Chapter 14

and also after their profession they should not onely in them selfe kepe observe execute and practise the said rule but also teche other and heir sisters the same, and so moche that for the same intent they daily rede and cause to be rede some parte of the sayd rule by one of the sayd sisters amonges them selfe as well in their Chapiter House after the redinge of the Martyrologe as some tyme in their Fraitur in tyme of refections and collacions, at the which reding is always don in the latin tonge, whereof they have no knowledge nor understandinge but be utterly ignorant of the same, whereby they do not only lose their tyme but also renne into the evident danger and perill of the perdicion of their soules.

He adds that in order to save the souls of his nuns, and in particular to ensure that novices understand the Rule before profession,

so that none of them shall nowe afterward probably say that she wyste not what she professed, as we knowe by experience that some of them have sayd in tyme passed, for these causes at thinstant requeste of our ryght dere and well-beloved daughters in oure Lorde Jhesu, the Abbasses of the Monasteries of Rumsay, Wharwel, Seynt Maries within the Citie of Winchester and the Prioresses of Wintnay, our right religious diocesans, we have translated the sayd rule unto our moders tonge; comune, playne rounde Englishe, easy and redy to be understande by the sayde devoute religiouse women[850].

The inconvenience of not being able to read the foundation charter and other legal documents of the house, as confessed by the Prioress of Langley at Alnwick’s visitation, was very great; and about 1460 Alice Henley, the Abbess of Godstow, causeda translation to be made of the Latin register, in which were copied all the charters of her abbey. The translator’s preface to the work is interesting:

The wyseman tawht hys chyld gladly to rede bokys and hem well vndurstonde for, in defaute of vndyrstondyng, is ofttymes caused neclygence, hurte, harme and hynderaunce, as experyence prevyth in many a place. And for as muche as women of relygyone in redynge bokys of latyn, byn excusyd of grete vndurstandyng, where it is not her modyr tonge; Therfore, how be hyt that they wolde rede her bokys of remembraunce of her munymentys wryte in latyn, for defaute of undurstondyng they toke ofte tymes grete hurt and hyndraunce; and, what for defaute of trewe lernyd men that all tymes be not redy hem to teche and counsayl, and feere also and drede to shewe her euydence opynly (that oftyntyme hath causyd repentaunce). Hyt wer ryht necessary, as hyt semyth to the undyrstondyng of suche relygyous women, that they myght haue, out of her latyn bokys, sum wrytynge in her modyr tonge, wher-by they might haue bettyr knowlyge of her munymentys and more clerely yeue informacyon to her serauntys, rent gedurarys, and receyuowrs, in the absent of her lernyd councell. Wher-fore, a poore brodur and welwyller ... to the goode Abbas of Godstowe, Dame Alice henley, and to all her couent, the whych byn for the more party in Englyssh bokys well y-lernyd, hertyly desyryng the worship, profyt and welfare of that deuoute place, that, for lak of vndurstondyng her munymentys sholde in no damage of her lyflod huraftur fallyn, In the worship of our lady and seynt John Baptist patron of thys seyd monastery, the sentence for the more partyre of her munymentys conteynd in the boke of her regystr in latyn, aftyr the same forme and ordyr of the seyd boke, hath purposyd with goddys grace to make, aftur hys conceyt, fro latyn into Englyssh, sentencyosly, as foloweth thys symple translacion[851].

It will be noticed that the benevolent translator of this Godstow register says that the nuns are for the most part well learned in English books. The same impression is given by the translations which were made for the nuns of Syon. The most famous of these is theMyroure of Oure Ladye, written for the nuns by Thomas Gascoigne (1403-58) and first printed in 1530. This book contains a devotional treatise on divine service, with a translation and explanation of the “Hours” and “Masses” of our Lady, as they were used at Syon. The author explains his purpose thus:

Forasmoche as many of you, though ye can synge and rede, yet ye can not se what the meanynge therof ys; therefore to the onely worshypand praysyng of oure lorde Jesu chryste and of hys moste mercyfull mother oure lady and to the gostly comforte and profyte of youre soules, I haue drawen youre legende and all youre seruyce in to Englyshe, that ye shulde se by the vnderstondyng therof, how worthy and holy praysynge of oure gloryous Lady is contente therin & the more deuoutely and knowyngly synge yt & rede yt and say yt to her worshyp.

He adds that he has explained the various parts of the divine service for “symple soulles to vnderstonde,” but that he has translated few psalms, “for ye may haue them of Rycharde hampoules drawynge, and out of Englysshe bibles, if ye haue lysence therto”[852].

