MONASTIC HOUSEWIVES
Some respit to husbands the weather may send,
But huswiues affaires haue neuer an end.
TUSSER, _Fiue Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie_ (1573).
Every monastic house may be considered from two points of view, as a
religious and as a social unit. From the religious point of view it is a
house of prayer, its centre is the church, its _raison d'etre_ the daily
round of offices. From the social point of view it is a community of human
beings, who require to be fed and clothed; it is often a landowner on a
large scale; it maintains a more or less elaborate household of servants
and dependents; it runs a home farm; it buys and sells and keeps accounts.
The nun must perforce combine the functions of Martha and of Mary; she is
no less a housewife than is the lady of the manor, her neighbour. The
monastic routine of bed and board did not work without much careful
organisation; and it is worth while to study the method by which this
organisation was carried out.
The daily business of a monastery was in the hands of a number of
officials, chosen from among the older and more experienced of the inmates
and known as _obedientiaries_. These obedientiaries, as Mr C. T. Flower
has pointed out in a useful article[356], fall into two classes: (1)
executive officials, charged with the general government of a house, such
as the abbess, prioress, subprioress and treasuress, and (2) nuns charged
with particular functions, such as the chantress, sacrist, fratress,
infirmaress, mistress of the novices, chambress and cellaress. The number
of obedientiaries differed with the size of the house. In large houses the
work had naturally to be divided among a large number of officials and
those whose offices were heaviest had assistants to help them. A list of
the twenty-six nuns of Romsey in 1502, for instance, distinguishes besides
the abbess, a prioress, subprioress, four chantresses, an almoness,
cellaress, sacrist and four subsacrists, kitcheness, fratress, infirmaress
and mistress of the school of novices[357]. But in a small house there was
less need of differentiation, and though complaint is sometimes made of
the doubling of offices (perhaps from jealousy or a desire to participate
in the doubtful sweets of office), one nun must often have performed many
functions. It is common, for instance, to find the head of the house
acting as treasuress, a practice which undoubtedly had its dangers.
The following were the most important obedientiaries, whose duties are
distinguished in the larger convents. (1) The _Treasuress_, or more often
two treasuresses. Her duty was to receive all the money paid, from
whatever source, to the house and to superintend disbursements; she had
the general management of business and held the same position as a college
bursar to-day. (2) The _Chantress_ or _Precentrix_ had the management of
the church services, trained the novices in singing and usually looked
after the library. (3) The _Sacrist_ had the care of the church fabric,
with the plate, vestments and altar cloths and of the lighting of the
whole house, for which she had to buy the wax and tallow and wicks and
hire the candle-makers. (4) The _Fratress_ had charge of the frater or
refectory, kept the chairs and tables in repair, purchased the cloths and
dishes, superintended the laying of meals and kept the lavatory clean. (5)
The _Almoness_ had charge of the almsgiving. (6) The _Chambress_ ordained
everything to do with the wardrobe of the nuns; the _Additions to the
Rules of Syon_ thus describe her work:
The Chaumbress schal haue al the clothes in her warde, that perteyne
to the bodyly araymente of sustres and brethern, nyghte and day, in
ther celles and fermery, as wel of lynnen as of wollen; schapynge,
sewynge, makyng, repayryng and kepyng them from wormes, schakyng them
by the help of certayne sustres depute to her, that they be not
deuoured and consumed of moughtes. So that sche schal puruey for
canuas for bedyng, fryses, blankettes, schetes, bolsters, pelowes,
couerlites, cuschens, basens, stamens, rewle cotes, cowles, mantelles,
wymples, veyles, crounes, pynnes, cappes, nyght kerchyfes, pylches,
mantel furres, cuffes, gloues, hoses, schoes, botes, soles, sokkes,
mugdors, gyrdelles, purses, knyues, laces, poyntes, nedelles, threde,
wasching bolles and sope and for al suche other necessaryes after the
disposicion of the abbes, whiche in no wyse schal be ouer curyous, but
playne and homly, witheoute weuynge of any straunge colours of sylke,
golde, or syluer, hauynge al thynge of honeste and profyte, and
nothyng of vanyte, after the rewle; ther knyues unpoynted and purses
beyng double of lynnen clothe and not of sylke[358].
(7) The _Cellaress_ looked after the food of the house and the domestic
servants, and usually superintended the management of the home farm. It
was her business to lay in all stores, obtaining some from the home farm
and some by purchase in the village market, or at periodical fairs. She
had to order the meals, to engage and dismiss servants and to see to all
repairs. As one writer very well says, her "manifold duties appear to have
been a combination of those belonging to the offices of steward, butler
and farmer's wife"[359]. The _Rules_ of Syon again deserves quotation:
The Celeres schal puruey for mete and drynke for seke and hole, and
for mete and drynke, clothe and wages, for seruantes of householde
outwarde, and sche shall haue all the vessel and stuffe of housholde
under her kepynge and rewle, kepynge it klene, hole and honeste. So
that whan sche receyueth newe, sche moste restore the olde to the
abbes. Ordenyng for alle necessaryes longynge to al houses of offices
concernyng the bodyly fode of man, in the bakhows, brewhows, kychen,
buttry, pantry, celer, freytour, fermery, parlour and suche other,
bothe outewarde and inwarde, for straungers and dwellers, attendyng
diligently that the napery and al other thynge in her office be
honest, profitable and plesaunte to al, after her power, as sche is
commaunded by her souereyne[360].
A very detailed set of instructions how to cater for a large abbey is to
be found in a Barking document called the _Charthe longynge to the office
of the Celeresse of the Monasterye of Barkinge_[361]. (8) The _Kitcheness_
superintended the kitchen, under the direction of the cellaress. (9) The
_Infirmaress_ had charge of the sick in the infirmary; the author of the
_Additions to the Rules_ of Syon, a person of all too vivid imagination,
charges her often to
chaunge ther beddes and clothes, geue them medycynes, ley to ther
plastres and mynyster to them mete and drynke, fyre and water and al
other necessaryes, nyghte and day, as nede requyrethe, after counsel
of the phisicians, ... not squames to wasche them, and wype them, nor
auoyde them, not angry nor hasty, or unpacient thof one haue the
vomet, another the fluxe, another the frensy, which nowe syngethe, now
wel apayde, ffor ther be some sekenesses vexynge the seke so gretly
and prouokynge them to ire, that the mater drawen up to the brayne
alyenthe the mendes[362].
(10) The _Mistress of the Novices_ acted as schoolmistress to the novices,
teaching them all that they had to learn and superintending their general
behaviour.
