← Medieval English Nunneries c. 1275 to 1535

Chapter 19

Appendix IV (part 1)

LIST OF ENGLISH NUNNERIES. c. 1275-1535

[In this list Ab. = Abbey, Pr. = Priory; A. = Austin, B. = Benedictine, C. = Cistercian, Cl. = Cluniac, Dom. = Dominican, Fr. = Franciscan, Brig. = Brigittine. P. = Premonstratensian. Gilbertine houses are not included.]

House Dedication Order County Diocese Founder and date

1. Aconbury Holy Cross A.Pr. Her. Her. Margery, wife of Walter de Lacy, temp. John

2. Amesbury St Mary and St
Meilor B.Pr. Wilts. Salis. Saxon Abbey: refounded as a priory for nuns
of Fontevrault by King John, 1199

3. Ankerwyke St Mary Magd. B.Pr. Bucks. Linc. Gilbert de Muntfichet, c. 1160

4. Arden St Andrew B.Pr. York., N.R. York Peter de Hoton, temp. Henry II

5. Armathwaite St Mary B.Pr. Cumb. Carl. Unknown, before 1200

6. Arthington St Mary Cl.Pr. York., W.R. York Peter, son of Serlo de Arthington, middle of
twelfth century

7. Barking St Mary and St
Ethelburga B.Ab. Essex Lon. St Earconwald, Bishop of London, 675-93,
probably in 666

8. Barrow Gurney
(Minchin
Barrow) St Mary and St
Edward B.Pr. Som. B. and W. Unknown: probably a Gurney, before 1212

9. Basedale St Mary C.Pr. York., N.R. York Guy de Bovincurt, c. 1190 (see V.C.H. Yorks.
III, 158)

10. Blackborough St Mary and St
Katherine B.Pr. Norf. Norw. Roger de Scales and Muriel his wife, c. 1150

11. Blithbury St Giles B.Pr. Staffs. C.L. Hugh Malveysin, after 1129

12. Brewood
(Black Ladies) St Mary B.Pr. Staffs. C.L. Unknown, twelfth century

13. Brewood
(White Ladies) St Leonard C.Pr. Salop C.L. Unknown, twelfth century

14. Bristol St Mary Magd. A.Pr. Glouces. Worc. Eva, widow of Robert Fitzhardinge, c. 1173

15. Brodholme St Mary P.Pr. Notts. York Agnes de Camville, wife of Peter de Gousla,
temp. Stephen

16. Bromhale St Margaret B.Pr. Berks. Salis. Unknown, before 1200

17. Bruisyard Ann. of St Mary Fr.Ab. Suff. Norw. Edward III, 1366, at instigation of Lionel,
Duke of Clarence

18. Buckland
(Minchin) St John Bapt. A.Pr.
(nuns of St
John of
Jerusalem) Som. B. and W. Henry II, c. 1186 (instead of House of Austin
canons founded 1166 by William de Erlegh)

19. Bungay St Mary and
Holy Cross B.Pr. Suff. Norw. Roger de Glanville and Gundred his wife, c.
1160

20. Burnham St Mary A.Ab. Bucks. Linc. Richard, King of the Romans, 1266

21. Cambridge St Radegund B.Pr. Cambs. Ely c. 1133-8, temp. Nigel, Bishop of Ely

22. Campsey St Mary A.Pr. Suff. Norw. Theobald de Valognes, c. 1195

23. Cannington St Mary B.Pr. Som. B. and W. Robert de Courcy, c. 1138

24. Canonsleigh St Mary, St John
Evangelist and
St Audrey A.Ab. Devon Ex. Maud de Clare, Countess of Gloucester and
Hertford, temp. Edward I (previously a
house of canons)

25. Canterbury St Sepulchre B.Pr. Kent Cant. St Anselm, 1100

26. Carrow St Mary and St
John B.Pr. Norf. Norw. King Stephen, 1146

27. Catesby St Mary, St
Edmund and
St Thomas
the Martyr C.Pr. Northants. Linc. Robert de Esseby, c. 1175

28. Chatteris St Mary B.Ab. Cambs. Ely Eadnoth, Abbot of Ramsey, c. 1010

29. Cheshunt St Mary B.Pr. Herts. Lon. Unknown, twelfth century

30. Chester St Mary B.Pr. Chester C.L. Ranulf, Earl of Chester, c. 1140

31. Clementhorpe St Clement B.Pr. York., W.R. York. Thurstan, Archbishop of York, c. 1130

32. Clerkenwell Assumption
of St Mary B.Pr. Midd. Lon. Jordan Brisett, c. 1100

33. Cokehill —— C.Pr. Worc. Worc. Isabel, Countess of Warwick, end of twelfth
century

34. Cornworthy St Mary A.Pr. Devon Ex. Uncertain, fourteenth century

35. Crabhouse St Mary Magd.
St John Evang.
St Thomas
and St Peter A.Pr. Norf. Norw. Roger, prior, and canons of Rainham, c. 1181

36. Dartford St Mary and St
Margaret A.Pr.
(according
to rule and
in charge
of Dom.
friars) Kent Roch. Edward III, 1355

37. Davington St Mary Magd. B.Pr. Kent Cant. Fulk de Newenham, 1153

38. Delapré
(de Pratis) St Mary Cl.Ab. Northants. Linc. Simon of Saint-Liz, Earl of Northampton,
temp. Stephen (first at Fotheringay)

39. Delapré
(de Prato) St Mary B.Pr. Herts. Linc. Under abbey of St Albans

40. Denny St James and
St Leonard Fr.Ab. Cambs. Ely Mary de Valence, Countess of Pembroke,
1342

41. Derby
(Kingsmead or
de Pratis) St Mary B.Pr. Derby C.L. Aubin, Abbot of Darley, c. 1160

42. Easebourne Nativity of
B.V.M. B.Pr. Suss. Chich. ... de Bohun, before 1248

43. Ellerton
(in Swaledale) St Mary C.Pr. York., N.R. York Uncertain, before 1227

44. Elstow St Mary and
St Helen B.Ab. Beds. Linc. Judith, Countess of Huntingdon, late
eleventh century

45. Esholt St Mary, St
Leonard and
St James C.Pr. York., W.R. York Uncertain, twelfth century

46. Fairwell St Mary B.Pr. Staffs. C.L. Roger, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield,
c. 1140

47. Flamstead St Giles B.Pr. Herts. Linc. Roger de Tony, temp. Stephen

48. Flixton St Mary and
St Katherine A.Pr. Suff. Norw. Margery, widow of Geoffrey de Hanes and
daughter of Bartholomew de Crek, 1258

49. Fosse St Nicholas C.Pr. Linc. Linc. The men of Torksey, before the reign of John

50. Godstow St Mary and
St John Baptist B.Ab. Oxon Linc. Edith, widow of Sir William Launcelene, c.
1133

51. Gokewell St Mary C.Pr. Linc. Linc. William Dawtrey, before 1148 or 1185

52. Goring St Mary A.Pr. Oxon Linc. Thomas de Druval, temp. Henry I

53. Gracedieu Holy Trinity and
St Mary A.Pr. Leices. Linc. Rohese de Verdon, c. 1239

54. Greenfield St Mary C.Pr. Linc. Linc. Eudes of Grainsby and Ralph his son, before
1153

55. Grimsby St Leonard A.Pr. Linc. Linc. Before 1184

56. Haliwell
(Shoreditch) St John Baptist B.Pr. Midd. Lon. Roger son of Gelren, before 1127

57. Hampole St Mary C.Pr. York., W.R. York William de Clarefai and Avice de Tany his wife,
c. 1170

58. Handale
(or Grendale) St Mary C.Pr. York., N.R. York William Percy of Dunsley, 1133

59. Harrold St Peter A.Pr. Beds. Linc. Sampson le Fort, before 1148 (as Arroasian
house). Nunnery, 1181

60. Hedingham,
Castle Holy Cross, St
Mary and
St James B.Pr. Ess. Lon. Aubrey de Vere, Earl of Oxford, and Lucy his
wife, before 1191

61. Henwood St Margaret B.Pr. Warw. Worc. Ketelbern de Langdon, between 1149 and
1161

62. Heynings St Mary C.Pr. Linc. Linc. Reyner d’Evermue, temp. Stephen

63. Hinchinbrooke St James B.Pr. Hunts. Linc. Removed from Eltisley, Cambs., temp. William I

64. Holystone —— B.Pr. Northumb. Dur. ... Umfraville of Harbottle, before 1235

65. Ickleton St Mary Magd. B.Pr. Cambs. Ely Uncertain, c. 1190

66. Ilchester
(White Hall) Holy Trinity A.Pr. Som. B. and W. William Dennis, c. 1220 (as a hospital). A
nunnery before 1281

67. Irford St Mary P.Pr. Linc. Linc. Probably Ralph d’Albini, temp. Henry II

68. Ivinghoe St Margaret B.Pr. Bucks. Linc. [William Giffard?], Bishop of Winchester,
twelfth century

69. Keldholme St Mary C.Pr. York.,N.R. York Robert de Stuteville, temp. Henry I

70. Kilburn St Mary and
St John Baptist B.Pr. Midd. Lon. Herbert, Abbot of Westminster, 1139

71. Kington
St Michael St Mary B.Pr. Wilts. Salis. Before 1155

72. Kirklees St Mary and St
James C.Pr. York., W.R. York Reiner le Fleming, temp. Henry II

73. Lacock St Mary and St
Bernard A.Ab. Wilts. Salis. Ela, Countess of Salisbury, 1232

74. Lambley St Patrick B.Pr. Northumb. Durh. Adam de Tynedale, temp. John

75. Langley St Mary B.Pr. Leic. Linc. William Pantulf and Burga his wife, temp.
Henry II

76. Legbourne St Mary C.Pr. Linc. Linc. Robert, son of Gilbert of Tathwell, after 1150
(removed from earlier site)

77. Lillechurch
(Higham) St Mary B.Pr. Kent Roch. King Stephen, before 1151

78. Littlemore St Mary, St
Nicholas and
St Edmund B.Pr. Oxon Linc. Robert de Sandford, temp. Stephen

79. London
(Bishopsgate) St Helen and
Holy Cross B.Pr. Midd. Lon. William, son of William, the goldsmith, before
1216

80. London St Mary and
St Francis Fr.Ab. Midd. Lon. Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, 1293

81. Lymbrook St Mary A.Pr. Her. Her. Uncertain

82. Lyminster St Mary B.Pr. Suss. Chich. Roger de Montgomery, c. 1082 (as cell of
Almenèches)

83. Malling St Mary and St
Andrew B.Ab. Kent Roch. Gundulf, Bishop of Rochester, 1090

84. Marham St Mary, St
Barbara and
St Edmund C.Ab. Norf. Norw. Isabel, widow of Hugh de Albini, Earl of
Arundel, 1249

85. Markyate Holy Trinity B.Pr. Beds. Linc. 1145, under influence of Geoffrey, Abbot of
St Albans

86. Marlow,
Little St Mary B.Pr. Bucks. Linc. Uncertain, twelfth century

87. Marrick St Andrew and
St Mary B.Pr. York., N.R. York Roger de Aske, temp. Henry II

88. Moxby St John
Evangelist A.Pr. York., N.R. York Henry II, before 1167 (removed from double
house at Marton)

89. Neasham St Mary B.Pr. Durh. Durh. Probably the Lord of Greystoke, before 1157

90. Newcastle-
upon-Tyne St Bartholomew B.Pr. Northumb. Durh. Uncertain, twelfth century

91. Nunappleton St Mary and St
John Evangelist C.Pr. York., W.R. York Eustace de Merch and Alice St Quintin his
wife, c. 1150

92. Nunburnholme —— B.Pr. York., E.R. York Ancestors of Roger de Merlay, Lord of
Morpeth, twelfth century

93. Nuncoton St Mary C.Pr. Linc. Linc. Alan de Mounceaux, before 1129

94. Nuneaton St Mary B.Pr. Warw. Worc. Robert, Earl of Leicester, c. 1155, for nuns
of Fontevrault

95. Nunkeeling St Mary and St
Helen B.Pr. York., E.R. York Agnes de Arches, widow of Herbert St
Quintin, 1152

96. Nunmonkton St Mary B.Pr. York., W.R. York William de Arches and Ivetta his wife, temp.
Stephen

97. Pinley St Mary C.Pr. Warw. Worc. Robert de Pillarton, temp. Henry I

98. Polesworth St Edith B.Ab. Warw. C.L. Saxon foundation. Refounded by Robert
Marmion, temp. Stephen

99. Polsloe St Katherine B.Pr. Devon Ex. Traditional founder, William Bruere, before
1169

100. Redlingfield St Andrew and
St Mary B.Pr. Suff. Norw. Manasses, Count of Guisnes, and Emma de
Arras his wife, 1120

101. Romsey St Mary and St
Elfrida B.Ab. Hants. Win. Edward the Elder, c. 907: refounded by King
Edgar, 967

102. Rosedale St Mary and St
Lawrence C.Pr. York., N.R. York Robert, son of Nicholas de Stuteville, temp.
Richard I

103. Rothwell St John Baptist A.Pr. Northants. Linc. ... de Clare, thirteenth century

104. Rowney St John Baptist B.Pr. Herts. Linc. Conan, Duke of Britanny and Earl of Richmond,
temp. Henry II, suppressed 1459

105. Rusper St Mary Magd. B.Pr. Suss. Chich. Twelfth century, probably by one of the Braose
family

106. St Stephen’s
(Foukeholme) St Stephen B.Pr. York, N.R. York Uncertain. Disappeared after 1349

107. Seton
(Lekeley) St Mary B.Pr. Cumb. York Henry son of Arthur son of Godard, Lord of
Millom, twelfth century

108. Sewardsley St Mary Magd. C.Pr. Northants. Linc. Richard de Lestre, temp. Henry II

109. Shaftesbury St Mary and St
Edward B.Ab. Dorset Salis. King Alfred, c. 888

110. Sheppey
(Minster) St Mary and St
Sexburga B.Pr. Kent Cant. St Sexburga, 675

111. Sinningthwaite St Mary C.Pr. York, W.R. York Bertram Haget, c. 1160

112. Sopwell St Mary B.Pr. Herts. Linc. Under abbey of St Albans

113. Stainfield St Mary B.Pr. Linc. Linc. William or Henry de Percy, temp. or before
Henry II

114. Stamford St Mary and St
Michael B.Pr. Northants. Linc. William Waterville, Abbot of Peterborough,
c. 1155

115. Stixwould St Mary C.Pr. Linc. Linc. Lucy, Countess of Perche, temp. Stephen

116. Stratford-by-
Bow St Leonard B.Pr. Midd. Lon. William, Bishop of London, temp. Henry I

117. Studley St Mary B.Pr. Oxon Linc. Probably Bernard of St Valery, before 1176

118. Swaffham
Bulbeck —— B.Pr. Cambs. Ely Uncertain, before temp. John

119. Swine St Mary C.Pr. York., E.R. York Robert de Verli, temp. Stephen

120. Syon St Saviour, St
Mary and St
Bridget Brig.Ab. Midd. Lon. King Henry V, 1414

121. Tarrant
Keynes St Mary and
All Saints C.Ab. Dorset Salis. Ralph de Keynes, before 1235

122. Thetford St George and
St Gregory B.Pr. Norf. Norw. Hugh, Abbot of Bury St Edmunds, c. 1160
(removed from Ling)

123. Thicket St Mary B.Pr. York., E.R. York Roger FitzRoger, temp. Richard I

124. Usk —— B.Pr. Monm. Llan. Sir Richard de Clare, before 1236

125. Wallingwells St Mary B.Pr. Notts. York Ralph de Chevrecourt, temp. Stephen

126. Waterbeach St Mary of
Pity and
St Clare Fr.Pr. Cambs. Ely Denise de Mountchesney, 1294. Removed
to Denny, 1348

127. Westwood St Mary B.Pr. Worc. Worc. Osbert son of Hugh and Eustacia de Saye,
his mother, temp. Henry II (for nuns of
Fontevrault)

128. Wherwell Holy Cross
and St Peter B.Ab. Hants. Win. Queen Elfrida, c. 986

129. Whiston St Mary Magd. C.Pr. Worc. Worc. Walter de Cantilupe, Bishop of Worcester,
before 1255

130. Wilberfoss St Mary B.Pr. York.,E.R. York Uncertain, temp. Stephen

131. Wilton St Mary, St
Barthlomew
and St Edith B.Ab. Wilts. Salis. St Alburga, c. 800: refounded by King
Alfred, c. 871

132. Winchester St Mary and St
Edburga B.Ab. Hants. Win. King Alfred and Queen Ealhswith, c. 900.
Refounded by St Ethelwold, 963

133. Wintney St Mary, St
Mary Magd.
and St John
Baptist C.Pr. Hants. Win. Richard Holte and Christine his wife,
daughter of Thomas Cobreth, twelfth
century

134. Wix St Mary B.Pr. Ess. Lon. Walter Mascherell, Alexander and Edith,
children of Walter the Deacon, temp.
Henry I

135. Wothorpe St Mary B.Pr. Northants. Linc. Uncertain: united to St Michael’s,
Stamford, 1354

136. Wroxall St Leonard B.Pr. Warw. Worc. Hugh, Lord of Hatton and Wroxall, temp.
Henry I

137. Wykeham St Mary and St
Michael C.Pr. York., N.R. York Pain FitzOsbert, c. 1153

138. Yedingham St Mary B.Pr. York., E.R. York Helewise de Clere, before 1163

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A. MANUSCRIPT SOURCES

I. Episcopal Registers

(a) Lincoln Episcopal Registers

(b) Lambeth Palace Registers

II. Documents in the Public Record Office

(a) Account Rolls

Ministers Accounts, 867/21-6, 30, 33-6. (Delapré, St Albans. Between 16 Edw. III and 2 Ric. III.)

Ib. 1257/1 (Catesby, 11-14 Hen. VI).

Ib. 1257/2 (Denny, 14 Hen. IV-1 Hen. V).

Ib. 1257/10 (Gracedieu, 1-5 Hen. V).

Ib. 1260 (St Michael’s, Stamford, 24 rolls between 32 Edw. I and 20 Hen. VI).

Ib. 1261/4 (Syon, Cellaress’ Account, 21-2 Edw. IV).

Ib. 1307/22 (Syon, Cellaress’ Account, 36 Hen. VI).

(b) Petitions

Early Chancery Proceedings, 181/4 (Petition from Elizabeth Webley, late Prioress of Sopwell, concerning her deposition and imprisonment by John Rothbury, Archdeacon of St Albans Abbey).

Ib. 4/196 (Petition from Richard English and Margery his wife concerning a corrody withheld from them by the Abbess of Malling).

Ib. 7/70 (Petition from Richard Haldenby and Agnes his wife concerning the daughters of Agnes by a former marriage, one of whom has been made to take the veil by an uncle, for the sake of her inheritance).

Ib. 44/227 (Petition from Thomasyn Dynham, Prioress of Cornworthy, concerning two children at school in her house, whose fees have not been paid for five years).

Ancient Petitions 302/15063 (Petition from the Prioress and nuns of Rowney for leave to have a proctor to beg alms for them, as their buildings are ruinous).

Ancient Correspondence, 36/201 (Petition to Queen Isabel from the Prioress and Convent of Clerkenwell, asking her to obtain the King’s leave for them to receive certain lands, by reason of their poverty).

Chancery Warrants, Series 1/1759, 1762, 1764, 1769 (Petitions for the arrest of apostate nuns, nine in all).

B. PRINTED SOURCES

I. Archiepiscopal and Episcopal Registers

(a) Bath and Wells

Registers of Walter Giffard (1265-6) and of Henry Bowet (1401-7), ed. T. S. Holmes. (Somerset Record Soc. 1899.)

(b) Canterbury

Registrum Epistolarum Fratris Johannis Peckham Archiepiscopi Cantuariensis (1279-92), ed. C. Trice Martin. (Rolls Series, 1882-5.) 3 vols.

Visitations of Archbishop Warham in 1511, ed. Mary Bateson. (English Historical Review, VI, 1891, pp. 28 ff.) (Full abstracts.)

See also The British Magazine, vols. XXIX-XXXII, passim (abstracts).

Episcopal Register of Robert Rede, Bishop of Chichester (1397-1415), ed. Cecil Deedes. (Sussex Rec. Soc. 1908.)

Blaauw, W. Episcopal Visitations of the Priory of Easebourne (1442-1527). (Sussex Archaeol. Collections, IX, 1857, pp. 1-32.)

Way, A. Notices of the Benedictine Priory of St Mary Magdalen at Rusper (1442-1527). (Sussex Archaeol. Collections, V, 1852, pp. 244-62.)

(d) Durham, York, Carlisle

Historical Papers and Letters from the Northern Registers, ed. James Raine. (Rolls Series, 1873.)

(e) Durham

Registrum Palatinum Dunelmense. Register of Richard de Kellawe, Lord Palatine and Bishop of Durham, 1311-16, ed. Sir T. Duffus Hardy. (Rolls Series, 1873-8.) 4 vols.

(f) Exeter

(g) Hereford

Registrum Thome de Cantilupo, Episcopi Herefordensis, 1275-82, transcribed by R. C. Griffiths, with an introduction by W. W. Capes. (Canterbury and York Soc. and Cantilupe Soc. 1907.)

Registrum Ricardi de Swinfield, Episcopi Herefordensis, 1283-1317, ed. W. W. Capes. (Canterbury and York Soc. and Cantilupe Soc. 1909.)

Registrum Adae de Orleton, Episcopi Herefordensis, 1317-27, ed. A. T. Bannister. (Canterbury and York Soc. and Cantilupe Soc. 1908.)

Registrum Roberti Mascall, Episcopi Herefordensis, 1404-16, transcribed by J. H. Parry with introductory note by Charles Johnson. (Canterbury and York Soc. and Cantilupe Soc. 1917.)

Registrum Thome Spofford, Episcopi Herefordensis, 1422-48, ed. A. T. Bannister. (Canterbury and York Soc. and Cantilupe Soc. 1919.)

Registrum Thome Myllyng, Episcopi Herefordensis, 1472-92, ed. A. T. Bannister (1920).

(h) Coventry and Lichfield

Register of Roger de Norbury, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, 1322-59, ed. Edmund Hobhouse. (William Salt Archaeol. Soc. Collections, I, 1881.) (Table of contents only.)

The Second Register of Bishop Robert de Stretton, 1360-85, abstracted into English by R. A. Wilson. (William Salt Archaeol. Soc. Coll., New Series, vol. VIII, 1905.) (Brief calendar.)

(i) Lincoln

Visitations of Religious Houses in the Diocese of Lincoln, ed. A. Hamilton Thompson. Vol. I. Injunctions and other Documents from the Registers of Richard Flemyng and William Gray, 1420-36. (Lincoln Record Soc. and Canterbury and York Soc. 1915.)

Visitations of Religious Houses in the Diocese of Lincoln, ed. A. Hamilton Thompson. Vol. II. Alnwick’s Visitations (1436-49). (Lincoln Record Soc. and Canterbury and York Soc.)

Injunctions of John Longland, Bishop of Lincoln, to certain Monasteries in his Diocese, 1531, ed. E. Peacock. (Archaeologia, XLVII, pp. 49-64, 1883.)

(j) London

Registrum Radulphi Baldock, Gilberti Segrave, Ricardi Newport et Stephani Gravesend, Episcoporum Londoniensium, 1306-38, ed. R. C. Fowler. (Canterbury and York Soc. 1911.)

(k) Norwich

Visitations of the Diocese of Norwich, 1492-1532, ed. A. Jessopp. (Camden Soc. 1888.)

(l) Rochester

Registrum Hamonis Hethe Episcopi Roffensis (1319-52). (Canterbury and York Soc. 1914 ff., in course of publication.)

(m) Salisbury

Registrum Simonis de Gandavo Episcopi Saresbiriensis (1297-1315), ed. C. T. Flower. (Canterbury and York Soc. 1914, in course of publication.)

(n) Winchester

Registrum Johannis de Pontissara (1282-1304), ed. C. Deedes. (Canterbury and York Soc. 1913-15.)

Registers of John de Sandale and Rigaud de Asserio, Bishops of Winchester, 1316-23, ed. F. J. Baigent. (Hants. Rec. Soc. 1897.)

Wykeham’s Register, 1367-1404, ed. T. F. Kirby. (Hants Rec. Soc. 1896-9.) 2 vols.

(o) Worcester

Register of the Diocese of Worcester during the vacancy of the see, usually called Registrum Sede Vacante, 1301-1435, ed. J. W. Willis-Bund. (Worcester Hist. Soc. 1893-7.)

(p) York

Registers of John le Romeyn Archbishop of York, 1286-96, Part II, and of Henry of Newark, Archbishop of York, 1298-99, ed. W. Brown. Vol. II. (Surtees Soc. 1917.)

Visitations in the Diocese of York, holden by Archbishop Edward Lee (1531-44), ed. W. Brown. (Yorks. Archaeol. Journal, XVI, 1901, pp. 319-68.)

(q) Foreign Visitations

Des Augustinerpropstes Iohannes Busch Chronicon Windeshemense und Liber de Reformatione Monasteriorum, bearbeitet von Dr Karl Grube. (Halle, 1886.)

Regestrum Visitationum Archiepiscopi Rothomagensis, Journal des Visites Pastorales d’Eude Rigaud Archevêque de Rouen, 1248-69, pub. par Th. Bonnin. (Rouen, 1852.)

II. Account Rolls

(a) Catesby (2-3 Hen. V)

Baker, History of Northampton (1822-30), vol. I, p. 278.

(b) Romsey (1412-13, summary)

Liveing, H. G. D., Records of Romsey Abbey (1906), p. 194.

Victoria County History: London, I, p. 460.

(d) St Radegund’s, Cambridge (1449-51, 1481-2)

Gray, A., The Priory of St Radegund, Cambridge (1898), pp. 145-179.

(e) St Mary de Pré, St Albans (1487-9)

Dugdale, Monasticon, III, p. 358.

(f) Swaffham Bulbeck (1483-4)

Dugdale, Monasticon, IV, p. 458.

(g) Syon (Cellaress’ and Chambress’ Accounts, 1536-7)

Myroure of Oure Ladye, ed. J. H. Blunt. (E.E.T.S. 1873.) Introduction, pp. xxvi-xxxi.

(h) Miscellaneous (Extracts)

C. T. Flower, Obedientiars’ Accounts of Glastonbury and other Religious Houses. Trans. St Paul’s Ecclesiological Soc. vol. VII, Pt. II (1912), pp. 50-62.

III. Inventories

(a) Brewood (1536)

Dugdale, Monasticon, IV, p. 500.

(b) Cheshunt (1536)

Cussans, History of Hertfordshire, Hertford Hundred, App. II, pp. 267-71.

Sussex Archaeol. Coll. IX, pp. 10-13.

(d) Gracedieu (1536)

Nichols, History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester (1804), III, pp. 653-4.

(e) Hedingham, Castle (1536)

Trans. Essex Archaeological Soc. IX, pp. 289-92.

(f) Kilburn (1536)

Dugdale, Monasticon, IV, p. 424.

(g) Langley (1485)

Walcott, Mackenzie E. C., Inventory of St Mary’s Benedictine Nunnery at Langley, Co. Leicester, 1485. (Leicestershire Architec. Soc. 1872.)

(h) Lillechurch (1525)

R. F. Scott, Notes from the Records of St John’s College, Cambridge, 3rd series (privately printed, 1906-13), pp. 403-8.

(i) Sheppey (1536)

Walcott, Mackenzie E. C., Inventories of St Mary’s Hospital, Dover, St Martin New-Work, Dover, and the Benedictine Priory of SS. Mary and Sexburga in the Island of Shepey for Nuns. (Reprinted from Archaeologia Cantiana, 1868, pp. 18-35.)

(j) Wherwell (Sacristy, c. 1340)

Victoria County History, Hants. II, pp. 134-5.

(k) Wintney (Frater, 1420)

Victoria County History, Hants. II, pp. 150-1.

(l) Miscellaneous Fragments

Fowler, R. C., Inventories of Essex Monasteries in 1536. (Trans. Essex Archaeol. Soc. vol. IX, Pt. IV.)

Walcott, Mackenzie E. C., Inventories and Valuations of Religious Houses at the Time of the Dissolution. (Archaeologia, XLIII, 1871.)

IV. Cartularies

(a) Buckland

A Cartulary of Buckland Priory in the County of Somerset, ed. F. W. Weaver. (Somerset Rec. Soc. 1909.)

(b) Crabhouse

The Register of Crabhouse Nunnery, ed. Mary Bateson. (Norfolk and Norwich Arch. Soc. Norfolk Archaeology, XI, 1892.)

The English Register of Godstow Nunnery, ed. Andrew Clark. (Early Eng. Text Soc. 1905-11.)

V. Wills

Calendar of Wills proved and enrolled in the Court of Husting, London, ed. R. R. Sharpe (1889).

Early Lincoln Wills, ed. A. Gibbons (1888).

The Fifty Earliest English Wills in the Court of Probate, London, ed. F. J. Furnivall. (Early Eng. Text Soc. 1882.)

Lincoln Diocese Documents, ed. A. Clark. (Early Eng. Text Soc. 1914.)

Lincoln Wills, ed. C. W. Foster. Vol. I. (Lincoln Record Soc. 1914.)

Testamenta Eboracensia, a Selection of Wills from the Registry at York, ed. James Raine. 6 vols. (Surtees Soc. 1836-1902.)

Somerset Medieval Wills (1383-1558), ed. F. W. Weaver. 3 vols. (Somerset Record Soc. 1901-5.)

VI. Miscellaneous Records and Letters

Calendar of Close Rolls.

Calendar of Patent Rolls.

Calendar of Papal Letters.

Calendar of Papal Petitions.

Dugdale. Monasticon Anglicanum, ed. J. Caley, H. Ellis and B. Bandinel. 6 vols. in 8 (1817-30).

Ellis, H. Original Letters illustrative of English History, 1st series, vol. II (1824).

Fowler, J. T. Cistercian Statutes, A.D. 1256-7, with supplementary statutes of the order, 1257-8. (Reprinted from Yorks. Archaeol. Journal, vols. IX-XI, 1885-90.)

Gasquet, F. A. Collectanea Anglo-Premonstratensia, 3 vols. (Camden Soc. 1906.)

Gibbons, A. Ely Episcopal Records (1891).

Lyndwood. Provinciale (1679).

Madox. Formulare Anglicanum (1702).

Paston Letters, ed. J. Gairdner. 4 vols. (1900).

Rotuli Parliamentorum. (Record Com. 6 vols. n.d. Index, 1832.)

Valor Ecclesiasticus. (Record Com. 1810-34).

Wharton. Anglia Sacra, 2 vols. (1691).

Wilkins. Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae, 4 vols. (1737).

Wood, M. A. E. Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies of Great Britain. 3 vols. (1846).

VII. Contemporary Literature[2160]

An Alphabet of Tales, An English 15th Century Translation of the Alphabetum Narrationum once attributed to Etienne de Besançon, ed. M. M. Banks. (Early Eng. Text Soc. 1904-5.)

Amundesham. Annales Monasterii S. Albani (Rolls Series, 1870), I.

Ancren Riwle, ed. and trans. James Morton (Camden Soc. 1853). Also trans. (by Morton) with introd. by F. A. Gasquet in The King’s Classics, 1907.

Caesarius of Heisterbach. Dialogus Miraculorum, ed. Joseph Strange, 2 vols. (Cologne, 1851.)

Chaucer, Complete Works, ed. Skeat (1906).

Chronicle of Lanercost, translated by Sir Herbert Maxwell (1913).

Clene Maydenhod, ed. F. J. Furnivall. (Early Eng. Text Soc. 1867.)

Court of Love, The, printed in Chaucer’s Complete Works, ed. R. Morris (1891), vol. IV.

Early English Lives of Saints, ed. F. J. Furnivall. (Trans. of the Philological Soc. 1858.) For The Land of Cokayne and Why I can’t be a Nun.

Etienne de Bourbon. Anecdotes Historiques, etc., ed. Lecoy de la Marche. (Soc. de l’Hist. de France, 1877.)

Fifteenth Century Cookery Book, A, ed. R. W. Chambers, and Two Fifteenth Century Franciscan Rules, ed. W. W. Seton. (Early Eng. Text Soc. 1914.)

Gower. Vox Clamantis, ed. G. Macaulay (1902).

Hali Meidenhad, ed. O. Cockayne. (Early Eng. Text Soc. 1866.)

Jacobi Vitriacensis Exempla e Sermonibus Vulgaribus, ed. T. F. Crane. (Folk Lore Soc. 1890.)

Langland. Vision of William Concerning Piers the Plowman, ed. Skeat, 2 vols. (1886).

Medieval Garner, A, selected, translated and annotated by G. G. Coulton (1910).

Myroure of Oure Ladye, The, ed. J. J. Blunt. (Early Eng. Text Soc. 1873.)

Rule of St Benedict, ed. Gasquet. (King’s Classics, 1909.)

Tale of Beryn, The, ed. Furnivall and Stone. (Chaucer Soc. 1887.)

Three Middle English Versions of the Rule of St Benet, ed. E. A. Kock. (Early Eng. Text Soc. 1902.)

Walsingham. Gesta Abbatum Monasterii Sancti Albani, ed. H. T. Riley (Rolls Series, 1867-9), 3 vols.

—— Historia Anglicana, ed. H. T. Riley (Rolls Series, 1863), vol. I.

VIII. Plans

Burnham Abbey, by H. Brakspear, in Archaeol. Journal, LX (1903). (See Bucks. Archit. and Archaeol. Soc. Records, XXXI.)

Carrow Priory, by R. M. Phipson, in Norf. and Norw. Arch. Soc. Trans. IX, and Rye, Carrow Abbey (1889).

Kirklees Priory, by J. Bilson, in Yorks. Archaeol. Journ. XX (1908).

Lacock Abbey, by H. Brakspear, in Archaeologia, LVII (1900). (See also Wilts. Archaeol. Journ. XXXI.)

Marlow, Little, by C. R. Peers, in Archaeol. Journ. LIX (1902).

Marrick Priory, facsimile of plan taken at time of Dissolution in Coll. Topog. et Gen. V (1838).

St Radegund, Cambridge (now Jesus College) in Gray, The Priory of St Radegund, Cambridge (1898).

C. MODERN WORKS

I. On Particular Nunneries (including charters, etc.)

Aldgate (Minoresses). Fly, H. Some account of an Abbey of Nuns, formerly situated in the street now called the Minories. Archaeologia, XV (1803).

Barrow Gurney. Hugo, T. Medieval Nunneries of the County of Somerset (1867).

Brodholme. Cole, R. E. G. The Priory of St Mary of Brodholme. (Linc. Archit. and Archaeol. Soc.) in Assoc. Archit. Socs. Reports and Papers, XXVIII (1905-6).

Bromhale. Scott, R. F. Notes from the Records of St John’s College, Cambridge (reprinted from The Eagle, 1890-1903, passim), Series I and III. (Documents from Bromhale and Lillechurch.)

Buckland. Hugo, T. History of Minchin Buckland Priory and Preceptory in Somerset (1861).

Cannington. See Barrow Gurney.

Carrow. Beecheno, F. R. Notes on Carrow Priory (1886).

Rye, W. Carrow Abbey (1889).

Rye and Tillett in Norfolk Antiq. Misc. II.

Crabhouse. Jessopp, A. Frivola (1896). For ‘Ups and Downs of an Old Nunnery’ (Crabhouse).

Dartford. C. F. Palmer. Hist. of the Priory of Dartford in Kent. Archaeol. Journ. XXXVI (1879).

Notes on the Priory of Dartford in Kent. Ib. XXXIX (1882).

Delapré, Northampton. Serjeantson, R. M. A History of Delapré Abbey, Northampton (Northampton, 1909).

Delapré, St Albans. Page, W. History of the Monastery of St Mary de Pré. St Albans and Herts. Archit. and Archaeol. Soc. Trans., New Ser. X.

Easebourne. Hope, Sir W. H. St John. Cowdray and Easebourne Priory in the county of Sussex (1920).

Elstow. Wigram, S. R. Chronicle of Elstow Abbey (1909).