From a passage in theMyroureit appears that the sisters were accustomed to spend some of their time in reading and advice is given to them as to the sort of books to read and the way in which to profit by them; from this it is quite clear that secular learning had no place among them, their reading being confined to works of ghostly edification[853]. It was their ignorance of Latin which caused the insertion of English rubrics in the LatinProcessionaleof the house and which inspired Richard Whytford, one of the brothers, to translate the splendidMartilogium, which is now in the British Museum, “for the edificacyon of certayn religyous persones unlerned that dayly dyd rede the same martiloge in Latyn, not understandynge what they redde”; his translation was printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1526[854]. Gascoigne’s mention of English bibles is interesting. Miss Deanesly, in her study ofThe Lollard Bible, has shown that “it is likely that English nuns were the most numerous orthodox users of English bibles between 1408 and 1526,” but that the evidence for this use is slight and drawn almost entirely from Syon and Barking, two large and important houses[855]. Her conclusion is that

it was not the case that the best instructed nuns used Latin Bibles and the most ignorant English ones: but that the best instructednuns were allowed to use English translations, perhaps by themselves, perhaps to help in the understanding of the Vulgate, while the smaller nunneries and least instructed nuns almost certainly did not have them at all.

This goes to confirm the conclusion that even in the greatest houses, where the nuns were drawn from the highest social classes and might be supposed to be best educated, the knowledge of Latin was dying out.

Other occupations besides reading filled the working hours of the nuns and of these spinning and needlework were the most important. Most women in the middle ages possessed the art of spinning and Aubrey’s Old Jacques may have remembered aright how “he saw from his house the nuns of the priory (Kington St Michael) come forth into the nymph-hay with their rocks and wheels to spin,” though his memory misled him sorely as to the number of these ladies. Sometimes a visitation report gives us a glimpse of the nuns at work: at Easebourne in 1441 the nuns say that the Prioress “compels her sisters to work continually like hired workwomen and they receive nothing whatever for their own use from their work, but the prioress takes the whole profit”[856]and at Catesby in the following year a young nun complains that the Prioress “setts her to make beds, to sewing and spinning and other tasks”[857]. Nevertheless it does not seem that the nuns were in the habit of spinning the wool and flax for their own and their servants’ clothes and account rolls often contain payments made to hired spinsters, as well as to fullers and weavers.

It is more probable that they busied themselves with needlework and embroidery, which were the usual occupations of ladies of gentle birth[858]. Very few traces have unfortunately survived of the work of English nuns. In earlier centuries English needlework had been famous and the nuns had been pre-eminent in the making of richly embroidered vestments. In the thirteenthcentury, too, English embroidery far surpassed that made in other countries and it has been conjectured that “the most famous embroidered vestments now preserved in various places in Italy are the handiwork of English embroiderers between 1250 and 1300 though their authorship is not as a rule recognised by their present possessors”[859]. Some of these may have been made by nuns; it is thought that the famous Syon cope, for long in the possession of the nuns of Syon, may have been made in a thirteenth century convent in the neighbourhood of Coventry; but such examples of medieval embroidery as have survived usually bear no trace of their origin; since a vestment cannot be signed like a book and it must be remembered that there was a large class of professional “embroideresses” in the country.

Some, however, of the splendid vestments and altar cloths possessed by the richer nunneries were probably the work of the nuns. At Langley in 1485 there were, among other rich pieces of embroidery

iiij fronteys (altar frontals) of grene damaske powdered with swanys and egyls, ... iiij fronteys of blake powdered with swanys and rosys, ... a vestment of blew silke brodyt complete with all yt longyth to hyt, a vestment of grene velwett complete with a crucifixe of silver and gylte apon ye amys, a complete vestiment of red velwet, a vestiment of swede (sewed) work complete, a vestiment of blake damaske brodyrt with rosys and sterys, a complete vestiment of white brodyrte with rede trewlyps (true-love knots), ... j gret cloth (banner) of rede powderyd with herts heds and boturfleys ... a large coverlet of red and blew with rosys and crossys, a tapett of ye same; j large coverlett of rede and yowlowe with flowrs de luce, a tapett of ye same; a large coverlett of blew and better blew with swanys and coks, a tapett of ye same; a coverlett of grene and yowlowe with borys and draguyns, a tapett of ye same; ... a coverlett of ostrych fydyrs and crounyd Emmys (monogram of the Blessed Virgin Mary); a coverlet of grene and yowlowe with vynys and rosys; a coverlet of grene and yowlowe with lylys and swannys; a coverlet of blew and white whyl knotts (wheel knots) and rosys; a coverlet of red and white with traylest (trellis) and Bryds; a coverlet of red and blew with sterrys and white rosys in mydste; a coverlet of yowlowe and grene with egyles and emmys; v coveryngs of bedds, yat hys to sey A coveryng of red saye, a coveryng of panes (stripes) of red and grene and white saye, a coveryng of redand blake saye, a coveryng of red and blew poudyrd with white esses and sterys, a blew saye with a red dragne[860].

Many of these embroideries and tapestries were doubtless legacies or gifts; but it is impossible not to picture the white fingers of the nuns at work on swans and roses, harts’ heads and butterflies, stars and true-love knots. One may deduce that the nuns of Yorkshire, at least, busied themselves in these pursuits from an injunction sent to Nunkeeling, Yedingham and Wykeham in 1314 that no nun should absent herself from divine service “on account of being occupied with silk work” (propter occupacionem operis de serico)[861].