Certain of these obedientiaries, more especially the cellaress, chambress
and sacrist, had the control and expenditure of part of the convent's
income, because their departments involved a certain number of purchases;
indeed while the treasuress acted as bursar, the housekeeping of the
convent was in the hands of the cellaress and chambress. Every well
organised nunnery therefore divided up its revenues, allocating so much to
the church, so much to clothing, so much to food, etc. Rules for the
disposition of the income of a house were sometimes drawn up by a more
than usually thrifty treasuress for the guidance of her successors, and
kept in the register or chartulary of the nunnery. The Register of
Crabhouse Priory contains one such document written (in the oddest French
of Stratford-atte-Bowe) during the second half of the fourteenth century:
"The wise men of religion who have possessions," says this careful
dame, "consider according to the amount of their goods how much they
can spend each year and according to the sum of their income they
ordain to divers necessities their portions in due measure. And in
order that when the time comes the convent should not fail to have
what is necessary according to the sum of our goods, we have ordained
their portions to divers necessary things. To wit, for bread and beer,
all the produce of our lands and tenements in Tilney and all the
produce of our half church of St Peter in Wiggenhall, and, if it be
necessary, all the produce of our land in Gyldenegore. For meat and
fish and for herrings and for _feri_ and _asser_[363] and for cloves
is set aside all the produce of our houses and rents in Lynn and in
North Lynn and in Gaywood. For clothing and shoes all the produce of
our meadow in Setchy, ... and the remnant of the land in Setchy and in
West Winch is ordained for the purchase of salt. For the prioress'
chamber, for tablecloths and towels and _tabites_[364] in linen and
saye, and for other things which are needed for guests and for the
household, is set aside all the produce of our land and tenements in
Thorpland and in Wallington. For the repair of our houses and of our
church in Crabhouse and for sea dykes and marsh dykes and for the
wages of our household and for other petty expenses is ordained all
the produce of our lands, tenements and rents in Wiggenhall, with the
exception of the pasture for our beasts and of our fuel. Similarly the
breeding of stock, and all the profits which may be drawn from our
beasts in Tilney, in Wiggenhall and in Thorpland, and in all other
places (saving the stock for our larder, and draught-beasts for carts
and ploughs and saving four-and-twenty cows and a bull) are assigned
and ordained for the repair of new houses and new dykes, to the common
profit of the house[365]."
This practice of earmarking certain sources of income may be illustrated
from almost any monastic chartulary, for it was common for benefactors to
earmark donations of land and rent to certain special purposes, more
especially for the clothing of the nuns, for the support of the infirmary,
or for a special pittance from the kitchen[366]. Similarly bishops
appropriating churches to monastic houses sometimes set aside the proceeds
for special purposes[367]. The result of the practice was that the
obedientiaries of certain departments, more especially the cellaress,
chambress and sacrist, had to keep careful accounts of their receipts and
expenditure, which were submitted annually to the treasuress, when she was
making up her big account. Very few separate obedientiaries' accounts
survive for nunneries, partly because the majority were small and the
treasuress not infrequently acted as cellaress and did the general
catering herself. Cellaresses' accounts, however, survive for Syon and
Barking, chambresses' accounts for Syon and St Michael's Stamford (the
latter merely recording the payment to the nuns of their allowances) and
sacrists' accounts for Syon and Elstow[368]. In one column these accounts
set out the sources from which the office derives its income. This might
come to the obedientiary in one of two ways, either directly from the
churches, manors or rents appropriated to her, or by the hands of the
treasuress, who received and paid her the rents due to her office, or if
no revenues were appropriated to it, allocated her a lump sum out of the
general revenues of the house. Thus at Syon the cellaress drew her income
from the sale of hides, oxhides and fleeces (from slaughtered animals and
sheep at the farm), the sale of wood, and the profits of a dairy farm at
Isleworth, while the chambress simply answered for a sum of L10 paid to
her by the treasuresses. In another column the obedientiary would enter
her expenditure. This might take two forms. According to the Benedictine
rule and to the rule of the newly founded and strict Brigittine house of
Syon, all clothes and food were provided for the nuns by the chambress and
cellaress; and accordingly their accounts contain a complete picture of
the communal housekeeping. In the later middle ages, however, it became
the almost universal custom to pay the nuns a money allowance instead of
clothing, a practice which deprived the office of chambress of nearly all
its duties and possibly accounts for the rarity of chambresses' account
rolls. The Syon chambress' account is an example of the first or regular
method; the St Michael's, Stamford, account of the second. More rarely the
nuns received money allowances for a portion of their food. The growth of
this custom of paying money allowances will be described in a later
chapter[369]; here it will suffice to consider the housekeeping of a
nunnery in which that business was entirely in the hands of the chambress
and cellaress.
The accounts throw an interesting light on the provision of clothes for a
convent and its servants. An account of Dame Bridget Belgrave, chambress
of Syon (who had to look after the brothers as well as the sisters of the
house) has survived for the year 1536-7. It shows her buying "russettes,"
"white clothe," "kerseys," "gryce," "Holand cloth and other lynen cloth,"
paying for the spinning of hemp and flax, for the weaving of cloth, for
the dressing of calves' skins and currying of leather, and for 3000
"pynnes of dyuerse sortes." She pays wages to "the yoman of the
warderobe," "the grome," the skinner and the shoemakers and she tips the
"sealer" of leather in the market place[370]. Treasuresses' accounts also
often give interesting information about the purchase and making up of
various kinds of material. At St Radegund's, Cambridge, the nuns were in
receipt of an annual dress allowance, but the house made many purchases of
stuff for the livery of its household and in 1449-50 the account records
payments
to a certain woman hired to spin 21 lbs. of wool, 22_d._; and to Alice
Pavyer hired for the same work, containing in the gross 36 lbs. of
woollen thread 6_s._; and paid to Roger Rede of Hinton for warping
certain woollen thread 1-1/2_d._; and to the same hired to weave 77
ells of woollen cloth for the livery of the servants 3_s._ 5_d._; and
paid to the wife of John Howdelowe for fulling the said cloth 3_s._
6_d._; and paid to a certain shearman for shearing (i.e. finishing the
surface of) the said cloth 14-1/2_d._
The next year the nuns make similar payments for cleaning, spinning,
weaving, warping, fulling and shearing wool (an interesting illustration
of the subdivision of the cloth industry) and disburse 9_s._ 9_d._ to
William Judde of St Ives for dyeing and making up this cloth into green
and blue liveries for the servants of the house[371].
