Chapter 4

My lord cardinal hath had the Nuns before him, and examined them, Mr. Bell being present; which hath certified me, that for a truth that she hath confessed herself, (which we would have had abbesse) to have had two children by two sundry priests; and furder, since, hath been kept by a servant of the Lord Broke, that was, and that not long ago; wherefore I would not for all the gold in the world clog your conscience nor mine to make her a ruler of a house, which is of so ungudly demeanor, nor I trust you would not that neither for brother nor sister I should so destain mine honor or conscience. And as touching the prioress [Isabel Jordan] or Dame Eleanor’s eldest sister, though there is not any evident case proved against them, and that the prioress is so old that of many years she could not be as she was named [ill-famed]: yet notwithstanding to do you pleasure I have done that neither of them shall have it, but that some other good and well disposed woman shall have it, whereby the house shall be the better reformed (whereof I ensure you it had much need) and God much the better served[169].

Wolsey, however, gave the appointment to Isabel Jordan, who in spite of her having been the subject of some scandal in her youth, was favoured by the greater part of the convent as being “ancient, wise and discreet”; whereupon he brought down upon himself a severe rebuke from Henry, who had “both reported and promised to divers friends of Dame Elinor Carey that the Prioress should not have it”[170]. Without doubt pretty Mistress Anne was sulking down at Hever.

Not only did outside persons thus concern themselves in a conventual election; the nuns themselves were not always unwilling to bribe, where they desired advancement. A series of letters written by Margaret Vernon to Cromwell, concerning the office of Prioress of St Helen’s, Bishopsgate, throws a lurid light upon the methods which were sometimes employed:

“Sir,” she wrote to her powerful friend in 1529, “Pleaseth it you to understand that there is a goldsmith in this town, named Lewys, and he sheweth me that Mr. More hath made sure promise to parson Larke that the subprioress of St. Helen’s shall be prioress there afore Christmas-day. Sir, I most humbly beseech you to be so good master unto me, as to know my lord’s grace’s [the king’s] pleasure in this case and that I may have a determined answer whereto I shall trust, that I may settle myself in quietness; the which I am far from at this hour. And farthermore if it might like you to make the offer to my said lord’s grace of such a sum of money as we were at a point for, my friends thinketh that I should surely be at an end.”

Soon afterwards she wrote again:

Sir, it is so that there is divers and many of my friends that hath written to me that I should make labour for the said house unto your mastership, showing you that the King’s grace hath given it to master Harper, who saith that he is proffered for his favour two hundred marks of the King’s saddler, for his sister; which proffer I will never make unto him, nor no friend for me shall, for the coming in after that fashion is neither godly nor worshipful. And beside all this must come by my lady Orell’s favour, which is a woman I would least meddle with. And thus I shall not only be burdened in conscience for payment of this great sum, but also entangled and in great cumbrance to satisfy the avidity of this gentlewoman. And though I did, in my lord cardinal’s days, proffer a hundred pounds for the said house, I beseech you consider for what purpose it was made. Your mastership knoweth right well that there was by my enemies so many high and slanderous words, and your mastership had made so great instant labour for me, that I shamed so much the fall thereof thatI foresaw little what proffer was made; but now, I thank our Lord, that blast is ceased, and I have no such singular love unto it; for now I have two eyes to see in this matter clearly, the one is the eye of my soul, that I may come without burthen of conscience and by the right door, and, laying away all pomp and vanity of the world, looking warily upon the maintenance and supportation of the house, which I should take in charge, and cannot be performed, master Harper’s pleasure and my lady Orell’s accomplished. In consideration whereof I intend not willingly, nor no friend of mine shall not, trouble your mastership in this case.