Fosse. Cole, R. E. G. The Royal Borough of Torksey, its Churches, Monasteries and Castle. Linc. Archit. and Archaeol. Soc. In Assoc. Archit. Soc. Reports and Papers, XXVIII (1905-6).

Ickleton. Goddard, A. R. Ickleton Church and Priory. Cambridge Antiq. Soc. Proc. and Commun. XLV (1905).

Ilchester, White Hall. See Barrow Gurney.

Kirklees. Armytage, Sir G. Kirklees Priory. Yorks. Archaeol. Journ. XX (1908).

Chadwick, S. J. Kirklees Priory. Yorks. Archaeol. Journ. XVI (1901), XVII (1902), XX (1908).

Lacock. Bowles, W. L. and Nichols, J. C. Annals of Lacock Abbey (1835).

Clark-Maxwell, W. G. Outfit for the Profession of an Austin Canoness at Lacock, etc. Archaeol. Journ. LXIX (1912).

Lillechurch. See Bromhale.

Marlow. Peers, C. R. The Benedictine Nunnery of Little Marlow. Archaeol. Journ. LIX (1902).

Nunburnholme. Morris, M. C. K. Nunburnholme and its Antiquities (1907).

Romsey. Liveing, H. G. D. Records of Romsey Abbey (1906).

St Helen’s, Bishopsgate. Hugo, T. The Last Ten Years of the Priory of St Helen, Bishopsgate (1865).

St Radegund, Cambridge. Gray, A. The Priory of St Radegund, Cambridge (1898).

Syon. Aungier, G. J. History and Antiquities of Syon (1840).

Swine. Duckett, Sir G. Charters of the Priory of Swine in Holderness. Yorks. Archaeol. Journ. VI (1881).

Thompson, T. History of the Church and Priory of Swine in Holderness (1824).

II. General

Butler, C. Benedictine Monachism (1919).

Clay, R. M. Hermits and Anchorites of England (1914).

Coulton, G. G. The Interpretation of Visitation Documents. (Eng. Hist. Review, 1914.)

—— Medieval Studies. (First Series, 1915.)

—— Monastic Schools in the Middle Ages. (Medieval Studies, No. 10, 1913.)

Deanesly, M. The Lollard Bible (1920).

Eckenstein, L. Woman under Monasticism (1896).

Fosbroke, T. D. British Monachism (1802).

Fowler, R. C. Episcopal Registers of England and Wales. (S.P.C.K. 1918.)

Gasquet, F. A. English Monastic Life (1904).

Graham, R. An Essay on English Monasteries. (Hist. Assoc. 1913.)

—— St Gilbert of Sempringham and the Gilbertines (1901).

Green, M. A. Everett. Lives of the Princesses of England. Vol. II (1849).

Jacka, H. T. The Dissolution of the English Nunneries. Thesis submitted for the degree of M.A. in the University of London. (Unpublished; deposited at the University.)

Jarrett, B. The English Dominicans (1921).

Journal of Education, 1909 and 1910. (Articles and Correspondence by J. E. G. de Montmorency, G. G. Coulton and A. F. Leach on “The Medieval Education of Women in England.”)

Mode, P. G. The Influence of the Black Death on the English Monasteries. (A Dissertation for the Degree of Ph.D.) (Privately printed, Univ. of Chicago Libraries, 1916.)

Savine, A. English Monasteries on the Eve of the Dissolution, in Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History, ed. P. Vinogradoff (1909), I.

Thiers, J. B. Traité de la Clôture des Religieuses. (Paris, 1681.)

Thompson, A. Hamilton. English Monasteries (1913).

—— Double Monasteries and the Male Element in Nunneries. (In The Ministry of Women, A Report by a Committee appointed by his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury (1919), App. VIII.)

—— The Monasteries of Leicestershire in the Fifteenth Century. (Leicester. Archit. and Archaeol. Soc. Trans. 1913-14.)

—— Registers of John Gynewell, Bishop of Lincoln, for the years 1347-50. (Archaeol. Journ. vol. LXVIII (2nd Ser. vol. XXI), 1914.)

—— Visitations of Religious Houses by William Alnwick, Bishop of Lincoln, 1436-49. (Proceedings of the Soc. of Antiquaries, 2nd ser. XXVI, 1914.)

Victoria County Histories. Articles on Religious Houses, passim. (Cited as V.C.H.)

Walcott, Mackenzie E. C. English Minsters (1879), 2 vols. Vol. II. The English Student’s Monasticon.

Workman, H. B. The Evolution of the Monastic Ideal (1913).

INDEX

Ff. after an entry implies that there are references to the same subject on at least two immediately succeeding pages.

Abbess, autocratic power of, 64ff.,

—— chaplain of (nun), 62ff., , ,

—— entertainment of guests by, 59ff., , ;
nuns by,

—— executrix or supervisor of wills, , 73n. 2

—— lodging and household of, , , , , ,

—— of Fools,

Abbey of the Holy Ghost,

Abbot of Fools,

Aberford, Rector of, 220n. 5

Accidia, 293ff., ,

Accounts, 96ff., 118ff., , 333ff., 639ff.;
annual statement of, ;
audit of, ,

—— presentation of, by head of house, , ;
by obedientiaries, etc., , ;
see also Status domus

Aconbury Priory, 23n. 1,

—— Churches appropriated to, 113n.

Adeburn, Alicia de,

Adeleshey, Joan,

Aelred, Abbot of Rievaulx,

Alcock, John, Bishop of Ely, , ,

Aldelesse, Juliana,

Aldgate, St Clare outside, 171n. 2

Alesbury, Agnes of, ,

Alfrâd, the donkey of, , 588ff.

Alice, Prioress of Wintney,

Alienation of goods,

Allesley, Agnes, ,

Almenèches, St Sauveur, ;
moral state of, ,

Almoness of nunnery,

Almsgiving by nuns, , , , ,

Alnwick, William, Bishop of Lincoln, , , , , , , 66ff., , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 361n. 1, , , 377n. 2, , , , 399n. 1, , 402n. 3, 405n. 2, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Alphabet of Tales, An, 511n., 516n. 2, 519n. 1

Alsace,

Alsop, Robert of,

Amesbury Priory, , , 242n. 8, 268n., , 360n. 2, , , , ,

Anchoresses, , 528ff.

Ancren Riwle, , , , , , , , 527ff., , , ,

Ankerwyke Priory, , , , 111n. 3, , , , , 405n. 2, 441n., , , 487n., 491n. 2

—— financial mismanagement of, , 225n. 2;
illiteracy of inmates at, ;
inventory of goods of, 222n. 3;
poverty of, , , , , , , ;
Prioress of, , , , 163n. 1, , 304n. 2, , , ;
and see Kirkby, Margery; Medforde, Clarence;
status domus of, , ;
teacher for young nuns appointed, ;
visitors at,

Anlaby, Josiana de,

Apelgarth, Sabina de,

Appropriation of benefices, , , ,

Arden, Henry,

—— Priory, , 153n. 3, , , , 382n. 1, 494n. 1,

—— accounts of, ;
boarders at, ;
corrody granted by, ;
custos of, 230n. 8;
dilapidations at, , ;
mismanagement of, , ;
poverty of, 184n. 4;
Prioress of, ;
and see Eleanor of Arden;
relics at,

Arderne, Katherine de,

Armathwaite Priory, ,

Armstrong, Jane,

Arnecliffe, Hugh de,

Arthington, , , 291n. 2, 356n. 4, 400n. 1

—— accounts of, ;
bequests to, ;
children at, ;
coadjutress appointed at, ;
custos of, ;
dilapidations at, ;
dorter of, ;
frater of, ;
moral state of, , ;
private property at, , ;
prioresses of, , ;
and see Berghby, Isabella de; Popeley, Elizabeth; Screvyn, Agnes de;
relics at,

Arundell, Elizabeth,

—— Sir John, , , 429ff.

—— Thomas, Bishop of Ely,

Aschby, William, 399n. 3

Aske, Robert, 282ff.

Asserio, Rigaud de, Bishop of Winchester, ,

Asshe, John de,

Assize of bread and ale,

Astley, Lora,

Astom, Matilda,

Atwater, William, Bishop of Lincoln, 222n. 3, , , 382n. 3, 441n., ,

Aubrey, John, ,

Aucassin and Nicolete, , ,

Auditor of nunnery accounts, ,

Audley, Lady, ,

—— Sir Hugh,

Aunselle, Alice,

Avernay, novice of, ,

Avice of Beverley, 365n. 3

Aylesbury, Margaret,

Ayscough, Bishop,

Ayton, John of, , ,

Babyngton, Katherine,

Backwell, Rector of,

Bacton, Margaret,

Badlesmere, Bartholomew de,

Bailiff of nunnery, 99ff., , , , , , , , , ,

Bakewell, Mr, ,

Baldock, Ralph, Bishop of London, 34n. 2

Ball, John,

Barber, Isabel,

Bardi, the,

Bardney, Abbot of,

Barking Abbey, , , , , 64n. 6, , 156n. 7, , , , , 258n. 4, 320n., , 347n. 2, 366n. 3, 404n. 5, 406n. 3, ,

—— Abbess of, , , , , , , ;
and see Pole, Katherine de la

—— Cellaress of, 131n., , , ;
accounts of, , 139n. 5;
Charthe of, 562ff.

—— children at, , ;
church appropriated to, 113n. 1;
claustration at, , ;
Clemence of, ;
corrodies at, , , ;
library of, 242n. 8;
pensions demanded from, , ;
pittances at, 143n., , ;
Puerilia solemnia at, ;
resident chaplains at, ;
sanctuary at, ,

Barnehous, John,

Barnwell, Prior of, , 142n. 3, 202n. 3

Barrow Priory, , 385n. 4, 360n. 1;
custos of, ;
Prioress of, ;
and see Gurney, Joanna

Barsinghausen,

Barton, Elizabeth, 419n. 2

Bartone, Isabel, 399n. 1

—— Joan,

Basedale Priory, ;

custos of, 230n. 8, ;
moral state of, , ;
prioresses of, , 284n., 360n. 2;
and see Davell, Elizabeth; Fletcher, Joan; Percy, Joan de

Basilia de Cotum, 361n. 2

Basle, Synod of,

Bassett, Christian, , , 102n., , , ;
accounts of, 118n., ,

Batayle, Margaret de la,

Bateman, Bishop of Norwich,

Bath and Wells, Bishops of, , , ;
and see Drokensford, John de

Bauceyn, Juliana,

Beatrice, story of, 512ff.

Beauchamp, Agnes de,

—— Katherine de, , , 330n. 3

—— Sir Guy de, , 330n. 3

—— Thomas, Earl of Warwick,

Beaumont, Lady,

—— Lord,

Beauvais, John, Bishop of,

Becon, Thomas,

Bedford, Jacquetta, Duchess of,

Bedford, Sheriff of,

Belers, Margaret, ,

Bel-Eyse, L’Ordre de, , 537n. 2,

Belgrave, Bridget, ;
and see Syon Abbey, chambress of

Belle Doette, ,

Benedict, Rule of St, , , , , , , , , 285ff., , , , 341ff., , 408n. 4

—— translations of, , , 341n. 1

Benet, Isabel, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Bengeworth, John,

Berghby, Isabella de, , , ,

Berkeley, Lady Elizabeth, ,

—— Lord,

Bernard, Eleanor, 360n. 2

Berners, Juliana, ,

Bernier, 433ff.

Berre, Alice, ,

—— William,

Berthold of Regensburg, 518n. 1

Berwick, North, Priory of,

Berwick-on-Tweed, Gild at,

Berzé, Seigneur de,

Betsone, Thomas,

Bever, John,

Beverley, St Nicholas’ Hospital,

Bible, reading of, by nuns, ,

Bicester, Prior of,

—— Priory, 210n. 2

Birlaunde, Henry of,

Bischofsheim, Abbess of,

Bishopsgate, St Helen’s, , , , , 58n., 109n., 292n. 3, , , , 402n. 4, , , 441n.;
children at, , , , ;
corrodies granted by, ;
Prioress of, , , ,

Bival Abbey, , ;
Abbess of, ;
financial state of, ,

Bixley, John,

Blackborough Priory, , , , ;
fair of, 106n. 2;
poverty of, 184n. 4;
Prioress of, , ,

Black Death, the, , 177ff., ,

Blacklow Hill,

Blankney, Vicar of,

Bleden, Joan,

Bleeding of nuns, 257ff., 259n. 2, , , ;
of monks, ,

Blois, Robert de,

Blund, Ann le,

—— Sir John le,

Boarders in nunnery, , ,

Boccaccio, 516n. 4,

Bodenham, Cecily,

Boleyn, Anne, ,

—— Thomas,

Bondeville Priory, , ;
accounts of, ;
custos of, ;
financial state of, 255n. 2, , ;
inventory of, , ;
Prioress of, ,

Bonevyll, Sir William,

Boniface VIII, 201n. 2, , , , ,

—— IX, , ,

Booth, Archbishop William,

Bossall, Vicar of,

Boteler, Margaret la,

Botere, Walter,

Botulphe, Joan,

Bourbon, Etienne de, , , 516n. 1

Bourbon, Marie de,

Bowes, Agnes,

Bowet, Henry, Archbishop of York, 83n., ,

Bowlis, Alice, 48ff.

Boy Bishop, the, 311ff.

Boyfield, Alice,

—— Elizabeth, 46ff.

Bradford-on-Avon, Church of,

Braies au Prestre, Les,

Brakle, Agnes,

Brampton Church,

Brantyngham, Thomas de, Bishop of Exeter, , 403n. 5,

Brasyer, Stephen,

Brentford, Chapel of the Angels,

Brenyntone, Alicia,

Bret, Isabel, , , ,

—— Robert, 191n. 2,

Brewood (Staffs.), , 147n. 4, , 443n. 2

—— Prioress of, 183n. 6

Brid, Aleyn,

Bridlington,

Bristol, St Bartholomew’s Hospital, 442n. 2

—— St Mary Magdalen, , 184n. 4

Brittany, Duke John of,

Brodholme Priory, 229n. 1, , ;
custos of, ;
Prioress of,

Broke, Elizabeth, 88n., , , ,

Bromele, Thomas,

Bromhale Priory, , , , 360n. 2, ;
dissolution of, ;
prioresses of, see Juliana of Bromhale

Brompton, John,

—— Rector of, see Playce, Robert de

Bromyard, John, 516n. 2

Broughton (Northants.), Rector of,

Browne, Agnes,

Bruce, Robert,

Brugge, Joan, 424n. 2

—— Peter, 424n. 2

Brun, Alicia,

Brunne, Robert of,

Brus, Elizabeth de,

—— Robert de,

Bruys, Joan, 441n.

Bryce, Master, ,

Buckingham, Archidiaconate of,

—— John, Bishop of Lincoln, , , , , , , , 322n., , , 390n. 5

Buckland Priory, , , , ;
poverty of, ;
Prioress of, ,

Bugga, Abbess,

Bungay, , 442n. 2

Buonvisi, Lucrezia,

Burghersh, Bishop, 450n. 2,

Burgo, Elizabeth de,

Burn, John,

Burnham Abbey, , , , , , , 442n. 2, ;
education of children at, , , ;
poverty of, 184n. 4

Burton, Abbot of,

—— Margaret of, 443n. 2

Burtscheid, Abbey of,

Bury St Edmunds, ,

Busch, Johann, , , , , 670ff.

Bustard, John,

Butler, Agnes,

Bycombe, Isolda,

—— John,

Byland Abbey,

Caen, Abbaye-aux-Dames, , , ;
accounts of, ;
financial state of,

Caesarius of Heisterbach’s Dialogus Miraculorum, , 27n. 1, , , 274n., 277n. 1, , , 450n. 3, 511n., 516n. 3, , , 627ff.,

Caldwell Priory, 308n. 1, ;
Prior of,

Calle, Richard, ,

Caluerley, Richard,

Calwell, Thomas,

Camberwell,

Cambridge, Elizabeth de,

—— Friars Minor of,

—— Jesus College,

—— Mayor of,

—— St John’s College,

—— St Radegund’s Priory, 60n., 106n. 1, , 137ff., , 151ff., , , , 292n. 2, 356n. 2, , ;
accounts of, , 102n. 2, , , , , 128n. 1, , , , ;
alms given by, , ;
bailiff of, see Key, Thomas;
chaplains of, ;
church of, ;
churches appropriated to, 135n. 5;
confessor of, ;
clothes of nuns at, ;
dissolution of, ;
fire at, ;
Garlick Fair of, 106n. 1;
gifts to, , ;
hospitality of, , ;
liveries of servants at, ;
poverty of, 184n. 4;
prioresses of, 147n. 5, , , , 366n. 2;
and see Lancaster, Joan;
repairs at, 123ff., ;
servants of, , ;
visitation of, 494n. 1

Camoys, Margaret de,

Campsey Priory, , , 64n. 6, , , , ;
hospitality at, , ;
mismanagement by Prioress of, ,

Canard Blanc, Le,

Cannington Priory, , , , ;
boarders at, , ;
coadjutresses appointed at, ;
corrodies, unauthorised sale of, at, ;
Prioress of, , , , , ;
simoniacal admission of nuns at,

Canons Ashby Priory, ;
Prior of,

Canonsleigh Abbey, , 113n. 1, 183n. 4, , , , 406n. 1, , 416n. 1, ;
Abbess of, 71n. 4, ;
coadjutress appointed at, ;
claustration relaxed at, , , 355n. 2;
presentation of accounts at,

Canterbury, Archbishops of, , 347n. 2, 482n. 1

—— Holy Sepulchre, , 156n. 7, , , , 356n. 2, 359n. 2, , , 403n. 5, 413n. 2, , , 494n. 1, ;
alms given by, ;
custos of, 230n. 8, , , ;
poverty of,

—— Hospital of St James, 82n. 4, 184n. 5, 390n. 5, 494n. 1

—— pilgrimage to, ,

—— Priory, 210n. 2;
Prior of, , 482n. 1

Cantilupe, Thomas de, Bishop of Hereford, , , 347n. 2, 367n. 2,

Capron, John,

Carey, Eleanor, ,

—— John,

Carinthia, Monastery of,

Carmaynton, David, ,

Carrow Priory, , , 113n. 1, 148n. 1, , , , , ;
boarders at, , ;
children at, , ;
churches appropriated to, 113n. 2;
complaints of bad food, etc., at, 168n. 2;
enforced reception of nuns into, ;
lawsuit of, 202n. 2;
pestilence at, ;
Philip Sparrow at, 590ff.;
Prioress of, , 105n. 3;
and see Wilton, Edith;
revels at, ;
sanctuary at, ;
titles granted to, 116n. 1

Cassian,

Castile, Constance of, 421n. 1

Castle Hedingham Priory, , ;
Prioress of, 360n. 2

Catesby, Joan,

—— Priory, , , , , , 107n. 1, , , , , , , , , , 358n. 2, , , , 402n. 3, 408n. 2, , , , , ;
accounts of, , 102n. 2, 105n. 3, 115n. 1, 118n., , ;
children at, , , , ;
dilapidations at, 171n. 2;
home farm of, , ;
households of nuns at, ;
jewels pawned, ;
master of, ;
peculium for clothes, , ;
pilgrimages to, ;
poverty of, , 184n. 4, ;
Prioress of, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ;
and see Rich, Margaret; Wavere, Margaret

Catherine, nun of Bungay,

Catley,

Catton, Rector of,

Caxton,

Caynes, Sir Robert de,

Cellaress of nunnery, , , 132ff., , , , ;
duties of, , ;
accounts of, , 131n.,

Chambress of nunnery, , , , , ;
accounts of, , 131n.,

Champnys, Alice,

Chansons de Nonnes, 502ff., 604ff.

Chantimpré, Thomas of,

Chantress of nunnery, ,

Chaplains, 143ff., 148n. 3, ;
residences of,

Chapter house, , , 475ff., 648ff.,

Chark, John,

Charles V of France,

Charter, foundation, exhibition of, ,

Charterys, Elizabeth,

Chatok, Elizabeth,

Chatteris Abbey, , 184n. 4, ;
Abbess of,

Chaucer, Geoffrey, , , , , , , , ,

Chaucy, Elizabeth,

Checker,

Chelles, nuns of,

Cheshunt Priory, , ;
poverty of, , , 184n. 4

—— priest’s chamber at,

Chester,

—— St Mary’s, ;
poverty of,

Chicksand Priory,

Children, education of, 261ff., 568ff.;
costs of, ,

Chilterne, Alice de, 88n.,

Chivynton, Johanna,

Chondut, Agnes,

Chondut, Katherine, ,

—— Ralph,

Chygwell, William de,

Chyld, Margery,

Cîteaux, Abbot of, 375n. 1

Clay, Richard del,

Clef d’Amors, La,

Clemence of Barking,

Clementhorpe Priory, , 360n. 2, 365n. 3, 384n. 1, ,

Clene Maydenhod, ,

Clerkenwell Priory, , , , 259n. 3

Cleveland, Archdeacon of, ,

Clinton, Isabel, Lady, ,

Clouvill, Isabel,

Coadjutress, ,

Cobham, Thomas de, Bishop of Worcester, ,

—— Eleanor de, , 419n. 2

—— Henry de,

Cokaygne, The Land of, 534ff.,

Cokehill Priory, , 232n. 5, , , ;
chaplain of, 232n. 5;
Prioress of, 185n. 6

Cokke, John, ,

Colchester,

Coldingham, nuns of, 303n. 2, ,

Coleworthe, Joan,

Cologne, Provincial Council of, 360n. 1

Colte, Anne, 447n. 6

Common Pleas, Court of,

Condé, Jean de, , ,

Congé d’élire, 43n. 2, 44ff.

Conyers, Alice, 328n. 2

—— Cecily,

Cook, Alice,

—— William,

Copeland, John,

Cornhill, ,

Cornwallis, Katherine,

Cornworthy Priory, , 413n. 4, , , ;

boarders at, , ;
Prioress of, ;
and see Dynham, and Wortham

Corp, Isabella,

—— Thomas,

Corrodians, , , , 206ff., 409ff.

Corrodies, , , 190ff., , 206ff., ,

Cotnall, William,

Coton Priory, see Nuncoton

Cotton, Ellen,

Courtenay, Joan,

—— Lady Elizabeth,

—— Sir Hugh de,

—— William, Archbishop of Canterbury, , , , ,

Court of Love, ,

Couvel, Isabella, ,

Coventry,

Cox, Agnes, 261n. 2

Crabhouse Priory, , , 90ff., , 378n. 3, , , 477n. 1;
dilapidations at, ;
fire at, , ;
Prioress of, ;
and see Wiggenhall;
Register of, , , ;
repairs at, 92ff.,

Cranmer,

Crayke, Cecilia,

Crécy,

Cressy, Sir Hugh de,

—— Jonetta,

Crioll, Margery de,

Crofton, John,

—— Juliana de,

Cromwell, Gregory, ,

—— Thomas, 30n. 5, , 51n., , , , ,

Crosse, Margaret, ,

Croxton,

Cumberworth, Sir Thomas, , , ,

Cunyers, Alice,

Custos of nunnery, 229ff.

Dalderby, John, Bishop of Lincoln, , , , , 351ff., , , 443ff.

Damory, Roger,

Danby, Margaret, 360n. 2

Danne, Roger,

Dante, quoted, ,

Darcy, Lord,

—— Margaret, , 322n.

Dartford Abbey, , , , 247n. 2;
alms given by, ;
boarders at,

Daubeney, Henry Lord,

Daubriggecourt, Sir John,

—— Margery,

Davell, Elizabeth, 360n. 2

Daventry Priory,

—— Roger de, 230n. 1

Davington Priory, , , , ;
custos of, ;
financial mismanagement at, ;
Prioress of, 183n. 4

Davy, Alice, 360n. 2

Davye, Agnes, ,

Decun, Alice,

Delapré Priory (Herts.), , , , , , , ;
accounts of, , 102n., 118n., , 131n., 139n. 5, 163n. 4, , , 479n. 4;
dissolution of, ;
grades of inmates at, , ;
huntsman of, ;
illiterate inmates at, , ;
litigation by, ;
master of, ;
merrymaking at, ;
pittances at, ;
Prioress of, , , 479n. 4;
see Bassett, Christian; Wafer, Alice

Delapré Abbey (Northants.), , 321n. 2, , ;
Abbess of, 360n. 2;
claustration at, 351ff.;
nuns of, excommunicated, , ;
pensions demanded from, ;
poverty of,

Delft, Franciscan tertiaries of, 240n. 2

Dene, William de, ,

Denesson, Henry, 123ff.

Denny Abbey, , , 378n. 3;
Abbess of,

Depeden, Margaret,

—— Sir John,

Derby, Earl of,

Dereham, William de,

Derneburg, ,

Deschamps, Eustache, ,

Despenser, Hugh, ,

—— Juliana, ,

Diolog concerning the Monarché,

Dives and Pauper, 366n. 4

Dorset, Marquess of,

Dorter, , 169ff., , , , , ,

Draycote, Cecilia de,

Dreffield, Maud de,

Drokensford, John de, Bishop of Bath and Wells, , , 358n. 4,

Du Bois, Pierre,

Dudley, Sir John,

Dunkirk,

Dunstable Priory, 308n. 1

Dunwyche, Alice,

Durant, Geoffrey,

—— Molde,

Durham, Bishops of, , 309n. 6, ;
see Hatfield, Thomas; Skirlaw, Walter

—— Priory, 210n. 2

—— Sherburn Hospital, 361n. 2

Dychere, Agnes,

Dymmok, Elizabeth, ,

Dynham, Thomasyn, ,

Eadburg, Abbess of Thanet,

Easebourne Priory, , , , , , , , 292n. 2, , , , 448n. 1, , 494n. 1, ;
boarders at, ;
churches appropriated to, 113n. 1, ;
dilapidations at, , 171n. 2;
disorder at, , , ;
inventory of goods of, 222n. 3;
library of, ;
poverty of, ;
prioresses of, 76ff., 83n., , , ;
see Montfort, Isabel de; Sackfelde, Margaret; Tawke, Agnes

Edmund, Earl of Cornwall,

Edward I, ,

Edward II, , , , ,

—— III, , , ,

Edyndon, William of, Bishop of Winchester, , 213n. 1,

Egglestone Abbey, 428n. 3

Eleanor, Prioress of Arden, , , , , , , 382n. 1

Eleanor, wife of Henry III,

Elizabeth, Countess of Hereford,

—— of York,

Ellerton Priory, ,

Elstow Abbey, , , , 51n., 64n. 6, , , , 291n. 2, , , , , , , , 401n. 1, 402n. 4, , , 407n. 1, , 459ff., 463ff., , , ;
Abbesses of, , , , , , , , , , ;
and see Boyfield, Eliz., and Gascoigne, Agnes;
accounts, 131n., 335n.;
bailiffs of, , , ;
boarders at, , ;
dilapidations at, ;
education of children at, , , 272ff., ;
election of Abbess at, 46ff.;
fair of, 106n. 2;
fashions at, , ;
hospitality at, 358n. 5;
households of nuns at, , 320n., 321n. 1;
learning of novices, ;
livings held by, ;
number of nuns at, ;
pensions demanded from, ;
Precentress of, 261n. 2;
sacrist’s accounts at, ;
treasuress to be appointed at, ;
visitations of,

Ely, Archdeacon of,

—— Bishops of, ;
see Alcock, John; Arundell, Thomas; Fordham, John of; Grey, William

—— fair,

Embroidery by nuns, 255ff.,

Emma of Stapelton, ,

—— of York, 51ff.

Ensfrid of Cologne,

Erasmus, , ;
Colloquies, 549ff.

Erfurt, St Cyriac,

—— St Martin,

Erle, Peter,

Erlham, John de,

Escherde, ,

Escoufle, L’, 560n.

Esholt Priory, , 170n. 3, , , 251n. 2, , , , 467n. 3,

;
bequest to, ;
children at, , , , ;
indulgence for contributors to repairs at, ;
immorality at, ;
Prioress of, , 57n. 2

Estates, management of, , ,

Estrées, Angélique d’, 451n. 5,

Eton, Robert de,

Etton, Alice,

Euphemia, Abbess of Wherwell, , , , , , ,

Everesdon, John,

Everingham, Margaret,

Everyngham, Alice de, 442n. 2

Evesham Chronicle, 489n. 1

Evreux, St Sauveur, 636ff.,

Ewer, Margaret,

Excommunication of nuns,

Exeter, Bishops of, , ;
and see Stapeldon, Grandisson, etc.

Eynsham Abbey, ;
Abbot of,

Fairfax family, , , 18n. 4, ,

—— Elizabeth,

—— John,

—— Margaret, , , 303n. 1, , , 399n. 3, 468n. 4, ,

Fairs, , , , ;
and see Stourbridge Fair

Fairwell Priory, 217n., 220n. 1, , 320n., 356n. 3, , 416n. 1;
children at, , , ;
dissolution of,

Falowfeld, Isabel,

“Farms,” , , ,

Favences, Antoinette de,

Faversham, Vicar of,

Feast of Fools, 312ff.

Felawe, William,

Felton, Mary de, 442n. 2

Feriby, Benedict de,
see Broughton, Rector of

Ferrar, Agnes,

Ferry Woman, The,

Ffychmere, Joan,

Fisher, Jane, 247n. 2

FitzAleyn, John,

—— Katherine,

Fitzjames, Richard, Bishop of London,

FitzRichard, Elizabeth,

—— John,

Fitzwilliam, Lady Isabel,

Flagge, Alice de la, , ,

Flamstead, Matilda de,

—— Priory, 59n. 2, , , ;
children at, ;
churches appropriated to, 113n. 1, ;
custos of, 230n. 8;
poverty of, ,

Flemyng, Richard, Bishop of Lincoln, , , , , , , , 308n. 1, 384n. 1, , 407n. 1, , ,

Fletcher, Joan, 88n., 467n. 3

Flixborough, Rector of,

Flixthorpe, Agnes de, , 443ff., , 467n. 3

Flixton Priory, 59n. 1, , , , 292n. 2, , 489n. 2;
cloister and frater defective at, ;
poverty of, ;
Prioress of, , , , ;
and see Pilly, Katherine

Folgeham, Cecily,

Fonten, Margaret de,

Fontrevrault, Abbess of, 305n. 6, 360n. 2;
cells of, ;
nuns of, , ;
rule of, 400n. 2

Fordham, John of, Bishop of Ely, ,

Fosse Priory, ;
Master of, ;
poverty of, , , 184n. 4;
Prioress of, ,

Foster, Alice,

—— Thomas,

Foukeholm, St Stephen’s, , 448n. 1

Fountains, Abbot of, 375n. 1

Fox, Richard, Bishop of Winchester, , ,

—— John,

—— William,

Franke, Beatrice, ,

Frater, 315ff., , , ;
children in, ;
repair of,

Fratress of nunnery, ,

Fraunceys, John,

Free Warren, Grants of,

Fréjus, Council of,

French, knowledge of, in 14th century, ,

Froissart, , , ,

Frost, Ellen,

Fulham, Nicholas de, 259n. 3

Furmage, Joan, , ,

Fychet, John,

Gandersheim Abbey, ;
Roswitha’s history of,

Gascoigne, Agnes,

—— Thomas, , , 447n. 6,

Gaveston, Piers,

Geoffrey de Saint Belin,

George, Christopher,

Germyn, Helen,

Gertrud the Great, of Helfta, ,

Gesta Romanorum, 516n. 2,

Ghent, Simon of, Bishop of Salisbury, , , ,

Gibbs, Elizabeth,

Giffard, Agatha, ,

—— Alice,

—— Godfrey, Bishop of Worcester, , ,

—— Juliana, ,

—— Mabel,

—— Sir Osbert, 463ff.

—— Walter, Archbishop of York, , , , , , , , 355n. 1, 399n. 3, , 472n. 1, , 494n. 1,

Glastonbury, Abbot of, ;
and see Whiting, Richard

Gloucester, Duke of,

—— Eleanor, Duchess of, 328n. 5

—— Richard, Earl of,

—— Thomas of,

Godstow Abbey, , , , , , 291n. 2, 292n. 2, , 347n. 2, , , , 384n. 1, 395ff., , , 405n. 1, 407n. 1, , 448n. 1, , , , , ;
Abbess of, , ;
and see Henley, Alice;
bailiff of, ;
boarders forbidden at, , , ;
books of, , , ;
claustration at, , 356n. 5, , 358n. 1;
debts of, , ;
disorder at, ;
education of children at, , , , , ;
households of nuns at, 318ff.;
Prior of, 230ff.;
Puerilia solemnia at, ;
Register of, , , 206n. 3, ;
steward of, ;
visitors at, ,

Gokewell Priory, 111n. 3, ;
children at, ;
households of nuns at, ;
poverty of, , ;
Prioress of, , ;
steward of, , 236n. 2

Goldesburgh, Joan, ,

Goldwell, James, Bishop of Norwich, 461n. 1, 494n. 1

Goring Priory, 53n. 2, , , , , , , ;
custos of, 230n. 8;
dilapidations at, ;
poverty owing to lawsuits of, ;
violence at, , ,

Gorsyn, Alice,

Gosden, William,

Gower, John, , , , ,

Gower’s Temple of Glas, The, , ;
Vox Clamantis, , ,

Gowring, Jane,

Gracedieu Priory, , 110n., 111n. 3, , 149n., , , , , , , , , , 400n. 1;
bailiff of, ;
boarders at, , 573ff.;
cellaress of, , , ;
chaplain of, , ;
children at, , , , ;
debts of, ;
embroidery made at, ;
households of nuns at, , 320n.;
jewels, etc., pawned by, ;
mismanagement at, 225n. 2;
peculium for clothes given at, ;

Prioress of, , , , , , , , , , , ;
relics at, 116n. 3;
treasuress of, ,

Granary, repair of, ,

Grandisson, John de, Bishop of Exeter, 183n. 4, , ,

Grangyer, Joan,

Gravesend, Richard de, Bishop of Lincoln,

—— Stephen, Bishop of London, ,

Gray, Barbara,

—— Richard, ,

—— William, Bishop of Lincoln, , , , , , , , 308n. 1, , , , , , , 405n. 1, , ,

Great Billing, Rector of,

Green, Nicholas, 441n.

Greenfield, Margaret,

—— Priory, , , ;
corrodies, etc., granted by, 214n. 4;
Prioress of, , , , ;
solitary confinement at, ;
titles remitted, 184n. 2

—— William, Archbishop of York, , , 51ff., , , , 257n. 2, , , 302n. 1, , , , , ,

Gregory X,

Grey, William, Bishop of Ely,

Grimeley, William de,

Grimsby, St Leonard’s Priory, 111n. 3, , , ;
fire at, ;
Master of, , 232n. 1

Grome, Katherine,

Grosseteste, Robert, Bishop of Lincoln, ,

Guest-house, , , , ;
accounts of,

Guiot de Provins,

Gurney, Joanna,

Gynewell, John, Bishop of Lincoln, , 200n. 4, , , , , 322n., 356n. 5, , , 374n. 1, , , , , 441n.

Gyney, Joan,

Hainault, Bailiwick of,

—— John of,

Hales, Thomas of, 513n. 1,

Halewey, Agnes,

Hali Meidenhad, , , , 525ff.

Haliwell Priory, , , 34n. 2, 422n. 2, ;
alms given by, ;
Prioress of, ,

Hallam, Bishop,

Halle, St George (Marienkammer), ,

—— St Maurice,

Hampole Priory, 113n. 3, , , , 320n., , , , 365n. 3, 401n. 1, , , 466n. 1, , , ;
and Richard Rolle, 532n. 2;
bad administration at, ;
boarders at, 413n. 4, ;
children at, ;
custos of, 230n. 8;
Prioress of, , 83n., , 329n. 5, ,

Hampole, Richard,

Hampton, Alice de,

Hanam, Elianora, 361n. 1

Handale Priory, , 57n. 2, , , 220n. 5, 361n. 2;
custos of, 230n. 8,

Harcourt, Catherine d’,

Harmer, Margaret,

Harold, Henry, ,

—— Isabel,

Harreyes, John,

Harrold Priory, , , , ;
children at, , ;
custos of, 230n. 8;
debts of, ;
financial mismanagement at, ;
Prioress of, , ,

Harvesting,

Hatfield, Thomas, Bishop of Durham,

Haukeforth, Elizabeth,

Haunsard, John,

Hauteyn, Alice,

—— Walter, ,

Haverholme Priory, , 442n. 2

Head of house, conduct of, , , , , 643ff.;
disciplinary powers of, , ;
dress, etc., of, , , ;
favouritism by, 66ff.;
financial mismanagement by, 81ff., 203ff., 217ff.;
hospitality of, , ;
journeys of, , 70ff.;
luxurious living of, 74ff., , ;
and see Abbess

Hede, Dr, , ,

Hedington, Sir Nicholas,

Hedsor, Margery,

Heidenheim,

Helewell, Ada de,

—— Peter, ,

—— William,

Helfta, Convent of, , ,

Helmsley,

Helmstedt, 682ff.

