CHAPTER VI

pitying the miserable state of St Bartholomew’s at Newcastle-on-Tyne, both as to spirituals and temporals, and dreading the immediate ruin thereof, unless some speedy remedy should be applied, committed it to the care of Hugh de Arnecliffe, priest in the church of St Nicholas in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, strictly enjoining the prioress and nuns to be obedient to him in every particular and trusting to his prudence to find relief for the poor servants of Christ here, in their poverty and distress.[785]

Sometimes the nuns themselves begged for acustosto assist them, in terms which show that they found the management of their own finances too much for them. At Godstow in 1316 the King was obliged, at the request of the Abbess and nuns, to take the Abbey into his special protection “on account of its miserable state,” and he appointed the Abbot of Eynsham and the Prior of Bicester as keepers, ordering them to pay the nuns a certain allowance and to apply the residue to the discharging of their debts[786]. Similarly in 1327 the Prioress and nuns of King’s Mead, Derby, represented themselves as much reduced, and begged the King to take the house into his special protection, granting the custody of it to Robert of Alsop and Simon of Little Chester, until it should be relieved. Three months later Edward III granted it protection for three years and appointed Robert of Alsop and Simon of Little Chester custodians, who, after due provision for the sustenance of the prioress and nuns, were to apply the issues and rents to the discharge of the liabilities of the house and to the improvement of its condition[787]. Some interesting evidence in this connection was given during Alnwick’s visitations of the diocese of Lincoln. When Clemence Medforde, the Prioress of Ankerwyke, was asked whether she had observed the Bishop’s injunctions, she answered

that such injunctions were, and are, well observed as regards both her and her sisters in effect and according to their power, except theinjunction whereby she is bound to supply to her sisters sufficient raiment for their habits, and as touching the non-observance of that injunction she answers that she cannot observe it, because of the poverty and insufficiency of the resources of the house, which have been much lessened by reason of the want of a surveyor or steward (yconomus). Wherefore she besought my lord’s good-will and assistance that he would deign with charitable consideration to make provision of such steward or director.... And when these nuns, all and several, had been so examined and were gathered together again in the chapter house, the said Depyng (the Visitor) gave consideration to two grievances, wherein the priory and nuns alike suffer no small damage, the which, as he affirmed, were worthy of reform above the rest of those that stood most in need of reform, to wit the lack of raiment for the habit, of bedclothes and of a steward or seneschal, but in these matters, as he averred, he could not apply a remedy for the nonce without riper deliberation and consultation with my lord[788].

Similarly the old Prioress of St Michael’s Stamford, when asking for the appointment of two nuns as treasuresses, complained “that she herself is impotent to rule temporalities, nor have they an industrious man to supervise these and to raise and receive (external payments)”; another nun said that “they have not a discreet layman to rule their temporalities,” and a third also complained of the lack of a “receiver”[789]. At Gokewell, on the other hand, the Prioress said “that the rector of Flixborough is their steward (yconomus) and he looks after the temporalities and not she”; he was evidently a true friend to the nuns, for she said “that the house does not exceed £10 in rents and is greatly in debt to the rector of Flixborough”[790]. The terms of appointment ofcustodesoften specify the inexpertness of the nuns, or their need for someone to supervise the management of their estates[791]. Perhaps the fullest set of instructions to acustoswhich have survived are those given by Archbishop Melton to Roger de Saxton, rector of Aberford, in making himcustosof Kirklees in 1317:

Trusting in your industry, we by tenour of the present (letters) give you power during our pleasure to look after, guard and administer the temporal possessions of our beloved religious ladies, the Prioress and convent of Kirklees in our diocese, throughout their manors and buildings (loca) wherever these be, and to receive and hear the account of all servants and ministers serving in the same, and to make thosepayments (allocandum) which by reason ought to be made, as well as to remove all useless ministers and servants and to appoint in their place others of greater utility, and to do all other things which shall seem to you to be to the advantage of the place, firmly enjoining the said prioress and convent, as well as the sisters and lay brothers of the house, in virtue of holy obedience, that they permit you freely to administer in all and each of the aforesaid matters[792].