In another letter she mentions a saying of Master Harper, that from the good report he has heard of her, he would rather admit her without a groat than others who offer money; but her conscientious scruples were not rewarded with St Helen’s, though she almost immediately obtained an appointment as prioress at Little Marlow, and on the dissolution of that house among the lesser monasteries, received and held for a brief space the great Abbey of Malling[171]. It is true that these instances of simony and of the use of influence belong to the last degenerate years of the monasteries in England. But cases hardly less serious undoubtedly occurred at an early date. The gross venality of the papalcuria[172], even in the early thirteenth century, is not a very happy omen for the behaviour of private patrons; smaller folk than the Pope could summon a wretched abbot “Amice, ut offeras”; nor was it only abbots who thus bought themselves into favour. The thirteenth century jurist Pierre Du Bois, whose enlightened plans for the better education of women included the suppression of the nunneries and the utilisation of their wealth to form schools or colleges for girls, mentioned the reception of nuns for money and rents, by means of compacts (i.e. the dowry system) and the election of abbesses and prioresses by the same illicit bargains, as among the abuses practised in nunneries[173].

Once having been installed, the head of a house held office until she died, resigned or was deprived for incompetence or for ill behaviour. Sometimes prioresses continued to hold office until a very great age, as did Matilda de Flamstead, Prioress of Sopwell, who died in 1430 aged eighty-one, having lived in the rules of religion for over sixty years[174]. But the cases (quoted below) of the prioresses of St Michael’s Stamford and of Gracedieu prove that an aged and impotent head was bad for the discipline of the house, and it appears that a prioress who was too old or in too weak health to fulfil her arduous duties, was often allowed to resign or was relieved of her office[175]. Sometimes an ex-superior continued to live a communal life as an ordinary nun, under her successor, but sometimes she was granted a special room and a special allowance of food and attendance. In some houses certain apartments were reserved for the occupation of a retired superior. Sir Thomas Willoughby, writing to Cromwell on behalf of his sister-in-law, who had resigned her office as Abbess of Malling, begs that she may

have your letter to my lady abbess of Malling (her successor), that she at your contemplation will be so good to her as to appoint her that room and lodging within the said monastery that she and other of her predecessors that hath likewise resigned hath used to have, and as she had herself a little space, or else some other meet and convenient lodging in the same house[176].

When Katherine Pilly, Prioress of Flixton, “who had laudably ruled the house for eighteen years,” resigned in 1432 because of old age and blindness, the Bishop of Norwich made special arrangements for her sustenance:

she was to have suitable rooms for herself and her maid; each week she and the maid were to be provided with two white loaves, eight loaves of “hool” bread and eight gallons of convent beer, with a daily dish for both from the kitchen, the same as for two nuns in the refectory, and with two hundred faggots and a hundred logs and eight pounds of candles a year. Cecilia Crayke, one of the nuns, was toread divine service to her daily and to sit with her at meals, having her portion from the refectory[177].

These aged ladies probably ended their days peacefully, withdrawn from the common life of the house. But sometimes a prioress resigned while still young enough to miss her erstwhile autocracy and to torment her unlucky successor. Then indeed the new head could do nothing right and feuds and factions tore the sisterhood. Such a case occurred at Nunkeeling early in the fourteenth century. Avice de la More resigned in 1316, and the Archbishop wrote to the nuns making the usual provision for her; she had “for a long period laudably and usefully superintended the house”; she was to have a chamber to herself and one of the nuns assigned to her by the Prioress as a companion; and daily she was to receive the portion of two nuns in bread, ale and victuals and her associate that of one nun; an end, one might suppose, of Avice de la More. But the Yorkshire nuns were quarrelsome ladies; and two years later the Archbishop addressed a severe letter to Avice, threatening to remove the provision made for her if she persisted in her “conspiracies, rebellions and disobedience to the prioress” and imposing a severe penance upon her. But seven penitential psalms with the litany upon Fridays, a discipline in chapter and fasting diet could not calm the temper of Avice de la More; she stirred up the nuns to rebellion and spread the tale of her grievances “to seculars and adversaries outside.” There was some family feud perhaps between her relatives and the St Quintins to whose house the unhappy Prioress belonged; at any rate “clamorousinformation” reached the Archbishop concerning the intrigues of certain of the nuns. Once more he wrote to Avice “with a bitter heart.” She had broken her vow of obedience in arrogancy and elation of heart towards her prioress, “who was placed in charge of her soul and body and without whom she had no free will”; let her desist at once and study to live according to the rule; and a commission was sent to inquire into the misdeeds of the rebellious nuns of Keeling. But alas, the finding of that commission has long since powdered into dust and we hear no further news of Avice de la More[178].

