Now this Brother Rigaud was of our order [Franciscan] and one of the most learned men in the world. He had been doctor of theology in the convent [at Paris]: being a most excellent disputator and a most gracious preacher. He wrote a work on the Sentences; he was a friend of St Louis, King of France, who indeed laboured that he might be made Archbishop of Rouen. He loved well the Order of the Friars Preachers, as also his own of the Friars Minor and did them both much good; he was foul of face but gracious in mind and works, for he was holy and devout and ended his life well; may his soul, by God’s mercy, rest in peace[1809].
Now this Brother Rigaud was of our order [Franciscan] and one of the most learned men in the world. He had been doctor of theology in the convent [at Paris]: being a most excellent disputator and a most gracious preacher. He wrote a work on the Sentences; he was a friend of St Louis, King of France, who indeed laboured that he might be made Archbishop of Rouen. He loved well the Order of the Friars Preachers, as also his own of the Friars Minor and did them both much good; he was foul of face but gracious in mind and works, for he was holy and devout and ended his life well; may his soul, by God’s mercy, rest in peace[1809].
This great scholar, with an admirable devotion to duty, renounced for ever the leisure of a man of books, and spent his life, from the moment that he became Archbishop, in a ceaseless peregrination of his diocese; and by a dispensation of providence (so the historian must think) he kept a diary. For twenty-one years (1248-1269) he moved about from parish to parish, from monastery to monastery, inquiring into the life and discipline of secular and of regular clergy alike, hearing complaints, giving injunctions, removing (though seldom) offenders, and making notes of the results of his visits, place by place and day by day, in his greatRegestrum Visitationum[1810]. His diocese was in a bad state; and his discouragement sometimes found its way into the official record of his inquisitions. The few words which betray his feelings, together with the particularity and detail with which the visits are recorded, make the register of Eudes Rigaud a very human document.
It would be beyond the scope of this book to enter into any discussion of the general picture of the medieval church which it leaves upon the mind. But it is both useful and interesting to detach those parts of it which deal with the nunneries visited and reformed (with varying success) by the Archbishop. In the first place the records of his visitations, though not as complete as those of the visitations of the Lincoln diocese by Bishop Alnwick in the early fifteenth century, or of the diocese of Norwich by Bishops Goldwell and Nykke, during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, or of the Sede Vacante visitations of the Winchester diocese by Dr Hede in 1502, are nevertheless a great deal more detailed than any series of English visitation records of an equally early date. The report of Walter Giffard’s visitation of Swine in 1267-8, which comprises both thecompertaand the injunctions based upon them, is indeed fuller than any of Rigaud’s notes, which contain onlycompertaandad interiminjunctions[1811]; but this is an isolated case. The only other thirteenth century documents at all comparable with those of Rigaud are Peckham’s injunctions to Barking (1279), Godstow (1279 and 1284), Wherwell (1284) and Romsey (? 1284), and Wickwane’s injunctions to Nunappleton (1281) and these are the final injunctions only, thecompertaupon which they were based having disappeared. There is, so far as it is possible to ascertain, no English register of the thirteenth century recording regular visitations of all the nunneries in a diocese over a period of years and the study of Rigaud’s register is therefore of unique interest. In the second place it is of special interest to English readers because of the close connection which at one time existed between the religious houses of England and Normandy. Most of the alien priories in England were cells of Norman houses and several of the nunneries visited by Rigaud had possessions in England. Stour in Dorset was a cell of St Léger de Préaux, founded by Roger de Beaumont as early as William I’s reign[1812]. Levenestre or Lyminster in Sussex was founded some time before 1178 as a cell of Almenèches probably by Roger de Montgomery Earl of Arundel, to whom the mother house owed its foundation and was apparently the only alien priory in England in which a community of nuns actually resided during the later middle ages.[1813]In 1255 Almenèches possessed twenty-five marks of annual rent in England[1814]. The great Abbaye aux Dames at Caen had two cells in England, Horstead in Norfolk (which afterwards became part of the endowment of King’s College, Cambridge, and was founded in William II’s reign[1815]) and Minchinhampton in Gloucestershire (afterwards cell of Syon)[1816]. In Rigaud’s day this house had rents to the value of £160 sterling in England[1817]and at the visitation of 1256 the Abbess did not appear, because she was absent there[1818]. French moreover was still the language of daily speech in thirteenth century England, and there was constant intercourse between the two countries. It is not unreasonable to expect that we may learn something to our purpose by a comparison of French and English nunneries.