The cellaresses' accounts, which show us how the nun-housekeeper catered
for the community, are even more interesting than the chambresses'
accounts. The convent food was derived from two main sources, from the
home farm and from purchase. The home farm was usually under the
management of the cellaress and provided the house with the greater part
of its meat, bread, beer and vegetables, and with a certain amount of
dairy produce (butter, cheese, eggs, chickens). Anything which the farm
could not produce had to be bought, and in particular three important
articles of consumption, to wit the salt and dried fish eaten during the
winter and in Lent, the salt for the great annual meat-salting on St
Martin's day, and the spices and similar condiments used so freely in
medieval cooking and eaten by convents more especially in Lent, to relieve
the monotony of their fasting fare. The nuns of St Radegund's, Cambridge,
used to get most of their salt fish at Lynn, whence it was brought up by
river to Cambridge. From the accounts of 1449-51 it appears that the
senior ladies made the occasion one for a pleasant excursion. There is a
jovial entry in 1450-1 concerning the carriage by water from Lynn to
Cambridge of one barrel[372] and a half of white herrings, two cades[373]
of red herrings, two cades of smelts, one quarter of stockfish and one
piece of timber called "a Maste" out of which a ladder was to be made
(2_s._ 4_d._), together with the fares and food of Dame Joan Lancaster,
Dame Margaret Metham, Thomas Key (the bailiff) and Elene Herward of Lynn
to Cambridge (2_s._ 8_d._). Another entry displays to us Dame Joan
Lancaster bargaining for the smelts and the stockfish at Lynn. Fish was
usually bought from one John Ball of Lynn, who seems to have been a
general merchant of considerable custom, for the nuns also purchased from
him all the linen which they needed for towels and tablecloths, and some
trenchers. Occasionally, also, however, they purchased some of their fish
at one or other of the fairs held in the district; in 1449-50 they thus
bought 8 warp[374] of ling and 6 warp of cod from one John Antyll at Ely
fair and 14 warp of ling from the same man at Stourbridge fair, an
interesting illustration of how tradesmen travelled from fair to fair. At
St John Baptist's fair in the same year they bought a horse for 9_s._
6_d._, 2 qrs. 5 bushels of salt, some timber boards and three "pitcheforke
staves." In the following year they bought timber, pewter pots, a churn,
10 lbs. of soap and 3 lbs. of pepper at the famous fair of Stourbridge,
and salt and timber at the fair of St John Baptist. In 1481-2 they bought
salt fish, salt, iron nails, paper, parchment and "other necessities" at
the fairs of Stourbridge and of St Etheldreda the Virgin[375].
The fish-stores illustrate a side of medieval housekeeping, which is
unfamiliar to-day. Fresh fish was eaten on fish-days whenever it could be
got. Most monastic houses had fishing rights attached to their demesnes,
or kept their own fish-pond or stew. The nuns of St Radegund's had fishing
rights in a certain part of the Cam known as late as 1505 as
"Nunneslake"[376]. But a great deal of dried and salted fish was also
eaten. In their storehouse the nuns always kept a supply of the dried cod
known as stockfish for their guest-house and for the frater during the
winter. It was kept in layers on canvas and was so dry that it had to be
beaten before it could be used; it is supposed to have derived its name
from the _stock_ on which it was beaten, or, as Erasmus preferred to say,
"because it nourisheth no more than a dried stock"[377]. For Lent the
chief articles of food were herrings and salt salmon, but the list of
_salt store_ purchased by the cellaress of Syon in 1536-7 shows a great
variety of fish, to wit 200 dry lings, 700 dry haberden (salted cod), 100
"Iceland fish," 1 barrel of salt salmon, 1 barrel of [white] herring, 1
cade of red herring and 420 lbs. of "stub" eels[378]. The chief food
during Lent, besides bread and salt fish, was dried peas, which could be
boiled or made into pottage. Thus Skelton complains of the monks of his
day:
Saltfysshe, stocfysshe, nor heryng,
It is not for your werynge;
Nor in holy Lenton season
Ye wyll nethyr benes ne peason[379].
In Lent also were eaten dried fruits, in particular almonds and raisins
and figs, the latter being sometimes made into little pies called
_risschewes_[380]. The nuns of Syon purchased olive oil and honey with
their other Lenten stores. The list of condiments which they bought during
the year, for ordinary cooking purposes, or for consumption as a relief to
their palates in Lent, or as a pittance on high days and holidays,
includes, in 1536-7, sugar (749-3/4 lb.), nutmegs (18 lb.), almonds (500
lb.), currants (4 lb.), ginger (6 lb.), isinglass (100 lb.), pepper (6
lb.), cinnamon (1 lb.), cloves (1 lb.), mace (1 lb.), saffron (2 lb.),
rice (3 qrs.), together with figs, raisins and prunes[381]. Surely the
poor clown, whom Autolycus relieved so easily of his purse, was sent to
stock a convent storehouse, not to furnish forth a sheep-shearing feast
and the sister who sent him was a sister in Christ:
Let me see, what am I to buy...? Three pound of sugar; five pound of
currants; rice,--what will this sister of mine do with rice?... I must
have saffron, to colour the warden pies; mace, dates,--none; that's
out of my note; nutmegs seven; a race or two of ginger,--but that I
may beg;--four pound of prunes and as many of raisins of the sun[382].
