[1153]Quoted in Thiers,op. cit.p. 133, who considers the question in his ch.XIX.
[1154]Archaeologia,XLVII, pp. 52-3.
[1155]See illustration of Henry VI being received as a Confrater at Bury St Edmunds, reproduced in Gasquet,Engl. Mon. Life, facing p. 126, fromHarl. MS.2278, f. 6.
[1156]Amundesham,Annales(Rolls Ser.),I, pp. 65-9,passim.
[1157]V.C.H. Herts.IV, p. 424.
[1158]“I will that Ilke prior and priores that comes to my beryall at ytday hafe iii s iiij d and Ilke chanon and Nune xij d ... and Ilke prior and priores that comes to the xxx day [i.e. the so-called “month’s-mind”] hafe vj s viij d and Ilke chanon or none that comes to the said xxx day haf xx d.”Lincoln Diocese Documents, ed. A. Clark (E.E.T.S.), pp. 50, 53.
[1159]P.R.O. Mins. Accts.1260/20. This was probably Constance of Castile, second wife of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, who died on March 24, 1394, and was buried with great magnificence at The Newarke, Leicester. S. Armitage Smith,John of Gaunt(1904), pp. 357-8. The date of the account roll is unfortunately illegible, but from this internal evidence it should probably be dated 1393-4. There is another entry “paye a couent pur lalme le Duk de Lancastre vij s iij d,” in which “Duk” is possibly a slip for “Duchesse.”
[1160]There were over seventy places of pilgrimage in Norfolk alone. Cutts,Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages(3rd ed. 1911), p. 162.
[1161]Jacques de Vitry does not mince his words: “I have seen many pilgrims who, weary of wayfaring, used to drink themselves tipsy.... You will find many harlots and evil women in the inns, who lie in wait for the incautious and reward their guests with evil, even as a mouse in a wallet, a serpent in the bosom.” Etienne de Bourbon has the same tale to tell: “A pilgrimage should be sober, lest the pilgrims be despoiled and slain and turned to scorn, both materially and spiritually. For I have seen a person who had laboured greatly making a pilgrimage overseas lose both his virtue and his money, when drunk and lying with a chambermaid in an inn.”Anecdotes Historiques etc., d’Etienne de Bourbon, ed. Lecoy de la Marche (1877), pp. 167-8. Mine Host’s words to the drunken cook (Manciple’s Prol.II, pp. 15-19) are significant in the light of these quotations. So also are the adventures of “that loose fish the Pardoner” with the tapster Kit at the Chequer Inn.Tale of Beryn, ed. Furnivall and Stone (Chaucer Soc. 1887). See alsoAn Alphabet of Tales(E.E.T.S.), p. 258, No.CCCLXXVI.
[1162]Compare the words of the Lollard William Thorpe in 1407: “Such fond people waste blamefullie Gods goodes in their vaine pilgrimages, spending their goods upon vitious hostelars, which are oft uncleane women of their bodies.... Also, sir, I knowe well that when divers men and women will goe thus after their oun willes and finding, out on pilgrimage, they will ordaine with them before to have with them some men and women that can well sing wanton songes; and some other pilgrimages will have them with bagge-pipes,” etc. This and other information about pilgrimages may be found in Coulton,Chaucer and his England, pp. 138-43. See alsoThe Book of the Knight of La Tour-Landry(E.E.T.S.), pp. 47 ff.
[1163]
The wyff of bath was so wery, she had no will to walk;She toke the Priores by the hond; “madam, wol ye stalkPryuely in-to þe garden, to se the herbis growe?And aftir, with our hostis wyff, in hir parlour rowe,I wol gyve ȝewe the wine, and yee shull me also:ffor tyll wee go to soper, wee have nauȝt ellis to do.”The Priores, as womman tauȝt of gentil blood and hend,Assentid to hir counsell; and forthe (tho) gon they wendPassyng forth (ful) softly in-to the herbery:ffor many a herbe grewe, for sewe and surgery;And al the Aleyis fair I-parid, I-ralid and I-makid:The sauge and the Isope, I-frethid and I-stakid.
Tale of Beryn, p. 10. Cf. p. 6 for the scene with the holy water sprinkler.
[1164]Langland,Piers Plowman, B Text, PassusXII, 36-38.
[1165]“Let it never be permitted to any abbess or any other nun, whosoever she may be, to undertake the journey to Rome or to any other holy places; for it is the Devil, taking the form of an angel of light, who inspires such pilgrimages under a false pretext of piety: and there is no one so foolish and so devoid of reason as not to know how irreligious and blameworthy a thing it is for Virgins vowed to God to hold converse with men, through the necessity of a journey. If after the prohibition of this venerable Council, there be found anyone so bold as to disobey this ordinance, which has been promulgated by unanimous consent, let him be punished according to the rigour of the canons, to wit let him be excommunicated.” Thiers,op. cit.p. 135.
[1166]Wilkins,Concilia,I, p. 502.
[1167]V.C.H. Yorks.III, p. 172. Compare Bishop Gynewell’s injunction to Heynings in 1351: “Item pur ceo que ascun de les dames de dit mesoun sount trop acustumez de faire auowes de pilgrimage et dautres abstinences, saunz conge de lour souerayn, par quar ils ount souent occasion de les retrer de lour religion; si vous comandoms sur peyn descomengement que nul de vous face tiel maner auowe en destourbance de vostre religion, saunz especial conge de vostre souereyn. Et que nul tiel auowe soit fait par ascun de vous, pur faire paregrinage ou autre abstinence a quel il nest pas tenuz par sa religion, nous lui relessoms tut maner de tel auowe, issint qil se poet doner entirement a sa religion parfaire.”Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell, f. 34d.