The Register includes visitations of fourteen religious houses of women[1819]. Seven of these were visited with great regularity during the twenty-one years covered by the Register; the Priory of St Saëns fourteen times, the abbey of Bival and the priory of St Aubin each thirteen times, the abbey of Montivilliers twelve times, the abbeys of Villarceaux and St Amand of Rouen each eleven times and the priory of Bondeville ten times. Of the others the abbeys of St Léger de Préaux and St Désir de Lisieux (both in the diocese of Lisieux) and St Sauveur of Evreux each received four visits and the abbeys of St Mary of Almenèches and the Holy Trinity of Caen three. Two other houses, St Paul by Rouen (a dependent cell of Montivilliers) and Ariete (a very poor and small Benedictine house), appear to have been visited only once. For the most part these nunneries were large houses, often having lay sisters and sometimes lay brothers attached to them. The Archbishop made very careful notes of the temporal affairs of each and generally entered in his Register the number of nuns and lay sisters and often also the number of secular maidservants in the employ of each house. The largest of all was the Abbaye aux Dames or Holy Trinity at Caen, “one of the great nunneries of Christendom”; in Rigaud’s time its numbers ranged between sixty-fiveand eighty. St Sauveur of Evreux and Montivilliers both contained at least sixty nuns and the other houses were all comparatively large, with the exception of St Saëns, Villarceaux, St Aubin and Ariete. Even these, however, were large compared with some of the small nunneries in England.
The financial condition of many of these houses was very bad, and there is evidence both of the poverty and of the bad management which seem to have been characteristic of nunneries everywhere. The care with which Rigaud entered into his diary, at almost every visitation, the debts owed by a house and the condition of its stores, makes it possible to follow with some ease the financial progress of the nunneries from year to year. Some houses were evidently in a flourishing condition; the abbey at Caen was very rich and never in difficulties (its debts were suddenly assessed at the huge sum of £1700 in 1267 but at the previous visitations it had been stated that more was owed to the nuns than they owed). Montivilliers was also well managed and in a good condition; here again the debts due to it were larger than those which it owed, and on several occasions the Archbishop found a good round sum in the treasury, a plentiful supply of stores and some valuable plate, which the nuns had been rich enough to purchase recently. Similarly St Désir de Lisieux and St Léger de Préaux, though debts are mentioned, were evidently living well within their respective incomes of £500 and £700 (in rents). But the other houses display a lamentable list of debts growing heavier and heavier. In spite of St Amand’s income of £1000 to £1200, its debts rose from £200 in 1248 to £900 in 1269. Almenèches, with an income of a little over £500, had debts to the amount of £500 in 1260. Bondeville obviously had a quite insufficient income (it was given as £93 in 1257); on three occasions its debts reached the sum of £140 and on two other occasions they were £200 and £250. St Saëns, St Aubin, Bival and Villarceaux (it is significant that these are the houses whose moral record was bad) were always in difficulties. Bival went steadily from bad to worse; its debts rose from £40 in 1251 to £60 in 1268 and in 1269 they had exactly doubled themselves (£120) since the previous visitation. The debts of St Saëns rose from £60 in 1250 to £100 in 1269; and in 1260 they stood at £350. At Villarceaux (the income of which was placed at £100 in 1249) the debts ranged between £30 in 1251 and £100 in 1264 and 1265. At St Aubin the actual sums of money owed by the nuns were small, ranging between £5 and £40 (except in 1257 when their debts were assessed at £1000, which is probably a mistake), but the house was evidently in grave financial straits. When even a wealthy house such as St Sauveur of Evreux could not keep out of debt (the amount owed by it varied from £200 to £600), one cannot wonder that smaller and poorer houses were deeply involved. Occasionally the diary throws some light on special causes of impoverishment; thus the nuns of St Amand were in debt to the large sum of £400 in 1254 and the reason given was “on account of a conduit (aqueductum), which theyhad to make again, because it was needed”[1820]; St Sauveur of Evreux was burdened with the payment of about £40 in pensions[1821]; and in 1263 the nuns of St Aubin complained that they owed some £20 “for a certain ferm (or payment) by which they held themselves to be greatly burdened”[1822].
Other evidence besides that of debts is not wanting to show that some of the houses were in great financial straits. The Archbishop constantly gave poverty as a reason for limiting the number of nuns, e.g. at St Aubin, Bival and Villarceaux[1823]. At Almenèches poverty was given as a reason for the imperfect observance of the rule[1824]. At St Saëns (1262) and at Villarceaux (1264) the roofs of the monastic buildings were in need of repair[1825]; in the latter year the roofs of the buildings at St Aubin weremale coopertealso and that of the nave of the church was so bad that the nuns could hardly stay there in rainy weather[1826]. Bondeville was so badly in need of repairs in 1257 that it was said that £80 would not suffice for the work[1827]. Sometimes the devices by which the nuns strove to gain a little ready money are noted down in Rigaud’s diary. At Villarceaux in 1254 a book of homilies and some silken copes were in pledge to the Prior of Serqueu[1828]; at Bival in 1269 the old abbess had pledged a chalice which the new abbess was ordered to redeem[1829]; and at Bondeville in 1257 the nuns had pawned two chalices “for their needs”[1830]. When they tried to borrow money outright matters were even worse; at Villarceaux in 1266, Rigaud notes, “they owed £100, of which £20 was owed to the Jews and Caursini (Catturcensibus) of Mantes at usury”[1831]. Sometimes they were reduced to selling part of their property, as at St Saëns, where they sold a wood at Esquequeville[1832], and at Bondeville, where they parted with land to the value of £300[1833]. But they were apparently bad women of business, for at the latter house in 1257 the Archbishop complained that they had pledged a certain tithe for £75 for three years, whereas its real value was £40 per annum[1834]; and in 1256 it transpired that the nuns of Bival had given up the manor of Pierremains (without Rigaud’s consent) to a certain Master William of the Fishponds (de Vivariis) for £50, while it was really worth £140[1835]. Perhaps the difficulty found by so many of the houses in collecting the debts due to them may be set down in part to the incompetence of the nuns. At St Amand, for instance, in 1262, as much as £377 7s.seems to have been owing to the nuns at a time when they themselves were £142 in debt, and at the next two visitations complaint was made of debts (described in 1264 as “bad” debts,debitis male solubilibus) owing to them[1836]. Other nunneries were from time to time owed largesums of money, religiously recorded by Rigaud in his diary. The case of St Saëns illustrates this difficulty particularly well; in 1261 the nuns had sold part of their wood at Esquequeville for £350 and had received £240 of the total sum owing to them; the next year the £110 left owing had swelled with interest to £160; in 1264 £40 was said to be owing on the same sale and £55 on a sale of fallen trees and wood (de caablo); but in 1267 the Archbishop noted, “A great sum of money is to come to them from the sale of woods,” and in 1269 the amount still owing on the sale had risen with interest to £100, while £80 was owing to the nuns from another source[1837].
