ST. HELEN’S
The foundation of this House of Benedictine Nuns was in or about the
year 1212, when Alardus de Burnham, who died in 1216, was Dean of St.
Paul’s. The right, or permission, to found the House is contained in a
deed still preserved.
The seal of the convent represents the finding of the Cross by St.
Helen: she stands beside the Cross, holding in her hand the three
nails, while a crowd of nuns are on their knees with uplifted hands.
In 1439 the then Dean, Reynold Kentwode, drew up a new set of Rules for
the use of the Sisters. The following are the principal clauses:—
“‘Reynold Kentwode, Dean and Chapeter of the Church of Poules, to the
religious women, Prioresse and Covent of the Priory of Seynt Eleyns,
of owre patronage and jurisdictyon immediat, and every Nunne of the
sayde Priory, gretyng in God, with desyre of religyous observances
and devocyon. For as moche as in owre visitacyon ordinarye in youre
Priorye boothe in the hedde, and in the membris late actually exersyd,
we have founded many defautes and excesses, the whiche nedythe notory
correccyon and reformacyon, we wyllyng vertu to be cherished, and holy
relygion for to be kepte, as in the rules in youre ordyerre, we ordeyne
and make certeyne Ordenauns and Injunccyons, weche we sende you wrete
and seeled undir owre commone seele, for to be kepte in forme as thei
ben articled and wretyn unto you.
Firste, we ordeyne and enjoyne yow, that devyne servyce be don by yow
duly nythe and day, and silence duly kepte in the tyme and place, aftir
the observaunce of yowre religione.
Also we ordayne and enjoyne you Prioresse and Covente, and eche of
you synglerly, that ye make due and hole confession to the confessor
assigned be us.
Also we enjoyne yow Prioresse and Covent, that ye ordeyne convenyent
place of firmarye, in the wiche youre seeke sustres may be honestly
kepte and relevyd with the costes and expences of yowre house,
accustomed in the relygion durynge the tyme of heere sikenesse.
Also we enjoyne you Prioresse, that ye kepe youre dortour, and ly
thereinne by nythe, aftyr observaunce of yowre religion, without that
the case be suche that the lawe and the observaunce of youre religione
suffreth yow to do the contrarye.
Also we ordeyne and injoyne yow Prioresse and Covent, that noo
seculere be lokkyed withinne the boundes of the cloystere; ne no
seculere personnes come withinne aftyr the belle of complyne, except,
wym-ment servauntes and made childeryne lerners, also admitte noon,
sojournauntes wymment withoute lycence of us.
[Illustration: Sir Thos. Gresham. Sir Wm. Pickering. Sir John and
Lady Crosby.
SOUTH-WEST VIEW OF THE INTERIOR OF THE CHURCH OF ST. HELEN, BISHOPSGATE
STREET
Taken during the repair in 1808. Exhibiting also some of the principal
Monuments.
_Londina Illustrata_, published 1817 by Robert Wilkinson.]
Also we ordeyne and enjoyne yow Prioresse and Covent, that ye, ne noone
of yowre sustres use nor haunte any place withinne the Priory, thoroghe
the wiche evel suspeccyone or sclaundere mythe aryse; weche places, for
certeyne causes that move us, we wryte not here inne in oure present
injunccyone, but wole notyfie to yow Prioresse; nor have no lokyng nor
spectacles owte warde, thorght the wiche ye mythe falle in worldlye
delectacyone.
Also we enjoyne yow, that alle daunsyng and revelyng be utterlely
forborne among yow, except Christmasse and other honest tymys of
recreacyone, among youre selfe usyd, in absence of seculers in all wyse.
[Illustration: SOUTH-EAST VIEW OF THE NUNNERY OF ST. HELEN, BISHOPSGATE
STREET
_Londina Illustrata_, published 1819 by Robert Wilkinson, 125 Fenchurch
Street.]
Also we ordene and injoyne yow Prioresse, that there be made a hache of
cenabyle [reasonable?] heythe, crestyd withe 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 st’ward to suche personys
as yow and hem thynk onest and conabell.
Also we enjoyne yow Prioresse, that non nonnes have noo keyes of the
posterne doore that gothe owte of the cloystere in the churchyard but
the Prioresse, for there is moche comyng in and owte unlefulle tymys.’”
(_Londina Illustrata_, vol. i.)
At the Dissolution the revenues of this House were valued, according to
Dugdale, at £314: 12: 5, and according to Speed at £376: 6s.
The site and the church were given to Cromwell. Edward the Sixth gave
the advowson to the Bishop of London, but it has since returned to the
Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s.
The buildings were purchased by the Leathersellers’ Company, who
converted the Nuns’ Hall into their Common Hall, and so it continued
until the demolition of all the ancient buildings in 1799.
It appears from Malcolm that he believed the Nuns’ Hall to have been
demolished, and a new hall built in 1567. These are his words:—
“We will suppose the monastery of St. Helen demolished, the materials
disposed of, and the purchase of the site compleated by the Company.
The architect finds a foundation far superior to any their funds would
supply, and therefore cases the basement walls with brick, and makes
the pavement (ready for his purpose) serve as the floor for the new
Hall. And thus far he acted wisely; for his work of 1567 became too
ruinous and expensive for repair in 1797, was taken down, and will
be forgotten. What remains to be said of the antient crypt? That it
would not have required repair for 500 years to come. Had the enormous
masses of fungous webs, which depended from the arches of this
beautiful work, been carefully swept away, and the walls rubbed with a
dry broom, the antient windows re-opened, the earth that clogged the
pavement removed, and its other defilements cleared off, these crypts,
now scattered in piles of rubbish, would have formed a church how
infinitely superior to forty I could name!
The regret with which I saw those slender pillars torn from their
bases, and the strong though delicate arches sundered in masses, is
still warm to my remembrance. The angles were filled with white sand,
a layer of earth, another of sand, a layer of oak chips; one now lays
before me. Six hundred years have passed since this wood was cut, and
the mark of the axe is fresh upon it, and so on till the spaces were
filled.” (Vol. iii. pp. 562-563.)
The representation of the hall given by Wilkinson and that given by
Malcolm do not seem to agree in all particulars.
Malcolm adds a view not presented by Wilkinson showing the ruins of the
cloisters.
I have elsewhere called attention to the remarkable fact that London
possessed, down to the end of the eighteenth century, a greater
collection of mediæval ruins than any city of Europe, and that no one,
poet, historian, antiquary, essayist, took the least notice of them.
Wilkinson, however, does remark that the group of ruins “reminds us
rather of some romantic fragment of antiquity to be found in distant
countries than of one situated in the very centre of populous London,
and were it not for the modern buildings made out in the background, a
spectator might be led to imagine the scene many miles distant from the
Metropolis of England.”
This House of Benedictine Nuns pursued its uneventful course for
more than three hundred years. Now and then the nuns stopped a lane
across their property, or they let their land at long leases, or they
inherited new lands, or they mismanaged and wasted their property, or
they buried a Prioress and had to elect another. Very little else can
be recorded of them. It was on this land that Crosby House was built
on a ninety-nine years’ lease. Meantime, the church of St. Helen’s did
duty both for the nuns and for the parish.
In the year 1534 the value of the House was estimated at £376: 6s.
a year. The property of the nuns shows that this House was always
exclusively a London Foundation. They had houses in the City, in
Middlesex, Kent, Essex, Hertford, and Buckingham—but these were all
home counties. In the country they held little, if any, property.
[Illustration: _W. Capon del._ _Wise sculp._
THE CRYPT OF THE NUNNERY OF ST. HELEN IN BISHOPSGATE STREET
From the north, showing the situation of the two Chapels at the south
end. The upper part of the plate exhibits the ceiling, etc., of a fine
apartment over the crypt, which was used as the dining hall of the
Leathersellers’ Company, by whom the Nunnery had been purchased after
the Reformation, and which was pulled down by their order in 1799. The
site is occupied by the buildings now forming St. Helen’s Place.
_Londina Illustrata_, vol. i.]
The collection of facts concerning the last years of the nunnery, made
by the late Rev. Thomas Hugo, throws considerable light on the position
of the House.
