curzon, Fitzherbert and Gresley
families." _V.C.H. Derby_, II, p. 44 (note 14). Without more exact
reference it is impossible to say whether this is correct, because adult
boarders are so often confused with schoolchildren.
DEVON.
8. _Cornworthy._
c. 1470. Petition from Thomasyn Dynham, Prioress of Cornworthy concerning
two children at school in her house, whose fees have not been paid for
five years. See description in text (above, p. 269).
ESSEX.
9. _Barking._
1433. Katherine de la Pole, Abbess of Barking, petitions Henry V, "for as
much as she, afore this tyme hath bene demened and reuled, by th'advis of
youre full discrete counsail, to take upon hir the charge, costes and
expenses of Edmond ap Meredith ap Tydier and Jasper ap Meredith ap Tydier,
being yit in her kepyng, for the which cause she was payed, fro the xxvii
day of Juyll, the yere of youre full noble regne xv, unto the Satterday
the last day of Feverer, the yere of your saide regne xvii, l livres: and
after the saide last day of Feverer, youre saide bedewoman hath borne the
charges as aboven unto this day and is behynde of the payement for the
same charge ... the somme of lii livres xii sols," she asks for payment.
Dugdale, _Mon._ I, 437 (note _m_), (quoted from Rymer, _Foedera_, X, p.
828).
1527. Sir John Stanley made his Will on June 20, 1527, and in 1528, after
a solemn act of separation with his wife, entered a monastery. The will is
largely concerned with provisions for the education of his son and heir,
who was at that time three years old. He set aside the proceeds of a
certain manor "whych is estemed to be of the yerly valewe of xl li., to
the onely use and fyndynge of my said sonne and heyre apparaunte, tyll he
comme and be of the full ayge of xxi{ti}, yeres; and I woll that my sayd
sonne and heyr shalbe in the custodye and kepynge of the saide Abbes of
Barckynge, tyll he accomplyshe and be of thayge of xij yeres and after the
sayd ayge of xij yeres I woll that he shalbe in the custodye and guydynge
of the sayd Abbot of Westmynster, tyll he come and be of hys full ayge of
xxi{ti} yeres." The Abbess and Abbot were to have £15 yearly for the use
of their houses in return for their pains and £20 yearly was to be paid
them "to fynde my sayd sonne and heyre and hys servauntes, mete, drynke
and wayges convenyent and all other thynges necessare un to theym, durynge
and by all the tyme that he shalbe in the rule and guydynge of the sayd
Abbesse and of the sayd Abbot." _Archaeol. Journ._ XXV (1868), pp. 81-2.
It should be noted that there is nothing to suggest that these boys were
being taught by the nuns; they were young noblemen attached to a
noblewoman's household to learn breeding.
HAMPSHIRE.
10. _St Mary's, Winchester._
1536. Henry VIII's commissioners, who visited the house 15th May, found
here twenty-six "chyldren of lordys, knyghttes and gentylmen brought up yn
the saym monastery." For the list of names (given in Dugdale, _Mon._ II,
p. 457), see above p. 266.
11. _Romsey._
1311. Bishop Woodlock decreed "There shall not be in the dormitory with
the nuns any children, either boys or girls, nor shall they be led by the
nuns into the choir, while the divine office is celebrated." Liveing,
_Records of Romsey Abbey_, p. 104.
*1387. William of Wykeham enjoins (in an injunction dealing with various
manifestations of the _vitium proprietatis_) "Moreover let not the nuns
henceforth presume to call their own rooms or pupils (_discipulas_),
hitherto assigned to them or so assigned in future, on pretext of such
assignation, which is rather to be deemed a matter of will than of
necessity; nathless it is lawful for the abbess to assign such rooms and
pupils according to merit as she thinks fit, etc., etc." But this more
probably refers to young nuns or novices. The word _discipula_ is used in
this sense in Alnwick's visitation of Gracedieu. (See above, p. 80.)
12. _Wherwell._
1284. Archbishop Peckham forbids boarders, adding "Let not virgins be
admitted to the habit and veil (_induendae virgines et velandae_) before
the completion of their fifteenth year and let not any boy be permitted to
be educated with the nuns." _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_, II, p. 653.
HEREFORDSHIRE.
13. _Lymbrook._
1422. Bishop Spofford writes: "Wee ordayne and charge you under payne of
unobedyence that no suster hald nor receyfe ony surgyner, man or woman
weddyd, other maydens of lawful age to be wedded, knave chyldren aboven
eght yeer of age." _Reg. Thome Spofford_ (Cant. and York. Soc.), p. 82.
HERTFORDSHIRE.
14. _Flamstead._
1530. At the visitation of Longland one nun "reported that young girls
were allowed to sleep in the dormitory.... The Prioress was enjoined ...
to exclude children of both sexes from the dormitory." _V.C.H. Herts._ IV,
p. 433.
15. _Sopwell._
*1446. In the Warden's Accounts of 1446 there is entered payment of 22/6
for Lady Anne Norbery, for the commons of her daughter, apparently a
boarder here. (_Rentals and Surveys_, R. 294.) _V.C.H. Herts._ IV, p. 425
(note 41).
1537. At the time of the Dissolution two children were living in the
priory. _Ib._ p. 425.
KENT.
16. _Dartford._
In 1527 was confirmed the concession made to sister Elizabeth Cresner by
F. Antoninus de Ferraria, formerly vicar of Garsias de Lora, Master
General of the Dominican order (1518-24), that she might receive any well
born matrons, widows of good repute, to dwell perpetually in the
monastery, with or without the habit, according to the custom of the
monastery; and also that she might receive young ladies and give them a
suitable training, according to the mode heretofore pursued. _Archaeol.
Journ._ (1882) XXXIX, p. 178.
LEICESTERSHIRE.
17. _Gracedieu._
The following references to boarders occur in the Gracedieu accounts
(_P.R.O. Minister's Accounts_, 1257/10).
1413-14. "Item received from William Roby for the board of his daughter on
the Feast of the Holy Trinity vj s viij d. Item received from Robert
Penell for the board of his daughter on the same day v s. Item received
for the board of Cecily Nevell on St James' Day in part payment vj s viij
d" (p. 7).
1414-15. "Item received from Giles Jurdon for the board of his daughter in
Whitsun week vij s. Item received from Thomas Hinte for the food of a
certain daughter of his, in part payment of liij s iiij d,--xl s. Item
received for the board of Isabel Jurdon xj s, Alice Strelley xxij s, Alice
Grey xiij s iiij d, Robert Drewe xxvj s iiij d, Philip Scargell xxxiij s
vj d, Alice Smyth, iij s iiij d and Dame Joan Scargell iiij s--cxiij s ix
d" (p. 79). There is a supplementary list for this year written on a loose
sheet: "Item, first, received for the board of Isabel Jurdon for the half
year, in part payment ix s. Item received for the board of Alice Strelley
from the feast of the Finding of the Holy Cross to the feast of [St Peter]
in Chains in the following year, vj s viij d. Item received for the board
of Alice Gray from the feast of the Holy Trinity to the feast of the
Purification of the blessed Virgin Mary xiij s iiij d. Item received for
the board of Alice Strelley for ij quarters of the year and v weeks, at
the Feast of St Gregory xv s iiij d. Item received for the board of the
daughter of Robert Drowe for half a year, xxvj s viij d. Item received for
the board of Philip Scargell, in part payment, from the feast of St John
etc., paid for the quarter xxij s iiij d, whence at the Feast of Corpus
Christi xxij s iiij d. Item received for the board of Isabel Jurdon at the
feast of the Translation of St Thomas of Canterbury, in part payment--ij
s. Item received for the board of Alice Smyth in part payment at vj s viij
d for the quarter, iij s iiij d. Item received for the board of Dame
Skargeyle for two weeks, ij s per week, iiij s. Item received for the
board of Philyppe Skergell from the feast of St Laurence to the feast of
St Michael, for the half quarter xj s ij d. Total, cxiij s x d."
1416-17. "Item received for the board of the daughter of William Rowby, as
for the purchase of one ox--xiij s iiij d."
1417-18. "Item received for the board of Mary de Ecton on the feast of All
Saints, in part payment of a larger sum, xxxiij s iiij d. Item received
for the board of Joan Vilers on the Feast of St Andrew the Apostle vj s
viij d. Item received for the board of Katerine Standych on the morrow of
the Epiphany vj s viij d. Item received for the board of the daughters of
Robert Nevell, knight, on the feast of St Hilary x s. Item received for
the board of Joan Villars on the feast of St Hilary xx d. Item received
for the board of Mary de Ecton on the Sunday next before the feast of St
Valentine xx s. Item received from Joan Villers for her board on the
second sunday of Lent vj s viij d. Item received from Katerine Standych in
full payment of her board on Whitsunday x s. Item received for the board
of the daughters of Robert Neuel on Good Friday x s. Item received from
Mary Ecton for her board on the feast of the Purification of the B.V. then
owing vj s. Item received from Joan Colyar in part payment of xx s owing
for J. Dalby xij s" (p. 179).
These accounts obviously contain ordinary adult boarders as well as
children. Moreover in some cases the visitors seem merely to have come for
the great feasts and not to have stayed for any length of time, a practice
which does not suggest schooling. Mr Coulton has analysed the accounts
closely. He writes: "The records of four years give us, at the most
liberal interpretation, only nineteen children, whose total sojourn
amounted to 648 weeks; that is an average of three pupils all the year
round and one extra for two or three months of the time." He adds: "I
have, of course ruled out 'Dame Joan Scargill,' who paid 2_s._ a week, or
four times the sum paid by a child, and Philip Scargill, who paid eighteen
pence and was pretty evidently the Dame's husband; but I have included
five others on p. 89, though they are distinctly labelled as
_perhendinantes_, and the sums they pay would in any case have suggested
boarders rather than schoolgirls. If these were omitted (and I note that
Abbot Gasquet also interprets them as merely boarders), this would bring
down the average of actual children to about two at any given time."
(_Monastic Schools in the Middle Ages_, p. 27.) He infers the weekly rate
of pay (where it can be inferred with any certainty) to be 6_d._ a week
for children and 1_s._ or more for their elders. (_Ib._ p. 39.)
1440-1. At Bishop Alnwick's visitation the prioress deposed "that a male
child of seven years sleeps in the dorter with the cellaress." Alnwick
makes an injunction forbidding boarders, "save childerne, males the ix and
females the xiij yere of age, whome we licencede yow to hafe for your
relefe." _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 119, 125.
18. _Langley._
1440. At Bishop Alnwick's visitation Dame Margaret Mountgomerey "says that
secular children, female only, do lie of a night in the dorter." The
Bishop forbids boarders "men, women ne childerne" without licence. _Linc.
Visit._ II, pp. 175-6.
LINCOLNSHIRE.
19. _Heynings._
1347. Bishop Gynewell writes to Heynings: "Item we command you on your
obedience that henceforth no secular female child who has passed the tenth
year of her age and no male child, of whatever age he may be, be received
to dwell among you; and that no child lie in your dorter with the ladies,
nor anywhere else whereby the convent might be disturbed." (_Linc. Epis.
Reg. Memo. Gynewell_, f. 34_d_.)
1387. Bishop Bokyngham writes: "Item, for the removal of all fleshly
wantonness (_carnis pruritus quoscumque_), we will and ordain that secular
children and especially males shall henceforth in no wise be permitted to
sleep with the nuns, but let an honest place be set aside for them outside
the cloister, if by our recent and special grace they should chance to be
staying there." (_Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Bokyngham_, f. 397_d_.)
1442. Alnwick enjoins at his visitation and afterwards in his written
injunctions "that fro this day forthe ye receyve no sudeiournauntes that
passe a man x yere, a woman xiiij yere of age, wythowten specyalle leve of
hus or our successours bysshops of Lincolne asked and had." (_Linc.
Visit._ II, pp. 134-5.)
20. _Gokewell._
1440. At Alnwick's visitation the Prioress "says that they have no
boarders above ten years of age of female and eight years of male sex."
(_Linc. Visit._ II, p. 117.)
21. _Legbourne._
1440. Alnwick ordains "that fro hense forthe ye suffre no seculere
persone, woman ne childe, lyg be night in the dormytorye." (_Alnwick's
Visit._ MS. f. 68.)
22. _Nuncoton._
1531. Bishop Longland enjoins: "and that ye suffre nott eny men children
to be brought upp, nor taught within your monastery, nor to resorte to eny
of your susters, nouther to lye within your monastery, nor eny person
young ne old to lye within your dorter, but oonly religious women."
(_Archaeologia_, XLVII, p. 58.)
23. _Stixwould._
1440. At Alnwick's visitation: "Dame Alice Thornton says that young
secular folk female, of eight or ten years old, do lie in the dorter, but
in separate beds.... Also she says that, as she believes, there are males
and females, about eighteen in number, who board with divers nuns, not
passing fourteen or sixteen years in age.... Dame Maud Shirwode speaks of
the children that lie in the dorter." Alnwick in his injunctions forbids
seculars ("women ne childern") to lie in the dorter or to be received as
boarders without licence. (_Alnwick's Visit._ MS. 75_d_, 76.)
MIDDLESEX.
24. _St Helen's, Bishopsgate (London)._
1298. The Prioress' account for 25-6 Edward I, contains the following
items which probably refer to child boarders. "And by xx s received from
Dionisia Miles for her daughter [_gap_] ... after the Nativity of St John
the Baptist. And by one mark received for the niece of Robert Morton [?]."
_P.R.O. Ministers' Accounts_, 1258/2.
1432. The injunctions sent by the Dean and Chapter of St Paul's to St
Helen's contain the item: "Also we ordeyne and injoyne yow, prioresse and
convent, that noo seculere be lokkyd with inne the boundes of the
cloystere; ne no seculere persones come withinne aftyr the belle of
complyne, except wymment servaunts and mayde childeryne lerners.... Also
we ordeyne and injoine that nonne have ne receyve noo schuldrin wyth hem
into the house forseyde, but yif that the profite of the comonys turne to
the vayle of the same howse." (Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, pp. 553-4, wrongly
dated 1439.)
*25. _Stratford "atte Bowe."_
1346. In the will of John Hamond, pepperer, occurs the legacy: "To his
niece the daughter of Thomas Hamond, residing with the nuns of Stratford,
he leaves a sum of money for her maintenance." (Sharpe, _Cal. of Wills ...
in the Court of Hustings, London_, I, p. 516.) The girl _may_ have been a
nun, but if so the legacy is curiously worded.
NORFOLK.
26. _Carrow._
In Rye, W., _Carrow Abbey_ (1889), pp. 49-52, is a list of boarders at
Carrow, compiled by Norris from account rolls now lost. Some of these were
almost certainly children; I should suggest that those described as "son
of" or "daughter of" N. or M. are children. On these lists, see G. G.
Coulton, _Mon. Schools in the Mid. Ages_ (Med. Studies, No. 10), p. 7.
27. _Thetford._
1532. At Nykke's visitation it was discovered that "John Jerves,
gentleman, has a daughter being brought up (_nutritam_) in the priory and
he pays nothing." (_Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich_, ed. Jessopp (Camden
Soc.), p. 304.)
NORTHAMPTONSHIRE.
28. _Catesby._
1442. At Alnwick's visitation the Prioress, Margaret Wavere, deposed that
"sister Agnes Allesley has six or seven young folk of both sexes that do
lie in the dorter." Alnwick makes the usual injunction against boarders,
"ouer thage of x yeere, if thei be men, wommene ouer thage of a xj yere."
_Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 46, 51.
29. _St Michael's, Stamford._
1440. At Alnwick's first visitation the sacrist "says that the prioress
has seven or eight children, some male, some female, of twelve years of
age and less, to her board and to teach them." Alnwick forbids secular
persons ("women ne childrene") to lie in the dorter and boarders ("yong ne
olde") to be received without licence. (_Alnwick's Visit._ MS. ff.
83-83_d_.)
1442. At Alnwick's second visitation: "Dame Maud Multone says that little
girls of seven or five years of age do lie in the dorter, contrary to my
lord's injunction." (_Ib._ f. 39_d_.)
OXFORDSHIRE.
30. _Godstow._
1358. Bishop Gynewell writes: "Item we ordain that no lady of your said
house shall have children, save only one or two females sojourning with
them." (_Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell_, f. 100.)
1445. Bishop Alnwick forbids boarders to be received "but if ye hafe lefe
of hus or our successours, bysshope of Lincolne, but if it be yong
childerne, a man not ouere ix yere of age and a woman of xii yere of age."
(_Linc. Visit._ II, p. 115.)
31. _Littlemore._
1445. The Prioress says that "the daughter of John fitz Aleyn, steward of
the house, and Ingram Warland's daughter are boarders in the house and
each of them pays fourpence a week." These are clearly children, for
another boarder "sometime the serving woman of Robert fitz Elys" is
mentioned and she pays eightpence a week. Alnwick makes the usual
injunction forbidding boarders "ouere the age of a man of nyne yere ne
woman of xij yere, ne noght thaym wythe owten specyalle lefe of vs or our
successours." (_Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 217-8.)
STAFFORDSHIRE.
32. _Fairwell._
1367. Bishop Robert Stretton of Lichfield enjoined that "no nun was to
keep with her for education more than one child, nor any male child over
seven years of age and even that may not be done without the Bishop's
leave. If any have more they are to be removed before the Feast of
Purification next." (_Reg. Robert de Stretton_, II, p. 119.)
SOMERSET.
33. _Cannington._
1407. The will of Thomas Woth contains the following legacy: "To the
Prioress of Canyngton 40 marks to provide (_inveniendum_) Elizabeth my
daughter, if she shall happen to live to the age of ten years." He also
leaves Elizabeth 11 marks as a marriage dowry. (_Somerset Medieval Wills_,
ed. F. W. Weaver (Somerset Rec. Soc.), I, p. 28.)
SUFFOLK.
34. _Redlingfield._
1514. At Bishop Nykke's visitation Dame Grace Sampson deposed that "boys
(_pueri_) sleep in the dorter and are harmful to the convent," and another
nun said the same. The Bishop ordained "that boys shall not lie in the
dorter." (_Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich_, ed. Jessopp (Camden Soc.), pp.
139-40.)
WARWICKSHIRE.
35. _Polesworth._
1537. Henry VIII's commissioners addressed a letter to Cromwell on behalf
of this house, representing among other things "the repayre and resort
that ys made to the gentylmens childern and studiounts that ther doo lif,
to the nombre sometyme of xxx{ti} and sometyme xl{ti} and moo, that their
be right vertuously brought upp." (Dugdale, _Mon._ II, p. 363.) The house
at this time contained an abbess and twelve nuns.
YORKSHIRE.
36. _Arden._
1306. Archbishop Greenfield decreed that no girls or boarders were to be
taken without special licence of the Archbishop. All girls staying in the
house without authority were to be removed within eight days. (_V.C.H.
Yorks._ III, p. 113.)
37. _Arthington._
1315. Archbishop Greenfield decreed that no boys or secular persons were
to sleep in the dorter with the nuns.
1318. Archbishop Melton repeated the decree. (_V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p.
188.)
38. _Esholt._
1315. Archbishop Greenfield decreed that all women boarders over the age
of twelve were to be removed within six days and no more taken without
special licence.
1318. Archbishop Melton repeated the decree. (_V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p.
161.)
1537. Among the debts owing to the Priory at the Dissolution was one of
33_s._ from Walter Wood of Timble, in the parish of Otley, for his child's
board for a year and a half, ended at Lent, 28 Hen. VIII. (_Yorks.
Archaeol. Journ._ IX, p. 321, note 23.)
39. _Hampole._
1313. Archbishop Greenfield granted the convent licence to receive a young
girl Agnes de Langthwayt as a boarder, at the instance "nobilis viri Ade
de Everyngham."
1314. He issued a decree that no male children over five years of age
should be permitted in the house, "as the Archbishop finds has been the
practice." (_V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 163-4.)
40. _Marrick._
1252. Archbishop Gray forbade any girl or woman to be taken as boarder or
to be taught without special licence. (_V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 117.)
41. _Moxby._
1314. Archbishop Greenfield forbade boarders or girls over twelve to be
taken without licence. (_V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 239.)
42. _Nunappleton._
1489. Archbishop Rotheram enjoined: "Item þat yee take noe perhendinauntes
or sogerners into your place from hensforward, but if þei be children or
ellis old persones, by which availe by liklyhod may growe to your place."
(_V.C.H. Yorks._ III, 173, and Dugdale, _Mon._ V, p. 654).
43. _Nunburnholme._
1318. Archbishop Melton forbade persons of either sex over twelve years of
age to be maintained as boarders. (_V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 119.)
44. _Nunkeeling._
1314. Archbishop Greenfield forbade boarders to be taken, or girls to be
kept in the house after the age of twelve years. (_V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p.
120.)
*45. _Nunmonkton._
1429. Isabel Salvayn leaves "xiij s iiij d to be paid for Alice Thorp at
Nunmunkton for her board." (_Test. Ebor._ I, p. 419.)
46. _Rosedale._
1315. Archbishop Greenfield decreed, under pain of the greater
excommunication, that no nun was to cause a girl or boy to sleep under any
consideration in the dorter, and if any nun broke this command, the
Prioress, under pain of deposition, was to signify her name without delay
to the Archbishop. (_V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 174.)
47. _St Clement's, York._
1310. Archbishop Greenfield forbade girls over twelve as boarders.
1317. Archbishop Melton forbade little girls, or males of any age, or
secular women to sleep in the dorter with the nuns. (_V.C.H. Yorks._ III,
p. 129.)
48. _Sinningthwaite._
1315. Archbishop Greenfield enjoined the Prioress and Subprioress not to
permit boys or girls to eat flesh meat in Advent or Sexagesima, or during
Lent eggs or cheese, in the refectory, contrary to the honesty of
religion, but at those seasons when they ought to eat such things, they
were to be assigned other places in which to eat them.
1319. Archbishop Melton forbade girls over twelve to be retained without
special licence. (_V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 177.)
*49. _Swine._
1345. Peter del Hay of Spaldynton leaves in his will "to Joan my daughter
residing (_manenti_) in Swyn vj s viij d." (_Test. Ebor._ I, p. 12.) This
is probably a boarder in the convent, perhaps a child.
15th century. Thorold Rogers (_Six Centuries of Work and Wages_ (1909), p.
166), says: "During the course of the [fifteenth] century I find it was
the practice of country gentlefolks to send their daughters for education
to the nunneries, and to pay a certain sum for their board. A number of
such persons are enumerated as living _en pension_ at the small nunnery of
Swyn in Yorkshire. Only one roll of expenditure for this religious house
survives in the Record Office, but it is quite sufficient to prove and
illustrate the custom." I have been unable to trace this roll in the
Record Office.
NOTE C.
NUNNERY DISPUTES.
Other instances of nunnery disputes may be quoted, among which Peckham's
letter to the Holy Sepulchre, Canterbury, is a good example: "If there be
any nun above you who is quarrelsome and sharp and is of custom unbearable
towards her sisters, we order her to be separated from the communion of
the convent according to the form of the rule, and to be kept in some
solitary place (so that meanwhile no man or woman have conversation with
or access to her) until she shall be brought back to humility of spirit
and show herself amiable and devout to all. Therefore let there cease
among you quarrels, altercations and sharp words, which stain and deform
the splendours of monastic honour. And for such contumelious members who
have to be separated as aforesaid we assign that dark room under the
dorter, if you have none other more suitable"[1658]. The nuns of Wroxall
in 1338 were warned to "cease from scoldings, reproofs and other evil
words" and were particularly told not to speak "en reproce ne en vilenie"
of a certain Dame Margaret de Acton, who had evidently been guilty of some
serious fault, but had been duly corrected by the Visitor[1659]; and in
the same year it was ordained at Sopwell that "if it happen that any one
scold ... let her be placed in silence by all and do penance for three
days"[1660]. At Heynings in 1392 Bokyngham ordered "that all the nuns
treat their sisters affably, not with an austere but with a benignant
countenance and with sisterly affection, nor visit them with railing and
hurtful words in public, especially in the presence of laymen, nor
threaten or scold them, on pain, etc"[1661]. At Elstow in 1421-2 there was
an injunction against the formation of cliques, upon the need for which
light is thrown by the _detecta_ at Alnwick's visitation of
Gracedieu[1662], "That no nun make any secret cabals or say or imagine
anything by way of insinuation or disparagement, whereby charity, unity or
the comeliness of religion may be hindered or troubled in the
convent"[1663].
The _detecta_ at visitations often give details as to the ill-temper or
insubordination of individuals. At Wothorpe in 1323 Bishop Burghersh
"ordered inquiry into certain irregularities within the priory, caused by
the discords raised among the nuns by sister Joan de Bonnwyche"[1664]. At
Littlemore one of the nuns deposed that Dame Agnes Marcham "is very
quarrelsome and rebellious and will not do her work like the others"; it
appears that the convent resented the fact that although she had worn the
habit of profession for twelve years she was not expressly professed and
refused to make public profession; she on her part asserted that "she does
not mean to make express profession while she stays in that place, because
of the ill-fame which is current thereabouts concerning that place and
also because of the barrenness and poverty which in likelihood will betake
the place on account of the slenderness of the place's revenues," and she
proceeded to give details of the access to the priory of two scholars of
Oxford and a parish chaplain[1665]. It is difficult to tell who was in the
right; Littlemore certainly was a place of ill-repute and went from bad to
worse, but Agnes Marcham had stayed there for half her lifetime (she had
entered at the age of thirteen and was twenty-six or twenty-eight at the
time of the visitation) and it looks as though she had really no intention
of departing, but found the threat to do so useful[1666]. At Godstow in
the same year it was sister Maud, a laywoman, who caused trouble; she was
very rebellious against the abbess and rumour ran high in the convent that
she had "obtained a bull from the apostolic see to the prejudice of the
monastery and without the abbess's knowledge"[1667]. At Easebourne (1524)
the subprioress Alice Hill said that three of the younger nuns were
disobedient to her in the absence of the Prioress; but the three
delinquents and another nun deposed that "Lady Alice Hill is too haughty
and rigorous and cannot bear patiently with her sisters" and the Visitor
apparently considered that the complaint was justified, for
afterwards Lady Alice Hill, subprioress, appeared and humbly submitted
herself to correction, in the presence of the said prioress and
co-sisters, upon what has been discovered against her in the
visitation. Afterwards my lord enjoined her that from henceforth she
should conduct herself well and religiously in all things towards the
said prioress and nuns; and as to the other portion of her penance he
adjourned it for a time. After doing which (he) enjoined all to be
obedient to the Lady Prioress and in her absence to the said
subprioress[1668].
The difficulty was perhaps the old one, that crabbed age and youth cannot
live together. At Rusper, when the same Visitor came there, it was found
that the four sisters were disturbed by the intrigues of an external
visitor, for the nuns deposed "that a certain William Tychenor hath
frequent access to the said priory and there sows discord between the
prioress, sisters and other persons living there"[1669]; sometimes the lay
servants of a house seem to have stirred up quarrels among their
mistresses and in 1302 John of Pontoise ordered the nuns of Wherwell "to
punish well secular persons, both sisters and others, whoever they may be,
who reply improperly and impudently to the religious ladies, and
especially those who sow quarrels and disputes among the ladies"[1670].
Injunctions as to the making of corrections usually had in view the
prevention of ill feeling, by ensuring that such corrections should not be
made in a harsh or unfair manner and should take place only in the
chapter-house and not in the presence of strangers. It will be remembered
that the wicked prioress of Catesby, Margaret Wavere, used to rebuke and
reproach her nuns before secular folk, and treat them with great cruelty;
her the Bishop charged
vnder payne of cursyng that moderly and benygnely ye trete your
susters, specyally in correctyng thaire defautes, so that ye make your
correcyones oonly in the chaptre hous of suche defautz and excesse as
be open and in presence of your sustres[1671].
Bokyngham sent a long and detailed injunction on the subject to Elstow in
1387:
In making corrections the abbess, prioress, and others of superior
rank shall so observe a moderate and modest temperance and an
equitable reasonableness, that having laid aside all hatred and malice
and excessive rigour, they shall in charitable zeal proceed to (deal
with) the complaints, offences and faults reported to them and shall
hear the accused parties, silencing or repelling their excuses,
punishing, correcting and reforming their offences and excesses, grave
and venial, without harshness or railing words and quarrels or abuse,
according as the quality of the fault, the compunction of the
delinquents and the repetition or frequency of the offence demand it.
And when faults and offences have been punished and excesses corrected
let them not reiterate fresh reproaches, but treat their fellow-nuns
affably, not with an austere but with a benignant countenance, nor
visit them with railing and insulting words in public, especially in
the presence of laymen, nor scold them when they have committed
excesses, but only in the chapter deal with all that concerns the
discipline of regular observance[1672].
For an injunction to the nuns on obedience see Woodlock's injunction to
Romsey in 1311:
Item, because they are unaware that amongst the vows of religion the
vow of obedience is the greater, it is ordered that the younger
ladies reverently obey the seniors and especially their presidents
and if any rebels are found they shall be sharply rebuked in chapter
before all and, the fault growing, the penalty of disobedience shall
be increased[1673].
At Rosedale, where in 1306 the nuns had been warned not to quarrel, it was
enacted nine years later that
any nun disobedient or rebellious in receiving correction was for each
offence to receive a discipline from the president in chapter and say
the seven penitential psalms with the litany, and if still rebellious
the archbishop would impose a still more severe penance[1674].
It is to be feared that these quarrels sometimes got to blows. Besides the
notorious instances of Margaret Wavere and Katherine Wells, the
excommunication of three nuns of St Michael's, Stamford, for laying
violent hands upon a novice may be quoted[1675]. Of another kind were the
assaults of a certain nun of Romsey, who was excommunicated for attacking
a vicar in church[1676], and of a Prioress of Rowney. It appears from the
court rolls of Munden Furnivall (1370) that the latter "had been guilty of
a hand to hand scuffle with a chaplain, called Alexander of Great Munden;
each was fined for drawing blood from the other and the lady also for
raising the hue and cry unjustly"[1677]. In both cases the nun was blamed,
but it is perhaps permissible to quote in this connection an anecdote told
by Thomas of Chantimpré:
When I was in Brussels, the great city of Brabant, there came to me a
maiden of lowly birth, but comely, who besought me with many tears to
have mercy upon her. When therefore I had bidden her tell me what
ailed her, then she cried out amidst her sobs: "Alas, wretched that I
am! for a certain priest would fain have ravished me by force, and he
began to kiss me against my will; wherefore I smote him with the back
of my hand, so that his nose bled; and for this, as the clergy now
tell me, I must needs go to Rome." Then I, scarce withholding my
laughter, yet speaking as in all seriousness, affrighted her as though
she had committed a grievous sin; and at length, having made her swear
that she would fulfil my bidding, I said, "I command thee, in virtue
of thy solemn oath, that if this priest or any other shall attempt to
do thee violence with kisses or embraces, then thou shalt smite him
sore with thy clenched fist, even to the striking out, if possible, of
his eye; and in this matter thou shalt spare no order of men, for it
is as lawful for thee to strike in defence of thy chastity, as to
fight for thy life." With which words I moved all that stood by, and
the maiden herself, to vehement laughter and gladness[1678].
The list of faults given in the "Additions to the Rules" of Syon Abbey,
contains several references to ill temper, though such references are, to
be sure, no more proof that the faults were committed than are the model
forms of self-examination ("Have I committed murder?") sometimes given
to-day to children in preparation for the Communion service. Among
"greuous defautes" are mentioned, "if any suster say any wordes of
despyte, reprefe, schame or vylony to any suster or brother," "if any sowe
dyscorde amonge the sustres and brethren," "if any be founde a preuy
rouner or bakbyter." Among "more greuous defautes" are:
if any whan thei fal chydyng or stryuyng togyder, if the souereyne or
priores, or any serche say thus--"_Sit nomen domini benedictum_" wyl
not cese, knokkyng themselfe upon their brestes, answerynge and saynge
mekely, and withe a softe spyryte "_Mea culpa_" ... and so utterly
cese, if any manesche by chere or wordes to smyte another at any tyme,
or for to auenge her own injurye, or els by ungodly wordes repreve
another of her contre, or kynrede, or of any other sclaunderous
fortune, or chaunse fallen at any tyme.
Among "most greuous defautes" are:
If any ley vyolente hande upon her souereyne or spituosly smyte or
wounde her or elles make any profer to smyte be sygne or token
leftying up her fest, stykke, staffe, stone, or any other wepen what
ever it be, or else schofte, pusche, or sperne any suster from her
withe armes or scholders, handes or fete, violently, in wrekyng of her
oun wrethe[1679].
NOTE D.
GAY CLOTHES.
A council at London in 1200 had restrained the black nuns from wearing
coloured headdresses[1680] but the standard English decree on the subject
was that issued by the council of Oxford in 1222.
Since it is necessary that the female sex, so weak against the wiles
of the ancient enemy, should be fortified by many remedies, we decree
that nuns and other women dedicated to divine worship shall not wear a
silken wimple, nor dare to carry silver or golden tiring-pins in their
veil. Neither shall they, nor monks nor regular canons, wear belts of
silk, or adorned with gold or silver, nor henceforth use burnet or any
other unlawful cloth. Also let them measure their gown according to
the dimension of their body, so that it does not exceed the length of
the body, but let it suffice them to be clad, as beseems them, in a
robe reaching to the ankles; and let none but a consecrated nun wear a
ring and let her be content with one alone[1681].
Fifteen years later a synod declared:
Item, we forbid to monks, regular canons and nuns coloured garments or
bed clothes, save those dyed black. And when they ride, let them use
decent saddles and bridles and saddle-cloths[1682]. And nuns are not
to use trained and pleated dresses, or any exceeding the length of
the body, nor delicate or coloured furs; nor shall they presume to
wear silver tiring-pins in their veil[1683].
These regulations were repeated almost word for word by William of Wykeham
in his injunctions to Romsey and Wherwell in 1387[1684]. With them may be
compared the rule as to dress in force at Syon Abbey in the fifteenth
century:
whiche (clothes) in nowyse schal be ouer curyous, but playne and
homly, witheoute weuynge of any straunge colours of silke, golde or
syluer, hauynge al thynge of honeste and profyte, and nothyng of
vanyte, after the rewle; ther knyves unpoynted and purses beyng double
of lynnen clothe and not of sylke[1685].
The unsuccessful efforts of monastic Visitors to enforce these rules have
been described; a few instances may be added here to show the directions
in which the nuns erred. Peckham wrote to Godstow:
Concerning the garments of the nuns let the rule of St Benedict be
carefully observed. For which reason we forbid them ever in future to
wear cloth of burnet, nor gathered tunics nor to make themselves
garments of an immoderate width with excessive pleats (_nec etiam
birrorum immoderantia vestes sibi faciant latitudine fluctuantes_);
with this nevertheless carefully observing what was aforetime ordained
in such matters by the Council of Oxford[1686].
Buckingham's injunction to Elstow in 1387 gives some interesting details;
he forbade the nuns to wear any other veil than that of profession, or to
"adorn their countenances" by arranging it in a becoming fashion,
spreading out the white veil, which was meant to be worn underneath:
(Ainsi qu'il est pour le monde et les cours
Un art, un goût de modes et d'atours,
Il est aussi des modes pour le voile;
Il est un art de donner d'heureux tours[1687]
À l'étamine, à la plus simple toile.)[1688]
They were not to wear gowns of black wide at the bottom, or turned back
with fur at the wrists[1689], and they were in no wise to use "wide
girdles or belts plaited (_spiratis_) or adorned with silver, nor wear
these above their tunics open to the gaze of man"[1690]. Curious details
are also given by Bishop Spofford, writing to the nuns of Lymbrook in
1437; their habit was to "be formed after relygyon in sydnesse and
wydnesse, forbedyng long traynes in mantellys and kyrtellys and almaner of
spaires and open semes in the same kyrtellys"[1691]. "Large collars,
barred girdles and laced shoes" were forbidden at Swine in 1298[1692],
red dresses and long supertunics "like secular women" at Wilberfoss in
1308[1693]; at Nunmonkton in 1397 (after Margaret Fairfax's fashionable
clothes had been discovered) a general injunction was made to the nuns
"not to use henceforth silken clothes, and especially silken veils, nor
precious furs, nor rings on their fingers, nor tunics laced-up or fastened
with brooches nor any robes, called in English 'gownes,' after the fashion
of secular women"[1694]. These Northern houses were continually in need of
admonition, sometimes their slashed tunics, sometimes their barred
girdles, sometimes their shoes being condemned[1695]. Bishop Alnwick found
silken veils at Langley, Studley and Rothwell[1696]; Bishop Fitzjames
forbade silver and gilt pins and kirtles of fustian or worsted at Wix in
1509[1697]; and at Carrow in 1532 the subprioress complained that some of
the nuns not only wore silk girdles, but had the impudence to commend the
use thereof[1698].
Nor could nuns always resist the temptation to let their shorn hair grow
again, e.g. at the visitation of Romsey by the commissary of the Prior of
Canterbury in 1502, the cellaress deposed "that Mary Tystede and Agnes
Harvey wore their hair long"[1699]. Eudes Rigaud had some difficulty in
this matter with the frivolous nuns of his diocese of Rouen; at
Villarceaux in 1249 he recorded: "They all wear their hair long to their
chins," and at Montivilliers he had to condemn ringlets[1700]. One is
reminded of the scene in _Jane Eyre_, where Mr Brocklehurst visits Lowood:
Suddenly his eye gave a blink, as if he had met something that either
dazzled or shocked its pupil; turning, he said in more rapid accents
than he had hitherto used: "Miss Temple, Miss Temple, what--_what_ is
that girl with curled hair? Red hair, ma'am, curled--curled all over?"
and extending his cane he pointed to the awful object, his hand
shaking as he did so. "It is Julia Severn," replied Miss Temple, very
quietly. "Julia Severn, ma'am! And why has she, or any other, curled
hair? Why, in defiance of every precept and principle of this house,
does she conform to the world so openly--here in an evangelical,
charitable establishment--as to wear her hair a mass of curls?... Tell
all the first form to rise up and direct their faces to the wall."...
He scrutinised the reverse of these living medals some five minutes,
then pronounced sentence. These words fell like the knell of doom:
"All those top-knots must be cut off."
Or, as Eudes Rigaud expressed it some seven centuries earlier: "Quod comam
non nutriatis ultra aures."
NOTE E.
CONVENT PETS IN LITERATURE.
It would be possible to compile a pretty anthology of convent pets, which
have played a not undistinguished part in literature. The best known of
all, perhaps, are Madame Eglentyne's little dogs, upon which Chaucer
looked with a kindly unepiscopal eye:
Of smale houndes had she, that she fedde
With rosted flesh, or milk and wastel-breed,
But sore weep she if oon of hem were deed,
Or if men smoot it with a yerde smerte:
And al was conscience and tendre herte[1701].
The tender-hearted Prioress risked a terrible fate by so pampering her
dogs, if we are to believe the awful warning related by the knight of La
Tour-Landry, to wean his daughters from similar habits:
Ther was a lady that had two litell doggis, and she loued hem so that
she toke gret plesaunce in the sight and feding of hem. And she made
euery day dresse and make for her disshes with soppes of mylke, and
after gaue hem flesshe. But there was ones a frere that saide to her
that it was not wel done that the dogges were fedde and made so fatte,
and the pore pepill so lene and famished for hunger. And so the lady,
for his saieing, was wrothe with hym, but she wolde not amende it. And
after she happed she deied, and there fell a wonder meruailous sight,
for there was seyn euer on her bedde ij litell blake dogges, and in
her deyeng thei were about her mouthe and liked it, and whanne she was
dede, there the dogges had lyked it was al blacke as cole, as a
gentillwoman tolde me that sawe it and named me the lady[1702].
Poor Madame Eglentyne!
The anthologist would, however, have to go further back than Chaucer, into
the eleventh century, and begin with that ill-fated donkey, which belonged
to sister Alfrâd of Homburg, and which the wit of a nameless goliard and
the devotion of the monks of St Augustine's, Canterbury, have preserved
for undying fame[1703]:
Est unus locus There is a township
Hôinburh dictus, (Men call it Homburg)
in quo pascebat There 'twas that Alfrâd
asinam Alfrâd Pastured her she-ass,
viribus fortem Strong was the donkey,
atque fidelem. Mighty and faithful.
Que dum in amplum And as it wandered
exiret campum, Out to the meadow,
vidit currentem It spied a greedy
lupum voracem, Wolf that came running,
caput abscondit, Head down and tail turned,
caudam ostendit. Off the ass scampered.
Lupus occurrit: Up the wolf hurried,
caudam momordit, Seized tail and bit it.
asina bina Quickly the donkey
levavit crura Lifted its hind legs,
fecitque longum With the wolf bravely,
cum lupo bellum. Long did it battle.
Cum defecisse Then when at last it
vires sensisset, Felt its strength failing,
protulit magnam Raised it a mighty
plangendo vocem Noise of lamenting,
vocansque suam Calling its mistress,
moritur domnam. So died the donkey.
Audiens grandem Hearing the mighty
asine vocem Voice of her donkey
Alfrâd cucurrit, Alfrâd came running.
"sorores," dixit, "Come, sisters" cried she
"cito venite, "Sisters, come quickly,
me adiuvate! Come now and help me!
Asinam caram My darling donkey
misi ad erbam. Out to grass put I.
illius magnum I hear a mighty
audio planctum, Sound of complaining.
spero cum sevo Sure with a cruel
ut pugnet lupo." Wolf is it fighting!"
Clamor sororum Heard is her crying
venit in claustrum, In the nuns' cloister,
turbe virorum Men come and women,
ac mulierum Crowding together,
assunt, cruentum All that the bloody
ut captent lupum. Wolf may be taken.
Adela namque Adela also,
soror Alfrâde, sister of Alfrâd,
Rîkilam querit, Rîkila seeketh,
Agatham invenit, Agatha findeth,
ibant ut fortem All go to vanquish
sternerent hostem. The mighty foeman.
At ille ruptis But he tore open
asine costis Sides of the donkey,
sanguinis undam Flesh and blood gobbled
carnemque totam All up together,
simul voravit, Then helter-skeltered
silvam intravit. Back to the forest.
Illud videntes And when they saw him
cuncte sorores Wept all the sisters,
crines scindebant, Tearing their tresses,
pectus tundebant, Beating their bosoms,
flentes insontem Weeping the guiltless
asine mortem. Death of their donkey.
Denique parvum Long time a tiny
portabat pullum; Foal it had carried.
illum plorabat Sadly wept Alfrâd
maxime Alfrâd, Thinking upon it,
sperans exinde All her hopes ended
prolem crevisse. Of rearing the offspring.
Adela mitis Adela gentle,
Fritherûnque dulcis Fritherûn charming,
venerunt ambe, Both came together,
ut Alverâde That they might strengthen
cor confirmarent Sad heart of Alfrâd,
atque sanarent. Strengthen and heal it.
"Delinque mestas, "Leave now thy gloomy
soror, querelas! Wailing, O sister!
lupus amarum Wolf never heedeth
non curat fletum: Thy bitter weeping.
dominus aliam, The Lord will give thee
dabit tibi asinam." Another donkey."
Exquisite ending! "The Lord will give thee another donkey." With what
delighted applause must the unknown jongleur have been greeted by the
monks or nobles, who first listened after dinner to this little
masterpiece of humour.
All the convent pets who are famed in literature came by a coincidence to
a bad end. Our anthologist would seize on two other hapless creatures,
both of them birds, Philip Sparrow and the never-to-be-forgotten
Vert-Vert. Philip Sparrow needs no introduction to English readers;
Skelton was never in happier vein than when he sang the dirge of that pet
of Joanna Scrope, boarder at Carrow Priory, dead at the claws of a
"vylanous false cat." Space allows only a few lines of the long poem to be
quoted here. It begins with the office for the dead, sung by the mourning
mistress over her bird:
_Pla ce bo_,
Who is there, who?
_Di le xi_,
Dame Margery;
_Fa, re, my, my_,
Wherefore and why, why?
For the sowle of Philip Sparowe,
That was late slayn at Carowe,
Among the Nones Blake,
For that swete soules sake,
And for all sparowes soules,
Set in our bederolles
_Pater noster qui_,
With an _Ave Mari_,
And with the corner of a Crede
The more shalbe your mede.
Whan I remembre agayn
How mi Philyp was slayn,
Neuer halfe the payne
Was betwene you twayne,
Pyramus and Thesbe,
As than befell to me:
I wept and I wayled,
The tearys doune hayled;
But nothynge it auayled
To call Phylyp agayne,
Whom Gyb our cat hath slayne.
* * * *
It was so prety a fole,
It wold syt on a stole,
And lerned after my scole
For to kepe his cut,
With, Phyllyp, kepe your cut!
It had a veluet cap,
And wold syt upon my lap,
And seke after small wormes,
And somtyme white bred crommes;
And many tymes and ofte
Betwene my brestes softe
It wolde lye and rest;
It was propre and prest.
Somtyme he wolde gaspe
Whan he sawe a waspe;
A fly or a gnat,
He wolde flye at that;
And prytely he wold pant
Whan he saw an ant;
Lord, how he wolde pry
After the butterfly!
Lorde, how he wolde hop
After the grassop!
And whan I sayd, Phyp, Phyp,
Than he wold lepe and skyp,
And take me by the lyp.
Alas, it wyll me slo,
That Phillyp is gone me fro!
_Si in i qui ta tes_,
Alas, I was euyll at ease!
_De pro fun dis cla ma vi_,
Whan I sawe my sparowe dye!
* * * *
That vengeaunce I aske and crye,
By way of exclamacyon,
On all the hole nacyon
Of cattes wyld and tame;
God send them sorowe and shame!
That cat specyally
That slew so cruelly
My lytell prety sparowe
That I brought vp at Carowe ...[1704].
It is impossible for a cat-lover to leave the whole nation of cats under
this terrific curse. Yet literature will supply no nunnery cat beside the
unhappy Gyb and the uncharacterised cat of the _Ancren Riwle_. We must
needs turn to the monks, and borrow the truer estimate of feline qualities
made in the eighth century by an exiled Irish student, who sat over his
books in a distant monastery of Carinthia, and wrote upon the margin of
his copy of St Paul's Epistles this little poem on his white cat:
I and Pangur Bán, my cat,
'Tis a like task we are at;
Hunting mice is his delight,
Hunting words I sit all night.
Better far than praise of men
'Tis to sit with book and pen;
Pangur bears me no ill-will,
He, too, plies his simple skill.
'Tis a merry thing to see
At our tasks how glad are we,
When at home we sit and find
Entertainment to our mind.
Oftentimes a mouse will stray
In the hero Pangur's way;
Oftentimes my keen thought set
Takes a meaning in its net.
'Gainst the wall he sets his eye
Full and fierce and sharp and sly;
'Gainst the wall of knowledge I
All my little wisdom try.
When a mouse darts from its den,
O! how glad is Pangur then;
O! what gladness do I prove
When I solve the doubts I love.
So in peace our task we ply,
Pangur Bán, my cat, and I;
In our arts we find our bliss,
I have mine and he has his.
Practice every day has made
Pangur perfect in his trade;
I get wisdom day and night,
Turning darkness into light[1705].
O cat! even at the cost of relevancy we have done thee honour.
Two little tragedies of the cloister are concerned with parrots--yet with
what different birds and what different mistresses! In the twelfth century
Nigel Wireker tells of an ill-bred and ill-fated parrot, kept in a
nunnery, who told tales about the nuns and was poisoned by them for his
pains:
Saepe mala
Psittacus in thalamum domina redeunte puellas
Prodit et illorum verba tacenda refert;
Nescius ille loqui; sed nescius immo tacere
Profert plus aequo Psittacus oris habens.
Hinc avibus crebro miscente aconita puella
Discat ut ante mori quam didicisse loqui;
Sunt et aves aliae quae toto tempore vitae
Religiosorum claustra beata colunt[1706].
Quite other was the fate of Vert-Vert, whose tragedy told with exquisite
irony by Gresset in the eighteenth century deserves a place on every shelf
and in every heart which holds _The Rape of the Lock_. Vert-Vert was a
parrot who belonged to the nuns of Nevers, the most beautiful, most
amiable, the most devout parrot in the world. The convent of Nevers
spoiled Vert-Vert as no bird has ever been spoiled:
Pas n'est besoin, je pense, de décrire
Les soins des soeurs, des nonnes, c'est tout dire;
Et chaque mère, après son directeur,
N'aimait rien tant. Même dans plus d'un coeur,
Ainsi l'écrit un chroniqueur sincère,
Souvent l'oiseau l'emporta sur le père.
Il partageait, dans ce paisible lieu,
Tous les sirops dont le cher père en Dieu,
Grâce aux bienfaits des nonnettes sucrées,
Réconfortait ses entrailles sacrées.
Objet permis à leur oisif amour,
Vert-Vert était l'âme de ce séjour....
Des bonnes soeurs égayant les travaux,
Il béquetait et guimpes et bandeaux;
Il n'était point d'agréable partie
S'il n'y venait briller, caracoler,
Papillonner, siffler, rossignoler;
Il badinait, mais avec modestie;
Avec cet air timide et tout prudent
Qu'une novice a même en badinant.
He fed in the frater, and between meals the nuns' pockets were always full
of bon-bons for his delectation. He slept in the dorter, and happy the nun
whose cell he honoured with his presence; Vert-Vert always chose the young
and pretty novices. Above all he was learned; he talked like a book, and
all the nuns had taught him their chants and their prayers:
Il disait bien son Benedicite,
Et _notre mère_, et _votre charité_; ...
Il était là maintes filles savantes
Qui mot pour mot portaient dans leurs cerveaux
Tous les noëls anciens et nouveaux.
Instruit, formé par leurs leçons fréquentes,
Bientôt l'élève égala ses régentes;
De leur ton même, adroit imitateur
Il exprimait la pieuse lenteur,
Les saints soupirs, les notes languissantes
Du chant des soeurs, colombes gémissantes.
Finalement Vert-Vert savait par coeur
Tout ce que sait une mère de choeur.
Small wonder that the fame of this pious bird spread far and wide; small
wonder that pilgrims came from all directions to the abbey parlour to hear
him talk. But alas, it was this very fame which led to his undoing. The
physical tragedy of Philip Sparrow, an unlearned bird of frivolous tastes,
pales before the moral tragedy of Vert-Vert. One day his renown reached
the ears of a distant convent of nuns at Nantes, many miles further down
the river Loire; and they conceived a violent desire to see him:
Désir de fille est un feu qui dévore,
Désir de nonne est cent fois pire encore.
They wrote to their fortunate sisters of Nevers, begging that Vert-Vert
might be sent in a ship to visit them. Consternation at Nevers. The grand
chapter was held; the younger nuns would have preferred death to parting
with the darling parrot, but their elders judged it impolitic to refuse
and to Nantes must Vert-Vert go for a fortnight. The parrot was placed on
board a ship; but the ship
Portait aussi deux nymphes, trois dragons,
Une nourrice, un moine, deux Gascons:
Pour un enfant qui sort du monastère,
C'était échoir en dignes compagnons.
At first Vert-Vert was confused and silent among the unseemly jests of the
women and the Gascons and the oaths of the boatmen. But too soon his
innocent heart was acquainted with evil; desiring always to please he
repeated all that he heard; no evil word escaped him; by the end of his
journey he had forgotten all that he had learned in the nunnery, but he
had become a pretty companion for a boatload of sinners. Nantes was
reached; Vert-Vert (all unwilling) was carried off to the convent, and the
nuns came running to the parlour to hear the saintly bird. But horror upon
horrors, nothing but oaths and blasphemies fell from Vert-Vert's beak. He
apostrophised sister Saint-Augustin with "la peste te crève," and
Jurant, sacrant d'une voix dissolue,
Faisant passer tout l'enfer en revue,
Les B, les F, voltigeaient sur son bec.
Les jeunes soeurs crurent qu'il parlait grec.
The scandalised nuns dispatched Vert-Vert home again without delay. His
own convent received him in tears. Nine of the most venerable sisters
debated his punishment; two were for his death; two for sending him back
to the heathen land of his birth; but the votes of the other five decided
his punishment:
On le condamne à deux mois d'abstinence,
Trois de retraite et quatre de silence;
Jardins, toilette, alcôve et biscuits,
Pendant ce temps, lui seront interdits.
Moreover the ugliest lay sister, a veiled ape, an octogenarian skeleton,
was made the guardian of poor Vert-Vert, who had always preferred the
youngest and coyest of the novices. Little remains to be told. Vert-Vert,
covered with shame and taught by misfortune, became penitent, forgot the
dragoons and the monk, and showed himself once more "plus dévot qu'un
chanoine." The happy nuns cut short his penance; the convent kept fête,
the dorters were decked with flowers, all was song and tumult. But alas,
Vert-Vert, passing too soon from a fasting diet to the sweets that were
pressed upon him:
Bourré de sucre, et brûlé de liqueurs
Vert-Vert, tombant sur un tas de dragées,
En noir cyprès vit ses roses changées[1707].
Doubtless so godly an end consoled the nuns for his untimely death. Yet
one hardly knows which to prefer, the regenerate or the unregenerate
Vert-Vert. The appreciative reader, remembering the inspired volubility
with which (after such short practice) he greeted the nuns of Nantes, is
almost moved to regret the destruction of what one of Kipling's soldiers
would call "a wonderful gift of language." There is an apposite passage in
Jasper Mayne's comedy of _The City Match_ (1639), in which a lady
describes the missionary efforts of her Puritan waiting-woman:
Yesterday I went
To see a lady that has a parrot: my woman
While I was in discourse converted the fowl,
And now it can speak nought but Knox's works;
_So there's a parrot lost_.
NOTE F.
THE MORAL STATE OF LITTLEMORE PRIORY IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
Littlemore Priory, near Oxford, in the early sixteenth century, was in
such grave disorder that it may justly be described as one of the worst
nunneries of which record has survived. Its state was, as usual, largely
due to a particularly bad prioress, Katherine Wells. The following
account of it is taken from the record of Bishop Atwater's visitations in
1517 and 1518, the first held by his commissary Edmund Horde, the second
by the bishop in person[1708].
The _comperta_ are that the prioress had ordered the five nuns under
her to say that all was well; she herself had an illegitimate
daughter, and was still visited by the father of the child, Richard
Hewes, a priest in Kent[1709]; that she took the "pannes, pottes,
candilsticks, basynes, shetts, pelous, federe bedds etc." the property
of the monastery, to provide a dowry for this daughter; that another
of the nuns had, within the last year, an illegitimate child by a
married man of Oxford; that the prioress was excessive in punishments
and put the nuns in stocks when they rebuked her evil life; that
almost all the jewels were pawned, and that there was neither food,
clothing nor pay for the nuns; that one who thought of becoming a nun
at Littlemore was so shocked by the evil life of the prioress that she
went elsewhere. A few months afterwards the bishop summoned the
prioress to appear before him, and after denying the charges brought
against her, she finally admitted them; her daughter, she said, had
died four years before, but she owned that she had granted some of the
plate of the monastery to Richard Hewes. In her evidence she stated
that though these things had been going on for eight years, no inquiry
had been made, and, as it seems, no visitation of the house had been
held; only, on one occasion, certain injunctions of a general kind had
been sent her. As a punishment she was deposed from the post of
prioress, but was allowed to perform the functions of the office for
the present, provided that she did nothing without the advice of Mr
Edmund Horde.
But some months later when the bishop himself made a visitation "to
bring about some reformation," things were as scandalous as ever. The
prioress complained that one of the nuns "played and romped
(_luctando_)" with boys in the cloister and refused to be corrected.
When she was put in the stocks, three other nuns broke the door and
rescued her, and burnt the stocks; and when the prioress summoned aid
from the neighbourhood, the four broke a window and escaped to
friends, where they remained two or three weeks; that they laughed and
played in church during mass, even at the elevation. The nuns
complained that the prioress had punished them for speaking the truth
at the last visitation; that she had put one in the stocks without any
cause; that she had hit another "on the head with fists and feet,
correcting her in an immoderate way," and that Richard Hewes had
visited the priory within the last four months. From the evidence it
is clear that the state of things was well known in Oxford, where each
party seems to have had its adherents.
Several morals may be drawn from this lurid story. It shows how
inadequate, in some cases, was the episcopal machinery for control and
reform of religious houses. It shows that the "scandalous _comperta_" of
Henry VIII's commissioners some sixteen years later were in no way untrue
to type. It shows also that Wolsey was not entirely unjustified in his
desire to dissolve the house and to use its revenues for educational
purposes; he may have been no more disinterested than was his master
later, but in the case of Littlemore at least it is difficult not to
approve him.
NOTE G.
THE MORAL STATE OF THE YORKSHIRE NUNNERIES IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE
FOURTEENTH CENTURY.
It is possible to study in some detail the nunneries in the diocese of
York during the first half of the fourteenth century, or roughly between
the years 1280 and 1360. The Archbishops' Registers for most of the period
have survived, and have either been printed or drawn upon very fully in
the admirable accounts of monastic houses given in the _Victoria County
History of Yorkshire_. As these accounts are not very widely known and as
Yorkshire contained an unusual number of nunneries (twenty-seven) it is
worth while to give some description of the state of these houses during a
troubled period in their career.
Reasons have been suggested elsewhere for some of the disorder which
prevailed among the monastic houses of the North. They were most of them
both small and poor and, what is of greater significance, they lay in the
border country, exposed to the forays of the Scots, and continually
disturbed by English armies or raiders, riding north to take revenge. Life
was not easy for nuns who might at any moment have to flee before a raid
and whose lands were constantly being ravaged; they grew more and more
miserably poor and as usual poverty seemed to go hand in hand with laxity.
Moreover the conditions of life set its stamp upon the character of the
ladies from whom convents were recruited. These Percies and Fairfaxes and
Mowbrays and St Quintins schooled their hot blood with difficulty to
obedience and chastity and the Yorkshire nunneries were apt to reflect the
fierce passions of the Border, quick to love and quick to fight. There
were no more quarrelsome nunneries in the kingdom, witness their election
fights[1710], and none in which discipline was more lax. During these
sixty years nineteen out of the twenty-seven houses came before the
Archbishop of York's notice, at one time or another, in connection with
cases of immorality and apostasy.
It is evident at once, from a study of the registers, that seven houses,
i.e., Basedale, Keldholme, Kirklees and Swine of the Cistercian order,
Arthington and Moxby of the Cluniac order and St Clement, York, of the
Benedictine order were in a serious condition[1711]. At Basedale in 1307
the Prioress Joan de Percy was deprived for dilapidation of the goods of
the house and perpetual and notorious misdeeds; whereupon she promptly
left the nunnery, taking some of her partisans among the nuns with her.
The Archbishop wrote to his official, bidding him warn them to return and
not to go outside the cloister precincts and "in humility to take heed to
the salutary monitions of their prioress"; but humility dwelt not in the
breast of a Percy and in 1308 Joan was packed off to Sinningthwaite, "as
she had been disobedient at Basedale." The troubles of the house were not
ended; for the same year Agnes de Thormondby a nun, confessed that she had
on three separate occasions allowed herself to be "deceived by the
temptations of the flesh," a vivid commentary on the _régime_ of Joan
Percy. In 1343 another well-born Prioress is in trouble at the house and
the Archbishop issues a commission "to inquire into the truth of the
articles urged against Katherine Mowbray and if her demerits required it
to depose her, and the commission was repeated two years later, nothing
apparently having been done"[1712].
The state of Keldholme was even worse. In 1287 Archbishop Romanus ordered
the nuns to receive back an apostate, Maud de Tiverington. In 1299 a
similar order was issued on behalf of Christiania de Styvelington. In 1308
began the violent election struggle over Emma of York and Joan of
Pickering, which has already been described. In the course of the struggle
four nuns were sent as rebels to other convents in 1308 and two in 1309,
and from the nature of the penance imposed on the last two it would seem
that they had been guilty of immorality. In 1318 Mary de Holm, who was one
of the ejected rebels of 1308 and had been censured for disobedience to
the new prioress in 1315, was sentenced to do penance "for the vice of
incontinence committed by her with Sir William Lyly, chaplain"[1713]; and
in 1321, Maud of Terrington (who may be the Maud of Tiverington who
apostatised in 1287), was given a heavy penance for incontinence and
apostasy[1714]. The history of the house during the stormy years from 1308
to 1321 shows how far from being a home of peace and good living a nunnery
might be; and illustrates well the difficulty of reforming it while even
one incorrigible rebel and sinner such as Mary de Holm dwelt there.
The state of Arthington was very similar. Here in 1303 Custance de
Daneport of Pontefract had apostatised and was to be received back;
trouble seems to have begun in that year, for the Prioress Agnes de
Screvyn resigned. In 1307 a visitation revealed considerable disorder and
Dionisia de Hevensdale and Ellen de Castleford were forbidden to go
outside the convent precincts. In 1312 the subprioress and convent were
ordered to render due obedience to the Prioress Isabella de Berghby, who
was given Isabella Couvel as a coadjutress. Evidently she resented having
to share her authority in temporal matters with another nun, for soon
afterwards Isabella de Berghby and Margaret de Tang are said to have cast
off their habits and left the convent. Eighteen months later a new
prioress was appointed and the two runaways returned and did penance. In
1315 there is mention of quarrels among the nuns and in 1319 Margaret de
Tang once more engaged the attention of the Archbishop and was sent to
Nunkeeling and prescribed the usual penalty for immorality. In 1321 she
was again in trouble; she had apostatised and committed grave
misdemeanours; and was again sent back to her convent, to be imprisoned
and if necessary chained there, until she showed signs of repentance. In
1349 Isabella de Berghby, in spite of her past apostasy, was once more
elected Prioress[1715].
At Moxby, the other Cluniac house in the diocese, Archbishop Greenfield
ordered the Prioress to receive back Sabina de Apelgarth, who had
apostatised, but was returning in a state of penitence. Her penitence was
of the usual type of these Yorkshire ladies and her reputation did not
prevent her from rising to the high rank in the convent, for in 1318
Archbishop Melton ordered her to be removed from office and ordained that
henceforward no one convicted of incontinence was to hold any
office[1716]. In 1321 a penance was pronounced on Joan de Brotherton for
having been twice in apostasy; but a note in the margin of the register
where the penance is entered takes her history a stage further:
"Memorandum quod dominus Walterus de Penbrige, stans cum domina regina,
postea impregnavit eandem"[1717]. The next year a Scottish raid dispersed
the nuns; Sabina de Apelgarth and Margaret de Neusom were sent to
Nunmonkton; Alice de Barton, the Prioress, to Swine; Joan de Barton and
Joan de Toucotes to Nunappleton; Agnes Ampleford and Agnes Jarkesmill to
Nunkeeling; Joan de Brotherton and Joan Blaunkfront to Hampole[1718]. This
disturbance did not improve their morals. In 1325 the Prioress Joan de
Barton resigned, having been found guilty of incontinence with the
inevitable chaplain. The nuns could find no better successor for her than
Sabina de Apelgarth and in 1328 that lady was once more in difficulties;
the Archbishop removed her "for certain reasons" and imposed the usual
penance for immorality and Joan de Toucotes became Prioress in her stead.
At the same time Joan Blaunkfront's penance was relaxed, so she too had
apparently fallen; lovely and white-browed she must have been, from her
name ("But sikerly she hadde a fair foreheed"), nor could she bear to hide
her beauties beneath the hideous garb of a nun. Seventeen long years
afterwards, when the forehead was growing wrinkled and the beauty fading,
she wished to reconcile herself with the God whom she had flouted. She had
powerful friends and could afford to petition the Pope himself, and in
1345 Clement VI gave orders for Joan Blankefrontes, nun of Moxby, who had
left her order, to be reconciled to it[1719].
Kirklees, known to romance as the house where a wicked prioress bled Robin
Hood to death, was in a deplorable state about the same time. In 1306
Archbishop Greenfield wrote to the house bidding them take back Alice
Raggid, who, several times led astray by the temptations of the flesh, had
left her convent for the world; in 1313 a similar order was made for
Elizabeth de Hopton. The two nuns seem, however, to have been
incorrigible, for in 1315 the Archbishop wrote to the Prioress saying that
public rumour had reached his ears that some of the nuns of the house, and
especially Elizabeth de Hopton, Alice "le Raggede" and Joan de Heton, were
wont to admit both secular and religious men into the private parts of the
house and to hold many suspicious conversations with them. He forbids
these or any other nuns to admit or talk with any cleric or layman save in
a public place and in the presence of the Prioress, subprioress or two
other nuns; and he specially warns a certain Joan de Wakefeld to give up
the private room, which she persists in inhabiting by herself. He refers
also to the fact that these and other nuns were disobedient to the
Prioress, "like rebels refusing to accept her discipline and punishment."
On the same day he imposed a special penance on Joan de Heton for
incontinence with Richard del Lathe and Sir Michael, "called Scot," a
priest, and on the unhappy Alice Raggid for the same sin with William de
Heton of Mirfield, possibly a relative of her fellow nun[1720]. Here again
we have an incorrigible offender, guilty of apostasy and immorality off
and on during ten years. Swine was not much better. In 1289 a nun of the
great St Quintin family was in disgrace, probably (though not certainly)
for immorality. In 1290 there was the usual trouble over a new Prioress
and Elizabeth de Rue was sent to Nunburnholme under the charge of a
brother of the house and a horseman, apparently for immorality as well as
contumacy. At the same time another nun, Elizabeth Darrains, had part of
her penance lightened; but in 1291 she was sent away to Wykeham Priory. In
1306 John, son of Thomas the Smith, of Swine, was charged with having
seduced Alice Martel, a nun of the house, and in 1310 Elizabeth de Rue
(whom we have seen was in trouble twenty years before) was said to have
sinned with two monks from the Abbey of Meaux. The house had evidently not
improved very much at a later date, for in 1358 Alice de Cawode had twice
been out in apostasy[1721].
Even close to the city of York itself, the Benedictine house of St
Clement's or Clementhorpe did not escape the prevalent decay of morals. In
1300 the Archbishop rehearses unsympathetically a romantic tale of how
"late one evening certain men came to the priory gate, leading a saddled
horse; here Cecily a nun, met them and, throwing off her nun's habit, put
on another robe and rode off with them to Darlington, where Gregory de
Thornton was waiting for her; and with him she lived for three years and
more." In 1310 Greenfield mitigated a penance, of the kind usually imposed
for immorality, upon another nun Joan de Saxton. In 1318 there is mention
of Joan of Leeds, another apostate, and in 1324 the Prioress resigned
after serious trouble in the house, details of which have not been
preserved. In 1331 Isabella de Studley (who had been made a nun there by
express permission of the primate in 1315) was found guilty of apostasy
and fleshly sin, besides blasphemy and other misdeeds; she had apparently
been sent to Yedingham for a penance some time before and was now allowed
to return, with the warning that if she disobeyed, quarrelled or
blasphemed any more she would be transferred permanently to another
house[1722].
These houses were all clearly extremely immoral, but there is evidence of
less extreme trouble in other houses in the same diocese. At Arden Joan de
Punchardon had become a mother in 1306 and Clarice de Speton confessed
herself guilty with the bailiff of Bulmershire in 1311[1723]. At Thicket
Alice Darel of Wheldrake was an apostate in 1303 and in 1334 Joan de
Crackenholme was said to have left her house several times[1724]. At
Wilberfoss Agnes de Lutton was in trouble in 1312[1725]. At Esholt
Beatrice de Haukesward left the house pregnant in 1303[1726]. At Hampole
Isabella Folifayt was guilty in 1324, and Alice de Reygate in 1358[1727].
At Nunappleton Maud of Ripon apostatised in 1309 and in 1346 Katherine de
Hugate, a nun, went away pregnant and a lay sister was said to have been
several times in the same condition[1728]. At St Stephen's, Foukeholm, a
nun Cecilia, who had run away with a chaplain, returned of her own accord
in 1293 and another apostate, Elena de Angrom, returned in 1349[1729].
Agnes de Bedale, an apostate, was sent back in 1286; and in 1343 Margaret
de Fenton, who left the house pregnant, had her penance mitigated "because
she had only done so once," a startling commentary on the state of the
Yorkshire houses[1730]. At Rosedale an apostate Isabella Dayvill was sent
back to do penance in 1321[1731]. Of Nunmonkton there is little record
during the first half of the century, but it was in a bad state at the
end[1732]; at Wykeham also there seems to have been no case of apostasy in
the fourteenth century, but in the fifteenth century the Prioress Isabella
Wykeham was removed for serious immorality in 1444 and in 1450 two nuns
had gone on an unlicensed pilgrimage to Rome, which had led to one of them
living with a married man in London[1733].
NOTE H.
THE DISAPPEARANCE OR SUPPRESSION OF EIGHT NUNNERIES PRIOR TO 1535.
It seems clear that even before the Dissolution proper decay was manifest
in some of the smaller nunneries; numbers were dwindling and morals were
not always beyond suspicion. At all events in the forty years before Henry
VIII's first act of dissolution, no less than eight nunneries[1734], all
of which had at one time been reasonably flourishing, faded away or were
dissolved. Something may, and indeed must, be allowed for the ulterior
motives of those who desired the revenue of these houses; but it is
impossible to suspect men like John Alcock, Bishop of Ely, John Fisher,
Bishop of Rochester, even Cardinal Wolsey, of being willing without any
excuse to suppress helpless nunneries in order to endow their new
collegiate foundations with the spoils. Some truth there must be in the
allegations of ill behaviour brought against certain of these houses; and
the reduction in numbers seems to point to a decay, more spontaneous than
forced.
The first of the houses thus to be dissolved was St Radegund's, Cambridge,
the accounts of which we have so often quoted. In 1496 John Alcock, Bishop
of Ely, visited the house and found but two sisters left there; and he
thereupon obtained letters patent from Henry VII to convert the nunnery
into a college, founded (like the nunnery) in honour of the Virgin, St
John the Evangelist and St Radegund, but called henceforward Jesus
College. Some light is thrown by these letters patent on the condition of
the convent in 1496. It is therein stated that the king,
as well by the report of the Bishop as by public fame, that the priory
... together with all its lands, tenements, rents, possessions and
buildings, and moreover the properties, goods, jewels and other
ecclesiastical ornaments anciently of piety and charity given and
granted to the same house or priory, by the neglect, improvidence,
extravagance and incontinence of the prioresses and women of the said
house, _by reason of their proximity to the university of Cambridge_,
have been dilapidated, destroyed, wasted, alienated, diminished, and
subtracted; in consequence of which the nuns are reduced to such want
and poverty that they are unable to maintain and support divine
services, hospitality and other such works of mercy and piety, as by
the primary foundation and ordinance of their founders are required;
that they are reduced in number to two only, of whom one is elsewhere
professed, the other is of ill-fame, and that they can in no way
provide for their own sustenance and relief, insomuch as they are fain
to abandon their house and leave it in a manner desolate[1735].
The next nunneries to disappear were Bromhale in Windsor Forest and
Lillechurch or Higham in Kent. Their dissolution was begun in 1521 and
completed in 1524, when their possessions were granted to St John's
College, Cambridge, the foundation of which was then being carried out by
John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, as executor of the Lady Margaret. Only
three nuns were left in Bromhale and Wolsey directed the Bishop of
Salisbury to "proceed against enormities, misgovernance and slanderous
living, long time heretofore had, used and continued by the prioress and
nuns"[1736]; but there is no further evidence as to the moral condition of
the convent. The moral as well as the financial decay of Lillechurch is
more certain, for the resignations of the three nuns who remained,
together with the depositions of those who accused them of want of
discipline, have survived. Their revenues were stated to be in great decay
and divine service, hospitality and almsgiving had almost ceased. Moreover
it was said that "the same priory was situated in a corner out of sight of
the public and was much frequented by lewd persons, especially clerks,
whereby the nuns there were notorious for the incontinence of their life,"
two of them having borne children to one Edward Sterope, vicar of Higham.
Some witnesses were heard as to one of them, including a nurse who had
taken charge of her baby and a former servant of the nunnery, who had been
sent by the bishop to investigate the matter. "He entered the cloister of
the aforesaid priory, where he saw the lady sitting and weeping and said
to her 'Alas madam, howe happened this with you?' and she answered him,
'And [if] I had been happey [i.e. lucky] I myght a caused this thinge to
have ben unknowen and hydden'"[1737].
The next nunneries to be suppressed were a group which went to enrich
Cardinal Wolsey's foundations. The Cardinal's policy of dissolving small
decayed houses in order to devote their revenues to collegiate
foundations, especially to his new college at Oxford, was by no means
generally approved and a passage in Skelton's bitterly hostile _Colin
Clout_ refers particularly to the case of the nunneries:
And the selfe same game
Begone ys nowe with shame
Amongest the sely nonnes:
My lady nowe she ronnes,
Dame Sybly our abbesse,
Dame Dorothe and lady Besse,
Dame Sare our pryoresse,
Out of theyr cloyster and quere
With an heuy chere,
Must cast vp theyr blacke vayles[1738].
The nunneries dissolved were Littlemore (1525), Wix (1525), Fairwell
(1527), and St Mary de Pré, St Albans, of which all went to Cardinal
College, except Fairwell, which went to Lichfield Cathedral. Of these
Littlemore, under the evil prioress Katherine Wells, had been in a state
of great disorder since 1517[1739], while Cardinal Morton's famous letter
of 1490 showed that there was at least suspicion of immoral relations
between the nuns of St Mary de Pré and the monks of St Albans[1740]. Of
the other two nunneries little is known at this time, save that they were
very small; there were four nuns at Wix. Another house, Davington in Kent,
vanished only a few months before the act would have dissolved it; in 1535
it was found before the escheator of the county that no nuns were left in
it[1741].
NOTE I.
CHANSONS DE NONNES.
The theme of the nun in popular poetry deserves a more detailed study than
it has yet received, both on account of the innate grace of the _chansons
de nonnes_ and on account of their persistence into modern times. The
earliest examples (with the exception of the two old French poems quoted
in the text) occur in German literature, always rich in folk song. With
the song from the _Limburg Chronicle_ and the Latin _Plangit nonna
fletibus_ should be compared the following amusing little poem:
Ich solt ein nonne werden
ich hatt kein lust dazu
ich ess nicht gerne gerste
wach auch nicht gerne fru;
gott geb dem kläffer unglück vil
der mich armes mägdlein
ins kloster haben wil!
Ins kloster, ins kloster
da kom ich nicht hinein,
da schneidt man mir die har ab,
das bringt mir schwäre pein;
gott geb dem kläffer unglück vil
der mich armes mägdlein
ins kloster haben wil!
Und wenn es komt um mitternacht
das glöcklein das schlecht an,
so hab ich armes mägdlein
noch keinen schlaf getan;
gott geb dem kläffer unglück vil
der mich armes mägdlein
ins kloster haben wil!
Und wenn ich vor die alten kom
so sehn sie mich sauer an,
so denk ich armes mägdlein
hett ich ein jungen man
und der mein stäter bule sei
so war ich armes mägdlein
des fasten und betens frei.
Ade, ade feins klösterlein,
Ade, nu halt dich wol!
ich weiss ein herz allerliebsten mein
mein herz ist freuden vol;
nach im stet all mein zuversicht,
ins kloster kom ich nimmer nicht,
ade, feins klösterlein![1742]
From the time of the Minnesingers comes a charming, plaintive little song,
which rings its double refrain on the words "Lonely" and "O Love, what
have I done?" It tells how the nun, behind a cold grating, thinks of her
lover as she chants her psalter; and how her father and mother visit her
and pray together, clad like gay peacocks, while she is shrouded in cord
and cowl; and how
At even to my bed I go--
The bed in my cell is lonely.
And then I think (God, where's the harm?)
Would my true love were in my arm!
O Love--what have I done?[1743]
A thirteenth century poem, hailing from Bavaria or Austria, strikes a more
tragic note:
Alas for my young days, alas for my plaint. They would force me into a
convent. Nevermore then shall I see the grass grow green and the green
clover flowers, nevermore hear the little birds sing. Woe it is, and
dead is my joy, for they would part me from my true love, and I die of
sorrow. _Alas, alas for my grief, which I must bear in secret!_
Sisters, dear sisters, must we be parted from the world? Deepest woe
it is, since I may never wear the bridal wreath and must make moan for
my sins, when I would fain be in the world and would fain wear a
bright wreath upon my hair, instead of the veil that the nuns wear.
_Alas, alas for my grief, which I must bear in secret!_ I must take
leave of the world, since the day of parting is come. I must look
sourly upon all joy, upon dancing and leaping and good courage, birds
singing and hawthorn blooming. If the little birds had my sorrow well
might they sit silent in the woods and upon the green branches. _Alas,
alas for my grief, which I must bear in silence_[1744].
A sixteenth century French song has something of the same serious tone,
though it is more sophisticated and less poignant than the medieval German
version:
Une jeune fillette
de noble coeur
gratieuse et honeste
de grand valeur,
contre son gré l'on a rendu nonette
point ne le voloit estre
par quoy vit en langueur.
One day after Compline she was sitting alone and lamenting her fate and
she called on the Virgin to shorten her life, which she could endure no
longer:
If I were married to my love, who has so desired me, whom I have so
desired, all the night long he would hold me in his arms and would
tell me all his thought and I would tell him mine. If I had believed
my love and the sweet words he said to me, alack, alack, I should be
wedded now. But since I must die in this place let me die soon. O poor
heart, that must die a death so bitter! Fare you well, abbess of this
convent, and all the nuns therein. Pray for me when I am dead, but
never tell my thought to my true love. Fare you well, father and
mother and all my kinsfolk; you made me a nun in this convent; in life
I shall never have any joy; I live unhappy, in torment and in
pain[1745].
Usually, however, the _chanson de nonne_ is more frivolous than this and
all ends happily. A well defined group contains songs in the form of a
round with a refrain, meant to be sung during a dance[1746]. One of the
prettiest has a refrain rejecting the life of a nun for the best of
reasons:
Derrière chez mon père
Il est un bois taillis
(Serai-je nonnette, oui ou non?
Serai-je nonnette? je crois que non!)
Le rossignol y chante
Et le jour et la nuit.
Il chante pour les filles
Qui n'ont pas d'ami,
Il ne chante pas pour moi,
J'en ai un, dieu mercy[1747].
Another (first found in a version belonging to the year 1602) has the
dance-refrain:
Trépignez vous, trépignez,
Trépignez vous comme moy,
and the words seem to trip of themselves:
Mon père n'a fille que moy--
Il a juré la sienne foy
Que nonnette il fera de moy,
Et non feray, pas ne voudray.
J'amerois mieux mary avoir
Qui me baisast la nuit trois fois.
L'un au matin et l'autre au soir,
L'autre a minuit, ce sont les trois[1748].
Another song of the same date has the refrain:
Je le diray,
Je le diray, diray, ma mère,
Ma Mère, je le diray,
and tells the same tale:
Mon père aussi ma mère
Ont juré par leur foy
Qu'ils me rendront nonnette
Tout en despit de moy.
La partie est mal faite
Elle est faite sans moy.
J'ay un amy en France
Qui n'est pas loin de moy,
Je le tiens par le doigt.
La nuit quand je me couche
Se met auprès de moy,
M'apprend ma patenostre,
Et aussi mon _ave_,
Et encore autre chose
Que je vous celeray.
De peur que ne l'oublie
Je le recorderay![1749]
The passage of years never diminished the popularity of these gay little
songs; age could not wither them, and when nineteenth century scholars
began to collect the folk songs sung in the provinces of France, they
found many _chansons de nonnes_ still upon the lips of the people. In
Poitou there is a round whose subject is still the old distaste of the
girl for the convent:
Dans Paris l'on a fait faire
Deux ou trois petits couvents.
Mon père ainsi que ma mère
Veulent me mettre dedans,
(Point de couvent, je ne veux, ma mère,
C'est un amant qu'il me faut vraiment.)
She begs her parents to wait another year; perhaps at the end of a year
she will find a lover; and she will take him quickly enough:
Il vaut mieux conduire à vêpres
Son mari et ses enfants,
Que d'être dedans ces cloétres
A faire les yeux dolents;
A jeûner tout le carême,
Les quatre-temps et l'avent;
Et coucher dessus la dure
Tout le restant de son temps.
Serais-je plus heureuse
Dans les bras de mon amant?
Il me conterait ses peines,
Ses peines et ses tourments.
Je lui conterais les miennes,
Ainsi passerait le temps[1750].
Another round from the same district sings the plaint of a girl whose
younger sister has married before her; "lads are as fickle as a leaf upon
the wind, girls are as true as silver and gold; but my younger sister is
being married. I am dying of jealousy, for they are sending me into a
convent":
Car moi, qui suis l'aînée
On me met au couvent.
Si ce malheur arrive
J'mettrai feu dedans!
(Vous qui menez la ronde,
Menez-le rondement.)[1751]
Many folk-songs take the form of a dialogue between a mother and daughter,
sometimes (as in two of the rounds quoted above) preserved only in the
refrain. An old song taken down at Fontenay-le-Marmion contains a
charmingly frivolous conversation. "Mother," says the daughter of fifteen,
"I want a lover." "No, no, no, my child, none of that," says her mother,
"you shall go to town to a convent and learn to read." "But tell me,
mother, is it gay in a convent?":
"Dites-moi, ma mère, ah! dites-moi donc,
Dedans ce couvent, comme s'y comporte-t-on?
Porte-t-on des fontanges et des beaux habits,
Va-t-on à la danse, prend-on ses plaisis?"
"Non, non, non, ma fille, point de tout cela;
Une robe noire et elle vous servira,
Une robe noire et un voile blanc;
Te voilà, ma fille, à l'état du couvent."
"No, mother, to a convent I will not go; never will I leave the lad I
love"; as she speaks her lover enters. "Fair one, will you keep your
promise?" "I will keep all the promises I ever made to you, in my youth I
will keep them; it is only my mother who does not wish it--but all the
same, do not trouble yourself, for it shall be so. My father is very
gentle when he sees me cry; I shall speak to him of love and I shall soon
make him see that without any more delay I must have a lover"[1752]. In
another of these dialogues the seventeen-year-old girl begs her mother to
find her a husband. "You bold wicked girl," says the mother:
Effrontée, hélas! que vous êtes!
Si je prends le manche à balai,
Au couvent de la soeur Babet
Je te mets pour la vie entière,
Et à grands coups de martinet
On apaisera votre caquet!
But "Mother," says the girl, "When you were my age, weren't you just the
same? When love stole away your strength and your courage, didn't you love
your sweetheart so well that they wanted to put you into a convent? don't
you remember, mother, that you once told me that it was high time my dear
father came forward, for you had more than one gallant?" The horrified
mother interrupts her, "I see very well that you have a lover":
Mariez-vous, n'en parlons plus
Je vais vous compter mille écus![1753]
Another group of songs (in narrative form and more _banal_ than the rounds
and dialogues) deals with the escape from the convent. Among folk-songs
collected in Velay and Forez there is one in which the girl is shut in a
nunnery, whence her lover rescues her by the device of dressing himself as
a gardener and getting employment in the abbess's garden[1754]; and
another in which a soldier returns from the Flemish wars to find his
mistress in a convent and takes her away with him in spite of the
remonstrances of the abbess[1755]. In a version from Low Normandy (which
probably goes back to the seventeenth century) the lover invokes the help
of a chimney sweep, who goes to sweep the convent chimneys and pretends to
be seized with a stomach-ache, so that the abbess hurries away for a
medicine bottle and enables him to pass the young man's letter to his
mistress; on a second visit the sweep carries the girl out in his sack,
under the very nose of the reverend mother[1756]. An Italian version is
less artificial:
In this city there is a little maid, a little maid in love. They wish
to chastise her until she loves no more. Says her father to her
mother: "In what manner shall we chastise her? Let us array her in
grey linen and put her into a nunnery." In her chamber the fair maiden
stood listening. "Ah, woe is me, for they would make me a nun!"
Weeping she wrote a letter and when she had sealed it well, she gave
it to her serving man, and bade him bear it to her lover. The gentle
gallant read the letter and began to weep and sigh: "I had but one
little love and now they would make her a nun!" He goes to the stable
where his horses are and saddles the one he prizes most. "Arise, black
steed, for thou art the strongest and fairest of all; for one short
hour thou must fly like a swallow down by the sea." The gentle gallant
mounts his horse and spurs forward at a gallop. He arrives just as his
fair one is entering the nunnery. "Hearken to me, mother abbess, I
have one little word to say." As he spake the word to the maiden, he
slipped the ring on her finger. "Is there in this city no priest or no
friar who will marry a maiden without her banns being called?"
"Goodbye to you, Father, goodbye to you, Mother, goodbye to you all my
kinsfolk. They thought to make me a nun, but with joy I am become a
bride"[1757].
Another very ribald Italian folk-song of the fourteenth or fifteenth
century is specially interesting because it is founded upon Boccaccio's
famous tale of the Abbess and the breeches. It is somewhat different from
the usual nun-song; less plaintive and more indecent, as befits its origin
in a _conte gras_; it is a _fabliau_ rather than a song, but it is worth
quoting:
Kyrie, kyrie, pregne son le monache!
lo andai in un monastiero,
a non mentir ma dir el vero,
ov' eran done secrate:
diezi n' eran tute inpiate,
senza [dir de] la badesa,
che la tiritera spesa
faceva con un prete.
Kyrie, etc.
Or udirete bel sermona:
ciascuna in chiesa andone,
lasciando il dileto
che si posava in sul leto;
per rifare la danza
ciascuno aspetta l' amanza
che diè retonare.
Kyrie, etc.
Quando matutin sonava
in chiesa nesuna andava,
[poi] ch' eran acopiate
qual con prete e qual con frate:
con lui stava in oracione
e ciascuno era garzone
che le serviva bene.
Kyrie, etc.
Sendo in chiesia tute andate,
e tute erano impregnate,
qual dal prete e qual dal frate,
l' una e l' altra guata;
ciascuna cred' esser velata
lo capo di benda usata;
avrino in capo brache.
Kyrie, etc.
E l' una a l' altra guatando
si vengon maravigliando;
credean che fore celato,
alor fu manifestato
questo eale convenente:
a la badessa incontenente
ch' ognun godesse or dice.
Kyrie, etc.
Or ne va, balata mia,
va a quel monastiero,
che vi si gode in fede mia
e questo facto è vero;
ciascuna non li par vero,
e quale [è] la fanziulla
ciascuna si trastulla
col cul cantano kyrie.
Kyrie, etc.[1758]
One characteristic form of the nun-theme has already been referred to in
the text: the dialogue between the clerk and the nun, in which one prays
the other for love and is refused. A terse version in which the nun is
temptress exists in Latin and evidently enjoyed a certain popularity:
_Nonna._ Te mihi meque tibi genus, aetas et decor aequa[n]t:
Cur non ergo sumus sic in amore pares?
_Clericus._ Non hac ueste places aliis nec uestis ametur:
Quae nigra sunt, fugio, candida semper amo.
_N._ Si sim ueste nigra, niueam tamen aspice carnem:
Quae nigra sunt, fugias, candida crura petas.
_C._ Nupsisti Christo, quem non offendere fas est:
Hoc uelum sponsam te notat esse Dei.
_N._ Deponam uelum, deponam cetera quaeque:
Ibit et ad lectum nuda puella tuum.
_C._ Si uelo careas, tamen altera non potes esse:
Vestibus ablatis non mea culpa minor.
_N._ Culpa quidem, sed culpa leuis tamen ipsa fatetur
Hoc fore peccatum, sed ueniale tamen.
_C._ Uxorem uiolare uiri graue crimen habetur,
Sed grauius sponsam te uiolare Dei.
_N._ Cum non sit rectum uicini frangere lectum
Plus reor esse reum zelotypare Deum[1759].
In the Cambridge Manuscript there is a famous dialogue, half-Latin and
half-German, in which a clerk prays a nun to love him in springtime, while
the birds sing in the trees, but she replies: "What care I for the
nightingale? I am Christ's maid and his betrothed." Almost the whole of
the dialogue, in spite of the nun's irreproachable attitude, has been
deleted with black ink by the monks of St Augustine's, Canterbury, who
were accustomed thus to censor matter which they considered unedifying;
but modern scholars have been at infinite pains to reconstruct it[1760].
It is rare to find in popular songs the idea of the convent as a refuge
for maidens crossed in love; but some pretty poems have this theme. In a
sixteenth century song a girl prefers a convent, if she cannot have the
man she loves best, but she wishes her lover could be with her there:
Puis que l'on ne m'at donne
A celuy que j'aymois tant,
avant la fin de l'annee
quoy que facent mes parens,
je me rendray capucine
capucine en un couvent.
Si mon amis vient les feste
a la grille regardant,
je luy feray de la teste
la reverence humblement
come pauvre capucine;
je n'oserois aultrement.
S'il se pouvait par fortune
se couler secretement
dedans ma chambre sur la brune,
je lui dirois mon tourment
que la pauvre capucine
pour luy souffre en ce couvent.
Mon dieu, s'il se pouvoit faire
que nous deux ensemblement
fussions dans ung monastere
pour y passer nostre temps,
capucin et capucine
nous vindrions tous deux content.
L'on me vera attissee
d'ung beau voille de lin blanc;
mais je seray bien coiffee
dans le coeur tout aultrement,
puis que l'on m'a capucine
mise dedans ce couvent.
N'est ce pas une grand raige
quand au gre de ses parens
il faut prendre en mariaige
ceulx qu'on n'ayme nullement?
j'ameroy mieulx capucine
estre mise en ce couvent[1761].
Somewhat similar is the song (first printed in 1640) of the fifteen
year-old girl married to a husband of sixty:
M'irai-je rendre nonette
Dans quelque joly couvent,
Priant le dieu d'amourette
Qu'il me donne allegement
Ou que j'aye en mariage
Celuy là que j'aime tant?[1762]
A round, with the refrain
Ah, ah, vive l'amour!
Cela ne durera pas toujours,
goes with a delightful swing:
Ce matin je me suis levée
Plus matin que ma tante;
J'ai descendu dans mon jardin
Cueillire la lavande.
Je n'avais pas cueilli trois brins
Que mon amant y rentre;
Il m'a dit trois mots en latin:
Marions nous ensemble.
--Si mes parents le veul' bien,
Pour moi je suis contente.
Si mes parents ne le veul' pas
Dans un couvent j'y rentre.
Tous mes parents le veul' bien,
Il n'y a que ma tante.
Et si ma tante ne veut pas
Dans un couvent je rentre.
Je prierai Dieu pour mes parents
Et le diable pour ma tante![1763]
In another song, with the refrain
Je ne m'y marieray jamais
Je seray religieuse,
the girl laments her own coyness which has lost her her lover[1764].
Sometimes, on the other hand, it is the lover's falseness which drives her
to enter a convent. In a song, which first occurs about 1555, the maiden
laments "qu'amours sont faulses":
Je m'en iray rendre bigotte
Avec les autres,
Et porteray le noir aussi le gris
(sont les couleurs de mon loyal amy)
si porteray les blanches patenostres
comme bigotte[1765].
In another very graceful little ditty the lover goes through the world in
rain and wind, seeking his true love and finds her at last in a green
valley:
Je luy ay dit "doucette,
où vas tu maintenant?
(m'amour)"
"m'en vois rendre nonnette
(helas)
en un petit couvent.
Puis que d'aultre que moy
vous estes amoureux.
(m'amour)
qui faict qu'en grand esmoy
(helas)
mon coeur soit langoureux.
Helas, toute vestue
je seray de drap noir
(m'amour)
monstrant que despourveue
(helas)
je vis en desespoir"[1766].
Moreover the convent also plays its part in that numerous class of folk
songs, which tells of the discomfiture of a too bold gallant by the wits
of a girl. An early example occurs in 1542:
L'autrier, en revenant de tour
Sus mon cheval qui va le trou,
Par dessoubs la couldrette
L'herbe y croit folyette.
Je m'en entray en ung couvent
Pour prendre mes esbatemens.
Par ung petit guinchet d'argent
Je vis une nonnette,
Vray Dieu, tant jolyette.
Dessoubz les drabs quand je la vys
Blanche comme la fleur du lys,
Je masseitys aupres du lit
En lui disans: nonnette
Serez vous ma miette?
Chevalier, troup me detenez,
D'en faire a vostre voulente
Si m'en laissez ung peu aller,
Tant que je soye parée,
Tost seray retournée.
Sire chevalier, rassemblez
A l'ésperirer vous resemblez,
Qui tient la proye enmy ses pieds
Et puis la laisse enfuire
Ainsi faictes vous, sire.
La nonnette si s'en alla
A son abbesse racompta
Là en ces bois a ung musart
Qui d'amour m'a priée,
Je luy suis eschappée.
Le chevallier il demeura
Soulz la branche d'ung olivier
Attendant la nonnette--
Encore y peust il estre![1767]
Folk-songs, like flowers, spring up--or perhaps are transplanted--in the
same form in different lands and under different skies; they laugh at
political divisions and are a living monument to the solidarity of Europe.
Thus a song taken down from the lips of a Piedmontese _contadina_ in the
nineteenth century is almost exactly the same as the sixteenth century
French poem just quoted, even to such details as the olive and the fowler:
Gentil galant cassa'nt ël bosc,
S'è riscuntrà-se'nt üna múnia,
L'era tan bela, frësca e biunda.
Gentil galant a j'à ben dit:
--Setè-ve sì cun mi a l'umbreta,
Mai pi viu sarì munigheta.
--Gentil galant, spetei-me sì,
Che vada pozè la tunicheta
Poi turnrò con vui a l'umbreta--
A l'à spetà-la tre dì, tre nóit
Sut a l'umbreta de l'oliva.
E mai pi la múnia veniva.
Gentil galant va al munastè,
L'à pica la porta grandeta;
J'e sortì la madre badessa.
--Coza cerchei-vo, gentil galant?
--Mi ma cerco na munigheta,
Ch'a m'à promess d'avnì a l'umbreta.
--J'avie la quaja dnans ai pè,
V'la sì lassà-v-la vulè via.
Cozi l'à faít la múnia zolia[1768].
Another version, still sung in many parts of France, is called _The Ferry
Woman_. In this a girl ferrying a gentleman from court across a stream,
promises him her love in return for two thousand pounds, but bids him wait
till they land and can climb to the top room of a house. But when the
gallant leaps ashore she pushes off her boat, taking the money with her
and crying: "Galant, j't'ai passé la rivière:
Avec ton or et ton argent
Je vais entrer dans un couvent,
Dans un couvent de filles vertueuses
Pour être un jour aussi religieuse!
"Si je passe par le couvent,
J'irai mettre le feu dedans,
Je brûlerai la tour et la tournière
Pour mieux brûler la belle batelière"[1769].
Occasionally the references to nuns in folk-songs have even less
significance. Thus one of the metamorphoses gone through by the girl, who
(in a very common folk theme) assumes different shapes to elude her lover,
is to become a nun:
"Si tu me suis encore
Comme un amant
Je me ferai nonne
Dans un convent,
Et jamais tu n'auras
Mon coeur content."
"Si tu te fais nonne
Dans un couvent
Je me ferai
Moine chantant
Pour confesser la nonne
Dans le couvent"[1770].
Again in _Le Canard Blanc_ occur the question and answer:
Que ferons nous de tant d'argent?
Nous mettrons nos filles au couvent
Et nos garçons au régiment.
Si nos fill's ne veul' point d'couvent
Nous les marierons richement[1771].
One very curious song deserves quotation, a Florentine carnival song of
the time of Lorenzo the Magnificent, written by one Guglielmo called _Il
Giuggiola_. It retails the woes of some poor "Lacresine" or "Lanclesine"
who have come to Rome on a pilgrimage and been robbed of all their money
on the way, and the ingenious suggestion has been made that "Lacresine" is
a corruption of "Anglesine" and that the song is supposed to be sung by
English nuns; certainly it is in broken Italian, such as foreigners would
use:
Misericordia et caritate
Alle pofer Lacresine
Che l'argente pel chammine
Tutt'a spese et consumate.
Del paese basse Magne,
Dove assai fatiche afute
Tutte noi pofer compagne
Per ir Rome sian fenute.
Ma per tanto esser piofute,
Non pofer Lanclesine.
Nelle parte di Melane
State noi mal governate,
Che da ladri et gente strane
Nostre robe star furate;
Talche noi tutte bitate
[Non mai più far tal chammine.]
Pero pofer Lanclesine
Buon messer dà caritate.
Queste pofer Nastasie
Le fu tutte rotte stiene
Talchè sue gran malattie
Per vergognia sotto tiene.
Così zoppe far conviene
Con fatiche suo chammine
Però pofer Lanclesine
Buon messer dà caritate.
Chi è dijote San Branchatie
Che star tant' in ciel potente,
Per afer sue sancte gratie
Voglia a noi donare argente,
Che le pofer malcontente
Pessin compier lor chammine,
Però pofer Lanclesine
Buon messer dà caritate[1772].
"Pity and charity for poor English ladies, who have spent and used up
all their money on the road. From the land of low Germany, where we
have had great difficulties, all we poor sisters are on our way to
Rome, but because it has rained so hard, we have not been able to
continue our road. _Therefore, good sirs, give alms to us poor English
ladies._ In the district of Milan ill-used were we, for thieves and
strangers stole all our goods; so buffetted were we, never again will
we go on such a journey. _Therefore, good sirs, give alms to us poor
English ladies._ Poor Anastasia was so knocked about, that in shame
she hides her ill and must needs continue her road limping.
_Therefore, good sirs, give alms to us poor English ladies._ Whoever
is a devotee of St Pancras, who is so powerful in heaven, whoever
wishes to have his grace, let him give us money, so that we poor
miserable creatures may get to our journey's end; _therefore, good
sirs, give alms to us poor English ladies_."
Sometimes the nun is found playing a part in the romantic
ballad-literature of Europe. A Rhineland legend of the dance of death,
interesting because it embodies the names and dates of the actors, has for
its setting a convent; it is thus summarised by Countess
Martinengo-Cesaresco[1773]:
In the fourteenth century Freiherr von Metternich placed his daughter
Ida in a convent on the island of Oberwörth, in order to separate her
from her lover, one Gerbert, to whom she was secretly betrothed. A
year later the maiden lay sick in the nunnery, attended by an aged lay
sister. "Alas!" she said "I die unwed though a betrothed wife."
"Heaven forfend!" cried her companion, "then you would be doomed to
dance the death-dance." The old sister went on to explain that
betrothed maidens who die without having either married or taken
religious vows, are condemned to dance on a grassless spot in the
middle of the island, there being but one chance of escape, the coming
of a lover, no matter whether the original betrothed or another, with
whom the whole party dances round and round till he dies; then the
youngest of the ghosts makes him her own and may henceforth rest in
her grave. The old nun's gossip does not delay the hapless Ida's
departure, and Gerbert, who hears of her illness on the shores of the
Boden See, arrives at Coblenz only to have tidings of her death. He
rows over to Oberwörth; it is midnight in midwinter. Under the
moonlight dance the unwed brides, veiled and in flowing robes; Gerbert
thinks he sees Ida among them. He joins the dance; fast and furious it
becomes, to the sound of a wild unearthly music. At last the clock
strikes and the ghosts vanish--only one, as it goes, seems to stoop
and kiss the youth, who sinks to the ground. There the gardener finds
him on the morrow, and in spite of all the care bestowed upon him by
the sisterhood, he dies before sundown.
Another German ballad, taken down from oral recitation, at the beginning
of the nineteenth century, opens with a good swing:
Stund ich auf hohen bergen
Und sah ich über den Rhein
Ein Schifflein sah ich fahren,
Drei Ritter waren drein.
"I stood upon a high mountain and looked out over the Rhine, and I saw
three knights come sailing in a little boat. The youngest was a lord's
son, and fain would have wed me, young as he was. He drew a little
golden ring from off his finger, "Take this, my fair, my lovely one,
but do not wear it till I am dead." "What shall I do with the little
ring, if I may not wear it?" "O say you found it out in the green
grass." "O that would be a lie and evil. Far sooner would I say that
the young lord was my husband." "O maiden, were you but wealthy, came
you but of noble kin, were we but equals, gladly would I wed you."
"Though I may not be rich yet am I not without honour, and my honour I
will keep, until one who is my equal comes for me." "But if your equal
never comes, what then?" "Then I will go into a convent and become a
nun." There had not gone by a quarter of a year when the lord had an
evil dream; it seemed to him that the love of his heart was gone into
a convent. "Rise up, rise up, my trusty man, saddle horses for thee
and me. We will ride over mountains and through valleys--the maid is
worth all the world." And when they came to the convent, they knocked
at the door of the tall house, "Come forth, my fair, my lovely one,
come forth for but a minute." "Wherefore should I come forth? Short
hair have I, my locks they have cut off--for a long year has passed."
Despair filled the lord's heart; he sank upon a stone and wept
glittering tears and could never be glad again. With her snow-white
little hands she dug the lord a grave and the tears fell for him out
of her brown eyes. And to all young men this happens who seek after
great wealth. They set their love upon beautiful women; but beauty and
riches go not always hand in hand"[1774].
It is a strange thing that in all the ballad and folk-song literature of
England and Scotland there should be one and only one reference to a nun.
But that reference is a profoundly interesting one, for it is to be found
in the fine ballad of the _Death of Robin Hood_, which tells how the
great outlaw came to his end through the treachery of the Prioress of
Kirklees:
When Robin Hood and Little John
_Down a-down, a-down, a-down_,
Went o'er yon bank of broom
Said Robin Hood to Little John,
"We have shot for many a pound:
_Hey down, a-down, a-down_.
"But I am not able to shoot one shot more,
My broad arrows will not flee;
But I have a cousin lives down below,
Please God, she will bleed me."
"I will never eat nor drink," he said,
"Nor meat will do me good,
Till I have been to merry Kirkleys
My veins for to let blood.
"The dame prior is my aunt's daughter,
And nigh unto my kin;
I know she wo'ld me no harm this day
For all the world to win."
"That I rede not," said Little John,
"Master, by th' assent of me,
Without half a hundred of your best bowmen
You take to go with yee."
"An thou be afear'd, thou Little John,
At home I rede thee be."
"An you be wrath, my deare mastèr
You shall never hear more of me."
Now Robin is gone to merry Kirkleys
And knocked upon the pin;
Up then rose Dame Prioress
And let good Robin in.
Then Robin gave to Dame Prioress
Twenty pounds in gold,
And bade her spend while that did last,
She sho'ld have more when she wo'ld.
"Will you please to sit down, cousin Robin;
And drink some beer with me?"--
"No, I will neither eat nor drink
Till I am blooded by thee."
Down then came Dame Priorèss
Down she came in that ilk,
With a pair of blood-irons in her hand,
Were wrappèd all in silk.
"Set a chafing dish to the fire," she said,
"And strip thou up thy sleeve."
--I hold him but an unwise man
That will no warning 'leeve.
She laid the blood-irons to Robin's vein,
Alack the more pitye!
And pierc'd the vein, and let out the blood
That full red was to see.
And first it bled the thick, thick blood,
And afterwards the thin,
And well then wist good Robin Hood
Treason there was within.
And there she blooded bold Robin Hood
While one drop of blood wou'd run;
There did he bleed the livelong day,
Until the next of morn.
Then Robin, locked in the room and too weak to escape by the casement,
blew three weak blasts upon his horn, and Little John came hurrying to
Kirklees and burst open two or three locks and so found his dying master.
"A boon, a boon!" cried Little John:
"What is that boon," said Robin Hood
"Little John, thou begs of me?"--
"It is to burn fair Kirkleys-hall
And all their nunnerye."
"Now nay, now nay," quoth Robin Hood,
"That boon I'll not grant thee;
I never hurt woman in all my life,
Nor men in their company."
"I never hurt maid in all my time,
Nor at mine end shall it be;
But give me my bent bow in my hand,
And a broad arrow I'll let flee;
And where this arrow is taken up
There shall my grave digg'd be"[1775].
So died bold Robin Hood. The English boy nurtured on his country's
ballads, has little cause to love the memory of the nun.
NOTE J.
THE THEME OF THE NUN IN LOVE IN MEDIEVAL POPULAR LITERATURE.
It may be of interest to note some further examples of the nun in love as
a theme for medieval tales, and in particular: (1) other versions of the
eloping nun theme, (2) the story of the abbess who was with child and was
delivered by the Virgin, and (3) some other _contes gras_.
(1) Various versions of the eloping nun tale enjoyed popularity, though
never as great popularity as was enjoyed by the story of Beatrice the
Sacristan. An old French version in the form of a miracle play tells of a
knight, who loved a nun and persuaded her to leave her convent with him;
but she saluted the Virgin's image in passing and twice the image
descended from its pedestal and barred her way when she tried to pass the
door, until at last she ran by without saluting it and escaped with her
lover. They married and had two children and lived happily together for
several years. Then one day Our Lady came down from heaven to seek her
faithless friend. She bade the nun return and the husband, hearing this,
was moved in his heart and said "since for love of me thou didst leave thy
convent, for love of thee I will leave the world and become a monk." Thus
they departed together and their babies were left to cry for mother and
father in vain[1776].
In another story the nun, trying to insert the key of the convent into the
lock and make her escape, was prevented by some invisible object, which
formed a barrier between her and the lock; she beat and pushed in vain and
at last turned to go, and saw in her path, the Virgin with white hands
bleeding. "Behold," said the Virgin, "it was I who withstood thee and see
what thou hast done to me"[1777]. In another a nun, the sacristan of a
convent, was tempted by a clerk and agreed to meet him after Compline. But
when she was trying to pass through the door of the chapel, she saw Christ
standing in the arch, with hands outspread, as though upon the cross. She
ran to another doorway and to another and to another, but in each she
found the crucifix. Then, coming to herself, she recognised her sin and
flung herself before an image of the Virgin to ask pardon. The image
turned away its face; then, as the trembling nun redoubled her entreaties,
stretched out its arm and dealt her a buffet saying: "Foolish one, whither
wouldst thou go? return to thy dorter." And so powerful was the Virgin's
blow that the nun was knocked down thereby and lay unconscious upon the
floor of the chapel until morning[1778]. In another version the nun
falls asleep on the night upon which the elopement is fixed and has a
vivid dream of the pains of hell, from which she is rescued by the Virgin,
who exhorts her to chastity, so that she awakes and sends away her lover's
messenger[1779]. In another the Virgin's image prevents the nun from going
through one door, but she escapes by another and is seduced[1780]. A more
rational version makes the nun strike her head so violently against the
lintel of the door, by which she is trying to escape, that she is rendered
unconscious and when she recovers her senses the temptation has gone from
her and she returns to her bed[1781]. In another the nun packs her clothes
into two bundles and passes them out of the window to her lover, climbing
out after them herself; but thieves intercept her and her bundles and
carry them off into a wood. The unhappy nun calls upon the Virgin for help
and forthwith falls into a deep sleep, from which she awakes to find
herself back in her dorter, with the bundles beside her[1782]. A rather
different tale of the nun turned courtesan makes her return after many
years to her convent, where by meditating upon the childhood of Christ she
is reconverted[1783].