Another instance of the incompetence of the nuns was their laxity in the matter of keeping accounts, in which the Rouen nuns were in no way exceptional. At Caen, in 1250 Rigaud wrote:
They do not know how much they have in rents and they say that more is owed to them than they owe, neither do they know the state of the monastery; but the Abbess accounts in her chamber before several nuns annually elected for this purpose, and the account is announced in the chapter before them all; and they said that this was quite sufficient for them.
They do not know how much they have in rents and they say that more is owed to them than they owe, neither do they know the state of the monastery; but the Abbess accounts in her chamber before several nuns annually elected for this purpose, and the account is announced in the chapter before them all; and they said that this was quite sufficient for them.
The Archbishop appears to have obtained a statement of their rents by some means and he contented himself with confirming the arrangement that the Abbess should account annually to certain nuns electedad hoc[1838]. Certainly when the head of the house was competent there was no need for the convent to know the details of administration; but sometimes even the head was unable to inform Rigaud of those details. At Villarceaux in 1258 he wrote: “They did not know how much they owed and they were somewhat ignorant of the state of the house”[1839]; and in the following year the Prioress of St Saëns was found to be an incompetent administrator and was ordered to draw up an account, which two neighbouring priors were deputed to hear[1840]. At St Amand in 1262 the Abbess had not prepared a proper account, so that the Archbishop was unable to get full information as to the state of the house; he noted however that the nuns believed that more was owing to them than they owed, and he ordered the Abbess to inspect her papers and to certify him concerning the state of the house[1841]. On several other occasions he ordered her to account more often (on one of these it had transpired that she had not done so for three years) before the elder nuns, and to call in the Prioress, Subprioress or one of thesemaioresto help her[1842]. At Villarceaux in 1253 the Prioress did not account and in 1254 a coadjutress was appointed to assist her[1843]. Sometimes Rigaud ordered the income of a house to be written down in rolls, or in books[1844]. Sometimes he providedfor the more frequent rendering of accounts; twice or thrice yearly was the usual injunction, sometimes simply “more often,” the minimum being once a year[1845]; occasionally a small account of current expenses was to be read monthly[1846]. Sometimes he ordered the accounts to be read before certain nuns electedad hoc(with the addition of the priest at Villarceaux in 1249), the elder nuns being often specified[1847]. At the same time, although nothing was to be done without the knowledge and consent of the convent, the nuns were not to interfere unduly in the management of temporal affairs, for the prioress of Bondeville was sentenced to receive one discipline before the assembled chapter, as a punishment for giving up the common seal to them, without the Archbishop’s knowledge, “because of their clamour”[1848]. Nuns were notoriously bad financiers, but even where a malecustoshad charge of their business the arrangement was not invariably satisfactory; and at Bondeville in 1261 Rigaud noted, “We removed Melchior the priest, who had managed the business of the convent for some time, for the reason that the convent had not full confidence in him and that he was odious to them.” The house was heavily in debt, so that the mistrust of the nuns, if not their dislike, was clearly justified, and the Archbishop evidently decided not to replace Melchior by another man, for he ordered the Abbess to make one of the nuns treasuress to look after the expenditure of the house, receiving the income and administering it[1849].
Another matter about which Rigaud inquired and entered particulars in his diary was the amount of provisions in the granaries and storehouses of the nuns. Had they enough corn and oats to last till the next harvest? Had they a good supply of wine and cider to drink? The number of cases in which it is noted that the nuns had “pauca estauramenta,” or not enough to last till the new year, points to a mixture of poverty and of bad management[1850]. The nuns of Bival in 1263 had few stores and no corn for sowing[1851]; those of St Saëns in 1250 had no wine or cider to drink nor corn to last till Whitsuntide[1852]; at St Aubin in 1259 the Archbishop noted comprehensively that they had no stores[1853]. Oats seem to have run short in a number of cases[1854], and sometimes wine[1855].
