Montmorency entitled "The Medieval Education of Women in England" in the
_Journal of Education_ (June, 1909) pp. 427-31. This was challenged by Mr
Coulton, _loc. cit._ (July, 1910), pp. 456-7; see the correspondence
_passim_, especially the two articles by Mr A. F. Leach, _loc. cit._ (Oct.
and Dec. 1910), pp. 667-9, 838-41. The subject was afterwards treated with
great erudition by Mr Coulton in a paper read before the International
Congress of Historical Studies in 1913, reprinted with notes as _Monastic
Schools in the Middle Ages_ (_Medieval Studies_, X, 1913).
[878] For the rest of this chapter I shall not give full references in
footnotes, because they can easily be traced in Note B, p. 568 below.
[879] _Cistercian Statutes_, 1256-7, ed. J. T. Fowler (reprinted from
_Yorks. Archaeol. Journ._), p. 105.
[880] Probably, however, after the dissolution of her house.
[881] Tanner, _Notitia Monastica_ (1744 edit.), p. xxxii (basing his
opinion on three secondary authorities and on a misunderstanding of two
medieval entries, one of which refers to lay sisters and the other to an
adult boarder).
[882] N. Sanderus, _de Schismate Anglicana_, ed. 1586, p. 176. The
statement is not in the original Sanders. A well-known passage in the
_Paston Letters_ illustrates the practice as regards girls; Margaret
Paston writes to her son in 1469 "Also I would ye should purvey for your
sister to be with my Lady of Oxford, or with my Lady of Bedford, or in
some other worshipful place whereas ye think best, for we be either of us
weary of other." It is probable that this method of educating girls was
more common than nunnery education.
[883] Quoted by Mr Leach, _Journ. of Educ._ (1910), p. 668.
[884] Possibly, as Mr Coulton points out (_Med. Studies_, X, p. 26), this
may account for the fact that evidence of girl pupils is wanting for some
of the wealthier and more important nunneries; he instances Shaftesbury,
Amesbury, Syon, Studley and Lacock. For the life of the nuns at Lacock and
Amesbury we have very little information of any kind, but our information
is fairly full for Shaftesbury, and very full for Syon and for Studley.
[885] For a discussion of these charges and of other prices and payments,
with which they may be compared, see J. E. G. de Montmorency in _Journ. of
Educ._ (1909), pp. 429-30 and Coulton, _op. cit._ app. iv. (School
Children in Nunnery Accounts), pp. 38-40.
[886] Quoted in S. H. Burke, _The Monastic Houses of England, their
Accusers and Defenders_ (1869), p. 32. Compare the words of a Venetian
traveller, Paolo Casenigo: "The English nuns gave instructions to the
poorer virgins as to their duties when they became wives; to be obedient
to their husbands and to give good example," a curious note. _Ib._ p. 31.
[887] Quoted in Fosbroke, _British Monachism_ (1802), II, p. 35.
[888] _Ancren Riwle_, ed. Gasquet, p. 319.
[889] Notice the recognition of the financial reasons for taking
schoolchildren. So also in 1489 the nuns of Nunappleton are to take no
boarders "but if they be childern or ellis old persons by which availe by
likelihod may grow to your place"--fees or legacies, in fact. Dugdale,
_Mon._ IV, p. 654.
[890] Caesarius of Heisterbach gives a picture of a less disturbing child
in quire (though she was more probably a little girl who was intended for
a nun). This is the English fifteenth century translation: "Caesarius
tellis how that in Essex" (really in Saxony, but the translator was
anxious to introduce local colour for the sake of his audience), "in a
monasterye of nonnys, ther was a litle damysell, and on a grete solempne
nyght hur maistres lete hur com with hur to matyns. So the damysell was
bod a wayke thyng, and hur maistres was ferd at sho sulde take colde, and
she commaundid hur befor Te Deum to go vnto the dortur to her bed agayn.
And at hur commandment sho went furth of the where, thuff all it war with
ill wyll, and abade withoute the where and thoght to here the residue of
matyns"; whereat she saw a vision of the nuns caught up to heaven praising
God among the angels, at the _Te Deum_. _An Alphabet of Tales_ (E.E.T.S.
1905), II, p. 406.
[891] Fuller, _Church Hist._ See p. 255 above, note 3.
[892] Quoted in Gasquet, _Eng. Monastic Life_, p. 177.
[893] Hugo, _Medieval Nunneries of Somerset_ (_Minchin Buckland_), p. 107.
[894] G. Hill, _Women in Eng. Life_ (1896), p. 79.
[895] _Times Educational Supplement_ (Sept. 4, 1919). This seems to be
taken from Fosbroke, _Brit. Monachism_, II, pp. 6-7, who takes it from Sir
H. Chauncey's _Hist. and Antiqs. of Hertfordshire_, p. 423; it is the
first appearance of dancing; as Fosbroke sapiently argued, "The dancing of
nuns will be hereafter spoken of and if they dance they must somewhere
learn how."
[896] _Journ. of Education_, 1910, p. 841. Mr Hamilton Thompson sends me
this note: "Probably, so far as any systematic teaching went, they were
taught 'grammar' and song, which would vary in quality according to the
teacher. These are the only two elements of which we regularly hear in the
ordinary schools of the day. I do not see any reason to suppose that they
were taught more or less. Song (i.e. church song) takes such a very
prominent part in medieval education that I think it would not have been
neglected; it was also one of the things which nuns ought to have been
able to teach from their daily experience in quire. Bridget Plantagenet's
book of matins (see below) would be an appropriate lesson book for both
grammar and song, as nuns would understand them."
[897] _An Alphabet of Tales_ (E.E.T.S. 1905), p. 272, from Caesarius of
Heisterbach, _Dialog. Mirac._ ed. Strange, I, p. 196.
[898] See e.g. the Knight of La Tour Landry, p. 178, "Et pour ce que
aucuns gens dient que ilz ne voudroient pas que leurs femmes ne leurs
filles sceussent rien de clergie ne d'escripture, je dy ainsi que, quant
d'escryre, n'y a force que femme en saiche riens; mais quant a lire, tout
femme en vault mieulx de le scavoir et cognoist mieulx la foy et les
perils de l'ame et son saulvement, et n'en est pas de cent une qui n'en
vaille mieulx; car c'est chose esprouvee." Quoted in A. A. Hentsch, _De la
litterature didactique du moyen age s'addressant specialement aux femmes_
(Cahors, 1903), p. 133. So Philippe de Novare ([dagger] 1270) refuses to
allow women to learn reading or writing, because they expose her to evil,
and Francesco da Barberino ([dagger] 1348) refuses to allow reading and
writing except to girls of the highest rank (not including the daughters
of esquires, judges and gentlefolk of their class); both, however, make
exception for nuns. _Ib._ pp. 84, 106-7.
[899] See below, p. 388.
[900] _Archaeologia_, XLIII (1871), p. 245 (Redlingfield and Bruisyard).
[901] See below, p. 309.
[902] Wood, _Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies_, II, pp. 213-7.
[903] Quoted Gasquet, _Hen. VIII and the Eng. Monasteries_ (1899), p. 227.
[904] _The Catechism of Thomas Bacon, S.T.P._, ed. John Ayre (Parker Soc.
1894), p. 377.
[905] See above, p. 82.
[906] _Yorks. Archaeol. Journ._ XVI, pp. 452-3. Unluckily among Archbishop
Lee's injunctions there remain only three sets addressed to nunneries;
there are also two letters concerning an immoral and apostate ex-Prioress
of Basedale. At the other two nunneries addressed, Nunappleton and
Sinningthwaite, no specific accusations are made, but the Archbishop
enjoins that the nuns shall "observe chastity" (Sec. IX, p. 440) and avoid
the suspicious company of men (Sec. V, p. 441).
[907] Aungier, _Hist. of Syon Mon._ p. 385. Compare also the regulations
for behaviour in choir, "There also none shal use to spytte ouer the
stalles, nor in any other place wher any suster is wonte to pray, but yf
it anone be done oute, for defoylyng of ther clothes." _Ib._ p. 320.
[908] The hours seem to have varied in length according to the season; see
Butler, _Benedictine Monachism_, ch. XVII.
[909] _Reg. W. de Stapeldon_, p. 316.
[910] Aungier, _op. cit._ pp. 405-9. It is unlikely, however, that Betsone
actually invented any of the signs, for similar lists are to be found in
the early consuetudinaries of Cluniac houses and other sources. The signs
were probably to a great extent "common form."
[911] _Ib._ p. 298.
[912] Bernold, _Chron._ (1083) in _Mon. Germ. Hist._ V, p. 439, quoted in
Workman, _The Evolution of the Monastic Ideal_, p. 157.
[913] E.g. a nun asks that sufficient clothes and food be ministered to
her "ut fortis sit ad subeundum pondus religionis et diuini seruicii."
_Linc. Visit._ II, p. 5. A bishop orders no nun to be admitted unless she
be "talem que onera chori ... ceteris religionem concernentibus poterit
supportare." _Ib._ I, p. 53.
[914] Vattasso, _Studi Medievali_ (1904), I, p. 124. Quoted in _Mod.
Philology_ (1908), V, pp. 10-11. I have ventured to combine parts of two
verses.
[915] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 1_d_; but some of these would be absent
from the monastery.
[916] _Ib._ ff. 71_d_, 72. For other injunctions against "cutting"
services, see Heynings, 1351 and 1392 (_Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell_,
f. 34_d_, and _Bokyngham_, f. 397), Elstow 1387 and 1421 (_ib._
_Bokyngham_, f. 343 and _Linc. Visit._ I, p. 51), Godstow 1279 and 1434
(_Reg. J. Peckham_, III, p. 846, _Linc. Visit._ I, p. 66), Romsey 1387
(_New Coll._ MS. f. 84), Cannington 1351 (_Reg. R. of Shrewsbury_, p.
684), Nunkeeling 1314, Thicket 1309, Yedingham 1314, Swine 1318, Wykeham
1314, Arthington 1318 (_V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 120, 124, 127, 181, 183,
188), Sinningthwaite 1534 (_Yorks. Arch. Journ._ XVI, p. 443), etc.
[917] See e.g. _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 1, 8, 67, 131, 133, 134-5, _Linc.
Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell_, f. 34_d_, _Sede Vacante Reg._ (Worc. Hist.
Soc.), p. 276, _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_, II, pp. 651-2, etc.
[918] _V.C.H. Lincs._ II, p. 131. For other instances of lateness at
matins, see Heynings 1442 (_Linc. Visit._ II, p. 133), Godstow 1432
(_Linc. Visit._ I, p. 66), Flixton 1514 (Jessopp, _Visit. of Dioc. of
Norwich_, p. 143), Romsey 1302 (Liveing, _Records of Romsey Abbey_, p.
100), Easebourne 1478, 1524 (_Sussex Arch. Coll._ IX, pp. 17, 26-7), St
Radegund's, Cambridge (Gray, _Prior of St Radegund, Cambridge_, p. 36).
[919] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 48; Jessopp, _Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich_, p.
209; _Arch._ XLVII, p. 55; compare Romsey 1387, 1507 (_New Coll._ MS. f.
84; Liveing, _op. cit._ p. 231), St Helen's Bishopsgate, c. 1432 (_Hist.
MS. Com. Rep._ IX, App. p. 57).
[920] "These are they who wickedly corrupt the holy psalms: the dangler,
the gasper, the leaper, the galloper, the dragger, the mumbler, the
foreskipper, the forerunner and the over leaper: Tittivillus collecteth
the fragments of these men's words." G. G. Coulton, _Med. Garn._ p. 423.
He also collected the gossip of women in church. On Tittivillus see my
article in the _Cambridge Magazine_, 1917, pp. 158-60.
[921] _Myroure of Oure Ladye_, ed. Blunt (E.E.T.S.), p. 54.
[922] Greek [Greek: akedia]; whence _acedia_ or _accidia_ in Latin;
English _accidie_. It is a pity that the word has fallen out of use. The
disease has not.
[923] An interesting modern study of this moral disease is to be found in
a book of sermons by the late Bishop of Oxford, Dr Paget, _The Spirit of
Discipline_ (1891), which contains an introductory essay "concerning
_Accidie_," in which the subject is treated historically, with
illustrations from the writings of Cassian, St John of the Ladder, Dante
and St Thomas Aquinas, in the middle ages, Marchantius and Francis
Neumayer in the seventeenth century, and Wordsworth, Keble, Trench,
Matthew Arnold, Tennyson and Stevenson in the nineteenth century. See also
Dr Paget's first sermon "The Sorrow of the World," which deals with the
same subject. He diagnoses the main elements of _Accidia_ very ably: "As
one compares the various estimates of the sin one can mark three main
elements which help to make it what it is--elements which can be
distinguished, though in experience, I think, they almost always tend to
meet and mingle, they are _gloom_ and _sloth_ and _irritation_." _Op.
cit._ p. 54. On _Accidia_, see also H. B. Workman, _The Evolution of the
Monastic Ideal_ (1913), pp. 326-31. During the great war the disease of
_accidie_ was prevalent in prison camps, as any account of Ruhleben shows
very clearly. For a short psychological study of this manifestation of it,
see Vischer, A. L., _Barbed Wire Disease_ (1919).
[924] See book X of Cassian's _De Coenobiorum Institutis_, which is
entitled "De Spiritu Acediae" (Wace and Schaff, _Select Library of Nicene
and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church_, 2nd ser., vol. XI,
Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lerins and John Cassian, pp. 266 ff.;
chapters I and II are paraphrased by Dr Paget, _op. cit._ pp. 8-10); Book
IX, on the kindred sin of _Tristitia_ is also worthy of study; the two are
always closely connected, as is shown by the anecdotes quoted below.
[925] Dante, _Inferno_, VII, l. 121 ff. Translation by J. A. Carlyle.
[926] Chaucer, _The Persones Tale_, Sec.Sec. 53-9.
[927] See the translation of the episode (from Busch, _Chronicon
Windeshemense_, ed. K. Grube, p. 395) in Coulton, _Med. Garner_, pp.
641-4. On the subject of medieval doubt and despair see Coulton in the
_Hibbert Journal_, XIV (1916), pp. 598-9 and _From St Francis to Dante_,
pp. 313-4.
[928] Caes. of Heist. _Dial. Mirac._ ed. Strange, I, pp. 209-10.
[929] _Ib._ I. pp. 210-11. For a case of doubt in an anchoress, which,
however ended well, see _ib._ I, pp. 206-8.
[930] Langland, _Piers Plowman_, ed. Skeat, B, passus X, 300-5.
[931] Langland, _Piers Plowman_, ed. Skeat, B, passus V, ll. 153-65. The C
text has a variant for the last four lines:
Thus thei sitte the sustres . somtyme, and disputen,
Til "thow lixt" and "thow lixt" . be lady over hem alle;
And then awake ich, Wratthe . and wold be auenged.
Thanne ich crie and cracche . with my kene nailes,
Bothe byte and bete . and brynge forthe suche thewes,
That alle ladies me lothen . that louen eny worschep.
It is strange that the same hand which wrote these lines should have
written the beautiful description of convent life quoted on p. 297.
[932] See above, p. 82 and below, Note F.
[933] From "Why can't I be a nun," _Trans. of Philol. Soc._ 1858, Pt II,
p. 268.
[934] _Wykeham's Reg._ II, pp. 361-2 (1384). Compare case at Shaftesbury
(1298) where the nuns had incurred excommunication. _Reg. Sim. de
Gandavo_, p. 14.
[935] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 8. Compare Winchelsey's injunctions to Sheppey
in 1296. _Reg. Roberti Winchelsey_, pp. 99-100.
[936] Liveing, _op. cit._ pp. 245-6. The "bad language" may be scolding or
defamation rather than swearing. It is rare to find a nun accused of using
oaths. But see the list of faults drawn up for the nuns of Syon Abbey;
among "greuous defautes" is "if any ... be take withe ... any foule worde,
or else brekethe her sylence, or swerethe horribly be Criste, or be any
parte of hys blyssed body, or unreuerently speketh of God, or of any
saynte, and namely of our blessyd lady"; among "more greuous defautes" is
"yf they swere be the sacramente, or be the body of Cryste, or be hys
passion, or be hys crosse, or be any boke, or be any other thynge lyke";
and among "most greuous defautes" is "yf any in her madness or drunkenesse
blaspheme horrybly God, or our Lady, or any of hys sayntes" (Aungier,
_Hist. of Syon Mon._ pp. 256, 259, 262). In 1331, on readmitting Isabella
de Studley (who had been guilty of incontinence and apostasy) to St
Clement's York, Archbishop Melton announced that if she were disobedient
to the Prioress or quarrelsome with her sisters or _indulged in blasphemy_
he would transfer her to another house. _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 130.
[937] _V.C.H. Bucks._ I, p. 383 and _V.C.H. Lincs._ II, p. 155.
[938] In 1311 Archbishop Greenfield issued a general order that nuns only
and not sisters were to use the black veil; sisters wore a white veil
(_V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 188 note, and _Journ. of Education_, 1910, p.
841). This order was repeated at various houses, which shows that there
must have been a widespread attempt to usurp the black veil (_V.C.H.
Yorks._ III, pp. 124, 127, 175, 177, 188). At Sinningthwaite the Prioress
was also ordered not to place the sisters above the nuns. A common
punishment in this district was to remove the black veil from a nun and
this was reserved for the more serious misdeeds.
[939] _York Reg. Giffard_, pp. 147-8. For further instances, see Note C
below.
[940] Injunctions against dicing and other games of chance are common in
the case of monks (see e.g. _Linc. Visit._ I, pp. 30, 46, 77, 89). I have
found none in nunneries, but a more stately game of skill, the fashionable
tables, was played by Margaret Fairfax with John Munkton. Above, p. 77.
[941] Quoted from St Aldhelm's _De Laudibus Virginitatis_ in Eckenstein,
_Woman under Mon._ p. 115. Compare Bede's account of the nuns of
Coldingham some years before: "The virgins who are vowed to God, laying
aside all respect for their profession, whenever they have leisure spend
all their time in weaving fine garments with which they adorn themselves
like brides, to the detriment of their condition and to secure the
friendship of men outside." _Ib._ pp. 102-3.
[942] For detailed examples, see Note D below.
[943] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 118. Similar _detecta_ and injunctions at
Catesby, Rothwell and Studley (_ib._ pp. 47, 52; _Alnwick's Visit._ MS.
ff. 38, 26_d_) and at Ankerwyke (quoted above, p. 76). Also at Studley
(1531), _Archaeol._ XLVII, p. 55, and Romsey (1523), Liveing, _op. cit._
p. 244.
[944] _Archaeol._ XLVII, p. 52. For an equally detailed account see the
case of the Prioress of Ankerwyke, quoted above p. 76.
[945] See below, p. 543.
[946] See below, pp. 325-30.
[947] For nunnery pets as a literary theme, see Note E and for pet animals
in the nunneries of Eudes Rigaud's diocese see below, p. 662.