It must have been of great assistance to the worried and incompetent nuns to have a reliable guardian thus to look after their temporal affairs, and it is difficult to understand why the practice of having a resident prior died out at the Cistercian houses and at Benedictine houses (e.g. St Michael’s, Stamford) which had such an official in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. Even the appointment of neighbouring rectors ascustodesof nunneries in the York and Lincoln dioceses ceased, apparently, to be common by the middle of the fourteenth century[793]. It is a curious anomaly that this remedy should have been applied less and less often during the very centuries when the nunneries were becoming increasingly poor, and stood daily in greater need of external assistance in the management of their temporal affairs.

EDUCATION

The Benedictine ideal set study together with prayer and labour as the three bases of monastic life and in the short golden age of English monasticism women as well as men loved books and learning. The tale of the Anglo-Saxon nuns who corresponded with St Boniface has often been told. Eadburg, Abbess of Thanet, wrote the Epistles of St Peter for him in letters of gold and sent books to him in the wilds of Germany. Bugga, Abbess of a Kentish house, exchanged books with him. The charming Lioba, educated by the nuns of Wimborne, sent him verses which she had composed in Latin, which “divine art” the nun Eadburg had taught her, and begged him to correct the rusticity of her style. Afterwards she came into Germany to help him and became Abbess of Bischofsheim and her biographer tells how

she was so bent on reading that she never laid aside her book except to pray or to strengthen her slight frame with food and sleep. From childhood upwards she had studied grammar and the other liberal arts, and hoped by perseverance to attain a perfect knowledge of religion, for she was well aware that the gifts of nature are doubled by study. She zealously read the books of the Old and New Testaments and committed their divine precepts to memory; but she further added to the rich store of her knowledge by reading the writings of the holy Fathers, the canonical decrees and the laws of the Church.

So also an anonymous Anglo-Saxon nun of Heidenheim wrote the lives of Willibald and Wunebald[794].

The Anglo-Saxon period seems, however, to have been the only one during which English nuns were at all conspicuous for learning. There is indeed very scant material for writing their history between the Norman Conquest and the last years of the thirteenth century, when Bishops’ Registers begin. It isnever safe to argue from silence and some nuns may still have busied themselves over books; but two facts are significant: we have no trace of women occupying themselves with the copying and illumination of manuscripts and no nunnery produced a chronicle. The chronicles are the most notable contribution of the monastic houses to learning from the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries; and some of the larger nunneries, such as Romsey, Lacock, and Shaftesbury, received many visitors and must have heard much that was worth recording, besides the humbler annals of their own houses. But they recorded nothing. The whole trend of medieval thought was against learned women and even in Benedictine nunneries, for which a period of study was enjoined by the rule, it was evidently considered altogether outside the scope of women to concern themselves with writing. While the monks composed chronicles, the nuns embroidered copes; and those who sought the gift of a manuscript from the monasteries, sought only the gift of needlework from the nunneries.

It is not, perhaps, surprising that the nuns should have written no chronicles and copied few, if any, books. But it is surprising that England should after the eighth century be able to show so little record of gifted individuals. Even if the rule of a professedly learned order were unlikely to prevail against the general trend of civilisation and to produce learned women, still it might have been expected that here and there a genius, or a woman of some talent for authorship, might have flourished in that favourable soil; or even that a whole house might have enjoyed for a brief halcyon period the zest for learning, when “alle was buxomnesse there and bokes to rede and to lerne.” In Germany, at various periods of the middle ages, this did happen. The Abbey of Gandersheim in Saxony was renowned for learning in the tenth century and here lived and flourished the nun Roswitha, who not only wrote religious legends in Latin verse, but even composed seven dramas in the style of Terence, a poem on the Emperor Otto the Great and a history of her own nunnery. From the internal evidence of her works it has been thought that this nun was directly familiar with the works of Virgil, Lucan, Horace, Ovid, Terence and perhaps Plautus, Prudentius, Sedulius, Fortunatus, Martianus Capella and Boethius; but apart from this evidence of learning, her playsshow her to have been a woman of originality and some genius; they are strange productions to have emanated from a tenth century convent[795]. It was in Germany again, at Hohenburg in Alsace, that the Abbess Herrad in the twelfth century compiled and decorated with exquisite illuminations the great encyclopedia known as theHortus Deliciarum. This book, one of the finest manuscripts which had survived from the middle ages and a most invaluable source of information for the manners and appearance of the people of Herrad’s day, was destroyed in the German bombardment of Strasburg in 1870[796]. The same century saw the lives of the two great nun-mystics, St Hildegard of Bingen and St Elisabeth of Schönau, who saw visions, dreamed dreams and wrote them down[797]. In the next century the convent of Helfta in Saxony was the home of several literary nuns and mystics and was distinguished for culture; its nuns collected books, copied them, illuminated them, learned and wrote Latin, and three of them, the béguine Mechthild, the nun Saint Mechthild von Hackeborn and the nun Gertrud the Great, have won considerable fame by their mystic writings[798]. Even in the decadent fifteenth century examples are not wanting of German nuns who were keenly interested in learning; and in the early sixteenth century Charitas Pirckheimer, nun of St Clare at Nuremberg and sister of the humanist Wilibald Pirckheimer, was in close relations with her brother and with many of his friends and full of enthusiasm for the new learning[799].