(2) Another theme, which is almost as widespread as that of the eloping
nun, is that known as _l'abbesse grosse_. In this an abbess, who was famed
for the strict discipline which she kept among her nuns, fell in love with
her clerk and became his mistress, so that she soon knew herself to be
with child:
Then it happened that she waxed great and drew near her time and her
sisters the nuns perceived, and were passing fain thereof, because she
was so strait unto them, that they might have a cause to accuse her
in. And her accusers gart write unto the bishop and let him wit
thereof and desired him to come unto their place and see her. So he
granted and the day of him coming drew near. And this abbess, that was
great with child, made mickle sorrow and wist never what she might do;
and she had a privy chapel within her chamber, where she was wont
daily as devoutly as she couth [knew how] to say Our Lady's matins.
And she went in there and sparred the door unto her and fell devoutly
on knees before the image of Our Lady and made her prayer unto her and
wept sore for her sin and besought Our Lady for to help her and save
her, that she were not shamed when the bishop came. So in her prayers
she happened to fall on sleep, and Our Lady, as her thought, appeared
unto her with two angels, and comforted her and said unto her in this
manner of wise: "I have heard thy prayer and I have gotten of my son
forgiveness of thy sin and deliverance of thy confusion." And anon
she was delivered of her child and Our Lady charged these two angels
to have it unto an hermit and charged him to bring it up unto it was
seven years old; and they did as she commanded them; and anon Our Lady
vanished away. And then this abbess wakened and felt herself delivered
of her child and whole and sound.
In the sequel the bishop came to the house and could find no sign that the
abbess was with child and was about to punish her accusers, when she told
him the whole tale. He sent messengers to the hermit and there the child
was found; and (in fairy tale phrase, for what are these but religious
fairy tales), they all lived happy ever afterwards[1784].
(3) Ribald stories on the same theme are, naturally enough, common in
medieval literature, which never spared the Church. A few of the more
interesting may here be added to those quoted or referred to in the text.
The _Cento Novelle Antiche_ contains a curious tale of a Countess and her
maidens, who, having disgraced themselves with a porter, retired to hide
their shame in a nunnery; the story continues thus:
They became nuns and built a convent that is called the Convent of
Rimini. The fame of this convent spread and it became very wealthy.
And this story is narrated as true, viz. they had a custom that when
any cavaliers passed by that had rich armour the abbess and her
attendants met them on the threshold and served them with all sorts of
good fare and accompanied them to table and to bed. In the morning
they provided them with water for washing and then gave them a needle
and thread of silk for them to thread and if they could not accomplish
this in three tries, she took from them all their armour and
accoutrement and sent them away empty, but if they succeeded she
allowed them to retain their possessions and gave them presents of
jewellery, etc.[1785]
Francesco da Barberino in his book of deportment, _Del reggimento e
costumi di donne_, has a tale of a convent in Spain, which Satan receives
permission to tempt; accordingly his emissary Rasis sends into the house
three young men, disguised as nuns, to whom all the nuns and the Abbess
in turn succumb[1786]. In one Italian version of an extremely widespread
theme, found among the _Novelle_ of Masuccio Guardata da Salerno
(1442-1501), a Dominican friar deceives a devout and high-born nun. The
story is thus summarised by A. C. Lee:
In one of her books of devotion were some pictures of saints, amongst
others the third person of the Trinity; from the mouth of this figure
he makes proceed the words in letters of gold, "Barbara, you will
conceive of a holy man and give birth to the fifth evangelist." He
acts as the holy man and on the lady becoming _enceinte_ he deserts
her[1787].
Among medieval French stories may be mentioned those which occur in _Les
Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_, a fifteenth century collection of tales,
probably written by Antoine de la Sale in imitation of the _Cento
Novelle_. No. XV, concerning the relations between two neighbouring houses
of monks and nuns respectively, is too gross to be summarised; No. XXI is
the story of the sick abbess, who was recommended by her physician to take
a lover and out of respect for her all her nuns did the same; No. XLVI is
one of the many tales of a Jacobin friar, who haunted a convent and
obtained the favours of a nun[1788]. These are really prose fabliaux; and
verse fabliaux on this theme are not wanting, for example Watriquet
Brassenal's story of _The Three Canonesses of Cologne_[1789] and the most
indecent fabliau of _The Three Ladies_[1790]. There is a rather delightful
and merry little German poem called _Daz Maere von dem Sperwaere_, which
is a version of the popular French fabliau of _The Crane_[1791]. In this
thirteenth century poem a little nun, who has never seen the world, looks
over her convent wall and sees a knight with a sparrow hawk; she begs for
it and he says he will sell it her for "love," a thing of which she has
never heard. He teaches her what it is and gives her the sparrow hawk. But
the nun, her schoolmistress, is so angry with her, that she watches on the
wall again and next time the knight passes, she makes him give her back
her "love" and take the sparrow hawk again[1792].
English versions of these tales are extremely rare; for the English were
always less adroit than the French and the Italians in the matter of
_contes gras_. The nun theme occasionally appears, however, in the
sixteenth century; Boccaccio's "breeches" story is in Thomas Twyne's _The
Schoolmaster_ (1576)[1793] and the behaviour of nuns and "friars" at
Swineshead Abbey forms a comic interlude in _The Troublesome Raigne of
King John_ (1591), which was one of the sources used by Shakespeare in his
more famous play. In Scene X of the old play Philip Falconbridge comes to
Swineshead, with his soldiers, and bids a friar show him where the abbot's
treasure is hid. They break open a chest and a nun is discovered inside
it. The friar cries:
Oh, I am undone
Fair Alice the nun
Hath took up her rest
In the Abbot's chest.
_Santa benedicite_,
Pardon my simplicity
Fie, Alice, confession
Will not salve this transgression.
Philip remarks:
What have we here? a holy nun? so keep me God in health,
A smooth-faced nun, for aught I know, is all the abbot's wealth.
The nun begs for the life of the first friar and offers in exchange to
show Philip a chest containing the hoard of an ancient nun. They pick the
lock and discover a friar within. The first friar cries:
Friar Laurence, my lord;
Now holy water help us:
Some witch or some devil is sent to delude us:
_Haud credo, Laurentius_,
That thou shouldst be pen'd thus
In the press of a nun:
We are all undone,
And brought to discredence,
If thou be Friar Laurence.
Philip's comment is pertinent:
How goes this gear? the friar's chest fill'd with a sausen nun.
The nun again locks friar up to keep him from the sun.
Belike the press is purgatory, or penance passing grievous:
The friar's chest a hell for nuns! How do these dolts deceive us?
Is this the labour of their lives, to feed and live at ease?
To revel so lasciviously as often as they please?
I'll mend the fault, or fault my aim, if I do miss amending;
'Tis better burn the cloisters down than leave them for offending.
Eventually, Friar Laurence buys his freedom for a hundred pounds[1794].
In conclusion may be mentioned the entertaining little English _fabliau_,
which was at one time attributed to Lydgate, called _The Tale of the Lady
Prioress and her three Suitors_; this is not a _conte gras_, but recounts
the adroit expedient, by which a prioress succeeded in ridding herself of
her three wooers, a knight, a parson and a merchant[1795].
NOTE K.
NUNS IN THE _DIALOGUS MIRACULORUM_ OF CAESARIUS OF HEISTERBACH.
The _Dialogus Miraculorum_, written between 1220 and 1235 by Caesarius,
Prior and Teacher of the Novices in the Cistercian Abbey of Heisterbach in
the Siebengebirge, is one of the most entertaining books of the middle
ages[1796]. Caesarius in a prologue describes how it came to be written
and the plan upon which it is arranged, taking as his text a quotation
from John vi. 12: "Gather up the fragments lest they perish":
Since I was wont to recite to the novices, as in duty bound, some of
the miracles which have taken place in our time and daily are taking
place in our order, several of them besought me most instantly to
perpetuate the same in writing. For they said that it would be an
irreparable disaster if these things should perish from forgetfulness
which might be an edification to posterity. And since I was all
unready to do so, now for lack of the Latin tongue, now by reason of
the detraction of envious men, there came at length the command of my
own abbot, to say naught of the advice of the abbot of Marienstatt,
which it is not lawful for me to disobey. Mindful also of the
aforesaid saying of the Saviour, while others break up whole loaves
for the crowd (that is to say, expound difficult questions of the
Scriptures or write the more signal deeds of modern days) I,
collecting the falling crumbs, from lack not of good will but of
scholarship, have filled with them twelve baskets. For I have divided
the whole book into as many divisions. The first division tells of
conversion, the second of contrition, the third of confession, the
fourth of temptation, the fifth of demons, the sixth of the power of
simplicity, the seventh of the blessed Virgin Mary, the eighth of
divers visions, the ninth of the sacrament of the body and blood of
Christ, the tenth of miracles, the eleventh of the dying, the twelfth
of the pains and glories of the dead. Moreover in order that I might
the more easily arrange the examples, I have introduced two persons in
the manner of a dialogue, to wit a novice asking questions and a monk
replying to them.... I have also inserted many things which took place
outside the [Cistercian] order, because they were edifying, and like
the rest had been told to me by religious men. God is my witness that
I have not invented a single chapter in this dialogue. If anything
therein perchance fell about otherwise than I have written it, the
fault should rather be imputed to those who told it to me[1797].
It will be seen from this sketch that the book is really a collection of
stories grouped round certain subjects which they are intended to
illustrate and connected by a slender thread of dialogue. Such
collections of _exempla_ are nearly always valuable, but the work of
Caesarius is particularly so, because he does not confine himself to
"stock" stories, but relates many with details of time and place, drawn
from his own experience and from that of his friends. The book is full of
local colour and gives an exceedingly vivid picture of lay and
ecclesiastical life in medieval Germany. For our purpose it is interesting
because it contains many _exempla_ concerning nuns, and any reader
attracted by this particular class of didactic literature may be glad to
add some more stories to those quoted in the text.
Caesarius has much to say of the devil, a very visible and audible and
tangible devil and one who can be smelt with the nose. His tales of
devil-haunted nuns display a side of convent life about which English
records are in the main silent; but that they represent with fair accuracy
the sufferings of some half-hysterical, half-mystical women cannot be
doubted by anyone familiar with the lives of medieval saints and mystics,
such as Mary of Oignies, Christina of Stommeln and Lydwine of Schiedam. He
tells in his section on "Confession" of a nun Alice or Aleidis, who had
led an ill life in the world, but had repented her when her lover, a
priest, hanged himself, and had taken the veil at Langwaden in the diocese
of Cologne:
Once when she was standing in the dorter and looking out of the
window, she beheld a young man, nay rather a devil in the form of a
young man, standing hard by a well, which was near the wall of the
dorter; who in her sight set one foot upon the wooden frame which
surrounded the well, and as it were flying with the other, conveyed
himself to her in the window, and tried to seize her head with his
extended hand; but she fell back stricken with terror and almost in a
faint, and cried out and hearing her call, her sisters ran to her and
placed her upon her bed. And when they had gone away again and she had
recovered her breath and lay alone, the demon was once more with her,
and began to tempt her with words of love, but she denied him,
understanding him to be an evil spirit. Then he answered "Good
Aleidis, do not say so, but consent to me, and I will cause you to
have a husband, honest, worthy, noble and rich. Why do you torture
yourself with hunger in this poor place, killing yourself before your
time by vigils and many other discomforts? Return to the world and use
those delights which God created for man; you shall want for nothing
under my guidance." Then said she, "I grieve that I followed thee for
so long; begone for I will not yield to thee."
Then the foul fiend blew with his nostrils and spattered her with a foul
black pitch and vanished. Neither the sign of the cross, nor sprinkling
with holy water, nor censing with incense prevailed against this
particular demon; he would retreat for a time and return again as soon as
Aleidis ceased to employ these weapons against him. She was in despair,
when one day
One of the sisters, of maturer years and wisdom than the others,
persuaded her when the demon tried to approach her to hurl the angelic
salutation[1798] in a loud voice in his face; and when she had done
so the devil, as though struck by a dart or driven by a whirlwind,
fled away and from that hour never dared to approach her.
Another time the same Aleidis went to confession, hoping thus to rid
herself forever of her tormentor:
And behold as she was hastening along the road, the devil stood in her
path and said: "Aleidis, whither away so fast?" And she replied: "I go
to confound myself and thee." Then said the devil: "Nay, Aleidis, do
not so! Turn again!" And she replied: "Oft hast thou put me to
confusion, now will I confound thee. I will not turn back." And when
he could turn her back neither by blandishments nor by threats, he
followed her to the place of confession flying in the air above her in
the form of a kite; and as soon as she bent her knee before the Prior
and opened her lips in confession, he vanished, crying and howling and
was never seen or heard by her from that hour. Behold here ye have a
manifest example of what virtue lieth in a pure confession. These
things were told to me by the lord Hermann, Abbot of
Marienstatt[1799].
In his section "De Daemonibus" Caesarius has a yet more startling
collection of stories about devils. The trials of sister Euphemia are
described as having been related to him by the nun herself, at the
instance of her abbess:
When the aforesaid nun was a little maid in her father's house, the
devil ofttimes appeared to her visibly in divers shapes, and in divers
ways affrighted and saddened her tender age. And since she feared to
be driven mad she expressed her wish to be converted[1800] into our
order. One night the devil appeared to her in the form of a man and
tried to dissuade her, saying: "Euphemia, do not be converted, but
take a young and handsome husband and with him thou shalt taste the
joys of the world. Thou shalt not want for rich garments and delicate
meats. But if thou enter the order, thou wilt be forever poor and
ragged, thou wilt suffer cold and thirst, nor will it ever be well
with thee henceforth in this world." To which she replied: "How would
it be with me if I should die amidst those delights, which thou dost
promise me?" To these words the devil made no reply, but seizing the
maid and carrying her to the window of the chamber wherein she was
lying, he sought to throw her out. And when she said the angelic
salutation the enemy let her go, saying, "If thou goest to the
cloister, I will ever oppose thee. For hadst thou not in that hour
called upon _that woman_ I should have slain thee." And having spoken
thus, squeezing her tightly, he sprang out of the window in the shape
of a great dog and was seen no more. Thus was the virgin delivered by
invoking the Virgin Mother of God. How harassing the devil is to those
who have been converted and in how many and divers ways he vexes and
hinders them, the following account shall show. When the aforesaid
maiden had been made a nun, one night as she lay in her bed and was
wakeful, she saw around her many demons in the form of men. And one of
them of an aspect most foul was standing at her head, two at her feet
and the fourth opposite her. And he cried in a loud voice to the
others: "Why are you standing still? Take her wholly up as she lies
and come." And they replied: "We cannot. She has called upon _that
woman_."... Now the same demon, after she had said the angelic
salutation, seized the maiden by her right arm, and squeezed her so
tightly as he dragged at it, that his grasp was followed by a swelling
and the swelling by a bruise. Now when she had her left hand free, she
in her great simplicity dared not make the sign of the cross
therewith, deeming that a sign with the left hand would avail her
nought. But now, driven by necessity, she signed herself with that
hand, and put the demons to flight. Delivered from them she ran half
fainting to the bed of a certain sister, and, breaking silence, told
her what she had seen and suffered. Then, as I was informed by the
lady Elizabeth of blessed memory, abbess of the same convent, the
sisters laid her in her bed, and reading over her the beginning of the
Gospel of St John, found her restored on the morrow. Now in the
following year, in the dead of night when the same nun was lying awake
on her couch, she saw at a distance the demons in the shape of two of
the sisters who were most dear to her; and they said to her: "Sister
Euphemia, arise, come with us to the cellar to draw beer for the
convent." But she suspecting them, both on account of the lateness of
the hour and of their breach of silence, began to tremble, and,
burying her head in the bedclothes, replied nothing. Straightway one
of the malignant spirits drew near and laying hold of her breast with
his hand, squeezed it until the blood burst forth from her mouth and
nose. Then the demons, taking the shape of dogs, leaped out of the
window. When the sisters, rising for matins, beheld her worn out, as
it were pale and bloodless, they inquired of her the reason by signs;
and when they had learned it from her, they were much perturbed, both
on account of the cruelty of the demons and of the distress of the
virgin. Two years before this, when a new dorter had been made for the
convent and the beds had been placed therein, the same nun saw a demon
in the shape of a deformed and very aged mannikin, going round the
whole dorter and touching each of the beds, as though to say: "I will
take careful note of each place, for they shall not be without a visit
from me"[1801].
The abbey of Hoven, which sheltered Euphemia, seems to have been subjected
to a continual siege by devils; or perhaps, as the more materially-minded
might suggest, Euphemia's malady was contagious. Sister Elizabeth of the
same house had a short way with such gentry:
"In the same monastery," says Caesarius, "was a nun named Elizabeth,
who was oftentimes haunted by the devil. One day she saw him in the
dorter, and since she knew him, she boxed his ears. Then said he:
'Wherefore dost thou strike me so hardly?' and she replied: 'Because
thou dost often disturb me,' to which the devil replied: 'Yesterday I
disturbed thy sister the chantress far more, but she did not hit me.'
Now she had been much agitated all day, from which it may be gathered
that anger, rancour, impatience, and other vices of the sort are often
sent by the devil. On another occasion when the same Elizabeth, very
late for matins (owing, as afterwards appeared, to the machinations of
the devil), was hurrying along to the belfry, bearing a lighted candle
in her hand, just as she was about to enter the door of the chapel,
she saw the devil in the shape of a man, dressed in a hooded tunic,
standing in front of her. Thinking that some man had got in, she
recoiled in alarm and fell down the dorter stairs, so that for some
days she lay ill of the sudden fright as well as of the fall.... And
when she was asked the cause of her fall and her scream and had
expounded this vision, she added: 'If I had known that it was the
devil and not a man, I would have given him a good cuff.' By that
time, however, she had girded her loins with strength and strengthened
her arm against the devil"[1802].
Not all the visions seen by these nuns of whom Caesarius writes were evil
visions. He has several tales to tell of appearances of the Virgin Mary
and of the saints. Besides the well-known story of Sister Beatrice and of
the nun whose ears were boxed by the Virgin, the most charming
Mary-miracle related by Caesarius tells of a nun who genuflected with such
fervour to the blessed Mother that she strained her leg; and as she lay
asleep in the infirmary, she saw before her the Virgin, bearing a pyx of
ointment in her hand; and the Virgin anointed her knee with it, till the
sweet odour brought the sisters running to find out the cause; but the nun
held her peace and bade them leave her. Sleeping again, she found herself
once more in the company of the Virgin, who led her into the orchard, and
placing her hand beneath the nun's chin, said to her, "Now do thou
kneel down upon thy knee"; and when she had done so our Lady added:
"Henceforth do thou bow thy knee thus, modestly and in a disciplined
manner," showing her how. And she added: "Every day thou shouldst say
to me the sequence 'Ave Dei Genitrix,' and at each verse thou shouldst
bow thy knee. For I take great delight therein." And the nun, waking,
looked upon her knee, to see whether aught had been accomplished in
the vision, and in great surprise she saw that it was whole[1803].
Another pretty story tells how, when a certain sister was reading her
psalter before a wooden statue of the Virgin and child, "the little boy
suddenly came to her and as though he would know what she was reading,
peeped into her book and went back again"[1804].
Sometimes it is not the Virgin or her Son but a patron saint who appears
to a nun who holds him in veneration. Caesarius tells the following tale
of a nun who specially venerated St John the Baptist:
More than all the saints she took delight in him. Nor did it suffice
her to think upon him, to honour him with prayers and devotions, to
declare his prerogatives to her sisters, but in order to perpetuate
his memory she made verses concerning his annunciation and nativity
and the joy of his parents. For she was learned and sought therefore
to describe in verse anything which she had read concerning his
sanctity. Moreover she exhorted and besought all secular persons with
whom she spoke to call their children John or Zacharias, if they were
boys, Elizabeth if they were girls. Now when she was about to die John
a monk of the Cloister came to visit her, and knowing her affection
towards St John, said: "My aunt, when you are dead, which mass would
you have me say first for your soul, the mass for the dead or of St
John the Baptist?" To which she without any hesitation replied: "Of St
John, of St John!" And when she was at the point of death, having
compassion upon the sister who was tending her, she said: "Go
upstairs, sister, and rest for a little." When the sister had done so
and was resting in a light sleep, she heard in her slumber a voice
saying, "Why liest thou here? St John the Baptist is below with Sister
Hildegunde"--for that was her name. Roused by this voice the sister,
not waiting to put on her clothes, came down in her shift and found
the nun already dead; and round her was so sweet a perfume that the
sister doubted not that St John had been there, to accompany the soul
of his beloved to the angelic host[1805].
Some of Caesarius' anecdotes show an amusing rivalry, if not among the
company of heaven, at least among their votaries on earth. Two delightful
stories may be quoted to show how deep-rooted is the competitive instinct,
which, baulked in one direction by the prohibition of property, showed
itself in hot disputes as to the rival merits of patron saints:
There were and I think still are, in Fraulautern in the diocese of
Trèves, two nuns, of whom one took special delight in St John the
Baptist and the other in St John the Evangelist. Whenever they met,
they contended together concerning which was the greater, so that the
mistress was scarce able to restrain them. The one declared the
privileges of her beloved in the presence of all, the other set up
against them the very real prerogatives of hers.
One night, however, before matins St John the Baptist appeared to his
worshipper in her sleep and set forth a list of the virtues of the other
St John, declaring that the latter was far greater than he, and bidding
her the next morning call her sister before the mistress and seek her
pardon for having so often annoyed her because of him. That morning after
matins, however, St John the Evangelist also visited his champion in her
sleep and after retailing all St John the Baptist's claims to superiority,
assured her that the latter was far greater and gave her a similar order
to ask pardon of her sister:
"On the morrow," says Caesarius, "they came separately to the mistress
and revealed what they had seen. Then together prostrating themselves
and asking pardon of each other as they had been bidden, they were
reconciled by the mediation of their spiritual mother, who warned
them that henceforth they should not contend about the merits of the
saints, which are known to God alone"[1806].
In spite of this excellent moral, however, Caesarius has very clear ideas
himself as to the respective merits of certain saints; and, if we are to
believe him, even St John the Evangelist was sometimes guilty of a
scandalous neglect of duty:
"It is not long ago," says he, "that a certain nun of the monastery of
Rheindorf near Bonn, by name Elizabeth, went the way of all flesh. Now
this monastery is of the rule of St Benedict the Abbot. But the said
Elizabeth delighted specially in St John the Evangelist, lavishing on
him all the honour she could. She had a sister in the flesh in the
same monastery, who was called Aleidis. One night when the latter was
sitting upon her bed after matins and saying the office of the dead
for the soul of her sister, she heard a voice near her. And when she
demanded who was there, the voice replied, 'I am Elizabeth, thy
sister.' Then said she, 'How is it with thee, sister, and whence
comest thou?' and it answered, 'Ill indeed has it been with me, but
now it is well.' Aleidis asked, 'Did St John in whom thou didst so
ardently delight avail thee aught?'--and it replied, 'Truly, naught.
It was our holy father Benedict who stood by me. For he bent his knee
on my behalf before God'"[1807].
St John the Evangelist, it will be perceived, suffered from the
incalculable disadvantage of never having thought of founding a monastic
order.
Caesarius narrates a great many other _exempla_ concerning nuns, but I
have quoted the most characteristic. There never was a book so full of
meat; and it is greatly to be regretted that no translation has as yet
placed it within the reach of all who are interested, not only in medieval
life but in the medieval point of view[1808].
APPENDIX II
VISITATION OF NUNNERIES IN THE DIOCESE OF ROUEN BY ARCHBISHOP EUDES
RIGAUD, 1248-1269
For twenty-seven years in the thirteenth century the Archbishopric of
Rouen was held by a man who was at once a scholar and a man of action, a
great saint and a great reformer. Eudes Rigaud (Odo Rigaldi), "the Model
of Good Life," as he was afterwards called, was among the most able and
energetic churchmen produced by the middle ages. Salimbene, that gossiping
friar of Parma to whom we owe perhaps the most entertaining chronicle of
all the middle ages, describes him thus:
Now this Brother Rigaud was of our order [Franciscan] and one of the
most learned men in the world. He had been doctor of theology in the
convent [at Paris]: being a most excellent disputator and a most
gracious preacher. He wrote a work on the Sentences; he was a friend
of St Louis, King of France, who indeed laboured that he might be made
Archbishop of Rouen. He loved well the Order of the Friars Preachers,
as also his own of the Friars Minor and did them both much good; he
was foul of face but gracious in mind and works, for he was holy and
devout and ended his life well; may his soul, by God's mercy, rest in
peace[1809].
This great scholar, with an admirable devotion to duty, renounced for ever
the leisure of a man of books, and spent his life, from the moment that he
became Archbishop, in a ceaseless peregrination of his diocese; and by a
dispensation of providence (so the historian must think) he kept a diary.
For twenty-one years (1248-1269) he moved about from parish to parish,
from monastery to monastery, inquiring into the life and discipline of
secular and of regular clergy alike, hearing complaints, giving
injunctions, removing (though seldom) offenders, and making notes of the
results of his visits, place by place and day by day, in his great
_Regestrum Visitationum_[1810]. His diocese was in a bad state; and his
discouragement sometimes found its way into the official record of his
inquisitions. The few words which betray his feelings, together with the
particularity and detail with which the visits are recorded, make the
register of Eudes Rigaud a very human document.
It would be beyond the scope of this book to enter into any discussion of
the general picture of the medieval church which it leaves upon the mind.
But it is both useful and interesting to detach those parts of it which
deal with the nunneries visited and reformed (with varying success) by the
Archbishop. In the first place the records of his visitations, though not
as complete as those of the visitations of the Lincoln diocese by Bishop
Alnwick in the early fifteenth century, or of the diocese of Norwich by
Bishops Goldwell and Nykke, during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth
centuries, or of the Sede Vacante visitations of the Winchester diocese by
Dr Hede in 1502, are nevertheless a great deal more detailed than any
series of English visitation records of an equally early date. The report
of Walter Giffard's visitation of Swine in 1267-8, which comprises both
the _comperta_ and the injunctions based upon them, is indeed fuller than
any of Rigaud's notes, which contain only _comperta_ and _ad interim_
injunctions[1811]; but this is an isolated case. The only other thirteenth
century documents at all comparable with those of Rigaud are Peckham's
injunctions to Barking (1279), Godstow (1279 and 1284), Wherwell (1284)
and Romsey (? 1284), and Wickwane's injunctions to Nunappleton (1281) and
these are the final injunctions only, the _comperta_ upon which they were
based having disappeared. There is, so far as it is possible to ascertain,
no English register of the thirteenth century recording regular
visitations of all the nunneries in a diocese over a period of years and
the study of Rigaud's register is therefore of unique interest. In the
second place it is of special interest to English readers because of the
close connection which at one time existed between the religious houses of
England and Normandy. Most of the alien priories in England were cells of
Norman houses and several of the nunneries visited by Rigaud had
possessions in England. Stour in Dorset was a cell of St Léger de Préaux,
founded by Roger de Beaumont as early as William I's reign[1812].
Levenestre or Lyminster in Sussex was founded some time before 1178 as a
cell of Almenèches probably by Roger de Montgomery Earl of Arundel, to
whom the mother house owed its foundation and was apparently the only
alien priory in England in which a community of nuns actually resided
during the later middle ages.[1813] In 1255 Almenèches possessed
twenty-five marks of annual rent in England[1814]. The great Abbaye aux
Dames at Caen had two cells in England, Horstead in Norfolk (which
afterwards became part of the endowment of King's College, Cambridge, and
was founded in William II's reign[1815]) and Minchinhampton in
Gloucestershire (afterwards cell of Syon)[1816]. In Rigaud's day this
house had rents to the value of £160 sterling in England[1817] and at the
visitation of 1256 the Abbess did not appear, because she was absent
there[1818]. French moreover was still the language of daily speech in
thirteenth century England, and there was constant intercourse between the
two countries. It is not unreasonable to expect that we may learn
something to our purpose by a comparison of French and English nunneries.
The Register includes visitations of fourteen religious houses of
women[1819]. Seven of these were visited with great regularity during the
twenty-one years covered by the Register; the Priory of St Saëns fourteen
times, the abbey of Bival and the priory of St Aubin each thirteen times,
the abbey of Montivilliers twelve times, the abbeys of Villarceaux and St
Amand of Rouen each eleven times and the priory of Bondeville ten times.
Of the others the abbeys of St Léger de Préaux and St Désir de Lisieux
(both in the diocese of Lisieux) and St Sauveur of Evreux each received
four visits and the abbeys of St Mary of Almenèches and the Holy Trinity
of Caen three. Two other houses, St Paul by Rouen (a dependent cell of
Montivilliers) and Ariete (a very poor and small Benedictine house),
appear to have been visited only once. For the most part these nunneries
were large houses, often having lay sisters and sometimes lay brothers
attached to them. The Archbishop made very careful notes of the temporal
affairs of each and generally entered in his Register the number of nuns
and lay sisters and often also the number of secular maidservants in the
employ of each house. The largest of all was the Abbaye aux Dames or Holy
Trinity at Caen, "one of the great nunneries of Christendom"; in Rigaud's
time its numbers ranged between sixty-five and eighty. St Sauveur of
Evreux and Montivilliers both contained at least sixty nuns and the other
houses were all comparatively large, with the exception of St Saëns,
Villarceaux, St Aubin and Ariete. Even these, however, were large compared
with some of the small nunneries in England.
The financial condition of many of these houses was very bad, and there is
evidence both of the poverty and of the bad management which seem to have
been characteristic of nunneries everywhere. The care with which Rigaud
entered into his diary, at almost every visitation, the debts owed by a
house and the condition of its stores, makes it possible to follow with
some ease the financial progress of the nunneries from year to year. Some
houses were evidently in a flourishing condition; the abbey at Caen was
very rich and never in difficulties (its debts were suddenly assessed at
the huge sum of £1700 in 1267 but at the previous visitations it had been
stated that more was owed to the nuns than they owed). Montivilliers was
also well managed and in a good condition; here again the debts due to it
were larger than those which it owed, and on several occasions the
Archbishop found a good round sum in the treasury, a plentiful supply of
stores and some valuable plate, which the nuns had been rich enough to
purchase recently. Similarly St Désir de Lisieux and St Léger de Préaux,
though debts are mentioned, were evidently living well within their
respective incomes of £500 and £700 (in rents). But the other houses
display a lamentable list of debts growing heavier and heavier. In spite
of St Amand's income of £1000 to £1200, its debts rose from £200 in 1248
to £900 in 1269. Almenèches, with an income of a little over £500, had
debts to the amount of £500 in 1260. Bondeville obviously had a quite
insufficient income (it was given as £93 in 1257); on three occasions its
debts reached the sum of £140 and on two other occasions they were £200
and £250. St Saëns, St Aubin, Bival and Villarceaux (it is significant
that these are the houses whose moral record was bad) were always in
difficulties. Bival went steadily from bad to worse; its debts rose from
£40 in 1251 to £60 in 1268 and in 1269 they had exactly doubled themselves
(£120) since the previous visitation. The debts of St Saëns rose from £60
in 1250 to £100 in 1269; and in 1260 they stood at £350. At Villarceaux
(the income of which was placed at £100 in 1249) the debts ranged between
£30 in 1251 and £100 in 1264 and 1265. At St Aubin the actual sums of
money owed by the nuns were small, ranging between £5 and £40 (except in
1257 when their debts were assessed at £1000, which is probably a
mistake), but the house was evidently in grave financial straits. When
even a wealthy house such as St Sauveur of Evreux could not keep out of
debt (the amount owed by it varied from £200 to £600), one cannot wonder
that smaller and poorer houses were deeply involved. Occasionally the
diary throws some light on special causes of impoverishment; thus the nuns
of St Amand were in debt to the large sum of £400 in 1254 and the reason
given was "on account of a conduit (_aqueductum_), which they had to make
again, because it was needed"[1820]; St Sauveur of Evreux was burdened
with the payment of about £40 in pensions[1821]; and in 1263 the nuns of
St Aubin complained that they owed some £20 "for a certain ferm (or
payment) by which they held themselves to be greatly burdened"[1822].
Other evidence besides that of debts is not wanting to show that some of
the houses were in great financial straits. The Archbishop constantly gave
poverty as a reason for limiting the number of nuns, e.g. at St Aubin,
Bival and Villarceaux[1823]. At Almenèches poverty was given as a reason
for the imperfect observance of the rule[1824]. At St Saëns (1262) and at
Villarceaux (1264) the roofs of the monastic buildings were in need of
repair[1825]; in the latter year the roofs of the buildings at St Aubin
were _male cooperte_ also and that of the nave of the church was so bad
that the nuns could hardly stay there in rainy weather[1826]. Bondeville
was so badly in need of repairs in 1257 that it was said that £80 would
not suffice for the work[1827]. Sometimes the devices by which the nuns
strove to gain a little ready money are noted down in Rigaud's diary. At
Villarceaux in 1254 a book of homilies and some silken copes were in
pledge to the Prior of Serqueu[1828]; at Bival in 1269 the old abbess had
pledged a chalice which the new abbess was ordered to redeem[1829]; and at
Bondeville in 1257 the nuns had pawned two chalices "for their
needs"[1830]. When they tried to borrow money outright matters were even
worse; at Villarceaux in 1266, Rigaud notes, "they owed £100, of which £20
was owed to the Jews and Caursini (_Catturcensibus_) of Mantes at
usury"[1831]. Sometimes they were reduced to selling part of their
property, as at St Saëns, where they sold a wood at Esquequeville[1832],
and at Bondeville, where they parted with land to the value of £300[1833].
But they were apparently bad women of business, for at the latter house in
1257 the Archbishop complained that they had pledged a certain tithe for
£75 for three years, whereas its real value was £40 per annum[1834]; and
in 1256 it transpired that the nuns of Bival had given up the manor of
Pierremains (without Rigaud's consent) to a certain Master William of the
Fishponds (_de Vivariis_) for £50, while it was really worth £140[1835].
Perhaps the difficulty found by so many of the houses in collecting the
debts due to them may be set down in part to the incompetence of the nuns.
At St Amand, for instance, in 1262, as much as £377 7_s._ seems to have
been owing to the nuns at a time when they themselves were £142 in debt,
and at the next two visitations complaint was made of debts (described in
1264 as "bad" debts, _debitis male solubilibus_) owing to them[1836].
Other nunneries were from time to time owed large sums of money,
religiously recorded by Rigaud in his diary. The case of St Saëns
illustrates this difficulty particularly well; in 1261 the nuns had sold
part of their wood at Esquequeville for £350 and had received £240 of the
total sum owing to them; the next year the £110 left owing had swelled
with interest to £160; in 1264 £40 was said to be owing on the same sale
and £55 on a sale of fallen trees and wood (_de caablo_); but in 1267 the
Archbishop noted, "A great sum of money is to come to them from the sale
of woods," and in 1269 the amount still owing on the sale had risen with
interest to £100, while £80 was owing to the nuns from another
source[1837].
Another instance of the incompetence of the nuns was their laxity in the
matter of keeping accounts, in which the Rouen nuns were in no way
exceptional. At Caen, in 1250 Rigaud wrote:
They do not know how much they have in rents and they say that more is
owed to them than they owe, neither do they know the state of the
monastery; but the Abbess accounts in her chamber before several nuns
annually elected for this purpose, and the account is announced in the
chapter before them all; and they said that this was quite sufficient
for them.
The Archbishop appears to have obtained a statement of their rents by some
means and he contented himself with confirming the arrangement that the
Abbess should account annually to certain nuns elected _ad hoc_[1838].
Certainly when the head of the house was competent there was no need for
the convent to know the details of administration; but sometimes even the
head was unable to inform Rigaud of those details. At Villarceaux in 1258
he wrote: "They did not know how much they owed and they were somewhat
ignorant of the state of the house"[1839]; and in the following year the
Prioress of St Saëns was found to be an incompetent administrator and was
ordered to draw up an account, which two neighbouring priors were deputed
to hear[1840]. At St Amand in 1262 the Abbess had not prepared a proper
account, so that the Archbishop was unable to get full information as to
the state of the house; he noted however that the nuns believed that more
was owing to them than they owed, and he ordered the Abbess to inspect her
papers and to certify him concerning the state of the house[1841]. On
several other occasions he ordered her to account more often (on one of
these it had transpired that she had not done so for three years) before
the elder nuns, and to call in the Prioress, Subprioress or one of these
_maiores_ to help her[1842]. At Villarceaux in 1253 the Prioress did not
account and in 1254 a coadjutress was appointed to assist her[1843].
Sometimes Rigaud ordered the income of a house to be written down in
rolls, or in books[1844]. Sometimes he provided for the more frequent
rendering of accounts; twice or thrice yearly was the usual injunction,
sometimes simply "more often," the minimum being once a year[1845];
occasionally a small account of current expenses was to be read
monthly[1846]. Sometimes he ordered the accounts to be read before certain
nuns elected _ad hoc_ (with the addition of the priest at Villarceaux in
1249), the elder nuns being often specified[1847]. At the same time,
although nothing was to be done without the knowledge and consent of the
convent, the nuns were not to interfere unduly in the management of
temporal affairs, for the prioress of Bondeville was sentenced to receive
one discipline before the assembled chapter, as a punishment for giving up
the common seal to them, without the Archbishop's knowledge, "because of
their clamour"[1848]. Nuns were notoriously bad financiers, but even where
a male _custos_ had charge of their business the arrangement was not
invariably satisfactory; and at Bondeville in 1261 Rigaud noted, "We
removed Melchior the priest, who had managed the business of the convent
for some time, for the reason that the convent had not full confidence in
him and that he was odious to them." The house was heavily in debt, so
that the mistrust of the nuns, if not their dislike, was clearly
justified, and the Archbishop evidently decided not to replace Melchior by
another man, for he ordered the Abbess to make one of the nuns treasuress
to look after the expenditure of the house, receiving the income and
administering it[1849].
Another matter about which Rigaud inquired and entered particulars in his
diary was the amount of provisions in the granaries and storehouses of the
nuns. Had they enough corn and oats to last till the next harvest? Had
they a good supply of wine and cider to drink? The number of cases in
which it is noted that the nuns had "_pauca estauramenta_," or not enough
to last till the new year, points to a mixture of poverty and of bad
management[1850]. The nuns of Bival in 1263 had few stores and no corn for
sowing[1851]; those of St Saëns in 1250 had no wine or cider to drink nor
corn to last till Whitsuntide[1852]; at St Aubin in 1259 the Archbishop
noted comprehensively that they had no stores[1853]. Oats seem to have run
short in a number of cases[1854], and sometimes wine[1855].
But occasionally Rigaud's diary contains even fuller information about the
temporal affairs of a nunnery. It was his regular practice at Villarceaux
(why at Villarceaux only it is impossible to say) to enumerate the live
stock possessed by that impecunious house, horses, mares, foals, bullocks,
cows, calves, sheep and pigs. And on two occasions the happy accident of a
Prioress' resignation (always an occasion for the presentation of an
account) has left us with complete inventories of the possessions and
expenses of two houses, St Saëns in 1257 and Bondeville in the same year.
The inventory of St Saëns runs as follows:
They owe £212. The king gave them Esquequeville with its
appurtenances, which is worth £230 and 4 carucates of land worth £40,
and thus they have in all rents to the value of £290 (_sic_). To the
house of nuns of St Saëns there belong 245 acres of land in all and 7
acres of meadow, of which 115 acres in all are sown with wheat
(_frumento_), corn (_blado_, probably rye), barley and other
vegetables (_leguminibus_). They have in money rents £170. 2_s._
8_d._; in corn rents 8 _modii_; in rents of oats 66 _minae_[1856]; in
rents of capons 220; item in egg rents 1100 eggs[1857]; item they have
in money rents, paid with the capons and the eggs, 27_s._ 6_d._ Item
they have a mill at Esquequeville and a wood of which they do not know
the size[1858] and the priest of the same place takes a tithe in the
said mill. Item they have rights of pannage and stubble and multure
(i.e. payment by their tenants for grinding at their mill) of which
they know not the value. Item they have a mill at St Saëns of small
value. Item they have 57 sheep, item 12 plough horses and one waggon
(_quadrigam_); item they have 18 beasts, as well cows as oxen. Item
they have only 2 _modii_ of corn for their food until harvest. They
have nothing to drink. There is owing to them £26. 5_s._ 2_d._ The
debts which they owe amount in all to £234. 3_s._ 3_d._[1859]
The inventory of Bondeville for the same year is equally interesting:
These are the goods and rents of the house of Bondeville: £93
_tournois_; of common corn 30 _modii_; in the grange of Heaus they
believe that they have 7 _modii_ of common corn; in the abbey grange
about one _modium_ of barley; in the other granges nothing. In the
abbey there are 2 waggons (_quadrige_), with 6 horses and one riding
horse, 6 cows and 14 calves. They have in the granges 264 sheep; item
in the grange of Heaus 27 cows; item 30 little pigs; item three
ploughs (_aratra_) in all, each for three beasts; item 4 little foals.
These are the debts of the house, concerning which account has been
rendered to the convent: £220 in money and 2 _modii_ of barley;
[wages] to the household for the harvesting. Item they had no oats
save for sowing time. They expend each month at least 68 _minae_ of
corn; item they have in the cellar 6 barrels of wine and 2 of cider;
item they do not think that the buildings can be repaired [at a less
cost than] for £80 _tournois_; item after Easter they will be obliged
to buy all the other foodstuffs for the house, save bread, peas and
vegetables[1860].
Mention is sometimes made in Rigaud's register of dependent cells attached
to some of the houses. St Paul by Rouen was thus attached to
Montivilliers, Bourg-de-Saane to St Amand and Ste Austreberte to St Saëns.
These cells were doubtless used partly as centres of administration for
the more distant estates of the convent, partly as places of recreation
or convalescence, where sick nuns could be sent for a change. For instance
there were six nuns of Montivilliers at St Paul by Rouen in 1263 and it
was noted that there ought to be four, but that two others were there
because of illness; the nuns had a lay boarder staying with them and two
servants; their income--as assessed for the tithe--was £140 and their
debts amounted to £40; they complained that the king's foresters oppressed
them by frequently dining at their expense and by unjustly molesting their
servants in the forest, although they had usage (i.e. rights of hunting,
gathering wood, etc.) there; the Archbishop had no fault to find with them
except that they did not sing the service _cum nota_, because there were
so few of them, and that they had only a single mass, the parochial mass,
daily[1861]. It is evident that a close connection was supposed to be kept
up between the mother house and the cell, for in 1260 the Abbess of
Montivilliers had been ordered to visit them diligently[1862]; and in 1258
Rigaud noted, "Alice prioress of Saint Paul by Rouen was presented to us
by the prioress of Montivilliers, she having been elected by the convent
of the said place"[1863]. At his first visitation of St Amand in 1248 the
Archbishop found that they had a single priory at Saane, where there are
four nuns[1864]. In 1261 he ordered the Abbess to visit these nuns at
Saane more often than had been her custom and at subsequent visitations he
noted the number of nuns (varying from four to five) in residence
there[1865]. Ste Austreberte, the daughter cell of St Saëns, was hardly
more than a grange with a chapel attached. In 1254 Rigaud found that one
nun was living there alone and ordered that another should be sent to join
her; in 1257 there was still a single inmate, but in 1258 and 1259 the
number had been raised to two[1866]. In 1260 the Archbishop decided to
recall the inmates to St Saëns:
Because truly the place of St Austrebert is very slenderly endowed
with rents, so that these two nuns cannot live there conveniently and
decently, we ordered the prioress to call them back and forbade her
henceforth to send any more thither, on account of the danger[1867].
But now complications arose. Evidently the dependent house had been used
for the purpose of getting rid of a quarrelsome nun, for in 1261 Rigaud
found that the Prioress had not obeyed his order to recall the two nuns,
"because, as she says, Marie d'Eu (_de Augo_) one of these two, was a
scold and she feared lest she should upset the whole convent if she
returned"[1868]. The order was repeated and was apparently obeyed as far
as the ill-tempered Marie was concerned (although there were still two
nuns at Ste Austreberte in 1264[1869]), for in 1265 the Archbishop found
the whole convent "living in discord and in disorder, especially the
prioress and Marie d'Eu"[1870]; he would perhaps have done better to leave
her where she was. An echo of her _régime_ at Ste Austreberte was heard
in 1265, when Marie d'Eu was ordered to return the chalice of the chapel
of Ste Austreberte as quickly as possible and to restore to the Prioress
any charter or letters concerning the manor of Ste Austreberte, which she
had received from the convent. At the same time the Prioress was ordered
to provide the chapel there with a suitable server (_servitore_)[1871].
Mention of visits to the granges or farms of the convents sometimes
occurs. At Bondeville in 1251 it was found that "the sisters drank in the
granges"[1872] and in 1255 that a lay sister and a lay brother were living
alone in a grange (perhaps in the grange of Heaus, mentioned in the
inventory), whereupon the Archbishop ordered the sister to be withdrawn or
else given a companion[1873]. In 1268 the Abbess of Bival was ordered to
remove "a certain child," whom she was having brought up in the grange of
Pierremans (which had been so improvidently let to William of the
Fishponds twelve years before) and a penance was imposed upon her in 1269
because she had not obeyed the injunction[1874].
So far only the temporal affairs of these Rouen nunneries have been
considered; there remains the more important question of their social,
moral and spiritual condition. A clearer idea will be formed of the
results of Eudes Rigaud's investigations, if the chief sources of
complaint be classified under the following heads:
(1) Complaints of incompetence and irregular behaviour against the
head of a house,
(2) General laxity in keeping the rule,
(3) The sin of property and the failure to live a communal life,
(4) Various attempts to make money by illicit means,
(5) Leave of absence and intercourse with seculars, both within and
without the cloister precincts,
(6) Frivolous clothes and amusements, and
(7) Serious moral faults, such as drunkenness, quarrelsomeness and
incontinence.
(1) Complaints of incompetence, laxity, self-indulgence or favouritism
against the head of a house are common in visitation records. The charge
of failure to render accounts has already been dealt with, but hardly less
usual was the charge of failure to live a communal life. The abbess or
prioress of a house had separate apartments and it was always a temptation
to dine or to sleep alone, instead of keeping the frater and the dorter.
Again the charges of favouritism on the one hand and of undue harshness on
the other were very common. Rigaud's register provides examples of all
these faults. At two visitations (1254 and 1257) the Archbishop remarked
that the Abbess of St Léger de Préaux did not live a communal life in
dorter and frater nor attend the chapter[1875]; the same charge was made
against the Prioress of Villarceaux in 1253 and it was mentioned that she
did not often get up to matins nor daily hear mass[1876]; and the Abbess
of St Amand did not keep the frater, but ate in her own room and always
had the same companions there, instead of calling the others for
recreation[1877]. Not all prioresses were, like Chaucer's, "ful plesaunt
and amiable of port." The Abbess of Montivilliers seems to have been a
forbidding lady; in 1260 the Archbishop ordered her to minister pilches,
cloth and other necessary things more carefully than had been her custom
to the nuns, not forgetting their ginger "hot i' the mouth"[1878], and
also to bear herself more courteously and affably towards their friends
particularly in the matter of their admission (on visits); at the same
time she was warned to be present in chapel more often and to live the
communal life better[1879]. This warning apparently bore no fruit and in
1262 the Archbishop noted, "because she was slow to administer new
pilches, headdresses and cloth and other things to the nuns for their
needs, we ordered her to labour to minister better and more fitly to them
in this matter and to be careful about it"; it was also remarked that she
frequented the convent but little and was seldom present at chapter and
frater; and she was ordered to render a general account once a year and to
hear and receive the particular accounts of the obedientiaries. The next
year her failure to frequent chapter, dorter and choir was again noted and
some of the nuns still complained of her harshness, whereupon the
Archbishop (apparently despairing of inducing her to look after them
properly herself), ordered her to depute two or three nuns, "with whom the
others could talk more familiarly and more boldly, to minister to their
sisters small things for their needs, ginger and other things of the
kind"; the quality of the wine was also to be improved. The difficulties,
however, continued. In 1265 the Abbess was ordered to provide the nuns
more carefully with pilches and in the following year she was again
ordered
"prudently to cause the pilches and robes of the nuns to be repaired,
so that she may provide them with such things more fitly than she is
used and have more workpeople than she has been accustomed to do. For
in this," adds the Archbishop, "we found a deficiency"[1879].
Rigaud had a great deal of difficulty with the Prioress of Bondeville. In
1251 there were many complaints against her; she exercised favouritism in
the distribution of clothes and in the provision of food in the infirmary
and she did not look after the sick; when in the infirmary she ate at a
table by herself and she did not live a communal life; she wandered about
a great deal outside the convent, even without the excuse of convent
business, and when she went to Rouen she stayed there for three or four
days; moreover she was quarrelsome and stirred up discord in the house
"so that she could not have peace with the convent nor with anyone." The
next year she resigned, probably as a result of these complaints and of
the financial condition of the house, but in 1255 the register has an
entry: "We found the Prioress quarrelsome and sharp of tongue, not knowing
how to make corrections and also speaking ill of her sisters; we warned
her to desist from these things"; so that her resignation had evidently
not been accepted. In 1257 she made another attempt at resignation, and
the occasion is interesting because it provides us not only with an
inventory of Bondeville, but also with the sole complete list of inmates
preserved among the Rouen nunneries[1880]. The Archbishop decided to take
an inquisition in the convent as to whether the Prioress should or should
not be removed; and the votes of the twenty-six nuns and three brothers of
the house were taken upon oath. Of these nineteen were in favour of her
removal and nine of her retention, while Brother Roger permitted himself
to express the ambiguous opinion that "it would be evil for temporal
affairs and good for spiritual affairs to remove the prioress" (_quod
dampnum esset temporale et utilitas spiritualis removere
priorissam_!)[1881]. It is not clear from the Register whether she was
removed; Rigaud notes: "Item we received the resignation of Marie, late
the prioress," but in 1261 there occurs a further entry: "Item the
Prioress offered us her seal, begging us to absolve her from her office,
but we, being unwilling to condescend to her in this matter, ordered her
to exercise her office with greater zeal." In particular she was ordered
"to frequent the convent at least by day (viz. chapter, frater and choir)
better than she was wont and not to stand about talking in the cemetery or
outside the house after Compline, as she had been in the habit of
doing"[1882]. At Bival an abbess resigned in 1248, doubtless owing to the
unsatisfactory moral conditions revealed at the visitation[1883]; there
were no complaints against her successor until 1268 (though two cases of
immorality occurred in the convent before that date); then, among minor
injunctions concerning matters of administration, she was ordered to bear
herself more kindly and courteously towards the nuns[1884].
(2) Besides injunctions dealing specially with the behaviour of the head
of a house, the Archbishop was obliged to deal with breaches of the rule
by the convent generally. Many of his regulations were concerned with the
strictly religious duties of the nuns. Sometimes the church services were
not being properly performed, as at St Amand, St Aubin, Villarceaux, St
Saëns and Montivilliers. The most common defect was failure to sing these
services with music (_cum nota_ or _ad notam_)[1885]; at St Saëns (a
constant offender--Rigaud notes the fault at eight visitations) the nuns
did not do so even on Sundays[1886]. Occasionally a specific excuse was
given; the nuns of Villarceaux omitted the music on the days upon which
they received the periodical bleeding considered necessary to the health
of those who embraced the monastic life[1887]; at St Aubin in 1264 they
complained that many of them were often ill[1888] and at St Saëns also (in
1257) they dwelt upon their infirmities[1889]. At St Paul's by Rouen they
were too few in number to perform the service properly[1890]. The
Archbishop contented himself at St Aubin (1251) with the injunction that
they should sing at least in monotone--_saltem cum bassa nota_[1891].
Moreover even when the nuns did sing the services they occasionally did so
carelessly. At St Amand the Archbishop made a significant injunction:
They sometimes sing the hours of the Blessed Virgin and the psalms of
suffrage with too great haste and precipitation of words. We ordered
them to sing in such a way that the side [of the choir] singing the
first half of the verse should hear the end of the preceding verse and
the side singing the second half should hear the beginning of the next
verse[1892].
Evidently both sides of the choir came in too soon in their anxiety to
hurry through the service--a clear case for Tuttivillus. At Montivilliers
the fault lay in beginning too late and Rigaud ordered that better
provision should be made for ringing a bell at the due hours, so that the
service might be said without haste and finished while it was light (_de
luce_)[1893]. At Villarceaux he ordered that all the nuns should at once
assemble in the church when the bell rang, unless they were ill or had
special leave of absence[1894]. Even at the great abbey of Caen the
service was being said "_confuse et male_, one part in the choir and one
outside"[1895]. At St Amand (1263), which evidently contained young and
obstreperous--or perhaps only ignorant--members, it was ordered that the
nuns should be equally divided in the choir, so that all the young ones
might not be together[1896]. At St Saëns (1254) a nun served the mass with
the priest; and at Bondeville (1263) the nuns had not the necessary
priests and did not hear enough sermons[1897]. St Aubin apparently shared
the parish priest; there were only fifteen parishioners (most of them
doubtless dependents of the nunnery) and the priest dwelt with the nuns
and was maintained at their expense; in 1257 the Archbishop ordered them
to find a clerk to assist him[1898]. The nuns of St Paul's heard only one
mass--that of the parish--daily[1899]. Sometimes deficiencies in the
services may have been due to lack of books. At St Sauveur d'Evreux, in
1258, it was found that the nuns did not possess adequate books and they
were ordered to procure some[1900]; at Villarceaux in 1257 they lacked two
antiphonaries and in 1261 it was again noted that their books were
insufficient and worn out[1901]. At Montivilliers the Archbishop in 1260
ordered the chantress to have an ordinal of the hours made at the Abbess'
cost; this had not yet been done in 1262 and from Rigaud's injunction on
this occasion it appears that the nuns were expected to write the book
themselves, for the ordinal was "to be made by the chantress and by the
more discreet nuns, i.e. by the older ones who knew and understood better
the service of the order." At the same house reference was made three
years later to a certain glossed psalter which had been bequeathed to it
by a benefactor, and had been alienated without the knowledge of the
convent; the Abbess was told to have it restored without delay and replied
"that she could do so easily enough, because Master William de Beaumont
had it"[1902].
Another common fault was negligence in the matter of confession and
communion. Sometimes a house had a fixed rule as to the number of times
the nuns had to confess and communicate. At Bival, for example, the nuns
seem to have attended communion seven times a year, though they confessed
more often[1903]. At Villarceaux they confessed and communicated six times
a year[1904]. At St Aubin the Archbishop noted that they were bound to
confess and to communicate seven times a year, but that they had sometimes
been negligent in the matter; they gave an inadequate excuse, and Rigaud
ordered them on no account to be absent from communion and warned the
Prioress to consider any such absence without due cause as a serious
fault[1905]. At St Léger de Préaux in 1249 he found that the nuns
confessed and communicated only four times a year and ordered them to do
so monthly[1906]. At Montivilliers[1907] and at Bondeville[1908] they were
supposed to confess and to communicate monthly, but at the latter house he
found them negligent in 1261, and ordered that the nun who did not
communicate with the others or within the next two or three days was to be
punished by abstention from wine and pottage for three days[1909]. The
Archbishop's usual custom was to order monthly confession and
communion[1910]. Sometimes there seems to have been some difficulty about
getting a confessor; at Almenèches (where, in 1250, the nuns had no rule
or term for confession or communion[1911]) it was found in 1260 that they
were in the habit of confessing to passing friars when they wished to do
so, and Rigaud ordered the Bishop to provide them with regular confessors,
friars minor or others[1912]. At St Saëns in 1261 they had not had a
confessor for a long time and were ordered to procure the Prior of
Crissy[1913], but in 1265 the Archbishop still found that they did not go
to confession as well as they should[1914]. At Ariete the nuns did not all
confess to their own priest[1915].
Other minor faults were late rising[1916], breach of silence[1917] and
laxity in causing novices to make their profession[1918]. At Villarceaux
in 1249 only four out of the twenty-three nuns had been properly
professed[1919]. The Archbishop ordered the vows to be taken when the
novices reached the age of fourteen years[1920]; this was not to be done
before[1921] and if any refused to do so at the appointed age they were to
be sent back to the world[1922]; he also ordered in several cases that
only the three vows of poverty, chastity and obedience should be
taken[1923].
Another set of injunctions is concerned with the conduct of the frater,
the infirmary and the chapter house. The Archbishop dealt with the
observances of the frater from the point of view of the communal life,
from that of the food eaten by the nuns and from that of almsgiving. The
growing practice among the nuns of dining separately in their rooms or in
little cliques, instead of keeping the frater, was a menace to a strictly
communal life, and as such will be considered later, with other practices
which tended in the same direction. Here it may be noted that already in
the thirteenth century the regulations of the monastic rule as to diet
were being contravened. Many convents were convicted of eating meat
unnecessarily, _etiam sane_, "even when in good health"[1924], and it was
becoming the custom--in Rigaud's diocese as elsewhere--to use the
infirmary as a _misericord_, in which meat was eaten on certain days of
the week, generally thrice a week[1925]. Sometimes even fast days were not
regularly kept[1926]. Another breach of the rule frequently encountered by
the Archbishop was inadequate almsgiving. The nuns were supposed to give
alms regularly to the poor and in particular to give them the food which
remained over from the convent meals; but in view of the poverty of some
of the houses it is not surprising that the rule was sometimes unobserved.
Very often the nuns, instead of collecting the fragments left over in
frater and infirmary, each kept what remained of her own share and sold it
or gave it away to people outside the convent. St Amand was a constant
offender; in 1248 the Archbishop had occasion to forbid the unequal
distribution of wine to the nuns "to one more and to another less," and he
added that if any of them gave away any part of her measure of wine to
anyone outside the house without licence she was to be punished by being
deprived of wine the next day[1927]; in 1251 he enjoined that no nun was
to put forth any of her food save in the way of alms[1928]; but some
thirteen years later St Amand (doubtless on account of its poverty) was
still remiss in the matter of almsgiving and Rigaud warned the nuns
separately that it must not be diminished and that everything left over
from meals must be given to the poor[1929]. At St Saëns it was discovered
that the nuns had separate portions of bread allotted to them and that the
fragments were never given in alms, because each either sold or gave away
these fragments as she pleased[1930]. At Montivilliers almsgiving was
diminished because the nuns gave away the remnants of the portions of
bread, wine and other food to "serving maids and other
acquaintances"[1931]; and at Villarceaux and Bival also it was necessary
to warn the nuns not to give away or sell any of their clothes or
food[1932]. The practice was the more reprehensible in the Archbishop's
eyes in that it savoured of the private ownership of property. Rigaud made
general orders for the increase of almsgiving and for the more careful
collection of food after meals in the frater and in the infirmary[1933].
Sometimes the custom of a house prescribed special obligations; the Abbess
of Montivilliers was required to give alms thrice a week and to entertain
thirteen poor men daily[1934]. Sometimes the revenues of a special manor
or rent were earmarked for the expenses of almsgiving; the recalcitrant St
Amand was found to have abstracted the rents of a certain manor from the
almoness and was ordered to restore them to their proper purpose[1935].
Other departments of the convent of which mention is made in Rigaud's
Register are the infirmary and the chapter house. At Montivilliers the
Archbishop, in 1262, ordered the infirmary to be repaired and the convent
to be provided with physic[1936]; and at Bondeville, St Sauveur and St
Amand he was obliged to order that sick nuns should be better looked
after[1937]. There are some interesting notes about the meetings of the
chapter in various houses. At several (Bondeville, St Saëns and
Villarceaux) the Archbishop found that the chapter was seldom held[1938].
At others the duty incumbent upon the nuns to accuse or proclaim
(_clamare_) each other's faults was imperfectly performed. There was a
most natural reluctance on the part of the elder nuns to allow the
indiscriminate criticism of their juniors and a tendency to keep the
latter in their place by allowing them only to be accused and never to
retaliate. At Caen (1250) the Archbishop found that none made the
statutory accusations save certain nuns who were deputed to reveal the
faults of the younger ones[1939] and at St Amand also only the elder nuns
made accusations, and he ordered that all without exception should reveal
what they saw amiss[1940]. At Montivilliers the same complaint that the
nuns refrained from accusing each other was made[1941]. From one point of
view this imperfect performance of their duty in chapter meant that the
nuns were winking at each other's peccadilloes, and it was for the sake of
discipline that the Archbishop insisted upon a more strict obedience to
the rule. From another point of view the obligation certainly gave rise to
much ill-feeling; the author of the _Ancren Riwle_ placed "Exposing
faults" and "Backbiting" among the brood of seven, offspring of "the
venomous serpent of hell, Envy"; for human nature would need to be very
perfect if the accusations were always to be made in the spirit of
sisterly admonition, "sweetly and affectionately," which the same treatise
describes so eloquently a few pages later[1942]. It is significant that
the Abbess of Montivilliers had to be warned in no way to molest one of
her nuns, nor to conceive rancour against her on account of anything that
she said in chapter[1943].
Finally the Archbishop sometimes found fault with the management of the
secular servants and of the lay brothers and sisters attached to different
houses. It was his custom to note the number of maidservants (_ancille_,
_pedissece_) employed and to reprove the nuns if he thought that they were
employing too many, or falling into the sin of property by keeping certain
maids in the service of individual nuns, as they did at Almenèches in
1255[1944], at St Léger de Préaux in 1267[1945] and at St Sauveur in 1269;
at the last house he noted:
The convent had three common maids and several special maids were kept
at the cost of the house; so we ordered that there were henceforth to
be no special maids, but that if necessary the number of common maids
might be increased[1946].
At St Amand he twice ordered the removal of all superfluous servants,
adding in 1267 that all were to be paid at a fixed rate out of the common
funds[1947]. At St Aubin in 1265 he found two servants, one of whom was
incontinent and of ill repute (little wonder, considering the evil morals
of the nuns) and he ordered her instant expulsion[1948]. Of the lay
sisters attached to some of the houses there is less mention; in 1259
Rigaud noted that two of those at Bondeville were of weak intellect
(_fatue_)[1949]. There was sometimes trouble with the lay brothers; at
Bondeville (1251) he made a list of corrections for them[1950] and in 1259
a certain brother Roger (doubtless the same whose dark saying about the
Prioress has already been recorded) was announced to be disobedient and
rebellious, and the injunction that he should obey the Prioress had to be
repeated in 1268, nearly ten years later[1951]. There was occasionally
also need for correction in the behaviour of the convent priest, for it is
clear that an unsuitable chaplain might give great cause for scandal. The
not very reputable houses of St Saëns and Bival both suffered in this way;
in 1254 the Archbishop found that the priest of the former house was
incontinent and ordered the nuns to find another[1952]; and in 1256, at
Bival, he noted: "We removed the priest from this place on account of the
scandal of the nuns and of the populace, though we found nothing which we
could prove against him"[1953]. At St Aubin in 1261 the nuns were ordered
not to drink with seculars in the priest's house[1954].
(3) The most frequent fault which Eudes Rigaud found in the nunneries
under his care was the persistent hankering of the nuns after private
property and their failure to live a communal life according to the rule.
The possession of private property was a very common charge. The nuns had
chests in which to keep such possessions as they were allowed and there
was a perpetual struggle over the question as to whether or not they were
to be allowed keys, with which to lock the boxes. The nuns of
Montivilliers begged for keys in 1257 and the stern Rigaud refused[1955];
of this refusal they took not the smallest notice, and in 1262 the
Register contains the injunction that keys were to be given up and that
those who were unwilling to obey were to be severely punished; "for,"
added the Archbishop,
We understood that when the abbess asked them for their keys certain
of them would not give the keys up for two or three days, until they
should have gone through their things and taken away those which they
did not want the Abbess to see, and so we ordered these nuns to be
punished for disobedience and for the ownership of property[1956].
The injunction that the boxes should be inspected frequently was repeated
at three subsequent visitations[1957]. It was the Archbishop's usual
custom to order the Abbess or Prioress to look into the nuns' boxes often
and unexpectedly in order to remove private property, and the injunction
was repeated from year to year, which looks as though it were greatly
honoured in the breach[1958]. Besides the injunction against closed boxes
there was an oft-repeated injunction to the effect that, in accordance
with the rule[1959], no nun was to have more than one set of garments;
directly new clothes were given out the old ones were to be handed back
(and given to the poor), so that no nun might rejoice in the semblance of
a wardrobe[1960]. At St Amand in 1264 the Archbishop made the following
note of his action:
Item we ordered them that when they received new pilches, shifts and
any sort of new garments or foot-wear (_calciamentorum_), they were to
give the old in alms, whereat they murmured somewhat to our
displeasure, and we forbade the abbess to give them any new clothes
until they had rendered up the old[1961].
It appears from an injunction given at St Sauveur in 1258[1962] that the
nuns sometimes sold or gave away their old clothes as they did with the
remains of their portions of food and drink; in both cases the sin of
property was encouraged and almsgiving diminished. Rigaud made the most
comprehensive injunction on these points at Villarceaux in 1249:
We warn you, all and sundry, that ye observe the communism which ought
to be observed in religion in the matter of clothes, food and other
like things, neither sell nor give away at your own will any of those
things which belong to the common food or dress; and if ye shall have
received anything from your friends, ye shall apply it to the use of
the community and not each to your own use[1963].
In one case at least, that of Bival, the practice (which afterwards became
common) of giving each of the nuns a separate allowance with which to buy
her own clothes or food was already in force; the Abbess of Bival gave to
each an annual sum of 12_s._ out of which to buy her clothes[1964]. At
Montivilliers Rigaud ordered the nuns to be clothed in common[1965] and at
St Aubin he made a special injunction that they were to use their
scapularies in common[1966].
But the sin of property crept into convents in every direction and was
most difficult of all to eradicate. At Almenèches in 1250 Rigaud noted:
"All are _proprietarie_, owning saucepans, copper kettles and necklaces of
their own"[1967]. At St Aubin in 1265 there is the entry:
Because divers of the nuns have divers cocks and hens and often
quarrel over them, we ordered that all cocks and hens were to be
nourished alike and to be kept in common and the eggs ministered
equally among the nuns and fowls sometimes given to the sick to eat in
the infirmary[1968].
But in vain; each nun clung to her own hen; still there continued the
rivalry when eggs were counted, the jealousy over the possession of a good
layer, the turmoil when some fickle fowl laid in the wrong nest. After all
it was a _Nonnes Prest_ who described that immortal farmyard lorded over
by Chantecler and his seven wives. Could the happy owner of "damoysele
Pertelote," bearing herself so fair and companionable, be expected to give
her up into cold communal ownership? Two years later the Archbishop
remarked in his diary that nothing had been done about the poultry[1969].
Some nuns even had rents of their own, which they kept for their private
use instead of adding the money to the common income of the priory. This
was the case at Bondeville[1970] and at St Désir de Lisieux[1971]. At the
latter Rigaud began by ordering these rents to be held in common, but in
later years contented himself with an injunction that they should be
retained only at the discretion of the Abbess. At St Saëns in 1250 it was
noted: "They receive gifts and retain and expend them without
licence"[1972]. Usually the injunction was that the nuns were to receive
nothing from their friends without licence from the head of the
house[1973]; the poverty of some convents made it impossible altogether to
prohibit such gifts.
Closely connected with this sin of property was the failure to live a
communal life. Already at this early date the practice of eating in
separate chambers and of receiving separate allowances of food was
becoming common. The most comprehensive indictment was made at Almenèches.
In 1250 (the same year that Rigaud found them to be _proprietarie_, owning
pots and pans) he noted:
They run up debts in the town and eat together and sit at table in
cliques (_per societates_). To each money is given to provide herself
with food. Many stay away from compline and from matins and they drink
after compline[1974].
On this occasion the moral record of the convent was found to be
peculiarly bad. In 1255 there was no further complaint of immorality but
the nuns were as lax as ever in keeping the rule as to communal life:
They have chambers with partitions in the dorter. They have separate
maids of their own, who do not serve the community[1975]. They do not
eat out of the same dish but have divers dishes. Each had one loaf to
herself and kept what was over; we ordered the abbess to give them
bread without livery (i.e. in common) and to take back what was over.
They do not live on the same pittance; in short they do not live in
common[1976].
In 1260 it was the same story:
The frater was often left empty, to wit because they did not eat
together therein, but they ate meat scattered in cliques by twos and
by threes in their chambers (_due et due, tres et tres, sparsim et
socialiter in cameris_). They had many chambers and five maid servants
to boot.... Each of them had one loaf daily and retained what remained
over. We ordered that the remnant should be given in alms and
counselled them to eat and to live in common and to remove the
chambers[1977].
At Montivilliers the order to dine together was repeated at almost every
visitation; the nuns had separate dishes cooked for themselves in the
kitchen and when they were in the infirmary "for recreation or for slight
ailments" they used to eat separately in little companies (_per
conventicula_)[1978]. At St Saëns[1979] and at St Léger de Préaux[1980]
also the nuns had separate food allowances and ate in the infirmary; at
Bival some of them had food prepared separately[1981], and at Villarceaux
in 1266 the Archbishop made the following injunction:
We ordered her (the Abbess) to permit them to dine together twice a
day according to their rule and to have a bell rung twice, to wit for
dinner and for supper, so that they might come together at the sound
into the frater, in a more seemly way than they have been wont. For
they often ate separately in their chambers[1982].
At St Sauveur also Rigaud ordered all to dine together in the frater, and
in the infirmary all nuns, except those actually in bed, were to use the
same food at the same table[1983]. At Bondeville the nuns seem to have
been in the habit of congregating, with the servants of the house, in a
certain oven room, doubtless for the sake of the warmth; and the
Archbishop several times forbade the practice on account of possible
scandal[1984]. Private drinking parties sometimes occurred; at St Sauveur
the nuns occasionally drank outside the frater or infirmary in their own
chambers[1985] and at Almenèches they drank after Compline[1986].
(4) It has already been said that the nunneries were often reduced to
great straits by poverty. As a result they invented a number of devices
for obtaining ready money. Some of these devices seem to modern eyes
harmless enough; but they were opposed by medieval Visitors because they
brought the nunneries into too close contact with the world and were
subversive of discipline. One of their devices has already been described.
At St Saëns, Villarceaux, Bival and St Sauveur it is evident that the nuns
were in the habit not merely of giving away but actually of selling the
food and drink left over from meals and their old clothes to people
outside the convent. At Bondeville Rigaud had, in 1251, to forbid them to
sell their thread and their spindles[1987]. At many houses they were
accustomed to knit or embroider silken purses, tassels, cushions or needle
cases, either for sale or as gifts to their friends, and the Archbishop
forbade them to do any silkwork except for church ornament[1988]. He was
not remarkably successful, since he had to repeat the injunction eight
times at St Amand, between 1254 and 1267. It is interesting to compare his
attitude with the similar prohibition made to the anchoresses of the
_Ancren Riwle_ early in the same century: "Make no purses to gain friends
therewith, nor blodbendes of silk; but shape and sew and mend church
vestments and poor people's clothes"[1989].
Another means of getting money was by taking schoolchildren as boarders
and the general attitude of the Church towards this custom is strikingly
illustrated in Eudes Rigaud's Register. The provincial council of Rouen in
1231, attempting to deal with the bad discipline in Benedictine nunneries,
had promulgated a statute forbidding the reception of children to be
educated, and the context shows that the practice was regarded solely in
the light of an interference with convent discipline, by bringing the nuns
into contact with the world:
On account of the scandals which rise out of the conversation of nuns,
we ordain for black nuns that they shall receive nothing to be
deposited with them in their houses by any persons; above all let
them by no means permit the strong-boxes of clergy, or of the laity
too, to be placed in their custody[1990]. Boys and girls who are
accustomed to be brought up and taught there are immediately to be put
away[1991].
In accordance with this statute and with the invariable custom of
ecclesiastical authorities it was Eudes Rigaud's practice to order the
expulsion of children wherever he found them, and the number of these
prohibitions increased during the last years covered by his diary, which
points to a firm determination to eradicate the fault, though it would
also seem to imply a certain flouting of his authority by the nuns. In
four cases (St Saëns, St Aubin, Bival and Villarceaux) the moral record of
the houses concerned was so disgraceful that the Archbishop might well be
thought to have been actuated by concern for the children growing up under
such evil influences[1992]; but the fact that he took the same course at
Bondeville, St Sauveur, St Amand and St Léger de Préaux, against which
none but minor breaches of the rule were charged, shows that his policy
was dictated by care for the nuns and not for their pupils. Bondeville was
an obstinate offender. There in 1255 the Archbishop ordered the Prioress
and Subprioress to remove their little nieces[1993] and a certain other
girl[1994]; in 1257 he noted the presence of five ladies (_domicelle_) who
had not been received as novices[1995]; and in 1261 he noted again that
"Many secular girls were used to be placed there with their costs"[1996].
In the two last cases the Register--probably, as Mr Coulton suggests, by a
clerical oversight--contains no injunction to remove the children; and in
1266 only one boarder, "a lady of Rouen, Laurentia called _quatuor
Homines_" was ordered to be sent away, though the Archbishop explicitly
stated that "Certain girls (_iuvencule_), daughters of burgesses of Rouen,
were there as it were in charge [of the nuns], which displeased
us"[1997]. There was, however, no ambiguity about his action in 1268 when
he ordered a certain
Basiria, daughter of Amelina of Aulnay, who was there as a boarder, to
be sent away and forbade the Prioress henceforth to keep any girl or
girls there, except such as had been received as novices[1998].
But it was a difficult task to force the needy nuns, reduced already to
pawning the very vessels of the altar, to give up this more certain and
less sacrilegious method of adding to their income.
It is indeed a significant fact, as Mr Coulton has pointed out, that "the
prohibitions are in inverse proportion to the temporal prosperity of the
convent"[1999]. The wealthy Abbaye-aux-Dames at Caen had no need to take
in school children. But Villarceaux, £50 in debt in 1249 and going
steadily downhill, vainly struggling in the toils of Jews and Caursini,
was the most frequent offender of all and resisted the most stubbornly
Rigaud's attempts at reform. In 1257 he ordered the nuns to remove all the
boys and girls who were in the house, except one girl who was going to be
veiled[2000]. The next year they were threatened with severe punishment if
they postponed any longer the ejection of the children "whom they are
bringing up in their house against our inhibition"[2001]. Follows silence
for the next three visitations; then, eight years later, "There were
several girls there, as it were in the charge of certain nuns, which
displeased us exceedingly and shortly afterwards we ordered the Prioress
by our letters to remove all secular girls" within a certain date[2002];
and in 1268
We ordered, as we had done before, that the nuns should utterly put
away all secular ladies or girls (_domicellas seu puellulas_), if any
were there, and that they should suffer neither one nor more of such
girls to remain there, except such as were to be made nuns[2003].
What of St Saëns, with bad morals, growing debts and a deficiency of
cider? In 1260, "We ordered secular girls to be removed," with one
favoured exception[2004]; in 1261, "They were keeping in the priory two
ladies, to wit the daughter of the châtelain of Belencombre and the elder
daughter of the lord of Mesnières (de Maneriis) whom we ordered to be sent
away"[2005]. It is the same with St Aubin, with its bad morals and its
tumble-down buildings[2006]; with Bival, immoral also, overcome with debts
even to its own servants for their wages, and always short of stores; in
1252 the nuns had ten children there to be brought up (_pueros decem
nutriendos_) and Rigaud ordered their removal[2007]. It is the same, too,
with St Amand, where the debts increased from year to year and the nuns
could not even get in the money due to them; in 1263 a certain daughter of
Lady Aeliz de Synoz was found there and removed[2008]. At St Léger de
Preaux (1249) secular girls were all to be sent away[2009]; and at St
Sauveur d'Evreux all unveiled children (_infantes non velatas_) were
immediately to be removed[2010], while some years later Rigaud made a
general injunction there against receiving relatives of the nuns as
boarders[2011]. A mysterious child was being brought up in a grange
belonging to the Abbey of Bival at Pierremans, but why or whose we know
not; was it a needy relative of the Abbess, or an indiscretion of sister
Isabel or sister Florence, or merely an ordinary paying boarder? History
is silent, but the Archbishop was sufficiently annoyed when his order to
remove it in 1268 was still disregarded in the following year[2012].
The constant attempts of the nuns to add to their numbers were actuated by
the same desire to obtain ready money, in the shape of a dowry; the
Archbishop was more far-seeing and recognised that the immediate good
would be out-balanced by the strain on their scanty revenues in the
future; nor was he unmindful of the fact that the demand for a dowry was
contrary to the rule. The heavy debts and the insufficiency of stores,
which he found at convent after convent, certainly seem to indicate that
their only hope lay in a rigid limitation of membership. Moreover
overcrowding was certainly subversive of discipline and it looks as though
Rigaud had, in some cases (e.g. at Villarceaux in 1249)[2013], been
unwilling to permit new recruits to enter a house whose moral record was
bad. This may explain in part his long struggle with St Saëns and with St
Aubin, though here, as at Villarceaux, poverty was always the chief reason
noted in his diary. At St Aubin the financial _arrière pensée_ is very
clear. In 1251 Rigaud noted that nuns were received simoniacally; on this
and on the four subsequent visitations the Prioress was forbidden to
receive any girl as a nun without special licence, and girls received in
contravention of this rule were not to be considered veiled or recognised
as nuns[2014] (this was the usual form in which his prohibition was
couched). Then in 1259 came another case of simony; in spite of the
Archbishop's former inhibition the nuns had received and veiled a certain
lady, the daughter of Sir Robert Mauvoisin (_Mali Vicini_), knight. Asked
why they had done this they said that urgent necessity and poverty had
forced them to it and that the father of the girl had given them an annual
rent of 10_s._ with her; but they admitted that they had acted against the
wish of the Prioress and without her consent. The Archbishop "seeing them
to have acted with cupidity and with the vice of simony" soon afterwards
ordered the girl to be removed, unveiled and sent back to her father's
house and enjoined a penance upon the nuns[2015]; the prohibition to
receive nuns without licence was repeated at subsequent visitations[2016].
There were similarly protracted struggles between the Archbishop and the
nuns at St Saëns and at St Amand. At St Saëns, when he came to visit it
in 1258, he found two little girls in residence and in spite of the
prayers of the Prioress and some of the nuns that he would allow the
children (_puellule_) to be received and veiled, he ordered them to be
removed within a week[2017]. The next year, however, he found that the
obstinate nuns had promised four girls, nieces of certain of the nuns,
that they should be received if his consent could be obtained, whereupon
the Archbishop in great irritation tore up the letters before the
assembled chapter and once more repeated his prohibition[2018]. In 1260 he
made an exception in favour of one girl[2019], and in 1261, when the nuns
asked permission to veil five new inmates "in order that the divine
service might be increased" (_ampliandum_), he ordered them to send the
candidates or their relatives to him and promised to give the necessary
licence if it seemed expedient[2020]. In 1262 and 1264[2021] the usual
prohibition was repeated.
The nuns of St Amand persisted with equal obstinacy in admitting novices
without licence. In 1254 and again in 1257 the Archbishop noted the
presence of four girls who had been promised admission as soon as there
was a vacancy[2022]. In 1263 he ordered one of them to be removed[2023].
In the next year he found that four ladies (_domicelle_) in secular habit
had been received, one of them in spite of his inhibition; the Abbess was
punished for disobedience and the girl was sent home[2024]. In 1267 seven
girls were waiting to be veiled, but he seems to have made no
objection[2025]. At Villarceaux in 1257 the niece of a neighbouring prior
was found in the house, in secular dress; "and she in the chapter," says
Rigaud, "throwing herself upon her knees, besought us to permit her to be
received by them, because the Prioress and convent had promised to veil
her"[2026]. Whether he acceded to her request is not known, but in the
following year there was serious trouble, because the Prioress had raised
the number of nuns above the statutory number of twenty, by receiving two
girls against the bishop's order and the convent's will, one to be a nun
and the other to be a lay sister. The Archbishop ordered their instant
expulsion and specifically mentioned that his former prohibition had been
dictated by a desire to do what was best for the convent, "since its
resources hardly suffice for a small number of persons"[2027]. At
Bondeville also a girl had been received without licence in 1266 and the
Archbishop forbade her to be veiled[2028]. Sometimes it is clear that he
had to protect the nuns, less against their own improvidence than against
the enforced reception of nuns "dumped" upon them by powerful people
outside their own ranks. The nuns of Villarceaux were forbidden to receive
any lay sister or novice "even if the abbess of St Cyr send her"[2029]. At
Bival, in 1254, where it is specifically stated that no more nuns are to
be received without licence on account of the poverty of the house, he
ordered no exception to be made even for two girls sent by the bishop and
one by Sir William of Poissy[2030]; and at Montivilliers in 1266 he noted
that in spite of his prohibition a girl had been placed there by the
Legate[2031].
(5) A very common fault in these Rouen (and indeed in all) houses was the
imperfect claustration of the nuns; seculars entered the precincts; nuns
left them. There were constant injunctions that no secular or suspected
persons were to enter the cloister precincts[2032] or to talk with the
nuns anywhere save in the parlour[2033]. At Bival, however, a significant
exception was made to the general prohibition; no one was to be introduced
except those whom it would be a scandal to turn away[2034]--potential
benefactors and other powerful folk, no doubt. It seems that the nuns were
in the habit of dining and of eating meat with seculars (at Bival they
absented themselves from Compline for this purpose)[2035], and the
Archbishop forbade, time after time, the eating together of nuns and
seculars[2036]. No secular person was to sleep in the house[2037]; and no
nun was to converse with seculars, even in the parlour, without licence
from the head of the house and without a suitable companion, such as the
doorkeeper[2038]. These precautions seem to have been necessary, for one
is left with the impression that secular visitors gained access without
much difficulty to the cloister precincts; at Bival it was complained that
brothers and relatives of the nuns and others, entered the house[2039];
and at Bondeville friends and relatives used to come into the cloister at
will and talk with the nuns in the meadows and guest rooms of the
house[2040]; at a later visitation the archbishop remarked that the house
where guests were received was too close to the cloister and to the
conventual buildings[2041]. The abuses to which such freedom of access
might give rise are obvious. They appear in the case of St Aubin, morally
the worst of all the houses; the state of that community at the
visitations of 1254, 1256, 1257 and 1261 will be referred to later; in
1266 a certain miller was not to be allowed to frequent the house, as
scandal had arisen through him, and the schoolmaster (_Rector scolarum_)
of Beauvoir had "sometimes impudently frequented the said house or priory,
from which evil rumours had arisen," and he was to be warned to
desist[2042]; next year the same miller and two clerics (a rector and a
clerk) were frequenting the house and causing scandal and the Archbishop
forbade them to enter it[2043].
The wandering of nuns outside the precincts was even more dangerous, and
it is significant that after the terrible revelations at Villarceaux in
1249 the Archbishop, in his injunctions, paid special attention to the
entrance of seculars into the convent and to the conditions under which
the nuns were wont to leave it. Rigaud strictly forbade any nun to go out
without special licence from the head of the house and that licence was
not to be given except for an adequate reason[2044]; "not quickly and
easily but with difficulty and for an appointed time only"[2045], ran the
injunction to the Abbess of St Amand. A term was always to be fixed by
which the nun had to return and she was always to have a suitable
companion allotted to her[2046]. This seems to have been a necessary
precaution, for at St Saëns the nuns were found to stay away alone for
fifteen days or more[2047]; it is perhaps not accidental that St Saëns was
one of the immoral houses. At St Léger de Préaux, also, the nuns were in
the habit of going out alone to the houses of relatives[2048]: "They go
outside the abbey when they can and return when they will," says the
Archbishop[2049]; in 1267 one of them was found to be alone with her
mother at Argoulles, "which displeased us and we forbade the Abbess to
give any nun permission to go out without company"[2050]. At Bondeville
they used often to go to Rouen[2051]. Another precaution taken against the
wandering of nuns in the world was the closing or careful guarding of the
cloister doors; it was ordered at Bival in 1257 that a door opening on to
the meadows, which was often unlocked, should be kept locked[2052]. The
causes which took nuns outside the gates were many: sometimes they seem to
have gone simply to take a walk; sometimes to visit relatives or to act as
godmothers to the children of friends (a practice which was specifically
forbidden at Montivilliers in 1257 and again in 1265)[2053]; sometimes on
business to the granges of the convent; sometimes to work in the fields
(three of the nuns of St Aubin were absent at the vintage (_in vindemiis_)
when the Archbishop came in 1267)[2054]; sometimes to beg (at St Aubin in
1261 it was ordered that the younger nuns were not to be sent out to beg
(_pro questu_)[2055] and two years later two nuns of this poverty-stricken
house were absent in France, seeking alms)[2056]; sometimes for less
reputable reasons. There is no more striking commentary on the writings of
contemporary moralists like Matheolus and Gilles li Muisis than the
Register of Eudes Rigaud[2057]; and the stress laid upon the ill results
of allowing seculars to enter and nuns to leave the cloister, shows that
the attempts of the medieval Church to impose strict claustration upon
nuns, harsh as they seem to modern minds, were dictated by a real social
necessity.
(6) Modern minds would also be inclined to consider as trifling offences
the various cases of frivolous behaviour--games, gay clothes, pet
animals--which the Archbishop entered from time to time in his diary. The
custom of indulging in games on Innocents' Day, which prevailed in certain
English nunneries, was fairly common in Rigaud's diocese. In 1249 he made
the following injunction at Villarceaux:
Item we forbid you in future to indulge in your accustomed gaieties
(_ne ludibria exerceatis consueta_) to wit, dressing yourselves up in
secular clothes or leading dance-songs (_choreas_) among yourselves or
with seculars[2058].
But the nuns clung to their rare amusements and in 1253 the Archbishop
noted: "They sing ditties (_cantilenas_) on the Feast of Innocents"[2059].
At St Léger des Préaux in 1254 the diary has: "We forbade disorders
(_inordinaciones_) on the Feast of Innocents"[2060] and at the Holy
Trinity of Caen two years later: "The younger ones on the Feast of
Innocents sing the scriptures with _farsa_; this we forbade"[2061].
Montivilliers was a serious offender and the Archbishop's note is
learnedly technical over the different kinds of songs sung by the nuns:
Item on the Feasts of St John, St Stephen and the Innocents they use
excessive frivolity (_nimia iocositate_) and scurrilous songs, to wit,
farces (_farsis_), canticles (_conductis_) and motets (_motulis_); we
ordered that they should bear themselves more fittingly and with
greater devotion[2062].
The order seems to have borne fruit, for in 1262 he noted: "The
frivolities which used to take place on Innocents' Day have been utterly
given up, so they say"; and then, and again in 1265, he simply repeated
the injunction that such things should cease[2063]. At St Amand in 1263 he
ordered:
That the younger nuns are not to remain behind in the choir on the
Feast of Innocents, as they have done in the past, singing the office
and proses which belong to the day, the seniors having gone away and
left the juniors there[2064].
But afterwards we hear no more of these sports among the nuns; so perhaps
Rigaud succeeded in stamping them out. They were perhaps (if one may judge
from the usual character of the Feast of Fools) more scurrilous and less
innocently pretty than they sound; but it is difficult not to feel a
little out of sympathy with the conscientious Archbishop[2065].
The keeping of pet animals here, as in England, was a common fault and one
against which Rigaud's animadversions were singularly unsuccessful. The
nuns of St Sauveur d'Evreux had small dogs, squirrels and birds, "and we
ordered such things to be removed; they do not profit the rule"[2066]; but
we had to repeat our injunction in 1258 and again in 1269[2067]. At St
Léger des Préaux they had two small dogs and three squirrels[2068], and at
the Holy Trinity of Caen they kept larks and little birds in cages, which
were to be removed[2069]; but the cage birds were still there six years
later[2070]. The most amusing case was at Villarceaux in 1268, where for
once one of the nuns gave the Archbishop a piece of her mind. "Eustachia,
late prioress" (we shall hear of her again), "had a certain bird, which
she kept to the annoyance and displeasure of some of the more elderly
nuns" (did it disturb their slumbers?) "For the which reason we ordered
her to remove it; and she thereupon bespake us with little discretion or
reverence, which greatly displeased us"[2071]. One may forgive the
archbishop for this lapse in his sense of humour; he had had trouble with
Eustachia before; it was just like her to keep a bird that squawked in the
dorter.
Nor probably did Rigaud fare better than any other medieval visitor in his
attempts to turn fashionable clothes out of the nunneries. The
disreputable ladies of Villarceaux (1249) curled their hair and scented
their veils with saffron, they had pilches of rabbit and hare and fox fur,
they wore belts adorned with silver-work and steel-work[2072]. Those of
Montivilliers (1265 and 1266) were nearly as luxurious, though their
morals were unimpeachable; they also wore their hair in ringlets, had
pilches of squirrel fur and of the costly "griz," and used girdles
curiously adorned with ironwork; they ornamented their collars and cuffs
with expensive cloth trimmings and possessed "excessively curious and
precious knives, with carved and silvered handles"[2073]. The nuns of St
Amand also used not only shifts and pilches, but also pillows and
bedclothes soft with the fur of rabbit, hare, fox and cat[2074]; and the
ornamented girdles of ironwork were found at St Aubin and at St
Sauveur[2075]. The Archbishop strenuously forbade long hair and curls,
belts of ironwork, saffron, rich cloth and the more costly kinds of fur.
It is unlikely that he was successful. The world never called more
seductively to medieval nuns than in contemporary fashions. The Church
clung to the belief that the habit made the nun, but the souls of sister
Jacqueline and sister Johanna, and sister Philippa and sister Marguerite
expressed themselves appropriately in furs and saffron and, one fears,
would not have been less frivolous in the regular garb of their order:
Il est bien vray que tourel, voille ou guymple
Fort scapullaire ou autre habit de corps,
Ne rend jamais homme ou femme plus simple,
Mais rompt souvent l'union et accords
Mectant divorce entre l'âme et le corps[2076].
(7) It is now necessary to consider the more serious faults, such as
quarrelling, drunkenness or immorality, detected by Eudes Rigaud in his
visitations, and to give a fuller account of those nunneries which were in
a particularly evil state. The quarrels which were inseparable from
convent life continually occupied his attention; and nine out of the
twelve houses which he visited more than once were at one time or another
disturbed by petty squabblings among the nuns. It is clear--as might be
expected--that the discord was worse in those convents where discipline
was loose, and where the behaviour of the nuns in other directions was
open to grave censure. At the visitation of Villarceaux in 1249, for
instance, Ermengarde of Gisors and Johanna of Auvilliers beat one another
and the Archbishop was obliged to order the punishment of quarrels passing
from words to blows[2077] (_de verbis ad verbera_--he was not above a mild
ecclesiastical pun in the privacy of his diary)[2078]. At St Aubin (1254)
Agnes of the Bridge (_de Ponte_) and Petronilla refused to speak to each
other, and Agnes, "who is a fomenter of discord and a scold," was ordered
to give up her rancour against Petronilla, on pain of being removed from
the convent[2079]. At Bival in 1252 two sisters were described as
rebellious[2080] and two years later the Register contains the following
entry:
There are two sets of couples who refuse to speak to one another and
we caused them to make peace with each other and to kiss and be
friends (_quantum ad os, et deosculari ad invicem_), and we forbade
that any mention should henceforth be made of the bone of contention
between them, on pain of excommunication, which we have called down
upon her who shall be the first to mention it, and we ordered the
Abbess to keep us informed[2081].
At St Saëns a certain Johanna Martel--evidently a lady of substance with
relatives in the neighbourhood--was said in 1259 to be rebellious,
disobedient and given to wrangling with the Prioress[2082], and in 1265
the house was full of discord[2083]. At Almenèches (1250) there was a good
deal of quarrelling in cloister and choir[2084].
Quarrels were common, however, in houses against which no grave moral
disorders were ever charged. St Amand was perhaps the worst of these;
there in 1258 the Archbishop ordered that each nun was to forget the
injury and offence of the other, before she presumed to receive
communion[2085]; but the discords continued and in 1262 he wrote:
Because we found there many heart-burnings and rancours among the
nuns, we ordered the abbess and the confessor that they should
reconcile those whom they knew to have fallen into this fault before,
and that they should live in charity as far as they were able,
punishing offenders by taking away their beer and pittances[2086].
But it was in vain, and after seven years Rigaud was still commanding the
Abbess to labour to the best of her ability that the nuns should live in
peace and concord[2087]. At Bondeville (1251 and 1255) it will be
remembered that one of the charges against the Prioress was her
quarrelsomeness[2088]; and in 1259 a certain Lucy was found to be a
quarrelsome and ill-tempered person, disobedient to the Prioress and given
to wrangling with her in the frater, whereupon the Archbishop enjoined a
penance of silence upon her[2089]. At St Désir de Lisieux (1254) there
were two or three nuns who would not speak to the rest[2090]; and even at
the great Abbaye aux Dames at Caen Rigaud noted in 1267, "There was great
contention among them and concerning this they had a case in the
law-courts"[2091].
Quarrelsomeness was, however, a mild fault compared with the really bad
immorality which prevailed in some of the houses. At three of them, St
Aubin, St Saëns and Bival, this state of affairs continued from visitation
to visitation; they were evidently hopelessly corrupt. At the two others
(Villarceaux and Almenèches) there is mention of serious disorders only
once and from the Archbishop's silence on later occasions it may be hoped
that he succeeded in reforming the houses. One of these isolated cases was
in many ways the most serious of all; Rigaud's note of his visitation of
Villarceaux in 1249 reads more like a description of La Maison Tellier
than that of a priory; except that the former was more discreet:
We visited the priory of Villarceaux. There are twenty-three nuns and
three lay sisters. [Here follow several minor disorders.] Only four
nuns there are fully professed, to wit Eustachia, Comitissa,
Ermengarde and Petronilla. Many of them have pilches made from the fur
of rabbits, hares and foxes. They eat flesh unnecessarily in the
infirmary; they do not observe silence anywhere and they do not keep
within the cloister. Johanna of "Aululari" once went out of the
cloister and lived with someone, by whom she had a child; and she
sometimes goes out of the cloister to see that child; item she is
ill-famed (_infamata_) with a certain man called Gaillard. Isabella la
Treiche is a fault finder, murmuring against the Prioress and others.
The cellaress is ill-famed with a man called Philip of Villarceaux.
The Prioress is too negligent and does not reprove, nor does she get
up [for matins]. Johanna of Auvilliers goes outside the house alone
with Gayllard and within the year she had a child by him. The
cellaress is ill-famed with Philip of Villarceaux and with a certain
priest of her own neighbourhood. Item the subprioress with Thomas the
carter. Idonia her sister with Crispinatus. Item the prior of Gisors
frequents the house for the sake of the said Idonia. Philippa of Rouen
is ill-famed with the priest of Suentre, in the diocese of Chartres;
Marguerita the treasuress with Richard de Geneville, clerk. Agnes of
Fontenoy is ill-famed with the priest of Guerreville, of the diocese
of Chartres. La Tooliere [? the chambress] is ill-famed with Sir
Andrew de Monchy, knight. They all wear their hair long to their chins
(_nutriunt comam usque ad mentum_) and scent their veils with saffron.
Jacqueline came back pregnant from a certain chaplain, who was
expelled from the house for this. Item Agnes de Montsec was ill-famed
with the same. Ermengarde of Gisors and Johanna of Auvilliers beat
each other. The Prioress is drunk almost any night ... she does not
rise for matins nor eat in the frater nor correct faults[2092].
After these terrible revelations the Archbishop directed a letter of
injunctions to the convent, which, contrary to his usual practice, was
copied into his diary[2093]. These injunctions deal only with general
breaches of the rule, which by loosening discipline would tend to give
opportunities for the behaviour described in the _comperta_, and they
contain no reference to specific cases of immorality. Thus he provides for
the proper performance of divine service; for the maintenance of silence;
for the simultaneous entry of the nuns into their dorter, the keys of
which and of the cloister were to be carefully kept and a "Visitor"
appointed to see that the rule was kept in these matters; he forbids
secular or suspected persons to be entertained or lodged within the
cloister, and nuns to be given permission to go outside without good
reason and a companion, or to speak with any external person unlicensed
and unaccompanied; he deals also with the frivolous garments, the sports
on Innocents' Day and the quarrels which he had found; he forbids the
reception of any more nuns without licence, orders the frequent rendering
of accounts, warns them to live in common, and ends with an order to
recite his letter at least once a month in the chapter. These injunctions
seem strangely superficial in comparison with the _comperta_ which precede
them; but a note entered in the Register, on the occasion of the next
visitation of Villarceaux, would seem to suggest that the Archbishop had
taken other steps to deal with the matter. It is there written: "Here are
twenty nuns, but six of them were not present; for one of them left the
house and married in the world and two are without the house, according to
a previous mandate and ordinance of ours"[2094]. It is possible that the
Archbishop had sent separate letters (not copied into his Register)
dealing with the worst cases of immorality, and that he had sent two of
the erring nuns to do penance in another house. At any rate there are no
further complaints of immorality against Villarceaux, and perhaps prompt
measures at the beginning of his career as visitor had stayed the nuns on
their downward course.
It was on Rigaud's first visitation of Almenèches also that moral
disorders were found. He went there in 1250 and found that the rule had
been greatly relaxed. The nuns (who were among the most inveterate
property owners recorded in the Register) used to run up debts in the
town, doubtless with the money given to them for the purchase of their
food. They did not live a communal life, they admitted seculars to talk
with them in the cloister, they remained away from Matins and Compline,
they had drinking parties after Compline, and they were always
quarrelling. The result of this laxity showed in more serious faults.
Sister Tiphaine was a drunkard (_ebriosa_); three other nuns, Hola, Aaliz
the chantress and the late prioress had each had a child; and a fourth,
Dionisia Dehatim, was ill-famed with a certain Master Nicholas de Bleve.
In this case some of the disorder may have been due to the fact that the
house was without an abbess, she having died shortly before[2095]. Here
again it is impossible to tell what steps the Archbishop took to reform
the house, but at his two subsequent visitations, although the nuns
persisted in their refusal to live a communal life, there were no further
notices of immorality.
One may hope that these were exceptional cases in the history of the
houses concerned. But there was nothing exceptional about the bad
behaviour of St Aubin and St Saëns and to a lesser degree of Bival. The
Archbishop first visited the latter house in 1248 and found there "several
nuns ill-famed of the vice of incontinence"; the abbess resigned, probably
as a result of this discovery[2096]. No complaint of immorality was made
at the next two visitations; then in 1254 the Archbishop noted that sister
Isabella had had a child at Whitsuntide by a priest[2097]. At the next
visitation (1256) he found that Florence had had a child recently and that
the whole house had fallen into ill-repute because of this; Rigaud on this
occasion ordered the removal of the convent priest, "on account of the
scandal of the nuns and populace, though we found nothing that could be
proved against him"[2098]. On the eight subsequent visitations there were
no further charges of immorality.
St Aubin and St Saëns must be charged with persistent immorality,
continuing over a long period of years. They seem indeed to have been
little better than brothels. At St Aubin in 1254 Aeliz of Rouen was
incontinent and had lately had a child by a priest[2099]. In 1256 she was
in trouble again:
We unveiled Aeliz of Rouen and Eustachia of Etrepagny for a time, on
account of their fornication. Item we sent Agnes of the Bridge (_de
Ponte_) [the same whose quarrelsomeness had been reproved in 1254] to
the lazar-house of Rouen, because she consented to Eustachia's sin and
even procured it, as the rumour runs, _et quia dedit dicte Eustachie
herbas bibere ut interficeretur puer conceptus in dicta Eustachia,
secundum quod dicitur per famam_[2100]. We removed the Prioress from
office. We postponed the infliction of a punishment upon Anastasia,
the subprioress, for ill-fame of incontinence against her, until she
should be made prioress there[2101].
Here at last we have definite information of the steps taken by Rigaud to
deal with a bad case; two nuns were unveiled and sent to do penance among
lepers and the prioress was deposed; but what a confession of weakness
that Rigaud should propose to fill the place of the latter with a woman
herself ill-famed of sin. The effect of his punishment upon the two nuns
whom he had unveiled was, moreover, unfortunate, for they went from bad to
worse. The next year Eustachia was in apostasy (_vagabunda_) and had been
pregnant when she left the convent and the blame for it was set down to
John, the chaplain of Fry. Aeliz of Rouen also was "in grave sin"[2102].
In 1261 the Archbishop came again. Aeliz had borne a child since his last
visitation and she was said to have had three children in all; Beatrice of
Beauvais had had a child at Blaacort and her lover was the Dean of St
Quentin, of the Diocese of Beauvais. The Prioress informed Rigaud that
these two had long been in serious fault and that they had undergone
penance according to the rule[2103]. In 1263 Aeliz and Beatrice had run
away ("led," Rigaud confided to his diary, "by the levity of their spirits
and by the instigation of the devil") and he ordered them not to be
readmitted without his special licence[2104]. The next year Beatrice was
still wandering abroad and was said to have had several children[2105]. No
more is heard of these erring sisters at the three subsequent visitations,
but it is evident that the discipline of the house was still far from
good, and the constant visits of a miller and of several other men (all
clerics)[2106] had caused scandals in 1265 and again in 1267[2107]. In
1267 the Subprioress was punished for giving up her office at her own
will[2108]; and in 1268 there is an ambiguous entry which leads one to
suppose that Anastasia had never became prioress after all and that
Eustachia (it may not be the same woman) was back again; on that occasion
Anastasia "late subprioress" was punished because she gave up her office
contrary to the will of the Prioress, while Eustachia and Margaret were
punished because they would not undertake it, when commanded to do
so[2109].
The case of St Saëns was hardly less serious; for the first six
visitations there was no charge of immorality, though it is clear from the
Archbishop's note in 1254 that the discipline of the house was lax and in
particular that the nuns had leave of absence to stay away alone for as
long as a fortnight at a time and that their priest was incontinent[2110].
In any case the visitation of 1259 showed a state of things so
disgraceful, that it is difficult to believe that it could have arisen
within the two years that had elapsed since the last visitation.
Some of them stayed away unduly long when they happened to go out with
the licence of the Prioress. We ordered that such were to be given a
shorter term by which to return. Johanna Martel was rebellious and
disobedient and she wrangled with the Prioress and went out riding to
see her relatives, wearing a mantle of burnet with sleeves; and she
had a private messenger whom she used often to send to those
relatives. Nicholaa had had a child in the same house on Maundy
Thursday and its father was said to be Master Simon, the parson of St
Saëns; the boy was baptized in the monastery and then sent to a
certain sister of Nicholaa's. She lay in the monastery and underwent
her churching with them; she was attended in childbed by two midwives
from the village. Item another of the nuns had a child by the same
Simon. The Prioress was held suspect with Richard of Maucomble; it was
also said that she managed the goods and business of the house badly
and that she concealed some of the rents and returns. The same Richard
had lodged in the house together with the brother and parents of the
Prioress and had often dined there[2111].
Five years later (in 1264) Petronilla of Dreux was ill-famed of
incontinence with Ralph, the hayward (_messerius_) of the Priory, and also
with a married man, and the Archbishop ordered the former to be removed
from his office and not to be permitted to frequent the priory. The
Prioress was ill-famed with a priest, and it was said that she often went
to the manor of Esquequeville and elsewhere, where she entertained many
guests and kept ill company (_ubi secum habebat multos convivas et
inhonestam societatem ducebat_), for which Rigaud censured her and ordered
her to improve. There was more scandal about Nicholaa (now called "of
Rouen" and described as the chantress); it was apparently common talk in
the village that she used to dine with her sister at Rouen, in the house
of Master Simon, Rector of St Saëns, and rumour made a yet more serious
charge against her[2112]. "But," says the Archbishop, "we could find
nothing to prove concerning this in our visitation and the nuns said that
the last charge was falsely and mendaciously imputed to her"[2113].
Nevertheless it is significant that Nicholaa's name should still, after
five years, be connected with the Rector of St Saëns and with her
complacent sister. In 1265 there was no mention of immorality, but the
nuns were living together "in discord and disorder":
"Because indeed," wrote Rigaud, "we perceived them to be in a bad
state, particularly as concerning certain observances of the rule, we
sought eagerly how we might labour to reform them to a more honest and
salutary condition, according to God and to their rule";
and he returned the next day to complete his measures for this
reform[2114]. But in 1266-7 the cellaress Petronilla of Dreux was again
very gravely ill-famed (_plurimum diffamata_) with Ralph, "a certain
yeoman who served them in harvest time" and there can be no better proof
that the Archbishop's injunctions often went unfulfilled, for he had
ordered Ralph's expulsion in 1264[2115]. Nevertheless the rest of the
house was in good order, so perhaps his eager labour had not been
altogether in vain. In 1267, however, things were as bad as ever. The
Prioress, Johanna of Morcent, was ill-famed with the same priest against
whom she had been warned in 1264; Petronilla of Dreux was still "very
gravely ill-famed with Ralph de Maintru, as she was before; and," says the
Archbishop, with one of those personal touches which make his Register a
real human document, "Agnes of Equetot and Johanna of Morainville we found
to be liars and perjurers, when we demanded certain things of them on
oath; wherefore we came away from the place, as it were impatient and sad
... (_Quasi impacientes et tristes_)"[2116]; it was indeed no wonder.