[1168]V.C.H. Yorks.III, p. 172, and Dugdale,Mon.V, p. 654.
[1169]V.C.H. Essex,II, p. 124.
[1170]Archaeologia,XLVII, pp. 56-7.
[1171]V.C.H. Yorks.III, p. 183. This episode is a striking illustration of the complaint made about those Jubilee pilgrimages by the abbots of Fountains, St Mary Graces and Stratford, who had been appointed by the Abbot and Chapter-General of Cîteaux to report on the condition of English monasteries of that order. Writing to the Abbot of Cîteaux in 1500, they beg that several bulls of Jubilee indulgence should be sent to England, adding, “for many lesser religious of the order, under pretext of obtaining the grace of this indulgence, led by a spirit less of devotion than of levity and curiosity, are begging their superiors for licence to go to the Roman curia, and we have besought them to remain at home in the hope of obtaining this jubilee [indulgence]. For we rarely see, in this country of ours, any good and devout secular or religious man visiting the Mother City (most justly though it be accounted holy), who returns home again in better holiness and devotion.”Mélanges d’Histoire offerts à M. Charles Bémont(Paris, 1913), p. 429.
[1172]Quoted in Gregorovius,Hist. of Rome in the Middle Ages,III, p. 78 note. See the fifteenth century Florentine carnival song, quoted below, pp.617-8.
[1173]
Les blanches et les grises et les noires nonainsSont sovent pelerines aus saintes et aus sainz;Les Diex lor en set gre, je n’en suis pas certains,S’eles fussent bien sages eles alassent mains.Quant ces nonains s’en vont par le pays esbatreLes unes a Paris, les autres a Montmartre,Tels foiz enmaine deus qu’on en ramaine quatre,Quar s’on en perdroit une il les covenroit batre.
From “De la vie dou Monde,”Rustebeufs Gedichte hg. v. Adolf Krefaner(1885), p. 185.
[1174]And of such specific decrees as that of the Council of Oxford (1222) which forbade them to go merely to visit relatives or for recreation except (there was always a saving clause under which nuns and bishops alike could shelter) in such case as might arouse no suspicion. Wilkins,Concilia,I, p. 592.
[1175]Reg. Walter de Stapeldon, p. 95. Cf. injunctions to Polsloe, above, p.355.
[1176]All the Familiar Colloquies of Erasmus, ed. N. Bailey, 2nd ed. 1733, p. 379.
[1177]Hereford Epis. Reg. Spofford, p. 81. Compare the charge made against the clergy of Ripon Minster in 1312: “Vicarii capellani, et caeteri ministri ... spectaculis publicis, ludibriis et coreis, immo teatricalibus ludis inter laicos frequentius se immiscent.” J. T. Fowler,Memorials of Ripon Minster(Surtees Soc.),II, p. 68. Also one of thecompertaat Alnwick’s visitation of Humberstone Abbey in 1440, “He says that Wrauby answered the abbot saucily and rebelliously when [the abbot] took him to task for climbing up a gate to behold the pipe-players and dancers in the churchyard of the parish church.”Linc. Visit.II, p. 140.
[1178]Manners and Meals in Olden Time, ed. Furnivall (E.E.T.S.), p. 40.
[1179]See above, p.81, and compare the injunctions sent by Cardinal Nicholas of Cues to the Abbess of Sonnenburg, c. 1454, forbidding her to go on pilgrimages or to visit health resorts or to attend weddings. Eckenstein,Woman under Monasticism, p. 425.
[1180]Quoted in Brand’sObservations on Popular Antiquities(ed. 1877), pp. 382, 394. Compare the almost precisely similar account given by Erasmus in hisGuide to Christian Matrimony(1526), quoted in Coulton,Social Life in Britain from the Conquest to the Reformation, pp. 439-40.
[1181]See above, p.309and below, p.388.
[1182]Coulton,Chaucer and his England, pp. 108-9. Weddings were, however, occasionally celebrated in convent churches, e.g. on Jan. 3rd, 1465-6 the Bishop of Ely addressed a licence to Thomas Trumpington, “President of religion of the Minoresses of the convent of Denny,” authorising him to celebrate matrimony in the convent church between William Ketterich junior and Marion Hall, domestic servants in the monastery, the bans to be put up in the parish church of Waterbeach.Ely Epis. Records, ed. Gibbons, p. 145. Compare case at Crabhouse in 1476,V.C.H. Norfolk,II, p. 409. Dugdale notes that Henry VIII is said to have married one of his wives in the Chapel at Sopwell. Dugdale,Mon.III, p. 364. Such weddings would necessarily have taken place in convent churches where the nave was also used as a parish church, but this was not so at Denny. Wriothesley’sChroniclecontains an account of a triple wedding held at Haliwell in 1536. “This yeare, the 3 daye of July, beinge Mondaye, was a greate solempnytie of marriage kept at the nonnerye of Halywell, besyde London, in the Erle of Ruttlandes place, where the Erle of Oxfordes sonne and heyer, called Lord Bulbeke maryed the Erle of Westmorelandes eldest daughter named Ladye Dorytye and the Erle of Westmorelandes sonne and heyre, called Lord Nevell, maryed the Erle of Ruttlandes eldyste daughter, named Ladye Anne, and the Erle of Rutlandes sonne and heire called Lord Roosse maryed the Erle of Westmorelandes daughter, named Ladye Margaret; and all these three lordes were maryed at one masse, goinge to churche all 3 together on by another and the laydes, there wyfes, followinge, one after another, everye one of the younge ladyes havinge 2 younge lordes goinge one everye syde of them when they went to church and a younge ladye bearinge up everye of their gowne traynes; at wh. maryage was present all the greate estates of the realme, both lordes and ladyes.” Afterwards they all went home and had a great feast, followed by a dance, to which the King came dressed as a Turk.Wriothesley’s Chronicle, ed. W. D. Hamilton (Camden Soc. 1875),I, pp. 50-1. A reference may also be made to No.XLVIofLes Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles, ed. Th. Wright, t.I, p. 284: “Or advint toutesfoiz ung jour que une des niepces de madame l’abbesse se marioit et faisoit sa feste en l’abbaye; et y avoit grosse assemblée des gens du païs; et estoit madame l’abbesse fort empeschée de festoyer les gens de bien qui estoyent venuz à la feste faire honneur à sa niepce.”