Reference to the sale of embroidery by nuns is surprisingly rare in account rolls. The household roll of the Countess of Leicester in 1265 contains an item, “Paid to the nuns of Wintney, for one cope to be made for the use of Brother J. Angelus by the gift of the Countess at Panham 10d.”[862], which small sum must have been a part payment in advance, perhaps towards the purchase of materials; the nuns of Gracedieu, too, sold a cope to a neighbouring rector for £10, early in the fifteenth century[863], and on one occasion the cellaress of Barking derived a part of her income for the year from the sale of a cope[864], but search has revealed no further instances. The nuns also probably made little presents for their friends, such as purses (though the Gracedieu nuns always bought the purses which they gave to their bailiff, to Lady Beaumont, or to other visitors) and the so-called “blood-bands.” In an age when bleeding was the mostcommon treatment for almost every illness and when monks, in particular, were regularly bled several times a year, these little bandages were common presents, being sometimes made of silk. The author of theAncren Riwlethus bade his anchoresses “make no purses to gain friends therewith, not blodbendes of silk, but shape and sew and mend church vestments and poor people’s clothes”[865]. The nuns of the diocese of Rouen in the mid-thirteenth century were accustomed to knit or embroider silken purses, tassels, cushions or needlecases for sale or as gifts, and Archbishop Eudes Rigaud was continually forbidding them to do any silk work except for church ornament[866]. There is some reason to think that the nuns, then as now, sometimes eked out their income by doing fine needlework for ladies of the world, though there is no mention of it in nunnery accounts, or indeed in any English records. Among the correspondence of Lady Lisle in the first half of the sixteenth century, however, are several letters to and from a certain Antoinette de Favences at Dunkirk, who would appear to have been a nun, for she signs herselfsisterAntoinette de Favences and is addressed by Lady Lisle asMadameandDame. This woman was employed to make caps and coifs for Lady Lisle’s family and friends and there is much correspondence between them as to night-caps which are too wide, lozenge-work and such matters; in one letter Lady Lisle speaks of sending “16 rozimbos and 2 half angels of Flanders, a Carolus of gold,” in payment for the caps[867].

What other accomplishments the nuns may have possessed we do not know. They were possibly skilled in herbs and in the more simple forms of home medicine and surgery, for it was the function of the lady of the manor to know something of these things, though doctors were available (for nuns as well as for lay folk) in more serious illnesses[868]. They doubtless bled each other as did the monks, else how was the wicked Prioress of Kirklees, who slew Robin Hood, so skilled?:

Doun then came Dame PriorèssDoun she came in that ilk,With a pair of blood-irons in her hand,Were wrappèd all in silk....She laid the blood-irons to Robin’s veinAlack the more pitye!And pierc’d the vein and let out the bloodThat full red was to see.

There is an occasional brief reference to the recreation of nuns in their “seynys” in visitations[869], but the precaution was less necessary and less frequent than it was in houses of monks[870]. No doubt, also, the nuns sometimes nursed their boarders, some of whom must have been old and ailing; wills are occasionally dated from nunneries[871]. The nuns of Romsey had a hospital attached to the house, in which were received as sisters any parents and relatives of the nuns, who were poor and ill[872], but this does not prove that the nuns nursed them, and references in visitation reports show that even sick nuns were often looked after by lay servants in the infirmary, or if permanently disabled, occupied a separate room, with a separate maid to attend them. It is not likely that the nuns left their convents, save veryoccasionally, to undertake sick-nursing; this would have been against the spirit of their rule, for their main business was not (as was that of the sisters who looked after spitals) to care for the sick, but to live enclosed in their houses, following the prescribed round of church services. It is however of interest that the will of Sir Roger Salwayn, knight of York (1420) contains this legacy: “Also I will that the Nunne that kepid me in my seknes haue ij nobles, and that ther be gif into the hous that she wonnes in xxs, for to syng and pray for me”[873]. Nuns may have emerged sometimes to nurse friends and relatives, whose sick-beds they were always allowed to attend; but there is no documentary evidence for the belief of modern writers, who would fain turn the nun into a district visitor, smoothing the pillows of all who ailed in her native village.

These then were the educational attainments of the English nuns in the later middle ages: reading and singing the services of the church, sometimes but not always writing, Latin very rarely after the thirteenth century, French very rarely after the fourteenth century; needlework and embroidery; and perhaps that elementary knowledge of physic, which was the possession of most ladies of their class. It was, in fact, very little more than the education possessed by laywomen of the same social rank outside and there is little trace of anything approaching scholarship. The study of the education of the nuns during this period leads naturally to one of the most vexed questions in the field of monastic history, the extent to which the nunneries acted as girls’ schools. There is no doubt that every nunnery was prepared to educate young girls who entered in order to take the veil; if the nunnery were fairly large thesescolae internaeprobably included several novices at a time. At Ankerwyke in 1441 three young nuns complained that they had no governess to instruct them in “reading, song and religious observance,” and mention is made of three other sisters “of tender age and slender discretion, seeing that the eldest of them is not more than thirteen years of age”; the Bishop appointed a nun to be their teacher, “enjoining her to perform the charge laid upon her and to instruct them in good manners”[874]. Similarly at Thetford, wherethere were three novices in 1526, the Bishop found “non habent eruditricem”[875]. At the larger houses, such as Romsey, themagistra noviciarumwas a regular obedientiary[876].

