"In the same monastery," says Caesarius, "was a nun named Elizabeth,

who was oftentimes haunted by the devil. One day she saw him in the

dorter, and since she knew him, she boxed his ears. Then said he:

'Wherefore dost thou strike me so hardly?' and she replied: 'Because

thou dost often disturb me,' to which the devil replied: 'Yesterday I

disturbed thy sister the chantress far more, but she did not hit me.'

Now she had been much agitated all day, from which it may be gathered

that anger, rancour, impatience, and other vices of the sort are often

sent by the devil. On another occasion when the same Elizabeth, very

late for matins (owing, as afterwards appeared, to the machinations of

the devil), was hurrying along to the belfry, bearing a lighted candle

in her hand, just as she was about to enter the door of the chapel,

she saw the devil in the shape of a man, dressed in a hooded tunic,

standing in front of her. Thinking that some man had got in, she

recoiled in alarm and fell down the dorter stairs, so that for some

days she lay ill of the sudden fright as well as of the fall.... And

when she was asked the cause of her fall and her scream and had

expounded this vision, she added: 'If I had known that it was the

devil and not a man, I would have given him a good cuff.' By that

time, however, she had girded her loins with strength and strengthened

her arm against the devil"[1802].

Not all the visions seen by these nuns of whom Caesarius writes were evil

visions. He has several tales to tell of appearances of the Virgin Mary

and of the saints. Besides the well-known story of Sister Beatrice and of

the nun whose ears were boxed by the Virgin, the most charming

Mary-miracle related by Caesarius tells of a nun who genuflected with such

fervour to the blessed Mother that she strained her leg; and as she lay

asleep in the infirmary, she saw before her the Virgin, bearing a pyx of

ointment in her hand; and the Virgin anointed her knee with it, till the

sweet odour brought the sisters running to find out the cause; but the nun

held her peace and bade them leave her. Sleeping again, she found herself

once more in the company of the Virgin, who led her into the orchard, and

placing her hand beneath the nun's chin, said to her, "Now do thou

kneel down upon thy knee"; and when she had done so our Lady added:

"Henceforth do thou bow thy knee thus, modestly and in a disciplined

manner," showing her how. And she added: "Every day thou shouldst say

to me the sequence 'Ave Dei Genitrix,' and at each verse thou shouldst

bow thy knee. For I take great delight therein." And the nun, waking,

looked upon her knee, to see whether aught had been accomplished in

the vision, and in great surprise she saw that it was whole[1803].

Another pretty story tells how, when a certain sister was reading her

psalter before a wooden statue of the Virgin and child, "the little boy

suddenly came to her and as though he would know what she was reading,

peeped into her book and went back again"[1804].

Sometimes it is not the Virgin or her Son but a patron saint who appears

to a nun who holds him in veneration. Caesarius tells the following tale

of a nun who specially venerated St John the Baptist:

More than all the saints she took delight in him. Nor did it suffice

her to think upon him, to honour him with prayers and devotions, to

declare his prerogatives to her sisters, but in order to perpetuate

his memory she made verses concerning his annunciation and nativity

and the joy of his parents. For she was learned and sought therefore

to describe in verse anything which she had read concerning his

sanctity. Moreover she exhorted and besought all secular persons with

whom she spoke to call their children John or Zacharias, if they were

boys, Elizabeth if they were girls. Now when she was about to die John

a monk of the Cloister came to visit her, and knowing her affection

towards St John, said: "My aunt, when you are dead, which mass would

you have me say first for your soul, the mass for the dead or of St

John the Baptist?" To which she without any hesitation replied: "Of St

John, of St John!" And when she was at the point of death, having

compassion upon the sister who was tending her, she said: "Go

upstairs, sister, and rest for a little." When the sister had done so

and was resting in a light sleep, she heard in her slumber a voice

saying, "Why liest thou here? St John the Baptist is below with Sister

Hildegunde"--for that was her name. Roused by this voice the sister,

not waiting to put on her clothes, came down in her shift and found

the nun already dead; and round her was so sweet a perfume that the

sister doubted not that St John had been there, to accompany the soul

of his beloved to the angelic host[1805].

Some of Caesarius' anecdotes show an amusing rivalry, if not among the

company of heaven, at least among their votaries on earth. Two delightful

stories may be quoted to show how deep-rooted is the competitive instinct,

which, baulked in one direction by the prohibition of property, showed

itself in hot disputes as to the rival merits of patron saints:

There were and I think still are, in Fraulautern in the diocese of

Treves, two nuns, of whom one took special delight in St John the

Baptist and the other in St John the Evangelist. Whenever they met,

they contended together concerning which was the greater, so that the

mistress was scarce able to restrain them. The one declared the

privileges of her beloved in the presence of all, the other set up

against them the very real prerogatives of hers.

One night, however, before matins St John the Baptist appeared to his

worshipper in her sleep and set forth a list of the virtues of the other

St John, declaring that the latter was far greater than he, and bidding

her the next morning call her sister before the mistress and seek her

pardon for having so often annoyed her because of him. That morning after

matins, however, St John the Evangelist also visited his champion in her

sleep and after retailing all St John the Baptist's claims to superiority,

assured her that the latter was far greater and gave her a similar order

to ask pardon of her sister:

"On the morrow," says Caesarius, "they came separately to the mistress

and revealed what they had seen. Then together prostrating themselves

and asking pardon of each other as they had been bidden, they were

reconciled by the mediation of their spiritual mother, who warned

them that henceforth they should not contend about the merits of the

saints, which are known to God alone"[1806].

In spite of this excellent moral, however, Caesarius has very clear ideas

himself as to the respective merits of certain saints; and, if we are to

believe him, even St John the Evangelist was sometimes guilty of a

scandalous neglect of duty:

"It is not long ago," says he, "that a certain nun of the monastery of

Rheindorf near Bonn, by name Elizabeth, went the way of all flesh. Now

this monastery is of the rule of St Benedict the Abbot. But the said

Elizabeth delighted specially in St John the Evangelist, lavishing on

him all the honour she could. She had a sister in the flesh in the

same monastery, who was called Aleidis. One night when the latter was

sitting upon her bed after matins and saying the office of the dead

for the soul of her sister, she heard a voice near her. And when she

demanded who was there, the voice replied, 'I am Elizabeth, thy

sister.' Then said she, 'How is it with thee, sister, and whence

comest thou?' and it answered, 'Ill indeed has it been with me, but

now it is well.' Aleidis asked, 'Did St John in whom thou didst so

ardently delight avail thee aught?'--and it replied, 'Truly, naught.

It was our holy father Benedict who stood by me. For he bent his knee

on my behalf before God'"[1807].

St John the Evangelist, it will be perceived, suffered from the

incalculable disadvantage of never having thought of founding a monastic

order.

Caesarius narrates a great many other _exempla_ concerning nuns, but I

have quoted the most characteristic. There never was a book so full of

meat; and it is greatly to be regretted that no translation has as yet

placed it within the reach of all who are interested, not only in medieval

life but in the medieval point of view[1808].

APPENDIX II

VISITATION OF NUNNERIES IN THE DIOCESE OF ROUEN BY ARCHBISHOP EUDES

RIGAUD, 1248-1269

For twenty-seven years in the thirteenth century the Archbishopric of

Rouen was held by a man who was at once a scholar and a man of action, a

great saint and a great reformer. Eudes Rigaud (Odo Rigaldi), "the Model

of Good Life," as he was afterwards called, was among the most able and

energetic churchmen produced by the middle ages. Salimbene, that gossiping

friar of Parma to whom we owe perhaps the most entertaining chronicle of

all the middle ages, describes him thus:

Now this Brother Rigaud was of our order [Franciscan] and one of the

most learned men in the world. He had been doctor of theology in the

convent [at Paris]: being a most excellent disputator and a most

gracious preacher. He wrote a work on the Sentences; he was a friend

of St Louis, King of France, who indeed laboured that he might be made

Archbishop of Rouen. He loved well the Order of the Friars Preachers,

as also his own of the Friars Minor and did them both much good; he

was foul of face but gracious in mind and works, for he was holy and

devout and ended his life well; may his soul, by God's mercy, rest in

peace[1809].

This great scholar, with an admirable devotion to duty, renounced for ever

the leisure of a man of books, and spent his life, from the moment that he

became Archbishop, in a ceaseless peregrination of his diocese; and by a

dispensation of providence (so the historian must think) he kept a diary.

For twenty-one years (1248-1269) he moved about from parish to parish,

from monastery to monastery, inquiring into the life and discipline of

secular and of regular clergy alike, hearing complaints, giving

injunctions, removing (though seldom) offenders, and making notes of the

results of his visits, place by place and day by day, in his great

_Regestrum Visitationum_[1810]. His diocese was in a bad state; and his

discouragement sometimes found its way into the official record of his

inquisitions. The few words which betray his feelings, together with the

particularity and detail with which the visits are recorded, make the

register of Eudes Rigaud a very human document.

It would be beyond the scope of this book to enter into any discussion of

the general picture of the medieval church which it leaves upon the mind.

But it is both useful and interesting to detach those parts of it which

deal with the nunneries visited and reformed (with varying success) by the

Archbishop. In the first place the records of his visitations, though not

as complete as those of the visitations of the Lincoln diocese by Bishop

Alnwick in the early fifteenth century, or of the diocese of Norwich by

Bishops Goldwell and Nykke, during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth

centuries, or of the Sede Vacante visitations of the Winchester diocese by

Dr Hede in 1502, are nevertheless a great deal more detailed than any

series of English visitation records of an equally early date. The report

of Walter Giffard's visitation of Swine in 1267-8, which comprises both

the _comperta_ and the injunctions based upon them, is indeed fuller than

any of Rigaud's notes, which contain only _comperta_ and _ad interim_

injunctions[1811]; but this is an isolated case. The only other thirteenth

century documents at all comparable with those of Rigaud are Peckham's

injunctions to Barking (1279), Godstow (1279 and 1284), Wherwell (1284)

and Romsey (? 1284), and Wickwane's injunctions to Nunappleton (1281) and

these are the final injunctions only, the _comperta_ upon which they were

based having disappeared. There is, so far as it is possible to ascertain,

no English register of the thirteenth century recording regular

visitations of all the nunneries in a diocese over a period of years and

the study of Rigaud's register is therefore of unique interest. In the

second place it is of special interest to English readers because of the

close connection which at one time existed between the religious houses of

England and Normandy. Most of the alien priories in England were cells of

Norman houses and several of the nunneries visited by Rigaud had

possessions in England. Stour in Dorset was a cell of St Leger de Preaux,

founded by Roger de Beaumont as early as William I's reign[1812].

Levenestre or Lyminster in Sussex was founded some time before 1178 as a

cell of Almeneches probably by Roger de Montgomery Earl of Arundel, to

whom the mother house owed its foundation and was apparently the only

alien priory in England in which a community of nuns actually resided

during the later middle ages.[1813] In 1255 Almeneches possessed

twenty-five marks of annual rent in England[1814]. The great Abbaye aux

Dames at Caen had two cells in England, Horstead in Norfolk (which

afterwards became part of the endowment of King's College, Cambridge, and

was founded in William II's reign[1815]) and Minchinhampton in

Gloucestershire (afterwards cell of Syon)[1816]. In Rigaud's day this

house had rents to the value of L160 sterling in England[1817] and at the

visitation of 1256 the Abbess did not appear, because she was absent

there[1818]. French moreover was still the language of daily speech in

thirteenth century England, and there was constant intercourse between the

two countries. It is not unreasonable to expect that we may learn

something to our purpose by a comparison of French and English nunneries.

The Register includes visitations of fourteen religious houses of

women[1819]. Seven of these were visited with great regularity during the

twenty-one years covered by the Register; the Priory of St Saens fourteen

times, the abbey of Bival and the priory of St Aubin each thirteen times,

the abbey of Montivilliers twelve times, the abbeys of Villarceaux and St

Amand of Rouen each eleven times and the priory of Bondeville ten times.

Of the others the abbeys of St Leger de Preaux and St Desir de Lisieux

(both in the diocese of Lisieux) and St Sauveur of Evreux each received

four visits and the abbeys of St Mary of Almeneches and the Holy Trinity

of Caen three. Two other houses, St Paul by Rouen (a dependent cell of

Montivilliers) and Ariete (a very poor and small Benedictine house),

appear to have been visited only once. For the most part these nunneries

were large houses, often having lay sisters and sometimes lay brothers

attached to them. The Archbishop made very careful notes of the temporal

affairs of each and generally entered in his Register the number of nuns

and lay sisters and often also the number of secular maidservants in the

employ of each house. The largest of all was the Abbaye aux Dames or Holy

Trinity at Caen, "one of the great nunneries of Christendom"; in Rigaud's

time its numbers ranged between sixty-five and eighty. St Sauveur of

Evreux and Montivilliers both contained at least sixty nuns and the other

houses were all comparatively large, with the exception of St Saens,

Villarceaux, St Aubin and Ariete. Even these, however, were large compared

with some of the small nunneries in England.

The financial condition of many of these houses was very bad, and there is

evidence both of the poverty and of the bad management which seem to have

been characteristic of nunneries everywhere. The care with which Rigaud

entered into his diary, at almost every visitation, the debts owed by a

house and the condition of its stores, makes it possible to follow with

some ease the financial progress of the nunneries from year to year. Some

houses were evidently in a flourishing condition; the abbey at Caen was

very rich and never in difficulties (its debts were suddenly assessed at

the huge sum of L1700 in 1267 but at the previous visitations it had been

stated that more was owed to the nuns than they owed). Montivilliers was

also well managed and in a good condition; here again the debts due to it

were larger than those which it owed, and on several occasions the

Archbishop found a good round sum in the treasury, a plentiful supply of

stores and some valuable plate, which the nuns had been rich enough to

purchase recently. Similarly St Desir de Lisieux and St Leger de Preaux,

though debts are mentioned, were evidently living well within their

respective incomes of L500 and L700 (in rents). But the other houses

display a lamentable list of debts growing heavier and heavier. In spite

of St Amand's income of L1000 to L1200, its debts rose from L200 in 1248

to L900 in 1269. Almeneches, with an income of a little over L500, had

debts to the amount of L500 in 1260. Bondeville obviously had a quite

insufficient income (it was given as L93 in 1257); on three occasions its

debts reached the sum of L140 and on two other occasions they were L200

and L250. St Saens, St Aubin, Bival and Villarceaux (it is significant

that these are the houses whose moral record was bad) were always in

difficulties. Bival went steadily from bad to worse; its debts rose from

L40 in 1251 to L60 in 1268 and in 1269 they had exactly doubled themselves

(L120) since the previous visitation. The debts of St Saens rose from L60

in 1250 to L100 in 1269; and in 1260 they stood at L350. At Villarceaux

(the income of which was placed at L100 in 1249) the debts ranged between

L30 in 1251 and L100 in 1264 and 1265. At St Aubin the actual sums of

money owed by the nuns were small, ranging between L5 and L40 (except in

1257 when their debts were assessed at L1000, which is probably a

mistake), but the house was evidently in grave financial straits. When

even a wealthy house such as St Sauveur of Evreux could not keep out of

debt (the amount owed by it varied from L200 to L600), one cannot wonder

that smaller and poorer houses were deeply involved. Occasionally the

diary throws some light on special causes of impoverishment; thus the nuns

of St Amand were in debt to the large sum of L400 in 1254 and the reason

given was "on account of a conduit (_aqueductum_), which they had to make

again, because it was needed"[1820]; St Sauveur of Evreux was burdened

with the payment of about L40 in pensions[1821]; and in 1263 the nuns of

St Aubin complained that they owed some L20 "for a certain ferm (or

payment) by which they held themselves to be greatly burdened"[1822].

Other evidence besides that of debts is not wanting to show that some of

the houses were in great financial straits. The Archbishop constantly gave

poverty as a reason for limiting the number of nuns, e.g. at St Aubin,

Bival and Villarceaux[1823]. At Almeneches poverty was given as a reason

for the imperfect observance of the rule[1824]. At St Saens (1262) and at

Villarceaux (1264) the roofs of the monastic buildings were in need of

repair[1825]; in the latter year the roofs of the buildings at St Aubin

were _male cooperte_ also and that of the nave of the church was so bad

that the nuns could hardly stay there in rainy weather[1826]. Bondeville

was so badly in need of repairs in 1257 that it was said that L80 would

not suffice for the work[1827]. Sometimes the devices by which the nuns

strove to gain a little ready money are noted down in Rigaud's diary. At

Villarceaux in 1254 a book of homilies and some silken copes were in

pledge to the Prior of Serqueu[1828]; at Bival in 1269 the old abbess had

pledged a chalice which the new abbess was ordered to redeem[1829]; and at

Bondeville in 1257 the nuns had pawned two chalices "for their

needs"[1830]. When they tried to borrow money outright matters were even

worse; at Villarceaux in 1266, Rigaud notes, "they owed L100, of which L20

was owed to the Jews and Caursini (_Catturcensibus_) of Mantes at

usury"[1831]. Sometimes they were reduced to selling part of their

property, as at St Saens, where they sold a wood at Esquequeville[1832],

and at Bondeville, where they parted with land to the value of L300[1833].

