APPENDIX IV (continued 4)

[951] Reg. Epis. Peckham (R.S.), II, p. 660.

[952] Dugdale, Mon. II, p. 619 (Chatteris) and Camb. Antiq. Soc. Proc. XLV (1905), p. 190 (Ickleton).

[953] A decree of the Council of Vienne (1311) complains that many church ministers come into choir “bringing hawks with them or causing them to be brought and leading hunting dogs.” Coulton, Med. Garn. p. 588. Similarly Geiler on the eve of the Reformation complains, in his Navicula Fatuorum, that “some men, when they are about to enter a church, equip themselves like hunters, bearing hawks and bells on their wrists and followed by a pack of baying hounds, that trouble God’s service. Here the bells jangle, there the barking of dogs echoes in our ears, to the hindrance of preachers and hearers.” He goes on to say that the habit is particularly reprehensible in clergy. The privilege of behaving thus was an adjunct of noble birth and in the cathedrals of Auxerre and Nevers the treasurers had the legal right of coming to service with hawk on wrist, because these canonries were hereditary in noble families. Ib. pp. 684-5. Medieval writers on hawking actually advise that hawks should be taken into church to accustom them to crowds. “Mais en cest endroit d’espreveterie, le convient plus que devant tenir sur le poing et le porter aux plais et entre les gens aux églises et ès autres assamblées, et emmy les rues, et le tenir jour et nuit le plus continuelment que l’en pourra, et aucune fois le perchier emmi les rues pour veoir gens, chevaulx, charettes, chiens, et toutes choses congnoistre.” Gaces de la Bugne gives the same advice. Le Ménagier de Paris (Paris, 1846), II, p. 296.

[954] Below, p. 412.

[955] V.C.H. Yorks. III, pp. 168, 175.

[956] New Coll. MS. ff. 88-88d, translated in Coulton, Soc. Life in Britain from the Conquest to the Reformation, p. 397.

[957] Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. IX, app. pt. I, p. 57.

[958] Jessopp, Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich, p. 191.

[959] Chaucer’s description of the monk is well known:

Compare Langland’s picture of the monk, riding out on his palfrey from manor to manor, “an hepe of houndes at hus ers as he a lord were” (Piers Plowman, C Text VI, ll. 157-61). Visitation documents amply bear out these accounts; in a single set of visitations (those by Bishops Flemyng and Gray of Lincoln during the years 1420-36) we have “Furthermore we enjoin and command you all and several ... that no canon apply himself in any wise to hunting, hawking or other lawless wanderings abroad” (Dunstable Priory 1432); “further we enjoin upon you, the prior and all and several the canons of the convent aforesaid ... that you utterly remove and drive away all hounds for hunting from the said priory and its limits; and that neither you nor any one of you keep, rear, or maintain such hounds by himself or by another’s means, directly or indirectly, in the priory or without the priory, under colour of any pretext whatsoever” (Huntingdon Priory 1432); “also that hounds for hunting be not nourished within the precinct of your monastery” (St Frideswide’s Oxford, 1422-3) and a similar injunction to Caldwell Priory. Linc. Visit. I, pp. 27, 47, 78, 97.

[960] Wm. Salt Arch. Soc. Coll. I, p. 261. Compare also the provision in one of Charlemagne’s capitularies: “Ut episcopi et abbates et abbatissae cupplas canum non habeant nec falcones nec accipitres,” Baretius, Capit. Reg. Franc. (1853), p. 64. Some of the birds at Romsey may have been hawks, though it is more likely that they were larks and other small pets, such as Eudes Rigaud found in his nunneries.

[961] V.C.H. Essex, II, p. 123, and see above, p. 105.

[962] The nuns of St Mary de Pré, St Albans, kept a huntsman. V.C.H. Herts. IV, p. 430 (note).

[963] V.C.H. Herts. IV, p. 431 (note); Dugdale, Mon. III, pp. 359-60.

[964] Hereford Reg. Thome Spofford, p. 82. (This was combined with an injunction against going to “comyn wakes and festes, spectacles and other worldly vanytees” outside the convent. Below, p. 377.).

[965] Dugdale, Mon. IV, p. 554.

[966] Quoted in Coulton, Med. Garn. p. 304.

[967] See Chambers, op. cit. I, pp. 38-41.

[968] Ib. I, p. 56 (note). “The bishops of Durham in 1355, Norwich in 1362, and Winchester in 1374, 1422, and 1481 had ‘minstrels of honour’ like any secular noble.”

[969] Ib. I, pp. 39, 56 (notes).

[970] Langland, Piers the Plowman, C, Text VIII, l. 97.

[971] “Payments for performances are frequent in the accounts of the Augustinian priories at Canterbury, Bicester and Maxstoke and the great Benedictine houses of Durham, Norwich, Thetford and St Swithin’s, Winchester, and doubtless in those of many another cloistered retreat. The Minorite chroniclers relate how, at the coming of the friars in 1224, two of them were mistaken for minstrels by the porter of a Benedictine grange near Abingdon, received by the brethren with unbecoming glee, and when the error was discovered, turned out with contumely,” Chambers, op. cit. I, pp. 56-7. In the Register of St Swithun’s it is recorded under the year 1374 that “on the feast of Bishop Alwyn ... six minstrels with four harpers performed their minstrelsies. And after dinner in the great arched chamber of the lord Prior, they sang the same geste.... And the said jongleurs came from the household of the bishop,” ib. I, p. 56 (note). See extracts from the account books of Durham, Finchale, Maxstoke and Thetford Priories relating to the visits of minstrels, ib. II, pp. 240-6. At Finchale there was even a room called “le Playerchambre,” ib. II, p. 244. In 1258 Eudes Rigaud had to order the Abbot of Jumièges “that he should send strolling players away from his premises.” Reg. Visit. Arch. Roth. p. 607. At a later date, in 1549, a council at Cologne directed a canon against comedians who were in the habit of visiting the German nunneries and by their profane plays and amatory acting excited to unholy desires the virgins dedicated to God. Lea, Hist. of Sacerdotal Celibacy, II, p. 189.

[972] “Histrionibus potest dari cibus, quia pauperes sunt, non quia histriones; et eorum ludi non videantur, vel audiantur vel permittantur fieri coram abbate vel monachis.” Annales de Burton (Ann. Monast. R. S. I, p. 485), quoted Chambers, op. cit. I, p. 39 (note).

[973] Alnwick’s Visit. f. 83.

[974] Aucassin and Nicolete, ed. Bourdillon (1897), p. 22.

[975] See the well-known story of “Le Tombeor de Notre Dame” (Romania, II, p. 315), and “Du Cierge qui descendi sus la viele au vieleeux devant l’ymage Nostre Dame,” Gautier de Coincy, Miracles de Nostre Dame, ed. Poquet (1859), p. 310. Both are translated in Of The Tumbler of Our Lady and Other Miracles by A. Kemp-Welch (King’s Classics 1909).

[976] For the following account, see A. F. Leach’s article on “The Schoolboy’s Feast,” Fortnightly Review, N.S. LIX (1896), p. 128, and Chambers, op. cit. I, ch. XV.

[977] See below, p. 662.

[978] Reg. Epis. J. Peckham, I, pp. 82-3. For a similar injunction to Godstow, see ib. III, p. 846. At Romsey the Archbishop forbade the festivities altogether: “Superstitionem vero quae in Natali Domini et Ascensione Ejusdem fieri consuevit, perpetuo condemnamus,” ib. II, p. 664. The superstition was probably the election of the youngest nun as abbess.

[979] Norwich Visit. pp. 209-10.

[980] Archaeol. XLVII, p. 56. On the Lord of Misrule, see Chambers op. cit. I, ch. XVII. There is a vivid account (from the Puritan point of view) in Philip Stubbes, The Anatomie of Abuses (1583) quoted in Life in Shakespeare’s England, ed. J. D. Wilson (1915), pp. 25-7.

[981] Chambers, op. cit. I, p. 361 (note 1).

[982] Dugdale, Mon. III, p. 360.

[983] Cussans, Hist. of Herts., Hertford Hundred, app. II, p. 268.

[984] Walcott, Inventory of Shepey, p. 23. There is perhaps another reference in the inventory of Langley in 1485: “iij quesyns (cushions) of olde red saye, ij smale quechyns embrodred and ij qwechyns namyde Seynt Nicolas qwechyns,” Walcott, Inventory of Langley, p. 6.

[985] E.g. (besides the well-known case of Dr Rock in The Church of Our Fathers), Gayley, Plays of our Forefathers, pp. 67-8.

[986] Leach, op. cit. p. 137.

[987] Ib. p. 131.

[988] Leach, op. cit. p. 137 (from Martène, III, p. 39). I have slightly altered the translation.

[989] On Benedictine poverty, see Dom Butler, Benedictine Monachism, ch. X.

[990] The alteration was made even by the Cistercians in 1335. See Linc. Visit. I, p. 238 (under Misericord). Among Black Monks it began much earlier.

[991] Linc. Visit. I, p. 238. Alnwick’s visitations sometimes mention this division of the frater. “Also she prays that frater may be kept every day, since there is one upper frater wherein they feed on fish and food made with milk, and another downstairs, wherein they feed of grace on flesh” (Nuncoton 1440). “Also she says that they feed on fish and milk foods in the upper frater and on flesh in the lower” (Stixwould 1440). Alnwick’s Visit. MS. ff. 71d, 76.

[992] “Et qe nule Dame de Religion ne mange hors du Refreytour en chambre severale si ceo ne soit en compaignie la Priouresse, ou par maladie ou autre renable encheson.... Item, purceo qe ascune foitz ascunes Dames de vostre Religion orent lur damoiseles severales por faire severalement lur viaunde, si ordinoms, voloms et establioms qe totes celles damoiseles soyent de tut oste de la cusine, et qe un keu covenable, qi eit un page desoutz lui soit mys per servir a tut le Covent” (1319). Exeter Reg. Stapeldon, pp. 317-8. Compare V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 165 (Hampole 1411).

[993] For the following references, see Linc. Visit. II, pp. 46, 89, 114, 117, 119, 121, 175; Alnwick’s Visit. MS. ff. 71d, 76, 77, 83.

[994] Pupils or boarders may account for these discrepancies.

[995] Linc. Visit. I, p. 67 (and note 3); compare V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 181.

[996] Walcott, M. E. C., Inventories of ... the Ben. Priory of ... Shepey for Nuns (Arch. Cant. 1869), pp. 23 ff.

[997] E.g. at Gracedieu “The dorter, item ther three nunnes selles whyche as sould for 30s.” Nichols, Hist. and Antiq. of Leic. (1804), III, p. 653; at Catesby where the “sells in the dorter were sold at 6s. 8d. apiece,” Archaeologia, XLIII, p. 241. In theory the nuns were supposed to get up and lie down in full view of each other and curtains were forbidden by Woodlock at Romsey in 1311. Liveing, op. cit. p. 104. On the other hand at Redlingfield in 1514 a nun complained that “sorores non habent curricula inter cubilia, sed una potest aliam videre quando surgit vel aliquid aliud facit” and the Bishop ordered the Prioress to provide curtains between the cubicles in the dorter. Jessopp, Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich (Camden Soc.), pp. 139-40. Dom Butler thus traces the transition from the open dorter to private cells: open dorter; side partitions between the beds; curtains in front; a latticed door in front, making a cubicle; a solid door with a large window; the window grew smaller and smaller until it became a peephole; the dorter became a gallery of private rooms. Downside Review (1899), pp. 119-21.