[1183]From “Proofs of Age, temp. Henry IV,” quoted inTrans. R. Hist. Soc.N.S.XVI(1902), p. 163.
[1184]“Or viennent commeres de toutes pars; or convient que le pauvre homme [i.e. the husband] face tant que elles soient bien aises. La dame et les commeres parlent et raudent, et dient de bonnes chouses et se tiennent bien aises, quiconques ait la peine de le querir, quelque temps qu’il face ... et tousjours boyvent comme bottes.... Lors les commeres entrent, elles desjunent, elles disnent, elles menjent a raassie, maintenant boivent au lit de la commere, maintenant à la cuve, et confondent des biens et du vin plus qu’il n’en entreroit en une bote; et à l’aventure il vient à barrilz ou n’en y a que une pipe. Et le pauvre homme, qui a tout le soussy de la despense, va souvent veoir comment le vin se porte, quant il voit terriblement boire.... Briefment tout se despend; les commeres s’en vont bien coiffées, parlant et janglant, et ne se esmoient point dont il vient.”Les Quinzes Joyes de Mariage(Bib. Elzevirienne, 1855), pp. 27-8, 30, 37-8.
[1185]G. G. Coulton,French Monasticism in 1503(Medieval Studies No.XI.1915), p. 22 note 2.
[1186]New Coll.MS. f. 87. On the other hand such connections with rich families might be a source of wealth to a house. Mr Coulton draws attention to “the letter of an abbot at Bordeaux in Father Denifle’sDésolation des Eglises, etc.I, p. 583 (A.D.1419). The abbey had been so impoverished by war that the Abbot begged for a papal indult permitting him to stand godfather to forty children of noble or wealthy families.” Coulton,loc. cit.
[1187]Alnwick’s Visit.MS. f. 77d.
[1188]“That frome hensforthe ye give noo more licence ne suffre eny of your susters to be godmother to eny child, nither at the christening nother at the confirmacon, and undre like payne chardge you nott to be godmother to eny child in christening nor confirmacon.”Archaeologia,XLVII, p. 54. Compare similar prohibitions by Eudes Rigaud, Archbishop of Rouen, addressed to the nuns of Montivilliers in 1257 and 1265.Reg. Visit. Archiepis. Rothomag.ed. Bonnin (1852), pp. 293, 517. The prohibition was frequently broken by monks as well as by nuns. See e.g. thecompertaat Alnwick’s visitation of Higham Ferrers College in 1442: “Also Sir William Calverstone haunts suspect places and especially the house of Margery Chaumberleyn, for whose son he stood sponsor at his confirmation, and, though warned by the master, he does not desist. The same does also haunt the house of one Plays, for whose son he likewise stood sponsor.”Linc. Visit.II, p. 138. Also the complaint of Guy Jouenneaux, Abbot of St Sulpice de Bourges in hisDefence of Monastic Reform(1503): “Sometimes they eat in the houses of their gossips, though the law forbids them such relationships, or again among citizens, at whose houses they are as frequent guests, or more frequent, than even worldly-minded folk.” Coulton,loc. cit.It is interesting that Barbara Mason, ex-Prioress of Marham, who died shortly after the dissolution in 1538, mentions two god-daughters. “I wyll Barbara Barcom my goddowter and seruant, shall haue my wosted kyrtyll and clothe kyrtell and my frok in Hayll. Itm. I bequeth to Elyn Mason’s chyld, my goddowter xij d.”Bury Wills and Inventories, ed. S. Tymms (Camden Soc.), p. 134. Henry VIII’s visitors gave her a bad character.
[1189]For her life see M. A. E. Green,Lives of the Princesses of England,II, pp. 404-42.
[1190]Their gardens are often mentioned, e.g. at Nuncoton in 1440 it was complained that the nuns had private gardens and that some of them did not come to Compline, but wandered about in the gardens, gathering herbs.Alnwick’s Visit.f. 72. At Stainfield in 1519 a similar complaint was made that on feast days they did not stay in the church and occupy themselves in devotion, between the Hours of Our Lady and High Mass, but came out and walked about the garden and cloisters.V.C.H. Lincs.II, p. 131. The nuns of Sinningthwaite (1319) were ordered to provide themselves with a competent gardener for their curtilage, so that they might always have an abundance of vegetables.V.C.H. Yorks.III, p. 177. Christine de Pisan’s description of the great gardens of the convent of Poissy is most attractive. See below, p.560.
[1191]Quoted in Gasquet,English Monastic Life, p. 177.