Helswindis, Abbess,

Henley, Alice, ,

Henry II,

—— III,

—— IV,

—— VIII, , , ,

Henwood Priory, ;
Prioress of,

Herars, John,

Hereford, Countess of,

Herminal, John de,

Hermyte, Isabel, Prioress, ,

Herrad, Abbess,

Herryson, John,

Herward, Elene,

Hexham Priory,

—— schools of,

Heyden, John,

Heynings Priory, , 22ff., 111n. 3, , , 226ff., , 291n. 2, 292n. 2, 322n., , 374n. 1, , 402n. 4, 459ff., , ;
accounts not kept at, ;
appropriation by, ;
children at, , , , , ;
claustration at, 357n. 1, 358n. 1;
corrodies at, granted by, ;
custos at, ;
hospitality at, ;
poverty of, , , , ;
Prioress of, , , , ;
restriction of numbers at, ;
seculars at, , , ;
treasuress of,

Heyroun, Margaret, ,

—— William,

Higham Ferrers College, 380n. 4

Hildesheim, St Mary Magdalen, , , , ,

Hilton, Sir Robert de, 399n. 3

Hinchinbrooke Priory, 361n. 1;
Prioress of,

Hodesak, Beatrice de,

Hohenburg,

Holewaye, Elizabeth, 442n. 2

Holland, Robert de,

Holm, Mary de, ,

Holystone Priory,

Home Farm of Nunnery, 125ff., , , , , ;
harvesting on, ,

Horde, Dr,

Hortus Deliciarum,

Hosey, Agnes,

Hours, Canonical, , 291ff.;
irreverence at, ,

Hubbart, Alicia, 441n.

Humberstone Abbey, 377n. 2

Hunter, Matilda, 442n. 2

Huntingdon, Archidiaconate of,

—— Priory, 308n. 1, 360n. 1

—— St James’ outside,

Hutton, Joan, 467n. 3

Hyde Abbey, ;
Abbot of, see Bromele, Thos.

Hylyarde, Elynor,

Hythe, Hamo of, Bishop of Rochester, ,

Ickleton Priory, 184n. 4, , 400n. 1

Ilchester, St John’s, Rector of,

—— White Hall Priory, , ;
coadjutresses appointed at, ;
condition of, ;
custodes of, ;
poverty of, ;
Prioress of, 88n., , , ;
and see Chilterne; Draycote

Imitatio Christi,

Indulgences, ,

Infirmaress,

Infirmary, , ,

Ingham, Katherine de,

Inglewood Forest,

Ingoldesby, Margaret,

Ingoldesthorpe, Sir John,

Innocent III,

Irford Priory, ,

“Issues of the Manor,”

109ff.

Ivinghoe Priory, , 184n. 4, 357n. 1;
Prioress of, ,

Jafford, William de,

James I of Scotland,

James I’s King’s Quair,

James V of Scotland,

Jeanne de France, 342n. 1,

Jecke, Philippa,

Jerves, John, ,

Joan de Barton, 88n.

—— Princess of Wales,

Jocelin of Brakelond, 45ff.,

John of Gaunt, , 370n. 5, , 421n. 1

Johnson, Margaret,

—— William,

Jordan, Isabel, , ,

Joseph, Stephen,

Josiana de Anelagby,

Julian of Norwich, , 502n. 1

Juliana of Bromhale, ,

Jumièges, Abbot of, 310n. 2

Jurdane, Isabel,

Keldholme Priory, 51ff., 111n. 3, , 360n. 2, 443n. 2, 448n. 1, , ;
moral state of, ;
Prioress of, see Emma of Stapelton; Emma of York; Pykering, Joan de

Kemp, John, Archbishop of York, , ,

Kempe, Alice,

Kempis, Thomas à,

Kent, Holy Maid of, see Barton, Elizabeth

—— Isabella de, ,

Kentwood, Dean, , 261n. 2, , , , ,

Kessingland, Rectory of,

Key, Thomas, , ,

Kilburn Priory, , 18n. 4, ;
chaplain’s chamber at, ;
library of,

King, Philippa, ,

King’s Mead Priory, , , 361n. 1;
children at, ;
custodes of, ;
hospitality of, ;
poverty of, , ;
Prior of, ;
relics at, 116n. 3

King’s Quair, The,

Kington, St Michael, , , 360n. 2

Kippax, Rector of,

Kirkby, Margery, , ,

Kirk Deighton, Rector of,

Kirklees Priory, 320n. 1, , 448n. 1;
custos of, 220n. 5, 230n. 8, , ;
moral state of, , ;
Prioress of, , , ,

Kitcheness of nunnery, 131ff.

Knaresborough, St Robert’s,

Knight, Laurens, ,

—— Richard,

Knyghte, Elizabeth, ,

—— Jane, ,

Koc, Margaret,

—— William,

Kyme, 249n. 7

Kyrkeby, Margery, 405n. 2

Lacock Abbey, , 19n. 3, 268n., ;
alms given by, ;
claustration at, ;
visitors at,

Lacy, Henry de,

Lambley Priory, ,

Lamentations de Matheolus, Les, ,

Lampet, Julian, 366n. 3

Lancaster, Isabella de, ,

—— Joan, , 147n. 5,

—— Margaret de, ,

—— Thomas of,

Lanercost Chronicle,

Langeland, Thomas,

Langeloft, Isabella de,

Langendorf Nunnery, 305n. 4

Langland, William, , , , , 297ff., , 308n. 1, , , , ,

Langley Priory, , , , 111n. 3, , , 313n. 5, , , 402n. 3, , , ;
children at, , ;
corrody sold by, ;
embroidery at, , ;
households of nuns at, ;
illiteracy at, ;
poverty of, , , , ;
Prioress of, , , ,

Langton, Thomas,

Lateran Council, Fourth,

Latin, knowledge of, by nuns, ,

Latymer, Matilda,

Lawrence, Robert,

Lay-brothers,

Lee, Edward, Archbishop of York, 61n. 2, , , , 251n. 2, 284n. 1, 356n. 5, , ,

Legbourne Priory, , , , 111n. 3, , , , , 356n. 5, , , ;
bailiff of, , , ;
boarders at, ;
corrody in, ;
custodes of, , 236n. 2;
dilapidated condition of property of, 170n. 1, ;
households of nuns at, ;
poverty of, , ;
Prioress of, , , , 170n., , ;
status domus of,

Legenda aurea,

Legh, Margaret, 261n. 2

Leicester, Countess of,

Lelle, Avice de, 448n. 1

Leominster Priory, Sub-prior of,

Leycroft, Thomas

Leygrave, Alice de,

—— Ellen de,

—— Juliana de,

Leyva, Virginia de,

Libaud, Sibyl, 421n. 1

—— Thomas, 421n. 1

Libel of English Policie,

Liber Poenitentialis of Theodore, 450n. 3

Lillechurch Priory, 143n.,

Lilleshall,

Limburg Chronicle,

Limington, Rector of,

Lincoln, Archdeacon of,

—— Bishops of, , , , ;
and see Alnwick; Buckingham; Flemyng; Gravesend; Longland; Sutton

—— Cathedral, ,

Lindesay, Sir David, , , , , 552ff.

Lindesay’s Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaits, , , 552ff.

Lingiston, Thomas de,

Lioba, see Bischofsheim, Abbess of

Liseway, Roger,

Lisieux, St Désir, ;
financial state of,

Lisle, Honor, Viscountess, ,

—— Sibil de,

Little Chester, Simon of,

Little Coates, Vicar of, 232n. 1

Littlemore, Agnes de,

—— Priory, , 60n., , , , , 448n. 1, , , ;
dilapidations at, ;
ill-fame of, , , , ;
moral state of, , ;
Prioress of, , , ;
and see Wells, Katherine

Llewelyn, ,

Lokton, Anabilla de,

Londesborough, Rector of, ,

London, , , , ,

—— Council of, 1200, ,

—— nunneries of,

Longland, John, Bishop of Lincoln, , , , , , , , , , , 356n. 5, , , , , ,

Longspey, Alice, , , , ,

Loughborough,

Loveday, Anne,

Loweliche, Denise, 64n. 5, 88n., , , , 486n. 2,

Ludlow, Gild of Palmers,

Luitgard of Tongres, ,

Luue Ron, A, , 513n. 1, ,

Lylis, John,

Lymbrook Priory, 113n. 1, , , , 309ff., 347n. 2, 356n. 5, 359n. 3, 367n. 2, , , , 403n. 5, 408n. 2, , ;
children at, ;
Prioress of, 361n. 1;
private property at, , , 339n. 2

Lyminster,

Lynn, King’s, , ,

Maiden Bradley, Prior of,

Malling Abbey, , , , 58n., ;
Abbess of, 20n., , 155n. 1, , , , ;
and see Retlyng, Lora de;
corrody granted in, 208n. 2;
fair of, 106n. 2;
financial mismanagement at, , ;
falling mill of, 107n. 1;
poverty of, 184n. 4;
prebends of, ;
seal of,

Malnouë, nuns of,

Malory, Sir Thomas,

Malory’s Morte Darthur, ,

Manorial courts, 103ff.

Marcens, 433ff.

Marcham, Agnes, ,

Mare, Thomas de la, ,

Margaret, Countess of Ulster,

Marham, Abbess of, , 380n. 4;
chartulary of,

Marie de Bretagne, 305n. 6

—— de France,

Marienberg,

Mariensee, 678ff.

Markyate Priory, , , , , , , 450n. 2, , , ;
custos of, 230n. 8;
debts of, , ;
disorder at, , , , , ;
domestic economy of, ;
illiteracy at, ;
Prioress of, , , , ;
and see Loweliche, Denise;
visitation at, , ,

Marlow, Little, Priory to, , , ;
children at, ;
poverty of, 184n. 4;
prioresses of, 17n. 2;
and see Bernard, Eleanor; Vernon, Margaret

Marmyll, Cecily,

Marrick Priory, 111n. 3, , , , 230n. 8, , , 356n. 5, 401n. 1, , ;
Prioress of, 148n. 3,

Marshall, Richard,

Marshalsea, the,

Martin IV, Pope,

Mason, Barbara, 380n. 4

Matheolus, Les Lamentations de, ,

Matrimony, The Christen State of,

Matthew Paris,

Maundy Thursday, , 142n. 3, 143n.

Mautravers, Sir John,

Maxstoke Priory, 210n. 2

Meaux Abbey,

Mechthild of Hackeborn, ,

—— of Magdeburg, , ,

Medforde, Clemence, , , , , , , , , , , , 361n. 1, , 405n. 2,

Melton, William de, Archbishop of York, , , 248n. 7, , , , 356n. 4, , , , , 468n. 1, ,

Menagier de Paris,

Messe des oisiaus, etc.,

Mestowe, Hundred of, , , 422n. 2

Metham, Margaret,

Middle class, rise of, 9ff.

Middleton, manor-house at,

Minchin Barrow Priory, , , 358n. 4;
custos of, ;
poverty of, 184n. 4;
Prioress of,

Minories, the, , , , , , , , , , 176n. 3, 328n. 5

Minster Priory,

Misericord,

Mistress of novices,

Mitford, Katherine,

Molynes, Lord,

Montagu, Katherine, 442n. 2

Montfort, Isabel de,

—— Peter de,

—— Simon de,

Montivilliers Abbey, 560n., , , ;
Abbess of, , ;
financial state of,

Montmartre, nuns of,

More, Avice de la, ,

Mori, Gui de,

Mortimer, daughters of, , ,

—— Roger,

Mortival, Bishop,

Morton, John, Archbishop of Canterbury, , 230n. 6, , 482n. 1

Mortuaries, 107ff.

Mounceaux, Ella de,

Mowbray, Katherine,

Moxby, 58n., , , 217n., , , 402n. 4, , , ;
bakehouse and brewhouse of, dilapidated, ;
debts of, , 220n. 4;
destroyed by Scots, ;
masters of, ;
moral state of, ;
prioresses of, 148n. 3, ;
and see Apelgarth, Sabina de, and Bartone, Joan;
Whenby Church appropriated to, 113n. 1

Muisis, Gilles li, , , ,

—— “Register” of, ,

Munkton, John, , 303n. 1, 399n. 3

Musgrave, Agnes,

Mydelsburg, Thomas, 220n. 5

Myroure of Oure Ladye, , , , ,

Myssenden, James,

Neasham, St Mary’s, , 170n. 3, 402n. 4;
Prioress of, 360n. 2

Needlework in nunneries, ,

Nether Sutton,

Nevers, nuns of, , ;
and see Vert-Vert

Neville’s Cross, Battle of,

Newark, Henry of, Archbishop, , 338n. 3

—— Ermentrude,

Newburgh Priory, ;
Prior of,

Newcastle, St Bartholomew’s Priory, 362n. 3;
appropriations to, ;
custos of, ;
fire at, ;
poverty of, ;
Prioress of, 360n. 2

Newemerche, Elizabeth de,

Newhouse Abbey, , , 399n. 3

Newington, Prioress of,

Newman, Nicholas,

Newmarch, Jane,

Newton, Matilda, 366n. 3

Nicke, Richard, Bishop of Norwich, , , , , , 484n. 1

Nicolson, Margaret,

Nonnes, Chansons de,

Norbery, Lady Anne,

Norbury, Roger de, Bishop of Lichfield, , 190n.,

Noreton, Roger de,

Norfolk, Thomas, family of,

Northallerton, St Stephen’s nunnery, 428n. 3

Northampton, Archdeacon of, , , ,

—— Battle of,

—— Friary at,

—— St James, Abbot of,

Northeleye, Rector of, see Joseph, Stephen

Northlode, Alice de, ,

—— John de,

Norwich, Bishops of, , , , , 309n. 6, ;
and see Goldwell and Nicke

—— Isabel, ,

—— Priory, 210n. 2,

—— Tombland in,

Nottingham, Archdeacon of,

Novellae Definitiones of Cistercians,

Novice, the, 1ff., , , ;
mistress of, , 261n. 2;
teacher of,

Noyon, Robert de,

Nun who Loved the World, The,

Nun, Why I can’t be a, 545ff.

Nunappleton Priory, , , 61n. 2, , 154n. 1, , , 251n. 2, 248n., 322n., , 338n. 3, , , , , , 402n. 4, , , , ;
accounts of, audited, ;
boarders at, , ;
custos of, 230n. 8;
gifts to, 326ff.;
poverty of, 184n. 4, ;
Prioress of, ;
visitations of, ,

Nunburnholme Priory, 53n. 2, , 365n. 3, 400n. 1, , ;
boarders at, ;
custos of, , 230n. 8;
Prioress of,

Nuncoton Priory, , , , 111n. 3, , , , 217n.,

, , , , , , , , , , , 381n. 2, , , , 402n. 4, 408n. 4, ;
boarders of, , ;
bondmen of, alienated, ;
corrodies sold at, , , ;
debts of, 225n. 4;
frater at, 317n. 1;
households of nuns at, ;
invalids at, 259n. 1;
jewels, etc., pawned, ;
master of, ;
Prioress of, , , , , ;
revels at, , ;
seculars at,

Nuneaton Priory, , , , 34n. 1, , , 421n. 1, 441n.;
alms given by, ;
numbers of nuns at,

Nunkeeling Priory, , , , 184n. 4, , , 291n. 2, 357n. 5, , 448n. 1, , ;
boarders at, ;
bursars of, ;
cellaress of, ;
enforced reception of nuns at, ;
Prioress of, see More, Avice de la; St Quintin, Isabella de

Nunmonkton Priory, , , 18n. 4, 111n. 3, 399n. 3, , , 494n. 1, , , ;
Prioress of, , ;
see Fairfax, Margaret

Nunneries, amusements in, , 304ff., ;
animals in, , ;
aristocratic members of, 3ff., 12ff., , , , , , , ;
books of, 239ff.;
children in, 264ff., , 568ff., 655ff.;
episcopal disapproval of, 270ff., 568ff., 655ff.;
custodes of, 228ff.;
discipline in, 300ff.;
disputes in, 300ff.;
education of girls in, 260ff., 568ff.;
and see children in;
election of superior in, 43ff.;
expenses of, 117ff., , , , 636ff.;
farm labourers of, , ;
financial difficulties of, 161ff., 180ff., 217ff., ;
mismanagement of, 166ff., 179n. 3, 203ff., ;
food supplies of, 138ff., 332ff., 334ff., 640ff.;
girls forced into, 33ff.;
home farms of, 109ff.;
hospitality at, , , 401ff., 417ff., ;
household staff of, , ;
illiteracy in, 250ff.;
income of, , , 100ff., , , , , , ;
earmarked, ;
Latin, study of, in, , , , , , , ;
middle-class members of, 10ff., ;
moral state of, 436ff., 597ff., 665ff., ;
numerical size of, , , , , , 215n. 4;
overcrowding of, 212ff., ;
payments for reception into, 17ff., ;
pensions demanded from, 194ff.;
private rooms in, 318ff., , , ;
quarrels in, 663ff.;
reasons for entering, 25ff., ;
repairs to, 123ff., ;
right of nominating to, 189ff., 244n. 1;
routine in, 285ff., 475ff.;
ruinous condition of, 168ff.;
satirists on, 533ff.;
seculars in, 401ff., , , 660ff.;
separate households (familiae) in, 272ff., 316ff., , , , , , ;
servants of, , 143ff., 651;
status domus of, , ;
weak-minded in, , ;
widows in, 38ff.

Nuns, almsgiving by, , , , , ;
annuities for, , ;
beer allowance of, , 141n., , 168n. 1;
bread allowance of, 141n., , 168n. 2;
Bible reading by, , ;
claustration of, , , , , , 201n. 2, , , , 341ff., , 660ff.;
clothes of, , , , , , , 302n. 1, 303ff., , 329ff., 585ff., , , ;
dowries of, 17ff., 191n. 1, , , ;
education, etc., of, 237ff.;
food allowances for, , 564ff., , ;
journeys out of cloister by, 354ff.;
legacies to, 325ff.;
linguistic learning of, , , , ;
love and, in medieval popular literature, 622ff.;
money allowance of, , 338ff.;
penances of, 466ff.;
personal property of, , , , , 315ff., 322ff., 337ff., 651ff., 672ff.;
pets of, , , 305ff.;
pilgrimages of, 371ff.;
pocket money (peculium) of, , , , , 336ff.;
occupations of, 251ff., 285ff.;
recreation of, ;
songs about, 502ff.

Nuremberg, library of Dominicans at, 240n. 2

—— St Clare,

Obedientiaries, , , , , , , ;
and see Cellaress, Treasuress, etc.

Odiham, John de,

Oignies, Mary of,

Okeley, Katherine, ,

Oldyngton, Henry de,

Olifaunt, Elizabeth,

—— William,

Olyfard, Hugh, ,

Origny, nunnery of, 432ff.

Orwell,

Oseney, Abbot of,

Ottobon, Constitutions of, , , , ,

Oundyl, Henry,

Overton, William,

Oxborow, Parson of, see Wiggenhall, John

Oxford, Council of, 1222, , , , , , ,

—— St Frideswide, 308n. 1

—— scholars of, , , , , ,

Page, Robert,

Palmer, Robert,

Panham, Countess of,

Pantolfe, Sir William,

Pape, Thomas, 399n. 3

Papelwyk, Sibil, ,

Paris, Faculty of Theology at,

Paston, Edmond,

—— John, 10n., ,

—— Margaret, 267n. 1,

—— Margery, ,

Patent, Joan, 322n.

Pateshull, Sir John,

Patryk, Alice,

Pavy, Joan,

Paynel, Cecilia,

Peasants’ Revolt,

Peckham, John, Archbishop of Canterbury, , , , , , 156n. 7, , , , , , , 230n. 8, , , 258n. 4, , , , , 346ff., , , 385n. 2, , 390n. 5, , , , , , ,

Pecok, Reginald, Bishop of Chichester, 447n. 6

Peke, William,

Pelayo, Alvar, 545n. 1

Pelham, Maud,

Pembroke, Countess of,

Percy, Joan de, ,

—— Lady Margaret,

—— Sir W.,

Peresson, John,

Pergolotti, Francesco,

Periculoso, 343n. 3, 344ff., , , , , , ,

Persones Tale, Chaucer’s, ,

Peruzzi, the,

Perys, Edmund, , ,

Peterborough Abbey, ,

—— Abbots of, , , , , ,

Philippa, Queen,

—— Duchess of York,

Pilgrimage of Grace,

Pilgrimages, 371ff.

Pilly, Katherine, ,

Pinley,

Pirckheimer, Charitas, ,

—— Wilibald,

Pisan, Christine de, Livre du dit de Poisy, 558ff.

Pittancer,

Pittances, , , , , ,

, , , , , , 328n. 2, , , , , ,

Plagues, medieval, 178ff.;
and see Black Death

Plantagenet, Bridget, , 279ff.

—— Elizabeth,

Playce, Robert de,

Pocket money (peculium), ,

Poer, Maude,

Poisy, Livre du dit de, 558ff.

Poisy, Priory of, 558ff.

—— Prioress of, see Bourbon, Marie de

Poitiers, Holy Cross,

Pole, Katherine de la, , , ,

Polesworth Abbey, , , 416n. 1;
Abbess of, 42n. 1, 217n. 1;
alms given by, ;
children at, , , , ;
servants of,

Poleter, Robert le,

Polsloe Priory, 171n. 2, , , , 259n. 1, , , , 403n. 5, 408n. 2, 416n. 1;
claustration relaxed at, , ;
meals at, ;
poverty of, , ;
presentation of accounts at,

Poncher, Étienne,

Pontefract,

Pontoise, John of, Bishop of Winchester, , , , 218ff., 244n., 259n. 1, , ,

Poore, Richard, Bishop of Salisbury,

Popeley, Elizabeth, 88n.

Porter, Alice,

—— James,

—— Richard,

Portsmouth, Joan,

Potton, Rectory of,

Poutrelle, Agnes,

Powes, Emma, 361n. 1

Pratica della Mercatura,

Pratt, Ralph,

Praty, Richard, Bishop of Chichester,

Preaux, St Leger, ;
Abbess of, ;
financial state of,

Precentrix of nunnery, see Chantress

Prémontré, nuns of,

Prestewych, Margaret de, ,

Preston, Anne, ,

—— Margery,

Prioress, see Head of house

Proctors for begging, ,

Punchardon, Margaret de,

Punder, Margaret,

Pyghtesley, Richard,

Pykering, Joan de, 51ff.

—— Margaret de, 328n. 1

Pykkell, Robert,

Rading, Philippa de,

Radyngton, Joan de,

Raoul de Cambrai, 432ff., 560n.

Rasponi, Felice, ,

Ratclyff, Margaret, ,

Raulyn,

Rayn, John, ,

Raynevill, Thomas de, 466n. 1

Reading, Abbot of,

Receiver of nunnery, , , , ,

Redlingfield Priory, 64n. 6, , , 319n. 3, , ,

—— Prioresses of, , , ;
see Hermyte, Isabel

Redynges, Margaret,

Relics, ,

Rennes, Cloth of, ,

“Rents of Assize,” ,

Rents from lands and houses, , , ,

Retlyng, Lora de,

Reymound, Thomas,

Reynolds, Walter, Archbishop of Canterbury, , ,

Rich, Margaret,

Richemond, Elianore,

Ridel, Mary, ,

Rievaulx, Abbot of, see Aelred

Rigaud, Eudes, Archbishop of Rouen, 163n. 4, 255n. 2, , , 305n. 3, 308n. 2, 310n. 2, , , 337n. 2, 338n. 3, 380n. 4, 450n. 3, , , , 635ff.

Ripon Minster, 377n. 2

Roche, Abbot of,

—— Joan de la,

Rochester, Bishops of, 208n. 2;
and see Hythe, Hamo of

Roger atte Bedde,

Rolf, Katherine,

Rolle, Richard, of Hampole, 532n. 2,

Rolls of Parliament, quoted,

Romayn, Alice, 442n. 2

Romeyn, John de, Archbishop of York, , , , , 361n. 1,

Romsey, Abbess of, 60ff., , , 170n. 2, , , , , , , , , , , , ;
and see Broke, Elizabeth; Rowse, Joyce; Walerand, Agnes;
accounts of, 101n., , ;
animals at, ;
coadjutress appointed to, ;
children at, , ;
corrodies at, , , ;
dilapidations at, , ;
disorder at, , ;
magister noviciarum at, ;
Manor courts of, 104n. 2;
mills of, ;
mismanagement at, , ;
numbers at, 215n. 4, ;
obedientiaries of, ;
pensioners at, ;
pittances at, 259n., ;
poverty of, , , ;
prebendary canons of, , ;
private property at, , 339n. 5;
pupils at, ;
servants of, ;
taxation of, ;
too many nuns at, , ;
visitations of, ;
visitors at, , , ,

Romsey Abbey, 2ff., , , , 58n., 88n., 111n. 2, 113n. 1, , , , 186ff., , 213n. 1, 217n., , , , , 291n. 2, 292n. 2, , 304n. 1, 320n., 322n., 348ff., , 358n. 3, 361n. 1, 367n. 2, , , 384n., , , , 400n. 1, 402n. 4, , , , 448n. 1, , , , , , ,

Roos, Eleanor,

—— Joan,

—— Sir Robert de, ,

Rosedale Priory, , 111n. 3, , , , , 400n. 1, 467n. 3, , , ;
dilapidations at, ;
destruction of, by Scots, ;
process of, ;
relics at, ;
status domus of,

Roselis, Joan de,

Roswitha, ,

Rotherham, Thomas, Archbishop of York, , , , ,

Rothwell Church,

Rothwell Priory, , , 171n. 2, 304n. 1;
begging license granted to, ;
boarders at, ;
debts of, , , ;
Desborough church appropriated, 113n. 1;
Prioress of, , , ;
violent scene at,

Rouen, St Amand, ;
Abbess of, ;
accounts of, ;
financial state of, ,

Rouen, St Paul by, , ,

Rowney Priory, 171n. 2, 176n. 3, , ;
alms-collector appointed for, ;
master of, ;
Prioress of,

Rowse, Joyce, ,

Rudd, Agnes,

Rummynge, Elynour,

Rusper Priory, , , 91n., , , 399n. 3, , 494n. 1, ;
poverty of, ;
Prioress of, , 221n. 1,

Russel, Alice,

Rutebeuf,

Sackfelde, Margaret,

Sacrist of nunnery, , , ;
accounts of,

Sadler, Hugh,

St Agnes of Bohemia,

St Albans Abbey, ,

, , , 456n. 4, ,

—— Abbots of, 56n. 2, 259n. 1, , 361n. 2, , ;
see Mare, Thomas de la

St Albans, The Boke of,

St Albans Chronicle, 429ff.

St Aldhelm,

St Andrews, Bishop of,

St Aubin’s Priory, , ;
financial state of, , ;
moral state of, ,

St Bernardino of Siena, 518n. 1

St Boniface,

St Caesarius of Arles,

St Catherine, Life of,

St Christina of Stommeln,

St Clare,

—— Order of, ,

St Douceline,

St Elizabeth of Schönau,

St Francis of Paula,

St Francis de Sales, ,

St Hildegard of Bingen,

St Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, ,

St John Baptist, Fair of, ,

St Katherine of Alexandria, Life of, Capgrave’s,

St Lydwine of Schiedam,

St Mary Graces, Abbot of, 375n. 1

St Paul, John de,

St Quintin, Anne,

—— Isabella de,

St Saens Priory, , , ;
financial state of, 637ff.;
inventory of, ;
moral state of, ,

St Sepulchre’s, Canterbury, see Canterbury, Holy Sepulchre

St Theresa,

Salimbene, ,

Salisbury, Bishops of, ,

Saltmershe, Maud,

Salwayn, Sir Roger,

Sanctuary, 420ff.

Satyre of the Thrie Estaits, Ane, , , 552ff.

Sauvage, William,

Savernake, Forest of, ,

Saxony,

Saxton, Roger de,

Scorue, Isabella de,

Screvyn, Agnes de, ,

Scrope, Eleanor Lady,

Scroupe, Jane,

Seal, Common, of nunnery, , , 248n. 7

Seckworth, William de,

Sele, William,

Sempringham Priory, , , , , ;
fire at, 171n. 3

—— Chronicle of,

—— Order of,

Senoke, Sir John,

Sens, Council of,

Sermons, medieval, , 518ff., 518n. 1

Seton Priory, , ,

Sevekworth, John de,

Sewardby, Elizabeth, , 166n. 4

—— William,

Sewardsley Priory, 34n. 1, , , , , 457ff., ;
appropriation of church to, ;
begging license granted to, ;
church appropriated to, 113n. 1;
disorder at, , ;
fair of, 106n. 2;
master of,

Shaftesbury, Abbess of, 78n. 5, , , , , ;
see Bauceyn, Juliana; Ferrar, Agnes; Furmage, Joan; Giffard, Mabel

—— Abbey, , , 101n., , , , , , , 268n., 300n. 1, , , 385n. 2, 421n. 1, , , ;
appropriations to, 113n. 1, , ;
bread allowance at, 141n.;
claustration at, ;
corrodies at, , ;
financial difficulties of, , , , ;
hospitality at, ;
license to crenellate, ;
number of nuns at, , 215n. 4;
pensions demanded from, ;
prebendary canons of, , 228n. 5;
Prioress of, ;
Register of, 141n.;
resident chaplains at, ;
steward of,

Sheen, Agnes of,

Sheldon, Matilda, ,

Shelley, Elizabeth, 279ff.

Sheperd, Richard,

Sheppey Priory, , , , 154n. 1, , , , 221n. 1, 300n. 2, , 325n. 1, 330n. 6, , , 494n. 1;
cattle owned by, , ;
“confessor’s chamber” at, , 147n. 1;
dorter at, ;
library at, ;
numbers at, ;
servants of, ;
“steward’s chamber” at, 147n. 1

Sherburn, Bishop, ,

Shouldham Priory, , , , 330n. 3, ;
Prior of, ,

Shrewsbury, George, Earl of,

—— Ralph of, Bishop of Bath and Wells, , , , , ,

Sinclere, Elizabeth,

Sinningthwaite Priory, , , 249n. 7, 251n. 2, 284n., 291n. 2, 302n. 1, 320n., 381n. 2, , , ;
children at, , ;
claustration relaxed at, 356n. 5;
custos of, ;
jewels pledged, ;
poverty of, , , ;
Prioress of, , , , 302n. 1;
relics at, ;
visitation of, resisted,

Skelton, quoted, , , 590ff.,

Skerning, Roger de, Bishop of Norwich,

Skirlaw, Joan, ,

—— Walter, Bishop of Durham, , ,

Skotte, Alice,

Slibre, John,

Slo, Katherine,

Smith, John, ,

—— Margaret,

Snawe, Helen, 46ff.

Snowe, William, 399n. 3

Sompnour, Richard,

Sonnenburg, Abbess of, 377n. 4

Sopwell Priory, , , 259n. 1, , , 378n. 3, 402n. 4, 456n. 4, , , , ;
accounts of, ;
custos of, ;
children at, , ;
Prioress of, , , ;
and see Berners, Juliana; Flamstead, Matilda de; Germyn, Helen; Webbe, Elizabeth;
seculars at, ;
warden of,

Southwark, St Thomas the Martyr, 442n. 2

Spalding, Robert de,

Sparrow, Philip, , , 590ff.

Sperri, Reyner,

Sperry, Joan, 365n. 3

Spina, Juliana de, 244n. 1

Spinning by nuns,

Spiritualities, , 113ff.

Spofford, Thomas, Bishop of Hereford, 23n. 1, , 356n. 5, ,

Stafford, John, Archbishop of Canterbury, 447n. 6

Stainfield Churchyard, 390n. 5

—— Priory, , 111n. 3, , , , 381n. 2, ;
church appropriated to, 113n. 1;
Prioress of,

Stamford, St Michael’s, , , 49n., , , , , , , 135n. 3, , , , 200n., , , , , , , , 402n. 3, , 443ff., , , , , , , , ;
accounts of, , , , , 117n. 4, 118n., , , , 143n., , , , , ;
alms given by, ;
begging license granted to, ;
boarders at, , , , ;
chambress of, , ;
children at, , , , ;
churches appropriated to, , , 135n. 4, 143n.;
debts of, ;
disorder at, , ;
financial mismanagement at, , 225n. 2;
guests at, ;
households of nuns at, ;
litigation by, ;
peculium for clothes at, ;
pension paid by, , ;
pittances at, 143n., , ;
Prior of, , ;

Prioress of, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 368n. 4, , ;
treasuresses of, , , 185n. 6, , , , 368n. 4;
warden, special, appointed,

Stanley, Agnes, 442n. 2

—— Isabel, Prioress,

—— Sir John,

Stapeldon, Walter de, Bishop of Exeter, , , , 259n. 1, , , , , 406n. 1

Stapelton, Emma of, ,

Starkey, Cecilia, , ,

Status domus,

Staunton, Richard de,

Steinfeld Monastery,

Stevyn, Joan,

Steward of nunnery, , , , , , , , , , ,

Stil, Clarice, 35ff.,

—— Robert, ,

—— William,

Stixwould Priory, 111n. 3, 228ff.;
boarders at, , , ;
children at, , ;
debts of, , 184n. 4;
domestic economy of, ;
frater at, 317n. 1;
households of nuns at, , 320n.;
master of, ;
Prioress of, ,

Stok, William de, 230n. 5

Stokesley, John, Bishop of London, 447n. 6

Stommeln, Christina von, 27n. 2

Stonore, John, 17n. 2

Stories, medieval, 515ff.

Story, Edward, Bishop of Chichester,

Stourbridge Fair, ,

Stow, William,

Strasburg,

Stratford, Abbot of, 375n. 1,

—— John de, Bishop of Winchester, , ,

—— Priory, , , , 51n., , ;
poverty of, , ;
Prioress of, ,

Stretford, Jonette de,

Stretton, Robert de, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, , , ,

Studley, Isabella de, 301n.

—— Priory, , 153n. 3, , 168n. 1, , 268n., 304n. 1, , , , , 399n. 1, 408n. 2, ;
claustration relaxed at, 356n. 5, ;
custos of, 230n. 8;
debts of, ;
Prioress of, , , , ,

Sturges, Dorothy, ,

Style, N.,

Suffewyk, William,

Suffield, Walter de, Bishop of Norwich,

Surlingham Church,

Suthwell, John de,

Sutton, Oliver, Bishop of Lincoln, 176n. 3, , , ,

—— Richard, 441n.