But they were apparently bad women of business, for at the latter house in

1257 the Archbishop complained that they had pledged a certain tithe for

L75 for three years, whereas its real value was L40 per annum[1834]; and

in 1256 it transpired that the nuns of Bival had given up the manor of

Pierremains (without Rigaud's consent) to a certain Master William of the

Fishponds (_de Vivariis_) for L50, while it was really worth L140[1835].

Perhaps the difficulty found by so many of the houses in collecting the

debts due to them may be set down in part to the incompetence of the nuns.

At St Amand, for instance, in 1262, as much as L377 7_s._ seems to have

been owing to the nuns at a time when they themselves were L142 in debt,

and at the next two visitations complaint was made of debts (described in

1264 as "bad" debts, _debitis male solubilibus_) owing to them[1836].

Other nunneries were from time to time owed large sums of money,

religiously recorded by Rigaud in his diary. The case of St Saens

illustrates this difficulty particularly well; in 1261 the nuns had sold

part of their wood at Esquequeville for L350 and had received L240 of the

total sum owing to them; the next year the L110 left owing had swelled

with interest to L160; in 1264 L40 was said to be owing on the same sale

and L55 on a sale of fallen trees and wood (_de caablo_); but in 1267 the

Archbishop noted, "A great sum of money is to come to them from the sale

of woods," and in 1269 the amount still owing on the sale had risen with

interest to L100, while L80 was owing to the nuns from another

source[1837].

Another instance of the incompetence of the nuns was their laxity in the

matter of keeping accounts, in which the Rouen nuns were in no way

exceptional. At Caen, in 1250 Rigaud wrote:

They do not know how much they have in rents and they say that more is

owed to them than they owe, neither do they know the state of the

monastery; but the Abbess accounts in her chamber before several nuns

annually elected for this purpose, and the account is announced in the

chapter before them all; and they said that this was quite sufficient

for them.

The Archbishop appears to have obtained a statement of their rents by some

means and he contented himself with confirming the arrangement that the

Abbess should account annually to certain nuns elected _ad hoc_[1838].

Certainly when the head of the house was competent there was no need for

the convent to know the details of administration; but sometimes even the

head was unable to inform Rigaud of those details. At Villarceaux in 1258

he wrote: "They did not know how much they owed and they were somewhat

ignorant of the state of the house"[1839]; and in the following year the

Prioress of St Saens was found to be an incompetent administrator and was

ordered to draw up an account, which two neighbouring priors were deputed

to hear[1840]. At St Amand in 1262 the Abbess had not prepared a proper

account, so that the Archbishop was unable to get full information as to

the state of the house; he noted however that the nuns believed that more

was owing to them than they owed, and he ordered the Abbess to inspect her

papers and to certify him concerning the state of the house[1841]. On

several other occasions he ordered her to account more often (on one of

these it had transpired that she had not done so for three years) before

the elder nuns, and to call in the Prioress, Subprioress or one of these

_maiores_ to help her[1842]. At Villarceaux in 1253 the Prioress did not

account and in 1254 a coadjutress was appointed to assist her[1843].

Sometimes Rigaud ordered the income of a house to be written down in

rolls, or in books[1844]. Sometimes he provided for the more frequent

rendering of accounts; twice or thrice yearly was the usual injunction,

sometimes simply "more often," the minimum being once a year[1845];

occasionally a small account of current expenses was to be read

monthly[1846]. Sometimes he ordered the accounts to be read before certain

nuns elected _ad hoc_ (with the addition of the priest at Villarceaux in

1249), the elder nuns being often specified[1847]. At the same time,

although nothing was to be done without the knowledge and consent of the

convent, the nuns were not to interfere unduly in the management of

temporal affairs, for the prioress of Bondeville was sentenced to receive

one discipline before the assembled chapter, as a punishment for giving up

the common seal to them, without the Archbishop's knowledge, "because of

their clamour"[1848]. Nuns were notoriously bad financiers, but even where

a male _custos_ had charge of their business the arrangement was not

invariably satisfactory; and at Bondeville in 1261 Rigaud noted, "We

removed Melchior the priest, who had managed the business of the convent

for some time, for the reason that the convent had not full confidence in

him and that he was odious to them." The house was heavily in debt, so

that the mistrust of the nuns, if not their dislike, was clearly

justified, and the Archbishop evidently decided not to replace Melchior by

another man, for he ordered the Abbess to make one of the nuns treasuress

to look after the expenditure of the house, receiving the income and

administering it[1849].

Another matter about which Rigaud inquired and entered particulars in his

diary was the amount of provisions in the granaries and storehouses of the

nuns. Had they enough corn and oats to last till the next harvest? Had

they a good supply of wine and cider to drink? The number of cases in

which it is noted that the nuns had "_pauca estauramenta_," or not enough

to last till the new year, points to a mixture of poverty and of bad

management[1850]. The nuns of Bival in 1263 had few stores and no corn for

sowing[1851]; those of St Saens in 1250 had no wine or cider to drink nor

corn to last till Whitsuntide[1852]; at St Aubin in 1259 the Archbishop

noted comprehensively that they had no stores[1853]. Oats seem to have run

short in a number of cases[1854], and sometimes wine[1855].

But occasionally Rigaud's diary contains even fuller information about the

temporal affairs of a nunnery. It was his regular practice at Villarceaux

(why at Villarceaux only it is impossible to say) to enumerate the live

stock possessed by that impecunious house, horses, mares, foals, bullocks,

cows, calves, sheep and pigs. And on two occasions the happy accident of a

Prioress' resignation (always an occasion for the presentation of an

account) has left us with complete inventories of the possessions and

expenses of two houses, St Saens in 1257 and Bondeville in the same year.

The inventory of St Saens runs as follows:

They owe L212. The king gave them Esquequeville with its

appurtenances, which is worth L230 and 4 carucates of land worth L40,

and thus they have in all rents to the value of L290 (_sic_). To the

house of nuns of St Saens there belong 245 acres of land in all and 7

acres of meadow, of which 115 acres in all are sown with wheat

(_frumento_), corn (_blado_, probably rye), barley and other

vegetables (_leguminibus_). They have in money rents L170. 2_s._

8_d._; in corn rents 8 _modii_; in rents of oats 66 _minae_[1856]; in

rents of capons 220; item in egg rents 1100 eggs[1857]; item they have

in money rents, paid with the capons and the eggs, 27_s._ 6_d._ Item

they have a mill at Esquequeville and a wood of which they do not know

the size[1858] and the priest of the same place takes a tithe in the

said mill. Item they have rights of pannage and stubble and multure

(i.e. payment by their tenants for grinding at their mill) of which

they know not the value. Item they have a mill at St Saens of small

value. Item they have 57 sheep, item 12 plough horses and one waggon

(_quadrigam_); item they have 18 beasts, as well cows as oxen. Item

they have only 2 _modii_ of corn for their food until harvest. They

have nothing to drink. There is owing to them L26. 5_s._ 2_d._ The

debts which they owe amount in all to L234. 3_s._ 3_d._[1859]

The inventory of Bondeville for the same year is equally interesting:

These are the goods and rents of the house of Bondeville: L93

_tournois_; of common corn 30 _modii_; in the grange of Heaus they

believe that they have 7 _modii_ of common corn; in the abbey grange

about one _modium_ of barley; in the other granges nothing. In the

abbey there are 2 waggons (_quadrige_), with 6 horses and one riding

horse, 6 cows and 14 calves. They have in the granges 264 sheep; item

in the grange of Heaus 27 cows; item 30 little pigs; item three

ploughs (_aratra_) in all, each for three beasts; item 4 little foals.

These are the debts of the house, concerning which account has been

rendered to the convent: L220 in money and 2 _modii_ of barley;

[wages] to the household for the harvesting. Item they had no oats

save for sowing time. They expend each month at least 68 _minae_ of

corn; item they have in the cellar 6 barrels of wine and 2 of cider;

item they do not think that the buildings can be repaired [at a less

cost than] for L80 _tournois_; item after Easter they will be obliged

to buy all the other foodstuffs for the house, save bread, peas and

vegetables[1860].

Mention is sometimes made in Rigaud's register of dependent cells attached

to some of the houses. St Paul by Rouen was thus attached to

Montivilliers, Bourg-de-Saane to St Amand and Ste Austreberte to St Saens.

These cells were doubtless used partly as centres of administration for

the more distant estates of the convent, partly as places of recreation

or convalescence, where sick nuns could be sent for a change. For instance

there were six nuns of Montivilliers at St Paul by Rouen in 1263 and it

was noted that there ought to be four, but that two others were there

because of illness; the nuns had a lay boarder staying with them and two

servants; their income--as assessed for the tithe--was L140 and their

debts amounted to L40; they complained that the king's foresters oppressed

them by frequently dining at their expense and by unjustly molesting their

servants in the forest, although they had usage (i.e. rights of hunting,

gathering wood, etc.) there; the Archbishop had no fault to find with them

except that they did not sing the service _cum nota_, because there were

so few of them, and that they had only a single mass, the parochial mass,

daily[1861]. It is evident that a close connection was supposed to be kept

up between the mother house and the cell, for in 1260 the Abbess of

Montivilliers had been ordered to visit them diligently[1862]; and in 1258

Rigaud noted, "Alice prioress of Saint Paul by Rouen was presented to us

by the prioress of Montivilliers, she having been elected by the convent

of the said place"[1863]. At his first visitation of St Amand in 1248 the

Archbishop found that they had a single priory at Saane, where there are

four nuns[1864]. In 1261 he ordered the Abbess to visit these nuns at

Saane more often than had been her custom and at subsequent visitations he

noted the number of nuns (varying from four to five) in residence

there[1865]. Ste Austreberte, the daughter cell of St Saens, was hardly

more than a grange with a chapel attached. In 1254 Rigaud found that one

nun was living there alone and ordered that another should be sent to join

her; in 1257 there was still a single inmate, but in 1258 and 1259 the

number had been raised to two[1866]. In 1260 the Archbishop decided to

recall the inmates to St Saens:

Because truly the place of St Austrebert is very slenderly endowed

with rents, so that these two nuns cannot live there conveniently and

decently, we ordered the prioress to call them back and forbade her

henceforth to send any more thither, on account of the danger[1867].

But now complications arose. Evidently the dependent house had been used

for the purpose of getting rid of a quarrelsome nun, for in 1261 Rigaud

found that the Prioress had not obeyed his order to recall the two nuns,

"because, as she says, Marie d'Eu (_de Augo_) one of these two, was a

scold and she feared lest she should upset the whole convent if she

returned"[1868]. The order was repeated and was apparently obeyed as far

as the ill-tempered Marie was concerned (although there were still two

nuns at Ste Austreberte in 1264[1869]), for in 1265 the Archbishop found

the whole convent "living in discord and in disorder, especially the

prioress and Marie d'Eu"[1870]; he would perhaps have done better to leave

her where she was. An echo of her _regime_ at Ste Austreberte was heard

in 1265, when Marie d'Eu was ordered to return the chalice of the chapel

of Ste Austreberte as quickly as possible and to restore to the Prioress

any charter or letters concerning the manor of Ste Austreberte, which she

had received from the convent. At the same time the Prioress was ordered

to provide the chapel there with a suitable server (_servitore_)[1871].

Mention of visits to the granges or farms of the convents sometimes

occurs. At Bondeville in 1251 it was found that "the sisters drank in the

granges"[1872] and in 1255 that a lay sister and a lay brother were living

alone in a grange (perhaps in the grange of Heaus, mentioned in the

inventory), whereupon the Archbishop ordered the sister to be withdrawn or

else given a companion[1873]. In 1268 the Abbess of Bival was ordered to

remove "a certain child," whom she was having brought up in the grange of

Pierremans (which had been so improvidently let to William of the

Fishponds twelve years before) and a penance was imposed upon her in 1269

because she had not obeyed the injunction[1874].

So far only the temporal affairs of these Rouen nunneries have been

considered; there remains the more important question of their social,

moral and spiritual condition. A clearer idea will be formed of the

results of Eudes Rigaud's investigations, if the chief sources of

complaint be classified under the following heads:

(1) Complaints of incompetence and irregular behaviour against the

head of a house,

(2) General laxity in keeping the rule,

(3) The sin of property and the failure to live a communal life,

(4) Various attempts to make money by illicit means,

(5) Leave of absence and intercourse with seculars, both within and

without the cloister precincts,

(6) Frivolous clothes and amusements, and

(7) Serious moral faults, such as drunkenness, quarrelsomeness and

incontinence.

(1) Complaints of incompetence, laxity, self-indulgence or favouritism

against the head of a house are common in visitation records. The charge

of failure to render accounts has already been dealt with, but hardly less

usual was the charge of failure to live a communal life. The abbess or

prioress of a house had separate apartments and it was always a temptation

to dine or to sleep alone, instead of keeping the frater and the dorter.

Again the charges of favouritism on the one hand and of undue harshness on

the other were very common. Rigaud's register provides examples of all

these faults. At two visitations (1254 and 1257) the Archbishop remarked

that the Abbess of St Leger de Preaux did not live a communal life in

dorter and frater nor attend the chapter[1875]; the same charge was made

against the Prioress of Villarceaux in 1253 and it was mentioned that she

did not often get up to matins nor daily hear mass[1876]; and the Abbess

of St Amand did not keep the frater, but ate in her own room and always

had the same companions there, instead of calling the others for

recreation[1877]. Not all prioresses were, like Chaucer's, "ful plesaunt

and amiable of port." The Abbess of Montivilliers seems to have been a

forbidding lady; in 1260 the Archbishop ordered her to minister pilches,

cloth and other necessary things more carefully than had been her custom

to the nuns, not forgetting their ginger "hot i' the mouth"[1878], and

also to bear herself more courteously and affably towards their friends

particularly in the matter of their admission (on visits); at the same

time she was warned to be present in chapel more often and to live the

communal life better[1879]. This warning apparently bore no fruit and in

1262 the Archbishop noted, "because she was slow to administer new

pilches, headdresses and cloth and other things to the nuns for their

needs, we ordered her to labour to minister better and more fitly to them

in this matter and to be careful about it"; it was also remarked that she

frequented the convent but little and was seldom present at chapter and

frater; and she was ordered to render a general account once a year and to

hear and receive the particular accounts of the obedientiaries. The next

year her failure to frequent chapter, dorter and choir was again noted and

some of the nuns still complained of her harshness, whereupon the

Archbishop (apparently despairing of inducing her to look after them

properly herself), ordered her to depute two or three nuns, "with whom the

others could talk more familiarly and more boldly, to minister to their

sisters small things for their needs, ginger and other things of the

kind"; the quality of the wine was also to be improved. The difficulties,

however, continued. In 1265 the Abbess was ordered to provide the nuns

more carefully with pilches and in the following year she was again

ordered

"prudently to cause the pilches and robes of the nuns to be repaired,

so that she may provide them with such things more fitly than she is

used and have more workpeople than she has been accustomed to do. For

in this," adds the Archbishop, "we found a deficiency"[1879].

Rigaud had a great deal of difficulty with the Prioress of Bondeville. In

1251 there were many complaints against her; she exercised favouritism in

the distribution of clothes and in the provision of food in the infirmary

and she did not look after the sick; when in the infirmary she ate at a

table by herself and she did not live a communal life; she wandered about

a great deal outside the convent, even without the excuse of convent

business, and when she went to Rouen she stayed there for three or four

days; moreover she was quarrelsome and stirred up discord in the house

"so that she could not have peace with the convent nor with anyone." The

next year she resigned, probably as a result of these complaints and of

the financial condition of the house, but in 1255 the register has an

entry: "We found the Prioress quarrelsome and sharp of tongue, not knowing

how to make corrections and also speaking ill of her sisters; we warned

her to desist from these things"; so that her resignation had evidently

not been accepted. In 1257 she made another attempt at resignation, and

the occasion is interesting because it provides us not only with an

inventory of Bondeville, but also with the sole complete list of inmates

preserved among the Rouen nunneries[1880]. The Archbishop decided to take

an inquisition in the convent as to whether the Prioress should or should

not be removed; and the votes of the twenty-six nuns and three brothers of

the house were taken upon oath. Of these nineteen were in favour of her

removal and nine of her retention, while Brother Roger permitted himself

to express the ambiguous opinion that "it would be evil for temporal

affairs and good for spiritual affairs to remove the prioress" (_quod

dampnum esset temporale et utilitas spiritualis removere

priorissam_!)[1881]. It is not clear from the Register whether she was

removed; Rigaud notes: "Item we received the resignation of Marie, late

the prioress," but in 1261 there occurs a further entry: "Item the

Prioress offered us her seal, begging us to absolve her from her office,

but we, being unwilling to condescend to her in this matter, ordered her

to exercise her office with greater zeal." In particular she was ordered

"to frequent the convent at least by day (viz. chapter, frater and choir)

better than she was wont and not to stand about talking in the cemetery or

outside the house after Compline, as she had been in the habit of

doing"[1882]. At Bival an abbess resigned in 1248, doubtless owing to the

unsatisfactory moral conditions revealed at the visitation[1883]; there

were no complaints against her successor until 1268 (though two cases of

immorality occurred in the convent before that date); then, among minor

injunctions concerning matters of administration, she was ordered to bear

herself more kindly and courteously towards the nuns[1884].