The head of a house was an important person and enjoyed a considerable amount of freedom, in relation both to her convent and to the outside world. In relation to her convent her position laid her open to various temptations: she was, for instance, beset by three which must be faced by all who rule over communities. The first was the temptation to live with too great luxury and independence, escaping from the daily routine of communal life, to which her vows bound her. The second was the temptation to rule like an autocrat, instead of consulting her sisters. The third was the temptation to let human predilections have their way and to show favouritism. To begin with the first of these temptations, it is obvious that the fact that the superior nearly always had a separate room, or suite of rooms[179], and servants, and had the duty of entertaining importantguests, gave her much freedom within her house, especially if she were the head of one of the great abbeys. The Abbess of St Mary’s Winchester, at the Dissolution, had her own house and a staff consisting of a cook, an undercook, a woman servant and a laundress, and she had also a gentlewoman to wait upon her, like any great lady in the world[180]. The Abbess of Barking had her gentlewoman, too, and her private kitchen; she dined in state with her nuns five times a year, and “the under celeresse must remember,” says theCharthe longynge to the Office of Celeresse,

at eche principall fest, that my lady sytteth in the fraytour; that is to wyt five times in the yere, at eche tyme schall aske the clerke of the kychyn soper eggs for the covent, and that is Estir, Wytsontyd, the Assumption of our Lady, seynt Alburgh and Cristynmasse, at eche tyme to every lady two eggs, and eche double two egges, that is the priorisse, the celeresse and the kychener[181].

The stern reformer Peckham was forced to take in hand the conduct of the Abbesses of Barking, Wherwell and Romsey, who were abusing their independence of ordinary routine. The Abbess of Barking was forbidden to remain in her private room after sunset, at which hour all doors were to be locked and all strangers excluded; she might do so only very rarely, in order to entertain distinguished guests or to transact important business; and he ordered her to eat with the convent as often as possible, “especially on solemn days” (i.e. great feasts)[182]. The Abbess of Wherwell had apparently stinted her nuns in food and drink, but caused magnificent feasts to be prepared for her in her own room, and Peckham ordered that whenever there was a shortage of food in the convent, she was to dine with the nuns, and no meal was to be laid in her chamber for servants or strangers, but all visitors were to be entertained in the exterior guest-hall; if at such times she were in ill health, and unable to use the common diet, she might remain in her room, in the company of one or two of the nuns. At times when there was no lack of food inthe convent and when she was entertaining guests in her own room, all potations were to cease and all servants and visitors to depart at the hour of compline[183]. About the same time (1284) Peckham wrote two letters to the Abbess of Romsey, who had evidently been guilty of the same behaviour. She was not to keep “a number of” dogs or monkeys, or more than two maid servants, and she was not to fare splendidly in her own rooms while the nuns went short; his injunctions to her are couched in almost precisely the same language as those which he addressed to the Abbess of Wherwell[184].

According to the Benedictine rule the superior, when not entertaining guests, was permitted to invite the nuns in turn to dine with her in her own room, for their recreation, and notices of this custom sometimes occur in visitation reports; at Thicket (1309) the Prioress was enjoined to have them one by one when she dined in her room[185]; at Elstow (1421-2) the Abbess was to invite those nuns whom she knew to be specially in need of refreshment[186]; at Gracedieu (1440-1) the Prioress was ordered

that ye do the fraytour be keppede daylye ... item that no mo of your susters entende up on yowe, save onely your chapeleyn, and otherwhile, as your rule wylle, ye calle to your refeccyone oon or two of your susters to thair recreacyone[187];

at Greenfield (1519) there was a complaint that the Prioress did not invite the nuns to her table in due order, and at Stainfield it was said that she frequently invited three young nuns to her table and showed partiality to them and she was ordered to invite all the senior sisters in order[188]. In Cistercian and Cluniac houses the superior was supposed to dine in the frater and to sleep in the dorter with the other nuns, and even in Benedictine houses it was considered desirable that she should do so. But the temptation to live a more private life was irresistible, and visitation records contain many complaints that the head of the house is lax in her attendance at dorter and frater and even infollowing the divine services in the choir[189]. Bishops frequently made injunctions like that given by Alnwick to the Prioress of Ankerwyke in 1441:

that nyghtly ye lygge in the dormytorye to ouersee your susters how thai are there gouernede after your rewle, and that often tyme ye come to matynes, messe and other houres ... also that oftentymes ye come to the chapitere for to correcte the defautes of your susters ... also that aftere your rewle ye kepe the fraytour but if resonable cause excuse yowe there fro[190].