[948] "Ye shall not possess any beasts, my dear sisters, except only a
cat." _Ancren Riwle_, p. 316. At the nunnery of Langendorf in Saxony,
however, a set of reformed rules drawn up in the early fifteenth century
contains the proviso "Cats, dogs and other animals are not to be kept by
the nuns, as they detract from seriousness." Eckenstein, _op. cit._ p.
415.
[949] "Mem. quod apud manerium de Newenton fuerunt quedam moniales.... Et
postea contingit [_sic_] quod priorissa eiusdem manerii strangulata fuit
de cato suo in lecto suo noctu et postea tractata ad puteum quod vocatur
Nunnepet." Quoted from Sprott's Chronicle in _The Black Book of St
Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury_ (British Acad. 1915), I, p. 283. In Thorn's
Chronicle, however, the crime is attributed to the prioress' _cook_. See
Dugdale, _Mon._ VI, p. 1620. The nuns were afterwards removed to Sheppey.
[950] There really seems to have been a parrot at Fontevrault in 1477, to
judge from an item in the inventory of goods left on her death by the
Abbess Marie de Bretagne, "Item xviij serviecttes en une aultre piece,
led. linge estant en ung coffre de cuir boully, en la chambre ou est la
papegault (perroquet)." Alfred Jubien, _L'Abbesse Marie de Bretagne_
(Angers and Paris 1872), p. 156. It is interesting to note that J. B.
Thiers, writing on enclosure in 1681, mentions "de belles volieres a
petits oiseaux" as one of those unnecessary works for which artisans may
not be introduced into the cloister. Thiers, _De la Cloture_, p. 412.
[951] _Reg. Epis. Peckham_ (R.S.), II, p. 660.
[952] Dugdale, _Mon._ II, p. 619 (Chatteris) and _Camb. Antiq. Soc. Proc._
XLV (1905), p. 190 (Ickleton).
[953] A decree of the Council of Vienne (1311) complains that many church
ministers come into choir "bringing hawks with them or causing them to be
brought and leading hunting dogs." Coulton, _Med. Garn._ p. 588. Similarly
Geiler on the eve of the Reformation complains, in his _Navicula
Fatuorum_, that "some men, when they are about to enter a church, equip
themselves like hunters, bearing hawks and bells on their wrists and
followed by a pack of baying hounds, that trouble God's service. Here the
bells jangle, there the barking of dogs echoes in our ears, to the
hindrance of preachers and hearers." He goes on to say that the habit is
particularly reprehensible in clergy. The privilege of behaving thus was
an adjunct of noble birth and in the cathedrals of Auxerre and Nevers the
treasurers had the legal right of coming to service with hawk on wrist,
because these canonries were hereditary in noble families. _Ib._ pp.
684-5. Medieval writers on hawking actually advise that hawks should be
taken into church to accustom them to crowds. "Mais en cest endroit
d'espreveterie, le convient plus que devant tenir sur le poing et le
porter aux plais et entre les gens aux eglises et es autres assamblees, et
emmy les rues, et le tenir jour et nuit le plus continuelment que l'en
pourra, et aucune fois le perchier emmi les rues pour veoir gens,
chevaulx, charettes, chiens, et toutes choses congnoistre." Gaces de la
Bugne gives the same advice. _Le Menagier de Paris_ (Paris, 1846), II, p.
296.
[954] Below, p. 412.
[955] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 168, 175.
[956] _New Coll._ MS. ff. 88-88_d_, translated in Coulton, _Soc. Life in
Britain from the Conquest to the Reformation_, p. 397.
[957] _Hist. MSS. Com. Rep._ IX, app. pt. I, p. 57.
[958] Jessopp, _Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich_, p. 191.
[959] Chaucer's description of the monk is well known:
Therfore he was a pricasour aright;
Grehoundes he hadde, as swifte as fowel in flight;
Of priking and of hunting for the hare
Was al his lust, for no cost wolde he spare.
Compare Langland's picture of the monk, riding out on his palfrey from
manor to manor, "an hepe of houndes at hus ers as he a lord were" (_Piers
Plowman_, C Text VI, ll. 157-61). Visitation documents amply bear out
these accounts; in a single set of visitations (those by Bishops Flemyng
and Gray of Lincoln during the years 1420-36) we have "Furthermore we
enjoin and command you all and several ... that no canon apply himself in
any wise to hunting, hawking or other lawless wanderings abroad"
(Dunstable Priory 1432); "further we enjoin upon you, the prior and all
and several the canons of the convent aforesaid ... that you utterly
remove and drive away all hounds for hunting from the said priory and its
limits; and that neither you nor any one of you keep, rear, or maintain
such hounds by himself or by another's means, directly or indirectly, in
the priory or without the priory, under colour of any pretext whatsoever"
(Huntingdon Priory 1432); "also that hounds for hunting be not nourished
within the precinct of your monastery" (St Frideswide's Oxford, 1422-3)
and a similar injunction to Caldwell Priory. _Linc. Visit._ I, pp. 27, 47,
78, 97.
[960] Wm. Salt Arch. Soc. Coll. I, p. 261. Compare also the provision in
one of Charlemagne's capitularies: "Ut episcopi et abbates _et abbatissae_
cupplas canum non habeant nec falcones nec accipitres," Baretius, _Capit.
Reg. Franc._ (1853), p. 64. Some of the birds at Romsey may have been
hawks, though it is more likely that they were larks and other small pets,
such as Eudes Rigaud found in his nunneries.
[961] _V.C.H. Essex_, II, p. 123, and see above, p. 105.
[962] The nuns of St Mary de Pre, St Albans, kept a huntsman. _V.C.H.
Herts._ IV, p. 430 (note).
[963] _V.C.H. Herts._ IV, p. 431 (note); Dugdale, _Mon._ III, pp. 359-60.
[964] _Hereford Reg. Thome Spofford_, p. 82. (This was combined with an
injunction against going to "comyn wakes and festes, spectacles and other
worldly vanytees" outside the convent. Below, p. 377.).
[965] Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 554.
[966] Quoted in Coulton, _Med. Garn._ p. 304.
[967] See Chambers, _op. cit._ I, pp. 38-41.
[968] _Ib._ I, p. 56 (note). "The bishops of Durham in 1355, Norwich in
1362, and Winchester in 1374, 1422, and 1481 had 'minstrels of honour'
like any secular noble."
[969] _Ib._ I, pp. 39, 56 (notes).
[970] Langland, _Piers the Plowman_, C, Text VIII, l. 97.
[971] "Payments for performances are frequent in the accounts of the
Augustinian priories at Canterbury, Bicester and Maxstoke and the great
Benedictine houses of Durham, Norwich, Thetford and St Swithin's,
Winchester, and doubtless in those of many another cloistered retreat. The
Minorite chroniclers relate how, at the coming of the friars in 1224, two
of them were mistaken for minstrels by the porter of a Benedictine grange
near Abingdon, received by the brethren with unbecoming glee, and when the
error was discovered, turned out with contumely," Chambers, _op. cit._ I,
pp. 56-7. In the Register of St Swithun's it is recorded under the year
1374 that "on the feast of Bishop Alwyn ... six minstrels with four
harpers performed their minstrelsies. And after dinner in the great arched
chamber of the lord Prior, they sang the same geste.... And the said
jongleurs came from the household of the bishop," _ib._ I, p. 56 (note).
See extracts from the account books of Durham, Finchale, Maxstoke and
Thetford Priories relating to the visits of minstrels, _ib._ II, pp.
240-6. At Finchale there was even a room called "le Playerchambre," _ib._
II, p. 244. In 1258 Eudes Rigaud had to order the Abbot of Jumieges "that
he should send strolling players away from his premises." _Reg. Visit.
Arch. Roth._ p. 607. At a later date, in 1549, a council at Cologne
directed a canon against comedians who were in the habit of visiting the
German nunneries and by their profane plays and amatory acting excited to
unholy desires the virgins dedicated to God. Lea, _Hist. of Sacerdotal
Celibacy_, II, p. 189.
[972] "Histrionibus potest dari cibus, quia pauperes sunt, non quia
histriones; et eorum ludi non videantur, vel audiantur vel permittantur
fieri coram abbate vel monachis." _Annales de Burton_ (_Ann. Monast. R.
S._ I, p. 485), quoted Chambers, _op. cit._ I, p. 39 (note).
[973] _Alnwick's Visit._ f. 83.
[974] _Aucassin and Nicolete_, ed. Bourdillon (1897), p. 22.
[975] See the well-known story of "Le Tombeor de Notre Dame" (_Romania_,
II, p. 315), and "Du Cierge qui descendi sus la viele au vieleeux devant
l'ymage Nostre Dame," Gautier de Coincy, _Miracles de Nostre Dame_, ed.
Poquet (1859), p. 310. Both are translated in _Of The Tumbler of Our Lady
and Other Miracles_ by A. Kemp-Welch (King's Classics 1909).
[976] For the following account, see A. F. Leach's article on "The
Schoolboy's Feast," _Fortnightly Review_, N.S. LIX (1896), p. 128, and
Chambers, _op. cit._ I, ch. XV.
[977] See below, p. 662.
[978] _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_, I, pp. 82-3. For a similar injunction to
Godstow, see _ib._ III, p. 846. At Romsey the Archbishop forbade the
festivities altogether: "Superstitionem vero quae in Natali Domini et
Ascensione Ejusdem fieri consuevit, perpetuo condemnamus," _ib._ II, p.
664. The superstition was probably the election of the youngest nun as
abbess.
[979] _Norwich Visit._ pp. 209-10.
[980] _Archaeol._ XLVII, p. 56. On the Lord of Misrule, see Chambers _op.
cit._ I, ch. XVII. There is a vivid account (from the Puritan point of
view) in Philip Stubbes, _The Anatomie of Abuses_ (1583) quoted in _Life
in Shakespeare's England_, ed. J. D. Wilson (1915), pp. 25-7.
[981] Chambers, _op. cit._ I, p. 361 (note 1).
[982] Dugdale, _Mon._ III, p. 360.
[983] Cussans, _Hist. of Herts., Hertford Hundred_, app. II, p. 268.
[984] Walcott, _Inventory of Shepey_, p. 23. There is perhaps another
reference in the inventory of Langley in 1485: "iij quesyns (cushions) of
olde red saye, ij smale quechyns embrodred and ij qwechyns namyde Seynt
Nicolas qwechyns," Walcott, _Inventory of Langley_, p. 6.
[985] E.g. (besides the well-known case of Dr Rock in _The Church of Our
Fathers_), Gayley, _Plays of our Forefathers_, pp. 67-8.
[986] Leach, _op. cit._ p. 137.
[987] _Ib._ p. 131.
[988] Leach, _op. cit._ p. 137 (from _Martene_, III, p. 39). I have
slightly altered the translation.
[989] On Benedictine poverty, see Dom Butler, _Benedictine Monachism_, ch.
X.
[990] The alteration was made even by the Cistercians in 1335. See _Linc.
Visit._ I, p. 238 (under _Misericord_). Among Black Monks it began much
earlier.
[991] _Linc. Visit._ I, p. 238. Alnwick's visitations sometimes mention
this division of the frater. "Also she prays that frater may be kept every
day, since there is one upper frater wherein they feed on fish and food
made with milk, and another downstairs, wherein they feed of grace on
flesh" (Nuncoton 1440). "Also she says that they feed on fish and milk
foods in the upper frater and on flesh in the lower" (Stixwould 1440).
_Alnwick's Visit._ MS. ff. 71_d_, 76.
[992] "Et qe nule Dame de Religion ne mange hors du Refreytour en chambre
severale si ceo ne soit en compaignie la Priouresse, ou par maladie ou
autre renable encheson.... Item, purceo qe ascune foitz ascunes Dames de
vostre Religion orent lur damoiseles severales por faire severalement lur
viaunde, si ordinoms, voloms et establioms qe totes celles damoiseles
soyent de tut oste de la cusine, et qe un keu covenable, qi eit un page
desoutz lui soit mys per servir a tut le Covent" (1319). _Exeter Reg.
Stapeldon_, pp. 317-8. Compare _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 165 (Hampole 1411).
[993] For the following references, see _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 46, 89,
114, 117, 119, 121, 175; _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. ff. 71_d_, 76, 77, 83.
[994] Pupils or boarders may account for these discrepancies.
[995] _Linc. Visit._ I, p. 67 (and note 3); compare _V.C.H. Yorks._ III,
p. 181.
[996] Walcott, M. E. C., _Inventories of ... the Ben. Priory of ... Shepey
for Nuns_ (_Arch. Cant._ 1869), pp. 23 ff.
[997] E.g. at Gracedieu "_The dorter_, item ther three nunnes selles
whyche as sould for 30_s._" Nichols, _Hist. and Antiq. of Leic._ (1804),
III, p. 653; at Catesby where the "sells in the dorter were sold at 6_s._
8_d._ apiece," _Archaeologia_, XLIII, p. 241. In theory the nuns were
supposed to get up and lie down in full view of each other and curtains
were forbidden by Woodlock at Romsey in 1311. Liveing, _op. cit._ p. 104.
On the other hand at Redlingfield in 1514 a nun complained that "sorores
non habent curricula inter cubilia, sed una potest aliam videre quando
surgit vel aliquid aliud facit" and the Bishop ordered the Prioress to
provide curtains between the cubicles in the dorter. Jessopp, _Visit. of
Dioc. of Norwich_ (Camden Soc.), pp. 139-40. Dom Butler thus traces the
transition from the open dorter to private cells: open dorter; side
partitions between the beds; curtains in front; a latticed door in front,
making a cubicle; a solid door with a large window; the window grew
smaller and smaller until it became a peephole; the dorter became a
gallery of private rooms. _Downside Review_ (1899), pp. 119-21.
[998] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 51-2. See also among many other injunctions
and references to the custom the following: Gracedieu (1440-1), _ib._ II,
p. 125; Godstow (1432), _ib._ I, pp. 67-8; Barking (1279); Wherwell
(1284), _Reg. Epis. Johannis Peckham_, I, p. 84, II, p. 653; Hampole
(1311), _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 181; Swine (1318), _ib._ p. 163;
Nunappleton (1346 and 1489), _ib._ pp. 171-2; Fairwell (1367), _Reg.
Stretton of Lichfield_, p. 119; Romsey (1387 and 1492), _New Coll._ MS.
ff. 85, 85_d_, 86, Liveing, _Records of Romsey Abbey_, p. 218; Aconbury
(1438), _Reg. Spofford of Hereford_, p. 224; Stixwould (1519), _V.C.H.
Lincs._ II, p. 148; Sinningthwaite (1534), _Yorks. Arch. Journ._ XVI, p.
441. Sometimes the system can be traced in one house over a long period of
years. At Elstow, for instance, in 1387, _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo.
Bokyngham_, f. 343; in 1421-2, _Linc. Visit._ I, pp. 50, 51; in 1432,
_ib._ I, p. 53; in 1442-3, _ib._ II, p. 89; and in 1531, _Archaeologia_,
XLVII, p. 51. For an admonition to a nun by name see "Moneatis insuper
dominam Johannam de Wakefelde commonialem quod illam cameram quam modo
inhabitat contra debitam honestatem religionis predicte solitarie
commorando omnino dimittat et sequatur conventum assidue tam in choro,
claustro, refectorio et dormitorio quam in ceteris locis et temporibus
opportunis, prout religionis convenit honestati" (Kirklees 1315), _Yorks.
Arch. Journ._ XVI, p. 359.
[999] See, for instance, Longland's careful injunction to Elstow in 1531:
"Foras moche as the very ordre off sainct benedicte his rules ar nott ther
obserued in keping the ffratrye att meale tymes ... butt customably they
resorte to certayn places within the monasterye called the housholdes,
where moche insolency is use contrarye to the good rules of the said
religion, by reason of resorte of seculars both men women and children and
many other inconvenyents hath thereby ensewed ... we inioyne ... that ye
lady abbesse and your successours see that noo suche householdes be then
kepte frome hensforth, butt oonly oon place which shalbe called the
mysericorde, where shalbe oon sadde lady of the eldest sorte oversear and
maistres to all the residue that thidre shall resorte, whiche in nombre
shall nott passe fyve att the uttermoost, besides ther saide ladye
oversear or maistres and those fyve wekely to chaunge and soo ... all the
covent have kepte the same, and they agen to begynne and the said
gouernour and oversear of them contynally to contynue in thatt roome by
the space of oon quarter of a yere, and soo quarterly to chaunge att the
nominacon and plesure of the ladye abbesse for the tyme being. Over this
it is ordered undre the said payne and Iniunction that the ladye abbesse
haue no moo susters from hensforth in hir householde butt oonly foure with
hir chapleyne and likewise wekely to chaunge till they have goon by course
thrugh the hole nomber off susters, and soo aghen to begynne and
contynue." _Archaeologia_, XLVII, p. 51.
[1000] Wilkins, _Conc._ II, p. 16. See also "Et fetez qe lez deuz parties
du covent a meyns mangent checun jour en le refreytour" (Wroxall 1338);
_Sede Vacante Reg._ (Worc.), p. 276; cf. Elstow (c. 1432), _Linc. Visit._
I, p. 53. It is often accepted that the nuns shall keep frater only on the
three fish days, but see Gray's injunction to Delapre Abbey (c. 1432-3)
enjoining its observance on the three accustomed days (Sunday, Wednesday
and Friday) and on Monday as well. _Linc. Visit._ I, p. 45.
[1001] _Ib._ I, p. 68.
[1002] See, for instance, Bokyngham's injunction to Heynings in 1392:
"Item that no nun there shall keep a private chamber, but that all the
nuns, who are in good health, shall lie and sleep in the dorter and those
who are ill in the infirmary, saving dame Margaret Darcy, nun of the
aforesaid house, to whom on account of her noble birth we wish for the
time being to allow that room which she now occupies, but without any
service of bread and beer, save in case of manifest illness," _Linc. Epis.
Reg. Memo. Bokyngham_, f. 397_d_. But see Gynewell's injunctions to the
convent in 1351. _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell_, f. 34_d_. For the use
of separate rooms allowed to ill nuns, see Nunappleton (1489), _V.C.H.
Yorks._ III, p. 172. At Romsey in 1507 the nuns, under the eye of the
visitor, "concluded and provided that Joan Patent, nun, who had hurt her
leg, by her consent shall in future have meals in her own chamber and
shall daily have in her chamber the right of one nun." Liveing, _Records
of Romsey Abbey_, p. 230. But usually the use of the common infirmary is
enjoined. Separate lodgings were also allowed to ex-superiors after
resignation. See above, p. 57.
[1003] _P.R.O. Mins. Accts._ 1257/10, ff. 46, 119, 170, 214.
[1004] _P.R.O. Mins. Accts._ 1260/14.
[1005] Gray, _Priory of St Radegund, Cambridge_, pp. 27, 147, 155, 163,
171.
[1006] Baker, _Hist. of Northants._ I, p. 280.
[1007] _Reg. J. de Pontissara_, I, p. 126. William of Wykeham writes to
Wherwell in 1387 concerning the abbess' illicit detention of "certain
distributions and pittances as well in money as in spices," which divers
benefactors had endowed. _New Coll._ MS. f. 89 vº.