PLATE V

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PAGE FROMLA SAINTE ABBAYE

(In the bottom left hand corner the mistress of the novices, with birch in hand, is instructing two young novices; in the bottom right hand corner the abbess and a nun are at prayer.)

The vexed question, however, does not concern these schools for novices. It has been the custom, not only of writers on monasticism but also of the man in the street, to assume that the nunneries were almost solely responsible for the education of girls in the middle ages. There was little evidence for the assumption, but it was always made, and until the combined attack made upon it in 1910 by Mr Coulton and Mr Leach it was unchallenged[877]. With the publication of bishops’ registers, however, we have something more definite to go upon and it is now possible to come to some sort of conclusion, based on the evidence of visitation injunctions, account rolls and other miscellaneous sources. This conclusion may be summarised as follows. It was a fairly general custom among the English nuns, in the two and a half centuries before the Dissolution, to receive children for education. But there are four limitations, within which and only within which, this conclusion is true.First, that by no means all nunneries took children and those which did take them seldom had large schools;secondly, that the childrenwho thus received a convent education were drawn exclusively from the upper and the wealthy middle classes, from people, that is to say, of birth and wealth;thirdly, that the practice was a purely financial expedient on the part of the nuns, at first forbidden, afterwards restricted and always frowned upon by the bishops, who regarded it as subversive of discipline; andfourthly, that the education which the children received from the nuns, so far as book-learning as distinct from nurture is concerned, was extremely exiguous. In fine, though nunneries did act as girls’ schools, they certainly did not educate more than a small proportion even of the children of the upper classes, and the education which they gave them was limited by their own limitations[878].

That the custom of receiving schoolgirls was fairly general appears from the wide area over which notices of such children are spread. The references range in date from 1282 to 1537; they give us, if a doubtful reference to King’s Mead, Derby, be accepted, the names of forty-nine convents, which at one time or other had children in residence. These convents are situated in twenty-one counties. The greater number of references naturally occur in those dioceses for which the episcopal registers are most complete; Yorkshire affords fifteen names and two which are doubtful; Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Oxfordshire, Hertfordshire and Leicestershire, counties in the large Lincoln diocese, afford seventeen between them, five from Lincolnshire and two from each of the others. These references do not prove that the houses in question had continuously throughout their career a school for girls; sometimes only one or two children are mentioned and usually the evidence concerns but a single year out of two and a half centuries. Sometimes, however, a happy chance has preserved several references to the same house, spread over a longer period, from which it is perhaps not too rash to conclude that it was the regular practice of that house to receive children. For Elstow, for instance, there is an early reference to a boy of five sent there for education by St Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, towards the close of the twelfth century. In 1359 Bishop Gynewell prohibitedall boarders there, except girls under ten and boys under six. In 1421 Bishop Flemyng prohibited all except children under twelve and in 1432 Bishop Gray altered this to girls under fourteen and boys under ten, and children are mentioned at Alnwick’s visitation in 1442. Similarly at Godstow there are references to children in 1358, 1445 and 1538, at Esholt in Yorkshire in 1315, 1318 and 1537, at Sopwell in 1446 and 1537, at Heynings in 1347, 1387 and 1393, at Burnham in 1434 and 1519.

The mention of boys in these references needs perhaps some further emphasis, for it is not usually recognised that the nunneries occasionally acted as dame-schools for very young boys. “Abstinence the abbesse myn a.b.c. me tauȝte,” says Piers Plowman, “And conscience com aftur and kennide me betere.” It is true that a Cistercian statute of 1256-7 forbade the education of boys in nunneries of that order[879], but the ordinance soon became a dead letter, and five of the convents at which Alnwick found schoolboys (c. 1445) were Cistercian houses. Boys were specifically forbidden at Wherwell in 1284, at Heynings in 1359 and at Nuncoton in 1531, which argues that they were then present, and they are mentioned at Romsey (1311), at five Yorkshire convents (1314-17), at Burnham (1434), at Lymbrook (1437), at Swaffham Bulbeck (1483) and at Redlingfield (1514), a chronologically and geographically wide range of houses. Occasionally some details as to a particular boy may be gleaned; the five year old Robert de Noyon, sent by Bishop Hugh to Elstow “to be taught his letters,” the two Tudor boys commended to Katharine de la Pole, the noble Abbess of Barking; the little son and heir of Sir John Stanley, who made his will in 1527 and then became a monk, leaving the boy to be brought up until twelve years of age by another Abbess of Barking, after which he was to pass to the care of the Abbot of Westminster; and Cromwell’s son Gregory and his little companion, sent to be supervised, though not taught by Margaret Vernon, Prioress of Little Marlow[880]. But as a rule the boys in nunneries were very young; it was not considered decorous for them to stay with the nuns later than their ninth or tenth year; the bishop forbade it andbesides, the education which the good sisters could give them would not have been considered sufficient. The rule which gives a man child to a man for education is of very old standing.