Sometimes a minimum number of attendances was demanded. At St Michael’s Stamford Alnwick ordered the old Prioress

that nyghtly ye lyg in the dormytorye emong your susters and that euery principale double fest and festes of xij or ix lessouns ye be at matynes, but if grete sekenes lette yowe; and that often tymes ye be at other howres and messes in the qwere, and also that ye be present in chapitres helpyng the supprioresse in correctyng and punisshyng of defautes[191].

It was further attempted to restrict the dangerous freedom of a superior’s life, by ordering her always to have with her one of the nuns as a companion and as witness to her behaviour. So Peckham ordered the Abbess of Romsey to “elect a suitable companion for herself and to change her companions yearly, to the end that her honesty should be attested by many witnesses”[192]. Usually the nun whose duty it was to accompany the superior acted as her chaplain. It will be remembered that Chaucer says of his Prioress “another Nonne with hir hadde she, That washir chapeleyne”[193], and episcopal registers contain frequent allusions to the office. William of Wykeham gave a comprehensive account of its purpose when he wrote to the Abbess of Romsey in 1387,

since, according to the constitutions of the holy fathers, younger members must take a pattern from their rulers (prelati) and those prelates ought to have a number of witnesses to their own behaviour, we strictly order you (lady abbess) in virtue of obedience, that you annually commit the office of chaplain to one of your nuns ... and thus the nuns themselves, who shall have been with you in the aforesaid office, shall (by means of laudable instruction) be the better enabled to excel in religion, while you will be able immediately to invoke their testimony to your innocence, if (which God forbid) any crime or scandal should be imputed to you by the malice of any person[194].

So at Easebourne in 1478 the Prioress was ordered

that every week, beginning with the eldest ... she should select for herself in due course and in turns, one of her nuns as chaplain for divine services and to wait upon herself[195].

The Norwich visitations of Bishop Nykke afford further information; at Flixton discontented Dame Margaret Punder complained that the Prioress had no sister as chaplain, but slept alone as she pleased, in a chamber (cubiculo) outside the dorter, “without the continual testimony of her sisters,” and the visitors enjoinedthat henceforth she should have with her one sister in the office of chaplain for a witness, and especially when she slept outside the dorter[196]. At Blackborough one of the nuns complained that the Prioress had kept the same chaplain for three years[197]and at Redlingfield it was said that she never changed her chaplain[198]; the Abbess of Elstow in 1421-2[199]and the Prioress of Markyate in 1442[200]were ordered to change their chaplains every year, and this seems to have been the customary arrangement. The title of “chaplain” is sometimes found after the name of a nun in lists of the inmates of nunneries[201].

Besides the temptation to live too independent an existence the head of a house had also the temptation to abuse the considerable power given to her by the monastic rule. She was apt to govern autocratically, keeping the business of the house entirely in her own hands, instead of consulting her sisters (assembled in chapter) before making any important decision. There were constant complaints by the nuns that the Prioress kept the common seal in her own custody and performed all business without consulting them. Peckham’s letter to the Abbess of Romsey illustrates the variety of matters which might thus be settled without any reference to the nuns; she had evidently been misusing her power, for he wrote sternly:

Know that thou art not mistress of the common goods, but rather the dispenser and mother of thy community, according to the meaning of the word abbess.... We strictly command thee that thou study to transact all the more important business of the house with the convent. And by the more important business we intend those things which may entail notable expenditure in temporalities or in spiritualities, with which we wish to be included the provision of a steward; we order for the peace of the community, that H. de Chalfhunte, whom thou hast for long kept in the office of steward contrary to the willof the convent, no longer intermeddle in any way with this or with any other bailiff’s office (bajulatu) of the monastery. Moreover we make the same order concerning John le Frikiere. Let each of them, having accounted for his office before Master Philip our official ... look out for an abode elsewhere. Besides this thou shalt transact all minor business of the church according to the rule with at least twelve of the senior ladies. And because thou hast been wont to do much according to the prompting of thine own will, we adjoin to thee three coadjutresses of laudable testimony, to wit dames Margery de Verdun, Philippa de Stokes and Johanna de Revedoune, without whose counsel and attempt thou shalt not dare attempt anything pertaining to the rule of the convent in temporalities or in spiritualities. And whensoever thou shalt wittingly do the contrary in any important matter, thou shalt know thyself to be on that account suspended from the office of administration. And we mean by an important matter the provision of bailiffs of the manors and internal obedientiaries, the punishment of delinquents, all alienation of goods in gifts or presents, or in any other ways, the sending forth of nuns and the assignment of companions to those going forth, the beginning of lawsuits and all manner of church business. And if it befall that any of the aforesaid three be ill or absent, do thou receive in her stead Dame Leticia de Montegomery or Dame Agnes de Lidyerd, having called into consultation the others according to the number fixed above. And whenever thou shalt happen to fare forth upon the business of the church, thou shalt always take with thee the aforesaid three ladies, whom we have joined with thee as coadjutresses in the rule of the monastery both within and without; and if ever thou goest forth for recreation thou shalt always have with thee two; in such wise that thou shalt in no manner concern thyself to pursue any business without the three[202].

The danger of autocratic government to the convent is obvious; and it is significant that a really bad prioress is nearly always charged with having failed to communicate with her sisters in matters of business, turning all the revenues to any use that she pleased. Moreover the head of a house not only sometimes failed to consult her convent; she constantly also omitted to render an annual account of her expenditure, and by far the most common complaint at visitations was the complaint that the Prioressnon reddidit compotum. At Bishop Nykke’s Norwich visitations the charge was made against the heads of Flixton, Crabhouse, Blackborough and Redlingfield[203]. At BishopAlnwick’s Lincoln visitations it was made against the heads of Ankerwyke, Catesby, Gracedieu, Harrold, Heynings, St Michael’s Stamford, Stixwould, Studley; at Ankerwyke Dame Clemence Medforde had not accounted since her arrival at the house; at St Michael’s Stamford the Prioress had held office for twelve years and had never done so; at Studley it was said that the last Prioress who ruled for 58 years never once rendered an account during the whole of that period, nor had the present Prioress yet done so, though she had been in office for a year[204]. Sometimes the delinquent gave some excuse to the Bishop; the Prioress of Catesby said she had no clerk to write the account[205]; at Blackborough one of the nuns said that her object had been to avoid the expense of an auditor and another that she gave the convent a verbal report of the state of the house[206]. Sometimes she flatly refused, and the bishop’s repeated injunctions on the subject seem to have been of little avail; the Prioress of Flixton had not rendered account since her installationet dicit quod non vult reddere; she was superseded, but six years later the same complaint was made against her successor and the visitors ordered the latter to amend her ways,sub poena privationis, quia dixit se nolle talem reddere compotum[207]. The bishops always inquired very carefully into the administration of the conventual income and possessions by the head of each house, and invented a variety of devices for controlling her actions[208].

There remains to be considered the third pitfall into which the head of a house was liable to fall. The wise Benedictine rule contained a special warning against favouritism, for indeed human nature cannot avoid preferences and it is the hardest task of a ruler to subdue personal predilections to perfect fairness. The charge of favouritism is a fairly common one in medieval visitations. Alnwick met with an amusing case when he visited Gracedieu in 1440-1. The elder nuns complained that the old prioress did not treat all equally; some of them she favoured and others she treated very rigorously; Dame Philippa Jecke even said that corrections were made so harshly and so fussilythat all charity and all happiness had gone from the house. Moreover there were two young nuns whom she called her disciples and who were always with her; these nuns had many unsuitable conversations, so their sisters thought, with the Prioress’ secular visitors; worse than this, they acted as spies upon the other nuns and told the Prioress about everything that was said and done in the convent, and then the Prioress scolded more severely than ever[209]; but her disciples could do no wrong. These nuns, indeed, were among the most voluble that Alnwick visited, and he must have remarked with a smile that the two disciples were the only ones who answered “Omnia bene”; but he did not intend to let them off without a rebuke.

