THE HEAD OF THE HOUSE
"My lady Prioresse, by your leve
So that I wiste I sholde you not greve,
I wolde demen that ye tellen sholde
A tale next, if so were that ye wolde.
Now wol ye vouche-sauf, my lady dere?"
"Gladly" quod she, and seyde as ye shal here.
CHAUCER.
It usually happened that the head of a nunnery was a woman of some social
standing in her own right. All nuns were Christ's brides, but an earthly
father in the neighbourhood, with broad acres and loose purse strings, was
not to be despised. If a great lady retired to a nunnery she was very like
to end as its head; Barking Abbey in Essex had a long line of well-born
abbesses, including three queens and two princesses; and when Katherine de
la Pole (the youngest daughter of that earl of Suffolk who was slain at
Agincourt) is found holding the position of abbess at the tender age of
twenty-two, it is an irresistible inference that her birth was a factor in
the choice[151]. The advantage in having a woman of local influence and
rich connections as prioress is illustrated in the history of Crabhouse
nunnery under Joan Wiggenhall[152]; how she worked and built "be the grace
of oure Lord God an be the helpe of Edmund Perys, Person of Watlington,"
her cousin; and how
whanne this good man beforeseyde was passid to God, oure Lord that is
ful graciouse to alle his servauntis that have nede and that troste on
hym, sente hem anothir goode frende hem to helpe and comforte in her
nede, clepid Mayster Jon Wygenale, Doctoure of Canon and person of
Oxborow, and Cosyn to the same Prioresse;
and how
in the xix yere of the same Prioresse, ffel a grete derth of corne,
wherefore sche muste nedis have lefte werke with oute relevynge and
helpe of sum goode creature, so, be the steringe of oure Lord, Mayster
Jon Wygenale befor sayde sente us of his charite an 100 cowmbe malte
and an 100 coumbe Barly and besyde this procurid us xx mark. And for
the soule of my lord of Exetyr, of whos soule God of hys pyte he wil
have mercy, we had of him xl pounte and v mark to the same werke,
whiche drewe ccc mark, without mete and drinke. And within these vij
yere that the dortoure was in makynge the place at Lynne clepped
Corner Bothe was at the gate downe and no profite came to the place
many yeris beforne. So that maystir Jon before seyde of hys gret
charite lente the same prioresse good to make it up ageyne and
procured hir xx mark of the sekatouris of Roger Chapeleyn[153].
The election of a superior was a complicated business, as may be gathered
from the list of seventeen documents relating to the election of Alice de
la Flagge as Prioress of Whiston in 1308, and enrolled in the _Sede
Vacante_ Register of Worcester diocese[154]. Indeed there were so many
formalities to be fulfilled that the nuns seem often to have found great
difficulty in making a canonical election, and there are frequent notices
in the episcopal registers that their election has been quashed by the
Bishop on account of some technical fault; in such cases, however, the
Bishop's action was merely formal and he almost always reappointed the
candidate of their choice[155]. An election was, moreover, not only
complicated but expensive; it began with a journey to the patron to ask
for his _conge d'elire_ and it ended with more journeys, to the patron and
to the Bishop, to ask for confirmation, so that the cost of travel and the
cost of paying a clerk to draw up the necessary documents were sometimes
considerable; moreover a fee was payable to the Bishop's official for the
installation of the new head. The account of Margaret Ratclyff, Prioress
of Swaffham Bulbeck in 1482, contains notice of payments "to the official
of the lord bishop, at the installation of the said prioress for his fee
i. li." and to one Bridone "for the transcript of the decree of election
of the prioress v. s."[156]. An account roll of St Michael's Stamford for
the year 1375-6 illustrates the process in greater detail; under the
heading of "expenses de nostre Elit" are the following items:
Paid for the hire of horses with expenses going to the abbot of
Peterborough [the patron] to get licence to elect our choice 9-1/2_d._
Paid for the hire of horses going to the bishop of Lincoln and to the
abbot of Peterborough and for their expenses at our election 4_s._
8-1/2_d._ Paid for bread, ale and meat for our election on the
election day 2_s._ 11-1/2_d._ Paid for a letter to the abbot of
Peterborough for a licence to elect 3_d._ Paid for the installation of
our elect, 10_s._[157] Total 18_s._ 8-1/2_d._[158]
The only necessary qualifications for the head of a house were that she
should be above the age of twenty-one[159], born in wedlock and of good
reputation; a special dispensation had to be obtained for the election of
a woman who was under age or illegitimate.
[Illustration: PLATE II
ABBESS RECEIVING THE PASTORAL STAFF FROM A BISHOP
BENEDICTION OF AN ABBESS BY A BISHOP]
As a rule the nuns possessed the right of free election, subject to the
_conge d'elire_ of their patron and to the confirmation of the bishop, and
they secured without very much difficulty the leader of their choice.
Often enough it must have been clear, especially in small communities,
that one of the nuns was better fitted to rule than her sisters, and, as
at Whiston, they
unanimously, as if inspired by the Holy Spirit[160], chose dame Alice
de la Flagge, a woman of discreet life and morals, of lawful age,
professed in the nunnery, born in lawful matrimony, prudent in
spiritual and temporal matters, of whose election all approved, and
afterwards, solemnly singing Te Deum Laudamus, carried the said elect,
weeping, resisting as much as she could, and expostulating in a high
voice, to the church as is the custom, and immediately afterwards,
brother William de Grimeley, monk of Worcester, proclaimed the
election. The said elect, after being very often asked, at length,
after due deliberation, being unwilling to resist the divine will,
consented[161].
But Jocelin of Brakelond has taught us that a monastic election was not
always a foregone conclusion, that discussion waxed hot and barbed words
flew in the season of blood-letting "when the cloistered monks were wont
to reveal the secrets of their hearts in turn and to discuss matters one
with another," and that "many men said many things and every man was fully
persuaded in his own mind." Nuns were not very different from monks when
it came to an election, and the chance survival of a bishop's register and
of another formal document among the muniments of Lincoln, has preserved
the record of an election comedy at Elstow Abbey, almost worthy to rank
with Jocelin's inimitable account of the choice of Samson the subsacrist.
After the death of Abbess Agnes Gascoigne in July 1529, the nineteen nuns
of Elstow, having received Henry VIII's _conge d'elire_, assembled in
their chapter house on August 9th, to elect her successor. They chose
Master John Rayn "_utriusque juris doctorem_," as director, Edward Watson,
notary public as clerk, and the Prior of Caldwell and the rectors of Great
Billing and Turvey as witnesses. Three novices and other lay persons
having departed, the director and the other men explained the forms of
election to the nuns in the vulgar tongue and they agreed to proceed by
way of scrutiny. Matilda Sheldon, subprioress, Alice Boifeld,
_precentrix_, and Anne Preston, _ostiaria_ (doorkeeper) were chosen as
scrutineers and withdrew into a corner of the chapter house, with the
notary and witnesses. There Matilda Sheldon and Anne Preston nominated
Cecilia Starkey, _refectoraria_, while Alice Boifeld nominated Elizabeth
Boifeld, sacrist, evidently a relative. The three scrutineers then called
upon the other nuns to give their votes; Anne Wake, the prioress, named
Cecilia Starkey; Elizabeth Boifeld and Cecilia Starkey (each unable to
vote for herself, but determined not to assist the other) voted for a
third person, the subsacrist Helen Snawe; and Helen Snawe and all the
other nuns, except two, gave their votes in favour of Elizabeth Boifeld.
Consternation reigned among the older nuns, prioress, subprioress,
_refectoraria_ and doorkeeper, when this result was announced. "Well,"
said the Prioress, "some of thies yong Nunnes be to blame," and on the
director asking why, she replied: "For they wolde not shewe me so muche;
for I asked diverse of them before this day to whome they wolde gyve their
voices, but they wolde not shewe me." "What said they to you?" asked the
director. "They said to me," replied the flustered and indignant prioress,
"they wolde not tell to whome they wolde gyve their voices tyll the tyme
of thellection, and then they wolde gyve their voices as God shulde put
into their mynds, but this is by counsaill. And yet yt wolde have beseemed
them to have shewn as much to me as to the others." And then she and Dame
Cecilia said, "What, shulde the yong nunnes gyve voices? Tushe, they
shulde not gyve voices!" Clearly the situation was the same which Jocelin
of Brakelond had described over three centuries before: "The novices said
of their elders that they were invalid old men and little capable of
ruling an abbey." However the Prioress was obliged to admit that the
younger nuns had voted in the last election and the subprioress thereupon,
in the name of the scrutineers, announced the election of Dame Elizabeth
Boifeld by the "more and sounder part of the convent" (poor Anne Wake!).
But the Prioress and disappointed Dame Cecilia still showed fight; the
votes must be referred to the Bishop of Lincoln. Further discussion; then
Dame Cecilia gracefully gave way; she consented to the election of Dame
Elizabeth Boifeld and would not proceed further in the matter. Master John
Rayn published the election at the steps of the altar. Helen Snawe (whom
after events showed to be a leading spirit in the affair) and Katherine
Wingate were chosen as proctors, to seek confirmation from the Bishop, and
Dame Elizabeth was taken to the altar (amid loud chanting of _Te Deum
Laudamus_ by the triumphant younger nuns) and her election announced. She,
however, preserved that decorous semblance of unwillingness, or at least
of indifference, which custom demanded from a successful candidate, even
when she had been pulling strings for days, for when the proctors came to
her at two o'clock "in a certain upper chamber called Marteyns, in our
monastery" and asked her consent to her election, "she neither gave it nor
refused." Away went the proctors, without so much as a wink to each other;
let us leave our elect to meditate upon the will of God. At four p.m. they
came to her "in a certain large garden, called the Pond Yard, within our
monastery"; and at their repeated instances she gave her consent.
"Wherefore we, the above-named nuns, pray the Lord Bishop to ratify and
confirm our election of the said Elizabeth Boyfeld as our Abbess." Which
the Lord Bishop did[162].