—— William de,

Sutton-on-Derwent, Rector of,

Swaffham, Agnes,

Swaffham Bulbeck Priory, ;
accounts of, , 102n. 1, ;
children at, , , , , ;
mill of, 107n. 1;
Prioress of, see Ratclyff, Margaret

Swine Priory, , , , , 111n. 3, , , , , , , 291n. 2, 320n., 337n. 3, 355n. 1, 399n. 3, , , 472n. 1, , , ;
books left to, 242n. 5;
custos of, 229ff., 230n. 8;
dilapidations at, ;
disobedience at, ;
gifts to, ;
mismanagement at, , ;
papal exemption from tithes, 184n. 2;
prioresses of, , , , , , ;
and see Anlaby, Josiana de; Skirlaw, Joan;
visitation of, 449n. 1,

Swine, Vicar of,

Swinfield, Richard de, Bishop of Hereford,

Swynford, Elizabeth, ,

Symon, Katherine,

Syon Abbey, , , , , , , 141n. 1, , , , 268n., ;
Abbesses of, , , 366n. 3;
and see Gibbs, Eliz.;
building accounts of, 92n.;
cellaress of, , 111n. 1, , 131n., , , ;
accounts of, , ;
chambress of, 131n., , , ;
dumb signs at, ;
library of, 240n. 2, ;
Myroure of Oure Ladye written for, , ;
privileges of, , ;
Rule of, 132ff., , , , , ;
Sacrist’s accounts of, 131n.,

Syward, John,

—— Dionisia,

Talbot, Thomasine,

Talke, Anne, 467n. 3

Tanfield, Amicia,

Tang, Margaret de, 467n. 3

Tarrant Keynes Abbey, , 101n., , ;
Abbess of, ;
and Ancren Riwle, , ;
debts of, ;
Fair of, 106n. 2

Tates, Joan,

Tawke, Agnes, , 88n.,

Taylour, William, , ,

Temporalities, 100ff., , , , , , ,

Terbock,

Terrington, Maud of, 443n. 2,

Thanet, Abbess of, see Eadburg

Thélème, Abbey of, ,

Thetford Priory, , 210n. 2, , , , 361n. 1, ;
corrody granted by, ;
poverty of, ;
Prioress of,

Thicket Priory, 111n. 3, , , , 291n. 2, , ;
bequests to, ;
dilapidations at, ;
Prioress of,

Thirkleby, Vicar of,

Thomson, Johann,

Thormondby, Agnes de,

Thornton, Abbot,

—— Robert,

Thornton-upon-Humber,

Thornyf, Katherine, ,

Thorpe, William, , 372n. 2

Timber, sale of, by nuns, , , ,

Titchmarsh, Maud,

Tithes, , , , ,

Titles, farming out of, , ;
granted to nunneries,

Tittivillus, ,

Traherne, William,

Translations for nuns, 251ff.

Treasuress of nunnery, , , , , , , , , 223ff.;
accounts of, , ,

Trent, Council of,

Treverbyn, Lady Margery,

Trimelet, Joan, , 467n. 3

Tuddenham, Sir Thomas,

Tudor, Edmund,

—— Jasper,

Tudowe, Agnes,

Tufton, Manor-house at,

Tunstede, Hugh de,

Turberville, Agnes, , 192n. 5

—— Johanete de, ,

Turvey, Rector of,

Tusser, Thomas, quoted, , ,

Tychenor, William, 399n. 3, ,

Tydeswell, William de,

Tylney, Grace de,

—— Margery de, , ,

Tyrelton, Simon de,

Tyttesbury, Katherine,

Ufford, Robert de, Earl of Suffolk, 330n. 3

Ulrich of Steinfeld,

Upton, Vicar of,

Urban IV, , 342n. 1,

Usk Priory, , , , ;
custos of, 230n. 8,

Valor Ecclesiasticus, 96ff., 114ff., , ,

Ver, J. de,

Vergi, Châtelaine of,

Vernon, Margaret, , , ,

Vert-Vert, , 593ff.

Vienne, Council of, 1311, 306n. 3

Villarceaux Abbey, , 645ff.;
accounts of, , ;
financial state of, , ;
live stock of, , ;
moral state of, ;
Prioress of,

Virgin, Cult of the, 513ff.

Virgin averse to Matrimony, The, 549ff.

Virgin, The Penitent, , 551ff.

Visitations, injunctions after, 494ff.;
regularity of, ;
routine of, 483ff.

Vitry, Jacques de, 372n. 1, 516n. 1, 519n. 1

Vox Clamantis, ,

Vylers, Agnes de,

Wace, Humphrey,

Wachesam, Sir Robert de,

Wafer, Alice,

Wake, Anne, 46ff.

—— Thomas,

Waldegrave, Rose,

Walerand, Agnes,

Waleys, Joan,

Wallingford, Richard de, 361n. 2,

Wallingwells Priory, , ;
Prioress of,

Walsheman, John,

Ward, Joan,

Warde, John,

—— Robert,

Wardon, Robert de,

Warenne, John de,

Warham, William, Archbishop of Canterbury, , 221n. 1, 390n. 5, 494n. 1

Warland, Ingelram,

Warwick, Countess of,

Wason, Joan,

Waterville, William of, ,

Watlington, Parson of, see Perys, Edmund

Watre, Johanna atte, 442n. 2

Watson, Edward,

Watton Priory, , 412n. 2;
gifts to, ;
pittances at,

Wavere, Margaret, , , 84ff., , , , , , , ,

Webbe, Elizabeth,

Webster, John,

Weinhausen,

Welan, Thomas,

Wellingborough Church,

Wellisham, Sir Roger,

Wellow Abbey, , 232n. 1, 249n. 7

Wells, Katherine, 88n., , , , , ,

Wennigsen,

Wester, Richard,

Westirdale, Isabella,

Westminster, Abbot of,

—— Council of, 1175,

Westmoreland, Joan, Countess of,

Weston, Matilda de,

Westwood Priory, ,

Wherwell Abbey, , , , 156n. 1, 167n. 2, , , , , 320n., , , , ;
Abbesses of, , , , , , , 324n. 1, , ;
and see Colte, Anne; Euphemia of Wherwell;
building at, ;
burning of, , ;
claustration at, , , 402n. 4, ;
children at, ;
coadjutress appointed at, ;
hospitality at, , ;
jocalia at, 330n. 3;
library of, 242n. 8, 243n. 3;
prebendary canons at, , 228n. 5;
prosperous condition of, , ;
sacrist of, 330n. 3;
sanctuary at,

Whiston Priory, , ;
poverty of, , ;
Prioress of, see Flagge, Alice de la

Whitby,

Whiting, Richard,

Whitstable, Rector of,

Whittell, Roger,

Whytford, Richard,

Wickham, Vicar of, ,

Wickwane, William, Archbishop of York, , , 338n. 3,

Wiggenhall, Joan, , , 90ff., , , ,

—— John, ,

—— St Peter’s, ,

Wilberfoss Priory, , , , , , , 401n. 1, 416n. 1, , ;
custos of, ;
Prioress of, 58n.

William of Stanton,

Willoughby, Sir Thomas,

Willynge, Hugh,

Wilton Abbey, , , , , , , 242n. 8, , 421n. 1;
Abbess of, , , , , , ;
and see Bodenham, Cecily; Giffard, Juliana; and Jordan, Isabel;
fire at, , ;
pensions from, , ;
prebendary canons at, , 228n. 5;
resident chaplains at,

Wilton, Alice, 470n. 3

—— Edith,

Wimborne nunnery,

Winchelsea, Robert, Archbishop of Canterbury, , 300n. 2, 325n. 1

Winchester, Bishop of, , , , 309n. 6;
and see Asserio, Rigaud de; Pontoise, John of; Wykeham, William of, etc.

—— St Swithun’s Priory, , ;
Compotus Rolls of, 131n., ;
register of, 310n. 2;
revels at,

—— St Mary’s Abbey, , , 34n. 1, , , , , 171n. 2, , , , , , , , , , , ;
Abbess of, , , , , , , , , ;
and see Shelley, Elizabeth;
appropriation to, , ;
boarders at, , ;
chaplains of, , ;
children at, 265ff., 279ff., ;
corrodies at, , , ;
debts of, , , , ;
disobedience at, ;
fire at, ;
hospitality at, , 200n. 3;
library of, 241n. 4, 242n. 8;
mistress of novices at, 201n. 2;
obedientiaries at, ;
prebendal canons of, , 228n. 5

Windesheim, monastery of, ;
and see Busch, Johann

Windsor, Lord, , ,

—— Sir Anthony,

Wing, Manor-court at,

Wingate, Katherine,

Winterton Church,

Wintney Priory, , , , 448n. 1, ;
bad management at, ;
embroidery made by, ;
poverty of, , 184n. 4;
Prioress of, , ;
and see Alice of Wintney

Winton, William de,

Wireker, Nigel,

Wittlesey, Archbishop, 494n. 1

Wix, Priory of, , , 361n. 1, , , , ;
poverty of, , ;
Prioress of, 360n. 2

Wodhouse, John de,

Wolfe, Juliane,

Wolsey, Cardinal, , , , , 602ff.

Womersley, Church of,

Wonnenstein, 240n. 2

Wood, grants of, , ;
unauthorised selling of,

Wood, Walter,

Woodlock, Henry, Bishop of Winchester, , 218ff., , 259n. 1, 319n. 3, ,

Wool, sale of, by nunneries, , , ,

Worcester, Priors of, ,

Wortham, Margaret,

Wothorpe Priory, , 135n. 4, 171n. 2, 176n. 3, , 200n. 3, , , ;
Prioress of, ;
and see Bowes, Agnes

Write, John,

Wroxall, , , 217n. 1, , 356n. 1, 359n. 3, , 402n. 4, ;
Prioress of, 58n., ;
and see Alesbury, Agnes of

Wülfinghausen,

Wyatt, Sir Thomas,

Wykeham Priory, , 53n. 2, 111n. 3, , 291n. 2, , ;
dilapidations at, ;
fire at, ;
Prioress of; see Westirdale, Isabella

Wykeham, William of, Bishop of Winchester, ,

, , , , , , , , , 261n. 2, , , , 324n., , , 358n. 2, 367n. 2, , , , ,

Wyllyamesson, John,

Wylughby, Elizabeth,

Wynkyn de Worde, ,

Wyteryng, Alice de,

Yedingham Priory, , 58n., 111n. 3, 170n. 3, 206n. 3, , 291n. 2, , , 532n. 2;
custos of, 230n. 8;
repairs at,

Yong, Juliana, 423n. 4

York, Abbot of, 200n. 1

—— Archbishops of, , , ;
and see Giffard, Walter; Greenfield, William; Romeyn, John de

—— Cathedral, Chaplain of, see Burn, John

—— council of, 1195,

—— Emma of, 51ff.

—— friars of, ,

—— St Clement’s, 53n. 2, 111n. 3, , , , , 301n. 1, 414n. 2;
boarders at, ;
churches appropriated to, 113n. 1;
relics at,

—— St Mary’s,

Yorkshire, moral state of nunneries in, 597ff.

Ypres, William of,

Zouche, Elizabeth la, 443n. 2

PRINTED IN ENGLAND BY J. B. PEACE, M.A., AT THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought

ERRATA FOR THE PASTONS AND THEIR ENGLAND

Add to List of Authorities:

Berkeley Extracts. Abstracts and extracts of Smyth’s Lives of the Berkeleys. Fosbroke, T. D. London. 1821.

Libraries. Old English Libraries. Savage, E. A. London. 1911.

p. 9, l. 6. For “in the cathedral” read “at the door of the cathedral,” and so on pp. 174, 184, and 221 n.

p. 53, ll. 14 ff. I have somewhat exaggerated the amount of spinning and weaving done at home for purely domestic use in the fifteenth century. The industry in East Anglia was by then highly organised under capitalist clothiers, who employed workers to perform the various processes of the industry in their own homes, providing the raw materials and taking away the finished cloth. Spinning was thus essentially a bye industry as well as a purely domestic occupation. The Bury citizen was probably a clothier “putting out” work and following the quite common practice of having a number of webbers or websters under his eye in his own house. See The Paycockes of Coggeshall, Power, Eileen, pp. 45-8.

p. 113, ll. 11 ff. For “de Regimine Principium of Hoccleve” read “de Regimine Principum of Lydgate” and so on p. 261.

p. 154, l. 23. For “Brabraham” read “Babraham.”

p. 168, l. 1. For “Paston’s” read “Pastons’.”

p. 193, l. 31. For “S. Peter’s Hungate” read “S. Peter, Hungate,” and so on p. 285.

p. 198, l. 32. For “herse” read “hearse.”

p. 208, n. 2. For “Oddy” read “Addy.”

p. 219, n. 1. For “Prothero” read “Ernle (Lord).”

p. 240, n. 5. For “Jessop, J. J.” read “Jessopp, A.”

p. 280, Index, sub Cambridge, corporal punishment at. For 88 read 82.

p. 284, Index, sub Margaret of Anjou. For “(Queen of Edward IV)” read “(Queen of Henry VI).”

p. 286, Index, sub Paston, Sir John II. For “make knight” read “made knight.”

p. 288, Index. For “Straton Richard,” read “Stratton, Richard.”

ERRATA FOR SOCIAL LIFE IN THE DAYS OF PIERS PLOWMAN

The main errata are on matters of coinage (pp. 69-70).

(a) There were no “copper” coins in England in the 14th (or 15th) centuries.

(b) The designs of “noble” and “groat” were not so exactly similar as the text might imply. The noble bears a king with sword and shield on a ship; the groat has a king’s head crowned.

(c) “Groats” were first struck in the reign of Ed. III; it is therefore questionable whether they had become the “commonest” silver coins.

(d) “Pence” and “farthings” were of silver.

(e) There was no coined “shilling” until Henry VII’s reign; until then, the “shilling” was only money of account.

p. 103. For “signing” of charters read “sealing.” No signing was necessary until the Statute of Frauds. See B. II. 112, “this dede I assele.”

p. 100. A reviewer in The Manchester Guardian has expressed strong disagreement with these generalizations on the medieval woman; and we are loth to neglect such criticisms from a serious source, even when they cannot be called corrections of fact. Both author and editor, on careful reconsideration, are still convinced that these words represent the actual documentary evidence; but their epigrammatic conciseness, necessitated by the whole plan of the book, may well have misled some readers. They would prefer now, therefore, to write thus:

“There was a very general tendency, in ecclesiastical circles, to a painful depreciation of women. Marriage (in spite of frequent protests that no such blame was intended) was often regarded by the clergy as a practical confession of failure, since the titles of ‘virgin’ and ‘martyr’ were most desirable. It will be remembered that Chaucer is even more explicit than Langland on the subject of clerical anti-feminism; and if Chaucer, like Dante, gives us fine types of women, these owe far more to the troubadour tradition than to any ecclesiastical source.”

Footnotes:

Based on Professor Savine’s analysis of the returns in the Valor Ecclesiasticus (Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History), I, 269-288.

I have based this estimate partly on a list compiled by M. E. C. Walcott, English Minsters, vol. II (“The English Student’s Monasticon”), partly on one compiled by Miss H. T. Jacka in an unpublished thesis on The Dissolution of the English Nunneries; the figures, if not always exactly correct, are approximately correct as far as the classification into groups, according to size, is concerned. It must be remembered, however, that there were more nuns at the beginning than at the end of the period 1270-1536; the convents tended to diminish in size, especially those which were poor and small to begin with.

These are discussed in Liveing, Records of Romsey Abbey, pp. 112 sqq.

V.C.H. Sussex, II, p. 84.

Ib. II, p. 63.

Hugo, Medieval Nunneries of the County of Somerset, Minchin Barrow, p. 108.

Well-known names occur, for instance, among the prioresses of the poor convents of Ivinghoe, Ankerwyke and Little Marlow in Bucks. V.C.H. Bucks, I, p. 355.

Lysons, Magna Britannia, V, p. 113. Compare the remark of a nun of Wenningsen, near Hanover, who considered herself insulted when the great reformer Busch addressed her not as “Klosterfrau” but as “Sister.” “You are not my brother, wherefore then call me sister? My brother is clad in steel and you in a linen frock” (1455). Quoted in Coulton, Medieval Garner, p. 653.

Wykeham’s Register (Hants. Rec. Soc.), II, p. 462. Cf. ib. II, p. 61.

E.g. Reg. ... of Rigaud de Asserio (Hants. Rec. Soc.), p. 394; Reg. ... Stephani Gravesend (Cant. and York. Soc.), p. 200; Wykeham’s Register, loc. cit.

Bishop Cobham of Worcester at Wroxall in 1323 (V.C.H. Warwick, II, p. 71). Cf. the case of Usk in Monmouthshire, “in quo monasterio solum virgines de nobili prosapia procreate recipi consueverunt et solent” (Chron. of Adam of Usk, ed. E. M. Thompson, p. 93).

Gibbons, Early Lincoln Wills, p. 117.

Sharpe, Cal. of Wills enrolled in the Court of Husting, I, p. 236. Cf. ib. I, p. 350 and Testamenta Eboracensia (Surtees Soc.), I, pp. 170, 354.

Dugdale, Mon. IV, p. 71.

Reg. of Archbishop William Wickwane (Surtees Soc.), p. 113.

Liveing, Records of Romsey Abbey, p. 98.

William de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, mentions two daughters, nuns at Shouldham, in his will (1296). Sir Guy de Beauchamp mentions his little daughter Katherine, a nun there (1359) and his father Thomas de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, mentions the same Katherine and his own daughter Margaret, nuns there (1369). Katherine was still alive in 1400, when she is mentioned in the next Earl’s will. Testamenta Vetusta, I, pp. 52, 63, 79, 153.

See below, p. .

See below, pp. 39-40.

“Et pur certayn cause nous auens enioynt a dame Margaret Darcy, vostre soer, qel ne passe les lieus de cloistre, cest assauoir de quoer, de cloistre, de ffraitour, dormitorie ou fermerie, tantque nous en aueroms autre ordeigne, et qele ne parle od nul estraunge gentz, et soit darreyn enstalle, et en chescun lieu qele ne porte anele, et qele die chescun iour un sautier et june la quarte et la sexte ferie a payn et eu. Ensement voilloms qe la dit dame Margaret se puisse confesser au confessour de vostre couent quant ele auera mester.” Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell, f. 34d. It looks like the penance for immorality.

“Item quod nulla monialis ibidem cameram teneat priuatam, sed quod omnes moniales sane in dormitorio et infirme in infirmaria iaceant atque cubant, preter dominam Margaretam Darcy, monialem prioratus antedicti, cui ob nobilitatem sui generis de camera sua quam tenet in privata, absque tamen alia liberata panis et ceruisie, extra casum infirmitatis manifeste, volumus ad tempus tollerare.” Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Buckingham, f. 397d.

Canterbury Tales (ed. Skeat), Prologue, ll. 127 ff. It is interesting to notice that the Roman de la Rose, of which Chaucer translated a fragment, contains some remarks upon this subject which are almost paraphrased in his description of Madame Eglentyne.

La Clef d’Amors ..., ed. Doutrepont (1890), V, 3227 ff.

Le Chastiement des Dames (Barbazon and Méon, Fabliaux et Contes, II, p. 200).

See Mrs Green, Town Life in the Fifteenth Century, II, pp. 77-80.

Langland, Vision of Piers the Plowman, ed. Skeat, passus A, VIII, l. 31.

English Gilds, ed. L. T. Smith (E.E.T.S.), p. 194.

Ibid. p. 340.

Sharpe, op. cit. I, p. 589.

Sharpe, op. cit. II, p. 299. The Fishmongers, who, up to 1536, were divided into the two companies of salt-fishmongers and stock-fishmongers, were a powerful and important body, as the annals of the City of London in the fourteenth century show, “these fishmongers” in the words of Stow “having been jolly citizens and six mayors of their company in the space of twenty-four years.” Stow’s Survey of London (ed. Kingsford), I, p. 214.

Sharpe, op. cit. II, p. 606.

Sharpe, op. cit. I, p. 594.

Rye, Carrow Abbey, App. IX, pp. xvi, xvii, xviii.

See Archaeologia, XV (1806), pp. 100-101; ib. XXXV (1853), p. 464.

V.C.H. London, I, p. 518.

Ib. pp. 518-9.

Sharpe, op. cit. II, p. 267. Two years previously (1396) John de Nevill had left legacies to his sister Eleanor and to his daughter Elizabeth, minoresses of St Clare; Durham Wills and Inventories (Surtees Soc.), p. 39.

Sharpe, op. cit. II, p. 589.

Ib. II, p. 331.

Ib. II, p. 577.

Not counting legacies left to various nunneries, without specific reference to a relative professed there.

Sharpe, op. cit. I, pp. 107, 300, 313, 324, 408, 501, 585, 701. Philip le Taillour had three daughters here in 1292 (I, p. 107), and William de Leyre had three daughters here in 1325 (I, p. 300).

Ib. I, pp. 222, 303, 569, 638, 688; II, pp. 20, 76, 115.

Ib. I, pp. 229, 303, 342, 400, 435; II, pp. 47, 170. Ten nuns in all.

Ib. II, pp. 119, 267, 331, 577, 589.

Ib. I, pp. 26, 126, 238, 349, 628. Ralph le Blund’s three daughters and his sister-in-law were all nuns here in 1295 (I, p. 126) and Thomas Romayn, alderman and pepperer, left bequests to two daughters and to their aunt in 1313 (ib. I, p. 288).

Ib. I, pp. 34, 111, 611; II, p. 119.

Ib. II, pp. 167, 271, 274.

Ib. II, pp. 474, 564.

Ib. I, pp. 510, 638.

Ib. I, p. 119; II, p. 306.

There are two exceptions, Greenfield (Lincs.) (ib. II, p. 327), and Amesbury (Wilts.) (ib. II, p. 326), but the testators in these cases are not burgesses, but a knight and a clerk.

The corresponding fines for girls were merchet if they married off the manor and leyrwite if they dispensed with that ceremony. The medieval lord, concerned above all with keeping up the supply of labour upon his manor, naturally held the narrow view of the functions of women, which has been expressed in our day by Kipling: “Now the reserve of a boy is tenfold deeper than the reserve of a maid, she having been made for one end only by blind Nature, but man for several” (Stalky and Co. p. 212).

Henry de Causton, mercator of London, left a bequest to Johanna, a “sister” at Ankerwyke, formerly servant to his father (1350). Sharpe, op. cit. I, p. 638.

Register of Bishop Godfrey Giffard (Worc. Hist. Soc.), II, pp. 288-9.

Testamenta Eboracensia (Surtees Soc.), I, p. 6.

Test. Ebor. I, p. 9, dated 1345. Cf. will of Roger de Moreton “civis et mercerus Ebor.” 1390; two of four daughters nuns at St Clement’s, York (ib. I, p. 133).

Sharpe, op. cit. I, p. 400, dated 1335.

Ib. I, p. 501, dated 1349.

Ib. I, p. 503, dated 1348.

Testamenta Vetusta, I, p. 286.

See above, p. . There were two Welbys, two Lekes and two Paynelles at Stixwould; Alnwick’s Visit. MS. f. 76. Other references might be multiplied.

Cf. also Sharpe, op. cit. I, p. 238; and Reg. of Bishop Ginsborough (Worc. Hist. Soc.), p. 51.

Testamenta Eboracensia (Surtees Soc.) I, pp. 187 ff. (will of Sir John Fayrfax, rector of Prescot, 1393).

See below, p. .

V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 172.

On this subject see Coulton, Monastic Schools in the Middle Ages (Medieval Studies), pp. 34-5.

Hali Meidenhad, ed. Cockayne (E.E.T.S.), p. 8.

Old English Miscellany, ed. Morris (E.E.T.S., 1872), p. 96.

Clene Maydenhod, ed. Furnivall (E.E.T.S.), pp. 5-6.

V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 113.

The English Register of Godstow Nunnery (E.E.T.S.), introduction, pp. xxv-xxvi. Cf. Cartulary of Buckland Priory (Somerset Rec. Soc.), introd. pp. xxii-xxiii.

Reg. of Godstow, u.s. no. 76, pp. 78-9. See also an exceedingly interesting action of quare impedit brought by John Stonor (probably the Lord Chief Justice) against the Prioress of Marlow in 1339, probably merely to secure a record. He had bought the advowsons of the two moieties of the church of Little Marlow and an acre of land with each and conveyed the whole to the Prioress, subject to the provision “that out of it the said Prioress and nuns shall find Joan and Cecily, sisters of the aforesaid John, and Katherine, daughter of the aforesaid John, nuns of the aforesaid place, 40s. a year each during their lives, and also for the sustenance of all the nuns towards their kitchen half a mark of silver each year and for the vesture of the twenty nuns serving God there each year 10s. of silver, to be divided equally between them.” After the deaths of the Stonor ladies all the money is to go to the common funds of the house, with certain provisions. Year Books of Edward III, years XII and XIII, ed. L. O. Pike (Rolls Series, 1885), pp. cxi-cxvii, 260-2. For the appropriation of these money dowries to the use of the individual nuns, see below, Ch. VIII, passim.

Nicolas, Testamenta Vetusta, I, p. 118.

Gibbons, Early Lincoln Wills, p. 113.

Testamenta Eboracensia, I, p. 11.

See above, p. . See also the interesting deed (1429-30) in which Richard Fairfax “scwyer,” made arrangements for the entrance of his daughter “Elan,” to Nunmonkton, always patronised by the Fairfaxes. He left an annual rent of five marks in trust for her “yat my doghtir Elan be made nun in ye house of Nun Monkton, and yat my saydes feffis graunt a nanuel rent of fourty schilyngs ... terme of ye lyffe of ye sayd Elan to ye tym be at sche be a nun.” His feoffees were to pay nineteen marks “for ye makyng ye sayd Elan nun.” And “if sche will be no nun” his wife and feoffees were to marry her at their discretion. V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 123. Cf. an interesting case in which Matilda Toky, the orphan of a citizen of London, is allowed by the mayor and aldermen to become a nun of Kilburn in 1393, taking with her her share (£38. 5s. 4½d.) of her father’s estate, after which the prioress of the house comes in person to receive the money from the chamberlain of the city. Riley, Memorials of London, p. 535. The father’s will is in Sharpe, op. cit. II, pp. 288-9; he had three sons and a daughter besides Matilda.

V.C.H Essex, II, p. 117.

Quoted in V.C.H. Beds. I, p. 254.

Testamenta Eboracensia, III, p. 168. The sum left for entrance of Ellen Fairfax to Nunmonkton was about the same, £10. 13s. 4d. (16 marks). Above, p. , note 4. There is an interesting note of the outfit provided for an Austin nun of Lacock on her profession in 1395, attached to a page of the cartulary of that house. “Memorandum concerning the expenses of the veiling of Joan, daughter of Nicholas Samborne, at Lacock, viz. in the 19th year of the reign of King Richard the second after the conquest. First paid to the abbess for her fee 20s. then to the convent 40s., to each nun 2s. Item paid to John Bartelot for veils and linen cloth 102s.” (this large sum may include a supply for the whole house). “Item to a certain woman for one veil 40d. Item for one mantle 10s. Item for one fur of shankes (a cheap fur made from the underpart of rabbit skin) for another mantle, 16s. Item for white cloth to line the first mantle, 16s. Item for white cloth for a tunic 10s. Item one fur for the aforesaid pilch 20s. Item for a maser (cup) 10s. Item for a silver spoon 2s. 6d. Item for blankets 6s. 8d. Item in canvas for a bed 2s. Item for the purchase of another mantle of worsted 20s. Item paid at the time of profession at one time 20s. Item for a new bed 20s. Item for other necessaries 20s. ... Item paid to the said Joan by the order of the abbess.” The total (excluding the last item) is £17. 6s. 2d. Archaeol. Journ. 1912, LXIX, p. 117.

Mackenzie E. C. Walcott, Inventories of ... the Benedictine Priory of St Mary and Sexburga in the Island of Shepey for Nuns (1869) (reprinted from Archaeologia Cantiana, VII, pp. 272-306). Compare the letter to Cromwell from Sir Thomas Willoughby, who asks that Elizabeth Rede, his sister-in-law, who had resigned the office of Abbess of Malling, may have suitable lodging within the monastery, “not only that but such plate as my father-in-law did deliver her to occupy in her chamber, that she may have it again.” Wood, Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies, II, p. 153.

“Nullus praelatus in recipiendo monacho, vel canonico, vel sanctimoniali pretium sumere vel exigere ab hiis, qui ad conversionem veniunt, aliqua pacti occasione praesumat. Si quis autem hoc fecerit anathema sit.” Wilkins, Concilia, I, p. 477.

“Monachi etiam sub pretio non recipiantur in monasterio.... Si quis autem exactus pro sua receptione aliquid dederit, ad canonicos ordines non accedat.” Ib. p. 508.

“Praeterea statuimus, praesenti concilio approbante, ut nullus de cetero pro receptione alicujus in religionis domum pecuniam vel quicquam aliud extorquere praesumat; adeo ut si pro paupertate domus ingrediens debeat vestire seipsum praetextu vestimentorum ultra justum pretium eorum ab eo nihil penitus recipiatur.” Ib. p. 591.

Reg. of Walter Giffard (Surtees Soc.), p. 147.

Reg. of Roger de Norbury (Will. Salt Archaeol. Soc. Collections, I), p. 259.

Reg. of Ralph of Shrewsbury (Somerset Rec. Soc.), p. 684.

MS. Register at New College, f. 87d.

Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Bokyngham, f. 397d.

Linc. Visit. I, p. 49.

See Linc. Visit. II, and Alnwick’s Visit. MS., passim.

Linc. Visit. II, pp. 133, 134. See also the very sternly worded prohibition sent by Bishop Spofford of Hereford to Aconbury in 1438. Reg. Thome Spofford (Cantilupe Soc.), pp. 223-4.

Archaeologia, XLVII, p. 57.

Linc. Visit. II, p. 117.

Linc. Visit. I, p. 49.

Reg. Johannis Peckham (Rolls Series), I, p. 189.

Ib. I, pp. 40-1, 356.

Wykeham’s Reg. II, pp. 60-61. Cf. ib. p. 462.

Reg. Johannis de Pontissara, pp. 240, 252.

Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Bokyngham, f. 397d.

Linc. Visit. I, p. 53. Cf. Flemyng’s injunction in 1422, ib.

Testamenta Vetusta, I, pp. 63-4.

See above, p. , note 2.

V.C.H. London, I, p. 518.

Linc. Visit. II, p. 5.

Alnwick’s Visit. MS. f. 26d.

Linc. Visit. II, p. 217.

Liveing, Records of Romsey Abbey, p. 248.

V.C.H. Yorks, III, p. 163. In 1312 the prioress of Hampole was rebuked for receiving a little girl (puellulam), not on account of her youth, but because she had omitted to obtain the archbishop’s licence. Ib.

Reg. of Archbishop John le Romeyn (Surtees Soc.), I, p. 66.

Reg. Epis. Johannis Peckham (Rolls Series), I, p. 356. Compare Caesarius of Heisterbach: “In the diocese of Trèves is a certain convent of nuns named Lutzerath, wherein by ancient custom no girl is received but at the age of seven years or less; which constitution hath grown up for the preservation of that simplicity of mind which maketh the whole body to shine” (Dial. Mirac. I, p. 389, quoted in Coulton, Medieval Garner, p. 255). The thirteenth century visitations of the diocese of Rouen by Eudes Rigaud make it clear that novices there were often very young, e.g. at St-Saëns in 1266 “una earum erat novicia et minima” (Reg. Visit. Archiepiscopi Rothomagensis, ed. Bonnin, p. 566). The Archbishop ordered novices to be professed at the age of fourteen and not before (ib. pp. 51, 121, 207).

For example the béguine Christina von Stommeln, who said of herself, “So far back as my memory can reach, from the earliest dawn of my childhood, whensoever I heard the lives and manners, the passion and the death of saints and especially of our Lord Christ and His glorious Mother, then in such hearing I was delighted to the very marrow” (quoted in Coulton, op. cit. p. 403). At the age of ten she contracted a mystic marriage with Christ, and at the age of thirteen she joined the béguines at Cologne. Cf. St Catherine of Siena.

Caesarius of Heisterbach, Dialogus Miraculorum, ed. Joseph Strange, I, pp. 53-4.

This was Helswindis von Gimmenich, first abbess of Burtscheid after the transference thither of the nuns of St Saviour of Aachen c. 1220-1222. See Quix, Gesch. der ehemaligen Reichs-Abtei Burtscheid (Aachen 1834).

Caesarius, op. cit. I, pp. 54-5. For another case of children in this convent see the charming story of Gertrude’s purgatory, ib. pp. 344-5. There are fifteenth century English translations in the Myroure of Oure Ladye (E.E.T.S.), pp. 46-7 and in An Alphabet of Tales (E.E.T.S.), p. 249. A little girl of nine years old had died, and, after death, appeared in broad daylight in her own place in the choir, next to a child of her own age. The latter was so terrified that she was noticed and on being questioned told the vision to the Abbess (from whom Caesarius professes to have had the story). The Abbess says to the child “Sister Margaret, ... if Sister Gertrude come to thee again, say to her: Benedicite, and if she reply to thee, Dominus, ask her whence she comes and what she seeks.” On the following day (continues Caesarius) “she came again and since she replied Dominus when she was saluted, the maiden added: ‘Good Sister Gertrude, why come you at such a time and what seek you with us?’ Then she replied: ‘I come here to make satisfaction. Because I willingly whispered with thee in the choir, speaking in half tones, therefore am I ordered to make satisfaction in that place where it befell me to sin. And unless thou beware of the same vice, dying thou shalt suffer the same penance.’ And when she had four times made satisfaction in the same way (by prostrating herself) she said to her sister: ‘Now have I completed my satisfaction; henceforth thou shalt see me no more.’ And thus it was done. For in the sight of her friend she proceeded towards the cemetery, passing over the wall by a miracle. Behold such was the purgatory of this virgin.” It is a tender little tale, and kinder to childish sins than medieval moralists sometimes were; Saint Douceline beat a little girl of seven (one of her béguines) “so shrewdly that the blood ran down her ribs, saying meanwhile that she would sacrifice her to God” simply because she had looked at some men who were at work in the house (see Coulton, op. cit. p. 321).

V.C.H. Lincs. II, p. 184. But the usual custom was to place such women as lay boarders in the custody of a nunnery. See below, pp. ff.

“Processus et sententia divortii inter Thomam Tudenham militem et Aliciam filiam quondam Johannis Woodhous armigeri, racione quia est monialis professa in prioratu de Crabhous et nunquam carnaliter cognita per maritum suum predictum durante matrimonio predicto, licet matrimonium predictum duravit et ut vir et uxor cohabitaverunt per spacium viij annorum. Durante matrimonio unicus filius ab eadem suscitatus, non tamen per dictum Thomam maritum suum, sed per Ricardum Stapleton servientem patris ipsius Aliciae” (1437). Her husband’s sister Margaret Bedingfield left her a legacy of 10 marks in 1474. Norfolk Archaeology (Norf. and Norwich Arch. Soc.), XIII, pp. 351-2.

Testamenta Vetusta, I, p. 74.

Testamenta Eboracensia, I, p. 18.

See the letter from John Clusey to Cromwell in her favour: “Rygthe honorable, after most humyll comendacyons, I lykewyce besuche you that the Contents of this my symple Letter may be secret; and that for as myche as I have grete cause to goo home I besuche your good Mastershipe to comand Mr Herytag to give attendans opon your Mastershipe for the knowlege off youre plesure in the seyd secrete mater, whiche ys this, My Lord Cardinall causyd me to put a yong gentyll homan to the Monystery and Nunry off Shafftysbyry, and there to be provessyd, and wold hur to be namyd my doythter; and the troythe ys shew was his dowythter; and now by your Visitacyon she haythe commawynment to departe, and knowythe not whether Wherefore I humely besuche youre Mastershipe to dyrect your Letter to the Abbas there, that she may there contynu at hur full age to be professed. Withoute dowyte she ys other xxiiij yere full, or shalbe at shuche tyme of the here as she was boren, which was abowyte Mydelmas. In this your doyng your Mastershipe shall do a very charitable ded, and also bynd her and me to do you such servyce as lyzthe in owre lytell powers; as knowythe owre Lord God, whome I humely besuche prosperyusly and longe to preserve you. Your orator John Clusey.” Ellis, Original Letters, Series I, II, pp. 92-3. An injunction had been made that profession made under twenty-four years was invalid, and that novices or girls professed at an earlier age were to be dismissed.

V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 161.

Test. Ebor. III, p. 289, note. She was one of the Conyers of Hornby (Richmondshire) and is mentioned in the will of her brother Christopher Conyers, rector of Rudby in 1483.

V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 177.

V.C.H. Durham, II, p. 107. For another instance of dispensation and installation on the same day see Reg. of Bishop Bronescombe of Exeter, ed. Hingeston-Randolph, p. 163. For other dispensations super defectu natalium, see Cal. of Papal Letters, III, p. 470 (cf. Cal. of Petit. I, p. 367), V, p. 549 and Reg. Johannis de Trillek Episcopi Herefordensis (Cantilupe Soc.), p. 404.

Rabelais, Gargantua, ch. LII.

Reg. Epis. Johannis Peckham (Rolls Ser.), I, p. 367. Cf. pp. ff. below.