(2) Besides injunctions dealing specially with the behaviour of the head

of a house, the Archbishop was obliged to deal with breaches of the rule

by the convent generally. Many of his regulations were concerned with the

strictly religious duties of the nuns. Sometimes the church services were

not being properly performed, as at St Amand, St Aubin, Villarceaux, St

Saens and Montivilliers. The most common defect was failure to sing these

services with music (_cum nota_ or _ad notam_)[1885]; at St Saens (a

constant offender--Rigaud notes the fault at eight visitations) the nuns

did not do so even on Sundays[1886]. Occasionally a specific excuse was

given; the nuns of Villarceaux omitted the music on the days upon which

they received the periodical bleeding considered necessary to the health

of those who embraced the monastic life[1887]; at St Aubin in 1264 they

complained that many of them were often ill[1888] and at St Saens also (in

1257) they dwelt upon their infirmities[1889]. At St Paul's by Rouen they

were too few in number to perform the service properly[1890]. The

Archbishop contented himself at St Aubin (1251) with the injunction that

they should sing at least in monotone--_saltem cum bassa nota_[1891].

Moreover even when the nuns did sing the services they occasionally did so

carelessly. At St Amand the Archbishop made a significant injunction:

They sometimes sing the hours of the Blessed Virgin and the psalms of

suffrage with too great haste and precipitation of words. We ordered

them to sing in such a way that the side [of the choir] singing the

first half of the verse should hear the end of the preceding verse and

the side singing the second half should hear the beginning of the next

verse[1892].

Evidently both sides of the choir came in too soon in their anxiety to

hurry through the service--a clear case for Tuttivillus. At Montivilliers

the fault lay in beginning too late and Rigaud ordered that better

provision should be made for ringing a bell at the due hours, so that the

service might be said without haste and finished while it was light (_de

luce_)[1893]. At Villarceaux he ordered that all the nuns should at once

assemble in the church when the bell rang, unless they were ill or had

special leave of absence[1894]. Even at the great abbey of Caen the

service was being said "_confuse et male_, one part in the choir and one

outside"[1895]. At St Amand (1263), which evidently contained young and

obstreperous--or perhaps only ignorant--members, it was ordered that the

nuns should be equally divided in the choir, so that all the young ones

might not be together[1896]. At St Saens (1254) a nun served the mass with

the priest; and at Bondeville (1263) the nuns had not the necessary

priests and did not hear enough sermons[1897]. St Aubin apparently shared

the parish priest; there were only fifteen parishioners (most of them

doubtless dependents of the nunnery) and the priest dwelt with the nuns

and was maintained at their expense; in 1257 the Archbishop ordered them

to find a clerk to assist him[1898]. The nuns of St Paul's heard only one

mass--that of the parish--daily[1899]. Sometimes deficiencies in the

services may have been due to lack of books. At St Sauveur d'Evreux, in

1258, it was found that the nuns did not possess adequate books and they

were ordered to procure some[1900]; at Villarceaux in 1257 they lacked two

antiphonaries and in 1261 it was again noted that their books were

insufficient and worn out[1901]. At Montivilliers the Archbishop in 1260

ordered the chantress to have an ordinal of the hours made at the Abbess'

cost; this had not yet been done in 1262 and from Rigaud's injunction on

this occasion it appears that the nuns were expected to write the book

themselves, for the ordinal was "to be made by the chantress and by the

more discreet nuns, i.e. by the older ones who knew and understood better

the service of the order." At the same house reference was made three

years later to a certain glossed psalter which had been bequeathed to it

by a benefactor, and had been alienated without the knowledge of the

convent; the Abbess was told to have it restored without delay and replied

"that she could do so easily enough, because Master William de Beaumont

had it"[1902].

Another common fault was negligence in the matter of confession and

communion. Sometimes a house had a fixed rule as to the number of times

the nuns had to confess and communicate. At Bival, for example, the nuns

seem to have attended communion seven times a year, though they confessed

more often[1903]. At Villarceaux they confessed and communicated six times

a year[1904]. At St Aubin the Archbishop noted that they were bound to

confess and to communicate seven times a year, but that they had sometimes

been negligent in the matter; they gave an inadequate excuse, and Rigaud

ordered them on no account to be absent from communion and warned the

Prioress to consider any such absence without due cause as a serious

fault[1905]. At St Leger de Preaux in 1249 he found that the nuns

confessed and communicated only four times a year and ordered them to do

so monthly[1906]. At Montivilliers[1907] and at Bondeville[1908] they were

supposed to confess and to communicate monthly, but at the latter house he

found them negligent in 1261, and ordered that the nun who did not

communicate with the others or within the next two or three days was to be

punished by abstention from wine and pottage for three days[1909]. The

Archbishop's usual custom was to order monthly confession and

communion[1910]. Sometimes there seems to have been some difficulty about

getting a confessor; at Almeneches (where, in 1250, the nuns had no rule

or term for confession or communion[1911]) it was found in 1260 that they

were in the habit of confessing to passing friars when they wished to do

so, and Rigaud ordered the Bishop to provide them with regular confessors,

friars minor or others[1912]. At St Saens in 1261 they had not had a

confessor for a long time and were ordered to procure the Prior of

Crissy[1913], but in 1265 the Archbishop still found that they did not go

to confession as well as they should[1914]. At Ariete the nuns did not all

confess to their own priest[1915].

Other minor faults were late rising[1916], breach of silence[1917] and

laxity in causing novices to make their profession[1918]. At Villarceaux

in 1249 only four out of the twenty-three nuns had been properly

professed[1919]. The Archbishop ordered the vows to be taken when the

novices reached the age of fourteen years[1920]; this was not to be done

before[1921] and if any refused to do so at the appointed age they were to

be sent back to the world[1922]; he also ordered in several cases that

only the three vows of poverty, chastity and obedience should be

taken[1923].

Another set of injunctions is concerned with the conduct of the frater,

the infirmary and the chapter house. The Archbishop dealt with the

observances of the frater from the point of view of the communal life,

from that of the food eaten by the nuns and from that of almsgiving. The

growing practice among the nuns of dining separately in their rooms or in

little cliques, instead of keeping the frater, was a menace to a strictly

communal life, and as such will be considered later, with other practices

which tended in the same direction. Here it may be noted that already in

the thirteenth century the regulations of the monastic rule as to diet

were being contravened. Many convents were convicted of eating meat

unnecessarily, _etiam sane_, "even when in good health"[1924], and it was

becoming the custom--in Rigaud's diocese as elsewhere--to use the

infirmary as a _misericord_, in which meat was eaten on certain days of

the week, generally thrice a week[1925]. Sometimes even fast days were not

regularly kept[1926]. Another breach of the rule frequently encountered by

the Archbishop was inadequate almsgiving. The nuns were supposed to give

alms regularly to the poor and in particular to give them the food which

remained over from the convent meals; but in view of the poverty of some

of the houses it is not surprising that the rule was sometimes unobserved.

Very often the nuns, instead of collecting the fragments left over in

frater and infirmary, each kept what remained of her own share and sold it

or gave it away to people outside the convent. St Amand was a constant

offender; in 1248 the Archbishop had occasion to forbid the unequal

distribution of wine to the nuns "to one more and to another less," and he

added that if any of them gave away any part of her measure of wine to

anyone outside the house without licence she was to be punished by being

deprived of wine the next day[1927]; in 1251 he enjoined that no nun was

to put forth any of her food save in the way of alms[1928]; but some

thirteen years later St Amand (doubtless on account of its poverty) was

still remiss in the matter of almsgiving and Rigaud warned the nuns

separately that it must not be diminished and that everything left over

from meals must be given to the poor[1929]. At St Saens it was discovered

that the nuns had separate portions of bread allotted to them and that the

fragments were never given in alms, because each either sold or gave away

these fragments as she pleased[1930]. At Montivilliers almsgiving was

diminished because the nuns gave away the remnants of the portions of

bread, wine and other food to "serving maids and other

acquaintances"[1931]; and at Villarceaux and Bival also it was necessary

to warn the nuns not to give away or sell any of their clothes or

food[1932]. The practice was the more reprehensible in the Archbishop's

eyes in that it savoured of the private ownership of property. Rigaud made

general orders for the increase of almsgiving and for the more careful

collection of food after meals in the frater and in the infirmary[1933].

Sometimes the custom of a house prescribed special obligations; the Abbess

of Montivilliers was required to give alms thrice a week and to entertain

thirteen poor men daily[1934]. Sometimes the revenues of a special manor

or rent were earmarked for the expenses of almsgiving; the recalcitrant St

Amand was found to have abstracted the rents of a certain manor from the

almoness and was ordered to restore them to their proper purpose[1935].

Other departments of the convent of which mention is made in Rigaud's

Register are the infirmary and the chapter house. At Montivilliers the

Archbishop, in 1262, ordered the infirmary to be repaired and the convent

to be provided with physic[1936]; and at Bondeville, St Sauveur and St

Amand he was obliged to order that sick nuns should be better looked

after[1937]. There are some interesting notes about the meetings of the

chapter in various houses. At several (Bondeville, St Saens and

Villarceaux) the Archbishop found that the chapter was seldom held[1938].

At others the duty incumbent upon the nuns to accuse or proclaim

(_clamare_) each other's faults was imperfectly performed. There was a

most natural reluctance on the part of the elder nuns to allow the

indiscriminate criticism of their juniors and a tendency to keep the

latter in their place by allowing them only to be accused and never to

retaliate. At Caen (1250) the Archbishop found that none made the

statutory accusations save certain nuns who were deputed to reveal the

faults of the younger ones[1939] and at St Amand also only the elder nuns

made accusations, and he ordered that all without exception should reveal

what they saw amiss[1940]. At Montivilliers the same complaint that the

nuns refrained from accusing each other was made[1941]. From one point of

view this imperfect performance of their duty in chapter meant that the

nuns were winking at each other's peccadilloes, and it was for the sake of

discipline that the Archbishop insisted upon a more strict obedience to

the rule. From another point of view the obligation certainly gave rise to

much ill-feeling; the author of the _Ancren Riwle_ placed "Exposing

faults" and "Backbiting" among the brood of seven, offspring of "the

venomous serpent of hell, Envy"; for human nature would need to be very

perfect if the accusations were always to be made in the spirit of

sisterly admonition, "sweetly and affectionately," which the same treatise

describes so eloquently a few pages later[1942]. It is significant that

the Abbess of Montivilliers had to be warned in no way to molest one of

her nuns, nor to conceive rancour against her on account of anything that

she said in chapter[1943].

Finally the Archbishop sometimes found fault with the management of the

secular servants and of the lay brothers and sisters attached to different

houses. It was his custom to note the number of maidservants (_ancille_,

_pedissece_) employed and to reprove the nuns if he thought that they were

employing too many, or falling into the sin of property by keeping certain

maids in the service of individual nuns, as they did at Almeneches in

1255[1944], at St Leger de Preaux in 1267[1945] and at St Sauveur in 1269;

at the last house he noted:

The convent had three common maids and several special maids were kept

at the cost of the house; so we ordered that there were henceforth to

be no special maids, but that if necessary the number of common maids

might be increased[1946].

At St Amand he twice ordered the removal of all superfluous servants,

adding in 1267 that all were to be paid at a fixed rate out of the common

funds[1947]. At St Aubin in 1265 he found two servants, one of whom was

incontinent and of ill repute (little wonder, considering the evil morals

of the nuns) and he ordered her instant expulsion[1948]. Of the lay

sisters attached to some of the houses there is less mention; in 1259

Rigaud noted that two of those at Bondeville were of weak intellect

(_fatue_)[1949]. There was sometimes trouble with the lay brothers; at

Bondeville (1251) he made a list of corrections for them[1950] and in 1259

a certain brother Roger (doubtless the same whose dark saying about the

Prioress has already been recorded) was announced to be disobedient and

rebellious, and the injunction that he should obey the Prioress had to be

repeated in 1268, nearly ten years later[1951]. There was occasionally

also need for correction in the behaviour of the convent priest, for it is

clear that an unsuitable chaplain might give great cause for scandal. The

not very reputable houses of St Saens and Bival both suffered in this way;

in 1254 the Archbishop found that the priest of the former house was

incontinent and ordered the nuns to find another[1952]; and in 1256, at

Bival, he noted: "We removed the priest from this place on account of the

scandal of the nuns and of the populace, though we found nothing which we

could prove against him"[1953]. At St Aubin in 1261 the nuns were ordered

not to drink with seculars in the priest's house[1954].

(3) The most frequent fault which Eudes Rigaud found in the nunneries

under his care was the persistent hankering of the nuns after private

property and their failure to live a communal life according to the rule.

The possession of private property was a very common charge. The nuns had

chests in which to keep such possessions as they were allowed and there

was a perpetual struggle over the question as to whether or not they were

to be allowed keys, with which to lock the boxes. The nuns of

Montivilliers begged for keys in 1257 and the stern Rigaud refused[1955];

of this refusal they took not the smallest notice, and in 1262 the

Register contains the injunction that keys were to be given up and that

those who were unwilling to obey were to be severely punished; "for,"

added the Archbishop,

We understood that when the abbess asked them for their keys certain

of them would not give the keys up for two or three days, until they

should have gone through their things and taken away those which they

did not want the Abbess to see, and so we ordered these nuns to be

punished for disobedience and for the ownership of property[1956].

The injunction that the boxes should be inspected frequently was repeated

at three subsequent visitations[1957]. It was the Archbishop's usual

custom to order the Abbess or Prioress to look into the nuns' boxes often

and unexpectedly in order to remove private property, and the injunction

was repeated from year to year, which looks as though it were greatly

honoured in the breach[1958]. Besides the injunction against closed boxes

there was an oft-repeated injunction to the effect that, in accordance

with the rule[1959], no nun was to have more than one set of garments;

directly new clothes were given out the old ones were to be handed back

(and given to the poor), so that no nun might rejoice in the semblance of

a wardrobe[1960]. At St Amand in 1264 the Archbishop made the following

note of his action:

Item we ordered them that when they received new pilches, shifts and

any sort of new garments or foot-wear (_calciamentorum_), they were to

give the old in alms, whereat they murmured somewhat to our

displeasure, and we forbade the abbess to give them any new clothes

until they had rendered up the old[1961].

It appears from an injunction given at St Sauveur in 1258[1962] that the

nuns sometimes sold or gave away their old clothes as they did with the

remains of their portions of food and drink; in both cases the sin of

property was encouraged and almsgiving diminished. Rigaud made the most

comprehensive injunction on these points at Villarceaux in 1249:

We warn you, all and sundry, that ye observe the communism which ought

to be observed in religion in the matter of clothes, food and other

like things, neither sell nor give away at your own will any of those

things which belong to the common food or dress; and if ye shall have

received anything from your friends, ye shall apply it to the use of

the community and not each to your own use[1963].

In one case at least, that of Bival, the practice (which afterwards became

common) of giving each of the nuns a separate allowance with which to buy

her own clothes or food was already in force; the Abbess of Bival gave to

each an annual sum of 12_s._ out of which to buy her clothes[1964]. At

Montivilliers Rigaud ordered the nuns to be clothed in common[1965] and at

St Aubin he made a special injunction that they were to use their

scapularies in common[1966].

But the sin of property crept into convents in every direction and was

most difficult of all to eradicate. At Almeneches in 1250 Rigaud noted:

"All are _proprietarie_, owning saucepans, copper kettles and necklaces of

their own"[1967]. At St Aubin in 1265 there is the entry:

Because divers of the nuns have divers cocks and hens and often

quarrel over them, we ordered that all cocks and hens were to be

nourished alike and to be kept in common and the eggs ministered

equally among the nuns and fowls sometimes given to the sick to eat in

the infirmary[1968].

But in vain; each nun clung to her own hen; still there continued the

rivalry when eggs were counted, the jealousy over the possession of a good

layer, the turmoil when some fickle fowl laid in the wrong nest. After all

it was a _Nonnes Prest_ who described that immortal farmyard lorded over

by Chantecler and his seven wives. Could the happy owner of "damoysele

Pertelote," bearing herself so fair and companionable, be expected to give

her up into cold communal ownership? Two years later the Archbishop

remarked in his diary that nothing had been done about the poultry[1969].

Some nuns even had rents of their own, which they kept for their private

use instead of adding the money to the common income of the priory. This

was the case at Bondeville[1970] and at St Desir de Lisieux[1971]. At the

latter Rigaud began by ordering these rents to be held in common, but in

later years contented himself with an injunction that they should be

retained only at the discretion of the Abbess. At St Saens in 1250 it was

noted: "They receive gifts and retain and expend them without

licence"[1972]. Usually the injunction was that the nuns were to receive

nothing from their friends without licence from the head of the

house[1973]; the poverty of some convents made it impossible altogether to

prohibit such gifts.

Closely connected with this sin of property was the failure to live a

communal life. Already at this early date the practice of eating in

separate chambers and of receiving separate allowances of food was

becoming common. The most comprehensive indictment was made at Almeneches.

In 1250 (the same year that Rigaud found them to be _proprietarie_, owning

pots and pans) he noted:

They run up debts in the town and eat together and sit at table in

cliques (_per societates_). To each money is given to provide herself

with food. Many stay away from compline and from matins and they drink

after compline[1974].