APPENDIX III
FIFTEENTH CENTURY SAXON VISITATIONS BY JOHANN BUSCH
Three accounts of medieval visitations stand out in general interest above
all others, the thirteenth century Norman visitations of Eudes Rigaud,
Archbishop of Rouen, described in his diary, the fifteenth century English
visitations of Alnwick, Bishop of Lincoln, described in his Register[2117]
and the almost contemporary German visitations of the Austin Canon and
reformer Johann Busch, described in his _Liber de Reformatione
Monasteriorum_. Busch's account is less formal and more literary than
those of Rigaud and Alnwick; he sets out not to keep a journal, like the
former, nor to record official documents, like the latter, but to look
back in retrospect upon his work and to make for posterity a chronicle of
the reforms connected with the congregation of Windesheim. For this
reason, and because Busch was a remarkable man, his book will probably
transcend the others in interest for the general reader; his account of
the difficulties which he encountered is so vivid and at times so
humourous, the sidelight thrown upon his own character shows him so
admirable and yet so human.
Johann Busch was born in 1399 and in 1419 became a canon in the Austin
monastery of Windesheim, a new foundation, famed for the strictness of its
rule and already the head of a congregation of daughter houses. He has
left an interesting account of the doubts and temptations which assailed
him during his novitiate; they were the stormy dawn clouds of a day which
was to become glorious in the annals of his order. During the next twenty
years he held from time to time various posts in different houses of the
reformed congregation; in 1431 he was attached to the nunnery of Bronopia,
in 1436 he became Subprior of Wittenberg and in 1439 he went to Sülte,
near Hildesheim, where he was made Prior in the following year. He had
therefore had considerable experience of monastic houses and it was when
he became Prior of Sülte that his great work as a reformer of monasteries
began. He undertook it originally at the request of the Bishop and Chapter
of Hildesheim, who were appalled at the decadence of monastic life in that
diocese and anxious for the introduction of reforms on the model of
Windesheim. His success in Hildesheim prompted Archbishop Günther of
Magdeburg to invite him to carry the reforming movement into that diocese
and in 1447 Busch became _praepositus_[2118] of the Neuwerk in Halle. This
brought him to the notice of the Papal Legate Nicholas of Cues, who came
to hold a provincial council in Magdeburg in 1451, and Nicholas, himself
an ardent reformer, issued a general mandate empowering him to enter and
reform the Austin monasteries of the provinces of Magdeburg, Mainz, Saxony
and Thuringia. Unfortunately Busch now quarrelled with the Archbishop of
Magdeburg and had to resign in 1454. He returned to Wittenberg and
continued his campaign of reform, turning his attention specially to
nunneries. Then, after a short sojourn at Windesheim he returned to Sülte
in 1459, where he remained until his death in 1480. He left behind him two
books, a _Chronicon Windeshemense_, and the _Liber de Reformatione
Monasteriorum_, which between them give an invaluable account not only of
the rise of Windesheim and of the reforming movement which emanated from
it, but of the life and character of Busch himself[2119].
Book II of the _Liber de Reformatione Monasteriorum_ describes the reform
of twenty-three nunneries and two houses of lay sisters, of which the
great majority belonged to his own order of Austin Regular Canons[2120].
The work was not carried out without considerable opposition, not only
from the nuns themselves, for the desire for reform seldom came from
within the unreformed orders[2121], but also from their friends and
kinsmen in the world, to whom they frequently appealed for help. Moreover
certain ecclesiastical magnates, notably the Bishop of Minden, opposed and
impeded reforms in their districts, and even when they submitted to such
reforms lent them an indifferent and easily discouraged support. On the
other hand Busch received his most powerful support from great
ecclesiastics such as the Cardinal Legate Nicholas of Cues, the Archbishop
of Magdeburg and the Bishops of Halberstadt and Hildesheim, and also from
the superiors and chief inmates of houses belonging to the congregation of
Windesheim, or already reformed under its influence. Men such as Rutger,
prior of Wittenberg, were of the greatest assistance to him; they
accompanied him as co-visitors and promoted his work in every possible
way, while the reformed nunneries often provided him with nuns to dwell
for a time in the houses which he was reforming and to teach their inmates
how to comport themselves. Apart from such powerful ecclesiastical support
Busch was particularly fortunate in the assistance which he received from
the Dukes of Brunswick, Otto, William and Henry, who reigned during his
lifetime. These nobles, especially Duke William, had the greatest esteem
for Busch and not infrequently accompanied him on his visitations, lending
the temporal intimidation of their arguments and armed retainers to his
more spiritual menaces. The support of the secular arm was, indeed,
necessary, in view of the opposition of lay kinsfolk to the reform of
their daughters and sisters.
The monastic houses of Germany had by the fifteenth century fallen into
great laxity of rule. The nuns seem to have lost all knowledge of how to
perform the ordinary offices of convent life, in choir, chapter and
frater, according to the rule, and Busch was often at pains to go
carefully through the routine with them, teaching them what to do at each
moment. This occasionally gave rise to some amusing scenes. At one of the
first houses to be reformed, St Mary Magdalen near Hildesheim (1440),
Busch and an elderly monk of Sülte were teaching the nuns by ocular
demonstration how to comport themselves in frater. Having arranged the
sisters in seemly order Busch and brother John Bodiker began to intone
_Benedicite_, after the fashion of reformed religious; but the nuns, who
had not been accustomed to singing the _Benedicite_ at table, all burst
out laughing, instead of following. Busch and the brother, however, kept
on until the nuns collected themselves and came in with bowed heads at the
verse _Gloria patri_. Similarly when Busch was showing them how to confess
their own and proclaim others' faults in chapter (a custom which they had
completely lost), brother John, acting the sinner, rose up among the
sisters and cast himself flat upon the pavement, whereat "the astonished
nuns fell to marvelling that such an old brother should seek thus to lie
prone"[2122].
The most serious fault found by Busch, serious not only because it was a
breach of one of the three substantial vows of monasticism, but because it
brought in its train other and worse evils, was the ownership of private
property. The nuns were almost universally _proprietarie_, owning money
and annual rents, to say nothing of their own private cooking and dining
utensils, for, as always, communal life had gone with individual poverty
and the nuns provided their own meals and dined in _familia_. At
Derneburg Busch describes the girls and women of the village coming up to
the doors and windows of the house with bread and meat and cheese in sacks
and baskets for the nuns to buy[2123]. It was his custom on visiting a
house to demand that all the private possessions of the nuns should be
brought and heaped up before him. Unwillingly they came with the charters
reciting their private rents, the ready money from their purses and
chests, the gold and silver rings, the coral paternosters, and all the
pots and pans and basins, the cups and plates and spoons which they used
for their private meals. All these Busch carefully noted down: "I
marvelled," he says on one occasion, when he had collected a particularly
large heap from quite a small house, "how they could have collected from
their parents and predecessors and reserved for themselves, as it were by
right of inheritance, such a large number of utensils"[2124]. All the
money, endowments and implements thus brought together Busch then handed
over to the common treasury and store-room of the house.
This rooting out of private property gave rise to the bitterest
opposition. The nuns had been wont to evade the charge of _proprietas_ by
the merest quibble, which Busch contemptuously swept away. They had
deposited all their money and charters with the abbess and when they
wanted any they had asked her for it; but she was merely the guardian of
their private incomes, which were never merged in a common stock[2125].
When they found that this device was rejected by Busch, they did all they
could to preserve their hoards. Sometimes they secretly sent their money
out of the house before his arrival[2126]; sometimes they locked it up and
tried to conceal it[2127]. The attitude of their kinsfolk also was a
stumbling block. These gentlemen were willing enough to endow their own
daughters and nieces, but not so willing to support the children of others
by gifts which were turned to the common use. Thus it was the nuns who
frequently protested that their house was too poor to permit of their
living in common, since it was only by these individual endowments that
they maintained their existence. It was therefore Busch's practice, before
completing the reformation of a house, to make the nuns obtain from their
kinsfolk an undertaking to continue, and if possible to augment, the rents
which they had been wont to give their relatives, on the threat of turning
out the nuns and distributing them among other houses[2128]. The nobles
and burghers of the district naturally wished to keep their kinswomen near
them and the endowments were usually forthcoming. At St George (or
Marienkammer) near Halle even this device did not result in a large enough
income for the nuns; so Busch caused sermons to be preached in all the
churches of the district, saying that because of their poverty the
fathers of their order wished to distribute the nuns in other houses in
the dioceses of Hildesheim and Halberstadt, but that they would be able to
remain if they were helped by alms. Whereupon the townsfolk, out of pity
for them, gave generously enough to support them for a whole year. Busch
led the way himself, sending them openly two large cartloads of corn and a
sack of cheeses, an example which was soon followed by the townsfolk, who
had ample opportunity of observing the progress of the cart from Busch's
door to the gates of the convent, "for" (says he), "I lived on the
eastern, they on the western side of the town." Dr Paul, the _praepositus_
of St Maurice, Halle, also helped with a cask of wine[2129].
Closely connected with the question of private property was the dowry
system, against which Busch also set his face, for it was not only in
itself contrary to the rule, but it was one method by which the nuns
received those private endowments which they afterwards turned to their
own uses:
"All the nuns of Saxony," says Busch, "whatever their order, made a
simoniacal entry into their monasteries before the new reform, giving
a sum of money for their reception; and according to ancient custom
the newcomers give a certain potation to all the _praepositi_, priests
and chaplains and a great feast for their many friends and for all the
nuns and inhabitants [of the house]. This was the common custom in all
the nunneries of Saxony and particularly in those which were
rich"[2130].
Busch forbade the custom everywhere.
The nuns thus lived like seculars, performing the minimum number of
services and owning private property. Like seculars also they loved to
give that "fetis" pinch to their wimples, that elegant turn to their
mantles, which changed the sombre habit of their order into the dress of a
lady of fashion. Busch, in common with all the reformers of the later
middle ages, has a great deal to say about their clothes. All the nuns of
Saxony and Thuringia refused to crop their heads, and contented themselves
with cutting their hair short at the neck[2131]. The nuns of Wülfinghausen
and Fischbeck wore long flowing white veils over their heads, so that it
was hardly possible to recognise them as nuns[2132]. Those of St Cyriac's
appeared very pompously arrayed in long tunics and mantles, with tall
peaked caps and flowing veils, "que non monialium sed domicellarum
castrantium apparatum habuerunt"[2133]. The nuns of Barsinghausen
were very slender, having underneath long tight tunics of white cloth,
and above being clad in almost transparent robes of black linen, which
they called _superpellicia_, not girdled but flowing, with long
sleeves, which they turned back for capes, beneath which almost all
their form, which was bare underneath, could be seen[2134].
The nuns of the penitential order of St Mary Magdalen near Hildesheim wore
"a pleated veil, called in the vulgar tongue _Ranse_, such as they
imagine the blessed Mary Magdalen used to wear, and over tunics very
straitly girdled at the breast, so as to make them appear slender, and
with very loose pleated trains behind, from the girdle to the hem,
after the fashion of secular women. I and my brother John Bodiker,"
adds Busch, "censured their habit, for that it was not religious but
rather ministered to worldly vanity, and with many pious admonishments
we led them all in turn to put off those pleated veils and put over
their heads plain white veils without folds and to give up those
gowns, which were tight in the upper part and in the lower part wide
and pleated, lest they should seem to be following worldly vanity and
the subtlety of their own hearts, rather than religion"[2135].
As might be expected laxity of rule and widespread _proprietas_ brought
immorality in their train and Busch in several cases mentions that a
convent was ill-famed for incontinence. On the other hand this was by no
means invariably the case. At Wülfinghausen, for instance, Busch told the
nuns that he had never heard a word breathed against their chastity[2136].
At Weinhausen, where the old abbess withstood reform so strenuously that
she had to be removed by force, and where all the nuns possessed private
incomes, he specially notes "these nuns observed well the vow of chastity,
for their lady the old abbess ruled them very strictly, and they held her
in great reverence and fear and called her 'gracious lady,' because of her
high birth"[2137]. Moreover certain houses received reform so readily and
became so soon models of good behaviour, that there cannot have been any
very serious moral decay in them. But a passage in the course of Busch's
account of the reform of the Magdalenenkloster at Halle, shows his own
opinion as to the relation between absolute immorality and lesser breaches
of the rule, and shows in particular the important part which he held to
be played by the vice of _proprietas_ in the downward path of a nun. It is
interesting also because in it he attributes a great deal of the decadence
of nunneries to insufficient control by their pastors and above all to too
infrequent visitation:
"The feminine sex," he says, "cannot long persist in the due
observance of their rule without men, who are proven, and reformed and
who often call them by wise counsels to better things. For our eyes
saw no monastery of nuns belonging to any order (and there is no small
number of them in Saxony, Misnia and Thuringia) who remained for long
in their good intent, holy life and due reform without reformed
fathers. For wherever nuns and holy sisters do not confess at set
times, nor communicate, nor hold chapter meeting concerning their
faults at least once a week, nor are visited by their [spiritual]
fathers every year ..., such nuns and sisters we saw and heard often
to be fallen from the observance of their rule and from the religious
life to a dissolute life, odious in the sight of God and men, to the
grave peril and eternal damnation of their souls. For first laying
aside the fear of God, they fall into the sin of property in small
things, then in greater things and then in the _peculium_ of money and
clothes, thence they break out into the desires of the flesh and
incontinence of the outward senses and so to the evil act, and thus
they fear not to give themselves over bit by bit to all uncleanliness
and foulness"[2138].
He ends with an eloquent plea for a closer watch to be kept over nuns by
those responsible for their spiritual welfare.
Such were the main faults which Busch strove to abolish in bringing the
nunneries under the reformed rule of Hildesheim. It remains to give some
account of the difficulties which he encountered in the course of his
work. In some houses he was well received; at Erscherde he says of the
nuns:
These virgins were well obedient, pious and tractable, ... dealing
with us and with each other kindly and benignantly by word and deed,
wherefore we were no little edified by them[2139];
and at St Martin's, Erfurt, he says:
We found a prioress and nuns living in great poverty, very simple and
humble, but of good will and ready for all good work; for they applied
themselves promptly to obedience and to the observance of their rule,
and very willingly brought to us all those things which they held in
private possession[2140].
In other houses reform was not so easy. Busch was frequently impeded by
old and obstinate members of a convent, who refused to accept a change in
the routine which they had followed for so long. Such was the nobly born
abbess of Weinhausen, who was over seventy years of age and had to be
removed by force from the house, before any reforms could be carried out:
"I found this way of life kept in this monastery forty years ago; this way
have I served during as many years and this way and not otherwise will I
continue to serve." One cannot but pity the poor old lady, brought out of
her house and forced to ascend the carriage which was to take her away,
with Busch pulling her by one sleeve and the Abbot of St Michael by the
other; and one is relieved to hear that she was allowed back again shortly
afterwards, though forced to resign the position of Abbess[2141]. But
Busch's experience in reforming monasteries caused him to dread the
opposition of men and women who had been long in religion. In the course
of his panegyric on Fischbeck, which had been reformed from within by a
remarkable Abbess, he says:
This monastery hath this advantage over many other Saxon houses, as
well of monks as of nuns, that it contains no old people, for these
old folk do not fear God nor care they for conscience or for
obedience, but when no one is looking, then they do all that they
think or desire, chattering with one another and with anyone else, by
day and by night, even in places where it is forbidden by the
rule[2142].
Besides the obstinacy of old members of the house Busch had also to
contend with the occasional opposition of confessors or _praepositi_, who
resented his interference in their domain. At the Magdalenenkloster at
Hildesheim, their confessor, who had been with the nuns for eight years,
desired to be released after the reformation of the house, saying to the
_praepositus_: "I have been their confessor for so many years, yet nought
do I receive from them, save one or two refections in three or four weeks.
I would fain be free of them and let them get another confessor." Busch
comments significantly: "He said this, because when they were
property-owners, they gave him many little gifts in money, and spices.
Now, because they had no private property, they gave him nothing"[2143].
At the convent of White Ladies and at Marienberg the _praepositus_ of the
house did everything possible to hinder the reform[2144]. Moreover in
several cases Busch had also to deal with the opposition of laymen,
objecting either to the enclosure of their kinswomen, or to the abolition
of private endowments, or merely supporting on general grounds the
objections of the nuns.
The difficulties encountered by a fifteenth century German reformer are
best estimated by giving an account of some of Busch's adventures at
recalcitrant houses. At his first attempt to reform Wennigsen in Hanover
(1455) he had against him the Bishop of Minden and all the nobles of the
neighbouring castles, but he was supported by William Duke of Brunswick
and by the authority of the Council of Basel. Taking with him the Duke,
his minister Ludolph von Barum and Rutger, Prior of Wittenberg, Busch went
to the house and they all four entered the nuns' choir. The Duke addressed
the assembled sisters and bade them receive reformation, but they,
crossing their hands above their breasts, replied: "We have all concluded
together and sworn that we will not reform nor observe our rule. We
beseech you not to make us perjured." Twice the Duke sent them out to
reconsider their decision and twice they made the same reply, finally
throwing themselves on their faces on the ground, spreading out their arms
in the form of a cross and intoning in a loud voice the antiphon "Media
vita in morte sumus." The visitors, however, thought they were singing
"Revelabunt celi iniquitatem Iude" (used as a spell in the middle ages)
and the Duke was terrified, lest he should lose all his possessions. But
Busch said:
"If I were duke of this land I would rather have that song than a
hundred florins, for there is no curse over us and over your land, but
a benediction and heavenly dew, but over these nuns is a stern rebuke
and the sign of their reformation. But we are few, being but our four
selves, and the nuns are many. If they were to attack us with their
distaffs and with stones hidden in their long sleeves, what should we
do? Let us call in others to help." Then the duke, going up alone to
them said, "May what you sing be upon you and your bodies"; and to his
servants who were standing with the nuns in the choir, he said, "come
hither to us."
The nuns followed the Duke and the servants, thinking that their chests
and money boxes were going to be broken up, whereupon the Duke rebuked
them, saying that if they and their noble friends and the Bishop of Minden
opposed reform any longer, he would turn them off his lands. The nuns then
asked to be allowed to take counsel with their friends and relatives, to
which the Duke, on Busch's intercession, unwillingly agreed. The friends
accordingly came to a conference, but all they did was to repeat the nuns'
request in the same form, and they continued to do so after the Duke had
given them two or three chances to reconsider the matter; whereupon he
sent them away, and they rode off, followed by their shield-bearers. The
Duke then ordered the gates of the house to be opened to Busch, but the
nuns returned a message that the keys were lost. The Duke, on Busch's
authority, sent for several rustics and villeins, who brought a long bench
and broke open the door. The reformers went up into the choir and there
found the nuns, flat on their faces with arms out like a cross, and round
them a circle of little wooden and stone images of saints, with a burning
candle between each. Seeing that it was useless to resist, they approached
the visitors, and the Duke addressed them, saying that if they would
receive reform, he would keep them on his land, and if not carriages were
ready to take them away for ever. The nuns begged him to "remove those
monks from their necks," when they would do his will, but the Duke replied
that he did everything by the advice of Rutger and Busch.
The nuns then gave way and the reform was begun, after which the Duke and
his followers rode away, leaving his councillor and notary with Busch. But
at nightfall the nuns sent their _praepositus_ to Busch, with the message:
"My ladies the prioress and nuns say that they are not willing to serve as
they promised, but they wish to remain as they were and are." The Duke had
to be sent for once more and eventually all the nuns submitted except one,
who seems to have fallen into a fit, and the reform went on apace:
"Because we instructed them kindly and not austerely," says Busch,
"they said to us, 'At first we thought that you would be very austere
and unkind, but now we see that you are gentle as the angels of
heaven. Now we have more faith in you than in the lord duke.'"
Busch's troubles, however, were not over, for twice within the next few
days he was attacked by armed men objecting to the new enclosure of the
nuns, and only his native wit and conciliatory words saved him from a very
dangerous situation[2145].
Almost equally difficult was the reform of Mariensee, where again the
Bishop of Minden did all in his power to oppose reform, having (according
to Busch) been bribed by the nuns to defend them. The Duke of Brunswick,
however, forced the nuns to admit the reformers and forced the Bishop to
send four emissaries to assist in carrying out the reform. These four
prelates entered the house first to ask the nuns if they would consent to
receive reform; but they refused, and one young woman tore off her veil
and crown and casting them at the feet of the Bishop's suffragan cried:
"Always hitherto you have told me that I need not be reformed and now you
want to compel me to be reformed. Behold your crown and veil! I will no
longer be a nun." The Bishop's emissaries after this gave up their
half-hearted attempt to reform the house and retired, leaving the field to
Busch and his companions. The Duke then caused four carriages to be
brought to the door, in which the rebellious nuns could be taken away,
whereat the Abbess and the nuns climbed up into the vaults of the church
and hid themselves there. The Duke ordered his servants to fetch ladders
and place them against the roof and then to climb up and fetch down the
nuns, but the prudent Busch prevented this, saying that the nuns would
push over and kill the first who went up the ladder. Instead he went into
the choir and, finding one nun still walking there, threatened her that
unless the whole convent came down from the roof at once, they should be
taken away in the carriages, "to-night you shall be in the Duke's castle
of Nyerstadt, tomorrow in his castle of Calenberg, and after that outside
his lands, perchance never to return." Whereupon the horrified nuns
descended.
Then followed an amusing scene. All the nuns agreed to accept the new
reforms, except one young woman, who refused:
"Then," says Busch, "I said to the lord Duke, 'This sister scorns
obedience and contradicts everything.' Whereupon, finding how perverse
she was, he seized her and tried to draw her to the carriage. But when
he had thrown his arms about her, she fell back flat on the ground,
the Duke on the top of her, and the other nuns on the top of the Duke,
each pushing the other on to him, so that the Duke could not raise
himself from off her, especially as his arms were crushed beneath her
scapular. And we, who saw him lying thus, stood away, waiting for the
end of the business. At length he got one arm away from her, and with
it pushed off the nuns who were lying upon him, hitting them and
drawing blood from their arms, for he was a man and the nuns were like
children, without strength and resistance."
(This was the age of chivalry!) When he had got rid of these nuns he
lifted the nun on whom he was lying, pulled his other arm free and sprang
to his feet again, saying to the vassals and servants, who were standing
round: "Why do you allow your liege lord thus to be trampled under foot by
nuns?" One of them replied for all, "Gracious lord! we have ever stood by
thee where the war engines were hurling their stones and the bows their
arrows; only tell us what we are to do and we will willingly do it." Then
said he, "Whichever nun I seize, do you seize her too," and they replied.
"Willingly, gracious lord." Whereupon the nuns gave in and professed
themselves willing to be reformed. But they were still recalcitrant at
heart, and when Busch, Rutger and the Duke were going away, they all began
to sing the antiphon "Media vita" at the top of their voices and pursued
the hapless reformers through the church, pelting them with burning
candles. One girl followed them outside to the cemetery, chanted "Sancte
deus, sancte, fortis, sancte et immortalis" three times and falling on her
knees, bit the ground thrice in sign of a curse, and threw stones and
earth after them. In the end, however, even this stormy convent was
reduced to peace and reform, after three reformed nuns from Derneburg were
brought in to teach them[2146].
Busch had almost as much difficulty with the nuns of Derneburg, an Austin
house near Hildesheim, in which, as he says: "the nuns had long lived an
irregular life, owning private property, and, according to public rumour,
incontinent," paying long visits outside their house as often as they
pleased and performing only the minimum routine of monastic life. On one
occasion, Busch tells us,
When I was taking their private possessions away from the nuns and
placing them in the common stock, it happened that I was going through
their cupboards and cellars, for several of them had a small cellar
encircling the monastery, which was entered by three or four steps and
had covered vaults, in which they kept their beer and other private
allowances. They were showing me the cellars, and going down into them
before me, and the last nun said to me: "Do you go first now, father,
for my cellar is the same as those of the other sisters," and without
thinking I did so. But when I went down into it, she suddenly clapped
to the door or vault over my head and stood upon it. I was shut up
alone in there, thinking what would have happened if the nuns had shut
me up there secretly; and I shouted to my brother, who was standing
outside with them, bidding him cause them to open the door and let me
out. At length after some delay they opened the trap-door of the
cellar and let me come out. After that I was never willing to go first
into any closed place in any nunnery, lest anything of the kind should
happen, and lest I should be unable to get out easily. But when two or
three preceded me, then I followed them. One only going in front did
not suffice me, lest they should shut me up for some time alone with
her and then spread tales about me. The sister who did this was good
enough and very simple, whence I was astonished that she should think
of such a thing.
It was while he was reforming this house, too, that he was attacked by
several armed laymen, who took the part of the nuns. The nuns of Derneburg
were never effectually reformed, although Busch gave himself the greatest
trouble over them. At the end of three years they prevailed upon their
friends and relatives in the neighbourhood to get rid of Busch and his
brethren, and the nuns received Henry, Abbot of Marienrode, as their
spiritual father and reformer instead. But they did not gain by the
change, for he, being a Cistercian, introduced a nun of his own order as
their prioress, and finally the Bishop of Hildesheim, the Abbot of
Marienrode and other reformers came one morning to the house and, rebuking
the nuns for their imperviousness to reform, made them come away in all
their old clothes, leaving their books and possessions behind them, placed
them in carriages and distributed them among other houses, where many were
forced to become Cistercians. The house itself was turned into a
Cistercian priory. "Thus," says Busch, not without some satisfaction,
"they lost the holy father St Augustine with me!"[2147]
The methods employed by Busch to carry out a reform were to undertake the
initial stages himself and if necessary to obtain a few nuns from a
previously reformed house to live in the convent and bring it to right
discipline. He always began by hearing the confessions of the nuns, which
often caused considerable fluttering in the convent. At St George, near
Halle, he found that the convent was subordinated to the monastery of
Zinna, and received its confessor from that house, which Busch decided to
alter, for the Abbot of Zinna was impeding his reforms. He therefore bade
the Abbess send the sisters to confess to him, but she replied:
"The sisters dare not confess to you by reason of the apostolic
mandate and the abbot of Zinna and our own confessor, who comes from
him."
Then Busch said:
"Because I have authority to do so, say to them: the confessor is
sitting in the church, in front of the window, where you are wont to
confess, so you may go there and confess." Then the prioress or eldest
of the sisters came to the window and confessed fully to me ... and
when she had finished I said, "Sister, have you more to say?" Whereat
she cried in alarm, "Are you the provost of the Neuwerk?" I answered,
"Even so." "Then have I confessed to the provost?" "Yea." "What now
shall I do and say?" I replied, "Be silent and tell no one that I have
heard your confession, so that the others may come to confess,
otherwise you will be the only one to have confessed to me." She did
so and receiving absolution left me, telling no one that she had
confessed to me.
After that each nun who came received the same advice, until all had
confessed[2148].
At Derneburg the nuns were afraid to come and confess for another reason.
There was current in the taverns and dining halls of the whole country
side a tale of the terrible penance imposed by Busch upon a brother of his
monastery of Sülte, who took a larger draught of drink from the drinking
cup than Busch thought seemly, whereupon he was said to have caused the
unfortunate man to lie for three hours before the dining table in the
frater, with his mouth stretched open by a large horse-bone; and when one
of the brothers burst out laughing at the sight, Busch was said to have
thrown the drinking cup in his face. The weeping nuns informed him between
their sobs: "We are virgins and maids, we cannot do such a great penance
for such a little fault." Busch was obliged to assure them that the whole
tale was a fabrication[2149]. At Escherde he had the same difficulty.
The frightened nuns were afraid to confess to me, because they had
heard that I was wont to inflict very severe penances, which was not
true, as I afterwards told them. Then their _praepositus_ said to
them: "The bishop's mandate orders you to confess to him under pain of
excommunication and if you refuse then you will be under an interdict.
My good ladies, I counsel you to confess to him. I will place beside
him my servant with a drawn sword and if he says one bad or harsh word
to you it shall cleave his head." When they saw and heard that they
could not escape they consented to confess to me, but they sent before
them first one bold nun in order to beard me. Seated in the
confessional, she began, "Sir, what do you here?" I answered, "I lead
you all to the kingdom of heaven."... Half the nuns confessed to me
that day. To the third of them I said, "Sister, am I as harsh as you
said I was?" and she replied, "You are a man of gold, gentle and kind
beyond all things." In the evening, when we were supping I said to the
_praepositus_: "What are your nuns saying about me? Am I as severe as
they thought?" He replied, "When it was their turn to go to
confession, the hair of their heads stood on end, but when they came
away from you, they returned in great consolation." The next day I
finished the others before dinner, and towards the end I asked one of
them. "Am I as hard and severe as you heard?" and she replied, "Now
you are honey-tongued. But when you have got our consent and have tied
a rope to our horns to drag us along, then you will say to us: You
must and shall do all that I desire." I answered her, "Beloved sister,
fear not, for I shall always remain kind and benign towards
you"[2150].
Besides confessing the nuns Busch and his fellow visitors went through the
conventual routine with them, showing them how they ought to perform
divine service, to behave in the frater and to hold chapters. The most
efficacious means of reform employed, however, was to send for some
reformed nuns from another convent, to dwell in the newly reformed house.
Nuns of the order of Mary Magdalen in Hildesheim went to Heiningen,
Stederburg, Frankenburg, and the White Ladies of Magdeburg. Fischbeck was
reformed by nuns of the Windesheim order. Marienberg was reformed by nuns
of Bronopia and in its turn sent reformers to Marienborn and Stendal,
where nuns of Dorstadt had already made reforms, from which the original
members soon fell away. Two nuns and a _conversa_ were sent from Heiningen
to the Holy Cross at Erfurt and the Abbess and four nuns of Derneburg went
to Weinhausen[2151]. The newcomers were usually gladly lent and graciously
received in their new homes; sometimes they remained and held office in
the latter and sometimes they returned to their own houses, when the
reform was firmly rooted. The tale of the reform of Marienberg is
charming[2152]. Busch, with the consent of the chapter-general of the
congregation of Windesheim, took from Bronopia two nuns, Ida and Tecla and
a lay sister Aleidis, who for his sake and for the sake of the good work
left their own country and their noble friends and relatives, and made a
long and sometimes dangerous journey with Busch across Westphalia and
Saxony to Helmstedt. Here they were joyfully received. Ida was made
subprioress to introduce reforms and to order all the internal discipline
of the house; Tecla, who was a learned lady, was made governess of the
novices, teaching them to sing and to read Latin and "to write letters and
missives in a masterly manner, in good Latin, as I have seen and examined
with my eyes." Aleidis was made mistress of the _conversi_.
For three years these nuns dwelt at Helmstedt, beloved of all and bringing
the place to excellent order. Then Tecla fell ill. The Prioress sent for
Busch:
and I came and found her sitting in the infirmary and ordered her to
be bled and to receive suitable medicine. And when I had remained
there for two or three days I decided to go away without taking them
and I bade them farewell at eventide;
for Busch had decided that it was time for the sisters to return to
Bronopia:
After this the proctress of the house came to me, saying: "Beloved
father! Sister Tecla is asking for you with tears, for she says she
will never see you again. I beseech you that you will go and speak to
her once again tomorrow, before you leave." I answered, "Willingly,
for she is my dear sister and for God's sake and mine she left all her
rich friends and her own country and followed me to this strange and
distant land." The next day, therefore, I visited her in her bed, in
the presence of Ida and Aleidis. Then she was better and was well
content that I should go away and soon she recovered altogether from
that illness.
Shortly afterwards Busch took the three nuns with him and they set off to
drive back to Bronopia, staying at various monastic houses on the way; and
the nuns of Helmstedt all the time sent messengers after them, with
letters assuring the three sisters of their love and sorrow. The journey
was at length completed without any accident, except that fat sister Ida
tumbled into a cellar at Wittenberg and hurt her leg, so that Busch had to
carry her into the carriage.
To his account of this episode Busch subjoins four letters, one from
himself, one from the prioress and stewardess of Helmstedt to the three
sisters, one from the young scholars of the house to their mistress Tecla,
and the reply of the three sisters to the convent and of Tecla to her
scholars[2153]. In the Prioress' letter there is a vivid description of
the sorrow of the nuns at the departure of their three visitors:
Our sister Geseke Zeelde wept most tearfully and could not go into the
workroom, so grieved she after sister Aleydis. Sister Mettike Guestyn
was so miserable that she could not eat or drink. When I went into the
kitchen sister Tryneke wept so much that all who were with her in the
kitchen wept too and said: "_O wi_, now has our leader gone away!"
When sister Elyzabeth Cyriaci began the office of the mass, she sang
it so dolefully through her tears, that she could hardly sing. When
she had to begin the 'Benedictus' after the 'Sanctus' she burst out
crying, so that she could not sing at all, but sister Elyzabeth
Broysen had to go on with it and she could hardly finish it. Geseke
Obrecht and Heylewich the chantress are very sorrowful, because they
did not say goodbye to you, for they did not know you were going so
early. They now send you as many good wishes as there are sands in the
sea. When the scholars come to school on Sunday, we cannot describe to
you how many tears are shed there. The stewardess and I have to
console the other sisters, but we are the rather in need of someone to
console us. When we look on your places in choir and frater and
dorter, then we grow sad and weep, saying, "O God, if only Bronopia
were where Heiningen is, five miles away from us, then we might often
visit each other, which now we cannot do, for we are forty miles away.
We are as it were dead to each other at the two ends of the earth." We
have many other things to write to you, but because it is the middle
of the night, we must separate and go to matins. Dearest sisters, we
give you deepest thanks for all the good you have done for us, in
spiritual and in temporal matters. God speed you a thousand times, in
Jesus' name.... As many as there are pearls, as many as there are
planets in the heaven, as many as there are ends to the earth, so many
godspeeds send we to you[2154].
The letter of the little novices to sister Tecla deserves quotation, to
show their progress under her tuition:
Ihesum pium consolatorem merentium pro salute! Notum facimus charitati
vestre, charissima soror Tecla magistra nostra, quod nos omnes
scholares vestre in magna sumus tristitia et dolore de vestro a nobis
recessu. Non enim possumus oblivisci presentiam vestram, sed cotidie
querimus vos, et dum non invenimus, tunc contristamur et dolemus. Vix
potestis credere, quanta tristitia et quantus dolor est in claustro
nostro de vestra absentia tam de senioribus quam de iunioribus.
Quapropter petimus cordintime, sicut amplius non sumus nos invicem
visure in hac mortali vita, ut oretis pro nobis deum, ut taliter
vivamus in hoc seculo, ut nos invicem videre valeamus in conspectu
sancte Trinitatis. Valete, soror dilectissima, cum charissimis
sororibus vestris Ida et Aleide in domino semper! Et deus omnipotens
omnem tribulationem et angustiam a vobis removeat et vestram
sanctitatem conservet tempora per eterna, Amen[2155].
It is a pretty picture of affection and concord, which is given by these
letters, and may well be set against the pictures of conventual bickering,
which are too often to be found in visitation reports.
Busch's reforms seem to have been very successful. He often mentions that
such and such a house remained in a good state of reform for such and such
a number of years, or up to the day on which he wrote. Sometimes he
describes reforming prioresses or other nuns, who did good work in their
houses[2156]; sometimes also he mentions the assistance given by a wise
confessor or custos. His only real failure seems to have been Derneburg;
this house withstood both his efforts (for three years he had acted as
confessor, walking two miles before breakfast to confess the nuns before
communion) and those of the Cistercian abbot of Marienrode, who had been
their benefactor for over 300 florins; and Busch quotes rather bitterly
the proverb current in Germany:
Gratia nulla perit, nisi gratia sola sororum.
Sic fuit, est et erit: 'ondanc' in fine laborum[2157].
But he seldom got _ondanc_ at the end of his work; and when his life drew
to a close he could look back on hundreds of monks and nuns not only
reformed by him, but also cherishing for him the greatest gratitude and
affection. His was a large and humane spirit, and for all his zeal for
reform and his reputation for sternness, it is plain that he had that
greatest of gifts, the capacity to win the hearts of men.
APPENDIX IV
LIST OF ENGLISH NUNNERIES. c. 1275-1535
[In this list Ab. = Abbey, Pr. = Priory; A. = Austin, B. = Benedictine, C.
= Cistercian, Cl. = Cluniac, Dom. = Dominican, Fr. = Franciscan, Brig. =
Brigittine. P. = Premonstratensian. Gilbertine houses are not included.]
House Dedication Order County Diocese Founder and date
1. ACONBURY Holy Cross A.Pr. Her. Her. Margery, wife of
Walter de Lacy,
temp. John
2. AMESBURY St Mary and B.Pr. Wilts. Salis. Saxon Abbey:
St Meilor refounded as a
priory for nuns
of Fontevrault
by King John,
1199
3. ANKERWYKE St Mary B.Pr. Bucks. Linc. Gilbert de
Magd. Muntfichet, c.
1160
4. ARDEN St Andrew B.Pr. York., York Peter de Hoton,
N.R. temp. Henry II
5. ARMATHWAITE St Mary B.Pr. Cumb. Carl. Unknown, before
1200
6. ARTHINGTON St Mary Cl.Pr. York., York Peter, son of
W.R. Serlo de
Arthington,
middle of
twelfth century
7. BARKING St Mary and B.Ab. Essex Lon. St Earconwald,
St Ethelburga Bishop of
London, 675-93,
probably in 666
8. BARROW GURNEY St Mary and B.Pr. Som. B. and Unknown:
(MINCHIN St Edward W. probably a
BARROW) Gurney, before
1212
9. BASEDALE St Mary C.Pr. York., York Guy de
N.R. Bovincurt, c.
1190 (see
_V.C.H. Yorks._
III, 158)
10. BLACKBOROUGH St Mary and B.Pr. Norf. Norw. Roger de Scales
St Katherine and Muriel his
wife, c. 1150
11. BLITHBURY St Giles B.Pr. Staffs. C.L. Hugh Malveysin,
after 1129
12. BREWOOD St Mary B.Pr. Staffs. C.L. Unknown, twelfth
(Black century
Ladies)
13. BREWOOD St Leonard C.Pr. Salop C.L. Unknown, twelfth
(White century
Ladies)
14. BRISTOL St Mary A.Pr. Glouces. Worc. Eva, widow of
Magd. Robert
Fitzhardinge,
c. 1173
15. BRODHOLME St Mary P.Pr. Notts. York Agnes de
Camville, wife
of Peter de
Gousla, temp.
Stephen
16. BROMHALE St Margaret B.Pr. Berks. Salis. Unknown, before
1200
17. BRUISYARD Ann. of St Fr.Ab. Suff. Norw. Edward III,
Mary 1366, at
instigation of
Lionel, Duke of
Clarence
18. BUCKLAND St John A.Pr. Som. B. and Henry II, c.
(Minchin) Bapt. (nuns W. 1186 (instead
of St of House of
John of Austin canons
Jerusalem) founded 1166
by William de
Erlegh)
19. BUNGAY St Mary and B.Pr. Suff. Norw. Roger de
Holy Cross Glanville and
Gundred his
wife, c. 1160
20. BURNHAM St Mary A.Ab. Bucks. Linc. Richard, King
of the Romans,
1266
21. CAMBRIDGE St Radegund B.Pr. Cambs. Ely c. 1133-8,
temp. Nigel,
Bishop of Ely
22. CAMPSEY St Mary A.Pr. Suff. Norw. Theobald de
Valognes, c.
1195
23. CANNINGTON St Mary B.Pr. Som. B. and Robert de
W. Courcy, c. 1138
24. CANONSLEIGH St Mary, St A.Ab. Devon Ex. Maud de Clare,
John Countess of
Evangelist Gloucester and
and St Hertford, temp.
Audrey Edward I
(previously a
house of canons)
25. CANTERBURY St Sepulchre B.Pr. Kent Cant. St Anselm, 1100
26. CARROW St Mary and B.Pr. Norf. Norw. King Stephen,
St John 1146
27. CATESBY St Mary, St C.Pr. Northants. Linc. Robert de
Edmund and Esseby, c. 1175
St Thomas
the Martyr
28. CHATTERIS St Mary B.Ab. Cambs. Ely Eadnoth, Abbot
of Ramsey, c.
1010
29. CHESHUNT St Mary B.Pr. Herts. Lon. Unknown,
twelfth century
30. CHESTER St Mary B.Pr. Chester C.L. Ranulf, Earl of
Chester, c.
1140
31. CLEMENTHORPE St Clement B.Pr. York., York. Thurstan,
W.R. Archbishop of
York, c. 1130
32. CLERKENWELL Assumption B.Pr. Midd. Lon. Jordan Brisett,
of St Mary c. 1100
33. COKEHILL -- C.Pr. Worc. Worc. Isabel, Countess
of Warwick, end
of twelfth
century
34. CORNWORTHY St Mary A.Pr. Devon Ex. Uncertain,
fourteenth
century
35. CRABHOUSE St Mary A.Pr. Norf. Norw. Roger, prior,
Magd. St and canons of
John Evang. Rainham, c.
St Thomas 1181
and St Peter
36. DARTFORD St Mary and A.Pr. Kent Roch. Edward III,
St Margaret (ac- 1355
cording
to rule
and in
charge
of Dom.
friars)
37. DAVINGTON St Mary B.Pr. Kent Cant. Fulk de
Magd. Newenham, 1153
38. DELAPRÉ St Mary Cl.Ab. Northants. Linc. Simon of
(de Pratis) Saint-Liz, Earl
of Northampton,
temp. Stephen
(first at
Fotheringay)
39. DELAPRÉ St Mary B.Pr. Herts. Linc. Under abbey of
(de Prato) St Albans
40. DENNY St James Fr.Ab. Cambs. Ely Mary de Valence,
and St Countess of
Leonard Pembroke, 1342
41. DERBY St Mary B.Pr. Derby C.L. Aubin, Abbot of
(Kingsmead Darley, c. 1160
or de
Pratis)
42. EASEBOURNE Nativity of B.Pr. Suss. Chich. ... de Bohun,
B.V.M. before 1248
43. ELLERTON St Mary C.Pr. York., York Uncertain,
(in N.R. before 1227
Swaledale)
44. ELSTOW St Mary and B.Ab. Beds. Linc. Judith, Countess
St Helen of Huntingdon,
late eleventh
century
45. ESHOLT St Mary, St C.Pr. York., York Uncertain,
Leonard and W.R. twelfth century
St James
46. FAIRWELL St Mary B.Pr. Staffs. C.L. Roger, Bishop
of Coventry and
Lichfield, c.
1140
47. FLAMSTEAD St Giles B.Pr. Herts. Linc. Roger de Tony,
temp. Stephen
48. FLIXTON St Mary and A.Pr. Suff. Norw. Margery, widow
St Katherine of Geoffrey de
Hanes and
daughter of
Bartholomew de
Crek, 1258
49. FOSSE St Nicholas C.Pr. Linc. Linc. The men of
Torksey, before
the reign of
John
50. GODSTOW St Mary and B.Ab. Oxon Linc. Edith, widow of
St John Sir William
Baptist Launcelene, c.
1133
51. GOKEWELL St Mary C.Pr. Linc. Linc. William Dawtrey,
before 1148 or
1185
52. GORING St Mary A.Pr. Oxon Linc. Thomas de
Druval, temp.
Henry I
53. GRACEDIEU Holy Trinity A.Pr. Leices. Linc. Rohese de
and St Mary Verdon, c. 1239
54. GREENFIELD St Mary C.Pr. Linc. Linc. Eudes of
Grainsby and
Ralph his son,
before 1153
55. GRIMSBY St Leonard A.Pr. Linc. Linc. Before 1184
56. HALIWELL St John B.Pr. Midd. Lon. Roger son of
(Shoreditch) Baptist Gelren, before
1127
57. HAMPOLE St Mary C.Pr. York., York William de
W.R. Clarefai and
Avice de Tany
his wife, c.
1170
58. HANDALE St Mary C.Pr. York., York William Percy
(or N.R. of Dunsley,
Grendale) 1133
59. HARROLD St Peter A.Pr. Beds. Linc. Sampson le Fort,
before 1148 (as
Arroasian
house). Nunnery,
1181
60. HEDINGHAM, Holy Cross, B.Pr. Ess. Lon. Aubrey de Vere,
CASTLE St Mary and Earl of Oxford,
St James and Lucy his
wife, before
1191
61. HENWOOD St Margaret B.Pr. Warw. Worc. Ketelbern de
Langdon,
between 1149
and 1161
62. HEYNINGS St Mary C.Pr. Linc. Linc. Reyner
d'Evermue,
temp. Stephen
63. HINCHINBROOKE St James B.Pr. Hunts. Linc. Removed from
Eltisley,
Cambs., temp.
William I
64. HOLYSTONE -- B.Pr. Northumb. Dur. ... Umfraville
of Harbottle,
before 1235
65. ICKLETON St Mary B.Pr. Cambs. Ely Uncertain, c.
Magd. 1190
66. ILCHESTER Holy Trinity A.Pr. Som. B. and William Dennis,
(White Hall) W. c. 1220 (as a
hospital). A
nunnery before
1281
67. IRFORD St Mary P.Pr. Linc. Linc. Probably Ralph
d'Albini, temp.
Henry II
68. IVINGHOE St Margaret B.Pr. Bucks. Linc. [William
Giffard?],
Bishop of
Winchester,
twelfth century
69. KELDHOLME St Mary C.Pr. York., York Robert de
N.R. Stuteville,
temp. Henry I
70. KILBURN St Mary and B.Pr. Midd. Lon. Herbert, Abbot
St John of Westminster,
Baptist 1139
71. KINGTON St Mary B.Pr. Wilts. Salis. Before 1155
ST MICHAEL
72. KIRKLEES St Mary and C.Pr. York., York Reiner le
St James W.R. Fleming, temp.
Henry II
73. LACOCK St Mary and A.Ab. Wilts. Salis. Ela, Countess
St Bernard of Salisbury,
1232
74. LAMBLEY St Patrick B.Pr. Northumb. Durh. Adam de
Tynedale, temp.
John
75. LANGLEY St Mary B.Pr. Leic. Linc. William Pantulf
and Burga his
wife, temp.
Henry II
76. LEGBOURNE St Mary C.Pr. Linc. Linc. Robert, son of
Gilbert of
Tathwell, after
1150 (removed
from earlier
site)
77. LILLECHURCH St Mary B.Pr. Kent Roch. King Stephen,
(Higham) before 1151
78. LITTLEMORE St Mary, St B.Pr. Oxon Linc. Robert de
Nicholas Sandford, temp.
and St Stephen
Edmund
79. LONDON St Helen B.Pr. Midd. Lon. William, son of
(Bishopsgate) and Holy William, the
Cross goldsmith,
before 1216
80. LONDON St Mary and Fr.Ab. Midd. Lon. Edmund, Earl of
St Francis Lancaster, 1293
81. LYMBROOK St Mary A.Pr. Her. Her. Uncertain
82. LYMINSTER St Mary B.Pr. Suss. Chich. Roger de
Montgomery, c.
1082 (as cell
of Almenèches)
83. MALLING St Mary and B.Ab. Kent Roch. Gundulf, Bishop
St Andrew of Rochester,
1090
84. MARHAM St Mary, St C.Ab. Norf. Norw. Isabel, widow
Barbara and of Hugh de
St Edmund Albini, Earl of
Arundel, 1249
85. MARKYATE Holy Trinity B.Pr. Beds. Linc. 1145, under
influence of
Geoffrey, Abbot
of St Albans
86. MARLOW, St Mary B.Pr. Bucks. Linc. Uncertain,
LITTLE twelfth century
87. MARRICK St Andrew B.Pr. York., York Roger de Aske,
and St Mary N.R. temp. Henry II
88. MOXBY St John A.Pr. York., York Henry II,
Evangelist N.R. before 1167
(removed from
double house
at Marton)
89. NEASHAM St Mary B.Pr. Durh. Durh. Probably the
Lord of
Greystoke,
before 1157
90. NEWCASTLE- St B.Pr. Northumb. Durh. Uncertain,
UPON-TYNE Bartholomew twelfth century
91. NUNAPPLETON St Mary and C.Pr. York., York Eustace de
St John W.R. Merch and Alice
Evangelist St Quintin his
wife, c. 1150
92. NUNBURNHOLME -- B.Pr. York., York Ancestors of
E.R. Roger de
Merlay, Lord of
Morpeth,
twelfth century
93. NUNCOTON St Mary C.Pr. Linc. Linc. Alan de
Mounceaux,
before 1129
94. NUNEATON St Mary B.Pr. Warw. Worc. Robert, Earl
of Leicester,
c. 1155, for
nuns of
Fontevrault
95. NUNKEELING St Mary and B.Pr. York., York Agnes de
St Helen E.R. Arches, widow
of Herbert St
Quintin, 1152
96. NUNMONKTON St Mary B.Pr. York., York William de
W.R. Arches and
Ivetta his
wife, temp.
Stephen
97. PINLEY St Mary C.Pr. Warw. Worc. Robert de
Pillarton,
temp. Henry I
98. POLESWORTH St Edith B.Ab. Warw. C.L. Saxon
foundation.
Refounded by
Robert Marmion,
temp. Stephen
99. POLSLOE St Katherine B.Pr. Devon Ex. Traditional
founder,
William Bruere,
before 1169
100. REDLINGFIELD St Andrew B.Pr. Suff. Norw. Manasses, Count
and St Mary of Guisnes, and
Emma de Arras
his wife, 1120
101. ROMSEY St Mary and B.Ab. Hants. Win. Edward the
St Elfrida Elder, c. 907:
refounded by
King Edgar, 967
102. ROSEDALE St Mary and C.Pr. York., York Robert, son of
St Lawrence N.R. Nicholas de
Stuteville,
temp. Richard I
103. ROTHWELL St John A.Pr. Northants. Linc. ... de Clare,
Baptist thirteenth
century
104. ROWNEY St John B.Pr. Herts. Linc. Conan, Duke of
Baptist Britanny and
Earl of
Richmond, temp.
Henry II,
suppressed 1459
105. RUSPER St Mary B.Pr. Suss. Chich. Twelfth century,
Magd. probably by one
of the Braose
family
106. ST STEPHEN'S St Stephen B.Pr. York, York Uncertain.
(Foukeholme) N.R. Disappeared
after 1349
107. SETON St Mary B.Pr. Cumb. York Henry son of
(Lekeley) Arthur son of
Godard, Lord
of Millom,
twelfth century
108. SEWARDSLEY St Mary C.Pr. Northants. Linc. Richard de
Magd. Lestre, temp.
Henry II
109. SHAFTESBURY St Mary and B.Ab. Dorset Salis. King Alfred,
St Edward c. 888
110. SHEPPEY St Mary and B.Pr. Kent Cant. St Sexburga,
(Minster) St Sexburga 675
111. SINNING- St Mary C.Pr. York, York Bertram Haget,
THWAITE W.R. c. 1160
112. SOPWELL St Mary B.Pr. Herts. Linc. Under abbey of
St Albans
113. STAINFIELD St Mary B.Pr. Linc. Linc. William or
Henry de Percy,
temp. or before
Henry II
114. STAMFORD St Mary and B.Pr. Northants. Linc. William
St Michael Waterville,
Abbot of
Peterborough,
c. 1155
115. STIXWOULD St Mary C.Pr. Linc. Linc. Lucy, Countess
of Perche,
temp. Stephen
116. STRATFORD- St Leonard B.Pr. Midd. Lon. William, Bishop
BY-BOW of London,
temp. Henry I
117. STUDLEY St Mary B.Pr. Oxon Linc. Probably
Bernard of St
Valery, before
1176
118. SWAFFHAM -- B.Pr. Cambs. Ely Uncertain,
BULBECK before temp.
John
119. SWINE St Mary C.Pr. York., York Robert de
E.R. Verli, temp.
Stephen
120. SYON St Saviour, Brig. Midd. Lon. King Henry V,
St Mary and Ab. 1414
St Bridget
121. TARRANT St Mary and C.Ab. Dorset Salis. Ralph de
KEYNES All Saints Keynes, before
1235
122. THETFORD St George B.Pr. Norf. Norw. Hugh, Abbot of
and St Bury St
Gregory Edmunds, c.
1160 (removed
from Ling)
123. THICKET St Mary B.Pr. York., York Roger FitzRoger,
E.R. temp. Richard I
124. USK -- B.Pr. Monm. Llan. Sir Richard de
Clare, before
1236
125. WALLINGWELLS St Mary B.Pr. Notts. York Ralph de
Chevrecourt,
temp. Stephen
126. WATERBEACH St Mary of Fr.Pr. Cambs. Ely Denise de
Pity and Mountchesney,
St Clare 1294. Removed
to Denny, 1348
127. WESTWOOD St Mary B.Pr. Worc. Worc. Osbert son of
Hugh and
Eustacia de
Saye, his
mother, temp.
Henry II (for
nuns of
Fontevrault)
128. WHERWELL Holy Cross B.Ab. Hants. Win. Queen Elfrida,
and St Peter c. 986
129. WHISTON St Mary C.Pr. Worc. Worc. Walter de
Magd. Cantilupe,
Bishop of
Worcester,
before 1255
130. WILBERFOSS St Mary B.Pr. York., York Uncertain,
E.R. temp. Stephen
131. WILTON St Mary, St B.Ab. Wilts. Salis. St Alburga, c.
Barthlomew 800: refounded
and St Edith by King Alfred,
c. 871
132. WINCHESTER St Mary and B.Ab. Hants. Win. King Alfred and
St Edburga Queen Ealhswith,
c. 900.
Refounded by St
Ethelwold, 963
133. WINTNEY St Mary, St C.Pr. Hants. Win. Richard Holte
Mary Magd. and Christine
and St John his wife,
Baptist daughter of
Thomas Cobreth,
twelfth century
134. WIX St Mary B.Pr. Ess. Lon. Walter
Mascherell,
Alexander and
Edith, children
of Walter the
Deacon, temp.
Henry I
135. WOTHORPE St Mary B.Pr. Northants. Linc. Uncertain:
united to St
Michael's,
Stamford, 1354
136. WROXALL St Leonard B.Pr. Warw. Worc. Hugh, Lord of
Hatton and
Wroxall, temp.
Henry I
137. WYKEHAM St Mary and C.Pr. York., York Pain FitzOsbert,
St Michael N.R. c. 1153
138. YEDINGHAM St Mary B.Pr. York., York Helewise de
E.R. Clere, before
1163
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A. MANUSCRIPT SOURCES
I. EPISCOPAL REGISTERS
(_a_) _Lincoln Episcopal Registers_
Register of Memoranda, Sutton (1280-99).
Register of Memoranda, Dalderby (1300-20).
Register of Memoranda, Gynewell (1347-62).
Register of Memoranda, Bokyngham (1363-98).
Register of Visitations, Alnwick[2158] (1436-49).
Register of Visitations, Atwater (1514-21).
Register of Visitations, Longland (1521-47).
(_b_) _Lambeth Palace Registers_
Register of Langham (1366-8).
Register of Courtenay (1381-96).
(_c_) _New College Oxford_
Register of William of Wykeham Bishop of Winchester, for 1386-7, ff.
84_d_-89_d_ (Injunctions to Romsey and Wherwell)[2159].
II. DOCUMENTS IN THE PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
(_a_) _Account Rolls_
Ministers Accounts, 867/21-6, 30, 33-6. (Delapré, St Albans. Between
16 Edw. III and 2 Ric. III.)
_Ib._ 1257/1 (Catesby, 11-14 Hen. VI).
_Ib._ 1257/2 (Denny, 14 Hen. IV-1 Hen. V).
_Ib._ 1257/10 (Gracedieu, 1-5 Hen. V).
_Ib._ 1260 (St Michael's, Stamford, 24 rolls between 32 Edw. I and 20
Hen. VI).
_Ib._ 1261/4 (Syon, Cellaress' Account, 21-2 Edw. IV).
_Ib._ 1307/22 (Syon, Cellaress' Account, 36 Hen. VI).
(_b_) _Petitions_
Early Chancery Proceedings, 181/4 (Petition from Elizabeth Webley,
late Prioress of Sopwell, concerning her deposition and imprisonment
by John Rothbury, Archdeacon of St Albans Abbey).
_Ib._ 4/196 (Petition from Richard English and Margery his wife
concerning a corrody withheld from them by the Abbess of Malling).
_Ib._ 7/70 (Petition from Richard Haldenby and Agnes his wife
concerning the daughters of Agnes by a former marriage, one of whom
has been made to take the veil by an uncle, for the sake of her
inheritance).
_Ib._ 44/227 (Petition from Thomasyn Dynham, Prioress of Cornworthy,
concerning two children at school in her house, whose fees have not
been paid for five years).
Ancient Petitions 302/15063 (Petition from the Prioress and nuns of
Rowney for leave to have a proctor to beg alms for them, as their
buildings are ruinous).
Ancient Correspondence, 36/201 (Petition to Queen Isabel from the
Prioress and Convent of Clerkenwell, asking her to obtain the King's
leave for them to receive certain lands, by reason of their poverty).
Chancery Warrants, Series 1/1759, 1762, 1764, 1769 (Petitions for the
arrest of apostate nuns, nine in all).
B. PRINTED SOURCES
I. ARCHIEPISCOPAL AND EPISCOPAL REGISTERS
(_a_) _Bath and Wells_
Registers of Walter Giffard (1265-6) and of Henry Bowet (1401-7), ed.
T. S. Holmes. (Somerset Record Soc. 1899.)
Register of John of Drokensford (1309-29), ed. E. Hobhouse. (Somerset
Record Soc. 1887.)
Register of Ralph of Shrewsbury (1329-63), ed. T. S. Holmes. (Somerset
Record Soc. 1896.) 2 vols.
(_b_) _Canterbury_
Registrum Epistolarum Fratris Johannis Peckham Archiepiscopi
Cantuariensis (1279-92), ed. C. Trice Martin. (Rolls Series, 1882-5.)
3 vols.
Visitations of Archbishop Warham in 1511, ed. Mary Bateson. (English
Historical Review, VI, 1891, pp. 28 ff.) (Full abstracts.)
See also The British Magazine, vols. XXIX-XXXII, _passim_ (abstracts).
(_c_) _Chichester_
Episcopal Register of Robert Rede, Bishop of Chichester (1397-1415),
ed. Cecil Deedes. (Sussex Rec. Soc. 1908.)
Blaauw, W. Episcopal Visitations of the Priory of Easebourne
(1442-1527). (Sussex Archaeol. Collections, IX, 1857, pp. 1-32.)
Way, A. Notices of the Benedictine Priory of St Mary Magdalen at
Rusper (1442-1527). (Sussex Archaeol. Collections, V, 1852, pp.
244-62.)
(_d_) _Durham, York, Carlisle_
Historical Papers and Letters from the Northern Registers, ed. James
Raine. (Rolls Series, 1873.)
(_e_) _Durham_
Registrum Palatinum Dunelmense. Register of Richard de Kellawe, Lord
Palatine and Bishop of Durham, 1311-16, ed. Sir T. Duffus Hardy.
(Rolls Series, 1873-8.) 4 vols.
(_f_) _Exeter_
Register of Walter de Stapeldon, Bishop of Exeter, 1308-26, ed. F. C.
Hingeston-Randolph (1892).
Register of John de Grandisson, Bishop of Exeter, 1327-69, ed. F. C.
Hingeston-Randolph (1894-9).
Register of Thomas de Brantyngham, Bishop of Exeter, Part I; 1370-94,
ed. F. C. Hingeston-Randolph (1901).
Register of Edmund Stafford, Bishop of Exeter, 1395-1419, ed. F. C.
Hingeston-Randolph (1886).
(_g_) _Hereford_
Registrum Thome de Cantilupo, Episcopi Herefordensis, 1275-82,
transcribed by R. C. Griffiths, with an introduction by W. W. Capes.
(Canterbury and York Soc. and Cantilupe Soc. 1907.)
Registrum Ricardi de Swinfield, Episcopi Herefordensis, 1283-1317, ed.
W. W. Capes. (Canterbury and York Soc. and Cantilupe Soc. 1909.)
Registrum Adae de Orleton, Episcopi Herefordensis, 1317-27, ed. A. T.
Bannister. (Canterbury and York Soc. and Cantilupe Soc. 1908.)
Registrum Roberti Mascall, Episcopi Herefordensis, 1404-16,
transcribed by J. H. Parry with introductory note by Charles Johnson.
(Canterbury and York Soc. and Cantilupe Soc. 1917.)
Registrum Thome Spofford, Episcopi Herefordensis, 1422-48, ed. A. T.
Bannister. (Canterbury and York Soc. and Cantilupe Soc. 1919.)
Registrum Thome Myllyng, Episcopi Herefordensis, 1472-92, ed. A. T.
Bannister (1920).
(_h_) _Coventry and Lichfield_
Register of Roger de Norbury, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield,
1322-59, ed. Edmund Hobhouse. (William Salt Archaeol. Soc.
Collections, I, 1881.) (Table of contents only.)
The Second Register of Bishop Robert de Stretton, 1360-85, abstracted
into English by R. A. Wilson. (William Salt Archaeol. Soc. Coll., New
Series, vol. VIII, 1905.) (Brief calendar.)
(_i_) _Lincoln_
Visitations of Religious Houses in the Diocese of Lincoln, ed. A.
Hamilton Thompson. Vol. I. Injunctions and other Documents from the
Registers of Richard Flemyng and William Gray, 1420-36. (Lincoln
Record Soc. and Canterbury and York Soc. 1915.)
Visitations of Religious Houses in the Diocese of Lincoln, ed. A.
Hamilton Thompson. Vol. II. Alnwick's Visitations (1436-49). (Lincoln
Record Soc. and Canterbury and York Soc.)
Injunctions of John Longland, Bishop of Lincoln, to certain
Monasteries in his Diocese, 1531, ed. E. Peacock. (Archaeologia,
XLVII, pp. 49-64, 1883.)
(_j_) _London_
Registrum Radulphi Baldock, Gilberti Segrave, Ricardi Newport et
Stephani Gravesend, Episcoporum Londoniensium, 1306-38, ed. R. C.
Fowler. (Canterbury and York Soc. 1911.)
(_k_) _Norwich_
Visitations of the Diocese of Norwich, 1492-1532, ed. A. Jessopp.
(Camden Soc. 1888.)
(_l_) _Rochester_
Registrum Hamonis Hethe Episcopi Roffensis (1319-52). (Canterbury and
York Soc. 1914 ff., in course of publication.)
(_m_) _Salisbury_
Registrum Simonis de Gandavo Episcopi Saresbiriensis (1297-1315), ed.
C. T. Flower. (Canterbury and York Soc. 1914, in course of
publication.)
(_n_) _Winchester_
Registrum Johannis de Pontissara (1282-1304), ed. C. Deedes.
(Canterbury and York Soc. 1913-15.)
Registers of John de Sandale and Rigaud de Asserio, Bishops of
Winchester, 1316-23, ed. F. J. Baigent. (Hants. Rec. Soc. 1897.)
Wykeham's Register, 1367-1404, ed. T. F. Kirby. (Hants Rec. Soc.
1896-9.) 2 vols.
(_o_) _Worcester_
Register of Godfrey Giffard, 1268-1302, ed. J. W. Willis-Bund.
(Worcester Hist. Soc. 1898-1902.) 2 vols.
Register of the Diocese of Worcester during the vacancy of the see,
usually called Registrum Sede Vacante, 1301-1435, ed. J. W.
Willis-Bund. (Worcester Hist. Soc. 1893-7.)
(_p_) _York_
Register of Walter Gray, Archbishop of York, 1216-55, ed. J. Raine.
(Surtees Soc. 1872.)
Register of Walter Giffard, Archbishop of York, 1266-79, ed. W. Brown.
(Surtees Soc. 1904.)
Register of William Wickwane, Archbishop of York, 1279-85, ed. W.
Brown. (Surtees Soc. 1907.)
Register of John le Romeyn, Archbishop of York, 1286-96, ed. W. Brown.
Vol. I. (Surtees Soc. 1913.)
Registers of John le Romeyn Archbishop of York, 1286-96, Part II, and
of Henry of Newark, Archbishop of York, 1298-99, ed. W. Brown. Vol.
II. (Surtees Soc. 1917.)
Visitations in the Diocese of York, holden by Archbishop Edward Lee
(1531-44), ed. W. Brown. (Yorks. Archaeol. Journal, XVI, 1901, pp.
319-68.)
(_q_) _Foreign Visitations_
Des Augustinerpropstes Iohannes Busch Chronicon Windeshemense und
Liber de Reformatione Monasteriorum, bearbeitet von Dr Karl Grube.
(Halle, 1886.)
Regestrum Visitationum Archiepiscopi Rothomagensis, Journal des
Visites Pastorales d'Eude Rigaud Archevêque de Rouen, 1248-69, pub.
par Th. Bonnin. (Rouen, 1852.)
II. ACCOUNT ROLLS
(_a_) _Catesby_ (_2-3 Hen. V_)
Baker, History of Northampton (1822-30), vol. I, p. 278.
(_b_) _Romsey_ (1412-13, _summary_)
Liveing, H. G. D., Records of Romsey Abbey (1906), p. 194.
(_c_) _St Helen's, Bishopsgate_ (_sixteenth century, extracts_)
Victoria County History: London, I, p. 460.
(_d_) _St Radegund's, Cambridge_ (1449-51, 1481-2)
Gray, A., The Priory of St Radegund, Cambridge (1898), pp. 145-179.
(_e_) _St Mary de Pré, St Albans_ (1487-9)
Dugdale, Monasticon, III, p. 358.
(_f_) _Swaffham Bulbeck_ (1483-4)
Dugdale, Monasticon, IV, p. 458.
(_g_) _Syon_ (_Cellaress' and Chambress' Accounts_, 1536-7)
Myroure of Oure Ladye, ed. J. H. Blunt. (E.E.T.S. 1873.) Introduction,
pp. xxvi-xxxi.
(_h_) _Miscellaneous_ (_Extracts_)
C. T. Flower, Obedientiars' Accounts of Glastonbury and other
Religious Houses. Trans. St Paul's Ecclesiological Soc. vol. VII, Pt.
II (1912), pp. 50-62.
III. INVENTORIES
(_a_) _Brewood_ (1536)
Dugdale, Monasticon, IV, p. 500.
(_b_) _Cheshunt_ (1536)
Cussans, History of Hertfordshire, Hertford Hundred, App. II, pp.
267-71.
(_c_) _Easebourne_ (1450)
Sussex Archaeol. Coll. IX, pp. 10-13.
(_d_) _Gracedieu_ (1536)
Nichols, History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester (1804),
III, pp. 653-4.
(_e_) _Hedingham, Castle_ (1536)
Trans. Essex Archaeological Soc. IX, pp. 289-92.
(_f_) _Kilburn_ (1536)
Dugdale, Monasticon, IV, p. 424.
(_g_) _Langley_ (1485)
Walcott, Mackenzie E. C., Inventory of St Mary's Benedictine Nunnery
at Langley, Co. Leicester, 1485. (Leicestershire Architec. Soc. 1872.)
(_h_) _Lillechurch_ (1525)
R. F. Scott, Notes from the Records of St John's College, Cambridge,
3rd series (privately printed, 1906-13), pp. 403-8.
(_i_) _Sheppey_ (1536)
Walcott, Mackenzie E. C., Inventories of St Mary's Hospital, Dover, St
Martin New-Work, Dover, and the Benedictine Priory of SS. Mary and
Sexburga in the Island of Shepey for Nuns. (Reprinted from
Archaeologia Cantiana, 1868, pp. 18-35.)
(_j_) _Wherwell_ (_Sacristy_, c. 1340)
Victoria County History, Hants. II, pp. 134-5.
(_k_) _Wintney_ (_Frater_, 1420)
Victoria County History, Hants. II, pp. 150-1.
(_l_) _Miscellaneous Fragments_
Fowler, R. C., Inventories of Essex Monasteries in 1536. (Trans. Essex
Archaeol. Soc. vol. IX, Pt. IV.)
Walcott, Mackenzie E. C., Inventories and Valuations of Religious
Houses at the Time of the Dissolution. (Archaeologia, XLIII, 1871.)
IV. CARTULARIES
(_a_) _Buckland_
A Cartulary of Buckland Priory in the County of Somerset, ed. F. W.
Weaver. (Somerset Rec. Soc. 1909.)
(_b_) _Crabhouse_
The Register of Crabhouse Nunnery, ed. Mary Bateson. (Norfolk and
Norwich Arch. Soc. Norfolk Archaeology, XI, 1892.)
(_c_) _Godstow_
The English Register of Godstow Nunnery, ed. Andrew Clark. (Early Eng.
Text Soc. 1905-11.)
V. WILLS
Calendar of Wills proved and enrolled in the Court of Husting, London, ed.
R. R. Sharpe (1889).
Early Lincoln Wills, ed. A. Gibbons (1888).
The Fifty Earliest English Wills in the Court of Probate, London, ed. F.
J. Furnivall. (Early Eng. Text Soc. 1882.)
Lincoln Diocese Documents, ed. A. Clark. (Early Eng. Text Soc. 1914.)
Lincoln Wills, ed. C. W. Foster. Vol. I. (Lincoln Record Soc. 1914.)
Testamenta Eboracensia, a Selection of Wills from the Registry at York,
ed. James Raine. 6 vols. (Surtees Soc. 1836-1902.)
Somerset Medieval Wills (1383-1558), ed. F. W. Weaver. 3 vols. (Somerset
Record Soc. 1901-5.)
VI. MISCELLANEOUS RECORDS AND LETTERS
Calendar of Close Rolls.
Calendar of Patent Rolls.
Calendar of Papal Letters.
Calendar of Papal Petitions.
Dugdale. Monasticon Anglicanum, ed. J. Caley, H. Ellis and B. Bandinel. 6
vols. in 8 (1817-30).
Ellis, H. Original Letters illustrative of English History, 1st series,
vol. II (1824).
Fowler, J. T. Cistercian Statutes, A.D. 1256-7, with supplementary
statutes of the order, 1257-8. (Reprinted from Yorks. Archaeol. Journal,
vols. IX-XI, 1885-90.)
Gasquet, F. A. Collectanea Anglo-Premonstratensia, 3 vols. (Camden Soc.
1906.)
Gibbons, A. Ely Episcopal Records (1891).
Lyndwood. Provinciale (1679).
Madox. Formulare Anglicanum (1702).
Paston Letters, ed. J. Gairdner. 4 vols. (1900).
Rotuli Parliamentorum. (Record Com. 6 vols. n.d. Index, 1832.)
Valor Ecclesiasticus. (Record Com. 1810-34).
Wharton. Anglia Sacra, 2 vols. (1691).
Wilkins. Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae, 4 vols. (1737).
Wood, M. A. E. Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies of Great Britain. 3
vols. (1846).
VII. CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE[2160]
An Alphabet of Tales, An English 15th Century Translation of the
Alphabetum Narrationum once attributed to Etienne de Besançon, ed. M. M.
Banks. (Early Eng. Text Soc. 1904-5.)
Amundesham. Annales Monasterii S. Albani (Rolls Series, 1870), I.
Ancren Riwle, ed. and trans. James Morton (Camden Soc. 1853). Also trans.
(by Morton) with introd. by F. A. Gasquet in The King's Classics, 1907.
Caesarius of Heisterbach. Dialogus Miraculorum, ed. Joseph Strange, 2
vols. (Cologne, 1851.)
Chaucer, Complete Works, ed. Skeat (1906).
Chronicle of Lanercost, translated by Sir Herbert Maxwell (1913).
Clene Maydenhod, ed. F. J. Furnivall. (Early Eng. Text Soc. 1867.)
Court of Love, The, printed in Chaucer's Complete Works, ed. R. Morris
(1891), vol. IV.
Early English Lives of Saints, ed. F. J. Furnivall. (Trans. of the
Philological Soc. 1858.) For _The Land of Cokayne_ and _Why I can't be a
Nun_.
Etienne de Bourbon. Anecdotes Historiques, etc., ed. Lecoy de la Marche.
(Soc. de l'Hist. de France, 1877.)
Fifteenth Century Cookery Book, A, ed. R. W. Chambers, and Two Fifteenth
Century Franciscan Rules, ed. W. W. Seton. (Early Eng. Text Soc. 1914.)
Gower. Vox Clamantis, ed. G. Macaulay (1902).
Hali Meidenhad, ed. O. Cockayne. (Early Eng. Text Soc. 1866.)
Jacobi Vitriacensis Exempla e Sermonibus Vulgaribus, ed. T. F. Crane.
(Folk Lore Soc. 1890.)
Langland. Vision of William Concerning Piers the Plowman, ed. Skeat, 2
vols. (1886).
Medieval Garner, A, selected, translated and annotated by G. G. Coulton
(1910).
Myroure of Oure Ladye, The, ed. J. J. Blunt. (Early Eng. Text Soc. 1873.)
Rule of St Benedict, ed. Gasquet. (King's Classics, 1909.)
Tale of Beryn, The, ed. Furnivall and Stone. (Chaucer Soc. 1887.)
Three Middle English Versions of the Rule of St Benet, ed. E. A. Kock.
(Early Eng. Text Soc. 1902.)
Walsingham. Gesta Abbatum Monasterii Sancti Albani, ed. H. T. Riley (Rolls
Series, 1867-9), 3 vols.
---- Historia Anglicana, ed. H. T. Riley (Rolls Series, 1863), vol. I.
VIII. PLANS
Burnham Abbey, by H. Brakspear, in Archaeol. Journal, LX (1903). (See
Bucks. Archit. and Archaeol. Soc. Records, XXXI.)
Carrow Priory, by R. M. Phipson, in Norf. and Norw. Arch. Soc. Trans. IX,
and Rye, Carrow Abbey (1889).
Kirklees Priory, by J. Bilson, in Yorks. Archaeol. Journ. XX (1908).
Lacock Abbey, by H. Brakspear, in Archaeologia, LVII (1900). (See also
Wilts. Archaeol. Journ. XXXI.)
Marlow, Little, by C. R. Peers, in Archaeol. Journ. LIX (1902).
Marrick Priory, facsimile of plan taken at time of Dissolution in Coll.
Topog. et Gen. V (1838).
St Radegund, Cambridge (now Jesus College) in Gray, The Priory of St
Radegund, Cambridge (1898).
C. MODERN WORKS
I. ON PARTICULAR NUNNERIES (INCLUDING CHARTERS, ETC.)
_Aldgate (Minoresses)._ Fly, H. Some account of an Abbey of Nuns, formerly
situated in the street now called the Minories. Archaeologia, XV (1803).
_Barrow Gurney._ Hugo, T. Medieval Nunneries of the County of Somerset
(1867).
_Brodholme._ Cole, R. E. G. The Priory of St Mary of Brodholme. (Linc.
Archit. and Archaeol. Soc.) in Assoc. Archit. Socs. Reports and Papers,
XXVIII (1905-6).
_Bromhale._ Scott, R. F. Notes from the Records of St John's College,
Cambridge (reprinted from The Eagle, 1890-1903, _passim_), Series I and
III. (Documents from Bromhale and Lillechurch.)
_Buckland._ Hugo, T. History of Minchin Buckland Priory and Preceptory in
Somerset (1861).
_Cannington._ See Barrow Gurney.
_Carrow._ Beecheno, F. R. Notes on Carrow Priory (1886).
Rye, W. Carrow Abbey (1889).
Rye and Tillett in Norfolk Antiq. Misc. II.
_Crabhouse._ Jessopp, A. Frivola (1896). For 'Ups and Downs of an Old
Nunnery' (Crabhouse).
_Dartford._ C. F. Palmer. Hist. of the Priory of Dartford in Kent.
Archaeol. Journ. XXXVI (1879).
Notes on the Priory of Dartford in Kent. _Ib._ XXXIX (1882).
_Delapré, Northampton._ Serjeantson, R. M. A History of Delapré Abbey,
Northampton (Northampton, 1909).
_Delapré, St Albans._ Page, W. History of the Monastery of St Mary de Pré.
St Albans and Herts. Archit. and Archaeol. Soc. Trans., New Ser. X.
_Easebourne._ Hope, Sir W. H. St John. Cowdray and Easebourne Priory in
the county of Sussex (1920).
_Elstow._ Wigram, S. R. Chronicle of Elstow Abbey (1909).
_Fosse._ Cole, R. E. G. The Royal Borough of Torksey, its Churches,
Monasteries and Castle. Linc. Archit. and Archaeol. Soc. In Assoc. Archit.
Soc. Reports and Papers, XXVIII (1905-6).
_Ickleton._ Goddard, A. R. Ickleton Church and Priory. Cambridge Antiq.
Soc. Proc. and Commun. XLV (1905).
_Ilchester, White Hall._ See Barrow Gurney.
_Kirklees._ Armytage, Sir G. Kirklees Priory. Yorks. Archaeol. Journ. XX
(1908).
Chadwick, S. J. Kirklees Priory. Yorks. Archaeol. Journ. XVI (1901), XVII
(1902), XX (1908).
_Lacock._ Bowles, W. L. and Nichols, J. C. Annals of Lacock Abbey (1835).
Clark-Maxwell, W. G. Outfit for the Profession of an Austin Canoness at
Lacock, etc. Archaeol. Journ. LXIX (1912).
_Lillechurch._ See Bromhale.
_Marlow._ Peers, C. R. The Benedictine Nunnery of Little Marlow. Archaeol.
Journ. LIX (1902).
_Nunburnholme._ Morris, M. C. K. Nunburnholme and its Antiquities (1907).
_Romsey._ Liveing, H. G. D. Records of Romsey Abbey (1906).
_St Helen's, Bishopsgate._ Hugo, T. The Last Ten Years of the Priory of St
Helen, Bishopsgate (1865).
_St Radegund, Cambridge._ Gray, A. The Priory of St Radegund, Cambridge
(1898).
_Syon._ Aungier, G. J. History and Antiquities of Syon (1840).
_Swine._ Duckett, Sir G. Charters of the Priory of Swine in Holderness.
Yorks. Archaeol. Journ. VI (1881).
Thompson, T. History of the Church and Priory of Swine in Holderness
(1824).
II. GENERAL
BUTLER, C. Benedictine Monachism (1919).
CLAY, R. M. Hermits and Anchorites of England (1914).
COULTON, G. G. The Interpretation of Visitation Documents. (Eng. Hist.
Review, 1914.)
---- Medieval Studies. (First Series, 1915.)
---- Monastic Schools in the Middle Ages. (Medieval Studies, No. 10,
1913.)
DEANESLY, M. The Lollard Bible (1920).
ECKENSTEIN, L. Woman under Monasticism (1896).
FOSBROKE, T. D. British Monachism (1802).
FOWLER, R. C. Episcopal Registers of England and Wales. (S.P.C.K. 1918.)
GASQUET, F. A. English Monastic Life (1904).
GRAHAM, R. An Essay on English Monasteries. (Hist. Assoc. 1913.)
---- St Gilbert of Sempringham and the Gilbertines (1901).
GREEN, M. A. EVERETT. Lives of the Princesses of England. Vol. II (1849).
JACKA, H. T. The Dissolution of the English Nunneries. Thesis submitted
for the degree of M.A. in the University of London. (Unpublished;
deposited at the University.)
JARRETT, B. The English Dominicans (1921).
Journal of Education, 1909 and 1910. (Articles and Correspondence by J. E.
G. de Montmorency, G. G. Coulton and A. F. Leach on "The Medieval
Education of Women in England.")
MODE, P. G. The Influence of the Black Death on the English Monasteries.
(A Dissertation for the Degree of Ph.D.) (Privately printed, Univ. of
Chicago Libraries, 1916.)
SAVINE, A. English Monasteries on the Eve of the Dissolution, in Oxford
Studies in Social and Legal History, ed. P. Vinogradoff (1909), I.
THIERS, J. B. Traité de la Clôture des Religieuses. (Paris, 1681.)
THOMPSON, A. HAMILTON. English Monasteries (1913).
---- Double Monasteries and the Male Element in Nunneries. (In The
Ministry of Women, A Report by a Committee appointed by his Grace the
Archbishop of Canterbury (1919), App. VIII.)
---- The Monasteries of Leicestershire in the Fifteenth Century.
(Leicester. Archit. and Archaeol. Soc. Trans. 1913-14.)
---- Registers of John Gynewell, Bishop of Lincoln, for the years 1347-50.
(Archaeol. Journ. vol. LXVIII (2nd Ser. vol. XXI), 1914.)
---- Visitations of Religious Houses by William Alnwick, Bishop of
Lincoln, 1436-49. (Proceedings of the Soc. of Antiquaries, 2nd ser. XXVI,
1914.)
Victoria County Histories. Articles on Religious Houses, _passim_. (Cited
as V.C.H.)
WALCOTT, MACKENZIE E. C. English Minsters (1879), 2 vols. Vol. II. The
English Student's Monasticon.
WORKMAN, H. B. The Evolution of the Monastic Ideal (1913).
INDEX
Ff. after an entry implies that there are references to the same subject
on at least two immediately succeeding pages.
Abbess, autocratic power of, 64ff., 149
---- chaplain of (nun), 62ff., 112, 129, 250
---- entertainment of guests by, 59ff., 69, 118;
nuns by, 61
---- executrix or supervisor of wills, 73, 73_n. 2_
---- lodging and household of, 59, 135, 151, 167, 316, 317
---- of Fools, 311
_Abbey of the Holy Ghost_, 533
Abbot of Fools, 311
Aberford, Rector of, 220_n. 5_
_Accidia_, 293ff., 302, 437
Accounts, 96ff., 118ff., 245, 333ff., 639ff.;
annual statement of, 221;
audit of, 220, 221
---- presentation of, by head of house, 219, 220;
by obedientiaries, etc., 219, 224;
_see also_ _Status domus_
Aconbury Priory, 23_n. 1_, 339
---- Churches appropriated to, 113_n._
Adeburn, Alicia de, 21
Adeleshey, Joan, 443
Aelred, Abbot of Rievaulx, 271
Alcock, John, Bishop of Ely, 398, 533, 602
Aldelesse, Juliana, 399
Aldgate, St Clare outside, 171_n. 2_
Alesbury, Agnes of, 39, 40
Alfrâd, the donkey of, 383, 588ff.
Alice, Prioress of Wintney, 87
Alienation of goods, 225
Allesley, Agnes, 272, 409
Almenèches, St Sauveur, 636;
moral state of, 666, 667
Almoness of nunnery, 132
Almsgiving by nuns, 118, 120, 121, 132, 649
Alnwick, William, Bishop of Lincoln, 22, 23, 26, 32, 33, 62, 66ff., 71,
77, 79, 80, 82, 83, 154, 161, 162, 164, 165, 199, 204, 207, 210,
215, 221, 225, 226, 234, 245, 249, 250, 263, 264, 272, 273, 277,
278, 283, 304, 317, 320, 331, 332, 334, 336, 340, 357, 358,
361_n. 1_, 363, 367, 377_n. 2_, 380, 382, 397, 399_n. 1_, 400,
402_n. 3_, 405_n. 2_, 408, 412, 414, 416, 437, 449, 457, 461, 463,
481, 483, 486, 488, 490, 491, 500
_Alphabet of Tales, An_, 511_n._, 516_n. 2_, 519_n. 1_
Alsace, 239
Alsop, Robert of, 234
Amesbury Priory, 2, 3, 242_n. 8_, 268_n._, 350, 360_n. 2_, 454, 455,
470, 482, 497
Anchoresses, 271, 528ff.
_Ancren Riwle_, 156, 258, 271, 305, 383, 500, 525, 527ff., 557, 592,
650, 655
Ankerwyke Priory, 26, 81, 82, 111_n. 3_, 146, 166, 218, 333, 405_n. 2_,
441_n._, 460, 461, 487_n._, 491_n. 2_
---- financial mismanagement of, 205, 225_n. 2_;
illiteracy of inmates at, 250;
inventory of goods of, 222_n. 3_;
poverty of, 153, 154, 162, 167, 177, 234, 235;
Prioress of, 32, 62, 66, 163_n. 1_, 210, 304_n. 2_, 340, 414, 493;
_and see_ Kirkby, Margery; Medforde, Clarence;
_status domus_ of, 221, 222;
teacher for young nuns appointed, 260;
visitors at, 490
Anlaby, Josiana de, 53
Apelgarth, Sabina de, 469
Appropriation of benefices, 113, 135, 144, 224
Arden, Henry, 85
---- Priory, 16, 153_n. 3_, 184, 213, 242, 382_n. 1_, 494_n. 1_, 601
---- accounts of, 220;
boarders at, 579;
corrody granted by, 206;
custos of, 230_n. 8_;
dilapidations at, 170, 175;
mismanagement of, 85, 86;
poverty of, 184_n. 4_;
Prioress of, 83;
_and see_ Eleanor of Arden;
relics at, 116
Arderne, Katherine de, 189
Armathwaite Priory, 428, 429
Armstrong, Jane, 326
Arnecliffe, Hugh de, 234
Arthington, 213, 217, 291_n. 2_, 356_n. 4_, 400_n. 1_
---- accounts of, 220;
bequests to, 326;
children at, 579;
coadjutress appointed at, 224;
_custos_ of, 231;
dilapidations at, 170;
dorter of, 170;
frater of, 170;
moral state of, 598, 599;
private property at, 336, 337;
prioresses of, 180, 217;
_and see_ Berghby, Isabella de; Popeley, Elizabeth; Screvyn, Agnes de;
relics at, 117
Arundell, Elizabeth, 442
---- Sir John, 73, 74, 429ff.
---- Thomas, Bishop of Ely, 176
Aschby, William, 399_n. 3_
Aske, Robert, 282ff.
Asserio, Rigaud de, Bishop of Winchester, 188, 369
Asshe, John de, 198
Assize of bread and ale, 104
Astley, Lora, 30
Astom, Matilda, 453
Atwater, William, Bishop of Lincoln, 222_n. 3_, 273, 292, 382_n. 3_,
441_n._, 491, 596
Aubrey, John, 274, 381
_Aucassin and Nicolete_, 513, 514, 541
Auditor of nunnery accounts, 99, 100
Audley, Lady, 306, 412
---- Sir Hugh, 419
Aunselle, Alice, 337
Avernay, novice of, 500, 507
Avice of Beverley, 365_n. 3_
Aylesbury, Margaret, 318
Ayscough, Bishop, 182
Ayton, John of, 354, 391, 435
Babyngton, Katherine, 243
Backwell, Rector of, 233
Bacton, Margaret, 168
Badlesmere, Bartholomew de, 203
Bailiff of nunnery, 99ff., 109, 129, 138, 143, 147, 148, 219, 227, 228,
257
Bakewell, Mr, 124, 140
Baldock, Ralph, Bishop of London, 34_n. 2_
Ball, John, 138
Barber, Isabel, 268
Bardi, the, 91
Bardney, Abbot of, 364
Barking Abbey, 2, 13, 19, 42, 64_n. 6_, 142, 156_n. 7_, 162, 176, 186,
188, 258_n. 4_, 320_n._, 326, 347_n. 2_, 366_n. 3_, 404_n. 5_,
406_n. 3_, 407, 635
---- Abbess of, 60, 61, 105, 117, 185, 198, 420;
_and see_ Pole, Katherine de la
---- Cellaress of, 131_n._, 133, 257, 563;
accounts of, 136, 139_n. 5_;
_Charthe_ of, 562ff.
---- children at, 571, 572;
church appropriated to, 113_n. 1_;
claustration at, 348, 349;
Clemence of, 239;
corrodies at, 190, 197, 198;
library of, 242_n. 8_;
pensions demanded from, 195, 196;
pittances at, 143_n._, 323, 324;
_Puerilia solemnia_ at, 312;
resident chaplains at, 144;
sanctuary at, 420, 421
Barnehous, John, 269
Barnwell, Prior of, 125, 142_n. 3_, 202_n. 3_
Barrow Priory, 233, 385_n. 4_, 360_n. 1_;
_custos_ of, 233;
Prioress of, 233;
_and see_ Gurney, Joanna
Barsinghausen, 674
Barton, Elizabeth, 419_n. 2_
Bartone, Isabel, 399_n. 1_
---- Joan, 413
Basedale Priory, 445;
_custos_ of, 230_n. 8_, 231;
moral state of, 597, 598;
prioresses of, 205, 284_n._, 360_n. 2_;
_and see_ Davell, Elizabeth; Fletcher, Joan; Percy, Joan de
Basilia de Cotum, 361_n. 2_
Basle, Synod of, 314
Bassett, Christian, 69, 97, 102_n._, 105, 106, 201;
accounts of, 118_n._, 313, 334
Batayle, Margaret de la, 26
Bateman, Bishop of Norwich, 268
Bath and Wells, Bishops of, 37, 38, 71;
_and see_ Drokensford, John de
Bauceyn, Juliana, 185
Beatrice, story of, 512ff.
Beauchamp, Agnes de, 192
---- Katherine de, 25, 26, 330_n. 3_
---- Sir Guy de, 25, 330_n. 3_
---- Thomas, Earl of Warwick, 330
Beaumont, Lady, 257
---- Lord, 268
Beauvais, John, Bishop of, 418
Becon, Thomas, 282
Bedford, Jacquetta, Duchess of, 419
Bedford, Sheriff of, 195
Belers, Margaret, 367, 382
_Bel-Eyse, L'Ordre de_, 537, 537_n. 2_, 542
Belgrave, Bridget, 137;
_and see_ Syon Abbey, chambress of
Belle Doette, 555, 556
Benedict, Rule of St, 23, 50, 61, 66, 136, 150, 245, 278, 285ff., 300,
315, 322, 341ff., 356, 408_n. 4_
---- translations of, 251, 252, 341_n. 1_
Benet, Isabel, 80, 83, 278, 283, 292, 310, 378, 389, 449, 460, 486, 489,
493
Bengeworth, John, 449
Berghby, Isabella de, 224, 469, 598, 599
Berkeley, Lady Elizabeth, 410, 411
---- Lord, 74
Bernard, Eleanor, 360_n. 2_
Berners, Juliana, 240, 308
Bernier, 433ff.
Berre, Alice, 206, 207
---- William, 206
Berthold of Regensburg, 518_n. 1_
Berwick, North, Priory of, 418
Berwick-on-Tweed, Gild at, 11
Berzé, Seigneur de, 542
Betsone, Thomas, 287
Bever, John, 86
Beverley, St Nicholas' Hospital, 365
Bible, reading of, by nuns, 254, 255
Bicester, Prior of, 234
---- Priory, 210_n. 2_
Birlaunde, Henry of, 233
Bischofsheim, Abbess of, 237
Bishopsgate, St Helen's, 2, 13, 55, 56, 58_n._, 109_n._, 292_n. 3_, 309,
311, 395, 402_n. 4_, 405, 408, 441_n._;
children at, 265, 273, 576, 577;
corrodies granted by, 209;
Prioress of, 55, 56, 265, 307
Bival Abbey, 636, 647;
Abbess of, 645;
financial state of, 637, 638
Bixley, John, 208
Blackborough Priory, 32, 170, 371, 412;
fair of, 106_n. 2_;
poverty of, 184_n. 4_;
Prioress of, 64, 65, 220
Black Death, the, 164, 177ff., 215, 457
Blacklow Hill, 419
Blankney, Vicar of, 232
Bleden, Joan, 5
Bleeding of nuns, 257ff., 259_n. 2_, 316, 324, 646;
of monks, 258, 259
Blois, Robert de, 8
Blund, Ann le, 6
---- Sir John le, 6
Boarders in nunnery, 112, 113, 158
Boccaccio, 516_n. 4_, 522
Bodenham, Cecily, 72
Boleyn, Anne, 54, 55
---- Thomas, 77
Bondeville Priory, 636, 646;
accounts of, 640;
_custos_ of, 640;
financial state of, 255_n. 2_, 637, 638;
inventory of, 641, 645;
Prioress of, 644, 645
Bonevyll, Sir William, 329
Boniface VIII, 201_n. 2_, 344, 350, 351, 353, 354
---- IX, 117, 175, 345
Booth, Archbishop William, 175
Bossall, Vicar of, 231
Boteler, Margaret la, 365
Botere, Walter, 33
Botulphe, Joan, 312
Bourbon, Etienne de, 309, 372, 516_n. 1_
Bourbon, Marie de, 558
Bowes, Agnes, 457
Bowet, Henry, Archbishop of York, 83_n._, 339, 477
Bowlis, Alice, 48ff.
Boy Bishop, the, 311ff.
Boyfield, Alice, 46
---- Elizabeth, 46ff.
Bradford-on-Avon, Church of, 176
_Braies au Prestre, Les_, 541
Brakle, Agnes, 88
Brampton Church, 463
Brantyngham, Thomas de, Bishop of Exeter, 353, 403_n. 5_, 417
Brasyer, Stephen, 103
Brentford, Chapel of the Angels, 99
Brenyntone, Alicia, 33
Bret, Isabel, 27, 32, 191, 192
---- Robert, 191_n. 2_, 192
Brewood (Staffs.), 98, 147_n. 4_, 308, 443_n. 2_
---- Prioress of, 183_n. 6_
Brid, Aleyn, 207
Bridlington, 427
Bristol, St Bartholomew's Hospital, 442_n. 2_
---- St Mary Magdalen, 183, 184_n. 4_
Brittany, Duke John of, 429
Brodholme Priory, 229_n. 1_, 244, 449;
_custos_ of, 230;
Prioress of, 423
Broke, Elizabeth, 88_n._, 149, 169, 389, 469
Bromele, Thomas, 267
Bromhale Priory, 73, 81, 87, 360_n. 2_, 377;
dissolution of, 603;
prioresses of, _see_ Juliana of Bromhale
Brompton, John, 326
---- Rector of, _see_ Playce, Robert de
Bromyard, John, 516_n. 2_
Broughton (Northants.), Rector of, 352
Browne, Agnes, 20
Bruce, Robert, 427
Brugge, Joan, 424_n. 2_
---- Peter, 424_n. 2_
Brun, Alicia, 21
Brunne, Robert of, 521
Brus, Elizabeth de, 420
---- Robert de, 420
Bruys, Joan, 441_n._
Bryce, Master, 149, 170
Buckingham, Archidiaconate of, 174
---- John, Bishop of Lincoln, 22, 24, 220, 223, 226, 249, 273, 322_n._,
337, 386, 390_n. 5_
Buckland Priory, 1, 2, 37, 330;
poverty of, 165;
Prioress of, 37, 38
Bugga, Abbess, 237
Bungay, 33, 442_n. 2_
Buonvisi, Lucrezia, 474
Burghersh, Bishop, 450_n. 2_, 582
Burgo, Elizabeth de, 420
Burn, John, 242
Burnham Abbey, 146, 188, 191, 301, 326, 351, 442_n. 2_, 457;
education of children at, 263, 272, 569;
poverty of, 184_n. 4_
Burton, Abbot of, 4
---- Margaret of, 443_n. 2_
Burtscheid, Abbey of, 28
Bury St Edmunds, 48, 370
Busch, Johann, 271, 296, 345, 473, 670ff.
Bustard, John, 231
Butler, Agnes, 449
Bycombe, Isolda, 410
---- John, 410
Byland Abbey, 427
Caen, Abbaye-aux-Dames, 305, 636, 646;
accounts of, 639;
financial state of, 637
Caesarius of Heisterbach's _Dialogus Miraculorum_, 27, 27_n. 1_, 28,
108, 274_n._, 277_n. 1_, 296, 297, 450_n. 3_, 511_n._, 516_n. 3_,
520, 531, 627ff., 656
Caldwell Priory, 308_n. 1_, 386;
Prior of, 46
Calle, Richard, 411, 412
Caluerley, Richard, 399
Calwell, Thomas, 120
Camberwell, 71
Cambridge, Elizabeth de, 398
---- Friars Minor of, 122
---- Jesus College, 270, 602
---- Mayor of, 122
---- St John's College, 603
---- St Radegund's Priory, 60_n._, 106_n. 1_, 122, 137ff., 148, 151ff.,
157, 158, 175, 292_n. 2_, 356_n. 2_, 398, 571;
accounts of, 98, 102_n. 2_, 103, 119, 123, 127, 128_n. 1_, 142, 152,
327, 571;
alms given by, 121, 122;
bailiff of, _see_ Key, Thomas;
chaplains of, 153;
church of, 125;
churches appropriated to, 135_n. 5_;
confessor of, 152;
clothes of nuns at, 323;
dissolution of, 602;
fire at, 172;
Garlick Fair of, 106_n. 1_;
gifts to, 175, 176;
hospitality of, 119, 120;
liveries of servants at, 137;
poverty of, 184_n. 4_;
prioresses of, 147_n. 5_, 152, 169, 177, 366_n. 2_;
_and see_ Lancaster, Joan;
repairs at, 123ff., 169;
servants of, 137, 152;
visitation of, 494_n. 1_
Camoys, Margaret de, 73
Campsey Priory, 2, 39, 64_n. 6_, 167, 168, 243, 336;
hospitality at, 417, 418;
mismanagement by Prioress of, 168, 417
_Canard Blanc, Le_, 617
Cannington Priory, 188, 194, 410, 452;
boarders at, 453, 578;
coadjutresses appointed at, 225;
corrodies, unauthorised sale of, at, 224;
Prioress of, 21, 224, 225, 410, 453;
simoniacal admission of nuns at, 224
Canons Ashby Priory, 231;
Prior of, 231
Canonsleigh Abbey, 2, 113_n. 1_, 183_n. 4_, 248, 353, 376, 406_n. 1_,
411, 416_n. 1_, 417;
Abbess of, 71_n. 4_, 224;
coadjutress appointed at, 224;
claustration relaxed at, 354, 355, 355_n. 2_;
presentation of accounts at, 219
Canterbury, Archbishops of, 87, 347_n. 2_, 482_n. 1_
---- Holy Sepulchre, 41, 156_n. 7_, 224, 348, 350, 356_n. 2_, 359_n. 2_,
387, 399, 403_n. 5_, 413_n. 2_, 449, 487, 494_n. 1_, 581;
alms given by, 120;
_custos_ of, 230_n. 8_, 232, 234, 487;
poverty of, 234
---- Hospital of St James, 82_n. 4_, 184_n. 5_, 390_n. 5_, 494_n. 1_
---- pilgrimage to, 95, 145
---- Priory, 210_n. 2_;
Prior of, 461, 482_n. 1_
Cantilupe, Thomas de, Bishop of Hereford, 248, 324, 347_n. 2_,
367_n. 2_, 369
Capron, John, 454
Carey, Eleanor, 54, 55
---- John, 54
Carinthia, Monastery of, 592
Carmaynton, David, 36, 37
Carrow Priory, 6, 12, 113_n. 1_, 148_n. 1_, 268, 292, 305, 366, 587;
boarders at, 411, 577;
children at, 267, 268;
churches appropriated to, 113_n. 2_;
complaints of bad food, etc., at, 168_n. 2_;
enforced reception of nuns into, 212;
lawsuit of, 202_n. 2_;
pestilence at, 181;
Philip Sparrow at, 590ff.;
Prioress of, 72, 105_n. 3_;
_and see_ Wilton, Edith;
revels at, 312;
sanctuary at, 422;
titles granted to, 116_n. 1_
Cassian, 294
Castile, Constance of, 421_n. 1_
Castle Hedingham Priory, 188, 192;
Prioress of, 360_n. 2_
Catesby, Joan, 84
---- Priory, 78, 82, 83, 87, 106, 107_n. 1_, 110, 146, 186, 188, 225,
228, 292, 304, 335, 358_n. 2_, 378, 388, 395, 402_n. 3_,
408_n. 2_, 447, 477, 486, 489, 583;
accounts of, 98, 102_n. 2_, 105_n. 3_, 115_n. 1_, 118_n._, 127, 220;
children at, 265, 272, 409, 577;
dilapidations at, 171_n. 2_;
home farm of, 109, 127;
households of nuns at, 320;
jewels pawned, 211;
master of, 231;
_peculium_ for clothes, 323, 333;
pilgrimages to, 117;
poverty of, 175, 184_n. 4_, 205;
Prioress of, 66, 107, 109, 121, 180, 192, 210, 211, 255, 272, 283,
320, 323, 333, 395, 452, 463, 477, 488, 493;
_and see_ Rich, Margaret; Wavere, Margaret
Catherine, nun of Bungay, 33
Catley, 18
Catton, Rector of, 30
Caxton, 241
Caynes, Sir Robert de, 192
Cellaress of nunnery, 117, 119, 132ff., 141, 143, 367, 368;
duties of, 133, 138;
accounts of, 119, 131_n._, 135
Chambress of nunnery, 119, 132, 134, 137, 368;
accounts of, 119, 131_n._, 135
Champnys, Alice, 243
_Chansons de Nonnes_, 502ff., 604ff.
Chantimpré, Thomas of, 584
Chantress of nunnery, 131, 132
Chaplains, 143ff., 148_n. 3_, 151;
residences of, 144
Chapter house, 249, 252, 475ff., 648ff., 672
Chark, John, 156
Charles V of France, 429
Charter, foundation, exhibition of, 221, 251
Charterys, Elizabeth, 152
Chatok, Elizabeth, 403
Chatteris Abbey, 19, 184_n. 4_, 306;
Abbess of, 65
Chaucer, Geoffrey, 19, 62, 74, 77, 94, 95, 371, 561, 588
Chaucy, Elizabeth, 19
_Checker_, 319
Chelles, nuns of, 345
Cheshunt Priory, 172, 313;
poverty of, 173, 174, 184_n. 4_
---- priest's chamber at, 145
Chester, 185
---- St Mary's, 146;
poverty of, 172
Chicksand Priory, 420
Children, education of, 261ff., 568ff.;
costs of, 269, 270
Chilterne, Alice de, 88_n._, 233
Chivynton, Johanna, 399
Chondut, Agnes, 17
Chondut, Katherine, 17, 18
---- Ralph, 17
Chygwell, William de, 197
Chyld, Margery, 399
Cîteaux, Abbot of, 375_n. 1_
Clay, Richard del, 52
_Clef d'Amors, La_, 8
Clemence of Barking, 239
Clementhorpe Priory, 326, 360_n. 2_, 365_n. 3_, 384_n. 1_, 600, 601
_Clene Maydenhod_, 16, 525
Clerkenwell Priory, 2, 13, 179, 259_n. 3_
Cleveland, Archdeacon of, 51, 52
Clinton, Isabel, Lady, 7, 39
Clouvill, Isabel, 441
Coadjutress, 223, 224
Cobham, Thomas de, Bishop of Worcester, 39, 223
---- Eleanor de, 418, 419_n. 2_
---- Henry de, 421
_Cokaygne, The Land of_, 534ff., 542
Cokehill Priory, 165, 232_n. 5_, 385, 481, 482;
chaplain of, 232_n. 5_;
Prioress of, 185_n. 6_
Cokke, John, 124, 152
Colchester, 420
Coldingham, nuns of, 303_n. 2_, 365, 471
Coleworthe, Joan, 84
Cologne, Provincial Council of, 360_n. 1_
Colte, Anne, 447_n. 6_
Common Pleas, Court of, 70
Condé, Jean de, 539, 541, 542
_Congé d'élire_, 43_n. 2_, 44ff.
Conyers, Alice, 328_n. 2_
---- Cecily, 31
Cook, Alice, 395
---- William, 395
Copeland, John, 197
Cornhill, 41, 192
Cornwallis, Katherine, 50
Cornworthy Priory, 267, 413_n. 4_, 444, 445, 571;
boarders at, 269, 279;
Prioress of, 269;
_and see_ Dynham, _and_ Wortham
Corp, Isabella, 328
---- Thomas, 328
Corrodians, 188, 190, 197, 206ff., 409ff.
Corrodies, 151, 155, 190ff., 197, 206ff., 225, 226
Cotnall, William, 454
Coton Priory, _see_ Nuncoton
Cotton, Ellen, 459
Courtenay, Joan, 242
---- Lady Elizabeth, 417
---- Sir Hugh de, 417
---- William, Archbishop of Canterbury, 176, 226, 383, 459, 468
_Court of Love_, 509, 511
Couvel, Isabella, 224, 337
Coventry, 256
Cox, Agnes, 261_n. 2_
Crabhouse Priory, 30, 42, 90ff., 169, 378_n. 3_, 461, 468, 477_n. 1_;
dilapidations at, 170;
fire at, 171, 172;
Prioress of, 65;
_and see_ Wiggenhall;
Register of, 134, 135, 207;
repairs at, 92ff., 169
Cranmer, 270
Crayke, Cecilia, 57
Crécy, 10
Cressy, Sir Hugh de, 214
---- Jonetta, 214
Crioll, Margery de, 330
Crofton, John, 370
---- Juliana de, 329
Cromwell, Gregory, 263, 267
---- Thomas, 30_n. 5_, 32, 51_n._, 55, 57, 72, 146, 263
Crosse, Margaret, 363, 364
Croxton, 231
Cumberworth, Sir Thomas, 72, 166, 330, 370
Cunyers, Alice, 328
_Custos_ of nunnery, 229ff.
Dalderby, John, Bishop of Lincoln, 78, 173, 174, 231, 351ff., 366, 423,
443ff.
Damory, Roger, 420
Danby, Margaret, 360_n. 2_
Danne, Roger, 198
Dante, quoted, 294, 295
Darcy, Lord, 146
---- Margaret, 7, 322_n._
Dartford Abbey, 2, 3, 98, 247_n. 2_;
alms given by, 120;
boarders at, 573
Daubeney, Henry Lord, 146
Daubriggecourt, Sir John, 6
---- Margery, 6
Davell, Elizabeth, 360_n. 2_
Daventry Priory, 58
---- Roger de, 230_n. 1_
Davington Priory, 165, 184, 366, 604;
_custos_ of, 232;
financial mismanagement at, 203;
Prioress of, 183_n. 4_
Davy, Alice, 360_n. 2_
Davye, Agnes, 20, 319
Decun, Alice, 496
Delapré Priory (Herts.), 142, 244, 245, 313, 456, 479, 481;
accounts of, 97, 102_n._, 118_n._, 121, 131_n._, 139_n. 5_, 163_n. 4_,
309, 335, 479_n. 4_;
dissolution of, 604;
grades of inmates at, 244, 245;
huntsman of, 308;
illiterate inmates at, 244, 245;
litigation by, 201;
master of, 231;
merrymaking at, 309;
pittances at, 324;
Prioress of, 206, 370, 479_n. 4_;
_see_ Bassett, Christian; Wafer, Alice
Delapré Abbey (Northants.), 249, 321_n. 2_, 425, 457;
Abbess of, 360_n. 2_;
claustration at, 351ff.;
nuns of, excommunicated, 441, 442;
pensions demanded from, 195;
poverty of, 175
Delft, Franciscan tertiaries of, 240_n. 2_
Dene, William de, 203, 204
Denesson, Henry, 123ff.