[1008] See below, p. 653.
[1009] _Reg. Thome de Cantilupo_, p. 202. Compare Archbishop Winchelsey's
injunction to Sheppey (1296) "ne qua monialis pecuniam vel aliam rem sibi
donatam aut aliqualiter adquisitam sibi retineat sine expressa licencia
priorisse" (a loophole). _Reg. Roberti Winchelsey_, p. 100.
[1010] W. Rye, _Carrow Abbey_, app. IX, p. xix.
[1011] _Linc. Visit._ I, p. 68.
[1012] See above, pp. 15, 17, 18.
[1013] _Test. Ebor._ I, pp. 296-7.
[1014] _Ib._ II, p. 97.
[1015] _Lincolnshire Wills_, ed. A. R. Maddison (1880), pp. 4, 6.
[1016] See, for example, _Test. Ebor._ I, pp. 6, 9, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16,
18, 19, 31, 43, 54, 62, 90, 98, 109, 143, 166, 179, 216, 292, 337, 345,
349, 363, 376, 382 (chiefly wills of clergy and country gentry); Nicolas,
_Test. Vetusta_, I, pp. 52, 70, 76, 79, 85, 115, 116, 120, 121, 123, 137,
155, 170, 196, 300, 377 (chiefly wills of the aristocracy); Gibbons,
_Early Lincoln Wills_, pp. 18, 21, 25, 26, 40, 41, 56, 60, 67, 71, 76, 80,
87, 97, 125, 138, 139, 150, 160 (chiefly wills of clergy and country
gentry). The wills of the citizens of London preserved in the court of
Husting contain many legacies to nuns, chiefly annual rents.
[1017] Gray, _Priory of St Radegund, Cambridge_, p. 156.
[1018] _Test. Ebor._ I, pp. 317, 322, 324. The items occur in the
inventory of the Bishop's goods and against each is written "Detur
Priorissae de Swyna sorori meae."
[1019] _Ib._ I, p. 332.
[1020] _Test. Ebor._ I, pp. 187-9. He also left the Prioress 13_s._ 4_d._
and each nun 6_s._ 8_d._ and each sister 3_s._ 4_d._ To certain nuns he
left special bequests, to Margaret de Pykering, "one piece of silver, with
the head of a stag in the bottom and 2_s._," to Elizabeth Fairfax 26_s._
8_d._ and to Margaret de Cotam 13_s._ 4_d._; also to the Prioress and
convent "my white vestment with the gold stars and all the appurtenances
thereof and my cross with Mary and John in silver and one gilt chalice."
Nor were his legacies confined to Nunmonkton; he left his two sisters at
Sempringham 100_s._ and two nuns of Nunappleton and Marrick respectively,
a cow each.
[1021] _Ib._ I, pp. 14-15. He also leaves 40_s._ to the Prioress and
convent "for a pittance," 20_s._ to another nun there and 6_s._ 8_d._ to a
nun of Watton. He evidently had great confidence in Alice Conyers, for the
injunctions of his will are to be carried out "according to the counsel
and help of the said Alice Conyers and of my executors." For other gifts
of plate to individuals, see _Test. Ebor._ I, p. 216, _Somerset Med.
Wills_, I, pp. 18, 144, _Reg. Stafford of Exeter_, pp. 392, 415, 416,
_Testamenta Leodiensia_ (Thoresby Soc. Pub. II, 1890), p. 108.
[1022] Sharpe, _Cal. of Wills ... in the Court of Husting_, I, p. 688. She
also leaves Margaret and two other nuns a piece of blanket to be divided
between them.
[1023] _Test. Ebor._ I, p. 179. He also leaves her 40_s._ and a silver
cup.
[1024] _Somerset Medieval Wills_, I, p. 47. Eleanor, Duchess of
Gloucester, left a bed among other things to her daughter, a nun of the
house of Minoresses without Aldgate (1399). Nicolas, _Test. Vetusta_, I,
p. 148.
[1025] _Test. Ebor._ I, p. 382.
[1026] Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 194.
[1027] _Test. Ebor._ I, p. 51.
[1028] _Reg. Stafford of Exeter_, p. 392. For other gifts of clothes see
Rye, _Carrow Abbey_, app. p. xix (a habit cloth), _Lincoln Wills_, ed.
Foster, p. 84 ("a fyne mantyll of ix yerds off narow cloth"), _Test.
Ebor._ I, p. 59 (my two robes with mantles), _ib._ II, p. 255 (my best
harnassed belt).
[1029] At Hampole in 1320 he warned the prioress to correct those nuns who
used new-fangled clothes, contrary to the accustomed use of the order,
"whatever might be their condition or state of dignity," _V.C.H. Yorks._
III, p. 164 (where the date is wrongly given as 1314).
[1030] See e.g. Wilkins, _Conc._ I, p. 591; _V.C.H. Bucks._ I, p. 383;
_Linc. Visit._ I, p. 52; _ib._ II, pp. 3, 8.
[1031] See above, p. 76.
[1032] See above, p. 328. For other bequests of rings, see the wills of
Sir Guy de Beauchamp, 1359 (his fourth best gold ring to his daughter
Katherine at Shouldham), Robert de Ufford, Earl of Suffolk, 1368 ("to the
Lady of Ulster, a Minoress ... a ring of gold, which was the duke's, her
brother's"), Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, 1369 (rings to his
daughter and granddaughter at Shouldham). Nicolas, _Test. Vetusta_, I, pp.
63, 74, 79. But rings might be put to pious uses. The inventory of
_jocalia_ in the custody of the sacrist of Wherwell (c. 1333-40) contains
the item, "a small silver croun, with eleven gold rings fixed in it, for
the high altar; another better croun of silver, with nineteen gold rings."
_V.C.H. Hants._ II, p. 135.
[1033] _Linc. Dioc. Doc._ ed. A. Clark (E.E.T.S.), p. 50.
[1034] _Reg. Stafford of Exeter_, p. 415.
[1035] Gibbons, _Early Linc. Wills_, p. 5. In the Prioress' room at
Sheppey at the Dissolution were found "iiij payre of corall beds,
contaynyng in all lviij past gawdy (ed.)." Walcott, _Invent. of ...
Shepey_, p. 29.
[1036] _Sussex Arch. Coll._ IX, p. 8.
[1037] See pp. 272-3.
[1038] Another nun says that she has nothing at all for raiment and
another deposes, "seeing that the revenues of the house are not above
forty pounds and the nuns are thirteen in number with one novice, so many
out of rents so slender cannot have sufficient food and clothing, unless
some help be given them from other sources by their secular friends."
_Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 184, 186.
[1039] For these references, see _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 7, 47, 92, 117,
184, 186; _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. ff. 6, 71_d_, 76, 83. Also injunctions as
to food at Elstow _ib._ II, p. 39 (and note).
[1040] Baker, _Hist. and Antiq. of Northants._ I, pp. 280, 282-3.
[1041] Dugdale, _Mon._ III, p. 359.
[1042] Temp. Henry VII the Abbess of Elstow's account records the payment
of double commons of 1_s._ a week to the Prioress and 6_d._ a week single
commons to each of the nuns. Pittances (double to the prioress) are paid
on days of profession and on the greater feast. The nuns also had dress
allowances in money. C. T. Flower, _Obedientiars' Accounts of Glastonbury
and other Relig. Houses_ (St Paul's Ecclesiol. Soc. VII, pt II, 1912), pp.
52, 55.
[1043] _Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich_, ed. Jessopp, p. 290.
[1044] _Eng. Hist. Rev._ VI, p. 34.
[1045] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 176, 177.
[1046] _Reg. J. de Pontissara_, I, p. 125.
[1047] Liveing, _Records of Romsey Abbey_, p. 103.
[1048] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 164.
[1049] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Bokyngham_, f. 397_d_. Compare Eudes
Rigaud's difficulties with the hens at Saint-Aubin, below, p. 653.
[1050] E.g. in the will of Agnes de Denton, 1356 (Item to dame Cecilie de
Hmythwayt two cows), _Testamenta Karleolensia_, p. 12; Sir John Fairfax,
1393 (Item I bequeath to dame Katherine de Barlay, nun of Appleton, one
cow. Item to dame Custance Colvyll, nun of Marrick, one cow); Sir William
Dronsfeld, 1406 (Item I bequeath to dame Alice de Totehill, nun, one cow.
Item I bequeath to dame Margaret de Barneby, one cow); Sir Thomas Rednes
1407 (Item to Alice Redness nun [of Hampole] one cow and one fat pig).
_Test. Ebor._ I, pp. 189, 345, 349.
[1051] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 72.
[1052] Wilkins, _Conc._ I, p. 593.
[1053] _New Coll._ MS. ff. 85_d_, 86. The sin of _proprietas_ seems to
have been serious in this house, for the Bishop couples his prohibition of
wills with a prohibition of private rooms and pupils, and later (f. 86_d_)
makes a general injunction against private property.
[1054] _V.C.H. Dorset_, II, p. 78.
[1055] Wilkins, _Conc._ I, p. 592.
[1056] In connection with this, see Wickwane's injunction to Nunappleton
in 1281, "We also forbid locked boxes and chests, save if the prioress
shall have ordained some seemly arrangement of the kind and shall often
see and inspect the contents." _Reg. Wickwane_ (Surtees Soc.), p. 141.
Also Newark's injunction to Swine in 1298 that "the Prioress and two
senior nuns should cause the boxes of any nuns of whom suspicion [of
property] should arise to be opened in her presence and the contents seen.
And if anyone will not open her box ... then let the prioress break it
open." _Reg. of John le Romayn and Hen. of Newark_ (Surtees Soc.), II, p.
223; compare Eudes Rigaud's struggle against locked boxes, below, p. 652.
[1057] Wilkins, _Conc._ II, p. 16.
[1058] "Where the lawe and the professyon of yche religyouse person that
thei have shuld have one fraitoure and house to ete in in commyn and not
in private chaumbers, and so to lygg and slepe in one house, in youre said
covent sustren reteynen money and proveis thame selfe privatly ayensthe
ordir of religion, etc." The injunction is coupled with a strong
injunction against dowries. _Hereford Reg. T. Spofford_, p. 224. Compare
the injunction to Lymbrook, p. 324 above.
[1059] _V.C.H. Dorset_, II, p. 77.
[1060] For other references to the _peculium_ for clothing, see _Visit. of
Dioc. of Norwich_, ed. Jessopp, p. 274; _Sussex Arch. Coll._ IX, p. 23;
Liveing, _Records of Romsey Abbey_, p. 130.
[1061] Thus William of Wykeham, in the course of his severe injunction
against _proprietas_ at Romsey (1387), thus defines it: "Vt autem quid sit
proprium vobis plenius innotescat, nos sancti Benedicti regulam imitantes,
id totum proprium siue proprietatem fore dicimus et eciam declaramus,
quicquid videlicet dederitis vel receperitis sine iussu vestre Abbatisse
aut retinueritis sine permissione illius." _New Coll._ MS. f. 86_d_.
[1062] _Reg. Wickwane_ (Surtees Soc.), p. 140.
[1063] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 174.
[1064] _Ib._ III, p. 164.
[1065] Jessopp, _Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich_, p. 143.
[1066] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 8.
[1067] "The monastery, however, itself ought if possible to be so
constructed as to contain within it all necessaries, that is, water, mill,
garden and [places for] the various crafts which are exercised within a
monastery, so that there be no occasion for monks to wander abroad, since
this is in no wise expedient for their souls." _Rule of St Benedict_, tr.
Gasquet, pp. 117-8.
[1068] Chap. L, _ib._ p. 88.
[1069] Chap. LI, _ib._ p. 89.
[1070] Chap. LXVII, _ib._ p. 118. This, however, is clearly exceptional;
the regulation comes in a later chapter and not in the first edition of
the rule. The translations of the rule made at a later date for nuns,
sometimes specify visits "to fadir or moder or oşer frend" not mentioned
in the original.
[1071] In some reformed orders founded at a later date the formula of
profession actually contained a vow of perpetual enclosure, e.g. the Poor
Clares, whose vow, under the second rule given to them by Urban IV in
1263, comprised obedience, poverty, chastity and enclosure. Thiers, _De la
Cloture_ (1681), pp. 41-2. Compare the formula given in the rule of the
Order of the Annunciation, founded at the close of the fifteenth century
by Jeanne de France, daughter of Louis XI. _Ib._ p. 55. The nuns of the
older orders did not make any specific vow of enclosure, and it was
enforced upon them only as an indispensable condition for the fulfilment
of their other vows, which accounts for the obstinacy of their opposition;
some jurisconsults, indeed, were of the opinion that the Pope could not
oblige a nun to be enclosed against her will. _Ib._ p. 50.
[1072] The passage is quoted in the preface to Thiers, _op. cit._ For the
Church's view of virginity, see especially St Jerome's famous _Epistola_
(22) _ad Eustochium_.
[1073] Thiers, _op. cit._ p. 245. Quoting the jurisconsult Philippus
Probus. For a good example of the mixture of ideas, see Mr Coulton's
account of the arguments used by the monk Idung of St Emmeram in favour of
enclosure: "He begins with the usual medieval emphasis on feminine
frailty, of which (as he points out) the Church reminds us in her collect
for every Virgin Martyr's feast 'Victory ... even in the weaker sex.' Then
comes the usual quotation from St Jerome, with its reference to Dinah,
which Idung is bold enough to clinch by a detailed allusion to Danae.
This, of course, is little more than the usual clerkly ungallantry; but it
is followed by a passage of more cruel courtesy. The monk must needs go
abroad sometimes on business, as for instance, to buy and sell in markets;
'but such occupations as these would be most indecent for even an earthly
queen, and far below the dignity of a bride of the King of Heaven.'"
Coulton, _Med. Studies_, No. 10, "Monastic Schools in Middle Ages" (1913),
pp. 21-2.
[1074] Words which Menander puts in the mouth of one of his characters.
Compare the famous Periclean definition of womanly virtue, which is "not
to be talked about for good or for evil among men."
[1075] Coulton, _Chaucer and his England_, p. 111.
[1076] The following references will be found conveniently collected in
Part I chs. 1-16 of a very interesting little book, the _Traite de la
Cloture des Religieuses_, published in Paris in 1681 by Jean-Baptiste
Thiers, "Prestre, Bachelier en Theologie de la Faculte de Paris et Cure de
Chambrond." The treatise is divided into two parts, one of which shows
"that it is not permitted to nuns to leave their enclosure without
necessity," the other "that it is not permitted to strangers to enter the
enclosure of nuns without necessity." The author contends that enclosure
was the immemorial practice of the Church, though the first general decree
on the subject was the Bull _Periculoso_; but what he proves is really
that the demand grew up gradually and naturally out of the effort to
reform the growing abuses in conventual life, which sprang from too free
an intercourse with the world.
[1077] _Sext. Decret._ lib. III, tit. XVI. Quoted in _Reg. Simonis de
Gandavo_, pp. 10 ff.; from which I quote. See also Thiers, _op. cit._ pp.
45-9.
[1078] See Thiers, _op. cit._ pp. 53-60 for these, except the reforms of
Busch, for which see below, App. III. Three papal bulls were published in
the sixteenth century reinforcing _Periculoso_, viz. the Bull _Circa
pastoralis_ (1566) and _Decori et honestati_ (1570) of Pius V and the Bull
_Deo sacris_ of Gregory XIII (1572).
[1079] "Cependant il n'y a gueres aujourd'hui de point de Discipline
Ecclesiastique qui soit ou plus neglige, ou plus ignore que celui de la
cloture des Religieuses; et quoique les Conciles, les Saints Docteurs et
les Peres des Monasteres, ayent en divers temps et en divers rencontres,
employe leur zele et leur authorite pour en etablir la pratique; nous ne
laissons pas neanmoins de voir souvent avec douleur qu'on le viole
empunement, sans scrupule, sans reflexion et sans necessite. L'Eglise
gemit tous les jours en veue de ce desordre qui la deshonore notablement;
et c'est pour compatir en quelque facon a ses gemissemens, que
j'entreprens de le combattre dans ce Traite." _Op. cit._ Preface.
[1080] Wilkins, _Concilia_, II., p. 18.
[1081] See, however, the injunctions of Thomas of Cantilupe, Bishop of
Hereford, to Lymbrook in 1277, which are in part a recital of Ottobon's
Constitutions. _Reg. Thome de Cantilupo_, p. 201. Peckham, in the
injunctions which he sent to Barking and Godstow in 1279, states that they
are based respectively upon those issued by John de Chishull, Bishop of
London, and by Robert de Kilwardby, his predecessor as Archbishop of
Canterbury, and it is probable that both of these prelates had attempted
to enforce Ottobon's Constitutions. _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_, I, p. 81; II,
p. 846.
[1082] He visited Wherwell in the same year, but his injunctions to that
house dealt with the entrance of seculars into the nunnery, not with the
exit of nuns.
[1083] _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_, II, p. 247.
[1084] _Ib._ I, pp. 85-6.
[1085] _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_, I, pp. 265-6, and in Wilkins, _op. cit._
II, p. 61.
[1086] Wilkins, _op. cit._ II, pp. 53-9. Thiers' remarks on the practice
of begging by nuns are interesting in this connection. He contends that
only sheer famine justifies the breach of enclosure and adds: "C'est
pourquoy je ne comprends pas d'ou vient que nous voyons a Paris et
ailleurs, tant de Religieuses, quelquefois assez jeunes et assez bien
faites qui sous pretexte que leurs Monasteres sont dans le besoin,
demandent l'aumone aux portes des Eglises, qui courent par les maisons des
seculiers et qui demeurent un temps considerable hors de leurs Monasteres,
le plus souvent sans scavoir ne la vie ni les moeurs des personnes qui
exercent l'hospitalite envers elles. On rendroit, ce me semble, un grand
service a l'Eglise si on les reduisoit aux termes de la Bulle de Gregoire
XIII. _Deo sacris_, qui leur procure les moyens de subsister honnestement
dans leurs Monasteres, sans rompre leur cloture. Car ainsi les gens de
bien ne seroient point scandalisez de leurs sorties ne de leurs courses,
et elles feroient incomparablement mieux leur salut dans leurs Convents
que dans le Monde, ou je n'estime pas qu'elles puissent rester en seurete
de conscience." He quotes an ordinance of the General of the Franciscan
Order in 1609, forbidding even the sisters of the Tertiary Order to beg.
Thiers, _op. cit._ pp. 167-9.
[1087] _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_, II, pp. 659, 664-5.
[1088] _Ib._ II, pp. 707, 806.
[1089] _Reg. Simonis de Gandavo_, pp. 10 ff., 109.
[1090] _Reg. Godfrey Giffard_, II, pp. 515, 517.
[1091] _Reg. J. de Pontissara_, p. 546.
[1092] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Dalderby_, f. 9.
[1093] _Ib._ ff. 9_d_, 10_d_, 11, 12_d_, 15_d_.
[1094] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Dalderby_, f. 10_d_.
[1095] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Dalderby_, f. 35_d_.