On this occasion the moral record of the convent was found to be

peculiarly bad. In 1255 there was no further complaint of immorality but

the nuns were as lax as ever in keeping the rule as to communal life:

They have chambers with partitions in the dorter. They have separate

maids of their own, who do not serve the community[1975]. They do not

eat out of the same dish but have divers dishes. Each had one loaf to

herself and kept what was over; we ordered the abbess to give them

bread without livery (i.e. in common) and to take back what was over.

They do not live on the same pittance; in short they do not live in

common[1976].

In 1260 it was the same story:

The frater was often left empty, to wit because they did not eat

together therein, but they ate meat scattered in cliques by twos and

by threes in their chambers (_due et due, tres et tres, sparsim et

socialiter in cameris_). They had many chambers and five maid servants

to boot.... Each of them had one loaf daily and retained what remained

over. We ordered that the remnant should be given in alms and

counselled them to eat and to live in common and to remove the

chambers[1977].

At Montivilliers the order to dine together was repeated at almost every

visitation; the nuns had separate dishes cooked for themselves in the

kitchen and when they were in the infirmary "for recreation or for slight

ailments" they used to eat separately in little companies (_per

conventicula_)[1978]. At St Saens[1979] and at St Leger de Preaux[1980]

also the nuns had separate food allowances and ate in the infirmary; at

Bival some of them had food prepared separately[1981], and at Villarceaux

in 1266 the Archbishop made the following injunction:

We ordered her (the Abbess) to permit them to dine together twice a

day according to their rule and to have a bell rung twice, to wit for

dinner and for supper, so that they might come together at the sound

into the frater, in a more seemly way than they have been wont. For

they often ate separately in their chambers[1982].

At St Sauveur also Rigaud ordered all to dine together in the frater, and

in the infirmary all nuns, except those actually in bed, were to use the

same food at the same table[1983]. At Bondeville the nuns seem to have

been in the habit of congregating, with the servants of the house, in a

certain oven room, doubtless for the sake of the warmth; and the

Archbishop several times forbade the practice on account of possible

scandal[1984]. Private drinking parties sometimes occurred; at St Sauveur

the nuns occasionally drank outside the frater or infirmary in their own

chambers[1985] and at Almeneches they drank after Compline[1986].

(4) It has already been said that the nunneries were often reduced to

great straits by poverty. As a result they invented a number of devices

for obtaining ready money. Some of these devices seem to modern eyes

harmless enough; but they were opposed by medieval Visitors because they

brought the nunneries into too close contact with the world and were

subversive of discipline. One of their devices has already been described.

At St Saens, Villarceaux, Bival and St Sauveur it is evident that the nuns

were in the habit not merely of giving away but actually of selling the

food and drink left over from meals and their old clothes to people

outside the convent. At Bondeville Rigaud had, in 1251, to forbid them to

sell their thread and their spindles[1987]. At many houses they were

accustomed to knit or embroider silken purses, tassels, cushions or needle

cases, either for sale or as gifts to their friends, and the Archbishop

forbade them to do any silkwork except for church ornament[1988]. He was

not remarkably successful, since he had to repeat the injunction eight

times at St Amand, between 1254 and 1267. It is interesting to compare his

attitude with the similar prohibition made to the anchoresses of the

_Ancren Riwle_ early in the same century: "Make no purses to gain friends

therewith, nor blodbendes of silk; but shape and sew and mend church

vestments and poor people's clothes"[1989].

Another means of getting money was by taking schoolchildren as boarders

and the general attitude of the Church towards this custom is strikingly

illustrated in Eudes Rigaud's Register. The provincial council of Rouen in

1231, attempting to deal with the bad discipline in Benedictine nunneries,

had promulgated a statute forbidding the reception of children to be

educated, and the context shows that the practice was regarded solely in

the light of an interference with convent discipline, by bringing the nuns

into contact with the world:

On account of the scandals which rise out of the conversation of nuns,

we ordain for black nuns that they shall receive nothing to be

deposited with them in their houses by any persons; above all let

them by no means permit the strong-boxes of clergy, or of the laity

too, to be placed in their custody[1990]. Boys and girls who are

accustomed to be brought up and taught there are immediately to be put

away[1991].

In accordance with this statute and with the invariable custom of

ecclesiastical authorities it was Eudes Rigaud's practice to order the

expulsion of children wherever he found them, and the number of these

prohibitions increased during the last years covered by his diary, which

points to a firm determination to eradicate the fault, though it would

also seem to imply a certain flouting of his authority by the nuns. In

four cases (St Saens, St Aubin, Bival and Villarceaux) the moral record of

the houses concerned was so disgraceful that the Archbishop might well be

thought to have been actuated by concern for the children growing up under

such evil influences[1992]; but the fact that he took the same course at

Bondeville, St Sauveur, St Amand and St Leger de Preaux, against which

none but minor breaches of the rule were charged, shows that his policy

was dictated by care for the nuns and not for their pupils. Bondeville was

an obstinate offender. There in 1255 the Archbishop ordered the Prioress

and Subprioress to remove their little nieces[1993] and a certain other

girl[1994]; in 1257 he noted the presence of five ladies (_domicelle_) who

had not been received as novices[1995]; and in 1261 he noted again that

"Many secular girls were used to be placed there with their costs"[1996].

In the two last cases the Register--probably, as Mr Coulton suggests, by a

clerical oversight--contains no injunction to remove the children; and in

1266 only one boarder, "a lady of Rouen, Laurentia called _quatuor

Homines_" was ordered to be sent away, though the Archbishop explicitly

stated that "Certain girls (_iuvencule_), daughters of burgesses of Rouen,

were there as it were in charge [of the nuns], which displeased

us"[1997]. There was, however, no ambiguity about his action in 1268 when

he ordered a certain

Basiria, daughter of Amelina of Aulnay, who was there as a boarder, to

be sent away and forbade the Prioress henceforth to keep any girl or

girls there, except such as had been received as novices[1998].

But it was a difficult task to force the needy nuns, reduced already to

pawning the very vessels of the altar, to give up this more certain and

less sacrilegious method of adding to their income.

It is indeed a significant fact, as Mr Coulton has pointed out, that "the

prohibitions are in inverse proportion to the temporal prosperity of the

convent"[1999]. The wealthy Abbaye-aux-Dames at Caen had no need to take

in school children. But Villarceaux, L50 in debt in 1249 and going

steadily downhill, vainly struggling in the toils of Jews and Caursini,

was the most frequent offender of all and resisted the most stubbornly

Rigaud's attempts at reform. In 1257 he ordered the nuns to remove all the

boys and girls who were in the house, except one girl who was going to be

veiled[2000]. The next year they were threatened with severe punishment if

they postponed any longer the ejection of the children "whom they are

bringing up in their house against our inhibition"[2001]. Follows silence

for the next three visitations; then, eight years later, "There were

several girls there, as it were in the charge of certain nuns, which

displeased us exceedingly and shortly afterwards we ordered the Prioress

by our letters to remove all secular girls" within a certain date[2002];

and in 1268

We ordered, as we had done before, that the nuns should utterly put

away all secular ladies or girls (_domicellas seu puellulas_), if any

were there, and that they should suffer neither one nor more of such

girls to remain there, except such as were to be made nuns[2003].

What of St Saens, with bad morals, growing debts and a deficiency of

cider? In 1260, "We ordered secular girls to be removed," with one

favoured exception[2004]; in 1261, "They were keeping in the priory two

ladies, to wit the daughter of the chatelain of Belencombre and the elder

daughter of the lord of Mesnieres (de Maneriis) whom we ordered to be sent

away"[2005]. It is the same with St Aubin, with its bad morals and its

tumble-down buildings[2006]; with Bival, immoral also, overcome with debts

even to its own servants for their wages, and always short of stores; in

1252 the nuns had ten children there to be brought up (_pueros decem

nutriendos_) and Rigaud ordered their removal[2007]. It is the same, too,

with St Amand, where the debts increased from year to year and the nuns

could not even get in the money due to them; in 1263 a certain daughter of

Lady Aeliz de Synoz was found there and removed[2008]. At St Leger de

Preaux (1249) secular girls were all to be sent away[2009]; and at St

Sauveur d'Evreux all unveiled children (_infantes non velatas_) were

immediately to be removed[2010], while some years later Rigaud made a

general injunction there against receiving relatives of the nuns as

boarders[2011]. A mysterious child was being brought up in a grange

belonging to the Abbey of Bival at Pierremans, but why or whose we know

not; was it a needy relative of the Abbess, or an indiscretion of sister

Isabel or sister Florence, or merely an ordinary paying boarder? History

is silent, but the Archbishop was sufficiently annoyed when his order to

remove it in 1268 was still disregarded in the following year[2012].

The constant attempts of the nuns to add to their numbers were actuated by

the same desire to obtain ready money, in the shape of a dowry; the

Archbishop was more far-seeing and recognised that the immediate good

would be out-balanced by the strain on their scanty revenues in the

future; nor was he unmindful of the fact that the demand for a dowry was

contrary to the rule. The heavy debts and the insufficiency of stores,

which he found at convent after convent, certainly seem to indicate that

their only hope lay in a rigid limitation of membership. Moreover

overcrowding was certainly subversive of discipline and it looks as though

Rigaud had, in some cases (e.g. at Villarceaux in 1249)[2013], been

unwilling to permit new recruits to enter a house whose moral record was

bad. This may explain in part his long struggle with St Saens and with St

Aubin, though here, as at Villarceaux, poverty was always the chief reason

noted in his diary. At St Aubin the financial _arriere pensee_ is very

clear. In 1251 Rigaud noted that nuns were received simoniacally; on this

and on the four subsequent visitations the Prioress was forbidden to

receive any girl as a nun without special licence, and girls received in

contravention of this rule were not to be considered veiled or recognised

as nuns[2014] (this was the usual form in which his prohibition was

couched). Then in 1259 came another case of simony; in spite of the

Archbishop's former inhibition the nuns had received and veiled a certain

lady, the daughter of Sir Robert Mauvoisin (_Mali Vicini_), knight. Asked

why they had done this they said that urgent necessity and poverty had

forced them to it and that the father of the girl had given them an annual

rent of 10_s._ with her; but they admitted that they had acted against the

wish of the Prioress and without her consent. The Archbishop "seeing them

to have acted with cupidity and with the vice of simony" soon afterwards

ordered the girl to be removed, unveiled and sent back to her father's

house and enjoined a penance upon the nuns[2015]; the prohibition to

receive nuns without licence was repeated at subsequent visitations[2016].

There were similarly protracted struggles between the Archbishop and the

nuns at St Saens and at St Amand. At St Saens, when he came to visit it

in 1258, he found two little girls in residence and in spite of the

prayers of the Prioress and some of the nuns that he would allow the

children (_puellule_) to be received and veiled, he ordered them to be

removed within a week[2017]. The next year, however, he found that the

obstinate nuns had promised four girls, nieces of certain of the nuns,

that they should be received if his consent could be obtained, whereupon

the Archbishop in great irritation tore up the letters before the

assembled chapter and once more repeated his prohibition[2018]. In 1260 he

made an exception in favour of one girl[2019], and in 1261, when the nuns

asked permission to veil five new inmates "in order that the divine

service might be increased" (_ampliandum_), he ordered them to send the

candidates or their relatives to him and promised to give the necessary

licence if it seemed expedient[2020]. In 1262 and 1264[2021] the usual

prohibition was repeated.

The nuns of St Amand persisted with equal obstinacy in admitting novices

without licence. In 1254 and again in 1257 the Archbishop noted the

presence of four girls who had been promised admission as soon as there

was a vacancy[2022]. In 1263 he ordered one of them to be removed[2023].

In the next year he found that four ladies (_domicelle_) in secular habit

had been received, one of them in spite of his inhibition; the Abbess was

punished for disobedience and the girl was sent home[2024]. In 1267 seven

girls were waiting to be veiled, but he seems to have made no

objection[2025]. At Villarceaux in 1257 the niece of a neighbouring prior

was found in the house, in secular dress; "and she in the chapter," says

Rigaud, "throwing herself upon her knees, besought us to permit her to be

received by them, because the Prioress and convent had promised to veil

her"[2026]. Whether he acceded to her request is not known, but in the

following year there was serious trouble, because the Prioress had raised

the number of nuns above the statutory number of twenty, by receiving two

girls against the bishop's order and the convent's will, one to be a nun

and the other to be a lay sister. The Archbishop ordered their instant

expulsion and specifically mentioned that his former prohibition had been

dictated by a desire to do what was best for the convent, "since its

resources hardly suffice for a small number of persons"[2027]. At

Bondeville also a girl had been received without licence in 1266 and the

Archbishop forbade her to be veiled[2028]. Sometimes it is clear that he

had to protect the nuns, less against their own improvidence than against

the enforced reception of nuns "dumped" upon them by powerful people

outside their own ranks. The nuns of Villarceaux were forbidden to receive

any lay sister or novice "even if the abbess of St Cyr send her"[2029]. At

Bival, in 1254, where it is specifically stated that no more nuns are to

be received without licence on account of the poverty of the house, he

ordered no exception to be made even for two girls sent by the bishop and

one by Sir William of Poissy[2030]; and at Montivilliers in 1266 he noted

that in spite of his prohibition a girl had been placed there by the

Legate[2031].

(5) A very common fault in these Rouen (and indeed in all) houses was the

imperfect claustration of the nuns; seculars entered the precincts; nuns

left them. There were constant injunctions that no secular or suspected

persons were to enter the cloister precincts[2032] or to talk with the

nuns anywhere save in the parlour[2033]. At Bival, however, a significant

exception was made to the general prohibition; no one was to be introduced

except those whom it would be a scandal to turn away[2034]--potential

benefactors and other powerful folk, no doubt. It seems that the nuns were

in the habit of dining and of eating meat with seculars (at Bival they

absented themselves from Compline for this purpose)[2035], and the

Archbishop forbade, time after time, the eating together of nuns and

seculars[2036]. No secular person was to sleep in the house[2037]; and no

nun was to converse with seculars, even in the parlour, without licence

from the head of the house and without a suitable companion, such as the

doorkeeper[2038]. These precautions seem to have been necessary, for one

is left with the impression that secular visitors gained access without

much difficulty to the cloister precincts; at Bival it was complained that

brothers and relatives of the nuns and others, entered the house[2039];

and at Bondeville friends and relatives used to come into the cloister at

will and talk with the nuns in the meadows and guest rooms of the

house[2040]; at a later visitation the archbishop remarked that the house

where guests were received was too close to the cloister and to the

conventual buildings[2041]. The abuses to which such freedom of access

might give rise are obvious. They appear in the case of St Aubin, morally

the worst of all the houses; the state of that community at the

visitations of 1254, 1256, 1257 and 1261 will be referred to later; in

1266 a certain miller was not to be allowed to frequent the house, as

scandal had arisen through him, and the schoolmaster (_Rector scolarum_)

of Beauvoir had "sometimes impudently frequented the said house or priory,

from which evil rumours had arisen," and he was to be warned to

desist[2042]; next year the same miller and two clerics (a rector and a

clerk) were frequenting the house and causing scandal and the Archbishop

forbade them to enter it[2043].

The wandering of nuns outside the precincts was even more dangerous, and

it is significant that after the terrible revelations at Villarceaux in

1249 the Archbishop, in his injunctions, paid special attention to the

entrance of seculars into the convent and to the conditions under which

the nuns were wont to leave it. Rigaud strictly forbade any nun to go out

without special licence from the head of the house and that licence was

not to be given except for an adequate reason[2044]; "not quickly and

easily but with difficulty and for an appointed time only"[2045], ran the

injunction to the Abbess of St Amand. A term was always to be fixed by

which the nun had to return and she was always to have a suitable

companion allotted to her[2046]. This seems to have been a necessary

precaution, for at St Saens the nuns were found to stay away alone for

fifteen days or more[2047]; it is perhaps not accidental that St Saens was

one of the immoral houses. At St Leger de Preaux, also, the nuns were in

the habit of going out alone to the houses of relatives[2048]: "They go

outside the abbey when they can and return when they will," says the

Archbishop[2049]; in 1267 one of them was found to be alone with her

mother at Argoulles, "which displeased us and we forbade the Abbess to

give any nun permission to go out without company"[2050]. At Bondeville

they used often to go to Rouen[2051]. Another precaution taken against the

wandering of nuns in the world was the closing or careful guarding of the

cloister doors; it was ordered at Bival in 1257 that a door opening on to

the meadows, which was often unlocked, should be kept locked[2052]. The

causes which took nuns outside the gates were many: sometimes they seem to

have gone simply to take a walk; sometimes to visit relatives or to act as

godmothers to the children of friends (a practice which was specifically

forbidden at Montivilliers in 1257 and again in 1265)[2053]; sometimes on

business to the granges of the convent; sometimes to work in the fields

(three of the nuns of St Aubin were absent at the vintage (_in vindemiis_)

when the Archbishop came in 1267)[2054]; sometimes to beg (at St Aubin in

1261 it was ordered that the younger nuns were not to be sent out to beg

(_pro questu_)[2055] and two years later two nuns of this poverty-stricken

house were absent in France, seeking alms)[2056]; sometimes for less

reputable reasons. There is no more striking commentary on the writings of

contemporary moralists like Matheolus and Gilles li Muisis than the

Register of Eudes Rigaud[2057]; and the stress laid upon the ill results

of allowing seculars to enter and nuns to leave the cloister, shows that

the attempts of the medieval Church to impose strict claustration upon

nuns, harsh as they seem to modern minds, were dictated by a real social

necessity.