But occasionally Rigaud’s diary contains even fuller information about the temporal affairs of a nunnery. It was his regular practice at Villarceaux (why at Villarceaux only it is impossible to say) to enumerate the live stock possessed by that impecunious house, horses, mares, foals, bullocks, cows, calves, sheep and pigs. And on two occasions the happy accident of a Prioress’ resignation (always anoccasion for the presentation of an account) has left us with complete inventories of the possessions and expenses of two houses, St Saëns in 1257 and Bondeville in the same year. The inventory of St Saëns runs as follows:
They owe £212. The king gave them Esquequeville with its appurtenances, which is worth £230 and 4 carucates of land worth £40, and thus they have in all rents to the value of £290 (sic). To the house of nuns of St Saëns there belong 245 acres of land in all and 7 acres of meadow, of which 115 acres in all are sown with wheat (frumento), corn (blado, probably rye), barley and other vegetables (leguminibus). They have in money rents £170. 2s.8d.; in corn rents 8modii; in rents of oats 66minae[1856]; in rents of capons 220; item in egg rents 1100 eggs[1857]; item they have in money rents, paid with the capons and the eggs, 27s.6d.Item they have a mill at Esquequeville and a wood of which they do not know the size[1858]and the priest of the same place takes a tithe in the said mill. Item they have rights of pannage and stubble and multure (i.e. payment by their tenants for grinding at their mill) of which they know not the value. Item they have a mill at St Saëns of small value. Item they have 57 sheep, item 12 plough horses and one waggon (quadrigam); item they have 18 beasts, as well cows as oxen. Item they have only 2modiiof corn for their food until harvest. They have nothing to drink. There is owing to them £26. 5s.2d.The debts which they owe amount in all to £234. 3s.3d.[1859]
They owe £212. The king gave them Esquequeville with its appurtenances, which is worth £230 and 4 carucates of land worth £40, and thus they have in all rents to the value of £290 (sic). To the house of nuns of St Saëns there belong 245 acres of land in all and 7 acres of meadow, of which 115 acres in all are sown with wheat (frumento), corn (blado, probably rye), barley and other vegetables (leguminibus). They have in money rents £170. 2s.8d.; in corn rents 8modii; in rents of oats 66minae[1856]; in rents of capons 220; item in egg rents 1100 eggs[1857]; item they have in money rents, paid with the capons and the eggs, 27s.6d.Item they have a mill at Esquequeville and a wood of which they do not know the size[1858]and the priest of the same place takes a tithe in the said mill. Item they have rights of pannage and stubble and multure (i.e. payment by their tenants for grinding at their mill) of which they know not the value. Item they have a mill at St Saëns of small value. Item they have 57 sheep, item 12 plough horses and one waggon (quadrigam); item they have 18 beasts, as well cows as oxen. Item they have only 2modiiof corn for their food until harvest. They have nothing to drink. There is owing to them £26. 5s.2d.The debts which they owe amount in all to £234. 3s.3d.[1859]
The inventory of Bondeville for the same year is equally interesting:
These are the goods and rents of the house of Bondeville: £93tournois; of common corn 30modii; in the grange of Heaus they believe that they have 7modiiof common corn; in the abbey grange about onemodiumof barley; in the other granges nothing. In the abbey there are 2 waggons (quadrige), with 6 horses and one riding horse, 6 cows and 14 calves. They have in the granges 264 sheep; item in the grange of Heaus 27 cows; item 30 little pigs; item three ploughs (aratra) in all, each for three beasts; item 4 little foals. These are the debts of the house, concerning which account has been rendered to the convent: £220 in money and 2modiiof barley; [wages] to the household for the harvesting. Item they had no oats save for sowing time. They expend each month at least 68minaeof corn; item they have in the cellar 6 barrels of wine and 2 of cider; item they do not think that the buildings can be repaired [at a less cost than] for £80tournois; item after Easter they will be obliged to buy all the other foodstuffs for the house, save bread, peas and vegetables[1860].
These are the goods and rents of the house of Bondeville: £93tournois; of common corn 30modii; in the grange of Heaus they believe that they have 7modiiof common corn; in the abbey grange about onemodiumof barley; in the other granges nothing. In the abbey there are 2 waggons (quadrige), with 6 horses and one riding horse, 6 cows and 14 calves. They have in the granges 264 sheep; item in the grange of Heaus 27 cows; item 30 little pigs; item three ploughs (aratra) in all, each for three beasts; item 4 little foals. These are the debts of the house, concerning which account has been rendered to the convent: £220 in money and 2modiiof barley; [wages] to the household for the harvesting. Item they had no oats save for sowing time. They expend each month at least 68minaeof corn; item they have in the cellar 6 barrels of wine and 2 of cider; item they do not think that the buildings can be repaired [at a less cost than] for £80tournois; item after Easter they will be obliged to buy all the other foodstuffs for the house, save bread, peas and vegetables[1860].