Denny Abbey, 3, 13, 378_n. 3_;
Abbess of, 122
Depeden, Margaret, 326
---- Sir John, 325
Derby, Earl of, 146
Dereham, William de, 195
Derneburg, 673, 680
Deschamps, Eustache, 500, 507
Despenser, Hugh, 30, 420
---- Juliana, 198, 199
_Diolog concerning the Monarché_, 251
_Dives and Pauper_, 366_n. 4_
Dorset, Marquess of, 146
Dorter, 155, 169ff., 272, 273, 283, 313, 319, 409
Draycote, Cecilia de, 224
Dreffield, Maud de, 214
Drokensford, John de, Bishop of Bath and Wells, 71, 233, 358_n. 4_, 410
Du Bois, Pierre, 56
Dudley, Sir John, 279
Dunkirk, 258
Dunstable Priory, 308_n. 1_
Dunwyche, Alice, 484
Durant, Geoffrey, 40
---- Molde, 40
Durham, Bishops of, 31, 309_n. 6_, 427;
_see_ Hatfield, Thomas; Skirlaw, Walter
---- Priory, 210_n. 2_
---- Sherburn Hospital, 361_n. 2_
Dychere, Agnes, 167
Dymmok, Elizabeth, 413, 417
Dynham, Thomasyn, 269, 571
Eadburg, Abbess of Thanet, 237
Easebourne Priory, 4, 33, 63, 79, 188, 209, 255, 292_n. 2_, 330, 331,
340, 448_n. 1_, 452, 494_n. 1_, 582;
boarders at, 415;
churches appropriated to, 113_n. 1_, 182;
dilapidations at, 170, 171_n. 2_;
disorder at, 453, 454, 462;
inventory of goods of, 222_n. 3_;
library of, 241;
poverty of, 177;
prioresses of, 76ff., 83_n._, 205, 255, 454;
_see_ Montfort, Isabel de; Sackfelde, Margaret; Tawke, Agnes
Edmund, Earl of Cornwall, 191
Edward I, 455, 462
Edward II, 197, 204, 247, 427, 419
---- III, 9, 12, 198, 234
Edyndon, William of, Bishop of Winchester, 173, 213_n. 1_, 416
Egglestone Abbey, 428_n. 3_
Eleanor, Prioress of Arden, 83, 85, 87, 94, 211, 218, 382_n. 1_
Eleanor, wife of Henry III, 455
Elizabeth, Countess of Hereford, 196
---- of York, 19
Ellerton Priory, 31, 428
Elstow Abbey, 2, 22, 24, 51_n._, 64_n. 6_, 186, 217, 226, 291_n. 2_,
333, 335, 351, 369, 383, 387, 390, 401_n. 1_, 402_n. 4_, 404,
405, 407_n. 1_, 454, 459ff., 463ff., 477, 581, 583;
Abbesses of, 19, 61, 64, 171, 195, 196, 217, 318, 464, 477;
_and see_ Boyfield, Eliz., _and_ Gascoigne, Agnes;
accounts, 131_n._, 335_n._;
bailiffs of, 227, 228, 249;
boarders at, 411, 415;
dilapidations at, 171;
education of children at, 262, 263, 272ff., 569;
election of Abbess at, 46ff.;
fair of, 106_n. 2_;
fashions at, 304, 586;
hospitality at, 358_n. 5_;
households of nuns at, 318, 320_n._, 321_n. 1_;
learning of novices, 244;
livings held by, 114;
number of nuns at, 216;
pensions demanded from, 195;
Precentress of, 261_n. 2_;
sacrist's accounts at, 136;
treasuress to be appointed at, 223;
visitations of, 497
Ely, Archdeacon of, 175
---- Bishops of, 423;
_see_ Alcock, John; Arundell, Thomas; Fordham, John of; Grey, William
---- fair, 138
Embroidery by nuns, 255ff., 287
Emma of Stapelton, 52, 53
---- of York, 51ff.
Ensfrid of Cologne, 54
Erasmus, 139, 376;
_Colloquies_, 549ff.
Erfurt, St Cyriac, 674
---- St Martin, 676
Erle, Peter, 327
Erlham, John de, 268
Escherde, 681, 682
_Escoufle, L'_, 560_n._
Esholt Priory, 52, 170_n. 3_, 177, 213, 251_n. 2_, 390, 402, 405,
467_n. 3_, 601;
bequest to, 326;
children at, 263, 269, 284, 579;
indulgence for contributors to repairs at, 175;
immorality at, 284;
Prioress of, 31, 57_n. 2_
Estates, management of, 71, 99, 100
Estrées, Angélique d', 451_n. 5_, 474
Eton, Robert de, 448
Etton, Alice, 31
Euphemia, Abbess of Wherwell, 29, 89, 90, 94, 169, 243, 501
Everesdon, John, 152
Everingham, Margaret, 449
Everyngham, Alice de, 442_n. 2_
Evesham Chronicle, 489_n. 1_
Evreux, St Sauveur, 636ff., 646
Ewer, Margaret, 370
Excommunication of nuns, 183
Exeter, Bishops of, 444, 445;
_and see_ Stapeldon, Grandisson, etc.
Eynsham Abbey, 449;
Abbot of, 234
Fairfax family, 7, 15, 18_n. 4_, 19, 20
---- Elizabeth, 328
---- John, 327
---- Margaret, 76, 77, 303_n. 1_, 327, 329, 399_n. 3_, 468_n. 4_, 500,
587
Fairs, 105, 106, 133, 138;
_and see_ Stourbridge Fair
Fairwell Priory, 217_n._, 220_n. 1_, 248, 320_n._, 356_n. 3_, 384,
416_n. 1_;
children at, 272, 273, 578;
dissolution of, 604
Falowfeld, Isabel, 362
"Farms," 101, 102, 209, 335
Favences, Antoinette de, 258
Faversham, Vicar of, 232
Feast of Fools, 312ff.
Felawe, William, 328
Felton, Mary de, 442_n. 2_
Feriby, Benedict de,
_see_ Broughton, Rector of
Ferrar, Agnes, 185
_Ferry Woman, The_, 616
Ffychmere, Joan, 202
Fisher, Jane, 247_n. 2_
FitzAleyn, John, 267
---- Katherine, 368
Fitzjames, Richard, Bishop of London, 385
FitzRichard, Elizabeth, 326
---- John, 326
Fitzwilliam, Lady Isabel, 329
Flagge, Alice de la, 43, 45, 173
Flamstead, Matilda de, 57
---- Priory, 59_n. 2_, 351, 458, 461;
children at, 573;
churches appropriated to, 113_n. 1_, 181;
_custos_ of, 230_n. 8_;
poverty of, 174, 177
Flemyng, Richard, Bishop of Lincoln, 22, 24, 217, 223, 226, 249, 263,
308_n. 1_, 384_n. 1_, 386, 407_n. 1_, 415, 459, 477
Fletcher, Joan, 88_n._, 467_n. 3_
Flixborough, Rector of, 235
Flixthorpe, Agnes de, 353, 443ff., 457, 467_n. 3_
Flixton Priory, 59_n. 1_, 63, 79, 168, 292_n. 2_, 340, 489_n. 2_;
cloister and frater defective at, 170;
poverty of, 181;
Prioress of, 63, 65, 66, 307;
_and see_ Pilly, Katherine
Folgeham, Cecily, 22
Fonten, Margaret de, 446
Fontrevrault, Abbess of, 305_n. 6_, 360_n. 2_;
cells of, 455;
nuns of, 3, 343;
rule of, 400_n. 2_
Fordham, John of, Bishop of Ely, 176, 177
Fosse Priory, 333;
Master of, 231;
poverty of, 165, 175, 184_n. 4_;
Prioress of, 180, 250
Foster, Alice, 49
---- Thomas, 208
Foukeholm, St Stephen's, 180, 448_n. 1_
Fountains, Abbot of, 375_n. 1_
Fox, Richard, Bishop of Winchester, 149, 252, 392
---- John, 449
---- William, 449
Franke, Beatrice, 365, 366
Frater, 315ff., 328, 648, 649;
children in, 273;
repair of, 125
Fratress of nunnery, 131, 132
Fraunceys, John, 207
Free Warren, Grants of, 105
Fréjus, Council of, 373
French, knowledge of, in 14th century, 246, 247
Froissart, 240, 428, 431, 435
Frost, Ellen, 22
Fulham, Nicholas de, 259_n. 3_
Furmage, Joan, 187, 338, 362
Fychet, John, 410
Gandersheim Abbey, 238;
Roswitha's history of, 238
Gascoigne, Agnes, 46
---- Thomas, 253, 254, 447_n. 6_, 531
Gaveston, Piers, 419
Geoffrey de Saint Belin, 345
George, Christopher, 149
Germyn, Helen, 480
Gertrud the Great, of Helfta, 239, 500
_Gesta Romanorum_, 516_n. 2_, 541
Ghent, Simon of, Bishop of Salisbury, 195, 201, 350, 528
Gibbs, Elizabeth, 243
Giffard, Agatha, 463, 464
---- Alice, 462
---- Godfrey, Bishop of Worcester, 350, 463, 464
---- Juliana, 463, 462
---- Mabel, 463
---- Sir Osbert, 463ff.
---- Walter, Archbishop of York, 21, 166, 214, 229, 232, 247, 302,
355_n. 1_, 399_n. 3_, 463, 472_n. 1_, 482, 494_n. 1_, 635
Glastonbury, Abbot of, 162;
_and see_ Whiting, Richard
Gloucester, Duke of, 26
---- Eleanor, Duchess of, 328_n. 5_
---- Richard, Earl of, 161
---- Thomas of, 418
Godstow Abbey, 2, 121, 162, 248, 249, 291_n. 2_, 292_n. 2_, 325,
347_n. 2_, 348, 351, 353, 384_n. 1_, 395ff., 401, 402, 405_n. 1_,
407_n. 1_, 440, 448_n. 1_, 449, 460, 582, 586, 635;
Abbess of, 180, 270;
_and see_ Henley, Alice;
bailiff of, 148;
boarders forbidden at, 414, 416, 578;
books of, 253, 254, 277;
claustration at, 348, 356_n. 5_, 357, 358_n. 1_;
debts of, 164, 234;
disorder at, 456;
education of children at, 263, 273, 283, 319, 456;
households of nuns at, 318ff.;
Prior of, 230ff.;
_Puerilia solemnia_ at, 312;
_Register_ of, 17, 40, 206_n. 3_, 253;
steward of, 205;
visitors at, 408, 414
Gokewell Priory, 111_n. 3_, 332;
children at, 576;
households of nuns at, 318;
poverty of, 163, 235;
Prioress of, 23, 250;
steward of, 235, 236_n. 2_
Goldesburgh, Joan, 469, 470
Goldwell, James, Bishop of Norwich, 461_n. 1_, 494_n. 1_
Goring Priory, 53_n. 2_, 301, 304, 351, 353, 358, 395, 457;
_custos_ of, 230_n. 8_;
dilapidations at, 171;
poverty owing to lawsuits of, 202;
violence at, 423, 424, 435
Gorsyn, Alice, 301
Gosden, William, 454
Gower, John, 447, 499, 509, 544, 545
Gower's _Temple of Glas, The_, 509, 510;
_Vox Clamantis_, 499, 544, 545
Gowring, Jane, 32
Gracedieu Priory, 97, 110_n._, 111_n. 3_, 127, 149_n._, 154, 155, 205,
210, 358, 363, 364, 367, 382, 400_n. 1_;
bailiff of, 257;
boarders at, 418, 573ff.;
cellaress of, 146, 272, 409;
chaplain of, 145, 146;
children at, 268, 272, 283, 409;
debts of, 163;
embroidery made at, 257;
households of nuns at, 318, 320_n._;
jewels, etc., pawned by, 210;
mismanagement at, 225_n. 2_;
_peculium_ for clothes given at, 323;
Prioress of, 57, 61, 66, 80, 162, 180, 318, 413, 478, 484, 490;
relics at, 116_n. 3_;
treasuress of, 163, 323
Granary, repair of, 125, 157
Grandisson, John de, Bishop of Exeter, 183_n. 4_, 192, 193, 353
Grangyer, Joan, 152
Gravesend, Richard de, Bishop of Lincoln, 175
---- Stephen, Bishop of London, 188, 481
Gray, Barbara, 48
---- Richard, 465, 466
---- William, Bishop of Lincoln, 24, 83, 216, 244, 249, 253, 272,
308_n. 1_, 319, 321, 325, 365, 396, 402, 405_n. 1_, 457, 488, 491
Great Billing, Rector of, 46
Green, Nicholas, 441_n._
Greenfield, Margaret, 455
---- Priory, 180, 241, 330;
corrodies, etc., granted by, 214_n. 4_;
Prioress of, 61, 78, 180, 214;
solitary confinement at, 30;
titles remitted, 184_n. 2_
---- William, Archbishop of York, 16, 26, 51ff., 214, 220, 222,
257_n. 2_, 264, 273, 302_n. 1_, 337, 339, 357, 362, 478, 491
Gregory X, 212
Grey, William, Bishop of Ely, 176
Grimeley, William de, 45
Grimsby, St Leonard's Priory, 111_n. 3_, 174, 177, 457;
fire at, 172;
Master of, 231, 232_n. 1_
Grome, Katherine, 168
Grosseteste, Robert, Bishop of Lincoln, 309, 471
Guest-house, 118, 119, 125, 157;
accounts of, 120
Guiot de Provins, 542
Gurney, Joanna, 233
Gynewell, John, Bishop of Lincoln, 7, 200_n. 4_, 249, 262, 272, 273,
322_n._, 356_n. 5_, 357, 358, 374_n. 1_, 386, 400, 401, 415,
441_n._
Gyney, Joan, 189
Hainault, Bailiwick of, 105
---- John of, 435
Hales, Thomas of, 513_n. 1_, 525
Halewey, Agnes, 83
_Hali Meidenhad_, 16, 40, 441, 525ff.
Haliwell Priory, 2, 13, 34_n. 2_, 422_n. 2_, 442;
alms given by, 120;
Prioress of, 71, 442
Hallam, Bishop, 385
Halle, St George (Marienkammer), 673, 681
---- St Maurice, 674
Hampole Priory, 113_n. 3_, 146, 213, 214, 320_n._, 326, 329, 339,
365_n. 3_, 401_n. 1_, 427, 428, 466_n. 1_, 477, 579, 601;
and Richard Rolle, 532_n. 2_;
bad administration at, 203;
boarders at, 413_n. 4_, 414;
children at, 272;
_custos_ of, 230_n. 8_;
Prioress of, 26, 83_n._, 205, 329_n. 5_, 339, 477
Hampole, Richard, 254
Hampton, Alice de, 189
Hanam, Elianora, 361_n. 1_
Handale Priory, 52, 57_n. 2_, 146, 175, 220_n. 5_, 361_n. 2_;
_custos_ of, 230_n. 8_, 231
Harcourt, Catherine d', 558
Harmer, Margaret, 168
Harold, Henry, 105, 422
---- Isabel, 105
Harreyes, John, 449
Harrold Priory, 154, 226, 457, 465;
children at, 272, 569;
_custos_ of, 230_n. 8_;
debts of, 162;
financial mismanagement at, 205;
Prioress of, 66, 205, 210
Harvesting, 128
Hatfield, Thomas, Bishop of Durham, 234
Haukeforth, Elizabeth, 33
Haunsard, John, 457
Hauteyn, Alice, 41
---- Walter, 40, 41
Haverholme Priory, 35, 442_n. 2_
Head of house, conduct of, 80, 86, 87, 94, 643ff.;
disciplinary powers of, 300, 302;
dress, etc., of, 76, 77, 94;
favouritism by, 66ff.;
financial mismanagement by, 81ff., 203ff., 217ff.;
hospitality of, 78, 79;
journeys of, 69, 70ff.;
luxurious living of, 74ff., 94, 211;
_and see_ Abbess
Hede, Dr, 282, 461, 482
Hedington, Sir Nicholas, 121
Hedsor, Margery, 457
Heidenheim, 237
Helewell, Ada de, 444
---- Peter, 444, 445
---- William, 444
Helfta, Convent of, 89, 239, 500
Helmsley, 242
Helmstedt, 682ff.
Helswindis, Abbess, 28
Henley, Alice, 252, 253
Henry II, 308
---- III, 346
---- IV, 247
---- VIII, 46, 78, 216, 313
Henwood Priory, 180;
Prioress of, 180
Herars, John, 397
Hereford, Countess of, 196
Herminal, John de, 233
Hermyte, Isabel, Prioress, 88, 94
Herrad, Abbess, 239
Herryson, John, 152
Herward, Elene, 138
Hexham Priory, 426
---- schools of, 426
Heyden, John, 325
Heynings Priory, 7, 22ff., 111_n. 3_, 155, 220, 226ff., 249, 291_n. 2_,
292_n. 2_, 322_n._, 337, 374_n. 1_, 400, 402_n. 4_, 459ff., 489,
581;
accounts not kept at, 205;
appropriation by, 209;
children at, 263, 272, 273, 575, 576;
claustration at, 357_n. 1_, 358_n. 1_;
corrodies at, granted by, 209;
_custos_ at, 231;
hospitality at, 200;
poverty of, 162, 177, 184, 209;
Prioress of, 66, 67, 205, 210;
restriction of numbers at, 215;
seculars at, 409, 415, 416;
treasuress of, 223
Heyroun, Margaret, 328, 330
---- William, 328
Higham Ferrers College, 380_n. 4_
Hildesheim, St Mary Magdalen, 672, 675, 677, 680, 682
Hilton, Sir Robert de, 399_n. 3_
Hinchinbrooke Priory, 361_n. 1_;
Prioress of, 180
Hodesak, Beatrice de, 365
Hohenburg, 239
Holewaye, Elizabeth, 442_n. 2_
Holland, Robert de, 36
Holm, Mary de, 52, 53
Holystone Priory, 427
Home Farm of Nunnery, 125ff., 133, 135, 137, 150, 151;
harvesting on, 128, 129
Horde, Dr, 492
_Hortus Deliciarum_, 239
Hosey, Agnes, 33
Hours, Canonical, 286, 291ff.;
irreverence at, 292, 293
Hubbart, Alicia, 441_n._
Humberstone Abbey, 377_n. 2_
Hunter, Matilda, 442_n. 2_
Huntingdon, Archidiaconate of, 175
---- Priory, 308_n. 1_, 360_n. 1_
---- St James' outside, 175
Hutton, Joan, 467_n. 3_
Hyde Abbey, 369;
Abbot of, _see_ Bromele, Thos.
Hylyarde, Elynor, 326
Hythe, Hamo of, Bishop of Rochester, 204, 218
Ickleton Priory, 184_n. 4_, 306, 400_n. 1_
Ilchester, St John's, Rector of, 233
---- White Hall Priory, 386, 447;
coadjutresses appointed at, 224;
condition of, 233;
_custodes_ of, 233;
poverty of, 172;
Prioress of, 88_n._, 172, 224, 233;
_and see_ Chilterne; Draycote
_Imitatio Christi_, 243
Indulgences, 174, 175
Infirmaress, 134
Infirmary, 316, 322, 649
Ingham, Katherine de, 39
Inglewood Forest, 429
Ingoldesby, Margaret, 412
Ingoldesthorpe, Sir John, 90
Innocent III, 363
Irford Priory, 244, 330
"Issues of the Manor," 109ff.
Ivinghoe Priory, 175, 184_n. 4_, 357_n. 1_;
Prioress of, 363, 364
Jafford, William de, 220
James I of Scotland, 510
James I's _King's Quair_, 510
James V of Scotland, 552
Jeanne de France, 342_n. 1_, 345
Jecke, Philippa, 66
Jerves, John, 265, 269
Joan de Barton, 88_n._
---- Princess of Wales, 418
Jocelin of Brakelond, 45ff., 496
John of Gaunt, 19, 370_n. 5_, 418, 421_n. 1_
Johnson, Margaret, 326
---- William, 399
Jordan, Isabel, 54, 55, 392
Joseph, Stephen, 37
Josiana de Anelagby, 362
Julian of Norwich, 366, 502_n. 1_
Juliana of Bromhale, 87, 211
Jumièges, Abbot of, 310_n. 2_
Jurdane, Isabel, 67
Keldholme Priory, 51ff., 111_n. 3_, 306, 360_n. 2_, 443_n. 2_,
448_n. 1_, 467, 477;
moral state of, 598;
Prioress of, _see_ Emma of Stapelton; Emma of York; Pykering, Joan de
Kemp, John, Archbishop of York, 86, 175, 374
Kempe, Alice, 489
Kempis, Thomas à, 243
Kent, Holy Maid of, _see_ Barton, Elizabeth
---- Isabella de, 423, 424
Kentwood, Dean, 209, 261_n. 2_, 273, 307, 309, 405, 408
Kessingland, Rectory of, 114
Key, Thomas, 138, 147, 152
Kilburn Priory, 13, 18_n. 4_, 528;
chaplain's chamber at, 144;
library of, 241
King, Philippa, 453, 454
King's Mead Priory, 4, 262, 361_n. 1_;
children at, 571;
_custodes_ of, 234;
hospitality of, 200;
poverty of, 180, 234;
Prior of, 230;
relics at, 116_n. 3_
_King's Quair, The_, 510
Kington, St Michael, 255, 350, 360_n. 2_
Kippax, Rector of, 231
Kirkby, Margery, 81, 82, 167
Kirk Deighton, Rector of, 231
Kirklees Priory, 320_n. 1_, 325, 448_n. 1_;
_custos_ of, 220_n. 5_, 230_n. 8_, 235, 236;
moral state of, 599, 600;
Prioress of, 180, 258, 620, 621
Kitcheness of nunnery, 131ff.
Knaresborough, St Robert's, 231
Knight, Laurens, 267, 269
---- Richard, 198
Knyghte, Elizabeth, 269, 279
---- Jane, 269, 279
Koc, Margaret, 422
---- William, 422
Kyme, 249_n. 7_
Kyrkeby, Margery, 405_n. 2_
Lacock Abbey, 2, 19_n. 3_, 268_n._, 497;
alms given by, 121;
claustration at, 350;
visitors at, 238
Lacy, Henry de, 420
Lambley Priory, 426, 429
_Lamentations de Matheolus, Les_, 542, 543
Lampet, Julian, 366_n. 3_
Lancaster, Isabella de, 240, 455
---- Joan, 138, 147_n. 5_, 327
---- Margaret de, 417, 418
---- Thomas of, 419
Lanercost Chronicle, 426
Langeland, Thomas, 88
Langeloft, Isabella de, 52
Langendorf Nunnery, 305_n. 4_
Langland, William, 30, 178, 202, 263, 297ff., 301, 308_n. 1_, 309, 310,
373, 390, 544
Langley Priory, 22, 23, 32, 111_n. 3_, 210, 306, 313_n. 5_, 333, 336,
402_n. 3_, 408, 412, 587;
children at, 409, 575;
corrody sold by, 207;
embroidery at, 256, 257;
households of nuns at, 318;
illiteracy at, 250;
poverty of, 162, 163, 205, 211;
Prioress of, 207, 210, 250, 252
Langton, Thomas, 149
Lateran Council, Fourth, 21
Latin, knowledge of, by nuns, 246, 247
Latymer, Matilda, 330
Lawrence, Robert, 399
Lay-brothers, 288
Lee, Edward, Archbishop of York, 61_n. 2_, 154, 211, 220, 251_n. 2_,
284_n. 1_, 356_n. 5_, 390, 402, 405
Legbourne Priory, 23, 68, 78, 111_n. 3_, 153, 228, 330, 332, 356_n. 5_,
409, 412, 413;
bailiff of, 148, 149, 205;
boarders at, 576;
corrody in, 205;
_custodes_ of, 231, 236_n. 2_;
dilapidated condition of property of, 170_n. 1_, 181;
households of nuns at, 318;
poverty of, 164, 205;
Prioress of, 67, 71, 163, 170_n._, 205, 221;
_status domus_ of, 221
_Legenda aurea_, 241
Legh, Margaret, 261_n. 2_
Leicester, Countess of, 257
Lelle, Avice de, 448_n. 1_
Leominster Priory, Sub-prior of, 449
Leycroft, Thomas
Leygrave, Alice de, 196
---- Ellen de, 196
---- Juliana de, 196
Leyva, Virginia de, 474
Libaud, Sibyl, 421_n. 1_
---- Thomas, 421_n. 1_
_Libel of English Policie_, 112
_Liber Poenitentialis_ of Theodore, 450_n. 3_
Lillechurch Priory, 143_n._, 603
Lilleshall, 265
_Limburg Chronicle_, 604
Limington, Rector of, 233
Lincoln, Archdeacon of, 90
---- Bishops of, 44, 47, 120, 123;
_and see_ Alnwick; Buckingham; Flemyng; Gravesend; Longland; Sutton
---- Cathedral, 465, 466
Lindesay, Sir David, 251, 510, 511, 549, 552ff.
Lindesay's _Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaits_, 510, 549, 552ff.
Lingiston, Thomas de, 449
Lioba, _see_ Bischofsheim, Abbess of
Liseway, Roger, 198
Lisieux, St Désir, 636;
financial state of, 637
Lisle, Honor, Viscountess, 258, 279
---- Sibil de, 365
Little Chester, Simon of, 234
Little Coates, Vicar of, 232_n. 1_
Littlemore, Agnes de, 366
---- Priory, 26, 60_n._, 265, 267, 269, 301, 448_n. 1_, 452, 578, 604;
dilapidations at, 169;
ill-fame of, 397, 491, 492, 582;
moral state of, 595, 596;
Prioress of, 180, 469, 477;
_and see_ Wells, Katherine
Llewelyn, 30, 185
Lokton, Anabilla de, 52
Londesborough, Rector of, 220, 231
London, 68, 70, 105, 191, 233
---- Council of, 1200, 21, 585
---- nunneries of, 99
Longland, John, Bishop of Lincoln, 23, 79, 153, 170, 208, 211, 273, 304,
312, 321, 356_n. 5_, 369, 374, 380, 387, 399, 404
Longspey, Alice, 397, 398, 449, 456, 460
Loughborough, 146
Loveday, Anne, 19
Loweliche, Denise, 64_n. 5_, 88_n._, 458, 460, 469, 486_n. 2_, 493
Ludlow, Gild of Palmers, 11
Luitgard of Tongres, 500, 525
_Luue Ron, A_, 16, 513_n. 1_, 525, 527
Lylis, John, 77
Lymbrook Priory, 113_n. 1_, 183, 248, 263, 309ff., 347_n. 2_, 356_n. 5_,
359_n. 3_, 367_n. 2_, 369, 377, 384, 403_n. 5_, 408_n. 2_, 449,
586;
children at, 573;
Prioress of, 361_n. 1_;
private property at, 324, 325, 339_n. 2_
Lyminster, 478, 635
Lynn, King's, 43, 138, 147
Maiden Bradley, Prior of, 451
Malling Abbey, 2, 13, 56, 58_n._, 146;
Abbess of, 20_n._, 57, 155_n. 1_, 180, 203, 204, 218;
_and see_ Retlyng, Lora de;
corrody granted in, 208_n. 2_;
fair of, 106_n. 2_;
financial mismanagement at, 203, 204;
falling mill of, 107_n. 1_;
poverty of, 184_n. 4_;
prebends of, 144;
seal of, 218
Malnouë, nuns of, 345
Malory, Sir Thomas, 514
Malory's _Morte Darthur_, 556, 557
Manorial courts, 103ff.
Marcens, 433ff.
Marcham, Agnes, 26, 397
Mare, Thomas de la, 244, 479
Margaret, Countess of Ulster, 39
Marham, Abbess of, 105, 380_n. 4_;
chartulary of, 107
Marie de Bretagne, 305_n. 6_
---- de France, 558
Marienberg, 682
Mariensee, 678ff.
Markyate Priory, 154, 156, 351, 358, 408, 423, 450_n. 2_, 452, 457, 460;
_custos_ of, 230_n. 8_;
debts of, 162, 210;
disorder at, 457, 458, 488, 491, 492;
domestic economy of, 332;
illiteracy at, 250;
Prioress of, 64, 180, 250, 352;
_and see_ Loweliche, Denise;
visitation at, 351, 352, 354
Marlow, Little, Priory to, 174, 351, 366;
children at, 570;
poverty of, 184_n. 4_;
prioresses of, 17_n. 2_;
_and see_ Bernard, Eleanor; Vernon, Margaret
Marmyll, Cecily, 455
Marrick Priory, 111_n. 3_, 201, 213, 214, 230_n. 8_, 326, 328,
356_n. 5_, 401_n. 1_, 428, 579;
Prioress of, 148_n. 3_, 214
Marshall, Richard, 243
Marshalsea, the, 201
Martin IV, Pope, 209
Mason, Barbara, 380_n. 4_
_Matheolus, Les Lamentations de_, 542, 543
_Matrimony, The Christen State of_, 378
Matthew Paris, 240
Maundy Thursday, 142, 142_n. 3_, 143_n._
Mautravers, Sir John, 194
Maxstoke Priory, 210_n. 2_
Meaux Abbey, 449
Mechthild of Hackeborn, 239, 500
---- of Magdeburg, 500, 525, 533
Medforde, Clemence, 73, 76, 77, 81, 82, 166, 167, 218, 221, 234, 330,
361_n. 1_, 377, 405_n. 2_, 490
Melton, William de, Archbishop of York, 199, 235, 248_n. 7_, 264, 301,
329, 356_n. 4_, 365, 373, 427, 467, 468_n. 1_, 469, 477
_Menagier de Paris_, 563
_Messe des oisiaus, etc._, 539
Mestowe, Hundred of, 105, 422, 422_n. 2_
Metham, Margaret, 138
Middle class, rise of, 9ff.
Middleton, manor-house at, 90
Minchin Barrow Priory, 4, 188, 358_n. 4_;
_custos_ of, 153;
poverty of, 184_n. 4_;
Prioress of, 71
Minories, the, 2, 3, 12, 13, 26, 39, 100, 114, 146, 176_n. 3_, 328_n. 5_
Minster Priory, 20
_Misericord_, 316
Mistress of novices, 134
Mitford, Katherine, 33
Molynes, Lord, 423
Montagu, Katherine, 442_n. 2_
Montfort, Isabel de, 73
---- Peter de, 30
---- Simon de, 346
Montivilliers Abbey, 560_n._, 636, 641, 647;
Abbess of, 644, 650;
financial state of, 637
Montmartre, nuns of, 345
More, Avice de la, 58, 59
Mori, Gui de, 532
Mortimer, daughters of, 420, 450, 451
---- Roger, 420
Mortival, Bishop, 213
Morton, John, Archbishop of Canterbury, 219, 230_n. 6_, 480, 482_n. 1_
Mortuaries, 107ff.
Mounceaux, Ella de, 457
Mowbray, Katherine, 598
Moxby, 58_n._, 122, 199, 217_n._, 325, 385, 402_n. 4_, 429, 447, 580;
bakehouse and brewhouse of, dilapidated, 170;
debts of, 200, 220_n. 4_;
destroyed by Scots, 427;
masters of, 231;
moral state of, 599;
prioresses of, 148_n. 3_, 427;
_and see_ Apelgarth, Sabina de, _and_ Bartone, Joan;
Whenby Church appropriated to, 113_n. 1_
Muisis, Gilles li, 305, 542, 543, 661
---- "Register" of, 543, 544
Munkton, John, 77, 303_n. 1_, 399_n. 3_
Musgrave, Agnes, 365
Mydelsburg, Thomas, 220_n. 5_
_Myroure of Oure Ladye_, 253, 254, 293, 531, 532
Myssenden, James, 326
Neasham, St Mary's, 31, 170_n. 3_, 402_n. 4_;
Prioress of, 360_n. 2_
Needlework in nunneries, 255, 256
Nether Sutton, 184
Nevers, nuns of, 305, 593;
_and see_ Vert-Vert
Neville's Cross, Battle of, 428
Newark, Henry of, Archbishop, 248, 338_n. 3_
---- Ermentrude, 441
Newburgh Priory, 232;
Prior of, 184
Newcastle, St Bartholomew's Priory, 362_n. 3_;
appropriations to, 172;
_custos_ of, 234;
fire at, 172;
poverty of, 234;
Prioress of, 360_n. 2_
Newemerche, Elizabeth de, 329
Newhouse Abbey, 230, 387, 399_n. 3_
Newington, Prioress of, 305
Newman, Nicholas, 149
Newmarch, Jane, 18
Newton, Matilda, 366_n. 3_
Nicke, Richard, Bishop of Norwich, 63, 65, 183, 388, 461, 484_n. 1_
Nicolson, Margaret, 48
_Nonnes, Chansons de_, 437
Norbery, Lady Anne, 267
Norbury, Roger de, Bishop of Lichfield, 21, 190_n._, 248
Noreton, Roger de, 165
Norfolk, Thomas, family of, 35
Northallerton, St Stephen's nunnery, 428_n. 3_
Northampton, Archdeacon of, 174, 175, 353, 441
---- Battle of, 45
---- Friary at, 388
---- St James, Abbot of, 220
Northeleye, Rector of, _see_ Joseph, Stephen
Northlode, Alice de, 194, 452
---- John de, 194
Norwich, Bishops of, 57, 63, 65, 175, 309_n. 6_, 411;
_and see_ Goldwell _and_ Nicke
---- Isabel, 168, 336
---- Priory, 210_n. 2_, 388
---- Tombland in, 91
Nottingham, Archdeacon of, 444
_Novellae Definitiones_ of Cistercians, 362
Novice, the, 1ff., 352, 260, 261;
mistress of, 134, 261_n. 2_;
teacher of, 260
Noyon, Robert de, 263
_Nun who Loved the World, The_, 511
_Nun, Why I can't be a_, 545ff.
Nunappleton Priory, 16, 52, 61_n. 2_, 87, 154_n. 1_, 200, 213,
251_n. 2_, 248_n._, 322_n._, 326, 338_n. 3_, 339, 373, 374, 389,
400, 402_n. 4_, 406, 410, 445, 601;
accounts of, audited, 220;
boarders at, 417, 580;
_custos_ of, 230_n. 8_;
gifts to, 326ff.;
poverty of, 184_n. 4_, 200;
Prioress of, 326;
visitations of, 497, 635
Nunburnholme Priory, 53_n. 2_, 213, 365_n. 3_, 400_n. 1_, 428, 478;
boarders at, 580;
_custos_ of, 220, 230_n. 8_;
Prioress of, 478
Nuncoton Priory, 22, 23, 33, 111_n. 3_, 153, 211, 215, 217_n._, 263,
291, 292, 301, 330, 332, 337, 358, 371, 374, 380, 381_n. 2_, 382,
387, 399, 402_n. 4_, 408_n. 4_, 457;
boarders of, 413, 576;
bondmen of, alienated, 205;
corrodies sold at, 205, 207, 208;
debts of, 225_n. 4_;
frater at, 317_n. 1_;
households of nuns at, 318;
invalids at, 259_n. 1_;
jewels, etc., pawned, 211;
master of, 231;
Prioress of, 79, 153, 205, 211, 408;
revels at, 312, 313;
seculars at, 409
Nuneaton Priory, 2, 3, 14, 34_n. 1_, 146, 186, 421_n. 1_, 441_n._;
alms given by, 120;
numbers of nuns at, 215
Nunkeeling Priory, 6, 52, 58, 184_n. 4_, 212, 257, 291_n. 2_, 357_n. 5_,
427, 448_n. 1_, 477, 598;
boarders at, 580;
bursars of, 223;
cellaress of, 469;
enforced reception of nuns at, 212;
Prioress of, _see_ More, Avice de la; St Quintin, Isabella de
Nunmonkton Priory, 7, 15, 18_n. 4_, 111_n. 3_, 399_n. 3_, 427, 469,
494_n. 1_, 580, 587, 601;
Prioress of, 19, 242;
_see_ Fairfax, Margaret
Nunneries, amusements in, 303, 304ff., 662;
animals in, 662, 663;
aristocratic members of, 3ff., 12ff., 73, 74, 194, 212, 255, 324, 503;
books of, 239ff.;
children in, 264ff., 496, 568ff., 655ff.;
episcopal disapproval of, 270ff., 568ff., 655ff.;
_custodes_ of, 228ff.;
discipline in, 300ff.;
disputes in, 300ff.;
education of girls in, 260ff., 568ff.;
_and see_ children in;
election of superior in, 43ff.;
expenses of, 117ff., 134, 183, 211, 636ff.;
farm labourers of, 150, 151;
financial difficulties of, 161ff., 180ff., 217ff., 655;
mismanagement of, 166ff., 179_n. 3_, 203ff., 235;
food supplies of, 138ff., 332ff., 334ff., 640ff.;
girls forced into, 33ff.;
home farms of, 109ff.;
hospitality at, 200, 201, 401ff., 417ff., 649;
household staff of, 150, 151;
illiteracy in, 250ff.;
income of, 2, 3, 100ff., 134, 161, 183, 223, 270, 641;
earmarked, 135;
Latin, study of, in, 246, 247, 249, 250, 276, 286, 288;
middle-class members of, 10ff., 26;
moral state of, 436ff., 597ff., 665ff., 675;
numerical size of, 2, 3, 161, 213, 215, 215_n. 4_;
overcrowding of, 212ff., 225;
payments for reception into, 17ff., 658;
pensions demanded from, 194ff.;
private rooms in, 318ff., 328, 336, 654;
quarrels in, 663ff.;
reasons for entering, 25ff., 290;
repairs to, 123ff., 135;
right of nominating to, 189ff., 244_n. 1_;
routine in, 285ff., 475ff.;
ruinous condition of, 168ff.;
satirists on, 533ff.;
seculars in, 401ff., 446, 470, 660ff.;
separate households (_familiae_) in, 272ff., 316ff., 332, 335, 336,
338, 654, 655;
servants of, 129, 143ff., 651;
_status domus_ of, 221, 484;
weak-minded in, 33, 34;
widows in, 38ff.
Nuns, almsgiving by, 118, 120, 121, 132, 649;
annuities for, 324, 325;
beer allowance of, 141, 141_n._, 167, 168_n. 1_;
bread allowance of, 141_n._, 167, 168_n. 2_;
Bible reading by, 254, 255;
claustration of, 7, 71, 72, 78, 173, 201_n. 2_, 228, 259, 303, 341ff.,
543, 660ff.;
clothes of, 119, 135, 136, 211, 235, 255, 302_n. 1_, 303ff., 315,
329ff., 585ff., 663, 674, 675;
dowries of, 17ff., 191_n. 1_, 214, 224, 268;
education, etc., of, 237ff.;
food allowances for, 334, 564ff., 648, 649;
journeys out of cloister by, 354ff.;
legacies to, 325ff.;
linguistic learning of, 246, 247, 276, 288;
love and, in medieval popular literature, 622ff.;
money allowance of, 141, 338ff.;
penances of, 466ff.;
personal property of, 19, 20, 272, 273, 315ff., 322ff., 337ff.,
651ff., 672ff.;
pets of, 302, 303, 305ff.;
pilgrimages of, 371ff.;
pocket money (_peculium_) of, 322, 323, 331, 334, 336ff.;
occupations of, 251ff., 285ff.;
recreation of, 259;
songs about, 502ff.
Nuremberg, library of Dominicans at, 240_n. 2_
---- St Clare, 239
Obedientiaries, 131, 132, 150, 219, 319, 322, 367;
_and see_ Cellaress, Treasuress, etc.
Odiham, John de, 198
Oignies, Mary of, 525
Okeley, Katherine, 397, 398
Oldyngton, Henry de, 197
Olifaunt, Elizabeth, 420
---- William, 420
Olyfard, Hugh, 420, 421
Origny, nunnery of, 432ff.
Orwell, 188
Oseney, Abbot of, 396
Ottobon, Constitutions of, 338, 346, 354, 367, 369
Oundyl, Henry, 203
Overton, William, 242
Oxborow, Parson of, _see_ Wiggenhall, John
Oxford, Council of, 1222, 21, 165, 310, 323, 337, 338, 415
---- St Frideswide, 308_n. 1_
---- scholars of, 325, 395, 396, 398, 456, 460
Page, Robert, 152
Palmer, Robert, 152
Panham, Countess of, 257
Pantolfe, Sir William, 251
Pape, Thomas, 399_n. 3_
Papelwyk, Sibil, 67, 68
Paris, Faculty of Theology at, 314
Paston, Edmond, 10
---- John, 10_n._, 72, 423
---- Margaret, 267_n. 1_, 302
---- Margery, 411, 412
Patent, Joan, 322_n._
Pateshull, Sir John, 411
Patryk, Alice, 327
Pavy, Joan, 412
Paynel, Cecilia, 370
Peasants' Revolt, 114
Peckham, John, Archbishop of Canterbury, 27, 60, 62, 64, 149, 156_n. 7_,
167, 188, 191, 217, 223, 224, 230_n. 8_, 232, 248, 258_n. 4_, 306,
307, 312, 313, 346ff., 353, 358, 385_n. 2_, 387, 390_n. 5_, 407,
416, 456, 464, 487, 581, 586
Pecok, Reginald, Bishop of Chichester, 447_n. 6_
Peke, William, 18
Pelayo, Alvar, 545_n. 1_
Pelham, Maud, 452
Pembroke, Countess of, 330
Percy, Joan de, 597, 598
---- Lady Margaret, 411
---- Sir W., 146
Peresson, John, 152
Pergolotti, Francesco, 111
_Periculoso_, 343_n. 3_, 344ff., 350, 353, 354, 360, 367, 376, 440
_Persones Tale_, Chaucer's, 295, 296
Peruzzi, the, 9
Perys, Edmund, 43, 91, 92
Peterborough Abbey, 200, 291
---- Abbots of, 44, 45, 115, 230, 444, 481
Philippa, Queen, 198
---- Duchess of York, 418
Pilgrimage of Grace, 282
Pilgrimages, 371ff.
Pilly, Katherine, 57, 58
Pinley, 30
Pirckheimer, Charitas, 239, 500
---- Wilibald, 501
Pisan, Christine de, _Livre du dit de Poisy_, 558ff.
Pittancer, 143
Pittances, 112, 118, 120, 135, 142, 143, 147, 155, 221, 223, 323,
328_n. 2_, 334, 336, 370, 522, 567, 568
Plagues, medieval, 178ff.;
_and see_ Black Death
Plantagenet, Bridget, 276, 279ff.
---- Elizabeth, 279
Playce, Robert de, 18
Pocket money (_peculium_), 322, 323
Poer, Maude, 410
_Poisy, Livre du dit de_, 558ff.
Poisy, Priory of, 558ff.
---- Prioress of, _see_ Bourbon, Marie de
Poitiers, Holy Cross, 345
Pole, Katherine de la, 42, 263, 270, 571
Polesworth Abbey, 160, 366, 416_n. 1_;
Abbess of, 42_n. 1_, 217_n. 1_;
alms given by, 120;
children at, 265, 267, 282, 579;
servants of, 159
Poleter, Robert le, 198
Polsloe Priory, 171_n. 2_, 190, 242, 248, 259_n. 1_, 286, 353, 386,
403_n. 5_, 408_n. 2_, 416_n. 1_;
claustration relaxed at, 354, 355;
meals at, 317;
poverty of, 192, 193;
presentation of accounts at, 219
Poncher, Étienne, 345
Pontefract, 419
Pontoise, John of, Bishop of Winchester, 156, 183, 195, 218ff., 244_n._,
259_n. 1_, 336, 350, 387
Poore, Richard, Bishop of Salisbury, 527
Popeley, Elizabeth, 88_n._
Porter, Alice, 67
---- James, 198
---- Richard, 152
Portsmouth, Joan, 453
Potton, Rectory of, 114
Poutrelle, Agnes, 67
Powes, Emma, 361_n. 1_
_Pratica della Mercatura_, 111
Pratt, Ralph, 462
Praty, Richard, Bishop of Chichester, 340
Preaux, St Leger, 636;
Abbess of, 643;
financial state of, 637
Precentrix of nunnery, _see_ Chantress
Prémontré, nuns of, 343
Prestewych, Margaret de, 35, 36
Preston, Anne, 46, 49
---- Margery, 49
Prioress, _see_ Head of house
Proctors for begging, 173, 174
Punchardon, Margaret de, 365
Punder, Margaret, 63
Pyghtesley, Richard, 103
Pykering, Joan de, 51ff.
---- Margaret de, 328_n. 1_
Pykkell, Robert, 152
Rading, Philippa de, 198
Radyngton, Joan de, 224
_Raoul de Cambrai_, 432ff., 560_n._
Rasponi, Felice, 474, 501
Ratclyff, Margaret, 44, 102
Raulyn, 202
Rayn, John, 46, 47
Raynevill, Thomas de, 466_n. 1_
Reading, Abbot of, 279
Receiver of nunnery, 99, 100, 147, 151, 219
Redlingfield Priory, 64_n. 6_, 249, 263, 319_n. 3_, 452, 468, 578
---- Prioresses of, 64, 65, 467;
_see_ Hermyte, Isabel
Redynges, Margaret, 202
Relics, 116, 117
Rennes, Cloth of, 76, 77
"Rents of Assize," 101, 102
Rents from lands and houses, 100, 101, 118, 119
Retlyng, Lora de, 204
Reymound, Thomas, 242
Reynolds, Walter, Archbishop of Canterbury, 36, 37, 179
Rich, Margaret, 117
Richemond, Elianore, 152
Ridel, Mary, 198, 199
Rievaulx, Abbot of, _see_ Aelred
Rigaud, Eudes, Archbishop of Rouen, 163_n. 4_, 255_n. 2_, 258, 271,
305_n. 3_, 308_n. 2_, 310_n. 2_, 312, 324, 337_n. 2_, 338_n. 3_,
380_n. 4_, 450_n. 3_, 473, 491, 587, 635ff.
Ripon Minster, 377_n. 2_
Roche, Abbot of, 214
---- Joan de la, 189
Rochester, Bishops of, 208_n. 2_;
_and see_ Hythe, Hamo of
Roger atte Bedde, 197
Rolf, Katherine, 157
Rolle, Richard, of Hampole, 532_n. 2_, 533
_Rolls of Parliament_, quoted, 196
Romayn, Alice, 442_n. 2_
Romeyn, John de, Archbishop of York, 26, 53, 184, 231, 361_n. 1_, 411
Romsey, Abbess of, 60ff., 118, 167, 170_n. 2_, 185, 195, 216, 217, 224,
248, 252, 306, 308, 350, 410, 461;
_and see_ Broke, Elizabeth; Rowse, Joyce; Walerand, Agnes;
accounts of, 101_n._, 118, 219;
animals at, 307;
coadjutress appointed to, 224;
children at, 572, 573;
corrodies at, 190, 198, 199;
dilapidations at, 169, 170;
disorder at, 461, 462;
_magister noviciarum_ at, 261;
Manor courts of, 104_n. 2_;
mills of, 118;
mismanagement at, 167, 218;
numbers at, 215_n. 4_, 216;
obedientiaries of, 132;
pensioners at, 195;
pittances at, 259_n._, 324;
poverty of, 173, 181, 210;
prebendary canons of, 144, 229;
private property at, 337, 339_n. 5_;
pupils at, 273;
servants of, 156;
taxation of, 185;
too many nuns at, 212, 213;
visitations of, 496;
visitors at, 238, 407, 408, 416
Romsey Abbey, 2ff., 7, 21, 26, 58_n._, 88_n._, 111_n. 2_, 113_n. 1_,
132, 149, 162, 186ff., 210, 213_n. 1_, 217_n._, 218, 220, 259,
263, 291_n. 2_, 292_n. 2_, 301, 304_n. 1_, 320_n._, 322_n._,
348ff., 353, 358_n. 3_, 361_n. 1_, 367_n. 2_, 369, 380, 384_n._,
386, 389, 395, 400_n. 1_, 402_n. 4_, 404, 416, 424, 448_n. 1_,
454, 482, 558, 583, 584, 586, 587
Roos, Eleanor, 242
---- Joan, 328
---- Sir Robert de, 242, 328
Rosedale Priory, 53, 111_n. 3_, 205, 306, 339, 360, 400_n. 1_,
467_n. 3_, 580, 584, 601;
dilapidations at, 170;
destruction of, by Scots, 427;
process of, 222;
relics at, 117;
_status domus_ of, 222
Roselis, Joan de, 52
Roswitha, 238, 239
Rotherham, Thomas, Archbishop of York, 177, 374, 389, 406, 417
Rothwell Church, 463
Rothwell Priory, 98, 161, 171_n. 2_, 304_n. 1_;
begging license granted to, 174;
boarders at, 424;
debts of, 162, 173, 211;
Desborough church appropriated, 113_n. 1_;
Prioress of, 180, 250, 445;
violent scene at, 424
Rouen, St Amand, 636;
Abbess of, 644;
accounts of, 639;
financial state of, 637, 638
Rouen, St Paul by, 636, 641, 646
Rowney Priory, 171_n. 2_, 176_n. 3_, 423, 443;
alms-collector appointed for, 173;
master of, 231;
Prioress of, 584
Rowse, Joyce, 149, 493
Rudd, Agnes, 326
Rummynge, Elynour, 389
Rusper Priory, 4, 79, 91_n._, 144, 245, 399_n. 3_, 462, 494_n. 1_, 583;
poverty of, 153;
Prioress of, 79, 221_n. 1_, 462
Russel, Alice, 464
Rutebeuf, 375
Sackfelde, Margaret, 209
Sacrist of nunnery, 131, 132, 134;
accounts of, 136
Sadler, Hugh, 397
St Agnes of Bohemia, 500
St Albans Abbey, 70, 230, 245, 335, 456_n. 4_, 479, 482
---- Abbots of, 56_n. 2_, 259_n. 1_, 335, 361_n. 2_, 476, 480;
_see_ Mare, Thomas de la
_St Albans, The Boke of_, 239
St Albans Chronicle, 429ff.
St Aldhelm, 303
St Andrews, Bishop of, 418
St Aubin's Priory, 636, 646;
financial state of, 637, 638;
moral state of, 667, 668
St Bernardino of Siena, 518_n. 1_
St Boniface, 237
St Caesarius of Arles, 343
_St Catherine, Life of_, 239
St Christina of Stommeln, 501
St Clare, 500
---- Order of, 417, 418
St Douceline, 501
St Elizabeth of Schönau, 239
St Francis of Paula, 345
St Francis de Sales, 363, 392
St Hildegard of Bingen, 239
St Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, 262, 263
St John Baptist, Fair of, 138, 139
_St Katherine of Alexandria, Life of_, Capgrave's, 243
St Lydwine of Schiedam, 501
St Mary Graces, Abbot of, 375_n. 1_
St Paul, John de, 195
St Quintin, Anne, 327
---- Isabella de, 469
St Saens Priory, 636, 641, 646;
financial state of, 637ff.;
inventory of, 641;
moral state of, 668, 669
St Sepulchre's, Canterbury, _see_ Canterbury, Holy Sepulchre
St Theresa, 501
Salimbene, 27, 634
Salisbury, Bishops of, 189, 190
Saltmershe, Maud, 22
Salwayn, Sir Roger, 260
Sanctuary, 420ff.
_Satyre of the Thrie Estaits, Ane_, 510, 549, 552ff.
Sauvage, William, 420
Savernake, Forest of, 105, 172
Saxony, 239
Saxton, Roger de, 235
Scorue, Isabella de, 487
Screvyn, Agnes de, 336, 337
Scrope, Eleanor Lady, 39
Scroupe, Jane, 278
Seal, Common, of nunnery, 218, 225, 248_n. 7_
Seckworth, William de, 40
Sele, William, 399
Sempringham Priory, 35, 228, 326, 328, 420;
fire at, 171_n. 3_
---- Chronicle of, 419
---- Order of, 537
Senoke, Sir John, 415
Sens, Council of, 369
Sermons, medieval, 249, 518ff., 518_n. 1_
Seton Priory, 36, 478, 479
Sevekworth, John de, 447
Sewardby, Elizabeth, 19, 166_n. 4_
---- William, 19
Sewardsley Priory, 34_n. 1_, 174, 351, 353, 419, 457ff., 461;
appropriation of church to, 181;
begging license granted to, 174;
church appropriated to, 113_n. 1_;
disorder at, 458, 459;
fair of, 106_n. 2_;
master of, 231
Shaftesbury, Abbess of, 78_n. 5_, 162, 185, 188, 190, 195;
_see_ Bauceyn, Juliana; Ferrar, Agnes; Furmage, Joan; Giffard, Mabel
---- Abbey, 2, 30, 101_n._, 146, 181, 186, 188, 189, 243, 268_n._,
300_n. 1_, 338, 339, 385_n. 2_, 421_n. 1_, 464, 482, 558;
appropriations to, 113_n. 1_, 176, 182;
bread allowance at, 141_n._;
claustration at, 350;
corrodies at, 198, 199;
financial difficulties of, 162, 177, 182, 187;
hospitality at, 238;
license to crenellate, 424;
number of nuns at, 213, 215_n. 4_;
pensions demanded from, 195;
prebendary canons of, 144, 228_n. 5_;
Prioress of, 328;
_Register_ of, 141_n._;
resident chaplains at, 144;
steward of, 146
Sheen, Agnes of, 440
Sheldon, Matilda, 46, 48
Shelley, Elizabeth, 279ff.
Sheperd, Richard, 107
Sheppey Priory, 13, 20, 147, 154_n. 1_, 156, 158, 159, 221_n. 1_,
300_n. 2_, 313, 325_n. 1_, 330_n. 6_, 336, 403, 494_n. 1_;
cattle owned by, 126, 127;
"confessor's chamber" at, 145, 147_n. 1_;
dorter at, 319;
library at, 241;
numbers at, 216;
servants of, 159;
"steward's chamber" at, 147_n. 1_
Sherburn, Bishop, 170, 462
Shouldham Priory, 7, 25, 26, 330_n. 3_, 420;
Prior of, 91, 420
Shrewsbury, George, Earl of, 146
---- Ralph of, Bishop of Bath and Wells, 21, 188, 194, 224, 410, 452
Sinclere, Elizabeth, 49
Sinningthwaite Priory, 214, 217, 249_n. 7_, 251_n. 2_, 284_n._,
291_n. 2_, 302_n. 1_, 320_n._, 381_n. 2_, 402, 428, 446;
children at, 273, 580;
claustration relaxed at, 356_n. 5_;
_custos_ of, 231;
jewels pledged, 211;
poverty of, 154, 165, 211;
Prioress of, 31, 217, 273, 302_n. 1_;
relics at, 116;
visitation of, resisted, 482
Skelton, quoted, 139, 278, 590ff., 603
Skerning, Roger de, Bishop of Norwich, 175
Skirlaw, Joan, 327, 328
---- Walter, Bishop of Durham, 73, 327, 328
Skotte, Alice, 22
Slibre, John, 152
Slo, Katherine, 328
Smith, John, 453, 454
---- Margaret, 167
Snawe, Helen, 46ff.
Snowe, William, 399_n. 3_
Sompnour, Richard, 452
Sonnenburg, Abbess of, 377_n. 4_
Sopwell Priory, 13, 245, 259_n. 1_, 265, 370, 378_n. 3_, 402_n. 4_,
456_n. 4_, 476, 479, 481, 581;
accounts of, 267;
_custos_ of, 230;
children at, 263, 573;
Prioress of, 245, 370, 480;
_and see_ Berners, Juliana; Flamstead, Matilda de; Germyn, Helen;
Webbe, Elizabeth;
seculars at, 406;
warden of, 480
Southwark, St Thomas the Martyr, 442_n. 2_
Spalding, Robert de, 231
_Sparrow, Philip_, 305, 412, 590ff.
Sperri, Reyner, 26
Sperry, Joan, 365_n. 3_
Spina, Juliana de, 244_n. 1_
Spinning by nuns, 255
_Spiritualities_, 100, 113ff.
Spofford, Thomas, Bishop of Hereford, 23_n. 1_, 339, 356_n. 5_, 377, 384
Stafford, John, Archbishop of Canterbury, 447_n. 6_
Stainfield Churchyard, 390_n. 5_
---- Priory, 38, 111_n. 3_, 199, 292, 365, 381_n. 2_, 409;
church appropriated to, 113_n. 1_;
Prioress of, 61
Stamford, St Michael's, 23, 44, 49_n._, 70, 117, 122, 123, 128, 129,
135_n. 3_, 142, 164, 180, 200_n._, 236, 310, 332, 334, 350, 358,
368, 402_n. 3_, 408, 443ff., 449, 450, 457, 460, 465, 480, 481,
584;
accounts of, 70, 97, 98, 115, 117_n. 4_, 118_n._, 120, 128, 136,
143_n._, 163, 202, 221, 323, 370;
alms given by, 121;
begging license granted to, 174;
boarders at, 414, 415, 577, 578;
chambress of, 136, 323;
children at, 265, 272, 283, 459;
churches appropriated to, 115, 128, 135_n. 4_, 143_n._;
debts of, 221;
disorder at, 491, 492;
financial mismanagement at, 204, 225_n. 2_;
guests at, 120;
households of nuns at, 318;
litigation by, 201;
_peculium_ for clothes at, 323;
pension paid by, 199, 200;
pittances at, 143_n._, 324, 334;
Prior of, 230, 233;
Prioress of, 57, 62, 66, 80, 162, 199, 204, 221, 233, 235, 250, 310,
318, 323, 368_n. 4_, 452, 460;
treasuresses of, 111, 128, 185_n. 6_, 202, 205, 235, 368_n. 4_;
warden, special, appointed, 233
Stanley, Agnes, 442_n. 2_
---- Isabel, Prioress, 4
---- Sir John, 263
Stapeldon, Walter de, Bishop of Exeter, 219, 224, 248, 259_n. 1_, 286,
354, 357, 376, 406_n. 1_
Stapelton, Emma of, 52, 53
Starkey, Cecilia, 46, 47, 49
_Status domus_, 221
Staunton, Richard de, 229
Steinfeld Monastery, 108
Stevyn, Joan, 454
Steward of nunnery, 99, 100, 103, 112, 143, 146, 147, 149, 221, 250, 267
Stil, Clarice, 35ff., 500
---- Robert, 36, 37
---- William, 37
Stixwould Priory, 111_n. 3_, 228ff.;
boarders at, 413, 417, 576;
children at, 265, 409;
debts of, 162, 184_n. 4_;
domestic economy of, 332;
frater at, 317_n. 1_;
households of nuns at, 318, 320_n._;
master of, 230;
Prioress of, 66, 78
Stok, William de, 230_n. 5_
Stokesley, John, Bishop of London, 447_n. 6_
Stommeln, Christina von, 27_n. 2_
Stonore, John, 17_n. 2_
Stories, medieval, 515ff.
Story, Edward, Bishop of Chichester, 453
Stourbridge Fair, 125, 138
Stow, William, 241
Strasburg, 239
Stratford, Abbot of, 375_n. 1_, 481
---- John de, Bishop of Winchester, 7, 189, 212
---- Priory, 13, 27, 32, 51_n._, 191, 577;
poverty of, 191, 192;
Prioress of, 191, 192
Stretford, Jonette de, 189
Stretton, Robert de, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, 36, 248, 272, 384
Studley, Isabella de, 301_n._
---- Priory, 26, 153_n. 3_, 156, 168_n. 1_, 208, 268_n._, 304_n. 1_,
351, 380, 397, 398, 399_n. 1_, 408_n. 2_, 587;
claustration relaxed at, 356_n. 5_, 358;
_custos_ of, 230_n. 8_;
debts of, 211;
Prioress of, 66, 208, 209, 358, 447
Sturges, Dorothy, 32, 33
Style, N., 453
Suffewyk, William, 445
Suffield, Walter de, Bishop of Norwich, 175
Surlingham Church, 113
Suthwell, John de, 85
Sutton, Oliver, Bishop of Lincoln, 176_n. 3_, 231, 232, 440, 447
---- Richard, 441_n._
---- William de, 233
Sutton-on-Derwent, Rector of, 231
Swaffham, Agnes, 327
Swaffham Bulbeck Priory, 263;
accounts of, 98, 102_n. 1_, 279;
children at, 265, 268, 279, 570, 571;
mill of, 107_n. 1_;
Prioress of, _see_ Ratclyff, Margaret
Swine Priory, 15, 21, 52, 53, 111_n. 3_, 146, 213, 214, 228, 229, 248,
291_n. 2_, 320_n._, 337_n. 3_, 355_n. 1_, 399_n. 3_, 427, 449,
472_n. 1_, 580, 581, 586;
books left to, 242_n. 5_;
_custos_ of, 229ff., 230_n. 8_;
dilapidations at, 170;
disobedience at, 302;
gifts to, 326;
mismanagement at, 166, 223;
papal exemption from tithes, 184_n. 2_;
prioresses of, 73, 166, 169, 223, 302, 329;
_and see_ Anlaby, Josiana de; Skirlaw, Joan;
visitation of, 449_n. 1_, 635
Swine, Vicar of, 242
Swinfield, Richard de, Bishop of Hereford, 183
Swynford, Elizabeth, 110, 333
Symon, Katherine, 168
Syon Abbey, 2, 3, 67, 98, 136, 140, 141_n. 1_, 146, 253, 256, 268_n._,
586;
Abbesses of, 104, 105, 366_n. 3_;
_and see_ Gibbs, Eliz.;
building accounts of, 92_n._;
cellaress of, 98, 111_n. 1_, 122, 131_n._, 136, 139, 368;
accounts of, 136, 333;
chambress of, 131_n._, 136, 137, 368;
dumb signs at, 287;
library of, 240_n. 2_, 242;
_Myroure of Oure Ladye_ written for, 531, 532;
privileges of, 103, 104;
_Rule_ of, 132ff., 141, 286, 287, 584, 585;
Sacrist's accounts of, 131_n._, 136
Syward, John, 11
---- Dionisia, 11
Talbot, Thomasine, 167
Talke, Anne, 467_n. 3_
Tanfield, Amicia, 403
Tang, Margaret de, 467_n. 3_
Tarrant Keynes Abbey, 2, 101_n._, 350, 424;
Abbess of, 71;
and _Ancren Riwle_, 527, 528;
debts of, 164;
Fair of, 106_n. 2_
Tates, Joan, 88
Tawke, Agnes, 4, 88_n._, 211
Taylour, William, 82, 84, 463
_Temporalities_, 100ff., 182, 186, 187, 204, 205, 228, 235
Terbock, 149
Terrington, Maud of, 443_n. 2_, 467
Thanet, Abbess of, _see_ Eadburg
Thélème, Abbey of, 32, 539
Thetford Priory, 33, 210_n. 2_, 260, 267, 269, 361_n. 1_, 577;
corrody granted by, 208;
poverty of, 182;
Prioress of, 32
Thicket Priory, 111_n. 3_, 146, 177, 213, 291_n. 2_, 428, 601;
bequests to, 325;
dilapidations at, 170;
Prioress of, 61
Thirkleby, Vicar of, 231
Thomson, Johann, 326
Thormondby, Agnes de, 445
Thornton, Abbot, 365
---- Robert, 396
Thornton-upon-Humber, 387
Thornyf, Katherine, 374, 375
Thorpe, William, 241, 372_n. 2_
Timber, sale of, by nuns, 210, 217, 225, 226
Titchmarsh, Maud, 441
Tithes, 107, 113, 114, 128, 184
Titles, farming out of, 114, 115;
granted to nunneries, 116
Tittivillus, 293, 646
Traherne, William, 413
Translations for nuns, 251ff.
Treasuress of nunnery, 109, 110, 117, 118, 132, 134, 136, 219, 223ff.;
accounts of, 118, 127, 137
Trent, Council of, 345
Treverbyn, Lady Margery, 411
Trimelet, Joan, 453, 467_n. 3_
Tuddenham, Sir Thomas, 30
Tudor, Edmund, 270
---- Jasper, 270
Tudowe, Agnes, 31
Tufton, Manor-house at, 90
Tunstede, Hugh de, 30
Turberville, Agnes, 189, 192_n. 5_
---- Johanete de, 192, 193
Turvey, Rector of, 46
Tusser, Thomas, quoted, 128, 129, 131
Tychenor, William, 399_n. 3_, 462, 583
Tydeswell, William de, 195
Tylney, Grace de, 418
---- Margery de, 413, 417, 418
Tyrelton, Simon de, 196
Tyttesbury, Katherine, 458
Ufford, Robert de, Earl of Suffolk, 330_n. 3_
Ulrich of Steinfeld, 108
Upton, Vicar of, 232
Urban IV, 181, 342_n. 1_, 344
Usk Priory, 223, 224, 348, 350;
_custos_ of, 230_n. 8_, 232
_Valor Ecclesiasticus_, 96ff., 114ff., 120, 146, 161
Ver, J. de, 224
Vergi, Châtelaine of, 303
Vernon, Margaret, 55, 56, 263, 267, 570
Vert-Vert, 413, 593ff.
Vienne, Council of, 1311, 306_n. 3_
Villarceaux Abbey, 636, 645ff.;
accounts of, 639, 640;
financial state of, 637, 638;
live stock of, 640, 641;
moral state of, 665;
Prioress of, 643
Virgin, Cult of the, 513ff.
_Virgin averse to Matrimony, The_, 549ff.
_Virgin, The Penitent_, 549, 551ff.
Visitations, injunctions after, 494ff.;
regularity of, 492;
routine of, 483ff.
Vitry, Jacques de, 372_n. 1_, 516_n. 1_, 519_n. 1_
_Vox Clamantis_, 499, 545
Vylers, Agnes de, 198
Wace, Humphrey, 195
Wachesam, Sir Robert de, 268
Wafer, Alice, 201
Wake, Anne, 46ff.
---- Thomas, 419
Waldegrave, Rose, 273
Walerand, Agnes, 149
Waleys, Joan, 326
Wallingford, Richard de, 361_n. 2_, 479
Wallingwells Priory, 35, 52;
Prioress of, 180
Walsheman, John, 103
Ward, Joan, 31
Warde, John, 399
---- Robert, 205
Wardon, Robert de, 231
Warenne, John de, 455
Warham, William, Archbishop of Canterbury, 216, 221_n. 1_, 390_n. 5_,
494_n. 1_
Warland, Ingelram, 267
Warwick, Countess of, 18
Wason, Joan, 410
Waterville, William of, 480, 481
Watlington, Parson of, _see_ Perys, Edmund
Watre, Johanna atte, 442_n. 2_
Watson, Edward, 46
Watton Priory, 326, 412_n. 2_;
gifts to, 326;
pittances at, 326
Wavere, Margaret, 81, 82, 84ff., 94, 220, 299, 388, 460, 489, 583, 584
Webbe, Elizabeth, 480
Webster, John, 103
Weinhausen, 675
Welan, Thomas, 268
Wellingborough Church, 465
Wellisham, Sir Roger, 267
Wellow Abbey, 231, 232_n. 1_, 249_n. 7_
Wells, Katherine, 88_n._, 211, 299, 493, 584, 595, 596
Wennigsen, 677
Wester, Richard, 152
Westirdale, Isabella, 87
Westminster, Abbot of, 263
---- Council of, 1175, 21
Westmoreland, Joan, Countess of, 418
Weston, Matilda de, 191
Westwood Priory, 114, 184
Wherwell Abbey, 2, 3, 29, 156_n. 1_, 167_n. 2_, 186, 188, 195, 263,
320_n._, 329, 353, 461, 635;
Abbesses of, 60, 61, 104, 105, 224, 252, 324_n. 1_, 410, 422;
_and see_ Colte, Anne; Euphemia of Wherwell;
building at, 169;
burning of, 425, 433;
claustration at, 350, 351, 402_n. 4_, 404;
children at, 573;
coadjutress appointed at, 224;
hospitality at, 401, 402;
_jocalia_ at, 330_n. 3_;
library of, 242_n. 8_, 243_n. 3_;
prebendary canons at, 144, 228_n. 5_;
prosperous condition of, 89, 90;
sacrist of, 330_n. 3_;
sanctuary at, 422
Whiston Priory, 43, 45;
poverty of, 173, 186;
Prioress of, _see_ Flagge, Alice de la
Whitby, 471
Whiting, Richard, 265
Whitstable, Rector of, 234
Whittell, Roger, 121
Whytford, Richard, 254
Wickham, Vicar of, 232, 487
Wickwane, William, Archbishop of York, 6, 212, 338_n. 3_, 339
Wiggenhall, Joan, 42, 43, 90ff., 169, 170, 172, 502
---- John, 43, 92
---- St Peter's, 91, 134
Wilberfoss Priory, 6, 30, 175, 212, 213, 325, 401_n. 1_, 416_n. 1_, 587,
601;
_custos_ of, 231;
Prioress of, 58_n._
William of Stanton, 75
Willoughby, Sir Thomas, 57
Willynge, Hugh, 452
Wilton Abbey, 2, 3, 146, 186, 188, 189, 242_n. 8_, 392, 421_n. 1_;
Abbess of, 54, 105, 172, 185, 188, 350;
_and see_ Bodenham, Cecily; Giffard, Juliana; _and_ Jordan, Isabel;
fire at, 172, 425;
pensions from, 195, 198;
prebendary canons at, 144, 228_n. 5_;
resident chaplains at, 144
Wilton, Alice, 470_n. 3_
---- Edith, 422
Wimborne nunnery, 237
Winchelsea, Robert, Archbishop of Canterbury, 33, 300_n. 2_, 325_n. 1_
Winchester, Bishop of, 118, 179, 252, 309_n. 6_;
_and see_ Asserio, Rigaud de; Pontoise, John of; Wykeham, William of,
etc.
---- St Swithun's Priory, 369, 387;
Compotus Rolls of, 131_n._, 313;
register of, 310_n. 2_;
revels at, 313
---- St Mary's Abbey, 2, 3, 34_n. 1_, 151, 153, 159, 160, 171_n. 2_,
186, 188, 189, 195, 210, 279, 369, 387, 451, 454, 461;
Abbess of, 5, 60, 185, 195, 252, 265, 276, 300, 451;
_and see_ Shelley, Elizabeth;
appropriation to, 181, 187;
boarders at, 151, 153;
chaplains of, 151, 153;
children at, 265ff., 279ff., 572;
corrodies at, 190, 196, 197;
debts of, 164, 173, 185, 187;
disobedience at, 300;
fire at, 425;
hospitality at, 185, 200_n. 3_;
library of, 241_n. 4_, 242_n. 8_;
mistress of novices at, 201_n. 2_;
obedientiaries at, 132;
prebendal canons of, 144, 228_n. 5_
Windesheim, monastery of, 670;
_and see_ Busch, Johann
Windsor, Lord, 99, 100, 146
---- Sir Anthony, 281
Wing, Manor-court at, 105
Wingate, Katherine, 47
Winterton Church, 365
Wintney Priory, 87, 153, 179, 448_n. 1_, 461;
bad management at, 203;
embroidery made by, 257;
poverty of, 183, 184_n. 4_;
Prioress of, 252, 452;
_and see_ Alice of Wintney
Winton, William de, 449
Wireker, Nigel, 593
Wittlesey, Archbishop, 494_n. 1_
Wix, Priory of, 88, 308, 361_n. 1_, 374, 385, 467, 587;
poverty of, 209, 210;
Prioress of, 360_n. 2_
Wodhouse, John de, 328
Wolfe, Juliane, 489
Wolsey, Cardinal, 30, 54, 55, 392, 602ff.
Womersley, Church of, 209
Wonnenstein, 240_n. 2_
Wood, grants of, 105, 172;
unauthorised selling of, 205
Wood, Walter, 269
Woodlock, Henry, Bishop of Winchester, 156, 218ff., 248, 259_n. 1_,
319_n. 3_, 336, 416
Wool, sale of, by nunneries, 110, 111, 127, 217
Worcester, Priors of, 184, 186
Wortham, Margaret, 269
Wothorpe Priory, 115, 135_n. 4_, 171_n. 2_, 176_n. 3_, 180, 200_n. 3_,
353, 457, 584;
Prioress of, 180;
_and see_ Bowes, Agnes
Write, John, 149
Wroxall, 7, 39, 217_n. 1_, 223, 356_n. 1_, 359_n. 3_, 385, 402_n. 4_,
581;
Prioress of, 58_n._, 78;
_and see_ Alesbury, Agnes of
Wülfinghausen, 675
Wyatt, Sir Thomas, 146
Wykeham Priory, 18, 53_n. 2_, 111_n. 3_, 257, 291_n. 2_, 374, 428;
dilapidations at, 170;
fire at, 172;
Prioress of _see_ Westirdale, Isabella
Wykeham, William of, Bishop of Winchester, 5, 21, 63, 156, 167, 170,
216, 218, 219, 249, 261_n. 2_, 273, 300, 306, 324_n._, 337, 353,
358_n. 2_, 367_n. 2_, 369, 380, 401, 410, 451
Wyllyamesson, John, 152
Wylughby, Elizabeth, 465
Wynkyn de Worde, 254, 533
Wyteryng, Alice de, 204
Yedingham Priory, 18, 58_n._, 111_n. 3_, 170_n. 3_, 206_n. 3_, 257,
291_n. 2_, 325, 362, 532_n. 2_;
_custos_ of, 230_n. 8_;
repairs at, 175
Yong, Juliana, 423_n. 4_
York, Abbot of, 200_n. 1_
---- Archbishops of, 58, 59, 165;
_and see_ Giffard, Walter; Greenfield, William; Romeyn, John de
---- Cathedral, Chaplain of, _see_ Burn, John
---- council of, 1195, 373
---- Emma of, 51ff.
---- friars of, 122, 199
---- St Clement's, 53_n. 2_, 111_n. 3_, 122, 165, 175, 199, 301_n. 1_,
414_n. 2_;
boarders at, 580;
churches appropriated to, 113_n. 1_;
relics at, 117
---- St Mary's, 199
Yorkshire, moral state of nunneries in, 597ff.
Ypres, William of, 433
Zouche, Elizabeth la, 443_n. 2_
PRINTED IN ENGLAND BY J. B. PEACE, M.A., AT THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
[Illustration: ENGLISH NUNNERIES IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGES
(EXCLUDING DOUBLE GILBERTINE HOUSES)]
Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought
ERRATA FOR THE PASTONS AND THEIR ENGLAND
Add to List of Authorities:
Berkeley _Extracts_. Abstracts and extracts of Smyth's _Lives of the
Berkeleys_. Fosbroke, T. D. London. 1821.
Libraries. Old English Libraries. Savage, E. A. London. 1911.
p. 9, l. 6. _For_ "in the cathedral" _read_ "at the door of the
cathedral," and so on pp. 174, 184, and 221 _n._
p. 53, ll. 14 ff. I have somewhat exaggerated the amount of spinning and
weaving done at home for purely domestic use in the fifteenth century. The
industry in East Anglia was by then highly organised under capitalist
clothiers, who employed workers to perform the various processes of the
industry in their own homes, providing the raw materials and taking away
the finished cloth. Spinning was thus essentially a bye industry as well
as a purely domestic occupation. The Bury citizen was probably a clothier
"putting out" work and following the quite common practice of having a
number of webbers or websters under his eye in his own house. See _The
Paycockes of Coggeshall_, Power, Eileen, pp. 45-8.
p. 113, ll. 11 ff. _For_ "_de Regimine Principium_ of Hoccleve" _read_
"_de Regimine Principum_ of Lydgate" and so on p. 261.
p. 154, l. 23. _For_ "Brabraham" _read_ "Babraham."
p. 168, l. 1. _For_ "Paston's" _read_ "Pastons'."
p. 193, l. 31. _For_ "S. Peter's Hungate" _read_ "S. Peter, Hungate," and
so on p. 285.
p. 198, l. 32. _For_ "herse" _read_ "hearse."
p. 208, n. 2. _For_ "Oddy" _read_ "Addy."
p. 219, n. 1. _For_ "Prothero" _read_ "Ernle (Lord)."
p. 240, n. 5. _For_ "Jessop, J. J." _read_ "Jessopp, A."
p. 280, Index, sub Cambridge, corporal punishment at. _For_ 88 _read_ 82.
p. 284, Index, sub Margaret of Anjou. _For_ "(Queen of Edward IV)" _read_
"(Queen of Henry VI)."
p. 286, Index, sub Paston, Sir John II. _For_ "make knight" _read_ "made
knight."
p. 288, Index. _For_ "Straton Richard," _read_ "Stratton, Richard."
ERRATA FOR SOCIAL LIFE IN THE DAYS OF PIERS PLOWMAN
The main errata are on matters of coinage (pp. 69-70).
(_a_) There were no "copper" coins in England in the 14th (or 15th)
centuries.
(_b_) The designs of "noble" and "groat" were not so exactly similar as
the text might imply. The noble bears a king with sword and shield on a
ship; the groat has a king's head crowned.
(_c_) "Groats" were first struck in the reign of Ed. III; it is therefore
questionable whether they had become the "commonest" silver coins.
(_d_) "Pence" and "farthings" were of silver.
(_e_) There was no coined "shilling" until Henry VII's reign; until then,
the "shilling" was only money of account.
p. 103. _For_ "signing" of charters _read_ "sealing." No signing was
necessary until the Statute of Frauds. See B. II. 112, "this dede I
assele."
p. 100. A reviewer in _The Manchester Guardian_ has expressed strong
disagreement with these generalizations on the medieval woman; and we are
loth to neglect such criticisms from a serious source, even when they
cannot be called corrections of fact. Both author and editor, on careful
reconsideration, are still convinced that these words represent the actual
documentary evidence; but their epigrammatic conciseness, necessitated by
the whole plan of the book, may well have misled some readers. They would
prefer now, therefore, to write thus:
"There was a very general tendency, _in ecclesiastical circles_, to a
painful depreciation of women. Marriage (in spite of frequent protests
that no such blame was intended) was often regarded by the clergy as a
practical confession of failure, since the titles of 'virgin' and 'martyr'
were most desirable. It will be remembered that Chaucer is even more
explicit than Langland on the subject of clerical anti-feminism; and if
Chaucer, like Dante, gives us fine types of women, these owe far more to
the troubadour tradition than to any ecclesiastical source."
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Based on Professor Savine's analysis of the returns in the _Valor
Ecclesiasticus_ (Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History), I, 269-288.
[2] I have based this estimate partly on a list compiled by M. E. C.
Walcott, _English Minsters_, vol. II ("The English Student's Monasticon"),
partly on one compiled by Miss H. T. Jacka in an unpublished thesis on
_The Dissolution of the English Nunneries_; the figures, if not always
exactly correct, are approximately correct as far as the classification
into groups, according to size, is concerned. It must be remembered,
however, that there were more nuns at the beginning than at the end of the
period 1270-1536; the convents tended to diminish in size, especially
those which were poor and small to begin with.
[3] These are discussed in Liveing, _Records of Romsey Abbey_, pp. 112
_sqq._
[4] _V.C.H. Sussex_, II, p. 84.
[5] _Ib._ II, p. 63.
[6] Hugo, _Medieval Nunneries of the County of Somerset, Minchin Barrow_,
p. 108.
[7] Well-known names occur, for instance, among the prioresses of the poor
convents of Ivinghoe, Ankerwyke and Little Marlow in Bucks. _V.C.H.
Bucks_, I, p. 355.
[8] Lysons, _Magna Britannia_, V, p. 113. Compare the remark of a nun of
Wenningsen, near Hanover, who considered herself insulted when the great
reformer Busch addressed her not as "Klosterfrau" but as "Sister." "You
are not my brother, wherefore then call me sister? My brother is clad in
steel and you in a linen frock" (1455). Quoted in Coulton, _Medieval
Garner_, p. 653.
[9] _Wykeham's Register_ (Hants. Rec. Soc.), II, p. 462. Cf. _ib._ II, p.
61.
[10] E.g. _Reg. ... of Rigaud de Asserio_ (Hants. Rec. Soc.), p. 394;
_Reg. ... Stephani Gravesend_ (Cant. and York. Soc.), p. 200; _Wykeham's
Register_, _loc. cit._
[11] Bishop Cobham of Worcester at Wroxall in 1323 (_V.C.H. Warwick_, II,
p. 71). Cf. the case of Usk in Monmouthshire, "in quo monasterio solum
virgines de nobili prosapia procreate recipi consueverunt et solent"
(_Chron. of Adam of Usk_, ed. E. M. Thompson, p. 93).
[12] Gibbons, _Early Lincoln Wills_, p. 117.
[13] Sharpe, _Cal. of Wills enrolled in the Court of Husting_, I, p. 236.
Cf. _ib._ I, p. 350 and _Testamenta Eboracensia_ (Surtees Soc.), I, pp.
170, 354.
[14] Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 71.
[15] _Reg. of Archbishop William Wickwane_ (Surtees Soc.), p. 113.
[16] Liveing, _Records of Romsey Abbey_, p. 98.
[17] William de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, mentions two daughters, nuns
at Shouldham, in his will (1296). Sir Guy de Beauchamp mentions his little
daughter Katherine, a nun there (1359) and his father Thomas de Beauchamp,
Earl of Warwick, mentions the same Katherine and his own daughter
Margaret, nuns there (1369). Katherine was still alive in 1400, when she
is mentioned in the next Earl's will. _Testamenta Vetusta_, I, pp. 52, 63,
79, 153.
[18] See below, p. 15.
[19] See below, pp. 39-40.
[20] "Et pur certayn cause nous auens enioynt a dame Margaret Darcy,
vostre soer, qel ne passe les lieus de cloistre, cest assauoir de quoer,
de cloistre, de ffraitour, dormitorie ou fermerie, tantque nous en aueroms
autre ordeigne, et qele ne parle od nul estraunge gentz, et soit darreyn
enstalle, et en chescun lieu qele ne porte anele, et qele die chescun iour
un sautier et june la quarte et la sexte ferie a payn et eu. Ensement
voilloms qe la dit dame Margaret se puisse confesser au confessour de
vostre couent quant ele auera mester." _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell_,
f. 34_d_. It looks like the penance for immorality.
[21] "Item quod nulla monialis ibidem cameram teneat priuatam, sed quod
omnes moniales sane in dormitorio et infirme in infirmaria iaceant atque
cubant, preter dominam Margaretam Darcy, monialem prioratus antedicti, cui
ob nobilitatem sui generis de camera sua quam tenet in privata, absque
tamen alia liberata panis et ceruisie, extra casum infirmitatis manifeste,
volumus ad tempus tollerare." _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Buckingham_, f.
397_d_.
[22] _Canterbury Tales_ (ed. Skeat), Prologue, ll. 127 ff. It is
interesting to notice that the _Roman de la Rose_, of which Chaucer
translated a fragment, contains some remarks upon this subject which are
almost paraphrased in his description of Madame Eglentyne.
[23] _La Clef d'Amors ..._, ed. Doutrepont (1890), V, 3227 ff.
[24] Le Chastiement des Dames (Barbazon and Méon, _Fabliaux et Contes_,
II, p. 200).
[25] See Mrs Green, _Town Life in the Fifteenth Century_, II, pp. 77-80.
[26] Langland, _Vision of Piers the Plowman_, ed. Skeat, passus A, VIII,
l. 31.
[27] _English Gilds_, ed. L. T. Smith (E.E.T.S.), p. 194.
[28] _Ibid._ p. 340.
[29] Sharpe, _op. cit._ I, p. 589.
[30] Sharpe, _op. cit._ II, p. 299. The Fishmongers, who, up to 1536, were
divided into the two companies of salt-fishmongers and stock-fishmongers,
were a powerful and important body, as the annals of the City of London in
the fourteenth century show, "these fishmongers" in the words of Stow
"having been jolly citizens and six mayors of their company in the space
of twenty-four years." Stow's _Survey of London_ (ed. Kingsford), I, p.
214.
[31] Sharpe, _op. cit._ II, p. 606.
[32] Sharpe, _op. cit._ I, p. 594.
[33] Rye, _Carrow Abbey_, App. IX, pp. xvi, xvii, xviii.
[34] See _Archaeologia_, XV (1806), pp. 100-101; _ib._ XXXV (1853), p.
464.
[35] _V.C.H. London_, I, p. 518.
[36] _Ib._ pp. 518-9.
[37] Sharpe, _op. cit._ II, p. 267. Two years previously (1396) John de
Nevill had left legacies to his sister Eleanor and to his daughter
Elizabeth, minoresses of St Clare; _Durham Wills and Inventories_ (Surtees
Soc.), p. 39.
[38] Sharpe, _op. cit._ II, p. 589.
[39] _Ib._ II, p. 331.
[40] _Ib._ II, p. 577.
[41] Not counting legacies left to various nunneries, without specific
reference to a relative professed there.
[42] Sharpe, _op. cit._ I, pp. 107, 300, 313, 324, 408, 501, 585, 701.
Philip le Taillour had three daughters here in 1292 (I, p. 107), and
William de Leyre had three daughters here in 1325 (I, p. 300).
[43] _Ib._ I, pp. 222, 303, 569, 638, 688; II, pp. 20, 76, 115.
[44] _Ib._ I, pp. 229, 303, 342, 400, 435; II, pp. 47, 170. Ten nuns in
all.
[45] _Ib._ II, pp. 119, 267, 331, 577, 589.
[46] _Ib._ I, pp. 26, 126, 238, 349, 628. Ralph le Blund's three daughters
and his sister-in-law were all nuns here in 1295 (I, p. 126) and Thomas
Romayn, alderman and pepperer, left bequests to two daughters and to their
aunt in 1313 (_ib._ I, p. 288).
[47] _Ib._ I, pp. 34, 111, 611; II, p. 119.
[48] _Ib._ II, pp. 167, 271, 274.
[49] _Ib._ II, pp. 474, 564.
[50] _Ib._ I, pp. 510, 638.
[51] _Ib._ I, p. 119; II, p. 306.
[52] There are two exceptions, Greenfield (Lincs.) (_ib._ II, p. 327), and
Amesbury (Wilts.) (_ib._ II, p. 326), but the testators in these cases are
not burgesses, but a knight and a clerk.
[53] The corresponding fines for girls were _merchet_ if they married off
the manor and _leyrwite_ if they dispensed with that ceremony. The
medieval lord, concerned above all with keeping up the supply of labour
upon his manor, naturally held the narrow view of the functions of women,
which has been expressed in our day by Kipling: "Now the reserve of a boy
is tenfold deeper than the reserve of a maid, she having been made for one
end only by blind Nature, but man for several" (_Stalky and Co._ p. 212).
[54] Henry de Causton, _mercator_ of London, left a bequest to Johanna, a
"sister" at Ankerwyke, formerly servant to his father (1350). Sharpe, _op.
cit._ I, p. 638.
[55] _Register of Bishop Godfrey Giffard_ (Worc. Hist. Soc.), II, pp.
288-9.
[56] _Testamenta Eboracensia_ (Surtees Soc.), I, p. 6.
[57] _Test. Ebor._ I, p. 9, dated 1345. Cf. will of Roger de Moreton
"civis et mercerus Ebor." 1390; two of four daughters nuns at St
Clement's, York (_ib._ I, p. 133).
[58] Sharpe, _op. cit._ I, p. 400, dated 1335.
[59] _Ib._ I, p. 501, dated 1349.
[60] _Ib._ I, p. 503, dated 1348.
[61] _Testamenta Vetusta_, I, p. 286.
[62] See above, p. 7. There were two Welbys, two Lekes and two Paynelles
at Stixwould; _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 76. Other references might be
multiplied.
[63] Cf. also Sharpe, _op. cit._ I, p. 238; and _Reg. of Bishop
Ginsborough_ (Worc. Hist. Soc.), p. 51.
[64] _Testamenta Eboracensia_ (Surtees Soc.) I, pp. 187 ff. (will of Sir
John Fayrfax, rector of Prescot, 1393).
[65] See below, p. 302.
[66] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 172.
[67] On this subject see Coulton, _Monastic Schools in the Middle Ages_
(Medieval Studies), pp. 34-5.
[68] _Hali Meidenhad_, ed. Cockayne (E.E.T.S.), p. 8.
[69] _Old English Miscellany_, ed. Morris (E.E.T.S., 1872), p. 96.
[70] _Clene Maydenhod_, ed. Furnivall (E.E.T.S.), pp. 5-6.
[71] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 113.
[72] _The English Register of Godstow Nunnery_ (E.E.T.S.), introduction,
pp. xxv-xxvi. Cf. _Cartulary of Buckland Priory_ (Somerset Rec. Soc.),
introd. pp. xxii-xxiii.
[73] _Reg. of Godstow_, u.s. no. 76, pp. 78-9. See also an exceedingly
interesting action of _quare impedit_ brought by John Stonor (probably the
Lord Chief Justice) against the Prioress of Marlow in 1339, probably
merely to secure a record. He had bought the advowsons of the two moieties
of the church of Little Marlow and an acre of land with each and conveyed
the whole to the Prioress, subject to the provision "that out of it the
said Prioress and nuns shall find Joan and Cecily, sisters of the
aforesaid John, and Katherine, daughter of the aforesaid John, nuns of the
aforesaid place, 40_s._ a year each during their lives, and also for the
sustenance of all the nuns towards their kitchen half a mark of silver
each year and for the vesture of the twenty nuns serving God there each
year 10_s._ of silver, to be divided equally between them." After the
deaths of the Stonor ladies all the money is to go to the common funds of
the house, with certain provisions. _Year Books of Edward III, years XII
and XIII_, ed. L. O. Pike (Rolls Series, 1885), pp. cxi-cxvii, 260-2. For
the appropriation of these money dowries to the use of the individual
nuns, see below, Ch. VIII, _passim_.
[74] Nicolas, _Testamenta Vetusta_, I, p. 118.
[75] Gibbons, _Early Lincoln Wills_, p. 113.
[76] _Testamenta Eboracensia_, I, p. 11.
[77] See above, p. 6. See also the interesting deed (1429-30) in which
Richard Fairfax "scwyer," made arrangements for the entrance of his
daughter "Elan," to Nunmonkton, always patronised by the Fairfaxes. He
left an annual rent of five marks in trust for her "yat my doghtir Elan be
made nun in ye house of Nun Monkton, and yat my saydes feffis graunt a
nanuel rent of fourty schilyngs ... terme of ye lyffe of ye sayd Elan to
ye tym be at sche be a nun." His feoffees were to pay nineteen marks "for
ye makyng ye sayd Elan nun." And "if sche will be no nun" his wife and
feoffees were to marry her at their discretion. _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p.
123. Cf. an interesting case in which Matilda Toky, the orphan of a
citizen of London, is allowed by the mayor and aldermen to become a nun of
Kilburn in 1393, taking with her her share (£38. 5_s._ 4-1/2_d._) of her
father's estate, after which the prioress of the house comes in person to
receive the money from the chamberlain of the city. Riley, _Memorials of
London_, p. 535. The father's will is in Sharpe, _op. cit._ II, pp. 288-9;
he had three sons and a daughter besides Matilda.
[78] _V.C.H Essex_, II, p. 117.
[79] Quoted in _V.C.H. Beds._ I, p. 254.
[80] _Testamenta Eboracensia_, III, p. 168. The sum left for entrance of
Ellen Fairfax to Nunmonkton was about the same, £10. 13_s._ 4_d._ (16
marks). Above, p. 18, note 4. There is an interesting note of the outfit
provided for an Austin nun of Lacock on her profession in 1395, attached
to a page of the cartulary of that house. "Memorandum concerning the
expenses of the veiling of Joan, daughter of Nicholas Samborne, at Lacock,
viz. in the 19th year of the reign of King Richard the second after the
conquest. First paid to the abbess for her fee 20_s._ then to the convent
40_s._, to each nun 2_s._ Item paid to John Bartelot for veils and linen
cloth 102_s._" (this large sum may include a supply for the whole house).
"Item to a certain woman for one veil 40_d._ Item for one mantle 10_s._
Item for one fur of shankes (a cheap fur made from the underpart of rabbit
skin) for another mantle, 16_s._ Item for white cloth to line the first
mantle, 16_s._ Item for white cloth for a tunic 10_s._ Item one fur for
the aforesaid pilch 20_s._ Item for a maser (cup) 10_s._ Item for a silver
spoon 2_s._ 6_d._ Item for blankets 6_s._ 8_d._ Item in canvas for a bed
2_s._ Item for the purchase of another mantle of worsted 20_s._ Item paid
at the time of profession at one time 20_s._ Item for a new bed 20_s._
Item for other necessaries 20_s._ ... Item paid to the said Joan by the
order of the abbess." The total (excluding the last item) is £17. 6_s._
2_d._ _Archaeol. Journ._ 1912, LXIX, p. 117.
[81] Mackenzie E. C. Walcott, _Inventories of ... the Benedictine Priory
of St Mary and Sexburga in the Island of Shepey for Nuns_ (1869)
(reprinted from _Archaeologia Cantiana_, VII, pp. 272-306). Compare the
letter to Cromwell from Sir Thomas Willoughby, who asks that Elizabeth
Rede, his sister-in-law, who had resigned the office of Abbess of Malling,
may have suitable lodging within the monastery, "not only that but such
plate as my father-in-law did deliver her to occupy in her chamber, that
she may have it again." Wood, _Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies_,
II, p. 153.
[82] "Nullus praelatus in recipiendo monacho, vel canonico, vel
sanctimoniali pretium sumere vel exigere ab hiis, qui ad conversionem
veniunt, aliqua pacti occasione praesumat. Si quis autem hoc fecerit
anathema sit." Wilkins, _Concilia_, I, p. 477.
[83] "Monachi etiam sub pretio non recipiantur in monasterio.... Si quis
autem exactus pro sua receptione aliquid dederit, ad canonicos ordines non
accedat." _Ib._ p. 508.
[84] "Praeterea statuimus, praesenti concilio approbante, ut nullus de
cetero pro receptione alicujus in religionis domum pecuniam vel quicquam
aliud extorquere praesumat; adeo ut si pro paupertate domus ingrediens
debeat vestire seipsum praetextu vestimentorum ultra justum pretium eorum
ab eo nihil penitus recipiatur." _Ib._ p. 591.
[85] _Reg. of Walter Giffard_ (Surtees Soc.), p. 147.
[86] _Reg. of Roger de Norbury_ (Will. Salt Archaeol. Soc. Collections,
I), p. 259.
[87] _Reg. of Ralph of Shrewsbury_ (Somerset Rec. Soc.), p. 684.
[88] _MS. Register at New College_, f. 87_d_.
[89] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Bokyngham_, f. 397_d_.
[90] _Linc. Visit._ I, p. 49.
[91] See _Linc. Visit._ II, and _Alnwick's Visit._ MS., _passim_.
[92] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 133, 134. See also the very sternly worded
prohibition sent by Bishop Spofford of Hereford to Aconbury in 1438. _Reg.
Thome Spofford_ (Cantilupe Soc.), pp. 223-4.
[93] _Archaeologia_, XLVII, p. 57.
[94] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 117.
[95] _Linc. Visit._ I, p. 49.
[96] _Reg. Johannis Peckham_ (Rolls Series), I, p. 189.
[97] _Ib._ I, pp. 40-1, 356.
[98] _Wykeham's Reg._ II, pp. 60-61. Cf. _ib._ p. 462.
[99] _Reg. Johannis de Pontissara_, pp. 240, 252.
[100] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Bokyngham_, f. 397_d_.
[101] _Linc. Visit._ I, p. 53. Cf. Flemyng's injunction in 1422, _ib._
[102] _Testamenta Vetusta_, I, pp. 63-4.
[103] See above, p. 7, note 2.
[104] _V.C.H. London_, I, p. 518.
[105] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 5.
[106] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 26_d_.
[107] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 217.
[108] Liveing, _Records of Romsey Abbey_, p. 248.
[109] _V.C.H. Yorks_, III, p. 163. In 1312 the prioress of Hampole was
rebuked for receiving a little girl (_puellulam_), not on account of her
youth, but because she had omitted to obtain the archbishop's licence.
_Ib._
[110] _Reg. of Archbishop John le Romeyn_ (Surtees Soc.), I, p. 66.
[111] _Reg. Epis. Johannis Peckham_ (Rolls Series), I, p. 356. Compare
Caesarius of Heisterbach: "In the diocese of Trèves is a certain convent
of nuns named Lutzerath, wherein by ancient custom no girl is received but
at the age of seven years or less; which constitution hath grown up for
the preservation of that simplicity of mind which maketh the whole body to
shine" (_Dial. Mirac._ I, p. 389, quoted in Coulton, _Medieval Garner_, p.
255). The thirteenth century visitations of the diocese of Rouen by Eudes
Rigaud make it clear that novices there were often very young, e.g. at
St-Saëns in 1266 "una earum erat novicia et minima" (_Reg. Visit.
Archiepiscopi Rothomagensis_, ed. Bonnin, p. 566). The Archbishop ordered
novices to be professed at the age of fourteen and not before (_ib._ pp.
51, 121, 207).
[112] For example the béguine Christina von Stommeln, who said of herself,
"So far back as my memory can reach, from the earliest dawn of my
childhood, whensoever I heard the lives and manners, the passion and the
death of saints and especially of our Lord Christ and His glorious Mother,
then in such hearing I was delighted to the very marrow" (quoted in
Coulton, _op. cit._ p. 403). At the age of ten she contracted a mystic
marriage with Christ, and at the age of thirteen she joined the béguines
at Cologne. Cf. St Catherine of Siena.
[113] Caesarius of Heisterbach, _Dialogus Miraculorum_, ed. Joseph
Strange, I, pp. 53-4.
[114] This was Helswindis von Gimmenich, first abbess of Burtscheid after
the transference thither of the nuns of St Saviour of Aachen c. 1220-1222.
See Quix, _Gesch. der ehemaligen Reichs-Abtei Burtscheid_ (Aachen 1834).
[115] Caesarius, _op. cit._ I, pp. 54-5. For another case of children in
this convent see the charming story of Gertrude's purgatory, _ib._ pp.
344-5. There are fifteenth century English translations in the _Myroure of
Oure Ladye_ (E.E.T.S.), pp. 46-7 and in _An Alphabet of Tales_ (E.E.T.S.),
p. 249. A little girl of nine years old had died, and, after death,
appeared in broad daylight in her own place in the choir, next to a child
of her own age. The latter was so terrified that she was noticed and on
being questioned told the vision to the Abbess (from whom Caesarius
professes to have had the story). The Abbess says to the child "Sister
Margaret, ... if Sister Gertrude come to thee again, say to her:
_Benedicite_, and if she reply to thee, _Dominus_, ask her whence she
comes and what she seeks." On the following day (continues Caesarius) "she
came again and since she replied _Dominus_ when she was saluted, the
maiden added: 'Good Sister Gertrude, why come you at such a time and what
seek you with us?' Then she replied: 'I come here to make satisfaction.
Because I willingly whispered with thee in the choir, speaking in half
tones, therefore am I ordered to make satisfaction in that place where it
befell me to sin. And unless thou beware of the same vice, dying thou
shalt suffer the same penance.' And when she had four times made
satisfaction in the same way (by prostrating herself) she said to her
sister: 'Now have I completed my satisfaction; henceforth thou shalt see
me no more.' And thus it was done. For in the sight of her friend she
proceeded towards the cemetery, passing over the wall by a miracle. Behold
such was the purgatory of this virgin." It is a tender little tale, and
kinder to childish sins than medieval moralists sometimes were; Saint
Douceline beat a little girl of seven (one of her béguines) "so shrewdly
that the blood ran down her ribs, saying meanwhile that she would
sacrifice her to God" simply because she had looked at some men who were
at work in the house (see Coulton, _op. cit._ p. 321).
[116] _V.C.H. Lincs._ II, p. 184. But the usual custom was to place such
women as lay boarders in the custody of a nunnery. See below, pp. 419 ff.
[117] "Processus et sententia divortii inter Thomam Tudenham militem et
Aliciam filiam quondam Johannis Woodhous armigeri, racione quia est
monialis professa in prioratu de Crabhous et nunquam carnaliter cognita
per maritum suum predictum durante matrimonio predicto, licet matrimonium
predictum duravit et ut vir et uxor cohabitaverunt per spacium viij
annorum. Durante matrimonio unicus filius ab eadem suscitatus, non tamen
per dictum Thomam maritum suum, sed per Ricardum Stapleton servientem
patris ipsius Aliciae" (1437). Her husband's sister Margaret Bedingfield
left her a legacy of 10 marks in 1474. _Norfolk Archaeology_ (Norf. and
Norwich Arch. Soc.), XIII, pp. 351-2.
[118] _Testamenta Vetusta_, I, p. 74.
[119] _Testamenta Eboracensia_, I, p. 18.
[120] See the letter from John Clusey to Cromwell in her favour: "Rygthe
honorable, after most humyll comendacyons, I lykewyce besuche you that the
Contents of this my symple Letter may be secret; and that for as myche as
I have grete cause to goo home I besuche your good Mastershipe to comand
Mr Herytag to give attendans opon your Mastershipe for the knowlege off
youre plesure in the seyd secrete mater, whiche ys this, My Lord Cardinall
causyd me to put a yong gentyll homan to the Monystery and Nunry off
Shafftysbyry, and there to be provessyd, and wold hur to be namyd my
doythter; and the troythe ys shew was his dowythter; and now by your
Visitacyon she haythe commawynment to departe, and knowythe not whether
Wherefore I humely besuche youre Mastershipe to dyrect your Letter to the
Abbas there, that she may there contynu at hur full age to be professed.
Withoute dowyte she ys other xxiiij yere full, or shalbe at shuche tyme of
the here as she was boren, which was abowyte Mydelmas. In this your doyng
your Mastershipe shall do a very charitable ded, and also bynd her and me
to do you such servyce as lyzthe in owre lytell powers; as knowythe owre
Lord God, whome I humely besuche prosperyusly and longe to preserve you.
Your orator John Clusey." Ellis, _Original Letters_, Series I, II, pp.
92-3. An injunction had been made that profession made under twenty-four
years was invalid, and that novices or girls professed at an earlier age
were to be dismissed.
[121] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 161.
[122] _Test. Ebor._ III, p. 289, note. She was one of the Conyers of
Hornby (Richmondshire) and is mentioned in the will of her brother
Christopher Conyers, rector of Rudby in 1483.
[123] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 177.
[124] _V.C.H. Durham_, II, p. 107. For another instance of dispensation
and installation on the same day see _Reg. of Bishop Bronescombe of
Exeter_, ed. Hingeston-Randolph, p. 163. For other dispensations _super
defectu natalium_, see _Cal. of Papal Letters_, III, p. 470 (cf. _Cal. of
Petit._ I, p. 367), V, p. 549 and _Reg. Johannis de Trillek Episcopi
Herefordensis_ (Cantilupe Soc.), p. 404.
[125] Rabelais, _Gargantua_, ch. LII.
[126] _Reg. Epis. Johannis Peckham_ (Rolls Ser.), I, p. 367. Cf. pp. 191
ff. below.
[127] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 4. She was also charged with the introduction
of unsuitable persons as lay boarders, etc. "Item priorissa introducit in
prioratum diuersos extraneos et ignotos, tam mares quam feminas et eos
sustentat communibus expensis domus et aliquas quasi ideotas et alias
inhabiles fecit moniales. Negat articulum." But _ideota_ probably simply
means unlearned here, and in the case of Agnes Hosey, below p. 33. Compare
the case at Bival in Normandy 1251. "Ibi est quedam filia burgensis de
Vallibus que stulta est." _Reg. Visit. Archiep. Rothomag._, ed. Bonnin, p.
111.
[128] _Visitations of the Diocese of Norwich_ (Camden Soc.), pp. 91, 311.
[129] Gasquet, _Henry VIII and the English Monasteries_ (pop. ed. 1899),
p. 293.
[130] Gairdner, _Letters and Papers, etc._, IX, no. 1075.
[131] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 71_d_.
[132] _Visitations of the Diocese of Norwich_, p. 91.
[133] _Sussex Archaeol. Coll._ IX, p. 26.
[134] Wilkins, _Concilia_, II, p. 487.
[135] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 77.
[136] Hence the certificates sometimes required from bishops to testify
whether or not a girl had actually been professed. Such a certificate
occurs in _Wykeham's Register_ (II, p. 192), announcing that Joan,
daughter of Stephen Asshewy, deceased, was not yet professed at St Mary's
Winchester or at any other house. The case of Isabel, daughter of Sir
Philip de Coverle, is also interesting; she left the wretchedly poor house
of Sewardsley to claim her share of her mother's inheritance, therewith to
provide fit maintenance for herself among the nuns; but she was excluded
from inheriting with her sisters on account of her religious profession
(_V.C.H. Northants._ II, pp. 125-6). Compare also the case of Joan, wife
of Nicholas de Grene (1357-8); on a question of inheritance the King's
court issued a writ of inquiry as to whether she had been professed at
Nuneaton. _Reg. of Bishop Roger de Norbury_ (William Salt Archaeol. Soc.
Collections, I), pp. 285-7.
[137] See e.g. the commission for the release of a novice preserved in the
register of Ralph Baldock, Bishop of London (1310). "We have lately
received the supplication of our beloved daughter in Christ, Cristina de
Burgh, daughter of the noble Sir Robert Fitzwalter, to the effect that
whereas she was delivered by her parents, while not yet of a marriageable
age, into the order of St Augustine in the monastery of Haliwell of our
diocese, and for some time wore the habit of a novice therein and still
wears it, nevertheless there is no canonical reason why she should not
freely return to the world at her own free will; and whereas we do
condescend to licence her to return to the world, having diligently made
inquiries in the aforesaid monastery for our information as to the truth
of the aforesaid matters, etc. etc."; the Bishop having no time to finish
the inquiry himself commissions his official to carry it on and to release
Cristina if the result is satisfactory. _Reg. Radulphi Baldock_ (Cant. and
York Soc.), p. 129. But note that this girl is only a novice.
