THE NUNS OF MEDIÆVAL ENGLAND
No account of English monastic life would be complete without some special
reference to the nuns and nunneries. It is, it may be first observed in
passing, altogether wrong to apply the word “convent” exclusively to
houses of nuns, as is so frequently done in these days. The title
“convent” as well as that of “monastery” and “abbey” was applicable to any
house of either monks or nuns, and the exclusive use of the word for a
religious house of women is, indeed, of quite modern origin.
It is unfortunate that our information in regard to the inner life of the
nuns in pre-Reformation England is so scanty. Beyond the delightful
picture we get of the social life of the nuns of Kington in Old Jacques’
recollections, as recorded by John Aubrey, and the charming portrait of
the prioress who
“Was so charitable and so pitous ...
and al was conscience and tendre herte,”
in Chaucer’s tales, there is but little information to be obtained about
the nuns of England; of the simple, hard, yet happy lives they led in
their cloistered homes, and of the ample charity they dispensed to all in
their immediate neighbourhood.
[Illustration: ELIZABETH HARVEY ABBESS OF ELSTOW]
Of course, so far as the usual forms, manners, and customs of cloister
life are concerned, what has been already said of the monastic method of
life generally, applies to nuns, with certain necessary reservations, as
well as to monks and canons. It will be useful, however, to furnish the
reader with some account of certain special features of female religious
life. One of the most charming mediæval pictures of that life is given in
an account of the abbesses of the Benedictine nunnery of Wherwell, in
Hampshire. It records the unblemished life and good deeds of the abbess
Euphemia, who ruled the house from A.D. 1226 to 1257, and is translated
from the chartulary of the abbey by the Rev. Dr. Cox in the second volume
of the _Victoria History of the County of Hampshire_. The account is too
delightful not to be given in full.
“On the 6th of the Kalends of May, in the year of grace 1257, died the
blessed mother abbess, Euphemia, most worthy to be remembered, who, by
our affection and good fellowship, and with divine sanction, succeeded
the late abbess Maud of sweet memory. It is, therefore, most fitting
that we should always perpetuate the memory, in our special prayers
and suffrages, of one who ever worked for the glory of God, and for
the weal of both our souls and bodies. For she increased the number of
the Lord’s handmaids in this monastery from forty to eighty, to the
exaltation of the worship of God. To her sisters, both in health and
sickness, she administered the necessaries of life with piety,
prudence, care, and honesty. She also increased the sum allowed for
garments by 12_d._ each. The example of her holy conversation and
charity, in conjunction with her pious exhortations and regular
discipline, caused each one to know how, in the words of the Apostle,
to possess her vessel in sanctification and honour. She also, with
maternal piety and careful forethought, built, for the use of both
sick and sound, a new and large infirmary away from the main
buildings, and in conjunction with it a dormitory with the necessary
offices. Beneath the infirmary she constructed a watercourse, through
which a stream flowed with sufficient force to carry off all refuse
that might corrupt the air.
“Moreover she built there a place set apart for the refreshment of the
soul, namely a chapel of the Blessed Virgin, which was erected outside
the cloister behind the infirmary. With the chapel she enclosed a
large space, which was adorned on the north side with pleasant vines
and trees. On the other side, by the river-bank, she built offices for
various uses, a space being left in the centre where the nuns are able
from time to time to enjoy the pure air. In these and in other
numberless ways, the blessed mother Euphemia provided for the worship
of God and the welfare of the sisters. But notwithstanding all this,
she also so conducted herself with regard to exterior affairs, that
she seemed to have the spirit of a man rather than of a woman. The
court of the abbey-manor, owing to the useless mass of squalid
outbuildings, and the propinquity of the kitchen to the granary and
old hall, was in much danger of fire; whilst the confined area and the
amount of animal refuse was a cause of offence to both the feet and
nostrils of those who had occasion to pass through. The mother
Euphemia, realising that the Lord had called her to the rule of the
abbey at Wherwell, not that she might live there at ease, but that she
might, with due care and despatch, uproot and destroy and dissipate
all that was noxious, and establish and erect that which would be
useful, demolished the whole of these buildings, levelled the court,
and erected a new hall of suitable size and height. She also built a
new mill, some distance from the hall, and constructed it with great
care in order that more work than formerly might be done therein for
the service of the house. She surrounded the court with a wall and the
necessary buildings, and round it she made gardens and vineyards and
shrubberies in places that were formerly useless and barren, and which
now became both serviceable and pleasant. The manor-house of
Middleton, which occupied a dry situation and was close to a public
thoroughfare, and was further disfigured by old and crumbling
buildings, she moved to another site, where she erected permanent
buildings, new and strong, on the bank of the river, together with
farmhouses. She also set to work in the same way at Tufton, in order
that the buildings of both the manor-houses in that neighbourhood
might be of greater service, and safer against the danger of fire.