(6) Modern minds would also be inclined to consider as trifling offences

the various cases of frivolous behaviour--games, gay clothes, pet

animals--which the Archbishop entered from time to time in his diary. The

custom of indulging in games on Innocents' Day, which prevailed in certain

English nunneries, was fairly common in Rigaud's diocese. In 1249 he made

the following injunction at Villarceaux:

Item we forbid you in future to indulge in your accustomed gaieties

(_ne ludibria exerceatis consueta_) to wit, dressing yourselves up in

secular clothes or leading dance-songs (_choreas_) among yourselves or

with seculars[2058].

But the nuns clung to their rare amusements and in 1253 the Archbishop

noted: "They sing ditties (_cantilenas_) on the Feast of Innocents"[2059].

At St Leger des Preaux in 1254 the diary has: "We forbade disorders

(_inordinaciones_) on the Feast of Innocents"[2060] and at the Holy

Trinity of Caen two years later: "The younger ones on the Feast of

Innocents sing the scriptures with _farsa_; this we forbade"[2061].

Montivilliers was a serious offender and the Archbishop's note is

learnedly technical over the different kinds of songs sung by the nuns:

Item on the Feasts of St John, St Stephen and the Innocents they use

excessive frivolity (_nimia iocositate_) and scurrilous songs, to wit,

farces (_farsis_), canticles (_conductis_) and motets (_motulis_); we

ordered that they should bear themselves more fittingly and with

greater devotion[2062].

The order seems to have borne fruit, for in 1262 he noted: "The

frivolities which used to take place on Innocents' Day have been utterly

given up, so they say"; and then, and again in 1265, he simply repeated

the injunction that such things should cease[2063]. At St Amand in 1263 he

ordered:

That the younger nuns are not to remain behind in the choir on the

Feast of Innocents, as they have done in the past, singing the office

and proses which belong to the day, the seniors having gone away and

left the juniors there[2064].

But afterwards we hear no more of these sports among the nuns; so perhaps

Rigaud succeeded in stamping them out. They were perhaps (if one may judge

from the usual character of the Feast of Fools) more scurrilous and less

innocently pretty than they sound; but it is difficult not to feel a

little out of sympathy with the conscientious Archbishop[2065].

The keeping of pet animals here, as in England, was a common fault and one

against which Rigaud's animadversions were singularly unsuccessful. The

nuns of St Sauveur d'Evreux had small dogs, squirrels and birds, "and we

ordered such things to be removed; they do not profit the rule"[2066]; but

we had to repeat our injunction in 1258 and again in 1269[2067]. At St

Leger des Preaux they had two small dogs and three squirrels[2068], and at

the Holy Trinity of Caen they kept larks and little birds in cages, which

were to be removed[2069]; but the cage birds were still there six years

later[2070]. The most amusing case was at Villarceaux in 1268, where for

once one of the nuns gave the Archbishop a piece of her mind. "Eustachia,

late prioress" (we shall hear of her again), "had a certain bird, which

she kept to the annoyance and displeasure of some of the more elderly

nuns" (did it disturb their slumbers?) "For the which reason we ordered

her to remove it; and she thereupon bespake us with little discretion or

reverence, which greatly displeased us"[2071]. One may forgive the

archbishop for this lapse in his sense of humour; he had had trouble with

Eustachia before; it was just like her to keep a bird that squawked in the

dorter.

Nor probably did Rigaud fare better than any other medieval visitor in his

attempts to turn fashionable clothes out of the nunneries. The

disreputable ladies of Villarceaux (1249) curled their hair and scented

their veils with saffron, they had pilches of rabbit and hare and fox fur,

they wore belts adorned with silver-work and steel-work[2072]. Those of

Montivilliers (1265 and 1266) were nearly as luxurious, though their

morals were unimpeachable; they also wore their hair in ringlets, had

pilches of squirrel fur and of the costly "griz," and used girdles

curiously adorned with ironwork; they ornamented their collars and cuffs

with expensive cloth trimmings and possessed "excessively curious and

precious knives, with carved and silvered handles"[2073]. The nuns of St

Amand also used not only shifts and pilches, but also pillows and

bedclothes soft with the fur of rabbit, hare, fox and cat[2074]; and the

ornamented girdles of ironwork were found at St Aubin and at St

Sauveur[2075]. The Archbishop strenuously forbade long hair and curls,

belts of ironwork, saffron, rich cloth and the more costly kinds of fur.

It is unlikely that he was successful. The world never called more

seductively to medieval nuns than in contemporary fashions. The Church

clung to the belief that the habit made the nun, but the souls of sister

Jacqueline and sister Johanna, and sister Philippa and sister Marguerite

expressed themselves appropriately in furs and saffron and, one fears,

would not have been less frivolous in the regular garb of their order:

Il est bien vray que tourel, voille ou guymple

Fort scapullaire ou autre habit de corps,

Ne rend jamais homme ou femme plus simple,

Mais rompt souvent l'union et accords

Mectant divorce entre l'ame et le corps[2076].

(7) It is now necessary to consider the more serious faults, such as

quarrelling, drunkenness or immorality, detected by Eudes Rigaud in his

visitations, and to give a fuller account of those nunneries which were in

a particularly evil state. The quarrels which were inseparable from

convent life continually occupied his attention; and nine out of the

twelve houses which he visited more than once were at one time or another

disturbed by petty squabblings among the nuns. It is clear--as might be

expected--that the discord was worse in those convents where discipline

was loose, and where the behaviour of the nuns in other directions was

open to grave censure. At the visitation of Villarceaux in 1249, for

instance, Ermengarde of Gisors and Johanna of Auvilliers beat one another

and the Archbishop was obliged to order the punishment of quarrels passing

from words to blows[2077] (_de verbis ad verbera_--he was not above a mild

ecclesiastical pun in the privacy of his diary)[2078]. At St Aubin (1254)

Agnes of the Bridge (_de Ponte_) and Petronilla refused to speak to each

other, and Agnes, "who is a fomenter of discord and a scold," was ordered

to give up her rancour against Petronilla, on pain of being removed from

the convent[2079]. At Bival in 1252 two sisters were described as

rebellious[2080] and two years later the Register contains the following

entry:

There are two sets of couples who refuse to speak to one another and

we caused them to make peace with each other and to kiss and be

friends (_quantum ad os, et deosculari ad invicem_), and we forbade

that any mention should henceforth be made of the bone of contention

between them, on pain of excommunication, which we have called down

upon her who shall be the first to mention it, and we ordered the

Abbess to keep us informed[2081].

At St Saens a certain Johanna Martel--evidently a lady of substance with

relatives in the neighbourhood--was said in 1259 to be rebellious,

disobedient and given to wrangling with the Prioress[2082], and in 1265

the house was full of discord[2083]. At Almeneches (1250) there was a good

deal of quarrelling in cloister and choir[2084].

Quarrels were common, however, in houses against which no grave moral

disorders were ever charged. St Amand was perhaps the worst of these;

there in 1258 the Archbishop ordered that each nun was to forget the

injury and offence of the other, before she presumed to receive

communion[2085]; but the discords continued and in 1262 he wrote:

Because we found there many heart-burnings and rancours among the

nuns, we ordered the abbess and the confessor that they should

reconcile those whom they knew to have fallen into this fault before,

and that they should live in charity as far as they were able,

punishing offenders by taking away their beer and pittances[2086].

But it was in vain, and after seven years Rigaud was still commanding the

Abbess to labour to the best of her ability that the nuns should live in

peace and concord[2087]. At Bondeville (1251 and 1255) it will be

remembered that one of the charges against the Prioress was her

quarrelsomeness[2088]; and in 1259 a certain Lucy was found to be a

quarrelsome and ill-tempered person, disobedient to the Prioress and given

to wrangling with her in the frater, whereupon the Archbishop enjoined a

penance of silence upon her[2089]. At St Desir de Lisieux (1254) there

were two or three nuns who would not speak to the rest[2090]; and even at

the great Abbaye aux Dames at Caen Rigaud noted in 1267, "There was great

contention among them and concerning this they had a case in the

law-courts"[2091].

Quarrelsomeness was, however, a mild fault compared with the really bad

immorality which prevailed in some of the houses. At three of them, St

Aubin, St Saens and Bival, this state of affairs continued from visitation

to visitation; they were evidently hopelessly corrupt. At the two others

(Villarceaux and Almeneches) there is mention of serious disorders only

once and from the Archbishop's silence on later occasions it may be hoped

that he succeeded in reforming the houses. One of these isolated cases was

in many ways the most serious of all; Rigaud's note of his visitation of

Villarceaux in 1249 reads more like a description of La Maison Tellier

than that of a priory; except that the former was more discreet:

We visited the priory of Villarceaux. There are twenty-three nuns and

three lay sisters. [Here follow several minor disorders.] Only four

nuns there are fully professed, to wit Eustachia, Comitissa,

Ermengarde and Petronilla. Many of them have pilches made from the fur

of rabbits, hares and foxes. They eat flesh unnecessarily in the

infirmary; they do not observe silence anywhere and they do not keep

within the cloister. Johanna of "Aululari" once went out of the

cloister and lived with someone, by whom she had a child; and she

sometimes goes out of the cloister to see that child; item she is

ill-famed (_infamata_) with a certain man called Gaillard. Isabella la

Treiche is a fault finder, murmuring against the Prioress and others.

The cellaress is ill-famed with a man called Philip of Villarceaux.

The Prioress is too negligent and does not reprove, nor does she get

up [for matins]. Johanna of Auvilliers goes outside the house alone

with Gayllard and within the year she had a child by him. The

cellaress is ill-famed with Philip of Villarceaux and with a certain

priest of her own neighbourhood. Item the subprioress with Thomas the

carter. Idonia her sister with Crispinatus. Item the prior of Gisors

frequents the house for the sake of the said Idonia. Philippa of Rouen

is ill-famed with the priest of Suentre, in the diocese of Chartres;

Marguerita the treasuress with Richard de Geneville, clerk. Agnes of

Fontenoy is ill-famed with the priest of Guerreville, of the diocese

of Chartres. La Tooliere [? the chambress] is ill-famed with Sir

Andrew de Monchy, knight. They all wear their hair long to their chins

(_nutriunt comam usque ad mentum_) and scent their veils with saffron.

Jacqueline came back pregnant from a certain chaplain, who was

expelled from the house for this. Item Agnes de Montsec was ill-famed

with the same. Ermengarde of Gisors and Johanna of Auvilliers beat

each other. The Prioress is drunk almost any night ... she does not

rise for matins nor eat in the frater nor correct faults[2092].

After these terrible revelations the Archbishop directed a letter of

injunctions to the convent, which, contrary to his usual practice, was

copied into his diary[2093]. These injunctions deal only with general

breaches of the rule, which by loosening discipline would tend to give

opportunities for the behaviour described in the _comperta_, and they

contain no reference to specific cases of immorality. Thus he provides for

the proper performance of divine service; for the maintenance of silence;

for the simultaneous entry of the nuns into their dorter, the keys of

which and of the cloister were to be carefully kept and a "Visitor"

appointed to see that the rule was kept in these matters; he forbids

secular or suspected persons to be entertained or lodged within the

cloister, and nuns to be given permission to go outside without good

reason and a companion, or to speak with any external person unlicensed

and unaccompanied; he deals also with the frivolous garments, the sports

on Innocents' Day and the quarrels which he had found; he forbids the

reception of any more nuns without licence, orders the frequent rendering

of accounts, warns them to live in common, and ends with an order to

recite his letter at least once a month in the chapter. These injunctions

seem strangely superficial in comparison with the _comperta_ which precede

them; but a note entered in the Register, on the occasion of the next

visitation of Villarceaux, would seem to suggest that the Archbishop had

taken other steps to deal with the matter. It is there written: "Here are

twenty nuns, but six of them were not present; for one of them left the

house and married in the world and two are without the house, according to

a previous mandate and ordinance of ours"[2094]. It is possible that the

Archbishop had sent separate letters (not copied into his Register)

dealing with the worst cases of immorality, and that he had sent two of

the erring nuns to do penance in another house. At any rate there are no

further complaints of immorality against Villarceaux, and perhaps prompt

measures at the beginning of his career as visitor had stayed the nuns on

their downward course.

It was on Rigaud's first visitation of Almeneches also that moral

disorders were found. He went there in 1250 and found that the rule had

been greatly relaxed. The nuns (who were among the most inveterate

property owners recorded in the Register) used to run up debts in the

town, doubtless with the money given to them for the purchase of their

food. They did not live a communal life, they admitted seculars to talk

with them in the cloister, they remained away from Matins and Compline,

they had drinking parties after Compline, and they were always

quarrelling. The result of this laxity showed in more serious faults.

Sister Tiphaine was a drunkard (_ebriosa_); three other nuns, Hola, Aaliz

the chantress and the late prioress had each had a child; and a fourth,

Dionisia Dehatim, was ill-famed with a certain Master Nicholas de Bleve.

In this case some of the disorder may have been due to the fact that the

house was without an abbess, she having died shortly before[2095]. Here

again it is impossible to tell what steps the Archbishop took to reform

the house, but at his two subsequent visitations, although the nuns

persisted in their refusal to live a communal life, there were no further

notices of immorality.

One may hope that these were exceptional cases in the history of the

houses concerned. But there was nothing exceptional about the bad

behaviour of St Aubin and St Saens and to a lesser degree of Bival. The

Archbishop first visited the latter house in 1248 and found there "several

nuns ill-famed of the vice of incontinence"; the abbess resigned, probably

as a result of this discovery[2096]. No complaint of immorality was made

at the next two visitations; then in 1254 the Archbishop noted that sister

Isabella had had a child at Whitsuntide by a priest[2097]. At the next

visitation (1256) he found that Florence had had a child recently and that

the whole house had fallen into ill-repute because of this; Rigaud on this

occasion ordered the removal of the convent priest, "on account of the

scandal of the nuns and populace, though we found nothing that could be

proved against him"[2098]. On the eight subsequent visitations there were

no further charges of immorality.

St Aubin and St Saens must be charged with persistent immorality,

continuing over a long period of years. They seem indeed to have been

little better than brothels. At St Aubin in 1254 Aeliz of Rouen was

incontinent and had lately had a child by a priest[2099]. In 1256 she was

in trouble again:

We unveiled Aeliz of Rouen and Eustachia of Etrepagny for a time, on

account of their fornication. Item we sent Agnes of the Bridge (_de

Ponte_) [the same whose quarrelsomeness had been reproved in 1254] to

the lazar-house of Rouen, because she consented to Eustachia's sin and

even procured it, as the rumour runs, _et quia dedit dicte Eustachie

herbas bibere ut interficeretur puer conceptus in dicta Eustachia,

secundum quod dicitur per famam_[2100]. We removed the Prioress from

office. We postponed the infliction of a punishment upon Anastasia,

the subprioress, for ill-fame of incontinence against her, until she

should be made prioress there[2101].

Here at last we have definite information of the steps taken by Rigaud to

deal with a bad case; two nuns were unveiled and sent to do penance among

lepers and the prioress was deposed; but what a confession of weakness

that Rigaud should propose to fill the place of the latter with a woman

herself ill-famed of sin. The effect of his punishment upon the two nuns

whom he had unveiled was, moreover, unfortunate, for they went from bad to

worse. The next year Eustachia was in apostasy (_vagabunda_) and had been

pregnant when she left the convent and the blame for it was set down to

John, the chaplain of Fry. Aeliz of Rouen also was "in grave sin"[2102].

In 1261 the Archbishop came again. Aeliz had borne a child since his last

visitation and she was said to have had three children in all; Beatrice of

Beauvais had had a child at Blaacort and her lover was the Dean of St

Quentin, of the Diocese of Beauvais. The Prioress informed Rigaud that

these two had long been in serious fault and that they had undergone

penance according to the rule[2103]. In 1263 Aeliz and Beatrice had run

away ("led," Rigaud confided to his diary, "by the levity of their spirits

and by the instigation of the devil") and he ordered them not to be

readmitted without his special licence[2104]. The next year Beatrice was

still wandering abroad and was said to have had several children[2105]. No

more is heard of these erring sisters at the three subsequent visitations,

but it is evident that the discipline of the house was still far from

good, and the constant visits of a miller and of several other men (all

clerics)[2106] had caused scandals in 1265 and again in 1267[2107]. In

1267 the Subprioress was punished for giving up her office at her own

will[2108]; and in 1268 there is an ambiguous entry which leads one to

suppose that Anastasia had never became prioress after all and that

Eustachia (it may not be the same woman) was back again; on that occasion

Anastasia "late subprioress" was punished because she gave up her office

contrary to the will of the Prioress, while Eustachia and Margaret were

punished because they would not undertake it, when commanded to do

so[2109].

The case of St Saens was hardly less serious; for the first six

visitations there was no charge of immorality, though it is clear from the

Archbishop's note in 1254 that the discipline of the house was lax and in

particular that the nuns had leave of absence to stay away alone for as

long as a fortnight at a time and that their priest was incontinent[2110].

In any case the visitation of 1259 showed a state of things so

disgraceful, that it is difficult to believe that it could have arisen

within the two years that had elapsed since the last visitation.