[1192]One of the charges against Eleanor Prioress of Arden in 1396 was that “she compelled three young nuns to go out haymaking very early in the morning and they did not come back before nightfall and so divine service was not yet said.”Test. Ebor.(Surtees Soc.), p. 283.
[1193]Alnwick’s Visit.f. 71d.
[1194]Ib.pp. 120, 121, 123, 125. At Bishop Atwater’s visitation of Legbourne in 1519 it was stated that the nuns often worked at haymaking, but only in the presence of the Prioress.V.C.H. Lincs.II, p. 154.
[1195]See below, p.653.
[1196]See below, p.589.
[1197]See Thiers on the subject: “Si les Religieuses estoient aussi soigneuses de leur honneur et de leur reputation comme elles devroient, si elles vouloient asseurer la grace de leur vocation et de leur election ... elles ne nourriroient point de vaches dans leur clôture, estant indecent que les Religieuses s’occupent à les mener paistre, à les retirer des pasturages, et à faire tout ce qui est necessaire pour en recevoir quelque profit. Je dis la même choses des asnesses, qu’elles y retiennient pour en prendre le lait dans leurs infirmitez. Car elles peuvent les avoir au dehors et en tirer à peu près les mêmes avantages, que si elles les renoient au dedans. Aussi est-il dit dans les Statuts du Couvent de Saint Estienne de Reims, de l’ordre des Chanoinesses regulieres de Saint Augustin: Il ne sera loisible de recevoir dans le Monastere aucun gros bestail: ce qui est parfaitement conforme à cette défense du 1. Concile Provincial de Milan en 1565.Moniales ne intus in septis Monasterii boves, equos et jumenta cujusvis generis alant.”Op. cit.p. 415.
[1198]Ancren Riwle(King’s Classics), pp. 316-7.
[1199]Lambeth Reg. Courtenay,I, f. 336. The injunction was repeated by Bishop Flemyng in 1421-2.Visit. of Relig. Houses in Dioc. Lincoln,I, p. 52. At Godstow Peckham made the following order concerning the conversations of nuns with seculars: “Cum insuper talia sunt colloquia terminata, inhibemus decetero ne moniales hujusmodi pro colloquentium conductu, locutorii januam exeant ullo modo, nec etiam stent exterius in atrio, ubi saecularium est concursus,sed interius tantum in hortis et pomeriisquatenus requirit necessitas et honestas patitur, si non desit omnimoda securitas, consolentur.”Reg. Epis. J. Peckham,III, p. 848. At Romsey in 1311 Bishop Woodlock ordered that “there shall be an entrance into the garden by a gate or postern for the sickin loco non suspectofor their recreation and solace.” Liveing,Records of Romsey Abbey, p. 104. At Clementhorpe in 1310 a nun confined to the cloister for penance might “for recreation and solace go into the orchard and gardens of the nunnery accompanied by nuns.”V.C.H. Yorks.III, p. 129.
[1200]Hereford Epis. Reg. Spofford, p. 82.
[1201]William Salt Archaeol. Soc. Coll. New Series,VIII, pp. 118-9.
[1202]Coulton,Chaucer and his England, p. 109. He quotes one such rule from the “Ménagier de Paris.” “When thou goest into town or to church, walk with thine head high, thine eyelids lowered and fixed on the ground at four fathoms distance straight in front of thee, without looking or glancing sideways at either man or woman to the right hand or the left, nor looking upward.”
[1203]V.C.H. Essex,II, p. 124.
[1204]Cf. Coulton,Medieval Studies(first series, 2nd ed., p. 61) and Bishop Hallam’s admonition to Shaftesbury in 1410.V.C.H. Dorset,II, p. 78. Also Peckham’s Constitution in 1281. Wilkins,Concilia,II, p. 58.
[1205]V.C.H. Yorks.III, p. 239.
[1206]Reg. Godfrey Giffard, p. 267.
[1207]Reg. Sede Vacante(Worc. Hist. Soc.), p. 276.
[1208]Reg. Ralph of Shrewsbury, p. 241.
[1209]Reg. Walter de Stapeldon, p. 317.
[1210]A Boke of Precedence, ed. F. J. Furnivall (E.E.T.S. Extra Ser.VIII), p. 39.
[1211]The Wife of Bath’s Prologue, ll. 545-7.
[1212]Reg. Epis. Peckham(Rolls Ser.),II, p. 664.
[1213]Linc. Visit.II, p. 114. Cf. Gray’s injunction in 1432.Visit. of Relig. Houses in Dioc. of Linc.I, p. 67.
[1214]Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell, f. 139d.
[1215]Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Bokyngham, f. 343.
[1216]Visit. of Relig. Houses in Dioc. Linc.I, pp. 25, 51.
[1217]Archaeologia,XLVII, p. 57.
[1218]Reg. Johannis de Pontissara, pp. 251-2.
[1219]Reg. Epis. Peckham(Rolls Ser.),II, p. 707.
[1220]Linc. Visit.II, p. 50. With this account of the entertainment provided by the Friars of Northampton for their visitors, compare the evidence given at Bishop Nykke’s visitation of the Cathedral priory of Norwich in 1514. “Item, the Brethren are wont to dance in the guesten-house, by favour of the guest-master, by night (and) up to noon.”Visit. of the Dioc. of Norwich(Camden Soc.), p. 75. One of the Bishop’scompertawas that suspicious women had access to the house of the guest-master, which throws further light on the Catesby case. Incidentally the latter bears out Chaucer’s description of the Friar, who was so fond of harping.
[1221]Exempla e sermonibus vulgaribus Jacobi Vitriacensis, ed. T. F. Crane, p. 131.