But this was by no means the end of the matter. A year later the whole
nunnery was in an uproar[163]. The bishop, for reasons best known to
himself, had removed the prioress Dame Anne Wake and had appointed Dame
Helen Snawe in her place; perhaps Dame Anne had said "Tush" once too
often under the new _regime_; perhaps she was getting too old for her
work; or perhaps Abbess Elizabeth Boifeld had only commanded Dame Snawe's
intrigues at a price; evidently the subsacrist was no less adroit than
that other subsacrist of Bury St Edmund's. At any rate Dame Anne Wake was
put out of her office and Dame Helen Snawe ruled in her stead. It might
have been expected that this change would be welcomed by the nuns,
considering how strong the Boifeld faction had been at the election of the
Abbess. But no; during the year of triumph Helen Snawe had aroused the
hearty dislike of her sisters; led by Dames Barbara Gray (who had voted
against the Abbess at the last election) and Alice Bowlis they had
strenuously opposed her substitution for the old Prioress; they had been
impertinent to the Abbess of their own choice (indeed she was only a
figure-head); they had written letters to their friends and refused to
show them to her; and finally when the election of Dame Snawe was
announced, they had risen in a body and left the chapter-house as a
protest. This was intolerable, and the Bishop's vicar-general came down to
examine the delinquents. Matilda Sheldon, the subprioress, admitted to
having left the chapter, but denied that she had done so for the reason
attributed and said that she did not know of the departure of the other
nuns, until she saw them in the dorter. Margaret Nicolson showed more
spirit; she said that she went out "because she wold not consent that my
lady Snawe shulde be priores," and that "ther was none that ded councell
hir to goo" and that "my lady abbes did commaunde them to tary, that not
withestandyng they went forthe"; and she gave the names of eight nuns who
had followed the subprioress out. Dame Barbara Gray was next asked "yf she
ded aske licence of my Lady Abbas to wryte letters to hir frends," and
replied "that she ded aske licens to wryte to hir frends and my Lady Abbas
sade, 'Yf ye showe me what ye wryte I am content,' and she saide agene, 'I
have done my devoir to aske licence, and yf ye wyll nede see it I will
wryte noo letters.'" Asked whether she had left the chapter house, this
defiant young woman declared that "yf it were to do agene she wolde soo
doo," and moreover "that she cannot fynde in hir hert to obbey my lady
Snawe as priores, and that she wyll rather goo out of the house by my
lord's licence, or she wyll obbey hir ... and that she wyll never obbey
hir as priores, for hir hert cannot serve hir." Asked for her objection to
Dame Snawe, she said that "she wyll shewe noo cause at thys tyme wherfor
she cannot love hir"; but after a little pressure she declared with heat
that "the priores maks every faute a dedly syne"[164], treats all of them
ill except her own self and if she "doo take an oppynyon she wyll kepe
itt," whether it be right or wrong. Dame Margery Preston was next examined
and was evidently rather frightened at the result of her actions; she said
that she had left the chapter-house as a protest against the deposition of
the old prioress and not for any ill will that she bore Dame Snawe, "and
she sais," the record continues, "that she ys well content to obbey my
lady Snawe as priores. And she desiers my lord to be a good lord to the
olde priores, because of her age." Ill-used Dame Cecilia Starkey, so
unkindly circumvented by Dame Snawe a year ago, next appeared before the
vicar-general and said "that she went forthe of the chapter howse, but she
sais she gave noo occasion to eny of hir susters to goo forthe. And says
she knewe not howe many of hir susters went forthe whyle she come intoo
the dorter; saynge that she cannot fynde in hir hert nor wyll not accepte
and take my lady Snawe as priores" (an amusing comment on her vote in
1529). Next came Dame Alice Foster, who admitted to having left the
chapter-house
and sais that they war commanded by the Abbes to tare styll. But she
and other went forth because the olde priores was put done [i.e. down]
wrongfully and my lady Snawe put in agenst ther wylle, saynge that she
wyll never agre to hir as long as she lyvys; she says the sub-prioress
went forthe of the chapiter howse fyrst and then she and other
folowyde;
and evidence in almost the same words was given by Dame Anne Preston and
by Dame Elizabeth Sinclere, the latter adding that "she wyll take tholde
priores as priores as longe as she levys and no other, and she says yf my
lord commaunde vs to take my lady Snawe to be priores, she had lever goo
forthe of the howse to sum other place and wyll not tare ther." Dame Alice
Bowlis, another young rebel, asked
yf she ded aske lycence of the Abbes to wryte, she sais she ded aske
licens to wryte and my lady Abbes seyde "My lord hathe gevyn vs soo
strate commaundement that none shuld wryte no (letter) but ye shewe it
to me, what ye doo wryte"; and she sais she mayde aunswer agene to
thabbes, "It hathe not bene soo in tymis paste and I have done my
dewty. I wyll not wryte nowe at this tyme"; she admitted that she left
the chapter house, "but she says that nobody ded move hyr to goo
forthe; she says that she must neds nowe obbey the priores at my lords
commaundement, saynge that my lady Snawe ys not mete for that offes,
butt she wolde shewe noo cause wherfor."
Two other nuns declared with great boldness "That my lord ded not
commaunde vs to tak my lady Snawe as priores, but he saide, 'Yf ye wyll
not take hir as priores I wyll make hir priores'" and that "they was wont
to have the priores chosyn by the Abbes and the convent, and not by my
lord, after seynte Bennet's rule," one of them remarking cryptically "that
she wyll take my lady Snawe as priores as other wyll doo" and not
otherwise. Meek little Dame Katherine Cornwallis was then interrogated and
said,
"that she was going forthe of the chapiter house wt. other of hir
susters and then when she herde my lady abbes commaund them to tary,
she ded tary behynde, but she sais that she thynks that none of the
oder susters that went forthe ded here hyr, but only she" (kind little
Dame Katherine), "and she is sory that tholde priores ys put out of
hir offes. She says that my lady abbes ded tare styll and domina
Alicia Boyfelde, domina Snawe, domina Katherina Wyngate, domina
Dorothia Commaforthe, domina Elizabethe Repton, and domina Elizabeth
Stanysmore."
Finally the ill-used abbess made her complaint; she had bidden saucy Dame
Alice Bowlis and others to stand up at matins, according to the custom of
the house, "and went out of hir stall to byde them soo doo, and lady
Bowlis ded make hir awnswer agene that, 'ye have mayde hir priores that
mayde ye abbes!', brekyng her silence ther." Evidently poor Elizabeth
Boifeld had not succeeded in living down the intrigues which had preceded
her election, and the convent suspected her of rewarding a supporter at
the expense of an old opponent.
Here was a pretty state of affairs in the home of buxomness and peace. But
the vicar-general acted firmly. Barbara Gray and Alice Bowlis were given a
penance for their disobedience; they were to keep silence; neither of them
was to come within "the howse calde the misericorde" (where meat was
allowed to be eaten), but they were always to have their meals in the
frater; neither of them was to write any letters; and they were to take
the lowest places of all among the sisters in "processions and in other
placys." Finally all the nuns were enjoined to be obedient to the abbess
and to the hated prioress. Their protests that they would never obey Dame
Alice Snawe, while the old prioress lived, were all in vain; and when some
ten years later the Reformation put an end to their dissensions by casting
them all upon the world, Dame Elizabeth Boyvill (_sic_), "abbesse,"
received an annual pension of L50, Dame Helen Snawe, "prioresse," one of
L4 and Dame Anne Wake, "prioresse quondam," one of 66_s._ 8_d._[165]
The turbulent diocese of York provides us with an even more striking
picture of an election-quarrel. In 1308, after a vacancy, the election of
the Prioress of Keldholme lapsed to the Archbishop, who appointed Emma of
York. But the nuns would have none of Emma. Six of them refused obedience
to the new prioress and, six being probably at least half of the whole
convent, Emma of York resigned. Not to be daunted the Archbishop returned
to the charge; on August 5th he wrote to the Archdeacon of Cleveland
stating that as he found no one in the house capable of ruling it he had
appointed Joan de Pykering, a nun of Rosedale, to be Prioress.
As a number of persons (named) had openly and publicly obstructed the
appointment of the new prioress the Archdeacon was to proceed
immediately to Keldholme and give her corporal possession and at the
same time he was to admonish other dissentient nuns (named) that they
and all others must accept Joan de Pykering as prioress and reverently
obey her.
It is clear in this case that the feuds of the convent had spread beyond
its walls, for the Archbishop at the same time warned all lay folk to
cease their opposition on pain of excommunication and shortly afterwards
imposed a penance upon one of those who had interfered. But pandemonium
still reigned at Keldholme and he went down in person to interview the
refractory nuns; the result of his visitation appears in a mandate issued
to the official of Cleveland on September 3rd, stating that he had found
four nuns, Isabella de Langetoft, Mary de Holm, Joan de Roseles and
Anabilla de Lokton (all had been among the original objectors to Emma of
York) incorrigible rebels. They were therefore to be packed off one after
another, Isabella to Handale, Mary to Swine, Joan to Nunappleton and
Anabilla to Wallingwells, there to perform their penances. In spite of
this ruthless elimination of the discordant elements, the convent of
Keldholme refused to submit. On February 1st following the Archbishop
wrote severely to the subprioress and convent bidding them at once to
direct a letter under their common seal to their patroness, declaring that
they had unanimously elected Joan de Pykering as prioress; on February 5th
he issued a commission to correct the crimes and excesses revealed at his
visitation; and on February 17th he directed the commissioners "to enquire
whether Joan de Pickering" (luckless exile in the tents of Kedar) "desired
for a good reason, of her own free will, to resign and if they found that
she did to enjoin the subprioress and convent to proceed to the canonical
election of a new prioress"; and on March 7th the triumphant convent
elected Emma of Stapelton. At the same time the Archbishop ordered the
transference of two other nuns to do penance at Esholt and at Nunkeeling,
perhaps for their share in these disorders but more probably for
immorality.
But this was not the end. Emma of York could not forget that she had once
been prioress; Mary de Holm (who had either returned from or never gone to
Swine) was a thoroughly bad character; and in 1315 the Archbishop
directed Richard del Clay, _custos_ of the monastery, to proceed at
once to Keldholme and to summon before him in the chapter Emma of
York and Mary de Holm, who like daughters of perdition were
disobedient and rebels against the Prioress. Having read the
Archbishop's letter in the mother tongue in the chapter, he was to
admonish the two nuns for the first, second and third times that they
must humbly obey the Prioress in all lawful and canonical injunctions.
They were not to meddle with any internal or external business of the
house in any way, or to go outside of the enclosure of the monastery,
or to say anything against the Prioress, on pain of expulsion and of
the greater excommunication.
At the end of the year, however, harassed Archbishop Greenfield went where
the wicked cease from troubling; and the two malcontents at Keldholme
seized the opportunity to triumph. Scarcely a couple of months after his
death Emma of Stapelton resigned; she said she was "oppressed by age," but
since Emma of York was at once elected and confirmed in her place, it is
probable that the rage, like Joan de Pickering's free will, was something
of a euphemism; her reason doubtless took a concrete and menacing shape
and wore a veil upon its undiminished head. The last we hear of these very
unsaintly ladies is in 1318, when the new Archbishop enjoined a penance on
Mary de Holm for incontinence with a chaplain[166]. It is noticeable that
this was the second case of the kind which had occurred in the diocese of
York within fifteen years. At Swine in 1290 the appointment by Archbishop
Romeyn of Josiana de Anlaby as Prioress had been followed by similar
disorders and he ordered an inquiry to be held and the rebellious nuns to
be sent to Rosedale[167].
Much trouble might arise within a convent over the election of its head,
as these stories show. But sometimes external persons interfered; great
ladies used their influence and their wealth to secure the coveted post
for a protegee of their own; and the protegee herself was not averse to
oiling the palms of those in authority with good marks of silver;
"blood-abbesses," Ensfrid of Cologne would have called them ("that is,
foisted in by their kinsfolk") or "jester-abbesses" ("that is, such as had
been thrust in by the power of great folks") or "simoniacs, who had crept
in through money or through worldly services"[168]. In these cases there
was likely to be more trouble still, for great ladies were not always
careful of the character of a friend or relative whom they wished to
settle comfortably as head of a convent. In 1528 the Abbess of Wilton died
and Mr John Carey thought he would like the appointment for his sister
Eleanor, one of the nuns. He was brother-in-law to lovely Anne Boleyn, and
a word in her ear secured her warm support; the infatuated King wished to
please Anne; and Wolsey, steering his bark in troubled waters, wished to
please the King; so he promised that the lady should have the post, the
election to which had been placed in his hands by the nuns. It seemed that
all would go well with Dame Eleanor Carey, when Anne Boleyn pulled the
strings; but trouble arose, and the action taken by the Cardinal and by
the future oppressor of the monasteries is greatly to the credit of them
both, for both had much to lose from Anne. "As touching the matter of
Wilton" Henry wrote to her
My lord cardinal hath had the Nuns before him, and examined them, Mr.
Bell being present; which hath certified me, that for a truth that she
hath confessed herself, (which we would have had abbesse) to have had
two children by two sundry priests; and furder, since, hath been kept
by a servant of the Lord Broke, that was, and that not long ago;
wherefore I would not for all the gold in the world clog your
conscience nor mine to make her a ruler of a house, which is of so
ungudly demeanor, nor I trust you would not that neither for brother
nor sister I should so destain mine honor or conscience. And as
touching the prioress [Isabel Jordan] or Dame Eleanor's eldest sister,
though there is not any evident case proved against them, and that the
prioress is so old that of many years she could not be as she was
named [ill-famed]: yet notwithstanding to do you pleasure I have done
that neither of them shall have it, but that some other good and well
disposed woman shall have it, whereby the house shall be the better
reformed (whereof I ensure you it had much need) and God much the
better served[169].
