APPENDIX IV (continued 2)
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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. 34d. 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. 397d.
[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, 40s. 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 10s. 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. 5s. 4½d.) 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. 13s. 4d. (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 20s. then to the convent 40s., to each nun 2s. Item paid to John Bartelot for veils and linen cloth 102s.” (this large sum may include a supply for the whole house). “Item to a certain woman for one veil 40d. Item for one mantle 10s. Item for one fur of shankes (a cheap fur made from the underpart of rabbit skin) for another mantle, 16s. Item for white cloth to line the first mantle, 16s. Item for white cloth for a tunic 10s. Item one fur for the aforesaid pilch 20s. Item for a maser (cup) 10s. Item for a silver spoon 2s. 6d. Item for blankets 6s. 8d. Item in canvas for a bed 2s. Item for the purchase of another mantle of worsted 20s. Item paid at the time of profession at one time 20s. Item for a new bed 20s. Item for other necessaries 20s. ... Item paid to the said Joan by the order of the abbess.” The total (excluding the last item) is £17. 6s. 2d. 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. 87d.
[89] Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Bokyngham, f. 397d.
[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. 397d.
[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. 26d.
[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. 71d.
[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 xs.” 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. 75d.
[191] Ib. f. 83d. 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. 39d. 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. 88d.
[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, 75d, 26d.
[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 xlviijli. Item. rec. of the same Richard Saie as in party of payment of the same ferme for a quarter of a yere xs,” “item, paid to the bisshop of Lincolns officers for the licens of Wynge for ij yere xxijs viijd. Item paid to the ffermour of Wynge for his goune for ij yere xiijs iiijd.” 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, 39d, 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. 7s. 6d. Expenses £27. 6s. 8d.
In the second year: Receipts £25. 3s. 0d. Expenses £40.
In the third year: Receipts £26. 9s. 6d. Expenses £27. 3s. 0d.
[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 vs. 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 tol, 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 wt tymber and cariage and workmanship ixclxv li. xviij s. iij d. qa, lede castyng, jynyng, leyyng sawdir with diuers cariage vcxxxv 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 mlmlvcxlix li. xj s. j d. ob. Summa total for the church mlmlmlmlcxxxiiij li. xvij s. ob. qa. Expenses of the cloystor and dortour vnto the xxvij day of maii vjciiijxxxviij li. ix s. x d. Summa tol. mlmlmlmlviijcxxxiij li. vj s. x d. ob. qa.” (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 2s. received from Richard Franklin “for the ferme of vj acres of londe in Bacheworth”; one John Shon pays 6s. 8d. “for the ferme of certeyne londs in Bacheworth and ij tenements in Seint Mighell strete with a lyme kylne”; Richard Ordeway pays 10s. for rent farm of “an hous wtin the Pray” and Robert Pegge 8s. for rent farm of “an hous and a stable wtin Praygate.” Dugdale, Mon. III, pp. 358-9. In this account her assize rents amount to £2. 11s. 2d. within the town of St Albans and her rents farm to £4. 13s. 2d.; while outside the town the rents of assize amount to £2. 5s. 0d. and the rents farm to £11. 19s. 8d., while four items amounting to £1. 19s. 11d. 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. 0s. 4d. in all), Firma Terrae (£13. 0s. 3½d. in all) and Firma Molendini, the farm of a mill (£3. 14s. 4d.). 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 ... xixs. Also paid to divers receivers of rent for the time viijs. viijd.” 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 viijd. Item for dyvers men yt brought in their rent at dyvers tymes xxs. ijd.” Dugdale, Mon. III, p. 359. In the St Radegund’s Cambridge account of 1449-51, “In the expenses of Thomas Key (xvijd. 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 xiiis. iiijd.” 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. 6s. 0½d., 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 vis. viiid.” 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 vs.” 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 5s. 2d.; moreover they had to give the toll collectors 6d. for a wage and they evidently made the occasion one for entertainment, for they hired an extra cook for 3d. “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. 4s. 6d. from Shaftesbury fair, Malling received £3. 6s. 8d. 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. 12s. 0d. 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 12s. and 22s. a year respectively; one, a wind-mill, was probably farmed, but the water-mill was in charge of Thomas Milner, at a wage of 20s. and his servant, who was paid 2s. 6d. 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 31s. 6d. 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. 14s. 4d. 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. 13s. 4d. 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 4½ qrs. of salt for 25s. 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 3s. 6d. each, and three cow-hides, two steer-hides, one bull-hide, and one murrain ox-hide at 2s. 4d. each, making a total of £10. 8s. 10d. The same John Lyrer buys 230 calf-skins for £3. 16s. 8d. John Cockes, fellmonger, buys 287 “shorling felles,” at 3s. the dozen, 190 “skynnes of wynter felles” at 6s. the dozen, 77 “skynnes somerfelles” at 8s. the dozen, for a total for £10. 18s. 1d. 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 11s. 8d. From Gilbert of Chesterton for the wool del aan ke est aveni 100s.” (32-3 Edw. I). P.R.O. Mins. Accts. 1260/1. “From the sale of 14 stone of wool, price per stone 7s., 4l. 18s.” (48-9 Edw. III). Ib. 1260/4. “Received for one sack of 20 stone of wool sold last year, at 4s. per stone, 13 marks, 10s. 8d. Received for one sack of this years wool, at 4s. 6d. per stone, 5l. 17s. 0d.” (either 46-7 or 47-8 Edw. III). Ib. 1260/21. “From John of the Pantry for 11½ stone of wool at 6s. the stone, 69s.” (1-2 Rich. II). Ib. 1260/7. In 1412 Romsey Abbey derived £60 out of a total income of £404. 6s. 4½d. 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, 13s. 4d. For the soul of Simon the Taverner, 1s. For the soul of Sir Robert de Thorp, £20. 6s. 7d. For the soul of William Apethorp, 3s. 4d. For the soul of Alice atte Halle, 3s. 4d. In alms from William Ouneby, 6s. 8d. In alms from Emma of Okham £5. Received from the pardon at the church 6s. 8d. 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” (34¾ 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, 111½ 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.