[998] Linc. Visit. II, pp. 51-2. See also among many other injunctions and references to the custom the following: Gracedieu (1440-1), ib. II, p. 125; Godstow (1432), ib. I, pp. 67-8; Barking (1279); Wherwell (1284), Reg. Epis. Johannis Peckham, I, p. 84, II, p. 653; Hampole (1311), V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 181; Swine (1318), ib. p. 163; Nunappleton (1346 and 1489), ib. pp. 171-2; Fairwell (1367), Reg. Stretton of Lichfield, p. 119; Romsey (1387 and 1492), New Coll. MS. ff. 85, 85d, 86, Liveing, Records of Romsey Abbey, p. 218; Aconbury (1438), Reg. Spofford of Hereford, p. 224; Stixwould (1519), V.C.H. Lincs. II, p. 148; Sinningthwaite (1534), Yorks. Arch. Journ. XVI, p. 441. Sometimes the system can be traced in one house over a long period of years. At Elstow, for instance, in 1387, Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Bokyngham, f. 343; in 1421-2, Linc. Visit. I, pp. 50, 51; in 1432, ib. I, p. 53; in 1442-3, ib. II, p. 89; and in 1531, Archaeologia, XLVII, p. 51. For an admonition to a nun by name see “Moneatis insuper dominam Johannam de Wakefelde commonialem quod illam cameram quam modo inhabitat contra debitam honestatem religionis predicte solitarie commorando omnino dimittat et sequatur conventum assidue tam in choro, claustro, refectorio et dormitorio quam in ceteris locis et temporibus opportunis, prout religionis convenit honestati” (Kirklees 1315), Yorks. Arch. Journ. XVI, p. 359.

[999] See, for instance, Longland’s careful injunction to Elstow in 1531: “Foras moche as the very ordre off sainct benedicte his rules ar nott ther obserued in keping the ffratrye att meale tymes ... butt customably they resorte to certayn places within the monasterye called the housholdes, where moche insolency is use contrarye to the good rules of the said religion, by reason of resorte of seculars both men women and children and many other inconvenyents hath thereby ensewed ... we inioyne ... that ye lady abbesse and your successours see that noo suche householdes be then kepte frome hensforth, butt oonly oon place which shalbe called the mysericorde, where shalbe oon sadde lady of the eldest sorte oversear and maistres to all the residue that thidre shall resorte, whiche in nombre shall nott passe fyve att the uttermoost, besides ther saide ladye oversear or maistres and those fyve wekely to chaunge and soo ... all the covent have kepte the same, and they agen to begynne and the said gouernour and oversear of them contynally to contynue in thatt roome by the space of oon quarter of a yere, and soo quarterly to chaunge att the nominacon and plesure of the ladye abbesse for the tyme being. Over this it is ordered undre the said payne and Iniunction that the ladye abbesse haue no moo susters from hensforth in hir householde butt oonly foure with hir chapleyne and likewise wekely to chaunge till they have goon by course thrugh the hole nomber off susters, and soo aȝen to begynne and contynue.” Archaeologia, XLVII, p. 51.

[1000] Wilkins, Conc. II, p. 16. See also “Et fetez qe lez deuz parties du covent a meyns mangent checun jour en le refreytour” (Wroxall 1338); Sede Vacante Reg. (Worc.), p. 276; cf. Elstow (c. 1432), Linc. Visit. I, p. 53. It is often accepted that the nuns shall keep frater only on the three fish days, but see Gray’s injunction to Delapré Abbey (c. 1432-3) enjoining its observance on the three accustomed days (Sunday, Wednesday and Friday) and on Monday as well. Linc. Visit. I, p. 45.

[1001] Ib. I, p. 68.

[1002] See, for instance, Bokyngham’s injunction to Heynings in 1392: “Item that no nun there shall keep a private chamber, but that all the nuns, who are in good health, shall lie and sleep in the dorter and those who are ill in the infirmary, saving dame Margaret Darcy, nun of the aforesaid house, to whom on account of her noble birth we wish for the time being to allow that room which she now occupies, but without any service of bread and beer, save in case of manifest illness,” Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Bokyngham, f. 397d. But see Gynewell’s injunctions to the convent in 1351. Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell, f. 34d. For the use of separate rooms allowed to ill nuns, see Nunappleton (1489), V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 172. At Romsey in 1507 the nuns, under the eye of the visitor, “concluded and provided that Joan Patent, nun, who had hurt her leg, by her consent shall in future have meals in her own chamber and shall daily have in her chamber the right of one nun.” Liveing, Records of Romsey Abbey, p. 230. But usually the use of the common infirmary is enjoined. Separate lodgings were also allowed to ex-superiors after resignation. See above, p. 57.

[1003] P.R.O. Mins. Accts. 1257/10, ff. 46, 119, 170, 214.

[1004] P.R.O. Mins. Accts. 1260/14.

[1005] Gray, Priory of St Radegund, Cambridge, pp. 27, 147, 155, 163, 171.

[1006] Baker, Hist. of Northants. I, p. 280.

[1007] Reg. J. de Pontissara, I, p. 126. William of Wykeham writes to Wherwell in 1387 concerning the abbess’ illicit detention of “certain distributions and pittances as well in money as in spices,” which divers benefactors had endowed. New Coll. MS. f. 89 vº.

[1008] See below, p. 653.

[1009] Reg. Thome de Cantilupo, p. 202. Compare Archbishop Winchelsey’s injunction to Sheppey (1296) “ne qua monialis pecuniam vel aliam rem sibi donatam aut aliqualiter adquisitam sibi retineat sine expressa licencia priorisse” (a loophole). Reg. Roberti Winchelsey, p. 100.

[1010] W. Rye, Carrow Abbey, app. IX, p. xix.

[1011] Linc. Visit. I, p. 68.

[1012] See above, pp. 15, 17, 18.

[1013] Test. Ebor. I, pp. 296-7.

[1014] Ib. II, p. 97.

[1015] Lincolnshire Wills, ed. A. R. Maddison (1880), pp. 4, 6.

[1016] See, for example, Test. Ebor. I, pp. 6, 9, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 31, 43, 54, 62, 90, 98, 109, 143, 166, 179, 216, 292, 337, 345, 349, 363, 376, 382 (chiefly wills of clergy and country gentry); Nicolas, Test. Vetusta, I, pp. 52, 70, 76, 79, 85, 115, 116, 120, 121, 123, 137, 155, 170, 196, 300, 377 (chiefly wills of the aristocracy); Gibbons, Early Lincoln Wills, pp. 18, 21, 25, 26, 40, 41, 56, 60, 67, 71, 76, 80, 87, 97, 125, 138, 139, 150, 160 (chiefly wills of clergy and country gentry). The wills of the citizens of London preserved in the court of Husting contain many legacies to nuns, chiefly annual rents.

[1017] Gray, Priory of St Radegund, Cambridge, p. 156.

[1018] Test. Ebor. I, pp. 317, 322, 324. The items occur in the inventory of the Bishop’s goods and against each is written “Detur Priorissae de Swyna sorori meae.”

[1019] Ib. I, p. 332.

[1020] Test. Ebor. I, pp. 187-9. He also left the Prioress 13s. 4d. and each nun 6s. 8d. and each sister 3s. 4d. To certain nuns he left special bequests, to Margaret de Pykering, “one piece of silver, with the head of a stag in the bottom and 2s.,” to Elizabeth Fairfax 26s. 8d. and to Margaret de Cotam 13s. 4d.; also to the Prioress and convent “my white vestment with the gold stars and all the appurtenances thereof and my cross with Mary and John in silver and one gilt chalice.” Nor were his legacies confined to Nunmonkton; he left his two sisters at Sempringham 100s. and two nuns of Nunappleton and Marrick respectively, a cow each.

[1021] Ib. I, pp. 14-15. He also leaves 40s. to the Prioress and convent “for a pittance,” 20s. to another nun there and 6s. 8d. to a nun of Watton. He evidently had great confidence in Alice Conyers, for the injunctions of his will are to be carried out “according to the counsel and help of the said Alice Conyers and of my executors.” For other gifts of plate to individuals, see Test. Ebor. I, p. 216, Somerset Med. Wills, I, pp. 18, 144, Reg. Stafford of Exeter, pp. 392, 415, 416, Testamenta Leodiensia (Thoresby Soc. Pub. II, 1890), p. 108.

[1022] Sharpe, Cal. of Wills ... in the Court of Husting, I, p. 688. She also leaves Margaret and two other nuns a piece of blanket to be divided between them.

[1023] Test. Ebor. I, p. 179. He also leaves her 40s. and a silver cup.

[1024] Somerset Medieval Wills, I, p. 47. Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester, left a bed among other things to her daughter, a nun of the house of Minoresses without Aldgate (1399). Nicolas, Test. Vetusta, I, p. 148.

[1025] Test. Ebor. I, p. 382.

[1026] Dugdale, Mon. IV, p. 194.

[1027] Test. Ebor. I, p. 51.

[1028] Reg. Stafford of Exeter, p. 392. For other gifts of clothes see Rye, Carrow Abbey, app. p. xix (a habit cloth), Lincoln Wills, ed. Foster, p. 84 (“a fyne mantyll of ix yerds off narow cloth”), Test. Ebor. I, p. 59 (my two robes with mantles), ib. II, p. 255 (my best harnassed belt).

[1029] At Hampole in 1320 he warned the prioress to correct those nuns who used new-fangled clothes, contrary to the accustomed use of the order, “whatever might be their condition or state of dignity,” V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 164 (where the date is wrongly given as 1314).

[1030] See e.g. Wilkins, Conc. I, p. 591; V.C.H. Bucks. I, p. 383; Linc. Visit. I, p. 52; ib. II, pp. 3, 8.

[1031] See above, p. 76.

[1032] See above, p. 328. For other bequests of rings, see the wills of Sir Guy de Beauchamp, 1359 (his fourth best gold ring to his daughter Katherine at Shouldham), Robert de Ufford, Earl of Suffolk, 1368 (“to the Lady of Ulster, a Minoress ... a ring of gold, which was the duke’s, her brother’s”), Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, 1369 (rings to his daughter and granddaughter at Shouldham). Nicolas, Test. Vetusta, I, pp. 63, 74, 79. But rings might be put to pious uses. The inventory of jocalia in the custody of the sacrist of Wherwell (c. 1333-40) contains the item, “a small silver croun, with eleven gold rings fixed in it, for the high altar; another better croun of silver, with nineteen gold rings.” V.C.H. Hants. II, p. 135.

[1033] Linc. Dioc. Doc. ed. A. Clark (E.E.T.S.), p. 50.

[1034] Reg. Stafford of Exeter, p. 415.

[1035] Gibbons, Early Linc. Wills, p. 5. In the Prioress’ room at Sheppey at the Dissolution were found “iiij payre of corall beds, contaynyng in all lviij past gawdy (ed.).” Walcott, Invent. of ... Shepey, p. 29.

[1036] Sussex Arch. Coll. IX, p. 8.

[1037] See pp. 272-3.

[1038] Another nun says that she has nothing at all for raiment and another deposes, “seeing that the revenues of the house are not above forty pounds and the nuns are thirteen in number with one novice, so many out of rents so slender cannot have sufficient food and clothing, unless some help be given them from other sources by their secular friends.” Linc. Visit. II, pp. 184, 186.

[1039] For these references, see Linc. Visit. II, pp. 7, 47, 92, 117, 184, 186; Alnwick’s Visit. MS. ff. 6, 71d, 76, 83. Also injunctions as to food at Elstow ib. II, p. 39 (and note).

[1040] Baker, Hist. and Antiq. of Northants. I, pp. 280, 282-3.

[1041] Dugdale, Mon. III, p. 359.

[1042] Temp. Henry VII the Abbess of Elstow’s account records the payment of double commons of 1s. a week to the Prioress and 6d. a week single commons to each of the nuns. Pittances (double to the prioress) are paid on days of profession and on the greater feast. The nuns also had dress allowances in money. C. T. Flower, Obedientiars’ Accounts of Glastonbury and other Relig. Houses (St Paul’s Ecclesiol. Soc. VII, pt II, 1912), pp. 52, 55.

[1043] Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich, ed. Jessopp, p. 290.