[1222]Anecdotes Historiques, etc. d’Etienne de Bourbon, ed. Lecoy de La Marche, p. 229.
[1223]See below, p.460.
[1224]See also below, pp.448-50.
[1225]Dugdale,Mon.V, p. 654.
[1226]Liveing,Records of Romsey Abbey, p. 218.
[1227]Poetical Works of John Skelton, ed. Dyce,I, p. 95.
[1228]Langland,Piers Plowman, ed. Skeat, Text B, PassusV, ll. 304 ff.
[1229]See above, p.373.
[1230]Songs and Carols, ed. Th. Wright (Percy Soc.), pp. 91-5.
[1231]Gower,Mirour de l’Omne, ed. G. C. Macaulay, p. 289. Translated in Coulton,Med. Garn.pp. 577-8.
[1232]At Esholt in 1535 Archbishop Lee even had to enjoin “that the prioress suffer no ale house to be kept within the precinct of the gates of the saide monasterie.”Yorks. Arch. Journ.XVI, p. 452. An explanation of this may be found by comparing the evidence at Archbishop Warham’s visitation of the Hospital of St James outside Canterbury in 1511. “The Prioress complains that Richard Welles stays and talks in the precincts of the house and his wife sells beer in the precincts. They are very quarrelsome people, brawlers and sowers of discord. There is always a crowd of people at the house of Richard.”E.H.R.VI, p. 22. At both these houses the nuns probably employed a secular alewife to make their beer and she sold also to other customers within their precincts. Compare Peckham’s injunction to Wherwell in 1284: “Iterum ob Dei reverentiam et ecclesiae honestatem perpetuo inhibemus ne mercatores sedere in ecclesia cum suis mercibus permittantur.”Reg. Epis. Johannis Peckham(Rolls Ser.),II, p. 654. Also Bishop Bokyngham’s letter forbidding merchants to sell their wares in the conventual church or churchyard of Stainfield under pain of excommunication (1392).V.C.H. Lincs.II, p. 131. Medieval churches were put to strange uses. They served sometimes as a market-place, sometimes as a granary, sometimes as a playground, sometimes as a stage.
[1233]Wood,Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies,II, p. 35, noteb.
[1234]Wood,op. cit.pp. 35-6.
[1235]Wood,op. cit.pp. 36-37 (No.XV).
[1236]On this subject see Part II of Thiers’ treatiseDe la Clôture, pp. 265-497.
[1237]Ancren Riwle(King’s Classics), p. 67.
[1238]Linc. Visit.II, pp. 46-7. The Benedictine rule runs: “It is by no means lawful, without the abbot’s permission, for any monk to receive or give letters, presents and gifts of any kind to anyone, whether parent or other.” Cap.LIV.
[1239]V.C.H. Oxon.II, p. 104.
[1240]Liveing,op. cit.p. 232.
[1241]Hist. MSS. Com. Report,IX, App. p. 57 (early fifteenth century).
[1242]Reg. Epis. J. Peckham,III, p. 847. From a letter which he wrote to the Abbess on Nov. 12, 1284, it appears that the Prioress had been defamed of incontinence, for, while professing his belief in her innocence, he repeated his prohibition of casual conversation between nuns and seculars, adding “Oveke ceo nous defendons de part Deu ke nule nonein ne parle a escoler de Oxeneford, se il nest sun parent prechein, e ovekes ceo saunz le conge la abbesse especial. E ceo meismes entendons nous de touȝ prestres foreins, le queus font mout de maus en mout de lus, e aussi de touȝ religieus ki ne venent pur precher u pur confesser oue lautorite le apostoile e le eveske de Nichole.”Ib.III, p. 851. Compare an injunction to Nunmonkton in 1397: “Item non permittatis clericos prioratum vestrum frequentare absque causa rationabili.” Dugdale,Mon.IV, p. 194.
[1243]Linc. Visit.I, pp. 67-8.
[1244]Ib.p. 65.
[1245]See below, p.449.
[1246]Linc. Visit.II, p. 114. Alnwick made a very strong injunction: “For as mykelle as your saide monastery and diuerse singulere persones ther of are greuously noysed and sclaundred for the grete and contynuelle accesse and recourse of seculere and regulere persones, and in specyalle of scolers of Oxenford to your said monastery and seculere persones ther of, that fro hense forthe ye suffre no seculere persones scolers no othere ... to hafe any accesse or recourse to your said monastery ne to any singulere persone ther of, ne there to abyde nyght ne daye, etc.”Ib.pp. 115-6.
[1247]Ib.II, p. 218.
[1248]SeeV.C.H. Oxon.II, pp. 76-7.
[1249]Op. cit.f. 26d.
[1250]Gray,Priory of St Radegund, Cambridge, p. 35.
[1251]Dugdale,Mon.IV, p. 190. See below p.602.
[1252]Lambeth Reg. Langham, f. 76d. Compare the note in Alnwick’s visitation of Studley (1445): “Sister Isabel Bartone. It is said that there is great recourse of seculare guests to the aforesaid Isabel and to her chamber.”Alnwick’s Visit.MS. f. 26d.
[1253]Archaeologia,XLVII, p. 57.
[1254]A few more examples may be quoted. At Swine one of thecompertaof Giffard’s visitation in 1267-8 runs: “The household of Sir Robert de Hilton, knight, wanders about far too freely (nimis dissolute) in the cloister and parlour, and often holds very suspicious conversations with the nuns and sisters, whence it is feared that harm may come. And this same Robert is very injurious and dangerous to them, wherefore, for fear of his oppression, the canons of the house lately, without the consent of the convent, gave him a barn full of corn, with which the convent should have been maintained.”Reg. Walter Giffard, p. 148. At Nunmonkton in 1397 the Prioress, Margaret Fairfax, was ordered to see that John Munkton (the same who scandalised the convent by feasting and playing tables with her in her room), Sir William Aschby, chaplain, William Snowe and Thomas Pape held no conversation nor kept company with her, nor with any nun of her house, except in the presence of two of the elder nuns, and she was warned not to allow clerks to frequent the priory without reasonable cause. Dugdale,Mon.IV, p. 194. At Rusper in 1524 “a certain William Tychenor has frequent access to the said priory and there sows discord between the prioress and sisters and others living there.”Sussex Arch. Coll.V, p. 257. It will be noticed how often these suspected visitors are clerics; the prefix “sir” in the Nuncoton extract quoted in the text almost certainly denotes a churchman and the persons mentioned are probably secular clergy or canons from neighbouring houses such as Newhouse, probably chantry-priests and parish chaplains. See below, p.416.
[1255]The following examples are typical of a host of others. At Nunappleton (1281) external visitors come into frater and cloister.Reg. William Wickwane, p. 141. At Rosedale (1306) the infirmary is to be kept from the passing to and fro of seculars; at Arthington (1318) they are not to frequent cloister, infirmary or other private places; at Nunburnholme (1318) there is scandal from the frequent access and gossiping of seculars with certain of the nuns.V.C.H. Yorks.III, pp. 119, 174. At Ickleton (1345) the precincts are not to be made the resort of any secular woman, nor is any such person to come into the choir during the hours of service. Goddard,Ickleton Church and Priory(Cambridge Antiq. Soc. Proc.XLV, p. 190). At Gracedieu (1440-1) seculars and nuns eat togethercommixtimin the Prioress’ hall.Linc. Visit.II, p. 122. At Heynings (1440) the infirmary was occupied by secular folk, “to the great disturbance of the sisters.”Ib.p. 133. At Romsey (1492) people stand about chatting in the middle of the choir. Liveing,op. cit.p. 220.
[1256]On the right of the patron or founder of a monastery, or of persons of noble birth, to enter the cloistral precincts, see Thiers,op. cit.pp. 296-309. He quotes the rule of Fontevrault (cap.VII): “If the most Christian King, the Queen, the Dauphin and other princes of the blood-royal, the founders and foundresses, being instantly besought, refuse nevertheless to desist from entering the precincts, let them enter with as small a suite of attendants as you can arrange, in long and decent garments and not otherwise; but let them not seek to pass the night on pain of excommunication.”Ib.p. 297. It was never possible in practice to keep out great lords and ladies.
[1257]Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell, f. 34d.
[1258]Linc. Visit.II, pp. 133-5,passim. Compare the injunctions to some Yorkshire houses: at Marrick (1252) the nuns were forbidden to sit with guests or anyone else outside the cloister after curfew, or for a long time unless the guests arrived so late that it was impossible to serve them sooner, nor was a nun to remain alone with a guest. At Hampole (1302) no nun except thehostillariawas to eat or drink in the guest-house, save with worthy people, and at Wilberfoss (1302) they were forbidden to linger in the guest-house or elsewhere, for amusement with seculars.V.C.H. Yorks.III, pp. 117, 126, 163. At Elstow in 1432, however, Bishop Gray enjoined “that when parents or friends or kinsfolk of nuns, or other persons of note and honesty, shall journey to the same monastery to visit any nuns of the said monastery, the same nuns be nowise bound for that day to observance of frater, but be excused to this end by grace of the abbess or president.”Visit. of Relig. Houses in Dioc. Linc.I, p. 54.
[1259]Reg. Epis. J. Peckham,III, pp. 851-2.
[1260]Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell, f. 100d.
[1261]Wykeham’s Reg.II, pp. 73-4. The special prohibition of friars is significant, for their reputation was growing worse and worse throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. See alsoV.C.H. Yorks.III, pp. 164, 171, 181 andArch.XLVII, p. 57. On the other hand it should be noted that “during the later thirteenth and earlier fourteenth centuries the bishops in many dioceses made a point of insisting that the confessors to the nuns should be chosen, not from the secular clergy, but from the Mendicant Orders, especially from the Minorites.” A. G. Little,Studies in English Franciscan Hist.(1917), p. 119 (and the references which he gives).
[1262]Visit. of Relig. Houses in Dioc. Linc.I, p. 66.
[1263]Yorks. Arch. Journ.XVI, p. 441. Compare Alnwick’s injunctions to Catesby (1442), Langley (1440-1) and St Michael’s, Stamford (1440).Linc. Visit.II, pp. 51, 117,Alnwick’sMS. f. 83d.
[1264]Yorks. Arch. Journ.XVI, p. 452 (cf. p. 440). These injunctions were very common, for the rule was often broken. Peckham’s regulation for Wherwell (1284) was that no man was to enter after sunset at night, or before the end of chapter (which followed directly after Prime) in the morning.Reg. Epis. J. Peckham,II, p. 653. For other examples see Romsey (1302-11), Liveing,op. cit.pp. 102, 103; Moxby (1318),V.C.H. Yorks.III, p. 239; Sopwell (1338), Dugdale,Mon.III, p. 366; Wroxall (1338),Worc. Reg. Sede Vacante, p. 275; Heynings (1351),Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell, f. 34d; Elstow (1387),ib.,Reg. Memo. Bokyngham, f. 343: St Mary’s Neasham (1436),V.C.H. Durham,II, p. 107; St Helen’s, Bishopsgate (1439), Dugdale,Mon.IV, p. 552; Nunappleton (1489),V.C.H. Yorks.III, p. 172; Studley (1530-1),Archaeologia,XLVII, p. 59; Nuncoton (1531),ib.pp. 56, 59.
[1265]This certainly seems very strict, for (as appears from the injunctions quoted) it was customary to order the doors to be shut when the bell rang for Compline, the last office of the day. Vespers was the service immediately before supper.
[1266]Cantaristausually means a chantry-priest. The more usual word isPrecentrix.
[1267]Chaucer,Boke of the Duchesse, ll. 300-4.
[1268]E.H.R.VI, pp. 33-4.
[1269]This was reiterated in Ottobon’s Constitutions and in the BullPericuloso. See also Thomas of Cantilupe’s letter to Lymbrook in 1277 (Reg. Thome de Cantilupo, p. 201) and Archbishop Peckham’s injunction to Godstow, both based upon Ottobon.Reg. Epis. J. Peckham,III, p. 848. Also Bishop Brantyngham’s commission concerning the nuns of Polsloe in 1376, which is based uponPericuloso.Reg. of Bishop Brantyngham, pt.II, pp. 152-3.
[1270]Reg. Epis. Johannis Peckham,II, pp. 652-3. Compare injunctions to Barking,ib.I, p. 84, and to St Sepulchre’s, Canterbury,ib.II, p. 706.
[1271]Ib.II, p. 663 “volentes ibi moniales curiose respicere vel cum eis garrulas attemptare.”
[1272]Archaeologia,XLVII, p. 52. Compare Bishop Gray’s injunction to Godstow in 1432-4. “Also that all the doors of the nuns’ lodgings towards the outer court, through which it is possible to enter into the cloister precinct, even if the other doors of the cloister be shut for the time being, be altogether blocked up, or that such means of barring or shutting be placed upon them that approach or entrance through the same doors may not be given to secular folk.”Linc. Visit.I, p. 68. Compare also Dean Kentwode’s injunction to St Helen’s, Bishopsgate, in 1432: “Also we injoyn yow, Prioresse, that there may be a doore at the Nonnes quere, that noo straungers may loke on them, nor they on the straungers, wanne thei bene at dyvyne service. Also we ordene and injoyne yow, prioresse, that there be made a hache of conabyll heythe, crestyd with pykys of herne to fore the entre of yowre kechyne, that noo straunge pepille may entre with certeyne cleketts avysed be yow and be yowre steward to suche personys as yow and hem thynk onest and conabell. Also we injoyne yew, prioresse, that non nonnes have noo keyes of the posterne doore that gothe owte of the cloystere into the churche yerd but the prioresse, for there is moche comyng in and owte unlefulle tymys.” Dugdale,Mon.IV, p. 554.
[1273]Loc. cit.With this compare Alnwick’s visitation of Ankerwyke in 1441, at which one of Margery Kyrkeby’s charges against the Prioress Clemence Medeforde was: “Also she has ... blocked up the view Thamesward, which was a great diversion to the nuns. She confesses blocking up the view, because she saw that men stood in the narrow space close to the window and talked with the nuns.”Linc. Visit.II, p. 3.
[1274]Yorks. Arch. Journ.XVI, pp. 452-3. Compare Bishop Stapeldon’s injunction to Canonsleigh in 1320: “Et pur ceo que nous avoms oyi et entendu par ascune gent qe par my deus us dedenȝ vostre abbeye ileoqes plusours mals esclandres et deshonestetes sunt avenues avant cest hure, et purront ensement avenir apres, si remedie ne soit mys, ceo est asavoir, un us qe est en lencloistre au celer desouz la Sale la Abbesse devers la court voloms, ordinoms et comaundoms qe meisme ceux deus us soyent bien estupees par mur de pere, entre cy et la Paske procheyn avenir.”Reg. W. de Stapeldon, p. 96.
[1275]V.C.H. Yorks.III, p. 172. He also said that “No man loge undir the dortir nor oon the baksede, but if hit be such sad persones by whome your house may be holpyne and socured wtout slaundir or suspicion.”
[1276]Dugdale,Mon.III, p. 366. But at Barking Peckham ordered in 1279: “In officiis, autem, quae per foeminas fieri nequeunt, operariorum cum eisdem cautelis introitus admittatur.”Reg. Epis. J. Peckham,I, p. 84. On the entrance of carpenters, masons and other workmen into convents see Thiers,op. cit.II, ch. xxvi. He insists that the work must be a necessity and something which could not be done by the nuns themselves. “Ainsi les artisans sont coupables du violement de la clôture, lorsqu’ils entrent pour des ouvrages de bienseance ou de commodite, pour des decorations ou des embelissemens; en un mot, pour des ouvrages dont les Religieuses se peuvent passer; et je ne vois pas en quelle seurete de conscience les abbesses, les Prieures et les autres superieures des Religieuses, les y laissent entrer, soit pour polir des grilles, pour tendre et pour detendre des chambres et des lits, pour faire et pour peindre des plat-fonds et des alcoves, pour boiser des chambres, des galleries et des cabinets, pour faire de beaux vitrages, de belle volieres à petits oiseaux et d’autres choses semblables. Car outre que tout cela est directement opposé à la modestie et à la pauvreté, dont elles font profession, quel pretexte peuvent-elles alleguer pour se mettre à couvert de l’excommunication que les Conciles, les Papes et les Eveques ont fulminée contre les Religieuses, qui laissent entrer les personnes étrangeres dans leur clôture sans necessité.”Op. cit.pp. 412-3. He is particularly urgent that nuns should cultivate their own gardens and should have their vegetable gardens outside the precincts: “par ce moyen elles ne seroient point obligées d’ouvrer et fermer si souvent les portes de leur clôture, à des jardiniers qui ne sont pas toûjours exempts de scandale” (ib.p. 414), which recalls a famous story of Boccaccio’s.Decameron, 3rd day, novel I.