In the first place, the names of the successive Prioresses and those of
the Sisters seem to be chiefly of London origin; secondly, the bequests
recorded in the _Calendar of Wills_, twenty-seven in number, are all
made by London citizens. They are, moreover, situated in various wards,
showing that the House was regarded as belonging to the whole of the
City, and not to any part of it. Some of the bequests are made without
any specified purpose; some have conditions and duties attached; thus,
one is for providing communion wine, while others are to be accompanied
by permission of burial in the church.
In reading the disposition and management of their property by the
nuns, one cannot avoid the suspicion that they were sometimes under the
influence of certain persons not wholly disinterested. Thus, there was
one Richard Berde, citizen and girdler. He first takes over a tenement
in the parish of St. Ethelburga belonging to the House for a term of
forty years at the rent of 20s. He then takes another tenement in the
same parish for sixty years at 45s. a year. Then he becomes tenant to
the Sisters for the great messuage, or inn, called the “Black Bull,”
with cellars, etc., and two adjoining tenements for one-and-twenty
years at a rent of £9: 14s. a year. So that he became the holder on
long leases of one great house and four tenements. It is perfectly
certain, of course, that he intended to sublet them all at a profit
to himself, and that the Sisters in this transaction got the worst of
it. But Richard Berde got more than this out of the nuns: they made
him their seneschal, receiver and collector, with a salary of £12, the
annual sum of 20s. for his livery, board and lodging, with allowances
of beer and wine, an allowance of fuel, and the free use of a chamber
and a parlour. The Dissolution must have been a heavy blow to good
Richard Berde: he lost his salary and his allowances; one supposes that
he was still allowed to retain his tenancy of the houses. He received
a pension of 40s., but what was that compared with the extremely
comfortable little job that was taken away?
The name of the last Prioress was Mary Rollesley. What relative was
this lady to John Rollesley, gentleman? One asks because John Rollesley
seems to have done pretty well with the Sisters, too. He got the manor
of Burston from them on a lease for eighty years at a rent of £9. And
the year after this concession, he obtained a messuage in the Close
of St. Helen’s, which must have been a great house, because it had
been occupied by the Bishop of Llandaff, on a lease of fourscore years
at a rent of 46s. 8d. More than that, he obtained the lease, for the
same time, of ten tenements, also in St. Helen’s Close, at a yearly
rent of £15. And on the same day he got two more tenements outside the
Close and a marsh at Stebenhithe (Stepney) for a term of sixty years
at a rent of £8: 15: 4. Two years later the grateful nuns gave John
Rollesley a small pension of four marks a year for good counsel, and
Edward Rollesley, gentleman—clearly one of the same family,—received
an annuity of 40s. also for good counsel. One of the last acts of the
last Prioress was to leave to John Rollesley the manor of Marke, in the
parish of Leyton and Walthamstow, for fourscore years at a rent of £8.
Probably all the estates of the House were let in this way to men who
farmed them, making their profit by subletting them. These facts show
how lucky it might be, in the blessed and religious days before the
Reformation, for a family to have a Prioress among them.
[Illustration: SEALS OF ST. HELEN’S NUNNERY
_Londina Illustrata_, vol. i.]
We note, further, that the nuns paid a chief steward, a receiver, and
an auditor; that they paid pension to three chantry chaplains; and
yearly payments to the church wardens of St. Mary Bothaw, to the
wardens of a fraternity in Bow Church, to the Bishop of Lincoln for
procurations, etc., to the Abbess of Barking, and annual doles to the
poor on certain days. All these facts, taken together, seem to throw
unexpected light upon the ramifications and divisions of ecclesiastical
property.
The nuns were dispersed in 1538. Eighteen years later, in 1556, a list
of the survivors shows that the last Prioress, Mary Rollesley, and
six sisters, still survived. Of these six sisters, five received a
pension of £2: 13: 4, and one, who had probably held some conventual
post, received a pension of £3: 6: 8. At the Dissolution there were two
Chantry Priests who had stipends of £8 and £7 respectively.