Mention is sometimes made in Rigaud’s register of dependent cells attached to some of the houses. St Paul by Rouen was thus attached to Montivilliers, Bourg-de-Saane to St Amand and Ste Austreberte to St Saëns. These cells were doubtless used partly as centres of administration for the more distant estates of the convent, partly as placesof recreation or convalescence, where sick nuns could be sent for a change. For instance there were six nuns of Montivilliers at St Paul by Rouen in 1263 and it was noted that there ought to be four, but that two others were there because of illness; the nuns had a lay boarder staying with them and two servants; their income—as assessed for the tithe—was £140 and their debts amounted to £40; they complained that the king’s foresters oppressed them by frequently dining at their expense and by unjustly molesting their servants in the forest, although they had usage (i.e. rights of hunting, gathering wood, etc.) there; the Archbishop had no fault to find with them except that they did not sing the servicecum nota, because there were so few of them, and that they had only a single mass, the parochial mass, daily[1861]. It is evident that a close connection was supposed to be kept up between the mother house and the cell, for in 1260 the Abbess of Montivilliers had been ordered to visit them diligently[1862]; and in 1258 Rigaud noted, “Alice prioress of Saint Paul by Rouen was presented to us by the prioress of Montivilliers, she having been elected by the convent of the said place”[1863]. At his first visitation of St Amand in 1248 the Archbishop found that they had a single priory at Saane, where there are four nuns[1864]. In 1261 he ordered the Abbess to visit these nuns at Saane more often than had been her custom and at subsequent visitations he noted the number of nuns (varying from four to five) in residence there[1865]. Ste Austreberte, the daughter cell of St Saëns, was hardly more than a grange with a chapel attached. In 1254 Rigaud found that one nun was living there alone and ordered that another should be sent to join her; in 1257 there was still a single inmate, but in 1258 and 1259 the number had been raised to two[1866]. In 1260 the Archbishop decided to recall the inmates to St Saëns:
Because truly the place of St Austrebert is very slenderly endowed with rents, so that these two nuns cannot live there conveniently and decently, we ordered the prioress to call them back and forbade her henceforth to send any more thither, on account of the danger[1867].
Because truly the place of St Austrebert is very slenderly endowed with rents, so that these two nuns cannot live there conveniently and decently, we ordered the prioress to call them back and forbade her henceforth to send any more thither, on account of the danger[1867].
But now complications arose. Evidently the dependent house had been used for the purpose of getting rid of a quarrelsome nun, for in 1261 Rigaud found that the Prioress had not obeyed his order to recall the two nuns, “because, as she says, Marie d’Eu (de Augo) one of these two, was a scold and she feared lest she should upset the whole convent if she returned”[1868]. The order was repeated and was apparently obeyed as far as the ill-tempered Marie was concerned (although there were still two nuns at Ste Austreberte in 1264[1869]), for in 1265 the Archbishop found the whole convent “living in discord and in disorder, especially the prioress and Marie d’Eu”[1870]; he would perhaps have done better to leave her where she was. An echo of herrégimeatSte Austreberte was heard in 1265, when Marie d’Eu was ordered to return the chalice of the chapel of Ste Austreberte as quickly as possible and to restore to the Prioress any charter or letters concerning the manor of Ste Austreberte, which she had received from the convent. At the same time the Prioress was ordered to provide the chapel there with a suitable server (servitore)[1871]. Mention of visits to the granges or farms of the convents sometimes occurs. At Bondeville in 1251 it was found that “the sisters drank in the granges”[1872]and in 1255 that a lay sister and a lay brother were living alone in a grange (perhaps in the grange of Heaus, mentioned in the inventory), whereupon the Archbishop ordered the sister to be withdrawn or else given a companion[1873]. In 1268 the Abbess of Bival was ordered to remove “a certain child,” whom she was having brought up in the grange of Pierremans (which had been so improvidently let to William of the Fishponds twelve years before) and a penance was imposed upon her in 1269 because she had not obeyed the injunction[1874].
So far only the temporal affairs of these Rouen nunneries have been considered; there remains the more important question of their social, moral and spiritual condition. A clearer idea will be formed of the results of Eudes Rigaud’s investigations, if the chief sources of complaint be classified under the following heads:
(1) Complaints of incompetence and irregular behaviour against the head of a house,(2) General laxity in keeping the rule,(3) The sin of property and the failure to live a communal life,(4) Various attempts to make money by illicit means,(5) Leave of absence and intercourse with seculars, both within and without the cloister precincts,(6) Frivolous clothes and amusements, and(7) Serious moral faults, such as drunkenness, quarrelsomeness and incontinence.
(1) Complaints of incompetence and irregular behaviour against the head of a house,
(2) General laxity in keeping the rule,
(3) The sin of property and the failure to live a communal life,
(4) Various attempts to make money by illicit means,
(5) Leave of absence and intercourse with seculars, both within and without the cloister precincts,
(6) Frivolous clothes and amusements, and
(7) Serious moral faults, such as drunkenness, quarrelsomeness and incontinence.