“Agnes Poutrelle and Isabel Jurdane” runs the note in his Register, “who style themselves the Prioress’s disciples, are thereby the cause of quarrel between her and her sisters, forasmuch as what they hear and see among the nuns they straightway retail to the prioress. They both appeared, and, the article having been laid to their charge, expressly deny it and all things that are contained therein; wherefore they cleared themselves without compurgators; howbeit, that they may not be held suspect hereafter touching these matters or offend herein, they both sware upon the holy gospels of God that henceforth they will discover to the prioress concerning their sisters nothing whereby cause of quarrel or incentive to hatred may be furnished among them, unless they be such matters as may tend to the damage of the prioress’ body or honour”[210].

At two other houses there were complaints against the head; at Legbourne Dame Sibil Papelwyk said that the Prioress was not indifferent in making corrections, but treated some too hardly and others too favourably; and at Heynings Dame Alice Porter said that the Prioress was an accepter of persons in making corrections,

for those whom she loves she passes over lightly, and those whom she holds not in favour she harshly punishes ... and she encourages her secular serving-women, whom she believes more than her sisters,in their words, to scold the same her sisters, and for this cause quarrels do spring up between her and her sisters[211].

In neither of these cases, however, was the charge corroborated by the evidence of the other nuns. Probably the two malcontents considered themselves to have a grievance against their ruler; at Legbourne Dame Sibil’s complaint that the Prioress would not let her visit a dying parent gives a clue to her annoyance. Another charge sometimes made was that the Prioress gave more credence to the young nuns than to those who were older and wiser[212]. Injunctions that the head of a house was to show no favouritism were often made by visitors. One of Alnwick’s injunctions may stand as representative:

Also we charge yow, prioress, vnder payn of contempte and vndere the peynes writen here benethe, that in your correccions ye be sad, sowbre and indifferent, not cruelle to some and to some fauoryng agayn your rule, but that ye procede and treet your susters moderly, the qualytee and the quantitee of the persons and defautes wythe owten accepcyone of any persone euenly considerede and weyed (Legbourne)[213].

So far the position of a superior has been considered solely from the point of view of internal government, of her power over the convent and of the peculiar temptations by which she was assailed. But the head of a house was an important person, not only in her own community, but also in the circumscribed little world without her gates; though here the degree of importance which she enjoyed naturally varied with the size and wealth of her house. In the middle ages fame and power were largely local matters; roads were bad and news moved slowly and a man might live no further away than the neighbouring town and be a foreigner. The country gentry were not great travellers; occasionally they jaunted up to London, to court, or to parliament or to the law-courts; sometimes they followed the King and his lords to battles over sea or on the Scottish border; but for the most part they stayed at home and died in the bed wherein their mother bore them. The comfortable burgesses of the town travelledstill less; perhaps they betook themselves upon a pilgrimage, “clothed in a liveree of a solempne and greet fraternitee,” and bearing a cook with them, lest they should lack the “chiknes with the marybones,” the “poudre-marchant tart,” the “galingale,” the “mortreux,” the “blankmanger” of their luxurious daily life; but they seldom had the Wife of Bath’s acquaintance with strange streams. And the lesser folk—peasants and artisans—looked across the chequered expanse of the common fields at a horizon, which was in truth a barrier, an impassable line drawn round the edge of the world. The fact that life was lived by the majority of men within such narrow limits gave a preeminent importance to the local magnate; and among the most local of local magnates (since a corporation never moved and never expired and never relaxed the grip of its dead fingers) must be reckoned the heads of the monastic houses. Socially in all cases, and politically when their houses were large and rich, abbots and abbesses, priors and prioresses, ranked among the great folk of the country side. They enjoyed the same prestige as the lords of the neighbouring manors and some extra deference on account of their religion. It was natural that the Prioress of a nunnery should be “holden digne of reverence.” The gentlemen whose estates adjoined her own sent their daughters to her as novices, or (if her house were poor and the Bishop not too strict) as school girls to receive their “nortelrye”; and they did not themselves scorn the discreet entertainment of her guest-chamber and a dinner of capons and wine and gossip at her hospitable board. The artisans and labourers on her land lived by her patronage. All along the muddy highroads the beggars coming to town passed word to each other that there stood a nunnery in the meadows, where they might have scraps left over from the convent meals and perhaps beer and a pair of shoes. The head of a house, indeed, was an important person from many points of view, as a neighbour, as a landlord and as a philanthropist.