Linc. Visit. II, p. 4. She was also charged with the introduction of unsuitable persons as lay boarders, etc. “Item priorissa introducit in prioratum diuersos extraneos et ignotos, tam mares quam feminas et eos sustentat communibus expensis domus et aliquas quasi ideotas et alias inhabiles fecit moniales. Negat articulum.” But ideota probably simply means unlearned here, and in the case of Agnes Hosey, below p. . Compare the case at Bival in Normandy 1251. “Ibi est quedam filia burgensis de Vallibus que stulta est.” Reg. Visit. Archiep. Rothomag., ed. Bonnin, p. 111.

Visitations of the Diocese of Norwich (Camden Soc.), pp. 91, 311.

Gasquet, Henry VIII and the English Monasteries (pop. ed. 1899), p. 293.

Gairdner, Letters and Papers, etc., IX, no. 1075.

Alnwick’s Visit. MS. f. 71d.

Visitations of the Diocese of Norwich, p. 91.

Sussex Archaeol. Coll. IX, p. 26.

Wilkins, Concilia, II, p. 487.

Alnwick’s Visit. MS. f. 77.

Hence the certificates sometimes required from bishops to testify whether or not a girl had actually been professed. Such a certificate occurs in Wykeham’s Register (II, p. 192), announcing that Joan, daughter of Stephen Asshewy, deceased, was not yet professed at St Mary’s Winchester or at any other house. The case of Isabel, daughter of Sir Philip de Coverle, is also interesting; she left the wretchedly poor house of Sewardsley to claim her share of her mother’s inheritance, therewith to provide fit maintenance for herself among the nuns; but she was excluded from inheriting with her sisters on account of her religious profession (V.C.H. Northants. II, pp. 125-6). Compare also the case of Joan, wife of Nicholas de Grene (1357-8); on a question of inheritance the King’s court issued a writ of inquiry as to whether she had been professed at Nuneaton. Reg. of Bishop Roger de Norbury (William Salt Archaeol. Soc. Collections, I), pp. 285-7.

See e.g. the commission for the release of a novice preserved in the register of Ralph Baldock, Bishop of London (1310). “We have lately received the supplication of our beloved daughter in Christ, Cristina de Burgh, daughter of the noble Sir Robert Fitzwalter, to the effect that whereas she was delivered by her parents, while not yet of a marriageable age, into the order of St Augustine in the monastery of Haliwell of our diocese, and for some time wore the habit of a novice therein and still wears it, nevertheless there is no canonical reason why she should not freely return to the world at her own free will; and whereas we do condescend to licence her to return to the world, having diligently made inquiries in the aforesaid monastery for our information as to the truth of the aforesaid matters, etc. etc.”; the Bishop having no time to finish the inquiry himself commissions his official to carry it on and to release Cristina if the result is satisfactory. Reg. Radulphi Baldock (Cant. and York Soc.), p. 129. But note that this girl is only a novice.

See below, pp. 502-9, and Note H.

V.C.H. Bucks. I, p. 355.

Cal. of Papal Letters, I, p. 17.

P.R.O. Early Chanc. Proc. 7/70.

Reg. of Bishop Robert de Stretton (Will. Salt Archaeol. Soc. Collections, N.S. VIII), pp. 149-50. With her case compare that of Jane Wadham, which came up after the Dissolution in 1541. She “after arriving at years of discretion was forced by the threats and machinations of malevolent persons to become a regular nun in the house of nuns at Romsey, but having both in public and in private always protested against this seclusion, she conceived herself free from regular observance and in that persuasion joined herself in matrimony with one John Foster, per verba de presenti, intending to have the marriage solemnised as soon as she was free from her religion.” For the further vicissitudes of her married life, see Liveing, Records of Romsey Abbey, p. 255. Compare also the case of Margery of Hedsor who left Burnham in 1311. V.C.H. Bucks. I, p. 383.

Year Book of 12 Richard II, ed. G. F. Deiser (Ames Foundation, 1914), pp. 71-7. Cf. pp. 150-3. It may be noticed that Marvell, in his poem “Upon Appleton House” (dedicated to the great Lord Fairfax), preserves the tradition of another of these cases. In the time of Anna Langton, the last Prioress of Nunappleton, a certain Isabella Thwaites, who had been placed in her charge, fell in love with William Fairfax. The Prioress, who wished her to become a nun, shut her up, but eventually Fairfax, having got the law upon his side, broke his way into the nunnery and released her and she married him in 1518. It was her sons who obtained the house on its dissolution (see Markham, Life of the great Lord Fairfax, pp. 3, 4).

For a somewhat similar case to that of Clarice Stil, see Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. 102, p. 615. A widow Joan de Swainton married a widower Hugh de Tuthill. She had four daughters by her first husband, and of these Hugh married two to his own two sons by his first wife, and placed the other two (they being under twelve years of age) in the nunnery of Kirklees, in order that his two sons might obtain through their wives the whole inheritance of the co-heiresses. But the wardship of the girls belonged to a certain William de Notton, who prepared to dispute the arrangement, but was dissuaded by one of the young nuns.

It was probably more common for widows to take a simple vow of chastity and to remain in the world. But the will of Thomas de Kent, fishmonger, seems to show that it would be considered quite natural for a widow to take the veil, even in the burgess class, which possibly remarried more frequently than the nobles. He left his wife a tenement for life, adding that should she wish to enter any religious house the same was to be sold and half the proceeds given for her maintenance (Sharpe, op. cit. I, p. 124).

V.C.H. Suffolk, II, p. 113. Cf. Testamenta Eboracensia, I, p. 117.

V.C.H. London, I, p. 519. Cf. Sybil de Felton, widow of Sir Thomas Morley, who became Abbess of Barking in 1393, at the age of thirty-four. V.C.H. Essex, II, p. 121.

V.C.H. Warwick, II, p. 71.

English Register of Godstow Nunnery (E.E.T.S.), p. 43.

Ib. p. 383. Confirmation of this deed of grant by Peter Durant, about 1200. Ib. p. 384.

Sharpe, op. cit. I, p. 108.

V.C.H. Essex, II, pp. 120-2. Margaret Botetourt became Abbess of Polesworth in 1362, by episcopal dispensation, when under the age of twenty. “This early promotion was not the only mark of favour which this prioress obtained. In 1390 the Pope granted her exemption from the jurisdiction of the Archbishop or Bishop of Lichfield.” V.C.H. Warwick, II, p. 63.

“I take it that Prioress Joan was an heiress, and, in fact, the last representative of the elder line of her family, and the nuns knew perfectly well what they were about when they chose a lady of birth and wealth, and highly connected to boot, to rule over them. They certainly were not disappointed in any expectations they may have formed. The new prioress set to work in earnest to make the nunnery into quite a new and imposing place and her friends and kinsfolk rallied round her nobly.” Jessopp, Ups and Downs of an Old Nunnery in Frivola, pp. 59-60.

Reg. of Crabhouse Nunnery, ed. Mary Bateson (Norf. Archaeology, XI), pp. 57-62 passim.

They are as follows: (1) congé d’élire by the Bishop-Elect as patron, (2) notification by the subprioress and nuns of the date appointed for the election, (3) formal warning by the subprioress that all who ought not to be present should leave the chapter house, (4) notification of the election of Alice de la Flagge, (5) declaration of Alice’s assent, (6) letter from subprioress and convent to the Bishop-Elect praying him to confirm the election, (7) letter from the Prior of Worcester to the same effect, to the Bishop-Elect, (8) the same to the commissary general, (9) commission from the Bishop-Elect to the Prior and to the commissary-general, empowering them to receive, examine and confirm the election, (10) instrument by the subprioress and convent appointing Richard de Bereburn, chaplain, their proctor to present the elect to the Bishop-Elect, (11) another appointing two of the nuns as proctors “to instruct and do things concerning the business of the election,” (12) decree by the subprioress and convent, describing the method and result of the election and addressed to the Bishop-Elect, (13) acts concerning the election made before the Bishop’s commissaries by Richard de Bereburn, proctor, by the subprioress and by the two nuns, instructrices, examined on oath, (14) certificate by the Dean of the Christianity of Worcester that he had proclaimed the election, (15) confirmation of the election by the commissaries, (16) final declaration by the Prior of this confirmation and of the installation and benediction of the new prioress and of the injunction of obedience upon the nuns, and (17) a certificate by the commissaries of the Bishop-Elect that the business was completed. Reg. Sede Vacante (Worc. Hist. Soc.), pp. 111-4; the text in Nash, Hist. and Antiquities of Worcestershire (1781), I, pp. 212-6, which also contains many documents relating to the election of other prioresses of this house. There are frequent notices of elections in episcopal registers; for other very detailed accounts, see Reg. of Bishop Grandisson of Exeter, ed. Hingeston-Randolph, pt III, pp. 999-1002 (Canonsleigh) and Reg. of Ralph of Shrewsbury (Somerset Rec. Soc.) pp. 284-7 (Cannington). See also Eckenstein, Woman under Monasticism, pp. 367-8.

See e.g. V.C.H. Glouc. II, p. 93; Reg. of Bishop Grandisson, pt II, p. 742; V.C.H. Yorks. III, pp. 114-5, 120, 124; Dugdale, Mon. IV, p. 636; ib. V, p. 207; V.C.H. Durham, II, p. 107.

Dugdale, Mon. IV, p. 458.

Evidently this was the usual payment here, for, in the roll for 1392-3, there is an item “Paye al officiale pour stalling de prioris xs.” P.R.O. Mins. Accts. 1260/4.

P.R.O. Mins. Accts. 1260.

The Cistercians fixed the age at 30. Later the Council of Trent fixed it at 40 including 8 years of profession.

An election by acclamation was said to be conducted via Spiritus sancti or per inspirationem. For this and the methods of election via scrutinii and via compromissi, see J. Wickham Legg, On the Three Ways of Canonical Election (Trans. St Paul’s Eccles. Soc. III, 299-312).

Reg. Sede Vacante (Worc. Hist. Soc.), p. 114, and Nash, op. cit. I, p. 214.

From a document preserved at the Exchequer Gate, Lincoln.

For the following account, see Linc. Epis. Reg. Visit. Longland, ff. 22-25.

Compare the complaint of one of the nuns at St Michael’s Stamford in 1445, “Dicit quod priorissa est sibi nimis rigorosa in correccionibus, nam pro leuibus punit eam rigorose.” Alnwick’s Visit. MS. f. 96.

Dugdale, Mon. III, p. 415. For another instance of disturbances in a convent caused by the appointment of a Prioress (here the head of the house) by the Bishop contrary to the will of the nuns, see two letters written by the nuns of Stratford to Cromwell, about the same time that Longland was having such trouble at Elstow. In one they ask his help “for the removing of our supposed prioress,” explaining “Sir, since the time that we put up our supplication unto the king, we have been worse entreated than ever we were before, for meat, drink and threatening words; and as soon as we speak to have anything remedied she biddeth us to go to Cromwell and let him help us; and that the old lady, who is prioress in right, is like to die for lack of sustenance and good keeping, for she can get neither meat, drink nor money to help herself.” In another letter they report “that the chancellor of my lord of London (the Bishop) hath been with us yesterday and that he sayeth the prioress shall continue and be prioress still, in spite of our teeth, and of their teeths that say nay to it, and that he commanded her to assault us and to punish us, that other may beware by us.” Wood, Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies, I, nos. xxx and xxxi, pp. 68-70.

V.C.H. Yorks. III, pp. 167-9.

Ib. III, p. 180 and Reg. of John le Romeyn (Surtees Soc.), I, pp. 213-4. Whether any nuns were sent to Rosedale does not appear, but shortly afterwards two nuns, Elizabeth de Rue and Helewis Darains, were sent to Nunburnholme and to Wykeham respectively; these punishments may not have been connected with the election trouble. Reg. Romeyn, I, pp. 177, 214 note, 225; compare p. 216. Josiana appears to have been twice Prioress; she was confirmed in 1290 and finally resigned because of old age in 1320, but Joan de Moubray is mentioned as Prioress in 1308 and she resigned in 1309. V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 181. There was discord over an election at St Clement’s, York, in 1316, one party in the convent electing Agnes de Methelay, and the other Beatrice de Brandesby. Sede vacante, the Dean and Chapter appointed the former. V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 129. See also a case at Goring. V.C.H. Oxon. II, p. 103.

Translated from Caesarius of Heisterbach’s Dialogus Miraculorum in Coulton, A Medieval Garner, pp. 251-2.

Dugdale, Mon. II, p. 318.

See Brewer, Reign of Henry VIII, II, pp. 281-3.

See Wood, op. cit. II, nos. xxi, xxii, pp. 52-6. (See nos. xxiii, xxiv, xxv, lxxiii and lxxiv for further letters from Margaret Vernon.)

See, for example, the account in the St Albans Chronicles (Rolls Series) of the great costs incurred by the Abbots of St Albans in seeking confirmation here. A detailed account of expenses incurred at Rome for the confirmation of Abbot John IV in 1302 has been translated in Coulton, Medieval Garner, p. 517; the total was 2561 marks sterling, i.e. about £34,000 in modern money. See also Froude’s essay entitled “Annals of an English Abbey” in his Short Studies on Great Subjects, 3rd ser. pp. 1 sqq.

Pierre Du Bois, De Recuperatione Terre Sancte, ed. Ch.-V. Langlois (Paris, 1891), p. 83.

Dugdale, Mon. III, p. 363.

At the time of the suppression Joan Scott “late prioress” is placed second in the list of nuns at Handale and is described as “aet. 90 and blynd.” V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 166. At Esholt the ex-prioress was over 70 and is described as “decrepita et non abilis ad equitandum, neque eundum.” Ib. p. 162.

Wood, op. cit. II, p. 153. See A. H. Thompson, English Monasteries, p. 123.

V.C.H. Suffolk, II, p. 116. See also the provision made for Joyce Brome, ex-prioress of Wroxall. Dugdale, Mon. IV, p. 89 note. For the case of Isabel Spynys, prioress of Wilberfoss (1348), see V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 126; and for an example of such an arrangement at a priory of monks see the very detailed ordinance for the living of John Assheby, ex-prior of Daventry, by Bishop Flemyng of Lincoln in 1420. Linc. Visit. I, pp. 39-42. It was not unusual to make provision in the form of corrodies such as these for other nuns, who were prevented by age and infirmity from taking part in the communal life of the convent. Isabel Warde of Moxby, “impotens et surda,” held such a grant for life at the time of the dissolution (V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 239) and Margaret de Shyrburn of Yedingham, who was ill of dropsy, had a secular girl to wait on her in 1314. Ib. p. 127 note. Compare the amusing case of Joan Heyronne of St Helen’s, Bishopsgate (1385), who was ill of gout and not sympathised with by her sisters (V.C.H. London, I, p. 458), and see also cases at Romsey (1507), Liveing, op. cit. p. 230; Malling (1400), Cal. of Pap. Letters, V, p. 355; and St Mary’s, Neasham, V.C.H. Durham, II, p. 107.

V.C.H. Yorks. III, pp. 120-1. Compare an amusing and very similar disturbance at Flixton between 1514 and 1532. Visit. of Dioc. Norwich, ed. Jessopp (Camden Soc.), pp. 142-4, 185, 190, 261, 318.

The abbess’s or prioress’s chamber is constantly mentioned in the surveys of nunneries made at the time of the Dissolution, e.g. at Arthington, Wykeham, Basedale and Kirklees (Yorks. Archaeol. Journ. IX, pp. 212, 326, 327, 332); at Cheshunt (Cussans, Hist. of Herts., Hertford Hundred, II, p. 270), Sheppey (Mackenzie E. C. Walcott, Inventories of St Mary’s Hospital, Dover, etc. p. 28), Kilburn (Dugdale, Mon. III, p. 424). See also the inventory of the goods of Langley in 1485 (Walcott, Inventory of St Mary’s Benedictine Nunnery at Langley [Leic. Architec. Soc. 1872], p. 4). The last three contain interesting inventories of the furniture of the prioress’s chamber. At Sheppey it was hung with green “saye” and contained “a trussyng bed of waynscot with testar, sylar and cortens of red and yelow sarcenet”; at Kilburn it was hung with “four peces of sey redde and grene, with a bordure of story,” and contained “a standinge bedd with four posts of weynscott, a trundle bedd under the same ... a syller of yelowe and redde bokerame and three curteyns of the same work.” At Langley also there were two beds in the prioress’s chamber “hur owne bed” and “ye secunde bed in hur chambur.” Clearly the prioress nearly always had a nun to sleep with her, and the evidence of visitations bears this out; see e.g. cases at Redlingfield, 1427 (V.C.H. Suffolk, II, p. 83), Littlemore, 1445 (Linc. Visit. II, p. 217, “iacet de nocte in eodem lecto cum priorissa”), Flamstead, 1530 (V.C.H. Herts. IV, p. 433). For the position of the prioress’s chamber see plan of the nunnery buildings of St Radegund’s, Cambridge (now Jesus College) (Gray, Priory of St Radegund, Cambridge, p. 53).

Dugdale, Mon. II, p. 458.

Ib. I, pp. 443, 445.

Reg. Epis. Johannis Peckham (Rolls Series), I, p. 84.

Reg. Epis. Johannis Peckham, II, pp. 651-2.

Ib. II, pp. 659-60, 662-3. For another instance of a prioress faring better than her nuns, see Archbishop Lee’s injunctions to Nunappleton in 1534: “That their be no difference betwene the breade and ale prepared for the prioresse and the bredde and ale provided for the covent, but that she and they eatt of oon breade, and drinke of oon drinke and of oon ale.” Yorks. Archaeol. Journ. XVI. pp. 443-4.

V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 214.

Linc. Visit. I, p. 50.

Ib. II, p. 124.

V.C.H. Lincs. II, pp. 155, 131-2.

Sometimes, however, bishops licenced the head of a house to hear the service separately, e.g. in 1401 Wykeham licenced dame Lucy Everard, abbess of Romsey, to hear divine service in her oratory during one year, in the presence of one of her sisters and of her servants (familia). Wykeham’s Reg. (Hants. Rec. Soc.), II, p. 538. Cf. similar licence to the prioress of Polsloe in 1388. Reg. of Bishop Brantyngham of Exeter, pt. II, p. 675.

Linc. Visit. II, p. 8. The same injunction was sent to Stixwould. Alnwick’s Visit. MS. f. 75d.

Ib. f. 83d. The next year when Alnwick came again this prioress announced that she did not lie in the dorter, nor keep frater, cloister and church on account of bodily weakness; she alleged that he had dispensed her from these observances, which he denied. Ib. f. 39d. Compare injunctions to Godstow, Gracedieu and Langley, Linc. Visit. II, pp. 115, 125, 177. For other injunctions on these points, see Alnwick’s Visit. MS. f. 78 (Nuncoton, 1440); V.C.H. Yorks. III, pp. 119 (Nunburnholme, 1318), 120 (Nunkeeling, 1314), 124 (Thicket, 1309), 188 (Arthington, 1318), 239 (Moxby, 1318).

Reg. Epis. Johannis Peckham (Rolls Series), II, p. 662. Compare V.C.H. Yorks. III, pp. 113, 239 and Alnwick’s Visit. MS. f. 6.

Before it was realised that this office was often held by a woman in nunneries, scholars were much exercised to explain this passage in Chaucer’s Prologue, though a search through Dugdale would have provided them with several instances. The office is still held in modern convents, and Dr Furnivall printed an interesting letter from a Benedictine nun, describing the duties attached to it. “It is in fact the nun who has special charge of attending on the Abbess and giving assistance when she needs it, either in writing when she (the Abbess) is busy, or in attending when sick, etc., but that which comes most often to claim her services is, on the twelve or fourteen great festivals,” when the chaplain attends the Abbess in the choir and holds her crosier, while she reads the hymns, lesson, etc. Anglia, IV, pp. 238-9. In the middle ages the chief stress was laid on the constant presence of a witness to the superior’s mode of life, that it might be beyond suspicion. Miss Eckenstein has pointed out that in the allegory of the “Ghostly Abbey,” by the béguine Mechthild of Magdeburg, in which the nuns are personified Virtues, Charity is Abbess and Meekness her Chaplain; and in the English version of the poem printed by Wynkyn de Worde (1500), Charity was Abbess and Mercy and Truth were to be her “chapeleyns” and to go about with her wherever she went. The Prioress (Wisdom) and the Sub-Prioress (Meekness) were also to have chaplains (Righteousness and Peace) because they were “most of worship.” Eckenstein, Woman under Monasticism, pp. 339, 377.

New College MS., f. 88d.

Sussex Archaeol. Coll. IX, p. 15.

Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich (Camden Soc.), p. 190.

Ib. p. 108.

Ib. p. 138.

Linc. Visit. I, p. 50. For other references to the abbess’s nun-chaplain at Elstow, see Archaeologia, XLVII, p. 52 and Dugdale, Mon. III, p. 415.

Alnwick’s Visit. MS. f. 6. The Prioress was Denise Loweliche (see p. below) and at the visitation Dame Margaret Loweliche “cappellana priorisse” (evidently a relative) said that she had held the office for the last eight years. Another nun said “that the Prioress ever holds and has held for seven years, one and the same nun as chaplain, without ever replacing her by another, and when she goes out she always has this young nun with her.”

E.g. at Campsey (1532) and Redlingfield (1526 and 1532). Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich, pp. 224, 291, 297. At Elstow (1539). Dugdale, Mon. III, p. 415. At Barking (still in receipt of pension in 1553). Ib. I, p. 438 note.

Litt. Johannis Peckham (Rolls Series), II, pp. 658-9. Compare injunctions to the Abbess of Chatteris in 1345. Dugdale, Mon. II, p. 619.

Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich (Camden Soc.), pp. 108, 109, 138-9, 143, 185, 190-1.

See Linc. Visit. II, pp. 3, 48, 120, 130, 133; and Alnwick’s Visit. MS. ff. 83, 75d, 26d.

Linc. Visit. II, p. 49.

Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich, p. 108.

Ib. pp. 143, 191.

See below, p. ff.

Among “greuous defautes” enumerated in the “additions to the rules” of Syon Abbey (fifteenth century) is the following: “If any lye in a wayte, or in a spye, or els besyly and curyously serche what other sustres or brethren speke betwene themselfe, that they afterwardes may revele or schewe the saynge of the spekers to ther grete hurte”; others are, “if any sowe dyscorde amonge the sustres and brethren,” and “if any be founde a preuy rowner or bakbyter.” Aungier, Hist. and Antiquities of Syon Monastery, p. 257.

Linc. Visit. II, pp. 121, 123.

Linc. Visit. II, pp. 123, 185, 133.

See e.g. Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich (Camden Soc.), pp. 143, 290.

Linc. Visit. II, p. 186. Compare ib. pp. 124, 135 (Gracedieu and Heynings); Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell, ff. 139-40 (Elstow, 1359); Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Bokyngham, ff. 343 (Elstow, 1387), 397 (Heynings, 1392); V.C.H. Yorks. III, pp. 117 (Moxby, 1252), 164 (Hampole, 1314).

Dugdale, Mon. III, pp. 359-60. There are various other references to “Wynge” (i.e. Wing in Buckinghamshire) in the account, e.g. “Item receyvid of Richard Saie for the ferme of the personage of Wynge for a yere and a half within the tyme of this accompte xlviijli. Item. rec. of the same Richard Saie as in party of payment of the same ferme for a quarter of a yere xs,” “item, paid to the bisshop of Lincolns officers for the licens of Wynge for ij yere xxijs viijd. Item paid to the ffermour of Wynge for his goune for ij yere xiijs iiijd.” For the London lawsuit see below, p. .

See P.R.O. Mins. Accts. 1260, passim. The London references are in 1260/7 and 1260/17 respectively.

Constitutions of the legate Ottobon in 1268. Wilkins, Concilia, II, p. 18.

Hugo, Medieval Nunneries of the County of Somerset, Minchin Barrow, p. 81.

Linc. Visit. II, p. 187.

Wykeham’s Reg. (Hants Rec. Soc.), p. 500.

V.C.H. Dorset, II, p. 89. In 1374 the Abbess of Canonsleigh had licence to have divine service celebrated in her presence in the chapel of St Theobald in the parish of Burlescombe “dicto monasterio contigua,” but her nuns were not to leave the claustral precincts on this pretext. Reg. of Bishop Brantyngham, ed. Hingeston-Randolph, pt I, p. 335.

Wood, op. cit. II, pp. 156-7. Even Ap Rice seems to have considered Dr Legh’s enforcement of enclosure as overstrict “for as many of these houses stand by husbandry they must fall to decay if the heads are not allowed to go out.” Gairdner, Letters and Papers, etc. IX, no. 139; cf. preface, p. 20.

Rye, Carrow Abbey, p. 8.

Linc. Dioc. Documents, ed. A. Clark (E.E.T.S.), pp. 50, 53.

Test. Ebor. I, p. 314.

For instance Margaret Fairfax of Nunmonkton was one of the supervisores testamenti of John Fairfax, rector of Prescot, in 1393 and of Thomas Fairfax of Walton in 1394. Ib. I, pp. 190, 204. The abbess of Syon was one of the three overseers of the will of Sir Richard Sutton, steward of her house in 1524. Aungier, Hist. and Antiquities of Syon Mon. p. 532. Emmota Farethorpe, Prioress of Wilberfoss, was executrix of John Appilby of Wilberfoss in 1438. V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 126 note. Margaret Delaryver, Prioress of St Clement’s York, was executrix of Elizabeth Medlay (probably a boarder there). Ib. III, p. 130. Joan Kay in 1525 left most of her property to her daughter the Prioress of Stixwould to found an obit there and made her executrix. Linc. Wills, ed. C. W. Foster (Linc. Rec. Soc.), I, p. 155. Sir John Beke, vicar of Aby, who left the greater part of his property to Greenfield for the same purpose, made the Prioress Isabel Smith executrix. Ib. I, p. 162. These offices were sometimes filled by nuns other than heads of houses, e.g. the will of John Suthwell, rector of St Mary’s South Kelsey, Lincs., was witnessed by his sister Margaret, a nun, in 1390. Gibbons, Early Linc. Wills, p. 76. Alice Conyers of Nunappleton was made coadjutress of the executors of Master John de Woodhouse in 1345. Test. Ebor. I, p. 15. For Carrow nuns (usually the prioress) as executors, supervisors and witnesses, see Rye, Carrow Abbey, pp. xv, xvi, xxii, xxiii, xxix.

Linc. Visit. II, p. 2.

V.C.H. Sussex, II, p. 84. See Rot. Parl. I, p. 147.

An Alphabet of Tales, ed. M. M. Banks (E.E.T.S., 1904), no. XV, pp. 13-14. I have modernised spelling. This fifteenth century English version is ultimately derived from an exemplum by Jacques de Vitry, of which it is a close translation. Exempla e sermonibus vulgaribus J. Vitriacensis, ed. T. F. Crane, no. LIX, pp. 23-4.

“Item Priorissa raro venit ad matutinas aut missas. Domina Katerina Hoghe dicit quod quedam moniales sunt quodammodo sompnolentes, tarde veniendo ad matutinas et alias horas canonicas.” Linc. Visit. II, p. 133.

J. P. Krapp, The Legend of St Patrick’s Purgatory; its later Literary History (1899), pp. 75-6.

Linc. Visit. II, pp. 3, 4, 5, 8. The Prioress of Brewood White Ladies in Shropshire was severely rebuked in the first part of the fourteenth century for expensae voluptuariae, dress and laxity of rule. Reg. of Roger de Norbury (Will. Salt Archaeol. Soc. Collections, I), p. 261.

Dugdale, Mon. IV, p. 194.

Sussex Archaeol. Coll. IX, pp. 7-9.

Compare the anecdote related by Caesarius of Heisterbach about Ensfrid of Cologne. “One day he met the abbess of the holy Eleven Thousand Virgins; before her went her clerks, wrapped in mantles of grey fur like the nuns; behind her went her ladies and maidservants, filling the air with the sound of their unprofitable words; while the Dean was followed by his poor folk who besought him for alms. Wherefore this righteous man, burning with the zeal of discipline, cried aloud in the hearing of all: ‘Oh, lady Abbess, it would better adorn your religion, that ye, like me, should be followed, not by buffoons, but by poor folk!’ Whereat she was much ashamed, not presuming to answer so worthy a man.” Translated in Coulton, A Medieval Garner, p. 251.

V.C.H. Lincs. II, p. 148.

V.C.H. Warwick, II, p. 71.

V.C.H. Lincs. II, p. 155. Sometimes however, the heads of houses received episcopal dispensations to reside for a period outside their monasteries, for the sake of health. Joan Formage, Abbess of Shaftesbury, received one in 1368, allowing her to leave her abbey for a year and to reside in her manors for air and recreation. V.C.H. Dorset, II, p. 78. Josiana de Anlaby (the Prioress of Swine about whose election there had been so much trouble) had licence in 1303 to absent herself on account of ill-health. Dugdale, Mon. V, p. 493.

Dugdale, Mon. IV, p. 638.

Linc. Visit. II, p. 187.

Dugdale, Mon. II, p. 619.

Sussex Archaeol. Coll. IX, pp. 18-19.

Ib. V, p. 256.

V.C.H. Oxon. II, p. 78.

Archaeologia, XLVIII, pp. 56, 58.

Alnwick’s Visit. MS. ff. 83 and d, 39d, 96.

Linc. Visit. II, pp. 120, 121.

Linc. Visit. II, pp. 2-4, 6.

Cal. of Pat. Rolls (1441-6), p. 141.

Linc. Visit. II, pp. 46-52.

Compare the complaint of the sisters of the hospital of St James outside Canterbury in 1511, that the Prioress was a diffamatrix of the sisters and used to say publicly in the neighbourhood that they were incontinent et publice meretrices, to the great scandal of the house. The ages of the sisters were 84, 80, 50 and 36 respectively and the Prioress herself was 74. Eng. Hist. Rev. VI, p. 23.

Compare Archbishop Bowet’s injunction to the Prioress of Hampole in 1411 that “Alice Lye, her nun who held the office of hostilaria, or anyone who succeeded her in office, should henceforth be free from entering the rooms of guests to lay beds, but that the porter should receive the bedclothes from the hostilaria at the lower gate, and when the guests had departed, should give them back to her at the same place.” V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 165. For the charge that the Prioress made the nuns work, compare the case of Eleanor Prioress of Arden in 1396 (pp. 85-6 below) and the case of the Prioress of Easebourne in 1441: “Also the Prioress compels her sisters to work continually like hired workwomen (ad modum mulieres conducticiarum) and they receive nothing whatever for their own use from their work, but the prioress takes the whole profit (totum percipit).” Sussex Archaeol. Coll. IX, p. 7.

Compare the case of Denise Loweliche, p. below.

Test. Ebor. I, pp. 283-5 (summary in V.C.H. Yorks. III, pp. 114-5).

An analysis of receipts and expenditure by the Prioress during her term of office, given at the end of the comperta, stands thus:

In the first year: Receipts £22. 7s. 6d. Expenses £27. 6s. 8d.

In the second year: Receipts £25. 3s. 0d. Expenses £40.

In the third year: Receipts £26. 9s. 6d. Expenses £27. 3s. 0d.

The nuns of Swine made the same complaint in 1268. “Binis, tamen, diebus in ebdomada aqua pro cervisia eisdem subministratur.” Reg. of Walter Giffard (Surtees Soc.), p. 148.

Dugdale, Mon. IV, p. 506 note.

Cal. of Papal Letters, VI, p. 55.

V.C.H. Suffolk, II, pp. 83-4. The other cases may be noted more briefly. For the story of Denise Loweliche, Prioress of Markyate (Beds.), see Linc. Visit. I, pp. 82-6, and below, pp. 458-9. Alice de Chilterne, Prioress of White Hall, Ilchester, was deprived for incontinence with the chaplain and for wasting the goods of the house to such an extent that the nuns were reduced to begging their bread (1323). Hugo, Med. Nunneries of Somerset, Whitehall in Ilchester, pp. 78-9 and Reg. John of Drokensford (Somerset Rec. Soc.), pp. 227, 245, 259. In 1325 Joan de Barton, Prioress of Moxby, was deprived super lapsu carnis with the chaplain. V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 240. In 1495 Elizabeth Popeley was deprived, two years after her confirmation as Prioress of Arthington, for having given birth to a child and for wasting the goods of the house. Ib. p. 189. The case of Katherine Wells, Prioress of Littlemore, who put her nuns in the stocks and took the goods of the house to provide a dowry for her illegitimate daughter is noted below, Note F. See also the stories of Elizabeth Broke, Abbess of Romsey, and Agnes Tawke, Prioress of Easebourne. Liveing, Rec. Romsey Abbey, pp. 211-222 and Sussex Archaeol. Coll. IX, pp. 14-19. Joan Fletcher, Prioress of Basedale, resigned from fear of deposition in 1527 and then cast aside her habit and left the house. Yorks. Archaeol. Journ. XVI, pp. 431-2.

It was translated by the Rev. Dr Cox in V.C.H. Hants. II, pp. 132-3, from a chartulary of Wherwell Abbey compiled in the fourteenth century (Brit. Mus. Egerton MS. 2104) and quoted by Gasquet, English Monastic Life, pp. 155-8.

See the account in the Reg. of Crabhouse Nunnery, ed. Mary Bateson (Norfolk Archaeology, XI, pp. 59-63). Also a charming account of Crabhouse (founded largely on this register) in Jessopp, Ups and Downs of an Old Nunnery (Frivola, 1896, pp. 28 ff.). The English portion of the register was written some time after 1470.

Reliquiae Antiquae, I, p. 314. See also a little further on in the Crabhouse Register: “And xx mark we hadde of the gifte of Edmunde Peris persoun of Watlington before seyde sekatoure to the same Roger wiche was nought payed tyl xvj yere aftyr his day.” Compare the complaint at Rusper in 1478: “Item dicit quod Johannes Wood erat executor domini Ricardi Hormer ... qui fuit a retro in solucione pensionis vs. per xxx annos priorisse et conventui de Rushper.” But this may mean that the late Richard (a rector) had failed to pay. Sussex Archaeol. Coll. V, p. 255.

With this account of the building of Crabhouse church it is interesting to compare the costs incurred in building the “newe chirch” of Syon Abbey in 1479-80. Two small schedules of accounts dealing with this work are preserved in the Public Record Office. The first is particularly interesting for its list of workmen employed: “Summa of the wages of Werkmen wirchyng as well opon and wyane the newe chirch of the monastery of Syun, as opon parte of the newe byldyng of the Brether Cloyster, chapitirhous and library, that is to sey fr. the xth day of October in the xixth yere of the reigne of kyng E. the iiijth vnto the vijth day of October in the xxth yere of the reigne of the same kyng, as it is declared partelly in ij jurnalles of work thereof examyned. It. ffremasons ccxlv li. xij s. xj d. It. harde-hewers xxx li. xj s. vij d. ob. It. Brekeleyers xvj li. xvj s. ij d. It. chalk-hewers xlj s. iij d. It. Carpenters and joynours xlvj s. ix d. It. Tawyers ix li. xvj s. iiij d. It. Smythes xliiij li. xix s. x d. It. Laborers xxxvj li. xix s. vij d. It. Paied to James Powle Brekeman for makyng of breks lxxvj li. viij s. iiij d. Summa tol, cccclxvij li. viij s. iij d. ob.” (P.R.O. Mins. Accts. 1261/2). The other schedule gives further details: “Expenses vpon our newe churche. The makyng of the rof wt tymber and cariage and workmanship ixclxv li. xviij s. iij d. qa, lede castyng, jynyng, leyyng sawdir with diuers cariage vcxxxv li. x s. x d. Iron bought with cariage, weyng and whirvage lxxiij li. xvi s. x d. Ragstone, assheler ffreston with cariage, masons and labourers for the vantyng and ffurryng of the pilers and purvyaunes vnto the xxvij of maii mlmlvcxlix li. xj s. j d. ob. Summa total for the church mlmlmlmlcxxxiiij li. xvij s. ob. qa. Expenses of the cloystor and dortour vnto the xxvij day of maii vjciiijxxxviij li. ix s. x d. Summa tol. mlmlmlmlviijcxxxiij li. vj s. x d. ob. qa.” (Ib. 1261/3.)

Mr Coulton suggests the reading ‘a mason hewande,’ i.e. a hard-hewer or rough hewer, as opposed to the better freemason.

The Valor Ecclesiasticus was published in six volumes by the Record Commission (1810-34). It is the subject of a detailed study by Professor Alexander Savine, “English Monasteries on the Eve of the Suppression,” in Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History, ed. Vinogradoff, vol. I (1909). For this reason, and also because of their greater interest, I have preferred to base my study of nunnery finance on the account rolls of the nuns. The Valor as it affects nunneries has been largely drawn upon in an unpublished thesis by Miss H. T. Jacka, The Dissolution of the English Nunneries, Thesis submitted for the Degree of M.A. in the University of London (Dec. 1917). It is a pity that this useful little work is not published. I have been able to consult it and have made use (as will be seen from footnotes to this chapter) of the admirable chapter II on “The Property of the Nunneries”; for my quotations from the Valor I have invariably used her analysis. Anyone wishing for an intensive study of the Dissolution from the point of view of monastic houses for women cannot do better than consult this thesis, which is far more detailed, exact and judicial in tone than any other modern account.

P.R.O. Mins. Accts. 1260.

The wardens’ accounts are in P.R.O. Mins. Accts. 867/21-6 and the prioress’s accounts, ib. 867/30, 32, 33-36. and Hen. VII, no. 274. They are briefly described in V.C.H. Herts. IV, pp. 430-1 (notes 30, 31, 39). An excellent prioress’s account for 2-4 Hen. VII is printed by Dugdale, Mon. III, pp. 358-61, the prioress being Christian Bassett.

P.R.O. Mins. Accts. 1257/10. See Gasquet, Eng. Monastic Life, pp. 158-176.

A. Gray, Priory of St Radegund’s, Cambridge, pp. 145-85.

Baker, Hist. and Antiq. of Northants. I, pp. 278-83. Compare P.R.O. Mins. Accts. 1257/1 for a Catesby account roll for 11-14 Hen. IV.

Dugdale, Mon. IV, pp. 458-60. See also P.R.O. 1257/2 for Denney, 14 Hen. IV-1 Hen. V.

See Ch. IV, passim.

Valor Eccles. IV, p. 302.

Ib. III, p. 103.

Ib. I, p. 119.

Ib. I, p. 397.

Ib. I, p. 424.

Jacka, op. cit. f. 44.

Jacka, op. cit. ff. 27, 29-30. The information about Syon and the Minoresses is taken from Valor Eccles. I, p. 424 and I, p. 397 respectively.

See Jacka, op. cit. f. 25.

If the demesne land were let out in farm the customary ploughing and other services of the villeins would no longer be needed and if only a portion of it were so farmed the number of villein services required would be proportionately less. This, as well as the increasing employment of hired labour on the demesne during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, accounts for the item “Sale of Works” which appears in the Romsey account for 1412. Liveing, Records of Romsey Abbey, p. 194. From another point of view the number of rent-payers was increased by the fact that both free and unfree tenants could rent pieces of the demesne. As to the farming of the demesne, note however the conclusion to which Miss Jacka comes from a study of the Valor and the Dissolution Surveys now in the Augmentation Office: “The question ‘to what extent did the nuns in 1535 farm their demesnes?’ cannot be confidently answered on the evidence of any of the records before us. Apart from the fact that in many cases there is no statement at all, the word ‘firma’ or ‘farm’ is used so ambiguously that even where it occurs it is impossible to be certain that a lease existed.... There are, of course, unmistakeable cases in which the demesnes were farmed: Tarrant Keynes kept in hand the demesnes of 3 manors and farmed that of 7; Shaftesbury occupied the demesne of one manor and farmed that of 18 (Valor Eccles. I, pp. 265, 276). But in none of the few cases in which the whole of the demesne is described as yielding a ‘firma,’ should we be justified, in view of the several uses of the word, in asserting that it had the definite character of a lease. That is to say, whatever may be our suspicions, the evidence before us does not warrant the assertion that in a single case did the nuns farm the whole of their demesnes; and this conclusion is an unexpected and remarkable one, for we might well expect them to be among the first land holders who seized this method of simplifying their manorial economy.” Jacka, op. cit. f. 47.

In the account roll of Dame Christian Bassett, Prioress of Delapré (St Albans) for 2-4 Hen. VII, the “rente fermys” range between £7 from Robert Pegge for the farm of the whole manor of Pray, to 2s. received from Richard Franklin “for the ferme of vj acres of londe in Bacheworth”; one John Shon pays 6s. 8d. “for the ferme of certeyne londs in Bacheworth and ij tenements in Seint Mighell strete with a lyme kylne”; Richard Ordeway pays 10s. for rent farm of “an hous wtin the Pray” and Robert Pegge 8s. for rent farm of “an hous and a stable wtin Praygate.” Dugdale, Mon. III, pp. 358-9. In this account her assize rents amount to £2. 11s. 2d. within the town of St Albans and her rents farm to £4. 13s. 2d.; while outside the town the rents of assize amount to £2. 5s. 0d. and the rents farm to £11. 19s. 8d., while four items amounting to £1. 19s. 11d. are doubtful, but probably represent farms. That is to say very nearly three quarters of the lands and houses belonging to Delapré were farmed out, and if we except payments from the town of St Albans, which were probably house-rents, over four-fifths of its possessions were in farm. Similarly in the account roll of Margaret Ratclyff, Prioress of Swaffham, for 22 Ed. IV. the rents are classified as Redditus Assise (£6. 0s. 4d. in all), Firma Terrae (£13. 0s. 3½d. in all) and Firma Molendini, the farm of a mill (£3. 14s. 4d.). Ib. IV, p. 459.

References to money paid in fees to rent-collectors, or in gratuities to men who had brought rents up to the house often occur in account rolls, e.g. in the Catesby roll for 1414-15, “Also in expenses of collecting rents wheresoever to be collected ... xixs. Also paid to divers receivers of rent for the time viijs. viijd.” Baker, Hist. of Northants. I, p. 280. In the Delapré account of 2-4 Hen. IV, “Item paid to a man that brought money from Cambryg for a rewarde viijd. Item for dyvers men yt brought in their rent at dyvers tymes xxs. ijd.” Dugdale, Mon. III, p. 359. In the St Radegund’s Cambridge account of 1449-51, “In the expenses of Thomas Key (xvijd. ob.) at Abyngton, Litlyngton, Whaddon, Crawden, Bumpsted and Cambridge for the business of the lady (prioress) and for levying rent ... and in the stipend of Thomas Key collecting rents in Cambridge and the district this year xiiis. iiijd.” Gray, Priory of St Radegund, Cambridge, pp. 173-4.

Gray, op. cit. pp. 148, 164.

See for a translation of the whole charter, Aungier, Hist. of Syon, pp. 60-67. The original is given ib. pp. 411-8.

See the valuation of Syon Monastery, A.D. 1534, translated from the Valor Ecclesiasticus, ib. pp. 439-450. At Romsey in 1412 the perquisites of courts brought in a total of £14 out of an annual income of £404. 6s. 0½d., made up of the rents and farms, sale of works, sale of farm produce and perquisites of courts on six manors. Liveing, Records of Romsey Abbey, p. 194.

V.C.H. Hants. II, p. 135.

V.C.H. Norfolk, II, p. 370. So apparently had the Prioress of Carrow. Rye, Carrow Abbey, p. 21.

See p. above. Compare the Catesby roll for 1414-15. “And in the expenses of the steward at the court this year and at other times vis. viiid.” Baker, Hist. and Antiq. of Northants. I, p. 280.

V.C.H. Essex, II, p. 118.

Cal. of Close Rolls, 1272-9, p. 392.

Cal. of Close Rolls, 1296-1302, p. 238.

In the account of the Prioress of Delapré already quoted occurs the item “Receyvid for ij standyngs at Prayffayre at ij tymes vs.” Dugdale, Mon. III, p. 359. The fair time was the feast of the Nativity of the B.V.M. (Sept. 8th) and the account for another year shows that over £1 was spent on the convent and visitors at this time. The accounts for 1490-3 include payments for making trestles and forms in connection with the fair. V.C.H. Herts. IV, p. 430 (note 31) and p. 439 (note 39). The nuns of St Radegund’s, Cambridge, were granted by Stephen a fair, which was afterwards known as Garlick fair, and was held in their churchyard for two days on August 14th and 15th. They did not receive much from it; in 1449 the tolls amounted only to 5s. 2d.; moreover they had to give the toll collectors 6d. for a wage and they evidently made the occasion one for entertainment, for they hired an extra cook for 3d. “to help in the kitchin at the fair time.” Gray, Priory of St Radegund, Cambridge, pp. 49-50.

The Valor Eccles. occasionally notes income derived from fairs. Tarrant Keynes had £2 from the fair at Woodburyhill, Shaftesbury had £2. 4s. 6d. from Shaftesbury fair, Malling received £3. 6s. 8d. from Malling market and fair and £3 from a market “cum terris et tenementis” at Newheth, Blackborough had £1 from Blackborough fair and Elstow had £7. 12s. 0d. from Elstow fair. Valor Eccles. I, pp. 265, 276, 106; II, p. 205; III, p. 395; IV, p. 188.

The mill belonging to the home farm would be in the charge of a miller, who was one of the hired servants of the house and was paid a regular stipend. Other mills would probably be farmed out. The nuns of Catesby had two mills, which brought them in 12s. and 22s. a year respectively; one, a wind-mill, was probably farmed, but the water-mill was in charge of Thomas Milner, at a wage of 20s. and his servant, who was paid 2s. 6d. The nuns also received tolls of grain in kind from the mill; a certain proportion of which was handed over to the miller for his household. The mill does not seem to have paid very well, for a heavy list of “Costs of the Mill,” amounting to 31s. 6d. appears in the account; it includes the wages of the miller and his boy and payments to a carpenter for making the mill-wheel for seventeen days and in damming the mill-tail and buying shoes with nails for the mill horses. Baker, op. cit. I, pp. 279, 281. At Swaffham Bulbeck the “Firma Molendini” brought in £3. 14s. 4d. Dugdale, Mon. IV, p. 457. Malling Abbey had a fulling-mill. Valor Eccles. I, p. 276.

For instance in Hone, The Manor and Manorial Records (1906).

Coulton, Med. Garn. p. 591.

Baker, op. cit. I, pp. 279, 282.

V.C.H. Norfolk, II, p. 370.

For examples of mortuary law-suits, receipts and results, see Coulton, Med. Garn., pp. 561-6. On the whole subject of mortuaries and the unpopularity which they entailed upon the church, see Coulton, Medieval Studies, no. 8 (“Priests and People before the Reformation,” pp. 3-7).

Translated in Coulton, Med. Garn. p. 323. Compare another of Caesarius’ tales of the usurer who was taken by the devil through various places of torment: “There also he saw a certain honest knight lately dead, Elias von Rheineck, castellan of Horst, seated on a mad cow with his face towards her tail and his back to her horns; the beast rushed to and fro, goring his back every moment so that the blood rushed forth. To whom the usurer said, ‘Lord, why suffer ye this pain?’ ‘This cow,’ replied the knight, ‘I tore mercilessly from a certain widow; wherefore I must now endure this merciless punishment from the same beast.’” Ib. p. 214. Certainly the medieval imagination had a genius for making the punishment fit the crime.

A nunnery in a large town would be far more dependent on buying food. Thus an account of the household expenses of St Helen’s Bishopsgate, in the sixteenth century shows that the nuns had to pay £22 for buying corn and £60. 13s. 4d. for meat and other foodstuffs. They were heavily in debt, and their creditors included a brewer, a “cornman,” two fishmongers and a butcher. V.C.H. London, I, p. 460.

Baker, op. cit. I, pp. 281-3.

The convent bought 4½ qrs. of salt for 25s. for the operation this year. Baker, op. cit. I, p. 280. Compare, for the operation at Gracedieu, Gasquet, Eng. Mon. Life, p. 174.

The account of the cellaress of Syon for the year 1536-7 gives very full details of the income derived from the sale of hides and fells. John Lyrer, tanner, buys from her fifty-five ox-hides at 3s. 6d. each, and three cow-hides, two steer-hides, one bull-hide, and one murrain ox-hide at 2s. 4d. each, making a total of £10. 8s. 10d. The same John Lyrer buys 230 calf-skins for £3. 16s. 8d. John Cockes, fellmonger, buys 287 “shorling felles,” at 3s. the dozen, 190 “skynnes of wynter felles” at 6s. the dozen, 77 “skynnes somerfelles” at 8s. the dozen, for a total for £10. 18s. 1d. The different qualities of wool were always carefully distinguished and priced. Myroure of Oure Ladye, ed. Blunt, p. xxix.

A few examples taken at random will suffice: “By the sale of wool 4 marks 11s. 8d. From Gilbert of Chesterton for the wool del aan ke est aveni 100s.” (32-3 Edw. I). P.R.O. Mins. Accts. 1260/1. “From the sale of 14 stone of wool, price per stone 7s., 4l. 18s.” (48-9 Edw. III). Ib. 1260/4. “Received for one sack of 20 stone of wool sold last year, at 4s. per stone, 13 marks, 10s. 8d. Received for one sack of this years wool, at 4s. 6d. per stone, 5l. 17s. 0d.” (either 46-7 or 47-8 Edw. III). Ib. 1260/21. “From John of the Pantry for 11½ stone of wool at 6s. the stone, 69s.” (1-2 Rich. II). Ib. 1260/7. In 1412 Romsey Abbey derived £60 out of a total income of £404. 6s. 4½d. from the sale of wool. Liveing, op. cit. p. 194.

See, for this very interesting document, Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce (1905 ed.), I, App. D, pp. 628-41. The nunneries mentioned, with the amount of wool obtainable from each annually, are Stainfield (from 12 sacks), Stixwould (from 15 sacks), Nuncoton (from 10 sacks), Hampole (from 6 sacks), St Leonard’s Grimsby (from 2 sacks), Heynings (from 2 sacks), Gokewell (from 4 sacks), Langley (from 5 sacks), Arden (from 10 sacks), Keldholme (from 12 sacks), Rosedale (from 10 sacks), St Clement’s York (from 3 sacks), Swine (from 8 sacks), Marrick (from 8 sacks), Wykeham (from 4 sacks), Ankerwyke (from 4 sacks), Thicket (from 4 sacks), Nunmonkton (number missing), Yedingham (do.), Legbourne (from 3 sacks). A similar Flemish list mentions Hampole, Nuncoton, Stainfield and Gracedieu (33 lbs.). Varenbergh, Hist. des Relations Diplomatiques entre le Comté de Flandre et l’Angleterre au Moyen Âge (Brussels, 1874), pp. 214-7.

“The Libel of English Policie,” in Hakluyt’s Voyages (Everyman’s Lib. edit.), I, p. 186.

See, for instance, a petition from the nuns of Carrow asking to be allowed to appropriate the church of Surlingham, of which they had the advowson, “qar, tres dute seignour, lauoesoun ne les fait bien eynz de les mettre en daunger de presentement en chescune voedaunce”; P.R.O. Anct. Petit. 232/11587. It appears that the prioress had letters patent to appropriate the church, probably in answer to this petition in 22 Edw. II; Rye, Carrow Abbey, App. p. xxxvi. It may be useful to give a few out of very many references to the appropriation of a church to a nunnery on account of poverty: Clifton to Lingbrook (Reg. R. de Swinfield, p. 134), Wolferlow and Bridge Sollers to Aconbury (Reg. A. de Orleton, pp. 176, 200), Rockbeare to Canonsleigh (Reg. Grandisson, II, p. 698), Compton and Upmardon to Easebourne (Bp. Rede’s Reg. p. 137), Itchen Stoke to Romsey (Reg. Sandale, p. 269), Whenby to Moxby (Reg. Wickwane, p. 290), Horton to St Clement’s York (Reg. Gray, p. 107), Bishopthorpe to the same (Reg. Giffard, p. 59), Dallington to Flamstead (Dugdale, Mon. IV, p. 301), Quadring to Stainfield (V.C.H. Lincs. II, p. 131), Easton Neston to Sewardsley and Desborough to Rothwell (V.C.H. Northants. II, p. 137), Lidlington to Barking (V.C.H. Essex, II, p. 119), Bradford, Tisbury and Gillingham to Shaftesbury (V.C.H. Dorset, II, p. 77).

An analysis of the possessions of Carrow gives some good examples of this. The churches of Earlham, Stow Bardolph, Surlingham, Swardeston, East Winch and Wroxham were all appropriated soon after their advowsons had been granted to the priory, which also possessed the advowsons of four churches in Norwich, the moiety of another advowson, the moiety of a rectory and various tithes or portions of tithes in different manors and parishes. Rye, Carrow Abbey, App. X.

Gasquet, Eng. Mon. Life, p. 194.

For the abuses of appropriation, see Coulton, Medieval Studies, no. 8, pp. 6-8. For the part played by the lower clergy in the Peasants’ Revolt, see Petit-Dutaillis, Studies Supplementary to Stubbs’ Constit. Hist. II, pp. 270-1, and Kriehn, Studies in the Sources of the Social Revolt in 1381 (Amer. Hist. Review, 1901), VI, pp. 480-4.

Valor Eccles. IV, p. 188.

Ib. III, p. 276.

Ib. I, p. 897.

Jacka, op. cit. f. 35. See the list of “Farms and Pensions” in the prioress of Catesby’s accounts for 1414-5. Baker, Hist. and Antiqs. of Northants. I, p. 279.

V.C.H. Northants. II, p. 98.

Dugdale, Mon. IV, p. 268.

This appears from the regular entry of the amount brought in by the farms of the two churches in the account rolls. In 1458 the nuns received formal permission from the bishop to lease out and dispose of the fruits and revenues of any of the appropriated churches. Madox, Form. Anglic. dxc.

P.R.O. Mins. Accts. 1260/7.

See for instance Norris’ note (quoted by Rye) on the grant to Carrow Priory of the tithes of all wheat growing in the parishes of Bergh and Apton, which tithes “occasioned many disputes between the Rector and the Convent, till at length about the year 1237 it was agreed by the Prioress and Convent and Thomas, the then Rector, ... that the Rector should pay to the Convent 14 quarters of wheat in lieu of all their tithes there, which was constantly paid, with some little allowance for defect of measure, until 29 Edw. III, when there was a suit between Prioress and Rector about them. What was the event of it I find not, but they soon after returned to the old payment of 14 qrs., which continued until 21 Hen. VI, when the dispute was revived and in a litigious way they continued above ten years, but I find they afterwards returned again to the old agreement and kept to it, I believe, to the dissolution of the Priory.” Rye mentions a suit between the Rector and Prioress in 1321. Similarly the nuns were involved in a tedious suit (10 Edw. I) about the tithes of the demesne of the manor of Barshall in Riston, with the Rector of Riston. Rye, Carrow Abbey, App. pp. xxx, xxxv.

See below, p. , for the other side of the matter.

Similarly the nuns of Kingsmead, Derby, had part of the shirt of St Thomas of Canterbury, and the nuns of Gracedieu had the girdle and part of the tunic of St Francis, both of which were good for the same purpose. V.C.H. Derby, II, p. 43; Nichols, Hist. of Leic. III, p. 652.

V.C.H. Yorks. III, pp. 115, 119, 130, 159, 178, 189.

V.C.H. Northants. II, p. 122.

V.C.H. Essex, II, p. 118.

See for instance the receipts of the nuns of St Michael’s Stamford from Almes, Almoignes et Auenture entered in their roll for 45-6 Edw. III. “From Sir John Weston for a soul, 13s. 4d. For the soul of Simon the Taverner, 1s. For the soul of Sir Robert de Thorp, £20. 6s. 7d. For the soul of William Apethorp, 3s. 4d. For the soul of Alice atte Halle, 3s. 4d. In alms from William Ouneby, 6s. 8d. In alms from Emma of Okham £5. Received from the pardon at the church 6s. 8d. For the pardon from Lady Idayne and from Emma Okham £1.” P.R.O. Mins. Accts. 1260/3. But this was an unusually good year.

The account rolls of St Michael’s Stamford usually arrange expenses under the following headings: (1) rents, (2) petty expenses, (3) convent expenses, (4) cost of carts and ploughs, (5) repair of houses, (6) purchase of stock, (7) weeding corn and mowing hay, (8) threshing and winnowing, (9) harvest expenses, (10) hire of servants, (11) chaplains’ fees. See P.R.O. Mins. Accts. 1260/passim. The active prioress of St Mary de Pré, Christian Bassett, classifies her payments as for (1) “comyns, pytances and partycions,” (2) “yerely charges,” (3) “wagys and ffees,” (4) “reparacions,” (5) “divers expensis.” Dugdale, Mon. III, pp. 358-61. The prioress of Catesby (1414-5) classifies (1) rents, (2) petty expenses, (3) expenses of the houses (i.e. repairs), (4) household expenses, (5) necessary expenses (miscellaneous), (6) expenses of carts, (7) purchase of livestock, (8) customary payments (to nuns, pittancers, farmers, cottagers, etc. in clothing; details not given); (9) purchase of corn, (10) rewards (various small tips to nuns and servants), (11) tedding and making hay, harvest expenses, stubble, thrashing and winnowing corn, (12) costs of the mill, (13) servants’ wages. Baker, Hist. and Antiq. of Northants. I, pp. 278-83.

Liveing, Records of Romsey Abbey, pp. 194-5.

See below, p. .

See below, pp. 157-8.

Gray, Priory of St Radegund, Cambridge, p. 156.

P.R.O. Mins. Accts. 1260/10.

Valor Eccles. I, p. 84.

Ib. I, p. 119.

Ib. I, p. 394.

Ib. III, p. 76.

Ib. III, p. 77.

Archaeol. Journ. LXIX (1912), pp. 120-1.

Gray, op. cit. p. 172.

Dugdale, Mon. III, p. 359. The heading under which this item comes is Yerely Charges.

Baker, Hist. and Antiq. of Northants. I, p. 281.

A. G. Little, Studies in English Franciscan History (1917), pp. 25, 43.

See below, p. .

Gray, op. cit. pp. 156, 172.

Myroure of Oure Ladye, ed. Blunt, introd. p. xxxi.

See below, p. .

See e.g. above, p. .

Gray, op. cit. pp. 153-5.

Mackenzie Walcott, Inventories of ... Shepey, pp. 32-3.

Maurice Hewlett, The Song of the Plow (1916), pp. 9-10.

Baker, Hist. and Antiq. of Northants. I, p. 283. Compare the St Radegund’s Cambridge accounts: “Et in butumine empto cum pycche hoc anno pro bidentibus signandis et ungendis, ij s j d. Et in clatis emptis ad faldam, iij s iij d. Et solutum pro remocione falde per diversas vices, iij d. ... Et in bidentibus hoc anno lavandis et tondendis ij s iij d.” Gray, op. cit. pp. 155, 171.

They are a regular item in the St Michael’s, Stamford, accounts and compare the accounts of St Radegund’s, Cambridge: “And in viij pairs of gloves bought for divers hired men at harvest as was needful xij d.” Gray, op. cit. pp. 157, 172.

Tusser, Fiue Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie, ed. W. Payne and S. J. Herrtage (Eng. Dialect. Soc. 1878), pp. 129-30.

Tusser, op. cit. p. 132.

Ib. p. 181.

C. T. Flower, Obedientiars’ Accounts of Glastonbury and other Religious Houses (St Paul’s Ecclesiological Soc. vol. VII, pt II (1912)), pp. 50-62. The nunnery accounts described include accounts of the Abbess of Elstow (22 Hen. VII), the Prioress of Delapré (4 and 9 Hen. VII), the Cellaress of Barking, the Cellaress of Syon, the Sacrist of Syon and the Chambress of Syon. On obedientiaries and their accounts in general, see the introduction to Compotus Rolls of the Obedientiaries of St Swithun’s Priory, Winchester, ed. G. W. Kitchin (Hants. Rec. Soc. 1892).

Liveing, Records of Romsey Abbey, p. 236. At St Mary’s Winchester at the same date the 14 nuns included the abbess, prioress, subprioress, infirmaress, precentrix and three sub-chantresses, scrutatrix, dogmatista and librarian. V.C.H. Hants. II, p. 124.

Aungier, Hist. of Syon Mon. p. 392.

Myroure of Oure Ladye, ed. Blunt (E.E.T.S.), introd. p. xxviii.

Aungier, op. cit. pp. 392-3.

See below, Note A.

Aungier, op. cit. p. 395.

I have been unable to discover what is meant by feri and asser.

Tabite was a sort of moiré silk. Probably carpets or tablecloths here.

Register of Crabhouse Nunnery, ed. M. Bateson (Norfolk Archaeology, XI, 1892), pp. 38-9.

See, for instance, the Godstow Register; charters nos. 105, 139, 556 and 644 concern grants appropriated to clothing and nos. 52, 250, 536, 619 and 630 to the infirmary. No. 862 is a grant of five cartloads of alderwood yearly “to be take xv dayes after myghelmasse to drye their heryng.” Eng. Reg. of Godstow Nunnery, ed. A. Clark (E.E.T.S. 1905-11), pp. 102, etc. In the Crabhouse Register it is noted that a certain meadow is set aside so that “all the produce of the said meadow be forever granted for the vesture of the ten ladies who are oldest in religion of the whole house, so that each of the ten ladies receive yearly from the aforesaid meadow four shillings at the feast of St Margaret.” Op. cit. p. 37. When Wothorpe was merged in St Michael’s, Stamford, the diocesan stipulated that the proceeds of the priory and rectory of Wothorpe should be applied to the support of the infirmary and kitchen of St Michael’s. Dugdale, Mon. IV, p. 268.

See, for instance, the payment of a yearly pension of five marks from the appropriated church of St Clement’s for the clothing of the nuns of St Radegund’s, Cambridge, and similar assignations of the income from appropriated churches at Studley, St Michael’s Stamford, and Marrick. Gray, Priory of St Radegund, Cambridge, p. 27.

See C. T. Flower, loc. cit., for an account of the Syon, Barking and Elstow accounts; also Blunt, Myroure of Oure Ladye, introd. pp. xxvi-xxxi, for Syon chambresses’ and cellaresses’ accounts (1536-7) and P.R.O. Mins. Accts. 1261/4 for a Syon cellaress’s account (1481-2). See P.R.O. Mins. Accts. 1260/14 for a St Michael’s Stamford chambress’s account (1408-9).

See below, Ch. VIII.

Blunt, op. cit. pp. xxvi-xxviii.

Gray, op. cit. pp. 149, 165, 167.

A barrel contained ten great hundreds of six score each.

A cade contained six great hundreds of six score each.

A warp was a parcel of four dried fish.

Gray, op. cit. See the accounts, pp. 145-79 passim.

Ib. pp. 10-11.

Catholicon Anglicum, ed. S. J. Herrtage (E.E.T.S. 1881), p. 365.

Blunt, op. cit. p. xxx. In 1481-2 their Lenten store included “saltfysshe,” “stokfyssh,” “white heryng,” “rede haryng,” “muddefissh,” “lyng,” “aburden,” “Scarburgh fysshe,” “salt samon,” “salt elys,” “oyle olyue” (34¾ gallons), a barrel of honey and figs. At other times this year the cellaress purchased beans (1 qr. 4 bushels), green peas (7 bushels), “grey” (i.e. dried) peas (4 bushels), “harreos” (3 bushels), oatmeal (2 qrs. 7 bushels), bread, wheat, malt, various animals for meat and to stock the farm, a kilderkin of good ale, 15 lbs. of almonds, 39 Essex cheeses, 111½ gallons of butter, white salt and bay salt, also firewood and coals. P.R.O. Mins. Accts. 1261/4.

Poems of John Skelton, ed. W. H. Williams, pp. 107-8 (from “Colyn Cloute,” ll. 210-13). For the curious custom of eating dried peas on the fifth Sunday in Lent, called Passion or Care Sunday, see Brand, Observations On Popular Antiquities (1877 ed.), pp. 57 ff. In the north of England peas boiled on Care Sunday were called carlings. Compare the St Mary de Pré (St Albans) accounts (2-4 Hen. VII) “Item paid for ij busshell of pesyn departyd amongs the susters in Lente xvj d.” Dugdale, Mon. III, p. 359, and the Barking cellaress’ Charthe, below, Note A.

See below, p. .

Blunt, op. cit. pp. xxx-xxxi.

Shakespeare, Winter’s Tale, IV, ii, 38 sqq.

For sowce, see below, p. .

The weekly allowance of beer to each member was supposed to be seven gallons, four of the better sort and three weaker, but the amount varied from house to house. See Linc. Visit. II, p. 89 (note). The Syon nuns had water on certain days, but doubtless as a mortification of the flesh, for it was sometimes complained of as a hardship when nuns had to drink water. (“Item they say that they do not get their corrody (i.e. weekly allowance of bread and beer) at the due times, but it is sometimes omitted for a fortnight and sometimes for a month, so that the nuns, by reason of the non-payment of the corrody, drink water.” Test. Ebor. I, p. 284.) The weekly allowance of bread was seven loaves. A note in the Register of Shaftesbury Abbey (15th century) which then numbered about 50 nuns and a large household, says: “Hit is to wytyng that me baketh and breweth by the wike in the Abbey of Shaftesbury atte leste weye xxxvj quarters whete and malt. And other while me baketh and breweth xlj quarters and ij bz. whete and malte.” Dugdale, Mon. II, p. 473.

Aungier, op. cit. pp. 393-4.

See below, p. .

They are diversely defined as pancakes, cheese cakes or custards, but they differed from our pancakes in being made in crusts. See the recipe in Liber Cure Cocorum for flawns made with cheese:

Take new chese and grynde hyt fayre,
In morter with egges, without dysware;
Put powder therto of sugur, I say,
Coloure hit with safrone ful wele thou may;
Put hit in cofyns that ben fayre,
And bake hit forthe, I the pray.

Liber Cure Cocorum, ed. Morris (Phil. Soc. 1862), p. 39. A fifteenth century cookery book gives this recipe for Flathouns in lente: “Take and draw a thrifty Milke of Almandes; temper with Sugre Water; than take hardid cofyns [pie-crusts] and pore thin comad [mixture] theron; blaunch Almaundis hol and caste theron Pouder Gyngere, Canelle, Sugre, Salt and Safroun; bake hem and serue forth.” Two Fifteenth Century Cookery Books, ed. T. Austen (E.E.T.S. 1888), p. 56.

For Maundy Thursday, see Brand, op. cit. pp. 75-9. For the Barking Maundy see below, p. , for the St Mary de Pré Maundy see Dugdale, Mon. III, p. 359, and for the St Michael’s, Stamford, Maundy, see P.R.O. Mins. Accts. 1260 passim. The nuns of St Radegund’s owned certain lands in Madingley which were held by the Prior of Barnwell on payment of a rent of 2s. 3d., called “Maundy silver.” Gray, op. cit. p. 146. Maundy money is still distributed at Magdalen College, Oxford.

See below, p. , for the Barking pittances. The following extracts from one of the St Michael’s, Stamford, accounts is typical of the rest: “Item paid for wassail 4d. ... paid to the convent on the Feast of St Michael and the dedication of the church 6s. Item paid for ... on All Saints Day and St Martin’s Day 3s. Item paid for a pittance of pork on two occasions 6s. Item paid for fowls at Christmas for the convent 5s. 6d. Item paid for herrings on St Michael’s Day for the poor 1s. 8d. Item paid for beer for the convent on Maundy Thursday (Jour de Cene) 10d. Item paid for bread and wafers on the same day 6d. Item paid for spices on the same day 3s. Item paid for herrings for the poor on the same day 1s. 8d. Item given to the poor on the same day 1s. 9d. Item for holy bread on Good Friday 2d. Item paid for fflaunes 2d. Item paid for herrings on St Laurence’s Day 9d.” P.R.O. Mins. Accts. 1260/11. At this convent “holy bread” was always brought for Good Friday, “flaunes” (or sometimes eggs, saffron and spices to make them) for Rogationtide, beer and spices on Maundy Thursday, herrings on St Lawrence’s Day, and various money pittances were paid to the nuns from time to time for the misericord of Corby and sometimes of Thurlby, the appropriated churches. On one occasion there is an entry “Paid to the convent for the misericord of Thurlby, to wit 28 fowls, 12 gallons of beer and mustard and a gift to the prioress 9s., paid to the convent for the misericord of Corby 9s., paid to the pittancer for a pittance from Thurlby throughout the year 14s. 4d.” Ib. 1260/3. See an interesting list of pittances payable on forty different feasts throughout the year to the nuns of Lillechurch or Higham: they are either extra portions of food or special sorts of food, e.g. “crepis” on the Sunday before Ash Wednesday, “flauns” on Easter Day and 12d. on St Radegund’s Day. R. F. Scott, Notes from the Records of St John’s Coll. Cambridge, 1st series (from The Eagle, 1893, vol. XVII, no. 101, pp. 5-7).

For these prebendal canonries see Mr Hamilton Thompson’s article on “Double Monasteries and the Male Element in Nunneries,” in The Ministry of Women, A Report by a Committee appointed by his Grace the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, app. VIII, pp. 150 sqq.

Dugdale, Mon. III, p. 424.

Walcott, M. E. C. Inventories of ... the Priory of Minster in Shepey (Arch. Cant. 1869), p. 30. This house paid stipends to three chaplains, one being “curat of the Paryshe churche”; a “Vycar’s chamber” is described among what are obviously outlying buildings. At Cheshunt the “Prestes Chamber” contained a feather bed, with sheets and coverlet and a “celer of blewe cloth,” valued at 4s. 10d. Cussans, Hist. of Herts. Hertford Hundred, II, p. 70.

Chaucer, Cant. Tales, Prologue of the Nonne Prestes Tale, ll. 3998 ff.

Linc. Visit. II, pp. 120-1, 123.

Valor. Eccles. I, p. 397, IV, p. 220.

Ib. I, p. 276.

Ib. II, p. 109.

Ib. III, p. 76.

Ib. I, p. 106.

Ib. V, pp. 43, 87, 94.

Ib. I, p. 114.

Ib. V, p. 206.

Ib. I, p. 424, IV, p. 339.

E.g. in the Sheppey inventory, after “the chamber over the Gate Howse called the Confessor’s Chamber,” comes “the Chamber next to that,” “the Steward’s chamber” (well furnished), “the next chamber to the same,” “the chamber under the same,” and “the Portar’s Lodge,” all evidently outside the cloister. Walcott, M. E. C. op. cit. p. 31.

Gray, op. cit. pp. 163, 167, 173. Cf. pp. 156, 157, 158.

Walcott, M. E. C. op. cit. pp. 30, 33.

E.g. Brewood (Black Ladies). See Dugdale, Mon. IV, p. 500.

A Joan Key or Kay votes at the election of Joan Lancaster as prioress of St Radegund’s in 1457 and is receiver-general, keeping the account in 1481-2. Gray, op. cit. pp. 38, 176.

See, for instance, an item in the accounts of St Radegund’s Cambridge: “Paid in a pittance for the convent ... at the month’s mind of John Brown, lately bailiff there ... in accordance with his last will.” Gray, op. cit. p. 151.

The Ministry of Women, loc. cit. pp. 162-3. So in 1492 it is complained at Carrow “quod mali servientes Priorissae fecerunt magnum dampnum in bonis prioratus.” Jessopp, Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich, p. 16.

Chaucer, Cant. Tales, Prologue, ll. 597 ff.

See, for instance, the Prioress of Marrick v. Simon Wayt, to give an account for the time when he was her bailiff in Fletham (1332); the Prioress of Molseby (Moxby) v. Lawrence de Dysceford, chaplain, to give an account of the time when he was bailiff of Joan de Barton, late Prioress of Molseby at Molseby (1330)—an interesting case of a chaplain acting as bailiff for a small and poor house; Idonia, Prioress of Appleton v. John Boston of Leven for an account as bailiff and receiver in Holme (1413). Notes on Relig. and Secular Houses of York, ed. W. P. Baildon (Yorks. Arch. Soc. 1895), I, pp. 127, 139, 161. Visitation injunctions sometimes regulate the presentation of accounts by bailiffs and receivers, e.g. Exeter Reg. Stapeldon, p. 318, V.C.H. Beds. I, p. 356.

Linc. Visit. I, p. 67.