(1) Complaints of incompetence, laxity, self-indulgence or favouritism against the head of a house are common in visitation records. The charge of failure to render accounts has already been dealt with, but hardly less usual was the charge of failure to live a communal life. The abbess or prioress of a house had separate apartments and it was always a temptation to dine or to sleep alone, instead of keeping the frater and the dorter. Again the charges of favouritism on the one hand and of undue harshness on the other were very common. Rigaud’s register provides examples of all these faults. At two visitations (1254 and 1257) the Archbishop remarked that the Abbess of St Léger de Préaux did not live a communal life in dorter and frater nor attend the chapter[1875]; the same charge was made against the Prioress of Villarceaux in 1253 and it was mentioned that she did not often get up to matins nor daily hear mass[1876]; and the Abbessof St Amand did not keep the frater, but ate in her own room and always had the same companions there, instead of calling the others for recreation[1877]. Not all prioresses were, like Chaucer’s, “ful plesaunt and amiable of port.” The Abbess of Montivilliers seems to have been a forbidding lady; in 1260 the Archbishop ordered her to minister pilches, cloth and other necessary things more carefully than had been her custom to the nuns, not forgetting their ginger “hot i’ the mouth”[1878], and also to bear herself more courteously and affably towards their friends particularly in the matter of their admission (on visits); at the same time she was warned to be present in chapel more often and to live the communal life better[1879]. This warning apparently bore no fruit and in 1262 the Archbishop noted, “because she was slow to administer new pilches, headdresses and cloth and other things to the nuns for their needs, we ordered her to labour to minister better and more fitly to them in this matter and to be careful about it”; it was also remarked that she frequented the convent but little and was seldom present at chapter and frater; and she was ordered to render a general account once a year and to hear and receive the particular accounts of the obedientiaries. The next year her failure to frequent chapter, dorter and choir was again noted and some of the nuns still complained of her harshness, whereupon the Archbishop (apparently despairing of inducing her to look after them properly herself), ordered her to depute two or three nuns, “with whom the others could talk more familiarly and more boldly, to minister to their sisters small things for their needs, ginger and other things of the kind”; the quality of the wine was also to be improved. The difficulties, however, continued. In 1265 the Abbess was ordered to provide the nuns more carefully with pilches and in the following year she was again ordered
“prudently to cause the pilches and robes of the nuns to be repaired, so that she may provide them with such things more fitly than she is used and have more workpeople than she has been accustomed to do. For in this,” adds the Archbishop, “we found a deficiency”[1879].
“prudently to cause the pilches and robes of the nuns to be repaired, so that she may provide them with such things more fitly than she is used and have more workpeople than she has been accustomed to do. For in this,” adds the Archbishop, “we found a deficiency”[1879].
Rigaud had a great deal of difficulty with the Prioress of Bondeville. In 1251 there were many complaints against her; she exercised favouritism in the distribution of clothes and in the provision of food in the infirmary and she did not look after the sick; when in the infirmary she ate at a table by herself and she did not live a communal life; she wandered about a great deal outside the convent, even without the excuse of convent business, and when she went to Rouen she stayed there for three or four days; moreover she wasquarrelsome and stirred up discord in the house “so that she could not have peace with the convent nor with anyone.” The next year she resigned, probably as a result of these complaints and of the financial condition of the house, but in 1255 the register has an entry: “We found the Prioress quarrelsome and sharp of tongue, not knowing how to make corrections and also speaking ill of her sisters; we warned her to desist from these things”; so that her resignation had evidently not been accepted. In 1257 she made another attempt at resignation, and the occasion is interesting because it provides us not only with an inventory of Bondeville, but also with the sole complete list of inmates preserved among the Rouen nunneries[1880]. The Archbishop decided to take an inquisition in the convent as to whether the Prioress should or should not be removed; and the votes of the twenty-six nuns and three brothers of the house were taken upon oath. Of these nineteen were in favour of her removal and nine of her retention, while Brother Roger permitted himself to express the ambiguous opinion that “it would be evil for temporal affairs and good for spiritual affairs to remove the prioress” (quod dampnum esset temporale et utilitas spiritualis removere priorissam!)[1881]. It is not clear from the Register whether she was removed; Rigaud notes: “Item we received the resignation of Marie, late the prioress,” but in 1261 there occurs a further entry: “Item the Prioress offered us her seal, begging us to absolve her from her office, but we, being unwilling to condescend to her in this matter, ordered her to exercise her office with greater zeal.” In particular she was ordered “to frequent the convent at least by day (viz. chapter, frater and choir) better than she was wont and not to stand about talking in the cemetery or outside the house after Compline, as she had been in the habit of doing”[1882]. At Bival an abbess resigned in 1248, doubtless owing to the unsatisfactory moral conditions revealed at the visitation[1883]; there were no complaints against her successor until 1268 (though two cases of immorality occurred in the convent before that date); then, among minor injunctions concerning matters of administration, she was ordered to bear herself more kindly and courteously towards the nuns[1884].