Lent fare was naturally not very pleasant, for all the mitigations of
almonds and figs. At other times of the year the convent ate on fish-days
fresh fish, when they could get it, otherwise dried or salt fish, and on
meat-days either beef or some form of pig's flesh, eaten fresh as pork,
cured and salted as bacon, or pickled as _sowce_[383]. Mutton was also
eaten, though much more seldom, for the sheep in the middle ages was
valued for its wool, rather than for its meat, and was indeed a scraggy
little animal, until the discovery of winter crops and the experiments of
Bakewell revolutionised stock-breeding and the English food-supply in the
eighteenth century. The nuns also had fowls on festive occasions, eggs,
cheese and butter from the dairy and vegetables from the garden. The
staple allowance of bread and beer made on the premises was always
provided by the convent, even when the nuns had a money allowance to cater
for themselves in other articles of food[384]. Some idea of the menu of an
average house is given in the Syon rule:
For the sustres and brethren sche [the cellaress] shal euery day for
the more parte ordeyne for two maner of potages, or els at leste for
one gode and that is best of alle. If ther be two, that one be sewe
[broth] of flesche and fische, after [according to what] the day is;
and that other of wortes or herbes, or of any other thing that groweth
in the yerthe, holsom to the body, as whete, ryse, otemele, peson and
suche other. Also sche schal ordeyne for two sundry metes, of flesche
and of fysche, one fresche, another powdred [salted], boyled, or
rosted, or other wyse dyghte, after her discrecion, and after the day,
tyme and nede requyreth, as the market and purse wylle stretche. And
thys schal stonde for the prebende, which is a pounde of brede, welle
weyed, with a potel of ale and a messe of mete.... On fysche dayes
sche schal ordeyn for whyte metes, yf any may be hadde after the
rewle, be syde fysche metes, as it is before seyd. Also, ones a wyke
at the leste, sche schal ordeyn that the sustres and brethren be
serued withe newe brede, namely on water dayes, but neuer withe newe
ale, nor palled or ouer sowre, as moche as sche may. For supper sche
schal ordeyn for some lytel sowpyng, and for fysche and whyte mete, or
for any other thynge suffred by the rewle, lyghte of dygestyon
equyualente, and as gode to the bodyly helthe.... On water dayes sche
schal ordeyne for bonnes or newe brede, water grewel, albreys and for
two maner of froytes at leste yf it may be, that is to say, apples,
peres or nuttes, plummes, chiryes, benes, peson, or any suche other,
and thys in competent mesure, rosten or sothen, or other wyse dyghte
to the bodyly helthe, and sche must se that the water be sothen with
browne brede in maner of a tysan, or withe barley brede, for coldenes
and feblenes of nature, more thys dayes, than in dayes passed
regnynge[385].
On certain special days the nuns received a pittance, or extra allowance
of food, sometimes taking the shape of some special delicacy consecrated
to the day. On Shrove Tuesday they often had the traditional pancakes, or
fritters, called _crisps_ at Barking[386] and _flawnes_ at St Michael's,
Stamford[387]. Maundy Thursday, otherwise called Shere Thursday (the
Thursday before Easter) was the great almsgiving day of the year. On this
day the kings and queens of England, as well as the greatest dignitaries
of the church and of the nobility, were accustomed to give gowns, food and
money to the poor, who clustered round their gates in expectance of the
event, and ceremonially to wash the feet of a certain number of poor men
and women, to commemorate Christ's washing of His disciples' feet.
Benefactors who left land to monastic houses for purposes of almsgiving
often specified Maundy Thursday as the day on which the alms were to be
distributed. It was customary also for monks and nuns to receive a
pittance on this day; and welcome it must have been after the long Lenten
fast. The nuns of Barking had baked eels, with rice and almonds and wine.
The nuns of St Mary de Pre (St Albans) had "Maundy ale" and "Maundy money"
given to them. The nuns of St Michael's, Stamford, had beer and wafers and
spices[388]. There was always a feast on Christmas day and on most of the
great feasts of the church and the various feasts connected with the
Virgin. There was a pittance on the dedication day of the convent and
sometimes on other saints' days. There were also pittances on the
anniversaries of benefactors who had left money for this purpose to the
convent, and sometimes also on profession-days, which were "the official
birthdays of the nuns"[389]. In the monotonous round of convent life these
little festivities formed a pleasant change and were looked forward to
with ardour; in some of the larger houses a special obedientiary known as
the _Pittancer_ had charge over them.
Food is one of the housekeeper's cares; servants are another; and between
them they must have wrinkled many a cellaress' brow, though the servant
problem at least was a less complicated one in the middle ages than it is
to-day. The persons to whom regular yearly wages were paid by a convent
fall into four classes: (1) the chaplains, (2) the administrative
officials, steward, rent-collectors, bailiff, (3) the household staff and
(4) the hinds and farm-servants.
(1) _The chaplains._ The account rolls of a nunnery of average size
usually contain payments to more than one priest. The nuns had to pay the
stipend of their own chaplain or mass-priest, of any chaplains or vicars
whom they were bound to provide for appropriated churches, and sometimes
of a confessor. The number of chaplains naturally varied with the size of
the house and with the number of appropriated churches. Great houses such
as Barking, Shaftesbury and Wilton had a body of resident chaplains
attached to the nunnery church and paid the stipends of priests
ministering to appropriated parishes. Poor and small nunneries, such as
Rusper, paid the fee of one resident chaplain. It is worthy of note that
certain important and old established abbeys in Wessex had canons'
prebends attached to their churches. At each of the abbey churches of
Shaftesbury, St Mary's Winchester, Wherwell and Wilton there were four
prebendary canons, at Romsey there were two (one of whom was known as
sacrist). Moreover at Malling in Kent there were two secular prebends,
known as the prebends of _magna missa maioris altaris_ and _alta missa_.
These prebends were doubtless originally intended for the maintenance of
resident chaplains, but as early as the thirteenth century the prebends
were almost invariably held by non-residents and pluralists as sinecures,
the reason being, as Mr Hamilton Thompson points out, "the rise in value
of individual endowments and the consequent readiness of the Crown, as
patron of the monasteries, to discover in them sources of income for
clerks in high office." Thus these great abbeys also followed the usual
custom of hiring chaplains to celebrate in their churches, though some of
the wealthier prebends were taxed with stipendiary payments towards the
cost of these[390].
[Illustration: PLATE III
PAGE FROM _LA SAINTE ABBAYE_
(In the top left hand corner is a nun at confession; in the other corners
are visions appearing to a nun at prayer.)]
The chaplain of a house usually resided on the premises, sometimes
receiving his board from the nuns; occasionally inventories mention his
lodgings, which were outside the nuns' cloister. Thus the Kilburn
Dissolution inventory, after describing all the household offices, goes on
to describe the three chambers for the chaplain and the hinds, the
"confessor's chamber" and the church[391]. At Sheppey the chamber over
the gatehouse was called "the confessor's chamber" and was furnished forth
with
a hangyng of rede clothe, a paynted square sparver of lynen, with iij
corteyns of lynyn clothe, a good fetherbed, a good bolster, a pece of
blanketts and a good counterpeynt of small verder, in the lowe bed a
fetherbed, a bolster, a pece of blanketts olde, and an image coverled,
a greate joynyd chayer of waynscot, an olde forme, and a cressar of
iron for the chymneye[392].
The relations between the nuns and their priest were doubtless very
friendly; he would be their guide, philosopher and friend, sometimes
acting as _custos_ of their temporal affairs and always ready with advice.