Wolsey, however, gave the appointment to Isabel Jordan, who in spite of
her having been the subject of some scandal in her youth, was favoured by
the greater part of the convent as being "ancient, wise and discreet";
whereupon he brought down upon himself a severe rebuke from Henry, who had
"both reported and promised to divers friends of Dame Elinor Carey that
the Prioress should not have it"[170]. Without doubt pretty Mistress Anne
was sulking down at Hever.
Not only did outside persons thus concern themselves in a conventual
election; the nuns themselves were not always unwilling to bribe, where
they desired advancement. A series of letters written by Margaret Vernon
to Cromwell, concerning the office of Prioress of St Helen's, Bishopsgate,
throws a lurid light upon the methods which were sometimes employed:
"Sir," she wrote to her powerful friend in 1529, "Pleaseth it you to
understand that there is a goldsmith in this town, named Lewys, and he
sheweth me that Mr. More hath made sure promise to parson Larke that
the subprioress of St. Helen's shall be prioress there afore
Christmas-day. Sir, I most humbly beseech you to be so good master
unto me, as to know my lord's grace's [the king's] pleasure in this
case and that I may have a determined answer whereto I shall trust,
that I may settle myself in quietness; the which I am far from at this
hour. And farthermore if it might like you to make the offer to my
said lord's grace of such a sum of money as we were at a point for, my
friends thinketh that I should surely be at an end."
Soon afterwards she wrote again:
Sir, it is so that there is divers and many of my friends that hath
written to me that I should make labour for the said house unto your
mastership, showing you that the King's grace hath given it to master
Harper, who saith that he is proffered for his favour two hundred
marks of the King's saddler, for his sister; which proffer I will
never make unto him, nor no friend for me shall, for the coming in
after that fashion is neither godly nor worshipful. And beside all
this must come by my lady Orell's favour, which is a woman I would
least meddle with. And thus I shall not only be burdened in conscience
for payment of this great sum, but also entangled and in great
cumbrance to satisfy the avidity of this gentlewoman. And though I
did, in my lord cardinal's days, proffer a hundred pounds for the said
house, I beseech you consider for what purpose it was made. Your
mastership knoweth right well that there was by my enemies so many
high and slanderous words, and your mastership had made so great
instant labour for me, that I shamed so much the fall thereof that I
foresaw little what proffer was made; but now, I thank our Lord, that
blast is ceased, and I have no such singular love unto it; for now I
have two eyes to see in this matter clearly, the one is the eye of my
soul, that I may come without burthen of conscience and by the right
door, and, laying away all pomp and vanity of the world, looking
warily upon the maintenance and supportation of the house, which I
should take in charge, and cannot be performed, master Harper's
pleasure and my lady Orell's accomplished. In consideration whereof I
intend not willingly, nor no friend of mine shall not, trouble your
mastership in this case.
In another letter she mentions a saying of Master Harper, that from the
good report he has heard of her, he would rather admit her without a groat
than others who offer money; but her conscientious scruples were not
rewarded with St Helen's, though she almost immediately obtained an
appointment as prioress at Little Marlow, and on the dissolution of that
house among the lesser monasteries, received and held for a brief space
the great Abbey of Malling[171]. It is true that these instances of simony
and of the use of influence belong to the last degenerate years of the
monasteries in England. But cases hardly less serious undoubtedly occurred
at an early date. The gross venality of the papal _curia_[172], even in
the early thirteenth century, is not a very happy omen for the behaviour
of private patrons; smaller folk than the Pope could summon a wretched
abbot "Amice, ut offeras"; nor was it only abbots who thus bought
themselves into favour. The thirteenth century jurist Pierre Du Bois,
whose enlightened plans for the better education of women included the
suppression of the nunneries and the utilisation of their wealth to form
schools or colleges for girls, mentioned the reception of nuns for money
and rents, by means of compacts (i.e. the dowry system) and the election
of abbesses and prioresses by the same illicit bargains, as among the
abuses practised in nunneries[173].
Once having been installed, the head of a house held office until she
died, resigned or was deprived for incompetence or for ill behaviour.
Sometimes prioresses continued to hold office until a very great age, as
did Matilda de Flamstead, Prioress of Sopwell, who died in 1430 aged
eighty-one, having lived in the rules of religion for over sixty
years[174]. But the cases (quoted below) of the prioresses of St Michael's
Stamford and of Gracedieu prove that an aged and impotent head was bad for
the discipline of the house, and it appears that a prioress who was too
old or in too weak health to fulfil her arduous duties, was often allowed
to resign or was relieved of her office[175]. Sometimes an ex-superior
continued to live a communal life as an ordinary nun, under her successor,
but sometimes she was granted a special room and a special allowance of
food and attendance. In some houses certain apartments were reserved for
the occupation of a retired superior. Sir Thomas Willoughby, writing to
Cromwell on behalf of his sister-in-law, who had resigned her office as
Abbess of Malling, begs that she may
have your letter to my lady abbess of Malling (her successor), that
she at your contemplation will be so good to her as to appoint her
that room and lodging within the said monastery that she and other of
her predecessors that hath likewise resigned hath used to have, and as
she had herself a little space, or else some other meet and convenient
lodging in the same house[176].
When Katherine Pilly, Prioress of Flixton, "who had laudably ruled the
house for eighteen years," resigned in 1432 because of old age and
blindness, the Bishop of Norwich made special arrangements for her
sustenance:
she was to have suitable rooms for herself and her maid; each week she
and the maid were to be provided with two white loaves, eight loaves
of "hool" bread and eight gallons of convent beer, with a daily dish
for both from the kitchen, the same as for two nuns in the refectory,
and with two hundred faggots and a hundred logs and eight pounds of
candles a year. Cecilia Crayke, one of the nuns, was to read divine
service to her daily and to sit with her at meals, having her portion
from the refectory[177].
These aged ladies probably ended their days peacefully, withdrawn from the
common life of the house. But sometimes a prioress resigned while still
young enough to miss her erstwhile autocracy and to torment her unlucky
successor. Then indeed the new head could do nothing right and feuds and
factions tore the sisterhood. Such a case occurred at Nunkeeling early in
the fourteenth century. Avice de la More resigned in 1316, and the
Archbishop wrote to the nuns making the usual provision for her; she had
"for a long period laudably and usefully superintended the house"; she was
to have a chamber to herself and one of the nuns assigned to her by the
Prioress as a companion; and daily she was to receive the portion of two
nuns in bread, ale and victuals and her associate that of one nun; an end,
one might suppose, of Avice de la More. But the Yorkshire nuns were
quarrelsome ladies; and two years later the Archbishop addressed a severe
letter to Avice, threatening to remove the provision made for her if she
persisted in her "conspiracies, rebellions and disobedience to the
prioress" and imposing a severe penance upon her. But seven penitential
psalms with the litany upon Fridays, a discipline in chapter and fasting
diet could not calm the temper of Avice de la More; she stirred up the
nuns to rebellion and spread the tale of her grievances "to seculars and
adversaries outside." There was some family feud perhaps between her
relatives and the St Quintins to whose house the unhappy Prioress
belonged; at any rate "clamorous information" reached the Archbishop
concerning the intrigues of certain of the nuns. Once more he wrote to
Avice "with a bitter heart." She had broken her vow of obedience in
arrogancy and elation of heart towards her prioress, "who was placed in
charge of her soul and body and without whom she had no free will"; let
her desist at once and study to live according to the rule; and a
commission was sent to inquire into the misdeeds of the rebellious nuns of
Keeling. But alas, the finding of that commission has long since powdered
into dust and we hear no further news of Avice de la More[178].
The head of a house was an important person and enjoyed a considerable
amount of freedom, in relation both to her convent and to the outside
world. In relation to her convent her position laid her open to various
temptations: she was, for instance, beset by three which must be faced by
all who rule over communities. The first was the temptation to live with
too great luxury and independence, escaping from the daily routine of
communal life, to which her vows bound her. The second was the temptation
to rule like an autocrat, instead of consulting her sisters. The third was
the temptation to let human predilections have their way and to show
favouritism. To begin with the first of these temptations, it is obvious
that the fact that the superior nearly always had a separate room, or
suite of rooms[179], and servants, and had the duty of entertaining
important guests, gave her much freedom within her house, especially if
she were the head of one of the great abbeys. The Abbess of St Mary's
Winchester, at the Dissolution, had her own house and a staff consisting
of a cook, an undercook, a woman servant and a laundress, and she had also
a gentlewoman to wait upon her, like any great lady in the world[180]. The
Abbess of Barking had her gentlewoman, too, and her private kitchen; she
dined in state with her nuns five times a year, and "the under celeresse
must remember," says the _Charthe longynge to the Office of Celeresse_,
at eche principall fest, that my lady sytteth in the fraytour; that is
to wyt five times in the yere, at eche tyme schall aske the clerke of
the kychyn soper eggs for the covent, and that is Estir, Wytsontyd,
the Assumption of our Lady, seynt Alburgh and Cristynmasse, at eche
tyme to every lady two eggs, and eche double two egges, that is the
priorisse, the celeresse and the kychener[181].
The stern reformer Peckham was forced to take in hand the conduct of the
Abbesses of Barking, Wherwell and Romsey, who were abusing their
independence of ordinary routine. The Abbess of Barking was forbidden to
remain in her private room after sunset, at which hour all doors were to
be locked and all strangers excluded; she might do so only very rarely, in
order to entertain distinguished guests or to transact important business;
and he ordered her to eat with the convent as often as possible,
"especially on solemn days" (i.e. great feasts)[182]. The Abbess of
Wherwell had apparently stinted her nuns in food and drink, but caused
magnificent feasts to be prepared for her in her own room, and Peckham
ordered that whenever there was a shortage of food in the convent, she was
to dine with the nuns, and no meal was to be laid in her chamber for
servants or strangers, but all visitors were to be entertained in the
exterior guest-hall; if at such times she were in ill health, and unable
to use the common diet, she might remain in her room, in the company of
one or two of the nuns. At times when there was no lack of food in the
convent and when she was entertaining guests in her own room, all
potations were to cease and all servants and visitors to depart at the
hour of compline[183]. About the same time (1284) Peckham wrote two
letters to the Abbess of Romsey, who had evidently been guilty of the same
behaviour. She was not to keep "a number of" dogs or monkeys, or more than
two maid servants, and she was not to fare splendidly in her own rooms
while the nuns went short; his injunctions to her are couched in almost
precisely the same language as those which he addressed to the Abbess of
Wherwell[184].
According to the Benedictine rule the superior, when not entertaining
guests, was permitted to invite the nuns in turn to dine with her in her
own room, for their recreation, and notices of this custom sometimes occur
in visitation reports; at Thicket (1309) the Prioress was enjoined to have
them one by one when she dined in her room[185]; at Elstow (1421-2) the
Abbess was to invite those nuns whom she knew to be specially in need of
refreshment[186]; at Gracedieu (1440-1) the Prioress was ordered
that ye do the fraytour be keppede daylye ... item that no mo of your
susters entende up on yowe, save onely your chapeleyn, and otherwhile,
as your rule wylle, ye calle to your refeccyone oon or two of your
susters to thair recreacyone[187];
at Greenfield (1519) there was a complaint that the Prioress did not
invite the nuns to her table in due order, and at Stainfield it was said
that she frequently invited three young nuns to her table and showed
partiality to them and she was ordered to invite all the senior sisters in
order[188]. In Cistercian and Cluniac houses the superior was supposed to
dine in the frater and to sleep in the dorter with the other nuns, and
even in Benedictine houses it was considered desirable that she should do
so. But the temptation to live a more private life was irresistible, and
visitation records contain many complaints that the head of the house is
lax in her attendance at dorter and frater and even in following the
divine services in the choir[189]. Bishops frequently made injunctions
like that given by Alnwick to the Prioress of Ankerwyke in 1441:
that nyghtly ye lygge in the dormytorye to ouersee your susters how
thai are there gouernede after your rewle, and that often tyme ye come
to matynes, messe and other houres ... also that oftentymes ye come to
the chapitere for to correcte the defautes of your susters ... also
that aftere your rewle ye kepe the fraytour but if resonable cause
excuse yowe there fro[190].
Sometimes a minimum number of attendances was demanded. At St Michael's
Stamford Alnwick ordered the old Prioress
that nyghtly ye lyg in the dormytorye emong your susters and that
euery principale double fest and festes of xij or ix lessouns ye be at
matynes, but if grete sekenes lette yowe; and that often tymes ye be
at other howres and messes in the qwere, and also that ye be present
in chapitres helpyng the supprioresse in correctyng and punisshyng of
defautes[191].
It was further attempted to restrict the dangerous freedom of a superior's
life, by ordering her always to have with her one of the nuns as a
companion and as witness to her behaviour. So Peckham ordered the Abbess
of Romsey to "elect a suitable companion for herself and to change her
companions yearly, to the end that her honesty should be attested by many
witnesses"[192]. Usually the nun whose duty it was to accompany the
superior acted as her chaplain. It will be remembered that Chaucer says of
his Prioress "another Nonne with hir hadde she, That was hir
chapeleyne"[193], and episcopal registers contain frequent allusions to
the office. William of Wykeham gave a comprehensive account of its purpose
when he wrote to the Abbess of Romsey in 1387,
since, according to the constitutions of the holy fathers, younger
members must take a pattern from their rulers (_prelati_) and those
prelates ought to have a number of witnesses to their own behaviour,
we strictly order you (lady abbess) in virtue of obedience, that you
annually commit the office of chaplain to one of your nuns ... and
thus the nuns themselves, who shall have been with you in the
aforesaid office, shall (by means of laudable instruction) be the
better enabled to excel in religion, while you will be able
immediately to invoke their testimony to your innocence, if (which God
forbid) any crime or scandal should be imputed to you by the malice of
any person[194].
So at Easebourne in 1478 the Prioress was ordered
that every week, beginning with the eldest ... she should select for
herself in due course and in turns, one of her nuns as chaplain for
divine services and to wait upon herself[195].
The Norwich visitations of Bishop Nykke afford further information; at
Flixton discontented Dame Margaret Punder complained that the Prioress had
no sister as chaplain, but slept alone as she pleased, in a chamber
(_cubiculo_) outside the dorter, "without the continual testimony of her
sisters," and the visitors enjoined that henceforth she should have with
her one sister in the office of chaplain for a witness, and especially
when she slept outside the dorter[196]. At Blackborough one of the nuns
complained that the Prioress had kept the same chaplain for three
years[197] and at Redlingfield it was said that she never changed her
chaplain[198]; the Abbess of Elstow in 1421-2[199] and the Prioress of
Markyate in 1442[200] were ordered to change their chaplains every year,
and this seems to have been the customary arrangement. The title of
"chaplain" is sometimes found after the name of a nun in lists of the
inmates of nunneries[201].
Besides the temptation to live too independent an existence the head of a
house had also the temptation to abuse the considerable power given to her
by the monastic rule. She was apt to govern autocratically, keeping the
business of the house entirely in her own hands, instead of consulting her
sisters (assembled in chapter) before making any important decision. There
were constant complaints by the nuns that the Prioress kept the common
seal in her own custody and performed all business without consulting
them. Peckham's letter to the Abbess of Romsey illustrates the variety of
matters which might thus be settled without any reference to the nuns; she
had evidently been misusing her power, for he wrote sternly:
Know that thou art not mistress of the common goods, but rather the
dispenser and mother of thy community, according to the meaning of the
word abbess.... We strictly command thee that thou study to transact
all the more important business of the house with the convent. And by
the more important business we intend those things which may entail
notable expenditure in temporalities or in spiritualities, with which
we wish to be included the provision of a steward; we order for the
peace of the community, that H. de Chalfhunte, whom thou hast for long
kept in the office of steward contrary to the will of the convent, no
longer intermeddle in any way with this or with any other bailiff's
office (_bajulatu_) of the monastery. Moreover we make the same order
concerning John le Frikiere. Let each of them, having accounted for
his office before Master Philip our official ... look out for an abode
elsewhere. Besides this thou shalt transact all minor business of the
church according to the rule with at least twelve of the senior
ladies. And because thou hast been wont to do much according to the
prompting of thine own will, we adjoin to thee three coadjutresses of
laudable testimony, to wit dames Margery de Verdun, Philippa de Stokes
and Johanna de Revedoune, without whose counsel and attempt thou shalt
not dare attempt anything pertaining to the rule of the convent in
temporalities or in spiritualities. And whensoever thou shalt
wittingly do the contrary in any important matter, thou shalt know
thyself to be on that account suspended from the office of
administration. And we mean by an important matter the provision of
bailiffs of the manors and internal obedientiaries, the punishment of
delinquents, all alienation of goods in gifts or presents, or in any
other ways, the sending forth of nuns and the assignment of companions
to those going forth, the beginning of lawsuits and all manner of
church business. And if it befall that any of the aforesaid three be
ill or absent, do thou receive in her stead Dame Leticia de
Montegomery or Dame Agnes de Lidyerd, having called into consultation
the others according to the number fixed above. And whenever thou
shalt happen to fare forth upon the business of the church, thou shalt
always take with thee the aforesaid three ladies, whom we have joined
with thee as coadjutresses in the rule of the monastery both within
and without; and if ever thou goest forth for recreation thou shalt
always have with thee two; in such wise that thou shalt in no manner
concern thyself to pursue any business without the three[202].
The danger of autocratic government to the convent is obvious; and it is
significant that a really bad prioress is nearly always charged with
having failed to communicate with her sisters in matters of business,
turning all the revenues to any use that she pleased. Moreover the head of
a house not only sometimes failed to consult her convent; she constantly
also omitted to render an annual account of her expenditure, and by far
the most common complaint at visitations was the complaint that the
Prioress _non reddidit compotum_. At Bishop Nykke's Norwich visitations
the charge was made against the heads of Flixton, Crabhouse, Blackborough
and Redlingfield[203]. At Bishop Alnwick's Lincoln visitations it was
made against the heads of Ankerwyke, Catesby, Gracedieu, Harrold,
Heynings, St Michael's Stamford, Stixwould, Studley; at Ankerwyke Dame
Clemence Medforde had not accounted since her arrival at the house; at St
Michael's Stamford the Prioress had held office for twelve years and had
never done so; at Studley it was said that the last Prioress who ruled for
58 years never once rendered an account during the whole of that period,
nor had the present Prioress yet done so, though she had been in office
for a year[204]. Sometimes the delinquent gave some excuse to the Bishop;
the Prioress of Catesby said she had no clerk to write the account[205];
at Blackborough one of the nuns said that her object had been to avoid the
expense of an auditor and another that she gave the convent a verbal
report of the state of the house[206]. Sometimes she flatly refused, and
the bishop's repeated injunctions on the subject seem to have been of
little avail; the Prioress of Flixton had not rendered account since her
installation _et dicit quod non vult reddere_; she was superseded, but six
years later the same complaint was made against her successor and the
visitors ordered the latter to amend her ways, _sub poena privationis,
quia dixit se nolle talem reddere compotum_[207]. The bishops always
inquired very carefully into the administration of the conventual income
and possessions by the head of each house, and invented a variety of
devices for controlling her actions[208].
There remains to be considered the third pitfall into which the head of a
house was liable to fall. The wise Benedictine rule contained a special
warning against favouritism, for indeed human nature cannot avoid
preferences and it is the hardest task of a ruler to subdue personal
predilections to perfect fairness. The charge of favouritism is a fairly
common one in medieval visitations. Alnwick met with an amusing case when
he visited Gracedieu in 1440-1. The elder nuns complained that the old
prioress did not treat all equally; some of them she favoured and others
she treated very rigorously; Dame Philippa Jecke even said that
corrections were made so harshly and so fussily that all charity and all
happiness had gone from the house. Moreover there were two young nuns whom
she called her disciples and who were always with her; these nuns had many
unsuitable conversations, so their sisters thought, with the Prioress'
secular visitors; worse than this, they acted as spies upon the other nuns
and told the Prioress about everything that was said and done in the
convent, and then the Prioress scolded more severely than ever[209]; but
her disciples could do no wrong. These nuns, indeed, were among the most
voluble that Alnwick visited, and he must have remarked with a smile that
the two disciples were the only ones who answered "Omnia bene"; but he did
not intend to let them off without a rebuke.
"Agnes Poutrelle and Isabel Jurdane" runs the note in his Register,
"who style themselves the Prioress's disciples, are thereby the cause
of quarrel between her and her sisters, forasmuch as what they hear
and see among the nuns they straightway retail to the prioress. They
both appeared, and, the article having been laid to their charge,
expressly deny it and all things that are contained therein; wherefore
they cleared themselves without compurgators; howbeit, that they may
not be held suspect hereafter touching these matters or offend herein,
they both sware upon the holy gospels of God that henceforth they will
discover to the prioress concerning their sisters nothing whereby
cause of quarrel or incentive to hatred may be furnished among them,
unless they be such matters as may tend to the damage of the prioress'
body or honour"[210].
At two other houses there were complaints against the head; at Legbourne
Dame Sibil Papelwyk said that the Prioress was not indifferent in making
corrections, but treated some too hardly and others too favourably; and at
Heynings Dame Alice Porter said that the Prioress was an accepter of
persons in making corrections,
for those whom she loves she passes over lightly, and those whom she
holds not in favour she harshly punishes ... and she encourages her
secular serving-women, whom she believes more than her sisters, in
their words, to scold the same her sisters, and for this cause
quarrels do spring up between her and her sisters[211].
In neither of these cases, however, was the charge corroborated by the
evidence of the other nuns. Probably the two malcontents considered
themselves to have a grievance against their ruler; at Legbourne Dame
Sibil's complaint that the Prioress would not let her visit a dying parent
gives a clue to her annoyance. Another charge sometimes made was that the
Prioress gave more credence to the young nuns than to those who were older
and wiser[212]. Injunctions that the head of a house was to show no
favouritism were often made by visitors. One of Alnwick's injunctions may
stand as representative:
Also we charge yow, prioress, vnder payn of contempte and vndere the
peynes writen here benethe, that in your correccions ye be sad, sowbre
and indifferent, not cruelle to some and to some fauoryng agayn your
rule, but that ye procede and treet your susters moderly, the qualytee
and the quantitee of the persons and defautes wythe owten accepcyone
of any persone euenly considerede and weyed (Legbourne)[213].