(2) Besides injunctions dealing specially with the behaviour of the head of a house, the Archbishop was obliged to deal with breaches of the rule by the convent generally. Many of his regulations were concerned with the strictly religious duties of the nuns. Sometimes the church services were not being properly performed, as at St Amand, St Aubin, Villarceaux, St Saëns and Montivilliers. The most common defect was failure to sing these services with music (cumnotaorad notam)[1885]; at St Saëns (a constant offender—Rigaud notes the fault at eight visitations) the nuns did not do so even on Sundays[1886]. Occasionally a specific excuse was given; the nuns of Villarceaux omitted the music on the days upon which they received the periodical bleeding considered necessary to the health of those who embraced the monastic life[1887]; at St Aubin in 1264 they complained that many of them were often ill[1888]and at St Saëns also (in 1257) they dwelt upon their infirmities[1889]. At St Paul’s by Rouen they were too few in number to perform the service properly[1890]. The Archbishop contented himself at St Aubin (1251) with the injunction that they should sing at least in monotone—saltem cum bassa nota[1891]. Moreover even when the nuns did sing the services they occasionally did so carelessly. At St Amand the Archbishop made a significant injunction:
They sometimes sing the hours of the Blessed Virgin and the psalms of suffrage with too great haste and precipitation of words. We ordered them to sing in such a way that the side [of the choir] singing the first half of the verse should hear the end of the preceding verse and the side singing the second half should hear the beginning of the next verse[1892].
They sometimes sing the hours of the Blessed Virgin and the psalms of suffrage with too great haste and precipitation of words. We ordered them to sing in such a way that the side [of the choir] singing the first half of the verse should hear the end of the preceding verse and the side singing the second half should hear the beginning of the next verse[1892].
Evidently both sides of the choir came in too soon in their anxiety to hurry through the service—a clear case for Tuttivillus. At Montivilliers the fault lay in beginning too late and Rigaud ordered that better provision should be made for ringing a bell at the due hours, so that the service might be said without haste and finished while it was light (de luce)[1893]. At Villarceaux he ordered that all the nuns should at once assemble in the church when the bell rang, unless they were ill or had special leave of absence[1894]. Even at the great abbey of Caen the service was being said “confuse et male, one part in the choir and one outside”[1895]. At St Amand (1263), which evidently contained young and obstreperous—or perhaps only ignorant—members, it was ordered that the nuns should be equally divided in the choir, so that all the young ones might not be together[1896]. At St Saëns (1254) a nun served the mass with the priest; and at Bondeville (1263) the nuns had not the necessary priests and did not hear enough sermons[1897]. St Aubin apparently shared the parish priest; there were only fifteen parishioners (most of them doubtless dependents of the nunnery) and the priest dwelt with the nuns and was maintained at their expense; in 1257 the Archbishop ordered them to find a clerk to assist him[1898]. The nuns of St Paul’s heard only one mass—that of the parish—daily[1899]. Sometimes deficiencies in the services may have been due to lack of books. At St Sauveur d’Evreux, in 1258, it was found that the nuns did not possess adequate books and they were ordered to procure some[1900]; at Villarceaux in 1257 they lacked two antiphonariesand in 1261 it was again noted that their books were insufficient and worn out[1901]. At Montivilliers the Archbishop in 1260 ordered the chantress to have an ordinal of the hours made at the Abbess’ cost; this had not yet been done in 1262 and from Rigaud’s injunction on this occasion it appears that the nuns were expected to write the book themselves, for the ordinal was “to be made by the chantress and by the more discreet nuns, i.e. by the older ones who knew and understood better the service of the order.” At the same house reference was made three years later to a certain glossed psalter which had been bequeathed to it by a benefactor, and had been alienated without the knowledge of the convent; the Abbess was told to have it restored without delay and replied “that she could do so easily enough, because Master William de Beaumont had it”[1902].
Another common fault was negligence in the matter of confession and communion. Sometimes a house had a fixed rule as to the number of times the nuns had to confess and communicate. At Bival, for example, the nuns seem to have attended communion seven times a year, though they confessed more often[1903]. At Villarceaux they confessed and communicated six times a year[1904]. At St Aubin the Archbishop noted that they were bound to confess and to communicate seven times a year, but that they had sometimes been negligent in the matter; they gave an inadequate excuse, and Rigaud ordered them on no account to be absent from communion and warned the Prioress to consider any such absence without due cause as a serious fault[1905]. At St Léger de Préaux in 1249 he found that the nuns confessed and communicated only four times a year and ordered them to do so monthly[1906]. At Montivilliers[1907]and at Bondeville[1908]they were supposed to confess and to communicate monthly, but at the latter house he found them negligent in 1261, and ordered that the nun who did not communicate with the others or within the next two or three days was to be punished by abstention from wine and pottage for three days[1909]. The Archbishop’s usual custom was to order monthly confession and communion[1910]. Sometimes there seems to have been some difficulty about getting a confessor; at Almenèches (where,in 1250, the nuns had no rule or term for confession or communion[1911]) it was found in 1260 that they were in the habit of confessing to passing friars when they wished to do so, and Rigaud ordered the Bishop to provide them with regular confessors, friars minor or others[1912]. At St Saëns in 1261 they had not had a confessor for a long time and were ordered to procure the Prior of Crissy[1913], but in 1265 the Archbishop still found that they did not go to confession as well as they should[1914]. At Ariete the nuns did not all confess to their own priest[1915].
Other minor faults were late rising[1916], breach of silence[1917]and laxity in causing novices to make their profession[1918]. At Villarceaux in 1249 only four out of the twenty-three nuns had been properly professed[1919]. The Archbishop ordered the vows to be taken when the novices reached the age of fourteen years[1920]; this was not to be done before[1921]and if any refused to do so at the appointed age they were to be sent back to the world[1922]; he also ordered in several cases that only the three vows of poverty, chastity and obedience should be taken[1923].