Such is the evidence for concluding that the custom of receiving children for education in nunneries was widespread. It remains to consider carefully the limitations within which this conclusion is true. In the first place, not all nunneries received children. It is obviously impossible, considering the gaps in our evidence, to attempt an exact estimate of the proportion which did so. Some sort of clue may be obtained by an analysis of the Yorkshire visitations of Archbishops Greenfield and Melton at the beginning of the fourteenth century (1306-20) and of Alnwick’s Lincoln visitations (1440-5). The Yorkshire evidence is rather scanty, being based on the summaries of injunctions, which are given in theVictoria County Histories, and any statistics must needs be approximate only. The two archbishops between them visited nineteen nunneries and mention of children is made at twelve, i.e. about two-thirds. The information given by the invaluable Alnwick is more exact. From thedetectaof some of the nuns and from the number of prohibitions of this practice, it is obvious that Alnwick was accustomed to ask at his visitations whether children were sleeping in the nuns’ dorter; he also made careful inquiry as to the boarders. The probability, therefore, is that we have in his register an exact record of those houses in which children were received. Analysis shows that of the twenty houses which he visited he found children, often boys as well as girls, at twelve, i.e. a little over two-thirds, which is substantially the same result as was given by the Yorkshire analysis a century earlier. The estimate is interesting, but it cannot be considered conclusive without the corroborative evidence from other dioceses, which is unfortunately lacking. It is a hint, a straw, which shows which way the wind of research is blowing, for if it is unsafe to argue from silence that the nuns of other convents did take pupils, it is equally unsafe to argue that they did not.

The fact is, however, clearly established that all nunneries did not take children; possibly about two-thirds of them did. The further fact has then to be recognised that even those nunneries had not necessarily what we should regard as a schoolfor girls. Not only does it sometimes seem as though children were taken occasionally and intermittently, rather than regularly, but the numbers taken were rarely great. Sometimes we do hear of a house with a large number of pupils. At St Mary’s Winchester in 1536 there were as many as twenty-six children, to twenty-six nuns; and at Polesworth in 1537 Henry VIII’s commissioners state vaguely that “repayre and resort ys made to the gentlemens childern and studiounts that ther doo lif, to the nombre sometyme of xxxtiand sometyme xjtiand moo.” There were fifteen nuns in the house at the time and it is likely that the number of children given is a pardonable exaggeration by local gentlemen who were interested in preserving the nunnery; but it seems undoubted that there was a comparatively large school there. At Stixwould, again, in 1440 there were about eighteen children to an equal number of nuns. These, however, are the largest schools of which we have record. At St Michael’s Stamford in 1440 there were seven or eight children to twelve nuns, at Catesby in 1442 six or seven children to seven nuns. At Swaffham Bulbeck, where there were probably eight or nine nuns, there were nine children in 1483. These also are schools, though small schools. But at other houses there were only one or two children at a time. The accounts of the Prioress of St Helen’s Bishopsgate in 1298 mention only two children, there were only two at Littlemore in 1445 and two at Sopwell at the time of the Dissolution. It must be remembered that many nunneries were themselves very small and their inmates could not have looked after a large number of children. The examples quoted above suggest that the number of children hardly ever exceeded the number of nuns. To what conclusion are we driven when we find that a possible two-thirds of the convents of England received children and that the largest school of which we have record numbered only twenty-six children (or thirty if we take the higher and less probable figure for Polesworth), while most had far fewer? Surely to represent a majority of girls, or even a majority of girls of gentle birth, as having received their nurture in convents, would be on the evidence absurd.

The second limitation of convent education in medieval England is contained in the words “girls of gentle birth.”Tanner’s statement that “the lower rank of people, who could not pay for their learning”[881], as well as noblemen’s and gentlemen’s daughters, were educated in nunneries has not a shred of evidence to support it, though it has been repeatedad nauseamever since he wrote it. Every scrap of evidence which has come down to us goes to prove that the girls educated in nunneries were of gentle birth, daughters of great lords, or more often daughters of country gentlemen, or of those comfortable and substantial merchants and burgesses, who were usually themselves sprung from younger sons of the gentry. The implication is plain in Chaucer’s description, inThe Reves Tale, of the Miller’s wife, who was “y-comen of noble kin” and daughter of the parson of the toun, and who “was y-fostred in a nonnerye”:

Ther dorste no wight clepen hir but “dame” ...And eek, for she was somdel smoterlichShe was as digne as water in a dich;And ful of hoker and of bisemare.Her thoughte that a lady sholde hir spare,What for hir kinrede and hir nortelryeThat she had lerned in the nonnerye.

An analysis of some of the schoolgirls whose names have come down to us confirms this impression. The commissioners who visited St Mary’s, Winchester, in 1536 drew up a list of the twenty-six “chyldren of lordys, knyghttes and gentylmen brought up yn the saym monastery.” They were

Bryget Plantagenet, dowghter unto the lord vycounte Lysley (i.e. Lisle); Mary Pole, dowghter unto Sir Geffrey Pole knyght; Brygget Coppeley, dowghter unto Sir Roger Coppeley knyght; Elizabeth Phyllpot, dowghter unto Sir Peter Phyllpot, knyght; Margery Tyrell; Adrian Tyrell; Johanne Barnabe; Amy Dyngley; Elizabeth Dyngley; Jane Dyngley; Frances Dyngley; Susan Tycheborne; Elizabeth Tycheborne; Mary Justyce; Agnes Aylmer; Emma Bartue; Myldred Clerke; Anne Lacy; Isold Apulgate; Elizabeth Legh; Mary Legh; Alienor North; Johanne Sturgys; Johanne Ffyldes; Johanne Ffrances; Jane Raynysford.

The house was evidently at this time a fashionable seminary for young ladies. It must be remembered that it was a generalcustom among the English nobility and gentry to send their children away to the household of a lord, or person of good social standing, in order to learn breeding and it was not uncommon to send boys to the household of an abbot. In 1450 Thomas Bromele, Abbot of Hyde, thus entertained in his house eight “gentiles pueri,” there were many “pueri generosi” at Westacre in 1494, and Richard Whiting, the last Abbot of Glastonbury, is stated by Parsons to have had, among his 300 servants, “multos nobilium filios”[882]. It was doubtless much in the same way that the children of lords, knights and gentlemen were put in the charge of the Abbess of St Mary’s Winchester, a great lady, who had her own “gentlewoman” to attend upon her and her own private household. It is probable that the nuns taught these children, but the boys who went as wards to abbeys seem often to have taken their tutors with them, or at least to have been taught by special tutors. At Lilleshall, for instance, the commissioners found four “gentylmens sons and their scolemaster”[883]and it is significant that when little Gregory Cromwell was sent to be brought up by Margaret Vernon, Prioress of Little Marlow, he was taught by a private tutor and not by the nun.

Other references to the children received in nunneries confirms the impression that they were of gentle birth. At Polesworth, as at St Mary’s, Winchester, the commissioners specified “gentylmens childern and studiounts.” At Thetford a daughter of John Jerves,generosus, is mentioned in 1532 and two daughters of Laurens Knight,gentleman, were at Cornworthy, c. 1470. The accounts of Sopwell in 1446 mention the daughter of Lady Anne Norbery; at Littlemore in 1445 the daughter of John FitzAleyn, steward of the house, and the daughter of Ingelram Warland are boarders. Among the Carrow boarders, who may be set down as children, are the son and two daughters of Sir Roger Wellisham,the daughter of Sir Robert de Wachesam, a niece of William Bateman, Bishop of Norwich, and girls with such well-known names as Fastolf, Clere, Baret, Blickling, Shelton and Ferrers, though the last two may be adult boarders. The Gracedieu boarders nearly all bear the names of neighbouring gentry and one was the daughter of Lord Beaumont. In the course of time, as the urban middle class grew and flourished, the daughters of the well-to-dobourgeoisiewere sometimes sent to convents for their education. Thus among the Carrow boarders we find a daughter of John de Erlham, a merchant and citizen of Norwich, and Isabel Barber, daughter of Thomas Welan, barber, who afterwards, however, became a nun. It is plain from the wills which have been preserved that the wealthy Norwich burgesses were in the habit of sending their daughters as nuns to Carrow, and it is a natural supposition that they should have sent them sometimes as schoolgirls; but by birth and by wealth these city magnates were not far removed from the neighbouring gentry. The school at Swaffham Bulbeck in 1483 was less fashionable than that at Carrow and did not cater for the nobly born; it was a small house and the names of the children suggest a sound middle class establishment, perhaps the very one in which Chaucer’s Miller’s wife of Trumpington was educated, full of the sons and daughters of the burgesses of Cambridge, Richard Potecary of Cambridge, William Water, Thomas Roch, unnamed fathers “of Cambridge,” “of Chesterton,” Parker “of Walden,” and “the merchant.”