[138] See below, pp. 502-9, and Note H.
[139] _V.C.H. Bucks._ I, p. 355.
[140] _Cal. of Papal Letters_, I, p. 17.
[141] _P.R.O. Early Chanc. Proc._ 7/70.
[142] _Reg. of Bishop Robert de Stretton_ (Will. Salt Archaeol. Soc.
Collections, N.S. VIII), pp. 149-50. With her case compare that of Jane
Wadham, which came up after the Dissolution in 1541. She "after arriving
at years of discretion was forced by the threats and machinations of
malevolent persons to become a regular nun in the house of nuns at Romsey,
but having both in public and in private always protested against this
seclusion, she conceived herself free from regular observance and in that
persuasion joined herself in matrimony with one John Foster, _per verba de
presenti_, intending to have the marriage solemnised as soon as she was
free from her religion." For the further vicissitudes of her married life,
see Liveing, _Records of Romsey Abbey_, p. 255. Compare also the case of
Margery of Hedsor who left Burnham in 1311. _V.C.H. Bucks._ I, p. 383.
[143] _Year Book of 12 Richard II_, ed. G. F. Deiser (Ames Foundation,
1914), pp. 71-7. Cf. pp. 150-3. It may be noticed that Marvell, in his
poem "Upon Appleton House" (dedicated to the great Lord Fairfax),
preserves the tradition of another of these cases. In the time of Anna
Langton, the last Prioress of Nunappleton, a certain Isabella Thwaites,
who had been placed in her charge, fell in love with William Fairfax. The
Prioress, who wished her to become a nun, shut her up, but eventually
Fairfax, having got the law upon his side, broke his way into the nunnery
and released her and she married him in 1518. It was her sons who obtained
the house on its dissolution (see Markham, _Life of the great Lord
Fairfax_, pp. 3, 4).
For a somewhat similar case to that of Clarice Stil, see _Gentleman's
Magazine_, vol. 102, p. 615. A widow Joan de Swainton married a widower
Hugh de Tuthill. She had four daughters by her first husband, and of these
Hugh married two to his own two sons by his first wife, and placed the
other two (they being under twelve years of age) in the nunnery of
Kirklees, in order that his two sons might obtain through their wives the
whole inheritance of the co-heiresses. But the wardship of the girls
belonged to a certain William de Notton, who prepared to dispute the
arrangement, but was dissuaded by one of the young nuns.
[144] It was probably more common for widows to take a simple vow of
chastity and to remain in the world. But the will of Thomas de Kent,
fishmonger, seems to show that it would be considered quite natural for a
widow to take the veil, even in the burgess class, which possibly
remarried more frequently than the nobles. He left his wife a tenement for
life, adding that should she wish to enter any religious house the same
was to be sold and half the proceeds given for her maintenance (Sharpe,
_op. cit._ I, p. 124).
[145] _V.C.H. Suffolk_, II, p. 113. Cf. _Testamenta Eboracensia_, I, p.
117.
[146] _V.C.H. London_, I, p. 519. Cf. Sybil de Felton, widow of Sir Thomas
Morley, who became Abbess of Barking in 1393, at the age of thirty-four.
_V.C.H. Essex_, II, p. 121.
[147] _V.C.H. Warwick_, II, p. 71.
[148] _English Register of Godstow Nunnery_ (E.E.T.S.), p. 43.
[149] _Ib._ p. 383. Confirmation of this deed of grant by Peter Durant,
about 1200. _Ib._ p. 384.
[150] Sharpe, _op. cit._ I, p. 108.
[151] _V.C.H. Essex_, II, pp. 120-2. Margaret Botetourt became Abbess of
Polesworth in 1362, by episcopal dispensation, when under the age of
twenty. "This early promotion was not the only mark of favour which this
prioress obtained. In 1390 the Pope granted her exemption from the
jurisdiction of the Archbishop or Bishop of Lichfield." _V.C.H. Warwick_,
II, p. 63.
[152] "I take it that Prioress Joan was an heiress, and, in fact, the last
representative of the elder line of her family, and the nuns knew
perfectly well what they were about when they chose a lady of birth and
wealth, and highly connected to boot, to rule over them. They certainly
were not disappointed in any expectations they may have formed. The new
prioress set to work in earnest to make the nunnery into quite a new and
imposing place and her friends and kinsfolk rallied round her nobly."
Jessopp, _Ups and Downs of an Old Nunnery_ in _Frivola_, pp. 59-60.
[153] _Reg. of Crabhouse Nunnery_, ed. Mary Bateson (_Norf. Archaeology_,
XI), pp. 57-62 _passim_.
[154] They are as follows: (1) _congé d'élire_ by the Bishop-Elect as
patron, (2) notification by the subprioress and nuns of the date appointed
for the election, (3) formal warning by the subprioress that all who ought
not to be present should leave the chapter house, (4) notification of the
election of Alice de la Flagge, (5) declaration of Alice's assent, (6)
letter from subprioress and convent to the Bishop-Elect praying him to
confirm the election, (7) letter from the Prior of Worcester to the same
effect, to the Bishop-Elect, (8) the same to the commissary general, (9)
commission from the Bishop-Elect to the Prior and to the
commissary-general, empowering them to receive, examine and confirm the
election, (10) instrument by the subprioress and convent appointing
Richard de Bereburn, chaplain, their proctor to present the elect to the
Bishop-Elect, (11) another appointing two of the nuns as proctors "to
instruct and do things concerning the business of the election," (12)
decree by the subprioress and convent, describing the method and result of
the election and addressed to the Bishop-Elect, (13) acts concerning the
election made before the Bishop's commissaries by Richard de Bereburn,
proctor, by the subprioress and by the two nuns, _instructrices_, examined
on oath, (14) certificate by the Dean of the Christianity of Worcester
that he had proclaimed the election, (15) confirmation of the election by
the commissaries, (16) final declaration by the Prior of this confirmation
and of the installation and benediction of the new prioress and of the
injunction of obedience upon the nuns, and (17) a certificate by the
commissaries of the Bishop-Elect that the business was completed. _Reg.
Sede Vacante_ (Worc. Hist. Soc.), pp. 111-4; the text in Nash, _Hist. and
Antiquities of Worcestershire_ (1781), I, pp. 212-6, which also contains
many documents relating to the election of other prioresses of this house.
There are frequent notices of elections in episcopal registers; for other
very detailed accounts, see _Reg. of Bishop Grandisson of Exeter_, ed.
Hingeston-Randolph, pt III, pp. 999-1002 (Canonsleigh) and _Reg. of Ralph
of Shrewsbury_ (Somerset Rec. Soc.) pp. 284-7 (Cannington). See also
Eckenstein, _Woman under Monasticism_, pp. 367-8.
[155] See e.g. _V.C.H. Glouc._ II, p. 93; _Reg. of Bishop Grandisson_, pt
II, p. 742; _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 114-5, 120, 124; Dugdale, _Mon._ IV,
p. 636; _ib._ V, p. 207; _V.C.H. Durham_, II, p. 107.
[156] Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 458.
[157] Evidently this was the usual payment here, for, in the roll for
1392-3, there is an item "Paye al officiale pour stalling de prioris
x_s._" _P.R.O. Mins. Accts._ 1260/4.
[158] _P.R.O. Mins. Accts._ 1260.
[159] The Cistercians fixed the age at 30. Later the Council of Trent
fixed it at 40 including 8 years of profession.
[160] An election by acclamation was said to be conducted _via Spiritus
sancti_ or _per inspirationem_. For this and the methods of election _via
scrutinii_ and _via compromissi_, see J. Wickham Legg, _On the Three Ways
of Canonical Election_ (_Trans. St Paul's Eccles. Soc._ III, 299-312).
[161] _Reg. Sede Vacante_ (Worc. Hist. Soc.), p. 114, and Nash, _op. cit._
I, p. 214.
[162] From a document preserved at the Exchequer Gate, Lincoln.
[163] For the following account, see _Linc. Epis. Reg. Visit. Longland_,
ff. 22-25.
[164] Compare the complaint of one of the nuns at St Michael's Stamford in
1445, "Dicit quod priorissa est sibi nimis rigorosa in correccionibus, nam
pro leuibus punit eam rigorose." _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 96.
[165] Dugdale, _Mon._ III, p. 415. For another instance of disturbances in
a convent caused by the appointment of a Prioress (here the head of the
house) by the Bishop contrary to the will of the nuns, see two letters
written by the nuns of Stratford to Cromwell, about the same time that
Longland was having such trouble at Elstow. In one they ask his help "for
the removing of our supposed prioress," explaining "Sir, since the time
that we put up our supplication unto the king, we have been worse
entreated than ever we were before, for meat, drink and threatening words;
and as soon as we speak to have anything remedied she biddeth us to go to
Cromwell and let him help us; and that the old lady, who is prioress in
right, is like to die for lack of sustenance and good keeping, for she can
get neither meat, drink nor money to help herself." In another letter they
report "that the chancellor of my lord of London (the Bishop) hath been
with us yesterday and that he sayeth the prioress shall continue and be
prioress still, in spite of our teeth, and of their teeths that say nay to
it, and that he commanded her to assault us and to punish us, that other
may beware by us." Wood, _Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies_, I,
nos. xxx and xxxi, pp. 68-70.
[166] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 167-9.
[167] _Ib._ III, p. 180 and _Reg. of John le Romeyn_ (Surtees Soc.), I,
pp. 213-4. Whether any nuns were sent to Rosedale does not appear, but
shortly afterwards two nuns, Elizabeth de Rue and Helewis Darains, were
sent to Nunburnholme and to Wykeham respectively; these punishments may
not have been connected with the election trouble. _Reg. Romeyn_, I, pp.
177, 214 note, 225; compare p. 216. Josiana appears to have been twice
Prioress; she was confirmed in 1290 and finally resigned because of old
age in 1320, but Joan de Moubray is mentioned as Prioress in 1308 and she
resigned in 1309. _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 181. There was discord over an
election at St Clement's, York, in 1316, one party in the convent electing
Agnes de Methelay, and the other Beatrice de Brandesby. _Sede vacante_,
the Dean and Chapter appointed the former. _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 129.
See also a case at Goring. _V.C.H. Oxon._ II, p. 103.
[168] Translated from Caesarius of Heisterbach's _Dialogus Miraculorum_ in
Coulton, _A Medieval Garner_, pp. 251-2.
[169] Dugdale, _Mon._ II, p. 318.
[170] See Brewer, _Reign of Henry VIII_, II, pp. 281-3.
[171] See Wood, _op. cit._ II, nos. xxi, xxii, pp. 52-6. (See nos. xxiii,
xxiv, xxv, lxxiii and lxxiv for further letters from Margaret Vernon.)
[172] See, for example, the account in the _St Albans Chronicles_ (Rolls
Series) of the great costs incurred by the Abbots of St Albans in seeking
confirmation here. A detailed account of expenses incurred at Rome for the
confirmation of Abbot John IV in 1302 has been translated in Coulton,
_Medieval Garner_, p. 517; the total was 2561 marks sterling, i.e. about
£34,000 in modern money. See also Froude's essay entitled "Annals of an
English Abbey" in his _Short Studies on Great Subjects_, 3rd ser. pp. 1
_sqq._
[173] Pierre Du Bois, _De Recuperatione Terre Sancte_, ed. Ch.-V. Langlois
(Paris, 1891), p. 83.
[174] Dugdale, _Mon._ III, p. 363.
[175] At the time of the suppression Joan Scott "late prioress" is placed
second in the list of nuns at Handale and is described as "aet. 90 and
blynd." _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 166. At Esholt the ex-prioress was over 70
and is described as "decrepita et non abilis ad equitandum, neque eundum."
_Ib._ p. 162.
[176] Wood, _op. cit._ II, p. 153. See A. H. Thompson, _English
Monasteries_, p. 123.
[177] _V.C.H. Suffolk_, II, p. 116. See also the provision made for Joyce
Brome, ex-prioress of Wroxall. Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 89 note. For the
case of Isabel Spynys, prioress of Wilberfoss (1348), see _V.C.H. Yorks._
III, p. 126; and for an example of such an arrangement at a priory of
monks see the very detailed ordinance for the living of John Assheby,
ex-prior of Daventry, by Bishop Flemyng of Lincoln in 1420. _Linc. Visit._
I, pp. 39-42. It was not unusual to make provision in the form of
corrodies such as these for other nuns, who were prevented by age and
infirmity from taking part in the communal life of the convent. Isabel
Warde of Moxby, "impotens et surda," held such a grant for life at the
time of the dissolution (_V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 239) and Margaret de
Shyrburn of Yedingham, who was ill of dropsy, had a secular girl to wait
on her in 1314. _Ib._ p. 127 note. Compare the amusing case of Joan
Heyronne of St Helen's, Bishopsgate (1385), who was ill of gout and not
sympathised with by her sisters (_V.C.H. London_, I, p. 458), and see also
cases at Romsey (1507), Liveing, _op. cit._ p. 230; Malling (1400), _Cal.
of Pap. Letters_, V, p. 355; and St Mary's, Neasham, _V.C.H. Durham_, II,
p. 107.
[178] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 120-1. Compare an amusing and very similar
disturbance at Flixton between 1514 and 1532. _Visit. of Dioc. Norwich_,
ed. Jessopp (Camden Soc.), pp. 142-4, 185, 190, 261, 318.
[179] The abbess's or prioress's chamber is constantly mentioned in the
surveys of nunneries made at the time of the Dissolution, e.g. at
Arthington, Wykeham, Basedale and Kirklees (_Yorks. Archaeol. Journ._ IX,
pp. 212, 326, 327, 332); at Cheshunt (Cussans, _Hist. of Herts., Hertford
Hundred_, II, p. 270), Sheppey (Mackenzie E. C. Walcott, _Inventories of
St Mary's Hospital, Dover, etc._ p. 28), Kilburn (Dugdale, _Mon._ III, p.
424). See also the inventory of the goods of Langley in 1485 (Walcott,
_Inventory of St Mary's Benedictine Nunnery at Langley_ [Leic. Architec.
Soc. 1872], p. 4). The last three contain interesting inventories of the
furniture of the prioress's chamber. At Sheppey it was hung with green
"saye" and contained "a trussyng bed of waynscot with testar, sylar and
cortens of red and yelow sarcenet"; at Kilburn it was hung with "four
peces of sey redde and grene, with a bordure of story," and contained "a
standinge bedd with four posts of weynscott, a trundle bedd under the same
... a syller of yelowe and redde bokerame and three curteyns of the same
work." At Langley also there were two beds in the prioress's chamber "hur
owne bed" and "ye secunde bed in hur chambur." Clearly the prioress nearly
always had a nun to sleep with her, and the evidence of visitations bears
this out; see e.g. cases at Redlingfield, 1427 (_V.C.H. Suffolk_, II, p.
83), Littlemore, 1445 (_Linc. Visit._ II, p. 217, "iacet de nocte in eodem
lecto cum priorissa"), Flamstead, 1530 (_V.C.H. Herts._ IV, p. 433). For
the position of the prioress's chamber see plan of the nunnery buildings
of St Radegund's, Cambridge (now Jesus College) (Gray, _Priory of St
Radegund, Cambridge_, p. 53).
[180] Dugdale, _Mon._ II, p. 458.
[181] _Ib._ I, pp. 443, 445.
[182] _Reg. Epis. Johannis Peckham_ (Rolls Series), I, p. 84.
[183] _Reg. Epis. Johannis Peckham_, II, pp. 651-2.
[184] _Ib._ II, pp. 659-60, 662-3. For another instance of a prioress
faring better than her nuns, see Archbishop Lee's injunctions to
Nunappleton in 1534: "That their be no difference betwene the breade and
ale prepared for the prioresse and the bredde and ale provided for the
covent, but that she and they eatt of oon breade, and drinke of oon drinke
and of oon ale." _Yorks. Archaeol. Journ._ XVI. pp. 443-4.
[185] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 214.
[186] _Linc. Visit._ I, p. 50.
[187] _Ib._ II, p. 124.
[188] _V.C.H. Lincs._ II, pp. 155, 131-2.
[189] Sometimes, however, bishops licenced the head of a house to hear the
service separately, e.g. in 1401 Wykeham licenced dame Lucy Everard,
abbess of Romsey, to hear divine service in her oratory during one year,
in the presence of one of her sisters and of her servants (_familia_).
_Wykeham's Reg._ (Hants. Rec. Soc.), II, p. 538. Cf. similar licence to
the prioress of Polsloe in 1388. _Reg. of Bishop Brantyngham of Exeter_,
pt. II, p. 675.
[190] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 8. The same injunction was sent to Stixwould.
_Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 75_d_.
[191] _Ib._ f. 83_d_. The next year when Alnwick came again this prioress
announced that she did not lie in the dorter, nor keep frater, cloister
and church on account of bodily weakness; she alleged that he had
dispensed her from these observances, which he denied. _Ib._ f. 39_d_.
Compare injunctions to Godstow, Gracedieu and Langley, _Linc. Visit._ II,
pp. 115, 125, 177. For other injunctions on these points, see _Alnwick's
Visit._ MS. f. 78 (Nuncoton, 1440); _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 119
(Nunburnholme, 1318), 120 (Nunkeeling, 1314), 124 (Thicket, 1309), 188
(Arthington, 1318), 239 (Moxby, 1318).
[192] _Reg. Epis. Johannis Peckham_ (Rolls Series), II, p. 662. Compare
_V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 113, 239 and _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 6.
[193] Before it was realised that this office was often held by a woman in
nunneries, scholars were much exercised to explain this passage in
Chaucer's _Prologue_, though a search through Dugdale would have provided
them with several instances. The office is still held in modern convents,
and Dr Furnivall printed an interesting letter from a Benedictine nun,
describing the duties attached to it. "It is in fact the nun who has
special charge of attending on the Abbess and giving assistance when she
needs it, either in writing when she (the Abbess) is busy, or in attending
when sick, etc., but that which comes most often to claim her services is,
on the twelve or fourteen great festivals," when the chaplain attends the
Abbess in the choir and holds her crosier, while she reads the hymns,
lesson, etc. _Anglia_, IV, pp. 238-9. In the middle ages the chief stress
was laid on the constant presence of a witness to the superior's mode of
life, that it might be beyond suspicion. Miss Eckenstein has pointed out
that in the allegory of the "Ghostly Abbey," by the béguine Mechthild of
Magdeburg, in which the nuns are personified Virtues, Charity is Abbess
and Meekness her Chaplain; and in the English version of the poem printed
by Wynkyn de Worde (1500), Charity was Abbess and Mercy and Truth were to
be her "chapeleyns" and to go about with her wherever she went. The
Prioress (Wisdom) and the Sub-Prioress (Meekness) were also to have
chaplains (Righteousness and Peace) because they were "most of worship."
Eckenstein, _Woman under Monasticism_, pp. 339, 377.
[194] _New College_ MS., f. 88_d_.
[195] _Sussex Archaeol. Coll._ IX, p. 15.
[196] _Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich_ (Camden Soc.), p. 190.
[197] _Ib._ p. 108.
[198] _Ib._ p. 138.
[199] _Linc. Visit._ I, p. 50. For other references to the abbess's
nun-chaplain at Elstow, see _Archaeologia_, XLVII, p. 52 and Dugdale,
_Mon._ III, p. 415.
[200] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 6. The Prioress was Denise Loweliche (see
p. 458 below) and at the visitation Dame Margaret Loweliche "_cappellana
priorisse_" (evidently a relative) said that she had held the office for
the last eight years. Another nun said "that the Prioress ever holds and
has held for seven years, one and the same nun as chaplain, without ever
replacing her by another, and when she goes out she always has this young
nun with her."
[201] E.g. at Campsey (1532) and Redlingfield (1526 and 1532). _Visit. of
Dioc. of Norwich_, pp. 224, 291, 297. At Elstow (1539). Dugdale, _Mon._
III, p. 415. At Barking (still in receipt of pension in 1553). _Ib._ I, p.
438 note.
[202] _Litt. Johannis Peckham_ (Rolls Series), II, pp. 658-9. Compare
injunctions to the Abbess of Chatteris in 1345. Dugdale, _Mon._ II, p.
619.
[203] _Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich_ (Camden Soc.), pp. 108, 109, 138-9,
143, 185, 190-1.
[204] See _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 3, 48, 120, 130, 133; and _Alnwick's
Visit._ MS. ff. 83, 75_d_, 26_d_.
[205] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 49.
[206] _Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich_, p. 108.
[207] _Ib._ pp. 143, 191.
[208] See below, p. 216 ff.
[209] Among "greuous defautes" enumerated in the "additions to the rules"
of Syon Abbey (fifteenth century) is the following: "If any lye in a
wayte, or in a spye, or els besyly and curyously serche what other sustres
or brethren speke betwene themselfe, that they afterwardes may revele or
schewe the saynge of the spekers to ther grete hurte"; others are, "if any
sowe dyscorde amonge the sustres and brethren," and "if any be founde a
preuy rowner or bakbyter." Aungier, _Hist. and Antiquities of Syon
Monastery_, p. 257.
[210] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 121, 123.
[211] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 123, 185, 133.
[212] See e.g. _Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich_ (Camden Soc.), pp. 143, 290.
[213] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 186. Compare _ib._ pp. 124, 135 (Gracedieu and
Heynings); _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell_, ff. 139-40 (Elstow, 1359);
_Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Bokyngham_, ff. 343 (Elstow, 1387), 397 (Heynings,
1392); _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 117 (Moxby, 1252), 164 (Hampole, 1314).
[214] Dugdale, _Mon._ III, pp. 359-60. There are various other references
to "Wynge" (i.e. Wing in Buckinghamshire) in the account, e.g. "Item
receyvid of Richard Saie for the ferme of the personage of Wynge for a
yere and a half within the tyme of this accompte xlviij_li_. Item. rec. of
the same Richard Saie as in party of payment of the same ferme for a
quarter of a yere x_s_," "item, paid to the bisshop of Lincolns officers
for the licens of Wynge for ij yere xxij_s_ viij_d_. Item paid to the
ffermour of Wynge for his goune for ij yere xiij_s_ iiij_d_." For the
London lawsuit see below, p. 202.
[215] See _P.R.O. Mins. Accts._ 1260, _passim_. The London references are
in 1260/7 and 1260/17 respectively.
[216] Constitutions of the legate Ottobon in 1268. Wilkins, _Concilia_,
II, p. 18.
[217] Hugo, _Medieval Nunneries of the County of Somerset, Minchin
Barrow_, p. 81.
[218] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 187.
[219] _Wykeham's Reg._ (Hants Rec. Soc.), p. 500.
[220] _V.C.H. Dorset_, II, p. 89. In 1374 the Abbess of Canonsleigh had
licence to have divine service celebrated in her presence in the chapel of
St Theobald in the parish of Burlescombe "dicto monasterio contigua," but
her nuns were not to leave the claustral precincts on this pretext. _Reg.
of Bishop Brantyngham_, ed. Hingeston-Randolph, pt I, p. 335.
[221] Wood, _op. cit._ II, pp. 156-7. Even Ap Rice seems to have
considered Dr Legh's enforcement of enclosure as overstrict "for as many
of these houses stand by husbandry they must fall to decay if the heads
are not allowed to go out." Gairdner, _Letters and Papers, etc._ IX, no.
139; cf. preface, p. 20.
[222] Rye, _Carrow Abbey_, p. 8.
[223] _Linc. Dioc. Documents_, ed. A. Clark (E.E.T.S.), pp. 50, 53.
[224] _Test. Ebor._ I, p. 314.
[225] For instance Margaret Fairfax of Nunmonkton was one of the
_supervisores testamenti_ of John Fairfax, rector of Prescot, in 1393 and
of Thomas Fairfax of Walton in 1394. _Ib._ I, pp. 190, 204. The abbess of
Syon was one of the three overseers of the will of Sir Richard Sutton,
steward of her house in 1524. Aungier, _Hist. and Antiquities of Syon
Mon._ p. 532. Emmota Farethorpe, Prioress of Wilberfoss, was executrix of
John Appilby of Wilberfoss in 1438. _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 126 note.
Margaret Delaryver, Prioress of St Clement's York, was executrix of
Elizabeth Medlay (probably a boarder there). _Ib._ III, p. 130. Joan Kay
in 1525 left most of her property to her daughter the Prioress of
Stixwould to found an obit there and made her executrix. _Linc. Wills_,
ed. C. W. Foster (Linc. Rec. Soc.), I, p. 155. Sir John Beke, vicar of
Aby, who left the greater part of his property to Greenfield for the same
purpose, made the Prioress Isabel Smith executrix. _Ib._ I, p. 162. These
offices were sometimes filled by nuns other than heads of houses, e.g. the
will of John Suthwell, rector of St Mary's South Kelsey, Lincs., was
witnessed by his sister Margaret, a nun, in 1390. Gibbons, _Early Linc.
Wills_, p. 76. Alice Conyers of Nunappleton was made coadjutress of the
executors of Master John de Woodhouse in 1345. _Test. Ebor._ I, p. 15. For
Carrow nuns (usually the prioress) as executors, supervisors and
witnesses, see Rye, _Carrow Abbey_, pp. xv, xvi, xxii, xxiii, xxix.
[226] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 2.
[227] _V.C.H. Sussex_, II, p. 84. See _Rot. Parl._ I, p. 147.
[228] _An Alphabet of Tales_, ed. M. M. Banks (E.E.T.S., 1904), no. XV,
pp. 13-14. I have modernised spelling. This fifteenth century English
version is ultimately derived from an _exemplum_ by Jacques de Vitry, of
which it is a close translation. _Exempla e sermonibus vulgaribus J.
Vitriacensis_, ed. T. F. Crane, no. LIX, pp. 23-4.
[229] "Item Priorissa raro venit ad matutinas aut missas. Domina Katerina
Hoghe dicit quod quedam moniales sunt quodammodo sompnolentes, tarde
veniendo ad matutinas et alias horas canonicas." _Linc. Visit._ II, p.
133.
[230] J. P. Krapp, _The Legend of St Patrick's Purgatory; its later
Literary History_ (1899), pp. 75-6.
[231] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 3, 4, 5, 8. The Prioress of Brewood White
Ladies in Shropshire was severely rebuked in the first part of the
fourteenth century for _expensae voluptuariae_, dress and laxity of rule.
_Reg. of Roger de Norbury_ (Will. Salt Archaeol. Soc. Collections, I), p.
261.
[232] Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 194.
[233] _Sussex Archaeol. Coll._ IX, pp. 7-9.
[234] Compare the anecdote related by Caesarius of Heisterbach about
Ensfrid of Cologne. "One day he met the abbess of the holy Eleven Thousand
Virgins; before her went her clerks, wrapped in mantles of grey fur like
the nuns; behind her went her ladies and maidservants, filling the air
with the sound of their unprofitable words; while the Dean was followed by
his poor folk who besought him for alms. Wherefore this righteous man,
burning with the zeal of discipline, cried aloud in the hearing of all:
'Oh, lady Abbess, it would better adorn your religion, that ye, like me,
should be followed, not by buffoons, but by poor folk!' Whereat she was
much ashamed, not presuming to answer so worthy a man." Translated in
Coulton, _A Medieval Garner_, p. 251.
[235] _V.C.H. Lincs._ II, p. 148.
[236] _V.C.H. Warwick_, II, p. 71.
[237] _V.C.H. Lincs._ II, p. 155. Sometimes however, the heads of houses
received episcopal dispensations to reside for a period outside their
monasteries, for the sake of health. Joan Formage, Abbess of Shaftesbury,
received one in 1368, allowing her to leave her abbey for a year and to
reside in her manors for air and recreation. _V.C.H. Dorset_, II, p. 78.
Josiana de Anlaby (the Prioress of Swine about whose election there had
been so much trouble) had licence in 1303 to absent herself on account of
ill-health. Dugdale, _Mon._ V, p. 493.
[238] Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 638.
[239] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 187.
[240] Dugdale, _Mon._ II, p. 619.
[241] _Sussex Archaeol. Coll._ IX, pp. 18-19.
[242] _Ib._ V, p. 256.
[243] _V.C.H. Oxon._ II, p. 78.
[244] _Archaeologia_, XLVIII, pp. 56, 58.
[245] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. ff. 83 and _d_, 39_d_, 96.
[246] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 120, 121.
[247] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 2-4, 6.
[248] _Cal. of Pat. Rolls_ (1441-6), p. 141.
[249] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 46-52.
[250] Compare the complaint of the sisters of the hospital of St James
outside Canterbury in 1511, that the Prioress was a _diffamatrix_ of the
sisters and used to say publicly in the neighbourhood that they were
incontinent _et publice meretrices_, to the great scandal of the house.
The ages of the sisters were 84, 80, 50 and 36 respectively and the
Prioress herself was 74. _Eng. Hist. Rev._ VI, p. 23.
[251] Compare Archbishop Bowet's injunction to the Prioress of Hampole in
1411 that "Alice Lye, her nun who held the office of _hostilaria_, or
anyone who succeeded her in office, should henceforth be free from
entering the rooms of guests to lay beds, but that the porter should
receive the bedclothes from the _hostilaria_ at the lower gate, and when
the guests had departed, should give them back to her at the same place."
_V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 165. For the charge that the Prioress made the
nuns work, compare the case of Eleanor Prioress of Arden in 1396 (pp. 85-6
below) and the case of the Prioress of Easebourne in 1441: "Also the
Prioress compels her sisters to work continually like hired workwomen (_ad
modum mulieres conducticiarum_) and they receive nothing whatever for
their own use from their work, but the prioress takes the whole profit
(_totum percipit_)." _Sussex Archaeol. Coll._ IX, p. 7.
[252] Compare the case of Denise Loweliche, p. 458 below.
[253] _Test. Ebor._ I, pp. 283-5 (summary in _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp.
114-5).
[254] An analysis of receipts and expenditure by the Prioress during her
term of office, given at the end of the _comperta_, stands thus:
In the first year: Receipts £22. 7_s._ 6_d._ Expenses £27. 6_s._ 8_d._
In the second year: Receipts £25. 3_s._ 0_d._ Expenses £40.
In the third year: Receipts £26. 9_s._ 6_d._ Expenses £27. 3_s._ 0_d._
[255] The nuns of Swine made the same complaint in 1268. "Binis, tamen,
diebus in ebdomada aqua pro cervisia eisdem subministratur." _Reg. of
Walter Giffard_ (Surtees Soc.), p. 148.
[256] Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 506 note.
[257] _Cal. of Papal Letters_, VI, p. 55.
[258] _V.C.H. Suffolk_, II, pp. 83-4. The other cases may be noted more
briefly. For the story of Denise Loweliche, Prioress of Markyate (Beds.),
see _Linc. Visit._ I, pp. 82-6, and below, pp. 458-9. Alice de Chilterne,
Prioress of White Hall, Ilchester, was deprived for incontinence with the
chaplain and for wasting the goods of the house to such an extent that the
nuns were reduced to begging their bread (1323). Hugo, _Med. Nunneries of
Somerset, Whitehall in Ilchester_, pp. 78-9 and _Reg. John of Drokensford_
(Somerset Rec. Soc.), pp. 227, 245, 259. In 1325 Joan de Barton, Prioress
of Moxby, was deprived _super lapsu carnis_ with the chaplain. _V.C.H.
Yorks._ III, p. 240. In 1495 Elizabeth Popeley was deprived, two years
after her confirmation as Prioress of Arthington, for having given birth
to a child and for wasting the goods of the house. _Ib._ p. 189. The case
of Katherine Wells, Prioress of Littlemore, who put her nuns in the stocks
and took the goods of the house to provide a dowry for her illegitimate
daughter is noted below, Note F. See also the stories of Elizabeth Broke,
Abbess of Romsey, and Agnes Tawke, Prioress of Easebourne. Liveing, _Rec.
Romsey Abbey_, pp. 211-222 and _Sussex Archaeol. Coll._ IX, pp. 14-19.
Joan Fletcher, Prioress of Basedale, resigned from fear of deposition in
1527 and then cast aside her habit and left the house. _Yorks. Archaeol.
Journ._ XVI, pp. 431-2.
[259] It was translated by the Rev. Dr Cox in _V.C.H. Hants._ II, pp.
132-3, from a chartulary of Wherwell Abbey compiled in the fourteenth
century (_Brit. Mus. Egerton MS._ 2104) and quoted by Gasquet, _English
Monastic Life_, pp. 155-8.
[260] See the account in the _Reg. of Crabhouse Nunnery_, ed. Mary Bateson
(_Norfolk Archaeology_, XI, pp. 59-63). Also a charming account of
Crabhouse (founded largely on this register) in Jessopp, _Ups and Downs of
an Old Nunnery_ (_Frivola_, 1896, pp. 28 ff.). The English portion of the
register was written some time after 1470.
[261] _Reliquiae Antiquae_, I, p. 314. See also a little further on in the
Crabhouse Register: "And xx mark we hadde of the gifte of Edmunde Peris
persoun of Watlington before seyde sekatoure to the same Roger wiche was
nought payed tyl xvj yere aftyr his day." Compare the complaint at Rusper
in 1478: "Item dicit quod Johannes Wood erat executor domini Ricardi
Hormer ... qui fuit a retro in solucione pensionis v_s._ per xxx annos
priorisse et conventui de Rushper." But this may mean that the late
Richard (a rector) had failed to pay. _Sussex Archaeol. Coll._ V, p. 255.
[262] With this account of the building of Crabhouse church it is
interesting to compare the costs incurred in building the "newe chirch" of
Syon Abbey in 1479-80. Two small schedules of accounts dealing with this
work are preserved in the Public Record Office. The first is particularly
interesting for its list of workmen employed: "Summa of the wages of
Werkmen wirchyng as well opon and wyane the newe chirch of the monastery
of Syun, as opon parte of the newe byldyng of the Brether Cloyster,
chapitirhous and library, that is to sey fr. the xth day of October in the
xixth yere of the reigne of kyng E. the iiijth vnto the vijth day of
October in the xxth yere of the reigne of the same kyng, as it is declared
partelly in ij jurnalles of work thereof examyned. It. ffremasons ccxlv
li. xij s. xj d. It. harde-hewers xxx li. xj s. vij d. ob. It. Brekeleyers
xvj li. xvj s. ij d. It. chalk-hewers xlj s. iij d. It. Carpenters and
joynours xlvj s. ix d. It. Tawyers ix li. xvj s. iiij d. It. Smythes
xliiij li. xix s. x d. It. Laborers xxxvj li. xix s. vij d. It. Paied to
James Powle Brekeman for makyng of breks lxxvj li. viij s. iiij d. Summa
to{l}, cccclxvij li. viij s. iij d. ob." (_P.R.O. Mins. Accts._ 1261/2).
The other schedule gives further details: "Expenses vpon our newe churche.
The makyng of the rof w{t} tymber and cariage and workmanship ix{c}lxv li.
xviij s. iij d. q{a}, lede castyng, jynyng, leyyng sawdir with diuers
cariage v{c}xxxv li. x s. x d. Iron bought with cariage, weyng and
whirvage lxxiij li. xvi s. x d. Ragstone, assheler ffreston with cariage,
masons and labourers for the vantyng and ffurryng of the pilers and
purvyaunes vnto the xxvij of maii m{l}m{l}v{c}xlix li. xj s. j d. ob.
Summa total for the church m{l}m{l}m{l}m{l}cxxxiiij li. xvij s. ob. q{a}.
Expenses of the cloystor and dortour vnto the xxvij day of maii
vj{c}iiij{xx}xviij li. ix s. x d. Summa to{l}.
m{l}m{l}m{l}m{l}viij{c}xxxiij li. vj s. x d. ob. q{a}." (_Ib._ 1261/3.)
[263] Mr Coulton suggests the reading 'a mason hewande,' i.e. a hard-hewer
or rough hewer, as opposed to the better freemason.
[264] The _Valor Ecclesiasticus_ was published in six volumes by the
Record Commission (1810-34). It is the subject of a detailed study by
Professor Alexander Savine, "English Monasteries on the Eve of the
Suppression," in _Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History_, ed.
Vinogradoff, vol. I (1909). For this reason, and also because of their
greater interest, I have preferred to base my study of nunnery finance on
the account rolls of the nuns. The _Valor_ as it affects nunneries has
been largely drawn upon in an unpublished thesis by Miss H. T. Jacka, _The
Dissolution of the English Nunneries, Thesis submitted for the Degree of
M.A. in the University of London_ (Dec. 1917). It is a pity that this
useful little work is not published. I have been able to consult it and
have made use (as will be seen from footnotes to this chapter) of the
admirable chapter II on "The Property of the Nunneries"; for my quotations
from the _Valor_ I have invariably used her analysis. Anyone wishing for
an intensive study of the Dissolution from the point of view of monastic
houses for women cannot do better than consult this thesis, which is far
more detailed, exact and judicial in tone than any other modern account.
[265] _P.R.O. Mins. Accts._ 1260.
[266] The wardens' accounts are in _P.R.O. Mins. Accts._ 867/21-6 and the
prioress's accounts, _ib._ 867/30, 32, 33-36. and _Hen. VII_, no. 274.
They are briefly described in _V.C.H. Herts._ IV, pp. 430-1 (notes 30, 31,
39). An excellent prioress's account for 2-4 Hen. VII is printed by
Dugdale, _Mon._ III, pp. 358-61, the prioress being Christian Bassett.
[267] _P.R.O. Mins. Accts._ 1257/10. See Gasquet, _Eng. Monastic Life_,
pp. 158-176.
[268] A. Gray, _Priory of St Radegund's, Cambridge_, pp. 145-85.
[269] Baker, _Hist. and Antiq. of Northants._ I, pp. 278-83. Compare
_P.R.O. Mins. Accts._ 1257/1 for a Catesby account roll for 11-14 Hen. IV.
[270] Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, pp. 458-60. See also _P.R.O._ 1257/2 for Denney,
14 Hen. IV-1 Hen. V.
[271] See Ch. IV, _passim_.
[272] _Valor Eccles._ IV, p. 302.
[273] _Ib._ III, p. 103.
[274] _Ib._ I, p. 119.
[275] _Ib._ I, p. 397.
[276] _Ib._ I, p. 424.
[277] Jacka, _op. cit._ f. 44.
[278] Jacka, _op. cit._ ff. 27, 29-30. The information about Syon and the
Minoresses is taken from _Valor Eccles._ I, p. 424 and I, p. 397
respectively.
[279] See Jacka, _op. cit._ f. 25.
[280] If the demesne land were let out in farm the customary ploughing and
other services of the villeins would no longer be needed and if only a
portion of it were so farmed the number of villein services required would
be proportionately less. This, as well as the increasing employment of
hired labour on the demesne during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,
accounts for the item "Sale of Works" which appears in the Romsey account
for 1412. Liveing, _Records of Romsey Abbey_, p. 194. From another point
of view the number of rent-payers was increased by the fact that both free
and unfree tenants could rent pieces of the demesne. As to the farming of
the demesne, note however the conclusion to which Miss Jacka comes from a
study of the _Valor_ and the Dissolution _Surveys_ now in the Augmentation
Office: "The question 'to what extent did the nuns in 1535 farm their
demesnes?' cannot be confidently answered on the evidence of any of the
records before us. Apart from the fact that in many cases there is no
statement at all, the word 'firma' or 'farm' is used so ambiguously that
even where it occurs it is impossible to be certain that a lease
existed.... There are, of course, unmistakeable cases in which the
demesnes were farmed: Tarrant Keynes kept in hand the demesnes of 3 manors
and farmed that of 7; Shaftesbury occupied the demesne of one manor and
farmed that of 18 (_Valor Eccles._ I, pp. 265, 276). But in none of the
few cases in which the whole of the demesne is described as yielding a
'firma,' should we be justified, in view of the several uses of the word,
in asserting that it had the definite character of a lease. That is to
say, whatever may be our suspicions, the evidence before us does not
warrant the assertion that in a single case did the nuns farm the whole of
their demesnes; and this conclusion is an unexpected and remarkable one,
for we might well expect them to be among the first land holders who
seized this method of simplifying their manorial economy." Jacka, _op.
cit._ f. 47.
[281] In the account roll of Dame Christian Bassett, Prioress of Delapré
(St Albans) for 2-4 Hen. VII, the "rente fermys" range between £7 from
Robert Pegge for the farm of the whole manor of Pray, to 2_s._ received
from Richard Franklin "for the ferme of vj acres of londe in Bacheworth";
one John Shon pays 6_s._ 8_d._ "for the ferme of certeyne londs in
Bacheworth and ij tenements in Seint Mighell strete with a lyme kylne";
Richard Ordeway pays 10_s._ for rent farm of "an hous w{t}in the Pray" and
Robert Pegge 8_s._ for rent farm of "an hous and a stable w{t}in
Praygate." Dugdale, _Mon._ III, pp. 358-9. In this account her assize
rents amount to £2. 11_s._ 2_d._ within the town of St Albans and her
rents farm to £4. 13_s._ 2_d._; while outside the town the rents of assize
amount to £2. 5_s._ 0_d._ and the rents farm to £11. 19_s._ 8_d._, while
four items amounting to £1. 19_s._ 11_d._ are doubtful, but probably
represent farms. That is to say very nearly three quarters of the lands
and houses belonging to Delapré were farmed out, and if we except payments
from the town of St Albans, which were probably house-rents, over
four-fifths of its possessions were in farm. Similarly in the account roll
of Margaret Ratclyff, Prioress of Swaffham, for 22 Ed. IV. the rents are
classified as _Redditus Assise_ (£6. 0_s._ 4_d._ in all), _Firma Terrae_
(£13. 0_s._ 3-1/2_d._ in all) and _Firma Molendini_, the farm of a mill
(£3. 14_s._ 4_d._). _Ib._ IV, p. 459.
[282] References to money paid in fees to rent-collectors, or in
gratuities to men who had brought rents up to the house often occur in
account rolls, e.g. in the Catesby roll for 1414-15, "Also in expenses of
collecting rents wheresoever to be collected ... xix_s._ Also paid to
divers receivers of rent for the time viij_s._ viij_d._" Baker, _Hist. of
Northants._ I, p. 280. In the Delapré account of 2-4 Hen. IV, "Item paid
to a man that brought money from Cambryg for a rewarde viij_d._ Item for
dyvers men y{t} brought in their rent at dyvers tymes xx_s._ ij_d._"
Dugdale, _Mon._ III, p. 359. In the St Radegund's Cambridge account of
1449-51, "In the expenses of Thomas Key (xvij_d._ ob.) at Abyngton,
Litlyngton, Whaddon, Crawden, Bumpsted and Cambridge for the business of
the lady (prioress) and for levying rent ... and in the stipend of Thomas
Key collecting rents in Cambridge and the district this year xiii_s._
iiij_d._" Gray, _Priory of St Radegund, Cambridge_, pp. 173-4.
[283] Gray, _op. cit._ pp. 148, 164.
[284] See for a translation of the whole charter, Aungier, _Hist. of
Syon_, pp. 60-67. The original is given _ib._ pp. 411-8.
[285] See the valuation of Syon Monastery, A.D. 1534, translated from the
_Valor Ecclesiasticus_, _ib._ pp. 439-450. At Romsey in 1412 the
perquisites of courts brought in a total of £14 out of an annual income of
£404. 6_s._ 0-1/2_d._, made up of the rents and farms, sale of works, sale
of farm produce and perquisites of courts on six manors. Liveing, _Records
of Romsey Abbey_, p. 194.
[286] _V.C.H. Hants._ II, p. 135.
[287] _V.C.H. Norfolk_, II, p. 370. So apparently had the Prioress of
Carrow. Rye, _Carrow Abbey_, p. 21.
[288] See p. 70 above. Compare the Catesby roll for 1414-15. "And in the
expenses of the steward at the court this year and at other times vi_s._
viii_d._" Baker, _Hist. and Antiq. of Northants._ I, p. 280.
[289] _V.C.H. Essex_, II, p. 118.
[290] _Cal. of Close Rolls_, 1272-9, p. 392.
[291] _Cal. of Close Rolls_, 1296-1302, p. 238.
[292] In the account of the Prioress of Delapré already quoted occurs the
item "Receyvid for ij standyngs at Prayffayre at ij tymes v_s._" Dugdale,
_Mon._ III, p. 359. The fair time was the feast of the Nativity of the
B.V.M. (Sept. 8th) and the account for another year shows that over £1 was
spent on the convent and visitors at this time. The accounts for 1490-3
include payments for making trestles and forms in connection with the
fair. _V.C.H. Herts._ IV, p. 430 (note 31) and p. 439 (note 39). The nuns
of St Radegund's, Cambridge, were granted by Stephen a fair, which was
afterwards known as Garlick fair, and was held in their churchyard for two
days on August 14th and 15th. They did not receive much from it; in 1449
the tolls amounted only to 5_s._ 2_d._; moreover they had to give the toll
collectors 6_d._ for a wage and they evidently made the occasion one for
entertainment, for they hired an extra cook for 3_d._ "to help in the
kitchin at the fair time." Gray, _Priory of St Radegund, Cambridge_, pp.
49-50.
[293] The _Valor Eccles._ occasionally notes income derived from fairs.
Tarrant Keynes had £2 from the fair at Woodburyhill, Shaftesbury had £2.
4_s._ 6_d._ from Shaftesbury fair, Malling received £3. 6_s._ 8_d._ from
Malling market and fair and £3 from a market "cum terris et tenementis" at
Newheth, Blackborough had £1 from Blackborough fair and Elstow had £7.
12_s._ 0_d._ from Elstow fair. _Valor Eccles._ I, pp. 265, 276, 106; II,
p. 205; III, p. 395; IV, p. 188.
[294] The mill belonging to the home farm would be in the charge of a
miller, who was one of the hired servants of the house and was paid a
regular stipend. Other mills would probably be farmed out. The nuns of
Catesby had two mills, which brought them in 12_s._ and 22_s._ a year
respectively; one, a wind-mill, was probably farmed, but the water-mill
was in charge of Thomas Milner, at a wage of 20_s._ and his servant, who
was paid 2_s._ 6_d._ The nuns also received tolls of grain in kind from
the mill; a certain proportion of which was handed over to the miller for
his household. The mill does not seem to have paid very well, for a heavy
list of "Costs of the Mill," amounting to 31_s._ 6_d._ appears in the
account; it includes the wages of the miller and his boy and payments to a
carpenter for making the mill-wheel for seventeen days and in damming the
mill-tail and buying shoes with nails for the mill horses. Baker, _op.
cit._ I, pp. 279, 281. At Swaffham Bulbeck the "Firma Molendini" brought
in £3. 14_s._ 4_d._ Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 457. Malling Abbey had a
fulling-mill. _Valor Eccles._ I, p. 276.
[295] For instance in Hone, _The Manor and Manorial Records_ (1906).
[296] Coulton, _Med. Garn._ p. 591.
[297] Baker, _op. cit._ I, pp. 279, 282.
[298] _V.C.H. Norfolk_, II, p. 370.
[299] For examples of mortuary law-suits, receipts and results, see
Coulton, _Med. Garn._, pp. 561-6. On the whole subject of mortuaries and
the unpopularity which they entailed upon the church, see Coulton,
_Medieval Studies_, no. 8 ("Priests and People before the Reformation,"
pp. 3-7).
[300] Translated in Coulton, _Med. Garn._ p. 323. Compare another of
Caesarius' tales of the usurer who was taken by the devil through various
places of torment: "There also he saw a certain honest knight lately dead,
Elias von Rheineck, castellan of Horst, seated on a mad cow with his face
towards her tail and his back to her horns; the beast rushed to and fro,
goring his back every moment so that the blood rushed forth. To whom the
usurer said, 'Lord, why suffer ye this pain?' 'This cow,' replied the
knight, 'I tore mercilessly from a certain widow; wherefore I must now
endure this merciless punishment from the same beast.'" _Ib._ p. 214.
Certainly the medieval imagination had a genius for making the punishment
fit the crime.
[301] A nunnery in a large town would be far more dependent on buying
food. Thus an account of the household expenses of St Helen's Bishopsgate,
in the sixteenth century shows that the nuns had to pay £22 for buying
corn and £60. 13_s._ 4_d._ for meat and other foodstuffs. They were
heavily in debt, and their creditors included a brewer, a "cornman," two
fishmongers and a butcher. _V.C.H. London_, I, p. 460.
[302] Baker, _op. cit._ I, pp. 281-3.
[303] The convent bought 4-1/2 qrs. of salt for 25_s._ for the operation
this year. Baker, _op. cit._ I, p. 280. Compare, for the operation at
Gracedieu, Gasquet, _Eng. Mon. Life_, p. 174.
[304] The account of the cellaress of Syon for the year 1536-7 gives very
full details of the income derived from the sale of hides and fells. John
Lyrer, tanner, buys from her fifty-five ox-hides at 3_s._ 6_d._ each, and
three cow-hides, two steer-hides, one bull-hide, and one murrain ox-hide
at 2_s._ 4_d._ each, making a total of £10. 8_s._ 10_d._ The same John
Lyrer buys 230 calf-skins for £3. 16_s._ 8_d._ John Cockes, fellmonger,
buys 287 "shorling felles," at 3_s._ the dozen, 190 "skynnes of wynter
felles" at 6_s._ the dozen, 77 "skynnes somerfelles" at 8_s._ the dozen,
for a total for £10. 18_s._ 1_d._ The different qualities of wool were
always carefully distinguished and priced. _Myroure of Oure Ladye_, ed.
Blunt, p. xxix.
[305] A few examples taken at random will suffice: "By the sale of wool 4
marks 11_s._ 8_d._ From Gilbert of Chesterton for the wool _del aan ke est
aveni_ 100_s._" (32-3 Edw. I). _P.R.O. Mins. Accts._ 1260/1. "From the
sale of 14 stone of wool, price per stone 7_s._, 4_l._ 18_s._" (48-9 Edw.
III). _Ib._ 1260/4. "Received for one sack of 20 stone of wool sold last
year, at 4_s._ per stone, 13 marks, 10_s._ 8_d._ Received for one sack of
this years wool, at 4_s._ 6_d._ per stone, 5_l._ 17_s._ 0_d._" (either
46-7 or 47-8 Edw. III). _Ib._ 1260/21. "From John of the Pantry for 11-1/2
stone of wool at 6_s._ the stone, 69_s._" (1-2 Rich. II). _Ib._ 1260/7. In
1412 Romsey Abbey derived £60 out of a total income of £404. 6_s._
4-1/2_d._ from the sale of wool. Liveing, _op. cit._ p. 194.
[306] See, for this very interesting document, Cunningham, _Growth of
English Industry and Commerce_ (1905 ed.), I, App. D, pp. 628-41. The
nunneries mentioned, with the amount of wool obtainable from each
annually, are Stainfield (from 12 sacks), Stixwould (from 15 sacks),
Nuncoton (from 10 sacks), Hampole (from 6 sacks), St Leonard's Grimsby
(from 2 sacks), Heynings (from 2 sacks), Gokewell (from 4 sacks), Langley
(from 5 sacks), Arden (from 10 sacks), Keldholme (from 12 sacks), Rosedale
(from 10 sacks), St Clement's York (from 3 sacks), Swine (from 8 sacks),
Marrick (from 8 sacks), Wykeham (from 4 sacks), Ankerwyke (from 4 sacks),
Thicket (from 4 sacks), Nunmonkton (number missing), Yedingham (do.),
Legbourne (from 3 sacks). A similar Flemish list mentions Hampole,
Nuncoton, Stainfield and Gracedieu (33 lbs.). Varenbergh, _Hist. des
Relations Diplomatiques entre le Comté de Flandre et l'Angleterre au Moyen
Âge_ (Brussels, 1874), pp. 214-7.
[307] "The Libel of English Policie," in _Hakluyt's Voyages_ (Everyman's
Lib. edit.), I, p. 186.
[308] See, for instance, a petition from the nuns of Carrow asking to be
allowed to appropriate the church of Surlingham, of which they had the
advowson, "qar, tres dute seignour, lauoesoun ne les fait bien eynz de les
mettre en daunger de presentement en chescune voedaunce"; _P.R.O. Anct.
Petit._ 232/11587. It appears that the prioress had letters patent to
appropriate the church, probably in answer to this petition in 22 Edw. II;
Rye, _Carrow Abbey_, App. p. xxxvi. It may be useful to give a few out of
very many references to the appropriation of a church to a nunnery on
account of poverty: Clifton to Lingbrook (_Reg. R. de Swinfield_, p. 134),
Wolferlow and Bridge Sollers to Aconbury (_Reg. A. de Orleton_, pp. 176,
200), Rockbeare to Canonsleigh (_Reg. Grandisson_, II, p. 698), Compton
and Upmardon to Easebourne (_Bp. Rede's Reg._ p. 137), Itchen Stoke to
Romsey (_Reg. Sandale_, p. 269), Whenby to Moxby (_Reg. Wickwane_, p.
290), Horton to St Clement's York (_Reg. Gray_, p. 107), Bishopthorpe to
the same (_Reg. Giffard_, p. 59), Dallington to Flamstead (Dugdale, _Mon._
IV, p. 301), Quadring to Stainfield (_V.C.H. Lincs._ II, p. 131), Easton
Neston to Sewardsley and Desborough to Rothwell (_V.C.H. Northants._ II,
p. 137), Lidlington to Barking (_V.C.H. Essex_, II, p. 119), Bradford,
Tisbury and Gillingham to Shaftesbury (_V.C.H. Dorset_, II, p. 77).
[309] An analysis of the possessions of Carrow gives some good examples of
this. The churches of Earlham, Stow Bardolph, Surlingham, Swardeston, East
Winch and Wroxham were all appropriated soon after their advowsons had
been granted to the priory, which also possessed the advowsons of four
churches in Norwich, the moiety of another advowson, the moiety of a
rectory and various tithes or portions of tithes in different manors and
parishes. Rye, _Carrow Abbey_, App. X.
[310] Gasquet, _Eng. Mon. Life_, p. 194.
[311] For the abuses of appropriation, see Coulton, _Medieval Studies_,
no. 8, pp. 6-8. For the part played by the lower clergy in the Peasants'
Revolt, see Petit-Dutaillis, _Studies Supplementary to Stubbs' Constit.
Hist._ II, pp. 270-1, and Kriehn, _Studies in the Sources of the Social
Revolt_ in 1381 (_Amer. Hist. Review_, 1901), VI, pp. 480-4.
[312] _Valor Eccles._ IV, p. 188.
[313] _Ib._ III, p. 276.
[314] _Ib._ I, p. 897.
[315] Jacka, _op. cit._ f. 35. See the list of "Farms and Pensions" in the
prioress of Catesby's accounts for 1414-5. Baker, _Hist. and Antiqs. of
Northants._ I, p. 279.
[316] _V.C.H. Northants._ II, p. 98.
[317] Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 268.
[318] This appears from the regular entry of the amount brought in by the
farms of the two churches in the account rolls. In 1458 the nuns received
formal permission from the bishop to lease out and dispose of the fruits
and revenues of any of the appropriated churches. Madox, _Form. Anglic._
dxc.
[319] _P.R.O. Mins. Accts._ 1260/7.
[320] See for instance Norris' note (quoted by Rye) on the grant to Carrow
Priory of the tithes of all wheat growing in the parishes of Bergh and
Apton, which tithes "occasioned many disputes between the Rector and the
Convent, till at length about the year 1237 it was agreed by the Prioress
and Convent and Thomas, the then Rector, ... that the Rector should pay to
the Convent 14 quarters of wheat in lieu of all their tithes there, which
was constantly paid, with some little allowance for defect of measure,
until 29 Edw. III, when there was a suit between Prioress and Rector about
them. What was the event of it I find not, but they soon after returned to
the old payment of 14 qrs., which continued until 21 Hen. VI, when the
dispute was revived and in a litigious way they continued above ten years,
but I find they afterwards returned again to the old agreement and kept to
it, I believe, to the dissolution of the Priory." Rye mentions a suit
between the Rector and Prioress in 1321. Similarly the nuns were involved
in a tedious suit (10 Edw. I) about the tithes of the demesne of the manor
of Barshall in Riston, with the Rector of Riston. Rye, _Carrow Abbey_,
App. pp. xxx, xxxv.
[321] See below, p. 199, for the other side of the matter.
[322] Similarly the nuns of Kingsmead, Derby, had part of the shirt of St
Thomas of Canterbury, and the nuns of Gracedieu had the girdle and part of
the tunic of St Francis, both of which were good for the same purpose.
_V.C.H. Derby_, II, p. 43; Nichols, _Hist. of Leic._ III, p. 652.
[323] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 115, 119, 130, 159, 178, 189.
[324] _V.C.H. Northants._ II, p. 122.
[325] _V.C.H. Essex_, II, p. 118.
[326] See for instance the receipts of the nuns of St Michael's Stamford
from _Almes, Almoignes et Auenture_ entered in their roll for 45-6 Edw.
III. "From Sir John Weston for a soul, 13_s._ 4_d._ For the soul of Simon
the Taverner, 1_s._ For the soul of Sir Robert de Thorp, £20. 6_s._ 7_d._
For the soul of William Apethorp, 3_s._ 4_d._ For the soul of Alice atte
Halle, 3_s._ 4_d._ In alms from William Ouneby, 6_s._ 8_d._ In alms from
Emma of Okham £5. Received from the pardon at the church 6_s._ 8_d._ For
the pardon from Lady Idayne and from Emma Okham £1." _P.R.O. Mins. Accts._
1260/3. But this was an unusually good year.
[327] The account rolls of St Michael's Stamford usually arrange expenses
under the following headings: (1) rents, (2) petty expenses, (3) convent
expenses, (4) cost of carts and ploughs, (5) repair of houses, (6)
purchase of stock, (7) weeding corn and mowing hay, (8) threshing and
winnowing, (9) harvest expenses, (10) hire of servants, (11) chaplains'
fees. See _P.R.O. Mins. Accts._ 1260/_passim_. The active prioress of St
Mary de Pré, Christian Bassett, classifies her payments as for (1)
"comyns, pytances and partycions," (2) "yerely charges," (3) "wagys and
ffees," (4) "reparacions," (5) "divers expensis." Dugdale, _Mon._ III, pp.
358-61. The prioress of Catesby (1414-5) classifies (1) rents, (2) petty
expenses, (3) expenses of the houses (i.e. repairs), (4) household
expenses, (5) necessary expenses (miscellaneous), (6) expenses of carts,
(7) purchase of livestock, (8) customary payments (to nuns, pittancers,
farmers, cottagers, etc. in clothing; details not given); (9) purchase of
corn, (10) rewards (various small tips to nuns and servants), (11) tedding
and making hay, harvest expenses, stubble, thrashing and winnowing corn,
(12) costs of the mill, (13) servants' wages. Baker, _Hist. and Antiq. of
Northants._ I, pp. 278-83.
[328] Liveing, _Records of Romsey Abbey_, pp. 194-5.
[329] See below, p. 323.
[330] See below, pp. 157-8.
[331] Gray, _Priory of St Radegund, Cambridge_, p. 156.
[332] _P.R.O. Mins. Accts._ 1260/10.
[333] _Valor Eccles._ I, p. 84.
[334] _Ib._ I, p. 119.
[335] _Ib._ I, p. 394.
[336] _Ib._ III, p. 76.
[337] _Ib._ III, p. 77.
[338] _Archaeol. Journ._ LXIX (1912), pp. 120-1.
[339] Gray, _op. cit._ p. 172.
[340] Dugdale, _Mon._ III, p. 359. The heading under which this item comes
is _Yerely Charges_.
[341] Baker, _Hist. and Antiq. of Northants._ I, p. 281.
[342] A. G. Little, _Studies in English Franciscan History_ (1917), pp.
25, 43.
[343] See below, p. 199.
[344] Gray, _op. cit._ pp. 156, 172.
[345] _Myroure of Oure Ladye_, ed. Blunt, introd. p. xxxi.
[346] See below, p. 202.
[347] See e.g. above, p. 70.
[348] Gray, _op. cit._ pp. 153-5.
[349] Mackenzie Walcott, _Inventories of ... Shepey_, pp. 32-3.
[350] Maurice Hewlett, _The Song of the Plow_ (1916), pp. 9-10.
[351] Baker, _Hist. and Antiq. of Northants._ I, p. 283. Compare the St
Radegund's Cambridge accounts: "Et in butumine empto cum pycche hoc anno
pro bidentibus signandis et ungendis, ij s j d. Et in clatis emptis ad
faldam, iij s iij d. Et solutum pro remocione falde per diversas vices,
iij d. ... Et in bidentibus hoc anno lavandis et tondendis ij s iij d."
Gray, _op. cit._ pp. 155, 171.
[352] They are a regular item in the St Michael's, Stamford, accounts and
compare the accounts of St Radegund's, Cambridge: "And in viij pairs of
gloves bought for divers hired men at harvest as was needful xij d." Gray,
_op. cit._ pp. 157, 172.
[353] Tusser, _Fiue Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie_, ed. W. Payne and
S. J. Herrtage (Eng. Dialect. Soc. 1878), pp. 129-30.
[354] Tusser, _op. cit._ p. 132.
[355] _Ib._ p. 181.
[356] C. T. Flower, _Obedientiars' Accounts of Glastonbury and other
Religious Houses_ (St Paul's Ecclesiological Soc. vol. VII, pt II (1912)),
pp. 50-62. The nunnery accounts described include accounts of the Abbess
of Elstow (22 Hen. VII), the Prioress of Delapré (4 and 9 Hen. VII), the
Cellaress of Barking, the Cellaress of Syon, the Sacrist of Syon and the
Chambress of Syon. On obedientiaries and their accounts in general, see
the introduction to _Compotus Rolls of the Obedientiaries of St Swithun's
Priory, Winchester_, ed. G. W. Kitchin (Hants. Rec. Soc. 1892).
[357] Liveing, _Records of Romsey Abbey_, p. 236. At St Mary's Winchester
at the same date the 14 nuns included the abbess, prioress, subprioress,
infirmaress, _precentrix_ and three sub-chantresses, _scrutatrix_,
_dogmatista_ and librarian. _V.C.H. Hants._ II, p. 124.
[358] Aungier, _Hist. of Syon Mon._ p. 392.
[359] _Myroure of Oure Ladye_, ed. Blunt (E.E.T.S.), introd. p. xxviii.
[360] Aungier, _op. cit._ pp. 392-3.
[361] See below, Note A.
[362] Aungier, _op. cit._ p. 395.
[363] I have been unable to discover what is meant by _feri_ and _asser_.
[364] _Tabite_ was a sort of _moiré_ silk. Probably carpets or tablecloths
here.
[365] _Register of Crabhouse Nunnery_, ed. M. Bateson (Norfolk
Archaeology, XI, 1892), pp. 38-9.
[366] See, for instance, the Godstow Register; charters nos. 105, 139, 556
and 644 concern grants appropriated to clothing and nos. 52, 250, 536, 619
and 630 to the infirmary. No. 862 is a grant of five cartloads of
alderwood yearly "to be take xv dayes after myghelmasse to drye their
heryng." _Eng. Reg. of Godstow Nunnery_, ed. A. Clark (E.E.T.S. 1905-11),
pp. 102, etc. In the Crabhouse Register it is noted that a certain meadow
is set aside so that "all the produce of the said meadow be forever
granted for the vesture of the ten ladies who are oldest in religion of
the whole house, so that each of the ten ladies receive yearly from the
aforesaid meadow four shillings at the feast of St Margaret." _Op. cit._
p. 37. When Wothorpe was merged in St Michael's, Stamford, the diocesan
stipulated that the proceeds of the priory and rectory of Wothorpe should
be applied to the support of the infirmary and kitchen of St Michael's.
Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 268.
[367] See, for instance, the payment of a yearly pension of five marks
from the appropriated church of St Clement's for the clothing of the nuns
of St Radegund's, Cambridge, and similar assignations of the income from
appropriated churches at Studley, St Michael's Stamford, and Marrick.
Gray, _Priory of St Radegund, Cambridge_, p. 27.
[368] See C. T. Flower, _loc. cit._, for an account of the Syon, Barking
and Elstow accounts; also Blunt, _Myroure of Oure Ladye_, introd. pp.
xxvi-xxxi, for Syon chambresses' and cellaresses' accounts (1536-7) and
_P.R.O. Mins. Accts._ 1261/4 for a Syon cellaress's account (1481-2). See
_P.R.O. Mins. Accts._ 1260/14 for a St Michael's Stamford chambress's
account (1408-9).
[369] See below, Ch. VIII.
[370] Blunt, _op. cit._ pp. xxvi-xxviii.
[371] Gray, _op. cit._ pp. 149, 165, 167.
[372] A barrel contained ten great hundreds of six score each.
[373] A cade contained six great hundreds of six score each.
[374] A warp was a parcel of four dried fish.
[375] Gray, _op. cit._ See the accounts, pp. 145-79 _passim_.
[376] _Ib._ pp. 10-11.
[377] _Catholicon Anglicum_, ed. S. J. Herrtage (E.E.T.S. 1881), p. 365.
[378] Blunt, _op. cit._ p. xxx. In 1481-2 their Lenten store included
"saltfysshe," "stokfyssh," "white heryng," "rede haryng," "muddefissh,"
"lyng," "aburden," "Scarburgh fysshe," "salt samon," "salt elys," "oyle
olyue" (34-3/4 gallons), a barrel of honey and figs. At other times this
year the cellaress purchased beans (1 qr. 4 bushels), green peas (7
bushels), "grey" (i.e. dried) peas (4 bushels), "harreos" (3 bushels),
oatmeal (2 qrs. 7 bushels), bread, wheat, malt, various animals for meat
and to stock the farm, a kilderkin of good ale, 15 lbs. of almonds, 39
Essex cheeses, 111-1/2 gallons of butter, white salt and bay salt, also
firewood and coals. _P.R.O. Mins. Accts._ 1261/4.
[379] _Poems of John Skelton_, ed. W. H. Williams, pp. 107-8 (from "Colyn
Cloute," ll. 210-13). For the curious custom of eating dried peas on the
fifth Sunday in Lent, called Passion or Care Sunday, see Brand,
_Observations On Popular Antiquities_ (1877 ed.), pp. 57 ff. In the north
of England peas boiled on Care Sunday were called _carlings_. Compare the
St Mary de Pré (St Albans) accounts (2-4 Hen. VII) "Item paid for ij
busshell of pesyn departyd amongs the susters in Lente xvj d." Dugdale,
_Mon._ III, p. 359, and the Barking cellaress' _Charthe_, below, Note A.
[380] See below, p. 568.
[381] Blunt, _op. cit._ pp. xxx-xxxi.
[382] Shakespeare, _Winter's Tale_, IV, ii, 38 sqq.
[383] For _sowce_, see below, p. 565.
[384] The weekly allowance of beer to each member was supposed to be seven
gallons, four of the better sort and three weaker, but the amount varied
from house to house. See _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 89 (note). The Syon nuns
had water on certain days, but doubtless as a mortification of the flesh,
for it was sometimes complained of as a hardship when nuns had to drink
water. ("Item they say that they do not get their corrody (i.e. weekly
allowance of bread and beer) at the due times, but it is sometimes omitted
for a fortnight and sometimes for a month, so that the nuns, by reason of
the non-payment of the corrody, drink water." _Test. Ebor._ I, p. 284.)
The weekly allowance of bread was seven loaves. A note in the Register of
Shaftesbury Abbey (15th century) which then numbered about 50 nuns and a
large household, says: "Hit is to wytyng that me baketh and breweth by the
wike in the Abbey of Shaftesbury atte leste weye xxxvj quarters whete and
malt. And other while me baketh and breweth xlj quarters and ij bz. whete
and malte." Dugdale, _Mon._ II, p. 473.
[385] Aungier, _op. cit._ pp. 393-4.
[386] See below, p. 568.
[387] They are diversely defined as pancakes, cheese cakes or custards,
but they differed from our pancakes in being made in crusts. See the
recipe in _Liber Cure Cocorum_ for flawns made with cheese:
Take new chese and grynde hyt fayre,
In morter with egges, without dysware;
Put powder therto of sugur, I say,
Coloure hit with safrone ful wele thou may;
Put hit in cofyns that ben fayre,
And bake hit forthe, I the pray.
_Liber Cure Cocorum_, ed. Morris (Phil. Soc. 1862), p. 39. A fifteenth
century cookery book gives this recipe for _Flathouns in lente_: "Take and
draw a thrifty Milke of Almandes; temper with Sugre Water; than take
hardid cofyns [pie-crusts] and pore thin comad [mixture] theron; blaunch
Almaundis hol and caste theron Pouder Gyngere, Canelle, Sugre, Salt and
Safroun; bake hem and serue forth." _Two Fifteenth Century Cookery Books_,
ed. T. Austen (E.E.T.S. 1888), p. 56.
[388] For Maundy Thursday, see Brand, _op. cit._ pp. 75-9. For the Barking
Maundy see below, p. 568, for the St Mary de Pré Maundy see Dugdale,
_Mon._ III, p. 359, and for the St Michael's, Stamford, Maundy, see
_P.R.O. Mins. Accts._ 1260 _passim_. The nuns of St Radegund's owned
certain lands in Madingley which were held by the Prior of Barnwell on
payment of a rent of 2_s._ 3_d._, called "Maundy silver." Gray, _op. cit._
p. 146. Maundy money is still distributed at Magdalen College, Oxford.
[389] See below, p. 566, for the Barking pittances. The following extracts
from one of the St Michael's, Stamford, accounts is typical of the rest:
"Item paid for wassail 4_d._ ... paid to the convent on the Feast of St
Michael and the dedication of the church 6_s._ Item paid for ... on All
Saints Day and St Martin's Day 3_s._ Item paid for a pittance of pork on
two occasions 6_s._ Item paid for fowls at Christmas for the convent 5_s._
6_d._ Item paid for herrings on St Michael's Day for the poor 1_s._ 8_d._
Item paid for beer for the convent on Maundy Thursday (_Jour de Cene_)
10_d._ Item paid for bread and wafers on the same day 6_d._ Item paid for
spices on the same day 3_s._ Item paid for herrings for the poor on the
same day 1_s._ 8_d._ Item given to the poor on the same day 1_s._ 9_d._
Item for holy bread on Good Friday 2_d._ Item paid for _fflaunes_ 2_d._
Item paid for herrings on St Laurence's Day 9_d._" _P.R.O. Mins. Accts._
1260/11. At this convent "holy bread" was always brought for Good Friday,
"flaunes" (or sometimes eggs, saffron and spices to make them) for
Rogationtide, beer and spices on Maundy Thursday, herrings on St
Lawrence's Day, and various money pittances were paid to the nuns from
time to time for the _misericord_ of Corby and sometimes of Thurlby, the
appropriated churches. On one occasion there is an entry "Paid to the
convent for the misericord of Thurlby, to wit 28 fowls, 12 gallons of beer
and mustard and a gift to the prioress 9_s._, paid to the convent for the
misericord of Corby 9_s._, paid to the pittancer for a pittance from
Thurlby throughout the year 14_s._ 4_d._" _Ib._ 1260/3. See an interesting
list of pittances payable on forty different feasts throughout the year to
the nuns of Lillechurch or Higham: they are either extra portions of food
or special sorts of food, e.g. "crepis" on the Sunday before Ash
Wednesday, "flauns" on Easter Day and 12_d._ on St Radegund's Day. R. F.
Scott, _Notes from the Records of St John's Coll. Cambridge_, 1st series
(from _The Eagle_, 1893, vol. XVII, no. 101, pp. 5-7).
[390] For these prebendal canonries see Mr Hamilton Thompson's article on
"Double Monasteries and the Male Element in Nunneries," in _The Ministry
of Women, A Report by a Committee appointed by his Grace the Lord
Archbishop of Canterbury_, app. VIII, pp. 150 _sqq._
[391] Dugdale, _Mon._ III, p. 424.
[392] Walcott, M. E. C. _Inventories of ... the Priory of Minster in
Shepey_ (_Arch. Cant._ 1869), p. 30. This house paid stipends to three
chaplains, one being "curat of the Paryshe churche"; a "Vycar's chamber"
is described among what are obviously outlying buildings. At Cheshunt the
"Prestes Chamber" contained a feather bed, with sheets and coverlet and a
"celer of blewe cloth," valued at 4_s._ 10_d._ Cussans, _Hist. of Herts.
Hertford Hundred_, II, p. 70.
[393] Chaucer, _Cant. Tales_, Prologue of the Nonne Prestes Tale, ll. 3998
ff.
[394] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 120-1, 123.
[395] _Valor. Eccles._ I, p. 397, IV, p. 220.
[396] _Ib._ I, p. 276.
[397] _Ib._ II, p. 109.
[398] _Ib._ III, p. 76.
[399] _Ib._ I, p. 106.
[400] _Ib._ V, pp. 43, 87, 94.
[401] _Ib._ I, p. 114.
[402] _Ib._ V, p. 206.
[403] _Ib._ I, p. 424, IV, p. 339.
[404] E.g. in the Sheppey inventory, after "the chamber over the Gate
Howse called the Confessor's Chamber," comes "the Chamber next to that,"
"_the Steward's chamber_" (well furnished), "the next chamber to the
same," "the chamber under the same," and "the Portar's Lodge," all
evidently outside the cloister. Walcott, M. E. C. _op. cit._ p. 31.
[405] Gray, _op. cit._ pp. 163, 167, 173. Cf. pp. 156, 157, 158.
[406] Walcott, M. E. C. _op. cit._ pp. 30, 33.
[407] E.g. Brewood (Black Ladies). See Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 500.
[408] A Joan Key or Kay votes at the election of Joan Lancaster as
prioress of St Radegund's in 1457 and is receiver-general, keeping the
account in 1481-2. Gray, _op. cit._ pp. 38, 176.
[409] See, for instance, an item in the accounts of St Radegund's
Cambridge: "Paid in a pittance for the convent ... at the month's mind of
John Brown, lately bailiff there ... in accordance with his last will."
Gray, _op. cit._ p. 151.
[410] _The Ministry of Women_, _loc. cit._ pp. 162-3. So in 1492 it is
complained at Carrow "quod mali servientes Priorissae fecerunt magnum
dampnum in bonis prioratus." Jessopp, _Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich_, p. 16.
[411] Chaucer, _Cant. Tales_, Prologue, ll. 597 ff.
[412] See, for instance, the Prioress of Marrick _v._ Simon Wayt, to give
an account for the time when he was her bailiff in Fletham (1332); the
Prioress of Molseby (Moxby) _v._ Lawrence de Dysceford, chaplain, to give
an account of the time when he was bailiff of Joan de Barton, late
Prioress of Molseby at Molseby (1330)--an interesting case of a chaplain
acting as bailiff for a small and poor house; Idonia, Prioress of Appleton
_v._ John Boston of Leven for an account as bailiff and receiver in Holme
(1413). _Notes on Relig. and Secular Houses of York_, ed. W. P. Baildon
(Yorks. Arch. Soc. 1895), I, pp. 127, 139, 161. Visitation injunctions
sometimes regulate the presentation of accounts by bailiffs and receivers,
e.g. _Exeter Reg. Stapeldon_, p. 318, _V.C.H. Beds._ I, p. 356.
[413] _Linc. Visit._ I, p. 67.
[414] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 185. An illustration may be found in the
Gracedieu rolls where on one occasion the nuns paid wages to the bailiff
John de Northton, to his wife Joan, to his daughter Joan, to Philip de
Northton (doubtless his son) and to Philip's wife Constance. _P.R.O. Mins.
Accts._ 1257/10, ff. 203-5.
[415] _V.C.H. Suffolk_, II, p. 84.
[416] _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_ (Rolls Ser.), II, pp. 658-9. Compare p. 662.
The injunction that the head of the house should not appoint stewards,
bailiffs or receivers without the consent of the major part of the convent
was a common one; cf. _ib._ II, p. 652; Dugdale, _Mon._ II, p. 619.
[417] Liveing, _Records of Romsey Abbey_, pp. 218-22 _passim_.
[418] Liveing, _op. cit._ pp. 229-30, 232.
[419] _Essays on Chaucer_, 2nd Series, VII (Chaucer Soc.), pp. 191-4; also
in Dugdale, _Mon._ II, 456-7.
[420] Gray, _op. cit._ p. 158; cf. p. 174.
[421] _V.C.H. Hants._ II, 151.
[422] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 71_d._ The Bishop forbade them to keep
more than the necessary servants and made the same injunction at
Legbourne. _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 187.
[423] _Archaeologia_, XLVII, pp. 57-8. Compare his injunction to Studley,
_ib._ pp. 54-5. In 1306 every useless servant who was a burden to the
impoverished house of Arden was to be removed within a week. _V.C.H.
Yorks._ III, p. 113. In 1326 the _custos_ of Minchin Barrow was told to
remove the _onerosa familia_. _Reg. John of Drokensford_ (Somerset Rec.
Soc.), p. 242.
[424] _P.R.O. Suppression Papers_, 833/39.
[425] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 4, 121, 131; _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 6. At
Ankerwyke Alnwick enjoined "that ye hafe an honeste woman seruaund in your
kychyne, brewhowse and bakehowse, deyhowse and selere wythe an honeste
damyselle wythe hire to saruf yowe and your sustres in thise saide
offices, so that your saide sustres for occupacyone in any of the saide
offices be ne letted fro diuine seruice." Compare the complaint of the
nuns of Sheppey that they had no "covent servante" to wash their clothes
and tend them when they were ill, unless they hired a woman from the
village out of their own pockets. _E.H.R._ VI, pp. 33-4. The provision of
a laundress was ordered at Nunappleton in 1534. _Yorks. Arch. Journ._ XVI,
p. 444.
[426] _Yorks. Arch. Journ._ XVI, p. 443.
[427] "Also she says that secular servingwomen do lie among the sisters in
the dorter, and especially one who did buy a corrody there" (Heynings,
1440). _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 133. The Abbess of Malling in 1324 was
forbidden to give a corrody to her maid. Wharton, _Anglia Sacra_, I, p.
364.
[428] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 133.
[429] See below, pp. 395, 396.
[430] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 121. Alnwick notes "Amoueatur quedam
francigena manens in prioratu propter vite inhonestatem, nam omnes
admittit vniformiter ad concubitus suos"; and see his general injunction,
_ib._ pp. 122, 125.
[431] _Ancren Riwle_, introd. Gasquet (King's Classics), p 287.
[432] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 7.
[433] _Ib._ f. 26_d_.
[434] _E.H.R._ VI, p. 33.
[435] Liveing, _op. cit._ p. 101.
[436] _Ib._ p. 104. Compare Peckham's injunctions to Wherwell in 1284 "Et
si quis inveniatur, serviens masculus aut femina, qui amaris
responsionibus consueverit monialem aliquam vel aliquas molestare, nisi se
monitione praemissa sufficienter corrigat in futurum, illico expellatur."
_Reg. Epist. J. Peckham_, II, p. 654; also his injunctions to Barking and
Holy Sepulchre, Canterbury, _ib._ I, p. 85; II, p. 707. Also Thomas of
Cantilupe's injunctions to Lingbrook, c. 1277. _Reg. Thome de Cantilupo_,
p. 202.
[437] _New Coll._ MS. f. 87_d_.
[438] Gray, _op. cit._ _passim_.
[439] "_Names of the Servants now in Wages by the yere._ Mr Oglestone,
taking wages by the yere. Mr White, taking 26 s 8 d by the yere and
lyvere. John Coks, butler, lyvere, xxvi s viij d, whereof to pay 1 quarter
and lyvere. Alyn Sowthe bayly, taking by yere for closure and hys servant
6 l 13 s 4 d and two lyveryes. Jhon Mustarde 20 s a kowes pasture and a
lyvere. William Rowet, carpentar, 40 s and lyvere. Richard Gyllys 26 s 8 d
and lyvere. The carter 33 s 4 d and no lyvere. Thomas Thressher by yere 33
s 4 d and no lyvere. Robert Dawton by yere 33 s 4 d and no lyvere. The
kowherd for kepyng of the kene and hoggys by yere 30 s and no lyvere. Jhon
Hartnar by yere 28 s and no lyvere. Robard Welshe, brewer, by yere 20 s
and no lyvere. A thatcher 33 s 4 d, a hose cloth and no lyvere. William
Nycolls 20 s and no lyvere. Jhon Andrew 22 s 4 d and no lyverye. Jhon
Putsawe 13 s 4 d and a shyrt redy made. George Myllar 21 s 8 d and no
lyverye. Robert Rychard, horse keper, 20 s and no liverye. Jhon Harryes,
Frencheman, 13 s 4 d, a shyrt and no lyverye. Jhon Gyles the shepherd, 14
s, a payre of hoses, a payre of shoys and no lyverye. Richard Gladwyn for
to make malte, 26 s 8 d by yere, he hath ben here 8 wekes, and no lyverye.
Dorothe Sowthe, the baylyffe wyfe, owing for a yere's wages at 40 s by
yere and no liverye. Ales Barkar 13 s 4 d and lyvere. Also Sykkers 13 s 4
d and lyverye. Gladwyn's wyfe 13 s 4 d and lyverye. Ellyn at my ladyes
lyndyng. Emme Cawket 12 s and lyvere. Rose Salmon 12 s, she hath been here
a month. Marget Lambard 13 s 4 d and lyvere. Sir Jhon Lorymer, curat of
the Parysche churche, 3 l 16 s 8 d and no lyvere. Sir Jhon Ingram,
chaplen, 3 l 3 s 3 d and no lyvere. Jhon Gayton shepard 53 s 4 d and no
lyvere. Jhon Pelland 20 s and no lyverye. Jhon Marchant 13 s 4 d and
pasture for 40 shepe and no lyverye. Jhon Helman 16 s and 10 shepes
pasture and no lyverye. Jhon Cannyng shepard by yere 20 s and no lyverye."
Walcott, E. C. M. _op. cit._ pp. 33-4.
[440] _Letters relating to the Suppression of the Monasteries_, ed. Thomas
Wright (Camden Soc. 1843), p. 140.
[441] _Essays on Chaucer_, 2nd Series (Chaucer Soc.), p. 189.
[442] Savine, _English Monasteries on the Eve of the Dissolution_ (Oxford
Hist. Studies, ed. Vinogradoff, I, pp. 221-2). See also above, Ch. I, pp.
2-3.
[443] _Cal. of Papal Letters_, IV, p. 436. In 1442 its numbers (which
should have been fourteen) had sunk to seven and it was six marks in debt
(_Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 38). The clear annual value of the house in the
_Valor Ecclesiasticus_ was only £5. 19_s._ 8-1/2_d._ Compare the case of
Heynings, whose founder, Sir John Darcy, had also died without completing
its endowment. _Cal. of Papal Letters_, V, p. 347.
[444] Fuller, _Church History_, III, p. 332. Its net income at the
Dissolution was £1329. 1_s._ 3_d._ Compare _The Italian Relation of
England_ (Camden Soc.), pp. 40-1.
[445] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 1, 49, 117, 119, 130, 133, 175, 184;
_Alnwick's Visit._ MS. ff. 6_d_, 38, 83.
[446] _Cal. of Papal Letters_, V, p. 347.
[447] The Prioress of Ankerwyke also claimed to have reduced the debt from
300 marks to £40, but one of the nuns said that it had been only £30 on
her installation and that it had not been paid by the Prioress but from
other sources. _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 1, 3.
[448] _P.R.O. Mins. Accts._ 1260 _passim_.
[449] _P.R.O. Mins. Accts._ 1260/1. It should, however, be noted that some
of the items which go to make up the total of the debts are sums of money
owing to members of the convent (e.g. the Prioress and Subprioress) by the
treasuresses, though the sums owing to outsiders are larger.
[450] _P.R.O. Mins. Accts._ 1257/10 ff. 34 and 34_d_, 39_d_. Similarly the
Prioress's account of Delapré for 4 Henry VIII contains a long list of
debts. _St Paul's Ecclesiological Soc._ VII (1912), p. 52. An analysis of
Archbishop Eudes Rigaud's visitations of nunneries in the Diocese of Rouen
gives even more startling information on this point; all but four of the
fourteen houses show a list of debts growing heavier year by year and this
was in the thirteenth century (1249-69). See _Reg. Visit. Archiep.
Rothomag._ ed. Bonnin _passim_.
[451] _V.C.H. Dorset_, II, p. 88.
[452] _V.C.H. Oxon._ II, p. 73.
[453] _Cal. of Papal Petit._ I, pp. 56, 122, 230.
[454] For other cases of debt, in different centuries, see _V.C.H. Yorks._
III, pp. 124, 161, 163-4, 188, 239, 240; _Reg. Walter Giffard_ (Surtees
Soc.), p. 148; _V.C.H. Oxon._ II, pp. 78, 104; _V.C.H. Essex_, p. 122;
_V.C.H. Derby_, II, p. 43; _V.C.H. Norfolk_, II, p. 351; _V.C.H. Hants._
II, p. 150; _V.C.H. Bucks._ I, p. 355; _Visit. of Diocese of Norwich_
(Camden Soc.), pp. 108, 109; _Test. Ebor._ I, pp. 284-5; _Cal. of Papal
Letters_, VI, p. 25; _Sussex Archaeol. Coll._ IX, p. 7.
[455] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 186.
[456] _V.C.H. Lincs._ II, p. 157.
[457] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 92.
[458] _The Knights Hospitallers in England_ (Camden Soc.), p. 20.
[459] _V.C.H. Worcs._ II, pp. 157-8.
[460] Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 285.
[461] See below, p. 340.
[462] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 177.
[463] _Test. Ebor._ I, p. 133. The account book of Gracedieu (1414-8)
contains entries of money paid by William Roby "for the clothes of his
relation Dame Agnes Roby" and at another time by Margaret Roby for the
same purpose (6_s._ 8_d._). Gasquet, _English Monastic Life_, p. 170.
[464] _Lincoln Diocese Documents_ (E.E.T.S.), p. 57.
[465] It is amusing to notice the indignation of the nuns when their beer
was not strong enough. See e.g. _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. ff. 71_d_, 72;
_Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich_ (Camden Soc.), p. 209; _Yorks. Archaeol.
Journal_, XVI, p. 443.
[466] Dugdale, _Mon._ V, pp. 493-4.
[467] When little Elizabeth Sewardby was boarding in Nunmonkton she had
ten pairs in eighteen months! _Test. Ebor._ III, p. 168.
[468] _Reg. of Walter Giffard_ (Surtees Soc.), pp. 147-8.
[469] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 181.
[470] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 4, 5. This lack of bedclothes for the younger
nuns was partly due to the fact that the Prioress did not want them to
sleep in the dorter, for Thomasine adds "and when my lord had commanded
this deponent to lie in the dorter and this deponent asked bedclothes of
the Prioress, she said chidingly to her 'Let him who gave you leave to lie
in the dorter supply you with raiment.'" Mr Hamilton Thompson thinks that
"probably sister Thomasine had previously been lodged separately with the
other younger nuns and the Prioress and elders objected to the crowding of
the dorter." But poverty was the main cause, for at a later visitation the
Prioress stated that she was unable to supply the sisters with sufficient
raiment for their habits "because of the poverty and insufficiency of the
resources of the house." _Ib._ p. 7.
[471] The same injunction was sent to Wherwell. _Reg. Epist. Johannis
Peckham_ (Rolls Ser.), II, pp. 651, 659-60.
[472] Liveing, _Records of Romsey Abbey_, p. 103.
[473] _New Coll._ MS. f. 86_d_.
[474] _Visit. of the Diocese of Norwich_ (Camden Soc.), pp. 290-2. Cf. the
complaint of the nuns of Studley in 1530: "They be oftentymes served with
beffe and no moton upon Thursday at nyght and Sondays at nyght and be
served oftentymes with new ale and not hulsome." _V.C.H. Oxon._ II, p. 78.
[475] Other houses in the diocese of Norwich which complained of bad food
were Flixton (1520) and Carrow (1492, 1514, 1526). Carrow was one of the
most famous nunneries in England, but in 1492 one of the Bishop's
_comperta_ ran: "That the present sisters are restricted to eight loaves,
and this is very little for ten sisters, for the whole day. Item there is
often a lack of bread in the house, contrary to the good repute of the
place." See _Visit. of the Diocese of Norwich_, pp. 16-17, 145, 185-6,
209.
[476] _Reliquiae Antiquae_, I, p. 291. Translated in Coulton, _A Medieval
Garner_, p. 597.
[477] _V.C.H. Hants._ II, p. 135. The belfry of St Radegund's, Cambridge,
fell down and injured the church in 1277. Gray, _Hist. of the Priory of St
Radegund, Cambridge_, pp. 37-8; cf. p. 79. That of Esholt fell in 1445.
_V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 161.
[478] _Reg. of Crabhouse Nunnery_ (_Norfolk Archaeology_, XI, 1892), pp.
61, 62.
[479] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 181.
[480] Gray, _op. cit._ p. 32.
[481] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 217.
[482] _V.C.H. Hants._ II, pp. 129-31 _passim_. For another complaint that
tenements and leasehold houses belonging to a priory were ruinous and like
to fall down, through the negligence of the prioress and bailiff, see the
case of Legbourne in 1440. _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 185.
[483] _New Coll._ MS. ff. 87_d_-88. He ordered the Abbess to repair
defects at once out of the common goods of the house. Better still, he
would seem to have assisted them from his own pocket to carry out the
injunction, for by his will (1402) he remitted to them a debt of £40, for
the repair of their church and cloister. Nicolas, _Testamenta Vetusta_,
II, p. 708.
[484] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 113, 124, 168, 174, 181, 183, 188, 240;
Yedingham and Esholt (_ib._ pp. 128, 161) and St Mary, Neasham (_V.C.H.
Durham_, II, p. 107) needed repair in the middle of the fifteenth century.
[485] _Sussex Arch. Coll._ IX, p. 23; V, pp. 256, 258.
[486] _Visitations of the Diocese of Norwich_ (Camden Soc.), pp. 107-8,
109, 261, 311.
[487] _Archaeologia_, XLVII, pp. 52, 54, 59.
[488] _V.C.H. Lincs._ II, p. 104. A few out of many other references to
ruinous buildings may be given here. Easebourne (1411). _Bishop Rede's
Reg._ p. 137. Polsloe (1319). _Reg. of Bishop Stapeldon of Exeter_, p.
318. Delapré (Northampton) (1303), Wothorpe (1292), Rothwell (fourteenth
century), Catesby (1301, 1312). _V.C.H. Northants._ II, pp. 101, 114, 138,
123. Rowney (1431). _V.C.H. Herts._ IV, pp. 435-6. St Radegund's
Cambridge. Gray, _op. cit._ pp. 36-8, 79. St Clare without Aldgate (1290).
_Ely Epis. Records_, ed. Gibbons, p. 415. St Mary's Winchester (1343-52).
_Cal. of Pap. Pet._ I, pp. 56, 122, 230.
[489] Perhaps in the same way that a fire broke out at Sempringham in the
lifetime of St Gilbert. "A nun, bearing a light through the kitchen by
night, fixed a part of a burnt candle to another she was going to burn, so
that both were alight at once. But when the part fixed on to the other was
almost consumed, it fell on the floor, on which much straw was collected,
ready for a fire. The nun did not heed it, and believing that the fire
would go out by itself, she went away and shut the door. But the flame,
finding food, first devoured the straw lying close by, then the whole
house with the adjacent offices and their contents, whence a great loss
happened to the church." Quoted from MS. Cott. _Cleop. B._ I, f. 77 by R.
Graham, _St Gilbert of Sempringham and the Gilbertines_, p. 135. It will
be remembered that the author of the thirteenth century treatise, called
"Seneschaucie," is most careful to declare that ploughmen, waggoners and
cowherds must not carry fire into the byres, stables and cowhouse, either
for light or to warm themselves, "unless the candle be in a lantern and
this for great need and then it must be carried and watched by another
than himself." _Walter of Henley's Husbandry_, ed. E. Lamond (1890), p.
113.
[490] _Reg. of Crabhouse Nunnery u.s._ p. 61.
[491] Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 328. See also _V.C.H. Herts._ IV, p. 426.
[492] _V.C.H. Herts._ _loc. cit._
[493] _Cal. of Close Rolls_, 1296-1302, p. 238.
[494] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 183.
[495] Gray, _op. cit._ p. 79.
[496] _V.C.H. Lincs._ II, p. 179.
[497] Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 485.
[498] Wood, _Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies_, I, p. 35.
[499] _Reg. of John of Drokensford_ (Somerset Rec. Soc.), p. 227. Text in
Hugo, _Medieval Nunneries of Somerset: Whitehall in Ilchester_, p. 78. But
seven years before they had been begging, according to the Bishop, by the
compulsion of this expelled prioress, whose case was _sub judice_. _Reg._
p. 115 and Hugo, _loc. cit._
[500] _Reg. Sede Vacante_ (Worc. Rec. Soc.), pp. 112-3.
[501] Liveing, _Records of Romsey Abbey_, p. 145.
[502] _V.C.H. Herts._ IV, p. 427.
[503] _V.C.H. Northants._ II, p. 137.
[504] _V.C.H. Herts._ IV, pp. 434-5. The text of their petition is as
follows: "A tres reverend pier en dieu, mon treshonure seigneur le
chaunceller dengleterre, suppliant voz pouers oratrices la prioresse et
les noneyns de Rowney en le countee de ... qe come lour esglise et autres
mesons sont en poynt de cheyer a terre pur defaute de reparacion et ils
nount dont lez reparailler, si noun dalmoigne de bones gens, qe plese a
vostre treshonure seignurie de vostre grace eux granter vn patent pur vn
lour procuratour, de aler en la paiis a coiller almoigns de bones gentz
pur la sustenance et releuacioun du dit pouere mesoun et en noun de
charite." _P.R.O. Ancient Petitions_, 302/15063.
[505] _V.C.H. Bucks._ I, p. 358.
[506] _V.C.H. Lincs._ II, p. 179. Another licence in 1459.
[507] _V.C.H. Northants._ II, p. 137.
[508] _Ib._ pp. 100, 126.
[509] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Dalderby_, f. 374. (_Pro monialibus de
Rowell._) It is surprising, however, that Peckham, in his constitution
forbidding nuns to be absent from their convents for longer than three, or
at the most six, days, adds: "We do not extend this ordinance to those
nuns who are forced to beg their necessities outside, while they are
begging." Wilkins, _Concilia_, II, p. 59. It is certain that the nuns did
beg in their own persons. When Archbishop Eudes Rigaud visited St-Aubin in
1261 he ordered that the younger nuns should not be sent out to beg (_pro
questu_); and in 1263 two of them were absent in France, seeking alms.
_Reg. Visit. Archiepiscopi Rothomagensis_, ed. Bonnin, pp. 412, 471.
[510] On this subject see an interesting article by C. Wordsworth, "On
some Pardons or Indulgences preserved in Yorkshire 1412-1527" (_Yorks.
Arch. Journ._ XVI, pp. 369 ff.).
[511] _V.C.H. Herts._ IV, pp. 426, 432.
[512] _V.C.H. Northants._ II, pp. 114, 123, 116.
[513] _V.C.H. Bucks._ I, p. 353.
[514] _V.C.H. Lincs._ II, p. 157.
[515] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Dalderby_, ff. 96_d_, 244_d_.
[516] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 115, 128, 161.
[517] _Cal. of Papal Letters_, IV, p. 393; V, p. 373.
[518] Except where otherwise stated the following references all occur in
Gray, _op. cit._ p. 79 and are printed in full in R. Willis,
_Architectural Hist. of the Univ. of Cambridge_, ed. J. Willis Clark
(1886), II, pp. 183-6.
[519] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Dalderby_, f. 96_d_.
[520] Gray, _op. cit._ p. 36.
[521] _Ib._ pp. 37-8.
[522] A few other references may be given: Bishop Fordham of Ely for
Rowney (1408) and Bishop Alcock of Ely for the Minories (1490). Gibbons,
_Ely Epis. Records_, pp. 406, 414. Bishop Sutton of Lincoln to Wothorpe
(1292). _V.C.H. Northants._ II, p. 114.
[523] _V.C.H. Wilts._ II, p. 77.
[524] _V.C.H. Essex_, II, p. 119. References to this occur in 1380, 1382,
1384, 1392, 1402 and 1409.
[525] Gibbons, _Ely Epis. Records_, p. 399.
[526] _V.C.H. Lincs._ II, p. 179. Cf. Thetford. _V.C.H. Norfolk_, II, p.
355.
[527] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 161.
[528] _Ib._ p. 124.
[529] _V.C.H. Wilts._ II, p. 77. The reference is perhaps to the famous
storm of St Maur's Day, 1362, which, together with the Black Death, is
commemorated in a _graffito_ in the church of Ashwell (Herts.) and in a
distich quoted by Adam Murimuth
C ter erant mille, decies sex unus et ille.
Luce tua Maure, vehemens fuit impetus aurae.
Ecce flat hoc anno, Maurus in orbe tonans.
[530] Gray, _op. cit._ p. 79.
[531] _Bishop Rede's Reg._ (Sussex Rec. Soc.), p. 137.
[532] _Cal. of Papal Letters_, V, p. 347.
[533] Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 301.
[534] The following account of medieval plagues and famines is taken
mainly from Creighton, _Hist. of Epidemics in Britain_, I, pp. 202-7,
215-223. See also Denton, _England in the Fifteenth Century_, pp. 91-105.
[535] Creighton, _op. cit._ I, p. 19.
[536] Denton, _op. cit._ p. 93.
[537] _Ib._ p. 93 _sqq._
[538] _V.C.H. Hants._ II, p. 150. He attributed their condition to
negligence and bad administration.
[539] _P.R.O. Ancient Correspondence_, XXXVI, no. 201.
[540] _V.C.H. Derby_, II, p. 43. See below, p. 200.
[541] See P. G. Mode, _The Influence of the Black Death on the English
Monasteries_ (Univ. of Chicago, 1916), _passim_.
[542] Dugdale. _Mon._ IV, p. 268.
[543] A. Hamilton Thompson, _Registers of John Gynewell, Bishop of Lincoln
for the years 1347-1350_ (reprinted from _Archaeol. Journ._ LXVIII, pp.
301-360, 1912), p. 328.
[544] _Ib._ pp. 359-60.
[545] A. Hamilton Thompson, _The Pestilences of the Fourteenth Century in
the Diocese of York_ (reprinted from _Archaeol. Journ._ LXXI, pp. 97-154,
1914), pp. 121-2.
[546] Wharton, _Anglia Sacra_, I, pp. 364, 375.
[547] _V.C.H. Warwick._ II, p. 65.
[548] _V.C.H. Suffolk_, II, p. 116.
[549] Liveing, _op. cit._ p. 146.
[550] _Cal. of Papal Petitions_, I, p. 230.
[551] _Cal. Pat. Rolls_, 1364, pp. 21, 485.
[552] Rye, _Carrow Abbey_, p. 37.
[553] _V.C.H. Northants._ II, p. 126.
[554] Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 301. Their petition had been presented in
1380. _V.C.H. Herts._ IV, p. 433.
[555] _Cal. of Papal Letters_, IV, p. 521.
[556] _Bishop Rede's Reg._ p. 137.
[557] _V.C.H. Norfolk_, II, p. 335.
[558] _Rot. Parl._ III, p. 129 and Dugdale, _Mon._ II, p. 485.
[559] _V.C.H. Dorset_, II, p. 77.
[560] _Visit. of Diocese of Norwich_ (Camden Soc.), p. 155.
[561] _V.C.H. Glouc._ II, p. 93.
[562] On other occasions, however, they were careful to take all their
due. _Vide_ the great Bishop Grandisson's letter to the abbess and convent
of Canonsleigh, announcing his forthcoming visitation and "mandantes quod
in illum eventum de procuracione ea occasione nobis debita providere
curetis in pecunia numerata." _Reg. of Bishop Grandisson_, ed.
Hingeston-Randolph, pt II, p. 767. At Davington in 1511 the Prioress
deposed that "the house has to pay 20_s._ to the Archbishop for board at
the time of his visitation." _E.H.R._ VI, p. 28.
[563] _Reg. Johannis de Pontissara_ (Cant. and York. Soc.), I, p. 299.
[564] _Reg. Rich. de Swinfield_ (Cantilupe Soc.), p. 366. Other cases of
excommunication are sometimes to be found in Bishops' Registers, e.g. in
1335 the Prioresses of Cokehill and Brewood were excommunicated for
failure to pay the tenth; one owed 9-1/2_d._ and the other 1_s._
8-1/4_d._--paltry sums for which to damn a poor nun's soul! _Reg. Thomas
de Charlton_ (Cantilupe Soc.), p. 57.
[565] _Reg. John le Romeyn_ (Surtees Soc.), I, p. 159.
[566] _Reg. Sede Vacante_ (Worc. Hist. Soc.), p. 62. Cf. remission of
tithes by Bishop Dalderby to Greenfield, because of its poverty. _V.C.H.
Lincs._ II, p. 155. Some Cistercian houses held papal bulls exempting them
from the payment of tithes, e.g. Sinningthwaite and Swine. Dugdale, _Mon._
V, pp. 463, 494.
[567] Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 288.
[568] For a few out of many instances of remission of payment on account
of poverty see Ivinghoe, Little Marlow, Burnham (_V.C.H. Bucks._ I, pp.
353, 358, 382); Cheshunt (_V.C.H. Herts._ IV, pp. 426-7); Stixwould,
Heynings, Greenfield, Fosse, St Leonard's Grimsby (_V.C.H. Lincs._ II, pp.
122, 147, 149, 155, 157, 179); Catesby (_V.C.H. Northants._ II, p. 122);
Ickleton, Swaffham, Chatteris, St Radegund's Cambridge (Dugdale, _Mon._
IV, p. 439); Malling (_Ib._ III, p. 382); St Mary Magdalen's Bristol
(_V.C.H. Glouc._ II, p. 93); Minchin Barrow (Hugo, _op. cit._ p. 108);
Blackborough (_V.C.H. Norfolk_, II, p. 351); Arden (_V.C.H. Yorks._ III,
p. 113); Nunkeeling and Nunappleton (_Reg. John le Romeyn_, I, pp. 140,
234); Wintney (_V.C.H. Hants._ II, p. 150).
[569] _Cal. of Papal Letters_, V, p. 347. Compare the case of the hospital
of St James of Canterbury which "grievoussement ad estez chargez pur
diverse contribucions faitz au Roy entre les laiz, ou les biens ... ne
sufficent mye ala sustinaunce de la Priouresse et les seoures." _Hist.
MSS. Comm. Report_, IX, p. 87.
[570] _Cal. of Pat. Rolls_, 1467-77, pp. 138, 587.
[571] Dugdale, _Mon._ II, p. 472. Cf. p. 328.
[572] _Ib._ p. 473. Cf. _Parl. Writs_ (Rec. Comm.), II, div. 3, 1424.
[573] _Cal. of Close Rolls_, 1339-41, pp. 215, 217.
[574] On this subject see Rose Graham, _St Gilbert of Sempringham and the
Gilbertines_, pp. 90-2.
[575] _Cal. of Close Rolls_, 1307-13, p. 50. Compare the entry in the
treasuresses' account of St Michael's, Stamford, for 1392-3. "Item done en
curtasy a le Balyf de Roy quant nostre carre fuist areste al seruice del
roy viijd." _P.R.O. Ministers' Accounts_, 1260/10.
[576] _Cal. of Close Rolls_, 1307-13, pp. 262-6, _passim_.
[577] For instance in 1275 the King granted the custody of Barking Abbey,
void and in his hands, to his mother, Queen Eleanor. _Cal. of Close
Rolls_, 1272-9, p. 210.
[578] _Reg. Sede Vacante_ (Worc. Rec. Soc.), pp. 112-3. Compare the
petition of St Mary's Chester to Queen Eleanor, p. 172 above.
[579] See above, p. 182.
[580] Dugdale, _Mon._ II, p. 485 and _Rot. Parl._ III, p. 129. The
petition was granted, but the nuns seem to have shown themselves unworthy
of the royal clemency, for, after the death of Abbess Joan Furmage in
1394, the King was forced to abrogate the grant, because by fraudulent
means an election had been obtained of an unfit person, who, with the
object of securing confirmation, had repaired with an excessive number of
men to places remote, to the waste and desolation of the convent. _Cal. of
Pat. Rolls_, 1391-6, p. 511.
[581] _Cal. of Papal Petitions_, I, pp. 56-7.
[582] _Cal. of Close Rolls_ (1313-8), p. 189 and _ib._ (1333-7), pp. 70-1;
cf. _ib._ (1307-13), p. 1 and _ib._ (1323-7), p. 252 and _ib._ (1349-54),
p. 29.
[583] _Cal. of Close Rolls_ (1339-41), p. 377.
[584] _Ib._ (1343-6), pp. 407-8. Cf. p. 418.
[585] _Ib._ (1343-6), p. 599. The profits during vacancy were similarly
remitted to Godstow in 1385 "because of its poverty and misfortunes"
(_V.C.H. Oxon._ II, p. 73).
[586] _Reg. Epist. Johannis Peckham_ (Rolls Ser.), I, pp. 40-1, 56-7,
189-90, 356-7, 366-7, 577.
[587] _Reg. of ... Rigaud de Asserio_ (Hants. Rec. Soc.), pp. 387, 388,
394-5. Compare nominations of John de Pontoise. _Reg. Johannis de
Pontissara_ (Cant. and York. Soc.), I, pp. 240, 241, 252 and of William of
Wykeham, _Wykeham's Reg._ (Hants. Rec. Soc.), II, pp. 60, 61.
[588] _Reg. of Ralph of Shrewsbury_ (Somerset Rec. Soc.), pp. 26, 39, 146.
[589] _Reg. ... Stephani de Gravesend_ (Cant. and York. Soc.), p. 200.
[590] Dugdale, _Mon._ II, p. 473 and _V.C.H. Dorset_, II, p. 75.
[591] Liveing, _op. cit._ pp. 97-8 and _Wykeham's Reg._ II, pp. 461-2.
[592] Liveing, _op. cit._ p. 98.
[593] _Cal. of Close Rolls_ (1307-8), pp. 48, 53, 134.
[594] _V.C.H. Essex_, II, p. 117.
[595] _V.C.H. Dorset_, II, pp. 76-7.