[1096] _Ib._ f. 16. See below, p. 441.
[1097] _Ib._
[1098] Agnes Flixthorpe. See below, p. 443.
[1099] _Ib._ f. 152.
[1100] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Sutton_, ff. 5_d_, 32_d_, 154. For these
and other cases of apostasy see Chap. XI, _passim_.
[1101] Lyndwood, _Provinciale_ (1679), Pt II, p. 155. Quoted by Mr Coulton
in _Med. Studies_, No. 10, "Monastic Schools in the Middle Ages," p. 21.
[1102] Apparently friends and relatives in the world outside sometimes
intervened, by threats or prayers, to save a nun from punishment. A
_compertum_ of Archbishop Giffard's visitation of Swine in 1267-8 runs:
"_Item compertum est_ that the Prioress is a suspicious woman and far too
credulous, and easily breaks out into correction, and often punishes some
unequally for equal faults, and follows with long dislike those whom she
dislikes until occasion arise to punish them; hence it is that the nuns,
when they suspect that they are going to be troubled with excessive
correction, procure the mitigation of her severity by means of the threats
of their kinsfolk." _Reg. Walter Giffard_, p. 147.
[1103] _Reg. Walter de Stapeldon_, p. 317. Cf. p. 95. When the London mob
had beheaded Stapeldon in Cheapside, his place was filled (after the short
rule of Berkeley) by an even greater bishop, John Grandisson, who, in the
year of his consecration, directed a mandate to the nuns of Canonsleigh in
which he attempted to carry out more closely than his predecessor, though
still not exactly, the terms of _Periculoso_. He forbade the abbess to
allow any nuns to leave the precincts before his visitation "that is to
such a distance that it is not possible for them to return the same day."
This was on June 23rd 1329; a month later he was obliged to compromise,
for on July 18th he sent a licence to Canonsleigh, recapitulating his
former mandate but adding a special indulgence, permitting ("for certain
legitimate reasons") the nuns to absent themselves from the monastery
"with honest and senior ladies to visit near relatives and friends of
themselves and of the house, who are free from all suspicion," and fixing
the limit of their visit at fifteen days, an improvement on Stapeldon's
month, but still far removed from the spirit of Boniface VIII's bull.
_Reg. John de Grandisson_, I, pp. 508, 511.
[1104] See e.g. Wroxall 1338, "Et vous emouvums [? enioiniums], dame
prioresse, qe vous ne seyez mes si legere de doner licence a vos soers de
isser de le encloystre et nomement la priourie cume vous avez este en ces
houres saunz verreye et resonable enchesun et cause." _Worc. Reg. Sede
Vacante_, p. 276; and St Radegund's, Cambridge, 1373: "Item, the Prioress
is too easily induced to give permission to the nuns to go outside the
cloister." Gray, _Priory of St Radegund's, Cambridge_, p. 36.
[1105] See e.g. Fairwell, 1367. _Reg. Robert de Stretton_, p. 118. The
necessity for an injunction against favouritism is shown by the _comperta_
of Archbishop Langham's visitation of St Sepulchre, Canterbury, in 1367-8.
"Prioressa non permittit moniales ire in villam ad visitandum amicos suos
nisi Margeriam Child et Julianam Aldelesse que illuc vadunt quociens eis
placet." _Lambeth Reg. Langham_, f. 76_d_. She was also charged with
allowing them to receive suspected visitors. See below, p. 399.
[1106] An example of such a licence for a particular nun to leave her
house is printed in Fosbroke, _British Monachism_ (1817), p. 361 (note
_g_) and also in Taunton, _Engl. Black Monks of St Benedict_, I, p. 108,
note 2. It is said to be granted on the prayer of "Lady J. wife of Sir W.
knight, of our diocese," whom the nun is to be allowed to visit, with a
companion from the same priory and to go thither on horseback
"notwithstanding your customs to the contrary."
[1107] But Archbishop Melton said twice a year at Arthington in 1315.
_V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 188.
[1108] See e.g. Bishop Spofford's regulation at Lymbrook in 1437: "nor to
be absent lyggyng oute by nyght out of their monastery, but with fader and
moder, excepte causes of necessytee." _Hereford Epis. Reg. Spofford_, I,
f. 77; and Archbishop Lee's injunction to Sinningthwaite in 1534: "that
she from henceforth licence none of her susters to go fourth of the
housse, onles it be for the profitt of the house, or visite their fathers
and modres, or odre nere kynsfolkes, if the prioresse shall think it
conuenient." _Yorks. Arch. Journ._ XVI, p. 442. Compare Bishop Gynewell's
injunction to Godstow (1358), "par necessarie et resonable cause ouesque
lour parents, honestement au profit de vostre mesoun." _Linc. Epis. Reg.
Memo. Gynewell_, f. 100_d_. Sometimes, however, friends were mentioned,
e.g. at Nunkeeling (1314) none was to go out "except on the business of
the house or to visit friends and relations." _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 120.
Sometimes the sickness of friends was specified. At Marrick (1252) none
was to go out unless "the sickness of friends or some other worthy reason"
demanded it, _ib._ p. 117; and at Studley in 1530-1 Bishop Longland
ordained "that ye lycence not eny of your ladyes to passe out of the
precincte of our monastery to visite their kynsfolks or frendes, onles it
be for ther comforte in tyme of ther sikenes, and yett not than onles it
shall seme to you, ladye priores, to be behouefull and necessarye, seing
that undre suche pretence moche insolency have been used in religion,"
_Archaeologia_, XLVII, p. 54. One of the nuns of Legbourne in 1440
complained bitterly that "the Prioress will not suffer this deponent to
visit her parent who is sick [even] when it was thought that he would
die." _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 186.
[1109] As, needless to say, she sometimes did. In 1351 Bishop Gynewell was
obliged to write to Heynings rebuking such disobedience: "encement si
auoms entenduz que les dames de dit mesoun sount acustumez demurrer od
lour amys outre le terme par vous, Prioresse, assigne, nous commandoms a
vous, Prioress auant dit, qe taunt soulement une foith en 1 an donez conge
a les dames de visiter lour amys, et certeyn terme resonable pur reuenir,
outre qeule terme sils facent demoer, saunz cause resonable par vous
accepte, les chastes pur le trespasse solonc les obseruances de vostres
ordre saunz delay." _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell_, f. 34_d_. At
Ivinghoe in 1530 it was discovered that one of the nuns had gone on a
visit to her friends without permission and had stayed away from the Feast
of St Michael to Passion Sunday in the following year (i.e. over six
months), which came perilously near to apostasy, _V.C.H. Bucks._ I, p.
355. In the _Vitae Patrum_, XC, 206, however, there is a tale of a nun who
was lent by her Abbess to a certain religious matron and lived with her
for a year. See the version in _Exempla e sermonibus, etc._ ed. T. F.
Crane, pp. 26-7.
[1110] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 120, 128, 175, 177, 178.
[1111] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell_, f. 100_d_.
[1112] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 118, 122, ff. 6-7, 25, 72, 83, 109. At
Godstow the prioress said "that the nuns have often access to Oxford under
colour of visiting their friends," p. 114; and at Heynings a discontented
nun said "that sisters Ellen Bryg and Agnes Bokke have often recourse to
Lincoln and there make long tarrying." They denied the charge, but a note
in the register states, "The nuns have access too often to the house of
the treasurer of Lincoln, abiding there sometimes for a week." The Bishop
forbade "accesse suspecte to Lincolne," pp. 132, 133, 135.
[1113] Ff. 28_d_, 77_d_, 95_d_. To Catesby, _op. cit._ p. 51. Compare
injunctions to Godstow, Gracedieu, Nuncoton and St Michael's, Stamford,
pp. 116, 125.
[1114] Above, p. 348. And compare William of Wykeham's injunction to
Romsey, which repeats Peckham's constitution on this point word for word.
_New Coll._ MS. f. 85.
[1115] See e.g. Drokensford's injunction to Minchin Barrow [i.e. Barrow
Gurney] in 1315: "quod tunc bene incedant et in habitu moniali et non ad
alia loca quam se extendit licencia se diuertant quoque modo, et ultra
tempus licencie sue se voluntarie non absentent." Hugo, _Med. Nunneries of
Somerset, Barrow_, App. II, p. 81.
[1116] See e.g. the synodal Constitutions of c. 1237, Wilkins, _Concilia_,
I, p. 650. Archbishop Courtenay in 1389 sent an interesting injunction to
Elstow Abbey, which had evidently been remiss in offering hospitality to
travelling nuns: "Inasmuch as it has happened that nuns coming to the
monastery on their return from a visit to their friends, have been refused
necessities for themselves and for their horses, inhumanly and contrary to
the good repute of religion, which we wish to remedy, we order that for
each nun thus tarrying provision be made according to the resources of the
house, for four horses at least if by day for a whole day, and if [she
come] by night or after the hour of nones for the rest of the day and for
the night following." _Lambeth Reg. Courtenay_, I, f. 336. Injunction
repeated by Bishop Flemyng of Lincoln in 1421-2. _Visit. of Relig. Houses
in Dioc. Linc._ I, pp. 50-1.
[1117] See e.g. Peckham's injunctions to Barking and Godstow. Above, p.
348. Religious houses of men were sometimes specially ordered not to
receive them, e.g. Bridlington in 1287. _Reg. John le Romeyn_, I, p. 200.
The necessity for such an order appears below, pp. 446 ff.
[1118] E.g. Peckham to St Sepulchre, Canterbury (1284): "Nullum quoque
potum aut cibum ibidem sumat, moram non protrahat, sed statim expedita
causa accessus hujusmodi redeat indilate." _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_, II, p.
707; and Bokyngham to Elstow (1387): "Cum vero recreacionis causa, obtenta
superioris licencia, moniales antedicte egrediuntur monasterii sui septa,
incedant cum familiarium honesta comitiua et sufficiente, ad idem
monasterium, redeuntes de eodem citra solis occasum." _Linc. Epis. Reg.
Memo. Bokyngham_, f. 343.
[1119] At Wroxall in 1338 it was specially ordered "qe deux jeunes ne
issent poynt ensemble pur male suspecioun qe de ceo purra legerement
sourdre, ke Dieuz defent." _Worc. Reg. Sede Vacante_, p. 276. At Lymbrook
in 1437 Bishop Spofford ordered that no nun was to go out without a
companion, and "in case they lygge owte be nyght, two sustres to lye
togeder in on bed," a practice which (according to the usual custom) he
forbids in the dorter. _Hereford Epis. Reg. Spofford_, f. 77.
[1120] See Thiers, _op. cit._ Pt I, chs. XVIII, XXII, XXIII, XXIV, XXXI.
He quotes the stories of the nuns of Arles in the fifth century and of
Marcigny in the eleventh century, who refused to break their enclosures
even for fire and were miraculously preserved, pp. 12-13, 32-5.
[1121] The rhymed Northern Rule of St Benedict for nuns (l. 2094) says
that when they go away into the country they should wear "more honest"
clothes. "In habitu moniali" is one of the conditions imposed on the nuns
of Barrow Gurney in 1315. See above, p. 358, note 4. The necessity for
such a regulation appears in the decree made by Henry Archbishop of
Cologne, executing an enactment of the Provincial Council of Cologne
(1310), promulgating _Periculoso_. "Nevertheless we often see that having
come out of their monasteries they [the nuns] wander about the roads and
public places and frequent the houses of secular persons. And, what is
more deplorable, having put off their religious habit, they appear in
secular dress and bear themselves in public with so much vanity that their
conduct may justly be considered suspicious, although their conscience be
really pure and without sin. And although hitherto they have been menaced
with divers penalties, nevertheless the more strictly they are forbidden
to live after this fashion, the more eagerly they disobey, so strongly do
they hanker after forbidden things." The whole injunction is worthy of
study. Thiers, _op. cit._ pp. 491-3. Discipline was laxer in German
convents than in those of England. In England, however, there are
sometimes complaints that male religious leave their convents in secular
attire; see a case at Huntingdon Priory in 1439, _Linc. Visit._ II, pp.
154-5.
[1122] See _ib._ XXV, XXVI, XXVII. A few examples may be given of nuns
leaving their houses to become superiors elsewhere: Basedale got
prioresses from Rosedale in 1524 and 1527 (_Yorks. Arch. Soc._ XVI, p. 431
note); Rosedale from Clementhorpe in 1525 (Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, pp. 317,
385); Kington from Bromhale in 1326 (_ib._ IV, p. 398) and Ankerwyke from
Bromhale in 1421 (_Visit. of Relig. Houses in Dioc. Linc._ I, p. 156).
Sometimes the prioress of one house left it to rule another, e.g.
Elizabeth Davell, Prioress of Basedale, became Prioress of Keldholme in
1467 (_V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 169). Alice Davy, who occurs as Prioress of
Castle Hedingham in 1472 and was afterwards Prioress of Wix (_V.C.H.
Essex_, II, p. 123), and Eleanor Bernard, Prioress of Little Marlow (c.
1516) became Abbess of Delapre (Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 149). For a form of
licence from a prioress, permitting a nun to accept the office of prioress
elsewhere, see _MS. Harl._ 862, f. 94 ("Literae Priorissae de Bromhale
quibus licenciam impertit Clementiae Medforde ejusdem Domus, consorori et
communiali, ut Prioratui de Ankerwyke sicut Priorissa praeesse valeat");
and compare the reply of the Prioress of St Bartholomew's, Newcastle, to
the Bishop of Durham about the election of Dame Margaret Danby, a nun of
her house, to be Prioress of St Mary's, Neasham, "Whilk Postulacion I
graunt fully with assent of my chapiter atte Reverence of God and in
plesing of yor gracious lordship; not wythstondyng yat she is ful
necessarye and profitable to us both in spirituall governance and
temporall" (1428). (_V.C.H. Durham_, II, p. 107.) Sometimes a mother house
from over the sea tried to assert its right to nominate the head of one of
its daughter houses, but Cluniacs, Cistercians, Premonstratensians and
houses affiliated to Fontevrault were all extremely jealous of French
interference. See the letter written by Mary, daughter of Edward I, a nun
of Amesbury, to her brother the King in 1316 protesting against the action
of the Abbess of Fontevrault, who was reputed to be sending "a prioress
from beyond the sea," instead of acceding to the convent's request that
one of their own number might succeed to the office. Wood, _Letters of
Royal and Illustrious Ladies_, I, pp. 60-63. It was always held desirable
if possible to take a superior from among the nuns of the house in which
the vacancy occurred, but sometimes no suitable person could be found.
[1123] See Thiers, I, ch. XXII, who mentions the corollary that the
superior of another house may be called in to correct rebellious nuns if
their own head is unable to do so. See below, p. 466. In 1501 Emma Powes,
then at Romsey, is said to have been professed at King's Mead near Derby
"and from that place had been removed to another priory in the Hereford
diocese, where she had been prioress, and thence had come to this house."
A charge of incontinence was made against her, and we know from another
source that she had been prioress of Lymbrook (she was deprived on or
about 24 Nov. 1488, _Hereford Reg. Myllyng_, p. 112). It is interesting
that in 1492 one of the nuns had asked that "a nun who has been brought
in, be restored to the place to which she is professed." Liveing, _Records
of Romsey Abbey_, pp. 219, 225. One of Alnwick's injunctions to Clemence
Medforde, Prioress of Ankerwyke in 1441, was "that henceforth she should
not admit that nun of Hinchinbrooke either into the house or to dwell
among them, and also that she should not deliver to her that bond which
she has from the house of Hinchinbrooke, or any other goods which she has
of the same house." _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 6. In a list of the nuns of
Thetford in 1526 occurs the name of "Domina Elianora Hanam, professa in
Wyke (Wix)." Jessopp, _Visit. in Dioc. Norwich_, p. 243.
[1124] Such, for instance, as leprosy. In 1287 Archbishop John le Romeyn
sent a request to the master of Sherburn Hospital, Durham, to receive
Basilia de Cotum, a nun of Handale, "quia, ... lepre deformitate aspersa,
propter suspectam morbi contagionem, morari non poterit inter sanos,
devocionem vestram rogamus quatinus ipsam in hospitali vestro velitis
recipere et seorsum in necessariis exhibere, ita, tamen, quod sub
religioso habitu quem gerit Deo serviat dum subsistit." _Reg. John le
Romeyn_, I, p. 163. Richard de Wallingford, the great abbot of St Albans,
was a leper, but remained in his house.
[1125] Dugdale, _Mon._ V, p. 493. Dugdale remarks that "a little scandal
also appears to have been attached to her character." She finally resigned
on account of old age in 1320, and perhaps the leave of absence referred
to accounts for the appearance of another Prioress in 1308 who resigned in
1309. _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 180-1.
[1126] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 127, note 13.
[1127] _V.C.H. Dorset_, II, p. 78. In 1427 the papal licence was granted
to one Isabel Falowfeld, nun of St Bartholomew's, Newcastle on Tyne, to
transfer herself to another monastery of the same order, on account of her
weak constitution and the inclemency of the air near St Bartholomew's.
_Cal. of Papal Letters_, VII, p. 516. See Thiers on the subject, _op.
cit._ pp. 140-2, 213-5. He quotes the decision of the University of
Salamanca on the question as to whether the General or any minor official
of the Minorites had the power to give permission to a nun of the order
who was dangerously ill, to leave her house and enter another of the same
order, so as to recover her health. "Exactissima discussione facta circa
praesentem difficultatem, omnes unanimiter atque uno ore responderunt
atque dixerunt, non posse id fieri stando in jure communi, quod et multis
juribus atque rationibus comprobarunt" (p. 214). He also quotes the case
of a nun of the Annunciation of Agen, of whom the doctors said that if she
stayed in her house she would infallibly die, but if she went out for a
change of air and medicinal baths she would infallibly be cured. To which
alternative the General of the Order, on being asked to give her a
dispensation to go out, replied in one word "_Moriatur_" (p. 217). But
these were both strictly enclosed orders.
[1128] "Si quae vero moniales ad balnea qualitercumque processerint extra
monasteria, irremissibiliter priventur habitu regulari; et licentiantes
easdem ut praedicta petant balnea, sententiam excommunicationis
incurrant." _Nomasticon Cisterciense_, p. 533, also in Thiers _op. cit._
p. 220; cf. pp. 216 ff. But the public baths were of notoriously bad
reputation.
[1129] See Thiers, _op. cit._ Pt I, ch. XLII-XLVII. From the fact that he
thinks it necessary to devote five chapters to the subject and from the
evidence which he adduces and the language which he uses, it is clear that
the practice was very prevalent.
[1130] _Decret._ III, tit. XXXI, c. 18. See Thiers, _op. cit._ pp. 161-2.
Licences to migrate to a convent professing a stricter rule are sometimes
found in episcopal registers. See e.g. _Hereford Reg. Caroli Bothe_, p.
241.