None of these examples can possibly be twisted into a case for the free, or even the cheap, education of the poor. Just as we never find low-born girls as nuns, so we never find them as schoolgirls and for the same reason; “dowerless maidens,” as Mr Leach says, “were not sought as nuns.” As will be seen hereafter, the reception of school children was essentially a financial expedient; one of the many methods by which the nuns sought to raise the wind[884]. The fees paid by these childrenare recorded here and there, in nunnery accounts; education was apparently thrown in with board, and the usual rate for board for children during the century and a half before the Dissolution seems to have been about 6d.a week, though the charge at Cornworthy c. 1470 was 10d.a week and at Littlemore in 1445 only 4d.a week[885]. Occasionally the good nuns suffered, like so many schoolmistresses since their day, from the difficulty of extracting fees. Among the debts owing to the nuns of Esholt at the Dissolution was one of 33s.from Walter Wood of Timble in the parish of Otley for his child’s board for a year and a half; and at Thetford in 1532 the poor nuns complained that “John Jerves, gentleman, has a daughter being nurtured in the priory and pays nothing.” The most melancholy case of all has been preserved to us owing to the fact that the nuns, goaded to desperation, sought help from the Chancellor. About 1470 Thomasyn Dynham, Prioress of Cornworthy, made petition to the effect that Laurens Knyghte, gentleman, had agreed with Margaret Wortham the late Prioress, that she should take his two daughters “to teche them to scole,” viz. Elizabeth, aged seven years, and “Jahne,” aged ten years, at the costs and charges of Laurens, who was to pay 20d.a week for them. So at Cornworthy they remained during the life of Margaret, to the great costs and charges and impoverishing of the said poor place, by the space of five years and more, until the money due amounted to £21. 13s.4d., “the which sum is not contented ne paid, nor noo peny thereof.” Laurense meanwhile departed this life, leaving his wife “Jahne” executrix, and Jahne, unnatural mother that she was, married again a certain John Barnehous and utterly refused to pay for her unhappy daughters. One is uncertain which to pity most, Thomasyn Dynham, a new Prioress left with this incubus on her hands, or Elizabeth and Jane Knyghte, trying hard to restrain their appetites and not to grow out of their clothes under her justly incensed regard. Jane was by now grown up and marriageable according to the standards of the time and it is tantalising not to know the end of the dilemma. A proneness to forget fees seems to have beenshared by greater folk than Mistress Knyghte, as the petition of Katherine de la Pole, Abbess of Barking, concerning Edmond and Jasper Tudor, whose “charges, costs and expenses” she had taken upon herself, will show.

Both this matter of fees and the names of schoolgirls which have survived are against any suggestion that the nuns gave schooling to poor girls. There is not the slightest evidence for anything like a day school, and the only hint for any care for village girls on the part of the nuns is contained in a letter from Cranmer, when fellow of Jesus College, to the Abbess of Godstow:

Stephen Whyte hath told me that you lately gathered round you a number of wild peasant maids and did make them a most goodly discourse on the health of their souls; and you showeth them how goodly a thing it be for them to go oftentimes to confession. I am mighty glad of your discourse[886].

But this is obviously an isolated discourse and in any case it has nothing to do with education. So far as it is possible to be certain of anything for which evidence is scanty, we may be certain that poor or lower-class girls were no more received in nunneries for education, than they were received there as nuns. No single instance has ever been brought of a lowborn nun or a lowborn schoolgirl, in any English nunnery, for the three centuries before the nunneries were dissolved.

The third limitation to which convent education was subjected is an important one; the reception of children by the nuns was never approved and always restricted by their ecclesiastical superiors. The greater number of references to schoolchildren which have come down to us are these restrictive references. The attitude of monastic visitors towards children was in essence the same as their attitude towards boarders. The nuns received both, because they were nearly always in low water financially and wished to add to their scanty finances by the familiar expedient of taking paying guests. But the bishops saw in all boarders, whether adults or schoolchildren, a hindrance to discipline; they objected to them for the same reason that theyobjected to pet dogs and silver girdles and with just as little success.

The ecclesiastical case against schoolchildren may be found delightfully set forth in the words addressed, it is true, to anchoresses, but expressing the same spirit as was afterwards shown by Eudes Rigaud, Johann Busch and other great medieval visitors towards nuns. Aelred, the great twelfth century Abbot of Rievaulx, writes thus:

Allow no boys or girls to have access to you. There are certain anchoresses, who are busied in teaching pupils and turn their chambers into a school. The mistress sits at the window, the child in the cloister. She looks at each of them; and, during their puerile actions, now is angry, now laughs, now threatens, now soothes, now spares, now kisses, now calls the weeping child to be beaten, then strokes her face, bids her hold up her head, and eagerly embracing her, calls her her child, her love[887].

Similarly the author of theAncren Riwlewarns his three anchoresses:

An anchoress must not become a schoolmistress, nor turn her anchoress-house into a school for children. Her maiden may, however, teach any little girl, concerning whom it might be doubtful whether she should learn among boys, but an anchoress ought to give her thoughts to God only[888].

The gist of the matter was that the children constituted a hindrance to claustral discipline and devotion. It is plain, however, that in this, as in so many other matters, the reformers were only “beating the air” in vain with their restrictions. Sympathy must be with the needy nuns, for even if discipline were weakened thereby, the reception of children was in itself a very harmless, not to say laudable expedient; and so the neighbouring gentry as well as the nuns considered it.