Madame Eglentyne, it will be remembered, took three priests with her upon
her eventful pilgrimage to Canterbury, and one was the
never-to-be-forgotten Sir John, whom she mounted worse than his inimitable
skill as a _raconteur_ deserved:
Than spak our host, with rude speche and bold
And seyde un-to the Nonnes Preest anon,
"Com neer, thou preest, com hider thou sir John,
Tel us swich thing as may our hertes glade,
Be blythe, though thou ryde up-on a jade.
What though thyn hors be bothe foule and lene,
If he wol serve thee, rekke not a bene;
Look that thyn herte be mery evermo."
"Yis, sir" quod he, "yis, host, so mote I go,
But I be mery, y-wis I wol be blamed":--
And right anon his tale he hath attamed,
And thus he seyde unto us everichon,
This swete preest, this goodly man, sir John[393].
Certainly the convent never went to sleep in a sermon which had the tale
of Chauntecleer and Pertelote for its _exemplum_.
Yet the nuns were not always happy in their priests. There is the case
(not, it must be admitted, without its humour) of Sir Henry, the chaplain
of Gracedieu in 1440-41. Sir Henry was an uncouth fellow, it seems, who
was more at home in the stable than at the altar. He went out haymaking
alone with the cellaress, and in the evening brought her back behind him,
riding on the same lean jade. Furthermore "Sir Henry the chaplain busies
himself with unseemly tasks, cleansing the stables, and goes to the altar
without washing, staining his vestments. He is without devotion and
irreverent at the altar and is of ill reputation at Loughborough and
elsewhere where he has dwelt." Poor Sir Henry,--
See, whiche braunes hath this gentil Preest,
So greet a nekke, and swich a large breest!
He loketh as a sperhauk with his yen;
Him nedeth nat his colour for to dyen
With brasil, ne with greyn of Portingale.
The bishop swore him to "behave himself devoutly and reverently
henceforward at the altar in making his bow after and before his
masses"[394].
(2) _The administrative officials._ These varied in number with the size
of the house and the extent of its possessions. The chief administrative
official was the _steward_, who is not, however, found at all houses.
Sometimes the office of steward was complimentary and the fee attached was
nominal. The _Valor Ecclesiasticus_ shows that great men did not disdain
the post; Andrew Lord Windsor was steward of the Minoresses without
Aldgate, of Burnham and of Ankerwyke[395]. Henry Lord Daubeney was steward
of Shaftesbury[396], George Earl of Shrewsbury of Wilton[397], Henry
Marquess of Dorset of Nuneaton[398], Sir Thomas Wyatt of Malling[399], Sir
W. Percy of Hampole, Handale and Thicket[400], Lord Darcy of Swine[401],
the Earl of Derby of St Mary's Chester[402], and Mr Thomas Cromwell
himself of Syon and Catesby[403]. Some houses, such as Wilton, had more
than one steward, and Syon maintained stewards as well as bailiffs in most
of the counties in which it had land. Some of these great men were
obviously not working officials; but many of the houses maintained
stewards at a good salary, who superintended their business affairs, kept
the courts of their manors, and were sometimes lodged on the
premises[404]. The larger houses also paid one or more receivers and
rent-collectors and sometimes an auditor, but in the average house the
most important administrative official was the bailiff.
While large landowners kept bailiffs at each of the different manors which
they held, most nunneries employed a single bailiff, an invaluable
factotum who performed a great variety of business for them, besides
collecting rents from their tenants and superintending the home farm.
Thomas Key, the bailiff of St Radegund's Cambridge, 1449-51, is an active
person; he receives a stipend of 13_s._ 4_d._ per annum and an occasional
gift from the nuns; he rides about collecting their rents in
Cambridgeshire; he accompanies them to Lynn on the annual journey to buy
the winter stock of salt fish, or sometimes goes alone; he can turn his
hand to mending rakes and ladders (for which he gets 8_d._ for four days'
work), or to making the barley mows at harvest time, taking 3_d._ a day
for his pains; and indeed he is regularly hired to work during harvest, at
a fee of 6_s._ 8_d._ and two bushels of malt[405]. Often the bailiff's
wife was also employed by the nuns; the nuns of Sheppey paid their
bailiff, his wife and his servant all substantial salaries[406]. Some
nunneries had a lodging set apart for him in the convent buildings,
outside the nuns' cloister[407].
Evidence often crops up from a variety of sources concerning the relations
between the nuns and this important official. That these might be very
pleasant can well be imagined. Sometimes a bailiff of substance and
standing will place his daughter in the nunnery which he serves[408];
sometimes when he dies he will remember it in his will[409]. But all
bailiffs were not good and faithful servants. Mr Hamilton Thompson
considers that male stewards and bailiffs were often "responsible for the
financial straits to which the nunneries of the fifteenth century were
reduced, and ... certainly did much to waste the goods of the monasteries,
generally in their own interests"[410]. Such a man was Chaucer's Reeve,
though he did not waste land, for the reason that one does not kill the
goose that lays the golden eggs:
His lordes sheep, his neet, his dayerye,
His swyn, his hors, his stoor and his pultrye,
Was hoolly in this reves governing,
And by his covenaunt yaf the rekening....
His woning was ful fair upon an heeth,
With grene trees shadwed was his place.
He coude bettre than his lord purchace.
Ful riche he was astored prively,
His lord wel coude he plesen subtilly,
To yeve and lene him of his owne good,
And have a thank, and yet a cote and hood[411].
Several records of law-suits are extant, in which prioresses are obliged
to sue their bailiffs in the court of King's Bench for an account of their
periods of service[412], and visitation documents sometimes give a sorry
picture of the convent bailiff. The bailiff of Godstow (1432) went about
saying that there was no good woman in the nunnery[413]; the bailiff of
Legbourne (1440) persuaded the prioress to sell him a corrody in the house
and yet he "is not reckoned profitable to the house in that office, for
several of his kinsfolk are serving folk in the house, who look out for
themselves more than for the house"[414]; the bailiff of Redlingfield
(1427) was the prioress's lover[415].