[1131] See his letter to a superior, quoted by Thiers: "Je suis
tout-a-fait d'avis que l'on n'ouvre point la porte au changement des
Maisons pour le souhait des filles: car ce changement est tout-a-fait
contraire au bien des Monasteres qui ont la cloture perpetuelle pour
article essentiel. Les filles comme foibles, sont sujettes aux ennuis et
les ennuis leur font trouver des expediens et importuns et indiscrets. Que
les changemens doncques procedent des jugemens des superieurs et non du
desir des filles, qui ne scauroient mieux declarer qu'elles ne doivent
point estre gratifiees, que quand elles se laissent emporter a des desirs
si peu justes. Il faut donc demeurer la, et laisser chaque rossignol dans
son nid; car autrement le moindre deplaisir qui arriveroit a une fille,
seroit capable de l'inquieter et luy faire prendre le change: Et au lieu
de se changer elle-meme, elle penseroit d'avoir suffisament remedie a son
mal, quand elle changeroit de Monastere." Thiers, _op. cit._ pp. 160-1.
[1132] Plainly she regarded the things as her own private property and was
thus guilty of the sin of _proprietas_ as well. Compare the evidence of
the Abbot of Bardney concerning one of his monks in 1439-40. "Also he
deposes that brother John Hale sent out privily all his private goods,
with the mind and intent, as it appeared, to leave the house in apostasy
and especially a silver spoon and a mazer garnished with silver; and yet
he has not yet gone, nor will he disclose to the abbot where such goods
are." _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 26.
[1133] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 127-9.
[1134] The three anchoresses of _The Ancren Riwle_ and their maids will be
remembered.
[1135] Raine, _Letters from Northern Registers_ (Rolls Ser.), pp. 196-8.
See also Rotha Clay, _Hermits and Anchorites of England_, pp. 93-4.
[1136] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 113 (cf. _Test. Ebor._ II, p. 98). Two
other Yorkshire nuns are found as anchoresses in the first part of the
fourteenth century. Joan Sperry, nun of Clementhorpe, was anchoress at
Beeston near Leeds in 1322, and in 1348 Margaret la Boteler, nun of
Hampole, was anchoress at the chapel of East Layton, Yorks. Clay, _op.
cit._ pp. 254-5, 256. See also the curious case of Avice of Beverley, a
nun of Nunburnholme, concerning whom "the Prioress and nuns say that Avice
of Beverley, sometime professed nun of Nunburnholme, thrice left the house
to the intent that she might lead a stricter life elsewhere. They say that
fourteen years at least have passed since she last went away; howbeit they
believe her to have lived in chastity. They say that she was disobedient
every year and very often while she was with them. They say that she dwelt
with them for thirty years before she left the monastery for the first
time." The inquiry which elicited this information was made because she
wanted to return (1280). _Reg. Wm. Wickwane_, p. 92. She had probably
tried being an anchoress.
[1137] _Visit. of Relig. Houses in Dioc. Linc._ I, pp. 113-15. The
prioress' licence addressed to Beatrice is also printed. It may be well
here to repeat the editor's warning that "acts of this description
probably form the foundation for the ridiculous superstition, made famous
by a striking passage of Scott's _Marmion_, that nuns and others who had
broken the laws of the church were commonly walled up and left to perish."
Another and perhaps more probable explanation of the superstition is that
Scott probably, and certainly others after him, misinterpreted the words
_immuratio_, _emmurer_, which are constantly used of strict imprisonment
by inquisition officials and others. See on the subject, H. Thurston,
S.J., _The Immuring of Nuns_ (Catholic Truth Soc. Historical Papers, No.
V).
[1138] Celestria (? Celestina), nun, and Adilda, nun, are mentioned as
anchoresses there. Clay, _op. cit._ pp. 222-3.
[1139] _Ib._ p. 184. An "ancress" was found at this house at the time of
the Dissolution.
[1140] For her works see _Revelations of Divine Love, recorded by Julian,
Anchoress at Norwich_, ed. Grace Warrack (1901). She is apparently not to
be confused with another famous anchoress, Julian Lampet, bequests to whom
are often recorded in Norwich wills between 1426 and 1478. The priory
seems to have had a succession of two or even three anchoresses named
Julian. See Rye, _Carrow Abbey_, pp. 7-8 and App. IX, _passim_. For
anchoresses enclosed at conventual houses of men, see Clay, _op. cit._ pp.
77-8; anchoresses are sometimes described as "nun," _ib._ pp. 224, 232,
238, 244. Matilda Newton, a nun of Barking, who had been appointed to rule
the new Abbey of Syon, but for some reason did not become abbess, returned
to her own house as a recluse in 1417. _Ib._ p. 144.
[1141] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Dalderby_, f. 10 (date 1300). The author of
_Dives and Pauper_ declares that such secessions were rare among women:
"We se that whanne men take them to be ankeris and reclusys withinne fewe
yerys comonly eyther they falle in reuersys or eresyes or they breke out
for womans loue or for inkyede of ther lufe or by some gile of şe fend.
But of wimen ancres so inclusid is seldome herde any of these defautys,
but holely they beginne and holely they ende." _Dives and Pauper_, com.
VI, ch. B.
[1142] See above, pp. 69-71.
[1143] Wilkins, _Concilia_, II, p. 18. Compare William of Wykeham's
injunctions to Romsey in 1387: "Constitutiones bone memorie domini
Othoboni quondam sedis apostolice in Anglia legati in hoc casu editas ut
conuenit imitantes, vobis sub penis infrascriptis districcius inhibemus,
ne ad officinas aliquas aut alias cameras quascumque forinsecas extra
septa claustri, vel ad alia loca in villam vel alibi extra vestrum
monasterium, illis quibus hoc ex officio competit dumtaxat exceptis ...
exeatis." _New Coll._ MS. f. 84. Compare also the injunctions (likewise
modelled on Ottobon's constitution) sent by Thomas of Cantilupe, Bishop of
Hereford, to Lymbrook about 1277. _Reg. Thome de Cantilupo_, p. 201.
[1144] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 122, 125.
[1145] _Cistercian Stat._ A.D. 1257-88, ed. J. T. Fowler, 1890, p. 106.
[1146] Blunt, _Myroure of Oure Ladye_ (E.E.T.S.), Introd. pp. xxviii,
xxxii.
[1147] _P.R.O. Mins. Accts._ 1260/3.
[1148] "Paid for the hire of three horses for six days going to London for
our tithes ..., paid for the hire of a serving-man and for his expenses
going with the said horses 2/3, item sent to Dame Katherine Fitzaleyn at
the same time 6/8" (Prioress' Account), _ib._ 1260/4. The treasuress'
account for the same year throws further light upon her movements. "Paid
for the expenses of Dame Katherine Fitzaleyn and Dame Ida going to London
and for the hire of their horses going and returning, for our tithes L2.
11. 0. ... In the expenses of the sub-Prioress and Dame Katherine
Fitzaleyn and two men and three horses going to Fleet for rent and for
salt 3/8. In the expenses of Dame Katherine Fitzaleyn and dame Joan
Fishmere [the treasuress] for hire of horses 8_d._" _Ib._ 1260/5. Dame
Katherine also went to the Bishop to get a certificate and in 1377-8 she
went with the treasuress Dame Margaret Redinges to Corby and to
Sempringham (perhaps to visit the Gilbertine nuns there) and Dames
Margaret Redinges and Joan Fishmere went with Robert Clark to Clapton.
_Ib._ 1260/7
[1149] _Reg. of John de Sandale and Rigaud de Asserio_, p. 418. Similar
letter to Prior and Convent of the Cathedral Church, p. 576.
[1150] Wilkins, _Concilia_, II, p. 18.
[1151] _Reg. Thome de Cantilupo_, p. 201.
[1152] _New Coll._ MS. f. 85_d_.
[1153] Quoted in Thiers, _op. cit._ p. 133, who considers the question in
his ch. XIX.
[1154] _Archaeologia_, XLVII, pp. 52-3.
[1155] See illustration of Henry VI being received as a Confrater at Bury
St Edmunds, reproduced in Gasquet, _Engl. Mon. Life_, facing p. 126, from
_Harl. MS._ 2278, f. 6.
[1156] Amundesham, _Annales_ (Rolls Ser.), I, pp. 65-9, _passim_.
[1157] _V.C.H. Herts._ IV, p. 424.
[1158] "I will that Ilke prior and priores that comes to my beryall at
y{t} day hafe iii s iiij d and Ilke chanon and Nune xij d ... and Ilke
prior and priores that comes to the xxx day [i.e. the so-called
"month's-mind"] hafe vj s viij d and Ilke chanon or none that comes to the
said xxx day haf xx d." _Lincoln Diocese Documents_, ed. A. Clark
(E.E.T.S.), pp. 50, 53.
[1159] _P.R.O. Mins. Accts._ 1260/20. This was probably Constance of
Castile, second wife of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, who died on
March 24, 1394, and was buried with great magnificence at The Newarke,
Leicester. S. Armitage Smith, _John of Gaunt_ (1904), pp. 357-8. The date
of the account roll is unfortunately illegible, but from this internal
evidence it should probably be dated 1393-4. There is another entry "paye
a couent pur lalme le Duk de Lancastre vij s iij d," in which "Duk" is
possibly a slip for "Duchesse."
[1160] There were over seventy places of pilgrimage in Norfolk alone.
Cutts, _Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages_ (3rd ed. 1911), p. 162.
[1161] Jacques de Vitry does not mince his words: "I have seen many
pilgrims who, weary of wayfaring, used to drink themselves tipsy.... You
will find many harlots and evil women in the inns, who lie in wait for the
incautious and reward their guests with evil, even as a mouse in a wallet,
a serpent in the bosom." Etienne de Bourbon has the same tale to tell: "A
pilgrimage should be sober, lest the pilgrims be despoiled and slain and
turned to scorn, both materially and spiritually. For I have seen a person
who had laboured greatly making a pilgrimage overseas lose both his virtue
and his money, when drunk and lying with a chambermaid in an inn."
_Anecdotes Historiques etc., d'Etienne de Bourbon_, ed. Lecoy de la Marche
(1877), pp. 167-8. Mine Host's words to the drunken cook (_Manciple's
Prol._ II, pp. 15-19) are significant in the light of these quotations. So
also are the adventures of "that loose fish the Pardoner" with the tapster
Kit at the Chequer Inn. _Tale of Beryn_, ed. Furnivall and Stone (Chaucer
Soc. 1887). See also _An Alphabet of Tales_ (E.E.T.S.), p. 258, No.
CCCLXXVI.
[1162] Compare the words of the Lollard William Thorpe in 1407: "Such fond
people waste blamefullie Gods goodes in their vaine pilgrimages, spending
their goods upon vitious hostelars, which are oft uncleane women of their
bodies.... Also, sir, I knowe well that when divers men and women will goe
thus after their oun willes and finding, out on pilgrimage, they will
ordaine with them before to have with them some men and women that can
well sing wanton songes; and some other pilgrimages will have them with
bagge-pipes," etc. This and other information about pilgrimages may be
found in Coulton, _Chaucer and his England_, pp. 138-43. See also _The
Book of the Knight of La Tour-Landry_ (E.E.T.S.), pp. 47 ff.
[1163]
The wyff of bath was so wery, she had no will to walk;
She toke the Priores by the hond; "madam, wol ye stalk
Pryuely in-to şe garden, to se the herbis growe?
And aftir, with our hostis wyff, in hir parlour rowe,
I wol gyve ghewe the wine, and yee shull me also:
ffor tyll wee go to soper, wee have naught ellis to do."
The Priores, as womman taught of gentil blood and hend,
Assentid to hir counsell; and forthe (tho) gon they wend
Passyng forth (ful) softly in-to the herbery:
ffor many a herbe grewe, for sewe and surgery;
And al the Aleyis fair I-parid, I-ralid and I-makid:
The sauge and the Isope, I-frethid and I-stakid.
_Tale of Beryn_, p. 10. Cf. p. 6 for the scene with the holy water
sprinkler.
[1164] Langland, _Piers Plowman_, B Text, Passus XII, 36-38.
[1165] "Let it never be permitted to any abbess or any other nun,
whosoever she may be, to undertake the journey to Rome or to any other
holy places; for it is the Devil, taking the form of an angel of light,
who inspires such pilgrimages under a false pretext of piety: and there is
no one so foolish and so devoid of reason as not to know how irreligious
and blameworthy a thing it is for Virgins vowed to God to hold converse
with men, through the necessity of a journey. If after the prohibition of
this venerable Council, there be found anyone so bold as to disobey this
ordinance, which has been promulgated by unanimous consent, let him be
punished according to the rigour of the canons, to wit let him be
excommunicated." Thiers, _op. cit._ p. 135.
[1166] Wilkins, _Concilia_, I, p. 502.
[1167] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 172. Compare Bishop Gynewell's injunction
to Heynings in 1351: "Item pur ceo que ascun de les dames de dit mesoun
sount trop acustumez de faire auowes de pilgrimage et dautres abstinences,
saunz conge de lour souerayn, par quar ils ount souent occasion de les
retrer de lour religion; si vous comandoms sur peyn descomengement que nul
de vous face tiel maner auowe en destourbance de vostre religion, saunz
especial conge de vostre souereyn. Et que nul tiel auowe soit fait par
ascun de vous, pur faire paregrinage ou autre abstinence a quel il nest
pas tenuz par sa religion, nous lui relessoms tut maner de tel auowe,
issint qil se poet doner entirement a sa religion parfaire." _Linc. Epis.
Reg. Memo. Gynewell_, f. 34_d_.
[1168] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 172, and Dugdale, _Mon._ V, p. 654.
[1169] _V.C.H. Essex_, II, p. 124.
[1170] _Archaeologia_, XLVII, pp. 56-7.
[1171] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 183. This episode is a striking
illustration of the complaint made about those Jubilee pilgrimages by the
abbots of Fountains, St Mary Graces and Stratford, who had been appointed
by the Abbot and Chapter-General of Citeaux to report on the condition of
English monasteries of that order. Writing to the Abbot of Citeaux in
1500, they beg that several bulls of Jubilee indulgence should be sent to
England, adding, "for many lesser religious of the order, under pretext of
obtaining the grace of this indulgence, led by a spirit less of devotion
than of levity and curiosity, are begging their superiors for licence to
go to the Roman curia, and we have besought them to remain at home in the
hope of obtaining this jubilee [indulgence]. For we rarely see, in this
country of ours, any good and devout secular or religious man visiting the
Mother City (most justly though it be accounted holy), who returns home
again in better holiness and devotion." _Melanges d'Histoire offerts a M.
Charles Bemont_ (Paris, 1913), p. 429.
[1172] Quoted in Gregorovius, _Hist. of Rome in the Middle Ages_, III, p.
78 note. See the fifteenth century Florentine carnival song, quoted below,
pp. 617-8.
[1173]
Les blanches et les grises et les noires nonains
Sont sovent pelerines aus saintes et aus sainz;
Les Diex lor en set gre, je n'en suis pas certains,
S'eles fussent bien sages eles alassent mains.
Quant ces nonains s'en vont par le pays esbatre
Les unes a Paris, les autres a Montmartre,
Tels foiz enmaine deus qu'on en ramaine quatre,
Quar s'on en perdroit une il les covenroit batre.
From "De la vie dou Monde," _Rustebeufs Gedichte hg. v. Adolf Krefaner_
(1885), p. 185.
[1174] And of such specific decrees as that of the Council of Oxford
(1222) which forbade them to go merely to visit relatives or for
recreation except (there was always a saving clause under which nuns and
bishops alike could shelter) in such case as might arouse no suspicion.
Wilkins, _Concilia_, I, p. 592.
[1175] _Reg. Walter de Stapeldon_, p. 95. Cf. injunctions to Polsloe,
above, p. 355.
[1176] _All the Familiar Colloquies of Erasmus_, ed. N. Bailey, 2nd ed.
1733, p. 379.
[1177] _Hereford Epis. Reg. Spofford_, p. 81. Compare the charge made
against the clergy of Ripon Minster in 1312: "Vicarii capellani, et
caeteri ministri ... spectaculis publicis, ludibriis et coreis, immo
teatricalibus ludis inter laicos frequentius se immiscent." J. T. Fowler,
_Memorials of Ripon Minster_ (Surtees Soc.), II, p. 68. Also one of the
_comperta_ at Alnwick's visitation of Humberstone Abbey in 1440, "He says
that Wrauby answered the abbot saucily and rebelliously when [the abbot]
took him to task for climbing up a gate to behold the pipe-players and
dancers in the churchyard of the parish church." _Linc. Visit._ II, p.
140.
[1178] _Manners and Meals in Olden Time_, ed. Furnivall (E.E.T.S.), p. 40.
[1179] See above, p. 81, and compare the injunctions sent by Cardinal
Nicholas of Cues to the Abbess of Sonnenburg, c. 1454, forbidding her to
go on pilgrimages or to visit health resorts or to attend weddings.
Eckenstein, _Woman under Monasticism_, p. 425.
[1180] Quoted in Brand's _Observations on Popular Antiquities_ (ed. 1877),
pp. 382, 394. Compare the almost precisely similar account given by
Erasmus in his _Guide to Christian Matrimony_ (1526), quoted in Coulton,
_Social Life in Britain from the Conquest to the Reformation_, pp. 439-40.
[1181] See above, p. 309 and below, p. 388.
[1182] Coulton, _Chaucer and his England_, pp. 108-9. Weddings were,
however, occasionally celebrated in convent churches, e.g. on Jan. 3rd,
1465-6 the Bishop of Ely addressed a licence to Thomas Trumpington,
"President of religion of the Minoresses of the convent of Denny,"
authorising him to celebrate matrimony in the convent church between
William Ketterich junior and Marion Hall, domestic servants in the
monastery, the bans to be put up in the parish church of Waterbeach. _Ely
Epis. Records_, ed. Gibbons, p. 145. Compare case at Crabhouse in 1476,
_V.C.H. Norfolk_, II, p. 409. Dugdale notes that Henry VIII is said to
have married one of his wives in the Chapel at Sopwell. Dugdale, _Mon._
III, p. 364. Such weddings would necessarily have taken place in convent
churches where the nave was also used as a parish church, but this was not
so at Denny. Wriothesley's _Chronicle_ contains an account of a triple
wedding held at Haliwell in 1536. "This yeare, the 3 daye of July, beinge
Mondaye, was a greate solempnytie of marriage kept at the nonnerye of
Halywell, besyde London, in the Erle of Ruttlandes place, where the Erle
of Oxfordes sonne and heyer, called Lord Bulbeke maryed the Erle of
Westmorelandes eldest daughter named Ladye Dorytye and the Erle of
Westmorelandes sonne and heyre, called Lord Nevell, maryed the Erle of
Ruttlandes eldyste daughter, named Ladye Anne, and the Erle of Rutlandes
sonne and heire called Lord Roosse maryed the Erle of Westmorelandes
daughter, named Ladye Margaret; and all these three lordes were maryed at
one masse, goinge to churche all 3 together on by another and the laydes,
there wyfes, followinge, one after another, everye one of the younge
ladyes havinge 2 younge lordes goinge one everye syde of them when they
went to church and a younge ladye bearinge up everye of their gowne
traynes; at wh. maryage was present all the greate estates of the realme,
both lordes and ladyes." Afterwards they all went home and had a great
feast, followed by a dance, to which the King came dressed as a Turk.