[596] _Cal. of Close Rolls_ (1318-23), p. 517. She was still unadmitted in
1327, when the order was repeated. _Ib._ (1327-30), p. 204.
[597] _Ib._ (1333-7), p. 175.
[598] _Ib._ (1343-6), p. 604.
[599] Liveing, _op. cit._ p. 99, and in the Register of Bishop Norbury of
Lichfield there is a certificate (dated 1358) of "having admitted, twenty
years ago, _thirty_ nuns at Nuneaton at the request of the patron, the E.
of Lancaster," Will Salt Arch. Soc. Coll. I, p. 286. Perhaps there is a
clerical error.
[600] _Reg. Epist. Johannis Peckham_ (Rolls Ser.), I, pp. 189-90.
[601] _Ib._ I, pp. 356-7. The reference to "distinguished friends and
benefactors" is interesting, because she was the daughter of Robert Bret,
"_civis London._"
[602] _Op. cit._ I, pp. 366-7. The assertion that the convent was required
to receive Isabel "without burden to themselves by the provision of the
parents of the said little maid" is interesting, partly because it
suggests that the royal and episcopal nominees were not always received at
a loss, partly because it looks suspiciously like a condonation of the
dowry system by an otherwise strict disciplinarian.
[603] Sharpe, _Cal. of Wills_, I, p. 111.
[604] _Op. cit._ I, pp. 56-7.
[605] _Ib._ II, p. 704.
[606] An Agnes Turberville was sent by the King to Shaftesbury in 1345.
_Cal. of Close Rolls_, 1343-6, p. 604.
[607] _Reg. of Bishop Grandisson_, ed. Hingeston-Randolph, I, pp. 213-4.
[608] _Op. cit._ I, pp. 222-3. Does the Bishop mean that he will help to
provide a dowry for Johanete out of his private purse, in another
religious house?
[609] See below, p. 452.
[610] _Cal. of Close Rolls_ (1313-8), p. 210. A few months later, however,
Richard de Ayreminn was sent on the same pretext (p. 312).
[611] _Op. cit._ (1333-7), p. 175.
[612] _Op. cit._ (1349-54), p. 82.
[613] _Op. cit._ (1339-41), p. 466.
[614] _Op. cit._ (1337-9), p. 286.
[615] _Op. cit._ (1343-6), p. 652.
[616] _Op. cit._ (1318-23), p. 517; (1343-6), p. 475.
[617] _Op. cit._ (1327-30), p. 366.
[618] _Op. cit._ (1313-8), p. 611; (1327-30), p. 564; (1341-3), p. 133.
[619] See below. For the prebendal stalls in the churches of five of these
abbeys (Romsey, Wherwell, St Mary's Winchester, Shaftesbury and Wilton),
see above, p. 144.
[620] _Reg. Johannis de Pontissara_ (Cant. and York. Soc.), I, pp. 243-4,
300-1, 315-6.
[621] _Reg. Simonis de Gandavo_ (Cant. and York. Soc.), pp. 2-3.
[622] _Hist. MSS. Comm. Report_, IV, p. 329.
[623] _Rot. Parl._ I, p. 381. John de Houton, clerk, had been sent to
Elstow in 1318 (_Cal. of Close Rolls_ (1318-23), p. 119).
[624] _Cal. of Close Rolls_ (1313-8), p. 611.
[625] _Op. cit._ (1307-13), pp. 581-2.
[626] _Cal. of Close Rolls_ (1313-8), p. 437. The avenere was an officer
of the household who had the charge of supplying provisions for the
horses. See _Promptorium Parvulorum_ (Camden Soc.), I, p. 19, n. 2.
[627] _Cal. of Close Rolls_ (1327-30), p. 393.
[628] _Ib._ p. 523.
[629] _Ib._ pp. 396, 534.
[630] _Rot. Parl._ II, pp. 381-2. Letters patent were duly sent to Barking
bidding them admit Agnes, on Nov. 6th, 1331. _Cal. of Patent Rolls_
(1330-3), p. 407.
[631] _V.C.H. Essex_, II, p. 117.
[632] _Cal. of Close Rolls_ (1307-13), p. 267.
[633] _Op. cit._ (1318-23), p. 117.
[634] _Op. cit._ (1307-13), p. 328. She was the niece of John de London,
late the King's escheator south of Trent.
[635] _Loc. cit._
[636] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 129.
[637] _Ib._ p. 237.
[638] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 83. The Taxation of Pope Nicholas mentions
a pension due to the Abbot of York of £3 for the church of Corby, which
was appropriated to the nuns, and for other tithes elsewhere. The sum of
£3 is occasionally mentioned in the account rolls of St Michael's,
Stamford, as having been paid to "our Lady of York," or as being still
due.
[639] Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, pp. 256 ff. Payments to the abbot and to other
officiaries of Peterborough also occur very frequently in the conventual
accounts.
[640] See above, p. 180. Compare the case of St Mary's, Winchester, where
the nuns complained in 1468 that they were so burdened, that they could
not fulfil the obligations of their order as to hospitality. _V.C.H.
Hants._ II, pp. 123-4. The difficulty of keeping up the accustomed
hospitality was one of the reasons for annexing Wothorpe to St Michael's,
Stamford, after the Black Death. Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 268.
[641] _Cal. of Papal Letters_, V, p. 347. Compare Gynewell's injunction in
1351: "E vous, Prioresse, chastiez les soers qils ne acuillent mie trop
souent lour amys en la Priorie, a costage e damage de dit mesoun." _Linc.
Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell_, f. 34_d_.
[642] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 117, 171, 172, 239. On the subject of abuse
of monastic hospitality, see Jusserand, _English Wayfaring Life_, p. 121.
Edward I forbade anyone to eat or lodge in a religious house, unless the
superior had invited him or that he were its founder, and even then his
consumption was to be moderate.
[643] Pope Boniface VIII's edict for the stricter enclosure of nuns
contained a clause warning secular lords against summoning nuns to attend
in person at the law courts; they were to act through their proctors (see
version promulgated by Simon of Ghent, Bishop of Salisbury in 1299. _Reg.
Simonis de Gandavo_ [Cant. and York Soc.], p. 11). The heads of the larger
houses often did act through proctors, but less wealthy convents usually
sent the head or one of the other nuns in person. See Eckenstein, _Woman
under Monasticism_, pp. 362-3.
[644] Dugdale, _Mon._ III, p. 360.
[645] _V.C.H. Oxon._ II, p. 104. Compare a long lawsuit waged by Carrow
Priory. Rye, _Carrow Abbey_, App. p. xxi.
[646] _P.R.O. Mins. Accts._ 1260/4. Compare the amusing account of how the
Prior of Barnwell secured a favourable judgment from the itinerant
justices. "Ipsis eciam justiciariis dedit herbagium alicui tres acras et
alicui quatuor, et exennia panis, ceruisie et vini frequenter, in tantum
quod in recessu suo omnes tam justiciarii quam clerici, seruientes et
precones, gracias uberes referebant, et ipsi Priori (et) canonicis se et
sua obligabant." _Liber Memorandorum Ecclesie de Bernewelle_, ed. J.
Willis Clark (1907), p. 171.
[647] _V.C.H. Hants._ II, p. 150.
[648] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 164. The "misrule of past presidents" is
mentioned as a contributory cause of distress at Lilleshall (1351), St
Mary's Winchester (1364) and Tarrant (1366). _Cal. Pat. Rolls_, 1351, p.
177; 1364, p. 485; 1366, p. 239.
[649] _E.H.R._ VI, p. 28.
[650] Wharton, _Anglia Sacra_, I, p. 362.
[651] _Ib._ I, p. 364.
[652] _Ib._ I, p. 377.
[653] Gasquet, however, mistakenly attributes its state entirely to the
plague. _The Great Pestilence_, p. 106.
[654] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. ff. 39_d_, 83, 96.
[655] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 185.
[656] _Ib._ II, p. 114.
[657] _Ib._ II, p. 133.
[658] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 72.
[659] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 130, 131.
[660] _Ib._ II, p. 175.
[661] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 159.
[662] _Ib._ p. 174.
[663] _Ib._ p. 164.
[664] _Sussex Archaeol. Coll._ IX, p. 7.
[665] Dugdale, _Mon._ III, p. 353.
[666] It must be understood that the judicious sale of corrodies was not
necessarily harmful to a house. Sometimes it might lead to the acquisition
of land or rents at comparatively little expense to the convent, as a
glance at some of the charters in the English Register of Godstow Abbey
will show. See _Eng. Reg. of Godstow Abbey_ (E.E.T.S.), pp. xxvii-xxviii.
The convent probably drove a good bargain when in 1230 the harassed
Stephen, son of Waryn the miller of Oxford, conveyed all his Oxford
property to Godstow "and for this graunte, & cetera, the forsaid mynchons
yaf to them to ther grete nede, that is to sey, to aquyte hym of the jewry
and otherwise where he was endited, X markes of siluer in warison. And
furthermore they graunted to hym and to hys wyf molde, with ther seruant
to serve them while they lived, two corrodies of ij mynchons and a
corrodye of one seruant to their systeynynge" (_op. cit._ p. 392). Nor was
there much harm in grants for a term of years, such as the grant of board
and lodging made by the convent of Nunappleton in 1301 to Richard de
Fauconberg, in return for certain lands bringing in an annual rent of two
marks of silver, both the corrody and the tenure of these lands being for
a term of twelve years. Dugdale, _Mon._ V, p. 653. Sometimes, again,
corrodies were granted in return for specified services; in 1270 Richard
Grene of Cassington surrendered 5-1/2 acres of arable and 2 roods of
meadow land to Godstow in return for "the seruyce under the porter for
ever at the yate of Godestowe and j half mark in the name of his wagis
yerely." _Eng. Reg. of Godstow_, p. 305. At Yedingham in 1352 an
interesting grant of a _corrodium moniale_ was made to one Emma Hart, who,
in return for a sum of money, was given the position of deye or dairy
woman; she was to have the same food-allowance as a nun and a share in all
their small pittances, and a building called "le chesehouse" with a solar
and cellar to inhabit and was allowed to keep ten sheep and ten ewes at
the convent's charge. In return she was to do the dairy-work and when too
old to work any longer the convent engaged to grant her a place in "le
sisterhouse." _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 128. Sometimes also corrodies were
granted by way of pensioning off old servants, as when, in 1529, the nuns
of Arden granted one to their chaplain "for the gud and diligent seruice
yt oure wellbeloued sir Thomas parkynson, preste, hav done to vs in tyme
paste." _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 115. To corrodies such as these there was
little objection (though the last might lead to financial loss). The
danger came from life-grants in return for an inadequate sum of ready
money.
[667] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 115.
[668] She received 68_s._ 4_d._ in part payment for the commutation of the
corrody.
[669] Jessopp, _Frivola_, pp. 55-6.
[670] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 175.
[671] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 71_d_.
[672] _Visit. of the Diocese of Norwich_ (Camden Soc.), pp. 243, 303-4.
There is in the Record Office a petition to the Chancellor from Richard
Englyssh and Marjorie his wife, setting out that the Bishop of Rochester
had granted Marjorie for life a corrody in Malling Abbey of seven loaves
and four gallons of convent ale and three pence for cooked food weekly,
which corrody she and her husband had held for some time, but that now the
abbess and convent withheld it. Evidently it was a burden to the house,
but it is not clear whether the bishop had forced a corrodian on the nuns,
or had merely confirmed a grant by them. _P.R.O. Early Chanc. Proc._
4/196.
[673] _Archaeologia_, XLVII, p. 58.
[674] Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 554. He had once before ordered the holders
of corrodies there to display their grants, that it might be known whether
they had fulfilled the services due from them. _V.C.H. London_, I, p. 459.
[675] The appropriation was confirmed by the Pope in 1401. _Cal. of Papal
Letters_, V, p. 347. In 1440 Bishop Alnwick made an injunction at Heynings
against the granting of corrodies. _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 135.
[676] See below, pp. 225-6.
[677] _Sussex Archaeol. Coll._ IX, p. 25.
[678] Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 516.
[679] See below, pp. 225-6.
[680] Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 194.
[681] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 175.
[682] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 6.
[683] Liveing, _op. cit._ p. 146; _Cal. of Papal Petitions_, I, p. 122. At
Studley in 1530 it was found that the woods of the priory had been much
diminished by the late prioress and by "Thomas Cardinal of York for the
construction of his college in the university of Oxford." _V.C.H. Oxon._
II, p. 78.
[684] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 120.
[685] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 147.
[686] _Archaeologia_, XLVII, pp. 58-9.
[687] _V.C.H. Durham_, II, p. 107.
[688] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 177.
[689] _Test. Ebor._ I, pp. 283-4.
[690] Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 506, note _b_.
[691] _Sussex Arch. Coll._ IX, p. 19.
[692] _V.C.H. Oxon._ II, p. 76.
[693] See above, p. 153.
[694] See Ch. IV.
[695] Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 71.
[696] _Reg. of Archbishop William Wickwane_ (Surtees Soc.), p. 113.
[697] Liveing, _Records of Romsey Abbey_, p. 98. Similarly Bishop Edyndon
wrote in 1346 and again in 1363 to St Mary's Winchester, Wherwell and
Romsey, forbidding them to take a greater number of nuns than was
anciently accustomed or than could be sustained by them without penury.
_Ib._ p. 165.
[698] _V.C.H. Dorset_, II, p. 77. Nevertheless at Romsey and at
Shaftesbury the King and the Bishop himself continued to "dump" nuns, in
accordance with their prerogative right, throughout the career of both
houses. In the six years following this prohibition of 1326 Bishop
Stratford not only gave permission for a novice to be received at the
nuns' own request, but deposited no less than three there himself. The
words and the actions of bishops sometimes tallied ill.
[699] See _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 113, 117, 119, 120, 124, 161, 163,
171-2, 188; _Reg. of Archbishop Giffard_ (Surtees Soc.), p. 148; _Reg. of
Archbishop Wickwane_ (Surtees Soc.), pp. 112, 113, 140-1.
[700] _Reg. Giffard_, _loc. cit._
[701] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 117.
[702] _Ib._ III, p. 163. The house was heavily in debt at the time and
though the Bishop had forbidden the granting of corrodies and liveries
without leave, the Prioress was also charged with having "sold or granted
corrodies very burdensome to the house."
[703] Heynings, Ankerwyke, Legbourne, Nuncoton, St Michael's Stamford,
Gracedieu, Langley.
[704] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 134.
[705] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. ff. 71_d_, 77_d_.
[706] It would be interesting to collect statistics as to the relative
size of different nunneries at different periods. It is here possible to
give only a few examples of the decline in the number of inmates. The
numbers at Nuneaton varied as follows: 93 (1234), 80 (1328), 46 (1370), 40
(1459), 23 (1539). (_V.C.H. Warwick._ II, pp. 66-9.) At Romsey (where the
statutory number was supposed to be 100) as follows: 91 (1333) and 26
(from 1478 to the Dissolution). (Liveing, _Records of Romsey Abbey_,
_passim_.) At Shaftesbury as follows: forbidden to receive more than 100
in 1218 and in 1322; number fixed at 120 in 1326; between 50-57 (from 1441
to the Dissolution). _V.C.H. Dorset_, II, p. 77.
[707] _New Coll._ MS. f. 55_d_.
[708] _Linc. Visit._ I, p. 53.
[709] _Archaeologia_, XLVII, p. 55.
[710] _E.H.R._ VI, pp. 33-4. From the fact that the Prioress was ordered
to make up the number again to fourteen, as soon as she conveniently
could, it appears that the ten nuns who gave evidence before the
Archbishop represented the full strength of the house.
[711] A few out of many specific instances may be given: Wroxall 1323
(_V.C.H. Warwick._ II, p. 71); Polesworth 1456 (_ib._ p. 63); Fairwell
1367 (_Reg. of Bishop Stretton_, p. 119); Romsey 1302 (_Reg. Johannis de
Pontissara_ Cant. and York. Soc. p. 127); Moxby 1318 (_V.C.H. Yorks._ III,
p. 239); Nuncoton 1531 (_Arch._ XLVII, p. 58); Sinningthwaite 1534
(_Yorks. Arch. Journ._ XVI, p. 441).
[712] See above, pp. 64-5.
[713] _Linc. Visit._ I, p. 50.
[714] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 188.
[715] _Ib._ III, p. 177.
[716] E.g. Clemence Medforde at Ankerwyke in 1441 and Eleanor of Arden in
1396. See above, pp. 81, 85.
[717] Liveing, _op. cit._ pp. 100-101.
[718] _New Coll._ MS. f. 88_d_.
[719] See above, p. 204.
[720] _Reg. of Bishop Stapeldon_, ed. Hingeston-Randolph, p. 318.
[721] Liveing, _Records of Romsey Abbey_, pp. 99-100.
[722] _Ib._ pp. 102-3.
[723] _New Coll._ MS. f. 87. In 1492, at the visitation by Archbishop
Morton's commissioners, a nun prays that injunctions be made to the
sisters and abbess that they choose no one as auditor without consulting
the Archbishop of Canterbury. Liveing, _op. cit._ pp. 218-9.
[724] For other mentions of the rendering of accounts by bailiffs,
officiaries, etc. see Arden 1306 and Arthington 1315 (_V.C.H. Yorks._ III,
pp. 113, 188), Fairwell 1367 (_Reg. of Robert de Stretton_, p. 119),
Elstow 1422 (_Linc. Visit._ I, p. 50).
[725] Writing to Sinningthwaite in 1534. _Yorks. Archaeol. Journ._ XVI,
pp. 442-3.
[726] _Visit. of the Dioc. of Norwich_ (Camden Soc.), p. 108.
[727] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 119.
[728] Sometimes specific mention is made of this duty, e.g. in 1318 Thomas
de Mydelsburg, rector of Loftus, was ordered to administer the temporal
goods of the Cistercian house of Handale, to receive the accounts of the
servants and to substitute more capable ones for those who were useless.
_Ib._ III, p. 166. Cf. the commission to the rector of Aberford to be
custos of Kirklees about the same time. _Yorks. Archaeol. Journ._ XVI, p.
362.
[729] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 171.
[730] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 52-3.
[731] In 1442, for instance, the Prioress of Rusper was ordered to render
accounts yearly before the Bishop of Chichester and the nuns of the house
(_Sussex Arch. Coll._ V, p. 255), and at Sheppey in 1511, two nuns having
complained that the Prioress did not account, she was ordered to render
accounts, with an inventory to the convent and to Archbishop Warham
(_E.H.R._ VI, p. 34).
[732] _Alnwick Visit._ MS. f. 83.
[733] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 184.
[734] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 1.
[735] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 174.
[736] An inventory of the goods of Easebourne Priory, drawn up for the
Bishop of Chichester on May 27th, 1450, has survived. It is very complete
and comprises all departments of the house, together with a list of land,
chapels and appropriated churches and a note that the house can expend in
all £22. 3_s._ on repairs and other expenses and that the debts "for
repairs and other necessary expenses this year" amount to £66. 6_s._ 8_d._
_Sussex Arch. Coll._ IX, pp. 10-13. It may be of interest to quote the
briefer inventory of the poor house of Ankerwyke, as presented to Bishop
Atwater at his visitation in 1519 and copied by his clerk into the
register. There were at the time five nuns in the house and one in
apostasy. "Redditus ibidem extendunt prima facie ad xxxiij li. x s. Inde
resoluunt pro libris (_sic_) redditibus v li. x s. Et sic habent clare ad
reparacionem & alia onera sustinenda ultra xl marcas. _Jocalia in
Ecclesia_: Habent ibidem vestimenta sacerdotalia ad minus serica xiij.
Habent eciam vnicam capam de serica & auro. j calicem de argento deaurato.
j par Turribulorum. j pixidem de argento pro sacramento. ij libros
missales impressos. j magnum par candelabrorum ante summum altare. j
paruum par candelabrorum super summum altare. ij urciolos argenteos. j
paxbread de argento, una parua campana argentea. _Catalla_: Habent vaccas
duas, ij equas, boues senes iij, unus bouiculus (_sic_), j vaccam anne
(_sic_) (_blank_), iij equas pro aratro. _Vtensilia_ vj plumalia, x paria
linthiaminum, iiij superpellectilia, iiij paria de le blanketts, ij le
white Testers. Habent Redditus Annuales preter terras ipsarum dominicalium
(_sic_) in earundem manibus occupatas xlvj li. xj s. x d." _Linc. Epis.
Reg. Visit. Atwater_, f. 42. A fair number of inventories of convent
property made for this or for other purposes is extant; notably those
drawn up, for purposes of spoliation instead of preservation, at the
Dissolution. See _Bibliography_.
[737] _Reg. of Walter Giffard_ (Surtees Soc.), p. 147.
[738] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 120.
[739] _V.C.H. Warwick_, II, p. 71.
[740] See below, p. 226.
[741] _Reg. Epis. Johannis Peckham_ (Rolls Ser.), III, pp. 805-6.
[742] See below, pp. 337-8.
[743] See _Reg. Epis. Johannis Peckham_ (Rolls. Ser.), II, pp. 654-5, 659,
708.
[744] _V.C.H. Yorks._ II, pp. 187-8.
[745] _Reg. of Bishop Stapeldon_, ed. Hingeston-Randolph, p. 96.
[746] _Reg. of Ralph of Shrewsbury_ (Somerset Rec. Soc.), pp. 240-1, 684.
[747] At Ankerwyke, Catesby, Gracedieu and St Michael's Stamford. _Linc.
Visit._ II, pp. 6, 9, 52, 125; _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 39_d_.
[748] To this reception of boarders was sometimes added, but with a
different purpose, viz. to protect the nuns from contact with the world.
[749] At Moxby in 1318 no fresh debts, especially large ones, were to be
incurred without the convent's consent and the Archbishop's special
licence. _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 239. At Nuncoton in 1440 "ne that ye
aleyne or selle any bondman" was added to the usual prohibition.
_Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 77_d_.
[750] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 131. A few other instances of these
injunctions may be given: Arden (1306), Marrick (1252), Nunburnholme
(1318), Nunkeeling (1314), Thicket (1309), Yedingham (1314), Esholt
(1318), Hampole (1308, 1312), Nunappleton (1489), Rosedale (1315),
Sinningthwaite (1315), Arthington (1318), Moxby (1314, 1318, 1328),
_V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 113, 117, 119, 124, 128, 161, 163, 172, 174, 177,
188, 239-40; Sinningthwaite (1534), _Yorks. Arch. Journ._ XVI, p. 441;
Arthington (1286), _Reg. John le Romeyn_ (Surtees Soc. I, p. 55);
Ankerwyke, Godstow, Gracedieu, Heynings, Langley, Legbourne, Markyate,
Nuncoton, Stixwould, St Michael's Stamford (all 1440-5), _Linc. Visit._
II, pp. 8, 115, 124, 134, 186 and _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. ff. 6_d_, 77_d_,
81_d_, 75_d_; Elstow (1359), _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell_, f. 139_d_;
Elstow (1421), Burnham (1434), _Linc. Visit._ I, pp. 24, 49; Studley,
Nuncoton (1531), _Arch._ XLVII, pp. 54, 58; Polsloe and Canonsleigh
(1319), _Reg. Stapeldon of Exeter_, p. 317; Romsey (1302), _Reg. J. de
Pontissara_, p. 127.
[751] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Bokyngham_, f. 343.
[752] _Lambeth Reg. Courtenay I_, f. 336.
[753] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 49-50.
[754] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Bokyngham_, ff. 397-397_d_. These
injunctions are scattered among the others, but have been placed together
here for the sake of reference.
[755] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Bokyngham_, f. 343. Compare Flemyng's
injunctions in 1422. _Linc. Visit._ I, p. 49.
[756] _Linc. Visit._ I, p. 151.
[757] _V.C.H. Lincs._ II, pp. 148, 150, 154 (note 1).
[758] _V.C.H. Northants._ II, p. 121.
[759] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 178-9, and _Reg. of Archbishop Giffard_
(Surtees Soc.), pp. 147-8. The canons at these houses must be
distinguished from the canons who held prebendal stalls in the Abbeys of
Romsey, St Mary's, Winchester, Wherwell, Wilton and Shaftesbury; these
were often bad pluralists and could have been of little use to the abbeys,
as chaplains or as _custodes_. See _V.C.H. Hants._ II, pp. 122-3 and p.
144 above, note 1.
[760] _Loc. cit._ Compare the complaint of the nuns of Brodholme in
1321-2. "A nostre Seyngnur le Roy e a son Counsaill monstrent le Prioresse
el Covente de Brodholme, qe lour Gardayns de la dit meson par lour defaute
sount lour Rentes abatez, e lour meson a poy ennente e le dit Gardayns ne
vollent nulle entent mettre ne despender pur les ayder kaunt eles sount
empleydie, mes come eles meymes defendent a graunt meschef. Pur qoi eles
prient pur l'amour de Dieu, trescher Seygnour, pur l'alme vostre Pier, e
ouir de charite, qe Vous vollez graunter vostre Charter qe l'avantdit
Prioresse el covent pouissent avoir lour rentes e lour enproumens, de
ordiner a lour voluntes, e al profist de la dit meson, si pleiser Vous
soit, Kare autrement ne poivent eles viver." The reply was "Injusta est
peticio, ideo non potest fieri." _Rot. Parl._ I, pp. 393-4. Brodholme was
one of the only two convents of Premonstratensian nuns in England; the
guardians were probably the canons of the Premonstratensian Abbey of
Newhouse; for an ordinance (1354, confirmed 1409) regulating the relations
between the two houses, see _Cal. of Papal Letters_, VI, pp. 159-60.
[761] _V.C.H. Lincs._ II, p. 148 (from Pat. 2 Edw. II, pt ii, m. 22_d_.).
[762] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Dalderby_, f. 330. Roger de Dauentry, canon
of Catesby, had been made master in 1297. _Reg. Memo. Sutton._ f. 175.
[763] _Reg. Epis. Johannis Peckham_, III, pp. 850-1.
[764] _V.C.H. Northants._ II, p. 98.
[765] _V.C.H. Derby._ II, p. 43.
[766] _Loc. cit._ see also _Linc. Epis. Reg. Institution Roll_
(_Northampton_) of Sutton for the presentation of William de Stok, monk of
Peterborough as Prior of St Michael's Stamford, by the Abbot, and the
Bishop's ratification.
[767] Walsingham, _Gesta Abbatum_ (Rolls Ser.), II, p. 519, and _V.C.H.
Herts._ IV, p. 429. On their misdeeds see Archbishop Morton's famous
letter in 1490. Wilkins, _Concilia_, III, p. 632.
[768] See _Cal. of Papal Letters_, VI, pp. 159-160.
[769] Mention of _custodes_ occurs at the following houses, in addition to
those mentioned in the text: Studley (1290), Goring (1309), _V.C.H. Oxon._
II, pp. 78, 104; Markyate (1323), Harrold (late thirteenth century),
_V.C.H. Beds._ I, pp. 359, 388; Flamstead (1337), Rowney (1302, 1328),
_V.C.H. Herts._ IV, pp. 432, 434; Arden (1302, 1324), Marrick (1252),
Nunburnholme (1314), Yedingham (1280), Basedale (1304), Hampole (1268,
1280, 1308), Handale (1318), Nunappleton (1306), Swine (1267, 1291, 1298),
_V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 113, 117, 119, 127, 159, 163, 166, 171, 180; all
in Lincoln or York. For mention of _custodes_ in other dioceses, see
Cookhill (1285), _Reg. of Godfrey Giffard_ (Worc. Hist. Soc.), II, p. 267;
St Sepulchre's Canterbury, Davington, Usk, Whitehall (Ilchester), Minchin
Barrow, Easebourne, St Bartholomew's Newcastle, King's Mead, Derby, below,
pp. 231-5 _passim_. The frequency with which _custodes_ occur in houses in
the diocese of Lincoln and York and their rarity in other dioceses would
seem to support the theory of Gilbertine influence. Of the cases quoted
from other dioceses all are either _custodes_ appointed as a deliberate
policy by Archbishop Peckham, or _custodes_ appointed to meet some special
moral or financial crisis, not regular officials. King's Mead, Derby,
seems to be the only nunnery outside the two dioceses of York and Lincoln
(with the exception of those in direct dependence on a house of monks)
which started its career under the joint government of a _custos_ and a
Prioress. _V.C.H. Derby_, II, p. 43.
[770] _Reg. of John le Romeyn_ (Surtees Soc.), I, pp. xii, xiii, 86, 125,
157, 180.
[771] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Dalderby_, ff. 23_d_, 37, 44, 60_d_, 79_d_,
118_d_, 328_d_, 366, 373, 378, 382, 388. (These comprise two appointments
to Rowney, Godstow and Nuncoton; the dates are between 1301 and 1318.)
[772] _Reg. of John le Romeyn_, I, pp. 203-4, 209, 211, 217.
[773] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Sutton_, ff. 82_d_-83.
[774] _V.C.H. Lincs._ II, p. 179. But in 1318 Dalderby appointed the vicar
of Little Coates, _loc. cit._ f. 373. Originally St Leonard's Grimsby, had
been placed under the protection of the canons of Wellow.
[775] _Reg. of Archbishop Giffard_ (Surtees Soc.), p. 54.
[776] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 113.
[777] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Sutton_, ff. 25, 92_d_.
[778] Sometimes the chaplain of the house must have acted as an unofficial
_custos_ and sometimes he held the position by special mandate, e.g. in
1285 Bishop Giffard ordered the nuns of Cookhill that "for the better
conduct of temporal business and for the increase of divine praise,"
Thomas their chaplain was to have full charge of their temporal affairs.
_Reg. of Godfrey Giffard_ (Worc. Hist. Soc.), II, p. 267.
[779] _Reg. Epis. Johannis Peckham_ (Rolls Ser.), I, pp. 72-3; II, pp.
708-9, III, p. 806.
[780] _V.C.H. Northants._ II, p. 99.
[781] _V.C.H. Somerset_, II, p. 157. Text in Hugo, _Medieval Nunneries of
the County of Somerset: Whitehall in Ilchester_, App. VII, pp. 78-9.
[782] _Reg. of Ralph of Shrewsbury_ (Somerset Rec. Soc.), p. 177.
[783] Hugo, _op. cit._ _Minchin Barrow Priory_, App. II, pp. 81-3. With
these cases compare the appointment of _custodes_ to the worldly Prioress
of Easebourne in 1441. See above, p. 77.
[784] Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 413.
[785] _Ib._ IV, p. 485.
[786] _V.C.H. Oxon._ II, p. 73.
[787] _V.C.H. Derby_, II, pp. 43-4 (from _Ancient Petitions_, No. 11730);
cf. _Cal. Pat. Rolls_, 1327-30, p. 139. See above, p. 180.
[788] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 7.
[789] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 39_d_.
[790] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 117.
[791] See e.g. _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 113, 117, 119.
[792] _Yorks. Arch. Journal_, XVI, p. 362.
[793] It will be noticed that all the references to _custodes_ given on p.
230, note 8, belong to the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries;
appointments at a later date are generally made to meet some regular
crisis. There are no references to the Prior of St Michael's Stamford in
the later account rolls of that house, though one or two rolls belonging
to the beginning of the century mention him. One of the few references to
the regular appointment of a master in a Cistercian house after the first
quarter of the fourteenth century is at Legbourne, where "later Lincoln
regulations record the appointment of several masters from 1294-1343 and
in 1366 the same official is apparently called an _yconomus_ of Legbourne"
(_V.C.H. Lincs._ II, p. 154, note 1). The will of Adam, vicar of
Hallington, "custos sive magister domus monialium de Legbourne," dated
1345, has been preserved. Gibbons, _Early Lincoln Wills_, p. 17. The
_yconomus_ of Gokewell in 1440 is a very late instance. (Compare
Bokyngham's advice to the Abbess of Elstow in 1387, above, p. 228.) Much
the same function as that of the _custos_, was, however, probably
performed by the steward (_senescallus_), an official often mentioned
during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
[794] See account in L. Eckenstein, _Woman under Monasticism_, ch. IV.
[795] L. Eckenstein, _Woman under Monasticism_, ch. IV, pp. 160 ff.
[796] _Ib._ pp. 238 ff.
[797] _Ib._ pp. 256 ff.
[798] _Ib._ pp. 328 ff.
[799] _Ib._ pp. 416, 419, 428, 458 ff.
[800] See _Romania_ XIII (1884), pp. 400-3.
"Je ke la vie ai translatee
Par nun sui Climence numee,
De Berekinge sui nunain;
Par s'amur pris ceste oevre en main."
[801] Devon, _Issues of the Exchequer_, p. 144.
[802] There does exist a catalogue of Syon library, but unluckily it is
that of the brothers' library and the catalogue of the sisters' library is
missing; it was probably a good one since we have notice of several books
written for them. See M. Bateson, _Cat. of the Lib. of Syon Mon._ (1898).
Only three continental library catalogues survive, of which two are
printed and accessible; one is of the library of the Dominican nuns of
Nuremberg, made between 1456-69 and containing 350 books, the other
belonged to the Franciscan tertiaries of Delft in the second half of the
fifteenth century and contained 109 books; the third comes from the
women's cloister at Wonnenstein in 1498. See M. Deanesly, _The Lollard
Bible_, pp. 110-5.
[803] _Sussex Arch. Coll._ IX, p. 12.
[804] Mackenzie, Walcott, _Inventories of ... the Ben. Priory ... of
Shepey for Nuns_, pp. 21, 23, 28.
[805] Dugdale, _Mon._ III, p. 424.
[806] At a visitation of St Mary's Winchester by Dr Hede in 1501, "Elia
Pitte, librarian, was also well satisfied with that which was in her
charge." _V.C.H. Hants._ II, p. 124.
[807] _Test. Ebor._ I, p. 179.
[808] Sharpe, _Cal. of Wills_, II, p. 327.
[809] _Test. Ebor._ II, p. 13.
[810] _Ib._ III, p. 262.
[811] _Ib._ III, p. 199. See an interesting list of books left by Peter,
vicar of Swine, to Swine Priory some time after 1380. _King's Descrip.
Cat. MS._ 18.
[812] _Reg. Stafford of Exeter_, p. 419.
[813] _Test. Ebor._ II, p. 66.
[814] For Barking books (including a book of English religious treatises)
see M. Deanesly, _The Lollard Bible_, pp. 337-9. Besides the books
mentioned in the text there are fine psalters written for nuns at St
Mary's Winchester, Amesbury and Wilton in the libraries of Trinity
College, Cambridge, All Souls College, Oxford, and the Royal College of
Physicians respectively. There is an interesting book in the Fitzwilliam
Museum, Cambridge (_McClean MS._ 123), which belonged to Nuneaton; it
contains (1) the metrical Bestiary of William the Norman, (2) the
_Chasteau d'Amours_ of Robert Grosseteste, (3) exposition of the
Paternoster, (4) the Gospel of Nicodemus, (5) Apocalypse with pictures,
(6) _Poema Morale_, etc.
[815] Wright and Halliwell, _Reliquiae Antiquae_, II, p. 117.
[816] Capgrave, _Life of St Katharine of Alexandria_, ed. Horstmann
(E.E.T.S. 1893), Introd. p. xxix.
[817] _St John's Coll. MS._ 68. Other psalters from the aristocratic house
of Wherwell are _MS. add._ 27866 at the British Museum and _MS. McClean_
45 at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
[818] _MS._ 136 (T. 6. 18). See J. Young and P. Henderson Aitkin, _Cat. of
MSS. in the Lib. of the Hunterian Museum in the Univ. of Glasgow_ (1908),
p. 124. In the introduction the book is conjectured to have belonged to
the Carthusian monastery at Sheen, where it obviously was written; but the
reference to "sorores et ffratres" and the name of Elizabeth Gibbs (see
Blunt, _Myroure of Oure Ladye_ (E.E.T.S.), p. xxiii), show clearly that it
belonged to Syon.
[819] So John of Pontoise sends Juliana de Spina to Romsey on the occasion
of his consecration (1282), with the recommendation "Ejusdem Juliane
competenter ad hujusmodi officii debitum litterate laudabile propositum
speciali gracia prosequentes, etc." _Reg. J. de Pontissara_ (Cant. and
York Soc.), I, p. 240. Cp. _ib._ p. 252.
[820] _Collectanea Anglo-Praemonstratensia_, II, p. 267.
[821] _Linc. Visit._ I, p. 53.
[822] _Gesta Abbatum_ (Rolls Ser. 1867), II, pp. 410-2. But professions
were often written by others, and the postulant only put his or her cross.
So also with the vote.
[823] _Ib._ II, p. 213. This was a not uncommon method of voting. It is
clear, too, from prohibitions of letter-writing in various injunctions
that nuns could sometimes write.
[824] _Sussex Archaeol. Coll._ V, p. 256. Compare the editor's note on the
education of Christina von Stommeln: "Simul cum psalterio videtur tantum
didicisse linguae latinae, quantum satis erat non solum illi legendo, sed
etiam epistolis ad se Latine scriptis pro parte intelligendis, ac vicissim
dictandis: nam scribendi ignoram fuisse habeo." _Acta SS. Junii_, t. IV,
p. 279.
[825] Jusserand, _A Literary History of the English People_, I, pp.
239-40.
[826] Jusserand, _op. cit._ I, p. 236.
[827] It is interesting to find the Master-General of the Dominicans in
1431 giving Jane Fisher, a nun of Dartford, leave to have a _master_ to
instruct her in grammar and the Latin tongue. Jarrett, _The English
Dominicans_, p. 11.
[828] _Reg. Walter Giffard_ (Surtees Soc.), pp. 147-8.
[829] _Reg. John le Romeyn_, etc. (Surtees Soc.), II, pp. 222-4.
[830] _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_ (Rolls Ser.), III, pp. 845-52.
[831] _Reg. Thome de Cantilupo_ (Cant. and York Soc. and Cantilupe Soc.),
p. 202.
[832] _Reg. R. de Norbury_ (Wm. Salt Archaeol. Soc. Coll. I), p. 257.
[833] _Reg. R. de Stretton_ (_ib._ New Series, VIII), p. 119.
[834] _Reg. W. de Stapeldon_, p. 316. See below, p. 286. In the same year
Archbishop Melton writes to the nuns of Sinningthwaite that in all
writings under the common seal a faithful clerk is to be employed and the
deed is to be sealed in the presence of the whole convent, the clerk
reading the deed plainly in the mother tongue and explaining it. _V.C.H.
Yorks._ III, p. 177.
[835] Liveing, _Records of Romsey Abbey_, p. 105.
[836] _New Coll._ MS. f. 84.
[837] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell_, ff. 34. 139_d_, 100_d_.
[838] _Ib._ _Reg. Memo. Bokyngham_, ff. 343 (Elstow), 397 (Heynings).
[839] _V.C.H. Suffolk_, II, p. 83.
[840] _Linc. Visit._ I, p. 52.
[841] _Ib._ I, p. 45. At Kyme and Wellow, houses of canons, however, the
injunctions are also to be expounded in the mother tongue.
[842] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 1.
[843] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 6.
[844] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 91; _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. ff. 83, 38.
[845] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 117.
[846] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 174.
[847] Archbishop Lee's visitations of the York diocese on the eve of the
Dissolution (1534-5) are typical. The injunctions sent to the nunneries of
Sinningthwaite, Nunappleton and Esholt (_Yorks. Archaeol. Journ._ XVI, pp.
440, 443, 451) are in English, but those sent to the houses of monks and
canons are all in Latin.
[848] Sir David Lyndesay's _Poems_, ed. Small, Hall and Murray (E.E.T.S.
2nd ed. 1883), p. 21.
[849] _Three Middle Eng. Versions of the Rule of St Benet_ (E.E.T.S.
1902), p. 48.
On the other hand the Caxton abstract at the end of the century is
translated "for men and wymmen, of the habyte therof, the whiche
vnderstande lytyll laten or none." _Ib._ p. 119.
[850] The preface is quoted in _The Register of Richard Fox while Bishop
of Bath and Wells, with a Life of Bishop Fox_, ed. E. C. Batten (1889),
pp. 102-4.
[851] _Eng. Reg. of Godstow Nunnery_ (E.E.T.S.), pp. 25-6.
[852] _The Myroure of Oure Ladye_ (E.E.T.S.), pp. 2-3.
[853] _Ib._ pp. 63 ff.
[854] _Ib._ pp. xliv-xlvi; Eckenstein, _op. cit._ p. 395. Wynkyn de
Worde's edition was reprinted for the Henry Bradshaw Society in 1893.
[855] Deanesly, _The Lollard Bible_, pp. 320, 336-7. It may be noted as of
some interest that when in 1528 a wealthy London merchant was imprisoned
for distributing Tyndale's books and for similar practices, he pleaded
that the abbess of Denney, Elizabeth Throgmorton, had wished to borrow
Tyndale's _Enchiridion_ and that he had lent it to her. Dugdale, _Mon._
VI, p. 1549.
[856] _Sussex Arch. Coll._ IX, p. 7.
[857] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 49. At Bondeville in 1251 Archbishop Eudes
Rigaud has to forbid the nuns to sell their thread and their spindles to
raise money, "quod moniales non vendant nec distrahant filum _et lor
fusees_," _Reg. Visit. Archiepiscopi Roth._ ed. Bonnin (1852), p. 111.
[858] "Nuns with their needles wrote histories also," as Fuller prettily
says, "that of Christ his passion for their altar clothes, as other
Scripture (and moe legend) Stories to adorn their houses." Fuller, _Church
Hist._ (ed. 1837), II, p. 190.
[859] J. H. Middleton, _Illuminated MSS._ (1892), p. 112. On nunnery
embroidery at different periods see _ib._ pp. 224-30; but the book must be
read with great caution.
[860] Mackenzie Walcott, _Inventory of St Mary's Ben. Nunnery at Langley,
Co. Leic. 1485_ (Leic. Architec. Soc. 1872), pp. 3, 4.
[861] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, 120, 127, 183. Greenfield may have so enjoined
other houses; the injunctions are not always fully summarised. As to nuns'
embroidery there is an interesting passage in the thirteenth century
German poem _Helmbrecht_ by Wernher "the Gardener": "Old farmer Helmbrecht
had a son. Young Helmbrecht's yellow locks fell down to his shoulders. He
tucked them into a handsome silken cap, embroidered with doves and parrots
and many a picture. This cap had been embroidered by a nun who had run
away from her convent through a love adventure, as happens to so many.
From her Helmbrecht's sister Gotelind had learned to embroider and to sew.
The girl and her mother had well earned that from the nun, for they gave
her in pay a calf, and many cheeses and eggs." J. Harvey Robinson,
_Readings in Eur. Hist._ I, pp. 418-9, translated from Freytag, _Bilder
aus der deutschen Vergangenheit_ (1876, II, pp. 52 ff.).
[862] _Manners and Household Expenses_ (Roxburghe Club 1841), p. 18.
[863] Gasquet, _Engl. Monastic Life_, p. 170.
[864] _Trans. St Paul's Eccles. Soc._ VII, pt II (1912), p. 54.
[865] _Ancren Riwle_, ed. Gasquet, p. 318.
[866] See below, p. 655.
[867] Wood, _Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies_, II, pp. 229-31.
[868] Peckham, forbidding the nuns of Barking (1279) to eat or sleep in
private rooms or to receive mass there, makes an exception for those who
are seriously ill, "in which case we permit the confessor and the doctor,
also the father or brother, to have access to them." _Reg. Epis. Johannis
Peckham_, I, p. 84. Cf. _ib._ II, pp. 652, 663. For nuns and medicine see
S. Luce, _La Jeunesse de Bertrand de Guesclin_ (1882), p. 10.
[869] At Romsey Abbey a pittance of sixpence was due to each nun "when
blood is let" (see Bishop John de Pontoise's injunctions in 1302 and those
of Bishop Woodlock in 1311, both of which refer to the payments not having
been made). Bishop Woodlock enjoined that "Nuns who have been bled shall
be allowed to enter the cloister if they wish." Liveing, _Records of
Romsey Abbey_, pp. 100, 103, 104. In 1338 Abbot Michael of St Albans
orders all the nuns of Sopwell to attend the service of prime, "horspris
les malades et les seynes." Dugdale, _Mon._ III, p. 366. At Nuncoton in
1440 the sub-prioress deposed that "the infirm, the weakminded and they
that are in their seynies ... do eat in the convent cellar." _Alnwick's
Visit._ MS. f. 71_d_. Bishop Stapeldon forbids the nuns of Polsloe in 1319
to enter convent offices outside the cloistral precincts "pour estre
seigne ou pur autre encheson feynte." _Reg. Stapeldon_, ed.
Hingeston-Randolph, p. 317.
[870] On the custom of periodical bleeding in monasteries see J. W. Clark,
_The Observances ... at Barnwell_, Introd. pp. lxi, ff. It is interesting
to note that medieval treatises on the diseases of women occasionally
refer specifically to nuns, e.g. in a fourteenth century English MS. a
certain "worschipfull sirop" for use in cases of anaemia is said to be
"for ladyes & for nunnes and other also þat ben delicate." Brit. Mus. MS.
Sloane 2463, f. 198 vº.
[871] E.g. Nicholaa de Fulham dates her will in 1327 from Clerkenwell and
leaves certain rents for life to Joan her sister, a nun there. Sharpe,
_Cal. of Wills enrolled in Court of Husting_, I, p. 324. The will of
Elizabeth Medlay "of the house of St Clement's in Clementthorpe" directs
her body to be buried in the conventual church, bequeathes legacies to the
high altar, the Prioress and each nun there and appoints dame Margaret
Delaryver, prioress, as executor (1470). _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 130.
[872] _New Coll._ MS. ff. 88, 88_dº_.
[873] _The Fifty Earliest Wills in the Court of Probate_, ed. F. J.
Furnivall (E.E.T.S.), p. 54. But she may have been a sister from a
hospital.
[874] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 4, 5, 6.
[875] _Visit. of Dioc. Norwich_ (Camden Soc.), p. 243.
[876] Liveing, _Records of Romsey Abbey_, pp. 226, 236. William of Wykeham
in 1387 ordered that three or four at least of the more discreet nuns of
this large abbey, "in regula sancti benedicti et obseruanciis regularibus
sufficienter erudite" should be chosen to instruct the younger nuns in
these matters. _New Coll._ MS. f. 86. At St Mary's, Winchester, in 1501,
besides Margaret Legh, mistress of the novices, there was Agnes Cox,
senior teacher (_dogmatista_). _V.C.H. Hants._ II, p. 124. At Elstow in
1421-2 the bishop ordered "That a more suitable nun be deputed and
ordained to be precentress; and that elder nuns, if they shall be capable
and fit for such offices, be preferred to younger." _Linc. Visit._ I, p.
50. Dean Kentwode's injunction to St Helen's Bishopsgate in 1432 runs:
"That ye ordeyne and chese on of yowre sustres, honest, abille and cunnyng
of discretyone, the whiche can, may and schall have the charge of techyng
and informacyone of yowre sustres that be uncunnyng, for to teche hem here
service and the rule of here religione." Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 554.
[877] The controversy was roused by an article by Mr J. E. G. de
Montmorency entitled "The Medieval Education of Women in England" in the
_Journal of Education_ (June, 1909) pp. 427-31. This was challenged by Mr
Coulton, _loc. cit._ (July, 1910), pp. 456-7; see the correspondence
_passim_, especially the two articles by Mr A. F. Leach, _loc. cit._ (Oct.
and Dec. 1910), pp. 667-9, 838-41. The subject was afterwards treated with
great erudition by Mr Coulton in a paper read before the International
Congress of Historical Studies in 1913, reprinted with notes as _Monastic
Schools in the Middle Ages_ (_Medieval Studies_, X, 1913).
[878] For the rest of this chapter I shall not give full references in
footnotes, because they can easily be traced in Note B, p. 568 below.
[879] _Cistercian Statutes_, 1256-7, ed. J. T. Fowler (reprinted from
_Yorks. Archaeol. Journ._), p. 105.
[880] Probably, however, after the dissolution of her house.
[881] Tanner, _Notitia Monastica_ (1744 edit.), p. xxxii (basing his
opinion on three secondary authorities and on a misunderstanding of two
medieval entries, one of which refers to lay sisters and the other to an
adult boarder).
[882] N. Sanderus, _de Schismate Anglicana_, ed. 1586, p. 176. The
statement is not in the original Sanders. A well-known passage in the
_Paston Letters_ illustrates the practice as regards girls; Margaret
Paston writes to her son in 1469 "Also I would ye should purvey for your
sister to be with my Lady of Oxford, or with my Lady of Bedford, or in
some other worshipful place whereas ye think best, for we be either of us
weary of other." It is probable that this method of educating girls was
more common than nunnery education.
[883] Quoted by Mr Leach, _Journ. of Educ._ (1910), p. 668.
[884] Possibly, as Mr Coulton points out (_Med. Studies_, X, p. 26), this
may account for the fact that evidence of girl pupils is wanting for some
of the wealthier and more important nunneries; he instances Shaftesbury,
Amesbury, Syon, Studley and Lacock. For the life of the nuns at Lacock and
Amesbury we have very little information of any kind, but our information
is fairly full for Shaftesbury, and very full for Syon and for Studley.
[885] For a discussion of these charges and of other prices and payments,
with which they may be compared, see J. E. G. de Montmorency in _Journ. of
Educ._ (1909), pp. 429-30 and Coulton, _op. cit._ app. iv. (School
Children in Nunnery Accounts), pp. 38-40.
[886] Quoted in S. H. Burke, _The Monastic Houses of England, their
Accusers and Defenders_ (1869), p. 32. Compare the words of a Venetian
traveller, Paolo Casenigo: "The English nuns gave instructions to the
poorer virgins as to their duties when they became wives; to be obedient
to their husbands and to give good example," a curious note. _Ib._ p. 31.
[887] Quoted in Fosbroke, _British Monachism_ (1802), II, p. 35.
[888] _Ancren Riwle_, ed. Gasquet, p. 319.
[889] Notice the recognition of the financial reasons for taking
schoolchildren. So also in 1489 the nuns of Nunappleton are to take no
boarders "but if they be childern or ellis old persons by which availe by
likelihod may grow to your place"--fees or legacies, in fact. Dugdale,
_Mon._ IV, p. 654.
[890] Caesarius of Heisterbach gives a picture of a less disturbing child
in quire (though she was more probably a little girl who was intended for
a nun). This is the English fifteenth century translation: "Caesarius
tellis how that in Essex" (really in Saxony, but the translator was
anxious to introduce local colour for the sake of his audience), "in a
monasterye of nonnys, ther was a litle damysell, and on a grete solempne
nyght hur maistres lete hur com with hur to matyns. So the damysell was
bod a wayke thyng, and hur maistres was ferd at sho sulde take colde, and
she commaundid hur befor Te Deum to go vnto the dortur to her bed agayn.
And at hur commandment sho went furth of the where, thuff all it war with
ill wyll, and abade withoute the where and thoght to here the residue of
matyns"; whereat she saw a vision of the nuns caught up to heaven praising
God among the angels, at the _Te Deum_. _An Alphabet of Tales_ (E.E.T.S.
1905), II, p. 406.
[891] Fuller, _Church Hist._ See p. 255 above, note 3.
[892] Quoted in Gasquet, _Eng. Monastic Life_, p. 177.
[893] Hugo, _Medieval Nunneries of Somerset_ (_Minchin Buckland_), p. 107.
[894] G. Hill, _Women in Eng. Life_ (1896), p. 79.
[895] _Times Educational Supplement_ (Sept. 4, 1919). This seems to be
taken from Fosbroke, _Brit. Monachism_, II, pp. 6-7, who takes it from Sir
H. Chauncey's _Hist. and Antiqs. of Hertfordshire_, p. 423; it is the
first appearance of dancing; as Fosbroke sapiently argued, "The dancing of
nuns will be hereafter spoken of and if they dance they must somewhere
learn how."
[896] _Journ. of Education_, 1910, p. 841. Mr Hamilton Thompson sends me
this note: "Probably, so far as any systematic teaching went, they were
taught 'grammar' and song, which would vary in quality according to the
teacher. These are the only two elements of which we regularly hear in the
ordinary schools of the day. I do not see any reason to suppose that they
were taught more or less. Song (i.e. church song) takes such a very
prominent part in medieval education that I think it would not have been
neglected; it was also one of the things which nuns ought to have been
able to teach from their daily experience in quire. Bridget Plantagenet's
book of matins (see below) would be an appropriate lesson book for both
grammar and song, as nuns would understand them."
[897] _An Alphabet of Tales_ (E.E.T.S. 1905), p. 272, from Caesarius of
Heisterbach, _Dialog. Mirac._ ed. Strange, I, p. 196.
[898] See e.g. the Knight of La Tour Landry, p. 178, "Et pour ce que
aucuns gens dient que ilz ne voudroient pas que leurs femmes ne leurs
filles sceussent rien de clergie ne d'escripture, je dy ainsi que, quant
d'escryre, n'y a force que femme en saiche riens; mais quant a lire, tout
femme en vault mieulx de le scavoir et cognoist mieulx la foy et les
perils de l'ame et son saulvement, et n'en est pas de cent une qui n'en
vaille mieulx; car c'est chose esprouvee." Quoted in A. A. Hentsch, _De la
littérature didactique du moyen âge s'addressant spécialement aux femmes_
(Cahors, 1903), p. 133. So Philippe de Novare ([dagger] 1270) refuses to
allow women to learn reading or writing, because they expose her to evil,
and Francesco da Barberino ([dagger] 1348) refuses to allow reading and
writing except to girls of the highest rank (not including the daughters
of esquires, judges and gentlefolk of their class); both, however, make
exception for nuns. _Ib._ pp. 84, 106-7.
[899] See below, p. 388.
[900] _Archaeologia_, XLIII (1871), p. 245 (Redlingfield and Bruisyard).
[901] See below, p. 309.
[902] Wood, _Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies_, II, pp. 213-7.
[903] Quoted Gasquet, _Hen. VIII and the Eng. Monasteries_ (1899), p. 227.
[904] _The Catechism of Thomas Bacon, S.T.P._, ed. John Ayre (Parker Soc.
1894), p. 377.
[905] See above, p. 82.
[906] _Yorks. Archaeol. Journ._ XVI, pp. 452-3. Unluckily among Archbishop
Lee's injunctions there remain only three sets addressed to nunneries;
there are also two letters concerning an immoral and apostate ex-Prioress
of Basedale. At the other two nunneries addressed, Nunappleton and
Sinningthwaite, no specific accusations are made, but the Archbishop
enjoins that the nuns shall "observe chastity" (§ IX, p. 440) and avoid
the suspicious company of men (§ V, p. 441).
[907] Aungier, _Hist. of Syon Mon._ p. 385. Compare also the regulations
for behaviour in choir, "There also none shal use to spytte ouer the
stalles, nor in any other place wher any suster is wonte to pray, but yf
it anone be done oute, for defoylyng of ther clothes." _Ib._ p. 320.
[908] The hours seem to have varied in length according to the season; see
Butler, _Benedictine Monachism_, ch. XVII.
[909] _Reg. W. de Stapeldon_, p. 316.
[910] Aungier, _op. cit._ pp. 405-9. It is unlikely, however, that Betsone
actually invented any of the signs, for similar lists are to be found in
the early consuetudinaries of Cluniac houses and other sources. The signs
were probably to a great extent "common form."
[911] _Ib._ p. 298.
[912] Bernold, _Chron._ (1083) in _Mon. Germ. Hist._ V, p. 439, quoted in
Workman, _The Evolution of the Monastic Ideal_, p. 157.
[913] E.g. a nun asks that sufficient clothes and food be ministered to
her "ut fortis sit ad subeundum pondus religionis et diuini seruicii."
_Linc. Visit._ II, p. 5. A bishop orders no nun to be admitted unless she
be "talem que onera chori ... ceteris religionem concernentibus poterit
supportare." _Ib._ I, p. 53.
[914] Vattasso, _Studi Medievali_ (1904), I, p. 124. Quoted in _Mod.
Philology_ (1908), V, pp. 10-11. I have ventured to combine parts of two
verses.
[915] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 1_d_; but some of these would be absent
from the monastery.
[916] _Ib._ ff. 71_d_, 72. For other injunctions against "cutting"
services, see Heynings, 1351 and 1392 (_Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell_,
f. 34_d_, and _Bokyngham_, f. 397), Elstow 1387 and 1421 (_ib._
_Bokyngham_, f. 343 and _Linc. Visit._ I, p. 51), Godstow 1279 and 1434
(_Reg. J. Peckham_, III, p. 846, _Linc. Visit._ I, p. 66), Romsey 1387
(_New Coll._ MS. f. 84), Cannington 1351 (_Reg. R. of Shrewsbury_, p.
684), Nunkeeling 1314, Thicket 1309, Yedingham 1314, Swine 1318, Wykeham
1314, Arthington 1318 (_V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 120, 124, 127, 181, 183,
188), Sinningthwaite 1534 (_Yorks. Arch. Journ._ XVI, p. 443), etc.
[917] See e.g. _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 1, 8, 67, 131, 133, 134-5, _Linc.
Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell_, f. 34_d_, _Sede Vacante Reg._ (Worc. Hist.
Soc.), p. 276, _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_, II, pp. 651-2, etc.
[918] _V.C.H. Lincs._ II, p. 131. For other instances of lateness at
matins, see Heynings 1442 (_Linc. Visit._ II, p. 133), Godstow 1432
(_Linc. Visit._ I, p. 66), Flixton 1514 (Jessopp, _Visit. of Dioc. of
Norwich_, p. 143), Romsey 1302 (Liveing, _Records of Romsey Abbey_, p.
100), Easebourne 1478, 1524 (_Sussex Arch. Coll._ IX, pp. 17, 26-7), St
Radegund's, Cambridge (Gray, _Prior of St Radegund, Cambridge_, p. 36).
[919] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 48; Jessopp, _Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich_, p.
209; _Arch._ XLVII, p. 55; compare Romsey 1387, 1507 (_New Coll._ MS. f.
84; Liveing, _op. cit._ p. 231), St Helen's Bishopsgate, c. 1432 (_Hist.
MS. Com. Rep._ IX, App. p. 57).
[920] "These are they who wickedly corrupt the holy psalms: the dangler,
the gasper, the leaper, the galloper, the dragger, the mumbler, the
foreskipper, the forerunner and the over leaper: Tittivillus collecteth
the fragments of these men's words." G. G. Coulton, _Med. Garn._ p. 423.
He also collected the gossip of women in church. On Tittivillus see my
article in the _Cambridge Magazine_, 1917, pp. 158-60.
[921] _Myroure of Oure Ladye_, ed. Blunt (E.E.T.S.), p. 54.
[922] Greek [Greek: akêdia]; whence _acedia_ or _accidia_ in Latin;
English _accidie_. It is a pity that the word has fallen out of use. The
disease has not.
[923] An interesting modern study of this moral disease is to be found in
a book of sermons by the late Bishop of Oxford, Dr Paget, _The Spirit of
Discipline_ (1891), which contains an introductory essay "concerning
_Accidie_," in which the subject is treated historically, with
illustrations from the writings of Cassian, St John of the Ladder, Dante
and St Thomas Aquinas, in the middle ages, Marchantius and Francis
Neumayer in the seventeenth century, and Wordsworth, Keble, Trench,
Matthew Arnold, Tennyson and Stevenson in the nineteenth century. See also
Dr Paget's first sermon "The Sorrow of the World," which deals with the
same subject. He diagnoses the main elements of _Accidia_ very ably: "As
one compares the various estimates of the sin one can mark three main
elements which help to make it what it is--elements which can be
distinguished, though in experience, I think, they almost always tend to
meet and mingle, they are _gloom_ and _sloth_ and _irritation_." _Op.
cit._ p. 54. On _Accidia_, see also H. B. Workman, _The Evolution of the
Monastic Ideal_ (1913), pp. 326-31. During the great war the disease of
_accidie_ was prevalent in prison camps, as any account of Ruhleben shows
very clearly. For a short psychological study of this manifestation of it,
see Vischer, A. L., _Barbed Wire Disease_ (1919).
[924] See book X of Cassian's _De Coenobiorum Institutis_, which is
entitled "De Spiritu Acediae" (Wace and Schaff, _Select Library of Nicene
and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church_, 2nd ser., vol. XI,
Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lerins and John Cassian, pp. 266 ff.;
chapters I and II are paraphrased by Dr Paget, _op. cit._ pp. 8-10); Book
IX, on the kindred sin of _Tristitia_ is also worthy of study; the two are
always closely connected, as is shown by the anecdotes quoted below.
[925] Dante, _Inferno_, VII, l. 121 ff. Translation by J. A. Carlyle.
[926] Chaucer, _The Persones Tale_, §§ 53-9.
[927] See the translation of the episode (from Busch, _Chronicon
Windeshemense_, ed. K. Grube, p. 395) in Coulton, _Med. Garner_, pp.
641-4. On the subject of medieval doubt and despair see Coulton in the
_Hibbert Journal_, XIV (1916), pp. 598-9 and _From St Francis to Dante_,
pp. 313-4.
[928] Caes. of Heist. _Dial. Mirac._ ed. Strange, I, pp. 209-10.
[929] _Ib._ I. pp. 210-11. For a case of doubt in an anchoress, which,
however ended well, see _ib._ I, pp. 206-8.
[930] Langland, _Piers Plowman_, ed. Skeat, B, passus X, 300-5.
[931] Langland, _Piers Plowman_, ed. Skeat, B, passus V, ll. 153-65. The C
text has a variant for the last four lines:
Thus thei sitte the sustres · somtyme, and disputen,
Til "thow lixt" and "thow lixt" · be lady over hem alle;
And then awake ich, Wratthe · and wold be auenged.
Thanne ich crie and cracche · with my kene nailes,
Bothe byte and bete · and brynge forthe suche thewes,
That alle ladies me lothen · that louen eny worschep.
It is strange that the same hand which wrote these lines should have
written the beautiful description of convent life quoted on p. 297.
[932] See above, p. 82 and below, Note F.
[933] From "Why can't I be a nun," _Trans. of Philol. Soc._ 1858, Pt II,
p. 268.
[934] _Wykeham's Reg._ II, pp. 361-2 (1384). Compare case at Shaftesbury
(1298) where the nuns had incurred excommunication. _Reg. Sim. de
Gandavo_, p. 14.
[935] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 8. Compare Winchelsey's injunctions to Sheppey
in 1296. _Reg. Roberti Winchelsey_, pp. 99-100.
[936] Liveing, _op. cit._ pp. 245-6. The "bad language" may be scolding or
defamation rather than swearing. It is rare to find a nun accused of using
oaths. But see the list of faults drawn up for the nuns of Syon Abbey;
among "greuous defautes" is "if any ... be take withe ... any foule worde,
or else brekethe her sylence, or swerethe horribly be Criste, or be any
parte of hys blyssed body, or unreuerently speketh of God, or of any
saynte, and namely of our blessyd lady"; among "more greuous defautes" is
"yf they swere be the sacramente, or be the body of Cryste, or be hys
passion, or be hys crosse, or be any boke, or be any other thynge lyke";
and among "most greuous defautes" is "yf any in her madness or drunkenesse
blaspheme horrybly God, or our Lady, or any of hys sayntes" (Aungier,
_Hist. of Syon Mon._ pp. 256, 259, 262). In 1331, on readmitting Isabella
de Studley (who had been guilty of incontinence and apostasy) to St
Clement's York, Archbishop Melton announced that if she were disobedient
to the Prioress or quarrelsome with her sisters or _indulged in blasphemy_
he would transfer her to another house. _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 130.
[937] _V.C.H. Bucks._ I, p. 383 and _V.C.H. Lincs._ II, p. 155.
[938] In 1311 Archbishop Greenfield issued a general order that nuns only
and not sisters were to use the black veil; sisters wore a white veil
(_V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 188 note, and _Journ. of Education_, 1910, p.
841). This order was repeated at various houses, which shows that there
must have been a widespread attempt to usurp the black veil (_V.C.H.
Yorks._ III, pp. 124, 127, 175, 177, 188). At Sinningthwaite the Prioress
was also ordered not to place the sisters above the nuns. A common
punishment in this district was to remove the black veil from a nun and
this was reserved for the more serious misdeeds.
[939] _York Reg. Giffard_, pp. 147-8. For further instances, see Note C
below.
[940] Injunctions against dicing and other games of chance are common in
the case of monks (see e.g. _Linc. Visit._ I, pp. 30, 46, 77, 89). I have
found none in nunneries, but a more stately game of skill, the fashionable
tables, was played by Margaret Fairfax with John Munkton. Above, p. 77.
[941] Quoted from St Aldhelm's _De Laudibus Virginitatis_ in Eckenstein,
_Woman under Mon._ p. 115. Compare Bede's account of the nuns of
Coldingham some years before: "The virgins who are vowed to God, laying
aside all respect for their profession, whenever they have leisure spend
all their time in weaving fine garments with which they adorn themselves
like brides, to the detriment of their condition and to secure the
friendship of men outside." _Ib._ pp. 102-3.
[942] For detailed examples, see Note D below.
[943] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 118. Similar _detecta_ and injunctions at
Catesby, Rothwell and Studley (_ib._ pp. 47, 52; _Alnwick's Visit._ MS.
ff. 38, 26_d_) and at Ankerwyke (quoted above, p. 76). Also at Studley
(1531), _Archaeol._ XLVII, p. 55, and Romsey (1523), Liveing, _op. cit._
p. 244.
[944] _Archaeol._ XLVII, p. 52. For an equally detailed account see the
case of the Prioress of Ankerwyke, quoted above p. 76.
[945] See below, p. 543.
[946] See below, pp. 325-30.
[947] For nunnery pets as a literary theme, see Note E and for pet animals
in the nunneries of Eudes Rigaud's diocese see below, p. 662.
[948] "Ye shall not possess any beasts, my dear sisters, except only a
cat." _Ancren Riwle_, p. 316. At the nunnery of Langendorf in Saxony,
however, a set of reformed rules drawn up in the early fifteenth century
contains the proviso "Cats, dogs and other animals are not to be kept by
the nuns, as they detract from seriousness." Eckenstein, _op. cit._ p.
415.
[949] "Mem. quod apud manerium de Newenton fuerunt quedam moniales.... Et
postea contingit [_sic_] quod priorissa eiusdem manerii strangulata fuit
de cato suo in lecto suo noctu et postea tractata ad puteum quod vocatur
Nunnepet." Quoted from Sprott's Chronicle in _The Black Book of St
Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury_ (British Acad. 1915), I, p. 283. In Thorn's
Chronicle, however, the crime is attributed to the prioress' _cook_. See
Dugdale, _Mon._ VI, p. 1620. The nuns were afterwards removed to Sheppey.
[950] There really seems to have been a parrot at Fontevrault in 1477, to
judge from an item in the inventory of goods left on her death by the
Abbess Marie de Bretagne, "Item xviij serviecttes en une aultre piece,
led. linge estant en ung coffre de cuir boully, en la chambre ou est la
papegault (perroquet)." Alfred Jubien, _L'Abbesse Marie de Bretagne_
(Angers and Paris 1872), p. 156. It is interesting to note that J. B.
Thiers, writing on enclosure in 1681, mentions "de belles volieres à
petits oiseaux" as one of those unnecessary works for which artisans may
not be introduced into the cloister. Thiers, _De la Clôture_, p. 412.
[951] _Reg. Epis. Peckham_ (R.S.), II, p. 660.
[952] Dugdale, _Mon._ II, p. 619 (Chatteris) and _Camb. Antiq. Soc. Proc._
XLV (1905), p. 190 (Ickleton).
[953] A decree of the Council of Vienne (1311) complains that many church
ministers come into choir "bringing hawks with them or causing them to be
brought and leading hunting dogs." Coulton, _Med. Garn._ p. 588. Similarly
Geiler on the eve of the Reformation complains, in his _Navicula
Fatuorum_, that "some men, when they are about to enter a church, equip
themselves like hunters, bearing hawks and bells on their wrists and
followed by a pack of baying hounds, that trouble God's service. Here the
bells jangle, there the barking of dogs echoes in our ears, to the
hindrance of preachers and hearers." He goes on to say that the habit is
particularly reprehensible in clergy. The privilege of behaving thus was
an adjunct of noble birth and in the cathedrals of Auxerre and Nevers the
treasurers had the legal right of coming to service with hawk on wrist,
because these canonries were hereditary in noble families. _Ib._ pp.
684-5. Medieval writers on hawking actually advise that hawks should be
taken into church to accustom them to crowds. "Mais en cest endroit
d'espreveterie, le convient plus que devant tenir sur le poing et le
porter aux plais et entre les gens aux églises et ès autres assamblées, et
emmy les rues, et le tenir jour et nuit le plus continuelment que l'en
pourra, et aucune fois le perchier emmi les rues pour veoir gens,
chevaulx, charettes, chiens, et toutes choses congnoistre." Gaces de la
Bugne gives the same advice. _Le Ménagier de Paris_ (Paris, 1846), II, p.
296.
[954] Below, p. 412.
[955] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 168, 175.
[956] _New Coll._ MS. ff. 88-88_d_, translated in Coulton, _Soc. Life in
Britain from the Conquest to the Reformation_, p. 397.
[957] _Hist. MSS. Com. Rep._ IX, app. pt. I, p. 57.
[958] Jessopp, _Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich_, p. 191.
[959] Chaucer's description of the monk is well known:
Therfore he was a pricasour aright;
Grehoundes he hadde, as swifte as fowel in flight;
Of priking and of hunting for the hare
Was al his lust, for no cost wolde he spare.
Compare Langland's picture of the monk, riding out on his palfrey from
manor to manor, "an hepe of houndes at hus ers as he a lord were" (_Piers
Plowman_, C Text VI, ll. 157-61). Visitation documents amply bear out
these accounts; in a single set of visitations (those by Bishops Flemyng
and Gray of Lincoln during the years 1420-36) we have "Furthermore we
enjoin and command you all and several ... that no canon apply himself in
any wise to hunting, hawking or other lawless wanderings abroad"
(Dunstable Priory 1432); "further we enjoin upon you, the prior and all
and several the canons of the convent aforesaid ... that you utterly
remove and drive away all hounds for hunting from the said priory and its
limits; and that neither you nor any one of you keep, rear, or maintain
such hounds by himself or by another's means, directly or indirectly, in
the priory or without the priory, under colour of any pretext whatsoever"
(Huntingdon Priory 1432); "also that hounds for hunting be not nourished
within the precinct of your monastery" (St Frideswide's Oxford, 1422-3)
and a similar injunction to Caldwell Priory. _Linc. Visit._ I, pp. 27, 47,
78, 97.
[960] Wm. Salt Arch. Soc. Coll. I, p. 261. Compare also the provision in
one of Charlemagne's capitularies: "Ut episcopi et abbates _et abbatissae_
cupplas canum non habeant nec falcones nec accipitres," Baretius, _Capit.
Reg. Franc._ (1853), p. 64. Some of the birds at Romsey may have been
hawks, though it is more likely that they were larks and other small pets,
such as Eudes Rigaud found in his nunneries.
[961] _V.C.H. Essex_, II, p. 123, and see above, p. 105.
[962] The nuns of St Mary de Pré, St Albans, kept a huntsman. _V.C.H.
Herts._ IV, p. 430 (note).
[963] _V.C.H. Herts._ IV, p. 431 (note); Dugdale, _Mon._ III, pp. 359-60.
[964] _Hereford Reg. Thome Spofford_, p. 82. (This was combined with an
injunction against going to "comyn wakes and festes, spectacles and other
worldly vanytees" outside the convent. Below, p. 377.).
[965] Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 554.
[966] Quoted in Coulton, _Med. Garn._ p. 304.
[967] See Chambers, _op. cit._ I, pp. 38-41.
[968] _Ib._ I, p. 56 (note). "The bishops of Durham in 1355, Norwich in
1362, and Winchester in 1374, 1422, and 1481 had 'minstrels of honour'
like any secular noble."
[969] _Ib._ I, pp. 39, 56 (notes).
[970] Langland, _Piers the Plowman_, C, Text VIII, l. 97.
[971] "Payments for performances are frequent in the accounts of the
Augustinian priories at Canterbury, Bicester and Maxstoke and the great
Benedictine houses of Durham, Norwich, Thetford and St Swithin's,
Winchester, and doubtless in those of many another cloistered retreat. The
Minorite chroniclers relate how, at the coming of the friars in 1224, two
of them were mistaken for minstrels by the porter of a Benedictine grange
near Abingdon, received by the brethren with unbecoming glee, and when the
error was discovered, turned out with contumely," Chambers, _op. cit._ I,
pp. 56-7. In the Register of St Swithun's it is recorded under the year
1374 that "on the feast of Bishop Alwyn ... six minstrels with four
harpers performed their minstrelsies. And after dinner in the great arched
chamber of the lord Prior, they sang the same geste.... And the said
jongleurs came from the household of the bishop," _ib._ I, p. 56 (note).
See extracts from the account books of Durham, Finchale, Maxstoke and
Thetford Priories relating to the visits of minstrels, _ib._ II, pp.
240-6. At Finchale there was even a room called "le Playerchambre," _ib._
II, p. 244. In 1258 Eudes Rigaud had to order the Abbot of Jumièges "that
he should send strolling players away from his premises." _Reg. Visit.
Arch. Roth._ p. 607. At a later date, in 1549, a council at Cologne
directed a canon against comedians who were in the habit of visiting the
German nunneries and by their profane plays and amatory acting excited to
unholy desires the virgins dedicated to God. Lea, _Hist. of Sacerdotal
Celibacy_, II, p. 189.
[972] "Histrionibus potest dari cibus, quia pauperes sunt, non quia
histriones; et eorum ludi non videantur, vel audiantur vel permittantur
fieri coram abbate vel monachis." _Annales de Burton_ (_Ann. Monast. R.
S._ I, p. 485), quoted Chambers, _op. cit._ I, p. 39 (note).
[973] _Alnwick's Visit._ f. 83.
[974] _Aucassin and Nicolete_, ed. Bourdillon (1897), p. 22.
[975] See the well-known story of "Le Tombeor de Notre Dame" (_Romania_,
II, p. 315), and "Du Cierge qui descendi sus la viele au vieleeux devant
l'ymage Nostre Dame," Gautier de Coincy, _Miracles de Nostre Dame_, ed.
Poquet (1859), p. 310. Both are translated in _Of The Tumbler of Our Lady
and Other Miracles_ by A. Kemp-Welch (King's Classics 1909).
[976] For the following account, see A. F. Leach's article on "The
Schoolboy's Feast," _Fortnightly Review_, N.S. LIX (1896), p. 128, and
Chambers, _op. cit._ I, ch. XV.
[977] See below, p. 662.
[978] _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_, I, pp. 82-3. For a similar injunction to
Godstow, see _ib._ III, p. 846. At Romsey the Archbishop forbade the
festivities altogether: "Superstitionem vero quae in Natali Domini et
Ascensione Ejusdem fieri consuevit, perpetuo condemnamus," _ib._ II, p.
664. The superstition was probably the election of the youngest nun as
abbess.
[979] _Norwich Visit._ pp. 209-10.
[980] _Archaeol._ XLVII, p. 56. On the Lord of Misrule, see Chambers _op.
cit._ I, ch. XVII. There is a vivid account (from the Puritan point of
view) in Philip Stubbes, _The Anatomie of Abuses_ (1583) quoted in _Life
in Shakespeare's England_, ed. J. D. Wilson (1915), pp. 25-7.
[981] Chambers, _op. cit._ I, p. 361 (note 1).
[982] Dugdale, _Mon._ III, p. 360.
[983] Cussans, _Hist. of Herts., Hertford Hundred_, app. II, p. 268.
[984] Walcott, _Inventory of Shepey_, p. 23. There is perhaps another
reference in the inventory of Langley in 1485: "iij quesyns (cushions) of
olde red saye, ij smale quechyns embrodred and ij qwechyns namyde Seynt
Nicolas qwechyns," Walcott, _Inventory of Langley_, p. 6.
[985] E.g. (besides the well-known case of Dr Rock in _The Church of Our
Fathers_), Gayley, _Plays of our Forefathers_, pp. 67-8.
[986] Leach, _op. cit._ p. 137.
[987] _Ib._ p. 131.
[988] Leach, _op. cit._ p. 137 (from _Martène_, III, p. 39). I have
slightly altered the translation.
[989] On Benedictine poverty, see Dom Butler, _Benedictine Monachism_, ch.
X.
[990] The alteration was made even by the Cistercians in 1335. See _Linc.
Visit._ I, p. 238 (under _Misericord_). Among Black Monks it began much
earlier.
[991] _Linc. Visit._ I, p. 238. Alnwick's visitations sometimes mention
this division of the frater. "Also she prays that frater may be kept every
day, since there is one upper frater wherein they feed on fish and food
made with milk, and another downstairs, wherein they feed of grace on
flesh" (Nuncoton 1440). "Also she says that they feed on fish and milk
foods in the upper frater and on flesh in the lower" (Stixwould 1440).
_Alnwick's Visit._ MS. ff. 71_d_, 76.
[992] "Et qe nule Dame de Religion ne mange hors du Refreytour en chambre
severale si ceo ne soit en compaignie la Priouresse, ou par maladie ou
autre renable encheson.... Item, purceo qe ascune foitz ascunes Dames de
vostre Religion orent lur damoiseles severales por faire severalement lur
viaunde, si ordinoms, voloms et establioms qe totes celles damoiseles
soyent de tut oste de la cusine, et qe un keu covenable, qi eit un page
desoutz lui soit mys per servir a tut le Covent" (1319). _Exeter Reg.
Stapeldon_, pp. 317-8. Compare _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 165 (Hampole 1411).
[993] For the following references, see _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 46, 89,
114, 117, 119, 121, 175; _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. ff. 71_d_, 76, 77, 83.
[994] Pupils or boarders may account for these discrepancies.
[995] _Linc. Visit._ I, p. 67 (and note 3); compare _V.C.H. Yorks._ III,
p. 181.
[996] Walcott, M. E. C., _Inventories of ... the Ben. Priory of ... Shepey
for Nuns_ (_Arch. Cant._ 1869), pp. 23 ff.
[997] E.g. at Gracedieu "_The dorter_, item ther three nunnes selles
whyche as sould for 30_s._" Nichols, _Hist. and Antiq. of Leic._ (1804),
III, p. 653; at Catesby where the "sells in the dorter were sold at 6_s._
8_d._ apiece," _Archaeologia_, XLIII, p. 241. In theory the nuns were
supposed to get up and lie down in full view of each other and curtains
were forbidden by Woodlock at Romsey in 1311. Liveing, _op. cit._ p. 104.
On the other hand at Redlingfield in 1514 a nun complained that "sorores
non habent curricula inter cubilia, sed una potest aliam videre quando
surgit vel aliquid aliud facit" and the Bishop ordered the Prioress to
provide curtains between the cubicles in the dorter. Jessopp, _Visit. of
Dioc. of Norwich_ (Camden Soc.), pp. 139-40. Dom Butler thus traces the
transition from the open dorter to private cells: open dorter; side
partitions between the beds; curtains in front; a latticed door in front,
making a cubicle; a solid door with a large window; the window grew
smaller and smaller until it became a peephole; the dorter became a
gallery of private rooms. _Downside Review_ (1899), pp. 119-21.
[998] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 51-2. See also among many other injunctions
and references to the custom the following: Gracedieu (1440-1), _ib._ II,
p. 125; Godstow (1432), _ib._ I, pp. 67-8; Barking (1279); Wherwell
(1284), _Reg. Epis. Johannis Peckham_, I, p. 84, II, p. 653; Hampole
(1311), _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 181; Swine (1318), _ib._ p. 163;
Nunappleton (1346 and 1489), _ib._ pp. 171-2; Fairwell (1367), _Reg.
Stretton of Lichfield_, p. 119; Romsey (1387 and 1492), _New Coll._ MS.
ff. 85, 85_d_, 86, Liveing, _Records of Romsey Abbey_, p. 218; Aconbury
(1438), _Reg. Spofford of Hereford_, p. 224; Stixwould (1519), _V.C.H.
Lincs._ II, p. 148; Sinningthwaite (1534), _Yorks. Arch. Journ._ XVI, p.
441. Sometimes the system can be traced in one house over a long period of
years. At Elstow, for instance, in 1387, _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo.
Bokyngham_, f. 343; in 1421-2, _Linc. Visit._ I, pp. 50, 51; in 1432,
_ib._ I, p. 53; in 1442-3, _ib._ II, p. 89; and in 1531, _Archaeologia_,
XLVII, p. 51. For an admonition to a nun by name see "Moneatis insuper
dominam Johannam de Wakefelde commonialem quod illam cameram quam modo
inhabitat contra debitam honestatem religionis predicte solitarie
commorando omnino dimittat et sequatur conventum assidue tam in choro,
claustro, refectorio et dormitorio quam in ceteris locis et temporibus
opportunis, prout religionis convenit honestati" (Kirklees 1315), _Yorks.
Arch. Journ._ XVI, p. 359.
[999] See, for instance, Longland's careful injunction to Elstow in 1531:
"Foras moche as the very ordre off sainct benedicte his rules ar nott ther
obserued in keping the ffratrye att meale tymes ... butt customably they
resorte to certayn places within the monasterye called the housholdes,
where moche insolency is use contrarye to the good rules of the said
religion, by reason of resorte of seculars both men women and children and
many other inconvenyents hath thereby ensewed ... we inioyne ... that ye
lady abbesse and your successours see that noo suche householdes be then
kepte frome hensforth, butt oonly oon place which shalbe called the
mysericorde, where shalbe oon sadde lady of the eldest sorte oversear and
maistres to all the residue that thidre shall resorte, whiche in nombre
shall nott passe fyve att the uttermoost, besides ther saide ladye
oversear or maistres and those fyve wekely to chaunge and soo ... all the
covent have kepte the same, and they agen to begynne and the said
gouernour and oversear of them contynally to contynue in thatt roome by
the space of oon quarter of a yere, and soo quarterly to chaunge att the
nominacon and plesure of the ladye abbesse for the tyme being. Over this
it is ordered undre the said payne and Iniunction that the ladye abbesse
haue no moo susters from hensforth in hir householde butt oonly foure with
hir chapleyne and likewise wekely to chaunge till they have goon by course
thrugh the hole nomber off susters, and soo aghen to begynne and
contynue." _Archaeologia_, XLVII, p. 51.
[1000] Wilkins, _Conc._ II, p. 16. See also "Et fetez qe lez deuz parties
du covent a meyns mangent checun jour en le refreytour" (Wroxall 1338);
_Sede Vacante Reg._ (Worc.), p. 276; cf. Elstow (c. 1432), _Linc. Visit._
I, p. 53. It is often accepted that the nuns shall keep frater only on the
three fish days, but see Gray's injunction to Delapré Abbey (c. 1432-3)
enjoining its observance on the three accustomed days (Sunday, Wednesday
and Friday) and on Monday as well. _Linc. Visit._ I, p. 45.
[1001] _Ib._ I, p. 68.
[1002] See, for instance, Bokyngham's injunction to Heynings in 1392:
"Item that no nun there shall keep a private chamber, but that all the
nuns, who are in good health, shall lie and sleep in the dorter and those
who are ill in the infirmary, saving dame Margaret Darcy, nun of the
aforesaid house, to whom on account of her noble birth we wish for the
time being to allow that room which she now occupies, but without any
service of bread and beer, save in case of manifest illness," _Linc. Epis.
Reg. Memo. Bokyngham_, f. 397_d_. But see Gynewell's injunctions to the
convent in 1351. _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell_, f. 34_d_. For the use
of separate rooms allowed to ill nuns, see Nunappleton (1489), _V.C.H.
Yorks._ III, p. 172. At Romsey in 1507 the nuns, under the eye of the
visitor, "concluded and provided that Joan Patent, nun, who had hurt her
leg, by her consent shall in future have meals in her own chamber and
shall daily have in her chamber the right of one nun." Liveing, _Records
of Romsey Abbey_, p. 230. But usually the use of the common infirmary is
enjoined. Separate lodgings were also allowed to ex-superiors after
resignation. See above, p. 57.
[1003] _P.R.O. Mins. Accts._ 1257/10, ff. 46, 119, 170, 214.
[1004] _P.R.O. Mins. Accts._ 1260/14.
[1005] Gray, _Priory of St Radegund, Cambridge_, pp. 27, 147, 155, 163,
171.
[1006] Baker, _Hist. of Northants._ I, p. 280.
[1007] _Reg. J. de Pontissara_, I, p. 126. William of Wykeham writes to
Wherwell in 1387 concerning the abbess' illicit detention of "certain
distributions and pittances as well in money as in spices," which divers
benefactors had endowed. _New Coll._ MS. f. 89 vº.
[1008] See below, p. 653.
[1009] _Reg. Thome de Cantilupo_, p. 202. Compare Archbishop Winchelsey's
injunction to Sheppey (1296) "ne qua monialis pecuniam vel aliam rem sibi
donatam aut aliqualiter adquisitam sibi retineat sine expressa licencia
priorisse" (a loophole). _Reg. Roberti Winchelsey_, p. 100.
[1010] W. Rye, _Carrow Abbey_, app. IX, p. xix.
[1011] _Linc. Visit._ I, p. 68.
[1012] See above, pp. 15, 17, 18.
[1013] _Test. Ebor._ I, pp. 296-7.
[1014] _Ib._ II, p. 97.
[1015] _Lincolnshire Wills_, ed. A. R. Maddison (1880), pp. 4, 6.
[1016] See, for example, _Test. Ebor._ I, pp. 6, 9, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16,
18, 19, 31, 43, 54, 62, 90, 98, 109, 143, 166, 179, 216, 292, 337, 345,
349, 363, 376, 382 (chiefly wills of clergy and country gentry); Nicolas,
_Test. Vetusta_, I, pp. 52, 70, 76, 79, 85, 115, 116, 120, 121, 123, 137,
155, 170, 196, 300, 377 (chiefly wills of the aristocracy); Gibbons,
_Early Lincoln Wills_, pp. 18, 21, 25, 26, 40, 41, 56, 60, 67, 71, 76, 80,
87, 97, 125, 138, 139, 150, 160 (chiefly wills of clergy and country
gentry). The wills of the citizens of London preserved in the court of
Husting contain many legacies to nuns, chiefly annual rents.
[1017] Gray, _Priory of St Radegund, Cambridge_, p. 156.
[1018] _Test. Ebor._ I, pp. 317, 322, 324. The items occur in the
inventory of the Bishop's goods and against each is written "Detur
Priorissae de Swyna sorori meae."
[1019] _Ib._ I, p. 332.
[1020] _Test. Ebor._ I, pp. 187-9. He also left the Prioress 13_s._ 4_d._
and each nun 6_s._ 8_d._ and each sister 3_s._ 4_d._ To certain nuns he
left special bequests, to Margaret de Pykering, "one piece of silver, with
the head of a stag in the bottom and 2_s._," to Elizabeth Fairfax 26_s._
8_d._ and to Margaret de Cotam 13_s._ 4_d._; also to the Prioress and
convent "my white vestment with the gold stars and all the appurtenances
thereof and my cross with Mary and John in silver and one gilt chalice."
Nor were his legacies confined to Nunmonkton; he left his two sisters at
Sempringham 100_s._ and two nuns of Nunappleton and Marrick respectively,
a cow each.
[1021] _Ib._ I, pp. 14-15. He also leaves 40_s._ to the Prioress and
convent "for a pittance," 20_s._ to another nun there and 6_s._ 8_d._ to a
nun of Watton. He evidently had great confidence in Alice Conyers, for the
injunctions of his will are to be carried out "according to the counsel
and help of the said Alice Conyers and of my executors." For other gifts
of plate to individuals, see _Test. Ebor._ I, p. 216, _Somerset Med.
Wills_, I, pp. 18, 144, _Reg. Stafford of Exeter_, pp. 392, 415, 416,
_Testamenta Leodiensia_ (Thoresby Soc. Pub. II, 1890), p. 108.
[1022] Sharpe, _Cal. of Wills ... in the Court of Husting_, I, p. 688. She
also leaves Margaret and two other nuns a piece of blanket to be divided
between them.
[1023] _Test. Ebor._ I, p. 179. He also leaves her 40_s._ and a silver
cup.
[1024] _Somerset Medieval Wills_, I, p. 47. Eleanor, Duchess of
Gloucester, left a bed among other things to her daughter, a nun of the
house of Minoresses without Aldgate (1399). Nicolas, _Test. Vetusta_, I,
p. 148.
[1025] _Test. Ebor._ I, p. 382.
[1026] Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 194.
[1027] _Test. Ebor._ I, p. 51.
[1028] _Reg. Stafford of Exeter_, p. 392. For other gifts of clothes see
Rye, _Carrow Abbey_, app. p. xix (a habit cloth), _Lincoln Wills_, ed.
Foster, p. 84 ("a fyne mantyll of ix yerds off narow cloth"), _Test.
Ebor._ I, p. 59 (my two robes with mantles), _ib._ II, p. 255 (my best
harnassed belt).
[1029] At Hampole in 1320 he warned the prioress to correct those nuns who
used new-fangled clothes, contrary to the accustomed use of the order,
"whatever might be their condition or state of dignity," _V.C.H. Yorks._
III, p. 164 (where the date is wrongly given as 1314).
[1030] See e.g. Wilkins, _Conc._ I, p. 591; _V.C.H. Bucks._ I, p. 383;
_Linc. Visit._ I, p. 52; _ib._ II, pp. 3, 8.
[1031] See above, p. 76.
[1032] See above, p. 328. For other bequests of rings, see the wills of
Sir Guy de Beauchamp, 1359 (his fourth best gold ring to his daughter
Katherine at Shouldham), Robert de Ufford, Earl of Suffolk, 1368 ("to the
Lady of Ulster, a Minoress ... a ring of gold, which was the duke's, her
brother's"), Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, 1369 (rings to his
daughter and granddaughter at Shouldham). Nicolas, _Test. Vetusta_, I, pp.
63, 74, 79. But rings might be put to pious uses. The inventory of
_jocalia_ in the custody of the sacrist of Wherwell (c. 1333-40) contains
the item, "a small silver croun, with eleven gold rings fixed in it, for
the high altar; another better croun of silver, with nineteen gold rings."
_V.C.H. Hants._ II, p. 135.
[1033] _Linc. Dioc. Doc._ ed. A. Clark (E.E.T.S.), p. 50.
[1034] _Reg. Stafford of Exeter_, p. 415.
[1035] Gibbons, _Early Linc. Wills_, p. 5. In the Prioress' room at
Sheppey at the Dissolution were found "iiij payre of corall beds,
contaynyng in all lviij past gawdy (ed.)." Walcott, _Invent. of ...
Shepey_, p. 29.
[1036] _Sussex Arch. Coll._ IX, p. 8.
[1037] See pp. 272-3.
[1038] Another nun says that she has nothing at all for raiment and
another deposes, "seeing that the revenues of the house are not above
forty pounds and the nuns are thirteen in number with one novice, so many
out of rents so slender cannot have sufficient food and clothing, unless
some help be given them from other sources by their secular friends."
_Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 184, 186.
[1039] For these references, see _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 7, 47, 92, 117,
184, 186; _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. ff. 6, 71_d_, 76, 83. Also injunctions as
to food at Elstow _ib._ II, p. 39 (and note).
[1040] Baker, _Hist. and Antiq. of Northants._ I, pp. 280, 282-3.
[1041] Dugdale, _Mon._ III, p. 359.
[1042] Temp. Henry VII the Abbess of Elstow's account records the payment
of double commons of 1_s._ a week to the Prioress and 6_d._ a week single
commons to each of the nuns. Pittances (double to the prioress) are paid
on days of profession and on the greater feast. The nuns also had dress
allowances in money. C. T. Flower, _Obedientiars' Accounts of Glastonbury
and other Relig. Houses_ (St Paul's Ecclesiol. Soc. VII, pt II, 1912), pp.
52, 55.
[1043] _Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich_, ed. Jessopp, p. 290.
[1044] _Eng. Hist. Rev._ VI, p. 34.
[1045] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 176, 177.
[1046] _Reg. J. de Pontissara_, I, p. 125.
[1047] Liveing, _Records of Romsey Abbey_, p. 103.
[1048] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 164.
[1049] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Bokyngham_, f. 397_d_. Compare Eudes
Rigaud's difficulties with the hens at Saint-Aubin, below, p. 653.
[1050] E.g. in the will of Agnes de Denton, 1356 (Item to dame Cecilie de
Hmythwayt two cows), _Testamenta Karleolensia_, p. 12; Sir John Fairfax,
1393 (Item I bequeath to dame Katherine de Barlay, nun of Appleton, one
cow. Item to dame Custance Colvyll, nun of Marrick, one cow); Sir William
Dronsfeld, 1406 (Item I bequeath to dame Alice de Totehill, nun, one cow.
Item I bequeath to dame Margaret de Barneby, one cow); Sir Thomas Rednes
1407 (Item to Alice Redness nun [of Hampole] one cow and one fat pig).
_Test. Ebor._ I, pp. 189, 345, 349.
[1051] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 72.
[1052] Wilkins, _Conc._ I, p. 593.
[1053] _New Coll._ MS. ff. 85_d_, 86. The sin of _proprietas_ seems to
have been serious in this house, for the Bishop couples his prohibition of
wills with a prohibition of private rooms and pupils, and later (f. 86_d_)
makes a general injunction against private property.
[1054] _V.C.H. Dorset_, II, p. 78.
[1055] Wilkins, _Conc._ I, p. 592.
[1056] In connection with this, see Wickwane's injunction to Nunappleton
in 1281, "We also forbid locked boxes and chests, save if the prioress
shall have ordained some seemly arrangement of the kind and shall often
see and inspect the contents." _Reg. Wickwane_ (Surtees Soc.), p. 141.
Also Newark's injunction to Swine in 1298 that "the Prioress and two
senior nuns should cause the boxes of any nuns of whom suspicion [of
property] should arise to be opened in her presence and the contents seen.
And if anyone will not open her box ... then let the prioress break it
open." _Reg. of John le Romayn and Hen. of Newark_ (Surtees Soc.), II, p.
223; compare Eudes Rigaud's struggle against locked boxes, below, p. 652.
[1057] Wilkins, _Conc._ II, p. 16.
[1058] "Where the lawe and the professyon of yche religyouse person that
thei have shuld have one fraitoure and house to ete in in commyn and not
in private chaumbers, and so to lygg and slepe in one house, in youre said
covent sustren reteynen money and proveis thame selfe privatly ayensthe
ordir of religion, etc." The injunction is coupled with a strong
injunction against dowries. _Hereford Reg. T. Spofford_, p. 224. Compare
the injunction to Lymbrook, p. 324 above.
[1059] _V.C.H. Dorset_, II, p. 77.
[1060] For other references to the _peculium_ for clothing, see _Visit. of
Dioc. of Norwich_, ed. Jessopp, p. 274; _Sussex Arch. Coll._ IX, p. 23;
Liveing, _Records of Romsey Abbey_, p. 130.
[1061] Thus William of Wykeham, in the course of his severe injunction
against _proprietas_ at Romsey (1387), thus defines it: "Vt autem quid sit
proprium vobis plenius innotescat, nos sancti Benedicti regulam imitantes,
id totum proprium siue proprietatem fore dicimus et eciam declaramus,
quicquid videlicet dederitis vel receperitis sine iussu vestre Abbatisse
aut retinueritis sine permissione illius." _New Coll._ MS. f. 86_d_.
[1062] _Reg. Wickwane_ (Surtees Soc.), p. 140.
[1063] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 174.
[1064] _Ib._ III, p. 164.
[1065] Jessopp, _Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich_, p. 143.
[1066] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 8.
[1067] "The monastery, however, itself ought if possible to be so
constructed as to contain within it all necessaries, that is, water, mill,
garden and [places for] the various crafts which are exercised within a
monastery, so that there be no occasion for monks to wander abroad, since
this is in no wise expedient for their souls." _Rule of St Benedict_, tr.
Gasquet, pp. 117-8.
[1068] Chap. L, _ib._ p. 88.
[1069] Chap. LI, _ib._ p. 89.
[1070] Chap. LXVII, _ib._ p. 118. This, however, is clearly exceptional;
the regulation comes in a later chapter and not in the first edition of
the rule. The translations of the rule made at a later date for nuns,
sometimes specify visits "to fadir or moder or oþer frend" not mentioned
in the original.
[1071] In some reformed orders founded at a later date the formula of
profession actually contained a vow of perpetual enclosure, e.g. the Poor
Clares, whose vow, under the second rule given to them by Urban IV in
1263, comprised obedience, poverty, chastity and enclosure. Thiers, _De la
Clôture_ (1681), pp. 41-2. Compare the formula given in the rule of the
Order of the Annunciation, founded at the close of the fifteenth century
by Jeanne de France, daughter of Louis XI. _Ib._ p. 55. The nuns of the
older orders did not make any specific vow of enclosure, and it was
enforced upon them only as an indispensable condition for the fulfilment
of their other vows, which accounts for the obstinacy of their opposition;
some jurisconsults, indeed, were of the opinion that the Pope could not
oblige a nun to be enclosed against her will. _Ib._ p. 50.
[1072] The passage is quoted in the preface to Thiers, _op. cit._ For the
Church's view of virginity, see especially St Jerome's famous _Epistola_
(22) _ad Eustochium_.
[1073] Thiers, _op. cit._ p. 245. Quoting the jurisconsult Philippus
Probus. For a good example of the mixture of ideas, see Mr Coulton's
account of the arguments used by the monk Idung of St Emmeram in favour of
enclosure: "He begins with the usual medieval emphasis on feminine
frailty, of which (as he points out) the Church reminds us in her collect
for every Virgin Martyr's feast 'Victory ... even in the weaker sex.' Then
comes the usual quotation from St Jerome, with its reference to Dinah,
which Idung is bold enough to clinch by a detailed allusion to Danae.
This, of course, is little more than the usual clerkly ungallantry; but it
is followed by a passage of more cruel courtesy. The monk must needs go
abroad sometimes on business, as for instance, to buy and sell in markets;
'but such occupations as these would be most indecent for even an earthly
queen, and far below the dignity of a bride of the King of Heaven.'"
Coulton, _Med. Studies_, No. 10, "Monastic Schools in Middle Ages" (1913),
pp. 21-2.
[1074] Words which Menander puts in the mouth of one of his characters.
Compare the famous Periclean definition of womanly virtue, which is "not
to be talked about for good or for evil among men."
[1075] Coulton, _Chaucer and his England_, p. 111.
[1076] The following references will be found conveniently collected in
Part I chs. 1-16 of a very interesting little book, the _Traité de la
Clôture des Religieuses_, published in Paris in 1681 by Jean-Baptiste
Thiers, "Prestre, Bachelier en Theologie de la Faculté de Paris et Curé de
Chambrond." The treatise is divided into two parts, one of which shows
"that it is not permitted to nuns to leave their enclosure without
necessity," the other "that it is not permitted to strangers to enter the
enclosure of nuns without necessity." The author contends that enclosure
was the immemorial practice of the Church, though the first general decree
on the subject was the Bull _Periculoso_; but what he proves is really
that the demand grew up gradually and naturally out of the effort to
reform the growing abuses in conventual life, which sprang from too free
an intercourse with the world.
[1077] _Sext. Decret._ lib. III, tit. XVI. Quoted in _Reg. Simonis de
Gandavo_, pp. 10 ff.; from which I quote. See also Thiers, _op. cit._ pp.
45-9.
[1078] See Thiers, _op. cit._ pp. 53-60 for these, except the reforms of
Busch, for which see below, App. III. Three papal bulls were published in
the sixteenth century reinforcing _Periculoso_, viz. the Bull _Circa
pastoralis_ (1566) and _Decori et honestati_ (1570) of Pius V and the Bull
_Deo sacris_ of Gregory XIII (1572).
[1079] "Cependant il n'y a gueres aujourd'hui de point de Discipline
Ecclesiastique qui soit ou plus negligé, ou plus ignoré que celui de la
clôture des Religieuses; et quoique les Conciles, les Saints Docteurs et
les Pères des Monasteres, ayent en divers temps et en divers rencontres,
employé leur zèle et leur authorité pour en établir la pratique; nous ne
laissons pas neanmoins de voir souvent avec douleur qu'on le viole
empunément, sans scrupule, sans réflexion et sans necessité. L'Eglise
gemit tous les jours en veuë de ce desordre qui la deshonore notablement;
et c'est pour compatir en quelque façon à ses gemissemens, que
j'entreprens de le combattre dans ce Traité." _Op. cit._ Preface.
[1080] Wilkins, _Concilia_, II., p. 18.
[1081] See, however, the injunctions of Thomas of Cantilupe, Bishop of
Hereford, to Lymbrook in 1277, which are in part a recital of Ottobon's
Constitutions. _Reg. Thome de Cantilupo_, p. 201. Peckham, in the
injunctions which he sent to Barking and Godstow in 1279, states that they
are based respectively upon those issued by John de Chishull, Bishop of
London, and by Robert de Kilwardby, his predecessor as Archbishop of
Canterbury, and it is probable that both of these prelates had attempted
to enforce Ottobon's Constitutions. _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_, I, p. 81; II,
p. 846.
[1082] He visited Wherwell in the same year, but his injunctions to that
house dealt with the entrance of seculars into the nunnery, not with the
exit of nuns.
[1083] _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_, II, p. 247.
[1084] _Ib._ I, pp. 85-6.
[1085] _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_, I, pp. 265-6, and in Wilkins, _op. cit._
II, p. 61.
[1086] Wilkins, _op. cit._ II, pp. 53-9. Thiers' remarks on the practice
of begging by nuns are interesting in this connection. He contends that
only sheer famine justifies the breach of enclosure and adds: "C'est
pourquoy je ne comprends pas d'où vient que nous voyons à Paris et
ailleurs, tant de Religieuses, quelquefois assez jeunes et assez bien
faites qui sous pretexte que leurs Monasteres sont dans le besoin,
demandent l'aumône aux portes des Eglises, qui courent par les maisons des
seculiers et qui demeurent un temps considerable hors de leurs Monasteres,
le plus souvent sans sçavoir ne la vie ni les moeurs des personnes qui
exercent l'hospitalité envers elles. On rendroit, ce me semble, un grand
service à l'Eglise si on les reduisoit aux termes de la Bulle de Gregoire
XIII. _Deo sacris_, qui leur procure les moyens de subsister honnestement
dans leurs Monasteres, sans rompre leur clôture. Car ainsi les gens de
bien ne seroient point scandalisez de leurs sorties ne de leurs courses,
et elles feroient incomparablement mieux leur salut dans leurs Convents
que dans le Monde, où je n'estime pas qu'elles puissent rester en seureté
de conscience." He quotes an ordinance of the General of the Franciscan
Order in 1609, forbidding even the sisters of the Tertiary Order to beg.
Thiers, _op. cit._ pp. 167-9.
[1087] _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_, II, pp. 659, 664-5.
[1088] _Ib._ II, pp. 707, 806.
[1089] _Reg. Simonis de Gandavo_, pp. 10 ff., 109.
[1090] _Reg. Godfrey Giffard_, II, pp. 515, 517.
[1091] _Reg. J. de Pontissara_, p. 546.
[1092] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Dalderby_, f. 9.
[1093] _Ib._ ff. 9_d_, 10_d_, 11, 12_d_, 15_d_.
[1094] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Dalderby_, f. 10_d_.
[1095] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Dalderby_, f. 35_d_.
[1096] _Ib._ f. 16. See below, p. 441.
[1097] _Ib._
[1098] Agnes Flixthorpe. See below, p. 443.
[1099] _Ib._ f. 152.
[1100] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Sutton_, ff. 5_d_, 32_d_, 154. For these
and other cases of apostasy see Chap. XI, _passim_.
[1101] Lyndwood, _Provinciale_ (1679), Pt II, p. 155. Quoted by Mr Coulton
in _Med. Studies_, No. 10, "Monastic Schools in the Middle Ages," p. 21.
[1102] Apparently friends and relatives in the world outside sometimes
intervened, by threats or prayers, to save a nun from punishment. A
_compertum_ of Archbishop Giffard's visitation of Swine in 1267-8 runs:
"_Item compertum est_ that the Prioress is a suspicious woman and far too
credulous, and easily breaks out into correction, and often punishes some
unequally for equal faults, and follows with long dislike those whom she
dislikes until occasion arise to punish them; hence it is that the nuns,
when they suspect that they are going to be troubled with excessive
correction, procure the mitigation of her severity by means of the threats
of their kinsfolk." _Reg. Walter Giffard_, p. 147.
[1103] _Reg. Walter de Stapeldon_, p. 317. Cf. p. 95. When the London mob
had beheaded Stapeldon in Cheapside, his place was filled (after the short
rule of Berkeley) by an even greater bishop, John Grandisson, who, in the
year of his consecration, directed a mandate to the nuns of Canonsleigh in
which he attempted to carry out more closely than his predecessor, though
still not exactly, the terms of _Periculoso_. He forbade the abbess to
allow any nuns to leave the precincts before his visitation "that is to
such a distance that it is not possible for them to return the same day."
This was on June 23rd 1329; a month later he was obliged to compromise,
for on July 18th he sent a licence to Canonsleigh, recapitulating his
former mandate but adding a special indulgence, permitting ("for certain
legitimate reasons") the nuns to absent themselves from the monastery
"with honest and senior ladies to visit near relatives and friends of
themselves and of the house, who are free from all suspicion," and fixing
the limit of their visit at fifteen days, an improvement on Stapeldon's
month, but still far removed from the spirit of Boniface VIII's bull.
_Reg. John de Grandisson_, I, pp. 508, 511.
[1104] See e.g. Wroxall 1338, "Et vous emouvums [? enioiniums], dame
prioresse, qe vous ne seyez mes si legere de doner licence a vos soers de
isser de le encloystre et nomement la priourie cume vous avez este en ces
houres saunz verreye et resonable enchesun et cause." _Worc. Reg. Sede
Vacante_, p. 276; and St Radegund's, Cambridge, 1373: "Item, the Prioress
is too easily induced to give permission to the nuns to go outside the
cloister." Gray, _Priory of St Radegund's, Cambridge_, p. 36.