Some of them stayed away unduly long when they happened to go out with

the licence of the Prioress. We ordered that such were to be given a

shorter term by which to return. Johanna Martel was rebellious and

disobedient and she wrangled with the Prioress and went out riding to

see her relatives, wearing a mantle of burnet with sleeves; and she

had a private messenger whom she used often to send to those

relatives. Nicholaa had had a child in the same house on Maundy

Thursday and its father was said to be Master Simon, the parson of St

Saens; the boy was baptized in the monastery and then sent to a

certain sister of Nicholaa's. She lay in the monastery and underwent

her churching with them; she was attended in childbed by two midwives

from the village. Item another of the nuns had a child by the same

Simon. The Prioress was held suspect with Richard of Maucomble; it was

also said that she managed the goods and business of the house badly

and that she concealed some of the rents and returns. The same Richard

had lodged in the house together with the brother and parents of the

Prioress and had often dined there[2111].

Five years later (in 1264) Petronilla of Dreux was ill-famed of

incontinence with Ralph, the hayward (_messerius_) of the Priory, and also

with a married man, and the Archbishop ordered the former to be removed

from his office and not to be permitted to frequent the priory. The

Prioress was ill-famed with a priest, and it was said that she often went

to the manor of Esquequeville and elsewhere, where she entertained many

guests and kept ill company (_ubi secum habebat multos convivas et

inhonestam societatem ducebat_), for which Rigaud censured her and ordered

her to improve. There was more scandal about Nicholaa (now called "of

Rouen" and described as the chantress); it was apparently common talk in

the village that she used to dine with her sister at Rouen, in the house

of Master Simon, Rector of St Saens, and rumour made a yet more serious

charge against her[2112]. "But," says the Archbishop, "we could find

nothing to prove concerning this in our visitation and the nuns said that

the last charge was falsely and mendaciously imputed to her"[2113].

Nevertheless it is significant that Nicholaa's name should still, after

five years, be connected with the Rector of St Saens and with her

complacent sister. In 1265 there was no mention of immorality, but the

nuns were living together "in discord and disorder":

"Because indeed," wrote Rigaud, "we perceived them to be in a bad

state, particularly as concerning certain observances of the rule, we

sought eagerly how we might labour to reform them to a more honest and

salutary condition, according to God and to their rule";

and he returned the next day to complete his measures for this

reform[2114]. But in 1266-7 the cellaress Petronilla of Dreux was again

very gravely ill-famed (_plurimum diffamata_) with Ralph, "a certain

yeoman who served them in harvest time" and there can be no better proof

that the Archbishop's injunctions often went unfulfilled, for he had

ordered Ralph's expulsion in 1264[2115]. Nevertheless the rest of the

house was in good order, so perhaps his eager labour had not been

altogether in vain. In 1267, however, things were as bad as ever. The

Prioress, Johanna of Morcent, was ill-famed with the same priest against

whom she had been warned in 1264; Petronilla of Dreux was still "very

gravely ill-famed with Ralph de Maintru, as she was before; and," says the

Archbishop, with one of those personal touches which make his Register a

real human document, "Agnes of Equetot and Johanna of Morainville we found

to be liars and perjurers, when we demanded certain things of them on

oath; wherefore we came away from the place, as it were impatient and sad

... (_Quasi impacientes et tristes_)"[2116]; it was indeed no wonder.

APPENDIX III

FIFTEENTH CENTURY SAXON VISITATIONS BY JOHANN BUSCH

Three accounts of medieval visitations stand out in general interest above

all others, the thirteenth century Norman visitations of Eudes Rigaud,

Archbishop of Rouen, described in his diary, the fifteenth century English

visitations of Alnwick, Bishop of Lincoln, described in his Register[2117]

and the almost contemporary German visitations of the Austin Canon and

reformer Johann Busch, described in his _Liber de Reformatione

Monasteriorum_. Busch's account is less formal and more literary than

those of Rigaud and Alnwick; he sets out not to keep a journal, like the

former, nor to record official documents, like the latter, but to look

back in retrospect upon his work and to make for posterity a chronicle of

the reforms connected with the congregation of Windesheim. For this

reason, and because Busch was a remarkable man, his book will probably

transcend the others in interest for the general reader; his account of

the difficulties which he encountered is so vivid and at times so

humourous, the sidelight thrown upon his own character shows him so

admirable and yet so human.

Johann Busch was born in 1399 and in 1419 became a canon in the Austin

monastery of Windesheim, a new foundation, famed for the strictness of its

rule and already the head of a congregation of daughter houses. He has

left an interesting account of the doubts and temptations which assailed

him during his novitiate; they were the stormy dawn clouds of a day which

was to become glorious in the annals of his order. During the next twenty

years he held from time to time various posts in different houses of the

reformed congregation; in 1431 he was attached to the nunnery of Bronopia,

in 1436 he became Subprior of Wittenberg and in 1439 he went to Suelte,

near Hildesheim, where he was made Prior in the following year. He had

therefore had considerable experience of monastic houses and it was when

he became Prior of Suelte that his great work as a reformer of monasteries

began. He undertook it originally at the request of the Bishop and Chapter

of Hildesheim, who were appalled at the decadence of monastic life in that

diocese and anxious for the introduction of reforms on the model of

Windesheim. His success in Hildesheim prompted Archbishop Guenther of

Magdeburg to invite him to carry the reforming movement into that diocese

and in 1447 Busch became _praepositus_[2118] of the Neuwerk in Halle. This

brought him to the notice of the Papal Legate Nicholas of Cues, who came

to hold a provincial council in Magdeburg in 1451, and Nicholas, himself

an ardent reformer, issued a general mandate empowering him to enter and

reform the Austin monasteries of the provinces of Magdeburg, Mainz, Saxony

and Thuringia. Unfortunately Busch now quarrelled with the Archbishop of

Magdeburg and had to resign in 1454. He returned to Wittenberg and

continued his campaign of reform, turning his attention specially to

nunneries. Then, after a short sojourn at Windesheim he returned to Suelte

in 1459, where he remained until his death in 1480. He left behind him two

books, a _Chronicon Windeshemense_, and the _Liber de Reformatione

Monasteriorum_, which between them give an invaluable account not only of

the rise of Windesheim and of the reforming movement which emanated from

it, but of the life and character of Busch himself[2119].

Book II of the _Liber de Reformatione Monasteriorum_ describes the reform

of twenty-three nunneries and two houses of lay sisters, of which the

great majority belonged to his own order of Austin Regular Canons[2120].

The work was not carried out without considerable opposition, not only

from the nuns themselves, for the desire for reform seldom came from

within the unreformed orders[2121], but also from their friends and

kinsmen in the world, to whom they frequently appealed for help. Moreover

certain ecclesiastical magnates, notably the Bishop of Minden, opposed and

impeded reforms in their districts, and even when they submitted to such

reforms lent them an indifferent and easily discouraged support. On the

other hand Busch received his most powerful support from great

ecclesiastics such as the Cardinal Legate Nicholas of Cues, the Archbishop

of Magdeburg and the Bishops of Halberstadt and Hildesheim, and also from

the superiors and chief inmates of houses belonging to the congregation of

Windesheim, or already reformed under its influence. Men such as Rutger,

prior of Wittenberg, were of the greatest assistance to him; they

accompanied him as co-visitors and promoted his work in every possible

way, while the reformed nunneries often provided him with nuns to dwell

for a time in the houses which he was reforming and to teach their inmates

how to comport themselves. Apart from such powerful ecclesiastical support

Busch was particularly fortunate in the assistance which he received from

the Dukes of Brunswick, Otto, William and Henry, who reigned during his

lifetime. These nobles, especially Duke William, had the greatest esteem

for Busch and not infrequently accompanied him on his visitations, lending

the temporal intimidation of their arguments and armed retainers to his

more spiritual menaces. The support of the secular arm was, indeed,

necessary, in view of the opposition of lay kinsfolk to the reform of

their daughters and sisters.

The monastic houses of Germany had by the fifteenth century fallen into

great laxity of rule. The nuns seem to have lost all knowledge of how to

perform the ordinary offices of convent life, in choir, chapter and

frater, according to the rule, and Busch was often at pains to go

carefully through the routine with them, teaching them what to do at each

moment. This occasionally gave rise to some amusing scenes. At one of the

first houses to be reformed, St Mary Magdalen near Hildesheim (1440),

Busch and an elderly monk of Suelte were teaching the nuns by ocular

demonstration how to comport themselves in frater. Having arranged the

sisters in seemly order Busch and brother John Bodiker began to intone

_Benedicite_, after the fashion of reformed religious; but the nuns, who

had not been accustomed to singing the _Benedicite_ at table, all burst

out laughing, instead of following. Busch and the brother, however, kept

on until the nuns collected themselves and came in with bowed heads at the

verse _Gloria patri_. Similarly when Busch was showing them how to confess

their own and proclaim others' faults in chapter (a custom which they had

completely lost), brother John, acting the sinner, rose up among the

sisters and cast himself flat upon the pavement, whereat "the astonished

nuns fell to marvelling that such an old brother should seek thus to lie

prone"[2122].

The most serious fault found by Busch, serious not only because it was a

breach of one of the three substantial vows of monasticism, but because it

brought in its train other and worse evils, was the ownership of private

property. The nuns were almost universally _proprietarie_, owning money

and annual rents, to say nothing of their own private cooking and dining

utensils, for, as always, communal life had gone with individual poverty

and the nuns provided their own meals and dined in _familia_. At

Derneburg Busch describes the girls and women of the village coming up to

the doors and windows of the house with bread and meat and cheese in sacks

and baskets for the nuns to buy[2123]. It was his custom on visiting a

house to demand that all the private possessions of the nuns should be

brought and heaped up before him. Unwillingly they came with the charters

reciting their private rents, the ready money from their purses and

chests, the gold and silver rings, the coral paternosters, and all the

pots and pans and basins, the cups and plates and spoons which they used

for their private meals. All these Busch carefully noted down: "I

marvelled," he says on one occasion, when he had collected a particularly

large heap from quite a small house, "how they could have collected from

their parents and predecessors and reserved for themselves, as it were by

right of inheritance, such a large number of utensils"[2124]. All the

money, endowments and implements thus brought together Busch then handed

over to the common treasury and store-room of the house.

This rooting out of private property gave rise to the bitterest

opposition. The nuns had been wont to evade the charge of _proprietas_ by

the merest quibble, which Busch contemptuously swept away. They had

deposited all their money and charters with the abbess and when they

wanted any they had asked her for it; but she was merely the guardian of

their private incomes, which were never merged in a common stock[2125].

When they found that this device was rejected by Busch, they did all they

could to preserve their hoards. Sometimes they secretly sent their money

out of the house before his arrival[2126]; sometimes they locked it up and

tried to conceal it[2127]. The attitude of their kinsfolk also was a

stumbling block. These gentlemen were willing enough to endow their own

daughters and nieces, but not so willing to support the children of others

by gifts which were turned to the common use. Thus it was the nuns who

frequently protested that their house was too poor to permit of their

living in common, since it was only by these individual endowments that

they maintained their existence. It was therefore Busch's practice, before

completing the reformation of a house, to make the nuns obtain from their

kinsfolk an undertaking to continue, and if possible to augment, the rents

which they had been wont to give their relatives, on the threat of turning

out the nuns and distributing them among other houses[2128]. The nobles

and burghers of the district naturally wished to keep their kinswomen near

them and the endowments were usually forthcoming. At St George (or

Marienkammer) near Halle even this device did not result in a large enough

income for the nuns; so Busch caused sermons to be preached in all the

churches of the district, saying that because of their poverty the

fathers of their order wished to distribute the nuns in other houses in

the dioceses of Hildesheim and Halberstadt, but that they would be able to

remain if they were helped by alms. Whereupon the townsfolk, out of pity

for them, gave generously enough to support them for a whole year. Busch

led the way himself, sending them openly two large cartloads of corn and a

sack of cheeses, an example which was soon followed by the townsfolk, who

had ample opportunity of observing the progress of the cart from Busch's

door to the gates of the convent, "for" (says he), "I lived on the

eastern, they on the western side of the town." Dr Paul, the _praepositus_

of St Maurice, Halle, also helped with a cask of wine[2129].

Closely connected with the question of private property was the dowry

system, against which Busch also set his face, for it was not only in

itself contrary to the rule, but it was one method by which the nuns

received those private endowments which they afterwards turned to their

own uses:

"All the nuns of Saxony," says Busch, "whatever their order, made a

simoniacal entry into their monasteries before the new reform, giving

a sum of money for their reception; and according to ancient custom

the newcomers give a certain potation to all the _praepositi_, priests

and chaplains and a great feast for their many friends and for all the

nuns and inhabitants [of the house]. This was the common custom in all

the nunneries of Saxony and particularly in those which were

rich"[2130].

Busch forbade the custom everywhere.

The nuns thus lived like seculars, performing the minimum number of

services and owning private property. Like seculars also they loved to

give that "fetis" pinch to their wimples, that elegant turn to their

mantles, which changed the sombre habit of their order into the dress of a

lady of fashion. Busch, in common with all the reformers of the later

middle ages, has a great deal to say about their clothes. All the nuns of

Saxony and Thuringia refused to crop their heads, and contented themselves

with cutting their hair short at the neck[2131]. The nuns of Wuelfinghausen

and Fischbeck wore long flowing white veils over their heads, so that it

was hardly possible to recognise them as nuns[2132]. Those of St Cyriac's

appeared very pompously arrayed in long tunics and mantles, with tall

peaked caps and flowing veils, "que non monialium sed domicellarum

castrantium apparatum habuerunt"[2133]. The nuns of Barsinghausen

were very slender, having underneath long tight tunics of white cloth,

and above being clad in almost transparent robes of black linen, which

they called _superpellicia_, not girdled but flowing, with long

sleeves, which they turned back for capes, beneath which almost all

their form, which was bare underneath, could be seen[2134].

The nuns of the penitential order of St Mary Magdalen near Hildesheim wore

"a pleated veil, called in the vulgar tongue _Ranse_, such as they

imagine the blessed Mary Magdalen used to wear, and over tunics very

straitly girdled at the breast, so as to make them appear slender, and

with very loose pleated trains behind, from the girdle to the hem,

after the fashion of secular women. I and my brother John Bodiker,"

adds Busch, "censured their habit, for that it was not religious but

rather ministered to worldly vanity, and with many pious admonishments

we led them all in turn to put off those pleated veils and put over

their heads plain white veils without folds and to give up those

gowns, which were tight in the upper part and in the lower part wide

and pleated, lest they should seem to be following worldly vanity and

the subtlety of their own hearts, rather than religion"[2135].

As might be expected laxity of rule and widespread _proprietas_ brought

immorality in their train and Busch in several cases mentions that a

convent was ill-famed for incontinence. On the other hand this was by no

means invariably the case. At Wuelfinghausen, for instance, Busch told the

nuns that he had never heard a word breathed against their chastity[2136].

At Weinhausen, where the old abbess withstood reform so strenuously that

she had to be removed by force, and where all the nuns possessed private

incomes, he specially notes "these nuns observed well the vow of chastity,

for their lady the old abbess ruled them very strictly, and they held her

in great reverence and fear and called her 'gracious lady,' because of her

high birth"[2137]. Moreover certain houses received reform so readily and

became so soon models of good behaviour, that there cannot have been any

very serious moral decay in them. But a passage in the course of Busch's

account of the reform of the Magdalenenkloster at Halle, shows his own

opinion as to the relation between absolute immorality and lesser breaches

of the rule, and shows in particular the important part which he held to

be played by the vice of _proprietas_ in the downward path of a nun. It is

interesting also because in it he attributes a great deal of the decadence

of nunneries to insufficient control by their pastors and above all to too

infrequent visitation:

"The feminine sex," he says, "cannot long persist in the due

observance of their rule without men, who are proven, and reformed and

who often call them by wise counsels to better things. For our eyes

saw no monastery of nuns belonging to any order (and there is no small

number of them in Saxony, Misnia and Thuringia) who remained for long

in their good intent, holy life and due reform without reformed

fathers. For wherever nuns and holy sisters do not confess at set

times, nor communicate, nor hold chapter meeting concerning their

faults at least once a week, nor are visited by their [spiritual]

fathers every year ..., such nuns and sisters we saw and heard often

to be fallen from the observance of their rule and from the religious

life to a dissolute life, odious in the sight of God and men, to the

grave peril and eternal damnation of their souls. For first laying

aside the fear of God, they fall into the sin of property in small

things, then in greater things and then in the _peculium_ of money and

clothes, thence they break out into the desires of the flesh and

incontinence of the outward senses and so to the evil act, and thus

they fear not to give themselves over bit by bit to all uncleanliness

and foulness"[2138].

He ends with an eloquent plea for a closer watch to be kept over nuns by

those responsible for their spiritual welfare.

Such were the main faults which Busch strove to abolish in bringing the

nunneries under the reformed rule of Hildesheim. It remains to give some

account of the difficulties which he encountered in the course of his

work. In some houses he was well received; at Erscherde he says of the

nuns:

These virgins were well obedient, pious and tractable, ... dealing

with us and with each other kindly and benignantly by word and deed,

wherefore we were no little edified by them[2139];

and at St Martin's, Erfurt, he says:

We found a prioress and nuns living in great poverty, very simple and

humble, but of good will and ready for all good work; for they applied

themselves promptly to obedience and to the observance of their rule,

and very willingly brought to us all those things which they held in

private possession[2140].