_Wriothesley's Chronicle_, ed. W. D. Hamilton (Camden Soc. 1875), I, pp.
50-1. A reference may also be made to No. XLVI of _Les Cent Nouvelles
Nouvelles_, ed. Th. Wright, t. I, p. 284: "Or advint toutesfoiz ung jour
que une des niepces de madame l'abbesse se marioit et faisoit sa feste en
l'abbaye; et y avoit grosse assemblee des gens du pais; et estoit madame
l'abbesse fort empeschee de festoyer les gens de bien qui estoyent venuz a
la feste faire honneur a sa niepce."
[1183] From "Proofs of Age, temp. Henry IV," quoted in _Trans. R. Hist.
Soc._ N.S. XVI (1902), p. 163.
[1184] "Or viennent commeres de toutes pars; or convient que le pauvre
homme [i.e. the husband] face tant que elles soient bien aises. La dame et
les commeres parlent et raudent, et dient de bonnes chouses et se tiennent
bien aises, quiconques ait la peine de le querir, quelque temps qu'il face
... et tousjours boyvent comme bottes.... Lors les commeres entrent, elles
desjunent, elles disnent, elles menjent a raassie, maintenant boivent au
lit de la commere, maintenant a la cuve, et confondent des biens et du vin
plus qu'il n'en entreroit en une bote; et a l'aventure il vient a barrilz
ou n'en y a que une pipe. Et le pauvre homme, qui a tout le soussy de la
despense, va souvent veoir comment le vin se porte, quant il voit
terriblement boire.... Briefment tout se despend; les commeres s'en vont
bien coiffees, parlant et janglant, et ne se esmoient point dont il
vient." _Les Quinzes Joyes de Mariage_ (Bib. Elzevirienne, 1855), pp.
27-8, 30, 37-8.
[1185] G. G. Coulton, _French Monasticism in 1503_ (Medieval Studies No.
XI. 1915), p. 22 note 2.
[1186] _New Coll._ MS. f. 87. On the other hand such connections with rich
families might be a source of wealth to a house. Mr Coulton draws
attention to "the letter of an abbot at Bordeaux in Father Denifle's
_Desolation des Eglises, etc._ I, p. 583 (A.D. 1419). The abbey had been
so impoverished by war that the Abbot begged for a papal indult permitting
him to stand godfather to forty children of noble or wealthy families."
Coulton, _loc. cit._
[1187] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 77_d_.
[1188] "That frome hensforthe ye give noo more licence ne suffre eny of
your susters to be godmother to eny child, nither at the christening
nother at the confirmacon, and undre like payne chardge you nott to be
godmother to eny child in christening nor confirmacon." _Archaeologia_,
XLVII, p. 54. Compare similar prohibitions by Eudes Rigaud, Archbishop of
Rouen, addressed to the nuns of Montivilliers in 1257 and 1265. _Reg.
Visit. Archiepis. Rothomag._ ed. Bonnin (1852), pp. 293, 517. The
prohibition was frequently broken by monks as well as by nuns. See e.g.
the _comperta_ at Alnwick's visitation of Higham Ferrers College in 1442:
"Also Sir William Calverstone haunts suspect places and especially the
house of Margery Chaumberleyn, for whose son he stood sponsor at his
confirmation, and, though warned by the master, he does not desist. The
same does also haunt the house of one Plays, for whose son he likewise
stood sponsor." _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 138. Also the complaint of Guy
Jouenneaux, Abbot of St Sulpice de Bourges in his _Defence of Monastic
Reform_ (1503): "Sometimes they eat in the houses of their gossips, though
the law forbids them such relationships, or again among citizens, at whose
houses they are as frequent guests, or more frequent, than even
worldly-minded folk." Coulton, _loc. cit._ It is interesting that Barbara
Mason, ex-Prioress of Marham, who died shortly after the dissolution in
1538, mentions two god-daughters. "I wyll Barbara Barcom my goddowter and
seruant, shall haue my wosted kyrtyll and clothe kyrtell and my frok in
Hayll. Itm. I bequeth to Elyn Mason's chyld, my goddowter xij d." _Bury
Wills and Inventories_, ed. S. Tymms (Camden Soc.), p. 134. Henry VIII's
visitors gave her a bad character.
[1189] For her life see M. A. E. Green, _Lives of the Princesses of
England_, II, pp. 404-42.
[1190] Their gardens are often mentioned, e.g. at Nuncoton in 1440 it was
complained that the nuns had private gardens and that some of them did not
come to Compline, but wandered about in the gardens, gathering herbs.
_Alnwick's Visit._ f. 72. At Stainfield in 1519 a similar complaint was
made that on feast days they did not stay in the church and occupy
themselves in devotion, between the Hours of Our Lady and High Mass, but
came out and walked about the garden and cloisters. _V.C.H. Lincs._ II, p.
131. The nuns of Sinningthwaite (1319) were ordered to provide themselves
with a competent gardener for their curtilage, so that they might always
have an abundance of vegetables. _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 177. Christine de
Pisan's description of the great gardens of the convent of Poissy is most
attractive. See below, p. 560.
[1191] Quoted in Gasquet, _English Monastic Life_, p. 177.
[1192] One of the charges against Eleanor Prioress of Arden in 1396 was
that "she compelled three young nuns to go out haymaking very early in the
morning and they did not come back before nightfall and so divine service
was not yet said." _Test. Ebor._ (Surtees Soc.), p. 283.
[1193] _Alnwick's Visit._ f. 71_d_.
[1194] _Ib._ pp. 120, 121, 123, 125. At Bishop Atwater's visitation of
Legbourne in 1519 it was stated that the nuns often worked at haymaking,
but only in the presence of the Prioress. _V.C.H. Lincs._ II, p. 154.
[1195] See below, p. 653.
[1196] See below, p. 589.
[1197] See Thiers on the subject: "Si les Religieuses estoient aussi
soigneuses de leur honneur et de leur reputation comme elles devroient, si
elles vouloient asseurer la grace de leur vocation et de leur election ...
elles ne nourriroient point de vaches dans leur cloture, estant indecent
que les Religieuses s'occupent a les mener paistre, a les retirer des
pasturages, et a faire tout ce qui est necessaire pour en recevoir quelque
profit. Je dis la meme choses des asnesses, qu'elles y retiennient pour en
prendre le lait dans leurs infirmitez. Car elles peuvent les avoir au
dehors et en tirer a peu pres les memes avantages, que si elles les
renoient au dedans. Aussi est-il dit dans les Statuts du Couvent de Saint
Estienne de Reims, de l'ordre des Chanoinesses regulieres de Saint
Augustin: Il ne sera loisible de recevoir dans le Monastere aucun gros
bestail: ce qui est parfaitement conforme a cette defense du 1. Concile
Provincial de Milan en 1565. _Moniales ne intus in septis Monasterii
boves, equos et jumenta cujusvis generis alant._" _Op. cit._ p. 415.
[1198] _Ancren Riwle_ (King's Classics), pp. 316-7.
[1199] _Lambeth Reg. Courtenay_, I, f. 336. The injunction was repeated by
Bishop Flemyng in 1421-2. _Visit. of Relig. Houses in Dioc. Lincoln_, I,
p. 52. At Godstow Peckham made the following order concerning the
conversations of nuns with seculars: "Cum insuper talia sunt colloquia
terminata, inhibemus decetero ne moniales hujusmodi pro colloquentium
conductu, locutorii januam exeant ullo modo, nec etiam stent exterius in
atrio, ubi saecularium est concursus, _sed interius tantum in hortis et
pomeriis_ quatenus requirit necessitas et honestas patitur, si non desit
omnimoda securitas, consolentur." _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_, III, p. 848. At
Romsey in 1311 Bishop Woodlock ordered that "there shall be an entrance
into the garden by a gate or postern for the sick _in loco non suspecto_
for their recreation and solace." Liveing, _Records of Romsey Abbey_, p.
104. At Clementhorpe in 1310 a nun confined to the cloister for penance
might "for recreation and solace go into the orchard and gardens of the
nunnery accompanied by nuns." _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 129.
[1200] _Hereford Epis. Reg. Spofford_, p. 82.
[1201] William Salt Archaeol. Soc. Coll. New Series, VIII, pp. 118-9.
[1202] Coulton, _Chaucer and his England_, p. 109. He quotes one such rule
from the "Menagier de Paris." "When thou goest into town or to church,
walk with thine head high, thine eyelids lowered and fixed on the ground
at four fathoms distance straight in front of thee, without looking or
glancing sideways at either man or woman to the right hand or the left,
nor looking upward."
[1203] _V.C.H. Essex_, II, p. 124.
[1204] Cf. Coulton, _Medieval Studies_ (first series, 2nd ed., p. 61) and
Bishop Hallam's admonition to Shaftesbury in 1410. _V.C.H. Dorset_, II, p.
78. Also Peckham's Constitution in 1281. Wilkins, _Concilia_, II, p. 58.
[1205] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 239.
[1206] _Reg. Godfrey Giffard_, p. 267.
[1207] _Reg. Sede Vacante_ (Worc. Hist. Soc.), p. 276.
[1208] _Reg. Ralph of Shrewsbury_, p. 241.
[1209] _Reg. Walter de Stapeldon_, p. 317.
[1210] _A Boke of Precedence_, ed. F. J. Furnivall (E.E.T.S. Extra Ser.
VIII), p. 39.
[1211] _The Wife of Bath's Prologue_, ll. 545-7.
[1212] _Reg. Epis. Peckham_ (Rolls Ser.), II, p. 664.
[1213] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 114. Cf. Gray's injunction in 1432. _Visit.
of Relig. Houses in Dioc. of Linc._ I, p. 67.
[1214] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell_, f. 139_d_.
[1215] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Bokyngham_, f. 343.
[1216] _Visit. of Relig. Houses in Dioc. Linc._ I, pp. 25, 51.
[1217] _Archaeologia_, XLVII, p. 57.
[1218] _Reg. Johannis de Pontissara_, pp. 251-2.
[1219] _Reg. Epis. Peckham_ (Rolls Ser.), II, p. 707.
[1220] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 50. With this account of the entertainment
provided by the Friars of Northampton for their visitors, compare the
evidence given at Bishop Nykke's visitation of the Cathedral priory of
Norwich in 1514. "Item, the Brethren are wont to dance in the
guesten-house, by favour of the guest-master, by night (and) up to noon."
_Visit. of the Dioc. of Norwich_ (Camden Soc.), p. 75. One of the Bishop's
_comperta_ was that suspicious women had access to the house of the
guest-master, which throws further light on the Catesby case. Incidentally
the latter bears out Chaucer's description of the Friar, who was so fond
of harping.
[1221] _Exempla e sermonibus vulgaribus Jacobi Vitriacensis_, ed. T. F.
Crane, p. 131.
[1222] _Anecdotes Historiques, etc. d'Etienne de Bourbon_, ed. Lecoy de La
Marche, p. 229.
[1223] See below, p. 460.
[1224] See also below, pp. 448-50.
[1225] Dugdale, _Mon._ V, p. 654.
[1226] Liveing, _Records of Romsey Abbey_, p. 218.
[1227] _Poetical Works of John Skelton_, ed. Dyce, I, p. 95.
[1228] Langland, _Piers Plowman_, ed. Skeat, Text B, Passus V, ll. 304 ff.
[1229] See above, p. 373.
[1230] _Songs and Carols_, ed. Th. Wright (Percy Soc.), pp. 91-5.
[1231] Gower, _Mirour de l'Omne_, ed. G. C. Macaulay, p. 289. Translated
in Coulton, _Med. Garn._ pp. 577-8.
[1232] At Esholt in 1535 Archbishop Lee even had to enjoin "that the
prioress suffer no ale house to be kept within the precinct of the gates
of the saide monasterie." _Yorks. Arch. Journ._ XVI, p. 452. An
explanation of this may be found by comparing the evidence at Archbishop
Warham's visitation of the Hospital of St James outside Canterbury in
1511. "The Prioress complains that Richard Welles stays and talks in the
precincts of the house and his wife sells beer in the precincts. They are
very quarrelsome people, brawlers and sowers of discord. There is always a
crowd of people at the house of Richard." _E.H.R._ VI, p. 22. At both
these houses the nuns probably employed a secular alewife to make their
beer and she sold also to other customers within their precincts. Compare
Peckham's injunction to Wherwell in 1284: "Iterum ob Dei reverentiam et
ecclesiae honestatem perpetuo inhibemus ne mercatores sedere in ecclesia
cum suis mercibus permittantur." _Reg. Epis. Johannis Peckham_ (Rolls
Ser.), II, p. 654. Also Bishop Bokyngham's letter forbidding merchants to
sell their wares in the conventual church or churchyard of Stainfield
under pain of excommunication (1392). _V.C.H. Lincs._ II, p. 131. Medieval
churches were put to strange uses. They served sometimes as a
market-place, sometimes as a granary, sometimes as a playground, sometimes
as a stage.
[1233] Wood, _Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies_, II, p. 35, note
_b_.
[1234] Wood, _op. cit._ pp. 35-6.
[1235] Wood, _op. cit._ pp. 36-37 (No. XV).
[1236] On this subject see Part II of Thiers' treatise _De la Cloture_,
pp. 265-497.
[1237] _Ancren Riwle_ (King's Classics), p. 67.
[1238] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 46-7. The Benedictine rule runs: "It is by
no means lawful, without the abbot's permission, for any monk to receive
or give letters, presents and gifts of any kind to anyone, whether parent
or other." Cap. LIV.
[1239] _V.C.H. Oxon._ II, p. 104.
[1240] Liveing, _op. cit._ p. 232.
[1241] _Hist. MSS. Com. Report_, IX, App. p. 57 (early fifteenth century).
[1242] _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_, III, p. 847. From a letter which he wrote
to the Abbess on Nov. 12, 1284, it appears that the Prioress had been
defamed of incontinence, for, while professing his belief in her
innocence, he repeated his prohibition of casual conversation between nuns
and seculars, adding "Oveke ceo nous defendons de part Deu ke nule nonein
ne parle a escoler de Oxeneford, se il nest sun parent prechein, e ovekes
ceo saunz le conge la abbesse especial. E ceo meismes entendons nous de
touz prestres foreins, le queus font mout de maus en mout de lus, e aussi
de touz religieus ki ne venent pur precher u pur confesser oue lautorite
le apostoile e le eveske de Nichole." _Ib._ III, p. 851. Compare an
injunction to Nunmonkton in 1397: "Item non permittatis clericos prioratum
vestrum frequentare absque causa rationabili." Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 194.
[1243] _Linc. Visit._ I, pp. 67-8.
[1244] _Ib._ p. 65.
[1245] See below, p. 449.
[1246] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 114. Alnwick made a very strong injunction:
"For as mykelle as your saide monastery and diuerse singulere persones
ther of are greuously noysed and sclaundred for the grete and contynuelle
accesse and recourse of seculere and regulere persones, and in specyalle
of scolers of Oxenford to your said monastery and seculere persones ther
of, that fro hense forthe ye suffre no seculere persones scolers no othere
... to hafe any accesse or recourse to your said monastery ne to any
singulere persone ther of, ne there to abyde nyght ne daye, etc." _Ib._
pp. 115-6.
[1247] _Ib._ II, p. 218.
[1248] See _V.C.H. Oxon._ II, pp. 76-7.
[1249] _Op. cit._ f. 26_d_.
[1250] Gray, _Priory of St Radegund, Cambridge_, p. 35.
[1251] Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 190. See below p. 602.
[1252] _Lambeth Reg. Langham_, f. 76_d_. Compare the note in Alnwick's
visitation of Studley (1445): "Sister Isabel Bartone. It is said that
there is great recourse of seculare guests to the aforesaid Isabel and to
her chamber." _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 26_d_.
[1253] _Archaeologia_, XLVII, p. 57.
[1254] A few more examples may be quoted. At Swine one of the _comperta_
of Giffard's visitation in 1267-8 runs: "The household of Sir Robert de
Hilton, knight, wanders about far too freely (_nimis dissolute_) in the
cloister and parlour, and often holds very suspicious conversations with
the nuns and sisters, whence it is feared that harm may come. And this
same Robert is very injurious and dangerous to them, wherefore, for fear
of his oppression, the canons of the house lately, without the consent of
the convent, gave him a barn full of corn, with which the convent should
have been maintained." _Reg. Walter Giffard_, p. 148. At Nunmonkton in
1397 the Prioress, Margaret Fairfax, was ordered to see that John Munkton
(the same who scandalised the convent by feasting and playing tables with
her in her room), Sir William Aschby, chaplain, William Snowe and Thomas
Pape held no conversation nor kept company with her, nor with any nun of
her house, except in the presence of two of the elder nuns, and she was
warned not to allow clerks to frequent the priory without reasonable
cause. Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 194. At Rusper in 1524 "a certain William
Tychenor has frequent access to the said priory and there sows discord
between the prioress and sisters and others living there." _Sussex Arch.
Coll._ V, p. 257. It will be noticed how often these suspected visitors
are clerics; the prefix "sir" in the Nuncoton extract quoted in the text
almost certainly denotes a churchman and the persons mentioned are
probably secular clergy or canons from neighbouring houses such as
Newhouse, probably chantry-priests and parish chaplains. See below, p.
416.
[1255] The following examples are typical of a host of others. At
Nunappleton (1281) external visitors come into frater and cloister. _Reg.
William Wickwane_, p. 141. At Rosedale (1306) the infirmary is to be kept
from the passing to and fro of seculars; at Arthington (1318) they are not
to frequent cloister, infirmary or other private places; at Nunburnholme
(1318) there is scandal from the frequent access and gossiping of seculars
with certain of the nuns. _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 119, 174. At Ickleton
(1345) the precincts are not to be made the resort of any secular woman,
nor is any such person to come into the choir during the hours of service.
Goddard, _Ickleton Church and Priory_ (_Cambridge Antiq. Soc. Proc._ XLV,
p. 190). At Gracedieu (1440-1) seculars and nuns eat together _commixtim_
in the Prioress' hall. _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 122. At Heynings (1440) the
infirmary was occupied by secular folk, "to the great disturbance of the
sisters." _Ib._ p. 133. At Romsey (1492) people stand about chatting in
the middle of the choir. Liveing, _op. cit._ p. 220.
[1256] On the right of the patron or founder of a monastery, or of persons
of noble birth, to enter the cloistral precincts, see Thiers, _op. cit._
pp. 296-309. He quotes the rule of Fontevrault (cap. VII): "If the most
Christian King, the Queen, the Dauphin and other princes of the
blood-royal, the founders and foundresses, being instantly besought,
refuse nevertheless to desist from entering the precincts, let them enter
with as small a suite of attendants as you can arrange, in long and decent
garments and not otherwise; but let them not seek to pass the night on
pain of excommunication." _Ib._ p. 297. It was never possible in practice
to keep out great lords and ladies.
[1257] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell_, f. 34_d_.