The journeys which a prioress was sometimes obliged to take upon the business of the convent offered many occasions of social intercourse with her neighbours. It is, indeed, striking how great a freedom of movement was enjoyed by these cloistered women. There are constant references to journeys in account rolls. When Dame Christian Bassett, Prioress of St Mary de Pré, rode toLondon for the suit against her predecessor in the Common Pleas, she was accompanied on one occasion by her priest, a woman and two men; on two other occasions she took four men; and during the whole time that the suit dragged on, she was continually riding about to take counsel with great men or with lawyers and journeying to and fro between St Albans and London. On another occasion the account notes a payment

in expenses for the prioresse and the steward with their servants and for hors hyre and for the wages of them that wente to kepe the courte wyth the prioresse atte Wynge atte two tymes xvjsvd, whereof the stewards fee was that of vjsviijd; item paid to the fermour of Wynge for his expenss ixd[214].

The accounts of St Michael’s Stamford are full of items such as “in the expenses of the Prioress on divers occasions going to the Bishop, with hire of horses 3s.” “in the expenses of the Prioress going to Rockingham about our woods 1s.2½d.,” “paid for the hire of two horses for the prioress and her expenses going to Liddington to the Bishop for a certificate 2s.8d.,” “paid for the expenses of the Prioress at Burgh (i.e. Peterborough) for two days 5s.8d.”; twice the Prioress went very far afield, as usual (it would appear) on legal business, for in 1377-8 there is an entry, “Item for the expenses of the Prioress and her companions at London for a month and more, in all expenses £5. 13s.4d.” (a large sum, a long distance and a lengthy stay), and in 1409-10 there is another payment “to the Prioress for expenses in London 15s.”[215]

In spite of repeated efforts to enforce stricter enclosure upon nuns, it is evident that the head of the house rode about on the business of the convent and overlooked its husbandry in person, even where (as at St Michael’s Stamford) there was a male prior orcustoscharged with the ordering of its temporal affairs. The general injunction that an abbess was never to leave her house save “for the obvious utility of the monastery or for urgentnecessity”[216]was capable of a very wide interpretation, and it is clear from the evidence of visitations and accounts that it was interpreted to include a great deal of temporal business outside the walls. If a house possessed a malecustosthe Prioress would have less occasion and less excuse for journeys, though for important affairs her presence was probably always necessary; Bishop Drokensford, appointing acustosto Minchin Barrow, warns the Prioress no longer “to intermeddle with rural business (negociis campestribus) and other secular affairs” but to leave these to thecustosand to devote herself to the service of God and to the stricter enforcement of the rule[217]. But in houses where no such official existed the prioress doubtless undertook a certain amount of general estate management. One of Alnwick’s orders to the Prioress of Legbourne in 1440 was “that ye bysylly ouersee your baylly, that your husbandry be sufficyently gouernede to the avayle of your house”[218]; and in the intervals of their long struggle to keep nuns within their cloisters, the Bishops seem to have recognised the necessity for some travel on the part of the heads of houses, and to have facilitated such travel by granting them dispensations to have divine service celebrated wherever they might be. Thus in 1400 the Prioress of Haliwell obtained a licence to hear divine service in her oratory within her mansion of Camberwell, or elsewhere in the diocese, during the next two years[219], and in 1406 the Abbess of Tarrant Keynes was similarly allowed to have the service celebrated for herself and her household anywhere within the city and diocese of Salisbury[220].

It is significant that among the arguments used to oppose Henry VIII’s injunction that monks and nuns should be strictly enclosed (which was, for the nuns, only a repetition of Pope Boniface’s decree of three centuries earlier) was that of thedifficulty of supervising the husbandry of a house, if its head were confined to cloistral precincts.