[1105] See e.g. Fairwell, 1367. _Reg. Robert de Stretton_, p. 118. The
necessity for an injunction against favouritism is shown by the _comperta_
of Archbishop Langham's visitation of St Sepulchre, Canterbury, in 1367-8.
"Prioressa non permittit moniales ire in villam ad visitandum amicos suos
nisi Margeriam Child et Julianam Aldelesse que illuc vadunt quociens eis
placet." _Lambeth Reg. Langham_, f. 76_d_. She was also charged with
allowing them to receive suspected visitors. See below, p. 399.
[1106] An example of such a licence for a particular nun to leave her
house is printed in Fosbroke, _British Monachism_ (1817), p. 361 (note
_g_) and also in Taunton, _Engl. Black Monks of St Benedict_, I, p. 108,
note 2. It is said to be granted on the prayer of "Lady J. wife of Sir W.
knight, of our diocese," whom the nun is to be allowed to visit, with a
companion from the same priory and to go thither on horseback
"notwithstanding your customs to the contrary."
[1107] But Archbishop Melton said twice a year at Arthington in 1315.
_V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 188.
[1108] See e.g. Bishop Spofford's regulation at Lymbrook in 1437: "nor to
be absent lyggyng oute by nyght out of their monastery, but with fader and
moder, excepte causes of necessytee." _Hereford Epis. Reg. Spofford_, I,
f. 77; and Archbishop Lee's injunction to Sinningthwaite in 1534: "that
she from henceforth licence none of her susters to go fourth of the
housse, onles it be for the profitt of the house, or visite their fathers
and modres, or odre nere kynsfolkes, if the prioresse shall think it
conuenient." _Yorks. Arch. Journ._ XVI, p. 442. Compare Bishop Gynewell's
injunction to Godstow (1358), "par necessarie et resonable cause ouesque
lour parents, honestement au profit de vostre mesoun." _Linc. Epis. Reg.
Memo. Gynewell_, f. 100_d_. Sometimes, however, friends were mentioned,
e.g. at Nunkeeling (1314) none was to go out "except on the business of
the house or to visit friends and relations." _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 120.
Sometimes the sickness of friends was specified. At Marrick (1252) none
was to go out unless "the sickness of friends or some other worthy reason"
demanded it, _ib._ p. 117; and at Studley in 1530-1 Bishop Longland
ordained "that ye lycence not eny of your ladyes to passe out of the
precincte of our monastery to visite their kynsfolks or frendes, onles it
be for ther comforte in tyme of ther sikenes, and yett not than onles it
shall seme to you, ladye priores, to be behouefull and necessarye, seing
that undre suche pretence moche insolency have been used in religion,"
_Archaeologia_, XLVII, p. 54. One of the nuns of Legbourne in 1440
complained bitterly that "the Prioress will not suffer this deponent to
visit her parent who is sick [even] when it was thought that he would
die." _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 186.
[1109] As, needless to say, she sometimes did. In 1351 Bishop Gynewell was
obliged to write to Heynings rebuking such disobedience: "encement si
auoms entenduz que les dames de dit mesoun sount acustumez demurrer od
lour amys outre le terme par vous, Prioresse, assigne, nous commandoms a
vous, Prioress auant dit, qe taunt soulement une foith en 1 an donez conge
a les dames de visiter lour amys, et certeyn terme resonable pur reuenir,
outre qeule terme sils facent demoer, saunz cause resonable par vous
accepte, les chastes pur le trespasse solonc les obseruances de vostres
ordre saunz delay." _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell_, f. 34_d_. At
Ivinghoe in 1530 it was discovered that one of the nuns had gone on a
visit to her friends without permission and had stayed away from the Feast
of St Michael to Passion Sunday in the following year (i.e. over six
months), which came perilously near to apostasy, _V.C.H. Bucks._ I, p.
355. In the _Vitae Patrum_, XC, 206, however, there is a tale of a nun who
was lent by her Abbess to a certain religious matron and lived with her
for a year. See the version in _Exempla e sermonibus, etc._ ed. T. F.
Crane, pp. 26-7.
[1110] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 120, 128, 175, 177, 178.
[1111] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell_, f. 100_d_.
[1112] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 118, 122, ff. 6-7, 25, 72, 83, 109. At
Godstow the prioress said "that the nuns have often access to Oxford under
colour of visiting their friends," p. 114; and at Heynings a discontented
nun said "that sisters Ellen Bryg and Agnes Bokke have often recourse to
Lincoln and there make long tarrying." They denied the charge, but a note
in the register states, "The nuns have access too often to the house of
the treasurer of Lincoln, abiding there sometimes for a week." The Bishop
forbade "accesse suspecte to Lincolne," pp. 132, 133, 135.
[1113] Ff. 28_d_, 77_d_, 95_d_. To Catesby, _op. cit._ p. 51. Compare
injunctions to Godstow, Gracedieu, Nuncoton and St Michael's, Stamford,
pp. 116, 125.
[1114] Above, p. 348. And compare William of Wykeham's injunction to
Romsey, which repeats Peckham's constitution on this point word for word.
_New Coll._ MS. f. 85.
[1115] See e.g. Drokensford's injunction to Minchin Barrow [i.e. Barrow
Gurney] in 1315: "quod tunc bene incedant et in habitu moniali et non ad
alia loca quam se extendit licencia se diuertant quoque modo, et ultra
tempus licencie sue se voluntarie non absentent." Hugo, _Med. Nunneries of
Somerset, Barrow_, App. II, p. 81.
[1116] See e.g. the synodal Constitutions of c. 1237, Wilkins, _Concilia_,
I, p. 650. Archbishop Courtenay in 1389 sent an interesting injunction to
Elstow Abbey, which had evidently been remiss in offering hospitality to
travelling nuns: "Inasmuch as it has happened that nuns coming to the
monastery on their return from a visit to their friends, have been refused
necessities for themselves and for their horses, inhumanly and contrary to
the good repute of religion, which we wish to remedy, we order that for
each nun thus tarrying provision be made according to the resources of the
house, for four horses at least if by day for a whole day, and if [she
come] by night or after the hour of nones for the rest of the day and for
the night following." _Lambeth Reg. Courtenay_, I, f. 336. Injunction
repeated by Bishop Flemyng of Lincoln in 1421-2. _Visit. of Relig. Houses
in Dioc. Linc._ I, pp. 50-1.
[1117] See e.g. Peckham's injunctions to Barking and Godstow. Above, p.
348. Religious houses of men were sometimes specially ordered not to
receive them, e.g. Bridlington in 1287. _Reg. John le Romeyn_, I, p. 200.
The necessity for such an order appears below, pp. 446 ff.
[1118] E.g. Peckham to St Sepulchre, Canterbury (1284): "Nullum quoque
potum aut cibum ibidem sumat, moram non protrahat, sed statim expedita
causa accessus hujusmodi redeat indilate." _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_, II, p.
707; and Bokyngham to Elstow (1387): "Cum vero recreacionis causa, obtenta
superioris licencia, moniales antedicte egrediuntur monasterii sui septa,
incedant cum familiarium honesta comitiua et sufficiente, ad idem
monasterium, redeuntes de eodem citra solis occasum." _Linc. Epis. Reg.
Memo. Bokyngham_, f. 343.
[1119] At Wroxall in 1338 it was specially ordered "qe deux jeunes ne
issent poynt ensemble pur male suspecioun qe de ceo purra legerement
sourdre, ke Dieuz defent." _Worc. Reg. Sede Vacante_, p. 276. At Lymbrook
in 1437 Bishop Spofford ordered that no nun was to go out without a
companion, and "in case they lygge owte be nyght, two sustres to lye
togeder in on bed," a practice which (according to the usual custom) he
forbids in the dorter. _Hereford Epis. Reg. Spofford_, f. 77.
[1120] See Thiers, _op. cit._ Pt I, chs. XVIII, XXII, XXIII, XXIV, XXXI.
He quotes the stories of the nuns of Arles in the fifth century and of
Marcigny in the eleventh century, who refused to break their enclosures
even for fire and were miraculously preserved, pp. 12-13, 32-5.
[1121] The rhymed Northern Rule of St Benedict for nuns (l. 2094) says
that when they go away into the country they should wear "more honest"
clothes. "In habitu moniali" is one of the conditions imposed on the nuns
of Barrow Gurney in 1315. See above, p. 358, note 4. The necessity for
such a regulation appears in the decree made by Henry Archbishop of
Cologne, executing an enactment of the Provincial Council of Cologne
(1310), promulgating _Periculoso_. "Nevertheless we often see that having
come out of their monasteries they [the nuns] wander about the roads and
public places and frequent the houses of secular persons. And, what is
more deplorable, having put off their religious habit, they appear in
secular dress and bear themselves in public with so much vanity that their
conduct may justly be considered suspicious, although their conscience be
really pure and without sin. And although hitherto they have been menaced
with divers penalties, nevertheless the more strictly they are forbidden
to live after this fashion, the more eagerly they disobey, so strongly do
they hanker after forbidden things." The whole injunction is worthy of
study. Thiers, _op. cit._ pp. 491-3. Discipline was laxer in German
convents than in those of England. In England, however, there are
sometimes complaints that male religious leave their convents in secular
attire; see a case at Huntingdon Priory in 1439, _Linc. Visit._ II, pp.
154-5.
[1122] See _ib._ XXV, XXVI, XXVII. A few examples may be given of nuns
leaving their houses to become superiors elsewhere: Basedale got
prioresses from Rosedale in 1524 and 1527 (_Yorks. Arch. Soc._ XVI, p. 431
note); Rosedale from Clementhorpe in 1525 (Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, pp. 317,
385); Kington from Bromhale in 1326 (_ib._ IV, p. 398) and Ankerwyke from
Bromhale in 1421 (_Visit. of Relig. Houses in Dioc. Linc._ I, p. 156).
Sometimes the prioress of one house left it to rule another, e.g.
Elizabeth Davell, Prioress of Basedale, became Prioress of Keldholme in
1467 (_V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 169). Alice Davy, who occurs as Prioress of
Castle Hedingham in 1472 and was afterwards Prioress of Wix (_V.C.H.
Essex_, II, p. 123), and Eleanor Bernard, Prioress of Little Marlow (c.
1516) became Abbess of Delapré (Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 149). For a form of
licence from a prioress, permitting a nun to accept the office of prioress
elsewhere, see _MS. Harl._ 862, f. 94 ("Literae Priorissae de Bromhale
quibus licenciam impertit Clementiae Medforde ejusdem Domus, consorori et
communiali, ut Prioratui de Ankerwyke sicut Priorissa praeesse valeat");
and compare the reply of the Prioress of St Bartholomew's, Newcastle, to
the Bishop of Durham about the election of Dame Margaret Danby, a nun of
her house, to be Prioress of St Mary's, Neasham, "Whilk Postulacion I
graunt fully with assent of my chapiter atte Reverence of God and in
plesing of yor gracious lordship; not wythstondyng yat she is ful
necessarye and profitable to us both in spirituall governance and
temporall" (1428). (_V.C.H. Durham_, II, p. 107.) Sometimes a mother house
from over the sea tried to assert its right to nominate the head of one of
its daughter houses, but Cluniacs, Cistercians, Premonstratensians and
houses affiliated to Fontevrault were all extremely jealous of French
interference. See the letter written by Mary, daughter of Edward I, a nun
of Amesbury, to her brother the King in 1316 protesting against the action
of the Abbess of Fontevrault, who was reputed to be sending "a prioress
from beyond the sea," instead of acceding to the convent's request that
one of their own number might succeed to the office. Wood, _Letters of
Royal and Illustrious Ladies_, I, pp. 60-63. It was always held desirable
if possible to take a superior from among the nuns of the house in which
the vacancy occurred, but sometimes no suitable person could be found.
[1123] See Thiers, I, ch. XXII, who mentions the corollary that the
superior of another house may be called in to correct rebellious nuns if
their own head is unable to do so. See below, p. 466. In 1501 Emma Powes,
then at Romsey, is said to have been professed at King's Mead near Derby
"and from that place had been removed to another priory in the Hereford
diocese, where she had been prioress, and thence had come to this house."
A charge of incontinence was made against her, and we know from another
source that she had been prioress of Lymbrook (she was deprived on or
about 24 Nov. 1488, _Hereford Reg. Myllyng_, p. 112). It is interesting
that in 1492 one of the nuns had asked that "a nun who has been brought
in, be restored to the place to which she is professed." Liveing, _Records
of Romsey Abbey_, pp. 219, 225. One of Alnwick's injunctions to Clemence
Medforde, Prioress of Ankerwyke in 1441, was "that henceforth she should
not admit that nun of Hinchinbrooke either into the house or to dwell
among them, and also that she should not deliver to her that bond which
she has from the house of Hinchinbrooke, or any other goods which she has
of the same house." _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 6. In a list of the nuns of
Thetford in 1526 occurs the name of "Domina Elianora Hanam, professa in
Wyke (Wix)." Jessopp, _Visit. in Dioc. Norwich_, p. 243.
[1124] Such, for instance, as leprosy. In 1287 Archbishop John le Romeyn
sent a request to the master of Sherburn Hospital, Durham, to receive
Basilia de Cotum, a nun of Handale, "quia, ... lepre deformitate aspersa,
propter suspectam morbi contagionem, morari non poterit inter sanos,
devocionem vestram rogamus quatinus ipsam in hospitali vestro velitis
recipere et seorsum in necessariis exhibere, ita, tamen, quod sub
religioso habitu quem gerit Deo serviat dum subsistit." _Reg. John le
Romeyn_, I, p. 163. Richard de Wallingford, the great abbot of St Albans,
was a leper, but remained in his house.
[1125] Dugdale, _Mon._ V, p. 493. Dugdale remarks that "a little scandal
also appears to have been attached to her character." She finally resigned
on account of old age in 1320, and perhaps the leave of absence referred
to accounts for the appearance of another Prioress in 1308 who resigned in
1309. _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 180-1.
[1126] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 127, note 13.
[1127] _V.C.H. Dorset_, II, p. 78. In 1427 the papal licence was granted
to one Isabel Falowfeld, nun of St Bartholomew's, Newcastle on Tyne, to
transfer herself to another monastery of the same order, on account of her
weak constitution and the inclemency of the air near St Bartholomew's.
_Cal. of Papal Letters_, VII, p. 516. See Thiers on the subject, _op.
cit._ pp. 140-2, 213-5. He quotes the decision of the University of
Salamanca on the question as to whether the General or any minor official
of the Minorites had the power to give permission to a nun of the order
who was dangerously ill, to leave her house and enter another of the same
order, so as to recover her health. "Exactissima discussione facta circa
praesentem difficultatem, omnes unanimiter atque uno ore responderunt
atque dixerunt, non posse id fieri stando in jure communi, quod et multis
juribus atque rationibus comprobarunt" (p. 214). He also quotes the case
of a nun of the Annunciation of Agen, of whom the doctors said that if she
stayed in her house she would infallibly die, but if she went out for a
change of air and medicinal baths she would infallibly be cured. To which
alternative the General of the Order, on being asked to give her a
dispensation to go out, replied in one word "_Moriatur_" (p. 217). But
these were both strictly enclosed orders.
[1128] "Si quae vero moniales ad balnea qualitercumque processerint extra
monasteria, irremissibiliter priventur habitu regulari; et licentiantes
easdem ut praedicta petant balnea, sententiam excommunicationis
incurrant." _Nomasticon Cisterciense_, p. 533, also in Thiers _op. cit._
p. 220; cf. pp. 216 ff. But the public baths were of notoriously bad
reputation.
[1129] See Thiers, _op. cit._ Pt I, ch. XLII-XLVII. From the fact that he
thinks it necessary to devote five chapters to the subject and from the
evidence which he adduces and the language which he uses, it is clear that
the practice was very prevalent.
[1130] _Decret._ III, tit. XXXI, c. 18. See Thiers, _op. cit._ pp. 161-2.
Licences to migrate to a convent professing a stricter rule are sometimes
found in episcopal registers. See e.g. _Hereford Reg. Caroli Bothe_, p.
241.
[1131] See his letter to a superior, quoted by Thiers: "Je suis
tout-à-fait d'avis que l'on n'ouvre point la porte au changement des
Maisons pour le souhait des filles: car ce changement est tout-à-fait
contraire au bien des Monasteres qui ont la clôture perpetuelle pour
article essentiel. Les filles comme foibles, sont sujettes aux ennuis et
les ennuis leur font trouver des expediens et importuns et indiscrets. Que
les changemens doncques procedent des jugemens des superieurs et non du
désir des filles, qui ne sçauroient mieux declarer qu'elles ne doivent
point estre gratifiées, que quand elles se laissent emporter a des desirs
si peu justes. Il faut donc demeurer là, et laisser chaque rossignol dans
son nid; car autrement le moindre deplaisir qui arriveroit à une fille,
seroit capable de l'inquieter et luy faire prendre le change: Et au lieu
de se changer elle-même, elle penseroit d'avoir suffisament remedié à son
mal, quand elle changeroit de Monastere." Thiers, _op. cit._ pp. 160-1.
[1132] Plainly she regarded the things as her own private property and was
thus guilty of the sin of _proprietas_ as well. Compare the evidence of
the Abbot of Bardney concerning one of his monks in 1439-40. "Also he
deposes that brother John Hale sent out privily all his private goods,
with the mind and intent, as it appeared, to leave the house in apostasy
and especially a silver spoon and a mazer garnished with silver; and yet
he has not yet gone, nor will he disclose to the abbot where such goods
are." _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 26.
[1133] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 127-9.
[1134] The three anchoresses of _The Ancren Riwle_ and their maids will be
remembered.
[1135] Raine, _Letters from Northern Registers_ (Rolls Ser.), pp. 196-8.
See also Rotha Clay, _Hermits and Anchorites of England_, pp. 93-4.
[1136] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 113 (cf. _Test. Ebor._ II, p. 98). Two
other Yorkshire nuns are found as anchoresses in the first part of the
fourteenth century. Joan Sperry, nun of Clementhorpe, was anchoress at
Beeston near Leeds in 1322, and in 1348 Margaret la Boteler, nun of
Hampole, was anchoress at the chapel of East Layton, Yorks. Clay, _op.
cit._ pp. 254-5, 256. See also the curious case of Avice of Beverley, a
nun of Nunburnholme, concerning whom "the Prioress and nuns say that Avice
of Beverley, sometime professed nun of Nunburnholme, thrice left the house
to the intent that she might lead a stricter life elsewhere. They say that
fourteen years at least have passed since she last went away; howbeit they
believe her to have lived in chastity. They say that she was disobedient
every year and very often while she was with them. They say that she dwelt
with them for thirty years before she left the monastery for the first
time." The inquiry which elicited this information was made because she
wanted to return (1280). _Reg. Wm. Wickwane_, p. 92. She had probably
tried being an anchoress.
[1137] _Visit. of Relig. Houses in Dioc. Linc._ I, pp. 113-15. The
prioress' licence addressed to Beatrice is also printed. It may be well
here to repeat the editor's warning that "acts of this description
probably form the foundation for the ridiculous superstition, made famous
by a striking passage of Scott's _Marmion_, that nuns and others who had
broken the laws of the church were commonly walled up and left to perish."
Another and perhaps more probable explanation of the superstition is that
Scott probably, and certainly others after him, misinterpreted the words
_immuratio_, _emmurer_, which are constantly used of strict imprisonment
by inquisition officials and others. See on the subject, H. Thurston,
S.J., _The Immuring of Nuns_ (Catholic Truth Soc. Historical Papers, No.
V).
[1138] Celestria (? Celestina), nun, and Adilda, nun, are mentioned as
anchoresses there. Clay, _op. cit._ pp. 222-3.
[1139] _Ib._ p. 184. An "ancress" was found at this house at the time of
the Dissolution.
[1140] For her works see _Revelations of Divine Love, recorded by Julian,
Anchoress at Norwich_, ed. Grace Warrack (1901). She is apparently not to
be confused with another famous anchoress, Julian Lampet, bequests to whom
are often recorded in Norwich wills between 1426 and 1478. The priory
seems to have had a succession of two or even three anchoresses named
Julian. See Rye, _Carrow Abbey_, pp. 7-8 and App. IX, _passim_. For
anchoresses enclosed at conventual houses of men, see Clay, _op. cit._ pp.
77-8; anchoresses are sometimes described as "nun," _ib._ pp. 224, 232,
238, 244. Matilda Newton, a nun of Barking, who had been appointed to rule
the new Abbey of Syon, but for some reason did not become abbess, returned
to her own house as a recluse in 1417. _Ib._ p. 144.
[1141] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Dalderby_, f. 10 (date 1300). The author of
_Dives and Pauper_ declares that such secessions were rare among women:
"We se that whanne men take them to be ankeris and reclusys withinne fewe
yerys comonly eyther they falle in reuersys or eresyes or they breke out
for womans loue or for inkyede of ther lufe or by some gile of þe fend.
But of wimen ancres so inclusid is seldome herde any of these defautys,
but holely they beginne and holely they ende." _Dives and Pauper_, com.
VI, ch. B.
[1142] See above, pp. 69-71.
[1143] Wilkins, _Concilia_, II, p. 18. Compare William of Wykeham's
injunctions to Romsey in 1387: "Constitutiones bone memorie domini
Othoboni quondam sedis apostolice in Anglia legati in hoc casu editas ut
conuenit imitantes, vobis sub penis infrascriptis districcius inhibemus,
ne ad officinas aliquas aut alias cameras quascumque forinsecas extra
septa claustri, vel ad alia loca in villam vel alibi extra vestrum
monasterium, illis quibus hoc ex officio competit dumtaxat exceptis ...
exeatis." _New Coll._ MS. f. 84. Compare also the injunctions (likewise
modelled on Ottobon's constitution) sent by Thomas of Cantilupe, Bishop of
Hereford, to Lymbrook about 1277. _Reg. Thome de Cantilupo_, p. 201.
[1144] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 122, 125.
[1145] _Cistercian Stat._ A.D. 1257-88, ed. J. T. Fowler, 1890, p. 106.
[1146] Blunt, _Myroure of Oure Ladye_ (E.E.T.S.), Introd. pp. xxviii,
xxxii.
[1147] _P.R.O. Mins. Accts._ 1260/3.
[1148] "Paid for the hire of three horses for six days going to London for
our tithes ..., paid for the hire of a serving-man and for his expenses
going with the said horses 2/3, item sent to Dame Katherine Fitzaleyn at
the same time 6/8" (Prioress' Account), _ib._ 1260/4. The treasuress'
account for the same year throws further light upon her movements. "Paid
for the expenses of Dame Katherine Fitzaleyn and Dame Ida going to London
and for the hire of their horses going and returning, for our tithes £2.
11. 0. ... In the expenses of the sub-Prioress and Dame Katherine
Fitzaleyn and two men and three horses going to Fleet for rent and for
salt 3/8. In the expenses of Dame Katherine Fitzaleyn and dame Joan
Fishmere [the treasuress] for hire of horses 8_d._" _Ib._ 1260/5. Dame
Katherine also went to the Bishop to get a certificate and in 1377-8 she
went with the treasuress Dame Margaret Redinges to Corby and to
Sempringham (perhaps to visit the Gilbertine nuns there) and Dames
Margaret Redinges and Joan Fishmere went with Robert Clark to Clapton.
_Ib._ 1260/7
[1149] _Reg. of John de Sandale and Rigaud de Asserio_, p. 418. Similar
letter to Prior and Convent of the Cathedral Church, p. 576.
[1150] Wilkins, _Concilia_, II, p. 18.
[1151] _Reg. Thome de Cantilupo_, p. 201.
[1152] _New Coll._ MS. f. 85_d_.
[1153] Quoted in Thiers, _op. cit._ p. 133, who considers the question in
his ch. XIX.
[1154] _Archaeologia_, XLVII, pp. 52-3.
[1155] See illustration of Henry VI being received as a Confrater at Bury
St Edmunds, reproduced in Gasquet, _Engl. Mon. Life_, facing p. 126, from
_Harl. MS._ 2278, f. 6.
[1156] Amundesham, _Annales_ (Rolls Ser.), I, pp. 65-9, _passim_.
[1157] _V.C.H. Herts._ IV, p. 424.
[1158] "I will that Ilke prior and priores that comes to my beryall at
y{t} day hafe iii s iiij d and Ilke chanon and Nune xij d ... and Ilke
prior and priores that comes to the xxx day [i.e. the so-called
"month's-mind"] hafe vj s viij d and Ilke chanon or none that comes to the
said xxx day haf xx d." _Lincoln Diocese Documents_, ed. A. Clark
(E.E.T.S.), pp. 50, 53.
[1159] _P.R.O. Mins. Accts._ 1260/20. This was probably Constance of
Castile, second wife of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, who died on
March 24, 1394, and was buried with great magnificence at The Newarke,
Leicester. S. Armitage Smith, _John of Gaunt_ (1904), pp. 357-8. The date
of the account roll is unfortunately illegible, but from this internal
evidence it should probably be dated 1393-4. There is another entry "paye
a couent pur lalme le Duk de Lancastre vij s iij d," in which "Duk" is
possibly a slip for "Duchesse."
[1160] There were over seventy places of pilgrimage in Norfolk alone.
Cutts, _Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages_ (3rd ed. 1911), p. 162.
[1161] Jacques de Vitry does not mince his words: "I have seen many
pilgrims who, weary of wayfaring, used to drink themselves tipsy.... You
will find many harlots and evil women in the inns, who lie in wait for the
incautious and reward their guests with evil, even as a mouse in a wallet,
a serpent in the bosom." Etienne de Bourbon has the same tale to tell: "A
pilgrimage should be sober, lest the pilgrims be despoiled and slain and
turned to scorn, both materially and spiritually. For I have seen a person
who had laboured greatly making a pilgrimage overseas lose both his virtue
and his money, when drunk and lying with a chambermaid in an inn."
_Anecdotes Historiques etc., d'Etienne de Bourbon_, ed. Lecoy de la Marche
(1877), pp. 167-8. Mine Host's words to the drunken cook (_Manciple's
Prol._ II, pp. 15-19) are significant in the light of these quotations. So
also are the adventures of "that loose fish the Pardoner" with the tapster
Kit at the Chequer Inn. _Tale of Beryn_, ed. Furnivall and Stone (Chaucer
Soc. 1887). See also _An Alphabet of Tales_ (E.E.T.S.), p. 258, No.
CCCLXXVI.
[1162] Compare the words of the Lollard William Thorpe in 1407: "Such fond
people waste blamefullie Gods goodes in their vaine pilgrimages, spending
their goods upon vitious hostelars, which are oft uncleane women of their
bodies.... Also, sir, I knowe well that when divers men and women will goe
thus after their oun willes and finding, out on pilgrimage, they will
ordaine with them before to have with them some men and women that can
well sing wanton songes; and some other pilgrimages will have them with
bagge-pipes," etc. This and other information about pilgrimages may be
found in Coulton, _Chaucer and his England_, pp. 138-43. See also _The
Book of the Knight of La Tour-Landry_ (E.E.T.S.), pp. 47 ff.
[1163]
The wyff of bath was so wery, she had no will to walk;
She toke the Priores by the hond; "madam, wol ye stalk
Pryuely in-to þe garden, to se the herbis growe?
And aftir, with our hostis wyff, in hir parlour rowe,
I wol gyve ghewe the wine, and yee shull me also:
ffor tyll wee go to soper, wee have naught ellis to do."
The Priores, as womman taught of gentil blood and hend,
Assentid to hir counsell; and forthe (tho) gon they wend
Passyng forth (ful) softly in-to the herbery:
ffor many a herbe grewe, for sewe and surgery;
And al the Aleyis fair I-parid, I-ralid and I-makid:
The sauge and the Isope, I-frethid and I-stakid.
_Tale of Beryn_, p. 10. Cf. p. 6 for the scene with the holy water
sprinkler.
[1164] Langland, _Piers Plowman_, B Text, Passus XII, 36-38.
[1165] "Let it never be permitted to any abbess or any other nun,
whosoever she may be, to undertake the journey to Rome or to any other
holy places; for it is the Devil, taking the form of an angel of light,
who inspires such pilgrimages under a false pretext of piety: and there is
no one so foolish and so devoid of reason as not to know how irreligious
and blameworthy a thing it is for Virgins vowed to God to hold converse
with men, through the necessity of a journey. If after the prohibition of
this venerable Council, there be found anyone so bold as to disobey this
ordinance, which has been promulgated by unanimous consent, let him be
punished according to the rigour of the canons, to wit let him be
excommunicated." Thiers, _op. cit._ p. 135.
[1166] Wilkins, _Concilia_, I, p. 502.
[1167] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 172. Compare Bishop Gynewell's injunction
to Heynings in 1351: "Item pur ceo que ascun de les dames de dit mesoun
sount trop acustumez de faire auowes de pilgrimage et dautres abstinences,
saunz conge de lour souerayn, par quar ils ount souent occasion de les
retrer de lour religion; si vous comandoms sur peyn descomengement que nul
de vous face tiel maner auowe en destourbance de vostre religion, saunz
especial conge de vostre souereyn. Et que nul tiel auowe soit fait par
ascun de vous, pur faire paregrinage ou autre abstinence a quel il nest
pas tenuz par sa religion, nous lui relessoms tut maner de tel auowe,
issint qil se poet doner entirement a sa religion parfaire." _Linc. Epis.
Reg. Memo. Gynewell_, f. 34_d_.
[1168] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 172, and Dugdale, _Mon._ V, p. 654.
[1169] _V.C.H. Essex_, II, p. 124.
[1170] _Archaeologia_, XLVII, pp. 56-7.
[1171] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 183. This episode is a striking
illustration of the complaint made about those Jubilee pilgrimages by the
abbots of Fountains, St Mary Graces and Stratford, who had been appointed
by the Abbot and Chapter-General of Cîteaux to report on the condition of
English monasteries of that order. Writing to the Abbot of Cîteaux in
1500, they beg that several bulls of Jubilee indulgence should be sent to
England, adding, "for many lesser religious of the order, under pretext of
obtaining the grace of this indulgence, led by a spirit less of devotion
than of levity and curiosity, are begging their superiors for licence to
go to the Roman curia, and we have besought them to remain at home in the
hope of obtaining this jubilee [indulgence]. For we rarely see, in this
country of ours, any good and devout secular or religious man visiting the
Mother City (most justly though it be accounted holy), who returns home
again in better holiness and devotion." _Mélanges d'Histoire offerts à M.
Charles Bémont_ (Paris, 1913), p. 429.
[1172] Quoted in Gregorovius, _Hist. of Rome in the Middle Ages_, III, p.
78 note. See the fifteenth century Florentine carnival song, quoted below,
pp. 617-8.
[1173]
Les blanches et les grises et les noires nonains
Sont sovent pelerines aus saintes et aus sainz;
Les Diex lor en set gre, je n'en suis pas certains,
S'eles fussent bien sages eles alassent mains.
Quant ces nonains s'en vont par le pays esbatre
Les unes a Paris, les autres a Montmartre,
Tels foiz enmaine deus qu'on en ramaine quatre,
Quar s'on en perdroit une il les covenroit batre.
From "De la vie dou Monde," _Rustebeufs Gedichte hg. v. Adolf Krefaner_
(1885), p. 185.
[1174] And of such specific decrees as that of the Council of Oxford
(1222) which forbade them to go merely to visit relatives or for
recreation except (there was always a saving clause under which nuns and
bishops alike could shelter) in such case as might arouse no suspicion.
Wilkins, _Concilia_, I, p. 592.
[1175] _Reg. Walter de Stapeldon_, p. 95. Cf. injunctions to Polsloe,
above, p. 355.
[1176] _All the Familiar Colloquies of Erasmus_, ed. N. Bailey, 2nd ed.
1733, p. 379.
[1177] _Hereford Epis. Reg. Spofford_, p. 81. Compare the charge made
against the clergy of Ripon Minster in 1312: "Vicarii capellani, et
caeteri ministri ... spectaculis publicis, ludibriis et coreis, immo
teatricalibus ludis inter laicos frequentius se immiscent." J. T. Fowler,
_Memorials of Ripon Minster_ (Surtees Soc.), II, p. 68. Also one of the
_comperta_ at Alnwick's visitation of Humberstone Abbey in 1440, "He says
that Wrauby answered the abbot saucily and rebelliously when [the abbot]
took him to task for climbing up a gate to behold the pipe-players and
dancers in the churchyard of the parish church." _Linc. Visit._ II, p.
140.
[1178] _Manners and Meals in Olden Time_, ed. Furnivall (E.E.T.S.), p. 40.
[1179] See above, p. 81, and compare the injunctions sent by Cardinal
Nicholas of Cues to the Abbess of Sonnenburg, c. 1454, forbidding her to
go on pilgrimages or to visit health resorts or to attend weddings.
Eckenstein, _Woman under Monasticism_, p. 425.
[1180] Quoted in Brand's _Observations on Popular Antiquities_ (ed. 1877),
pp. 382, 394. Compare the almost precisely similar account given by
Erasmus in his _Guide to Christian Matrimony_ (1526), quoted in Coulton,
_Social Life in Britain from the Conquest to the Reformation_, pp. 439-40.
[1181] See above, p. 309 and below, p. 388.
[1182] Coulton, _Chaucer and his England_, pp. 108-9. Weddings were,
however, occasionally celebrated in convent churches, e.g. on Jan. 3rd,
1465-6 the Bishop of Ely addressed a licence to Thomas Trumpington,
"President of religion of the Minoresses of the convent of Denny,"
authorising him to celebrate matrimony in the convent church between
William Ketterich junior and Marion Hall, domestic servants in the
monastery, the bans to be put up in the parish church of Waterbeach. _Ely
Epis. Records_, ed. Gibbons, p. 145. Compare case at Crabhouse in 1476,
_V.C.H. Norfolk_, II, p. 409. Dugdale notes that Henry VIII is said to
have married one of his wives in the Chapel at Sopwell. Dugdale, _Mon._
III, p. 364. Such weddings would necessarily have taken place in convent
churches where the nave was also used as a parish church, but this was not
so at Denny. Wriothesley's _Chronicle_ contains an account of a triple
wedding held at Haliwell in 1536. "This yeare, the 3 daye of July, beinge
Mondaye, was a greate solempnytie of marriage kept at the nonnerye of
Halywell, besyde London, in the Erle of Ruttlandes place, where the Erle
of Oxfordes sonne and heyer, called Lord Bulbeke maryed the Erle of
Westmorelandes eldest daughter named Ladye Dorytye and the Erle of
Westmorelandes sonne and heyre, called Lord Nevell, maryed the Erle of
Ruttlandes eldyste daughter, named Ladye Anne, and the Erle of Rutlandes
sonne and heire called Lord Roosse maryed the Erle of Westmorelandes
daughter, named Ladye Margaret; and all these three lordes were maryed at
one masse, goinge to churche all 3 together on by another and the laydes,
there wyfes, followinge, one after another, everye one of the younge
ladyes havinge 2 younge lordes goinge one everye syde of them when they
went to church and a younge ladye bearinge up everye of their gowne
traynes; at wh. maryage was present all the greate estates of the realme,
both lordes and ladyes." Afterwards they all went home and had a great
feast, followed by a dance, to which the King came dressed as a Turk.
_Wriothesley's Chronicle_, ed. W. D. Hamilton (Camden Soc. 1875), I, pp.
50-1. A reference may also be made to No. XLVI of _Les Cent Nouvelles
Nouvelles_, ed. Th. Wright, t. I, p. 284: "Or advint toutesfoiz ung jour
que une des niepces de madame l'abbesse se marioit et faisoit sa feste en
l'abbaye; et y avoit grosse assemblée des gens du païs; et estoit madame
l'abbesse fort empeschée de festoyer les gens de bien qui estoyent venuz à
la feste faire honneur à sa niepce."
[1183] From "Proofs of Age, temp. Henry IV," quoted in _Trans. R. Hist.
Soc._ N.S. XVI (1902), p. 163.
[1184] "Or viennent commeres de toutes pars; or convient que le pauvre
homme [i.e. the husband] face tant que elles soient bien aises. La dame et
les commeres parlent et raudent, et dient de bonnes chouses et se tiennent
bien aises, quiconques ait la peine de le querir, quelque temps qu'il face
... et tousjours boyvent comme bottes.... Lors les commeres entrent, elles
desjunent, elles disnent, elles menjent a raassie, maintenant boivent au
lit de la commere, maintenant à la cuve, et confondent des biens et du vin
plus qu'il n'en entreroit en une bote; et à l'aventure il vient à barrilz
ou n'en y a que une pipe. Et le pauvre homme, qui a tout le soussy de la
despense, va souvent veoir comment le vin se porte, quant il voit
terriblement boire.... Briefment tout se despend; les commeres s'en vont
bien coiffées, parlant et janglant, et ne se esmoient point dont il
vient." _Les Quinzes Joyes de Mariage_ (Bib. Elzevirienne, 1855), pp.
27-8, 30, 37-8.
[1185] G. G. Coulton, _French Monasticism in 1503_ (Medieval Studies No.
XI. 1915), p. 22 note 2.
[1186] _New Coll._ MS. f. 87. On the other hand such connections with rich
families might be a source of wealth to a house. Mr Coulton draws
attention to "the letter of an abbot at Bordeaux in Father Denifle's
_Désolation des Eglises, etc._ I, p. 583 (A.D. 1419). The abbey had been
so impoverished by war that the Abbot begged for a papal indult permitting
him to stand godfather to forty children of noble or wealthy families."
Coulton, _loc. cit._
[1187] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 77_d_.
[1188] "That frome hensforthe ye give noo more licence ne suffre eny of
your susters to be godmother to eny child, nither at the christening
nother at the confirmacon, and undre like payne chardge you nott to be
godmother to eny child in christening nor confirmacon." _Archaeologia_,
XLVII, p. 54. Compare similar prohibitions by Eudes Rigaud, Archbishop of
Rouen, addressed to the nuns of Montivilliers in 1257 and 1265. _Reg.
Visit. Archiepis. Rothomag._ ed. Bonnin (1852), pp. 293, 517. The
prohibition was frequently broken by monks as well as by nuns. See e.g.
the _comperta_ at Alnwick's visitation of Higham Ferrers College in 1442:
"Also Sir William Calverstone haunts suspect places and especially the
house of Margery Chaumberleyn, for whose son he stood sponsor at his
confirmation, and, though warned by the master, he does not desist. The
same does also haunt the house of one Plays, for whose son he likewise
stood sponsor." _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 138. Also the complaint of Guy
Jouenneaux, Abbot of St Sulpice de Bourges in his _Defence of Monastic
Reform_ (1503): "Sometimes they eat in the houses of their gossips, though
the law forbids them such relationships, or again among citizens, at whose
houses they are as frequent guests, or more frequent, than even
worldly-minded folk." Coulton, _loc. cit._ It is interesting that Barbara
Mason, ex-Prioress of Marham, who died shortly after the dissolution in
1538, mentions two god-daughters. "I wyll Barbara Barcom my goddowter and
seruant, shall haue my wosted kyrtyll and clothe kyrtell and my frok in
Hayll. Itm. I bequeth to Elyn Mason's chyld, my goddowter xij d." _Bury
Wills and Inventories_, ed. S. Tymms (Camden Soc.), p. 134. Henry VIII's
visitors gave her a bad character.
[1189] For her life see M. A. E. Green, _Lives of the Princesses of
England_, II, pp. 404-42.
[1190] Their gardens are often mentioned, e.g. at Nuncoton in 1440 it was
complained that the nuns had private gardens and that some of them did not
come to Compline, but wandered about in the gardens, gathering herbs.
_Alnwick's Visit._ f. 72. At Stainfield in 1519 a similar complaint was
made that on feast days they did not stay in the church and occupy
themselves in devotion, between the Hours of Our Lady and High Mass, but
came out and walked about the garden and cloisters. _V.C.H. Lincs._ II, p.
131. The nuns of Sinningthwaite (1319) were ordered to provide themselves
with a competent gardener for their curtilage, so that they might always
have an abundance of vegetables. _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 177. Christine de
Pisan's description of the great gardens of the convent of Poissy is most
attractive. See below, p. 560.
[1191] Quoted in Gasquet, _English Monastic Life_, p. 177.
[1192] One of the charges against Eleanor Prioress of Arden in 1396 was
that "she compelled three young nuns to go out haymaking very early in the
morning and they did not come back before nightfall and so divine service
was not yet said." _Test. Ebor._ (Surtees Soc.), p. 283.
[1193] _Alnwick's Visit._ f. 71_d_.
[1194] _Ib._ pp. 120, 121, 123, 125. At Bishop Atwater's visitation of
Legbourne in 1519 it was stated that the nuns often worked at haymaking,
but only in the presence of the Prioress. _V.C.H. Lincs._ II, p. 154.
[1195] See below, p. 653.
[1196] See below, p. 589.
[1197] See Thiers on the subject: "Si les Religieuses estoient aussi
soigneuses de leur honneur et de leur reputation comme elles devroient, si
elles vouloient asseurer la grace de leur vocation et de leur election ...
elles ne nourriroient point de vaches dans leur clôture, estant indecent
que les Religieuses s'occupent à les mener paistre, à les retirer des
pasturages, et à faire tout ce qui est necessaire pour en recevoir quelque
profit. Je dis la même choses des asnesses, qu'elles y retiennient pour en
prendre le lait dans leurs infirmitez. Car elles peuvent les avoir au
dehors et en tirer à peu près les mêmes avantages, que si elles les
renoient au dedans. Aussi est-il dit dans les Statuts du Couvent de Saint
Estienne de Reims, de l'ordre des Chanoinesses regulieres de Saint
Augustin: Il ne sera loisible de recevoir dans le Monastere aucun gros
bestail: ce qui est parfaitement conforme à cette défense du 1. Concile
Provincial de Milan en 1565. _Moniales ne intus in septis Monasterii
boves, equos et jumenta cujusvis generis alant._" _Op. cit._ p. 415.
[1198] _Ancren Riwle_ (King's Classics), pp. 316-7.
[1199] _Lambeth Reg. Courtenay_, I, f. 336. The injunction was repeated by
Bishop Flemyng in 1421-2. _Visit. of Relig. Houses in Dioc. Lincoln_, I,
p. 52. At Godstow Peckham made the following order concerning the
conversations of nuns with seculars: "Cum insuper talia sunt colloquia
terminata, inhibemus decetero ne moniales hujusmodi pro colloquentium
conductu, locutorii januam exeant ullo modo, nec etiam stent exterius in
atrio, ubi saecularium est concursus, _sed interius tantum in hortis et
pomeriis_ quatenus requirit necessitas et honestas patitur, si non desit
omnimoda securitas, consolentur." _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_, III, p. 848. At
Romsey in 1311 Bishop Woodlock ordered that "there shall be an entrance
into the garden by a gate or postern for the sick _in loco non suspecto_
for their recreation and solace." Liveing, _Records of Romsey Abbey_, p.
104. At Clementhorpe in 1310 a nun confined to the cloister for penance
might "for recreation and solace go into the orchard and gardens of the
nunnery accompanied by nuns." _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 129.
[1200] _Hereford Epis. Reg. Spofford_, p. 82.
[1201] William Salt Archaeol. Soc. Coll. New Series, VIII, pp. 118-9.
[1202] Coulton, _Chaucer and his England_, p. 109. He quotes one such rule
from the "Ménagier de Paris." "When thou goest into town or to church,
walk with thine head high, thine eyelids lowered and fixed on the ground
at four fathoms distance straight in front of thee, without looking or
glancing sideways at either man or woman to the right hand or the left,
nor looking upward."
[1203] _V.C.H. Essex_, II, p. 124.
[1204] Cf. Coulton, _Medieval Studies_ (first series, 2nd ed., p. 61) and
Bishop Hallam's admonition to Shaftesbury in 1410. _V.C.H. Dorset_, II, p.
78. Also Peckham's Constitution in 1281. Wilkins, _Concilia_, II, p. 58.
[1205] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 239.
[1206] _Reg. Godfrey Giffard_, p. 267.
[1207] _Reg. Sede Vacante_ (Worc. Hist. Soc.), p. 276.
[1208] _Reg. Ralph of Shrewsbury_, p. 241.
[1209] _Reg. Walter de Stapeldon_, p. 317.
[1210] _A Boke of Precedence_, ed. F. J. Furnivall (E.E.T.S. Extra Ser.
VIII), p. 39.
[1211] _The Wife of Bath's Prologue_, ll. 545-7.
[1212] _Reg. Epis. Peckham_ (Rolls Ser.), II, p. 664.
[1213] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 114. Cf. Gray's injunction in 1432. _Visit.
of Relig. Houses in Dioc. of Linc._ I, p. 67.
[1214] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell_, f. 139_d_.
[1215] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Bokyngham_, f. 343.
[1216] _Visit. of Relig. Houses in Dioc. Linc._ I, pp. 25, 51.
[1217] _Archaeologia_, XLVII, p. 57.
[1218] _Reg. Johannis de Pontissara_, pp. 251-2.
[1219] _Reg. Epis. Peckham_ (Rolls Ser.), II, p. 707.
[1220] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 50. With this account of the entertainment
provided by the Friars of Northampton for their visitors, compare the
evidence given at Bishop Nykke's visitation of the Cathedral priory of
Norwich in 1514. "Item, the Brethren are wont to dance in the
guesten-house, by favour of the guest-master, by night (and) up to noon."
_Visit. of the Dioc. of Norwich_ (Camden Soc.), p. 75. One of the Bishop's
_comperta_ was that suspicious women had access to the house of the
guest-master, which throws further light on the Catesby case. Incidentally
the latter bears out Chaucer's description of the Friar, who was so fond
of harping.
[1221] _Exempla e sermonibus vulgaribus Jacobi Vitriacensis_, ed. T. F.
Crane, p. 131.
[1222] _Anecdotes Historiques, etc. d'Etienne de Bourbon_, ed. Lecoy de La
Marche, p. 229.
[1223] See below, p. 460.
[1224] See also below, pp. 448-50.
[1225] Dugdale, _Mon._ V, p. 654.
[1226] Liveing, _Records of Romsey Abbey_, p. 218.
[1227] _Poetical Works of John Skelton_, ed. Dyce, I, p. 95.
[1228] Langland, _Piers Plowman_, ed. Skeat, Text B, Passus V, ll. 304 ff.
[1229] See above, p. 373.
[1230] _Songs and Carols_, ed. Th. Wright (Percy Soc.), pp. 91-5.
[1231] Gower, _Mirour de l'Omne_, ed. G. C. Macaulay, p. 289. Translated
in Coulton, _Med. Garn._ pp. 577-8.
[1232] At Esholt in 1535 Archbishop Lee even had to enjoin "that the
prioress suffer no ale house to be kept within the precinct of the gates
of the saide monasterie." _Yorks. Arch. Journ._ XVI, p. 452. An
explanation of this may be found by comparing the evidence at Archbishop
Warham's visitation of the Hospital of St James outside Canterbury in
1511. "The Prioress complains that Richard Welles stays and talks in the
precincts of the house and his wife sells beer in the precincts. They are
very quarrelsome people, brawlers and sowers of discord. There is always a
crowd of people at the house of Richard." _E.H.R._ VI, p. 22. At both
these houses the nuns probably employed a secular alewife to make their
beer and she sold also to other customers within their precincts. Compare
Peckham's injunction to Wherwell in 1284: "Iterum ob Dei reverentiam et
ecclesiae honestatem perpetuo inhibemus ne mercatores sedere in ecclesia
cum suis mercibus permittantur." _Reg. Epis. Johannis Peckham_ (Rolls
Ser.), II, p. 654. Also Bishop Bokyngham's letter forbidding merchants to
sell their wares in the conventual church or churchyard of Stainfield
under pain of excommunication (1392). _V.C.H. Lincs._ II, p. 131. Medieval
churches were put to strange uses. They served sometimes as a
market-place, sometimes as a granary, sometimes as a playground, sometimes
as a stage.
[1233] Wood, _Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies_, II, p. 35, note
_b_.
[1234] Wood, _op. cit._ pp. 35-6.
[1235] Wood, _op. cit._ pp. 36-37 (No. XV).
[1236] On this subject see Part II of Thiers' treatise _De la Clôture_,
pp. 265-497.
[1237] _Ancren Riwle_ (King's Classics), p. 67.
[1238] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 46-7. The Benedictine rule runs: "It is by
no means lawful, without the abbot's permission, for any monk to receive
or give letters, presents and gifts of any kind to anyone, whether parent
or other." Cap. LIV.
[1239] _V.C.H. Oxon._ II, p. 104.
[1240] Liveing, _op. cit._ p. 232.
[1241] _Hist. MSS. Com. Report_, IX, App. p. 57 (early fifteenth century).
[1242] _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_, III, p. 847. From a letter which he wrote
to the Abbess on Nov. 12, 1284, it appears that the Prioress had been
defamed of incontinence, for, while professing his belief in her
innocence, he repeated his prohibition of casual conversation between nuns
and seculars, adding "Oveke ceo nous defendons de part Deu ke nule nonein
ne parle a escoler de Oxeneford, se il nest sun parent prechein, e ovekes
ceo saunz le conge la abbesse especial. E ceo meismes entendons nous de
touz prestres foreins, le queus font mout de maus en mout de lus, e aussi
de touz religieus ki ne venent pur precher u pur confesser oue lautorite
le apostoile e le eveske de Nichole." _Ib._ III, p. 851. Compare an
injunction to Nunmonkton in 1397: "Item non permittatis clericos prioratum
vestrum frequentare absque causa rationabili." Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 194.
[1243] _Linc. Visit._ I, pp. 67-8.
[1244] _Ib._ p. 65.
[1245] See below, p. 449.
[1246] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 114. Alnwick made a very strong injunction:
"For as mykelle as your saide monastery and diuerse singulere persones
ther of are greuously noysed and sclaundred for the grete and contynuelle
accesse and recourse of seculere and regulere persones, and in specyalle
of scolers of Oxenford to your said monastery and seculere persones ther
of, that fro hense forthe ye suffre no seculere persones scolers no othere
... to hafe any accesse or recourse to your said monastery ne to any
singulere persone ther of, ne there to abyde nyght ne daye, etc." _Ib._
pp. 115-6.
[1247] _Ib._ II, p. 218.
[1248] See _V.C.H. Oxon._ II, pp. 76-7.
[1249] _Op. cit._ f. 26_d_.
[1250] Gray, _Priory of St Radegund, Cambridge_, p. 35.
[1251] Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 190. See below p. 602.
[1252] _Lambeth Reg. Langham_, f. 76_d_. Compare the note in Alnwick's
visitation of Studley (1445): "Sister Isabel Bartone. It is said that
there is great recourse of seculare guests to the aforesaid Isabel and to
her chamber." _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 26_d_.
[1253] _Archaeologia_, XLVII, p. 57.
[1254] A few more examples may be quoted. At Swine one of the _comperta_
of Giffard's visitation in 1267-8 runs: "The household of Sir Robert de
Hilton, knight, wanders about far too freely (_nimis dissolute_) in the
cloister and parlour, and often holds very suspicious conversations with
the nuns and sisters, whence it is feared that harm may come. And this
same Robert is very injurious and dangerous to them, wherefore, for fear
of his oppression, the canons of the house lately, without the consent of
the convent, gave him a barn full of corn, with which the convent should
have been maintained." _Reg. Walter Giffard_, p. 148. At Nunmonkton in
1397 the Prioress, Margaret Fairfax, was ordered to see that John Munkton
(the same who scandalised the convent by feasting and playing tables with
her in her room), Sir William Aschby, chaplain, William Snowe and Thomas
Pape held no conversation nor kept company with her, nor with any nun of
her house, except in the presence of two of the elder nuns, and she was
warned not to allow clerks to frequent the priory without reasonable
cause. Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 194. At Rusper in 1524 "a certain William
Tychenor has frequent access to the said priory and there sows discord
between the prioress and sisters and others living there." _Sussex Arch.
Coll._ V, p. 257. It will be noticed how often these suspected visitors
are clerics; the prefix "sir" in the Nuncoton extract quoted in the text
almost certainly denotes a churchman and the persons mentioned are
probably secular clergy or canons from neighbouring houses such as
Newhouse, probably chantry-priests and parish chaplains. See below, p.
416.
[1255] The following examples are typical of a host of others. At
Nunappleton (1281) external visitors come into frater and cloister. _Reg.
William Wickwane_, p. 141. At Rosedale (1306) the infirmary is to be kept
from the passing to and fro of seculars; at Arthington (1318) they are not
to frequent cloister, infirmary or other private places; at Nunburnholme
(1318) there is scandal from the frequent access and gossiping of seculars
with certain of the nuns. _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 119, 174. At Ickleton
(1345) the precincts are not to be made the resort of any secular woman,
nor is any such person to come into the choir during the hours of service.
Goddard, _Ickleton Church and Priory_ (_Cambridge Antiq. Soc. Proc._ XLV,
p. 190). At Gracedieu (1440-1) seculars and nuns eat together _commixtim_
in the Prioress' hall. _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 122. At Heynings (1440) the
infirmary was occupied by secular folk, "to the great disturbance of the
sisters." _Ib._ p. 133. At Romsey (1492) people stand about chatting in
the middle of the choir. Liveing, _op. cit._ p. 220.
[1256] On the right of the patron or founder of a monastery, or of persons
of noble birth, to enter the cloistral precincts, see Thiers, _op. cit._
pp. 296-309. He quotes the rule of Fontevrault (cap. VII): "If the most
Christian King, the Queen, the Dauphin and other princes of the
blood-royal, the founders and foundresses, being instantly besought,
refuse nevertheless to desist from entering the precincts, let them enter
with as small a suite of attendants as you can arrange, in long and decent
garments and not otherwise; but let them not seek to pass the night on
pain of excommunication." _Ib._ p. 297. It was never possible in practice
to keep out great lords and ladies.
[1257] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell_, f. 34_d_.
[1258] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 133-5, _passim_. Compare the injunctions to
some Yorkshire houses: at Marrick (1252) the nuns were forbidden to sit
with guests or anyone else outside the cloister after curfew, or for a
long time unless the guests arrived so late that it was impossible to
serve them sooner, nor was a nun to remain alone with a guest. At Hampole
(1302) no nun except the _hostillaria_ was to eat or drink in the
guest-house, save with worthy people, and at Wilberfoss (1302) they were
forbidden to linger in the guest-house or elsewhere, for amusement with
seculars. _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 117, 126, 163. At Elstow in 1432,
however, Bishop Gray enjoined "that when parents or friends or kinsfolk of
nuns, or other persons of note and honesty, shall journey to the same
monastery to visit any nuns of the said monastery, the same nuns be nowise
bound for that day to observance of frater, but be excused to this end by
grace of the abbess or president." _Visit. of Relig. Houses in Dioc.
Linc._ I, p. 54.
[1259] _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_, III, pp. 851-2.
[1260] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell_, f. 100_d_.
[1261] _Wykeham's Reg._ II, pp. 73-4. The special prohibition of friars is
significant, for their reputation was growing worse and worse throughout
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. See also _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp.
164, 171, 181 and _Arch._ XLVII, p. 57. On the other hand it should be
noted that "during the later thirteenth and earlier fourteenth centuries
the bishops in many dioceses made a point of insisting that the confessors
to the nuns should be chosen, not from the secular clergy, but from the
Mendicant Orders, especially from the Minorites." A. G. Little, _Studies
in English Franciscan Hist._ (1917), p. 119 (and the references which he
gives).
[1262] _Visit. of Relig. Houses in Dioc. Linc._ I, p. 66.
[1263] _Yorks. Arch. Journ._ XVI, p. 441. Compare Alnwick's injunctions to
Catesby (1442), Langley (1440-1) and St Michael's, Stamford (1440). _Linc.
Visit._ II, pp. 51, 117, _Alnwick's_ MS. f. 83_d_.
[1264] _Yorks. Arch. Journ._ XVI, p. 452 (cf. p. 440). These injunctions
were very common, for the rule was often broken. Peckham's regulation for
Wherwell (1284) was that no man was to enter after sunset at night, or
before the end of chapter (which followed directly after Prime) in the
morning. _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_, II, p. 653. For other examples see
Romsey (1302-11), Liveing, _op. cit._ pp. 102, 103; Moxby (1318), _V.C.H.
Yorks._ III, p. 239; Sopwell (1338), Dugdale, _Mon._ III, p. 366; Wroxall
(1338), _Worc. Reg. Sede Vacante_, p. 275; Heynings (1351), _Linc. Epis.
Reg. Memo. Gynewell_, f. 34_d_; Elstow (1387), _ib._, _Reg. Memo.
Bokyngham_, f. 343: St Mary's Neasham (1436), _V.C.H. Durham_, II, p. 107;
St Helen's, Bishopsgate (1439), Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 552; Nunappleton
(1489), _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 172; Studley (1530-1), _Archaeologia_,
XLVII, p. 59; Nuncoton (1531), _ib._ pp. 56, 59.
[1265] This certainly seems very strict, for (as appears from the
injunctions quoted) it was customary to order the doors to be shut when
the bell rang for Compline, the last office of the day. Vespers was the
service immediately before supper.
[1266] _Cantarista_ usually means a chantry-priest. The more usual word is
_Precentrix_.
[1267] Chaucer, _Boke of the Duchesse_, ll. 300-4.
[1268] _E.H.R._ VI, pp. 33-4.
[1269] This was reiterated in Ottobon's Constitutions and in the Bull
_Periculoso_. See also Thomas of Cantilupe's letter to Lymbrook in 1277
(_Reg. Thome de Cantilupo_, p. 201) and Archbishop Peckham's injunction to
Godstow, both based upon Ottobon. _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_, III, p. 848.
Also Bishop Brantyngham's commission concerning the nuns of Polsloe in
1376, which is based upon _Periculoso_. _Reg. of Bishop Brantyngham_, pt.
II, pp. 152-3.
[1270] _Reg. Epis. Johannis Peckham_, II, pp. 652-3. Compare injunctions
to Barking, _ib._ I, p. 84, and to St Sepulchre's, Canterbury, _ib._ II,
p. 706.
[1271] _Ib._ II, p. 663 "volentes ibi moniales curiose respicere vel cum
eis garrulas attemptare."
[1272] _Archaeologia_, XLVII, p. 52. Compare Bishop Gray's injunction to
Godstow in 1432-4. "Also that all the doors of the nuns' lodgings towards
the outer court, through which it is possible to enter into the cloister
precinct, even if the other doors of the cloister be shut for the time
being, be altogether blocked up, or that such means of barring or shutting
be placed upon them that approach or entrance through the same doors may
not be given to secular folk." _Linc. Visit._ I, p. 68. Compare also Dean
Kentwode's injunction to St Helen's, Bishopsgate, in 1432: "Also we injoyn
yow, Prioresse, that there may be a doore at the Nonnes quere, that noo
straungers may loke on them, nor they on the straungers, wanne thei bene
at dyvyne service. Also we ordene and injoyne yow, prioresse, that there
be made a hache of conabyll heythe, crestyd with pykys of herne to fore
the entre of yowre kechyne, that noo straunge pepille may entre with
certeyne cleketts avysed be yow and be yowre steward to suche personys as
yow and hem thynk onest and conabell. Also we injoyne yew, prioresse, that
non nonnes have noo keyes of the posterne doore that gothe owte of the
cloystere into the churche yerd but the prioresse, for there is moche
comyng in and owte unlefulle tymys." Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 554.
[1273] _Loc. cit._ With this compare Alnwick's visitation of Ankerwyke in
1441, at which one of Margery Kyrkeby's charges against the Prioress
Clemence Medeforde was: "Also she has ... blocked up the view Thamesward,
which was a great diversion to the nuns. She confesses blocking up the
view, because she saw that men stood in the narrow space close to the
window and talked with the nuns." _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 3.
[1274] _Yorks. Arch. Journ._ XVI, pp. 452-3. Compare Bishop Stapeldon's
injunction to Canonsleigh in 1320: "Et pur ceo que nous avoms oyi et
entendu par ascune gent qe par my deus us dedenz vostre abbeye ileoqes
plusours mals esclandres et deshonestetes sunt avenues avant cest hure, et
purront ensement avenir apres, si remedie ne soit mys, ceo est asavoir, un
us qe est en lencloistre au celer desouz la Sale la Abbesse devers la
court voloms, ordinoms et comaundoms qe meisme ceux deus us soyent bien
estupees par mur de pere, entre cy et la Paske procheyn avenir." _Reg. W.
de Stapeldon_, p. 96.
[1275] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 172. He also said that "No man loge undir
the dortir nor oon the baksede, but if hit be such sad persones by whome
your house may be holpyne and socured w{t}out slaundir or suspicion."
[1276] Dugdale, _Mon._ III, p. 366. But at Barking Peckham ordered in
1279: "In officiis, autem, quae per foeminas fieri nequeunt, operariorum
cum eisdem cautelis introitus admittatur." _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_, I, p.
84. On the entrance of carpenters, masons and other workmen into convents
see Thiers, _op. cit._ II, ch. xxvi. He insists that the work must be a
necessity and something which could not be done by the nuns themselves.
"Ainsi les artisans sont coupables du violement de la clôture, lorsqu'ils
entrent pour des ouvrages de bienseance ou de commodite, pour des
decorations ou des embelissemens; en un mot, pour des ouvrages dont les
Religieuses se peuvent passer; et je ne vois pas en quelle seurete de
conscience les abbesses, les Prieures et les autres superieures des
Religieuses, les y laissent entrer, soit pour polir des grilles, pour
tendre et pour detendre des chambres et des lits, pour faire et pour
peindre des plat-fonds et des alcoves, pour boiser des chambres, des
galleries et des cabinets, pour faire de beaux vitrages, de belle volieres
à petits oiseaux et d'autres choses semblables. Car outre que tout cela
est directement opposé à la modestie et à la pauvreté, dont elles font
profession, quel pretexte peuvent-elles alleguer pour se mettre à couvert
de l'excommunication que les Conciles, les Papes et les Eveques ont
fulminée contre les Religieuses, qui laissent entrer les personnes
étrangeres dans leur clôture sans necessité." _Op. cit._ pp. 412-3. He is
particularly urgent that nuns should cultivate their own gardens and
should have their vegetable gardens outside the precincts: "par ce moyen
elles ne seroient point obligées d'ouvrer et fermer si souvent les portes
de leur clôture, à des jardiniers qui ne sont pas toûjours exempts de
scandale" (_ib._ p. 414), which recalls a famous story of Boccaccio's.
_Decameron_, 3rd day, novel I.
[1277] _Loc. cit._ and compare his injunction to Wherwell, _ib._ p. 268.
Bishop Flemyng's introduction to Elstow is rather contradictory: "Also
that no nun admit secretly to her chamber any seculars or other men of
religion and that if they be admitted she do not keep them there too
long." _Visit. of Relig. Houses in Dioc. Lincoln_, I, p. 51. At Godstow
(1432) the injunction ran: "Also that the beds in the nuns' lodgings be
altogether removed from their chambers, save those for small children and
that no nun receive any secular people for any recreation in the nuns'
chambers under pain of excommunication." _Ib._ I, p. 67.
[1278] As at Godstow in 1432, _Linc. Visit._ I, p. 67, or Romsey in 1523,
Liveing, _Records of Romsey Abbey_, p. 244.
[1279] _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_, II, p. 664. Cf. his injunctions to other
nunneries.
[1280] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 116. Compare injunctions to Catesby, Langley,
Markyate and St Michael's, Stamford. _Ib._ pp. 51, 177, and _Alnwick's
Visit._ MS. ff. 6, 83_d_. For other examples see Lymbrook (1277), _Reg.
Thome de Cantilupo_, p. 201; Polsloe (1319), _Reg. W. de Stapeldon_, p.
317; Studley (1530), _Archaeologia_, XLVII, p. 54.
[1281] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 83_d_, cf. f. 6, and _Linc. Visit._ II,
p. 177.
[1282] Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 554. Compare Romsey (1387), _New Coll._ MS.
f. 86; Nuncoton (1531), _Archaeologia_, XLVII, p. 60. St Benedict's Rule
forbids all letters (cap. LIV).
[1283] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 46, 177; _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. ff. 39_d_,
76, 95_d_.
[1284] _Ib._ p. 119.
[1285] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 185.
[1286] _Ib._ p. 133.
[1287] _Ib._ pp. 113, MS. ff. 71_d_, 72, 77.
[1288] For other examples see Romsey (1311), Liveing, _op. cit._ p. 104;
Clementhorpe (1317), Hampole (1308, 1314), Nunappleton (1346), Rosedale
(1315), Arthington (1315, 1318); _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 129, 163-4, 172,
174, 188. Sopwell (1338), Dugdale, _Mon._ III, p. 366; Heynings (1392),
_Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Bokyngham_, f. 397_d_; Lymbrook (1437), _Hereford
Epis. Reg. Spofford_, p. 81; Burnham (1432-6), _Visit. of Relig. Houses in
Dioc. Lincoln_, I, p. 24; Redlingfield (1514), _Visit. of Dioc. of
Norwich_, pp. 139-40; Flamstead (1530), _V.C.H. Herts._ IV, p. 433;
Nuncoton (1531), _Archaeologia_, XLVII, p. 58; Sinningthwaite (1534),
_Yorks. Arch. Journ._ XVI, pp. 440-1. The injunction to St Helen's,
Bishopsgate, in 1432 has an odd variation: "withowte specialle graunte
hadde in the chapetter house, among yow alle." Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, pp.
553-4.
[1289] _Reg. of John of Drokensford_, p. 81. The Isabel Fychet mentioned
in 1336 was probably one of these ladies.
[1290] _Wykeham's Reg._ II, pp. 162-3. On this couple, see Smyth, _Lives
of the Berkeleys_, pp. 364 ff.
[1291] _Reg. Ralph of Shrewsbury_, pp. 277, 278, 744-5. A few out of many
other examples may be quoted: Alice, wife of John D'Aumarle, _domicellus_,
may stay at Cornworthy from January till September (1333), _Reg. of J. de
Grandisson_, pt. II, p. 724; Beatrix Paynell, sister of Sir John Foxley,
may stay at Whitney from December to the Feast of St John the Baptist
(1367), _Wykeham's Reg._ II, p. 7; Avice de Lyncolnia, niece of William de
Jafford, may stay for four years in Nunappleton (1309); he was the
Archbishop's receiver. _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, 171; Alice, wife of Alan of
Ayste, may spend two years in Godstow (1363), _V.C.H. Oxon._ II, p. 73. It
will be noted that nearly all these are great folk, who cannot lightly be
refused.
[1292] _Reg. J. de Grandisson_, pt. I, p. 190.
[1293] _V.C.H. Beds._ I, p. 355.
[1294] _Reg. John le Romeyn_, I, p. 114.
[1295] See the list in Rye, _Carrow Abbey_, pp. 48-52, _passim_. Some of
the men also brought servants or chaplains with them, e.g. William Wryght
and servants, William Wade and William his chaplain, John Bernard and John
his chaplain. The men must have been lodged outside the cloister
precincts.
[1296] _Paston Letters_, ed. Gairdner (1900 ed.), II, p. 390 (no. 633).
See also no. 617 and Introd. pp. ccxc-ccxcii.
[1297] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 175 (at this house there were also three
women boarding with the Prioress and one with the Subprioress). Compare
the case of Agnes de Vescy at Watton in 1272. The King wrote to the
sheriff of Yorkshire that "Agnes de Vescy has been to the house of Watton
with a great number of women and dogs and other things, which have
interfered with the devotions of the nuns and sisters." Graham, _St
Gilbert of Sempringham and the Gilbertines_, p. 83. The fact was that no
one had any real control over these great ladies, least of all their
hostesses.
[1298] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 185.
[1299] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 76. Compare a _compertum_ at St
Sepulchre, Canterbury, in 1367-8. "Perhendinantes male fame steterunt cum
priorissa, ad quas habebatur eciam accessus nimium suspectus," _Lambeth
Reg. Langham_, f. 76_d_.
[1300] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 120, 122.
[1301] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. ff. 71_d_, 72. Compare the state of affairs
at Hampole in 1411, when the Archbishop ordered the removal of "secular
servants and _corrodiarii_ who attracted to themselves other secular
persons from the country, by whom the house was burdened." _V.C.H. Yorks._
III, p. 165. When Bishop Grandisson of Exeter licensed the reception of
Alice D'Aumarle at Cornworthy (1333) he added "proviso quod ad vos, per
moram hujusmodi, secularium personarum non pateat suspectis horis liberior
frequencia vel accessus." _Reg. Grandisson_, pt. II, p. 724.
[1302] _Visit. of Relig. Houses in Dioc. of Lincoln_, I, p. 87.
[1303] Note for instance the Archbishop of York's injunction when
mitigating a severe penance on a nun of St Clement's, York, which is
clearly for immorality: "That twice a year if necessary she might receive
friends ... but she was to have nothing to do with Lady de Walleys and if
Lady de Walleys was then in their house, she was to be sent away before
Pentecost (1310)," _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 129.
[1304] _V.C.H. Yorks._ II, p. 165.
[1305] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 39_d_.
[1306] Possibly a priest.
[1307] _Sussex Arch. Coll._ IX, p. 18.
[1308] Wilkins, _Concilia_, I, p. 592.
[1309] _Visit. of Relig. Houses in Dioc. Lincoln_, I, pp. 48-9. Compare
Gray's injunction, laying more stress on married boarders. _Ib._ p. 53.
[1310] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell_, f. 34_d_.
[1311] _Visit. Linc._ II, p. 135. For other injunctions against boarders
see Godstow, Gracedieu, Harrold, Langley, Nuncoton, Stixwould, _ib._ pp.
115, 124-5, 131, 177, _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. ff. 77_d_, 75_d_; Wherwell,
Romsey (1284), Sheppey (1286), _Reg. Epis. Peckham_, II, pp. 653-4, III,
p. 924; Wilberfoss, Nunkeeling and Nunappleton (1281-2), _Reg. William
Wickwane_, pp. 112-3, 140-1; Polsloe (1319), _Reg. W. de Stapeldon_, p.
317; Canonsleigh (1391), _Reg. of Brantyngham_, pt. II, p. 724; Farwell
(1367), _Reg. R. de Stretton_, p. 119; Polesworth (1352, 1456), _V.C.H.
Warwick_, II, p. 63. These are only a few examples taken at random; the
registers of the Archbishops of York and of the Bishops of Lincoln alone
record many more. (See the _V.C.H._ for the counties in these dioceses,
_passim_.)
[1312] _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_, II, p. 664; Liveing, _op. cit._ pp. 102,
165.
[1313] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell_, f. 100_d_; _Linc. Visit._ I, p.
67; II, p. 115.
[1314] _Gynewell_, f. 139_d_, _V.C.H. Beds._ I, p. 355; _Linc. Visit._ I,
pp. 48-9, 53.
[1315] "That ye receyve ne holde no suiournauntes, men, women ne
childerne, wyth ynne your place, and thoe that nowe are there, ye voyde
thaym wythe yn a quartere of a yere after the receyvyng of thise our
lettres, but if ye here yn hafe specyalle licence of hus or our
successours, bysshops of Lincolne, except our wele belufede doghters, dame
Elizabeth Dymmok and dame Margaret Tylney, by whose abydyng, as we truste,
no greve but rathere avayle is procured to your place." _Alnwick's Visit._
MS. f. 75_d_.
[1316] _Reg. of Brantyngham_, pt. II, p. 724.
[1317] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 173.
[1318] See examples above, p. 410.
[1319] See Ch. VI, _passim_.
[1320] _Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich_ (Camden Soc.), p. 290.
[1321] _Cal. of Papal Letters_, IV, pp. 37-8.
[1322] _Ib._ IV, p. 212.
[1323] _Ib._ IV, p. 167.
[1324] _Ib._ IV, p. 182.
[1325] _Ib._ IV, p. 394.
[1326] For example, _ib._ I, pp. 522, 526; IV, p. 38; VII, pp. 70, 440,
617. Sometimes, too, they were ordered to pay their own expenses, e.g.
_ib._ VI, p. 293.
[1327] _Ib._ VI, p. 132.
[1328] _Ib._ VII, p. 220.
[1329] _Ib._ V, p. 91.
[1330] I.e. Jean de Dormans, bishop of Beauvais 1360-8, cardinal 1368, d.
1373.
[1331] _Cal. of Papal Letters_, IV, p. 170.
[1332] _V.C.H. Northants._ II, p. 126. Sewardsley was near Grafton Regis,
where Jacquetta, then widow of Richard Wydville, earl Rivers, lived. This
recalls the more famous case of Eleanor de Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester.
It is worth noticing also that on the eve of the Reformation the famous
Elizabeth Barton, called "the Holy Maid of Kent," found refuge for a part
of her short career in the nunnery of St Sepulchre's, Canterbury.
Archbishop Warham secured her admission there in 1526, and she became a
nun and remained there for seven years, until the fame of her outspoken
condemnations of the royal divorce finally brought about her execution in
1533. See Gasquet, _Hen. VIII and the English Monasteries_ (Pop. Edit.
1899), ch. III, _passim_.
[1333] _Le Livere de Engletere_ (Rolls Series), p. 344.
[1334] _Cal. of Close Rolls_ (1318-23), p. 428.
[1335] _Ib._ (1323-7), pp. 88-9; cf. _Le Livere de Engletere_, p. 350.
[1336] _V.C.H. Lincs._ II, p. 184.
[1337] _Cal. of Close Rolls_ (1307-13), p. 114.
[1338] _Ib._ (1302-7), p. 419.
[1339] _Cal. of Close Rolls_ (1313-18), p. 43. Sometimes the King sent his
friends as well as his enemies to board in a convent and occasionally he
endeavoured to do so without paying for them. In 1339 he sent first to
Wilton and then to Shaftesbury "Sibyl Libaud of Scotland who lately came
to England to the king's faith and besought that he would provide for her
maintenance, requesting them to provide her and her son Thomas, who is of
tender age, with maintenance from that house, in food and clothing, until
Whitsuntide next, knowing that what they do at this request shall not be
to the prejudice of their house in the future." _Cal. of Close Rolls_
(1339-41), pp. 261, 335. John of Gaunt made use of the convent of Nuneaton
to provide a home for five Spanish ladies, who had doubtless come to
England with his duchess Constance of Castile; early in 1373 he wrote to
his receiver at Leicester bidding him pay the prioress for their expenses
13_s._ 4_d._ each week; but evidently they found the convent too dull for
their tastes, for in August one of them was "demourrant a Leycestre
ovesque Johan Elmeshalle," and in December the Duke wrote to his receiver
again to say that he had heard "que noz damoisels d'Espaigne demurrantz a
Nouneton ne voullont pas illoeques pluis longement demurrer"; so it was
"Farewell and adieu to you, Spanish ladies" at Nuneaton. It is probable
that these "damoisels" were quite young girls, and had been placed at the
convent to learn "nortelry." _John of Gaunt's Reg._ (R. Hist. Soc.), II,
pp. 128, 231, 276-7. See, for more about these ladies, pp. 320-1, 328,
338.
[1340] Browning, _Fra Lippo Lippi_.
[1341] _V.C.H. Norfolk_, II, p. 352. This case is particularly
interesting, because it would seem to show that "benefit of clergy" was
not claimed by nuns. On this point see Pollock and Maitland, _Hist. of
Engl. Law_, 2nd ed. I, p. 445. "There seems no reason for doubting that
nuns were entitled to the same privilege, though, to their credit be it
said, we have in our period, found no cases which prove this." Maitland
cites Hale, _Pleas of the Crown_, II, p. 328, as saying: "Nuns had the
exemption from temporal jurisdiction but the privilege of clergy was never
granted them by our law"; but elsewhere (_Pleas of the Crown_, II, p.
371): "Anciently nuns professed were admitted to privilege of clergy"; he
cites a case from 1348 (Fitzherbert's _Abridgment Corone_, pl. 461) which
speaks of a woman, not expressly called a nun, being claimed by and
delivered to the ordinary. Stephen, _Hist. of Crim. Law of England_, II,
p. 461, thinks that "all women (except, till the Reformation, professed
nuns) were for centuries excluded from benefit of clergy, because they
were incapable of being ordained."
[1342] Mr Hamilton Thompson thinks that "Mestowe" is probably the hundred
of Meon-Stoke (Hants.), in a distant part of the county; it is difficult
to see why the Abbess made a general claim there and in any case Wherwell,
where Henry Harold lived, is in Wherwell Hundred.
[1343] _V.C.H. Hants._ II, p. 135.
[1344] Dugdale, _Mon._ III, p. 369.
[1345] Gibbons, _Ely Epis. Records_, p. 406.
[1346] _Cal. of Pat. Rolls_ (1381-5), p. 355.
[1347] On the other hand for a case of spoliation in which Juliana Yong, a
nun, was involved as one of the aggressors see _Cal. of Pap. Petit._ I,
pp. 333-4.
[1348] _Linc. Reg. Dalderby_, f. 16.
[1349] _Linc. Visit._ I, pp. 108-9. Compare a case in 1375 at Romsey when
certain persons broke into the houses of the Abbess within the Abbey and
carried off Joan, late the wife of Peter Brugge, and her property,
consisting of her gold rings, gold brooches or bracelets with precious
stones, linen and woollen clothes and furs; her chaplain aiding. Liveing,
_op. cit._ p. 166.
[1350] _Cal. of Pat. Rolls_ (1340-3), p. 127.
[1351] _Ib._ (1367-70), p. 10. The Abbess was the worldly Joan Formage.
Licences for crenellating monasteries are rather unusual; but cathedral
closes were very generally crenellated at the end of the thirteenth and
beginning of the fourteenth centuries, e.g. Lincoln, York, Lichfield,
Wells and Exeter. There is a good example of a crenellated monastery at
the Benedictine Priory of Ewenny near Bridgend, Glamorgan, a cell of
Gloucester. This is near the south coast of Wales, where, as along the
Welsh border, towers either crenellated or with certain defensive features
are common. Cf. the numerous fortified churches in the south of France,
e.g. Albi Cathedral (Tarn) and Les Saintes-Maries (Bouches-du-Rhône), the
latter close to the shore of the Mediterranean. (For this note I am
indebted to Mr A. Hamilton Thompson.)
[1352] Froissart, tr. Berners, I, ch. xxxviii. For the sufferings of other
monasteries on the south coast see P. G. Mode, _The Influence of the Black
Death on the English Monasteries_, p. 31.
[1353] See Denifle, _La Désolation des Eglises ... pendant la Guerre de
Cent Ans_ (1899). In t. I is a long list of monasteries which had been
ruined during the fourteenth century. The following (no. 176) is typical:
"Monasterium monialium B. Mariae de Bricourt O.S.B. Trecen. dioec.,
causantibus a 40 annis guerris desolatum et destructum, libris aliisque
destitutum et ab omnibus monialibus derelictum 1442" (pp. 55-6).
[1354] Dugdale, _Mon._ II, pp. 316, 452, 636.
[1355] Serjeantson, _Delapré Abbey_ (1909), pp. 21-3.
[1356] Graham, _Essay on Engl. Monasteries_ (Hist. Ass. 1913), p. 29. The
text of the assessment is given in the notes to the _Taxatio Ecclesiastica
Pape Nicholai_ (Record Com. 1802).
[1357] _The Chronicle of Lanercost_, translated by Sir Herbert Maxwell
[1913], p. 136.
[1358] _Reg. Palat. Dunelm._ I, p. 353. In 1291 the number of nuns was
twenty-seven, together with four lay brothers, three chaplains and a
master. Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 197.
[1359] _Hist. Letters from the Northern Reg._ ed. Raine, pp. 319-23.
[1360] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 175, 240.
[1361] Froissart, tr. Berners, I, ch. cxxxvii. The English army on its way
to Neville's Cross was also a sore burden to the religious houses of the
neighbourhood. See the very interesting document about Egglestone Abbey
quoted from Archbishop Zouche's Register (under the date 1348) by A.
Hamilton Thompson, _The Pestilences of the Fourteenth Century in the
Diocese of York_ (_Archaeol. Journ._ vol. LXXI, New Series, vol. XXI, p.
120, n. 4). It is probable that this campaign, together with the Black
Death, which followed hard upon it, brought about the final ruin of the
little nunnery of St Stephen's near Northallerton, which is not heard of
after 1350. See _ib._ p. 121, n. 12, and _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 116.
[1362] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 160, cp. the case of Armathwaite below. The
muniments of Carrow were burnt during the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. Hoare,
C. M., _Hist. of an East Anglian Soke_ (Bedford 1918), p. 112. "The
destruction of charters, privileges and muniments was a severe loss;
evidence for the holding of each strip of land and in support of every
custom was of the utmost importance." Graham, _St Gilb. of Semp. and the
Gilbertines_, p. 138.
[1363] _V.C.H. Cumberland_, II, p. 190, and Dugdale, _Mon._ III, pp.
271-2.
[1364] _Aug. Off. Misc. Books_, 281, f. 11 [_P.R.O._]. For the sufferings
of Northern monasteries from the Scots 1330-50 see references collected
from the patent rolls in P. G. Mode, _op. cit._ p. 32.
[1365] _Chronicon Angliae_, ed. E. M. Thompson (R.S. 1874), pp. 247-53.
[1366] It is extremely difficult to identify the nunnery spoken of in the
story. According to Froissart the expedition sailed from Southampton
(Froissart, _Chron._ I, ch. ccclvi); according to another account the port
of departure was Plymouth (see J. H. Ramsay, _The Genesis of Lancaster_,
II, p. 131). If Southampton be correct, Romsey Abbey would be the nearest
nunnery answering to the description in the text, though it stands some
miles from the coast. If Sir John sailed from Plymouth the only nunnery in
the vicinity would be the little priory of Cornworthy, which certainly
never contained a large number of nuns and boarders (though as to this the
chronicler may be exaggerating). It is strange that no record of the crime
appears to have survived in episcopal registers or in any official
document; but it seems unlikely that the story is pure invention, since we
know from other sources that the troops were notorious for general
depredations along the coast. A petition presented to the King in
Parliament (1379/80) runs: "Item, beseech the commons and the good folk
who dwell near the coasts of the sea, to wit, of Norfolk, Suffolk, Kent,
Surrey, Hampshire, Dorset and Cornwall: That whereas they and their
chattels have oftentimes been robbed, and are destroyed and spoiled by
men-at-arms, archers and others coming and going by the said ports to the
service of our Lord the king at the war and by their long sojourn; and
chiefly the people of Hampshire during the last expedition which was ruled
and ordered, for by the sojourn and destruction made by men ordered upon
the said expedition, the goods and chattels of the good people of
Hampshire are destroyed, spoiled and annihilated, to the very great
abashment and destruction of all the Commons of those parts, as well folk
of Holy Church as others; and they will lodge themselves of their own
authority, having no regard to the billets (herbegage) assigned to them by
our lord [the king], to the destruction of the common people, if it be not
remedied as soon as may be." (_Rot. Parl._ III, p. 80.) The other
nunneries in Hampshire were St Mary's Winchester, Wherwell, and Whitney.
[1367] Dugdale, _Mon._ II, pp. 452, 636.
[1368] To show how a twelfth century baron might speak to a cloistered
nun, the mother of one of his knights, his words deserve quotation:
Voir, dist R. vos estes losengiere.
Je ne sai rien de putain, chanberiere,
Qi est este corsaus ne maaillere,
A toute gent communax garsoniere.
Au conte Y. vos vi je soldoiere,
La vostre chars ne fu onques trop chiere;
Se nus en vost, par le baron S. Piere!
Por poi d'avoir en fustes traite ariere.
_Raoul de Cambrai_, ll. 1328-1335.
[1369] _Raoul de Cambrai_, pub. P. Meyer et A. Longnon, _Soc. des Anc.
Textes Fr._ 1882, stanzas LXIII-LXXI, _passim_ (pp. 42-50).
[1370] "Incontynent it was taken by assaut and robbed and an abbey of
ladyes vyolated and the town brent." Froissart, _Chronicles_, tr. Berners.
[1371] See M. K. Brady, _Psycho-Analysis and its Place in Life_ [1919], p.
117; H. O. Taylor, _The Medieval Mind_ [2nd ed., 1914], I, ch. XX.
[1372] See above, p. 29. For the effects of this at a later period in
Italy see J. A. Symonds, _The Renaissance in Italy. VI. The Catholic
Reaction_, pt. I (1886), pp. 339 ff.
[1373] See below, p. 502.
[1374] See above, pp. 422 ff.
[1375] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Sutton_, ff. 5_d_, 32_d_.
[1376] The unions were sometimes referred to as "marriages" and a priest
unaware of the facts of the case may have been got to celebrate them. For
instance Bishop Gynewell recites how Joan Bruys, nun of Nuneaton, was
abducted by Nicholas Green of Isham and "postmodum se in nostram diocesim
divertentes matrimonium de facto in eadem nostra diocesi scienter inuicem
contraxerunt et incestum ibidem commiserunt et in ea cohabitant indies vir
et vxor." _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell_, f. 102. Marriage is also
referred to in the case of Joyce, an apostate from St Helen's,
Bishopsgate, in 1388. _Hist. MSS. Com. Rep._ IX, App. pt. I, p. 28. At
Atwater's visitation of Ankerwyke in 1519 it was stated "Domina Alicia
Hubbart stetit ibidem in habitu per quatuor annos et tunc in apostasiam
recessit et cuidam ... Sutton consanguineo Magistri Ricardi Sutton
Senescalli de Syon fuit nupta et cum eo in patria ipsius Sutton remanet in
adulterio." _Linc. Epis. Reg. Visit. Atwater_, f. 42.
[1377] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Dalderby_, f. 16. Translated in R. M.
Serjeantson, _Hist. of Delapré Abbey, Northampton_, pp. 7-8.
[1378] _P.R.O. Chancery Warrants_, Series I, File 1759; _Cal. of Patent
Rolls_ (1381-5), p. 235. This file of Chancery Warrants contains a large
number of petitions for the arrest of vagabond monks and nuns. These
petitions usually emanate from the head of the apostate's house, but
occasionally from the Bishop of the diocese, as in another warrant in the
same file in which the Bishop of Norwich petitions for the arrest of
Katherine Montagu, Benedictine nun of Bungay (1376). Other petitions
besides those quoted in the text concern Alice Romayn, Austin nun of
Haliwell (1314, _ib._), Matilda Hunter, Austin nun of Burnham (1392),
(File 1762); Alice de Everyngham, Gilbertine nun of Haverholm (1366),
(File 1764); and the following sisters of Hospitals, Agnes Stanley of St
Bartholomew's, Bristol (1389), Johanna atte Watre of St Thomas the Martyr
at Southwark (1324) and Elizabeth Holewaye of the same house (File 1769,
nos. 1, 15, 18). On receipt of these petitions the writ _De apostata
capiendo_ would be issued and the royal commissions for the arrest of the
delinquents are sometimes found enrolled on the patent rolls, as in the
cases quoted in the text. Alice Everyngham was excommunicated by the
master of Sempringham; but on her case being brought to the papal court
and committed by the Pope to the dean and two canons of Lincoln, she was
absolved by them. The master appealed to the Pope against her absolution,
and the case was committed for trial to the Archbishop of York. _Cal. of
Papal Letters_, IV, pp. 69-70. For a royal commission to arrest Mary de
Felton of the House of Minoresses at Aldgate, see _Cal. Pat. Rolls_,
1385-9, p. 86.
[1379] _P.R.O. Chancery Warrants_, Series I, File 1759; _Cal. of Pat.
Rolls_, 1401-5, pp. 418, 472.
[1380] There are several references to this ceremony: "Dictam igitur
commonialem vestram, iniuncta ei penitencia seculari pro suis reatibus
atque culpis, ad vos et domum vestram, a qua exiit, remittimus absolutam;
deuocionem vestram firmiter in Domino exhortantes quatinus ... dictam
penitentem ... si in humilitatis spiritu, reclinato corpore more
penitencium, pulset ad portam, misericordiam deuote postulans et
implorans, si suum confiteatur reatum, si signa contricionis ac
correccionis appareant in eadem, secundum disciplinam vestri ordinis,
filiali promptitudine admittatis" (Maud of Terrington at Keldholme, 1321),
_Yorks. Arch. Journ._ XVI, pp. 456-7. Compare _ib._ XVI, p. 363 (Margaret
of Burton at Kirklees, 1337); Wm. Salt Archaeol. Soc. Coll. I, p. 256
(case against Elizabeth la Zouche who, with another nun, had escaped from
Brewood in 1326; she was not recovered until 1331).
[1381] _V.C.H. Lincs._ II, pp. 99-100.
[1382] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 159.
[1383] _V.C.H. Lincs._ II, p. 138. The surname "Suffewyk" should probably
read Luffewyk, i.e. Lowick.
[1384] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 171.
[1385] _Ib._ III, p. 177.
[1386] See for Renaissance Italy, J. A. Symonds, _The Renaissance in
Italy_ (1886), VI, p. 340; A. Gagnière, _Les Confessions d'une Abbesse du
xvi{e} siècle_ (Paris, 1888), pp. 128 ff. (Felice Rasponi); G. Marcotti,
_Donne e Monache_ (Firenze, 1884); but ecclesiastics were found among
these _monachini_. In France the same pursuit became fashionable under the
League. For a later date the _Memoirs_ of Casanova provide the most
striking illustrations.
[1387] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 39_d_.
[1388] _Linc. Visit._ I, p. 84.
[1389] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 113.
[1390] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. ff. 83, 83_d_.
[1391] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 181.
[1392] "En visitaunt vostre mesun por plusure fiez truuames nus ke Johan
de Seuekwurth, clerk, se auoit si mauuesement porte en demurant en la
mesun ke il esteit atteint de folie de cors od vne de vos nuneins e vne
autre esteit de ly atteinte, par defaute de purgaciun ke ele ne se poeit
de li purger. Par quei nus defendimes a vus ke vus no le suffrissez en
vostre mesun demurer, e a li ke la euene demurast." _Linc. Epis. Reg.
Memo. Sutton_, f. 129_d_.
[1393] _V.C.H. Somerset_, II, p. 157.
[1394] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 240.
[1395] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 47.
[1396] See below, p. 545.
[1397] Gascoigne accuses John Stafford, Archbishop of Canterbury, of
having had sons and daughters by a nun at a time when he was Bishop of
Bath and Wells. "In diebus meis, anno Domini 1443, electus fuit, vel
verius intrusus, unus archiepiscopus qui fuit genitus ex manifesto
adulterio, et existens genuit filios et filias ex una moniali, in
episcopali gradu existens antequam fuit archiepiscopus." _Loci e Libro
Veritatum_, ed. J. E. Thorold Rogers (1881), p. 231. Gascoigne was a
learned Doctor of Theology and Chancellor of the University of Oxford. His
theological dictionary gives an extraordinarily vivid and gloomy picture
of the corruptions of the church in his day. It must be noted however that
Stafford's support of the heretical Bishop Reginald Pecok (author of the
_Repressor of Overmuch Blaming of the Clergy_) made Gascoigne his
implacable enemy, while there is no foundation for his statement that
Stafford was of illegitimate birth. His charge is therefore unworthy of
belief. The scandal which later connected the name of John Stokesley,
Bishop of London, with Anne Colte, Abbess of Wherwell, seems likely to be
equally devoid of foundation, though she was several times summoned before
the Council in 1534; the King and Cromwell evidently resented her refusal
to give a farm to one of their protégés. _L. and P. Hen. VIII_, VI, 1361,
VII, 527-9, 907; _V.C.H. Hants._ II, p. 136.
[1398] See, besides the references given above, cases in which a priest or
chaplain was implicated at St Stephen's Foukeholm (abduction of Cecilia by
William, Chaplain of Yarm, 1293), _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 113; Nunkeeling
(Avice de Lelle had confessed to incontinence; ordered not to talk to
Robert de Eton, chaplain, or any other person, 1318), _ib._ p. 121;
Keldholme, 1318 (Mary de Holm and Sir William Lely, chaplain, 1318), _ib._
p. 169; Kirklees (Joan de Heton and Sir Michael, called the Scot, priest,
1315), _Yorks. Arch. Journ._ XVI, p. 361; Godstow (Sir Hugh Sadylere of
Oxford, chaplain, and Alice Longspee, 1445), _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 114;
Littlemore (Prioress Katherine Wells and Richard Hewes, priest of Kent,
1517), _V.C.H. Oxon._ II, p. 76; Wintney (Prioress and Thomas Ferring, a
secular priest, 1405), _Cal. Papal Letters_, VI, p. 55; Romsey (charge
against Emma Powes and the vicar of the parish church, 1502), _V.C.H.
Hants._ II, p. 130; Easebourne (Sir John Smyth, chaplain, concerned in
abduction of two nuns, 1478), _Sussex Arch. Coll._ IX, p. 17; and various
other instances of suspicious behaviour or of chaplains and priests warned
off the premises. Some of these cases are described in detail below,
_passim_.
[1399] E.g. "Fatebatur se carnaliter cognitam a D.B. apud S. in domo
habitacionis sue ibidem situata," _Linc. Visit._ I, p. 71. "Item dicit
quod priorissa consueuit sola accedere ad villam de Catesby ad gardinas
cum vno solo presbytero." _Ib._ II, p. 47.
[1400] E.g. "Domina Agnes Smyth inquisita dicit quod Simon Prentes
cognovit eam et suscitavit prolem ex ea infra prioratum, extra tamen
claustrum." Jessopp, _Visit. of Dioc. Norwich_, p. 109. There are many
references to and injunctions against suspicious confabulations with men
in the nave and other parts of the priory church.
[1401] See above, pp. 386-9, 401.
[1402] _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_, II, p. 708.
[1403] _Reg. Thome de Cantilupo, Epis. Herefordensis_ (Canterbury and York
Society), p. 265.
[1404] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 181.
[1405] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 83. See above, p. 310.
[1406] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 91, 116.
[1407] R. E. G. Cole, _The Priory of Brodholme_ (_Assoc. Architec. Soc.
Reports and Papers_, XXVIII), p. 66.
[1408] At Markyate in 1336 "an apostate nun was received back again and
absolved by Bishop Burghersh and three others sought absolution at the
same time for having aided and abetted her in her escape." _V.C.H. Beds._
I, p. 360.
[1409] It must be conceded that the Church gave the nuns every inducement
to take measures to prevent such disasters; for instance in the _Liber
Poenitentialis_ of Theodore the Anglo-Saxon nun guilty of immorality is
given eight years of penance and ten if there be a child; a married layman
and a nun who are lovers have six years of penance and seven if there be a
child. Here, as ever, the Church went on the principle that sin was bad
but scandal worse; _si non caste tamen caute_. Of the practice of abortion
I find no record in English pre-Reformation documents, though Henry VIII's
disreputable commissioner, Dr Layton, accused the Yorkshire nuns of taking
potations "ad prolem conceptum opprimendum." _Letters Relating to the
Suppression of the Monasteries_ (Camden Soc. 1843), p. 97. There is a
proved case of it in Eudes Rigaud's visitation of St-Aubin (1256), and a
suspicion at St Saëns (1264), _Reg. Visit. Rigaud_, ed. Bonnin, pp. 255,
491. See below, p. 668. One of Caesarius of Heisterbach's _exempla_ hangs
upon it. Caes. Heist. _Dial. Mirac._ ed. Strange, II, p. 331. In
seventeenth and eighteenth century Italy the practice seems to have been
common, witness Casanova.
[1410] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 96.
[1411] _Wykeham's Reg._ II, pp. 114-5.
[1412] "Et proles obiit immediate post." Jessopp, _op. cit._ p. 109.
[1413] See e.g. faculty given "to dispense twenty persons of illegitimate
birth of the realms of France and England, whether sons of priests or
married persons, or monks, _or nuns_, to be ordained and to hold two
benefices apiece." _Cal. of Papal Letters_, IV, p. 170.
[1414] M. E. Lowndes, _The Nuns of Port Royal_ (1909), p. 13. The Abbess
in question was Angélique d'Estrées, sister of Gabrielle, Henry IV's
mistress, and famous for her scandalous life and her struggle with her
successor, the famous Mère Angélique (Jacqueline Arnauld) of Port Royal.
[1415] _Letters Relating to the Suppression of the Monasteries_ (Camden
Soc. 1843), p. 58. But it must be remembered that we cannot believe
uncorroborated a single word that Layton says.
[1416] See below, Note F.
[1417] _Reg. Ralph of Shrewsbury_ (Som. Rec. Soc.), pp. 683-4; the charge
is not given in full in this edition of the Register and must be eked out
from the extract in Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 416 (note).
[1418] _Reg. John of Drokensford_, pp. 60, 126, 167, 287.
[1419] _Sussex Arch. Coll._ IX, pp. 17-19.
[1420] _Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi Benedicti Abbatis_, ed. Stubbs, Rolls
Ser., I, pp. 135-6.
[1421] Dugdale, _Mon._ II, p. 334.
[1422] _Cal. of Pap. Letters_, III, p. 169. She was born 11 March 1278 and
took the veil at the age of seven years. Some annalists put the date of
her profession at 1285 and some at 1289; in any case the Warenne charge
was not made until 1345. See above, p. 381, note 1.
[1423] _Cal. of Papal Letters_, V, p. 161.
[1424] _Ib._ VII, p. 373.
[1425] _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_, III, p. 851.
[1426] See Note G, p. 597, below.
[1427] In general an apostate may be said to mean a lover, but there must
also have been cases of nuns apostatising out of general discontent with
the convent or Prioress.
[1428] Two of these, St Mary de Pré (St Albans) and Sopwell ought not,
however, to be counted, being entirely under the control of the Abbey of
St Albans and exempt from episcopal visitation. It was concerning St Mary
de Pré that Archbishop Morton made the charges against St Albans, rendered
famous by Froude.
[1429] Above, p. 440.
[1430] _V.C.H. Northants._ II, p. 101 (note), from _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo.
Sutton_, f. 154.
[1431] _V.C.H. Beds._ I, p. 389.
[1432] _V.C.H. Northants._ II, p. 126.
[1433] _V.C.H. Oxon._ II, p. 103.
[1434] _V.C.H. Beds._ I, p. 360.
[1435] _V.C.H. Lincs._ II, p. 179.
[1436] _V.C.H. Bucks._ I, p. 383.
[1437] _V.C.H. Northants._ II, p. 114.
[1438] _V.C.H. Northants._ II, p. 101.
[1439] See A. H. Thompson, "Registers of John Gynewell, Bishop of Lincoln,
for the Years 1347-1350." _Archaeol. Journ._ 2nd ser., vol. XVIII, p. 331.
[1440] _Linc. Visit._ I, pp. 81-2.
[1441] _Linc. Visit._ I, pp. 82-6.
[1442] _Ib._ pp. 111-2. It should be noted that the word "incest" is used
in its religious sense; it was properly used of intercourse between
persons who were both under ecclesiastical vows and thus in the relation
of spiritual father and daughter, or brother and sister, but it soon came
to be used loosely to denote a breach of chastity in which one party was
professed.
[1443] Lambeth, _Reg. Courtenay_, I, f. 336.
[1444] _Linc. Visit._ I, p. 50. Flemyng adds "or manifestly suspect."
[1445] _Ib._ p. 54.
[1446] _Ib._ p. 65.
[1447] _Ib._ pp. 69-71.
[1448] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 6.
[1449] See above, p. 449.
[1450] See above, pp. 82-4, 388.
[1451] See above, pp. 80, 310, 449.
[1452] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 3. The form of her admission is curious:
"Fatetur totidem moniales recessisse, absque tamen sciencia sua."
[1453] Jessopp, _Visit. of Dioc. Norwich_ (Camden Soc.) gives also Bishop
Goldwell's visitations some ten years before, which brought to light no
cases of immorality among nuns.
[1454] _Ib._ p. 109.
[1455] See _V.C.H. Hants._ II, pp. 129-31 (Romsey, where the date is
wrongly given as 1312 by a slip), 124, 135, 151. Unfortunately all but the
Romsey visitation are given in the barest summary.
[1456] _V.C.H. Hants._ II, p. 130.
[1457] Above, pp. 453-4.
[1458] _Sussex Arch. Coll._ IX, pp. 25-6.
[1459] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 48.
[1460] In Archbishop Walter Giffard's York Register occurs the following
entry of payments for Agatha: "Item A. Giffard xx_s._ Item Thomae de
Habinton ad Expensas versus Elnestowe" (1271), _Reg. W. Giffard_ (Surtees
Soc.), p. 115. This seems sufficient reason for identifying the Elstow
sister as Agatha, though the editor identifies her with Mabel "afterwards
abbess of Shaftesbury," _ib._ p. 164.
[1461] _Reg. W. Giffard_ (Surtees Soc.) p. 164 and _Hist. Letters and
Papers from the Northern Regs._ ed. J. Raine (Rolls Ser.), pp. 33-4.
[1462] _V.C.H. Dorset_, II, p. 78.
[1463] She was in trouble in 1287 for refusing to pay certain moneys left
for an obit and had to be threatened with excommunication; see _Worc. Reg.
Godfrey Giffard_, Introd. pp. cxxxvi-vii.
[1464] _Worc. Reg. Godfrey Giffard_, II, pp. 278-80. It is followed by a
letter enjoining the Abbess and convent of Wilton to receive back the two
nuns.
[1465] For another version of the penance see _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_,
III, pp. 916-7. This forbids him to enter any nunnery or speak with any
nuns without special licence from their metropolitan.
[1466] _V.C.H. Beds._ I, p. 389.
[1467] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 39_d_. Compare the case of Thomas de
Raynevill who in 1324 was ordered, as penance for seducing a nun of
Hampole, to stand on a Sunday, while high mass was being celebrated, in
the conventual church of Hampole, bareheaded, wearing only his tunic and
holding a lighted taper of one pound weight of wax in his hand, which he
was to offer, after the offertory had been said, to the celebrant, who was
to explain to the congregation the cause of the oblation. Also on feast
days he was to be beaten round the parish church of Campsall. But two
years later the Archbishop was still repeating directions for the
performance of the penance. _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 164.
[1468] From Nunkeeling to Yedingham (1444); from Arthington to Yedingham
(1310); from St Clement's, York, to Yedingham (1331); from Basedale to
Sinningthwaite (1308); from Hampole to Swine (1313); four disobedient nuns
of Keldholme to Handale, Swine, Nunappleton and Wallingwells respectively
(1308); and two others to Esholt and Nunkeeling (1309); from Nunappleton
to Basedale (1308); from Rosedale to Handale (1321); from Swine to Wykeham
(1291); from Wykeham to Nunappleton (1444); from Arthington to Nunkeeling
(1219). _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 121, 127, 130, 159, 163-4, 168, 171, 175,
180, 183, 189. Also from Kirklees to Hampole (1323) and from Basedale to
Rosedale (1534). _Yorks. Arch. Journ._ XVI, pp. 362, 431-3.
[1469] _V.C.H. Suffolk_, II, p. 84.
[1470] See for instance the insistence on costs and charges in Archbishop
Lee's letter transferring Joan Fletcher, ex-Prioress of Basedale, from
Rosedale where she was doing (or not doing) her penance, back to Basedale
again. _Loc. cit._ pp. 431-3.
[1471] Joan Trimelet of Cannington was to be shut up for a year, fasting
thrice a week on bread and water, _suos calores macerans juveniles_.
Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 416. Margaret de Tang of Arthington was "if need be
to be bound by the foot with a shackle, but without hurting her limbs or
body." _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 189. The runaway Agnes de Flixthorpe was
similarly to be bound, see above, p. 444; Anne Talke was imprisoned for a
month. Liveing, _Records of Romsey Abbey_, p. 244. Joan Hutton of Esholt,
who had had a child (1535), for two years unless the Archbishop relaxed
her penance. _Yorks. Arch. Journ._ XVI. p. 453.
[1472] _Yorks. Arch. Journ._ XVI, pp. 456-7. The recorded penances given
by Archbishop Melton are all very severe, though it must be admitted that
the state of the nunneries in his diocese gave him cause for severity and
that the penitents were all hardened sinners. Compare penances given by
him in _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 175, 189. There is an extremely severe
penance imposed by Archbishop Zouche on a nun who had several times run
away from Thicket, _ib._ p. 124, and another by Archbishop Lee in 1535
cited in the last note.
[1473] Jessopp, _Visit. in Dioc. Norwich_, p. 110.
[1474] _V.C.H. Suffolk_, II, p. 84.
[1475] "Expresse inhibentes, ne infuturum aliqua monialis de crimine
incontinencie conuicta vel publice diffamata, antequam de innocencia sic
diffamate constiterit, ad aliquod officium domus predicte et precipue ad
ostiorum custodiam admittatur." Lambeth, _Reg. Courtenay_, I, f. 336.
Injunction to Elstow in 1390 and repeated by Bishop Flemyng in 1421. See
above, p. 396. Compare the charge against Margaret Fairfax, Prioress of
Nunmonkton, in 1397: "_Item_, moniales quae lapsae fuerint in fornicatione
faciliter restituit." Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 194.
[1476] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 239.
[1477] _Ib._ p. 183.
[1478] _Ib._ p. 120. For those Yorkshire cases see below, Note G,
_passim_.
[1479] Liveing, _op. cit._ pp. 213-6.
[1480] See below, Note F.
[1481] _Cal. of Papal Letters_, X, p. 471. The dispensation mentions that
she "has secretly lost her virginity and has not yet been publicly
defamed."
[1482] _Ib._ V, p. 161 and VII, p. 373.
[1483] The Pope writes to Mitford, Bishop of Salisbury, desiring him to
restore Alice Wilton, nun of Shaftesbury, to the position which she had
forfeited by the sin of incontinence. The Bishop reinstates the nun and
declares her eligible for all offices except that of Abbess. _V.C.H.
Dorset_, II, p. 78, note 93.
[1484] See Chs. IX, X, above.
[1485] See below, p. 491.
[1486] Bede, _Eccles. Hist._ Book IV, ch. 25.
[1487] Benedict of Peterborough, _Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi_, ed. Stubbs
(Rolls Series, 1867), I, pp. 135-6. Ralph Niger describes the transaction
thus: "Juratus se tria monasteria constructurum, duos ordines transvertit,
personas de loco ad locum transferens, meretrices alias aliis,
cenomannicas Anglicis substituens." _Ib._ II, p. XXX.