[1258] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 133-5, _passim_. Compare the injunctions to
some Yorkshire houses: at Marrick (1252) the nuns were forbidden to sit
with guests or anyone else outside the cloister after curfew, or for a
long time unless the guests arrived so late that it was impossible to
serve them sooner, nor was a nun to remain alone with a guest. At Hampole
(1302) no nun except the _hostillaria_ was to eat or drink in the
guest-house, save with worthy people, and at Wilberfoss (1302) they were
forbidden to linger in the guest-house or elsewhere, for amusement with
seculars. _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 117, 126, 163. At Elstow in 1432,
however, Bishop Gray enjoined "that when parents or friends or kinsfolk of
nuns, or other persons of note and honesty, shall journey to the same
monastery to visit any nuns of the said monastery, the same nuns be nowise
bound for that day to observance of frater, but be excused to this end by
grace of the abbess or president." _Visit. of Relig. Houses in Dioc.
Linc._ I, p. 54.
[1259] _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_, III, pp. 851-2.
[1260] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell_, f. 100_d_.
[1261] _Wykeham's Reg._ II, pp. 73-4. The special prohibition of friars is
significant, for their reputation was growing worse and worse throughout
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. See also _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp.
164, 171, 181 and _Arch._ XLVII, p. 57. On the other hand it should be
noted that "during the later thirteenth and earlier fourteenth centuries
the bishops in many dioceses made a point of insisting that the confessors
to the nuns should be chosen, not from the secular clergy, but from the
Mendicant Orders, especially from the Minorites." A. G. Little, _Studies
in English Franciscan Hist._ (1917), p. 119 (and the references which he
gives).
[1262] _Visit. of Relig. Houses in Dioc. Linc._ I, p. 66.
[1263] _Yorks. Arch. Journ._ XVI, p. 441. Compare Alnwick's injunctions to
Catesby (1442), Langley (1440-1) and St Michael's, Stamford (1440). _Linc.
Visit._ II, pp. 51, 117, _Alnwick's_ MS. f. 83_d_.
[1264] _Yorks. Arch. Journ._ XVI, p. 452 (cf. p. 440). These injunctions
were very common, for the rule was often broken. Peckham's regulation for
Wherwell (1284) was that no man was to enter after sunset at night, or
before the end of chapter (which followed directly after Prime) in the
morning. _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_, II, p. 653. For other examples see
Romsey (1302-11), Liveing, _op. cit._ pp. 102, 103; Moxby (1318), _V.C.H.
Yorks._ III, p. 239; Sopwell (1338), Dugdale, _Mon._ III, p. 366; Wroxall
(1338), _Worc. Reg. Sede Vacante_, p. 275; Heynings (1351), _Linc. Epis.
Reg. Memo. Gynewell_, f. 34_d_; Elstow (1387), _ib._, _Reg. Memo.
Bokyngham_, f. 343: St Mary's Neasham (1436), _V.C.H. Durham_, II, p. 107;
St Helen's, Bishopsgate (1439), Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 552; Nunappleton
(1489), _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 172; Studley (1530-1), _Archaeologia_,
XLVII, p. 59; Nuncoton (1531), _ib._ pp. 56, 59.
[1265] This certainly seems very strict, for (as appears from the
injunctions quoted) it was customary to order the doors to be shut when
the bell rang for Compline, the last office of the day. Vespers was the
service immediately before supper.
[1266] _Cantarista_ usually means a chantry-priest. The more usual word is
_Precentrix_.
[1267] Chaucer, _Boke of the Duchesse_, ll. 300-4.
[1268] _E.H.R._ VI, pp. 33-4.
[1269] This was reiterated in Ottobon's Constitutions and in the Bull
_Periculoso_. See also Thomas of Cantilupe's letter to Lymbrook in 1277
(_Reg. Thome de Cantilupo_, p. 201) and Archbishop Peckham's injunction to
Godstow, both based upon Ottobon. _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_, III, p. 848.
Also Bishop Brantyngham's commission concerning the nuns of Polsloe in
1376, which is based upon _Periculoso_. _Reg. of Bishop Brantyngham_, pt.
II, pp. 152-3.
[1270] _Reg. Epis. Johannis Peckham_, II, pp. 652-3. Compare injunctions
to Barking, _ib._ I, p. 84, and to St Sepulchre's, Canterbury, _ib._ II,
p. 706.
[1271] _Ib._ II, p. 663 "volentes ibi moniales curiose respicere vel cum
eis garrulas attemptare."
[1272] _Archaeologia_, XLVII, p. 52. Compare Bishop Gray's injunction to
Godstow in 1432-4. "Also that all the doors of the nuns' lodgings towards
the outer court, through which it is possible to enter into the cloister
precinct, even if the other doors of the cloister be shut for the time
being, be altogether blocked up, or that such means of barring or shutting
be placed upon them that approach or entrance through the same doors may
not be given to secular folk." _Linc. Visit._ I, p. 68. Compare also Dean
Kentwode's injunction to St Helen's, Bishopsgate, in 1432: "Also we injoyn
yow, Prioresse, that there may be a doore at the Nonnes quere, that noo
straungers may loke on them, nor they on the straungers, wanne thei bene
at dyvyne service. Also we ordene and injoyne yow, prioresse, that there
be made a hache of conabyll heythe, crestyd with pykys of herne to fore
the entre of yowre kechyne, that noo straunge pepille may entre with
certeyne cleketts avysed be yow and be yowre steward to suche personys as
yow and hem thynk onest and conabell. Also we injoyne yew, prioresse, that
non nonnes have noo keyes of the posterne doore that gothe owte of the
cloystere into the churche yerd but the prioresse, for there is moche
comyng in and owte unlefulle tymys." Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 554.
[1273] _Loc. cit._ With this compare Alnwick's visitation of Ankerwyke in
1441, at which one of Margery Kyrkeby's charges against the Prioress
Clemence Medeforde was: "Also she has ... blocked up the view Thamesward,
which was a great diversion to the nuns. She confesses blocking up the
view, because she saw that men stood in the narrow space close to the
window and talked with the nuns." _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 3.
[1274] _Yorks. Arch. Journ._ XVI, pp. 452-3. Compare Bishop Stapeldon's
injunction to Canonsleigh in 1320: "Et pur ceo que nous avoms oyi et
entendu par ascune gent qe par my deus us dedenz vostre abbeye ileoqes
plusours mals esclandres et deshonestetes sunt avenues avant cest hure, et
purront ensement avenir apres, si remedie ne soit mys, ceo est asavoir, un
us qe est en lencloistre au celer desouz la Sale la Abbesse devers la
court voloms, ordinoms et comaundoms qe meisme ceux deus us soyent bien
estupees par mur de pere, entre cy et la Paske procheyn avenir." _Reg. W.
de Stapeldon_, p. 96.
[1275] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 172. He also said that "No man loge undir
the dortir nor oon the baksede, but if hit be such sad persones by whome
your house may be holpyne and socured w{t}out slaundir or suspicion."
[1276] Dugdale, _Mon._ III, p. 366. But at Barking Peckham ordered in
1279: "In officiis, autem, quae per foeminas fieri nequeunt, operariorum
cum eisdem cautelis introitus admittatur." _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_, I, p.
84. On the entrance of carpenters, masons and other workmen into convents
see Thiers, _op. cit._ II, ch. xxvi. He insists that the work must be a
necessity and something which could not be done by the nuns themselves.
"Ainsi les artisans sont coupables du violement de la cloture, lorsqu'ils
entrent pour des ouvrages de bienseance ou de commodite, pour des
decorations ou des embelissemens; en un mot, pour des ouvrages dont les
Religieuses se peuvent passer; et je ne vois pas en quelle seurete de
conscience les abbesses, les Prieures et les autres superieures des
Religieuses, les y laissent entrer, soit pour polir des grilles, pour
tendre et pour detendre des chambres et des lits, pour faire et pour
peindre des plat-fonds et des alcoves, pour boiser des chambres, des
galleries et des cabinets, pour faire de beaux vitrages, de belle volieres
a petits oiseaux et d'autres choses semblables. Car outre que tout cela
est directement oppose a la modestie et a la pauvrete, dont elles font
profession, quel pretexte peuvent-elles alleguer pour se mettre a couvert
de l'excommunication que les Conciles, les Papes et les Eveques ont
fulminee contre les Religieuses, qui laissent entrer les personnes
etrangeres dans leur cloture sans necessite." _Op. cit._ pp. 412-3. He is
particularly urgent that nuns should cultivate their own gardens and
should have their vegetable gardens outside the precincts: "par ce moyen
elles ne seroient point obligees d'ouvrer et fermer si souvent les portes
de leur cloture, a des jardiniers qui ne sont pas toujours exempts de
scandale" (_ib._ p. 414), which recalls a famous story of Boccaccio's.
_Decameron_, 3rd day, novel I.
[1277] _Loc. cit._ and compare his injunction to Wherwell, _ib._ p. 268.
Bishop Flemyng's introduction to Elstow is rather contradictory: "Also
that no nun admit secretly to her chamber any seculars or other men of
religion and that if they be admitted she do not keep them there too
long." _Visit. of Relig. Houses in Dioc. Lincoln_, I, p. 51. At Godstow
(1432) the injunction ran: "Also that the beds in the nuns' lodgings be
altogether removed from their chambers, save those for small children and
that no nun receive any secular people for any recreation in the nuns'
chambers under pain of excommunication." _Ib._ I, p. 67.
[1278] As at Godstow in 1432, _Linc. Visit._ I, p. 67, or Romsey in 1523,
Liveing, _Records of Romsey Abbey_, p. 244.
[1279] _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_, II, p. 664. Cf. his injunctions to other
nunneries.
[1280] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 116. Compare injunctions to Catesby, Langley,
Markyate and St Michael's, Stamford. _Ib._ pp. 51, 177, and _Alnwick's
Visit._ MS. ff. 6, 83_d_. For other examples see Lymbrook (1277), _Reg.
Thome de Cantilupo_, p. 201; Polsloe (1319), _Reg. W. de Stapeldon_, p.
317; Studley (1530), _Archaeologia_, XLVII, p. 54.
[1281] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 83_d_, cf. f. 6, and _Linc. Visit._ II,
p. 177.
[1282] Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 554. Compare Romsey (1387), _New Coll._ MS.
f. 86; Nuncoton (1531), _Archaeologia_, XLVII, p. 60. St Benedict's Rule
forbids all letters (cap. LIV).
[1283] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 46, 177; _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. ff. 39_d_,
76, 95_d_.
[1284] _Ib._ p. 119.
[1285] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 185.
[1286] _Ib._ p. 133.
[1287] _Ib._ pp. 113, MS. ff. 71_d_, 72, 77.
[1288] For other examples see Romsey (1311), Liveing, _op. cit._ p. 104;
Clementhorpe (1317), Hampole (1308, 1314), Nunappleton (1346), Rosedale
(1315), Arthington (1315, 1318); _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 129, 163-4, 172,
174, 188. Sopwell (1338), Dugdale, _Mon._ III, p. 366; Heynings (1392),
_Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Bokyngham_, f. 397_d_; Lymbrook (1437), _Hereford
Epis. Reg. Spofford_, p. 81; Burnham (1432-6), _Visit. of Relig. Houses in
Dioc. Lincoln_, I, p. 24; Redlingfield (1514), _Visit. of Dioc. of
Norwich_, pp. 139-40; Flamstead (1530), _V.C.H. Herts._ IV, p. 433;
Nuncoton (1531), _Archaeologia_, XLVII, p. 58; Sinningthwaite (1534),
_Yorks. Arch. Journ._ XVI, pp. 440-1. The injunction to St Helen's,
Bishopsgate, in 1432 has an odd variation: "withowte specialle graunte
hadde in the chapetter house, among yow alle." Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, pp.
553-4.
[1289] _Reg. of John of Drokensford_, p. 81. The Isabel Fychet mentioned
in 1336 was probably one of these ladies.
[1290] _Wykeham's Reg._ II, pp. 162-3. On this couple, see Smyth, _Lives
of the Berkeleys_, pp. 364 ff.
[1291] _Reg. Ralph of Shrewsbury_, pp. 277, 278, 744-5. A few out of many
other examples may be quoted: Alice, wife of John D'Aumarle, _domicellus_,
may stay at Cornworthy from January till September (1333), _Reg. of J. de
Grandisson_, pt. II, p. 724; Beatrix Paynell, sister of Sir John Foxley,
may stay at Whitney from December to the Feast of St John the Baptist
(1367), _Wykeham's Reg._ II, p. 7; Avice de Lyncolnia, niece of William de
Jafford, may stay for four years in Nunappleton (1309); he was the
Archbishop's receiver. _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, 171; Alice, wife of Alan of
Ayste, may spend two years in Godstow (1363), _V.C.H. Oxon._ II, p. 73. It
will be noted that nearly all these are great folk, who cannot lightly be
refused.
[1292] _Reg. J. de Grandisson_, pt. I, p. 190.
[1293] _V.C.H. Beds._ I, p. 355.
[1294] _Reg. John le Romeyn_, I, p. 114.
[1295] See the list in Rye, _Carrow Abbey_, pp. 48-52, _passim_. Some of
the men also brought servants or chaplains with them, e.g. William Wryght
and servants, William Wade and William his chaplain, John Bernard and John
his chaplain. The men must have been lodged outside the cloister
precincts.
[1296] _Paston Letters_, ed. Gairdner (1900 ed.), II, p. 390 (no. 633).
See also no. 617 and Introd. pp. ccxc-ccxcii.
[1297] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 175 (at this house there were also three
women boarding with the Prioress and one with the Subprioress). Compare
the case of Agnes de Vescy at Watton in 1272. The King wrote to the
sheriff of Yorkshire that "Agnes de Vescy has been to the house of Watton
with a great number of women and dogs and other things, which have
interfered with the devotions of the nuns and sisters." Graham, _St
Gilbert of Sempringham and the Gilbertines_, p. 83. The fact was that no
one had any real control over these great ladies, least of all their
hostesses.
[1298] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 185.
[1299] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 76. Compare a _compertum_ at St
Sepulchre, Canterbury, in 1367-8. "Perhendinantes male fame steterunt cum
priorissa, ad quas habebatur eciam accessus nimium suspectus," _Lambeth
Reg. Langham_, f. 76_d_.
[1300] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 120, 122.
[1301] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. ff. 71_d_, 72. Compare the state of affairs
at Hampole in 1411, when the Archbishop ordered the removal of "secular
servants and _corrodiarii_ who attracted to themselves other secular
persons from the country, by whom the house was burdened." _V.C.H. Yorks._
III, p. 165. When Bishop Grandisson of Exeter licensed the reception of
Alice D'Aumarle at Cornworthy (1333) he added "proviso quod ad vos, per
moram hujusmodi, secularium personarum non pateat suspectis horis liberior
frequencia vel accessus." _Reg. Grandisson_, pt. II, p. 724.
[1302] _Visit. of Relig. Houses in Dioc. of Lincoln_, I, p. 87.
[1303] Note for instance the Archbishop of York's injunction when
mitigating a severe penance on a nun of St Clement's, York, which is
clearly for immorality: "That twice a year if necessary she might receive
friends ... but she was to have nothing to do with Lady de Walleys and if
Lady de Walleys was then in their house, she was to be sent away before
Pentecost (1310)," _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 129.
[1304] _V.C.H. Yorks._ II, p. 165.
[1305] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 39_d_.
[1306] Possibly a priest.
[1307] _Sussex Arch. Coll._ IX, p. 18.
[1308] Wilkins, _Concilia_, I, p. 592.
[1309] _Visit. of Relig. Houses in Dioc. Lincoln_, I, pp. 48-9. Compare
Gray's injunction, laying more stress on married boarders. _Ib._ p. 53.
[1310] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell_, f. 34_d_.
[1311] _Visit. Linc._ II, p. 135. For other injunctions against boarders
see Godstow, Gracedieu, Harrold, Langley, Nuncoton, Stixwould, _ib._ pp.
115, 124-5, 131, 177, _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. ff. 77_d_, 75_d_; Wherwell,
Romsey (1284), Sheppey (1286), _Reg. Epis. Peckham_, II, pp. 653-4, III,
p. 924; Wilberfoss, Nunkeeling and Nunappleton (1281-2), _Reg. William
Wickwane_, pp. 112-3, 140-1; Polsloe (1319), _Reg. W. de Stapeldon_, p.
317; Canonsleigh (1391), _Reg. of Brantyngham_, pt. II, p. 724; Farwell
(1367), _Reg. R. de Stretton_, p. 119; Polesworth (1352, 1456), _V.C.H.
Warwick_, II, p. 63. These are only a few examples taken at random; the
registers of the Archbishops of York and of the Bishops of Lincoln alone
record many more. (See the _V.C.H._ for the counties in these dioceses,
_passim_.)
[1312] _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_, II, p. 664; Liveing, _op. cit._ pp. 102,
165.
[1313] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell_, f. 100_d_; _Linc. Visit._ I, p.
67; II, p. 115.
[1314] _Gynewell_, f. 139_d_, _V.C.H. Beds._ I, p. 355; _Linc. Visit._ I,
pp. 48-9, 53.
[1315] "That ye receyve ne holde no suiournauntes, men, women ne
childerne, wyth ynne your place, and thoe that nowe are there, ye voyde
thaym wythe yn a quartere of a yere after the receyvyng of thise our
lettres, but if ye here yn hafe specyalle licence of hus or our
successours, bysshops of Lincolne, except our wele belufede doghters, dame
Elizabeth Dymmok and dame Margaret Tylney, by whose abydyng, as we truste,
no greve but rathere avayle is procured to your place." _Alnwick's Visit._
MS. f. 75_d_.
[1316] _Reg. of Brantyngham_, pt. II, p. 724.
[1317] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 173.
[1318] See examples above, p. 410.
[1319] See Ch. VI, _passim_.
[1320] _Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich_ (Camden Soc.), p. 290.
[1321] _Cal. of Papal Letters_, IV, pp. 37-8.
[1322] _Ib._ IV, p. 212.
[1323] _Ib._ IV, p. 167.
[1324] _Ib._ IV, p. 182.
[1325] _Ib._ IV, p. 394.
[1326] For example, _ib._ I, pp. 522, 526; IV, p. 38; VII, pp. 70, 440,
617. Sometimes, too, they were ordered to pay their own expenses, e.g.
_ib._ VI, p. 293.
[1327] _Ib._ VI, p. 132.
[1328] _Ib._ VII, p. 220.
[1329] _Ib._ V, p. 91.
[1330] I.e. Jean de Dormans, bishop of Beauvais 1360-8, cardinal 1368, d.
1373.
[1331] _Cal. of Papal Letters_, IV, p. 170.
[1332] _V.C.H. Northants._ II, p. 126. Sewardsley was near Grafton Regis,
where Jacquetta, then widow of Richard Wydville, earl Rivers, lived. This
recalls the more famous case of Eleanor de Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester.
It is worth noticing also that on the eve of the Reformation the famous
Elizabeth Barton, called "the Holy Maid of Kent," found refuge for a part
of her short career in the nunnery of St Sepulchre's, Canterbury.
Archbishop Warham secured her admission there in 1526, and she became a
nun and remained there for seven years, until the fame of her outspoken
condemnations of the royal divorce finally brought about her execution in
1533. See Gasquet, _Hen. VIII and the English Monasteries_ (Pop. Edit.
1899), ch. III, _passim_.
[1333] _Le Livere de Engletere_ (Rolls Series), p. 344.
[1334] _Cal. of Close Rolls_ (1318-23), p. 428.
[1335] _Ib._ (1323-7), pp. 88-9; cf. _Le Livere de Engletere_, p. 350.
[1336] _V.C.H. Lincs._ II, p. 184.
[1337] _Cal. of Close Rolls_ (1307-13), p. 114.
[1338] _Ib._ (1302-7), p. 419.
[1339] _Cal. of Close Rolls_ (1313-18), p. 43. Sometimes the King sent his
friends as well as his enemies to board in a convent and occasionally he
endeavoured to do so without paying for them. In 1339 he sent first to
Wilton and then to Shaftesbury "Sibyl Libaud of Scotland who lately came
to England to the king's faith and besought that he would provide for her
maintenance, requesting them to provide her and her son Thomas, who is of
tender age, with maintenance from that house, in food and clothing, until
Whitsuntide next, knowing that what they do at this request shall not be
to the prejudice of their house in the future." _Cal. of Close Rolls_
(1339-41), pp. 261, 335. John of Gaunt made use of the convent of Nuneaton
to provide a home for five Spanish ladies, who had doubtless come to
England with his duchess Constance of Castile; early in 1373 he wrote to
his receiver at Leicester bidding him pay the prioress for their expenses
13_s._ 4_d._ each week; but evidently they found the convent too dull for
their tastes, for in August one of them was "demourrant a Leycestre
ovesque Johan Elmeshalle," and in December the Duke wrote to his receiver
again to say that he had heard "que noz damoisels d'Espaigne demurrantz a
Nouneton ne voullont pas illoeques pluis longement demurrer"; so it was
"Farewell and adieu to you, Spanish ladies" at Nuneaton. It is probable
that these "damoisels" were quite young girls, and had been placed at the
convent to learn "nortelry." _John of Gaunt's Reg._ (R. Hist. Soc.), II,
pp. 128, 231, 276-7. See, for more about these ladies, pp. 320-1, 328,
338.
[1340] Browning, _Fra Lippo Lippi_.
[1341] _V.C.H. Norfolk_, II, p. 352. This case is particularly
interesting, because it would seem to show that "benefit of clergy" was
not claimed by nuns. On this point see Pollock and Maitland, _Hist. of
Engl. Law_, 2nd ed. I, p. 445. "There seems no reason for doubting that
nuns were entitled to the same privilege, though, to their credit be it
said, we have in our period, found no cases which prove this." Maitland
cites Hale, _Pleas of the Crown_, II, p. 328, as saying: "Nuns had the
exemption from temporal jurisdiction but the privilege of clergy was never
granted them by our law"; but elsewhere (_Pleas of the Crown_, II, p.
371): "Anciently nuns professed were admitted to privilege of clergy"; he
cites a case from 1348 (Fitzherbert's _Abridgment Corone_, pl. 461) which
speaks of a woman, not expressly called a nun, being claimed by and
delivered to the ordinary. Stephen, _Hist. of Crim. Law of England_, II,
p. 461, thinks that "all women (except, till the Reformation, professed
nuns) were for centuries excluded from benefit of clergy, because they
were incapable of being ordained."
[1342] Mr Hamilton Thompson thinks that "Mestowe" is probably the hundred
of Meon-Stoke (Hants.), in a distant part of the county; it is difficult
to see why the Abbess made a general claim there and in any case Wherwell,
where Henry Harold lived, is in Wherwell Hundred.
[1343] _V.C.H. Hants._ II, p. 135.
[1344] Dugdale, _Mon._ III, p. 369.
[1345] Gibbons, _Ely Epis. Records_, p. 406.
[1346] _Cal. of Pat. Rolls_ (1381-5), p. 355.
[1347] On the other hand for a case of spoliation in which Juliana Yong, a
nun, was involved as one of the aggressors see _Cal. of Pap. Petit._ I,
pp. 333-4.
[1348] _Linc. Reg. Dalderby_, f. 16.
[1349] _Linc. Visit._ I, pp. 108-9. Compare a case in 1375 at Romsey when
certain persons broke into the houses of the Abbess within the Abbey and
carried off Joan, late the wife of Peter Brugge, and her property,
consisting of her gold rings, gold brooches or bracelets with precious
stones, linen and woollen clothes and furs; her chaplain aiding. Liveing,
_op. cit._ p. 166.
[1350] _Cal. of Pat. Rolls_ (1340-3), p. 127.
[1351] _Ib._ (1367-70), p. 10. The Abbess was the worldly Joan Formage.
Licences for crenellating monasteries are rather unusual; but cathedral
closes were very generally crenellated at the end of the thirteenth and
beginning of the fourteenth centuries, e.g. Lincoln, York, Lichfield,
Wells and Exeter. There is a good example of a crenellated monastery at
the Benedictine Priory of Ewenny near Bridgend, Glamorgan, a cell of
Gloucester. This is near the south coast of Wales, where, as along the
Welsh border, towers either crenellated or with certain defensive features
are common. Cf. the numerous fortified churches in the south of France,
e.g. Albi Cathedral (Tarn) and Les Saintes-Maries (Bouches-du-Rhone), the
latter close to the shore of the Mediterranean. (For this note I am
indebted to Mr A. Hamilton Thompson.)
[1352] Froissart, tr. Berners, I, ch. xxxviii. For the sufferings of other
monasteries on the south coast see P. G. Mode, _The Influence of the Black
Death on the English Monasteries_, p. 31.
[1353] See Denifle, _La Desolation des Eglises ... pendant la Guerre de
Cent Ans_ (1899). In t. I is a long list of monasteries which had been
ruined during the fourteenth century. The following (no. 176) is typical:
"Monasterium monialium B. Mariae de Bricourt O.S.B. Trecen. dioec.,
causantibus a 40 annis guerris desolatum et destructum, libris aliisque
destitutum et ab omnibus monialibus derelictum 1442" (pp. 55-6).
[1354] Dugdale, _Mon._ II, pp. 316, 452, 636.
[1355] Serjeantson, _Delapre Abbey_ (1909), pp. 21-3.
[1356] Graham, _Essay on Engl. Monasteries_ (Hist. Ass. 1913), p. 29. The
text of the assessment is given in the notes to the _Taxatio Ecclesiastica
Pape Nicholai_ (Record Com. 1802).
[1357] _The Chronicle of Lanercost_, translated by Sir Herbert Maxwell
[1913], p. 136.
[1358] _Reg. Palat. Dunelm._ I, p. 353. In 1291 the number of nuns was
twenty-seven, together with four lay brothers, three chaplains and a
master. Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 197.
[1359] _Hist. Letters from the Northern Reg._ ed. Raine, pp. 319-23.
[1360] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 175, 240.
[1361] Froissart, tr. Berners, I, ch. cxxxvii. The English army on its way
to Neville's Cross was also a sore burden to the religious houses of the
neighbourhood. See the very interesting document about Egglestone Abbey
quoted from Archbishop Zouche's Register (under the date 1348) by A.
Hamilton Thompson, _The Pestilences of the Fourteenth Century in the
Diocese of York_ (_Archaeol. Journ._ vol. LXXI, New Series, vol. XXI, p.
120, n. 4). It is probable that this campaign, together with the Black
Death, which followed hard upon it, brought about the final ruin of the
little nunnery of St Stephen's near Northallerton, which is not heard of
after 1350. See _ib._ p. 121, n. 12, and _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 116.
[1362] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 160, cp. the case of Armathwaite below. The
muniments of Carrow were burnt during the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. Hoare,
C. M., _Hist. of an East Anglian Soke_ (Bedford 1918), p. 112. "The
destruction of charters, privileges and muniments was a severe loss;
evidence for the holding of each strip of land and in support of every
custom was of the utmost importance." Graham, _St Gilb. of Semp. and the
Gilbertines_, p. 138.
[1363] _V.C.H. Cumberland_, II, p. 190, and Dugdale, _Mon._ III, pp.
271-2.
[1364] _Aug. Off. Misc. Books_, 281, f. 11 [_P.R.O._]. For the sufferings
of Northern monasteries from the Scots 1330-50 see references collected
from the patent rolls in P. G. Mode, _op. cit._ p. 32.
[1365] _Chronicon Angliae_, ed. E. M. Thompson (R.S. 1874), pp. 247-53.
[1366] It is extremely difficult to identify the nunnery spoken of in the
story. According to Froissart the expedition sailed from Southampton
(Froissart, _Chron._ I, ch. ccclvi); according to another account the port
of departure was Plymouth (see J. H. Ramsay, _The Genesis of Lancaster_,
II, p. 131). If Southampton be correct, Romsey Abbey would be the nearest
nunnery answering to the description in the text, though it stands some
miles from the coast. If Sir John sailed from Plymouth the only nunnery in
the vicinity would be the little priory of Cornworthy, which certainly
never contained a large number of nuns and boarders (though as to this the
chronicler may be exaggerating). It is strange that no record of the crime
appears to have survived in episcopal registers or in any official
document; but it seems unlikely that the story is pure invention, since we
know from other sources that the troops were notorious for general
depredations along the coast. A petition presented to the King in
Parliament (1379/80) runs: "Item, beseech the commons and the good folk
who dwell near the coasts of the sea, to wit, of Norfolk, Suffolk, Kent,
Surrey, Hampshire, Dorset and Cornwall: That whereas they and their
chattels have oftentimes been robbed, and are destroyed and spoiled by
men-at-arms, archers and others coming and going by the said ports to the
service of our Lord the king at the war and by their long sojourn; and
chiefly the people of Hampshire during the last expedition which was ruled
and ordered, for by the sojourn and destruction made by men ordered upon
the said expedition, the goods and chattels of the good people of
Hampshire are destroyed, spoiled and annihilated, to the very great
abashment and destruction of all the Commons of those parts, as well folk
of Holy Church as others; and they will lodge themselves of their own
authority, having no regard to the billets (herbegage) assigned to them by
our lord [the king], to the destruction of the common people, if it be not
remedied as soon as may be." (_Rot. Parl._ III, p. 80.) The other
nunneries in Hampshire were St Mary's Winchester, Wherwell, and Whitney.
[1367] Dugdale, _Mon._ II, pp. 452, 636.
[1368] To show how a twelfth century baron might speak to a cloistered
nun, the mother of one of his knights, his words deserve quotation:
Voir, dist R. vos estes losengiere.
Je ne sai rien de putain, chanberiere,
Qi est este corsaus ne maaillere,
A toute gent communax garsoniere.
Au conte Y. vos vi je soldoiere,
La vostre chars ne fu onques trop chiere;
Se nus en vost, par le baron S. Piere!
Por poi d'avoir en fustes traite ariere.
_Raoul de Cambrai_, ll. 1328-1335.
[1369] _Raoul de Cambrai_, pub. P. Meyer et A. Longnon, _Soc. des Anc.
Textes Fr._ 1882, stanzas LXIII-LXXI, _passim_ (pp. 42-50).
[1370] "Incontynent it was taken by assaut and robbed and an abbey of
ladyes vyolated and the town brent." Froissart, _Chronicles_, tr. Berners.
[1371] See M. K. Brady, _Psycho-Analysis and its Place in Life_ [1919], p.
117; H. O. Taylor, _The Medieval Mind_ [2nd ed., 1914], I, ch. XX.
[1372] See above, p. 29. For the effects of this at a later period in
Italy see J. A. Symonds, _The Renaissance in Italy. VI. The Catholic
Reaction_, pt. I (1886), pp. 339 ff.
[1373] See below, p. 502.
[1374] See above, pp. 422 ff.
[1375] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Sutton_, ff. 5_d_, 32_d_.
[1376] The unions were sometimes referred to as "marriages" and a priest
unaware of the facts of the case may have been got to celebrate them. For
instance Bishop Gynewell recites how Joan Bruys, nun of Nuneaton, was
abducted by Nicholas Green of Isham and "postmodum se in nostram diocesim
divertentes matrimonium de facto in eadem nostra diocesi scienter inuicem
contraxerunt et incestum ibidem commiserunt et in ea cohabitant indies vir
et vxor." _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell_, f. 102. Marriage is also
referred to in the case of Joyce, an apostate from St Helen's,
Bishopsgate, in 1388. _Hist. MSS. Com. Rep._ IX, App. pt. I, p. 28. At
Atwater's visitation of Ankerwyke in 1519 it was stated "Domina Alicia
Hubbart stetit ibidem in habitu per quatuor annos et tunc in apostasiam
recessit et cuidam ... Sutton consanguineo Magistri Ricardi Sutton
Senescalli de Syon fuit nupta et cum eo in patria ipsius Sutton remanet in
adulterio." _Linc. Epis. Reg. Visit. Atwater_, f. 42.
[1377] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Dalderby_, f. 16. Translated in R. M.
Serjeantson, _Hist. of Delapre Abbey, Northampton_, pp. 7-8.
[1378] _P.R.O. Chancery Warrants_, Series I, File 1759; _Cal. of Patent
Rolls_ (1381-5), p. 235. This file of Chancery Warrants contains a large
number of petitions for the arrest of vagabond monks and nuns. These
petitions usually emanate from the head of the apostate's house, but
occasionally from the Bishop of the diocese, as in another warrant in the
same file in which the Bishop of Norwich petitions for the arrest of
Katherine Montagu, Benedictine nun of Bungay (1376). Other petitions
besides those quoted in the text concern Alice Romayn, Austin nun of
Haliwell (1314, _ib._), Matilda Hunter, Austin nun of Burnham (1392),
(File 1762); Alice de Everyngham, Gilbertine nun of Haverholm (1366),
(File 1764); and the following sisters of Hospitals, Agnes Stanley of St
Bartholomew's, Bristol (1389), Johanna atte Watre of St Thomas the Martyr
at Southwark (1324) and Elizabeth Holewaye of the same house (File 1769,
nos. 1, 15, 18). On receipt of these petitions the writ _De apostata
capiendo_ would be issued and the royal commissions for the arrest of the
delinquents are sometimes found enrolled on the patent rolls, as in the
cases quoted in the text. Alice Everyngham was excommunicated by the
master of Sempringham; but on her case being brought to the papal court
and committed by the Pope to the dean and two canons of Lincoln, she was
absolved by them. The master appealed to the Pope against her absolution,
and the case was committed for trial to the Archbishop of York. _Cal. of
Papal Letters_, IV, pp. 69-70. For a royal commission to arrest Mary de
Felton of the House of Minoresses at Aldgate, see _Cal. Pat. Rolls_,
1385-9, p. 86.
[1379] _P.R.O. Chancery Warrants_, Series I, File 1759; _Cal. of Pat.
Rolls_, 1401-5, pp. 418, 472.
[1380] There are several references to this ceremony: "Dictam igitur
commonialem vestram, iniuncta ei penitencia seculari pro suis reatibus
atque culpis, ad vos et domum vestram, a qua exiit, remittimus absolutam;
deuocionem vestram firmiter in Domino exhortantes quatinus ... dictam
penitentem ... si in humilitatis spiritu, reclinato corpore more
penitencium, pulset ad portam, misericordiam deuote postulans et
implorans, si suum confiteatur reatum, si signa contricionis ac
correccionis appareant in eadem, secundum disciplinam vestri ordinis,
filiali promptitudine admittatis" (Maud of Terrington at Keldholme, 1321),
_Yorks. Arch. Journ._ XVI, pp. 456-7. Compare _ib._ XVI, p. 363 (Margaret
of Burton at Kirklees, 1337); Wm. Salt Archaeol. Soc. Coll. I, p. 256
(case against Elizabeth la Zouche who, with another nun, had escaped from
Brewood in 1326; she was not recovered until 1331).
[1381] _V.C.H. Lincs._ II, pp. 99-100.
[1382] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 159.
[1383] _V.C.H. Lincs._ II, p. 138. The surname "Suffewyk" should probably
read Luffewyk, i.e. Lowick.
[1384] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 171.
[1385] _Ib._ III, p. 177.
[1386] See for Renaissance Italy, J. A. Symonds, _The Renaissance in
Italy_ (1886), VI, p. 340; A. Gagniere, _Les Confessions d'une Abbesse du
xvi{e} siecle_ (Paris, 1888), pp. 128 ff. (Felice Rasponi); G. Marcotti,
_Donne e Monache_ (Firenze, 1884); but ecclesiastics were found among
these _monachini_. In France the same pursuit became fashionable under the
League. For a later date the _Memoirs_ of Casanova provide the most
striking illustrations.
[1387] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 39_d_.
[1388] _Linc. Visit._ I, p. 84.
[1389] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 113.
[1390] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. ff. 83, 83_d_.
[1391] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 181.
[1392] "En visitaunt vostre mesun por plusure fiez truuames nus ke Johan
de Seuekwurth, clerk, se auoit si mauuesement porte en demurant en la
mesun ke il esteit atteint de folie de cors od vne de vos nuneins e vne
autre esteit de ly atteinte, par defaute de purgaciun ke ele ne se poeit
de li purger. Par quei nus defendimes a vus ke vus no le suffrissez en
vostre mesun demurer, e a li ke la euene demurast." _Linc. Epis. Reg.
Memo. Sutton_, f. 129_d_.
[1393] _V.C.H. Somerset_, II, p. 157.
[1394] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 240.
[1395] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 47.
[1396] See below, p. 545.
[1397] Gascoigne accuses John Stafford, Archbishop of Canterbury, of
having had sons and daughters by a nun at a time when he was Bishop of
Bath and Wells. "In diebus meis, anno Domini 1443, electus fuit, vel
verius intrusus, unus archiepiscopus qui fuit genitus ex manifesto
adulterio, et existens genuit filios et filias ex una moniali, in
episcopali gradu existens antequam fuit archiepiscopus." _Loci e Libro
Veritatum_, ed. J. E. Thorold Rogers (1881), p. 231. Gascoigne was a
learned Doctor of Theology and Chancellor of the University of Oxford. His
theological dictionary gives an extraordinarily vivid and gloomy picture
of the corruptions of the church in his day. It must be noted however that
Stafford's support of the heretical Bishop Reginald Pecok (author of the
_Repressor of Overmuch Blaming of the Clergy_) made Gascoigne his
implacable enemy, while there is no foundation for his statement that
Stafford was of illegitimate birth. His charge is therefore unworthy of
belief. The scandal which later connected the name of John Stokesley,
Bishop of London, with Anne Colte, Abbess of Wherwell, seems likely to be
equally devoid of foundation, though she was several times summoned before
the Council in 1534; the King and Cromwell evidently resented her refusal
to give a farm to one of their proteges. _L. and P. Hen. VIII_, VI, 1361,
VII, 527-9, 907; _V.C.H. Hants._ II, p. 136.