← Medieval English Nunneries c. 1275 to 1535

Chapter 2

Author’s Preface

The monastic ideal and the development of the monastic rule and orders have been studied in many admirable books. The purpose of the present work is not to describe and analyse once again that ideal, but to give a general picture of English nunnery life during a definite period, the three centuries before the Dissolution. It is derived entirely from pre-Reformation sources, and the tainted evidence of Henry VIII’s commissioners has not been used; nor has the story of the suppression of the English nunneries been told. The nunneries dealt with are drawn from all the monastic orders, except the Gilbertine order, which has been omitted, both because it differed from others in containing double houses of men and women and because it has already been the subject of an excellent monograph by Miss Rose Graham.

It remains for me to record my deep gratitude to two scholars, in whose debt students of medieval monastic history must always lie, Mr G. G. Coulton and Mr A. Hamilton Thompson. I owe more than I can say to their unfailing interest and readiness to discuss, to help and to criticise. To Mr Hamilton Thompson I am specially indebted for the loan of his transcripts and translations of Alnwick’s Register, now in course of publication, for reading and criticising my manuscript and finally for undertaking the arduous work of reading my proofs. I gratefully acknowledge suggestions received at different times from Mr Hubert Hall, Miss Rose Graham and Canon Foster, and faithful criticism from my friend Miss M. G. Jones. I have also to thank Mr H. S. Bennett for kindly preparing the index, and Mr Sydney Cockerell, Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum, for assistance in the choice of illustrations.

EILEEN POWER.

Girton College,
Cambridge.
September 1922

CONTENTS

PAGE

CHAPTER I. THE NOVICE

Situation, income and size of the English nunneries

Nuns drawn from (1) the nobles and gentry

(2) the middle class

Nunneries in medieval wills

The dowry system

Motives for taking the veil:

(1) a career and a vocation for girls

(2) a ‘dumping ground’ for political prisoners

(3) for illegitimate, deformed or half-witted girls

(4) nuns forced unwillingly to profess by their relations

(5) a refuge for widows and occasionally for wives

CHAPTER II. THE HEAD OF THE HOUSE

Superiors usually women of social standing

Elections and election disputes

Resignations

Special temptations of a superior:

(1) excessive independence and comfort

(2) autocratic government

(3) favouritism

The superior a great lady in the country side

Journeys

Luxurious clothes and entertainments

Picture of heads of houses in Bishop Alnwick’s Lincoln visitations (1436-49)

Wicked prioresses

Good prioresses

General conclusion: Chaucer’s picture borne out by the records

CHAPTER III. WORLDLY GOODS

Evidence as to monastic property in

(1) the Valor Ecclesiasticus

(2) monastic account rolls

Variation of size and income among houses

Methods of administration of estates

Sources of income:

(1) rents from land and houses

(2) manorial perquisites and grants

(3) issues of the manor

(4) miscellaneous payments

(5) spiritualities

Expenses

(1) internal expenses of the convent

(2) divers expenses

(3) repairs

(4) the home farm

(5) the wages sheet

CHAPTER IV. MONASTIC HOUSEWIVES

The obedientiaries

Allocation of income and obedientiaries’ accounts

Chambresses’ accounts (clothes)

Cellaresses’ accounts (food)

Servants

(1) chaplain

(2) administrative officials

(3) household staff

(4) farm labourers

Nunnery households

Relations between nuns and servants

Occasional hired labour

Villages occasionally dependent upon nunneries for work

CHAPTER V. FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES

Poverty of nunneries

(1) prevalence of debt

(2) insufficient food and clothing

(3) ruinous buildings

(4) nuns begging alms

Reasons for poverty:

(1) natural disasters

(2) ecclesiastical exactions and royal taxes

(3) feudal and other services

(4) right of patrons to take temporalities during voidance

(5) right of bishop and king to nominate nuns on certain occasions

(6) pensions, corrodies, grants and liveries

(7) hospitality

(8) litigation

(9) bad management

(10) extravagance

(11) overcrowding with nuns

Methods adopted by bishops to remedy financial distress:

(1) devices to safeguard expenditure by the head of the house

(2) episcopal licence required for business transactions

(3) appointment of a custos

CHAPTER VI. EDUCATION

The education of the nuns:

Learning of Anglo-Saxon nuns, and of German nuns at a later date

Little learning in English nunneries during the later middle ages

Nunnery libraries and nuns’ books

Education of nuns

Latin in nunneries

Translations for the use of nuns

Needlework

Simple forms of medicine

Nunneries as schools for children:

The education of novices

The education of secular children

Boys

Limitations:

(1) not all nunneries took children

(2) only gentlefolk taken

(3) disapproval and restriction of nunnery schools by the ecclesiastical authorities

What did the nuns teach?

Life of school children in nunneries

‘Piety and breeding’

CHAPTER VII. ROUTINE AND REACTION

Division of the day by the Benedictine Rule

The Benedictine combination of prayer, study and labour breaks down

Dead routine

The reaction from routine

(1) carelessness in singing the services

(2) accidia

(3) quarrels

(4) gay clothes

(5) pet animals

(6) dancing, minstrels and merry-making

CHAPTER VIII. PRIVATE LIFE AND PRIVATE PROPERTY

The monastic obligation to (1) communal life, (2) personal poverty

The breakdown of communal life: division into familiae with private rooms

The breakdown of personal poverty

(1) the annual peculium

(2) money pittances

(3) gifts in money and kind

(4) legacies

(5) proceeds of a nun’s own labour

Private life and private property in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries

Attitude of ecclesiastical authorities

CHAPTER IX. FISH OUT OF WATER

Enclosure in the Benedictine Rule

The movement for the enclosure of nuns

The Bull Periculoso

Attempts to enforce enclosure in England

Attempts to regulate and restrict the emergence of nuns from their houses

The usual pretexts for breaking enclosure:

(1) illness

(2) to enter a stricter rule

(3) convent business

(4) ceremonies, processions, funerals

(5) pilgrimages

(6) visits to friends

(7) short walks, field work

The nuns wander freely about in the world

Conclusion

CHAPTER X. THE WORLD IN THE CLOISTER

Visitors in the cloister are another side of the enclosure problem

The scholars of Oxford and Cambridge and the neighbouring nunneries

Regulations to govern the entrance of seculars into nunneries:

(1) certain persons not to be admitted

(2) certain parts of the house and certain hours forbidden

(3) unsuccessful attempts to regulate the reception of boarders

The nuns and political movements

Robbery and violence

Border raids in Durham and Yorkshire

The strange tale of Sir John Arundel’s outrage on a nunnery

The sack of Origny in Raoul de Cambrai

CHAPTER XI. THE OLDE DAUNCE

Nuns and the celibate ideal

Sources of evidence for the moral state of the English nunneries

Apostate nuns

Nuns’ lovers

Nuns’ children

Disorder in two small houses, Cannington (1351) and Easebourne (1478)

Disorder in the great abbeys of Amesbury and Godstow

Moral state of the nunneries in the diocese of Lincoln at two periods

Attempted statistical estimate of cases of immorality in Lincoln (1430-50),
Norwich (1514) and Chichester (1478, 1524) dioceses

Punishment of offenders

General conclusions

CHAPTER XII. THE MACHINERY OF REFORM

The chapter meeting

Reform by external authorities:

(1) a parent house

(2) the chapter general of the order

(3) the bishop of the diocese

The episcopal visitation and injunctions

How far was this control adequate?

(1) concealment of faults

(2) visitation too infrequent

(3) difficulty of enforcing injunctions

Value of visitation documents to the historian

CHAPTER XIII. THE NUN IN MEDIEVAL LITERATURE

Value of literary evidence

Autobiographies and biographies of nuns

Popular poetry (chansons de nonnes)