It is strange that in England there is no record of any house which can compare with Gandersheim, Hohenburg or Helfta; no record of any nun to compare with the learned women and great mystics who have been mentioned. The air of the English nunneries would seem to have been unfavourable to learning. The sole works ascribed to monastic authoresses are aLife of St Catherine, written in Norman-French by Clemence, a nun of Barking, in the late twelfth century[800], andThe Boke of St Albans,a treatise on hawking, hunting and coat armour, printed in 1486, by one Dame Juliana Berners, whom a vague and unsubstantiated tradition declares to have been Prioress of Sopwell. Nor do nuns seem to have been more active in copying manuscripts. Several beautiful books, which have come down to our own day, can be traced to nunneries, but there is no evidence that they were written there and all other evidence makes it highly improbable that they were. It is true that in 1335 we find this entry among the issues of the Exchequer:

To Isabella de Lancaster, a nun of Amesbury, in money paid to her by the hands of John de Gynewell for payment of 100 marks, which the lord the King commanded to be paid her for a book of romance purchased from her for the King’s use, which remains in the chamber of the lord the King, 66 l. 13 s. 4 d[801],

but it is unlikely that the book thus purchased by the King from his noble kinswoman was her own work.

This period of the later ages was, indeed, unfavourable to learning among monks as well as among nuns. As the universities grew, so the monasteries declined in lustre; learning had no longer need to seek refuge behind cloister walls, and the most promising monks now went to the universities, instead of studying at home in their own houses. The standard of the chronicles rapidly declined and the best chronicler of the fourteenth century was not a monk like Matthew Paris, but a secular, a wanderer, a hanger-on of princes, Froissart. As the fifteenth century passed learning declined still further; and it is evident from the visitations of the time that the monks, whatever else they might be, were not scholars. We should expect the decline in learning to be more marked still among the nuns, considering how little they had possessed in preceding centuries; and the matter is worth some study, because it concerns not only the education of the nuns themselves, but the education which they were qualified to give to the children who were sent to school with them.

A word may first be said on the subject of nunnery libraries. Concerning these we have very little information; and, such as it is, it does not leave the impression that nunneries were rich in books. No catalogue of a nunnery library[802]has come down tous and such references to libraries as occur in inventories show great poverty in this respect, the books being few and chiefly service-books. An inventory of the small and poor convent of Easebourne, taken in 1450, shows what was doubtless quite a large library for a house of its size. It contained two missals, twoportiforia(breviaries), four antiphoners, one largeLegenda, eight psalters, one book of collects, one tropary, one French Bible, twoordinaliain French, one book of the Gospels and one martyrology[803]. The inventories of Henry VIII’s commissioners give very little information as to books and seem to have found few that were of any value. The books found at Sheppey are thus described: “ij bokes with ij sylver clapses the pece, and vj bokes with one sylver clasp a pec, l bokes good and bad” (in the church), “vij bokes, whereof one goodly mase boke of parchement and dyvers other good bokes” (in the vestry), and “an olde presse full of old boks of no valew” (in a chapel in the churchyard) and “a boke of Saynts lyfes” (in the parlour)[804]. At Kilburn were found “two books ofLegenda Aurea, one in print, the other written, both English, 4d.”; the one in print must have been Caxton’s edition, thus valued, together with a manuscript, at something like 6s.8d.in present money for the pair! Also “two mass books, one old written, the other in print, 20d., four processions in parchment (3s.) and paper (10d.), two Legends in parchment and paper, 8d., and two chests, with divers books pertaining to the church, of no value”[805]. It will be noted that the books are almost always connected with the church services. It is perhaps significant that in only one list of the inmates of a house is a nun specifically described as librarian[806].

