[359]Myroure of Oure Ladye, ed. Blunt (E.E.T.S.), introd. p. xxviii.
[360]Aungier,op. cit.pp. 392-3.
[361]See below,Note A.
[362]Aungier,op. cit.p. 395.
[363]I have been unable to discover what is meant byferiandasser.
[364]Tabitewas a sort ofmoirésilk. Probably carpets or tablecloths here.
[365]Register of Crabhouse Nunnery, ed. M. Bateson (Norfolk Archaeology,XI, 1892), pp. 38-9.
[366]See, for instance, the Godstow Register; charters nos. 105, 139, 556 and 644 concern grants appropriated to clothing and nos. 52, 250, 536, 619 and 630 to the infirmary. No. 862 is a grant of five cartloads of alderwood yearly “to be take xv dayes after myghelmasse to drye their heryng.”Eng. Reg. of Godstow Nunnery, ed. A. Clark (E.E.T.S. 1905-11), pp. 102, etc. In the Crabhouse Register it is noted that a certain meadow is set aside so that “all the produce of the said meadow be forever granted for the vesture of the ten ladies who are oldest in religion of the whole house, so that each of the ten ladies receive yearly from the aforesaid meadow four shillings at the feast of St Margaret.”Op. cit.p. 37. When Wothorpe was merged in St Michael’s, Stamford, the diocesan stipulated that the proceeds of the priory and rectory of Wothorpe should be applied to the support of the infirmary and kitchen of St Michael’s. Dugdale,Mon.IV, p. 268.
[367]See, for instance, the payment of a yearly pension of five marks from the appropriated church of St Clement’s for the clothing of the nuns of St Radegund’s, Cambridge, and similar assignations of the income from appropriated churches at Studley, St Michael’s Stamford, and Marrick. Gray,Priory of St Radegund, Cambridge, p. 27.
[368]See C. T. Flower,loc. cit., for an account of the Syon, Barking and Elstow accounts; also Blunt,Myroure of Oure Ladye, introd. pp. xxvi-xxxi, for Syon chambresses’ and cellaresses’ accounts (1536-7) andP.R.O. Mins. Accts.1261/4 for a Syon cellaress’s account (1481-2). SeeP.R.O. Mins. Accts.1260/14 for a St Michael’s Stamford chambress’s account (1408-9).
[369]See below,Ch.VIII.
[370]Blunt,op. cit.pp. xxvi-xxviii.
[371]Gray,op. cit.pp. 149, 165, 167.
[372]A barrel contained ten great hundreds of six score each.
[373]A cade contained six great hundreds of six score each.
[374]A warp was a parcel of four dried fish.
[375]Gray,op. cit.See the accounts, pp. 145-79passim.
[376]Ib.pp. 10-11.
[377]Catholicon Anglicum, ed. S. J. Herrtage (E.E.T.S. 1881), p. 365.
[378]Blunt,op. cit.p. xxx. In 1481-2 their Lenten store included “saltfysshe,” “stokfyssh,” “white heryng,” “rede haryng,” “muddefissh,” “lyng,” “aburden,” “Scarburgh fysshe,” “salt samon,” “salt elys,” “oyle olyue” (34¾ gallons), a barrel of honey and figs. At other times this year the cellaress purchased beans (1 qr. 4 bushels), green peas (7 bushels), “grey” (i.e. dried) peas (4 bushels), “harreos” (3 bushels), oatmeal (2 qrs. 7 bushels), bread, wheat, malt, various animals for meat and to stock the farm, a kilderkin of good ale, 15 lbs. of almonds, 39 Essex cheeses, 111½ gallons of butter, white salt and bay salt, also firewood and coals.P.R.O. Mins. Accts.1261/4.
[379]Poems of John Skelton, ed. W. H. Williams, pp. 107-8 (from “Colyn Cloute,” ll. 210-13). For the curious custom of eating dried peas on the fifth Sunday in Lent, called Passion or Care Sunday, see Brand,Observations On Popular Antiquities(1877 ed.), pp. 57 ff. In the north of England peas boiled on Care Sunday were calledcarlings. Compare the St Mary de Pré (St Albans) accounts (2-4 Hen. VII) “Item paid for ij busshell of pesyn departyd amongs the susters in Lente xvj d.” Dugdale,Mon.III, p. 359, and the Barking cellaress’Charthe, below,Note A.
[380]See below, p.568.
[381]Blunt,op. cit.pp. xxx-xxxi.
[382]Shakespeare,Winter’s Tale,IV, ii, 38 sqq.
[383]Forsowce, see below, p.565.
[384]The weekly allowance of beer to each member was supposed to be seven gallons, four of the better sort and three weaker, but the amount varied from house to house. SeeLinc. Visit.II, p. 89 (note). The Syon nuns had water on certain days, but doubtless as a mortification of the flesh, for it was sometimes complained of as a hardship when nuns had to drink water. (“Item they say that they do not get their corrody (i.e. weekly allowance of bread and beer) at the due times, but it is sometimes omitted for a fortnight and sometimes for a month, so that the nuns, by reason of the non-payment of the corrody, drink water.”Test. Ebor.I, p. 284.) The weekly allowance of bread was seven loaves. A note in the Register of Shaftesbury Abbey (15th century) which then numbered about 50 nuns and a large household, says: “Hit is to wytyng that me baketh and breweth by the wike in the Abbey of Shaftesbury atte leste weye xxxvj quarters whete and malt. And other while me baketh and breweth xlj quarters and ij bz. whete and malte.” Dugdale,Mon.II, p. 473.
[385]Aungier,op. cit.pp. 393-4.
[386]See below, p.568.
[387]They are diversely defined as pancakes, cheese cakes or custards, but they differed from our pancakes in being made in crusts. See the recipe inLiber Cure Cocorumfor flawns made with cheese:
Take new chese and grynde hyt fayre,In morter with egges, without dysware;Put powder therto of sugur, I say,Coloure hit with safrone ful wele thou may;Put hit in cofyns that ben fayre,And bake hit forthe, I the pray.
Liber Cure Cocorum, ed. Morris (Phil. Soc. 1862), p. 39. A fifteenth century cookery book gives this recipe forFlathouns in lente: “Take and draw a thrifty Milke of Almandes; temper with Sugre Water; than take hardid cofyns [pie-crusts] and pore thin comad [mixture] theron; blaunch Almaundis hol and caste theron Pouder Gyngere, Canelle, Sugre, Salt and Safroun; bake hem and serue forth.”Two Fifteenth Century Cookery Books, ed. T. Austen (E.E.T.S. 1888), p. 56.
[388]For Maundy Thursday, see Brand,op. cit.pp. 75-9. For the Barking Maundy see below, p.568, for the St Mary de Pré Maundy see Dugdale,Mon.III, p. 359, and for the St Michael’s, Stamford, Maundy, seeP.R.O. Mins. Accts.1260passim. The nuns of St Radegund’s owned certain lands in Madingley which were held by the Prior of Barnwell on payment of a rent of 2s.3d., called “Maundy silver.” Gray,op. cit.p. 146. Maundy money is still distributed at Magdalen College, Oxford.
[389]See below, p.566, for the Barking pittances. The following extracts from one of the St Michael’s, Stamford, accounts is typical of the rest: “Item paid for wassail 4d.... paid to the convent on the Feast of St Michael and the dedication of the church 6s.Item paid for ... on All Saints Day and St Martin’s Day 3s.Item paid for a pittance of pork on two occasions 6s.Item paid for fowls at Christmas for the convent 5s.6d.Item paid for herrings on St Michael’s Day for the poor 1s.8d.Item paid for beer for the convent on Maundy Thursday (Jour de Cene) 10d.Item paid for bread and wafers on the same day 6d.Item paid for spices on the same day 3s.Item paid for herrings for the poor on the same day 1s.8d.Item given to the poor on the same day 1s.9d.Item for holy bread on Good Friday 2d.Item paid forfflaunes2d.Item paid for herrings on St Laurence’s Day 9d.”P.R.O. Mins. Accts.1260/11. At this convent “holy bread” was always brought for Good Friday, “flaunes” (or sometimes eggs, saffron and spices to make them) for Rogationtide, beer and spices on Maundy Thursday, herrings on St Lawrence’s Day, and various money pittances were paid to the nuns from time to time for themisericordof Corby and sometimes of Thurlby, the appropriated churches. On one occasion there is an entry “Paid to the convent for the misericord of Thurlby, to wit 28 fowls, 12 gallons of beer and mustard and a gift to the prioress 9s., paid to the convent for the misericord of Corby 9s., paid to the pittancer for a pittance from Thurlby throughout the year 14s.4d.”Ib.1260/3. See an interesting list of pittances payable on forty different feasts throughout the year to the nuns of Lillechurch or Higham: they are either extra portions of food or special sorts of food, e.g. “crepis” on the Sunday before Ash Wednesday, “flauns” on Easter Day and 12d.on St Radegund’s Day. R. F. Scott,Notes from the Records of St John’s Coll. Cambridge, 1st series (fromThe Eagle, 1893, vol.XVII, no. 101, pp. 5-7).
[390]For these prebendal canonries see Mr Hamilton Thompson’s article on “Double Monasteries and the Male Element in Nunneries,” inThe Ministry of Women, A Report by a Committee appointed by his Grace the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, app.VIII, pp. 150sqq.
[391]Dugdale,Mon.III, p. 424.
[392]Walcott, M. E. C.Inventories of ... the Priory of Minster in Shepey(Arch. Cant.1869), p. 30. This house paid stipends to three chaplains, one being “curat of the Paryshe churche”; a “Vycar’s chamber” is described among what are obviously outlying buildings. At Cheshunt the “Prestes Chamber” contained a feather bed, with sheets and coverlet and a “celer of blewe cloth,” valued at 4s.10d.Cussans,Hist. of Herts. Hertford Hundred,II, p. 70.
[393]Chaucer,Cant. Tales, Prologue of the Nonne Prestes Tale, ll. 3998 ff.
[394]Linc. Visit.II, pp. 120-1, 123.
[395]Valor. Eccles.I, p. 397, IV, p. 220.
[396]Ib.I, p. 276.
[397]Ib.II, p. 109.
[398]Ib.III, p. 76.
[399]Ib.I, p. 106.
[400]Ib.V, pp. 43, 87, 94.
[401]Ib.I, p. 114.
[402]Ib.V, p. 206.
[403]Ib.I, p. 424,IV, p. 339.
[404]E.g. in the Sheppey inventory, after “the chamber over the Gate Howse called the Confessor’s Chamber,” comes “the Chamber next to that,” “the Steward’s chamber” (well furnished), “the next chamber to the same,” “the chamber under the same,” and “the Portar’s Lodge,” all evidently outside the cloister. Walcott, M. E. C.op. cit.p. 31.
[405]Gray,op. cit.pp. 163, 167, 173. Cf. pp. 156, 157, 158.
[406]Walcott, M. E. C.op. cit.pp. 30, 33.
[407]E.g. Brewood (Black Ladies). See Dugdale,Mon.IV, p. 500.
[408]A Joan Key or Kay votes at the election of Joan Lancaster as prioress of St Radegund’s in 1457 and is receiver-general, keeping the account in 1481-2. Gray,op. cit.pp. 38, 176.
[409]See, for instance, an item in the accounts of St Radegund’s Cambridge: “Paid in a pittance for the convent ... at the month’s mind of John Brown, lately bailiff there ... in accordance with his last will.” Gray,op. cit.p. 151.
[410]The Ministry of Women,loc. cit.pp. 162-3. So in 1492 it is complained at Carrow “quod mali servientes Priorissae fecerunt magnum dampnum in bonis prioratus.” Jessopp,Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich, p. 16.
[411]Chaucer,Cant. Tales, Prologue, ll. 597 ff.
[412]See, for instance, the Prioress of Marrickv.Simon Wayt, to give an account for the time when he was her bailiff in Fletham (1332); the Prioress of Molseby (Moxby)v.Lawrence de Dysceford, chaplain, to give an account of the time when he was bailiff of Joan de Barton, late Prioress of Molseby at Molseby (1330)—an interesting case of a chaplain acting as bailiff for a small and poor house; Idonia, Prioress of Appletonv.John Boston of Leven for an account as bailiff and receiver in Holme (1413).Notes on Relig. and Secular Houses of York, ed. W. P. Baildon (Yorks. Arch. Soc. 1895),I, pp. 127, 139, 161. Visitation injunctions sometimes regulate the presentation of accounts by bailiffs and receivers, e.g.Exeter Reg. Stapeldon, p. 318,V.C.H. Beds.I, p. 356.
[413]Linc. Visit.I, p. 67.
[414]Linc. Visit.II, p. 185. An illustration may be found in the Gracedieu rolls where on one occasion the nuns paid wages to the bailiff John de Northton, to his wife Joan, to his daughter Joan, to Philip de Northton (doubtless his son) and to Philip’s wife Constance.P.R.O. Mins. Accts.1257/10, ff. 203-5.
[415]V.C.H. Suffolk,II, p. 84.
[416]Reg. Epis. J. Peckham(Rolls Ser.),II, pp. 658-9. Compare p. 662. The injunction that the head of the house should not appoint stewards, bailiffs or receivers without the consent of the major part of the convent was a common one; cf.ib.II, p. 652; Dugdale,Mon.II, p. 619.
[417]Liveing,Records of Romsey Abbey, pp. 218-22passim.
[418]Liveing,op. cit.pp. 229-30, 232.
[419]Essays on Chaucer, 2nd Series,VII(Chaucer Soc.), pp. 191-4; also in Dugdale,Mon.II, 456-7.
[420]Gray,op. cit.p. 158; cf. p. 174.
[421]V.C.H. Hants.II, 151.
[422]Alnwick’s Visit.MS. f. 71d.The Bishop forbade them to keep more than the necessary servants and made the same injunction at Legbourne.Linc. Visit.II, p. 187.
[423]Archaeologia,XLVII, pp. 57-8. Compare his injunction to Studley,ib.pp. 54-5. In 1306 every useless servant who was a burden to the impoverished house of Arden was to be removed within a week.V.C.H. Yorks.III, p. 113. In 1326 thecustosof Minchin Barrow was told to remove theonerosa familia.Reg. John of Drokensford(Somerset Rec. Soc.), p. 242.
[424]P.R.O. Suppression Papers, 833/39.
[425]Linc. Visit.II, pp. 4, 121, 131;Alnwick’s Visit.MS. f. 6. At Ankerwyke Alnwick enjoined “that ye hafe an honeste woman seruaund in your kychyne, brewhowse and bakehowse, deyhowse and selere wythe an honeste damyselle wythe hire to saruf yowe and your sustres in thise saide offices, so that your saide sustres for occupacyone in any of the saide offices be ne letted fro diuine seruice.” Compare the complaint of the nuns of Sheppey that they had no “covent servante” to wash their clothes and tend them when they were ill, unless they hired a woman from the village out of their own pockets.E.H.R.VI, pp. 33-4. The provision of a laundress was ordered at Nunappleton in 1534.Yorks. Arch. Journ.XVI, p. 444.
[426]Yorks. Arch. Journ.XVI, p. 443.
[427]“Also she says that secular servingwomen do lie among the sisters in the dorter, and especially one who did buy a corrody there” (Heynings, 1440).Linc. Visit.II, p. 133. The Abbess of Malling in 1324 was forbidden to give a corrody to her maid. Wharton,Anglia Sacra,I, p. 364.
[428]Linc. Visit.II, p. 133.
[429]See below, pp.395,396.
[430]Linc. Visit.II, p. 121. Alnwick notes “Amoueatur quedam francigena manens in prioratu propter vite inhonestatem, nam omnes admittit vniformiter ad concubitus suos”; and see his general injunction,ib.pp. 122, 125.
[431]Ancren Riwle, introd. Gasquet (King’s Classics), p 287.
[432]Alnwick’s Visit.MS. f. 7.
[433]Ib.f. 26d.
[434]E.H.R.VI, p. 33.
[435]Liveing,op. cit.p. 101.
[436]Ib.p. 104. Compare Peckham’s injunctions to Wherwell in 1284 “Et si quis inveniatur, serviens masculus aut femina, qui amaris responsionibus consueverit monialem aliquam vel aliquas molestare, nisi se monitione praemissa sufficienter corrigat in futurum, illico expellatur.”Reg. Epist. J. Peckham,II, p. 654; also his injunctions to Barking and Holy Sepulchre, Canterbury,ib.I, p. 85;II, p. 707. Also Thomas of Cantilupe’s injunctions to Lingbrook, c. 1277.Reg. Thome de Cantilupo, p. 202.
[437]New Coll.MS. f. 87d.
[438]Gray,op. cit.passim.
[439]“Names of the Servants now in Wages by the yere.Mr Oglestone, taking wages by the yere. Mr White, taking 26 s 8 d by the yere and lyvere. John Coks, butler, lyvere, xxvi s viij d, whereof to pay 1 quarter and lyvere. Alyn Sowthe bayly, taking by yere for closure and hys servant 6 l 13 s 4 d and two lyveryes. Jhon Mustarde 20 s a kowes pasture and a lyvere. William Rowet, carpentar, 40 s and lyvere. Richard Gyllys 26 s 8 d and lyvere. The carter 33 s 4 d and no lyvere. Thomas Thressher by yere 33 s 4 d and no lyvere. Robert Dawton by yere 33 s 4 d and no lyvere. The kowherd for kepyng of the kene and hoggys by yere 30 s and no lyvere. Jhon Hartnar by yere 28 s and no lyvere. Robard Welshe, brewer, by yere 20 s and no lyvere. A thatcher 33 s 4 d, a hose cloth and no lyvere. William Nycolls 20 s and no lyvere. Jhon Andrew 22 s 4 d and no lyverye. Jhon Putsawe 13 s 4 d and a shyrt redy made. George Myllar 21 s 8 d and no lyverye. Robert Rychard, horse keper, 20 s and no liverye. Jhon Harryes, Frencheman, 13 s 4 d, a shyrt and no lyverye. Jhon Gyles the shepherd, 14 s, a payre of hoses, a payre of shoys and no lyverye. Richard Gladwyn for to make malte, 26 s 8 d by yere, he hath ben here 8 wekes, and no lyverye. Dorothe Sowthe, the baylyffe wyfe, owing for a yere’s wages at 40 s by yere and no liverye. Ales Barkar 13 s 4 d and lyvere. Also Sykkers 13 s 4 d and lyverye. Gladwyn’s wyfe 13 s 4 d and lyverye. Ellyn at my ladyes lyndyng. Emme Cawket 12 s and lyvere. Rose Salmon 12 s, she hath been here a month. Marget Lambard 13 s 4 d and lyvere. Sir Jhon Lorymer, curat of the Parysche churche, 3 l 16 s 8 d and no lyvere. Sir Jhon Ingram, chaplen, 3 l 3 s 3 d and no lyvere. Jhon Gayton shepard 53 s 4 d and no lyvere. Jhon Pelland 20 s and no lyverye. Jhon Marchant 13 s 4 d and pasture for 40 shepe and no lyverye. Jhon Helman 16 s and 10 shepes pasture and no lyverye. Jhon Cannyng shepard by yere 20 s and no lyverye.” Walcott, E. C. M.op. cit.pp. 33-4.
[440]Letters relating to the Suppression of the Monasteries, ed. Thomas Wright (Camden Soc. 1843), p. 140.
[441]Essays on Chaucer, 2nd Series (Chaucer Soc.), p. 189.
[442]Savine,English Monasteries on the Eve of the Dissolution(Oxford Hist. Studies, ed. Vinogradoff,I, pp. 221-2). See also above,Ch.I, pp.2-3.
[443]Cal. of Papal Letters,IV, p. 436. In 1442 its numbers (which should have been fourteen) had sunk to seven and it was six marks in debt (Alnwick’s Visit.MS. f. 38). The clear annual value of the house in theValor Ecclesiasticuswas only £5. 19s.8½d.Compare the case of Heynings, whose founder, Sir John Darcy, had also died without completing its endowment.Cal. of Papal Letters,V, p. 347.
[444]Fuller,Church History,III, p. 332. Its net income at the Dissolution was £1329. 1s.3d.CompareThe Italian Relation of England(Camden Soc.), pp. 40-1.
[445]Linc. Visit.II, pp. 1, 49, 117, 119, 130, 133, 175, 184;Alnwick’s Visit.MS. ff. 6d, 38, 83.
[446]Cal. of Papal Letters,V, p. 347.
[447]The Prioress of Ankerwyke also claimed to have reduced the debt from 300 marks to £40, but one of the nuns said that it had been only £30 on her installation and that it had not been paid by the Prioress but from other sources.Linc. Visit.II, pp. 1, 3.
[448]P.R.O. Mins. Accts.1260passim.
[449]P.R.O. Mins. Accts.1260/1. It should, however, be noted that some of the items which go to make up the total of the debts are sums of money owing to members of the convent (e.g. the Prioress and Subprioress) by the treasuresses, though the sums owing to outsiders are larger.
[450]P.R.O. Mins. Accts.1257/10 ff. 34 and 34d, 39d. Similarly the Prioress’s account of Delapré for 4 Henry VIII contains a long list of debts.St Paul’s Ecclesiological Soc.VII(1912), p. 52. An analysis of Archbishop Eudes Rigaud’s visitations of nunneries in the Diocese of Rouen gives even more startling information on this point; all but four of the fourteen houses show a list of debts growing heavier year by year and this was in the thirteenth century (1249-69). SeeReg. Visit. Archiep. Rothomag.ed. Bonninpassim.
[451]V.C.H. Dorset,II, p. 88.
[452]V.C.H. Oxon.II, p. 73.
[453]Cal. of Papal Petit.I, pp. 56, 122, 230.
[454]For other cases of debt, in different centuries, seeV.C.H. Yorks.III, pp. 124, 161, 163-4, 188, 239, 240;Reg. Walter Giffard(Surtees Soc.), p. 148;V.C.H. Oxon.II, pp. 78, 104;V.C.H. Essex, p. 122;V.C.H. Derby,II, p. 43;V.C.H. Norfolk,II, p. 351;V.C.H. Hants.II, p. 150;V.C.H. Bucks.I, p. 355;Visit. of Diocese of Norwich(Camden Soc.), pp. 108, 109;Test. Ebor.I, pp. 284-5;Cal. of Papal Letters,VI, p. 25;Sussex Archaeol. Coll.IX, p. 7.
[455]Linc. Visit.II, p. 186.
[456]V.C.H. Lincs.II, p. 157.
[457]Linc. Visit.II, p. 92.
[458]The Knights Hospitallers in England(Camden Soc.), p. 20.
[459]V.C.H. Worcs.II, pp. 157-8.
[460]Dugdale,Mon.IV, p. 285.
[461]See below, p.340.
[462]V.C.H. Yorks.III, p. 177.
[463]Test. Ebor.I, p. 133. The account book of Gracedieu (1414-8) contains entries of money paid by William Roby “for the clothes of his relation Dame Agnes Roby” and at another time by Margaret Roby for the same purpose (6s.8d.). Gasquet,English Monastic Life, p. 170.
[464]Lincoln Diocese Documents(E.E.T.S.), p. 57.
[465]It is amusing to notice the indignation of the nuns when their beer was not strong enough. See e.g.Alnwick’s Visit.MS. ff. 71d, 72;Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich(Camden Soc.), p. 209;Yorks. Archaeol. Journal,XVI, p. 443.
[466]Dugdale,Mon.V, pp. 493-4.
[467]When little Elizabeth Sewardby was boarding in Nunmonkton she had ten pairs in eighteen months!Test. Ebor.III, p. 168.
[468]Reg. of Walter Giffard(Surtees Soc.), pp. 147-8.
[469]V.C.H. Yorks.III, p. 181.
[470]Linc. Visit.II, pp. 4, 5. This lack of bedclothes for the younger nuns was partly due to the fact that the Prioress did not want them to sleep in the dorter, for Thomasine adds “and when my lord had commanded this deponent to lie in the dorter and this deponent asked bedclothes of the Prioress, she said chidingly to her ‘Let him who gave you leave to lie in the dorter supply you with raiment.’” Mr Hamilton Thompson thinks that “probably sister Thomasine had previously been lodged separately with the other younger nuns and the Prioress and elders objected to the crowding of the dorter.” But poverty was the main cause, for at a later visitation the Prioress stated that she was unable to supply the sisters with sufficient raiment for their habits “because of the poverty and insufficiency of the resources of the house.”Ib.p. 7.
[471]The same injunction was sent to Wherwell.Reg. Epist. Johannis Peckham(Rolls Ser.),II, pp. 651, 659-60.
[472]Liveing,Records of Romsey Abbey, p. 103.
[473]New Coll.MS. f. 86d.
[474]Visit. of the Diocese of Norwich(Camden Soc.), pp. 290-2. Cf. the complaint of the nuns of Studley in 1530: “They be oftentymes served with beffe and no moton upon Thursday at nyght and Sondays at nyght and be served oftentymes with new ale and not hulsome.”V.C.H. Oxon.II, p. 78.
[475]Other houses in the diocese of Norwich which complained of bad food were Flixton (1520) and Carrow (1492, 1514, 1526). Carrow was one of the most famous nunneries in England, but in 1492 one of the Bishop’scompertaran: “That the present sisters are restricted to eight loaves, and this is very little for ten sisters, for the whole day. Item there is often a lack of bread in the house, contrary to the good repute of the place.” SeeVisit. of the Diocese of Norwich, pp. 16-17, 145, 185-6, 209.
[476]Reliquiae Antiquae,I, p. 291. Translated in Coulton,A Medieval Garner, p. 597.
[477]V.C.H. Hants.II, p. 135. The belfry of St Radegund’s, Cambridge, fell down and injured the church in 1277. Gray,Hist. of the Priory of St Radegund, Cambridge, pp. 37-8; cf. p. 79. That of Esholt fell in 1445.V.C.H. Yorks.III, p. 161.
[478]Reg. of Crabhouse Nunnery(Norfolk Archaeology,XI, 1892), pp. 61, 62.
[479]V.C.H. Yorks.III, p. 181.
[480]Gray,op. cit.p. 32.
[481]Linc. Visit.II, p. 217.
[482]V.C.H. Hants.II, pp. 129-31passim. For another complaint that tenements and leasehold houses belonging to a priory were ruinous and like to fall down, through the negligence of the prioress and bailiff, see the case of Legbourne in 1440.Linc. Visit.II, p. 185.
[483]New Coll.MS. ff. 87d-88. He ordered the Abbess to repair defects at once out of the common goods of the house. Better still, he would seem to have assisted them from his own pocket to carry out the injunction, for by his will (1402) he remitted to them a debt of £40, for the repair of their church and cloister. Nicolas,Testamenta Vetusta,II, p. 708.
[484]V.C.H. Yorks.III, pp. 113, 124, 168, 174, 181, 183, 188, 240; Yedingham and Esholt (ib.pp. 128, 161) and St Mary, Neasham (V.C.H. Durham,II, p. 107) needed repair in the middle of the fifteenth century.
[485]Sussex Arch. Coll.IX, p. 23;V, pp. 256, 258.
[486]Visitations of the Diocese of Norwich(Camden Soc.), pp. 107-8, 109, 261, 311.
[487]Archaeologia,XLVII, pp. 52, 54, 59.
[488]V.C.H. Lincs.II, p. 104. A few out of many other references to ruinous buildings may be given here. Easebourne (1411).Bishop Rede’s Reg.p. 137. Polsloe (1319).Reg. of Bishop Stapeldon of Exeter, p. 318. Delapré (Northampton) (1303), Wothorpe (1292), Rothwell (fourteenth century), Catesby (1301, 1312).V.C.H. Northants.II, pp. 101, 114, 138, 123. Rowney (1431).V.C.H. Herts.IV, pp. 435-6. St Radegund’s Cambridge. Gray,op. cit.pp. 36-8, 79. St Clare without Aldgate (1290).Ely Epis. Records, ed. Gibbons, p. 415. St Mary’s Winchester (1343-52).Cal. of Pap. Pet.I, pp. 56, 122, 230.
[489]Perhaps in the same way that a fire broke out at Sempringham in the lifetime of St Gilbert. “A nun, bearing a light through the kitchen by night, fixed a part of a burnt candle to another she was going to burn, so that both were alight at once. But when the part fixed on to the other was almost consumed, it fell on the floor, on which much straw was collected, ready for a fire. The nun did not heed it, and believing that the fire would go out by itself, she went away and shut the door. But the flame, finding food, first devoured the straw lying close by, then the whole house with the adjacent offices and their contents, whence a great loss happened to the church.” Quoted from MS. Cott.Cleop. B.I, f. 77 by R. Graham,St Gilbert of Sempringham and the Gilbertines, p. 135. It will be remembered that the author of the thirteenth century treatise, called “Seneschaucie,” is most careful to declare that ploughmen, waggoners and cowherds must not carry fire into the byres, stables and cowhouse, either for light or to warm themselves, “unless the candle be in a lantern and this for great need and then it must be carried and watched by another than himself.”Walter of Henley’s Husbandry, ed. E. Lamond (1890), p. 113.
[490]Reg. of Crabhouse Nunnery u.s.p. 61.
[491]Dugdale,Mon.IV, p. 328. See alsoV.C.H. Herts.IV, p. 426.
[492]V.C.H. Herts.loc. cit.
[493]Cal. of Close Rolls, 1296-1302, p. 238.
[494]V.C.H. Yorks.III, p. 183.
[495]Gray,op. cit.p. 79.
[496]V.C.H. Lincs.II, p. 179.
[497]Dugdale,Mon.IV, p. 485.
[498]Wood,Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies,I, p. 35.
[499]Reg. of John of Drokensford(Somerset Rec. Soc.), p. 227. Text in Hugo,Medieval Nunneries of Somerset: Whitehall in Ilchester, p. 78. But seven years before they had been begging, according to the Bishop, by the compulsion of this expelled prioress, whose case wassub judice.Reg.p. 115 and Hugo,loc. cit.
[500]Reg. Sede Vacante(Worc. Rec. Soc.), pp. 112-3.
[501]Liveing,Records of Romsey Abbey, p. 145.
[502]V.C.H. Herts.IV, p. 427.
[503]V.C.H. Northants.II, p. 137.
[504]V.C.H. Herts.IV, pp. 434-5. The text of their petition is as follows: “A tres reverend pier en dieu, mon treshonure seigneur le chaunceller dengleterre, suppliant voz pouers oratrices la prioresse et les noneyns de Rowney en le countee de ... qe come lour esglise et autres mesons sont en poynt de cheyer a terre pur defaute de reparacion et ils nount dont lez reparailler, si noun dalmoigne de bones gens, qe plese a vostre treshonure seignurie de vostre grace eux granter vn patent pur vn lour procuratour, de aler en la paiis a coiller almoigns de bones gentz pur la sustenance et releuacioun du dit pouere mesoun et en noun de charite.”P.R.O. Ancient Petitions, 302/15063.
[505]V.C.H. Bucks.I, p. 358.
[506]V.C.H. Lincs.II, p. 179. Another licence in 1459.
[507]V.C.H. Northants.II, p. 137.
[508]Ib.pp. 100, 126.
[509]Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Dalderby, f. 374. (Pro monialibus de Rowell.) It is surprising, however, that Peckham, in his constitution forbidding nuns to be absent from their convents for longer than three, or at the most six, days, adds: “We do not extend this ordinance to those nuns who are forced to beg their necessities outside, while they are begging.” Wilkins,Concilia,II, p. 59. It is certain that the nuns did beg in their own persons. When Archbishop Eudes Rigaud visited St-Aubin in 1261 he ordered that the younger nuns should not be sent out to beg (pro questu); and in 1263 two of them were absent in France, seeking alms.Reg. Visit. Archiepiscopi Rothomagensis, ed. Bonnin, pp. 412, 471.
[510]On this subject see an interesting article by C. Wordsworth, “On some Pardons or Indulgences preserved in Yorkshire 1412-1527” (Yorks. Arch. Journ.XVI, pp. 369 ff.).
[511]V.C.H. Herts.IV, pp. 426, 432.
[512]V.C.H. Northants.II, pp. 114, 123, 116.
[513]V.C.H. Bucks.I, p. 353.
[514]V.C.H. Lincs.II, p. 157.
[515]Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Dalderby, ff. 96d, 244d.
[516]V.C.H. Yorks.III, pp. 115, 128, 161.
[517]Cal. of Papal Letters,IV, p. 393;V, p. 373.
[518]Except where otherwise stated the following references all occur in Gray,op. cit.p. 79 and are printed in full in R. Willis,Architectural Hist. of the Univ. of Cambridge, ed. J. Willis Clark (1886),II, pp. 183-6.
[519]Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Dalderby, f. 96d.
[520]Gray,op. cit.p. 36.
[521]Ib.pp. 37-8.
[522]A few other references may be given: Bishop Fordham of Ely for Rowney (1408) and Bishop Alcock of Ely for the Minories (1490). Gibbons,Ely Epis. Records, pp. 406, 414. Bishop Sutton of Lincoln to Wothorpe (1292).V.C.H. Northants.II, p. 114.
[523]V.C.H. Wilts.II, p. 77.
[524]V.C.H. Essex,II, p. 119. References to this occur in 1380, 1382, 1384, 1392, 1402 and 1409.
[525]Gibbons,Ely Epis. Records, p. 399.
[526]V.C.H. Lincs.II, p. 179. Cf. Thetford.V.C.H. Norfolk,II, p. 355.
[527]V.C.H. Yorks.III, p. 161.
[528]Ib.p. 124.
[529]V.C.H. Wilts.II, p. 77. The reference is perhaps to the famous storm of St Maur’s Day, 1362, which, together with the Black Death, is commemorated in agraffitoin the church of Ashwell (Herts.) and in a distich quoted by Adam Murimuth
C ter erant mille, decies sex unus et ille.Luce tua Maure, vehemens fuit impetus aurae.Ecce flat hoc anno, Maurus in orbe tonans.
[530]Gray,op. cit.p. 79.
[531]Bishop Rede’s Reg.(Sussex Rec. Soc.), p. 137.
[532]Cal. of Papal Letters,V, p. 347.
[533]Dugdale,Mon.IV, p. 301.
[534]The following account of medieval plagues and famines is taken mainly from Creighton,Hist. of Epidemics in Britain,I, pp. 202-7, 215-223. See also Denton,England in the Fifteenth Century, pp. 91-105.
[535]Creighton,op. cit.I, p. 19.
[536]Denton,op. cit.p. 93.
[537]Ib.p. 93sqq.
[538]V.C.H. Hants.II, p. 150. He attributed their condition to negligence and bad administration.
[539]P.R.O. Ancient Correspondence,XXXVI, no. 201.
[540]V.C.H. Derby,II, p. 43. See below, p.200.
[541]See P. G. Mode,The Influence of the Black Death on the English Monasteries(Univ. of Chicago, 1916),passim.
[542]Dugdale.Mon.IV, p. 268.
[543]A. Hamilton Thompson,Registers of John Gynewell, Bishop of Lincoln for the years 1347-1350(reprinted fromArchaeol. Journ.LXVIII, pp. 301-360, 1912), p. 328.
[544]Ib.pp. 359-60.
[545]A. Hamilton Thompson,The Pestilences of the Fourteenth Century in the Diocese of York(reprinted fromArchaeol. Journ.LXXI, pp. 97-154, 1914), pp. 121-2.
[546]Wharton,Anglia Sacra,I, pp. 364, 375.
[547]V.C.H. Warwick.II, p. 65.
[548]V.C.H. Suffolk,II, p. 116.
[549]Liveing,op. cit.p. 146.
[550]Cal. of Papal Petitions,I, p. 230.
[551]Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1364, pp. 21, 485.
[552]Rye,Carrow Abbey, p. 37.
[553]V.C.H. Northants.II, p. 126.
[554]Dugdale,Mon.IV, p. 301. Their petition had been presented in 1380.V.C.H. Herts.IV, p. 433.
[555]Cal. of Papal Letters,IV, p. 521.
[556]Bishop Rede’s Reg.p. 137.
[557]V.C.H. Norfolk,II, p. 335.
[558]Rot. Parl.III, p. 129 and Dugdale,Mon.II, p. 485.
[559]V.C.H. Dorset,II, p. 77.
[560]Visit. of Diocese of Norwich(Camden Soc.), p. 155.
[561]V.C.H. Glouc.II, p. 93.
[562]On other occasions, however, they were careful to take all their due.Videthe great Bishop Grandisson’s letter to the abbess and convent of Canonsleigh, announcing his forthcoming visitation and “mandantes quod in illum eventum de procuracione ea occasione nobis debita providere curetis in pecunia numerata.”Reg. of Bishop Grandisson, ed. Hingeston-Randolph, ptII, p. 767. At Davington in 1511 the Prioress deposed that “the house has to pay 20s.to the Archbishop for board at the time of his visitation.”E.H.R.VI, p. 28.
[563]Reg. Johannis de Pontissara(Cant. and York. Soc.),I, p. 299.
[564]Reg. Rich. de Swinfield(Cantilupe Soc.), p. 366. Other cases of excommunication are sometimes to be found in Bishops’ Registers, e.g. in 1335 the Prioresses of Cokehill and Brewood were excommunicated for failure to pay the tenth; one owed 9½d.and the other 1s.8¼d.—paltry sums for which to damn a poor nun’s soul!Reg. Thomas de Charlton(Cantilupe Soc.), p. 57.
[565]Reg. John le Romeyn(Surtees Soc.),I, p. 159.
[566]Reg. Sede Vacante(Worc. Hist. Soc.), p. 62. Cf. remission of tithes by Bishop Dalderby to Greenfield, because of its poverty.V.C.H. Lincs.II, p. 155. Some Cistercian houses held papal bulls exempting them from the payment of tithes, e.g. Sinningthwaite and Swine. Dugdale,Mon.V, pp. 463, 494.
[567]Dugdale,Mon.IV, p. 288.
[568]For a few out of many instances of remission of payment on account of poverty see Ivinghoe, Little Marlow, Burnham (V.C.H. Bucks.I, pp. 353, 358, 382); Cheshunt (V.C.H. Herts.IV, pp. 426-7); Stixwould, Heynings, Greenfield, Fosse, St Leonard’s Grimsby (V.C.H. Lincs.II, pp. 122, 147, 149, 155, 157, 179); Catesby (V.C.H. Northants.II, p. 122); Ickleton, Swaffham, Chatteris, St Radegund’s Cambridge (Dugdale,Mon.IV, p. 439); Malling (Ib.III, p. 382); St Mary Magdalen’s Bristol (V.C.H. Glouc.II, p. 93); Minchin Barrow (Hugo,op. cit.p. 108); Blackborough (V.C.H. Norfolk,II, p. 351); Arden (V.C.H. Yorks.III, p. 113); Nunkeeling and Nunappleton (Reg. John le Romeyn,I, pp. 140, 234); Wintney (V.C.H. Hants.II, p. 150).
[569]Cal. of Papal Letters,V, p. 347. Compare the case of the hospital of St James of Canterbury which “grievoussement ad estez chargez pur diverse contribucions faitz au Roy entre les laiz, ou les biens ... ne sufficent mye ala sustinaunce de la Priouresse et les seoures.”Hist. MSS. Comm. Report,IX, p. 87.
[570]Cal. of Pat. Rolls, 1467-77, pp. 138, 587.
[571]Dugdale,Mon.II, p. 472. Cf. p. 328.
[572]Ib.p. 473. Cf.Parl. Writs(Rec. Comm.),II, div. 3, 1424.
[573]Cal. of Close Rolls, 1339-41, pp. 215, 217.
[574]On this subject see Rose Graham,St Gilbert of Sempringham and the Gilbertines, pp. 90-2.
[575]Cal. of Close Rolls, 1307-13, p. 50. Compare the entry in the treasuresses’ account of St Michael’s, Stamford, for 1392-3. “Item done en curtasy a le Balyf de Roy quant nostre carre fuist areste al seruice del roy viijd.”P.R.O. Ministers’ Accounts, 1260/10.
[576]Cal. of Close Rolls, 1307-13, pp. 262-6,passim.
[577]For instance in 1275 the King granted the custody of Barking Abbey, void and in his hands, to his mother, Queen Eleanor.Cal. of Close Rolls, 1272-9, p. 210.
[578]Reg. Sede Vacante(Worc. Rec. Soc.), pp. 112-3. Compare the petition of St Mary’s Chester to Queen Eleanor, p.172above.