Another set of injunctions is concerned with the conduct of the frater, the infirmary and the chapter house. The Archbishop dealt with the observances of the frater from the point of view of the communal life, from that of the food eaten by the nuns and from that of almsgiving. The growing practice among the nuns of dining separately in their rooms or in little cliques, instead of keeping the frater, was a menace to a strictly communal life, and as such will be considered later, with other practices which tended in the same direction. Here it may be noted that already in the thirteenth century the regulations of the monastic rule as to diet were being contravened. Many convents were convicted of eating meat unnecessarily,etiam sane, “even when in good health”[1924], and it was becoming the custom—in Rigaud’s diocese as elsewhere—to use the infirmary as amisericord, in which meat was eaten on certain days of the week, generally thrice a week[1925]. Sometimes even fast days were not regularly kept[1926]. Another breach of the rule frequently encountered by the Archbishop was inadequate almsgiving. The nuns were supposed to give alms regularly to the poor and in particular to give them the food which remained over from the convent meals; but in view of the poverty of some of the houses it is not surprising that the rule was sometimes unobserved. Very often the nuns, instead of collecting the fragmentsleft over in frater and infirmary, each kept what remained of her own share and sold it or gave it away to people outside the convent. St Amand was a constant offender; in 1248 the Archbishop had occasion to forbid the unequal distribution of wine to the nuns “to one more and to another less,” and he added that if any of them gave away any part of her measure of wine to anyone outside the house without licence she was to be punished by being deprived of wine the next day[1927]; in 1251 he enjoined that no nun was to put forth any of her food save in the way of alms[1928]; but some thirteen years later St Amand (doubtless on account of its poverty) was still remiss in the matter of almsgiving and Rigaud warned the nuns separately that it must not be diminished and that everything left over from meals must be given to the poor[1929]. At St Saëns it was discovered that the nuns had separate portions of bread allotted to them and that the fragments were never given in alms, because each either sold or gave away these fragments as she pleased[1930]. At Montivilliers almsgiving was diminished because the nuns gave away the remnants of the portions of bread, wine and other food to “serving maids and other acquaintances”[1931]; and at Villarceaux and Bival also it was necessary to warn the nuns not to give away or sell any of their clothes or food[1932]. The practice was the more reprehensible in the Archbishop’s eyes in that it savoured of the private ownership of property. Rigaud made general orders for the increase of almsgiving and for the more careful collection of food after meals in the frater and in the infirmary[1933]. Sometimes the custom of a house prescribed special obligations; the Abbess of Montivilliers was required to give alms thrice a week and to entertain thirteen poor men daily[1934]. Sometimes the revenues of a special manor or rent were earmarked for the expenses of almsgiving; the recalcitrant St Amand was found to have abstracted the rents of a certain manor from the almoness and was ordered to restore them to their proper purpose[1935].
Other departments of the convent of which mention is made in Rigaud’s Register are the infirmary and the chapter house. At Montivilliers the Archbishop, in 1262, ordered the infirmary to be repaired and the convent to be provided with physic[1936]; and at Bondeville, St Sauveur and St Amand he was obliged to order that sick nuns should be better looked after[1937]. There are some interesting notes about the meetings of the chapter in various houses. At several (Bondeville, St Saëns and Villarceaux) the Archbishop found that the chapter was seldom held[1938]. At others the duty incumbent upon the nuns to accuse or proclaim (clamare) each other’s faults was imperfectly performed. There was a most natural reluctance on the part of the elder nuns toallow the indiscriminate criticism of their juniors and a tendency to keep the latter in their place by allowing them only to be accused and never to retaliate. At Caen (1250) the Archbishop found that none made the statutory accusations save certain nuns who were deputed to reveal the faults of the younger ones[1939]and at St Amand also only the elder nuns made accusations, and he ordered that all without exception should reveal what they saw amiss[1940]. At Montivilliers the same complaint that the nuns refrained from accusing each other was made[1941]. From one point of view this imperfect performance of their duty in chapter meant that the nuns were winking at each other’s peccadilloes, and it was for the sake of discipline that the Archbishop insisted upon a more strict obedience to the rule. From another point of view the obligation certainly gave rise to much ill-feeling; the author of theAncren Riwleplaced “Exposing faults” and “Backbiting” among the brood of seven, offspring of “the venomous serpent of hell, Envy”; for human nature would need to be very perfect if the accusations were always to be made in the spirit of sisterly admonition, “sweetly and affectionately,” which the same treatise describes so eloquently a few pages later[1942]. It is significant that the Abbess of Montivilliers had to be warned in no way to molest one of her nuns, nor to conceive rancour against her on account of anything that she said in chapter[1943].
Finally the Archbishop sometimes found fault with the management of the secular servants and of the lay brothers and sisters attached to different houses. It was his custom to note the number of maidservants (ancille,pedissece) employed and to reprove the nuns if he thought that they were employing too many, or falling into the sin of property by keeping certain maids in the service of individual nuns, as they did at Almenèches in 1255[1944], at St Léger de Préaux in 1267[1945]and at St Sauveur in 1269; at the last house he noted: