APPENDIX IV (continued 3)

[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 2s. 3d., 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 4d. ... paid to the convent on the Feast of St Michael and the dedication of the church 6s. Item paid for ... on All Saints Day and St Martin’s Day 3s. Item paid for a pittance of pork on two occasions 6s. Item paid for fowls at Christmas for the convent 5s. 6d. Item paid for herrings on St Michael’s Day for the poor 1s. 8d. Item paid for beer for the convent on Maundy Thursday (Jour de Cene) 10d. Item paid for bread and wafers on the same day 6d. Item paid for spices on the same day 3s. Item paid for herrings for the poor on the same day 1s. 8d. Item given to the poor on the same day 1s. 9d. Item for holy bread on Good Friday 2d. Item paid for fflaunes 2d. Item paid for herrings on St Laurence’s Day 9d.” 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 9s., paid to the convent for the misericord of Corby 9s., paid to the pittancer for a pittance from Thurlby throughout the year 14s. 4d.” 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 12d. 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 4s. 10d. 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. 71d. 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. 26d.

[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. 87d.

[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. 19s. 8½d. 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. 1s. 3d. 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. 6d, 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 34d, 39d. 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 (6s. 8d.). 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. 71d, 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. 86d.

[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. 87d-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. 96d, 244d.

[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. 96d.

[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

[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 20s. 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 9½d. and the other 1s. 8¼d.—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. 34d.

[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. 39d, 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 5½ 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 68s. 4d. 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. 71d.

[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. 71d, 77d.

[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. 55d.

[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. 88d.

[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. 3s. on repairs and other expenses and that the debts “for repairs and other necessary expenses this year” amount to £66. 6s. 8d. 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. 39d.

[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. 77d.

[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. 6d, 77d, 81d, 75d; Elstow (1359), Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell, f. 139d; 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. 397-397d. 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. 22d.).

[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. 23d, 37, 44, 60d, 79d, 118d, 328d, 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. 82d-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, 92d.

[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. 39d.

[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.

[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. 139d, 100d.

[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. 71d. 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, 88dº.

[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 († 1270) refuses to allow women to learn reading or writing, because they expose her to evil, and Francesco da Barberino († 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. 1d; but some of these would be absent from the monastery.

[916] Ib. ff. 71d, 72. For other injunctions against “cutting” services, see Heynings, 1351 and 1392 (Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell, f. 34d, 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. 34d, 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 ἀκηδία; 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:

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, 26d) 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.