[1044] Eng. Hist. Rev. VI, p. 34.

[1045] Linc. Visit. II, pp. 176, 177.

[1046] Reg. J. de Pontissara, I, p. 125.

[1047] Liveing, Records of Romsey Abbey, p. 103.

[1048] V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 164.

[1049] Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Bokyngham, f. 397d. Compare Eudes Rigaud’s difficulties with the hens at Saint-Aubin, below, p. 653.

[1050] E.g. in the will of Agnes de Denton, 1356 (Item to dame Cecilie de Hmythwayt two cows), Testamenta Karleolensia, p. 12; Sir John Fairfax, 1393 (Item I bequeath to dame Katherine de Barlay, nun of Appleton, one cow. Item to dame Custance Colvyll, nun of Marrick, one cow); Sir William Dronsfeld, 1406 (Item I bequeath to dame Alice de Totehill, nun, one cow. Item I bequeath to dame Margaret de Barneby, one cow); Sir Thomas Rednes 1407 (Item to Alice Redness nun [of Hampole] one cow and one fat pig). Test. Ebor. I, pp. 189, 345, 349.

[1051] Alnwick’s Visit. MS. f. 72.

[1052] Wilkins, Conc. I, p. 593.

[1053] New Coll. MS. ff. 85d, 86. The sin of proprietas seems to have been serious in this house, for the Bishop couples his prohibition of wills with a prohibition of private rooms and pupils, and later (f. 86d) makes a general injunction against private property.

[1054] V.C.H. Dorset, II, p. 78.

[1055] Wilkins, Conc. I, p. 592.

[1056] In connection with this, see Wickwane’s injunction to Nunappleton in 1281, “We also forbid locked boxes and chests, save if the prioress shall have ordained some seemly arrangement of the kind and shall often see and inspect the contents.” Reg. Wickwane (Surtees Soc.), p. 141. Also Newark’s injunction to Swine in 1298 that “the Prioress and two senior nuns should cause the boxes of any nuns of whom suspicion [of property] should arise to be opened in her presence and the contents seen. And if anyone will not open her box ... then let the prioress break it open.” Reg. of John le Romayn and Hen. of Newark (Surtees Soc.), II, p. 223; compare Eudes Rigaud’s struggle against locked boxes, below, p. 652.

[1057] Wilkins, Conc. II, p. 16.

[1058] “Where the lawe and the professyon of yche religyouse person that thei have shuld have one fraitoure and house to ete in in commyn and not in private chaumbers, and so to lygg and slepe in one house, in youre said covent sustren reteynen money and proveis thame selfe privatly ayensthe ordir of religion, etc.” The injunction is coupled with a strong injunction against dowries. Hereford Reg. T. Spofford, p. 224. Compare the injunction to Lymbrook, p. 324 above.

[1059] V.C.H. Dorset, II, p. 77.

[1060] For other references to the peculium for clothing, see Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich, ed. Jessopp, p. 274; Sussex Arch. Coll. IX, p. 23; Liveing, Records of Romsey Abbey, p. 130.

[1061] Thus William of Wykeham, in the course of his severe injunction against proprietas at Romsey (1387), thus defines it: “Vt autem quid sit proprium vobis plenius innotescat, nos sancti Benedicti regulam imitantes, id totum proprium siue proprietatem fore dicimus et eciam declaramus, quicquid videlicet dederitis vel receperitis sine iussu vestre Abbatisse aut retinueritis sine permissione illius.” New Coll. MS. f. 86d.

[1062] Reg. Wickwane (Surtees Soc.), p. 140.

[1063] V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 174.

[1064] Ib. III, p. 164.

[1065] Jessopp, Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich, p. 143.

[1066] Linc. Visit. II, p. 8.

[1067] “The monastery, however, itself ought if possible to be so constructed as to contain within it all necessaries, that is, water, mill, garden and [places for] the various crafts which are exercised within a monastery, so that there be no occasion for monks to wander abroad, since this is in no wise expedient for their souls.” Rule of St Benedict, tr. Gasquet, pp. 117-8.

[1068] Chap. L, ib. p. 88.

[1069] Chap. LI, ib. p. 89.

[1070] Chap. LXVII, ib. p. 118. This, however, is clearly exceptional; the regulation comes in a later chapter and not in the first edition of the rule. The translations of the rule made at a later date for nuns, sometimes specify visits “to fadir or moder or oþer frend” not mentioned in the original.

[1071] In some reformed orders founded at a later date the formula of profession actually contained a vow of perpetual enclosure, e.g. the Poor Clares, whose vow, under the second rule given to them by Urban IV in 1263, comprised obedience, poverty, chastity and enclosure. Thiers, De la Clôture (1681), pp. 41-2. Compare the formula given in the rule of the Order of the Annunciation, founded at the close of the fifteenth century by Jeanne de France, daughter of Louis XI. Ib. p. 55. The nuns of the older orders did not make any specific vow of enclosure, and it was enforced upon them only as an indispensable condition for the fulfilment of their other vows, which accounts for the obstinacy of their opposition; some jurisconsults, indeed, were of the opinion that the Pope could not oblige a nun to be enclosed against her will. Ib. p. 50.

[1072] The passage is quoted in the preface to Thiers, op. cit. For the Church’s view of virginity, see especially St Jerome’s famous Epistola (22) ad Eustochium.

[1073] Thiers, op. cit. p. 245. Quoting the jurisconsult Philippus Probus. For a good example of the mixture of ideas, see Mr Coulton’s account of the arguments used by the monk Idung of St Emmeram in favour of enclosure: “He begins with the usual medieval emphasis on feminine frailty, of which (as he points out) the Church reminds us in her collect for every Virgin Martyr’s feast ‘Victory ... even in the weaker sex.’ Then comes the usual quotation from St Jerome, with its reference to Dinah, which Idung is bold enough to clinch by a detailed allusion to Danae. This, of course, is little more than the usual clerkly ungallantry; but it is followed by a passage of more cruel courtesy. The monk must needs go abroad sometimes on business, as for instance, to buy and sell in markets; ‘but such occupations as these would be most indecent for even an earthly queen, and far below the dignity of a bride of the King of Heaven.’” Coulton, Med. Studies, No. 10, “Monastic Schools in Middle Ages” (1913), pp. 21-2.

[1074] Words which Menander puts in the mouth of one of his characters. Compare the famous Periclean definition of womanly virtue, which is “not to be talked about for good or for evil among men.”

[1075] Coulton, Chaucer and his England, p. 111.

[1076] The following references will be found conveniently collected in Part I chs. 1-16 of a very interesting little book, the Traité de la Clôture des Religieuses, published in Paris in 1681 by Jean-Baptiste Thiers, “Prestre, Bachelier en Theologie de la Faculté de Paris et Curé de Chambrond.” The treatise is divided into two parts, one of which shows “that it is not permitted to nuns to leave their enclosure without necessity,” the other “that it is not permitted to strangers to enter the enclosure of nuns without necessity.” The author contends that enclosure was the immemorial practice of the Church, though the first general decree on the subject was the Bull Periculoso; but what he proves is really that the demand grew up gradually and naturally out of the effort to reform the growing abuses in conventual life, which sprang from too free an intercourse with the world.

[1077] Sext. Decret. lib. III, tit. XVI. Quoted in Reg. Simonis de Gandavo, pp. 10 ff.; from which I quote. See also Thiers, op. cit. pp. 45-9.

[1078] See Thiers, op. cit. pp. 53-60 for these, except the reforms of Busch, for which see below, App. III. Three papal bulls were published in the sixteenth century reinforcing Periculoso, viz. the Bull Circa pastoralis (1566) and Decori et honestati (1570) of Pius V and the Bull Deo sacris of Gregory XIII (1572).

[1079] “Cependant il n’y a gueres aujourd’hui de point de Discipline Ecclesiastique qui soit ou plus negligé, ou plus ignoré que celui de la clôture des Religieuses; et quoique les Conciles, les Saints Docteurs et les Pères des Monasteres, ayent en divers temps et en divers rencontres, employé leur zèle et leur authorité pour en établir la pratique; nous ne laissons pas neanmoins de voir souvent avec douleur qu’on le viole empunément, sans scrupule, sans réflexion et sans necessité. L’Eglise gemit tous les jours en veuë de ce desordre qui la deshonore notablement; et c’est pour compatir en quelque façon à ses gemissemens, que j’entreprens de le combattre dans ce Traité.” Op. cit. Preface.

[1080] Wilkins, Concilia, II., p. 18.

[1081] See, however, the injunctions of Thomas of Cantilupe, Bishop of Hereford, to Lymbrook in 1277, which are in part a recital of Ottobon’s Constitutions. Reg. Thome de Cantilupo, p. 201. Peckham, in the injunctions which he sent to Barking and Godstow in 1279, states that they are based respectively upon those issued by John de Chishull, Bishop of London, and by Robert de Kilwardby, his predecessor as Archbishop of Canterbury, and it is probable that both of these prelates had attempted to enforce Ottobon’s Constitutions. Reg. Epis. J. Peckham, I, p. 81; II, p. 846.

[1082] He visited Wherwell in the same year, but his injunctions to that house dealt with the entrance of seculars into the nunnery, not with the exit of nuns.

[1083] Reg. Epis. J. Peckham, II, p. 247.

[1084] Ib. I, pp. 85-6.

[1085] Reg. Epis. J. Peckham, I, pp. 265-6, and in Wilkins, op. cit. II, p. 61.

[1086] Wilkins, op. cit. II, pp. 53-9. Thiers’ remarks on the practice of begging by nuns are interesting in this connection. He contends that only sheer famine justifies the breach of enclosure and adds: “C’est pourquoy je ne comprends pas d’où vient que nous voyons à Paris et ailleurs, tant de Religieuses, quelquefois assez jeunes et assez bien faites qui sous pretexte que leurs Monasteres sont dans le besoin, demandent l’aumône aux portes des Eglises, qui courent par les maisons des seculiers et qui demeurent un temps considerable hors de leurs Monasteres, le plus souvent sans sçavoir ne la vie ni les moeurs des personnes qui exercent l’hospitalité envers elles. On rendroit, ce me semble, un grand service à l’Eglise si on les reduisoit aux termes de la Bulle de Gregoire XIII. Deo sacris, qui leur procure les moyens de subsister honnestement dans leurs Monasteres, sans rompre leur clôture. Car ainsi les gens de bien ne seroient point scandalisez de leurs sorties ne de leurs courses, et elles feroient incomparablement mieux leur salut dans leurs Convents que dans le Monde, où je n’estime pas qu’elles puissent rester en seureté de conscience.” He quotes an ordinance of the General of the Franciscan Order in 1609, forbidding even the sisters of the Tertiary Order to beg. Thiers, op. cit. pp. 167-9.

[1087] Reg. Epis. J. Peckham, II, pp. 659, 664-5.

[1088] Ib. II, pp. 707, 806.

[1089] Reg. Simonis de Gandavo, pp. 10 ff., 109.

[1090] Reg. Godfrey Giffard, II, pp. 515, 517.

[1091] Reg. J. de Pontissara, p. 546.

[1092] Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Dalderby, f. 9.

[1093] Ib. ff. 9d, 10d, 11, 12d, 15d.

[1094] Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Dalderby, f. 10d.

[1095] Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Dalderby, f. 35d.

[1096] Ib. f. 16. See below, p. 441.

[1097] Ib.

[1098] Agnes Flixthorpe. See below, p. 443.

[1099] Ib. f. 152.

[1100] Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Sutton, ff. 5d, 32d, 154. For these and other cases of apostasy see Chap. XI, passim.

[1101] Lyndwood, Provinciale (1679), Pt II, p. 155. Quoted by Mr Coulton in Med. Studies, No. 10, “Monastic Schools in the Middle Ages,” p. 21.

[1102] Apparently friends and relatives in the world outside sometimes intervened, by threats or prayers, to save a nun from punishment. A compertum of Archbishop Giffard’s visitation of Swine in 1267-8 runs: “Item compertum est that the Prioress is a suspicious woman and far too credulous, and easily breaks out into correction, and often punishes some unequally for equal faults, and follows with long dislike those whom she dislikes until occasion arise to punish them; hence it is that the nuns, when they suspect that they are going to be troubled with excessive correction, procure the mitigation of her severity by means of the threats of their kinsfolk.” Reg. Walter Giffard, p. 147.

[1103] Reg. Walter de Stapeldon, p. 317. Cf. p. 95. When the London mob had beheaded Stapeldon in Cheapside, his place was filled (after the short rule of Berkeley) by an even greater bishop, John Grandisson, who, in the year of his consecration, directed a mandate to the nuns of Canonsleigh in which he attempted to carry out more closely than his predecessor, though still not exactly, the terms of Periculoso. He forbade the abbess to allow any nuns to leave the precincts before his visitation “that is to such a distance that it is not possible for them to return the same day.” This was on June 23rd 1329; a month later he was obliged to compromise, for on July 18th he sent a licence to Canonsleigh, recapitulating his former mandate but adding a special indulgence, permitting (“for certain legitimate reasons”) the nuns to absent themselves from the monastery “with honest and senior ladies to visit near relatives and friends of themselves and of the house, who are free from all suspicion,” and fixing the limit of their visit at fifteen days, an improvement on Stapeldon’s month, but still far removed from the spirit of Boniface VIII’s bull. Reg. John de Grandisson, I, pp. 508, 511.

[1104] See e.g. Wroxall 1338, “Et vous emouvums [? enioiniums], dame prioresse, qe vous ne seyez mes si legere de doner licence a vos soers de isser de le encloystre et nomement la priourie cume vous avez este en ces houres saunz verreye et resonable enchesun et cause.” Worc. Reg. Sede Vacante, p. 276; and St Radegund’s, Cambridge, 1373: “Item, the Prioress is too easily induced to give permission to the nuns to go outside the cloister.” Gray, Priory of St Radegund’s, Cambridge, p. 36.

[1105] See e.g. Fairwell, 1367. Reg. Robert de Stretton, p. 118. The necessity for an injunction against favouritism is shown by the comperta of Archbishop Langham’s visitation of St Sepulchre, Canterbury, in 1367-8. “Prioressa non permittit moniales ire in villam ad visitandum amicos suos nisi Margeriam Child et Julianam Aldelesse que illuc vadunt quociens eis placet.” Lambeth Reg. Langham, f. 76d. She was also charged with allowing them to receive suspected visitors. See below, p. 399.

[1106] An example of such a licence for a particular nun to leave her house is printed in Fosbroke, British Monachism (1817), p. 361 (note g) and also in Taunton, Engl. Black Monks of St Benedict, I, p. 108, note 2. It is said to be granted on the prayer of “Lady J. wife of Sir W. knight, of our diocese,” whom the nun is to be allowed to visit, with a companion from the same priory and to go thither on horseback “notwithstanding your customs to the contrary.”

[1107] But Archbishop Melton said twice a year at Arthington in 1315. V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 188.

[1108] See e.g. Bishop Spofford’s regulation at Lymbrook in 1437: “nor to be absent lyggyng oute by nyght out of their monastery, but with fader and moder, excepte causes of necessytee.” Hereford Epis. Reg. Spofford, I, f. 77; and Archbishop Lee’s injunction to Sinningthwaite in 1534: “that she from henceforth licence none of her susters to go fourth of the housse, onles it be for the profitt of the house, or visite their fathers and modres, or odre nere kynsfolkes, if the prioresse shall think it conuenient.” Yorks. Arch. Journ. XVI, p. 442. Compare Bishop Gynewell’s injunction to Godstow (1358), “par necessarie et resonable cause ouesque lour parents, honestement au profit de vostre mesoun.” Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell, f. 100d. Sometimes, however, friends were mentioned, e.g. at Nunkeeling (1314) none was to go out “except on the business of the house or to visit friends and relations.” V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 120. Sometimes the sickness of friends was specified. At Marrick (1252) none was to go out unless “the sickness of friends or some other worthy reason” demanded it, ib. p. 117; and at Studley in 1530-1 Bishop Longland ordained “that ye lycence not eny of your ladyes to passe out of the precincte of our monastery to visite their kynsfolks or frendes, onles it be for ther comforte in tyme of ther sikenes, and yett not than onles it shall seme to you, ladye priores, to be behouefull and necessarye, seing that undre suche pretence moche insolency have been used in religion,” Archaeologia, XLVII, p. 54. One of the nuns of Legbourne in 1440 complained bitterly that “the Prioress will not suffer this deponent to visit her parent who is sick [even] when it was thought that he would die.” Linc. Visit. II, p. 186.

[1109] As, needless to say, she sometimes did. In 1351 Bishop Gynewell was obliged to write to Heynings rebuking such disobedience: “encement si auoms entenduz que les dames de dit mesoun sount acustumez demurrer od lour amys outre le terme par vous, Prioresse, assigne, nous commandoms a vous, Prioress auant dit, qe taunt soulement une foith en 1 an donez conge a les dames de visiter lour amys, et certeyn terme resonable pur reuenir, outre qeule terme sils facent demoer, saunz cause resonable par vous accepte, les chastes pur le trespasse solonc les obseruances de vostres ordre saunz delay.” Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell, f. 34d. At Ivinghoe in 1530 it was discovered that one of the nuns had gone on a visit to her friends without permission and had stayed away from the Feast of St Michael to Passion Sunday in the following year (i.e. over six months), which came perilously near to apostasy, V.C.H. Bucks. I, p. 355. In the Vitae Patrum, XC, 206, however, there is a tale of a nun who was lent by her Abbess to a certain religious matron and lived with her for a year. See the version in Exempla e sermonibus, etc. ed. T. F. Crane, pp. 26-7.

[1110] V.C.H. Yorks. III, pp. 120, 128, 175, 177, 178.

[1111] Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell, f. 100d.

[1112] Linc. Visit. II, pp. 118, 122, ff. 6-7, 25, 72, 83, 109. At Godstow the prioress said “that the nuns have often access to Oxford under colour of visiting their friends,” p. 114; and at Heynings a discontented nun said “that sisters Ellen Bryg and Agnes Bokke have often recourse to Lincoln and there make long tarrying.” They denied the charge, but a note in the register states, “The nuns have access too often to the house of the treasurer of Lincoln, abiding there sometimes for a week.” The Bishop forbade “accesse suspecte to Lincolne,” pp. 132, 133, 135.

[1113] Ff. 28d, 77d, 95d. To Catesby, op. cit. p. 51. Compare injunctions to Godstow, Gracedieu, Nuncoton and St Michael’s, Stamford, pp. 116, 125.

[1114] Above, p. 348. And compare William of Wykeham’s injunction to Romsey, which repeats Peckham’s constitution on this point word for word. New Coll. MS. f. 85.

[1115] See e.g. Drokensford’s injunction to Minchin Barrow [i.e. Barrow Gurney] in 1315: “quod tunc bene incedant et in habitu moniali et non ad alia loca quam se extendit licencia se diuertant quoque modo, et ultra tempus licencie sue se voluntarie non absentent.” Hugo, Med. Nunneries of Somerset, Barrow, App. II, p. 81.

[1116] See e.g. the synodal Constitutions of c. 1237, Wilkins, Concilia, I, p. 650. Archbishop Courtenay in 1389 sent an interesting injunction to Elstow Abbey, which had evidently been remiss in offering hospitality to travelling nuns: “Inasmuch as it has happened that nuns coming to the monastery on their return from a visit to their friends, have been refused necessities for themselves and for their horses, inhumanly and contrary to the good repute of religion, which we wish to remedy, we order that for each nun thus tarrying provision be made according to the resources of the house, for four horses at least if by day for a whole day, and if [she come] by night or after the hour of nones for the rest of the day and for the night following.” Lambeth Reg. Courtenay, I, f. 336. Injunction repeated by Bishop Flemyng of Lincoln in 1421-2. Visit. of Relig. Houses in Dioc. Linc. I, pp. 50-1.

[1117] See e.g. Peckham’s injunctions to Barking and Godstow. Above, p. 348. Religious houses of men were sometimes specially ordered not to receive them, e.g. Bridlington in 1287. Reg. John le Romeyn, I, p. 200. The necessity for such an order appears below, pp. 446 ff.

[1118] E.g. Peckham to St Sepulchre, Canterbury (1284): “Nullum quoque potum aut cibum ibidem sumat, moram non protrahat, sed statim expedita causa accessus hujusmodi redeat indilate.” Reg. Epis. J. Peckham, II, p. 707; and Bokyngham to Elstow (1387): “Cum vero recreacionis causa, obtenta superioris licencia, moniales antedicte egrediuntur monasterii sui septa, incedant cum familiarium honesta comitiua et sufficiente, ad idem monasterium, redeuntes de eodem citra solis occasum.” Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Bokyngham, f. 343.

[1119] At Wroxall in 1338 it was specially ordered “qe deux jeunes ne issent poynt ensemble pur male suspecioun qe de ceo purra legerement sourdre, ke Dieuz defent.” Worc. Reg. Sede Vacante, p. 276. At Lymbrook in 1437 Bishop Spofford ordered that no nun was to go out without a companion, and “in case they lygge owte be nyght, two sustres to lye togeder in on bed,” a practice which (according to the usual custom) he forbids in the dorter. Hereford Epis. Reg. Spofford, f. 77.

[1120] See Thiers, op. cit. Pt I, chs. XVIII, XXII, XXIII, XXIV, XXXI. He quotes the stories of the nuns of Arles in the fifth century and of Marcigny in the eleventh century, who refused to break their enclosures even for fire and were miraculously preserved, pp. 12-13, 32-5.

[1121] The rhymed Northern Rule of St Benedict for nuns (l. 2094) says that when they go away into the country they should wear “more honest” clothes. “In habitu moniali” is one of the conditions imposed on the nuns of Barrow Gurney in 1315. See above, p. 358, note 4. The necessity for such a regulation appears in the decree made by Henry Archbishop of Cologne, executing an enactment of the Provincial Council of Cologne (1310), promulgating Periculoso. “Nevertheless we often see that having come out of their monasteries they [the nuns] wander about the roads and public places and frequent the houses of secular persons. And, what is more deplorable, having put off their religious habit, they appear in secular dress and bear themselves in public with so much vanity that their conduct may justly be considered suspicious, although their conscience be really pure and without sin. And although hitherto they have been menaced with divers penalties, nevertheless the more strictly they are forbidden to live after this fashion, the more eagerly they disobey, so strongly do they hanker after forbidden things.” The whole injunction is worthy of study. Thiers, op. cit. pp. 491-3. Discipline was laxer in German convents than in those of England. In England, however, there are sometimes complaints that male religious leave their convents in secular attire; see a case at Huntingdon Priory in 1439, Linc. Visit. II, pp. 154-5.

[1122] See ib. XXV, XXVI, XXVII. A few examples may be given of nuns leaving their houses to become superiors elsewhere: Basedale got prioresses from Rosedale in 1524 and 1527 (Yorks. Arch. Soc. XVI, p. 431 note); Rosedale from Clementhorpe in 1525 (Dugdale, Mon. IV, pp. 317, 385); Kington from Bromhale in 1326 (ib. IV, p. 398) and Ankerwyke from Bromhale in 1421 (Visit. of Relig. Houses in Dioc. Linc. I, p. 156). Sometimes the prioress of one house left it to rule another, e.g. Elizabeth Davell, Prioress of Basedale, became Prioress of Keldholme in 1467 (V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 169). Alice Davy, who occurs as Prioress of Castle Hedingham in 1472 and was afterwards Prioress of Wix (V.C.H. Essex, II, p. 123), and Eleanor Bernard, Prioress of Little Marlow (c. 1516) became Abbess of Delapré (Dugdale, Mon. IV, p. 149). For a form of licence from a prioress, permitting a nun to accept the office of prioress elsewhere, see MS. Harl. 862, f. 94 (“Literae Priorissae de Bromhale quibus licenciam impertit Clementiae Medforde ejusdem Domus, consorori et communiali, ut Prioratui de Ankerwyke sicut Priorissa praeesse valeat”); and compare the reply of the Prioress of St Bartholomew’s, Newcastle, to the Bishop of Durham about the election of Dame Margaret Danby, a nun of her house, to be Prioress of St Mary’s, Neasham, “Whilk Postulacion I graunt fully with assent of my chapiter atte Reverence of God and in plesing of yor gracious lordship; not wythstondyng yat she is ful necessarye and profitable to us both in spirituall governance and temporall” (1428). (V.C.H. Durham, II, p. 107.) Sometimes a mother house from over the sea tried to assert its right to nominate the head of one of its daughter houses, but Cluniacs, Cistercians, Premonstratensians and houses affiliated to Fontevrault were all extremely jealous of French interference. See the letter written by Mary, daughter of Edward I, a nun of Amesbury, to her brother the King in 1316 protesting against the action of the Abbess of Fontevrault, who was reputed to be sending “a prioress from beyond the sea,” instead of acceding to the convent’s request that one of their own number might succeed to the office. Wood, Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies, I, pp. 60-63. It was always held desirable if possible to take a superior from among the nuns of the house in which the vacancy occurred, but sometimes no suitable person could be found.

[1123] See Thiers, I, ch. XXII, who mentions the corollary that the superior of another house may be called in to correct rebellious nuns if their own head is unable to do so. See below, p. 466. In 1501 Emma Powes, then at Romsey, is said to have been professed at King’s Mead near Derby “and from that place had been removed to another priory in the Hereford diocese, where she had been prioress, and thence had come to this house.” A charge of incontinence was made against her, and we know from another source that she had been prioress of Lymbrook (she was deprived on or about 24 Nov. 1488, Hereford Reg. Myllyng, p. 112). It is interesting that in 1492 one of the nuns had asked that “a nun who has been brought in, be restored to the place to which she is professed.” Liveing, Records of Romsey Abbey, pp. 219, 225. One of Alnwick’s injunctions to Clemence Medforde, Prioress of Ankerwyke in 1441, was “that henceforth she should not admit that nun of Hinchinbrooke either into the house or to dwell among them, and also that she should not deliver to her that bond which she has from the house of Hinchinbrooke, or any other goods which she has of the same house.” Linc. Visit. II, p. 6. In a list of the nuns of Thetford in 1526 occurs the name of “Domina Elianora Hanam, professa in Wyke (Wix).” Jessopp, Visit. in Dioc. Norwich, p. 243.

[1124] Such, for instance, as leprosy. In 1287 Archbishop John le Romeyn sent a request to the master of Sherburn Hospital, Durham, to receive Basilia de Cotum, a nun of Handale, “quia, ... lepre deformitate aspersa, propter suspectam morbi contagionem, morari non poterit inter sanos, devocionem vestram rogamus quatinus ipsam in hospitali vestro velitis recipere et seorsum in necessariis exhibere, ita, tamen, quod sub religioso habitu quem gerit Deo serviat dum subsistit.” Reg. John le Romeyn, I, p. 163. Richard de Wallingford, the great abbot of St Albans, was a leper, but remained in his house.

[1125] Dugdale, Mon. V, p. 493. Dugdale remarks that “a little scandal also appears to have been attached to her character.” She finally resigned on account of old age in 1320, and perhaps the leave of absence referred to accounts for the appearance of another Prioress in 1308 who resigned in 1309. V.C.H. Yorks. III, pp. 180-1.

[1126] V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 127, note 13.

[1127] V.C.H. Dorset, II, p. 78. In 1427 the papal licence was granted to one Isabel Falowfeld, nun of St Bartholomew’s, Newcastle on Tyne, to transfer herself to another monastery of the same order, on account of her weak constitution and the inclemency of the air near St Bartholomew’s. Cal. of Papal Letters, VII, p. 516. See Thiers on the subject, op. cit. pp. 140-2, 213-5. He quotes the decision of the University of Salamanca on the question as to whether the General or any minor official of the Minorites had the power to give permission to a nun of the order who was dangerously ill, to leave her house and enter another of the same order, so as to recover her health. “Exactissima discussione facta circa praesentem difficultatem, omnes unanimiter atque uno ore responderunt atque dixerunt, non posse id fieri stando in jure communi, quod et multis juribus atque rationibus comprobarunt” (p. 214). He also quotes the case of a nun of the Annunciation of Agen, of whom the doctors said that if she stayed in her house she would infallibly die, but if she went out for a change of air and medicinal baths she would infallibly be cured. To which alternative the General of the Order, on being asked to give her a dispensation to go out, replied in one word “Moriatur” (p. 217). But these were both strictly enclosed orders.

[1128] “Si quae vero moniales ad balnea qualitercumque processerint extra monasteria, irremissibiliter priventur habitu regulari; et licentiantes easdem ut praedicta petant balnea, sententiam excommunicationis incurrant.” Nomasticon Cisterciense, p. 533, also in Thiers op. cit. p. 220; cf. pp. 216 ff. But the public baths were of notoriously bad reputation.

[1129] See Thiers, op. cit. Pt I, ch. XLII-XLVII. From the fact that he thinks it necessary to devote five chapters to the subject and from the evidence which he adduces and the language which he uses, it is clear that the practice was very prevalent.

[1130] Decret. III, tit. XXXI, c. 18. See Thiers, op. cit. pp. 161-2. Licences to migrate to a convent professing a stricter rule are sometimes found in episcopal registers. See e.g. Hereford Reg. Caroli Bothe, p. 241.

[1131] See his letter to a superior, quoted by Thiers: “Je suis tout-à-fait d’avis que l’on n’ouvre point la porte au changement des Maisons pour le souhait des filles: car ce changement est tout-à-fait contraire au bien des Monasteres qui ont la clôture perpetuelle pour article essentiel. Les filles comme foibles, sont sujettes aux ennuis et les ennuis leur font trouver des expediens et importuns et indiscrets. Que les changemens doncques procedent des jugemens des superieurs et non du désir des filles, qui ne sçauroient mieux declarer qu’elles ne doivent point estre gratifiées, que quand elles se laissent emporter a des desirs si peu justes. Il faut donc demeurer là, et laisser chaque rossignol dans son nid; car autrement le moindre deplaisir qui arriveroit à une fille, seroit capable de l’inquieter et luy faire prendre le change: Et au lieu de se changer elle-même, elle penseroit d’avoir suffisament remedié à son mal, quand elle changeroit de Monastere.” Thiers, op. cit. pp. 160-1.

[1132] Plainly she regarded the things as her own private property and was thus guilty of the sin of proprietas as well. Compare the evidence of the Abbot of Bardney concerning one of his monks in 1439-40. “Also he deposes that brother John Hale sent out privily all his private goods, with the mind and intent, as it appeared, to leave the house in apostasy and especially a silver spoon and a mazer garnished with silver; and yet he has not yet gone, nor will he disclose to the abbot where such goods are.” Linc. Visit. II, p. 26.

[1133] Linc. Visit. II, pp. 127-9.

[1134] The three anchoresses of The Ancren Riwle and their maids will be remembered.

[1135] Raine, Letters from Northern Registers (Rolls Ser.), pp. 196-8. See also Rotha Clay, Hermits and Anchorites of England, pp. 93-4.

[1136] V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 113 (cf. Test. Ebor. II, p. 98). Two other Yorkshire nuns are found as anchoresses in the first part of the fourteenth century. Joan Sperry, nun of Clementhorpe, was anchoress at Beeston near Leeds in 1322, and in 1348 Margaret la Boteler, nun of Hampole, was anchoress at the chapel of East Layton, Yorks. Clay, op. cit. pp. 254-5, 256. See also the curious case of Avice of Beverley, a nun of Nunburnholme, concerning whom “the Prioress and nuns say that Avice of Beverley, sometime professed nun of Nunburnholme, thrice left the house to the intent that she might lead a stricter life elsewhere. They say that fourteen years at least have passed since she last went away; howbeit they believe her to have lived in chastity. They say that she was disobedient every year and very often while she was with them. They say that she dwelt with them for thirty years before she left the monastery for the first time.” The inquiry which elicited this information was made because she wanted to return (1280). Reg. Wm. Wickwane, p. 92. She had probably tried being an anchoress.

[1137] Visit. of Relig. Houses in Dioc. Linc. I, pp. 113-15. The prioress’ licence addressed to Beatrice is also printed. It may be well here to repeat the editor’s warning that “acts of this description probably form the foundation for the ridiculous superstition, made famous by a striking passage of Scott’s Marmion, that nuns and others who had broken the laws of the church were commonly walled up and left to perish.” Another and perhaps more probable explanation of the superstition is that Scott probably, and certainly others after him, misinterpreted the words immuratio, emmurer, which are constantly used of strict imprisonment by inquisition officials and others. See on the subject, H. Thurston, S.J., The Immuring of Nuns (Catholic Truth Soc. Historical Papers, No. V).

[1138] Celestria (? Celestina), nun, and Adilda, nun, are mentioned as anchoresses there. Clay, op. cit. pp. 222-3.

[1139] Ib. p. 184. An “ancress” was found at this house at the time of the Dissolution.

[1140] For her works see Revelations of Divine Love, recorded by Julian, Anchoress at Norwich, ed. Grace Warrack (1901). She is apparently not to be confused with another famous anchoress, Julian Lampet, bequests to whom are often recorded in Norwich wills between 1426 and 1478. The priory seems to have had a succession of two or even three anchoresses named Julian. See Rye, Carrow Abbey, pp. 7-8 and App. IX, passim. For anchoresses enclosed at conventual houses of men, see Clay, op. cit. pp. 77-8; anchoresses are sometimes described as “nun,” ib. pp. 224, 232, 238, 244. Matilda Newton, a nun of Barking, who had been appointed to rule the new Abbey of Syon, but for some reason did not become abbess, returned to her own house as a recluse in 1417. Ib. p. 144.

[1141] Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Dalderby, f. 10 (date 1300). The author of Dives and Pauper declares that such secessions were rare among women: “We se that whanne men take thē to be ankeris and reclusys withinne fewe yerys comonly eyther they falle in reūsys or eresyes or they breke out for womās loue or for inkyede of ther lufe or by some gile of þe fend. But of wimē ancres so inclusid is seldome herde any of these defautys, but holely they begīne and holely they ende.” Dives and Pauper, com. VI, ch. B.

[1142] See above, pp. 69-71.

[1143] Wilkins, Concilia, II, p. 18. Compare William of Wykeham’s injunctions to Romsey in 1387: “Constitutiones bone memorie domini Othoboni quondam sedis apostolice in Anglia legati in hoc casu editas ut conuenit imitantes, vobis sub penis infrascriptis districcius inhibemus, ne ad officinas aliquas aut alias cameras quascumque forinsecas extra septa claustri, vel ad alia loca in villam vel alibi extra vestrum monasterium, illis quibus hoc ex officio competit dumtaxat exceptis ... exeatis.” New Coll. MS. f. 84. Compare also the injunctions (likewise modelled on Ottobon’s constitution) sent by Thomas of Cantilupe, Bishop of Hereford, to Lymbrook about 1277. Reg. Thome de Cantilupo, p. 201.

[1144] Linc. Visit. II, pp. 122, 125.

[1145] Cistercian Stat. A.D. 1257-88, ed. J. T. Fowler, 1890, p. 106.

[1146] Blunt, Myroure of Oure Ladye (E.E.T.S.), Introd. pp. xxviii, xxxii.

[1147] P.R.O. Mins. Accts. 1260/3.

[1148] “Paid for the hire of three horses for six days going to London for our tithes ..., paid for the hire of a serving-man and for his expenses going with the said horses 2/3, item sent to Dame Katherine Fitzaleyn at the same time 6/8” (Prioress’ Account), ib. 1260/4. The treasuress’ account for the same year throws further light upon her movements. “Paid for the expenses of Dame Katherine Fitzaleyn and Dame Ida going to London and for the hire of their horses going and returning, for our tithes £2. 11. 0. ... In the expenses of the sub-Prioress and Dame Katherine Fitzaleyn and two men and three horses going to Fleet for rent and for salt 3/8. In the expenses of Dame Katherine Fitzaleyn and dame Joan Fishmere [the treasuress] for hire of horses 8d.” Ib. 1260/5. Dame Katherine also went to the Bishop to get a certificate and in 1377-8 she went with the treasuress Dame Margaret Redinges to Corby and to Sempringham (perhaps to visit the Gilbertine nuns there) and Dames Margaret Redinges and Joan Fishmere went with Robert Clark to Clapton. Ib. 1260/7

[1149] Reg. of John de Sandale and Rigaud de Asserio, p. 418. Similar letter to Prior and Convent of the Cathedral Church, p. 576.

[1150] Wilkins, Concilia, II, p. 18.

[1151] Reg. Thome de Cantilupo, p. 201.

[1152] New Coll. MS. f. 85d.

[1153] Quoted in Thiers, op. cit. p. 133, who considers the question in his ch. XIX.

[1154] Archaeologia, XLVII, pp. 52-3.

[1155] See illustration of Henry VI being received as a Confrater at Bury St Edmunds, reproduced in Gasquet, Engl. Mon. Life, facing p. 126, from Harl. MS. 2278, f. 6.

[1156] Amundesham, Annales (Rolls Ser.), I, pp. 65-9, passim.

[1157] V.C.H. Herts. IV, p. 424.

[1158] “I will that Ilke prior and priores that comes to my beryall at y^t day hafe iii s iiij d and Ilke chanon and Nune xij d ... and Ilke prior and priores that comes to the xxx day [i.e. the so-called “month’s-mind”] hafe vj s viij d and Ilke chanon or none that comes to the said xxx day haf xx d.” Lincoln Diocese Documents, ed. A. Clark (E.E.T.S.), pp. 50, 53.

[1159] P.R.O. Mins. Accts. 1260/20. This was probably Constance of Castile, second wife of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, who died on March 24, 1394, and was buried with great magnificence at The Newarke, Leicester. S. Armitage Smith, John of Gaunt (1904), pp. 357-8. The date of the account roll is unfortunately illegible, but from this internal evidence it should probably be dated 1393-4. There is another entry “paye a couent pur lalme le Duk de Lancastre vij s iij d,” in which “Duk” is possibly a slip for “Duchesse.”

[1160] There were over seventy places of pilgrimage in Norfolk alone. Cutts, Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages (3rd ed. 1911), p. 162.

[1161] Jacques de Vitry does not mince his words: “I have seen many pilgrims who, weary of wayfaring, used to drink themselves tipsy.... You will find many harlots and evil women in the inns, who lie in wait for the incautious and reward their guests with evil, even as a mouse in a wallet, a serpent in the bosom.” Etienne de Bourbon has the same tale to tell: “A pilgrimage should be sober, lest the pilgrims be despoiled and slain and turned to scorn, both materially and spiritually. For I have seen a person who had laboured greatly making a pilgrimage overseas lose both his virtue and his money, when drunk and lying with a chambermaid in an inn.” Anecdotes Historiques etc., d’Etienne de Bourbon, ed. Lecoy de la Marche (1877), pp. 167-8. Mine Host’s words to the drunken cook (Manciple’s Prol. II, pp. 15-19) are significant in the light of these quotations. So also are the adventures of “that loose fish the Pardoner” with the tapster Kit at the Chequer Inn. Tale of Beryn, ed. Furnivall and Stone (Chaucer Soc. 1887). See also An Alphabet of Tales (E.E.T.S.), p. 258, No. CCCLXXVI.

[1162] Compare the words of the Lollard William Thorpe in 1407: “Such fond people waste blamefullie Gods goodes in their vaine pilgrimages, spending their goods upon vitious hostelars, which are oft uncleane women of their bodies.... Also, sir, I knowe well that when divers men and women will goe thus after their oun willes and finding, out on pilgrimage, they will ordaine with them before to have with them some men and women that can well sing wanton songes; and some other pilgrimages will have them with bagge-pipes,” etc. This and other information about pilgrimages may be found in Coulton, Chaucer and his England, pp. 138-43. See also The Book of the Knight of La Tour-Landry (E.E.T.S.), pp. 47 ff.

[1163]

Tale of Beryn, p. 10. Cf. p. 6 for the scene with the holy water sprinkler.

[1164] Langland, Piers Plowman, B Text, Passus XII, 36-38.

[1165] “Let it never be permitted to any abbess or any other nun, whosoever she may be, to undertake the journey to Rome or to any other holy places; for it is the Devil, taking the form of an angel of light, who inspires such pilgrimages under a false pretext of piety: and there is no one so foolish and so devoid of reason as not to know how irreligious and blameworthy a thing it is for Virgins vowed to God to hold converse with men, through the necessity of a journey. If after the prohibition of this venerable Council, there be found anyone so bold as to disobey this ordinance, which has been promulgated by unanimous consent, let him be punished according to the rigour of the canons, to wit let him be excommunicated.” Thiers, op. cit. p. 135.

[1166] Wilkins, Concilia, I, p. 502.

[1167] V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 172. Compare Bishop Gynewell’s injunction to Heynings in 1351: “Item pur ceo que ascun de les dames de dit mesoun sount trop acustumez de faire auowes de pilgrimage et dautres abstinences, saunz conge de lour souerayn, par quar ils ount souent occasion de les retrer de lour religion; si vous comandoms sur peyn descomengement que nul de vous face tiel maner auowe en destourbance de vostre religion, saunz especial conge de vostre souereyn. Et que nul tiel auowe soit fait par ascun de vous, pur faire paregrinage ou autre abstinence a quel il nest pas tenuz par sa religion, nous lui relessoms tut maner de tel auowe, issint qil se poet doner entirement a sa religion parfaire.” Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell, f. 34d.

[1168] V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 172, and Dugdale, Mon. V, p. 654.

[1169] V.C.H. Essex, II, p. 124.

[1170] Archaeologia, XLVII, pp. 56-7.

[1171] V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 183. This episode is a striking illustration of the complaint made about those Jubilee pilgrimages by the abbots of Fountains, St Mary Graces and Stratford, who had been appointed by the Abbot and Chapter-General of Cîteaux to report on the condition of English monasteries of that order. Writing to the Abbot of Cîteaux in 1500, they beg that several bulls of Jubilee indulgence should be sent to England, adding, “for many lesser religious of the order, under pretext of obtaining the grace of this indulgence, led by a spirit less of devotion than of levity and curiosity, are begging their superiors for licence to go to the Roman curia, and we have besought them to remain at home in the hope of obtaining this jubilee [indulgence]. For we rarely see, in this country of ours, any good and devout secular or religious man visiting the Mother City (most justly though it be accounted holy), who returns home again in better holiness and devotion.” Mélanges d’Histoire offerts à M. Charles Bémont (Paris, 1913), p. 429.

[1172] Quoted in Gregorovius, Hist. of Rome in the Middle Ages, III, p. 78 note. See the fifteenth century Florentine carnival song, quoted below, pp. 617-8.

[1173]

From “De la vie dou Monde,” Rustebeufs Gedichte hg. v. Adolf Krefaner (1885), p. 185.

[1174] And of such specific decrees as that of the Council of Oxford (1222) which forbade them to go merely to visit relatives or for recreation except (there was always a saving clause under which nuns and bishops alike could shelter) in such case as might arouse no suspicion. Wilkins, Concilia, I, p. 592.

[1175] Reg. Walter de Stapeldon, p. 95. Cf. injunctions to Polsloe, above, p. 355.

[1176] All the Familiar Colloquies of Erasmus, ed. N. Bailey, 2nd ed. 1733, p. 379.

[1177] Hereford Epis. Reg. Spofford, p. 81. Compare the charge made against the clergy of Ripon Minster in 1312: “Vicarii capellani, et caeteri ministri ... spectaculis publicis, ludibriis et coreis, immo teatricalibus ludis inter laicos frequentius se immiscent.” J. T. Fowler, Memorials of Ripon Minster (Surtees Soc.), II, p. 68. Also one of the comperta at Alnwick’s visitation of Humberstone Abbey in 1440, “He says that Wrauby answered the abbot saucily and rebelliously when [the abbot] took him to task for climbing up a gate to behold the pipe-players and dancers in the churchyard of the parish church.” Linc. Visit. II, p. 140.

[1178] Manners and Meals in Olden Time, ed. Furnivall (E.E.T.S.), p. 40.

[1179] See above, p. 81, and compare the injunctions sent by Cardinal Nicholas of Cues to the Abbess of Sonnenburg, c. 1454, forbidding her to go on pilgrimages or to visit health resorts or to attend weddings. Eckenstein, Woman under Monasticism, p. 425.

[1180] Quoted in Brand’s Observations on Popular Antiquities (ed. 1877), pp. 382, 394. Compare the almost precisely similar account given by Erasmus in his Guide to Christian Matrimony (1526), quoted in Coulton, Social Life in Britain from the Conquest to the Reformation, pp. 439-40.

[1181] See above, p. 309 and below, p. 388.

[1182] Coulton, Chaucer and his England, pp. 108-9. Weddings were, however, occasionally celebrated in convent churches, e.g. on Jan. 3rd, 1465-6 the Bishop of Ely addressed a licence to Thomas Trumpington, “President of religion of the Minoresses of the convent of Denny,” authorising him to celebrate matrimony in the convent church between William Ketterich junior and Marion Hall, domestic servants in the monastery, the bans to be put up in the parish church of Waterbeach. Ely Epis. Records, ed. Gibbons, p. 145. Compare case at Crabhouse in 1476, V.C.H. Norfolk, II, p. 409. Dugdale notes that Henry VIII is said to have married one of his wives in the Chapel at Sopwell. Dugdale, Mon. III, p. 364. Such weddings would necessarily have taken place in convent churches where the nave was also used as a parish church, but this was not so at Denny. Wriothesley’s Chronicle contains an account of a triple wedding held at Haliwell in 1536. “This yeare, the 3 daye of July, beinge Mondaye, was a greate solempnytie of marriage kept at the nonnerye of Halywell, besyde London, in the Erle of Ruttlandes place, where the Erle of Oxfordes sonne and heyer, called Lord Bulbeke maryed the Erle of Westmorelandes eldest daughter named Ladye Dorytye and the Erle of Westmorelandes sonne and heyre, called Lord Nevell, maryed the Erle of Ruttlandes eldyste daughter, named Ladye Anne, and the Erle of Rutlandes sonne and heire called Lord Roosse maryed the Erle of Westmorelandes daughter, named Ladye Margaret; and all these three lordes were maryed at one masse, goinge to churche all 3 together on by another and the laydes, there wyfes, followinge, one after another, everye one of the younge ladyes havinge 2 younge lordes goinge one everye syde of them when they went to church and a younge ladye bearinge up everye of their gowne traynes; at wh. maryage was present all the greate estates of the realme, both lordes and ladyes.” Afterwards they all went home and had a great feast, followed by a dance, to which the King came dressed as a Turk. Wriothesley’s Chronicle, ed. W. D. Hamilton (Camden Soc. 1875), I, pp. 50-1. A reference may also be made to No. XLVI of Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles, ed. Th. Wright, t. I, p. 284: “Or advint toutesfoiz ung jour que une des niepces de madame l’abbesse se marioit et faisoit sa feste en l’abbaye; et y avoit grosse assemblée des gens du païs; et estoit madame l’abbesse fort empeschée de festoyer les gens de bien qui estoyent venuz à la feste faire honneur à sa niepce.”

[1183] From “Proofs of Age, temp. Henry IV,” quoted in Trans. R. Hist. Soc. N.S. XVI (1902), p. 163.

[1184] “Or viennent commeres de toutes pars; or convient que le pauvre homme [i.e. the husband] face tant que elles soient bien aises. La dame et les commeres parlent et raudent, et dient de bonnes chouses et se tiennent bien aises, quiconques ait la peine de le querir, quelque temps qu’il face ... et tousjours boyvent comme bottes.... Lors les commeres entrent, elles desjunent, elles disnent, elles menjent a raassie, maintenant boivent au lit de la commere, maintenant à la cuve, et confondent des biens et du vin plus qu’il n’en entreroit en une bote; et à l’aventure il vient à barrilz ou n’en y a que une pipe. Et le pauvre homme, qui a tout le soussy de la despense, va souvent veoir comment le vin se porte, quant il voit terriblement boire.... Briefment tout se despend; les commeres s’en vont bien coiffées, parlant et janglant, et ne se esmoient point dont il vient.” Les Quinzes Joyes de Mariage (Bib. Elzevirienne, 1855), pp. 27-8, 30, 37-8.

[1185] G. G. Coulton, French Monasticism in 1503 (Medieval Studies No. XI. 1915), p. 22 note 2.

[1186] New Coll. MS. f. 87. On the other hand such connections with rich families might be a source of wealth to a house. Mr Coulton draws attention to “the letter of an abbot at Bordeaux in Father Denifle’s Désolation des Eglises, etc. I, p. 583 (A.D. 1419). The abbey had been so impoverished by war that the Abbot begged for a papal indult permitting him to stand godfather to forty children of noble or wealthy families.” Coulton, loc. cit.

[1187] Alnwick’s Visit. MS. f. 77d.

[1188] “That frome hensforthe ye give noo more licence ne suffre eny of your susters to be godmother to eny child, nither at the christening nother at the confirmacon, and undre like payne chardge you nott to be godmother to eny child in christening nor confirmacon.” Archaeologia, XLVII, p. 54. Compare similar prohibitions by Eudes Rigaud, Archbishop of Rouen, addressed to the nuns of Montivilliers in 1257 and 1265. Reg. Visit. Archiepis. Rothomag. ed. Bonnin (1852), pp. 293, 517. The prohibition was frequently broken by monks as well as by nuns. See e.g. the comperta at Alnwick’s visitation of Higham Ferrers College in 1442: “Also Sir William Calverstone haunts suspect places and especially the house of Margery Chaumberleyn, for whose son he stood sponsor at his confirmation, and, though warned by the master, he does not desist. The same does also haunt the house of one Plays, for whose son he likewise stood sponsor.” Linc. Visit. II, p. 138. Also the complaint of Guy Jouenneaux, Abbot of St Sulpice de Bourges in his Defence of Monastic Reform (1503): “Sometimes they eat in the houses of their gossips, though the law forbids them such relationships, or again among citizens, at whose houses they are as frequent guests, or more frequent, than even worldly-minded folk.” Coulton, loc. cit. It is interesting that Barbara Mason, ex-Prioress of Marham, who died shortly after the dissolution in 1538, mentions two god-daughters. “I wyll Barbara Barcom my goddowter and seruant, shall haue my wosted kyrtyll and clothe kyrtell and my frok in Hayll. Itm. I bequeth to Elyn Mason’s chyld, my goddowter xij d.” Bury Wills and Inventories, ed. S. Tymms (Camden Soc.), p. 134. Henry VIII’s visitors gave her a bad character.

[1189] For her life see M. A. E. Green, Lives of the Princesses of England, II, pp. 404-42.

[1190] Their gardens are often mentioned, e.g. at Nuncoton in 1440 it was complained that the nuns had private gardens and that some of them did not come to Compline, but wandered about in the gardens, gathering herbs. Alnwick’s Visit. f. 72. At Stainfield in 1519 a similar complaint was made that on feast days they did not stay in the church and occupy themselves in devotion, between the Hours of Our Lady and High Mass, but came out and walked about the garden and cloisters. V.C.H. Lincs. II, p. 131. The nuns of Sinningthwaite (1319) were ordered to provide themselves with a competent gardener for their curtilage, so that they might always have an abundance of vegetables. V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 177. Christine de Pisan’s description of the great gardens of the convent of Poissy is most attractive. See below, p. 560.

[1191] Quoted in Gasquet, English Monastic Life, p. 177.

[1192] One of the charges against Eleanor Prioress of Arden in 1396 was that “she compelled three young nuns to go out haymaking very early in the morning and they did not come back before nightfall and so divine service was not yet said.” Test. Ebor. (Surtees Soc.), p. 283.

[1193] Alnwick’s Visit. f. 71d.

[1194] Ib. pp. 120, 121, 123, 125. At Bishop Atwater’s visitation of Legbourne in 1519 it was stated that the nuns often worked at haymaking, but only in the presence of the Prioress. V.C.H. Lincs. II, p. 154.

[1195] See below, p. 653.

[1196] See below, p. 589.

[1197] See Thiers on the subject: “Si les Religieuses estoient aussi soigneuses de leur honneur et de leur reputation comme elles devroient, si elles vouloient asseurer la grace de leur vocation et de leur election ... elles ne nourriroient point de vaches dans leur clôture, estant indecent que les Religieuses s’occupent à les mener paistre, à les retirer des pasturages, et à faire tout ce qui est necessaire pour en recevoir quelque profit. Je dis la même choses des asnesses, qu’elles y retiennient pour en prendre le lait dans leurs infirmitez. Car elles peuvent les avoir au dehors et en tirer à peu près les mêmes avantages, que si elles les renoient au dedans. Aussi est-il dit dans les Statuts du Couvent de Saint Estienne de Reims, de l’ordre des Chanoinesses regulieres de Saint Augustin: Il ne sera loisible de recevoir dans le Monastere aucun gros bestail: ce qui est parfaitement conforme à cette défense du 1. Concile Provincial de Milan en 1565. Moniales ne intus in septis Monasterii boves, equos et jumenta cujusvis generis alant.” Op. cit. p. 415.

[1198] Ancren Riwle (King’s Classics), pp. 316-7.

[1199] Lambeth Reg. Courtenay, I, f. 336. The injunction was repeated by Bishop Flemyng in 1421-2. Visit. of Relig. Houses in Dioc. Lincoln, I, p. 52. At Godstow Peckham made the following order concerning the conversations of nuns with seculars: “Cum insuper talia sunt colloquia terminata, inhibemus decetero ne moniales hujusmodi pro colloquentium conductu, locutorii januam exeant ullo modo, nec etiam stent exterius in atrio, ubi saecularium est concursus, sed interius tantum in hortis et pomeriis quatenus requirit necessitas et honestas patitur, si non desit omnimoda securitas, consolentur.” Reg. Epis. J. Peckham, III, p. 848. At Romsey in 1311 Bishop Woodlock ordered that “there shall be an entrance into the garden by a gate or postern for the sick in loco non suspecto for their recreation and solace.” Liveing, Records of Romsey Abbey, p. 104. At Clementhorpe in 1310 a nun confined to the cloister for penance might “for recreation and solace go into the orchard and gardens of the nunnery accompanied by nuns.” V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 129.

[1200] Hereford Epis. Reg. Spofford, p. 82.

[1201] William Salt Archaeol. Soc. Coll. New Series, VIII, pp. 118-9.

[1202] Coulton, Chaucer and his England, p. 109. He quotes one such rule from the “Ménagier de Paris.” “When thou goest into town or to church, walk with thine head high, thine eyelids lowered and fixed on the ground at four fathoms distance straight in front of thee, without looking or glancing sideways at either man or woman to the right hand or the left, nor looking upward.”

[1203] V.C.H. Essex, II, p. 124.

[1204] Cf. Coulton, Medieval Studies (first series, 2nd ed., p. 61) and Bishop Hallam’s admonition to Shaftesbury in 1410. V.C.H. Dorset, II, p. 78. Also Peckham’s Constitution in 1281. Wilkins, Concilia, II, p. 58.

[1205] V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 239.

[1206] Reg. Godfrey Giffard, p. 267.

[1207] Reg. Sede Vacante (Worc. Hist. Soc.), p. 276.

[1208] Reg. Ralph of Shrewsbury, p. 241.

[1209] Reg. Walter de Stapeldon, p. 317.

[1210] A Boke of Precedence, ed. F. J. Furnivall (E.E.T.S. Extra Ser. VIII), p. 39.

[1211] The Wife of Bath’s Prologue, ll. 545-7.

[1212] Reg. Epis. Peckham (Rolls Ser.), II, p. 664.

[1213] Linc. Visit. II, p. 114. Cf. Gray’s injunction in 1432. Visit. of Relig. Houses in Dioc. of Linc. I, p. 67.

[1214] Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell, f. 139d.

[1215] Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Bokyngham, f. 343.

[1216] Visit. of Relig. Houses in Dioc. Linc. I, pp. 25, 51.

[1217] Archaeologia, XLVII, p. 57.

[1218] Reg. Johannis de Pontissara, pp. 251-2.

[1219] Reg. Epis. Peckham (Rolls Ser.), II, p. 707.

[1220] Linc. Visit. II, p. 50. With this account of the entertainment provided by the Friars of Northampton for their visitors, compare the evidence given at Bishop Nykke’s visitation of the Cathedral priory of Norwich in 1514. “Item, the Brethren are wont to dance in the guesten-house, by favour of the guest-master, by night (and) up to noon.” Visit. of the Dioc. of Norwich (Camden Soc.), p. 75. One of the Bishop’s comperta was that suspicious women had access to the house of the guest-master, which throws further light on the Catesby case. Incidentally the latter bears out Chaucer’s description of the Friar, who was so fond of harping.

[1221] Exempla e sermonibus vulgaribus Jacobi Vitriacensis, ed. T. F. Crane, p. 131.

[1222] Anecdotes Historiques, etc. d’Etienne de Bourbon, ed. Lecoy de La Marche, p. 229.

[1223] See below, p. 460.

[1224] See also below, pp. 448-50.

[1225] Dugdale, Mon. V, p. 654.

[1226] Liveing, Records of Romsey Abbey, p. 218.

[1227] Poetical Works of John Skelton, ed. Dyce, I, p. 95.

[1228] Langland, Piers Plowman, ed. Skeat, Text B, Passus V, ll. 304 ff.

[1229] See above, p. 373.

[1230] Songs and Carols, ed. Th. Wright (Percy Soc.), pp. 91-5.

[1231] Gower, Mirour de l’Omne, ed. G. C. Macaulay, p. 289. Translated in Coulton, Med. Garn. pp. 577-8.

[1232] At Esholt in 1535 Archbishop Lee even had to enjoin “that the prioress suffer no ale house to be kept within the precinct of the gates of the saide monasterie.” Yorks. Arch. Journ. XVI, p. 452. An explanation of this may be found by comparing the evidence at Archbishop Warham’s visitation of the Hospital of St James outside Canterbury in 1511. “The Prioress complains that Richard Welles stays and talks in the precincts of the house and his wife sells beer in the precincts. They are very quarrelsome people, brawlers and sowers of discord. There is always a crowd of people at the house of Richard.” E.H.R. VI, p. 22. At both these houses the nuns probably employed a secular alewife to make their beer and she sold also to other customers within their precincts. Compare Peckham’s injunction to Wherwell in 1284: “Iterum ob Dei reverentiam et ecclesiae honestatem perpetuo inhibemus ne mercatores sedere in ecclesia cum suis mercibus permittantur.” Reg. Epis. Johannis Peckham (Rolls Ser.), II, p. 654. Also Bishop Bokyngham’s letter forbidding merchants to sell their wares in the conventual church or churchyard of Stainfield under pain of excommunication (1392). V.C.H. Lincs. II, p. 131. Medieval churches were put to strange uses. They served sometimes as a market-place, sometimes as a granary, sometimes as a playground, sometimes as a stage.

[1233] Wood, Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies, II, p. 35, note b.

[1234] Wood, op. cit. pp. 35-6.

[1235] Wood, op. cit. pp. 36-37 (No. XV).

[1236] On this subject see Part II of Thiers’ treatise De la Clôture, pp. 265-497.

[1237] Ancren Riwle (King’s Classics), p. 67.

[1238] Linc. Visit. II, pp. 46-7. The Benedictine rule runs: “It is by no means lawful, without the abbot’s permission, for any monk to receive or give letters, presents and gifts of any kind to anyone, whether parent or other.” Cap. LIV.

[1239] V.C.H. Oxon. II, p. 104.

[1240] Liveing, op. cit. p. 232.

[1241] Hist. MSS. Com. Report, IX, App. p. 57 (early fifteenth century).

[1242] Reg. Epis. J. Peckham, III, p. 847. From a letter which he wrote to the Abbess on Nov. 12, 1284, it appears that the Prioress had been defamed of incontinence, for, while professing his belief in her innocence, he repeated his prohibition of casual conversation between nuns and seculars, adding “Oveke ceo nous defendons de part Deu ke nule nonein ne parle a escoler de Oxeneford, se il nest sun parent prechein, e ovekes ceo saunz le conge la abbesse especial. E ceo meismes entendons nous de touȝ prestres foreins, le queus font mout de maus en mout de lus, e aussi de touȝ religieus ki ne venent pur precher u pur confesser oue lautorite le apostoile e le eveske de Nichole.” Ib. III, p. 851. Compare an injunction to Nunmonkton in 1397: “Item non permittatis clericos prioratum vestrum frequentare absque causa rationabili.” Dugdale, Mon. IV, p. 194.

[1243] Linc. Visit. I, pp. 67-8.

[1244] Ib. p. 65.

[1245] See below, p. 449.

[1246] Linc. Visit. II, p. 114. Alnwick made a very strong injunction: “For as mykelle as your saide monastery and diuerse singulere persones ther of are greuously noysed and sclaundred for the grete and contynuelle accesse and recourse of seculere and regulere persones, and in specyalle of scolers of Oxenford to your said monastery and seculere persones ther of, that fro hense forthe ye suffre no seculere persones scolers no othere ... to hafe any accesse or recourse to your said monastery ne to any singulere persone ther of, ne there to abyde nyght ne daye, etc.” Ib. pp. 115-6.

[1247] Ib. II, p. 218.

[1248] See V.C.H. Oxon. II, pp. 76-7.

[1249] Op. cit. f. 26d.

[1250] Gray, Priory of St Radegund, Cambridge, p. 35.

[1251] Dugdale, Mon. IV, p. 190. See below p. 602.

[1252] Lambeth Reg. Langham, f. 76d. Compare the note in Alnwick’s visitation of Studley (1445): “Sister Isabel Bartone. It is said that there is great recourse of seculare guests to the aforesaid Isabel and to her chamber.” Alnwick’s Visit. MS. f. 26d.

[1253] Archaeologia, XLVII, p. 57.

[1254] A few more examples may be quoted. At Swine one of the comperta of Giffard’s visitation in 1267-8 runs: “The household of Sir Robert de Hilton, knight, wanders about far too freely (nimis dissolute) in the cloister and parlour, and often holds very suspicious conversations with the nuns and sisters, whence it is feared that harm may come. And this same Robert is very injurious and dangerous to them, wherefore, for fear of his oppression, the canons of the house lately, without the consent of the convent, gave him a barn full of corn, with which the convent should have been maintained.” Reg. Walter Giffard, p. 148. At Nunmonkton in 1397 the Prioress, Margaret Fairfax, was ordered to see that John Munkton (the same who scandalised the convent by feasting and playing tables with her in her room), Sir William Aschby, chaplain, William Snowe and Thomas Pape held no conversation nor kept company with her, nor with any nun of her house, except in the presence of two of the elder nuns, and she was warned not to allow clerks to frequent the priory without reasonable cause. Dugdale, Mon. IV, p. 194. At Rusper in 1524 “a certain William Tychenor has frequent access to the said priory and there sows discord between the prioress and sisters and others living there.” Sussex Arch. Coll. V, p. 257. It will be noticed how often these suspected visitors are clerics; the prefix “sir” in the Nuncoton extract quoted in the text almost certainly denotes a churchman and the persons mentioned are probably secular clergy or canons from neighbouring houses such as Newhouse, probably chantry-priests and parish chaplains. See below, p. 416.

[1255] The following examples are typical of a host of others. At Nunappleton (1281) external visitors come into frater and cloister. Reg. William Wickwane, p. 141. At Rosedale (1306) the infirmary is to be kept from the passing to and fro of seculars; at Arthington (1318) they are not to frequent cloister, infirmary or other private places; at Nunburnholme (1318) there is scandal from the frequent access and gossiping of seculars with certain of the nuns. V.C.H. Yorks. III, pp. 119, 174. At Ickleton (1345) the precincts are not to be made the resort of any secular woman, nor is any such person to come into the choir during the hours of service. Goddard, Ickleton Church and Priory (Cambridge Antiq. Soc. Proc. XLV, p. 190). At Gracedieu (1440-1) seculars and nuns eat together commixtim in the Prioress’ hall. Linc. Visit. II, p. 122. At Heynings (1440) the infirmary was occupied by secular folk, “to the great disturbance of the sisters.” Ib. p. 133. At Romsey (1492) people stand about chatting in the middle of the choir. Liveing, op. cit. p. 220.

[1256] On the right of the patron or founder of a monastery, or of persons of noble birth, to enter the cloistral precincts, see Thiers, op. cit. pp. 296-309. He quotes the rule of Fontevrault (cap. VII): “If the most Christian King, the Queen, the Dauphin and other princes of the blood-royal, the founders and foundresses, being instantly besought, refuse nevertheless to desist from entering the precincts, let them enter with as small a suite of attendants as you can arrange, in long and decent garments and not otherwise; but let them not seek to pass the night on pain of excommunication.” Ib. p. 297. It was never possible in practice to keep out great lords and ladies.

[1257] Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell, f. 34d.

[1258] Linc. Visit. II, pp. 133-5, passim. Compare the injunctions to some Yorkshire houses: at Marrick (1252) the nuns were forbidden to sit with guests or anyone else outside the cloister after curfew, or for a long time unless the guests arrived so late that it was impossible to serve them sooner, nor was a nun to remain alone with a guest. At Hampole (1302) no nun except the hostillaria was to eat or drink in the guest-house, save with worthy people, and at Wilberfoss (1302) they were forbidden to linger in the guest-house or elsewhere, for amusement with seculars. V.C.H. Yorks. III, pp. 117, 126, 163. At Elstow in 1432, however, Bishop Gray enjoined “that when parents or friends or kinsfolk of nuns, or other persons of note and honesty, shall journey to the same monastery to visit any nuns of the said monastery, the same nuns be nowise bound for that day to observance of frater, but be excused to this end by grace of the abbess or president.” Visit. of Relig. Houses in Dioc. Linc. I, p. 54.

[1259] Reg. Epis. J. Peckham, III, pp. 851-2.

[1260] Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell, f. 100d.

[1261] Wykeham’s Reg. II, pp. 73-4. The special prohibition of friars is significant, for their reputation was growing worse and worse throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. See also V.C.H. Yorks. III, pp. 164, 171, 181 and Arch. XLVII, p. 57. On the other hand it should be noted that “during the later thirteenth and earlier fourteenth centuries the bishops in many dioceses made a point of insisting that the confessors to the nuns should be chosen, not from the secular clergy, but from the Mendicant Orders, especially from the Minorites.” A. G. Little, Studies in English Franciscan Hist. (1917), p. 119 (and the references which he gives).

[1262] Visit. of Relig. Houses in Dioc. Linc. I, p. 66.

[1263] Yorks. Arch. Journ. XVI, p. 441. Compare Alnwick’s injunctions to Catesby (1442), Langley (1440-1) and St Michael’s, Stamford (1440). Linc. Visit. II, pp. 51, 117, Alnwick’s MS. f. 83d.

[1264] Yorks. Arch. Journ. XVI, p. 452 (cf. p. 440). These injunctions were very common, for the rule was often broken. Peckham’s regulation for Wherwell (1284) was that no man was to enter after sunset at night, or before the end of chapter (which followed directly after Prime) in the morning. Reg. Epis. J. Peckham, II, p. 653. For other examples see Romsey (1302-11), Liveing, op. cit. pp. 102, 103; Moxby (1318), V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 239; Sopwell (1338), Dugdale, Mon. III, p. 366; Wroxall (1338), Worc. Reg. Sede Vacante, p. 275; Heynings (1351), Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell, f. 34d; Elstow (1387), ib., Reg. Memo. Bokyngham, f. 343: St Mary’s Neasham (1436), V.C.H. Durham, II, p. 107; St Helen’s, Bishopsgate (1439), Dugdale, Mon. IV, p. 552; Nunappleton (1489), V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 172; Studley (1530-1), Archaeologia, XLVII, p. 59; Nuncoton (1531), ib. pp. 56, 59.

[1265] This certainly seems very strict, for (as appears from the injunctions quoted) it was customary to order the doors to be shut when the bell rang for Compline, the last office of the day. Vespers was the service immediately before supper.

[1266] Cantarista usually means a chantry-priest. The more usual word is Precentrix.

[1267] Chaucer, Boke of the Duchesse, ll. 300-4.

[1268] E.H.R. VI, pp. 33-4.

[1269] This was reiterated in Ottobon’s Constitutions and in the Bull Periculoso. See also Thomas of Cantilupe’s letter to Lymbrook in 1277 (Reg. Thome de Cantilupo, p. 201) and Archbishop Peckham’s injunction to Godstow, both based upon Ottobon. Reg. Epis. J. Peckham, III, p. 848. Also Bishop Brantyngham’s commission concerning the nuns of Polsloe in 1376, which is based upon Periculoso. Reg. of Bishop Brantyngham, pt. II, pp. 152-3.

[1270] Reg. Epis. Johannis Peckham, II, pp. 652-3. Compare injunctions to Barking, ib. I, p. 84, and to St Sepulchre’s, Canterbury, ib. II, p. 706.

[1271] Ib. II, p. 663 “volentes ibi moniales curiose respicere vel cum eis garrulas attemptare.”

[1272] Archaeologia, XLVII, p. 52. Compare Bishop Gray’s injunction to Godstow in 1432-4. “Also that all the doors of the nuns’ lodgings towards the outer court, through which it is possible to enter into the cloister precinct, even if the other doors of the cloister be shut for the time being, be altogether blocked up, or that such means of barring or shutting be placed upon them that approach or entrance through the same doors may not be given to secular folk.” Linc. Visit. I, p. 68. Compare also Dean Kentwode’s injunction to St Helen’s, Bishopsgate, in 1432: “Also we injoyn yow, Prioresse, that there may be a doore at the Nonnes quere, that noo straungers may loke on them, nor they on the straungers, wanne thei bene at dyvyne service. Also we ordene and injoyne yow, prioresse, that there be made a hache of conabyll heythe, crestyd with pykys of herne to fore the entre of yowre kechyne, that noo straunge pepille may entre with certeyne cleketts avysed be yow and be yowre steward to suche personys as yow and hem thynk onest and conabell. Also we injoyne yew, prioresse, that non nonnes have noo keyes of the posterne doore that gothe owte of the cloystere into the churche yerd but the prioresse, for there is moche comyng in and owte unlefulle tymys.” Dugdale, Mon. IV, p. 554.