So far the position of a superior has been considered solely from the
point of view of internal government, of her power over the convent and of
the peculiar temptations by which she was assailed. But the head of a
house was an important person, not only in her own community, but also in
the circumscribed little world without her gates; though here the degree
of importance which she enjoyed naturally varied with the size and wealth
of her house. In the middle ages fame and power were largely local
matters; roads were bad and news moved slowly and a man might live no
further away than the neighbouring town and be a foreigner. The country
gentry were not great travellers; occasionally they jaunted up to London,
to court, or to parliament or to the law-courts; sometimes they followed
the King and his lords to battles over sea or on the Scottish border; but
for the most part they stayed at home and died in the bed wherein their
mother bore them. The comfortable burgesses of the town travelled still
less; perhaps they betook themselves upon a pilgrimage, "clothed in a
liveree of a solempne and greet fraternitee," and bearing a cook with
them, lest they should lack the "chiknes with the marybones," the
"poudre-marchant tart," the "galingale," the "mortreux," the "blankmanger"
of their luxurious daily life; but they seldom had the Wife of Bath's
acquaintance with strange streams. And the lesser folk--peasants and
artisans--looked across the chequered expanse of the common fields at a
horizon, which was in truth a barrier, an impassable line drawn round the
edge of the world. The fact that life was lived by the majority of men
within such narrow limits gave a preeminent importance to the local
magnate; and among the most local of local magnates (since a corporation
never moved and never expired and never relaxed the grip of its dead
fingers) must be reckoned the heads of the monastic houses. Socially in
all cases, and politically when their houses were large and rich, abbots
and abbesses, priors and prioresses, ranked among the great folk of the
country side. They enjoyed the same prestige as the lords of the
neighbouring manors and some extra deference on account of their religion.
It was natural that the Prioress of a nunnery should be "holden digne of
reverence." The gentlemen whose estates adjoined her own sent their
daughters to her as novices, or (if her house were poor and the Bishop not
too strict) as school girls to receive their "nortelrye"; and they did not
themselves scorn the discreet entertainment of her guest-chamber and a
dinner of capons and wine and gossip at her hospitable board. The artisans
and labourers on her land lived by her patronage. All along the muddy
highroads the beggars coming to town passed word to each other that there
stood a nunnery in the meadows, where they might have scraps left over
from the convent meals and perhaps beer and a pair of shoes. The head of a
house, indeed, was an important person from many points of view, as a
neighbour, as a landlord and as a philanthropist.
The journeys which a prioress was sometimes obliged to take upon the
business of the convent offered many occasions of social intercourse with
her neighbours. It is, indeed, striking how great a freedom of movement
was enjoyed by these cloistered women. There are constant references to
journeys in account rolls. When Dame Christian Bassett, Prioress of St
Mary de Pre, rode to London for the suit against her predecessor in the
Common Pleas, she was accompanied on one occasion by her priest, a woman
and two men; on two other occasions she took four men; and during the
whole time that the suit dragged on, she was continually riding about to
take counsel with great men or with lawyers and journeying to and fro
between St Albans and London. On another occasion the account notes a
payment
in expenses for the prioresse and the steward with their servants and
for hors hyre and for the wages of them that wente to kepe the courte
wyth the prioresse atte Wynge atte two tymes xvj_s_ v_d_, whereof the
stewards fee was that of vj_s_ viij_d_; item paid to the fermour of
Wynge for his expenss ix_d_[214].
The accounts of St Michael's Stamford are full of items such as "in the
expenses of the Prioress on divers occasions going to the Bishop, with
hire of horses 3_s._" "in the expenses of the Prioress going to Rockingham
about our woods 1_s._ 2-1/2_d._," "paid for the hire of two horses for the
prioress and her expenses going to Liddington to the Bishop for a
certificate 2_s._ 8_d._," "paid for the expenses of the Prioress at Burgh
(i.e. Peterborough) for two days 5_s._ 8_d._"; twice the Prioress went
very far afield, as usual (it would appear) on legal business, for in
1377-8 there is an entry, "Item for the expenses of the Prioress and her
companions at London for a month and more, in all expenses L5. 13_s._
4_d._" (a large sum, a long distance and a lengthy stay), and in 1409-10
there is another payment "to the Prioress for expenses in London
15_s._"[215]
In spite of repeated efforts to enforce stricter enclosure upon nuns, it
is evident that the head of the house rode about on the business of the
convent and overlooked its husbandry in person, even where (as at St
Michael's Stamford) there was a male prior or _custos_ charged with the
ordering of its temporal affairs. The general injunction that an abbess
was never to leave her house save "for the obvious utility of the
monastery or for urgent necessity"[216] was capable of a very wide
interpretation, and it is clear from the evidence of visitations and
accounts that it was interpreted to include a great deal of temporal
business outside the walls. If a house possessed a male _custos_ the
Prioress would have less occasion and less excuse for journeys, though for
important affairs her presence was probably always necessary; Bishop
Drokensford, appointing a _custos_ to Minchin Barrow, warns the Prioress
no longer "to intermeddle with rural business (_negociis campestribus_)
and other secular affairs" but to leave these to the _custos_ and to
devote herself to the service of God and to the stricter enforcement of
the rule[217]. But in houses where no such official existed the prioress
doubtless undertook a certain amount of general estate management. One of
Alnwick's orders to the Prioress of Legbourne in 1440 was "that ye bysylly
ouersee your baylly, that your husbandry be sufficyently gouernede to the
avayle of your house"[218]; and in the intervals of their long struggle to
keep nuns within their cloisters, the Bishops seem to have recognised the
necessity for some travel on the part of the heads of houses, and to have
facilitated such travel by granting them dispensations to have divine
service celebrated wherever they might be. Thus in 1400 the Prioress of
Haliwell obtained a licence to hear divine service in her oratory within
her mansion of Camberwell, or elsewhere in the diocese, during the next
two years[219], and in 1406 the Abbess of Tarrant Keynes was similarly
allowed to have the service celebrated for herself and her household
anywhere within the city and diocese of Salisbury[220].
It is significant that among the arguments used to oppose Henry VIII's
injunction that monks and nuns should be strictly enclosed (which was, for
the nuns, only a repetition of Pope Boniface's decree of three centuries
earlier) was that of the difficulty of supervising the husbandry of a
house, if its head were confined to cloistral precincts.
"Please it you to be advertised," wrote Cecily Bodenham, the last
Abbess of Wilton, to Cromwell in 1535, "that master doctor Leigh, the
King's grace's special visitor and your deputy in this behalf,
visiting of late my house, hath given injunction that not only all my
sisters, but I also, should continually keep and abide within the
precincts of my house: which commandment I am right well content with
in regard of my own person, if your mastership shall think it so
expedient; but in consideration of the administration of mine office
and specially of this poor house which is in great debt and requireth
much reparation and also which without good husbandry is not like, in
long season, to come forward, and in consideration that the said
husbandry cannot be, by my poor judgment, so well by an other overseen
as by mine own person, it may please your mastership of your goodness
to license me, being associate with one or two of the sad and discreet
sisters of my house, to supervise abroad such things as shall be for
the profit and commodity of my house. Which thing though,
peradventure, might be done by other, yet I ensure you that none will
do it so faithfully for my house's profit as mine own self. Assuring
your mastership that it is not, nor shall be at any time hereafter, my
mind to lie forth of my monastery any night, except by inevitable
necessity I cannot then return home"[221].
It is, however, very plain that the journeys taken by abbesses and
prioresses were not always strictly concerned with the business of their
convents, or at least they combined business most adroitly with pleasure.
These ladies were of good kin and they took their place naturally in local
society, when they left their houses to oversee their husbandry, to
interview a bishop or a lawyer about their tithes, or quite openly to
visit friends and relatives. They emerged to attend the funerals of great
folk; the Prioress of Carrow attended the funeral of John Paston in
1466[222], and Sir Thomas Cumberworth in his will (1451) left the
injunction:
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 (the month's-mind) hafe
vj_s_ viij_d_ and Ilke chanon or none that comes to the said xxx day
haf xx_d_[223].
Sometimes they attended the deathbeds of relatives; among witnesses to the
codicil to the will of Walter Skirlaw, Bishop of Durham, in 1404 was
"religiosa femina Domina Johanna Priorissa de Swyna, soror dicti domini
episcopi"[224]; and it was not unusual for an abbess or prioress to be
made supervisor or executrix of a will[225]. Nor was the sad business of
deathbeds the only share taken by these prioresses in public life.
Clemence Medforde, Prioress of Ankerwyke, went to a wedding at Bromhale;
and unfortunately a sheepfold, a dairy and a good timber granary chose
that moment to catch fire and burn down, setting fire also to the
smouldering indignation of her nuns; whence many recriminations when the
Bishop came on his rounds[226]. Stranger still at times were the matters
for which their friends sought their good offices. The aristocratic Isabel
de Montfort, Prioress of Easebourne, was one of the ladies by whose oath
Margaret de Camoys purged herself on a charge of adultery in 1295[227].
The fact that these ladies were drawn from the wealthy classes and
constantly associated on terms of equality with their friends and
relatives, sometimes led them to impart a most unmonastic luxury into
their own lives. They came from the homes of lords like Sir John Arundel,
who lost not only his life but "two and fiftie new sutes of apparell of
cloth of gold or tissue," when he was drowned off the Irish coast; or
Lord Berkeley who travelled with a retinue of twelve knights, twenty-four
esquires "of noble family and descent" and a hundred and fifty
men-at-arms, in coats of white frieze lined with crimson and embroidered
with his badge; or else of country squires and franklins, like the
white-bearded gentleman of whom Chaucer says that
To liven in delyt was ever his wone,
For he was Epicurus owne sone,
* * * * *
Withoute bake mete was never his hous,
Of fish and flesh, and that so plentevous
It snewed in his hous of mete and drinke,
Of alle deyntees that men coude thinke;
or else their fathers were wealthy merchants, living in great mansions
hung with arras and lighted with glass windows, rich enough to provoke
sumptuary laws and to entertain kings. It is perhaps not surprising that
abbesses and prioresses should have found it hard to change the way of
life, which they had led before they took the veil and which they saw all
around them, when they rode about in the world. Carousings, gay garments,
pet animals, frivolous amusements, many guests, superfluous servants and
frequent escapes to the freedom of the road, are found not only at the
greater houses but even at those which were small and poor. The diverting
history of the flea and the gout shows that the luxurious abbess was
already a byword early in the thirteenth century.
The tale runs as follows:
The lopp (flea) and the gout on a time spake together, and among other
talking either of them asked [the] other of their lodging and how they
were harboured and where, the night next before. And the flea made a
great plaint and said, "I was harboured in the bed of an abbess,
betwixt the white sheets upon a soft mattress and there I trowed to
have had good harbourage, for her flesh was fat and tender, and
thereof I trowed to have had my fill. And first, when I began for to
bite her, she began to cry and call on her maidens and when they came,
anon they lighted candles and sought me, but I hid me till they were
gone. And then I bit her again and she came again and sought me with a
light, so that I was fain to leap out of the bed; and all this night I
had no rest, but was chased and chevied ['charrid'] and scarce gat
away with my life." Then answered the gout and said, "I was harboured
in a poor woman's house and anon as I pricked her in her great toe she
rose and wetted a great bowl full of clothes and went with them unto
the water and stood therein with me up to her knees; so that, what for
cold and for holding in the water, I was nearhand slain." And then the
flea said, "This night will we change our harbourage"; and so they
did. And on the morn they met again and then the flea said unto the
gout, "This night have I had good harbourage, for the woman that was
thine host yesternight was so weary and so irked, that I was sickerly
harboured with her and ate of her blood as mickle as I would." And
then answered the gout and said unto the flea: "Thou gavest me good
counsel yestereven, for the abbess underneath a gay coverlet, and a
soft sheet and a delicate, covered me and nourished me all night. And
as soon as I pricked her in her great toe, she wrapped me in furs, and
if I hurt her never so ill she let me alone and laid me in the softest
part of the bed and troubled me nothing. And therefore as long as she
lives I will be harboured with her, for she makes mickle of me." And
then said the flea, "I will be harboured with poor folk as long as I
live, for there may I be in good rest and eat my full and nobody let
[hinder] me"[228].