Something may be gleaned also from the legacies of books left to nuns in medieval wills. These again are nearly always psalters or service books of one kind or another; and indeed the average layman was more likely to possess these than other books, for all alike attended the services of the church. Thus Sir Robert de Roos in 1392 leaves his daughter, a nun, “a little psalter, that was her mother’s”[807]; Sir William de Thorp in 1391 leaves his sister-in-law, a nun of Greenfield, a psalter[808]; William Stow of Ripon in 1430 leaves the Prioress of Nunmonkton a small psalter[809], William Overton of Helmsley in 1481 leaves his niece Elena, a nun of Arden, “one great Primer with a cover of red damask”[810], and so on. There may be some significance in the fact that John Burn, chaplain at York Cathedral, leaves the Prioress and Convent of Nunmonkton “an English book of Pater Noster”[811]. It strikes a strange and pleasant note when Thomas Reymound in 1418 leaves the Prioress and Convent of Polsloe 20s.and theLiber Gestorum Karoli, Regis Francie[812], and when Eleanor Roos of York in 1438 leaves Dame Joan Courtenay “unum librum vocatum Mauldebuke,” whatever that mysterious tome may have contained[813].

Some light is also thrown backward upon their possessors by isolated books which have come down to our own day and are known to have belonged to nuns. These come mostly, as might be expected, from the great abbeys of the south, where the nuns were rich and of good birth, from Syon and Barking, Amesbury, Wilton and Shaftesbury, St Mary’s Winchester, and Wherwell[814]. Sometimes the MS. records the name of the nun owner. Wright and Halliwell quote from a Latin breviary, inwhich is an inscription to the effect that it belonged to Alice Champnys, nun of Shaftesbury, who bought it for the sum of 10s.from Sir Richard Marshall, rector of the parish church of St Rumbold of Shaftesbury. There follows this prayer for the use of the nun:

Trium puerorum cantemus himnum quem cantabant in camino ignis benedicentes dominum. O swete Jhesu, the sonne of God, the endles swetnesse of hevyn and of erthe and of all the worlde, be in my herte, in my mynde, in my wytt, in my wylle, now and ever more, Amen. Jhesu mercy, Jhesu gramercy, Jhesu for thy mercy, Jhesu as I trust to thy mercy, Jhesu as thow art fulle of mercy, Jhesu have mercy on me and alle mankynde redemyd with thy precyouse blode. Jhesu, Amen[815].

A manuscript of Capgrave’sLife of St Katharine of Alexandria, which belonged to Katherine Babyngton, subprioress of Campsey in Suffolk, has a very different inscription:

Iste liber est ex dono Kateryne Babyngton quondam subpriorisse de Campseye et si quis illum alienauerit sine licencia vna cum consensu dictarum [sanctimonialium] conuentus, malediccionem dei omnipotentis incurrat et anathema sit[816].

Sometimes the owner of a manuscript is known to us from other sources. There is a splendid psalter, now in St John’s College, Cambridge, which belonged to the saintly Euphemia, Abbess of Wherwell from 1226 to 1257, whose good deeds were celebrated in the chartulary of the house[817]. In the Hunterian Library at Glasgow there is a copy of the first English translation of Thomas à Kempis’sImitatio Christi, which belonged to Elizabeth Gibbs, Abbess of Syon from 1497 to 1518; it is inscribed

O vos omnes sorores et ffratres presentes et futuri, orate queso pro venerabili matre nostra Elizabeth Gibbis, huius almi Monasterii Abbessa [sic], necnon pro deuoto ac religioso viro Dompno Willielmo Darker, in artibus Magistro de domo Bethleem prope sheen ordinis Cartuciensis, qui pro eadem domina Abbessa hunc librum conscripsit;

the date 1502 is given[818].

The books known to have been in the possession of nuns throw, as will be seen, but a dim light upon the educational attainments of their owners. More specific evidence must be sought in bishops’ registers, and in such references to the state of learning in nunneries as occur in the works of contemporary writers. It is clear that nuns were expected to be “literate”; bishops sending new inmates to convents occasionally assure their prospective heads that the girls are able to undertake the duties of their new state[819]. What to be sufficiently lettered meant, from the convent point of view, appears in injunctions sent to the Premonstratensian house of Irford, forbidding the reception of any nun “save after such fashion as they are received at Irford and Brodholme, to wit that they be able to read and to sing, as is contained in the statute of the order”[820]; and again in injunctions sent by Bishop Gray to Elstow about 1432:

We enjoin and charge you the abbess and who so shall succeed you ... that henceforward you admit no one to be a nun of the said monastery ... unless she be taught in song and reading and the other things requisite herein, or probably may be easily instructed within a short time[821].