An analysis of the attitude of medieval visitors to schoolchildren shows us the usual attempt to limit what it was beyond their power to prohibit. Eudes Rigaud, the great Archbishop of Rouen, habitually removed all the girls and boys whom he found in the houses of his diocese, when he visited them during the years 1249 to 1269. But in England, at least, the nuns very soon became too strong for the bishops, who gradually adopted the policy of fixing an age limit beyond which no children mightremain in a nunnery and sometimes of requiring their own licence to be given before the boys and girls were admitted. Since the danger of secularisation could not be removed, it was at least reduced to a minimum, by ensuring that only very young boys and only girls, who had not yet attained a marriageable age, should be received. The age limit varied a little with different visitors and different houses. In the Yorkshire diocese early in the fourteenth century the age limit was twelve for girls; boys are rarely mentioned, but at Hampole in 1314 the nuns were forbidden to permit male children over five to be in the house, as the bishop finds has been the practice. Bishop Gynewell in 1359 allowed girls up to ten and boys up to six at Elstow, but forbade boys altogether at Heynings. Bishop Gray allowed girls under fourteen and boys under eight at Burnham in 1434 and Bishop Stretton in 1367 allowed boys up to seven at Fairwell. The age limit tended, it will be seen, to become higher in the course of time; Alnwick writing to Gracedieu in 1440, forbade all boarders “save childerne, males the ix and females the xiiij yere of age, whom we licencede you to hafe for your relefe”[889]; he allowed boys often at Heynings and Catesby and boys of eleven (an exceptionally high age) at Harrold.

There was a special reason, besides the general interference with discipline, for which the bishops objected to children in nunneries. It seems very often to have been the custom for the nuns to take, as it were, private pupils, each child having its own particular mistress. This custom grew as the practice of keeping separate households grew. Thus at Catesby the Prioress complained to Alnwick that sister Agnes Allesley had “six or seven young folk of both sexes, that do lie in the dorter”; at St Michael’s Stamford, he found that the Prioress had seven or eight children, at Gracedieu the cellaress had a little boy and at Elstow, where there were five households of nuns, it was said that “certain nuns” brought children into the quire. In fact, the nuns would appear to have kept for their own personal use the money paid to them for the board of their private pupils. This was a sin against the monastic rule of personal povertyand the bishops took special measures against such manifestations ofproprietas. William of Wykeham in 1387 forbids the nuns of Romsey to make wills and to have private rooms or private pupils, giving this specific reason, and at St Helen’s Bishopsgate in 1439 Dean Kentwode enjoined “that no nonne have ne receyve noo schuldrin wyth hem ... but yf that the profite of the comonys turne to the vayle of the same howse.” Similarly the number of children who might be taken by a single nun was sometimes limited; Gynewell wrote to Godstow in 1358 “that no lady of the said house is to have children, save only two or three females sojourning with them” and at Fairwell in 1367 no nun might keep with her for education more than one child.

Another habit against which bishops constantly legislated was that of having the children to sleep in the dorter with the nuns. This practice was exceedingly common, for many of the nunneries which took children were small and poor; they had possibly no other room to set aside for them, and no person who could suitably be placed in charge of them. Moreover in some cases adult boarders and servants also slept in the dorter. Alnwick was constantly having to bid his nuns “that ye suffre ne seculere persones, wymmen ne children lyg by nyghte in the dormytory,” but Atwater and Longland in the sixteenth century still have to make the same injunction. Bokyngham in 1387 ordered that a seemly place outside the cloister should be set apart for the children at Heynings; the reason was that (as Gynewell had expressly stated on visiting this house forty years before) “the convent might not be disturbed.” Indeed little attempt was made by the nuns to keep the children out of their way. They seem to have dined in the refectory, when not in the separate rooms of their mistresses, for Greenfield forbids the Prioress and Subprioress of Sinningthwaite (1315) to permit boys or girls to eat flesh meat in Advent or Sexagesima, or during Lent eggs or cheese, in the refectory, “contrary to the honesty of religion,” but at those seasons when they ought to eat such things, they were to be assigned other places in which to eat them. There are references, too, to disturbances and diversions created by the children in the quire. At Elstow in 1442 Dame Rose Waldegrave said that “certain nuns do sometimes have with them intime of mass the boys whom they teach and these do make a noise in quire during divine service”[890]. To us the picture of these merry children breaking the monotony of convent routine is an attractive one; more attractive even than the pet dogs and the Vert-Verts. But to stern ecclesiastical disciplinarians it was not so attractive, and their constant restriction, though it never succeeded in turning out the children, must have kept down the number who were admitted.

The evidence which has so far been considered shows that, though the reception of children to be boarded and taught in nunneries was fairly common, it was subjected to well marked limitations. There remains to be considered one more question the answer to which is in some sort a limitation likewise. What exactly did the nuns teach these children? We are hampered in answering this question by the difficulty of obtaining exact contemporary evidence. Most modern English writers content themselves with a glib list of accomplishments, copied without verification from book to book, and all apparently traceable in the last resort to Fuller and John Aubrey, the one writing a century, the other almost a century and a half after the nunneries had been dissolved. Fuller (whom Tanner copies) says:

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