Romsey Abbey seems at various times to have been peculiarly unfortunate in
its administrative officials. In 1284 Archbishop Peckham had to write to
the abbess Agnes Walerand and bid her remove two stewards, whom she had
appointed in defiance of the wishes of the convent and who were to give an
account of their offices to his official[416]. At the close of the
fifteenth century, when the abbey was in a very disorderly state under
Elizabeth Broke, there was serious trouble again. In 1492 this Abbess was
found to have fallen under the influence of one Terbock, whom she had made
steward. She herself confessed that she owed him the huge sum of 80_l._
and the nuns declared that in part payment of it she had persuaded them to
make over to him for three years a manor valued at 40_l._ and had given
him a cross and many other things. His friends haunted her house,
especially one John Write, who begged money from her for Terbock. The nuns
suspected him of dishonesty, asked that the rolls of account for the years
of his stewardship might be seen and declared that the house was brought
to ill-fame by him[417]. In 1501 Elizabeth Broke had fallen under the
influence of another man, this time a priest called Master Bryce, but she
died the next year. Her successor Joyce Rowse was equally unsatisfactory
and equally unable to control her servants. Bishop Foxe's vicar-general in
1507 enjoined that a nun should be sought out and corrected for having
frequent access, suspiciously and beyond the proper time, to the house of
the bailiff of the monastery, and others who went with her were to be
warned and corrected too; moreover he summoned before him Thomas Langton,
Christopher George and Thomas Leycrofte, bailiffs, and Nicholas Newman,
_villicum agricultorem_, and admonished them to behave better in their
offices on pain of removal[418].
(3) The _household staff_ naturally varied in size with the size of the
nunnery. The Rule of St Benedict contemplated the performance of a great
deal if not all of the necessary domestic and agricultural work of a
community by the monks themselves. But this tradition had been largely
discarded by the thirteenth century, and if the nuns of a small convent
are found doing their own cooking and housework, it is by reason of their
poverty and they not infrequently complain at the necessity. They were of
gentle birth and ill accustomed to menial tasks. The weekly service in the
kitchen would seem to have disappeared completely. The larger houses
employed a male cook, sometimes assisted by a page, or by his wife, and
supervised by the cellaress, or by the kitcheness, where this obedientiary
was appointed. There were also a maltster, to make malt, and a brewer and
baker, to prepare the weekly ration of bread and ale; sometimes these
offices were performed by men, sometimes by women. There was a _deye_ or
dairy-woman, who milked the cows, looked after the poultry, and made the
cheeses. There was sometimes a _lavender_ or laundress, and there were one
or more women servants, to help with the housework and the brewing. The
gate was kept by a male porter; and there was sometimes also a gardener.
In large houses there would be more than one servant for each of these
offices; in small houses the few servants were men or maids of all work
and extra assistance was hired when necessary for making malt or washing
clothes. In large houses it was not uncommon for each of the chief
obedientiaries to have her own servant attached to her _checker_ (office)
and household, who prepared the meals for her mistress and for those nuns
who formed her _familia_ and messed with her. The head of the house nearly
always had her private servant when its resources permitted her to do so,
and sometimes when they did not.
(4) _The farm labourers._ Finally every house which had attached to it a
home farm had to pay a staff of farm labourers. These hinds, whose work
was superintended by the bailiff and cellaress, always included one or two
ploughmen, a cowherd and oxherd, a shepherd, probably a carter or two and
some general labourers. Again the number varied very considerably
according to the size of the house and was commonly augmented by hiring
extra labour at busy seasons. The farm was cultivated partly by the work
of these hired servants, partly by the services owed by the villeins.
The nuns, with their domestic and farm servants, were the centre of a busy
and sometimes large community, and a very good idea of their social
function as employers may be gained from the lists of wage-earning
servants to be found in account rolls or in Dissolution inventories. We
may take in illustration the large and famous abbey of St Mary's,
Winchester, and the little house of St Radegund's, Cambridge. St Mary's,
Winchester, had let out the whole of its demesne in 1537, and the
inventory drawn up by Henry VIII's commissioners therefore contains no
list of farm labourers. The household consisted of the Abbess and
twenty-six nuns, thirteen "poor sisters," twenty-six "chyldren of lordys
knyghttes and gentylmen browght vp yn the sayd monastery," three
corrodians and five chaplains, one of whom was confessor to the house, and
twenty-nine officers and servants. The Abbess had her own household,
consisting of a gentlewoman, a woman servant and a laundress, and the
prioress, subprioress, sacrist and another of the senior nuns each had her
private woman servant "yn her howse." There were also two laundresses for
the convent. The male officers and servants were Thomas Legh, _generall
Receyver_ (who also held a corrody and had two little relatives at school
in the convent), Thomas Tycheborne _clerke_ (who likewise had two little
girl relatives at school and a boy who will be mentioned), Lawrens Bakon,
_Curtyar_ (officer in charge of the secular buildings of the nunnery),
George Sponder, _Cater_ (caterer or manciple, who purchased the victuals
for the community), William Lime, _Botyler_, Rychard Bulbery, _Coke_, John
Clarke, _Vndercoke_, Richard Gefferey, _Baker_, May Wednall, _convent
Coke_, John Wener, _vndercovent Coke_, John Hatmaker, _Bruer_, Wylliam
Harrys, _Myller_, Wylliam Selwod, _porter_, Robert Clerke, _vnderporter_,
William Plattyng, _porter of Estgate_, John Corte and Hery Beale,
_Churchemen_, Peter Tycheborne, _Chyld of the hygh aulter_, Rychard
Harrold, _seruaunt to the receyver_ and John Serle, _seruaunt to the
Clerke_[419].
St Radegund's, Cambridge, in 1450 was a much smaller community, numbering
about a dozen nuns. In the treasurers' accounts the wage-earning household
is given as follows, together with the annual wages paid by the nuns. The
confessor of the house came from outside and was a certain friar named
Robert Palmer, who received 6_s._ 8_d._ a year for his pains; they also
paid a salary of 5_l._ a year to their mass-priest, John Herryson, 2_s._
4_d._ to John Peresson, the chaplain celebrating (but only _per vices_,
from time to time) at the appropriated church of St Andrew's, and 13_s._
4_d._ to the "clerk" of that church, a permanent official. Thomas Key, the
invaluable bailiff and rent-collector mentioned above, got the rather
small salary of 13_s._ 4_d._, but added to it by exactly half as much
again during harvest. Richard Wester, baker and brewer to the house,
received 26_s._ 8_d._, John Cokke, maltster (and probably also cook, as
his name suggests) received 13_s._ 4_d._ The women servants included one
of those domestic treasures, who effectively run the happy household which
possesses them, or which they possess: her name was Joan Grangyer and she
is described as dairy-woman and purveyor or housekeeper to the Prioress;
the nuns paid her 20_s._ in all, including 6_s._ 8_d._ for her livery and
2_s._ 4_d._ as a special fee for catering for the Prioress. Then there was
Elianore Richemond, who seems to have been an assistant dairy-maid, for in
the following year the nuns had replaced her by another woman, hired "for
all manner of work in milking cows, making cheese and butter," etc.; her
wages were 8_s._ 4_d._, including a "reward" or gift of 20_d._ The other
women servants were Elizabeth Charterys, who received 3_s._ 1_d._ for her
linen and woollen clothes and her shoes, but no further wages, and
Dionisia _yerdwomman_, who received 9_s._ and doubtless did the rough
work. This completed the domestic household of the nuns. Their hinds
included three ploughmen, John Everesdon (26_s._ 8_d._), Robert Page
(16_s._) and John Slibre (13_s._ 4_d._ and 2_s._ 6_d._ for livery); the
shepherd, John Wyllyamesson, who received 22_s._ 8_d._ and 8_d._ for a
pair of hose; the oxherd Robert Pykkell, who took 6_s._ 8_d._; and Richard
Porter, husbandman, who was hired to work from Trinity Sunday to
Michaelmas for 13_s._ 4_d._[420]
It will thus be seen that the size of a convent household might vary
considerably. The twenty-six nuns of St Mary's Winchester had gathered
round themselves a large household of nine women servants, five male
chaplains and twenty male officers and servants; but they boarded and
educated twenty-six children, gave three corrodies and supported thirteen
poor sisters (who may however have done some of the work of the house).
The twelve nuns of St Radegund's lived more economically, with three male
and four female servants and six hinds, besides the chaplains; but even
their household seems a sufficiently large one. The ten nuns of Whitney
Priory employed two priests, a waiting maid for the prioress, nine other
women servants and thirteen hinds[421]. It is notable that the maintenance
of a larger household than the revenues of the house could support is not
infrequently censured in injunctions as responsible for its financial
straits. At Nuncoton in 1440 the Prioress said that the house employed
more women servants than was necessary[422] and a century later Bishop
Longland spoke very sternly against the same fault:
that ye streight upon sight herof dymynishe the nombre of your
seruants, as well men as women, which excessyve nombre that ye kepe of
them bothe is oon of the grette causes of your miserable pouertye and
that ye are nott hable to mayntene your houshold nouther reparacons of
the same, by reason whereof all falleth to ruyne and extreme decaye.
And therefore to kepe noo moo thenne shalbe urged necessarye for your
said house[423].
On the other hand many nunneries could by no means be charged with keeping
up an excessive household. Rusper, which had leased all its demesnes, had
only two women servants in its employ at the Dissolution[424], and nuns
sometimes complained to their visitors that they were too poor to keep
servants and had to do the work of the house themselves, to the detriment
of their religious duties in the choir. At Ankerwyke one of the nuns
deposed that
they had not serving folk in the brewhouse, bakehouse or kitchen from
the last festival of the Nativity of St John the Baptist last year to
the Michaelmas next following, in so much that this deponent, with the
aid of other her sisters, prepared the beer and victuals and served
the nuns with them in her own person.
At Gracedieu there was no servant for the infirmary and the subcellaress
had to sleep there and look after the sick, so that she could not come to
matins. At Markyate and Harrold the nuns had no washerwoman; at the former
house it was said "that the nuns have no woman to wash their clothes and
to prepare their food, wherefore they are either obliged to be absent from
divine service or else to think the whole time about getting these things
ready"; at the latter a nun said "that they have no common washerwoman to
wash the clothes of the nuns, save four times a year, and at other times
the nuns are obliged to go to the bank of the public stream to wash their
clothes"[425]. It was probably on account of the poverty of Sinningthwaite
that Archbishop Lee ordered "the susters and the nonys there [that] they
kepe no seculer women to serve them or doe any busynes for them, but yf
sekenes or oder necessitie doe require"[426].
As to the relations between the servants and their mistresses both
visitation reports and account rolls sometimes give meagre scraps of
information, which only whet the appetite for more. The payment of the
servants was partly in money, partly in board or in allowances of food,
partly in livery; stock-inventories constantly make mention of allowances
of wheat, peas, oats or oatmeal and maslin (a mixture of wheat and rye)
paid to this or that servant, and account rolls as constantly mention a
livery, a pair of hose, a pair of shoes, or the money equivalent of these
things, as forming part of the wage. The more important agricultural
servants had also sometimes the right to graze a cow, or a certain number
of sheep on the convent's pastures. Some servants, however, received wages
without board, others wages without livery. Account rolls seem to bear
witness to pleasant relations; there is constant mention of small tips or
presents to the servants and of dinners made to them on great occasions.
This was Merry England, when the ploughman's feasts enlivened his hard
work and comfortless existence; he must have his Shrovetide pancakes, his
sheep-shearing feast, his "sickle goose" or harvest-home, and his
Christmas dinner; and the household servants must as often as may be have
a share in the convent pittance. The very general custom of allowing the
female servants to sleep in the dorter (against which bishops were
continually having to make injunctions) must have made for free and easy
and close relations between the nuns and the secular women who served
them; and sometimes one of these would save up and buy herself a corrody
in the house to end her days[427]. Occasionally these close relations led
to difficulties; a trusted maid would gain undue influence over the
prioress and the nuns would be jealous of her. Thus at Heynings in 1440 it
was complained that the prioress "encourages her secular serving women,
whom she believes more than her sisters in their words, to scold the same
her sisters"[428]. Sometimes also a servant would act as a go-between
between the nuns and the outside world, smuggling in and out tokens and
messages and sundry _billets doux_[429].
On the other hand there were sometimes difficulties of a different nature.
The servants got out of hand; they brought discredit on the nuns by the
indiscretions of their lives; they gossiped about their mistresses in the
neighbourhood, or were quarrelsome and pert to their faces. At Gracedieu
in 1440-41 a nun complained "that a Frenchwoman of very unseemly
conversation is their maltstress, also that the secular serving folk hold
the nuns in despite; she prays that they may be restrained; and chiefly
are they rebellious in their words against the kitchener"[430]; evidently
the author of the _Ancren Riwle_ spake not utterly from his imagination
when he bade his ladies "be glad in your heart if ye suffer insolence from
Slurry, the cook's boy, who washeth dishes in the kitchen"[431]. At
Markyate also the servants had to be warned "that honestly and not
sturdyly ne rebukyngly thai hafe thaym in thaire langage to the
sustres"[432] and at Studley a maidservant had boxed the ears of a novice
of tender age[433]. At Sheppey in 1511 it was said that "the men servants
of the prioress do not behave properly to the prioress, but speak of the
convent contemptuously and dishonestly, thus ruining the convent"[434].