Further light is thrown on the question by an episode in the life of Thomas de la Mare, Abbot of St Albans from 1349 to 1396. At that time the subordinate nunnery of St Mary de Pré consisted of two grades of inmates, nuns and sisters, who were never on good terms. The Abbot accordingly transformed the sisters into nuns and ordained that no more sisters should be received, but only “literate nuns.” But hitherto the nuns also had been illiterate; “they said no service, but in the place of the Hours they said certain Lord’s Prayers and Angelic Salutations.” The Abbot therefore ordered that they should betaught the service and that in future they should observe the canonical hours, saying them without chanting, but singing the offices for the dead at certain times. Since they had apparently no books, from which to read the services, he gave them six or seven ordinals, belonging to the Abbey of St Albans, which caused not a little annoyance among the monks. In order that nuns should not be rashly and easily admitted, he ordered that henceforth all who entered the house were to profess the rule of St Benedict in writing[822].

The requirements seem to be that the nun should be able to take part in the daily offices in the quire, for which reading and singing were essential. It was not, it should be noted, essential to write, though Abbot Thomas de la Mare required the nuns of St Mary de Pré to profess the rule in writing and about 1330 the nuns of Sopwell (another dependency of St Albans) were enjoined by the commissary of a previous Abbot to give their votes for a new Prioress in writing[823]. Nevertheless, strange as this may appear to many who are wont to credit the nuns with teaching reading, writing, arithmetic and a number of other accomplishments to their pupils, it is probable that some of the nuns of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were unable to write. The form of profession of three novices at Rusper in 1484 has survived and ends with the note “Et quelibet earum fecit tale signum crucis manu sua propria ✠”[824]which might possibly imply that these nuns could not write their names. It is significant that the official business of convents, their annual accounts and any certificates which they might have to draw up, were done by professional clerks, or sometimes by their chaplains. Payment to the clerk who made the account occurs regularly in their account rolls; and the Visitations of Bishop Alnwick, to which reference will be made below, show that theywere often completely at a loss, when writing had to be done and there was no clerk to do it.

Again it would seem clear that the nun who was fully qualified to “bear the burden of the choir” ought to be able to understand what she read, as well as to read it, and this raises at once the study of Latin in nunneries. Here again the nuns do not emerge very well from inquiry. Some there were no doubt who knew a little Latin, even in the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; but the more the inquirer studies contemporary records, the more he is driven to conclude that the majority of nuns during this period knew no Latin; they must have sung the offices by rote and though they may have understood, it is to be feared that the majority of them could not construe even aPater Noster, anAveor aCredo. Let us take the evidence for the different centuries in turn. The language of visitation injunctions affords some clue to the knowledge of the nuns. It must be remembered that throughout the whole period Latin was always the learned and ecclesiastical language; and the communications addressed by a bishop to the monastic houses of his district, notices of visitation, mandates and injunctions would normally be in Latin; and when he was addressing monks they were in fact almost always in this tongue. After Latin the language next in estimation was French. This had been the universal language of the upper class and up till the middle of the fourteenth century it was stillpar excellencethe courtly tongue. But it was rapidly ceasing to be a language in general use and the turning-point is marked by a statute of 1362, which ordains that henceforth all pleas in the law courts shall be conducted in English, since the French language “is too unknown in the said realm.” At the close of the century even the upper classes were ceasing to speak French and the English ambassadors to France in 1404 had to beseech the Grand Council of France to answer them in Latin, French being “like Hebrew” to them[825]. In the fifteenth century French was a mere educational adornment, which could be acquired by those who could get teachers.

The linguistic learning of English nuns at different periods was similar to that of the gentry outside the convent. It was notpossible after the beginning of the fourteenth century (perhaps even during the last half of the thirteenth century) to assume in them that acquaintance with Latin, the learned and ecclesiastical tongue, which was generally assumed in their brothers the monks. Their learning was similar to that of contemporary laymen of their class, rather than of contemporary monks; and it went through exactly the same phases as did the coronation oath. About 1311 the King’s oath occurs in Latin among the State documents, with the note appended that “if the King were illiterate” he was to swear in French, as Edward II did in 1307; but in 1399 when Henry IV claimed the throne, he claimed it in English, “In the name of the Fadir, Son and Holy Gost, I Henry of Lancastre, chalenge þis Rewme of Yngland”[826]. Similarly towards the close of the thirteenth century the English bishops begin to write to their nuns in French, because they are no longer “literate,” in the sense of understanding Latin. Throughout this century the nuns are able to speak the courtly tongue; they use it for their petitions; and Chaucer’s Prioress boasts it among her accomplishments at the close of the century,

And Frensh she spak ful faire and fetislyAfter the scole of Stratford atte Bowe,For French of Paris was to her unknowe.

But French, like Latin, is beginning to die away. It hardly ever occurs in petitions after the end of the century; and in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the Bishops almost invariably send their injunctions to the nuns in English. The majority of nuns during these two centuries would seem to have understood neither French nor Latin[827].

The evidence of the bishops’ registers is worth considering in more detail. The bishops were genuinely anxious that the reforms set forth in their injunctions should be carried out by the nuns, and they were therefore at considerable pains to send the injunctions in language which the nuns could understand. There are few surviving injunctions belonging to the thirteenth century; and their evidence is missed. Archbishop Walter Giffardin 1268[828]and Archbishop Newark in 1298[829]write to the nuns of Swine in Latin, a language which they seem to have employed habitually when writing to nunneries. Archbishop Peckham sometimes writes to the Godstow nuns in Latin (1279) and sometimes in French (1284)[830]; it is to be noted that his French letter is of a more familiar type. Bishop Cantilupe of Hereford writes about 1277 to the nuns of Lymbrook in Latin, but his closing words raise considerable doubt as to whether an understanding of Latin can be generally assumed in nunneries at this period, for he says “you are to cause this our letter to be expounded to you several times in the year by your penancers, in the French or English tongue, whichever you know best”[831].

The evidence for the next century is even less ambiguous, for nearly all injunctions are in French and sometimes it is specifically mentioned that the nuns do not understand Latin. Bishop Norbury in 1331 translates his injunctions to Fairwell into French[832], because the nuns do not understand the original in Latin, and Bishop Robert de Stretton, writing to the same house in 1367, orders his decree to be “read and explained in the vulgar tongue by some literate ecclesiastical person on the day after its receipt”[833]. Bishop Stapeldon’s interesting injunctions to Polsloe and Canonsleigh in 1319 are in French, but he seems to assume some knowledge of Latin in the nuns, for he orders that if it be necessary to break silence in places where silence is ordained, speech should be held in Latin, though not in grammatically constructed sentences, but in isolated words[834]. In 1311 Bishop Woodlock sending a set of Latin injunctions to the great Abbey of Romsey, announces that he has caused them to be translated into French, that the nuns may moreeasily understand them[835]; but Wykeham writes to them in Latin in 1387[836]. In the Lincoln diocese during this century the custom of the bishops varies. Gynewell writes to Heynings and to Godstow in French, but to Elstow in Latin[837]; Bokyngham writes to both Heynings and Elstow in Latin, but in ordering the nuns of Elstow in 1387 to keep silence at due times, he adds “Et vulgare gallicum addiscentes inter se eo utantur colloquentes”[838], a significant contrast to Stapeldon’s recommendation of Latin in similar circumstances some seventy years earlier.

When we pass from the fourteenth to the fifteenth century it is clear that even French was becoming an unknown tongue to the nuns; nearly all injunctions are from this time forward written in English. At Redlingfield in 1427, the seven nuns and two novices were assembled in the chapter house, where the deputy visitor read his commission, first in Latin and then in the vulgar tongue, in order that the nuns might better understand it[839]. It is true that Bishops Flemyng and Gray send Latin injunctions to Elstow and Delapré Abbeys in 1422 and 1433 respectively; but Flemyng orders “that the premises, all and sundry, be published and read openly and in the vulgar mother tongue eight times a year”[840], and Gray writes that his injunctions are to be translated into the mother tongue and fastened in some conspicuous place[841]. The best evidence of all for the state of learning in nunneries during the first half of the fifteenth century is to be found in the invaluable records of Alnwick’s visitations of the Lincoln diocese. Now it should be noted that when Alnwick visited houses of monks or canons, the sermon, which was generally preached on such occasions by one of the learned clerics who accompanied him, was invariably preached in Latin. Moreover, all injunctions sent to male houses after visitation were sent in Latin also. The assumption still was that these monasteries were homes of learning and acquainted with the language of learning. With the nunneries it was otherwise. The sermons were always preached “in the vulgar tongue” andthe injunctions were always sent in English. It was not even pretended that the nuns would understand Latin. Moreover it is quite plain that when the preliminary notices of visitation had been sent in Latin, they had been very imperfectly understood; and that when it was necessary for a Prioress herself to draw up a certificate in writing, she was often quite unable to do so.

A few extracts from Alnwick’s records will illustrate the complete ignorance of Latin and general illiteracy in these houses. At Ankerwyke (1441) it is noted:

And then when request had been made of the prioress by the reverend father for the certificate of his mandate conveyed to the said prioress for such visitation, the same prioress, instead of the certificate delivered the original mandate itself to the said reverend father, affirming that she did not understand the mandate itself, nor had she any man of skill or other lettered person to instruct what she should do in this behalf[842].

At Markyate (1442), when the same certificate was asked for, the Prioress

said that she had not a clerk who was equipped for writing such a certificate, on the which head she submitted herself to my lord’s favour and then showed my lord in lieu of a certificate the original mandate itself and the names of the nuns who had been summoned[843].

Similarly the Prioress of Fosse showed the original mandate in place of the certificate, and the Prioresses of St Michael’s Stamford and Rothwell had failed to draw up the certificate[844]. The Prioress of Gokewell (1440) was said to be “exceedingly simple,” all the temporalities of the house being ruled by a steward; she also declared that “she knows not how to compose a formal certificate, in that she has no lettered persons of her counsel who are skilled in this case,” and she had been unable to find the document reciting the confirmation of her election[845]. The poor convent of Langley seems to have been reduced to complete confusion by the episcopal mandate. The Prioress

says that she received my lord’s mandate on the feast of St Denis last. Interrogated whether she has a certificate touching execution thereof, she says no, because she did not understand it, nor did her chaplain also, to whom she showed it; concerning the which she surrendered herself to my lord’s favour. Wherefore, when the originalmandate had been delivered to my lord and read through in the vulgar tongue, my lord asked her if she had executed it. She says yes, as regards the summons of herself and her sisters.... Interrogated if she has the foundation charter of the house and who is the founder, she says that Sir William Pantolfe founded the house, but because they are unversed in letters they cannot understand the writings[846].

It is unnecessary to multiply the evidence of visitation records for the rest of the fifteenth and for the early sixteenth century: the general effect is to show us nuns who know only the English language[847]. Let us turn to the interesting corroborative evidence provided by those who were at pains to make translations for their use. It must be admitted that this evidence only confirms the suggestion made above that the nuns often did not understand the very services which they sang, let alone the Latin version of their rule, or the Latin charters by which they held their lands. That they often sang the services uncomprehendingly like parrots is actually stated by Sir David Lyndesay, the Scottish poet, in hisDialog concerning the Monarché(1553). He apologises for writing in his native tongue, unlike those clerks, who wish to prohibit the people from reading even the scriptures for themselves, and adds

Tharefore I thynk one gret dirisiounTo heir thir Nunnis & Systeris nycht and daySyngand and sayand psalmes and orisoun,Nocht vnderstandyng quhat thay syng nor say,Bot lyke one stirlyng or ane PapingayQuhilk leirnit ar to speik be lang usageThame I compair to byrdis in ane cage[848].

Several translations of the rule of St Benet were made for the special use of nuns, who knew no Latin. A northern metrical version of the early fifteenth century explains

Monkes and als all leryd menIn Latin may it lyghtly ken,And wytt tharby how they sall wyrkTo sarue god and haly kyrk.Bott tyll women to mak it couth,That leris no latyn in thar youth,In inglis is it ordand here,So that thay may it lyghtly lere[849].

About a century later, in 1517, Richard Fox, the Bishop of Winchester, published for the benefit of the nuns of his diocese another English translation of the Rule of St Benedict. In the preface he rehearses how nuns are professed under the Rule and are bound to read, learn and understand it:

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