In other houses reform was not so easy. Busch was frequently impeded by

old and obstinate members of a convent, who refused to accept a change in

the routine which they had followed for so long. Such was the nobly born

abbess of Weinhausen, who was over seventy years of age and had to be

removed by force from the house, before any reforms could be carried out:

"I found this way of life kept in this monastery forty years ago; this way

have I served during as many years and this way and not otherwise will I

continue to serve." One cannot but pity the poor old lady, brought out of

her house and forced to ascend the carriage which was to take her away,

with Busch pulling her by one sleeve and the Abbot of St Michael by the

other; and one is relieved to hear that she was allowed back again shortly

afterwards, though forced to resign the position of Abbess[2141]. But

Busch's experience in reforming monasteries caused him to dread the

opposition of men and women who had been long in religion. In the course

of his panegyric on Fischbeck, which had been reformed from within by a

remarkable Abbess, he says:

This monastery hath this advantage over many other Saxon houses, as

well of monks as of nuns, that it contains no old people, for these

old folk do not fear God nor care they for conscience or for

obedience, but when no one is looking, then they do all that they

think or desire, chattering with one another and with anyone else, by

day and by night, even in places where it is forbidden by the

rule[2142].

Besides the obstinacy of old members of the house Busch had also to

contend with the occasional opposition of confessors or _praepositi_, who

resented his interference in their domain. At the Magdalenenkloster at

Hildesheim, their confessor, who had been with the nuns for eight years,

desired to be released after the reformation of the house, saying to the

_praepositus_: "I have been their confessor for so many years, yet nought

do I receive from them, save one or two refections in three or four weeks.

I would fain be free of them and let them get another confessor." Busch

comments significantly: "He said this, because when they were

property-owners, they gave him many little gifts in money, and spices.

Now, because they had no private property, they gave him nothing"[2143].

At the convent of White Ladies and at Marienberg the _praepositus_ of the

house did everything possible to hinder the reform[2144]. Moreover in

several cases Busch had also to deal with the opposition of laymen,

objecting either to the enclosure of their kinswomen, or to the abolition

of private endowments, or merely supporting on general grounds the

objections of the nuns.

The difficulties encountered by a fifteenth century German reformer are

best estimated by giving an account of some of Busch's adventures at

recalcitrant houses. At his first attempt to reform Wennigsen in Hanover

(1455) he had against him the Bishop of Minden and all the nobles of the

neighbouring castles, but he was supported by William Duke of Brunswick

and by the authority of the Council of Basel. Taking with him the Duke,

his minister Ludolph von Barum and Rutger, Prior of Wittenberg, Busch went

to the house and they all four entered the nuns' choir. The Duke addressed

the assembled sisters and bade them receive reformation, but they,

crossing their hands above their breasts, replied: "We have all concluded

together and sworn that we will not reform nor observe our rule. We

beseech you not to make us perjured." Twice the Duke sent them out to

reconsider their decision and twice they made the same reply, finally

throwing themselves on their faces on the ground, spreading out their arms

in the form of a cross and intoning in a loud voice the antiphon "Media

vita in morte sumus." The visitors, however, thought they were singing

"Revelabunt celi iniquitatem Iude" (used as a spell in the middle ages)

and the Duke was terrified, lest he should lose all his possessions. But

Busch said:

"If I were duke of this land I would rather have that song than a

hundred florins, for there is no curse over us and over your land, but

a benediction and heavenly dew, but over these nuns is a stern rebuke

and the sign of their reformation. But we are few, being but our four

selves, and the nuns are many. If they were to attack us with their

distaffs and with stones hidden in their long sleeves, what should we

do? Let us call in others to help." Then the duke, going up alone to

them said, "May what you sing be upon you and your bodies"; and to his

servants who were standing with the nuns in the choir, he said, "come

hither to us."

The nuns followed the Duke and the servants, thinking that their chests

and money boxes were going to be broken up, whereupon the Duke rebuked

them, saying that if they and their noble friends and the Bishop of Minden

opposed reform any longer, he would turn them off his lands. The nuns then

asked to be allowed to take counsel with their friends and relatives, to

which the Duke, on Busch's intercession, unwillingly agreed. The friends

accordingly came to a conference, but all they did was to repeat the nuns'

request in the same form, and they continued to do so after the Duke had

given them two or three chances to reconsider the matter; whereupon he

sent them away, and they rode off, followed by their shield-bearers. The

Duke then ordered the gates of the house to be opened to Busch, but the

nuns returned a message that the keys were lost. The Duke, on Busch's

authority, sent for several rustics and villeins, who brought a long bench

and broke open the door. The reformers went up into the choir and there

found the nuns, flat on their faces with arms out like a cross, and round

them a circle of little wooden and stone images of saints, with a burning

candle between each. Seeing that it was useless to resist, they approached

the visitors, and the Duke addressed them, saying that if they would

receive reform, he would keep them on his land, and if not carriages were

ready to take them away for ever. The nuns begged him to "remove those

monks from their necks," when they would do his will, but the Duke replied

that he did everything by the advice of Rutger and Busch.

The nuns then gave way and the reform was begun, after which the Duke and

his followers rode away, leaving his councillor and notary with Busch. But

at nightfall the nuns sent their _praepositus_ to Busch, with the message:

"My ladies the prioress and nuns say that they are not willing to serve as

they promised, but they wish to remain as they were and are." The Duke had

to be sent for once more and eventually all the nuns submitted except one,

who seems to have fallen into a fit, and the reform went on apace:

"Because we instructed them kindly and not austerely," says Busch,

"they said to us, 'At first we thought that you would be very austere

and unkind, but now we see that you are gentle as the angels of

heaven. Now we have more faith in you than in the lord duke.'"

Busch's troubles, however, were not over, for twice within the next few

days he was attacked by armed men objecting to the new enclosure of the

nuns, and only his native wit and conciliatory words saved him from a very

dangerous situation[2145].

Almost equally difficult was the reform of Mariensee, where again the

Bishop of Minden did all in his power to oppose reform, having (according

to Busch) been bribed by the nuns to defend them. The Duke of Brunswick,

however, forced the nuns to admit the reformers and forced the Bishop to

send four emissaries to assist in carrying out the reform. These four

prelates entered the house first to ask the nuns if they would consent to

receive reform; but they refused, and one young woman tore off her veil

and crown and casting them at the feet of the Bishop's suffragan cried:

"Always hitherto you have told me that I need not be reformed and now you

want to compel me to be reformed. Behold your crown and veil! I will no

longer be a nun." The Bishop's emissaries after this gave up their

half-hearted attempt to reform the house and retired, leaving the field to

Busch and his companions. The Duke then caused four carriages to be

brought to the door, in which the rebellious nuns could be taken away,

whereat the Abbess and the nuns climbed up into the vaults of the church

and hid themselves there. The Duke ordered his servants to fetch ladders

and place them against the roof and then to climb up and fetch down the

nuns, but the prudent Busch prevented this, saying that the nuns would

push over and kill the first who went up the ladder. Instead he went into

the choir and, finding one nun still walking there, threatened her that

unless the whole convent came down from the roof at once, they should be

taken away in the carriages, "to-night you shall be in the Duke's castle

of Nyerstadt, tomorrow in his castle of Calenberg, and after that outside

his lands, perchance never to return." Whereupon the horrified nuns

descended.

Then followed an amusing scene. All the nuns agreed to accept the new

reforms, except one young woman, who refused:

"Then," says Busch, "I said to the lord Duke, 'This sister scorns

obedience and contradicts everything.' Whereupon, finding how perverse

she was, he seized her and tried to draw her to the carriage. But when

he had thrown his arms about her, she fell back flat on the ground,

the Duke on the top of her, and the other nuns on the top of the Duke,

each pushing the other on to him, so that the Duke could not raise

himself from off her, especially as his arms were crushed beneath her

scapular. And we, who saw him lying thus, stood away, waiting for the

end of the business. At length he got one arm away from her, and with

it pushed off the nuns who were lying upon him, hitting them and

drawing blood from their arms, for he was a man and the nuns were like

children, without strength and resistance."

(This was the age of chivalry!) When he had got rid of these nuns he

lifted the nun on whom he was lying, pulled his other arm free and sprang

to his feet again, saying to the vassals and servants, who were standing

round: "Why do you allow your liege lord thus to be trampled under foot by

nuns?" One of them replied for all, "Gracious lord! we have ever stood by

thee where the war engines were hurling their stones and the bows their

arrows; only tell us what we are to do and we will willingly do it." Then

said he, "Whichever nun I seize, do you seize her too," and they replied.

"Willingly, gracious lord." Whereupon the nuns gave in and professed

themselves willing to be reformed. But they were still recalcitrant at

heart, and when Busch, Rutger and the Duke were going away, they all began

to sing the antiphon "Media vita" at the top of their voices and pursued

the hapless reformers through the church, pelting them with burning

candles. One girl followed them outside to the cemetery, chanted "Sancte

deus, sancte, fortis, sancte et immortalis" three times and falling on her

knees, bit the ground thrice in sign of a curse, and threw stones and

earth after them. In the end, however, even this stormy convent was

reduced to peace and reform, after three reformed nuns from Derneburg were

brought in to teach them[2146].

Busch had almost as much difficulty with the nuns of Derneburg, an Austin

house near Hildesheim, in which, as he says: "the nuns had long lived an

irregular life, owning private property, and, according to public rumour,

incontinent," paying long visits outside their house as often as they

pleased and performing only the minimum routine of monastic life. On one

occasion, Busch tells us,

When I was taking their private possessions away from the nuns and

placing them in the common stock, it happened that I was going through

their cupboards and cellars, for several of them had a small cellar

encircling the monastery, which was entered by three or four steps and

had covered vaults, in which they kept their beer and other private

allowances. They were showing me the cellars, and going down into them

before me, and the last nun said to me: "Do you go first now, father,

for my cellar is the same as those of the other sisters," and without

thinking I did so. But when I went down into it, she suddenly clapped

to the door or vault over my head and stood upon it. I was shut up

alone in there, thinking what would have happened if the nuns had shut

me up there secretly; and I shouted to my brother, who was standing

outside with them, bidding him cause them to open the door and let me

out. At length after some delay they opened the trap-door of the

cellar and let me come out. After that I was never willing to go first

into any closed place in any nunnery, lest anything of the kind should

happen, and lest I should be unable to get out easily. But when two or

three preceded me, then I followed them. One only going in front did

not suffice me, lest they should shut me up for some time alone with

her and then spread tales about me. The sister who did this was good

enough and very simple, whence I was astonished that she should think

of such a thing.

It was while he was reforming this house, too, that he was attacked by

several armed laymen, who took the part of the nuns. The nuns of Derneburg

were never effectually reformed, although Busch gave himself the greatest

trouble over them. At the end of three years they prevailed upon their

friends and relatives in the neighbourhood to get rid of Busch and his

brethren, and the nuns received Henry, Abbot of Marienrode, as their

spiritual father and reformer instead. But they did not gain by the

change, for he, being a Cistercian, introduced a nun of his own order as

their prioress, and finally the Bishop of Hildesheim, the Abbot of

Marienrode and other reformers came one morning to the house and, rebuking

the nuns for their imperviousness to reform, made them come away in all

their old clothes, leaving their books and possessions behind them, placed

them in carriages and distributed them among other houses, where many were

forced to become Cistercians. The house itself was turned into a

Cistercian priory. "Thus," says Busch, not without some satisfaction,

"they lost the holy father St Augustine with me!"[2147]

The methods employed by Busch to carry out a reform were to undertake the

initial stages himself and if necessary to obtain a few nuns from a

previously reformed house to live in the convent and bring it to right

discipline. He always began by hearing the confessions of the nuns, which

often caused considerable fluttering in the convent. At St George, near

Halle, he found that the convent was subordinated to the monastery of

Zinna, and received its confessor from that house, which Busch decided to

alter, for the Abbot of Zinna was impeding his reforms. He therefore bade

the Abbess send the sisters to confess to him, but she replied:

"The sisters dare not confess to you by reason of the apostolic

mandate and the abbot of Zinna and our own confessor, who comes from

him."

Then Busch said:

"Because I have authority to do so, say to them: the confessor is

sitting in the church, in front of the window, where you are wont to

confess, so you may go there and confess." Then the prioress or eldest

of the sisters came to the window and confessed fully to me ... and

when she had finished I said, "Sister, have you more to say?" Whereat

she cried in alarm, "Are you the provost of the Neuwerk?" I answered,

"Even so." "Then have I confessed to the provost?" "Yea." "What now

shall I do and say?" I replied, "Be silent and tell no one that I have

heard your confession, so that the others may come to confess,

otherwise you will be the only one to have confessed to me." She did

so and receiving absolution left me, telling no one that she had

confessed to me.

After that each nun who came received the same advice, until all had

confessed[2148].

At Derneburg the nuns were afraid to come and confess for another reason.

There was current in the taverns and dining halls of the whole country

side a tale of the terrible penance imposed by Busch upon a brother of his

monastery of Suelte, who took a larger draught of drink from the drinking

cup than Busch thought seemly, whereupon he was said to have caused the

unfortunate man to lie for three hours before the dining table in the

frater, with his mouth stretched open by a large horse-bone; and when one

of the brothers burst out laughing at the sight, Busch was said to have

thrown the drinking cup in his face. The weeping nuns informed him between

their sobs: "We are virgins and maids, we cannot do such a great penance

for such a little fault." Busch was obliged to assure them that the whole

tale was a fabrication[2149]. At Escherde he had the same difficulty.

The frightened nuns were afraid to confess to me, because they had

heard that I was wont to inflict very severe penances, which was not

true, as I afterwards told them. Then their _praepositus_ said to

them: "The bishop's mandate orders you to confess to him under pain of

excommunication and if you refuse then you will be under an interdict.

My good ladies, I counsel you to confess to him. I will place beside

him my servant with a drawn sword and if he says one bad or harsh word

to you it shall cleave his head." When they saw and heard that they

could not escape they consented to confess to me, but they sent before

them first one bold nun in order to beard me. Seated in the

confessional, she began, "Sir, what do you here?" I answered, "I lead

you all to the kingdom of heaven."... Half the nuns confessed to me

that day. To the third of them I said, "Sister, am I as harsh as you

said I was?" and she replied, "You are a man of gold, gentle and kind

beyond all things." In the evening, when we were supping I said to the

_praepositus_: "What are your nuns saying about me? Am I as severe as

they thought?" He replied, "When it was their turn to go to

confession, the hair of their heads stood on end, but when they came

away from you, they returned in great consolation." The next day I

finished the others before dinner, and towards the end I asked one of

them. "Am I as hard and severe as you heard?" and she replied, "Now

you are honey-tongued. But when you have got our consent and have tied

a rope to our horns to drag us along, then you will say to us: You

must and shall do all that I desire." I answered her, "Beloved sister,

fear not, for I shall always remain kind and benign towards

you"[2150].

Besides confessing the nuns Busch and his fellow visitors went through the

conventual routine with them, showing them how they ought to perform

divine service, to behave in the frater and to hold chapters. The most

efficacious means of reform employed, however, was to send for some

reformed nuns from another convent, to dwell in the newly reformed house.

Nuns of the order of Mary Magdalen in Hildesheim went to Heiningen,

Stederburg, Frankenburg, and the White Ladies of Magdeburg. Fischbeck was

reformed by nuns of the Windesheim order. Marienberg was reformed by nuns

of Bronopia and in its turn sent reformers to Marienborn and Stendal,

where nuns of Dorstadt had already made reforms, from which the original

members soon fell away. Two nuns and a _conversa_ were sent from Heiningen

to the Holy Cross at Erfurt and the Abbess and four nuns of Derneburg went

to Weinhausen[2151]. The newcomers were usually gladly lent and graciously

received in their new homes; sometimes they remained and held office in

the latter and sometimes they returned to their own houses, when the

reform was firmly rooted. The tale of the reform of Marienberg is

charming[2152]. Busch, with the consent of the chapter-general of the

congregation of Windesheim, took from Bronopia two nuns, Ida and Tecla and

a lay sister Aleidis, who for his sake and for the sake of the good work

left their own country and their noble friends and relatives, and made a

long and sometimes dangerous journey with Busch across Westphalia and

Saxony to Helmstedt. Here they were joyfully received. Ida was made

subprioress to introduce reforms and to order all the internal discipline

of the house; Tecla, who was a learned lady, was made governess of the

novices, teaching them to sing and to read Latin and "to write letters and

missives in a masterly manner, in good Latin, as I have seen and examined

with my eyes." Aleidis was made mistress of the _conversi_.

For three years these nuns dwelt at Helmstedt, beloved of all and bringing

the place to excellent order. Then Tecla fell ill. The Prioress sent for

Busch:

and I came and found her sitting in the infirmary and ordered her to

be bled and to receive suitable medicine. And when I had remained

there for two or three days I decided to go away without taking them

and I bade them farewell at eventide;

for Busch had decided that it was time for the sisters to return to

Bronopia:

After this the proctress of the house came to me, saying: "Beloved

father! Sister Tecla is asking for you with tears, for she says she

will never see you again. I beseech you that you will go and speak to

her once again tomorrow, before you leave." I answered, "Willingly,

for she is my dear sister and for God's sake and mine she left all her

rich friends and her own country and followed me to this strange and

distant land." The next day, therefore, I visited her in her bed, in

the presence of Ida and Aleidis. Then she was better and was well

content that I should go away and soon she recovered altogether from

that illness.