A considerable part of the ruins of this House was standing until
the end of the eighteenth century. Wilkinson has figured some of the
details. The following description is from the Survey of the King’s
Offices, taken when the nuns left it (_Archæologia_, vol. xvi. 1806):—
“_The late Priorye of Saint Elenes within the Citye of London._
The View and Surveye ther taken the xxith daye of June, in the xxxiij
Yeare of the raigne of our Soveraigne Lord Kinge Henrye the viijth, by
Thomas Mildmay, one of the King’s Auditors thereunto assigned. That is
to saye,
Fyrste, the cheaf entre or cominge into the same late Priory ys in and
by the street gate lyying in the pishe of St. Elenes in Bysshopsgate
Streat which leadeth to a little cowrte next adjoining to the same
gate, havinge chambers, howses, and buyldinges, environinge the same,
out of wch cowrte there is an entre leadinge to an inner cowrte wch
on the North side is also likewies environed with edificyons and
buyldings, called the Stewardes lodging, with a Countinge house
apperteninge to the same. Item, next to the same cowrte ther ys a
faire Kechinge, withe a pastery house, larder houses, and other
howses of office, apperteninge to the same: and at the Est ende of
the same Kechyn and entre leadinge to the same hall, with a litle
plor adioyning, having under the same hall and plor sondrie bowses of
office, next adioyning to the Cloyster ther, and one howse called the
Covent plor. Item, iij. fair Chambers adioyninge to the hall, whearof
the one over the entree leadinge to the cloyster, thother over the
Buttree, and the third over the larder. Item, from the said entre by
the hall, to the Cloyster, which cloyster yet remaneth holly leaded,
and at the North side of the same cloyster a fare long howse called the
Fratree. Item, at thest end of the same Cloyster, a lodginge called
the Suppryors lodging, with a little gardin lieng to the same. And
by the same lodginge a pare of staires leading to the Dortor, at the
Southend whearof ther is a litle hows, wherein the Evidence of the said
hows nowe dou remayne, with all howses and lodginges under the same
Dortor. Item, at the Westende of the same cloyster, a dore leadinge in
to the nunes late Quire, extending from the dore out of the churche
yarde unto the lampe or pticyon deviding the priorye from the pisshe
which is holly leaded. Item, at thest ende of the said cloyster, an
entre leading to a little Garden, and out of the same littell garden
to a faire garden called the Covent garden conteninge by estimacn half
an acre. And, at the Northend of the said garden, a dore leading to
another garden called the Kechin garden: and at the Westende of the
same ther is a Dovehowsshe; and in the same garden a dore to a faire
Woodyerd, with howses, pticons, and gardens, within the same Woodyerd
a tenement with a garden, a stable, and other thapptances to the same
belonginge, called Elizabeth Hawtes lodginge.”
Ogilby’s map (see end of _London in the Time of the Stuarts_) shows the
site as it was a hundred years later. There is part of the cloister
left, part of the nuns’ garden. As for limits in 1542, the southern
boundary of the Nunnery was the partition wall dividing the church of
St. Helen’s; the eastern boundary was St. Mary Axe, or perhaps a row of
houses on the west side; the western boundary was Bishopsgate Street
within, and the northern was Camomile Street, or London Wall, unless
there was a row of houses on its south side.
I have before me a voluminous mass of MS. notes referring to this
important London House. Most of the notes are of small importance. It
must, however, be acknowledged that the chronicles of the House show,
perhaps, more quarrels than we find in the monasteries of men.
In 1432 the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s issue ordinances for
the Reformation of the Convent. A little earlier the same body
excommunicate a certain Jowsa or Joyssa who, after taking the veil as a
professed nun of St. Helen’s, left the House and contracted marriage.
About the same time there was a scandal concerning the treatment of
Joan Heyron, one of the nuns, by the Prioress. Joan had gout in her
hands and feet so badly that she could not perform her canonical
duties. The Prioress, probably thinking that Joan was shamming, had,
therefore, put her in prison, from which the Dean of St. Paul’s ordered
her release, and the Pope—no less an authority—gave instructions for
her maintenance. This little anecdote opens the door for speculation
of a very interesting kind as to the Row Royal which should demand the
intervention of the Dean first, and an appeal to the Pope afterwards.
One understands, for instance, that Joan Heyron was a Londoner by
birth, that she had relations of influence, and that they were not
going to stand it. We find the admission of Chantry priests by bequest;
petitions to elect a prioress in the room of the late sister deceased;
grants of tenements; petitions for a market; and so on.