Linc. Visit. II, p. 185. An illustration may be found in the Gracedieu rolls where on one occasion the nuns paid wages to the bailiff John de Northton, to his wife Joan, to his daughter Joan, to Philip de Northton (doubtless his son) and to Philip’s wife Constance. P.R.O. Mins. Accts. 1257/10, ff. 203-5.

V.C.H. Suffolk, II, p. 84.

Reg. Epis. J. Peckham (Rolls Ser.), II, pp. 658-9. Compare p. 662. The injunction that the head of the house should not appoint stewards, bailiffs or receivers without the consent of the major part of the convent was a common one; cf. ib. II, p. 652; Dugdale, Mon. II, p. 619.

Liveing, Records of Romsey Abbey, pp. 218-22 passim.

Liveing, op. cit. pp. 229-30, 232.

Essays on Chaucer, 2nd Series, VII (Chaucer Soc.), pp. 191-4; also in Dugdale, Mon. II, 456-7.

Gray, op. cit. p. 158; cf. p. 174.

V.C.H. Hants. II, 151.

Alnwick’s Visit. MS. f. 71d. The Bishop forbade them to keep more than the necessary servants and made the same injunction at Legbourne. Linc. Visit. II, p. 187.

Archaeologia, XLVII, pp. 57-8. Compare his injunction to Studley, ib. pp. 54-5. In 1306 every useless servant who was a burden to the impoverished house of Arden was to be removed within a week. V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 113. In 1326 the custos of Minchin Barrow was told to remove the onerosa familia. Reg. John of Drokensford (Somerset Rec. Soc.), p. 242.

P.R.O. Suppression Papers, 833/39.

Linc. Visit. II, pp. 4, 121, 131; Alnwick’s Visit. MS. f. 6. At Ankerwyke Alnwick enjoined “that ye hafe an honeste woman seruaund in your kychyne, brewhowse and bakehowse, deyhowse and selere wythe an honeste damyselle wythe hire to saruf yowe and your sustres in thise saide offices, so that your saide sustres for occupacyone in any of the saide offices be ne letted fro diuine seruice.” Compare the complaint of the nuns of Sheppey that they had no “covent servante” to wash their clothes and tend them when they were ill, unless they hired a woman from the village out of their own pockets. E.H.R. VI, pp. 33-4. The provision of a laundress was ordered at Nunappleton in 1534. Yorks. Arch. Journ. XVI, p. 444.

Yorks. Arch. Journ. XVI, p. 443.

“Also she says that secular servingwomen do lie among the sisters in the dorter, and especially one who did buy a corrody there” (Heynings, 1440). Linc. Visit. II, p. 133. The Abbess of Malling in 1324 was forbidden to give a corrody to her maid. Wharton, Anglia Sacra, I, p. 364.

Linc. Visit. II, p. 133.

See below, pp. , .

Linc. Visit. II, p. 121. Alnwick notes “Amoueatur quedam francigena manens in prioratu propter vite inhonestatem, nam omnes admittit vniformiter ad concubitus suos”; and see his general injunction, ib. pp. 122, 125.

Ancren Riwle, introd. Gasquet (King’s Classics), p 287.

Alnwick’s Visit. MS. f. 7.

Ib. f. 26d.

E.H.R. VI, p. 33.

Liveing, op. cit. p. 101.

Ib. p. 104. Compare Peckham’s injunctions to Wherwell in 1284 “Et si quis inveniatur, serviens masculus aut femina, qui amaris responsionibus consueverit monialem aliquam vel aliquas molestare, nisi se monitione praemissa sufficienter corrigat in futurum, illico expellatur.” Reg. Epist. J. Peckham, II, p. 654; also his injunctions to Barking and Holy Sepulchre, Canterbury, ib. I, p. 85; II, p. 707. Also Thomas of Cantilupe’s injunctions to Lingbrook, c. 1277. Reg. Thome de Cantilupo, p. 202.

New Coll. MS. f. 87d.

Gray, op. cit. passim.

“Names of the Servants now in Wages by the yere. Mr Oglestone, taking wages by the yere. Mr White, taking 26 s 8 d by the yere and lyvere. John Coks, butler, lyvere, xxvi s viij d, whereof to pay 1 quarter and lyvere. Alyn Sowthe bayly, taking by yere for closure and hys servant 6 l 13 s 4 d and two lyveryes. Jhon Mustarde 20 s a kowes pasture and a lyvere. William Rowet, carpentar, 40 s and lyvere. Richard Gyllys 26 s 8 d and lyvere. The carter 33 s 4 d and no lyvere. Thomas Thressher by yere 33 s 4 d and no lyvere. Robert Dawton by yere 33 s 4 d and no lyvere. The kowherd for kepyng of the kene and hoggys by yere 30 s and no lyvere. Jhon Hartnar by yere 28 s and no lyvere. Robard Welshe, brewer, by yere 20 s and no lyvere. A thatcher 33 s 4 d, a hose cloth and no lyvere. William Nycolls 20 s and no lyvere. Jhon Andrew 22 s 4 d and no lyverye. Jhon Putsawe 13 s 4 d and a shyrt redy made. George Myllar 21 s 8 d and no lyverye. Robert Rychard, horse keper, 20 s and no liverye. Jhon Harryes, Frencheman, 13 s 4 d, a shyrt and no lyverye. Jhon Gyles the shepherd, 14 s, a payre of hoses, a payre of shoys and no lyverye. Richard Gladwyn for to make malte, 26 s 8 d by yere, he hath ben here 8 wekes, and no lyverye. Dorothe Sowthe, the baylyffe wyfe, owing for a yere’s wages at 40 s by yere and no liverye. Ales Barkar 13 s 4 d and lyvere. Also Sykkers 13 s 4 d and lyverye. Gladwyn’s wyfe 13 s 4 d and lyverye. Ellyn at my ladyes lyndyng. Emme Cawket 12 s and lyvere. Rose Salmon 12 s, she hath been here a month. Marget Lambard 13 s 4 d and lyvere. Sir Jhon Lorymer, curat of the Parysche churche, 3 l 16 s 8 d and no lyvere. Sir Jhon Ingram, chaplen, 3 l 3 s 3 d and no lyvere. Jhon Gayton shepard 53 s 4 d and no lyvere. Jhon Pelland 20 s and no lyverye. Jhon Marchant 13 s 4 d and pasture for 40 shepe and no lyverye. Jhon Helman 16 s and 10 shepes pasture and no lyverye. Jhon Cannyng shepard by yere 20 s and no lyverye.” Walcott, E. C. M. op. cit. pp. 33-4.

Letters relating to the Suppression of the Monasteries, ed. Thomas Wright (Camden Soc. 1843), p. 140.

Essays on Chaucer, 2nd Series (Chaucer Soc.), p. 189.

Savine, English Monasteries on the Eve of the Dissolution (Oxford Hist. Studies, ed. Vinogradoff, I, pp. 221-2). See also above, Ch. I, pp. 2-3.

Cal. of Papal Letters, IV, p. 436. In 1442 its numbers (which should have been fourteen) had sunk to seven and it was six marks in debt (Alnwick’s Visit. MS. f. 38). The clear annual value of the house in the Valor Ecclesiasticus was only £5. 19s. 8½d. Compare the case of Heynings, whose founder, Sir John Darcy, had also died without completing its endowment. Cal. of Papal Letters, V, p. 347.

Fuller, Church History, III, p. 332. Its net income at the Dissolution was £1329. 1s. 3d. Compare The Italian Relation of England (Camden Soc.), pp. 40-1.

Linc. Visit. II, pp. 1, 49, 117, 119, 130, 133, 175, 184; Alnwick’s Visit. MS. ff. 6d, 38, 83.

Cal. of Papal Letters, V, p. 347.

The Prioress of Ankerwyke also claimed to have reduced the debt from 300 marks to £40, but one of the nuns said that it had been only £30 on her installation and that it had not been paid by the Prioress but from other sources. Linc. Visit. II, pp. 1, 3.

P.R.O. Mins. Accts. 1260 passim.

P.R.O. Mins. Accts. 1260/1. It should, however, be noted that some of the items which go to make up the total of the debts are sums of money owing to members of the convent (e.g. the Prioress and Subprioress) by the treasuresses, though the sums owing to outsiders are larger.

P.R.O. Mins. Accts. 1257/10 ff. 34 and 34d, 39d. Similarly the Prioress’s account of Delapré for 4 Henry VIII contains a long list of debts. St Paul’s Ecclesiological Soc. VII (1912), p. 52. An analysis of Archbishop Eudes Rigaud’s visitations of nunneries in the Diocese of Rouen gives even more startling information on this point; all but four of the fourteen houses show a list of debts growing heavier year by year and this was in the thirteenth century (1249-69). See Reg. Visit. Archiep. Rothomag. ed. Bonnin passim.

V.C.H. Dorset, II, p. 88.

V.C.H. Oxon. II, p. 73.

Cal. of Papal Petit. I, pp. 56, 122, 230.

For other cases of debt, in different centuries, see V.C.H. Yorks. III, pp. 124, 161, 163-4, 188, 239, 240; Reg. Walter Giffard (Surtees Soc.), p. 148; V.C.H. Oxon. II, pp. 78, 104; V.C.H. Essex, p. 122; V.C.H. Derby, II, p. 43; V.C.H. Norfolk, II, p. 351; V.C.H. Hants. II, p. 150; V.C.H. Bucks. I, p. 355; Visit. of Diocese of Norwich (Camden Soc.), pp. 108, 109; Test. Ebor. I, pp. 284-5; Cal. of Papal Letters, VI, p. 25; Sussex Archaeol. Coll. IX, p. 7.

Linc. Visit. II, p. 186.

V.C.H. Lincs. II, p. 157.

Linc. Visit. II, p. 92.

The Knights Hospitallers in England (Camden Soc.), p. 20.

V.C.H. Worcs. II, pp. 157-8.

Dugdale, Mon. IV, p. 285.

See below, p. .

V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 177.

Test. Ebor. I, p. 133. The account book of Gracedieu (1414-8) contains entries of money paid by William Roby “for the clothes of his relation Dame Agnes Roby” and at another time by Margaret Roby for the same purpose (6s. 8d.). Gasquet, English Monastic Life, p. 170.

Lincoln Diocese Documents (E.E.T.S.), p. 57.

It is amusing to notice the indignation of the nuns when their beer was not strong enough. See e.g. Alnwick’s Visit. MS. ff. 71d, 72; Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich (Camden Soc.), p. 209; Yorks. Archaeol. Journal, XVI, p. 443.

Dugdale, Mon. V, pp. 493-4.

When little Elizabeth Sewardby was boarding in Nunmonkton she had ten pairs in eighteen months! Test. Ebor. III, p. 168.

Reg. of Walter Giffard (Surtees Soc.), pp. 147-8.

V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 181.

Linc. Visit. II, pp. 4, 5. This lack of bedclothes for the younger nuns was partly due to the fact that the Prioress did not want them to sleep in the dorter, for Thomasine adds “and when my lord had commanded this deponent to lie in the dorter and this deponent asked bedclothes of the Prioress, she said chidingly to her ‘Let him who gave you leave to lie in the dorter supply you with raiment.’” Mr Hamilton Thompson thinks that “probably sister Thomasine had previously been lodged separately with the other younger nuns and the Prioress and elders objected to the crowding of the dorter.” But poverty was the main cause, for at a later visitation the Prioress stated that she was unable to supply the sisters with sufficient raiment for their habits “because of the poverty and insufficiency of the resources of the house.” Ib. p. 7.

The same injunction was sent to Wherwell. Reg. Epist. Johannis Peckham (Rolls Ser.), II, pp. 651, 659-60.

Liveing, Records of Romsey Abbey, p. 103.

New Coll. MS. f. 86d.

Visit. of the Diocese of Norwich (Camden Soc.), pp. 290-2. Cf. the complaint of the nuns of Studley in 1530: “They be oftentymes served with beffe and no moton upon Thursday at nyght and Sondays at nyght and be served oftentymes with new ale and not hulsome.” V.C.H. Oxon. II, p. 78.

Other houses in the diocese of Norwich which complained of bad food were Flixton (1520) and Carrow (1492, 1514, 1526). Carrow was one of the most famous nunneries in England, but in 1492 one of the Bishop’s comperta ran: “That the present sisters are restricted to eight loaves, and this is very little for ten sisters, for the whole day. Item there is often a lack of bread in the house, contrary to the good repute of the place.” See Visit. of the Diocese of Norwich, pp. 16-17, 145, 185-6, 209.

Reliquiae Antiquae, I, p. 291. Translated in Coulton, A Medieval Garner, p. 597.

V.C.H. Hants. II, p. 135. The belfry of St Radegund’s, Cambridge, fell down and injured the church in 1277. Gray, Hist. of the Priory of St Radegund, Cambridge, pp. 37-8; cf. p. 79. That of Esholt fell in 1445. V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 161.

Reg. of Crabhouse Nunnery (Norfolk Archaeology, XI, 1892), pp. 61, 62.

V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 181.

Gray, op. cit. p. 32.

Linc. Visit. II, p. 217.

V.C.H. Hants. II, pp. 129-31 passim. For another complaint that tenements and leasehold houses belonging to a priory were ruinous and like to fall down, through the negligence of the prioress and bailiff, see the case of Legbourne in 1440. Linc. Visit. II, p. 185.

New Coll. MS. ff. 87d-88. He ordered the Abbess to repair defects at once out of the common goods of the house. Better still, he would seem to have assisted them from his own pocket to carry out the injunction, for by his will (1402) he remitted to them a debt of £40, for the repair of their church and cloister. Nicolas, Testamenta Vetusta, II, p. 708.

V.C.H. Yorks. III, pp. 113, 124, 168, 174, 181, 183, 188, 240; Yedingham and Esholt (ib. pp. 128, 161) and St Mary, Neasham (V.C.H. Durham, II, p. 107) needed repair in the middle of the fifteenth century.

Sussex Arch. Coll. IX, p. 23; V, pp. 256, 258.

Visitations of the Diocese of Norwich (Camden Soc.), pp. 107-8, 109, 261, 311.

Archaeologia, XLVII, pp. 52, 54, 59.

V.C.H. Lincs. II, p. 104. A few out of many other references to ruinous buildings may be given here. Easebourne (1411). Bishop Rede’s Reg. p. 137. Polsloe (1319). Reg. of Bishop Stapeldon of Exeter, p. 318. Delapré (Northampton) (1303), Wothorpe (1292), Rothwell (fourteenth century), Catesby (1301, 1312). V.C.H. Northants. II, pp. 101, 114, 138, 123. Rowney (1431). V.C.H. Herts. IV, pp. 435-6. St Radegund’s Cambridge. Gray, op. cit. pp. 36-8, 79. St Clare without Aldgate (1290). Ely Epis. Records, ed. Gibbons, p. 415. St Mary’s Winchester (1343-52). Cal. of Pap. Pet. I, pp. 56, 122, 230.

Perhaps in the same way that a fire broke out at Sempringham in the lifetime of St Gilbert. “A nun, bearing a light through the kitchen by night, fixed a part of a burnt candle to another she was going to burn, so that both were alight at once. But when the part fixed on to the other was almost consumed, it fell on the floor, on which much straw was collected, ready for a fire. The nun did not heed it, and believing that the fire would go out by itself, she went away and shut the door. But the flame, finding food, first devoured the straw lying close by, then the whole house with the adjacent offices and their contents, whence a great loss happened to the church.” Quoted from MS. Cott. Cleop. B. I, f. 77 by R. Graham, St Gilbert of Sempringham and the Gilbertines, p. 135. It will be remembered that the author of the thirteenth century treatise, called “Seneschaucie,” is most careful to declare that ploughmen, waggoners and cowherds must not carry fire into the byres, stables and cowhouse, either for light or to warm themselves, “unless the candle be in a lantern and this for great need and then it must be carried and watched by another than himself.” Walter of Henley’s Husbandry, ed. E. Lamond (1890), p. 113.

Reg. of Crabhouse Nunnery u.s. p. 61.

Dugdale, Mon. IV, p. 328. See also V.C.H. Herts. IV, p. 426.

V.C.H. Herts. loc. cit.

Cal. of Close Rolls, 1296-1302, p. 238.

V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 183.

Gray, op. cit. p. 79.

V.C.H. Lincs. II, p. 179.

Dugdale, Mon. IV, p. 485.

Wood, Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies, I, p. 35.

Reg. of John of Drokensford (Somerset Rec. Soc.), p. 227. Text in Hugo, Medieval Nunneries of Somerset: Whitehall in Ilchester, p. 78. But seven years before they had been begging, according to the Bishop, by the compulsion of this expelled prioress, whose case was sub judice. Reg. p. 115 and Hugo, loc. cit.

Reg. Sede Vacante (Worc. Rec. Soc.), pp. 112-3.

Liveing, Records of Romsey Abbey, p. 145.

V.C.H. Herts. IV, p. 427.

V.C.H. Northants. II, p. 137.

V.C.H. Herts. IV, pp. 434-5. The text of their petition is as follows: “A tres reverend pier en dieu, mon treshonure seigneur le chaunceller dengleterre, suppliant voz pouers oratrices la prioresse et les noneyns de Rowney en le countee de ... qe come lour esglise et autres mesons sont en poynt de cheyer a terre pur defaute de reparacion et ils nount dont lez reparailler, si noun dalmoigne de bones gens, qe plese a vostre treshonure seignurie de vostre grace eux granter vn patent pur vn lour procuratour, de aler en la paiis a coiller almoigns de bones gentz pur la sustenance et releuacioun du dit pouere mesoun et en noun de charite.” P.R.O. Ancient Petitions, 302/15063.

V.C.H. Bucks. I, p. 358.

V.C.H. Lincs. II, p. 179. Another licence in 1459.

V.C.H. Northants. II, p. 137.

Ib. pp. 100, 126.

Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Dalderby, f. 374. (Pro monialibus de Rowell.) It is surprising, however, that Peckham, in his constitution forbidding nuns to be absent from their convents for longer than three, or at the most six, days, adds: “We do not extend this ordinance to those nuns who are forced to beg their necessities outside, while they are begging.” Wilkins, Concilia, II, p. 59. It is certain that the nuns did beg in their own persons. When Archbishop Eudes Rigaud visited St-Aubin in 1261 he ordered that the younger nuns should not be sent out to beg (pro questu); and in 1263 two of them were absent in France, seeking alms. Reg. Visit. Archiepiscopi Rothomagensis, ed. Bonnin, pp. 412, 471.

On this subject see an interesting article by C. Wordsworth, “On some Pardons or Indulgences preserved in Yorkshire 1412-1527” (Yorks. Arch. Journ. XVI, pp. 369 ff.).

V.C.H. Herts. IV, pp. 426, 432.

V.C.H. Northants. II, pp. 114, 123, 116.

V.C.H. Bucks. I, p. 353.

V.C.H. Lincs. II, p. 157.

Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Dalderby, ff. 96d, 244d.

V.C.H. Yorks. III, pp. 115, 128, 161.

Cal. of Papal Letters, IV, p. 393; V, p. 373.

Except where otherwise stated the following references all occur in Gray, op. cit. p. 79 and are printed in full in R. Willis, Architectural Hist. of the Univ. of Cambridge, ed. J. Willis Clark (1886), II, pp. 183-6.

Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Dalderby, f. 96d.

Gray, op. cit. p. 36.

Ib. pp. 37-8.

A few other references may be given: Bishop Fordham of Ely for Rowney (1408) and Bishop Alcock of Ely for the Minories (1490). Gibbons, Ely Epis. Records, pp. 406, 414. Bishop Sutton of Lincoln to Wothorpe (1292). V.C.H. Northants. II, p. 114.

V.C.H. Wilts. II, p. 77.

V.C.H. Essex, II, p. 119. References to this occur in 1380, 1382, 1384, 1392, 1402 and 1409.

Gibbons, Ely Epis. Records, p. 399.

V.C.H. Lincs. II, p. 179. Cf. Thetford. V.C.H. Norfolk, II, p. 355.

V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 161.

Ib. p. 124.

V.C.H. Wilts. II, p. 77. The reference is perhaps to the famous storm of St Maur’s Day, 1362, which, together with the Black Death, is commemorated in a graffito in the church of Ashwell (Herts.) and in a distich quoted by Adam Murimuth

C ter erant mille, decies sex unus et ille.
Luce tua Maure, vehemens fuit impetus aurae.
Ecce flat hoc anno, Maurus in orbe tonans.

Gray, op. cit. p. 79.

Bishop Rede’s Reg. (Sussex Rec. Soc.), p. 137.

Cal. of Papal Letters, V, p. 347.

Dugdale, Mon. IV, p. 301.

The following account of medieval plagues and famines is taken mainly from Creighton, Hist. of Epidemics in Britain, I, pp. 202-7, 215-223. See also Denton, England in the Fifteenth Century, pp. 91-105.

Creighton, op. cit. I, p. 19.

Denton, op. cit. p. 93.

Ib. p. 93 sqq.

V.C.H. Hants. II, p. 150. He attributed their condition to negligence and bad administration.

P.R.O. Ancient Correspondence, XXXVI, no. 201.

V.C.H. Derby, II, p. 43. See below, p. .

See P. G. Mode, The Influence of the Black Death on the English Monasteries (Univ. of Chicago, 1916), passim.

Dugdale. Mon. IV, p. 268.

A. Hamilton Thompson, Registers of John Gynewell, Bishop of Lincoln for the years 1347-1350 (reprinted from Archaeol. Journ. LXVIII, pp. 301-360, 1912), p. 328.

Ib. pp. 359-60.

A. Hamilton Thompson, The Pestilences of the Fourteenth Century in the Diocese of York (reprinted from Archaeol. Journ. LXXI, pp. 97-154, 1914), pp. 121-2.

Wharton, Anglia Sacra, I, pp. 364, 375.

V.C.H. Warwick. II, p. 65.

V.C.H. Suffolk, II, p. 116.

Liveing, op. cit. p. 146.

Cal. of Papal Petitions, I, p. 230.

Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1364, pp. 21, 485.

Rye, Carrow Abbey, p. 37.

V.C.H. Northants. II, p. 126.

Dugdale, Mon. IV, p. 301. Their petition had been presented in 1380. V.C.H. Herts. IV, p. 433.

Cal. of Papal Letters, IV, p. 521.

Bishop Rede’s Reg. p. 137.

V.C.H. Norfolk, II, p. 335.

Rot. Parl. III, p. 129 and Dugdale, Mon. II, p. 485.

V.C.H. Dorset, II, p. 77.

Visit. of Diocese of Norwich (Camden Soc.), p. 155.

V.C.H. Glouc. II, p. 93.

On other occasions, however, they were careful to take all their due. Vide the great Bishop Grandisson’s letter to the abbess and convent of Canonsleigh, announcing his forthcoming visitation and “mandantes quod in illum eventum de procuracione ea occasione nobis debita providere curetis in pecunia numerata.” Reg. of Bishop Grandisson, ed. Hingeston-Randolph, pt II, p. 767. At Davington in 1511 the Prioress deposed that “the house has to pay 20s. to the Archbishop for board at the time of his visitation.” E.H.R. VI, p. 28.

Reg. Johannis de Pontissara (Cant. and York. Soc.), I, p. 299.

Reg. Rich. de Swinfield (Cantilupe Soc.), p. 366. Other cases of excommunication are sometimes to be found in Bishops’ Registers, e.g. in 1335 the Prioresses of Cokehill and Brewood were excommunicated for failure to pay the tenth; one owed 9½d. and the other 1s. 8¼d.—paltry sums for which to damn a poor nun’s soul! Reg. Thomas de Charlton (Cantilupe Soc.), p. 57.

Reg. John le Romeyn (Surtees Soc.), I, p. 159.

Reg. Sede Vacante (Worc. Hist. Soc.), p. 62. Cf. remission of tithes by Bishop Dalderby to Greenfield, because of its poverty. V.C.H. Lincs. II, p. 155. Some Cistercian houses held papal bulls exempting them from the payment of tithes, e.g. Sinningthwaite and Swine. Dugdale, Mon. V, pp. 463, 494.

Dugdale, Mon. IV, p. 288.

For a few out of many instances of remission of payment on account of poverty see Ivinghoe, Little Marlow, Burnham (V.C.H. Bucks. I, pp. 353, 358, 382); Cheshunt (V.C.H. Herts. IV, pp. 426-7); Stixwould, Heynings, Greenfield, Fosse, St Leonard’s Grimsby (V.C.H. Lincs. II, pp. 122, 147, 149, 155, 157, 179); Catesby (V.C.H. Northants. II, p. 122); Ickleton, Swaffham, Chatteris, St Radegund’s Cambridge (Dugdale, Mon. IV, p. 439); Malling (Ib. III, p. 382); St Mary Magdalen’s Bristol (V.C.H. Glouc. II, p. 93); Minchin Barrow (Hugo, op. cit. p. 108); Blackborough (V.C.H. Norfolk, II, p. 351); Arden (V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 113); Nunkeeling and Nunappleton (Reg. John le Romeyn, I, pp. 140, 234); Wintney (V.C.H. Hants. II, p. 150).

Cal. of Papal Letters, V, p. 347. Compare the case of the hospital of St James of Canterbury which “grievoussement ad estez chargez pur diverse contribucions faitz au Roy entre les laiz, ou les biens ... ne sufficent mye ala sustinaunce de la Priouresse et les seoures.” Hist. MSS. Comm. Report, IX, p. 87.

Cal. of Pat. Rolls, 1467-77, pp. 138, 587.

Dugdale, Mon. II, p. 472. Cf. p. 328.

Ib. p. 473. Cf. Parl. Writs (Rec. Comm.), II, div. 3, 1424.

Cal. of Close Rolls, 1339-41, pp. 215, 217.

On this subject see Rose Graham, St Gilbert of Sempringham and the Gilbertines, pp. 90-2.

Cal. of Close Rolls, 1307-13, p. 50. Compare the entry in the treasuresses’ account of St Michael’s, Stamford, for 1392-3. “Item done en curtasy a le Balyf de Roy quant nostre carre fuist areste al seruice del roy viijd.” P.R.O. Ministers’ Accounts, 1260/10.

Cal. of Close Rolls, 1307-13, pp. 262-6, passim.

For instance in 1275 the King granted the custody of Barking Abbey, void and in his hands, to his mother, Queen Eleanor. Cal. of Close Rolls, 1272-9, p. 210.

Reg. Sede Vacante (Worc. Rec. Soc.), pp. 112-3. Compare the petition of St Mary’s Chester to Queen Eleanor, p. above.

See above, p. .

Dugdale, Mon. II, p. 485 and Rot. Parl. III, p. 129. The petition was granted, but the nuns seem to have shown themselves unworthy of the royal clemency, for, after the death of Abbess Joan Furmage in 1394, the King was forced to abrogate the grant, because by fraudulent means an election had been obtained of an unfit person, who, with the object of securing confirmation, had repaired with an excessive number of men to places remote, to the waste and desolation of the convent. Cal. of Pat. Rolls, 1391-6, p. 511.

Cal. of Papal Petitions, I, pp. 56-7.

Cal. of Close Rolls (1313-8), p. 189 and ib. (1333-7), pp. 70-1; cf. ib. (1307-13), p. 1 and ib. (1323-7), p. 252 and ib. (1349-54), p. 29.

Cal. of Close Rolls (1339-41), p. 377.

Ib. (1343-6), pp. 407-8. Cf. p. 418.

Ib. (1343-6), p. 599. The profits during vacancy were similarly remitted to Godstow in 1385 “because of its poverty and misfortunes” (V.C.H. Oxon. II, p. 73).

Reg. Epist. Johannis Peckham (Rolls Ser.), I, pp. 40-1, 56-7, 189-90, 356-7, 366-7, 577.

Reg. of ... Rigaud de Asserio (Hants. Rec. Soc.), pp. 387, 388, 394-5. Compare nominations of John de Pontoise. Reg. Johannis de Pontissara (Cant. and York. Soc.), I, pp. 240, 241, 252 and of William of Wykeham, Wykeham’s Reg. (Hants. Rec. Soc.), II, pp. 60, 61.

Reg. of Ralph of Shrewsbury (Somerset Rec. Soc.), pp. 26, 39, 146.

Reg. ... Stephani de Gravesend (Cant. and York. Soc.), p. 200.

Dugdale, Mon. II, p. 473 and V.C.H. Dorset, II, p. 75.

Liveing, op. cit. pp. 97-8 and Wykeham’s Reg. II, pp. 461-2.

Liveing, op. cit. p. 98.

Cal. of Close Rolls (1307-8), pp. 48, 53, 134.

V.C.H. Essex, II, p. 117.

V.C.H. Dorset, II, pp. 76-7.

Cal. of Close Rolls (1318-23), p. 517. She was still unadmitted in 1327, when the order was repeated. Ib. (1327-30), p. 204.

Ib. (1333-7), p. 175.

Ib. (1343-6), p. 604.

Liveing, op. cit. p. 99, and in the Register of Bishop Norbury of Lichfield there is a certificate (dated 1358) of “having admitted, twenty years ago, thirty nuns at Nuneaton at the request of the patron, the E. of Lancaster,” Will Salt Arch. Soc. Coll. I, p. 286. Perhaps there is a clerical error.

Reg. Epist. Johannis Peckham (Rolls Ser.), I, pp. 189-90.

Ib. I, pp. 356-7. The reference to “distinguished friends and benefactors” is interesting, because she was the daughter of Robert Bret, “civis London.”

Op. cit. I, pp. 366-7. The assertion that the convent was required to receive Isabel “without burden to themselves by the provision of the parents of the said little maid” is interesting, partly because it suggests that the royal and episcopal nominees were not always received at a loss, partly because it looks suspiciously like a condonation of the dowry system by an otherwise strict disciplinarian.

Sharpe, Cal. of Wills, I, p. 111.

Op. cit. I, pp. 56-7.

Ib. II, p. 704.

An Agnes Turberville was sent by the King to Shaftesbury in 1345. Cal. of Close Rolls, 1343-6, p. 604.

Reg. of Bishop Grandisson, ed. Hingeston-Randolph, I, pp. 213-4.

Op. cit. I, pp. 222-3. Does the Bishop mean that he will help to provide a dowry for Johanete out of his private purse, in another religious house?

See below, p. .

Cal. of Close Rolls (1313-8), p. 210. A few months later, however, Richard de Ayreminn was sent on the same pretext (p. 312).

Op. cit. (1333-7), p. 175.

Op. cit. (1349-54), p. 82.

Op. cit. (1339-41), p. 466.

Op. cit. (1337-9), p. 286.

Op. cit. (1343-6), p. 652.

Op. cit. (1318-23), p. 517; (1343-6), p. 475.

Op. cit. (1327-30), p. 366.

Op. cit. (1313-8), p. 611; (1327-30), p. 564; (1341-3), p. 133.

See below. For the prebendal stalls in the churches of five of these abbeys (Romsey, Wherwell, St Mary’s Winchester, Shaftesbury and Wilton), see above, p. .

Reg. Johannis de Pontissara (Cant. and York. Soc.), I, pp. 243-4, 300-1, 315-6.

Reg. Simonis de Gandavo (Cant. and York. Soc.), pp. 2-3.

Hist. MSS. Comm. Report, IV, p. 329.

Rot. Parl. I, p. 381. John de Houton, clerk, had been sent to Elstow in 1318 (Cal. of Close Rolls (1318-23), p. 119).

Cal. of Close Rolls (1313-8), p. 611.

Op. cit. (1307-13), pp. 581-2.

Cal. of Close Rolls (1313-8), p. 437. The avenere was an officer of the household who had the charge of supplying provisions for the horses. See Promptorium Parvulorum (Camden Soc.), I, p. 19, n. 2.

Cal. of Close Rolls (1327-30), p. 393.

Ib. p. 523.

Ib. pp. 396, 534.

Rot. Parl. II, pp. 381-2. Letters patent were duly sent to Barking bidding them admit Agnes, on Nov. 6th, 1331. Cal. of Patent Rolls (1330-3), p. 407.

V.C.H. Essex, II, p. 117.

Cal. of Close Rolls (1307-13), p. 267.

Op. cit. (1318-23), p. 117.

Op. cit. (1307-13), p. 328. She was the niece of John de London, late the King’s escheator south of Trent.

Loc. cit.

V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 129.

Ib. p. 237.

Alnwick’s Visit. MS. f. 83. The Taxation of Pope Nicholas mentions a pension due to the Abbot of York of £3 for the church of Corby, which was appropriated to the nuns, and for other tithes elsewhere. The sum of £3 is occasionally mentioned in the account rolls of St Michael’s, Stamford, as having been paid to “our Lady of York,” or as being still due.

Dugdale, Mon. IV, pp. 256 ff. Payments to the abbot and to other officiaries of Peterborough also occur very frequently in the conventual accounts.

See above, p. . Compare the case of St Mary’s, Winchester, where the nuns complained in 1468 that they were so burdened, that they could not fulfil the obligations of their order as to hospitality. V.C.H. Hants. II, pp. 123-4. The difficulty of keeping up the accustomed hospitality was one of the reasons for annexing Wothorpe to St Michael’s, Stamford, after the Black Death. Dugdale, Mon. IV, p. 268.

Cal. of Papal Letters, V, p. 347. Compare Gynewell’s injunction in 1351: “E vous, Prioresse, chastiez les soers qils ne acuillent mie trop souent lour amys en la Priorie, a costage e damage de dit mesoun.” Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell, f. 34d.

V.C.H. Yorks. III, pp. 117, 171, 172, 239. On the subject of abuse of monastic hospitality, see Jusserand, English Wayfaring Life, p. 121. Edward I forbade anyone to eat or lodge in a religious house, unless the superior had invited him or that he were its founder, and even then his consumption was to be moderate.

Pope Boniface VIII’s edict for the stricter enclosure of nuns contained a clause warning secular lords against summoning nuns to attend in person at the law courts; they were to act through their proctors (see version promulgated by Simon of Ghent, Bishop of Salisbury in 1299. Reg. Simonis de Gandavo [Cant. and York Soc.], p. 11). The heads of the larger houses often did act through proctors, but less wealthy convents usually sent the head or one of the other nuns in person. See Eckenstein, Woman under Monasticism, pp. 362-3.

Dugdale, Mon. III, p. 360.

V.C.H. Oxon. II, p. 104. Compare a long lawsuit waged by Carrow Priory. Rye, Carrow Abbey, App. p. xxi.

P.R.O. Mins. Accts. 1260/4. Compare the amusing account of how the Prior of Barnwell secured a favourable judgment from the itinerant justices. “Ipsis eciam justiciariis dedit herbagium alicui tres acras et alicui quatuor, et exennia panis, ceruisie et vini frequenter, in tantum quod in recessu suo omnes tam justiciarii quam clerici, seruientes et precones, gracias uberes referebant, et ipsi Priori (et) canonicis se et sua obligabant.” Liber Memorandorum Ecclesie de Bernewelle, ed. J. Willis Clark (1907), p. 171.

V.C.H. Hants. II, p. 150.

V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 164. The “misrule of past presidents” is mentioned as a contributory cause of distress at Lilleshall (1351), St Mary’s Winchester (1364) and Tarrant (1366). Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1351, p. 177; 1364, p. 485; 1366, p. 239.

E.H.R. VI, p. 28.

Wharton, Anglia Sacra, I, p. 362.

Ib. I, p. 364.

Ib. I, p. 377.

Gasquet, however, mistakenly attributes its state entirely to the plague. The Great Pestilence, p. 106.

Alnwick’s Visit. MS. ff. 39d, 83, 96.

Linc. Visit. II, p. 185.

Ib. II, p. 114.

Ib. II, p. 133.

Alnwick’s Visit. MS. f. 72.

Linc. Visit. II, pp. 130, 131.

Ib. II, p. 175.

V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 159.

Ib. p. 174.

Ib. p. 164.

Sussex Archaeol. Coll. IX, p. 7.

Dugdale, Mon. III, p. 353.