The Durham man, William of Stanton, who went down St Patrick's hole on
September 20th, 1409, and was shown the souls in torment there, has much
the same tale to tell. He witnessed the trial of a prioress, whose soul
had come there for judgment, and
the fendis accusid hir and said that she come to religion for pompe
and pride and for to have habundaunce of the worldes riches, and for
ese of hir bodi and not for deuocion, mekenesse and lowenesse, as
religious men and women owte to do; and the fendes said, "It is wel
knowen to god and to al his angels of heven and to men dwellyng in
that contree where she dwellid ynne, and all the fendes of hell, that
she was more cosluer (_sic_) in puler [fur] weryng, as of girdelles of
siluer and overgilt and ringes on hir fingers, and siluer bokeles and
ouergilt on hir shone, esy lieng in nyghtes as it were [a quene] or an
emprise in the world, not daynyng hir for to arise to goddis
servis[229]; and with all delicate metes and drinkes she was fedde ...
and then the bisshop [her judge] enioyned hir to payne enduryng
evermore til the day of dome"[230].
Our visitation documents show us many abbesses and prioresses like the
gout's hostess or the tormented lady in St Patrick's Purgatory. In the
matter of dress the accusations brought against Clemence Medforde,
Prioress of Ankerwyke, in 1441, will suffice for an example:
The Prioress wears golden rings exceeding costly with divers precious
stones and also girdles silvered and gilded over and silken veils, and
she carries her veil too high above her forehead, so that her
forehead, being entirely uncovered, can be seen of all, and she wears
furs of vair.... Also she wears shifts of cloth of Reynes which costs
sixteen pence the ell.... Also she wears kirtles laced with silk and
tiring pins of silver and silver gilt and has made all the nuns wear
the like.... Also she wears above her veil a cap of estate furred with
budge. Item she has round her neck a long cord of silk, hanging below
her breast and on it a gold ring with one diamond.
She confessed all except the cloth of Rennes, which she totally denied,
but pleaded that she wore fur caps "because of divers infirmities in the
head." Alnwick made an injunction carefully particularising all these
sins:
And also that none of yow, the prioresse ne none of the couente, were
no vayles of sylke ne no syluere pynnes ne no gyrdles herneysed with
syluere or golde, ne no mo rynges on your fyngres then oon, ye that be
professed by a bysshope, ne that none of yow vse no lased kyrtels, but
butoned or hole be fore, ne that ye vse no lases a bowte your nekkes
wythe crucyfixes or rynges hangyng by thame, ne cappes of astate abowe
your vayles ... and that ye so atyre your hedes that your vayles come
down nyghe to your yene[231].
If anyone doubts the truth of Chaucer's portrait of a prioress, or its
satirical intent, he has only to read that incomparable observer's words
side by side with this injunction of Alnwick:
But sikerly she hadde a fair forheed;
It was almost a spanne brood, I trowe;
For, hardily, she was nat undergrowe.
Ful fetis was her cloke, as I was war.
Of smale coral aboute hir arm she bar
A peire of bedes, gauded al with grene;
And ther-on heng a broche of gold ful shene,
On which ther was first write a crowned A
And after, _Amor vincit omnia_.
Margaret Fairfax of Nunmonkton (1397) and the lady (her name is unknown)
who ruled Easebourne in 1441 are other examples of worldly prioresses;
they clearly regarded themselves as the great ladies they were by birth,
and behaved like all the other great ladies of the neighbourhood. Margaret
Fairfax used divers furs, including even the costly grey fur (gris)--the
same with which the sleeves of Chaucer's monk were "purfiled at the hond";
she wore silken veils and "she frequently kept company with John Munkton
and invited him to feasts in her room ... and John Munkton (by whom the
convent had for long been scandalised) frequently played at tables" (the
fashionable game for ladies, a kind of backgammon) "with the Prioress in
her room and served her with drink." No wonder she had to sell timber in
order to procure money[232]. The Prioress of Easebourne was even more
frivolous; the nuns complained that the house was in debt to the amount of
L40 and this principally owing to her costly expenses:
because she frequently rides abroad and pretends that she does so on
the common business of the house, although it is not so, with a train
of attendants much too large, and tarries long abroad, and she feasts
sumptuously both when abroad and at home, and she is very choice in
her dress, so that the fur trimmings of her mantle are worth a hundred
shillings,
as great a scandal as Clemence Medforde's cloth of Rennes at sixteen pence
the ell. The Bishop took strong measures to deal with this worldly lady;
she was deposed from all administration of the temporal goods of the
priory, which administration was committed to "Master Thomas Boleyn and
John Lylis, Esquire, until and so long as when the aforesaid house or
priory shall be freed from debt." It was also ordered
that the Prioress with all possible speed shall diminish her excessive
household and shall only retain, by the advice and with the assent of
the said John and Thomas, a household such as is merely necessary and
not more. Also that the Prioress shall convert the fur trimmings,
superfluous to her condition and very costly, to the discharge of the
debts of the house. Also that if eventually it shall seem expedient to
the said Masters Thomas and John at any time, that the Prioress should
ride in person for the common business of the house, on such occasions
she shall not make a lengthened stay abroad, nor shall she in the
interval incur expenses in any way costly beyond what is needful, and
thus when despatched to go abroad she must and ought rightly to
content herself with four horses only;
and those perhaps "bothe foul and lene," like the jade ridden by the
Nonnes Preeste when Chaucer met him on the Canterbury road[233].
The charge of gadding about the country side, sometimes (as in the
Prioress of Easebourne's case) with a retinue which better beseemed the
worldly rank they had abjured, was one not infrequently made against the
heads of nunneries[234]. The Prioress of Stixwould was accused, in 1519,
of spending the night too often outside the cloister with her secular
friends and the Bishop ordered that in future she should sleep within the
monastery, but might keep a private house in the precincts, for her
greater refreshment and for receiving visitors[235]. The Prioress of
Wroxall was ordered to stay more at home in 1323[236], and in 1303 Bishop
Dalderby even found that the Prioress of Greenfield had been absent from
her house for two years[237]. Even more frequent was the charge that
abbesses and prioresses repaid too lavishly the hospitality which they
doubtless received at neighbouring manors. Many abbesses gave that
"dyscrete enterteynement," which Henry VIII's commissioners so much
admired at Catesby[238]; but others entertained too often and too well, in
the opinion of their nuns; moreover family affection sometimes led them to
make provision for their kinsfolk at the cost of the house. In 1441 one of
the nuns of Legbourne deposed that many kinsmen of the prioress had
frequent access to the house, though she did not know whether it was
financially burdened by their visits; Alnwick ordered
that ye susteyn none of your kynne or allyaunce wythe the commune
godes of the house, wythe owten the hole assent of the more hole parte
of the couent, ne that ye suffre your saide kynne or allyaunce hafe
suche accesse to your place, where thurghe the howse shall be
chargeede[239].
A similar injunction had been made at Chatteris in 1345, where the abbess
was warned not to bestow the convent rents and goods unlawfully upon any
of her relatives[240]. The charge was, however, most common in later
times, when discipline was in all ways relaxed. At Easebourne in 1478 one
of the nuns complained "that kinsmen of the prioress very often and for
weeks at a time frequent the priory and have many banquets of the best
food, while the sisters have them of the worst"[241]. The neighbouring
nunnery of Rusper was said in 1521 to be ruinous and "greatly burdened by
reason of friends and kinsmen of the lady prioress who continually
received hospitality there"[242]; at Studley in 1520 there were complaints
that the brother of the prioress and his wife stayed within the monastery,
and ten years later it was ordered that no corrody should be given to the
prioress' mother, until more was known of her way of life[243]. At Flixton
in the same year one of the nuns asserted that the mother of the prioress
had her food at the expense of the house, but whether she paid anything or
not was unknown; it appears, however, that she was in charge of the dairy,
so that she may have been boarded in return for her services. A
characteristic instance is preserved in Bishop Longland's letter to the
Prioress of Nuncoton in 1531, charging her
that frome hensforth ye do nomore burden ne chardge your house with
suche a nombre of your kinnesfolks as ye haue in tymes past used. Your
good mother it is meate ye haue aboute yow for your comforte and hirs
bothe. And oon or ij moo of suche your saddest kynnes folke, whome ye
shall thynk mooste conuenyent but passe not.... And that ye give
nomore soo lyberally the goods of your monastery as ye haue doon to
your brother george thomson and your brodres children, with grasing of
catell, occupying your lands, making of Irneworke to pleugh, and
carte, and other like of your stuff and in your forge[244].
Much information about the conduct of abbesses and prioresses may be
obtained from a study of episcopal registers, and in particular of
visitation documents. An analysis of Bishop Alnwick's visitations of the
diocese of Lincoln (1436-49) gives interesting results. In all but four
houses there were few or no complaints against the head. Sometimes it was
said that she failed to dine in the frater or to sleep in the dorter,
sometimes that she was a poor financier, and in two cases the charge of
favouritism was made; but the complaints at these sixteen houses were, on
the whole, insignificant. The four remaining heads were unsatisfactory.
The Prioress of St Michael's Stamford was so incompetent (owing to bodily
weakness) that she took little part in the common life of the house and
regularly stayed away from the choir, dined and slept by herself, though
the Bishop refused to give her a dispensation to do so. The administration
of the temporalities of the house was committed by Alnwick to two of the
nuns, but when he came back two years later one of these had had a child
and the other was unpopular on account of her autocratic behaviour. The
moral condition of the house (one nun was in apostasy with a man in 1440,
and in 1442 and 1445 two nuns were found to have borne children) must in
part be set down to the lack of a competent head[245]. The Prioress of
Gracedieu was also old and incompetent; her subprioress deposed that
by reason of old age and incapacity the prioress has renounced for
herself all governance of matters temporal, nor does she take part in
divine service, so that she is of no use; but if she makes any
corrections, she makes them with words of chiding and abuse.... She
makes the secrets of their religious life common among the secular
folk that sit at table with her ... and under her religious discipline
almost altogether is at an end.
Other nuns gave similar evidence and all complained of her favouritism for
two young nuns, whom she called her disciples. Here, as at St Michael's
Stamford, the autocratic behaviour of the nun who was in charge of the
temporalities had aroused the resentment of her sisters and the whole
convent was evidently seething with quarrels[246]. The Prioress of
Ankerwyke, Clemence Medforde, was equally unpopular with her nuns. The
ringleader against her was a certain Dame Margery Kirkby, who poured out a
flood of complaints when Alnwick came to the house. The chief charge
against her was that of financial mismanagement. She was obliged to admit
that she received, paid and administered everything without consulting the
convent, keeping the common seal in her own custody all the year round and
never rendering account. She was also said to have allowed the sheepfold,
dairy and granary to be burned down owing to her carelessness, one result
of which was that all the grain had to stand in the church. She had
alienated the plate and psalters of the house, having lent three of the
latter and pawned a chalice; another chalice and a thurible had been
broken up to make a drinking cup, but, as she had been unable to pay the
sum demanded, the pieces remained in the hands of a monk, who had
undertaken to get the work done. She was charged with having alienated
timber in large quantities and with having cut down trees at the wrong
time of year, so that no new wood grew again; but she denied this
accusation. Another charge made against her by Margery Kirkby, that of
wearing jewels and rich clothes, has already been described; she admitted
it and the fault was the more grave in that she omitted to provide
suitable clothes for the nuns, who went about in rags. It was also
complained that she behaved with undue severity to her sisters; she made
difficulties about giving them licence to see their friends; and she had a
most trying habit of coming late to the services, and then making the nuns
begin all over again. It is obvious that she was greatly disliked by the
convent, perhaps because she was a stranger in their midst, having been
imported from Bromhale to be Prioress; she evidently sought relief from
the black looks of her sisters by visiting her old home, for she was away
at a wedding in Bromhale when the farm buildings caught fire, and one of
the missing psalters had been lent to the prioress of that place. Her
_regime_ at Ankerwyke had been fraught with ill results to the convent,
for no less than six nuns had (without her knowledge, so she said) gone
into apostasy; perhaps to escape from her too rigorous sway. Nevertheless
one cannot help feeling that Margery Kirkby may have been a difficult
person to live with; the Prioress complained that the nuns were often
very easily moved against her and that Dame Margery had called her a thief
to her face; and though it may have been conducive to economy that the
triumphant accuser (elected by the convent) should share with the Prioress
the custody of the common seal, it can hardly have been conducive to
harmony[247]. At any rate poor luxury-loving Clemence died in the
following year and Margery Kirkby ruled in her stead[248].
But the most serious misdemeanours of all were brought to light when
Alnwick visited Catesby in 1442[249]. Here the bad example of the
Prioress, Margaret Wavere, seems to have contaminated the nuns, for all of
them were in constant communication with seculars and one of them had
given birth to a child. The Prioress' complaint that she dared not punish
this offender is easily intelligible in the light of her own evil life.
The most serious charge against her was that she was unduly intimate with
a priest named William Taylour, who constantly visited the nunnery and
with whom she had been accustomed to go into the gardens in the village of
Catesby; and one of the younger nuns had surprised the two _in flagrante
delicto_. She was a woman of violent temper; two nuns deposed that when
she was moved to anger against any of them she would tear off their veils
and drag them about by the hair, calling them beggars and harlots[250],
and this in the very choir of the church; if they committed any fault she
scolded and upbraided them and would not cease before seculars or during
divine service; "she is very cruel and severe to the nuns and loves them
not," said one; "she is so harsh and impetuous that there is no pleasing
her," sighed another; "she sows discord among the sisters," complained a
third, "saying so-and-so said such-and-such a thing about thee, if the one
to whom she speaks has transgressed." More serious still, from the
visitor's point of view, were the threats by which she sought to prevent
the nuns from revealing anything at the visitation; two of them declared
that she had beaten and imprisoned those who gave evidence when Bishop
Gray came to the house, and sister Isabel Benet whispered that the
Prioress had boasted of having bribed the bishop's clerk with a purse of
money, to reveal everything that the nuns had said on that occasion. Her
practice of compelling the nuns to perform manual labour was greatly
resented--why should they
Swinken with hir handes and laboure
As Austin bit? How shal the world be served?
Lat Austin have his swink to him reserved.
It appeared, however, that they were anxious to
studie and make hemselven wood
Upon a book in cloistre alwey to poure,
or so they informed Alnwick. One Agnes Halewey complained that, though she
was young and wished to be instructed in her religion and such matters,
the Prioress set her to make beds and to sew and spin; another sister
declared that when guests came the Prioress sent the young nuns to make up
their beds, which was "full of danger and a scandal to the house"[251];
another deposed that the choir was not properly observed, because the
Prioress was wont to employ the younger nuns upon her own business. There
were also the usual charges of financial mismanagement and of wasting the
goods of the convent; she had let buildings fall to ruin for want of
repair and two sheepfolds had stood roofless for two whole years, so that
the wood rotted and the lambs died of the damp. Whereas thirteen years
ago, when she became prioress, the house was worth L60 a year, now it was
worth a bare L50 and was in debt, owing to the bad rule of the Prioress
and of William Taylour, and this in spite of the fact that she had on her
entry received from Joan Catesby a sack and a half of wool and twelve
marks, with which to pay debts and make repairs. She had cut down woods.
She had pawned a sacramental cup and other silver pieces; the tablecloths
"fit for a king" (_mappalia conueniencia pro seruiendo regi_), and the set
of a dozen silver spoons which she had found at the priory, all had
vanished away. She had not provided the nuns with clothes and money for
their food for three quarters of the year, and she never rendered an
account to them. Moreover all things in the house were ordered by her
mother and by a certain Joan Coleworthe, who kept the keys of all the
offices; and both the Prioress and her mother revealed the secrets of the
chapter to people in the village. Examined upon these separate counts, the
Prioress denied the majority of them; she said that she had not been cruel
to the nuns or laid violent hands upon them, or called them liars and
harlots or sowed discord among them; that she had not set them to make
beds or to do other work; that she had never punished the nuns for giving
evidence at the last visitation or bribed the Bishop's clerk; that she had
never allowed her mother and Joan to rule everything; and that she had
never revealed the secrets of the chapter; on the contrary those secrets
were spread abroad by the secular visitors of the nuns. She admitted her
failure to render account, and gave as a reason that she had no clerk to
write it for her; she said that she had pawned the cup with the consent of
the convent, in order to pay tithes, and that she had cut down trees for
the use of the house, partly with and partly without the consent of the
house; as to the ruinous buildings, she said that some had been repaired
and some not, and as to the outside debts she professed herself ready to
render an account. The most serious charge of all, concerning William
Taylour, she entirely denied. The Bishop thereupon gave her the next day
to purge herself with four of her sisters for the things which she denied;
but she was unable to produce any compurgatresses[252] and Alnwick
accordingly found her guilty and obliged her to abjure all intercourse
with Taylour in the future.
It might be imagined that such a case as that of Margaret Wavere was in
the highest degree exceptional, likely to occur but once in a century.
Unfortunately it appears to have occurred far more often. In the fifty
years, between 1395 and 1445, Margaret Wavere can be matched, in different
parts of the country, by no less than six other prioresses guilty of
immorality and bad government; and it must be realised that this is
probably an understatement, because so much evidence has been destroyed,
or is as yet unexplored in episcopal registries. Of these cases two belong
to the diocese of York, one (besides the case of Margaret Wavere) to the
diocese of Lincoln, one to the diocese of Salisbury, one to the diocese of
Winchester and one to the diocese of Norwich. Fully as bad a woman as
Margaret Wavere was Eleanor, prioress of Arden, a little Yorkshire house
which contained seven nuns, when it was visited by Master John de Suthwell
in 1396 (during the vacancy of the see of York)[253]. The nuns were
unanimous and bitter in their complaints. The Prioress kept the convent
seal in her possession, sometimes for a year at a time, and did everything
according to her own will without consulting her sisters. She sold woods
and trees and disposed of the money as she would, and all rents were
similarly received and expended by her. When she assumed office the house
was in good condition, owing some five marks only, but now it owed great
sums to divers people, amounting to over L16 in the detailed list given by
the nuns[254], and this in spite of the fact that she had received many
alms and gifts during her year of office--L18. 13_s._ 4_d._ in all; indeed
the two marks which had been given her by Henry Arden's executors that the
convent might pray for his soul, had been concealed by her from the nuns,
"to the deception of the said Henry's soul, as it appeared to them." She
had pawned the goods of the house, at one time a piece of silver with a
cover and a maser worth 40_s._, at another time a second maser and the
Prioress' seal of office itself, for which she got 5_s._; even the sacred
vestments were not safe in her rapacious hands and a new suit was pawned,
with the result that it was soiled and worn and not yet consecrated. The
walls and roof of the church and dorter and the rest of the house were in
ruins; there were no waxen candles round the altar, no lights for matins
or for the other canonical hours, no Paschal candles; when she first took
office she found ten pairs of sheets of good linen cloth (cloth of "lake"
and "inglyschclath," to wit) and now they were worn out and in all her
time not one new pair had been made; the nuns had only two sacred albs and
one of them had been turned to secular uses, viz. to "bultyng mele," and
on several occasions had been found on the beds of laymen in the stable.
The allowances of bread and beer due to the nuns were inadequately and
unpunctually paid; sometimes she would withdraw them altogether and the
sisters would be reduced to drinking water[255]. She was not even a good
bargainer, for by her negligence a bushel of corn was bought by an
agreement for 11_d._, when it could have been had in the public market for
9_d._, 8_d._ or 7_d._ Domineering she was, too, and sent three young nuns
out haymaking, so that they did not get back before nightfall and divine
service could not be said until then; and she provoked secular boys and
laymen to chatter in the cloister and church in contempt of the nuns.
There were graver charges against her in connection with a certain married
man, John Bever, with whom she was wont to go abroad, resting in the same
house by night; and once they lay alone within the priory, in the
Prioress' chamber by night; and during the whole summer she slept alone in
her principal room outside the dorter and was much suspected on account of
John Bever. It will be noticed that this case presents many points of
similarity with that of Margaret Wavere, the chief difference being that
at Arden the Prioress alone seems to have been in grave fault; she made no
accusation against her nuns, save that they talked in the choir and in the
offices and that the sacrist was negligent about ringing the bell for
divine service. Nor had they anything to say against each other. The other
Yorkshire case came to light in 1444, when Archbishop Kemp stated that at
his visitation of the Priory of Wykeham very grave defaults and crimes had
been detected against the Prioress, Isabella Westirdale, "who after she
had been raised to that office had been guilty of incontinence with many
men, both within and outside the monastery"; she was deprived and sent to
do penance at Nunappleton.
After the case of Eleanor of Arden the next scandal concerning a prioress
was discovered in 1404 at Bromhale in Berkshire. The nuns complained in
that year to the Archbishop of Canterbury that the Prioress Juliana had
for twenty years led an exceedingly dissolute life and of her own temerity
and without their consent had usurped the rule of Prioress, in which
position she had wasted, alienated, consumed and turned to her own
nefarious uses the chalices, books, jewels, rents and other property of
the house[256]. The next year an even more serious case occurred at
Wintney in Hampshire, if the charges contained in a papal commission of
1405 were true[257]. The Archdeacon of Taunton and a canon of Wells were
empowered to visit the house:
the Pope having heard that Alice, who has been Prioress for about
twenty years, has so dilapidated its goods, from which the Prioress
for the time being is wont to administer to the nuns their food and
clothing, that it is 200 marks in debt; that she specially cherishes
two immodest nuns one of whom, her own (_suam_) sister, had
apostatized and left the monastery and, remaining in the world, had
had children, the other like the first in evil life and lewdness but
not an apostate, and feeds and clothes them splendidly, whilst she
feeds the other honest nuns meanly and for several years past has not
provided them with clothing; that she has long kept and keeps Thomas
Ferring, a secular priest, as companion at board and in bed (_in
commensalem et sibi contubernalem_), who has long slept and still
sleeps, contrary to the institutes of the order, within the monastery,
beneath the dorter, in a certain chamber (_domo_), in which formerly
no secular had ever been wont to sleep and in which the said priest
and Alice meet together at will by day and night, to satisfy their
lust (_pro explenda libidine_), on account of which and other enormous
and scandalous crimes, which Alice has committed and still commits,
there is grave and public scandal against her in those parts, to the
great detriment of the monastery.
If these things were found to be true the commissioners were ordered to
deprive the Prioress. In 1427 there occurred another very serious case of
misconduct in a Prioress, which (as at Catesby) seems to have tainted the
whole flock and is a still further illustration of the fact that a bad
prioress often meant an ill-conducted house. By her own admission Isabel
Hermyte, Prioress of Redlingfield in Suffolk, had never been to confession
nor observed Sundays and principal double feasts since the last
visitation, two years before. She and Joan Tates, a novice, had not slept
in the dorter with the other nuns, but in a private chamber. She had laid
violent hands on Agnes Brakle on St Luke's day; and she had been alone
with Thomas Langeland, bailiff, in private and suspicious places, to wit
in a small hall with closed windows "and sub heggerowes." Nor was the
material condition of the house safer in her hands. There were only nine
nuns instead of the statutory number of thirteen and only one chaplain
instead of three; no annual account had been rendered, obits had been
neglected, goods alienated and trees cut down without the knowledge and
consent of the convent. Altogether she confessed that she was neither
religious nor honest in conversation and the effect of her conduct upon
her charges was only too apparent, for the novice Joan Tates confessed to
incontinence and asserted that it had been provoked by the bad example of
the Prioress. The result of this exposure was the voluntary resignation of
the guilty woman, in order to save a scandal, and her banishment to the
priory of Wix; the whole convent was ordered to fast on bread and beer on
Fridays, and Joan Tates was to go in front of the solemn procession of the
convent on the following Sunday, wearing no veil and clad in white
flannel[258].
It is the darker side of convent life that these ancient scandals call up
before our eyes. The system produced its saints as well as its sinners; we
have only to remember the German nunnery of Helfta to be sure of that. The
English nunneries of the later middle ages produced no great mystics, but
there have come down to us word-pictures of at least two heads of houses
worthy to rank with the best abbesses of any age; not women of genius, but
good, competent housewives, careful in all things of the welfare of their
nuns, practical as well as pious. The famous description of the Abbess
Euphemia of Wherwell (1226-57) is too well-known to be quoted here in
full[259]:
"It is most fitting," says her convent chartulary, "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 farmery away from the main buildings and in conjunction with it
a dorter and other necessary offices. Beneath the farmery 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 farmery. With the chapel she enclosed a large
place, 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 her sisters."
Nor was she less prudent in ruling secular business: "she also so
conducted herself with regard to exterior affairs," says the admiring
chronicler, "that she seemed to have the spirit of a man rather than of a
woman." She levelled the court of the abbey manor and built a new hall,
and round the walled court "she made gardens and vineyards and shrubberies
in places that were formerly useless and barren and which now became both
serviceable and pleasant"; she repaired the manor-houses at Tufton and at
Middleton; when the bell tower of the dorter fell down, she built a new
one "of commanding height and of exquisite workmanship"; and one of the
last acts of her life was to take down the unsteady old presbytery and to
lay with her own hands, "having invoked the grace of the Holy Spirit, with
prayers and tears," the foundation stone of a new building, which she
lived to see completed:
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.
Finally, 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," and died amid the blessings of her
sisters.
Less famous is the name of another mighty builder, who ruled, some two
centuries later, the little Augustinian nunnery of Crabhouse in
Norfolk[260]. Joan Wiggenhall was (as has already been pointed out) a lady
of good family and had influential friends; she was installed as Prioress
in 1420, and began to build at once. In her first year she demolished a
tumble-down old barn and caused it to be remade; this cost L45. 9_s._
6_d._, irrespective of the timber cut upon the estate and of the tiles
from the old barn, but the friends of the house helped and Sir John
Ingoldesthorpe gave L20 "to his dyinge," and the Archdeacon of Lincoln 10
marks. Cheered by this, the Prioress continued her operations; in her
second year she persuaded the Prior of Shouldham to co-operate with her
in roofing the chancel of Wiggenhall St Peter's, towards which she paid 20
marks, and she also made the north end of her own chamber for 10 marks,
and in her third year she walled the chancel of St Peter's and completed
the south end of her chamber. Then she began the great work of her life,
the church of the nunnery itself, and for three years this was the chief
topic of conversation in all the villages round, and the favourite charity
of all her neighbours:
"Also in the iiij yere of the same Jone Prioresse," runs the account
in Crabhouse Register, "Ffor myschefe that was on the chyrche whiche
myght not be reparid but if it were newe maid, with the counseyle of
here frendys dide it take downe, trostynge to the helpe of oure Lorde
and to the grete charite of goode cristen men and so with helpe of the
persone before seyde (her cousin, Edmund Perys, the parson of
Watlington) and other goode frendes as schal be shewyd aftyrward, be
the steringe of oure Lorde and procuringe of the person forseyde sche
wrowght there upon iij yere and more contynuali and made it, blessyd
be God, whiche chirche cost cccc mark, whereof William Harald that
lithe in the chapel of Our Lady payde for the ledynge of the chirch
vij skore mark. And xl li. payede we for the roofe, the whiche xl li.
we hadde of Richard Steynour, Cytesen of Norwiche, and more hadde we
nought of the good whiche he bequeathe us on his ded-bedde in the same
Cyte, a worthly place clepyd Tomlonde whiche was with holde fro us be
untrewe man his seketoures. God for his mekyl mercy of the wronge make
the ryghte."
The indignant complaint of the nuns, balked of their "worthly place clepyd
Tomlonde," is very typical; there was always an executor in hell as the
middle ages pictured it, and a popular proverb affirmed that "too secuturs
and an overseere make thre theves"[261]. In this case, however, other
friends were ready to make up for the deficiencies of those untrue men:
And the stallis with the reredose, the person beforeseyde payde fore
xx pounde of his owne goode. And xxvi mark for ij antiphoneres whiche
liggen in the queer. And xx li. Jon Lawson gaf to the chirche. And xx
mark we hadde for the soule of Jon Watson. And xx mark for the soule
of Stevyn York to the werkys of the chirche and to other werkys doon
before. And xxi mark of the gylde of the Trinite which Neybores helde
in this same chirche. The glasynge of the chirche, the scripture
maketh mencyon; onli God be worshipped and rewarde to all cristen
soules.
After the death of the good parson of Watlington, another cousin of the
Prioress, Dr John Wiggenhall, came to her aid, and in her ninth year, she
set to work once more upon the church, and she
arayed up the chirche and the quere, that is for to seye, set up the
ymagis and pathed the chirche and the quere, and stolid it and made
doris, which cost x pownde, the veyl of the chirche with the
auterclothis in sute cost xl_s._[262]
During the building of the church the Prioress had not neglected other
smaller works and a long chamber on the east side of the hall was built;
but it was not until her tenth year, when the building and "arraying" of
the church was finished, that she had time and money to do much; then she
made some necessary repairs to the barn at St Peter's and built a new
malt-house, which cost ten marks. In her twelfth year "for mischeef that
was on the halle she toke it downe and made it agen"; but alas, on the
Tuesday next after Hallowmas 1432, a fire broke out and burned down the
new malt-house, and another malt-house with a solar above, full of malt.
This misfortune (so common in the middle ages) only put new heart into
Joan Wiggenhall:
thanne the same prioresse in here xiij yere with the grace of owre
Lord God and with the helpe of mayster Johnne Wygenale beforseyd, and
with helpe of good cristen men which us relevid made a malthouse with
a Doffcote, that now ovyr the Kylne, whiche house is more than eyther
of thoo that brent. And was in the werkynge fulli ij yere tyl her
xiiij yere were passyd out, which cost l pounde. Also the same
prioresse in her xv yere, sche repared the bakhous an inheyned
[heightened] it and new lyngthde it, which cost x marc. And in the
same yere she heyned the stepul and new rofyd it and leyde therupon a
fodyr of led whiche led, freston, tymbur and werkmanshipe cost x
pounde. Also in the same yere sche made the cloystir on the Northe
syde and slattyd it, and the wal be the stepul, which cost viij li.
Then she began her greatest work, after the building of the church:
Also in the xvj yere of the occupacion of the same prioresse (1435)
the dortoure that than was, as fer forthe as we knowe, the furste that
was set up on the place, was at so grete mischeef and at the
gate-downe [falling down], the Prioresse dredyinge perisschyng of her
sistres whiche lay thereinne took it downe for drede of more harmys
and no more was doon thereto that yere, but a mason he wande[263] with
hise prentise, and in that same yere the same prioresse made the litil
soler on the sowthe ende of here chaumber stondyng in to the paradise,
and the wal stondinge on the weste syde of the halle, with the lityl
chaumber stondynge on the southe syde, and the Myllehouse with alle
the small houses dependynge there upon, the Carthouse, and the
Torfehouse, and ij of stabulys and a Beerne stondynge at a tenauntry
of oure on the Southe syde of Nycolas Martyn. Alle these werkys of
this yere with the repare drewe iiij skore mark. In the xvij yere of
the same Prioresse, be the help of God and of goode cristen men sche
began the grounde of the same dortoure that now stondith, and wrought
thereupon fulli vij yere betymes as God wolde sende hir good.
In the twenty-fourth year of her reign Joan Wiggenhall saw the last stone
laid in its place and the last plank nailed. The future was hid from her
happy eyes; she could not foresee the day, scarcely a century later, when
the walls she had reared so carefully should stand empty and forlorn, and
the molten lead of the roof should be sold by impious men. She must have
said with Solomon, as she looked upon her great church, "I have surely
built thee an house to dwell in, a settled place for thee to abide in for
ever"; and no flash of tragic prescience showed her the sheep feeding
peacefully over the spot where its "heyned stepul" pointed to the sky. In
1451 she departed to the heaven she knew best, a house of many mansions;
and her nuns, who for four and twenty years had lived a proud but
uncomfortable life in clouds of sawdust and unending noise, buried her
(one hopes) under a seemly brass in her church.
The mind preserves a pleasant picture of Euphemia of Wherwell and of Joan
Wiggenhall, when Margaret Wavere, Eleanor of Arden, Isabel Hermyte and the
rest are only dark memories, not willingly recalled. Which is as it should
be. The typical prioress of the middle ages, however, was neither Euphemia
nor Margaret. As one sees her, after wading through some hundred and fifty
visitation reports or injunctions, she was a well-meaning lady, doing her
best to make two ends of an inadequate income meet, but not always
provident; ready for a round sum in hand to make leases, sell corrodies,
cut down woods and to burden her successor as her predecessor had burdened
her. She found it difficult to carry out the democratic ideal of convent
life in consulting her sisters upon matters of business; she knew, like
all rulers, the temptation to be an autocrat; it was so much quicker and
easier to do things herself: "What, shulde the yong nunnes gyfe voices?
Tushe, they shulde not gyfe voices!" So she kept the common seal and
hardly ever rendered an account. She found that her position gave her the
opportunity to escape sometimes from that common life, which is so trying
to the temper; and she did not always keep the dorter and the frater as
she should. She was rarely vicious, but nearly always worldly; she could
not resist silks and furs, little dogs such as the ladies who came to stay
in her guest-room cherished, and frequent visits to her friends. When she
was a strong character the condition of her house bore witness, for good
or evil, to her strength; when she was weak disorder was sure to follow.
Very often she won a contented "omnia bene" from her nuns, when the Bishop
came; at other times, she said that they were disobedient and they said
that she was harsh, or impotent, or addicted to favourites. In the end it
is to Chaucer that we turn for her picture; as the Bishops found her, so
he saw her, aristocratic, tender-hearted, worldly, taking pains to
"countrefete chere of court," smiling "ful simple and coy" above her
well-pinched wimple; a lady of importance, attended by a nun and three
priests, spoken to with respect and reverence by the not too mealy-mouthed
host (no "by Corpus Dominus," or "cokkes bones," or "tel on a devel wey!"
for her, but "cometh neer my lady prioresse," and "my lady prioresse, by
your leve"); clearly enjoying a night at the Tabard and some unseemly
stories on the road (though her own tale was exquisite and fitting to her
state). Religious? perhaps; but save for her singing the divine service
"entuned in her nose ful semely" and for her lovely address to the Virgin,
Chaucer can find but little to say on the point:
But for to speken of hir conscience
She was so charitable and so pitous--
that she would weep over a mouse in a trap or a beaten puppy! For charity
and pity we must go to the poor Parson, not to friar or monk or nun. A
good ruler of her house? doubtless; but when Chaucer met her the house was
ruling itself somewhere at the "shires ende." The world was full of fish
out of water in the fourteenth century, and, by seynt Loy, Madame
Eglentyne (like Dan Piers) held a certain famous text "nat worth an
oistre." So we take our leave of her--characteristically, on the road to
Canterbury.