The peculiar difficulties suffered in this respect by an important house,
which maintained a large body of servants, are best illustrated, however,
in the case of Romsey Abbey. At this house in 1302 Bishop John of Pontoise
ordained
that a useless, superfluous, quarrelsome and incontinent servant and
one using insolent language to the ladies shall be removed within a
month, ... and especially John Chark, who has often spoken ill and
contumaciously in speaking to and answering the ladies, unless he
correct himself so that no more complaints be made to the bishop[435].
John Chark possibly learned to bridle his tongue, but the tone among the
Romsey servants was not good, for in 1311 Bishop Henry Woodlock ordered
that "no women servants shall remain unless of good conversation and
honest; pregnant, incontinent, quarrelsome women and those answering the
nuns contumaciously, all superfluous and useless servants, [are] to be
removed within a month"[436]. In 1387 the difficulties were of another
order; writes William of Wykeham:
the secular women servants of the nuns are wont too often to come into
the frater, at times when the nuns are eating there, and into the
cloister while the nuns are engaged there in chapter meetings,
contemplation, reading or praying, and there do make a noise and
behave otherwise ill, in a way which beseems not the honesty of
religion. And these secular women often keep up their chattering,
carolling (_cantalenas_) and other light behaviour, until the middle
of the night, and disturb the aforesaid nuns, so that they cannot
properly perform the regular services. Wherefore we ... command you
that you henceforth permit not the aforesaid things, nor any other
things which befit not the observances of your rule, to be done by the
said servants or by others, and that you permit not these servants to
serve you henceforth in the frater, and a servant or any other secular
person who does the contrary shall be expelled from the monastery.
Moreover we forbid on pain of the greater excommunication that any
servants defamed for any offence be henceforth admitted to dwell among
you, or having been admitted, be retained in your service, for from
such grave scandals may arise concerning you and your house[437].
We have spoken hitherto about the regular hired servants of the house; but
it must not be forgotten that nuns normally had a larger community
dependent in part upon them. From time to time they were wont to hire such
additional labour as they required, whether servants in husbandry taken on
for the haymaking and harvest season, artificers hired to put up or repair
buildings, workers in various branches of the cloth industry to make the
liveries of the servants, itinerant candle-makers to prepare the winter
dips, or a variety of casual workers hired at one time or another for
specific purposes. The nuns of St Radegund's, Cambridge, entered in their
accounts a large number of payments besides those to their regular
servants. In moments of stress they were wont to fall back upon a paragon
named Katherine Rolf. We first meet her in 1449-50 weeding the garden for
four days, for the modest sum of 4-1/2_d._; but soon afterwards behold her
on the roof, aiding the thatchers to thatch two tenements, at 1-1/2_d._ a
day for twelve days. In the next year she is more active still; first of
all she is found helping the candle-makers to make up 14 lbs. of tallow
candles for the guest-house. Then she combs and cleans a pound of wool for
spinning. Then she appears in the granary helping the maltster to thresh
and winnow grain. In the midst of these activities she turns an honest
penny by selling fat chickens to the convent. The nuns also disburse small
sums of money to the man who cleanses the convent privies, to the
_slawterman_ for killing beasts for the kitchen, to Richard Gardyner for
beating stockfish, to Thomas Osborne for making malt, to Thomas the Smith
for providing a variety of iron implements and _cart-clowtes_, for shoeing
the horses and for mending the ploughshares, and for "blooding the horses
on St Stephen's day" (Dec. 26), to Thomas Boltesham, _cowper_, for mending
wooden utensils, to Thomas Speed for helping in the kitchen on fair-day
and to John Speed for working in the garden. Besides these they hire
various day-labourers to work in the fields during the sowing season,
hay-making and harvest, or to lop trees round the convent and hew up
firewood, or to prune and tie up the vines (for there were English
vineyards in those days). Then there is a long list of carpenters,
builders, thatchers, and plumbers engaged in making and repairing the
buildings of the convent and its tenants. Finally there are the various
cloth workers, spinners, weaver, fuller, shearman, dyer and tailor hired
to make the servants' clothes, concerning whom something has already been
said[438].
Thus many persons came to depend upon a nunnery for part of their
livelihood, who were not the permanent servants of the house, and this
goes further than any imagined reverence for the lives and calling of
their inmates to explain the anxiety shown in some places for the
preservation of nunneries when the day of dissolution came. The convents
were not only inns and boarding-houses for ladies of the upper class and
occasionally schools for their daughters; they were the great employers
and consumers of their districts, and though their places must sooner or
later be taken by other employers and consumers, yet at the moment many a
husbandman and artificer must have seen his livelihood about to slip away
from him. The nuns of Sheppey, in their distant and lonely flats, clearly
employed a whole village[439]. They could not count on hiring carpenter
and thatcher for piece-work when they wanted them in that thinly populated
spot, so they must hire them all the year round. Twenty-six hinds and
seven women they had in all, working in their domestic offices or on the
wide demesne, most of which they farmed themselves, for food was far to
buy if they did not grow it. Three shepherds kept their large flock, a
cowherd drove their kine and hogs, a horse-keeper looked to their 17
horses. All the other men and women were busy with the beasts and the
crops in the field, or with work in the brew house, the "bultyng howse,"
the bakehouse and the dairy. So also at the abbey of Polesworth, where
fifteen nuns employed in all thirty-eight persons, women servants, yeomen
about the household and hinds. "In the towne of Pollesworth," said the
commissioners, who were gentlemen of the district and not minded to lose
the house:
ar 44 tenementes and never a plough but one, the resydue be
artifycers, laborers and vitellers, and lyve in effect by the said
house.... And the towne and nonnery standith in a harde soile and
barren ground, and to our estymacions, yf the nonnery be suppressed
the towne will shortely after falle to ruyne and dekaye, and the
people therin, to the nombre of six or seven score persones, are nott
unlike to wander and to seke their lyvyng as our Lorde Gode best
knowith[440].
So also at St Mary's, Winchester, whose household we have described:
the seid Monastery ... standith nigh the Middell of the Citye, of a
great and large Compasse, envyroned with many poore housholdes which
haue theyr oonly lyuynge of the seid Monastery, And have no demaynes
whereby they may make any prouysion, butt lyue oonly by theyr landes,
making theyr prouysion in the markettes[441].
The old order changeth, yielding place to new, and a livelihood fulfils
itself in many ways; yet many labouring folk as well as gentlemen must
have felt like the commissioners at Polesworth and St Mary's, Winchester,
when the busy monastic housewives were dispersed and the grain and cattle
sold out of barn and byre. There is no-one so conservative as your
bread-winner, and for the best of reasons.