“Please it you to be advertised,” wrote Cecily Bodenham, the last Abbess of Wilton, to Cromwell in 1535, “that master doctor Leigh, the King’s grace’s special visitor and your deputy in this behalf, visiting of late my house, hath given injunction that not only all my sisters, but I also, should continually keep and abide within the precincts of my house: which commandment I am right well content with in regard of my own person, if your mastership shall think it so expedient; but in consideration of the administration of mine office and specially of this poor house which is in great debt and requireth much reparation and also which without good husbandry is not like, in long season, to come forward, and in consideration that the said husbandry cannot be, by my poor judgment, so well by an other overseen as by mine own person, it may please your mastership of your goodness to license me, being associate with one or two of the sad and discreet sisters of my house, to supervise abroad such things as shall be for the profit and commodity of my house. Which thing though, peradventure, might be done by other, yet I ensure you that none will do it so faithfully for my house’s profit as mine own self. Assuring your mastership that it is not, nor shall be at any time hereafter, my mind to lie forth of my monastery any night, except by inevitable necessity I cannot then return home”[221].

It is, however, very plain that the journeys taken by abbesses and prioresses were not always strictly concerned with the business of their convents, or at least they combined business most adroitly with pleasure. These ladies were of good kin and they took their place naturally in local society, when they left their houses to oversee their husbandry, to interview a bishop or a lawyer about their tithes, or quite openly to visit friends and relatives. They emerged to attend the funerals of great folk; the Prioress of Carrow attended the funeral of John Paston in 1466[222], and Sir Thomas Cumberworth in his will (1451) left the injunction:

I will that Ilke prior and priores that comes to my beryall at ytday hafe iiisiiijdand ilke chanon and Nune xijd... and Ilke prior and priores that comes to the xxx day (the month’s-mind) hafe vjsviijdand Ilke chanon or none that comes to the said xxx day haf xxd[223].

Sometimes they attended the deathbeds of relatives; among witnesses to the codicil to the will of Walter Skirlaw, Bishop of Durham, in 1404 was “religiosa femina Domina Johanna Priorissa de Swyna, soror dicti domini episcopi”[224]; and it was not unusual for an abbess or prioress to be made supervisor or executrix of a will[225]. Nor was the sad business of deathbeds the only share taken by these prioresses in public life. Clemence Medforde, Prioress of Ankerwyke, went to a wedding at Bromhale; and unfortunately a sheepfold, a dairy and a good timber granary chose that moment to catch fire and burn down, setting fire also to the smouldering indignation of her nuns; whence many recriminations when the Bishop came on his rounds[226]. Stranger still at times were the matters for which their friends sought their good offices. The aristocratic Isabel de Montfort, Prioress of Easebourne, was one of the ladies by whose oath Margaret de Camoys purged herself on a charge of adultery in 1295[227].

The fact that these ladies were drawn from the wealthy classes and constantly associated on terms of equality with their friends and relatives, sometimes led them to impart a most unmonastic luxury into their own lives. They came from the homes of lords like Sir John Arundel, who lost not only his life but “two and fiftie new sutes of apparell of cloth of gold or tissue,”when he was drowned off the Irish coast; or Lord Berkeley who travelled with a retinue of twelve knights, twenty-four esquires “of noble family and descent” and a hundred and fifty men-at-arms, in coats of white frieze lined with crimson and embroidered with his badge; or else of country squires and franklins, like the white-bearded gentleman of whom Chaucer says that

To liven in delyt was ever his wone,For he was Epicurus owne sone,······Withoute bake mete was never his hous,Of fish and flesh, and that so plentevousIt snewed in his hous of mete and drinke,Of alle deyntees that men coude thinke;

or else their fathers were wealthy merchants, living in great mansions hung with arras and lighted with glass windows, rich enough to provoke sumptuary laws and to entertain kings. It is perhaps not surprising that abbesses and prioresses should have found it hard to change the way of life, which they had led before they took the veil and which they saw all around them, when they rode about in the world. Carousings, gay garments, pet animals, frivolous amusements, many guests, superfluous servants and frequent escapes to the freedom of the road, are found not only at the greater houses but even at those which were small and poor. The diverting history of the flea and the gout shows that the luxurious abbess was already a byword early in the thirteenth century.

The tale runs as follows:

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