These and other innumerable works, our good superior Euphemia
performed for the advantage of the house, but she was none the less
zealous in works of charity, gladly and freely exercising hospitality,
so that she and her daughters might find favour with One Whom Lot and
Abraham and others have pleased by the grace of hospitality. Moreover,
because she greatly loved to honour duly the House of God and the
place where His glory dwells, she adorned the church with crosses,
reliquaries, precious stones, vestments, and books. And because the
bell-tower above the dormitory fell down through decay one night,
about the hour of Matins, when by an obvious miracle from heaven,
though the nuns were at that moment in the dormitory, some in bed and
some in prayer before their beds, all escaped not only death but even
any bodily injury, she caused another bell-tower of worked stone to be
erected, conformable to the fair appearance of the church and the rest
of the buildings, of commanding height, and of exquisite workmanship.
But as she advanced in years, towards the end of her life, there was
imminent danger of the complete collapse of the presbytery of the
church; by the advice of skilled builders, she caused the presbytery
to be taken down to the last stones of the foundations; and because
the ground was found to be undermined and unsafe, she caused the damp
soil to be dug out to a depth of twelve feet till firm and dry ground
was found; when, having invoked the grace of the Holy Spirit, with
prayers and tears she laid with her own hands the first stone of the
foundations. Moreover she rejoiced to have found favour with God, so
that before her last days were ended she saw this work that she had
begun brought to its desired end. Thus she, who had devoted herself
when amongst us to the service of His house and the habitation of His
glory, found the due reward for her merits with our Lord Jesus Christ,
through the prayers and merits of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of the
blessed apostles SS. Peter and Paul, in whose honour, at the
instigation of the abbess Euphemia, this church was dedicated, who
with the Father and the Holy Ghost, ever liveth and reigneth God
through all the ages of eternity. Amen.”
Of the life, social and religious, led by the nuns of England, something
may be learnt from the few scattered account-books that have survived the
general destruction of documents in the sixteenth century. The following
sketch is founded upon one such paper-book of accounts now in the public
Record Office. It was printed privately some few years ago, and is here
reproduced as affording, in the judgment of some, a not uninteresting
glimpse into the cloister life and work led in the nunneries in the early
days of the fifteenth century. The accounts were kept in a small book by a
nun called Dame Petronilla.
[Illustration: BENEDICTINE NUNS IN CHOIR]
Her family name (or was it that of her birthplace?) was Dunwich, and in
keeping her accounts she had as assistant and auditor another nun, Dame
Katherine Midelton. Their convent was Grace Dieu in Leicestershire--the
only religious house of Augustinian nuns in England. The scanty but
picturesque ruins of their old convent may still be seen not far from the
present Cistercian Abbey of Mount St. Bernard, and quite near to Grace
Dieu Manor-house, the home of Ambrose Phillipps de Lisle. The convent was
founded in Charnwood Forest by Lady Rohesia de Verdon in the middle of the
thirteenth century, and it is said that the boundary of the garden, made
by the sisters to resemble that of Gethsemane, may yet be traced with a
little trouble. Wordsworth wrote several of his poems in the immediate
neighbourhood, and thus describes the situation of the old nunnery as
seen, or rather _not_ seen, from Cole Orton some few miles away:--
“Beneath yon eastern ridge, the craggy bound
Rugged and high of Charnwood’s forest ground
Stand yet, but, stranger, hidden from thy view,
The ivied ruins of forlorn Grace Dieu.”
Our guide-books, of course, ascribe the destruction of the convent in 1539
to the fact of serious complaints having been made of certain
irregularities on the part of the inmates. Most people nowadays know how
to estimate these “complaints” at their right value, proceeding as they
did from the Visitors of Henry VIII., who having been sent for the purpose
of finding evidence of irregularities to justify the intended spoliation,
of course found them. In the special case of this convent of Grace Dieu we
have subsequently the direct testimony of the country gentlemen of
Leicestershire, that the fifteen nuns following the rule of St. Austin
then inmates of the establishment, and whose good name had been so vilely
traduced by the king’s emissaries, were all “of good and virtuous
conversation and living,” and that their presence in the wilds of
Charnwood Forest was a blessing to the neighbourhood.
We are, however, concerned with the convent of Grace Dieu in much earlier
days: very nearly a century and a half before its final destruction in
1539. Dame Petronilla and Dame Katherine kept their accounts of the
establishment in this old paper-book “from the Feast of the Purification
of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first year of King Henry V.,” for four
years: that is, from 1414 to 1418. The volume in question, though simple
enough in its style of book-keeping, presents in reality the general
accounts of the house. Probably Dame Petronilla would have opened her eyes
very wide indeed at the present system of elaborate checks and
counter-checks devised to exercise the brains and possibly the patience of
modern cellarers, and “double entry” and such-like mysteries would
probably have seemed to her a useless expenditure of time and nerve-power,
and hardly consistent with the religious simplicity which ascetic writers
had taught her to cultivate. Her system is simplicity itself: so much
received for such a thing, ordinary or extraordinary: so much spent, and
on what; that is all.
In one point, however, this careful nun does not hesitate to take a
considerable amount of trouble. What would a cellarer say to-day, were he
or she asked to give the ages of all the live stock under their care! Dame
Petronilla would have been quite able to do so at any moment, for from
time to time she enters, not indeed the birthdays of the cattle and pigs,
but their ages. In 1415, for example, which by the way was the
ever-memorable year of Agincourt, this is her “tally” of all the pigs in
the keeping of the herd, Nicholas Swon (or should it be Swine?)
“5 boars, _i.e._--two aged three years, two aged two, and one aged
one; ten sows, _i.e._--nine at three years, and one aged one;
forty-one small pigs of a year, and thirty of six months old; ten full
grown pigs, and ten _porcelli lactantes sub matribus_ or sucking
pigs.”
Pork, it is clear, must have been one of the chief articles of food for
the nuns and their retainers, since there are frequent notices of pigs
transferred from the farm to the larder; on two occasions during the four
years, Dame Petronilla chronicles the death of a good many of the convent
pigs from disease. Their stock of cattle appears somewhat large at first
sight, till it is realised that with one thing and another there were a
good many mouths to feed in this establishment. Thus in one year we find a
list of 32 cows, “three of which had not calved; three bulls, 16 steers,
22 heifers and eight bull calves.” Besides this there were 27 yoke-oxen
under the care of their driver, and 29 calves, one of which on the
account-day is noted as having, since the making of the list, gone to the
cook to furnish forth the conventual dinner. At this same time Henry
Smyth, the outdoor bailiff, gives in the account of Henry, the shepherd,
which shows that he had 103 ewes and 52 lambs under his pastoral charge.
The revenue of the convent consisted chiefly of the rent of lands and
buildings and the sale of produce, timber and such-like. Thus we have the
rent of a farm at Belton put down as £21 17_s._ 9_d._, this being the
largest item in the receipts, and indeed a very large item in those days
from any farm rent. From another parcel of land, besides the rent, one
year Dame Petronilla and her assistant, Dame Katherine Midelton, account
for the price of sixteen quarters of lime at 9¾_d._ the quarter. Roger
Dan, the miller, pays a rent of £5 13_s._ 4_d._ for the mill at Belton,
and at the same time there is another receipt for “half a hundred
merkefish and twelve stone of cheese.” Besides these and other similar
sums which are entered under the heading of “ordinary,” we find, such
“extraordinary” receipts as £3 for twenty-four ash trees, and a few
shillings for the skins of lambs that had been used in the kitchen.
Another year we see that 100 kids were sold at 2_s._ each, and that there
was a sale of hurdles and faggots about Shrovetide. Thirty stone of wool
was purchased at one time by one Thomas Hunte, a neighbour, who, by the
way, had his two daughters evidently at school in the convent; once there
was a sale of fish from the mill down at Belton, and it brought into the
nuns’ exchequer over £6.
The mention of Thomas Hunte’s daughters may be supplemented by evidence in
these accounts of other children being under the care of the “White
Ladies” of Grace Dieu. Thomas Hunte appears to have paid at the rate of
17_s._ 4_d._ for each of his two children, but as it is expressly stated
that it was for their food only, probably their education was thrown in
without consideration. Lady Beaumont also had a daughter in the convent,
for whom she and her lord undertook to pay £2 13_s._ 4_d._ a year; but
when Dame Petronilla last made up her accounts, or rather in the last
account we have from her pen, the good nuns had only got £2. Lord
Beaumont, however, was evidently too great a personage to be reminded of
the missing 13_s._ 4_d._, and the convent authorities evidently desired to
stand well in his favour. They fed him well, for instance, when he came to
see his child; for on one occasion Dame Petronilla gives some of the
expenses of his entertainment. These included, besides 1½_d._ for “1
shoulder le molton,” and 8_d._ for two lambs, an almost unique payment for
two fowls for the nobleman’s table. This slight glimpse of the relations
between the convent and the neighbouring gentry, in regard to the
education of their children, affords a corroboration of one of the laments
made at the general dissolution, that their destruction was a terrible
thing for those who had hitherto made use of them for this purpose.
According to Robert Aske, the leader of the Pilgrimage of Grace, one of
the reasons why the Yorkshire people strongly resented their overthrow,
was because “in nunneries their daughters were brought up in virtue.”
Another practice revealed by these old accounts was that of people coming
to stop at the convent for the celebration of some of the greater feasts.
Thus for one “All Saints’ Day,” Mary de Ecton, Joan Villiers, and the two
daughters of Robert Neville were lodged and entertained by the nuns. These
visitors eventually made an offering for the hospitality shown them; as,
for instance, on this very occasion each of the Neville ladies paid 5_s._
and Joan Villiers 6_s._ 8_d._ The last-named lady was at Grace Dieu no
less than four several times in the year 1418, and each time left behind a
similar offering. At another time Giles Jurdon paid 7_s._ for the board of
his daughter during the week of Pentecost, when she probably came to visit
her sister, who, known as Dame Elizabeth, was a nun in the convent. Roger
Roby also, who was apparently the father of Dame Alice, was entertained by
the nuns twice in the year 1416, and gave an alms of 6_s._ 8_d._ at one
visit and 13_s._ 4_d._ at the other.
It may be of interest to give a list of the nuns at this time living in
Grace Dieu. They were fourteen in number, exclusive of the prioress, and
their names were:--
Dame Margaret Kempston, prioress.
Dame Alice Mortimer, sub-prioress.
Dame Margaret Twyford.
Dame Philippa Jake.
Dame Alice Dunwich.
Dame Katherine Midelton.
Dame Anne de Norton.
Dame Alice Roby.
Dame Margery Witham.
Dame Katherine Pounce.
Dame Alice Prestwold.
Dame Elizabeth Jurdon (originally put 3rd).
Dame Petronilla Dunwich (originally put 5th).
Dame Elizabeth Hakulthorp.
Dame Alice Powtrell or Pouncstrell.
The spiritual needs of this community were, of course, ministered to by a
chaplain. He is generally called “Sir William,” but on one occasion he
appears as “Sir William Granger, or Norwich.” He was paid 38_s._ 4_d._ a
year as his stipend, and this was to include 6_d._ as the price of a pair
of gloves. On certain occasions, as on the greater feasts, Sir William had
other clerical help, such as that of “Henry the Chaplain,” and the “Parson
of Hatherun.” It is not uninteresting to notice that the nuns’ little
present for the services of these reverend gentlemen was, it would seem,
delicately handed to them in purses purchased for the purpose. They had
also the ministration of an “extraordinary” confessor, a certain Friar
William Young, and to him was given 1_s._ 8_d._ for the expenses of his
journey each time he came to the convent. Something additional was, of
course, bestowed on him when, as in 1418, he remained to help in the
Holy-Week services. At times, not very frequently, “my Lady,” the
prioress, entertained the clergy at a little simple banquet; she did not
merely provide for them, for that, of course, the convent always did with
true hospitality; but she dined with them. Dame Petronilla does not say,
when they “dined with my Lady,” but when “my Lady dined with them,” as,
for example, when she notes on the Sunday within the octave of our Lady’s
Assumption in the year 1416: “a sucking-pig for the table of my Lady,
because to-day she dined with the Vicar.”
It may be mentioned that Dame Petronilla and her assistant Dame Katherine
made up their accounts from Sunday to Sunday, as far as expenses are
concerned, so that in running through the pages it is possible to form
some idea of how these good mediæval nuns lived. I do not think that the
most captious critic could charge them with feasting on the “fat of the
land,” or with much indulgence in the luxuries even of those primitive
days. There is one peculiarity, however, in these otherwise excellent
accounts, which rather interferes with a full knowledge of the
commissariat at Grace Dieu. The sisters did not think it necessary to
enter among the payments the value of the farm and garden produce they
consumed, beyond the cost of sowing and gathering into their barns.
However, we know that they must have eaten bread and made use of the
exceedingly few vegetables and pot-herbs that were then grown in the
gardens of England, so we may take these as additional to the “food
stuffs” shown in the accounts as paid for. A few examples will be
sufficient to give the reader an insight into the general catering at
Grace Dieu early in the fifteenth century. These are the first entries
among the expenses written by Dame Petronilla when she commenced her
duties as “Treasurer,” as she calls herself in one place, after the Feast
of the Purification, 1414.
“For two Sundays after the Purification purchased two small pigs price
6_d._ For house food during the time of Lent, £3 6_s._ 8_d._ For
seventy hard dried fish for the same time, 11_s._ 6_d._ A calf bought
for the convent for Quinquagesima Sunday (Shrovetide), 9_d._ Four
small pigs for the same day, 9_d._ Beef bought for the same day,
20_d._ Mustard bought at Ashby, 1_d._ Cheese bought on Friday in
Sexagesima week, 5_d._ Thomas Fene for 2 quarters of red-herrings for
Lent, 12_d._ Nicholas Swon (the swineherd, as the reader may
remember), 2_d._ for catching two small pike at the sluice.”
The Lenten arrangements for feeding the natural man and woman from Ash
Wednesday to Easter Sunday in those hardy and robust days are, even to
think of, enough to turn our refined and educated stomachs. Eggs, to a
certain limited extent, no doubt these good religious had; although, on
the principle before explained, we do not find them mentioned, except as
included in their natural producer, the domestic hen. But beyond this,
during all this penitential time, the staple food, here as everywhere
throughout England, was salted and dried fish. Conger, green fish, ling,
and codling stockfish, wealing or whiting, and mackerel are among those
named in Russell’s _Book of Nurture_ as the usual Lenten food. How tired
the mouth of even the most ascetic religious must have got of the taste of
salt fish, however much it was disguised with mustard sauce, or, as on
great festivals, “baken, dressed, and dished with white sugar”! No wonder
the rising generation in those primitive times were warned by Russell to
look carefully upon what they ate for fear they might light on some
unsavoury morsel; and “of all manner salt fish,” he says, “look ye pare
away the pele (skin) before beginning upon it.” No wonder that after six
weeks of salt herring, stockfish, and such-like, our ancestors in the
cloisters could look forward to the time-honoured Easter-day joke of “the
devil on horseback,” or a split red-herring riding as a jockey on the back
of a duck, perpetrated by the convent cook.
Lent, however, is naturally not a fair sample of the food supplied to the
Grace Dieu nuns, so let us take the page of expenses for Easter week. Here
it is:--
“A stall-fed ox, 16_s._ 1 pig from the farm. 3 small pigs, price
14_d._ 1 calf, price 2_s._ Almonds and rais (raisins), 12_d._, and for
Friday 150 fresh herrings and a stockfish (_i.e._ cod), 2_s._”
The almonds and raisins were a great luxury to the good sisters, and only
on a few other occasions during the four years of Dame Petronilla’s
housekeeping does this extraordinary expense occur! We cannot help
thinking, too, with what pleasure the nuns must have welcomed the change
of fish diet on the Friday in Easter week. Two shillings was in those days
a great sum to pay for any article of food, but the fresh sea fish must
have been scarce enough in Charnwood Forest before the days of railroads.
“White herring fresh, if it be seaward and newly caught, with the roe
white and tender,” says an old authority, “is toothsome food”; and the
_Book of Nurture_ tells “the cook” how best to prepare it for his master’s
eating.
“The white herring by the bak a brode ye splat him sure,
Both roe and bones voyded, then may your lord endure to eat merily
with mustard.”
We need not linger further over the food supplied to the sisters. One week
was very much like another, and the changes were few and far between. It
is not often that the accounts show such expenses as “paid to the wife of
James the miller for twelve chickens for the table, 12_d._”--spring
chickens, too, they must have been, for they were eaten on Low Sunday.
One All Saints’ Day, by the way, the nuns had four geese, for which the
price paid was 3_d._ each; and one Christmas Day their table was supplied
from the farm with nine fowls, and we are told they had seven at their
dinner, the other two being reserved to furnish forth their supper. Pork,
beef, veal, and fish: these were the ordinary dishes supplied. Mutton,
curiously, though not altogether rare, does not appear very frequently in
their _menu_, and lamb is named as a dish at only one of my lady
prioress’s little banquets; although the receipt for “lamb-skins sold from
the kitchen” shows that it was not altogether unknown to the common table.
Probably these nuns were “good housewives,” in the best sense, and
preferred to get all they could out of their flocks in the shape of wool,
etc., rather than eat tender, but tasteless and immature mutton.
It should be remembered that in the commissariat of Grace Dieu was
evidently included the feeding of the retainers of the convent, as well as
that of the nuns. These domestics were many, and were fed certainly as
well, and sometimes apparently better than were the ladies themselves. The
names of two-and-twenty men-servants and eight women who were retainers of
the convent, and their wages, or “rewards” as they are called, are
preserved in the account-book. They vary very considerably, from 26_s._
8_d._ paid to one Henry Smith, to 2_s._ 6_d._ bestowed on “Hirdeman”; and
among the women the difference ranges from 22_s._ 6_d._ paid to Isabel
Botelor, to 1_s._ 8_d._ to Matilda Gerrard. Henry Smith, named above,
seems to have been a sort of factotum, a real treasure and excellent
servant. He is called bailiff in one place, and was no doubt of a higher
standing than most of the others. Whatever there was to be done, inside
or outside the house, it is evident that no one but Henry Smith could see
to it properly.
Besides their wages, these retainers of the Augustinian dames had their
cottages and clothes looked to for them by the convent bursar. Thus before
the autumn work of cleaning the land and sowing the winter corn commences,
we find a record of “twenty-four pairs of shoes” given out, which are
charged to the convent account at 2_s._ 8½_d._--not the pair, but the two
dozen. This sum would appear, perhaps, ridiculously small, even for those
days, had we not some reason to think that the leather for making them was
provided to the local cobbler from the convent store; for on one occasion
Dame Petronilla notes that she paid 8_d._ for tanning (_pro albacione_)
the skin of a horse, bought of Robert Harston. Another present from the
nuns to their workpeople in view of these autumn works, the cost of which
appears in these accounts, was a pair of gloves to each of the thirty men
and women about to be engaged in the weeding and ditching and hedging; as
for their clothes, these were all made on the premises from the raw
material. Thus in one year we read:--
“Paid for the spinning of six score (bundles) of linen flax, 5_s._;
paid for weaving the three score ells of linen cloth from the same,
3_s._ 4_d._; paid for woofing and warping three-and-twenty ells of
woollen cloth, 6_s._ 2_d._; paid for spinning twenty lbs. of wool at
1¼_d._ the pound, 2_s._ 6_d._; paid for dyeing twenty-seven ells of
cloth blood red, at 4_d._ the ell, 7_s._ 8_d._; paid for spinning
woollen cloth for ordinary livery, 11_d._”; and so on.
All this evidently was for the clothes of the entire establishment,
including the men and women who worked on the farm, and in the laundry,
the kitchen, and the bakehouse, etc.
Curiously, as it seems to us perhaps now, each of the nuns had a maximum
allowance of 6_s._ 8_d._ a year for clothes. It taught them, no doubt, to
look after the articles of their dress with care and thrift, better than
if the white woollen tunic, scapular and veil, woven from the produce of
their own flock of sheep, and the still whiter linen wimple spun from the
flax and made into good sound cloth by their own hands, or at least under
their own direction, were to appear to drop from the hand of Providence
without reference to cost. One or two curious entries seem to show that
friends sometimes gave the annual sum allowed for the clothing of some of
the nuns. Thus one year William Roby paid “for the clothes of his
relation, Dame Agnes Roby”; and at another time Margaret Roby brought the
6_s._ 8_d._ for the same purpose when she came on a visit. One interesting
item of knowledge about the work of the nuns is conveyed in a brief entry
of receipt. It is clear that these ladies were good needlewomen, and their
work must have been exceptionally excellent, seeing that a cope was
purchased from them by a neighbouring rector for £10.
The indication that these accounts give us of the farming operations of
the Grace Dieu nuns is sufficient to make us wish that Dame Petronilla had
been a little more explicit; still we are grateful for what we learn about
the crops, and their sowing, and weeding, and gathering, the stacking of
the wheat, and oats, and peas, and the threshing out of the grain. Thus
the wages of Adam Baxter and his wife, and the wife of Robert Harston for
weeding thirty acres of barley are set down. Each of these, by the way,
had a pair of gloves given them before they were set to the task, and the
entire work cost the convent 10_s._ 3_d._ Three men beyond the usual farm
staff were ordinarily employed in cutting the grass, and in making and
stacking the hay. In the general harvesting, men and women were employed
in the fields; and, be it remarked, their labour was paid for at the same
rate. What are called the autumn works--the harvesting and the subsequent
cleaning of the ground--seem to have lasted about seven or eight weeks,
and were begun soon after the feast of the Assumption of our Blessed Lady.
It is curious, and not uninteresting, to find that the Irish came over for
the harvesting in Leicestershire in the fifteenth century as they do now;
thus we have Mathew Irishman and Isabel Irish named, together with Edward
Welshman, as engaged in the fields of Grace Dieu in 1415. Altogether, the
cost of the extra labour in the autumn works amounted to nearly £10, a
large sum indeed in those days.
Besides payments of extra money for the harvesting and regular work, some
indication of the kindly way in which the good nuns recognised the
services of their dependents on special occasions appears in these
accounts. In the lambing season, for instance, Henry, the shepherd, was
given 2_d._ “for his good service and care of the sheep,” and John
Stapulford received the same sum “for looking after the lambs before their
weaning,” whilst John Warren for “fold-hurdling” was rewarded with 1_s._;
and to take another instance of a somewhat different kind, the convent
bailiff at Kirby, one Richard Marston, was given a purse, as a sign that
the nuns appreciated his care of their property. One chance entry shows
that when the sheep were being sheared, the labourers were given extra
meat for their meals, since Dame Petronilla gives 16_d._ for a calf to
feed them specially, on a day when evidently she and her sisters in
religion were eating fish in the convent refectory.
A word must now be said about that necessary item in the accounts of every
well-regulated religious house, “repairs.” These seem to have exercised
the two bursars of Grace Dieu very considerably. The special trouble
evidently began with the roof of the house. In the first year of their
stewardship they had in, of course, Robert the Slater, and for some reason
his bill was only partly met in that twelvemonth. All during Lent, he and
his mate were at work mending holes, and making others. From the house his
ministrations extended to the cloister. Then came the gutters all over the
establishment, which stood in urgent need of attention, as gutters always
appear to do, even in our more civilised days. Next it was found that the
church must be looked to; and before this was over, the dependants had
come to the conclusion that whilst all this repairing was being done at
the convent and Robert the Slater was about with his mate and his material
upon the ground, it would be a pity not to renovate their cottages. Poor
Dame Petronilla must have been well-nigh distracted at the thought that
Robert the Slater--who, by the way, did more than roofing, and seems to
have been a jack-of-all-trades, though loose tiles were his forte--having
once secured a foothold in the establishment, had come to stay. But she
gave in with exemplary resignation, and the dependants had their cottages
repaired, or what was the same thing, received money to pay for them.
Taking one thing with another, more than £10 went in this way during the
first year of the procuratorial reign of Dames Petronilla and Katherine.