It must be understood that the judicious sale of corrodies was not necessarily harmful to a house. Sometimes it might lead to the acquisition of land or rents at comparatively little expense to the convent, as a glance at some of the charters in the English Register of Godstow Abbey will show. See Eng. Reg. of Godstow Abbey (E.E.T.S.), pp. xxvii-xxviii. The convent probably drove a good bargain when in 1230 the harassed Stephen, son of Waryn the miller of Oxford, conveyed all his Oxford property to Godstow “and for this graunte, & cetera, the forsaid mynchons yaf to them to ther grete nede, that is to sey, to aquyte hym of the jewry and otherwise where he was endited, X markes of siluer in warison. And furthermore they graunted to hym and to hys wyf molde, with ther seruant to serve them while they lived, two corrodies of ij mynchons and a corrodye of one seruant to their systeynynge” (op. cit. p. 392). Nor was there much harm in grants for a term of years, such as the grant of board and lodging made by the convent of Nunappleton in 1301 to Richard de Fauconberg, in return for certain lands bringing in an annual rent of two marks of silver, both the corrody and the tenure of these lands being for a term of twelve years. Dugdale, Mon. V, p. 653. Sometimes, again, corrodies were granted in return for specified services; in 1270 Richard Grene of Cassington surrendered 5½ acres of arable and 2 roods of meadow land to Godstow in return for “the seruyce under the porter for ever at the yate of Godestowe and j half mark in the name of his wagis yerely.” Eng. Reg. of Godstow, p. 305. At Yedingham in 1352 an interesting grant of a corrodium moniale was made to one Emma Hart, who, in return for a sum of money, was given the position of deye or dairy woman; she was to have the same food-allowance as a nun and a share in all their small pittances, and a building called “le chesehouse” with a solar and cellar to inhabit and was allowed to keep ten sheep and ten ewes at the convent’s charge. In return she was to do the dairy-work and when too old to work any longer the convent engaged to grant her a place in “le sisterhouse.” V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 128. Sometimes also corrodies were granted by way of pensioning off old servants, as when, in 1529, the nuns of Arden granted one to their chaplain “for the gud and diligent seruice yt oure wellbeloued sir Thomas parkynson, preste, hav done to vs in tyme paste.” V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 115. To corrodies such as these there was little objection (though the last might lead to financial loss). The danger came from life-grants in return for an inadequate sum of ready money.

V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 115.

She received 68s. 4d. in part payment for the commutation of the corrody.

Jessopp, Frivola, pp. 55-6.

Linc. Visit. II, p. 175.

Alnwick’s Visit. MS. f. 71d.

Visit. of the Diocese of Norwich (Camden Soc.), pp. 243, 303-4. There is in the Record Office a petition to the Chancellor from Richard Englyssh and Marjorie his wife, setting out that the Bishop of Rochester had granted Marjorie for life a corrody in Malling Abbey of seven loaves and four gallons of convent ale and three pence for cooked food weekly, which corrody she and her husband had held for some time, but that now the abbess and convent withheld it. Evidently it was a burden to the house, but it is not clear whether the bishop had forced a corrodian on the nuns, or had merely confirmed a grant by them. P.R.O. Early Chanc. Proc. 4/196.

Archaeologia, XLVII, p. 58.

Dugdale, Mon. IV, p. 554. He had once before ordered the holders of corrodies there to display their grants, that it might be known whether they had fulfilled the services due from them. V.C.H. London, I, p. 459.

The appropriation was confirmed by the Pope in 1401. Cal. of Papal Letters, V, p. 347. In 1440 Bishop Alnwick made an injunction at Heynings against the granting of corrodies. Linc. Visit. II, p. 135.

See below, pp. 225-6.

Sussex Archaeol. Coll. IX, p. 25.

Dugdale, Mon. IV, p. 516.

See below, pp. 225-6.

Dugdale, Mon. IV, p. 194.

Linc. Visit. II, p. 175.

Alnwick’s Visit. MS. f. 6.

Liveing, op. cit. p. 146; Cal. of Papal Petitions, I, p. 122. At Studley in 1530 it was found that the woods of the priory had been much diminished by the late prioress and by “Thomas Cardinal of York for the construction of his college in the university of Oxford.” V.C.H. Oxon. II, p. 78.

Linc. Visit. II, p. 120.

Linc. Visit. II, p. 147.

Archaeologia, XLVII, pp. 58-9.

V.C.H. Durham, II, p. 107.

V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 177.

Test. Ebor. I, pp. 283-4.

Dugdale, Mon. IV, p. 506, note b.

Sussex Arch. Coll. IX, p. 19.

V.C.H. Oxon. II, p. 76.

See above, p. .

See Ch. IV.

Dugdale, Mon. IV, p. 71.

Reg. of Archbishop William Wickwane (Surtees Soc.), p. 113.

Liveing, Records of Romsey Abbey, p. 98. Similarly Bishop Edyndon wrote in 1346 and again in 1363 to St Mary’s Winchester, Wherwell and Romsey, forbidding them to take a greater number of nuns than was anciently accustomed or than could be sustained by them without penury. Ib. p. 165.

V.C.H. Dorset, II, p. 77. Nevertheless at Romsey and at Shaftesbury the King and the Bishop himself continued to “dump” nuns, in accordance with their prerogative right, throughout the career of both houses. In the six years following this prohibition of 1326 Bishop Stratford not only gave permission for a novice to be received at the nuns’ own request, but deposited no less than three there himself. The words and the actions of bishops sometimes tallied ill.

See V.C.H. Yorks. III, pp. 113, 117, 119, 120, 124, 161, 163, 171-2, 188; Reg. of Archbishop Giffard (Surtees Soc.), p. 148; Reg. of Archbishop Wickwane (Surtees Soc.), pp. 112, 113, 140-1.

Reg. Giffard, loc. cit.

V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 117.

Ib. III, p. 163. The house was heavily in debt at the time and though the Bishop had forbidden the granting of corrodies and liveries without leave, the Prioress was also charged with having “sold or granted corrodies very burdensome to the house.”

Heynings, Ankerwyke, Legbourne, Nuncoton, St Michael’s Stamford, Gracedieu, Langley.

Linc. Visit. II, p. 134.

Alnwick’s Visit. MS. ff. 71d, 77d.

It would be interesting to collect statistics as to the relative size of different nunneries at different periods. It is here possible to give only a few examples of the decline in the number of inmates. The numbers at Nuneaton varied as follows: 93 (1234), 80 (1328), 46 (1370), 40 (1459), 23 (1539). (V.C.H. Warwick. II, pp. 66-9.) At Romsey (where the statutory number was supposed to be 100) as follows: 91 (1333) and 26 (from 1478 to the Dissolution). (Liveing, Records of Romsey Abbey, passim.) At Shaftesbury as follows: forbidden to receive more than 100 in 1218 and in 1322; number fixed at 120 in 1326; between 50-57 (from 1441 to the Dissolution). V.C.H. Dorset, II, p. 77.

New Coll. MS. f. 55d.

Linc. Visit. I, p. 53.

Archaeologia, XLVII, p. 55.

E.H.R. VI, pp. 33-4. From the fact that the Prioress was ordered to make up the number again to fourteen, as soon as she conveniently could, it appears that the ten nuns who gave evidence before the Archbishop represented the full strength of the house.

A few out of many specific instances may be given: Wroxall 1323 (V.C.H. Warwick. II, p. 71); Polesworth 1456 (ib. p. 63); Fairwell 1367 (Reg. of Bishop Stretton, p. 119); Romsey 1302 (Reg. Johannis de Pontissara Cant. and York. Soc. p. 127); Moxby 1318 (V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 239); Nuncoton 1531 (Arch. XLVII, p. 58); Sinningthwaite 1534 (Yorks. Arch. Journ. XVI, p. 441).

See above, pp. 64-5.

Linc. Visit. I, p. 50.

V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 188.

Ib. III, p. 177.

E.g. Clemence Medforde at Ankerwyke in 1441 and Eleanor of Arden in 1396. See above, pp. , .

Liveing, op. cit. pp. 100-101.

New Coll. MS. f. 88d.

See above, p. .

Reg. of Bishop Stapeldon, ed. Hingeston-Randolph, p. 318.

Liveing, Records of Romsey Abbey, pp. 99-100.

Ib. pp. 102-3.

New Coll. MS. f. 87. In 1492, at the visitation by Archbishop Morton’s commissioners, a nun prays that injunctions be made to the sisters and abbess that they choose no one as auditor without consulting the Archbishop of Canterbury. Liveing, op. cit. pp. 218-9.

For other mentions of the rendering of accounts by bailiffs, officiaries, etc. see Arden 1306 and Arthington 1315 (V.C.H. Yorks. III, pp. 113, 188), Fairwell 1367 (Reg. of Robert de Stretton, p. 119), Elstow 1422 (Linc. Visit. I, p. 50).

Writing to Sinningthwaite in 1534. Yorks. Archaeol. Journ. XVI, pp. 442-3.

Visit. of the Dioc. of Norwich (Camden Soc.), p. 108.

V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 119.

Sometimes specific mention is made of this duty, e.g. in 1318 Thomas de Mydelsburg, rector of Loftus, was ordered to administer the temporal goods of the Cistercian house of Handale, to receive the accounts of the servants and to substitute more capable ones for those who were useless. Ib. III, p. 166. Cf. the commission to the rector of Aberford to be custos of Kirklees about the same time. Yorks. Archaeol. Journ. XVI, p. 362.

V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 171.

Linc. Visit. II, pp. 52-3.

In 1442, for instance, the Prioress of Rusper was ordered to render accounts yearly before the Bishop of Chichester and the nuns of the house (Sussex Arch. Coll. V, p. 255), and at Sheppey in 1511, two nuns having complained that the Prioress did not account, she was ordered to render accounts, with an inventory to the convent and to Archbishop Warham (E.H.R. VI, p. 34).

Alnwick Visit. MS. f. 83.

Linc. Visit. II, p. 184.

Linc. Visit. II, p. 1.

V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 174.

An inventory of the goods of Easebourne Priory, drawn up for the Bishop of Chichester on May 27th, 1450, has survived. It is very complete and comprises all departments of the house, together with a list of land, chapels and appropriated churches and a note that the house can expend in all £22. 3s. on repairs and other expenses and that the debts “for repairs and other necessary expenses this year” amount to £66. 6s. 8d. Sussex Arch. Coll. IX, pp. 10-13. It may be of interest to quote the briefer inventory of the poor house of Ankerwyke, as presented to Bishop Atwater at his visitation in 1519 and copied by his clerk into the register. There were at the time five nuns in the house and one in apostasy. “Redditus ibidem extendunt prima facie ad xxxiij li. x s. Inde resoluunt pro libris (sic) redditibus v li. x s. Et sic habent clare ad reparacionem & alia onera sustinenda ultra xl marcas. Jocalia in Ecclesia: Habent ibidem vestimenta sacerdotalia ad minus serica xiij. Habent eciam vnicam capam de serica & auro. j calicem de argento deaurato. j par Turribulorum. j pixidem de argento pro sacramento. ij libros missales impressos. j magnum par candelabrorum ante summum altare. j paruum par candelabrorum super summum altare. ij urciolos argenteos. j paxbread de argento, una parua campana argentea. Catalla: Habent vaccas duas, ij equas, boues senes iij, unus bouiculus (sic), j vaccam anne (sic) (blank), iij equas pro aratro. Vtensilia vj plumalia, x paria linthiaminum, iiij superpellectilia, iiij paria de le blanketts, ij le white Testers. Habent Redditus Annuales preter terras ipsarum dominicalium (sic) in earundem manibus occupatas xlvj li. xj s. x d.” Linc. Epis. Reg. Visit. Atwater, f. 42. A fair number of inventories of convent property made for this or for other purposes is extant; notably those drawn up, for purposes of spoliation instead of preservation, at the Dissolution. See Bibliography.

Reg. of Walter Giffard (Surtees Soc.), p. 147.

V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 120.

V.C.H. Warwick, II, p. 71.

See below, p. .

Reg. Epis. Johannis Peckham (Rolls Ser.), III, pp. 805-6.

See below, pp. 337-8.

See Reg. Epis. Johannis Peckham (Rolls. Ser.), II, pp. 654-5, 659, 708.

V.C.H. Yorks. II, pp. 187-8.

Reg. of Bishop Stapeldon, ed. Hingeston-Randolph, p. 96.

Reg. of Ralph of Shrewsbury (Somerset Rec. Soc.), pp. 240-1, 684.

At Ankerwyke, Catesby, Gracedieu and St Michael’s Stamford. Linc. Visit. II, pp. 6, 9, 52, 125; Alnwick’s Visit. MS. f. 39d.

To this reception of boarders was sometimes added, but with a different purpose, viz. to protect the nuns from contact with the world.

At Moxby in 1318 no fresh debts, especially large ones, were to be incurred without the convent’s consent and the Archbishop’s special licence. V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 239. At Nuncoton in 1440 “ne that ye aleyne or selle any bondman” was added to the usual prohibition. Alnwick’s Visit. MS. f. 77d.

Linc. Visit. II, p. 131. A few other instances of these injunctions may be given: Arden (1306), Marrick (1252), Nunburnholme (1318), Nunkeeling (1314), Thicket (1309), Yedingham (1314), Esholt (1318), Hampole (1308, 1312), Nunappleton (1489), Rosedale (1315), Sinningthwaite (1315), Arthington (1318), Moxby (1314, 1318, 1328), V.C.H. Yorks. III, pp. 113, 117, 119, 124, 128, 161, 163, 172, 174, 177, 188, 239-40; Sinningthwaite (1534), Yorks. Arch. Journ. XVI, p. 441; Arthington (1286), Reg. John le Romeyn (Surtees Soc. I, p. 55); Ankerwyke, Godstow, Gracedieu, Heynings, Langley, Legbourne, Markyate, Nuncoton, Stixwould, St Michael’s Stamford (all 1440-5), Linc. Visit. II, pp. 8, 115, 124, 134, 186 and Alnwick’s Visit. MS. ff. 6d, 77d, 81d, 75d; Elstow (1359), Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell, f. 139d; Elstow (1421), Burnham (1434), Linc. Visit. I, pp. 24, 49; Studley, Nuncoton (1531), Arch. XLVII, pp. 54, 58; Polsloe and Canonsleigh (1319), Reg. Stapeldon of Exeter, p. 317; Romsey (1302), Reg. J. de Pontissara, p. 127.

Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Bokyngham, f. 343.

Lambeth Reg. Courtenay I, f. 336.

Linc. Visit. II, pp. 49-50.

Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Bokyngham, ff. 397-397d. These injunctions are scattered among the others, but have been placed together here for the sake of reference.

Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Bokyngham, f. 343. Compare Flemyng’s injunctions in 1422. Linc. Visit. I, p. 49.

Linc. Visit. I, p. 151.

V.C.H. Lincs. II, pp. 148, 150, 154 (note 1).

V.C.H. Northants. II, p. 121.

V.C.H. Yorks. III, pp. 178-9, and Reg. of Archbishop Giffard (Surtees Soc.), pp. 147-8. The canons at these houses must be distinguished from the canons who held prebendal stalls in the Abbeys of Romsey, St Mary’s, Winchester, Wherwell, Wilton and Shaftesbury; these were often bad pluralists and could have been of little use to the abbeys, as chaplains or as custodes. See V.C.H. Hants. II, pp. 122-3 and p. above, note 1.

Loc. cit. Compare the complaint of the nuns of Brodholme in 1321-2. “A nostre Seyngnur le Roy e a son Counsaill monstrent le Prioresse el Covente de Brodholme, qe lour Gardayns de la dit meson par lour defaute sount lour Rentes abatez, e lour meson a poy ennente e le dit Gardayns ne vollent nulle entent mettre ne despender pur les ayder kaunt eles sount empleydie, mes come eles meymes defendent a graunt meschef. Pur qoi eles prient pur l’amour de Dieu, trescher Seygnour, pur l’alme vostre Pier, e ouir de charite, qe Vous vollez graunter vostre Charter qe l’avantdit Prioresse el covent pouissent avoir lour rentes e lour enproumens, de ordiner a lour voluntes, e al profist de la dit meson, si pleiser Vous soit, Kare autrement ne poivent eles viver.” The reply was “Injusta est peticio, ideo non potest fieri.” Rot. Parl. I, pp. 393-4. Brodholme was one of the only two convents of Premonstratensian nuns in England; the guardians were probably the canons of the Premonstratensian Abbey of Newhouse; for an ordinance (1354, confirmed 1409) regulating the relations between the two houses, see Cal. of Papal Letters, VI, pp. 159-60.

V.C.H. Lincs. II, p. 148 (from Pat. 2 Edw. II, pt ii, m. 22d.).

Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Dalderby, f. 330. Roger de Dauentry, canon of Catesby, had been made master in 1297. Reg. Memo. Sutton. f. 175.

Reg. Epis. Johannis Peckham, III, pp. 850-1.

V.C.H. Northants. II, p. 98.

V.C.H. Derby. II, p. 43.

Loc. cit. see also Linc. Epis. Reg. Institution Roll (Northampton) of Sutton for the presentation of William de Stok, monk of Peterborough as Prior of St Michael’s Stamford, by the Abbot, and the Bishop’s ratification.

Walsingham, Gesta Abbatum (Rolls Ser.), II, p. 519, and V.C.H. Herts. IV, p. 429. On their misdeeds see Archbishop Morton’s famous letter in 1490. Wilkins, Concilia, III, p. 632.

See Cal. of Papal Letters, VI, pp. 159-160.

Mention of custodes occurs at the following houses, in addition to those mentioned in the text: Studley (1290), Goring (1309), V.C.H. Oxon. II, pp. 78, 104; Markyate (1323), Harrold (late thirteenth century), V.C.H. Beds. I, pp. 359, 388; Flamstead (1337), Rowney (1302, 1328), V.C.H. Herts. IV, pp. 432, 434; Arden (1302, 1324), Marrick (1252), Nunburnholme (1314), Yedingham (1280), Basedale (1304), Hampole (1268, 1280, 1308), Handale (1318), Nunappleton (1306), Swine (1267, 1291, 1298), V.C.H. Yorks. III, pp. 113, 117, 119, 127, 159, 163, 166, 171, 180; all in Lincoln or York. For mention of custodes in other dioceses, see Cookhill (1285), Reg. of Godfrey Giffard (Worc. Hist. Soc.), II, p. 267; St Sepulchre’s Canterbury, Davington, Usk, Whitehall (Ilchester), Minchin Barrow, Easebourne, St Bartholomew’s Newcastle, King’s Mead, Derby, below, pp. 231-5 passim. The frequency with which custodes occur in houses in the diocese of Lincoln and York and their rarity in other dioceses would seem to support the theory of Gilbertine influence. Of the cases quoted from other dioceses all are either custodes appointed as a deliberate policy by Archbishop Peckham, or custodes appointed to meet some special moral or financial crisis, not regular officials. King’s Mead, Derby, seems to be the only nunnery outside the two dioceses of York and Lincoln (with the exception of those in direct dependence on a house of monks) which started its career under the joint government of a custos and a Prioress. V.C.H. Derby, II, p. 43.

Reg. of John le Romeyn (Surtees Soc.), I, pp. xii, xiii, 86, 125, 157, 180.

Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Dalderby, ff. 23d, 37, 44, 60d, 79d, 118d, 328d, 366, 373, 378, 382, 388. (These comprise two appointments to Rowney, Godstow and Nuncoton; the dates are between 1301 and 1318.)

Reg. of John le Romeyn, I, pp. 203-4, 209, 211, 217.

Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Sutton, ff. 82d-83.

V.C.H. Lincs. II, p. 179. But in 1318 Dalderby appointed the vicar of Little Coates, loc. cit. f. 373. Originally St Leonard’s Grimsby, had been placed under the protection of the canons of Wellow.

Reg. of Archbishop Giffard (Surtees Soc.), p. 54.

V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 113.

Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Sutton, ff. 25, 92d.

Sometimes the chaplain of the house must have acted as an unofficial custos and sometimes he held the position by special mandate, e.g. in 1285 Bishop Giffard ordered the nuns of Cookhill that “for the better conduct of temporal business and for the increase of divine praise,” Thomas their chaplain was to have full charge of their temporal affairs. Reg. of Godfrey Giffard (Worc. Hist. Soc.), II, p. 267.

Reg. Epis. Johannis Peckham (Rolls Ser.), I, pp. 72-3; II, pp. 708-9, III, p. 806.

V.C.H. Northants. II, p. 99.

V.C.H. Somerset, II, p. 157. Text in Hugo, Medieval Nunneries of the County of Somerset: Whitehall in Ilchester, App. VII, pp. 78-9.

Reg. of Ralph of Shrewsbury (Somerset Rec. Soc.), p. 177.

Hugo, op. cit. Minchin Barrow Priory, App. II, pp. 81-3. With these cases compare the appointment of custodes to the worldly Prioress of Easebourne in 1441. See above, p. .

Dugdale, Mon. IV, p. 413.

Ib. IV, p. 485.

V.C.H. Oxon. II, p. 73.

V.C.H. Derby, II, pp. 43-4 (from Ancient Petitions, No. 11730); cf. Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1327-30, p. 139. See above, p. .

Linc. Visit. II, p. 7.

Alnwick’s Visit. MS. f. 39d.

Linc. Visit. II, p. 117.

See e.g. V.C.H. Yorks. III, pp. 113, 117, 119.

Yorks. Arch. Journal, XVI, p. 362.

It will be noticed that all the references to custodes given on p. 230, note 8, belong to the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries; appointments at a later date are generally made to meet some regular crisis. There are no references to the Prior of St Michael’s Stamford in the later account rolls of that house, though one or two rolls belonging to the beginning of the century mention him. One of the few references to the regular appointment of a master in a Cistercian house after the first quarter of the fourteenth century is at Legbourne, where “later Lincoln regulations record the appointment of several masters from 1294-1343 and in 1366 the same official is apparently called an yconomus of Legbourne” (V.C.H. Lincs. II, p. 154, note 1). The will of Adam, vicar of Hallington, “custos sive magister domus monialium de Legbourne,” dated 1345, has been preserved. Gibbons, Early Lincoln Wills, p. 17. The yconomus of Gokewell in 1440 is a very late instance. (Compare Bokyngham’s advice to the Abbess of Elstow in 1387, above, p. .) Much the same function as that of the custos, was, however, probably performed by the steward (senescallus), an official often mentioned during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

See account in L. Eckenstein, Woman under Monasticism, ch. IV.

L. Eckenstein, Woman under Monasticism, ch. IV, pp. 160 ff.

Ib. pp. 238 ff.

Ib. pp. 256 ff.

Ib. pp. 328 ff.

Ib. pp. 416, 419, 428, 458 ff.

See Romania XIII (1884), pp. 400-3.

“Je ke la vie ai translatee
Par nun sui Climence numee,
De Berekinge sui nunain;
Par s’amur pris ceste oevre en main.”

Devon, Issues of the Exchequer, p. 144.

There does exist a catalogue of Syon library, but unluckily it is that of the brothers’ library and the catalogue of the sisters’ library is missing; it was probably a good one since we have notice of several books written for them. See M. Bateson, Cat. of the Lib. of Syon Mon. (1898). Only three continental library catalogues survive, of which two are printed and accessible; one is of the library of the Dominican nuns of Nuremberg, made between 1456-69 and containing 350 books, the other belonged to the Franciscan tertiaries of Delft in the second half of the fifteenth century and contained 109 books; the third comes from the women’s cloister at Wonnenstein in 1498. See M. Deanesly, The Lollard Bible, pp. 110-5.

Sussex Arch. Coll. IX, p. 12.

Mackenzie, Walcott, Inventories of ... the Ben. Priory ... of Shepey for Nuns, pp. 21, 23, 28.

Dugdale, Mon. III, p. 424.

At a visitation of St Mary’s Winchester by Dr Hede in 1501, “Elia Pitte, librarian, was also well satisfied with that which was in her charge.” V.C.H. Hants. II, p. 124.

Test. Ebor. I, p. 179.

Sharpe, Cal. of Wills, II, p. 327.

Test. Ebor. II, p. 13.

Ib. III, p. 262.

Ib. III, p. 199. See an interesting list of books left by Peter, vicar of Swine, to Swine Priory some time after 1380. King’s Descrip. Cat. MS. 18.

Reg. Stafford of Exeter, p. 419.

Test. Ebor. II, p. 66.

For Barking books (including a book of English religious treatises) see M. Deanesly, The Lollard Bible, pp. 337-9. Besides the books mentioned in the text there are fine psalters written for nuns at St Mary’s Winchester, Amesbury and Wilton in the libraries of Trinity College, Cambridge, All Souls College, Oxford, and the Royal College of Physicians respectively. There is an interesting book in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (McClean MS. 123), which belonged to Nuneaton; it contains (1) the metrical Bestiary of William the Norman, (2) the Chasteau d’Amours of Robert Grosseteste, (3) exposition of the Paternoster, (4) the Gospel of Nicodemus, (5) Apocalypse with pictures, (6) Poema Morale, etc.

Wright and Halliwell, Reliquiae Antiquae, II, p. 117.

Capgrave, Life of St Katharine of Alexandria, ed. Horstmann (E.E.T.S. 1893), Introd. p. xxix.

St John’s Coll. MS. 68. Other psalters from the aristocratic house of Wherwell are MS. add. 27866 at the British Museum and MS. McClean 45 at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

MS. 136 (T. 6. 18). See J. Young and P. Henderson Aitkin, Cat. of MSS. in the Lib. of the Hunterian Museum in the Univ. of Glasgow (1908), p. 124. In the introduction the book is conjectured to have belonged to the Carthusian monastery at Sheen, where it obviously was written; but the reference to “sorores et ffratres” and the name of Elizabeth Gibbs (see Blunt, Myroure of Oure Ladye (E.E.T.S.), p. xxiii), show clearly that it belonged to Syon.

So John of Pontoise sends Juliana de Spina to Romsey on the occasion of his consecration (1282), with the recommendation “Ejusdem Juliane competenter ad hujusmodi officii debitum litterate laudabile propositum speciali gracia prosequentes, etc.” Reg. J. de Pontissara (Cant. and York Soc.), I, p. 240. Cp. ib. p. 252.

Collectanea Anglo-Praemonstratensia, II, p. 267.

Linc. Visit. I, p. 53.

Gesta Abbatum (Rolls Ser. 1867), II, pp. 410-2. But professions were often written by others, and the postulant only put his or her cross. So also with the vote.

Ib. II, p. 213. This was a not uncommon method of voting. It is clear, too, from prohibitions of letter-writing in various injunctions that nuns could sometimes write.

Sussex Archaeol. Coll. V, p. 256. Compare the editor’s note on the education of Christina von Stommeln: “Simul cum psalterio videtur tantum didicisse linguae latinae, quantum satis erat non solum illi legendo, sed etiam epistolis ad se Latine scriptis pro parte intelligendis, ac vicissim dictandis: nam scribendi ignoram fuisse habeo.” Acta SS. Junii, t. IV, p. 279.

Jusserand, A Literary History of the English People, I, pp. 239-40.

Jusserand, op. cit. I, p. 236.

It is interesting to find the Master-General of the Dominicans in 1431 giving Jane Fisher, a nun of Dartford, leave to have a master to instruct her in grammar and the Latin tongue. Jarrett, The English Dominicans, p. 11.

Reg. Walter Giffard (Surtees Soc.), pp. 147-8.

Reg. John le Romeyn, etc. (Surtees Soc.), II, pp. 222-4.

Reg. Epis. J. Peckham (Rolls Ser.), III, pp. 845-52.

Reg. Thome de Cantilupo (Cant. and York Soc. and Cantilupe Soc.), p. 202.

Reg. R. de Norbury (Wm. Salt Archaeol. Soc. Coll. I), p. 257.

Reg. R. de Stretton (ib. New Series, VIII), p. 119.

Reg. W. de Stapeldon, p. 316. See below, p. . In the same year Archbishop Melton writes to the nuns of Sinningthwaite that in all writings under the common seal a faithful clerk is to be employed and the deed is to be sealed in the presence of the whole convent, the clerk reading the deed plainly in the mother tongue and explaining it. V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 177.

Liveing, Records of Romsey Abbey, p. 105.

New Coll. MS. f. 84.

Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell, ff. 34. 139d, 100d.

Ib. Reg. Memo. Bokyngham, ff. 343 (Elstow), 397 (Heynings).

V.C.H. Suffolk, II, p. 83.

Linc. Visit. I, p. 52.

Ib. I, p. 45. At Kyme and Wellow, houses of canons, however, the injunctions are also to be expounded in the mother tongue.

Linc. Visit. II, p. 1.

Alnwick’s Visit. MS. f. 6.

Linc. Visit. II, p. 91; Alnwick’s Visit. MS. ff. 83, 38.

Linc. Visit. II, p. 117.

Linc. Visit. II, p. 174.

Archbishop Lee’s visitations of the York diocese on the eve of the Dissolution (1534-5) are typical. The injunctions sent to the nunneries of Sinningthwaite, Nunappleton and Esholt (Yorks. Archaeol. Journ. XVI, pp. 440, 443, 451) are in English, but those sent to the houses of monks and canons are all in Latin.

Sir David Lyndesay’s Poems, ed. Small, Hall and Murray (E.E.T.S. 2nd ed. 1883), p. 21.

Three Middle Eng. Versions of the Rule of St Benet (E.E.T.S. 1902), p. 48.

On the other hand the Caxton abstract at the end of the century is translated “for men and wymmen, of the habyte therof, the whiche vnderstande lytyll laten or none.” Ib. p. 119.

The preface is quoted in The Register of Richard Fox while Bishop of Bath and Wells, with a Life of Bishop Fox, ed. E. C. Batten (1889), pp. 102-4.

Eng. Reg. of Godstow Nunnery (E.E.T.S.), pp. 25-6.

The Myroure of Oure Ladye (E.E.T.S.), pp. 2-3.

Ib. pp. 63 ff.

Ib. pp. xliv-xlvi; Eckenstein, op. cit. p. 395. Wynkyn de Worde’s edition was reprinted for the Henry Bradshaw Society in 1893.

Deanesly, The Lollard Bible, pp. 320, 336-7. It may be noted as of some interest that when in 1528 a wealthy London merchant was imprisoned for distributing Tyndale’s books and for similar practices, he pleaded that the abbess of Denney, Elizabeth Throgmorton, had wished to borrow Tyndale’s Enchiridion and that he had lent it to her. Dugdale, Mon. VI, p. 1549.

Sussex Arch. Coll. IX, p. 7.

Linc. Visit. II, p. 49. At Bondeville in 1251 Archbishop Eudes Rigaud has to forbid the nuns to sell their thread and their spindles to raise money, “quod moniales non vendant nec distrahant filum et lor fusees,” Reg. Visit. Archiepiscopi Roth. ed. Bonnin (1852), p. 111.

“Nuns with their needles wrote histories also,” as Fuller prettily says, “that of Christ his passion for their altar clothes, as other Scripture (and moe legend) Stories to adorn their houses.” Fuller, Church Hist. (ed. 1837), II, p. 190.

J. H. Middleton, Illuminated MSS. (1892), p. 112. On nunnery embroidery at different periods see ib. pp. 224-30; but the book must be read with great caution.

Mackenzie Walcott, Inventory of St Mary’s Ben. Nunnery at Langley, Co. Leic. 1485 (Leic. Architec. Soc. 1872), pp. 3, 4.

V.C.H. Yorks. III, 120, 127, 183. Greenfield may have so enjoined other houses; the injunctions are not always fully summarised. As to nuns’ embroidery there is an interesting passage in the thirteenth century German poem Helmbrecht by Wernher “the Gardener”: “Old farmer Helmbrecht had a son. Young Helmbrecht’s yellow locks fell down to his shoulders. He tucked them into a handsome silken cap, embroidered with doves and parrots and many a picture. This cap had been embroidered by a nun who had run away from her convent through a love adventure, as happens to so many. From her Helmbrecht’s sister Gotelind had learned to embroider and to sew. The girl and her mother had well earned that from the nun, for they gave her in pay a calf, and many cheeses and eggs.” J. Harvey Robinson, Readings in Eur. Hist. I, pp. 418-9, translated from Freytag, Bilder aus der deutschen Vergangenheit (1876, II, pp. 52 ff.).

Manners and Household Expenses (Roxburghe Club 1841), p. 18.

Gasquet, Engl. Monastic Life, p. 170.

Trans. St Paul’s Eccles. Soc. VII, pt II (1912), p. 54.

Ancren Riwle, ed. Gasquet, p. 318.

See below, p. .

Wood, Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies, II, pp. 229-31.

Peckham, forbidding the nuns of Barking (1279) to eat or sleep in private rooms or to receive mass there, makes an exception for those who are seriously ill, “in which case we permit the confessor and the doctor, also the father or brother, to have access to them.” Reg. Epis. Johannis Peckham, I, p. 84. Cf. ib. II, pp. 652, 663. For nuns and medicine see S. Luce, La Jeunesse de Bertrand de Guesclin (1882), p. 10.

At Romsey Abbey a pittance of sixpence was due to each nun “when blood is let” (see Bishop John de Pontoise’s injunctions in 1302 and those of Bishop Woodlock in 1311, both of which refer to the payments not having been made). Bishop Woodlock enjoined that “Nuns who have been bled shall be allowed to enter the cloister if they wish.” Liveing, Records of Romsey Abbey, pp. 100, 103, 104. In 1338 Abbot Michael of St Albans orders all the nuns of Sopwell to attend the service of prime, “horspris les malades et les seynes.” Dugdale, Mon. III, p. 366. At Nuncoton in 1440 the sub-prioress deposed that “the infirm, the weakminded and they that are in their seynies ... do eat in the convent cellar.” Alnwick’s Visit. MS. f. 71d. Bishop Stapeldon forbids the nuns of Polsloe in 1319 to enter convent offices outside the cloistral precincts “pour estre seigne ou pur autre encheson feynte.” Reg. Stapeldon, ed. Hingeston-Randolph, p. 317.

On the custom of periodical bleeding in monasteries see J. W. Clark, The Observances ... at Barnwell, Introd. pp. lxi, ff. It is interesting to note that medieval treatises on the diseases of women occasionally refer specifically to nuns, e.g. in a fourteenth century English MS. a certain “worschipfull sirop” for use in cases of anaemia is said to be “for ladyes & for nunnes and other also þat ben delicate.” Brit. Mus. MS. Sloane 2463, f. 198 vº.

E.g. Nicholaa de Fulham dates her will in 1327 from Clerkenwell and leaves certain rents for life to Joan her sister, a nun there. Sharpe, Cal. of Wills enrolled in Court of Husting, I, p. 324. The will of Elizabeth Medlay “of the house of St Clement’s in Clementthorpe” directs her body to be buried in the conventual church, bequeathes legacies to the high altar, the Prioress and each nun there and appoints dame Margaret Delaryver, prioress, as executor (1470). V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 130.

New Coll. MS. ff. 88, 88dº.

The Fifty Earliest Wills in the Court of Probate, ed. F. J. Furnivall (E.E.T.S.), p. 54. But she may have been a sister from a hospital.

Linc. Visit. II, pp. 4, 5, 6.

Visit. of Dioc. Norwich (Camden Soc.), p. 243.

Liveing, Records of Romsey Abbey, pp. 226, 236. William of Wykeham in 1387 ordered that three or four at least of the more discreet nuns of this large abbey, “in regula sancti benedicti et obseruanciis regularibus sufficienter erudite” should be chosen to instruct the younger nuns in these matters. New Coll. MS. f. 86. At St Mary’s, Winchester, in 1501, besides Margaret Legh, mistress of the novices, there was Agnes Cox, senior teacher (dogmatista). V.C.H. Hants. II, p. 124. At Elstow in 1421-2 the bishop ordered “That a more suitable nun be deputed and ordained to be precentress; and that elder nuns, if they shall be capable and fit for such offices, be preferred to younger.” Linc. Visit. I, p. 50. Dean Kentwode’s injunction to St Helen’s Bishopsgate in 1432 runs: “That ye ordeyne and chese on of yowre sustres, honest, abille and cunnyng of discretyone, the whiche can, may and schall have the charge of techyng and informacyone of yowre sustres that be uncunnyng, for to teche hem here service and the rule of here religione.” Dugdale, Mon. IV, p. 554.

The controversy was roused by an article by Mr J. E. G. de 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).

For the rest of this chapter I shall not give full references in footnotes, because they can easily be traced in Note B, p. below.

Cistercian Statutes, 1256-7, ed. J. T. Fowler (reprinted from Yorks. Archaeol. Journ.), p. 105.

Probably, however, after the dissolution of her house.

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).

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.

Quoted by Mr Leach, Journ. of Educ. (1910), p. 668.