Shortly afterwards Busch took the three nuns with him and they set off to

drive back to Bronopia, staying at various monastic houses on the way; and

the nuns of Helmstedt all the time sent messengers after them, with

letters assuring the three sisters of their love and sorrow. The journey

was at length completed without any accident, except that fat sister Ida

tumbled into a cellar at Wittenberg and hurt her leg, so that Busch had to

carry her into the carriage.

To his account of this episode Busch subjoins four letters, one from

himself, one from the prioress and stewardess of Helmstedt to the three

sisters, one from the young scholars of the house to their mistress Tecla,

and the reply of the three sisters to the convent and of Tecla to her

scholars[2153]. In the Prioress' letter there is a vivid description of

the sorrow of the nuns at the departure of their three visitors:

Our sister Geseke Zeelde wept most tearfully and could not go into the

workroom, so grieved she after sister Aleydis. Sister Mettike Guestyn

was so miserable that she could not eat or drink. When I went into the

kitchen sister Tryneke wept so much that all who were with her in the

kitchen wept too and said: "_O wi_, now has our leader gone away!"

When sister Elyzabeth Cyriaci began the office of the mass, she sang

it so dolefully through her tears, that she could hardly sing. When

she had to begin the 'Benedictus' after the 'Sanctus' she burst out

crying, so that she could not sing at all, but sister Elyzabeth

Broysen had to go on with it and she could hardly finish it. Geseke

Obrecht and Heylewich the chantress are very sorrowful, because they

did not say goodbye to you, for they did not know you were going so

early. They now send you as many good wishes as there are sands in the

sea. When the scholars come to school on Sunday, we cannot describe to

you how many tears are shed there. The stewardess and I have to

console the other sisters, but we are the rather in need of someone to

console us. When we look on your places in choir and frater and

dorter, then we grow sad and weep, saying, "O God, if only Bronopia

were where Heiningen is, five miles away from us, then we might often

visit each other, which now we cannot do, for we are forty miles away.

We are as it were dead to each other at the two ends of the earth." We

have many other things to write to you, but because it is the middle

of the night, we must separate and go to matins. Dearest sisters, we

give you deepest thanks for all the good you have done for us, in

spiritual and in temporal matters. God speed you a thousand times, in

Jesus' name.... As many as there are pearls, as many as there are

planets in the heaven, as many as there are ends to the earth, so many

godspeeds send we to you[2154].

The letter of the little novices to sister Tecla deserves quotation, to

show their progress under her tuition:

Ihesum pium consolatorem merentium pro salute! Notum facimus charitati

vestre, charissima soror Tecla magistra nostra, quod nos omnes

scholares vestre in magna sumus tristitia et dolore de vestro a nobis

recessu. Non enim possumus oblivisci presentiam vestram, sed cotidie

querimus vos, et dum non invenimus, tunc contristamur et dolemus. Vix

potestis credere, quanta tristitia et quantus dolor est in claustro

nostro de vestra absentia tam de senioribus quam de iunioribus.

Quapropter petimus cordintime, sicut amplius non sumus nos invicem

visure in hac mortali vita, ut oretis pro nobis deum, ut taliter

vivamus in hoc seculo, ut nos invicem videre valeamus in conspectu

sancte Trinitatis. Valete, soror dilectissima, cum charissimis

sororibus vestris Ida et Aleide in domino semper! Et deus omnipotens

omnem tribulationem et angustiam a vobis removeat et vestram

sanctitatem conservet tempora per eterna, Amen[2155].

It is a pretty picture of affection and concord, which is given by these

letters, and may well be set against the pictures of conventual bickering,

which are too often to be found in visitation reports.

Busch's reforms seem to have been very successful. He often mentions that

such and such a house remained in a good state of reform for such and such

a number of years, or up to the day on which he wrote. Sometimes he

describes reforming prioresses or other nuns, who did good work in their

houses[2156]; sometimes also he mentions the assistance given by a wise

confessor or custos. His only real failure seems to have been Derneburg;

this house withstood both his efforts (for three years he had acted as

confessor, walking two miles before breakfast to confess the nuns before

communion) and those of the Cistercian abbot of Marienrode, who had been

their benefactor for over 300 florins; and Busch quotes rather bitterly

the proverb current in Germany:

Gratia nulla perit, nisi gratia sola sororum.

Sic fuit, est et erit: 'ondanc' in fine laborum[2157].

But he seldom got _ondanc_ at the end of his work; and when his life drew

to a close he could look back on hundreds of monks and nuns not only

reformed by him, but also cherishing for him the greatest gratitude and

affection. His was a large and humane spirit, and for all his zeal for

reform and his reputation for sternness, it is plain that he had that

greatest of gifts, the capacity to win the hearts of men.

APPENDIX IV

LIST OF ENGLISH NUNNERIES. c. 1275-1535

[In this list Ab. = Abbey, Pr. = Priory; A. = Austin, B. = Benedictine, C.

= Cistercian, Cl. = Cluniac, Dom. = Dominican, Fr. = Franciscan, Brig. =

Brigittine. P. = Premonstratensian. Gilbertine houses are not included.]

House Dedication Order County Diocese Founder and date

1. ACONBURY Holy Cross A.Pr. Her. Her. Margery, wife of

Walter de Lacy,

temp. John

2. AMESBURY St Mary and B.Pr. Wilts. Salis. Saxon Abbey:

St Meilor refounded as a

priory for nuns

of Fontevrault

by King John,

1199

3. ANKERWYKE St Mary B.Pr. Bucks. Linc. Gilbert de

Magd. Muntfichet, c.

1160

4. ARDEN St Andrew B.Pr. York., York Peter de Hoton,

N.R. temp. Henry II

5. ARMATHWAITE St Mary B.Pr. Cumb. Carl. Unknown, before

1200

6. ARTHINGTON St Mary Cl.Pr. York., York Peter, son of

W.R. Serlo de

Arthington,

middle of

twelfth century

7. BARKING St Mary and B.Ab. Essex Lon. St Earconwald,

St Ethelburga Bishop of

London, 675-93,

probably in 666

8. BARROW GURNEY St Mary and B.Pr. Som. B. and Unknown:

(MINCHIN St Edward W. probably a

BARROW) Gurney, before

1212

9. BASEDALE St Mary C.Pr. York., York Guy de

N.R. Bovincurt, c.

1190 (see

_V.C.H. Yorks._

III, 158)

10. BLACKBOROUGH St Mary and B.Pr. Norf. Norw. Roger de Scales

St Katherine and Muriel his

wife, c. 1150

11. BLITHBURY St Giles B.Pr. Staffs. C.L. Hugh Malveysin,

after 1129

12. BREWOOD St Mary B.Pr. Staffs. C.L. Unknown, twelfth

(Black century

Ladies)

13. BREWOOD St Leonard C.Pr. Salop C.L. Unknown, twelfth

(White century

Ladies)

14. BRISTOL St Mary A.Pr. Glouces. Worc. Eva, widow of

Magd. Robert

Fitzhardinge,

c. 1173

15. BRODHOLME St Mary P.Pr. Notts. York Agnes de

Camville, wife

of Peter de

Gousla, temp.

Stephen

16. BROMHALE St Margaret B.Pr. Berks. Salis. Unknown, before

1200

17. BRUISYARD Ann. of St Fr.Ab. Suff. Norw. Edward III,

Mary 1366, at

instigation of

Lionel, Duke of

Clarence

18. BUCKLAND St John A.Pr. Som. B. and Henry II, c.

(Minchin) Bapt. (nuns W. 1186 (instead

of St of House of

John of Austin canons

Jerusalem) founded 1166

by William de

Erlegh)

19. BUNGAY St Mary and B.Pr. Suff. Norw. Roger de

Holy Cross Glanville and

Gundred his

wife, c. 1160

20. BURNHAM St Mary A.Ab. Bucks. Linc. Richard, King

of the Romans,

1266

21. CAMBRIDGE St Radegund B.Pr. Cambs. Ely c. 1133-8,

temp. Nigel,

Bishop of Ely

22. CAMPSEY St Mary A.Pr. Suff. Norw. Theobald de

Valognes, c.

1195

23. CANNINGTON St Mary B.Pr. Som. B. and Robert de

W. Courcy, c. 1138

24. CANONSLEIGH St Mary, St A.Ab. Devon Ex. Maud de Clare,

John Countess of

Evangelist Gloucester and

and St Hertford, temp.

Audrey Edward I

(previously a

house of canons)

25. CANTERBURY St Sepulchre B.Pr. Kent Cant. St Anselm, 1100

26. CARROW St Mary and B.Pr. Norf. Norw. King Stephen,

St John 1146

27. CATESBY St Mary, St C.Pr. Northants. Linc. Robert de

Edmund and Esseby, c. 1175

St Thomas

the Martyr

28. CHATTERIS St Mary B.Ab. Cambs. Ely Eadnoth, Abbot

of Ramsey, c.

1010

29. CHESHUNT St Mary B.Pr. Herts. Lon. Unknown,

twelfth century

30. CHESTER St Mary B.Pr. Chester C.L. Ranulf, Earl of

Chester, c.

1140

31. CLEMENTHORPE St Clement B.Pr. York., York. Thurstan,

W.R. Archbishop of

York, c. 1130

32. CLERKENWELL Assumption B.Pr. Midd. Lon. Jordan Brisett,

of St Mary c. 1100

33. COKEHILL -- C.Pr. Worc. Worc. Isabel, Countess

of Warwick, end

of twelfth

century

34. CORNWORTHY St Mary A.Pr. Devon Ex. Uncertain,

fourteenth

century

35. CRABHOUSE St Mary A.Pr. Norf. Norw. Roger, prior,

Magd. St and canons of

John Evang. Rainham, c.

St Thomas 1181

and St Peter

36. DARTFORD St Mary and A.Pr. Kent Roch. Edward III,

St Margaret (ac- 1355

cording

to rule

and in

charge

of Dom.

friars)

37. DAVINGTON St Mary B.Pr. Kent Cant. Fulk de

Magd. Newenham, 1153

38. DELAPRE St Mary Cl.Ab. Northants. Linc. Simon of

(de Pratis) Saint-Liz, Earl

of Northampton,

temp. Stephen

(first at

Fotheringay)

39. DELAPRE St Mary B.Pr. Herts. Linc. Under abbey of

(de Prato) St Albans

40. DENNY St James Fr.Ab. Cambs. Ely Mary de Valence,

and St Countess of

Leonard Pembroke, 1342

41. DERBY St Mary B.Pr. Derby C.L. Aubin, Abbot of

(Kingsmead Darley, c. 1160

or de

Pratis)

42. EASEBOURNE Nativity of B.Pr. Suss. Chich. ... de Bohun,

B.V.M. before 1248

43. ELLERTON St Mary C.Pr. York., York Uncertain,

(in N.R. before 1227

Swaledale)

44. ELSTOW St Mary and B.Ab. Beds. Linc. Judith, Countess

St Helen of Huntingdon,

late eleventh

century

45. ESHOLT St Mary, St C.Pr. York., York Uncertain,

Leonard and W.R. twelfth century

St James

46. FAIRWELL St Mary B.Pr. Staffs. C.L. Roger, Bishop

of Coventry and

Lichfield, c.

1140

47. FLAMSTEAD St Giles B.Pr. Herts. Linc. Roger de Tony,

temp. Stephen

48. FLIXTON St Mary and A.Pr. Suff. Norw. Margery, widow

St Katherine of Geoffrey de

Hanes and

daughter of

Bartholomew de

Crek, 1258

49. FOSSE St Nicholas C.Pr. Linc. Linc. The men of

Torksey, before

the reign of

John

50. GODSTOW St Mary and B.Ab. Oxon Linc. Edith, widow of

St John Sir William

Baptist Launcelene, c.

1133

51. GOKEWELL St Mary C.Pr. Linc. Linc. William Dawtrey,

before 1148 or

1185

52. GORING St Mary A.Pr. Oxon Linc. Thomas de

Druval, temp.

Henry I

53. GRACEDIEU Holy Trinity A.Pr. Leices. Linc. Rohese de

and St Mary Verdon, c. 1239

54. GREENFIELD St Mary C.Pr. Linc. Linc. Eudes of

Grainsby and

Ralph his son,

before 1153

55. GRIMSBY St Leonard A.Pr. Linc. Linc. Before 1184

56. HALIWELL St John B.Pr. Midd. Lon. Roger son of

(Shoreditch) Baptist Gelren, before

1127

57. HAMPOLE St Mary C.Pr. York., York William de

W.R. Clarefai and

Avice de Tany

his wife, c.

1170

58. HANDALE St Mary C.Pr. York., York William Percy

(or N.R. of Dunsley,

Grendale) 1133

59. HARROLD St Peter A.Pr. Beds. Linc. Sampson le Fort,

before 1148 (as

Arroasian

house). Nunnery,

1181

60. HEDINGHAM, Holy Cross, B.Pr. Ess. Lon. Aubrey de Vere,

CASTLE St Mary and Earl of Oxford,

St James and Lucy his

wife, before

1191

61. HENWOOD St Margaret B.Pr. Warw. Worc. Ketelbern de

Langdon,

between 1149

and 1161

62. HEYNINGS St Mary C.Pr. Linc. Linc. Reyner

d'Evermue,

temp. Stephen

63. HINCHINBROOKE St James B.Pr. Hunts. Linc. Removed from

Eltisley,

Cambs., temp.

William I

64. HOLYSTONE -- B.Pr. Northumb. Dur. ... Umfraville

of Harbottle,

before 1235

65. ICKLETON St Mary B.Pr. Cambs. Ely Uncertain, c.

Magd. 1190

66. ILCHESTER Holy Trinity A.Pr. Som. B. and William Dennis,

(White Hall) W. c. 1220 (as a

hospital). A

nunnery before

1281

67. IRFORD St Mary P.Pr. Linc. Linc. Probably Ralph

d'Albini, temp.

Henry II

68. IVINGHOE St Margaret B.Pr. Bucks. Linc. [William

Giffard?],

Bishop of

Winchester,

twelfth century

69. KELDHOLME St Mary C.Pr. York., York Robert de

N.R. Stuteville,

temp. Henry I

70. KILBURN St Mary and B.Pr. Midd. Lon. Herbert, Abbot

St John of Westminster,

Baptist 1139

71. KINGTON St Mary B.Pr. Wilts. Salis. Before 1155

ST MICHAEL

72. KIRKLEES St Mary and C.Pr. York., York Reiner le

St James W.R. Fleming, temp.

Henry II

73. LACOCK St Mary and A.Ab. Wilts. Salis. Ela, Countess

St Bernard of Salisbury,

1232

74. LAMBLEY St Patrick B.Pr. Northumb. Durh. Adam de

Tynedale, temp.

John

75. LANGLEY St Mary B.Pr. Leic. Linc. William Pantulf

and Burga his

wife, temp.

Henry II

76. LEGBOURNE St Mary C.Pr. Linc. Linc. Robert, son of

Gilbert of

Tathwell, after

1150 (removed

from earlier

site)

77. LILLECHURCH St Mary B.Pr. Kent Roch. King Stephen,

(Higham) before 1151

78. LITTLEMORE St Mary, St B.Pr. Oxon Linc. Robert de

Nicholas Sandford, temp.

and St Stephen

Edmund

79. LONDON St Helen B.Pr. Midd. Lon. William, son of

(Bishopsgate) and Holy William, the

Cross goldsmith,

before 1216

80. LONDON St Mary and Fr.Ab. Midd. Lon. Edmund, Earl of

St Francis Lancaster, 1293

81. LYMBROOK St Mary A.Pr. Her. Her. Uncertain

82. LYMINSTER St Mary B.Pr. Suss. Chich. Roger de

Montgomery, c.

1082 (as cell

of Almeneches)

83. MALLING St Mary and B.Ab. Kent Roch. Gundulf, Bishop

St Andrew of Rochester,

1090

84. MARHAM St Mary, St C.Ab. Norf. Norw. Isabel, widow

Barbara and of Hugh de

St Edmund Albini, Earl of

Arundel, 1249

85. MARKYATE Holy Trinity B.Pr. Beds. Linc. 1145, under

influence of

Geoffrey, Abbot

of St Albans

86. MARLOW, St Mary B.Pr. Bucks. Linc. Uncertain,

LITTLE twelfth century

87. MARRICK St Andrew B.Pr. York., York Roger de Aske,

and St Mary N.R. temp. Henry II

88. MOXBY St John A.Pr. York., York Henry II,

Evangelist N.R. before 1167

(removed from

double house

at Marton)

89. NEASHAM St Mary B.Pr. Durh. Durh. Probably the

Lord of

Greystoke,

before 1157

90. NEWCASTLE- St B.Pr. Northumb. Durh. Uncertain,

UPON-TYNE Bartholomew twelfth century

91. NUNAPPLETON St Mary and C.Pr. York., York Eustace de

St John W.R. Merch and Alice

Evangelist St Quintin his

wife, c. 1150