Among the workmen that haunted Grace Dieu in these days, and who, if there
is any fitness in things so far as ghosts are concerned, ought to be found
haunting the ruins to-day, was one called Richard Hyrenmonger. He came, we
learn, from Donington, and the accounts prove that he must have had a good
store of all kinds of nails, and keys, and bolts, judging by the variety
he was able to produce. Under him worked John the Plumber, or rather two
Johns the Plumber, senior and junior; and, like modern plumbers are wont
to do, they appear to have plagued Dame Petronilla and her assistant with
their constant tinkering at the pipes and drains of the establishment.
“John the senior” and “John the junior,” for example, were six days
mending “le pype,” for which they were paid 3_s._ 4_d._; but apparently it
was not properly done, for just after this, “le pype” misbehaved itself
again, and Dame Petronilla had to purchase a new _brass_ pipe to bring the
water to the door of the refectory, and the two Johns were at work again.
Of course Richard the Ironmonger always found a lot of work for himself on
the farm, so that what with one thing and another, Grace Dieu must have
been a very comfortable inheritance for him.
Among the miscellaneous manners and customs of the good nuns of Grace Dieu
which are recalled to us in these faded papers of accounts, very few of
course can find place here. One such is the yearly visit of the
candle-maker to prepare the tallow dips for the dark winter evenings. The
preparation made for his coming appears in the purchase of tallow and
mutton fat to be used for rush-lights and cresset-lights, which must have
done hardly more than make visible the darkness of a winter evening and an
early winter morning at Grace Dieu. My lady prioress apparently had an
oil lamp of some kind, and we read of special candles for the wash-place
and at the door of the refectory, etc. It is to be supposed that the nuns
had some means of warming themselves during the cold winter months, for we
read of a travelling tinker employed upon mending a chimney to the hall
fireplace, and probably they were burning logs from out of Charnwood
somewhere or other; but in these accounts there is no mention of fuel
except on one occasion, when Richard the Ironmonger had some coal
purchased for him; but this was only that he might heat a ploughshare that
had got out of shape.
Another most important matter in mediæval times was the annual salting of
the winter provisions which took place in every establishment. On St.
Martin’s Day, November 11th, the mediæval farmer considered seriously what
was the number of his live stock, what was his store of hay, and how long
the one could be kept by the other. The residue of the stock had to go
into the salting-tub for the winter food of the family and dependants. So
at Grace Dieu the purchase of the salt for the great operation is entered
in the accounts. On one occasion also Dame Petronilla, “when a boar was
killed”--whether by accident or not does not appear--had it spiced as well
as salted, and it was no doubt served up on great occasions as a special
delicacy in the common refectory.
The picture of the Grace Dieu nuns afforded by these accounts is that of
charming, peace-loving ladies; good practical Christian women, as all nuns
should be; taking a personal interest in the welfare of their tenants and
dependants; occupied, over and besides their conventual and religious
duties, in works of genuine charity. They taught the daughters of the
neighbouring gentry, and were not too exacting in requiring even what had
been promised as the annual pension. They encouraged ladies to come and
join them in celebrating the festivals of the church, and out of their
small means they set aside a not insignificant portion for the care and
clothing of sick in their infirmary; whilst out of their income they found
not less than eight corrodies--or pensions--which cost them £7 7_s._
4_d._, or more than five per cent. of their annual revenue. Of their work
mention has already been made. They grew the wool and spun it and wove it
into cloth, not only for their own garments, but also for those of their
retainers; whilst a chance entry of receipt reveals that they were indeed
skilled in a high degree in ecclesiastical embroidery. That they were not
guilty of “dilapidation” of their house their extensive repairs prove; and
that they cared for their lands and farm buildings must be obvious from
the purchases made, and the items of expense in connection with every kind
of agricultural implement. They took their burden in common ecclesiastical
expenses, even contributing their quota of 3_d._ towards the expenses of
the _Procurator cleri_ of the district to Convocation. They were
peace-loving, if we may judge from the absence of all law expenses, save
and except one small item for an appearance at the local marshal’s court,
and whether even this was for themselves or for one of their tenants, and
what it was about, does not appear. As it was only 2_d._, it could not
have been much to interfere with the general harmony which apparently
existed in the neighbourhood. They lived, too, within their income, which
was, more or less, £103 13_s._ 6_d._ a year. It is true that in the first
year, owing probably to the exceptional repairs which the nuns undertook,
they went somewhat beyond their means. The sum was only slight, being but
£7 11_s._ 10½_d._, and it is pleasant to observe that “out of love of the
nuns,” and “to relieve the house of anxiety,” a lady paid the deficit,
making her gift £7 12_s._
Dame Petronilla and Dame Margaret! how little they could have thought when
they penned their simple accounts that they would have given such
pleasurable information five hundred years after their time! How little
they could ever have dreamed of the pleasant light their jottings would
have thrown on so many of their doings and their little ways! They were
kind, prudent, charitable souls, without a doubt, and if they might at
times have used better ink than they did, that fault was a point of holy
parsimony. And if they might have given here and there just a little more
information on certain points, they are willingly forgiven and more than
forgiven, for what they have left to posterity. Their souls, oft so
troubled and vexed by the many cares incidental to the office of a
conventual Martha, have long doubtless been in peace, and their spirits no
longer vexed by Richard the “Hyrenmonger” and the two Johns, the senior
and junior plumbers. What would they think, could they to-day revisit the
scene of their former labours and cares? The old home they evidently loved
so well is past repairing now, and not even the kindly help of that old
servant and friend of the convent, Henry Smith, could avail to suggest the
best way of setting about reparation.
[Illustration: FRANCISCAN NUNS IN CHOIR]
All the larger nunneries and probably most of the smaller ones, to
whatever Order they belonged, opened their doors for the education of
young girls, who were frequently boarders. In fact the female portion of
the population, the poor as well as the rich, had in the convents their
only schools, nuns their only teachers, in pre-Reformation times. Chaucer,
in describing the well-to-do miller of Trompington, says--
“A wyf he hadde, come of noble kyn;
Sche was i-fostryd in a nonnery ...
Ther durste no wight clepe hir but _Madame_
What for hir kindred and hir nortelry
That sche had lerned in the nonnerye.”
John Aubrey, too, writes almost as an eye-witness of the Wiltshire
convents that “the young maids were brought up ... at nunneries, where
they had examples of piety, and humility, and modesty, and obedience to
imitate and to practise. Here they learned needlework, the art of
confectionery, surgery (for anciently there were no apothecaries or
surgeons--the gentlewomen did cure their poor neighbours: their hands are
now too fine), physic, writing, drawing, etc. Old Jacques could see from
his house the nuns of the priory (St. Mary’s, near Kington St. Michael)
come forth into the nymph-hay with their rocks and wheels to spin: and
with their sewing work. He would say that he had told threescore and ten:
but of nuns there were not so many, but in all, with lay sisters and
widows, old maids and young girls, there might be such a number. This,” he
concludes, “was a fine way of breeding up young women, who are led more by
example than precept; and a good retirement for widows and grave single
women to a civil, virtuous, and holy life.”
In the well-known case of Nunnaminster, Winchester, there were, at the
time of the suppression, twenty-six girl boarders who were reported by the
local commissioners to be daughters of “lords, knights, and gentlemen.”
The list that is set forth begins with a Plantagenet and includes
Tichbornes, Poles, and Tyrrells. So, too, in the case of the Benedictines
of Barking, of Kingsmead, Derby, and of Polesworth and Nuneaton,
Warwickshire; of the Cluniacs of Delapré, Northampton; of the Cistercians
of Wintney, Hants; and of the Gilbertines of Shouldham, Norfolk, it can be
established that not only were many of the nuns of good birth, but that
their pupils were in the main drawn from the same class.
_The Episcopal Visitations of the Diocese of Norwich_ for 1492 to 1532,
edited by Dr. Jessop, throw some interesting light on the inner life and
social working of the nunneries of East Anglia. From the names of the
inmates it becomes evident that some of these houses were in the main
occupied by ladies of gentle birth, such as Willoughbys, Everards,
Wingfields, Jerninghams, and the like. This was especially the case with
the Austin house of Campsey and the Benedictine houses of Bungay and
Thetford. When Bishop Nicke visited the last of these houses in 1514,
complaint was made to him by one of the ladies that the prioress was
intending to admit an ignorant (_indocta_) novice, and particularly one
Dorothy Sturges, who was deaf and deformed. Apparently the arguments of
the objector prevailed, but poor Dorothy was, not long after, admitted to
the smaller nunnery of Blackborough.
When the priory of Carrow, a favourite retreat for the religious daughters
of the citizens of Norwich, was visited in 1526, several of the ladies
were advanced in years. The sub-prioress, Dame Anna Marten, had been in
the convent for sixty years, and two others, Dames Margaret and Katherine,
had been thirty-eight years in religion. It is a little touching to note
that almost the only complaints that reached the bishop’s ears were those
of the aged sub-prioress and Dame Margaret that the pace of chanting the
Office by the sisters was too rapid, and lacking the proper pauses, and
that of Dame Katherine who found the beer too small. At the next recorded
visitation, six years later, all these good old ladies were still at
Carrow, though Dame Anna’s age did not allow her to discharge the duties
of sub-prioress; but she was then (1532) in charge of the infirmary. At
this time the bishop interfered, probably at the suggestion of the aged
dames, to stop an accustomed Christmas game (on Holy Innocents’ Day), when
the youngest of the novices assumed the functions of a lady abbess, after
the same fashion as a boy-bishop amongst the choir boys. The nuns of
Carrow maintained a school for some of the better-class girls of the city
and district, and doubtless this Christmas-tide sport was intended in the
main for their delectation.
[Illustration: NUN ASKING PARDON OF AN ABBESS]