[1488] "Et quod indignum scribi, ad domos religiosarum veniens, fecit
exprimi mammillas earundem, ut sic physice si esset inter eas corruptela
experiretur" [1251]. Matt. Paris, _Chron. Majora_, ed. H. R. Luard (Rolls
Series, 1880), V, p. 227. In 1248 he had deposed an abbess of Godstow,
Flandrina de Bowes, and Adam Marsh writes to him: "Plurimum credo fore
salutiferam visitationem quam in domo Godestowe fieri fecistis.
Paternitatis vestrae sollicitudinem largitio divina remuneret." _Monumenta
Franciscana_, ed. J. S. Brewer (Rolls Series, 1858), p. 117. If Matthew
Paris' account of his procedure be true it would seem almost to rival the
behaviour of Layton and Legh, however different the character and motive
which inspired it.
[1489] The earliest list of _comperta_ which we possess is the result of
Archbishop Walter Giffard's visitation of Swine in 1268. Though there is
no charge of actual immorality the house was in a thoroughly
unsatisfactory state. The Archbishop's two sisters, the one Prioress of
Elstow and the other Abbess of Shaftesbury, were both in serious trouble
in 1270 and 1298 respectively, their nuns being also involved, and in 1296
there occurred the famous Giffard abduction from Wilton. Peckham's
injunctions to nunneries show widespread breach of enclosure and some
suspicious conduct during the '80s, a nun of Lymbrook is guilty with a
monk of Leominster in 1282, and besides Matthew Paris' account of
Grosseteste's proceedings in the diocese of Lincoln in 1251, we have
notice of apostates there in 1295, 1296 and 1298 and in the York diocese
in 1286, 1287, 1293 and 1299. See this chapter and notes, _passim_.
[1490] For the disappearance or suppression of eight small nunneries prior
to 1535 see Note H below.
[1491] At Chicksand, for instance, Layton "fownde two of the nunnes not
baron," and at Harrold "one of them hade two faire chyldren, another one
and no mo"; but is this so much worse than what Alnwick found at Catesby
and St Michael's, Stamford, in the same diocese a century before? Or take
Layton's description of the Prior of Maiden Bradley, quoted above; is it
not much less serious than the description of Alexander Black of Selby in
one of Archbishop Giffard's visitation _detecta_ in 1275? "Alexander
Niger, monachus, tenet Cristinam Bouere et Agnetem filiam Stephani, de qua
suscitavit prolem, et quamdam mulierem nomine Anekous, de qua suscitavit
vivam prolem apud Crol, et aliam apud Sneyth quae vocatur Nalle, et alias
infinitas apud Eboracum et Akastre et alibi, et quasi in qualibet villa
unam; et fetidissimus est, et recte modo captus fuit cum quadam muliere in
campis, sicut audivit." _Reg. Walter Giffard_, p. 326. Or than what
Alnwick discovered at the New Collegiate Church at Leicester in 1440?
Layton's general charges against the monks and nuns of Yorkshire are pure
gossip or invention; but we should not have been deeply surprised to find
them in a York archiepiscopal register of the early fourteenth century.
[1492] Of some of the Anglo-Saxon kings it was said, and said with horror,
that they most willingly chose their mistresses from convents. See a
letter from St Boniface to Ethelbald King of Mercia on this point,
instancing the similar habits and evil fates of Ceolred of Mercia and
Osred of Northumbria (_Bon. Epis._ XIX).
[1493] For these ladies, see references in p. 451, note 5, and below, p.
501, note 3.
[1494] _Mémoires de J. Casanova de Seingalt_ (edition Garnier, 1910), tt.
II, III, IV.
[1495] Dugdale, _Mon._ III, pp. 365-6. Compare a _detectum_ at Crabhouse
(1514): "Item, the younger nuns are disobedient and when the seniors
charge them with their faults the prioress punishes alike the reformers
and the sinners." _Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich_, ed. Jessopp, p. 109.
[1496] _Linc. Visit._ I, p. 50. Compare _Reg. Walter Giffard_, p. 249;
_Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich_, ed. Jessopp ("Item Dna. A. D. et Dna. G. S.
... revelant secreta religionis et correctionis factae in conventu")
_Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Bokyngham_, ff. 397, 397_d_ ("Et quod nullum
decetero capitulum in domo capitulari in presencia secularis seu extranee
persone quoquomodo teneatur sub pena iniunccionis nostre infrascripta").
[1497] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, 120, 167-8.
[1498] See below, Note F.
[1499] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 164.
[1500] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 47, 120.
[1501] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 118.
[1502] For an account of the house, see _V.C.H. Herts._ IV, pp. 428-32.
The regulations made by Abbot Richard de Wallingford (1328-36) are given
in _Gesta Abbat._ II, pp. 213-4 and those by Abbot Michael or his
successor Thomas de la Mare in Cott. MS. Nero D. i. ff. 173-4_d_;
regulations by Thomas de la Mare (1349-96) occur in _Gesta Abbat._ II, p.
402. See also W. Page, "Hist. of the Monastery of St Mary de Pré" (_St
Albans and Herts. Arch. Soc. Trans._ (New Series) I).
[1503] For an account of the house, see _V.C.H. Herts._ IV, pp. 422-6.
[1504] The accounts of the warden of St Mary de Pré for 1341-57 are
preserved in the Public Record Office (_Mins. Accts._, bundle 867, Nos.
21-6) and are described in _V.C.H. Herts._ IV, p. 430 (notes). In the
second half of the fifteenth century the accounts seem to have been kept
by the Prioress; those for 1461-93 have survived. _Ib._ p. 431 (note).
[1505] See _Gesta Abbat._ II, p. 212.
[1506] Quoted from _P.R.O. Early Chancery Proceedings_, 181/4 in _V.C.H.
Herts._ IV, pp. 424-5.
[1507] Wilkins, _Concilia_, III, p. 632.
[1508] _V.C.H. Herts._ IV, p. 425.
[1509] Printed in Dugdale, _Mon._ III, pp. 365-6 and _Gesta Abbat._ ed.
Riley, II, App. D. pp. 511-19.
[1510] _Gesta Abbat._ III, p. 519.
[1511] See _V.C.H. Northants._ II, pp. 98-101.
[1512] _E.H.R._ 1914, p. 38 (note 60).
[1513] The religious houses were also subject to metropolitan visitation
by the Archbishop. Among important records of visitations of nunneries by
the Archbishop of Canterbury or by his commissioners are Peckham's
visitations (_Reg. Epis. Johannis Peckham_, _passim_) in the last quarter
of the thirteenth century, Courtenay's visitations in the last quarter of
the fourteenth century (see Lambeth, _Reg. Courtenay_, I, f. 335_d_, for
his injunctions to Elstow in 1389, used by Flemyng as a model for his own
injunctions in 1421-2, _Linc. Visit._ I, p. 48) and Archbishop Morton's
visitations in the last quarter of the fifteenth century (see Liveing,
_Records of Romsey Abbey_, pp. 217-22 for the visitation of Romsey in
1492). The visitations of the Winchester diocese by Dr Hede, commissary of
the Prior of Canterbury, during the vacancy of the sees of Canterbury and
Winchester in 1501-2 were made in the same right (see _V.C.H. Hants._ II,
pp. 124, 129, 135, 151).
[1514] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 176 (quoting Dugdale, _Mon._ V, pp. 464-5
and _Reg. Giffard_ (Surtees Soc.), p. 295).
[1515] See _Linc. Visit._ II, _passim_, and also the Editor's admirable
introduction to _Linc. Visit._ I, pp. ix-xiii.
[1516] See above, p. 250.
[1517] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 119. 126-7.
[1518] Sometimes the bishop's clerk summarises the information given as to
the financial state of the house, which would seem to indicate that the
prioress gave and the bishop accepted merely a verbal account. See
_Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 38. In _Linc. Epis. Reg. Atwater_, f. 42, is a
brief account of a visitation of Ankerwyke in 1519, to which is added the
_status domus_ as submitted by the nuns, comprising an inventory.
[1519] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 49-50.
[1520] See e.g. the case of Denise Loweliche at Markyate in 1433, _Linc.
Visit._ I, pp. 83-5.
[1521] _Reg. Epis. Johannis Peckham_, II, pp. 706-8 (injunctions), 708-9
(mandate to commissary). Compare the proceedings at Ankerwyke six months
after Alnwick's visitation. _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 7.
[1522] _Linc. Visit._ I, pp. 82-3.
[1523] G. G. Coulton in _Eng. Hist. Review_ (1914), p. 37. "The _locus
classicus_ here is the Evesham Chronicle, in which one of the most
admirable abbots of the thirteenth century tells us how solemnly he and
his brethren had promised to conceal all their former abbot's blackest
crimes from the visiting bishop; and how they would never have complained
even to the legate (whose jurisdiction they did recognize) if only the
sinner had kept his pact with them in money matters."
[1524] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 47, 48, 49, 52. At Heynings (where nothing
seriously amiss transpired) one nun said that "the prioress reproaches her
sisters, saying that if they say aught to the bishop, she will lay on them
such penalties that they shall not easily bear them." _Ib._ p. 133. The
wicked Prioress of Littlemore was found in 1517 to have ordered her nuns
on virtue of their obedience to reveal nothing to the commissioners and in
1518 it was stated that she had punished them for speaking the truth at
the visitation. _V.C.H. Lincs._ II, p. 75. At Flixton in 1514 it was said:
"The sisters scarce dare to depose the truth on account of the fierceness
of the prioress." _Visit. of the Dioc. of Norwich_, ed. Jessopp (Camden
Soc.), p. 143. For episcopal injunctions against revealing or quarrelling
over _detecta_ made at the visitation, see _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 51, 124,
etc., _Yorks. Arch. Journ._ XVI, p. 442, _Reg. Epis. Johannis Peckham_,
II, p. 661.
[1525] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 184-5.
[1526] _Ib._ p. 4.
[1527] _Ib._ pp. 120, 122, 123-4.
[1528] _V.C.H. Lincs._ II, p. 76.
[1529] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. ff. 83, 39_d_, 96. Similarly at Ankerwyke,
where there was great discord between Prioress and nuns, he prorogued his
visitation for six months and then sent down commissioners to expound his
injunctions, inquire how they were followed and deal with further
grievances. _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 6-8.
[1530] _V.C.H. Lincs._ II, pp. 76-7.
[1531] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 39_d_.
[1532] See above, pp. 388-9, 460.
[1533] See above, p. 469.
[1534] Liveing, _Records of Romsey Abbey_, p. 220.
[1535] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 5.
[1536] As full reports containing _detecta_ or _comperta_ are specially
valuable, it may be useful to indicate those concerning nunneries, which
have been published: (1) The earliest _comperta_ extant are those of
Archbishop Giffard's visitation of Swine in Yorkshire in 1267-8; the
individual _detecta_ are absent, but there is a fine set of injunctions,
issued two months later, the earliest English nunnery injunctions which we
possess, _Reg. Walter Giffard_ (Surtees Soc.), pp. 147-8, 248-9. (2) The
_comperta_ of Archbishop Wittlesey's metropolitan visitation of St
Radegund's, Cambridge (including only _interim_ injunctions) have been
published in Gray, _Priory of St Radegund, Cambridge_, pp. 35-6. (3) The
_Sede Vacante_ visitation of Arden in 1396 includes _detecta_ but no
injunctions, _Test. Ebor._ I, pp. 283-5 (note) and that of Nunmonkton in
the same year includes _comperta_ and injunctions, Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p.
194; both of these are concerned almost entirely with charges against the
respective prioresses. (4) The finest collection in existence is Alnwick's
book of Lincoln visitations, which is in the course of publication, _Linc.
Visit._ II and III (in the press). (5) Records of visitations of Rusper
and Easebourne from the Chichester registers of the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries contain _detecta_ and some injunctions, _Sussex Arch.
Coll._ V and IX, _passim_. (6) Records of the visitations of monastic
houses in the diocese of Norwich by Bishops Goldwell (1492-3) and Nykke
(1514-32) include _detecta_ and _injunctions_ (sometimes only _interim_),
_Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich_, ed. Jessopp, _passim_. (7) Dr Hede's _Sede
Vacante_ visitations of the four houses in the diocese of Winchester in
1501-2, summarised in _V.C.H. Hants._ II, _passim_, include _detecta_, but
not injunctions. (8) Archbishop Warham's visitations of houses in the
diocese of Canterbury (Holy Sepulchre, Canterbury, the hospital of St
James, Canterbury, Sheppey and Davinton) in 1511 include _detecta_ and
sometimes injunctions, _Eng. Hist. Review_, VI. When more registers are
published other _detecta_ and _comperta_ will doubtless appear; there are
some valuable sets, still in manuscript in _Linc. Epis. Reg. Visit.
Atwater_ and _ib._ _Reg. Visit. Longland_.
[1537] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. xlviii; for an admirable and detailed
discussion of the whole question, in the light of Alnwick's records, Mr
Hamilton Thompson's introduction to this volume (especially pp. xliv-li)
should be studied. See also the learned article by Mr Coulton on "The
Interpretation of Visitation Documents," _E.H.R._ 1914, pp. 16-40.
[1538] Liveing, _op. cit._, pp. 99, etc.
[1539] _Revelationes Gertrudianae ac Mechthildianae_, ed. Oudin (Paris,
1875). See also Preger, _Geschichte der deutschen Mystik im Mittelalter_
(1874), I, pp. 70-132; Eckenstein, _Woman under Mon._ pp. 328-53; Taylor,
_The Medieval Mind_, I, pp. 481-6; A. M. F. Robinson (Mme Darmesteter),
_The End of the Middle Ages_ (1889), pp. 45-72 (the Convent of Helfta); A.
Kemp-Welch, _Of Six Medieval Women_ (1913), pp. 57-82 (Mechthild of
Magdeburg); G. Ledos, _Ste Gertrude_ (Paris, 1901). The name of the Abbess
Gertrude of Hackeborn, who ruled the house during the greater part of the
time that these three mystics lived there, deserves to be added to theirs.
For her life see _Revelationes, etc._, I, pp. 497 ff.
[1540] See her life by Thomas of Chantimpré, _Acta SS. Jun._, t. III, pp.
234 ff. See also Taylor, _op. cit._ I, pp. 479-81.
[1541] See E. Gilliat Smith, _St Clare of Assisi, her Life and
Legislation_ (1914); Mrs Balfour, _Life and Legend of the Lady St Clare_,
with introd. by Father Cuthbert (1910); Fr. Marianus Fiege, _The Princess
of Poverty_ (Evansville, Ind. 1900) which contains a translation of Thomas
of Celano's _Life of St Clare_ (_Acta SS. Aug._ t. II, pp. 754-67),
Paschal Robinson, _Life of St Clare_ (1910), Locatelli, _Ste Claire
d'Assise_ (Rome, 1899-1900). Also _La Vie et Légende de Madame Sainte
Claire par Frère Françoys de Puis_, 1563, ed. Arnauld Goffin (Paris,
1907).
[1542] _Acta SS. Mar._ t. I, pp. 501-31. See also Jentsch, _Die Selige
Agnes von Böhmen._ She is always regarded as a saint but was never
officially canonised.
[1543] Pirckheimer, _B. Opera_, ed. Goldast (1610). See also, T. Binder,
_Charitas Pirkheimer_ (1878), and Eckenstein, _op. cit._ pp. 458-76.
[1544] _The Life of St Theresa of Jesus, written by Herself_, tr. D.
Lewis, ed. Zimmerman (1904). _The Letters of St Theresa_, tr. J. Dalton
(1902). See also G. Cunningham Grahame, _Santa Teresa_, 2 vols. (1894).
[1545] See A. Gagnière, _Les Confessions d'une Abbesse du xvi{e} siècle_
(Paris, 1888), based on a manuscript at Ravenna ("Vita della Madre Donna
Felice Rasponi, Badessa di S. Andrea, scritta da una Monaca") which the
author considers to be an autobiography. Some interesting details as to
the scandalous condition of Italian convents at the end of the century are
to be found in J. A. Symonds' _Renaissance in Italy: The Catholic
Reaction_, pt. I (1886), pp. 341-70, dealing with the careers of Virginia
Maria de Leyva, in the convent of S. Margherita at Monza and Lucrezia
Buonvisi (sister Umilia) in the convent of S. Chiara at Lucca.
[1546] _La Vie de Ste. Douceline, fondatrice des béguines de Marseille_,
ed. J. H. Albanès (Marseille, 1879). See also A. Macdonell, _Saint
Douceline_ (1905).
[1547] _Acta SS. Aprilis_, t. II, pp. 266-365. See also Huysmans, _Ste.
Lydwine de Schiedam_ (3rd ed. Paris, 1901).
[1548] _Acta SS. Jun._ t. IV, pp. 270 ff. See also Th. Wollersheim, _Das
Leben der ekstatischen Jungfrau Christina von Stommeln_ (Cologne, 1859);
and Renan, _Nouvelles Études d'Histoire Religieuse_ (1884) (_Une Idylle
Monacale au xiii{e} siècle: Christine de Stommeln_), pp. 353-96. Extracts
from Christina's correspondence and life by Peter of Sweden are translated
in Coulton, _Med. Garn._ pp. 402-21.
[1549] On these saintly and learned women see Eckenstein, _op. cit._ cc.
III and IV, and Montalembert, _The Monks of the West_ (introd. Gasquet),
vol. IV, Book XV. The great fourteenth century mystic Julian of Norwich
(1343-c. 1413) was, it is true, connected with Carrow Priory, but she was
an anchoress and never a nun there; see above, p. 366.
[1550] On these songs see A. Jeanroy, _Les Origines de la Poésie Lyrique
en France au moyen âge_ (2nd ed. 1904), pp. 189-92; and P. S. Allen in
_Modern Philology_, V (1908), pp. 432-5. The songs themselves have to be
collected from various sources; see below, Note I.
[1551] Langland, _Piers Plowman_, ed. Skeat. C text, Passus X, 72-5.
[1552] There was (as usual) however, more chance for a man than for a
woman of villein status to enter a monastery and even to rise to the
highest ecclesiastical dignities. A villein who could save enough to pay a
fine to his lord might put his son to school and might buy that son's
enfranchisement, so that he would be eligible for a place in a monastery.
And though it was forbidden by canon and by temporal law to ordain a serf,
once ordained he was free. Pollock and Maitland, _Hist. of Engl. Law_
(1911), I, p. 429; the lower ranks of the clergy probably contained many
men of low or villein birth (see e.g. Chaucer's Poor Parson, whose brother
was a ploughman and the complaint in "Pierce the Plouman's Crede" that
beggars' brats become bishops). Sometimes, though very rarely, a villein
rose high, for once he was a churchman, it was _la carrière ouverte aux
talents_: Bishop Grosseteste was of very humble, probably of servile,
origin; and Sancho Panza's motto will be remembered: "I am a man and I may
be Pope." For a woman, however, the Church offered no such chance of
advancement through the religious orders; the nunneries were essentially
upper and middle class institutions.
[1553] From a charming round, sung in Saintonge, Aunis and Bas-Poitou.
"Dans l'jardin de ma tante
Plantons le romarin!
Y'a-t-un oiseau qui chante,
Plantons le romarin,
Ma mie,
Au milieu du jardin, etc."
Bujeaud, J., _Chants et chansons populaires des provinces de l'ouest_
(1866), I, pp. 136-7.
[1554] M. Vattasso, _Studi Medievali_, I (1904), p. 124. A long poem of
seven verses, much mutilated in parts.
[1555] Uhland, _Alte hoch- und niederdeutsche Volkslieder_ (1844-5), t.
II, p. 854 (No. 328). A slightly modernised version. Also printed in _Des
Knaben Wunderhorn_, ed. von Arnim and Brentano (Reclam ed.), p. 25, and in
_Deutsches Leben im Volkslied um 1530_, ed. Liliencron (1884), p. 226.
Translation by Bithell, _The Minnesingers_, I (1909), p. 200, except the
last two lines, which are by Mr Coulton; there is another in Coulton,
_Med. Garn._ p. 476.
[1556] Ferrari, _Canzone per andare in maschera per carnesciale_, pp.
31-2. Referred to in Jeanroy, _op. cit._ I have been unable to consult the
book.
[1557] Bartsch, _Altfranzösische Romanzen und Pastourellen_ (1870), pp.
28-9 (No. 33).
[1558] Bartsch, _op. cit._ pp. 29-30 (No. 34).
[1559] _Oeuvres Complètes d'Eustache Deschamps_ (Soc. des Anc. Textes
Fr.), IV, pp. 235-6. (Virelay, DCCLII, sur une novice d'Avernay.)
[1560] Bladé, J. F. _Poésies populaires de la Gascogne_ (1882), III, pp.
372-4. Also in Lénac-Moncaut, _Littérature populaire de la Gascogne_
(1868), pp. 291-2.
[1561] Damase Arbaud, _Chants Populaires de la Provence_ (1862-4), II, pp.
118-22.
[1562] See below, p. 611.
[1563] _The Court of Love in Chaucer's Poetical Works_, ed. R. Morris
(1891), IV, pp. 38-40.
[1564] Lydgate's _Temple of Glas_, ed. J. Schick (E.E.T.S. 1891), p. 8.
[1565] _The Kingis Quair in Medieval Scottish Poetry_, ed. G. Eyre-Todd
(1892), p. 47.
[1566] _Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaits_, by Sir David Lyndesay, ed.
Small, Hall and Murray (E.E.T.S., 2nd ed., 1883), p. 514.
"And seis thou now yone multitude, on rawe
Standing behynd yon trauerse of delyte?
Sum bene of thayme that haldin were full lawe
And take by frendis, nothing thay to wyte,
In youth from bye into the cloistre quite;
And for that cause are cummyn, recounsilit,
On thame to pleyne that so thame had begilit."
[1567] _An Alphabet of Tales_, ed. M. M. Banks (E.E.T.S.). No. CCCCLXVIII,
pp. 319-20. (In this and the following quotations from this work in this
chapter I have modernised the spelling.) This version is translated from
Caesarius of Heisterbach. _Dial. Mirac._, ed. Strange, II, pp. 42-3, which
is the original version of all the widespread legends on this theme. From
Caesarius it found its way into many other collections of miracles, in
prose and in verse, in Latin, French, Spanish, German, Icelandic, Dutch
and English. Perhaps the most beautiful is the Dutch poem (c. 1320)
published by W. J. A. Jenckbloet, _Beatriij_ (Amsterdam, 1846-59) and
re-edited with a grammatical introduction and notes in English by A. J.
Barnouw (_Pub. of Philol. Soc._ III, 1914). An edition with illustrations
by Ch. Doudelet accompanied by a translation into French by H. de Marez
was published in Antwerp (1901) and was also issued with an English
translation by A. W. Sanders vaz Loo. The best English translations are
those in prose by L. Simons and L. Housman in _The Pageant_, ed. C. H.
Shannon and J. W. Gleeson White (1896) pp. 95-116 and in verse by H. de
Wolf Fuller (_Harvard Coop. Soc._, Cambridge, U.S.A. 1910). Modern writers
have retold the tale almost as often as their medieval forebears; see for
example Maeterlinck's play, _Soeur Béatrice_, John Davidson's poem, _The
Ballad of a Nun_, one of Villier de l'Isle-Adam's _Contes Cruels_ (_Soeur
Natalia_), one of Charles Nodier's _Contes de la Veillée_ (_La Légende de
Soeur Béatrice_), and one of Gottfried Keller's _Sieben Legenden_ (_Die
Jungfrau und die Nonne_). For a study of the Beatrice story see Heinrich
Watenphul, _Die Geschichte der Marienlegende von Beatrix der Küsterin_
(Neuwied, 1904); also P. Toldo, _Die Sakristanin_ (with bibliography by J.
Bolte) in _Zeitschrift des Vereins für Volkskunde_ (1905), J. van der
Elst, _Bijdrage tot de Geschiedenis der Legende van Beatrijs_ in
_Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsche Taal- en Letterkunde_, XXXII, pp. 51 ff.,
and Mussafia, _Studien zu den Mittelalterlichen Marienlegenden_ (Vienna,
1887), I, p. 73. See also A. Cotarelo y Valledor, _Una Cantiga celebre del
Rey Sabio, fuentes y desarollo de la leyenda de sor Beatriz,
principalmente en la literatura española_ (1914). For other variants of
the _Nonne Enlevée_ see below, Note J.
[1568] Chambers and Sidgwick, _Early English Lyrics_ (1907), No. XC, p.
163. But perhaps the most beautiful of medieval English poems which
moralise on this theme is the _Luue Ron_ which Thomas of Hales wrote in
the thirteenth century for a nun:
"Hwer is Paris and Heleyne
That weren so bryght and feyre on bleo?
Amadas, Tristram and Dideyne,
Yseude and alle theo,
Ector with his scharpe meyne,
And Cesar riche of worldes feo?
Heo beoth iglyden ut of the reyne,
So the scheft is of the cleo,"
--they have passed away as a shaft from the bowstring. It is as if they
had never lived. All their heat is turned to cold. (_An Old English
Miscellany_, ed. R. Morris (E.E.T.S. 1872), p. 95.) This catalogue of the
lovely dead was a favourite device, immortalised later by "ung povre petit
escollier, qui fust nommé Francoys Villon" (who certainly was not a
moralist) in his _Ballade des Dames du Temps jadis_.
[1569] For an entertaining and stimulating account of the popular cult of
the Virgin see Henry Adams, _Mont St Michel and Chartres_ (1913),
especially chs. VI and XIII.
[1570] Modern poets who have written upon the same theme have drawn this
moral more overtly than the medieval authors. Maeterlinck's Virgin in
_Soeur Béatrice_ sings:
Il n'est péché qui vive
Quand l'amour a prié;
Il n'est âme qui meure
Quand l'amour a pleuré....
Davidson's sacristan (in _A Ballad of a Nun_) cries:
"I care not for my broken vow;
Though God should come in thunder soon,
I am sister to the mountains now
And sister to the sun and moon,"
and the Virgin, welcoming her back on her return, tells her:
"You are sister to the mountains now,
And sister to the day and night;
Sister to God." And on her brow
She kissed her thrice, and left her sight.
[1571] "Cum in hyemis intemperie post cenam noctu familia divitis ad
focum, ut potentibus moris est, recensendis antiquis gestis operam daret."
_Gesta Romanorum_, ed. Oesterley (1872), ch. CLV. Quoted in Jusserand,
_Lit. Hist. of the Eng. People_, I, p. 182.
[1572] One particular kind of story, the _fabliau_ (defined by Bédier as
"un conte à rire en vers") was brought to great perfection by French
jongleurs. See Montaiglon and Raynaud, _Recueil général et complet des
Fabliaux_ (Paris, 1872-90), 6 vols.; and Bédier, _Les Fabliaux_ (Paris,
1873).
[1573] See Dante, _Paradiso_, XXIX, 11, for a violent attack on the
practice. Compare the decree of the Council of Paris in 1528: "Quodsi
secus fecerint, aut si populum more scurrarum vilissimorum, dum ridiculas
et aniles fabulas recitant, ad risus cachinnationesque excitaverint, ...
nos volumus tales tam ineptos et perniciosos concionatores ab officio
praedicationis suspendi," etc., quoted in _Exempla of Jacques de Vitry_,
ed. T. F. Crane (1890), Introd. p. lxix. The great preacher Jacques de
Vitry himself, while advocating the use of _exempla_, adds "infructuosas
enim fabulas et curiosa poetarum carmina a sermonis nostris debemus
relegare ... scurrilia tamen aut obscena verba vel turpis sermo ex ore
predicatoris non procedant." _Ib._ Introd., pp. xlii, xliii.
[1574] For instance _exempla_ were much used by Jacques de Vitry (see _op.
cit._). Etienne de Bourbon (see _Anecdotes Historiques, etc., d'Etienne de
Bourbon_, ed. A. Lecoy de la Marche (Soc. de l'Hist. de France)), and John
Herolt. On the whole subject of _exempla_ see the Introduction to T. F.
Crane's edition of the _Exempla of Jacques de Vitry_, and the references
given there.
[1575] The most famous is the _Gesta Romanorum_. _Gesta Romanorum_, ed.
Oesterley (Berlin, 1872); and see _The Early English Version of the Gesta
Romanorum_, ed. S. J. H. Herrtage (E.E.T.S. 1879). The largest is the
_Summa Praedicantium_ of John Bromyard, a fourteenth century English
Dominican. See also an interesting fifteenth century English translation
of a similar collection, the _Alphabetum Narrationum_ (which used to be
attributed to Etienne de Besançon), _An Alphabet of Tales_, ed. M. M.
Banks (E.E.T.S. 1904-5); many of the _exempla_ in this come from Caesarius
of Heisterbach. Specimens of _exempla_ from these and other sources are
collected in Wright's _Latin Stories_ (Percy Soc. 1842), and many tales
from Caesarius of Heisterbach, Jacques de Vitry, Etienne de Bourbon,
Thomas of Chantimpré, etc., are translated in Coulton, _Med. Garn._
[1576] For instance Caesarius of Heisterbach, _Dialogus Miraculorum_, ed.
Strange (1851); Thomas of Chantimpré (Cantimpratanus), _Bonum Universale
de Apibus_ (Douay, 1597); and the knight of la Tour Landry, who wrote a
book of deportment for his daughters, copiously illustrated with stories.
_The Book of the Knight of la Tour Landry_, ed. T. Wright (E.E.T.S.
revised ed. 1906). For some account of Caesarius of Heisterbach's stories,
other than those quoted in the text, see below Note K.
[1577] Collections of stories, such as those of the _Decameron_, the _Cent
Nouvelles Nouvelles_, the _Il Pecorone_ of Ser Giovanni, the _Novelle_ of
Bandello, the _Heptameron_ of Margaret of Navarre, became very popular.
But individual stories have also given plots to many great writers from
the middle ages to the present day; it is only necessary to mention
Chaucer, Shakespeare, Molière and La Fontaine, to illustrate the use which
has been made of them.
[1578] For examples of medieval mission sermons, with their
colloquialisms, interruptions from the audience and strings of stories,
the reader cannot do better than turn to the sermons of Berthold of
Regensburg (1220-72) and of St Bernardino of Siena (1380-1444). Specimens
of these are translated in Coulton, _Med. Garn._ pp. 348-64, 604-19. See
also for Berthold, Coulton, _Medieval Studies_, 1st series. No. II ("A
Revivalist of Six Centuries Ago") and for St Bernardino, Paul
Thureau-Dangin, _St Bernardine of Siena_, trans. Baroness von Hügel
(1906), and A. G. Ferrers Howell, _St Bernardino of Siena_ (1913).
[1579] Chaucer, _Cant. Tales, Wife of Bath's Prol._ ll. 556-8.
[1580] Translated from Jacques de Vitry (_Exempla ..._, ed. T. F. Crane,
p. 22) in _An Alphabet of Tales_ (E.E.T.S.), p. 95 (No. CXXXVI). The story
is a very old one, first found in the _Vitae Patrum_, X, cap. 60. It is
sometimes attributed to St Bridget of Ireland, but Etienne de Bourbon, who
repeats the story twice, tells it of Richard King of England and "a
certain nun" (_Anec. Hist., etc., d'Etienne de Bourbon_, ed. Lecoy de la
Marche, Nos. 248 and 500); and other medieval versions make the
persecuting lover "a king of England." (See T. F. Crane, _op. cit._ p.
158.)
[1581] _Exempla of Jacques de Vitry_, No. LVIII, pp. 22-3. For other
versions of this story, see _ib._ p. 159.
[1582] Caesarius of Heisterbach, _Dial. Mirac._ ed. Strange, I, p. 389. I
have used the translation by Mr Coulton, _Med. Garn._ p. 124. The story is
a variant of the theme of "the novice and the geese," one of the most
popular of medieval stories (see Coulton, _ib._ p. 426); for analogues,
see A. C. Lee, _The Decameron, its Sources and Analogues_, pp. 110-16.
[1583] Robert of Brunne's _Handlyng Synne_, ed. F. J. Furnivall (Roxburghe
Club, 1862), pp. 50-52. (This is an amplified translation of William of
Wadington's _Le Manuel des Pechiez_.) See also _Exempla of Jacques de
Vitry_, No. CCLXXII, p. 113, which is translated in _An Alphabet of Tales_
(E.E.T.S.), p. 303.
[1584] _Exempla of Jacques de Vitry_, No. CXXX, p. 59. For other versions,
see _ib._ p. 189. There is an English version in _An Alphabet of Tales_
(E.E.T.S.), p. 78 (No. CVIII).
[1585] Caesarius of Heisterbach, II. pp. 160-1. Compare the tale of Abbess
Sophia whose small beer was miraculously turned into wine. _Ib._ p. 229.
[1586] Boccaccio, _Decameron_, 9th day, novel 2. But the story is older
than Boccaccio, who constantly uses old tales. There is a French version
by Jean de Condé: "Le Dit de la Nonnete" (Montaiglon et Raynaud, _op.
cit._ t. VI, pp. 263-9). It was often afterwards copied in various forms
in French, German and Italian jest- and story-books and there is an
extremely gross dramatic version entitled "Farce Nouvelle a cinq
personnages, c'est a sçavoir l'Abesse, soeur de Bon Coeur, seur Esplourée,
seur Safrete et seur Fesne" in a collection of sixteenth century French
farces (_Rec. de farces, moralités et sermons joyeux_, ed. Le Roux de
Lincy et Francisque Michel, Paris, 1837, vol. II). It is also referred to
in _Albion's England_:
It was at midnight when a Nonne, in trauell of a childe,
Was checked of her fellow Nonnes, for being so defilde;
The Lady Prioresse heard a stirre, and starting out of bed,
Did taunt the Nouasse bitterly, who, lifting up her head,
Said "Madame, mend your hood" (for why, so hastely she rose,
That on her head, mistooke for hood, she donde a Channon's hose).
For these and references to other analogues see A. C. Lee, _The Decameron,
its Sources and Analogues_ (1909), pp. 274-7. See also a curious folk-song
version, below, p. 611. La Fontaine founded his fable of _Le Psautier_ on
Boccaccio's version.
[1587] Boccaccio, _Decameron_ (3rd day, novel 1). For analogues and
imitations, see A. C. Lee, _op. cit._ pp. 59-62. The story is the source
of La Fontaine's _Mazet de Lamporechio_. For other ribald stories about
nuns see Note J, below, p. 624.
[1588] I have made no attempt to describe the many treatises in praise of
virginity composed by the fathers of the church. These include works by
Evagrius Ponticus, St Athanasius, Sulpicius Severus, St Jerome, St
Augustine, St Caesarius of Arles and others. Among the most interesting is
one of English origin, the _De Laudibus Virginitatis_ of Aldhelm ([dagger]
709). For short analyses of these works, see A. A. Hentsch, _De la
Littérature Didactique du Moyen Age, s'adressant spécialement aux Femmes_
(Cahors, 1903), _passim_. From the eleventh century onwards several
imitations of these treatises occur. A few of the more interesting will be
noted later.
[1589] Uhland, _Alte hoch und niederdeutsche Volkslieder_ (1845), II, pp.
857-62 (No. 331). The first verse may be quoted to give the style:
Es war ein jungfrau edel
Si war gar wol getan,
in ainen schonen paungarten
wolt si spacieren gan,
in ainen schonen paungarten
durnach stuont ir gedank,
nach pluomen mangerlaie,
nach vogelein suessem gesank.
[1590] Uhland, _op. cit._ II, p. 852 (No. 326). See also Nos. 332 and 334.
[1591] _An Old English Miscellany_, ed. R. Morris [E.E.T.S. 1872], pp.
93-99.
[1592] Printed in _The Stacions of Rome_, etc., ed. F. J. Furnivall
(E.E.T.S. 1867), and again in _Minor Poems of the Vernon MS._, Part II,
ed. F. J. Furnivall (E.E.T.S. 1901), No. XLII, pp. 464-8.
[1593] _Hali Meidenhad_, ed. O. Cockayne (E.E.T.S. 1866).
[1594] See on this point Taylor, _The Medieval Mind_ (2nd ed. 1914), I,
pp. 475 ff.
[1595] _Hali Meidenhad_, ed. O. Cockayne (E.E.T.S. 1866), p. 20.
[1596] _Hali Meidenhad_, ed. O. Cockayne (E.E.T.S. 1866), p. 22.
[1597] _Ib._ pp. 8, 30.
[1598] _Ib._ p. 36.
[1599] See e.g. p. 28. "Under a man's protection thou shalt be sore vexed
for his and the world's love, which are both deceptive and must lie awake
in many a care not only for thyself as God's spouse must, but for many
others and often as well for the detested as the dear; and be more worried
than any drudge in the house, or any hired hind and take thine own share
often with misery and bitterly purchase it. Little do blessed spouses of
God know of thee here, that in so sweet ease without such trouble in
spiritual grace and in rest of heart love the true love and in his only
service lead their life."
[1600] The _Ancren Riwle_ was translated and edited by J. Morton for the
Camden Soc. (1853). I quote from the cheap and convenient reprint of the
translation, with introduction by Gasquet, in The King's Classics, 1907.
For the most recent research as to the different versions, authorship,
etc., see article by G. C. Macaulay, "The _Ancren Riwle_" in _Modern
Language Review_, IX (1914), pp. 63-78, 145-60, 324-31, 464-74, Father
MacNabb's article _ib._ XI (1916), and Miss Hope Emily Allen's thesis,
_The Origin of the Ancren Riwle_ (Publications of the Mod. Lang. Assoc. of
Amer. XXXIII, 3, Sept. 1918); see also her note in _Mod. Lang. Review_
(April 1919), XIV, pp. 209-10, and Mr Coulton's review of her thesis,
_ib._ (Jan. 1920), XV, p. 99; also Father MacNabb's attack on her theory,
_ib._ (Oct. 1920) XV and her reply, _ib._ Research is gradually pushing
the date of the first English translation (if indeed it be not after all
the original) further and further back.
[1601] _Ancren Riwle_ (King's Classics), p. 12.
[1602] _Ancren Riwle_, p. 259.
[1603] Pp. 164-5.
[1604] Pp. 294-6.
[1605] Pp. 313-4.
[1606] Pp. 317-8.
[1607] P. 68.
[1608] Pp. 319-20.
[1609] Pp. 316-19, _passim_.
[1610] P. 325-6.
[1611] _The Myroure of Oure Ladye_, ed. J. H. Blunt (E.E.T.S. 1873, 1898).
[1612] _Op. cit._ pp. 65-9, _passim_.
[1613] As for instance the various other books written or translated for
the nuns of Syon (on which see Eckenstein, _op. cit._ pp. 394-5) and the
mystical treatise "Ego dormio et cor meum vigilat," which was written by
Richard Rolle of Hampole for a nun of Yedingham. Rolle was kindly
cherished by the nuns of Hampole, where he settled; they often sought his
advice during his lifetime and after his death they tried to obtain his
canonisation; an office for his festival was composed and a collection of
his miracles made. (See _Cambridge Hist. of Engl. Lit._ II, pp. 45, 48.)
For similar treatises of foreign origin, see the _Opusculum_ of Hermann
der Lahme (1013-54), Francesco da Barbarino's _Del Reggimento e Costumi di
Donne_ (which contains a section dealing with nuns), (c. 1307-15),
Francisco Ximenes' _Libre de les dones_ ([dagger] 1409) and John Gerson's
([dagger] 1429) letter to his sister. See Hentsch, _op. cit._ pp. 39, 114,
151, 152.
[1614] Printed from the Thornton MS. in _Religious Pieces in Prose and
Verse_, ed. G. G. Perry (E.E.T.S. 1867, 1914), No. III, pp. 51-62. Compare
_Brit. Mus. MS._ Add. 39843 (La Sainte Abbaye), some pictures from which
are reproduced in this book.
[1615] Mechthild von Magdeburg, _Offenbarungen, oder Das fliessende Licht
der Gottheit_, ed. Gall Morel (1869), pp. 249 ff.; see Eckenstein, _op.
cit._ p. 339. The same idea is found in a little German Volkslied:
Wir wellen uns pawen ein heuselein
Und unser sel ain klosterlein,
Jesus Crist sol der maister sein,
Maria jungfraw die schaffnerein.
Götliche Forcht die pfortnerein,
Götliche Lieb die kelnerein,
Diemuetikait wont wol do pei
Weisheit besleust daz laid all ein.
--Uhland, _Alte hoch- und niederdeutsche Volkslieder_, II, pp. 864-5.
[1616] English text in Furnivall, _Early English Poems_ (Berlin, 1862),
printed in _Trans. of Philological Soc._ 1858, pt. II, pp. 156-61; and in
Goldbeck and Mätzner, _Altenglische Sprachproben_ (Berlin, 1867). pt. I,
p. 147; W. Heuser, _Die Kildare-Gedichte_ (Bonn, 1904), p. 145; and in a
slightly modernised form in Ellis, _Specimens of Early English Poets_,
1801, I, pp. 83 ff., who took it from Hickes' _Thesaurus_, pt. I, p. 231.
I have here used the modernised version for the sake of convenience. An
attempt has been made to identify the religious houses mentioned in the
poem with real monasteries in Kildare; the poem is certainly of
Anglo-Irish origin and occurs in the famous "Kildare Manuscript" (MS.
Harl. 913). See W. Heuser, _op. cit._ pp. 141-5. There is a French version
in Barbazon et Méon, _Fabliaux_ III, p. 175.
[1617] "It is not until French wit flashes across English seriousness that
we travel to the Land of Cokaygne," G. Hadow, _Chaucer and His Times_, p.
35. Stories of a food country are, however, common in medieval literature,
being sometimes legends of a vanished golden age, as in the Irish "Vision
of MacConglinne" (late twelfth century), and sometimes ideal pictures of a
life of lazy luxury, as in the French and English Lands of Cokaygne and
the German Schlaraffenland. On the whole subject, see Fr. Joh. Poeschel,
_Das Märchen von Schlaraffenland_ (Halle, 1878), and the introduction by
W. Wollner to _The Vision of MacConglinne_, ed. Kuno Meyer (1892).
[1618] _Polit. Songs of England_, ed. T. Wright (Camden Soc. 1839), pp.
137-48.
[1619] The idea of the _Ordre de Bel-Eyse_ is probably taken from the
twelfth century Anglo-Latin poem by Nigel Wireker entitled _Speculum
Stultorum_, which tells the story of the ass Burnellus, who goes out into
the world to seek his fortune. At one point Burnellus decides to retire to
a convent and passes the different orders under review, to see which will
suit him. This gives the author an opportunity for some pointed satire,
including a reference to nuns; "they never quarrel save for due cause, in
due place, nor do they come to blows save for grave reasons"; their morals
are very questionable, "Harum sunt quaedam steriles et quaedam
parturientes, virgineoque tamen nomine cuncta tegunt. Quae pastoralis
baculi dotatur honore, illa quidem melius fertiliusque parit. Vix etiam
quaevis sterilis reperitur in illis, donec eis aetas talia posse negat."
Finally Burnellus decides to found a new order; from the Templars he will
borrow their smoothly pacing horses, from the Cluniacs and the black
Canons their custom of eating meat, from the order of Grandmont their
gossip, from the Carthusians the habit of saying mass only once a month,
from the Premonstratensians their warm and comfortable clothes, from the
nuns their custom of going ungirdled; and in this order every brother
shall have a female companion, as in the first order which was instituted
in Paradise. _Anglo-Latin Satirical Poets of the Twelfth Century_, ed. T.
Wright (Rolls Series, 1872), I, pp. 94-6.
[1620] With these two highly successful _jeux d'esprit_ at the expense of
monastic luxury may be compared a passage in the curious thirteenth
century poem entitled "A Disputison bytwene a cristene mon and a Jew," in
which an incidental shaft is perhaps aimed at nunneries, which affected
the habits of Cokaygne and Fair Ease. _The Minor Poems of the Vernon MS._,
pt. II, ed. F. J. Furnivall (E.E.T.S. 1901), No. XLVI, p. 490.
[1621] See e.g. Rabelais, _Gargantua_, cap. LII (Comment Gargantua fit
bastir pour le moine l'abbaye de Theleme).
[1622] Text in _Dits et Contes de Badouin de Condé et de son fils Jean de
Condé_, pub. par Aug. Scheler, Ac. Roy. de Belgique, Brussels, 1866-7,
III, No. XXXVII, pp. 1-48. The portion of the poem containing the lawsuit
is translated in part into modern French by Le Grand d'Aussy, in _Fabliaux
et Contes_, ed. Le Grand d'Aussy et Renouard, 1829, I, pp. 326-36.
[1623] A convenient collection of these is summarised in an excellent
little book by Ch.-V. Langlois, entitled _La Vie en France au Moyen Age
d'après quelques Moralistes du Temps_ (2me éd. 1911).
[1624] The text of both _La Bible Guiot_ and _La Bible au Seigneur de
Berzé_ is printed in _Fabliaux et Contes_, ed. Barbazon-Méon, t. II
(Paris, 1808), and both are fully analysed, with extracts in Langlois,
_op. cit._ pp. 30-88. The text of _La Bible Guiot_ is also printed in San
Marte, _Parcival Studien_ (Halle, 1861), with a translation into German
verse.
[1625] _Les Lamentations de Matheolus_, pub. A. G. Van Hamel (_Bib. de
l'Ecole des Chartes_, 1892, t. I, pp. 89-90). See also the analysis in
Langlois, _op. cit._ pp. 223-75, especially p. 248.
[1626] Langlois, _op. cit._ pp. 248-9, Note 2.
[1627] _Poésies de Gilles li Muisis_, pub. Kervyn de Lettenhove (Louvain,
1882), t. I, pp. 209-36. The whole register is analysed in Langlois, _op.
cit._ pp. 305-53.
[1628] See above, p. 298.
[1629] See _Vox Clamantis_, Lib. IV, ll. 578-676 in _The Complete Works of
John Gower_, ed. G. C. Macaulay, _Latin Works_ (1902), pp. 181-5. The same
subject is treated more shortly by Gower in his _Mirour de l'Omne_, ll.
9157-68. (_Ib._ _French Works_, p. 106.)
[1630] Compare the priestly logic of Alvar Pelayo who enumerates the abuse
of the confessional among the habitual sins of _women_! _De Planctu
Ecclesiae_, Lib. II, Art. 45, n. 84. (See Lea, _Hist. of Sacerdotal
Celibacy_, I, 435-6 for this and other medieval complaints of the
corruption of nuns by their confessors.)
[1631] Text in Furnivall, _Early Engl. Poems_ (Berlin, 1862), printed in
_Trans. of Philological Soc._ 1858, pt. II, pp. 138-48 (from Cotton MS.
Vesp. D. IX, f. 179).
[1632] _All the Familiar Colloquies of Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam_,
trans. N. Bailey (2nd ed. 1733), pp. 147-55.
[1633] "Nec omnes virgines sunt, mihi crede, quae velum habent.... Nisi
fortasse elogium, quod nos hactenus judicavimus esse Virgini matri
proprium, ad plures transiit, ut dicantur et a partu virgines ... quin
insuper, nec alioqui inter illas virgines sunt omnia virginea ... quia
plures inveniuntur, quae mores aemulentur Sapphus, quam quae referant
ingenium." Erasmus, _Colloquia, accur. Corn. Schrevelio_ (Amsterdam,
1693), p. 196.
[1634] _Op. cit._ pp. 155-7.
[1635] This account of Katherine's experiences, whether they were due (as
the translator suggests) to "the crafty tricks of the monks, who terrify
and frighten unexperienced minds into their cloysters by feigned
apparitions and visions," or (as was more probably Erasmus' meaning) to
the mere power of suggestion upon a hysterical girl, should be compared
with the numerous accounts of such apparitions seen by novices or
intending novices, which are to be found in lives of saints and in
edifying _exempla_. See the examples quoted from Caesarius of Heisterbach,
below, pp. 628 _sqq._
[1636] For the expenses incidental to taking the veil, see above, pp.
19-20.
[1637] _Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaits_, in Sir David Lyndesay's _Poems_,
ed. Small, Hall and Murray (E.E.T.S. 2nd ed., 1883), pp. 421-3.
[1638] _Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaits_, in Sir David Lyndesay's _Poems_,
ed. Small, Hall and Murray (E.E.T.S. 2nd ed., 1883), p. 506.
[1639] _Ib._ p. 514.
[1640] _Ib._ p. 521.
[1641] Quoted from the ballad by Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe ("The Murder
of Caerlaverock") in McDowall, W., _Chronicles of Lincluden_, p. 28.
[1642] Constans, _Chrestomathie de l'Ancien Français_ (1890), pp. 178-9.
[1643] Malory, _Morte Darthur_, ed. Strachey (Globe ed., 1893), pp. 481-5.
[1644] See above, p. 529.
[1645] See _Le Livre du Dit de Poissy_, ll. 220-698, _passim_, in _Oeuvres
Poétiques de Christine de Pisan_, ed. Maurice Roy (Soc. des Anc. Textes
Fr. 1891), t. II, pp. 160-80. With this may be compared another, but much
slighter "courtly" description of a nunnery, contained in the _roman
d'aventure_, _L'Escoufle_, written at the close of the twelfth century. At
the beginning of the poem the author describes the service of the mass in
the Abbey of Montivilliers (see below, p. 637), on the occasion of the
departure of the Count of Montivilliers on a crusade; the Archbishop of
Rouen and the Bishop of Lisieux took part in the service and a large
concourse of lords and ladies was present. The author describes the
singing of the service,
Li couvens avoit ja la messe
Commencie et l'abbesse
Commanda a ij damoiseles
Des mix cantans et des plus beles
Les cuer a tenir, por mix plaire
Et por la feste grignor faire.
He describes the rich offerings made at the altar by the Count and the
rest of the congregation; and the stately visit of farewell paid by them
afterwards to the nuns in the chapter house, when the Count asked for
their prayers and in return gave them an annual rent of 20 or 30 silver
marks. _L'Escoufle_, ed. H. Michelant and P. Meyer (Soc. des Anc. Textes
Fr. 1894), pp. 7-9, _passim_. The other notable twelfth century
description of a nunnery (in Raoul de Cambrai) is very different. See
above. pp. 433-5.
[1646] Chaucer, Prologue to _The Canterbury Tales_, ed. Skeat. ll. 118-64.
[1647] See Dugdale, _Mon._ I, pp. 442-5.
[1648] 'Pudding' was a sausage.
[1649] Tyre was a favourite sweet wine in the middle ages; "if not of
Syrian growth [it] was probably a Calabrian or Sicilian wine, manufactured
from the species of grape called _tirio_." _Early Eng. Meals and Manners_,
ed. Furnivall (E.E.T.S. 1868), p. 90.
[1650] Sowce (Lat. _salsagium_, verjuice) was a sort of pickle for hog's
flesh. _Promptorium Parvulorum_, ed. A. L. Mayhew (E.E.T.S. 1908), notes,
p. 701. See the rather ominous verse in Tusser:
Thy measeled bacon, hog, sow, or thy bore,
Shut up for to heale, for infecting thy store:
Or kill it for bacon, or sowce it to sell,
For Flemming, that loues it so deintily well.
Tusser, _Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie_ (Eng. Dialect Soc.
1878), p. 52. The word is still in use in the north of England for a
concoction of mincemeat, vegetables, cloves and vinegar and in 'soused
herrings' i.e. herrings cooked in vinegar.
[1651] I.e. St Ethelburga, for whom the Abbey was founded by her brother
Erconwald, Bishop of London, in 666.
[1652] Probably _gris_, i.e. a little pig. Compare _Piers Plowman_, Prol.
l. 226:
Cokes and here knaues crieden, 'hote pies, hote!
Gode gris and gees gowe dyne, gowe!'
[1653] "White worts," was a kind of _potage_ ("potage is not so moche used
in all Chrystendome as it is used in Englande. Potage is made of the
licour in the whiche flesshe is sod in, with puttynge to, chopped herbes
and Otmell and salte," _Early Eng. Meals and Manners_, p. 97). This is a
recipe for _White Worts_, written down, c. 1420: "Take of the erbys as
thou dede for _jouutes_ and sethe hem in water tyl they ben neyshe; thanne
take hem up, an bryse hem fayre on a potte an ley hem with flowre of Rys;
take mylke of almaundys and cast therto and hony, nowt to moche, that it
be nowt to swete, an safron and salt; an serve it forth ynne, rygth for a
good potage." The herbs used for _jouutes_ are "borage, violet, mallows,
parsley, young worts, beet, avens, buglos and orach"; and it is
recommended to use two or three marrow bones in making the broth. _Two
Fifteenth Century Cookery Books_, ed. T. Austen (E.E.T.S. 1888), pp. 5, 6.
[1654] Frumenty or Furmety (Lat. _frumentum_, wheat) is wheat husked and
boiled soft in water, then boiled in milk, sweetened and spiced. Here is a
recipe for it from the same book as that for white worts: "Take whete and
pyke it clene and do it in a morter, an caste a lytel water theron; an
stampe with a pestel tyl it hole [hull, lose husks]; than fan owt the
holys [hulls, husks], an put it in a potte, an let sethe tyl it breke;
than set yt douun, an sone after set it ouer the fyre an stere it wyl; an
whan thow hast sothyn it wyl, put therinne swete mylke, an sethe it yfere,
an stere it wyl; and whan it is ynow, coloure it wyth safron, an salt it
euene, and dresse it forth." _Op. cit._ pp. 6-7. See the rhymed recipe in
the _Liber cure cocorum_ (c. 1460), ed. Morris (Phil. Soc. 1862), p. 7.
[1655] Crisps (Mod. Fr. _crêpe_) were fritters. Here is a recipe for them
in a cookery book written c. 1450: "Take white of eyren [eggs], Milke, and
fyne flowre, and bete hit togidre and drawe hit thorgh a streynour, so
that hit be rennyng, and noght to stiff; and caste thereto sugar and salt.
And then take a chaffur ful of fressh grece boyling; and then put thi
honde in the batur and lete the bater ren thorgh thi fingers into the
chaffur; And whan it is ren togidre in the chaffre, and is ynowe, take a
skymour and take hit oute of the chaffur, and putte oute al the grece, And
lete ren; and putte hit in a faire dissh and cast sugur thereon ynow and
serue it forth." _Op. cit._ p. 93.
[1656] Buns. Compare the instructions to the cellaress of Syon: "On water
days [i.e. days when the sisters drank water instead of beer] sche schal
ordeyne for bonnes or newe brede." Aungier, _Hist. and Antiq. of Syon
Mon._ p. 393.
[1657] Here is a recipe: "_Risshewes._ Take figges and grinde hem all rawe
in a morter and cast a litull fraied oyle there-to; and then take hem vppe
yn a versell, and caste thereto pynes, reysyns of corance, myced dates,
sugur, Saffron, pouder ginger, and salt: And then make Cakes of floure,
Sugur, salt and rolle the stuff in thi honde and couche it in the cakes,
and folde hem togidur as risshewes, and fry hem in oyle, and serue hem
forth." _Op. cit._ p. 93. There are other recipes, _ib._ pp. 43, 45, 97.
The word survives in _rissole_.
[1658] _Reg. Epis. Peckham_, II, p. 706.
[1659] _Worc. Sede Vac. Reg._ p. 276.
[1660] Dugdale, _Mon._ III, p. 366.
[1661] _Linc. MS. Reg. Bokyngham Mem._ f. 397_d_.
[1662] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 120-1.
[1663] _Ib._ I, p. 51.
[1664] _V.C.H. Northants._ II, p. 101.
[1665] See above, p. 397.
[1666] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 115.
[1667] _Ib._ p. 115.
[1668] Sussex Arch. Soc. Coll. IX, pp. 25-7.
[1669] Sussex Arch. Soc. Coll. V, p. 257.
[1670] _Reg. J. de Pontissara_, I, p. 125.
[1671] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 51.
[1672] _Linc. Reg. Memo. Bokyngham_, f. 343. Compare Buckingham's similar
injunction to Heynings, _ib._ f. 397, Gynewell's injunction to Elstow in
1359, _ib._ _Reg. Gynewell_, ff. 139_d_-140, Pontoise's injunction to
Wherwell in 1302, _Reg. J. de Pontissara_, I, p. 125, and Peckham's
injunction to the Holy Sepulchre, Canterbury, in 1284, _Reg. Ep. Peckham_.
II, p. 706.
[1673] Liveing, _op. cit._ p. 104.
[1674] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 174.
[1675] _V.C.H. Northants._ II, p. 99.
[1676] Liveing, _op. cit._ p. 168.
[1677] _V.C.H. Herts._ IV, p. 434.
[1678] Translated from his _Bonum Universale de Apibus_, Lib. II, c. 30,
written about 1260, in Coulton, _Med. Garn._ pp. 372-3.
[1679] Aungier, _Hist. and Antiq. of Syon Mon._ pp. 256, 257, 259, 261-2.
For further instances of quarrels in the province of Rouen, see below, pp.
664-6.
[1680] Wilkins, _Conc._ I, p. 508.
[1681] _Ib._ pp. 590-1. Compare a decree of the contemporary Council of
Trier (1227) for German nuns, Harzheim, _Conc. Germ._ III, p. 534.
[1682]
And, whan he rood, men might his brydel here
Ginglen in a whistling wind as clere,
And eke as loude as dooth the chapel-belle
Ther as this lord was keper of the celle.
[1683] Wilkins, _Conc._ I, p. 660.
[1684] _New Coll._ MS. f. 86.
[1685] Aungier, _op. cit._ p. 392.
[1686] _Reg. Ep. Peckham_, III, p. 849.
[1687] Ful semely hir wimpel pinched was!
[1688] Gresset, _Vert Vert_, ll. 142-6. See below, p. 593.
[1689]
I seigh his sleves purfiled at the hond
With grys, and that the fyneste of a lond.
Chaucer, _Prologue_, ll. 193-4.
[1690] _Linc. Reg. Memo. Bokyngham_, f. 343_d_.
[1691] _Hereford Reg. Spofford_, I, f. 77_d_.
[1692] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 181.
[1693] _Ib._ p. 126.
[1694] Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 194.
[1695] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 119, 120, 127, 164, 168, 174-5, 181, 183,
240.
[1696] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 176; _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. ff. 26_d_, 38.
[1697] _V.C.H. Essex_, II, 124.
[1698] _Norwich Visit._ p. 274.
[1699] _V.C.H. Hants._ II, p. 130, where the date is wrongly given as
1512.
[1700] See below, p. 663.
[1701] _Prologue_, ll. 146-9. Chaucer was certainly a dog-lover: a passage
in the _Book of the Duchess_ (ll. 387 ff.) puts it beyond doubt:
I was go walked fro my tree,
And as I wente ther cam by me
A whelp, that fauned me as I stood
That hadde y-folowed, and coude no good.
Hit com and creep to me as lowe,
Right as hit badde me y-knowe,
Hild doun his heed and joyned his eres,
And leyde al smothe doun his heres.
I wolde han caught hit, and anoon
Hit fledde, and was fro me goon.
[1702] _The Book of the Knight of La Tour-Landry_, ed. T. Wright (E.E.T.S.
revised ed. 1906), pp. 28-9.
[1703] Printed in _The Cambridge Songs_, ed. Karl Breul (1915), No. 29, p.
62; and in _Denkmäler_, ed. Müllenhoff und Scherer, _Deutscher Poesie und
Prosa aus dem_ VIII-XII _Jahrhundert_ (Berlin, 1892), I, pp. 51-3 (No.
XXIV). I have ventured to attempt a translation.
[1704] Skelton, _Selected Poems_, ed. W. H. Williams (1902). pp. 57 ff.
[1705] Translation by Robin Flower in _The Poem Book of the Gael_, ed.
Eleanor Hull (1913), p. 132. The poem has also been translated by Kuno
Meyer and by Alfred Perceval Graves.
[1706] Quoted in Fosbroke, _Brit. Monachism_, II, p. 34.
[1707] _Oeuvres Choisies de Gresset_ (Coll. Bibliothèque Nationale), pp. 3
ff. There is an eighteenth century English translation (1759) by J. G.
Cooper in Chalmers, _English Poets_, XV, pp. 528-36.
[1708] Summarised in _V.C.H. Oxon._ II, pp. 76-7.
[1709] When the nuns exhorted her to abstain from his company, she replied
"quod ipsum amavit et amare volet." _Linc. Epis. Reg. Visit. Atwater_, f.
87.
[1710] See above, p. 58.
[1711] So also was Nunkeeling, where there was a particularly violent
election struggle, but no mention of immorality.
[1712] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 159.
[1713] _Ib._ pp. 167-9.
[1714] _Yorks. Arch. Journ._ XVI, pp. 456-7.
[1715] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 187-9. A Prioress was deposed here for
incontinence in 1494.
[1716] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 239-40.
[1717] _Yorks. Arch. Journ._ XVI, pp. 457-8. Queen Isabella, wife of
Edward II, is referred to.
[1718] See above, p. 427.
[1719] _Cal. of Papal Letters_, III, p. 1345.
[1720] _Yorks. Arch. Journ._ XVI, pp. 355, 358-62. Another nun apostatised
and lived a dissolute life for some time in the world, returning in 1337.
_Ib._ p. 363.
[1721] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 179-81. The house was in an unsatisfactory
condition as early as 1268. _Reg. Walter Giffard_, pp. 147-8.
[1722] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 129-30.
[1723] _Ib._ III, p. 113. The house seems to have been in much the same
condition later. A nun had run away in 1372 and the misdeeds of the bad
prioress Eleanor came to light in 1396. _Ib._ 114-5.
[1724] _Ib._ p. 124.
[1725] _Ib._ p. 126.
[1726] _Ib._ p. 161. In 1535 Archbishop Lee found that a nun here, Joan
Hutton, "hath lyved incontinentlie and unchast and hath broght forth a
child of her bodie begotten." _Yorks. Arch. Journ._ XVI, p. 453.
[1727] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 164.
[1728] _Ib._ p. 164.
[1729] _Ib._ p. 116 and _Yorks. Arch. Journ._ IX, p. 334.
[1730] _Ib._ pp. 176-7.
[1731] _Ib._ p. 175.
[1732] Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 194; see also _Cal. of Pap. Letters_, X, p.
471.
[1733] _Ib._ p. 183.
[1734] It may be noted that five nunneries had already disappeared between
1300 and 1500, viz. Waterbeach (transferred to Denny, 1348), Wothorpe
(annexed to St Michael's, Stamford, 1354) and St Stephen's, Foukeholme,
all of which owed their end to the Black Death; Lyminster (dissolved as an
alien priory, 1414); and Rowney (suppressed on account of poverty, 1459).
[1735] Gray, _Priory of St Radegund_, pp. 44-5. For evidence of the decay
of the nunnery during the last half of the fifteenth century, see _ib._
pp. 39-44.
[1736] Eckenstein, _Woman under Mon._ p. 436.
[1737] Dugdale, _Mon._ IV. p. 378.
[1738] _Selected Poems of John Skelton_, ed. W. H. Williams (1902), p.
113. There is an interesting _compertum_ at Dr Rayne's visitation of
Studley in 1530 to the effect that "the woods of the priory had been much
diminished by the late prioress and also by Thomas Cardinal of York for
the construction of his College in the University of Oxford." _V.C.H.
Oxon._ II, p. 78.
[1739] See above, Note F.
[1740] See above, p. 480.
[1741] Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 288.
[1742] Uhland, _Alte hoch- und niederdeutsche Volkslieder_ (1844-5), II,
p. 854 (No. 329); also in R. v. Liliencron, _Deutsches Leben im Volkslied
um 1530_ (1884), p. 226, and (in a slightly different and modernised
version) in L. A. v. Arnim and Clemens Brentano, _Des Knaben Wunderhorn_
(Reclam edit.), p. 24.
[1743] Translated in Bithell, _The Minnesingers_ (Halle, 1909), I, p. 200.
I have been unable to trace the original. I have slightly altered the
wording of the translation.
[1744] Karl Bartsch, _Deutsche Liederdichter des zwölften bis vierzehnten
Jahrhunderts_ (4th ed. Berlin, 1901), p. 379 (No. XCVIII, ll. 581-616).
Slightly modernised version in Uhland, _op. cit._ II, p. 853 (No. 327).
[1745] _Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie_, V (1881), p. 545 (No. 28).
A slightly different version in Moriz Haupt, _Französische Volkslieder_
(Leipzig, 1877), p. 152.
[1746] In a round the last two lines of each verse are repeated as the
first two lines of the following verse, and the refrain is repeated at the
end of each verse. The songs lose much of their charm by being quoted in
compressed form, for the cumulative effect of the repetition is
exceedingly graceful and spirited.
[1747] Haupt, _op. cit._ p. 40.
[1748] Weckerlin, _L'Ancienne Chanson Populaire en France_ (1887), p. 354.
[1749] _Ib._ p. 319.
[1750] Bujeaud, J., _Chants et Chansons populaires des Provinces de
l'ouest_ (1866), I, p. 137.
[1751] _Ib._ I, p. 132.
[1752] _Romania_, X, p. 391.
[1753] _Ib._ X, p. 395 (No. XLVIII).
[1754] _Ib._ VII, p. 72 (No. XX). Another version in De Puymaigre, _Chants
Populaires recueillis dans le Pays Messin_ (1865), p. 39 (No. X).
[1755] _Ib._ VII, p. 73 (No. XXI). Other versions in Jean Fleury,
_Littérature Orale de la Basse-Normandie_ (Paris, 1883), p. 311, and De
Puymaigre, _op. cit._ p. 35 (No. IX), and note on p. 37. Compare
Schiller's ballad _Der Ritter von Toggenburg_.
[1756] Fleury, _op. cit._ p. 313.
[1757] Nigra, _Canti Popolari del Piemonte_ (1888), No. 80, pp. 409-14.
[1758] T. Casini, _Studi di Poesia antica_ (1913). There is a very racy
French song called _Le Comte Orry_ which deserves notice here: see H. C.
Delloye, _Chants et Chansons Populaires de la France_ (1{re} série), 1843.
[1759] Hagen, _Carmina Medii Aevi_ (Berne, 1877), pp. 206-7. There is an
exceedingly long and tedious sixteenth century French version, evidently
founded on the Latin poem, in Montaiglon, _Rec. de Poésies Françoises des
XVI{e} et XVII{e} siècles_, t. VIII, pp. 170-5.
[1760] _The Cambridge Songs_, ed. Karl Breul (1915), No. 35, p. 16. See
also Koegel, _Geschichte der Deutschen Litteratur_ (1867), I, pp. 136-9.
[1761] _Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie_, V (1881), p. 544, No. 27.
Also in Weckerlin, _op. cit._ p. 405 (under date 1614).
[1762] Rolland, _Rec. de Chansons Populaires_, II, p. 81.
[1763] _Ib._ I, pp. 226-7.
[1764] Weckerlin, _op. cit._ p. 355.
[1765] Haupt, _Französische Volkslieder_ (1877), p. 84. A slightly
different version in Weckerlin, _op. cit._ p. 297.
[1766] Haupt, _op. cit._ p. 63.
[1767] Weckerlin, _op. cit._ p. 262; also in E. Rolland, _Rec. de Chansons
Populaires_ (1883-90), t. II, p. 36.
[1768] "A gentle gallant went hunting in the wood and there he met a nun.
She was so lovely, so fresh and so fair. Said the gentle gallant to her:
'Come, sit with me in the shade and never more shalt thou be a little
nun.' 'Gentle gallant, wait here for me; I will go and put off my habit
and then I will come back to you in the shade.' He waited for her three
days and three nights and never came the fair one. The gentle gallant goes
to the monastery and knocks at the great door; out comes the mother
abbess: 'What are you looking for, gentle gallant?' 'I am looking for a
little nun, who promised to come into the shade.' 'You once had the quail
at your feet and you let it fly away. Even so has flown the pretty nun.'"
Nigra, _Canti Populari del Piemonte_ (1888), No. 72, p. 381. With these
two songs should be compared the English poem in Percy's _Reliques_,
called _The Baffled Knight or Lady's Policy_, and the Somerset folksong,
_Blow away the morning dew_, with its _dénouement_:
But when they came to her father's gate
So nimble she popped in,
And said "There is a fool without
And here's the maid within.
We have a flower in our garden
We call it marygold--
And if you will not when you may
You shall not when you wolde."
_Folk Songs from Somerset_ (1st Series, 1910), ed. Cecil Sharp and Charles
Marson, No. VIII, pp. 16-17.
[1769] Fleury, _op. cit._ p. 308. Other versions in De Puymaigre, _op.
cit._ pp. 145-8 (Nos. XLV-XLVI).
[1770] Rolland, _op. cit._ IV, p. 31. Cf. versions on pp. 30, 32, 33. The
theme recalls a pretty poem by Leigh Hunt:
If you become a nun, dear,
A friar I will be;
In any cell you run, dear,
Pray look behind for me.
The roses all turn pale, too;
The doves all take the veil, too;
The blind will see the show.
What! you become a nun, my dear?
I'll not believe it, no!
If you become a nun, dear,
The bishop Love will be;
The Cupids every one, dear,
Will chant "We trust in thee."
The incense will go sighing,
The candles fall a-dying,
The water turn to wine;
What! you go take the vows, my dear?
You may--but they'll be mine!
[1771] Rolland, _op. cit._ I, p. 253, cf. pp. 249-54.
[1772] _Chants de Carnaval Florentins (Canti Carnascialeschi) de l'époque
de Laurent le Magnifique._ Pub. par P. M. Masson (Paris, 1913). For a copy
of the song and for the suggestion that it refers to English nuns I am
indebted to Mr E. J. Dent of King's College, Cambridge. But the mention of
Low Germany sounds more like German nuns.
[1773] Countess Martinengo-Cesaresco, _Essays in the Study of Folksongs_
(Everyman's Lib. Ed.), pp. 191-2.
[1774] L. A. v. Arnim and Clemens Brentano, _Des Knaben Wunderhorn_
(Reclam ed.), p. 50.
[1775] _The Oxford Book of Ballads_, ed. Quiller-Couch (1910), p. 635 (No.
125). In the long collection of ballads narrating Robin Hood's career
known as _A Little Geste of Robin Hood and his Meiny_ (which was in print
early in the sixteenth century) the Prioress is said to have conspired
with her lover, one Sir Roger of Doncaster, to slay Robin. _Ib._ p. 574.
In the version in Bishop Percy's famous folio MS. "Red Roger" is described
as stabbing the weakened outlaw, but losing his own life in the act.
_Bishop Percy's Folio MS._ ed. Hales and Furnivall (1867), I, pp. 50-58.
"In 'Le Morte de Robin Hode,' a quite modern piece printed in Hone's
_Every-day Book_ from an old collection of MS. songs in the Editor's
possession, the prioress is represented as the outlaw's sister and as
poisoning him." _Ib._ p. 53.
[1776] _Miracles de Nostre Dame par Personnages_, pub. G. Paris and U.
Robert (Soc. des Anc. Textes Français, 1876), t. I, pp. 311-51.
[1777] Translated in Evelyn Underhill, _The Miracles of Our Lady Saint
Mary_ (1905), pp. 195-200.
[1778] Caesarius of Heisterbach, II, pp. 41-2. "Although the buffet was
hard," says Caesarius, conscious perhaps that the Virgin had acted with
less than her wonted gentleness, "she was utterly delivered from
temptation by it. A grievous ill requires a grievous remedy."
[1779] Gautier de Coincy, _Miracles de N.D._, ed. Poquet, p. 474.
[1780] _Exempla of Jacques de Vitry_, ed. Crane, p. 24. See variant in _An
Alphabet of Tales_ (E.E.T.S.), p. 321.
[1781] Caesarius of Heisterbach, _Dial. Mirac._ ed. Strange, I, pp. 222-3.
[1782] Wright, _Latin Stories_, p. 96.
[1783] Etienne de Bourbon, _Anecdotes Historiques_, ed. Lecoy de la
Marche, p. 83 (translated in Taylor, _The Medieval Mind_, I, pp. 508-9).
[1784] I have used the version in _An Alphabet of Tales_ (E.E.T.S.), pp.
11-12. For other versions, see _Miracles de Nostre Dame_ (Soc. des Anc.
Textes) I, pp. 59-100. For other versions, see Etienne de Bourbon, _op.
cit._ p. 114, Wright, _op. cit._, p. 114, Barbazon et Méon, _Nouveau
Recueil de Fabliaux_, II, p. 314, _Dodici conti morali d'anonimo Senese:
Teste inedite de sec._ XIII (Bologna, 1862), No. 8; Small, _Eng. Metrical
Homilies_, p. 164. There is a very interesting Ethiopian version (told of
Sophia the abbess of Mount Carmel) in _Miracles of the B.V.M._ (Lady Meux
MSS.), ed. E. A. Wallis Budge (1900), pp. 68-71. Most versions preserve
the interesting detail that the nuns dislike their abbess and are anxious
to betray her on account of her strictness and particularly because she
will not give them easy licence to see their friends. In the French
dramatic version Sister Isabel stays away from a sermon and gives as her
excuse that a cousin came to see her, with some cloth to make a veil and a
"surplis," whereupon she is scolded and then pardoned by the Abbess.
[1785] _Le Cento Novelle Antiche_, ed. Gualteruzzi (Milan, 1825), No. 62.
I quote the translation by A. C. Lee, _The Decameron, its Sources and
Analogues_, p. 60.
[1786] Francesco da Barberino, _Del Reggimento e Costumi di Donne_, ed.
Carlo Baudi di Vesme (Bologna, 1875), p. 273. See A. C. Lee, _loc. cit._
[1787] A. C. Lee, _op. cit._ p. 125. The story is of Eastern origin and
for its many analogues see _ib._ pp. 123-35.
[1788] _Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_, ed. Th. Wright (Bib. Elzévirienne,
1858), t. I, pp. 81-4, 114-20, 283-7.
[1789] Montaiglon et Raynaud, _Rec. Gén. des Fabliaux_, III, pp. 137-44.
[1790] _Ib._ IV, pp. 128-32.
[1791] Barbazon et Méon, _Nouv. Rec. de Fabliaux_, IV, p. 250.
[1792] _Erzählungen und Schwänke_, hrsg. von Hans Lambel (Leipzig, 1888),
No. VIII, pp. 309-22.
[1793] Koeppel, _Studien zur Geschichte der italienischen Novelle in der
englischen Litteratur des XVI Jahrhunderts_ (1892), p. 183.
[1794] _King John by William Shakespeare together with the Troublesome
Reign of King John_, ed. F. G. Fleay, (1878), pp. 158-62.
[1795] Printed in _A Selection from the Minor Poems of Dan John Lydgate_,
ed. J. O. Halliwell (Percy Soc. 1840), pp. 107-17. Professor MacCracken
denies the authorship to Lydgate, see _The Minor Poems of John Lydgate_,
ed. H. N. MacCracken (E.E.T.S. 1911), I, p. xlii (note).
[1796] The edition used is that of Joseph Strange in two volumes (Cologne,
Bonn and Brussels, 1851). For a study of the life and times of Caesarius,
see A. Kaufmann, _Caesarius von Heisterbach, Ein Beitrag zur
Kulturgeschichte des zwölften und dreizehnten Jahrhunderts_ (Cologne,
1850). For anecdotes from this source already quoted in the text, see pp.
27-9, 296-7, 511, 520 ff., etc.
[1797] _Op. cit._ I, pp. 1-2.
[1798] I.e. "_Ave Maria, gratia plena._" The Virgin Mary was always the
most potent help against the devil, as may be seen from any collection of
her miracles (e.g. that made by Gautier de Coincy in French verse in the
thirteenth century and edited by the Abbé Poquet).
[1799] _Ib._ I, pp. 125-7. For an abbreviated version of this story, taken
from Caesarius, see _An Alphabet of Tales_ (E.E.T.S.), pp. 178-9 (No.
CCLV).
[1800] Used in the common medieval sense of entering a religious order.
[1801] _Ib._ I, pp. 328-30. At the end of this story the novice asks: "Why
is it that the good Lord allows maidens so tender and so pure to be thus
cruelly tormented by rough and foul spirits?" And the monk replies: "Thou
hast experienced how if a bitter drink be first swallowed a sweet one
tastes the sweeter, and how if black be placed beneath it, white is all
the more dazzling. Read the Visions of Witinus, Godescalcus and others, to
whom it was permitted to see the pains of the damned and the glory of the
elect, and almost always it was the vision of punishment which came first.
The Lord, wishing to show his bride his secret joys, permitteth well that
she should first be tempted by some dreadful visions, that afterwards she
may the better deserve to be made glad, and may know the distance between
sweet and bitter, light and darkness."
[1802] _Ib._ I, pp. 330-31.
[1803] _Ib._ II, pp. 68-9. "As I infer from this vision," says the Novice,
"an indiscreet fervour in prayers is not pleasing to the blessed Virgin,
neither an undisciplined movement in genuflections." On the other hand she
did not like her devotees to hurry over their prayers, for Gautier de
Coincy has a tale of a nun, Eulalie, who was accustomed to say at each
office of the Virgin the full rosary of a hundred and fifty _Aves_; but
she had much work to do and often hurried over her prayers, till one night
she saw a vision of the mother of God, who promised her salvation and told
her that the _Ave Maria_ was a prayer which gave herself much joy;
therefore she bade Eulalie not to hurry over it, but of her bounty
permitted her to say a chaplet of fifty _Aves_, instead of the long
rosary. See Gautier de Coincy, _Les Miracles de la Sainte Vierge_, ed.
Poquet (Paris, 1857).
[1804] _Ib._ II, p. 100.
[1805] _Ib._ II, pp. 121-2.
[1806] _Ib._ II, pp. 122-3. For a variant in which the place of the two
nuns is taken by two doctors of divinity, see _An Alphabet of Tales_
(E.E.T.S.), pp. 274-5.
[1807] _Ib._ II, pp. 343-4. With these holy rivalries should be compared
Caesarius' tales of the drawing of apostles by lot. "It is a very common
custom among the matrons of our province to choose an Apostle for their
very own by the following lottery: the names of the twelve Apostles are
written each on twelve tapers, which are blessed by the priest and laid on
the altar at the same moment. Then the woman comes and draws a taper and
whatsoever name that taper shall chance to bear, to that Apostle she
renders special honour and service. A certain matron, having thus drawn St
Andrew, and being displeased to have drawn him, laid the taper back on the
altar and would have drawn another; but the same came to her hand again.
Why should I make a long story? At length she drew one that pleased her,
to whom she paid faithful devotion all the days of her life; nevertheless
when she came to her last end and was at the point of death, she saw not
him but the Blessed Andrew standing at her bedside. 'Lo,' he said, 'I am
that despised Andrew!' from which we can gather that sometimes saints
thrust themselves even of their own accord into men's devotions." Another
matron was so much annoyed at drawing St Jude the Obscure instead of a
more famous Apostle that she threw him behind the altar chest; whereupon
the outraged Apostle visited her in a dream and not only rated her soundly
but afflicted her with a palsy. See _ib._ II, pp. 129, 133, translated in
Coulton, _A Medieval Garner_, pp. 259-60.
[1808] Several of the stories have, however, been translated by Mr
Coulton, _op. cit._ Nos. 102-32.
[1809] Translated in Coulton, _From St Francis to Dante_ (1907), p. 290;
see _ib._ pp. 289-91, for a short account of Eudes Rigaud, also references
on p. 395 (n. 17).
[1810] _Regestrum Visitationum Archiepiscopi Rothamagensis_, ed. Bonnin
(1852). See analysis by L. Delisle in the _Bibliothèque de l'École des
Chartes_, 1846.
[1811] There is however a copy of the Bishop's letter of injunctions, sent
on later, appended to his report of the state of Villarceaux in 1249
(_Reg._ pp. 44-5).
[1812] Walcott, M. E. C., _English Minsters, II_ (_The English Student's
Monasticon_), pp. 210 and _V.C.H. Dorset_, II, p. 48.
[1813] _V.C.H. Sussex_, II, p. 121 and Dugdale, _Mon._ VI, pp. 1032-3. The
later history of this cell can be traced from occasional references. It
was a very small house and contained only a prioress and two nuns in 1380.
Dugdale says that after the French wars Richard Earl of Arundel treated
with the Abbess of Almenèches for the purchase of some lands belonging to
Lyminster and in 1404 a papal brief enumerated the possessions of
Almenèches in England and elsewhere, with a threat of penalties against
all who should disturb them. Dugdale, _Mon._ VI, pp. 1032-3. Five years
later a memorandum in the Register of Bishop Rede of Chichester notes the
admission of a new Prioress, Nichola de Hereez, on the presentation of the
Abbess and Convent of Almenèches, in place of Georgete la Cloutiere,
deceased. _Reg. Robert Rede_ (Sussex Rec. Soc. 1908), pp. 38-9. Clearly
French women were ruling over the house, though the nuns may possibly have
been English. Shortly afterwards Henry V finally dissolved the alien
priories in England and the lands belonging to Lyminster were settled by
Henry VI upon Eton College.
[1814] _Reg._ p. 236.
[1815] Walcott, _op. cit._ p. 141 and _V.C.H. Norfolk_, II, p. 463, and
Dugdale, _op. cit._ p. 1057.
[1816] Walcott, _op. cit._ p. 173.
[1817] _Reg._ p. 94.
[1818] _Ib._ p. 261. In 1314-5 the Abbess of the Holy Trinity petitioned
the King of England, complaining that she had been distrained in aid of
the marriage of his eldest daughter, whereas she held all her lands in
frank almoin. _Rot. Parl._ I, p. 331.
[1819] Irrespective of double houses such as the Magdalen of Rouen.
[1820] _Reg._ p. 202.
[1821] p. 73.
[1822] p. 471.
[1823] E.g. pp. 43, 207, 323, 361.
[1824] pp. 235, 374.
[1825] pp. 451, 490.
[1826] p. 194.
[1827] p. 299.
[1828] p. 194.
[1829] pp. 636-7.
[1830] p. 298.
[1831] p. 572.
[1832] p. 419.
[1833] p. 298.
[1834] p. 298.
[1835] p. 268.
[1836] pp. 456, 486, 512.
[1837] pp. 419, 451, 491, 598, 634.
[1838] p. 94.
[1839] p. 323.
[1840] p. 338.
[1841] p. 456.
[1842] pp. 16, 121, 201, 326, 512, 588.
[1843] pp. 166, 194.
[1844] E.g. at St Désir de Lisieux (1249), at Bondeville (1259), and at St
Saëns (1262). At Bival (1257 and 1259) such a roll was kept. See pp. 62,
299, 339, 348, 451.
[1845] pp. 16, 60, 62, 73, 121, 197, 199, 201, 220, 266, 339, 348, 431,
512.
[1846] pp. 43, 44, 220, 305, 326.
[1847] pp. 43, 44, 326, 431, 588, 602.
[1848] p. 348.
[1849] p. 410.
[1850] See e.g. pp. 100, 274, 299, 339, 361, 402, 407, 410, 451, 468, 471,
523, 602, 619.
[1851] p. 468.
[1852] p. 100.
[1853] p. 361.
[1854] pp. 487, 598, 615.
[1855] pp. 100, 572, 592.
[1856] The exact definition of these measures is a thorny subject, but
probably the _modius_ was roughly a quarter and the _mina_ a little more.
[1857] The list of rents in kind is an interesting illustration of the
monastic economy; such rents were probably retained, where estates
belonged to large communities, for some time after they were commuted for
money on secular lands.
[1858] The same which they sold in 1261.
[1859] pp. 273-4. Compare the inventory of Bondeville, _ib._ p. 299.
[1860] p. 299.
[1861] p. 457.
[1862] p. 384.
[1863] p. 316.
[1864] p. 16.
[1865] pp. 401, 456, 471, 512.
[1866] pp. 187, 273, 310, 338.
[1867] p. 380.
[1868] p. 419.
[1869] p. 491.
[1870] p. 522.
[1871] p. 522: he probably means _vicar_.
[1872] p. 111.
[1873] p. 217.
[1874] pp. 610, 636.
[1875] pp. 197, 295.
[1876] p. 166.
[1877] p. 285.
[1878] For other references to the fondness of nuns for ginger see the
_Life of Christina von Stommeln_: "Item per annum cum dimidio non comedit
aliud quam gingiber" (_Acta SS._ t. IV, p. 454 A). Also the _Ancren
Riwle_, p. 316: "Of a man whom ye distrust receive ye neither less nor
more--not so much as a race of ginger." Cf. _ib._ p. 279.
[1879] pp. 384, 431, 472, 517, 564.
[1880] See pp. 793-4 for the inquisition. The name of the house is not
given and the editor places the list in the appendix, but the date is 1257
and from internal evidence it is quite clear that it refers to the
resignation of Marie, prioress of Bondeville.
[1881] p. 793.
[1882] pp. 111, 133, 217, 298, 410.
[1883] p. 6.
[1884] p. 610.
[1885] pp. 44, 115, 166, 255, 273, 338, 419, 451, 457, 491, 500, 522, 550.
[1886] p. 522, compare p. 550.
[1887] pp. 166, 194.
[1888] p. 500.
[1889] p. 273.
[1890] p. 457.
[1891] p. 115.
[1892] p. 15.
[1893] pp. 384, 431, 472.
[1894] p. 44.
[1895] p. 575.
[1896] p. 486.
[1897] p. 487.
[1898] pp. 283, 319, 361.
[1899] p. 457.
[1900] p. 305.
[1901] pp. 281, 402.
[1902] pp. 384, 431, 817.
[1903] pp. 268, 299, 339. On one occasion the number is given as 12. p.
207.
[1904] pp. 43, 534. However in 1268 Rigaud noted that they ought to do so
monthly. p. 602.
[1905] p. 412.
[1906] p. 62, but in 1267 Rigaud noted that they were obliged to do so
seven times a year. p. 600.
[1907] pp. 293, 517, 564.
[1908] pp. 298, 487. In 1255 he noted that they did so seven times a year
and ordered fortnightly confessions and communions instead (p. 217), but
from the later visitations it appears that the seven times rule referred
only to lay brothers and sisters.
[1909] p. 410.
[1910] (St Amand), pp. 121, 202, 326, 456; (St Désir de Lisieux), p. 199;
(St Sauveur d'Evreux), pp. 220, 305.
[1911] p. 82.
[1912] p. 374.
[1913] p. 419.
[1914] p. 522.
[1915] p. 245.
[1916] p. 517 (Montivilliers).
[1917] pp. 43, 44 (Villarceaux); 117, 146 (Bival); 170, 310 (St Saëns);
261 (Caen); 285, 486 (St Amand); 305 (St Sauveur); 348 (Bondeville).
[1918] pp. 15 (St Amand); 60 (St Léger de Préaux).
[1919] p. 43.
[1920] pp. 15, 121 (St Amand); 207 (St Aubin).
[1921] p. 207 (Bival).
[1922] p. 207 (St Aubin).
[1923] pp. 197, 295, 591 (St Léger-de-Préaux); 201 (St Amand); 261 (Caen).
[1924] p. 170 (St Saëns).
[1925] pp. 16 (St Amand): 62, 199 (St Désir de Lisieux); 60 (St Léger de
Préaux); 170, 187 (St Saëns).
[1926] pp. 62 (St Désir de Lisieux); 884 (Montivilliers).
[1927] p. 16.
[1928] p. 121.
[1929] p. 512.
[1930] p. 338.
[1931] p. 384.
[1932] pp. 44, 468.
[1933] pp. 431, 451, 472, 517, 564, 600, 624. Cf. also p. 652, below.
[1934] pp. 384, 431, 472, 517, 600. Cf. St Saëns, p. 451.
[1935] p. 638.
[1936] p. 431.
[1937] pp. 111, 285, 486, 625.
[1938] pp. 111, 166, 170, 194.
[1939] p. 94. Cf. p. 261: "Una non clamat aliam" (1256).
[1940] p. 201.
[1941] p. 293.
[1942] _Ancren Riwle_, tr. Gasquet, pp. 151, 192.
[1943] p. 518. An amusing example of convent amenities on these occasions
and particularly of the way in which the younger nuns seized a chance of
"getting even" with their elders is to be found in Johann Busch's account
of his visitation of Dorstadt (in the _Liber de Reformatione
Monasteriorum_ described below, App. III). At this house it was the custom
for the chapter disciplines to be administered to the whole convent by two
of the youngest nuns, who then received discipline themselves. "And," says
Busch, "they had somewhat large rods and beat each other somewhat
severely, because the younger nuns were ordained to give disciplines for
this reason, that they were stronger than the others. I asked one of them
after confession whether she ever gave one more or sharper blows than
another. She answered, 'Truly I do. I hit more sharply and as much as I
can her who in my judgment deserves more.' This girl was about eight or
ten years old. I asked one elderly sister, who was prioress in another
monastery of her order, but because she was unwilling to reform was
expelled from it, whether she received severe disciplines from them. She
replied, 'I have counted ten or eight strokes, which she has often given
me as hard as she could, within the space in which "Misereatur tui" is
read.' Then I said to her, 'You ought to make her a sign, that she may
understand that you have had enough.' She answered, 'When I do that, she
hits me all the more. And I dare not say anything to her on account of the
prioress's presence, but I think to myself: I must bear these on account
of my sins, because the prioress and all the seniors receive from them as
much as they like to give, without contradiction.' And she added, 'before
her profession I used to teach her and often beat her with a rod: now she
pays me back as she likes.'" Busch, _Chron. Wind. et Liber de Ref. Mon._,
ed. Grube, pp. 644-5.
[1944] p. 235.
[1945] p. 591.
[1946] pp. 624-5.
[1947] pp. 512, 588.
[1948] p. 550.
[1949] p. 348. Perhaps one of these is referred to in 1251 when Rigaud
noted "Ibi est quedam filia cuiusdam burgensis de Vallibus que stulta est"
(p. 111). It may however refer to a boarder.
[1950] p. 111.
[1951] pp 348, 615.
[1952] p. 187.
[1953] p. 268.
[1954] p. 412.
[1955] p. 293.
[1956] p. 431.
[1957] pp. 472, 517, 564.
[1958] pp. 170, 187, 522 (St Saëns); 201, 326, 401, 512 (St Amand); 298,
348, 455 (Bondeville); 73, 220, 305 (St Sauveur); 117, 146 (Bival); 199,
296 (St Désir de Lisieux); 295-6, 592 (St Léger de Préaux); 402
(Villarceaux); 412 (St Aubin).
[1959] See _Rule of St Benedict_, tr. Gasquet, pp. 95-6: "When receiving
new clothes the monks shall always give back the old ones at the same
time, to be put away in the clothes room for the poor. For it is
sufficient that a monk have two cowls, as well for night wear as for the
convenience of washing. Anything else is superfluous and must be cut off."
[1960] pp. 384, 517, 564 (Montivilliers); 295 (St Léger de Préaux); 62 (St
Désir de Lisieux); 220, 305 (St Sauveur).
[1961] p. 512.
[1962] p. 305.
[1963] pp. 44-5.
[1964] "Abbatissa dat cuilibet moniali per annum xii solidos pro vestibus
tantummodo, et singule earum provident sibi de residuo." p. 339; cf. p.
299. Cf. also Almenèches in 1250, p. 82.
[1965] p. 384.
[1966] p. 207.
[1967] p. 82.
[1968] p. 550.
[1969] p. 587.
[1970] p. 615.
[1971] pp. 62, 199, 296.
[1972] p. 100.
[1973] pp. 115, 273, 285. Cf. injunctions to Villarceaux in 1249, quoted
above.
[1974] p. 82.
[1975] Cf. the case of Johanna Martel at St Saëns, p, 338, quoted below,
p. 668.
[1976] p. 235
[1977] p. 374.
[1978] pp. 384, 431, 472, 517, 564. In 1260 the injunction was: "Item quod
omnes sane insimul comederent; item inhibuimus ne in refectorio per
conventicula et colligationes comederent sed sederent in mensis
indifferenter et escis communibus vescerentur" (p. 384).
[1979] pp. 170, 380, 522.
[1980] pp. 60, 197, 295.
[1981] p. 146.
[1982] p. 572.
[1983] p. 220.
[1984] pp. 111, 217, 571. The oven room of St Amand was looked after by a
lay brother, p. 588.
[1985] p. 73.
[1986] p. 82.
[1987] p. 111. "Quod moniales non vendant nec distrahant filum et _lor
fusees_."
[1988] pp. 202, 283, 326, 401, 456, 486, 512, 588 (St Amand); 73, 624 (St
Sauveur); 518 (Montivilliers); 451 (St Saëns); 534 (Villarceaux).
[1989] _Ancren Riwle_, tr. Gasquet, p. 318.
[1990] The custom of depositing valuables in a monastery for safety was
very general. Caesarius of Heisterbach has an entertaining anecdote on the
point: "A certain usurer committed a large sum of his money to a certain
cellarer of our order to be kept for him. The monk sealed it up and put it
in a safe place together with the money belonging to the monastery.
Afterwards the usurer came to ask for his deposit, but when the cellarer
opened the chest, he found neither that nor his own money. And when he
beheld that the locks of the chest were intact and the seals of the bags
unbroken and that there was no suspicion of theft, he understood that the
money of the usurer had eaten up the money of the monastery." Caes. of
Heist., _Dial. Mirac._ ed. Strange (1851), I, p. 108. For another example
of goods being deposited for safety in a nunnery see _V.C.H. Herts._ IV,
p. 431 (note 40). A certain Joan Sturmyn entrusted goods to the value of
£50 to the keeping of Alice Wafer, Prioress of St Mary de Pré (near St
Albans), which afterwards gave rise to a case in chancery, 1480-5.
[1991] Coulton, _Monastic Schools in the Middle Ages_ (Medieval Studies,
No. 10) quoting from Martène, _Thesaurus_, IV, col. 175, § IV.
[1992] See references to convent schools by Gerson and by Erasmus quoted
in Coulton, _op. cit._ pp. 22-3, note 17.
[1993] Or grandnieces (_nepotulas_).
[1994] p. 217.
[1995] p. 298.
[1996] p. 410.
[1997] p. 571.
[1998] p. 615.
[1999] Coulton, _op. cit._ p. 5.
[2000] p. 282.
[2001] p. 324.
[2002] p. 572.
[2003] p. 602.
[2004] p. 380.
[2005] p. 419.
[2006] p. 412: "Item ne pueros admitterent ad nutriendum."
[2007] p. 146.
[2008] p. 486.
[2009] p. 60.
[2010] p. 220.
[2011] p. 305.
[2012] pp. 610, 636.
[2013] pp. 43, 44.
[2014] pp. 115, 207, 255, 283, 319.
[2015] p. 361.
[2016] pp. 412, 471, 550, 587.
[2017] p. 310.
[2018] p. 338.
[2019] p. 380.
[2020] p. 419.
[2021] pp. 451, 491.
[2022] pp. 201, 285.
[2023] p. 486.
[2024] p. 512.
[2025] p. 588.
[2026] p. 281.
[2027] p. 323.
[2028] p. 571.
[2029] pp. 44, 572.
[2030] p. 207.
[2031] p. 564.
[2032] pp. 43, 82, 146, 348.
[2033] pp. 348, 410.
[2034] p. 117.
[2035] p. 146.
[2036] pp. 146, 207, 220, 235, 255, 283, 305, 319, 348, 419, 624, 636.
[2037] pp. 43, 207, 255, 283, 305.
[2038] pp. 43, 326.
[2039] p. 117.
[2040] p. 348.
[2041] p. 220.
[2042] pp. 43, 117, 220, 235, 268, 486, 491, 534, 550.
[2043] p. 587.
[2044] p. 44.
[2045] p. 285.
[2046] pp. 43, 197, 296, 338, 348, 374, 380, 419, 451, 455, 486, 491, 534,
591, 624.
[2047] p. 187 (1254); in 1259 it is again complained that the nuns stay
for a long time when they have licence to go outside and on three other
occasions it is noted that the nuns go out alone; in 1262 a penance was
enjoined on the Prioress for allowing one nun to do so. See pp. 338, 380,
419, 451, 491.
[2048] p. 197.
[2049] p. 295.
[2050] p. 591.
[2051] p. 298; cf. p. 455.
[2052] p. 281; cf. pp. 146, 486, 588.
[2053] pp. 293, 517.
[2054] p. 587.
[2055] p. 412.
[2056] p. 471.
[2057] See above, pp. 542 ff.
[2058] p. 44.
[2059] p. 166.
[2060] p. 197.
[2061] p. 261.
[2062] p. 384.
[2063] pp. 431, 517.
[2064] p. 486.
[2065] See above p. 311 and E. K. Chambers, _The Medieval Stage_, I, ch.
XV, _passim_.
[2066] p. 73.
[2067] pp. 305, 624.
[2068] p. 295.
[2069] p. 95.
[2070] p. 201.
[2071] p. 602; compare a similar case at Legbourne, above, p. 412.
[2072] p. 43.
[2073] pp. 518, 564.
[2074] p. 16.
[2075] pp. 73, 207, 220, 305, 624.
[2076] Montaiglon, _Recueil de Poésies Françoises des XVI{e} et XVII{e}
siècles_, t. VIII, pp. 171, 173.
[2077] pp. 43-4.
[2078] But a better example of his wit is shown in his repartee to
another's pun, quoted in Coulton, _A Medieval Garner_, p. 289. "A clerical
buffoon once ventured to ask him across the table, 'What is the
difference, my lord, betwixt _Rigaud_ and _Ribaud_ [rascal]?' 'Only this
board's breadth,' replied the Archbishop." The jest is however widespread,
_mutatis mutandis_, in the east as well as in the west. It is told of one
John Scot, 'What difference is there between sot and scot?' 'Just the
breadth of the table.' _Calendar of Jests, Epigrams, Epitaphs etc._
(Edinburgh 1753); it also occurs in Gladwin's _Persian Moonshee_ and in
several Indian collections of _facetiae_. W. A. Clouston, _Popular Tales
and Fictions_ (1887) I, p. 51.
[2079] p. 207.
[2080] p. 146.
[2081] p. 207.
[2082] p. 338.
[2083] p. 522.
[2084] p. 82.
[2085] p. 326.
[2086] p. 456.
[2087] p. 638.
[2088] See pp. 645-6, above.
[2089] _Reg._ p. 348.
[2090] p. 199.
[2091] p. 575. Cf. the case of the Priory of Couz, when it was visited in
1283 by Simon of Beaulieu, Archbishop of Bourges. Baluze, _Miscellanea_,
I, 281.
[2092] pp. 43-4. Notice the disjointed character of the report and the
repetition of charges, e.g. against Johanna of _Alto Villari_ (who is
probably the same as Johanna of _Aululari_) the cellaress and the
Prioress. This probably indicates that it is a verbatim report of evidence
taken down from the lips of the nuns, as they came before the Archbishop.
[2093] pp. 44-5.
[2094] p. 117.
[2095] p. 82.
[2096] p. 6.
[2097] p. 207.
[2098] p. 268.
[2099] p. 207.
[2100] A similar charge was made at the convent of St Saëns in 1264 where
scandal imputed to Nicholaa, a notoriously immoral nun, "_quod ipsa nondum
erat mensis elapsus fecerat abortivum_"; but the Archbishop apparently
disbelieved the charge. p. 491. See p. 669, below.
[2101] p. 255.
[2102] p. 283.
[2103] p. 412.
[2104] p. 471.
[2105] p. 500.
[2106] It is noticeable how often in these visitations the nuns are
reported to have been led astray by priests; but when one considers the
character borne by many of the parochial and other clergy of the diocese,
as it is recorded in the Register, this is hardly surprising.
[2107] pp. 550, 587.
[2108] p. 587.
[2109] p. 619.
[2110] p. 187.
[2111] p. 338.
[2112] See above, p. 667, note 6.
[2113] p. 491.
[2114] p. 522.
[2115] p. 566.
[2116] p. 598.
[2117] Or rather on loose sheets, which were not intended for official
preservation and have survived only by accident.
[2118] I.e. abbot. These German Augustinians never used the term _abbas_,
but used _praepositus_ instead.
[2119] _Des Augustinerpropstes Iohannes Busch Chronicon Windeshemense und
Liber de Reformatione Monasteriorum_ ... bearbeitet v. Dr Karl Grube
(_Hist. Com. der Provinz. Sachsen._ Halle, 1886).
[2120] The nunneries dealt with by Busch are the following (A. = Austin,
B. = Benedictine, C. = Cistercian, M.M. = penitentiary order of St Mary
Magdalen, following the Cistercian rule): (1) Wennigsen (S. of Hanover,
dioc. Minden, A.); (2) Mariensee (N. of Hanover, dioc. Minden, C.); (3)
Barsinghausen (S. of Hanover, dioc. Minden, A.); (4) Marienwerder (N. of
Hanover, dioc. Minden, A.); (5) St George, or Marienkammer (in Glaucha, a
suburb of Halle, dioc. Magdeburg, C.); (6) Magdalenenkloster, Hildesheim
(dioc. Hildesheim, M.M.); (7) Derneburg (W. of Hildesheim, dioc.
Hildesheim, A.); (8) Escherde (S.W. of Hildesheim, B.); (9) Heiningen (in
Hanover, between Wolfenbüttel and Goslar, dioc. Hildesheim, A.); (10)
Stederburg (near Brunswick, dioc. Hildesheim, A.); (11) Frankenburg (in
Goslar, dioc. Hildesheim, M.M.); (12) Kloster zum hl. Kreuze (Holy Cross)
or Neuwerk, Erfurt (dioc. Mainz, A.); (13) St Cyriac's in Erfurt (dioc.
Mainz, B.); (14) Weissfrauenkloster (White Ladies) in Erfurt (dioc. Mainz,
M.M.); (15) St Martin's in Erfurt (dioc. Mainz, C.); (16) Marienberg (near
Helmstedt, dioc. Halberstadt, A.); (17) Marienborn (near Helmstedt, dioc.
Halberstadt, A.); (18) Weinhausen (near Lüneburg, dioc. Hildesheim, C.);
(19) Weissfrauenkloster (White Ladies) in Magdeburg (dioc. Magdeburg,
M.M.); (20) Wülfinghausen (near Wittenberg, dioc. Hildesheim, A.); (21)
Fischbeck (near Rinteln on the Weser, in Hessen-Nassau, dioc. Minden, A.);
(22) Dorstadt (near Wolfenbüttel, dioc. Hildesheim, A.); (23) Stendal (in
the mark of Brandenburg, A.). Also (24) Bewerwijk in N. Holland
(Franciscan tertiaries), and (25) Segeberchhus in Lübeck, both houses of
lay sisters.
[2121] But see _Liber_, pp. 600, 637, 640.
[2122] _Liber_, p. 580.
[2123] _Liber_, p. 591.
[2124] _Ib._ p. 610. For interesting lists of money and goods put into
common stock by Busch see also pp. 614, 616, 617, 633.
[2125] _Ib._ pp. 633-4.
[2126] _Ib._ p. 633.
[2127] _Ib._ pp. 571-2.
[2128] See _ib._ pp. 572, 591.
[2129] _Liber_, pp. 573-4. Compare the exertions of Berthold, Prior of
Sülte, to provide the poor nuns of Heiningen with sufficient stores of
food and to pay off their debts, _ib._ pp. 601-2; see also, p. 599.
[2130] _Ib._ p. 614.
[2131] _Ib._ p. 582.
[2132] _Ib._ p. 643.
[2133] _Ib._ p. 614.
[2134] _Ib._ p. 567.
[2135] _Liber_, pp. 582-3; compare pp. 603, 638.
[2136] _Ib._ p. 639.
[2137] _Ib._ p. 633.
[2138] _Liber_, p. 587.
[2139] _Ib._ p. 599.
[2140] _Ib._ p. 617. Compare Marienwerder, _ib._ pp. 567-8.
[2141] _Ib._ pp. 630-2.
[2142] _Ib._ p. 642.
[2143] _Liber_, p. 581.
[2144] _Ib._ pp. 615, 652-3. But the _praepositus_ of Erfurt, when he saw
the result of the reforms, was delighted and thanked Busch.
[2145] _Liber_, pp. 555-62.
[2146] _Liber_, pp. 562-5.
[2147] See _ib._ pp. 591-7.
[2148] _Liber_, pp. 575-6.
[2149] _Ib._ p. 589.
[2150] _Liber_, pp. 597-8.
[2151] _Ib._ pp. 580, 607, 612, 619, 628, 631, 635, 642, 649, 651.
[2152] _Ib._ pp. 618-22.
[2153] _Liber_, pp. 622-7.
[2154] _Liber_, pp. 624-5.
[2155] _Ib._ p. 625. For the learning of reformed nuns, see pp. 576, 607,
642.
[2156] See e.g. _ib._ pp. 585-6, 636, 640.
[2157] _Ib._ p. 596.
[2158] In course of publication, edited by Mr A. Hamilton Thompson. The
printed portion is cited in the text as _Linc. Visit._ II, and the
unprinted portion as _Alnwick's Visit. MS._
[2159] Bishop Lowth says: "This MS. belonged to Wykeham himself, for the
injunctions are the original drafts corrected. It came afterwards into the
hands of Robert Shirborn, Master of St Cross Hospital, afterwards Bishop
of Chichester." It contains a long series of documents relating to a
controversy between the Bishop and the masters of St Cross Hospital and
injunctions sent to the Cathedral Church of Winchester, the monasteries of
Hyde, Merton, Romsey and Wherwell, and the Hospital of St Thomas the
Martyr, Southwark, covering the years 1386 and 1387. It is of the highest
interest and should certainly be published. My thanks are due to Dr Moyle,
Bursar of New College, for permission to transcribe the injunctions sent
to the two nunneries.
[2160] Foreign books mentioned only in ch. XIII are not included here.
Transcriber's Notes:
Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_.
Superscripted characters are indicated by {superscript}.
The yogh symbol has been replaced, without note, with the letters "gh" in
English passages and "z" in French passages.
The original text contains letters with diacritical marks that are not
represented in this text version. Where appropriate, these forms have
been expanded to improve readability.
The original text includes Greek characters. For this text version these
letters have been replaced with transliterations.
Two symbols are represented by [dagger] and [Maltese cross].
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1535, by Eileen Edna Power
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