[1277]Loc. cit.and compare his injunction to Wherwell,ib.p. 268. Bishop Flemyng’s introduction to Elstow is rather contradictory: “Also that no nun admit secretly to her chamber any seculars or other men of religion and that if they be admitted she do not keep them there too long.”Visit. of Relig. Houses in Dioc. Lincoln,I, p. 51. At Godstow (1432) the injunction ran: “Also that the beds in the nuns’ lodgings be altogether removed from their chambers, save those for small children and that no nun receive any secular people for any recreation in the nuns’ chambers under pain of excommunication.”Ib.I, p. 67.
[1278]As at Godstow in 1432,Linc. Visit.I, p. 67, or Romsey in 1523, Liveing,Records of Romsey Abbey, p. 244.
[1279]Reg. Epis. J. Peckham,II, p. 664. Cf. his injunctions to other nunneries.
[1280]Linc. Visit.II, p. 116. Compare injunctions to Catesby, Langley, Markyate and St Michael’s, Stamford.Ib.pp. 51, 177, andAlnwick’s Visit.MS. ff. 6, 83d. For other examples see Lymbrook (1277),Reg. Thome de Cantilupo, p. 201; Polsloe (1319),Reg. W. de Stapeldon, p. 317; Studley (1530),Archaeologia,XLVII, p. 54.
[1281]Alnwick’s Visit.MS. f. 83d, cf. f. 6, andLinc. Visit.II, p. 177.
[1282]Dugdale,Mon.IV, p. 554. Compare Romsey (1387),New Coll.MS. f. 86; Nuncoton (1531),Archaeologia,XLVII, p. 60. St Benedict’s Rule forbids all letters (cap.LIV).
[1283]Linc. Visit.II, pp. 46, 177;Alnwick’s Visit.MS. ff. 39d, 76, 95d.
[1284]Ib.p. 119.
[1285]Linc. Visit.II, p. 185.
[1286]Ib.p. 133.
[1287]Ib.pp. 113, MS. ff. 71d, 72, 77.
[1288]For other examples see Romsey (1311), Liveing,op. cit.p. 104; Clementhorpe (1317), Hampole (1308, 1314), Nunappleton (1346), Rosedale (1315), Arthington (1315, 1318);V.C.H. Yorks.III, pp. 129, 163-4, 172, 174, 188. Sopwell (1338), Dugdale,Mon.III, p. 366; Heynings (1392),Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Bokyngham, f. 397d; Lymbrook (1437),Hereford Epis. Reg. Spofford, p. 81; Burnham (1432-6),Visit. of Relig. Houses in Dioc. Lincoln,I, p. 24; Redlingfield (1514),Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich, pp. 139-40; Flamstead (1530),V.C.H. Herts.IV, p. 433; Nuncoton (1531),Archaeologia,XLVII, p. 58; Sinningthwaite (1534),Yorks. Arch. Journ.XVI, pp. 440-1. The injunction to St Helen’s, Bishopsgate, in 1432 has an odd variation: “withowte specialle graunte hadde in the chapetter house, among yow alle.” Dugdale,Mon.IV, pp. 553-4.
[1289]Reg. of John of Drokensford, p. 81. The Isabel Fychet mentioned in 1336 was probably one of these ladies.
[1290]Wykeham’s Reg.II, pp. 162-3. On this couple, see Smyth,Lives of the Berkeleys, pp. 364 ff.
[1291]Reg. Ralph of Shrewsbury, pp. 277, 278, 744-5. A few out of many other examples may be quoted: Alice, wife of John D’Aumarle,domicellus, may stay at Cornworthy from January till September (1333),Reg. of J. de Grandisson, pt.II, p. 724; Beatrix Paynell, sister of Sir John Foxley, may stay at Whitney from December to the Feast of St John the Baptist (1367),Wykeham’s Reg.II, p. 7; Avice de Lyncolnia, niece of William de Jafford, may stay for four years in Nunappleton (1309); he was the Archbishop’s receiver.V.C.H. Yorks.III, 171; Alice, wife of Alan of Ayste, may spend two years in Godstow (1363),V.C.H. Oxon.II, p. 73. It will be noted that nearly all these are great folk, who cannot lightly be refused.
[1292]Reg. J. de Grandisson, pt.I, p. 190.
[1293]V.C.H. Beds.I, p. 355.
[1294]Reg. John le Romeyn,I, p. 114.
[1295]See the list in Rye,Carrow Abbey, pp. 48-52,passim. Some of the men also brought servants or chaplains with them, e.g. William Wryght and servants, William Wade and William his chaplain, John Bernard and John his chaplain. The men must have been lodged outside the cloister precincts.
[1296]Paston Letters, ed. Gairdner (1900 ed.),II, p. 390 (no. 633). See also no. 617 and Introd. pp. ccxc-ccxcii.
[1297]Linc. Visit.II, p. 175 (at this house there were also three women boarding with the Prioress and one with the Subprioress). Compare the case of Agnes de Vescy at Watton in 1272. The King wrote to the sheriff of Yorkshire that “Agnes de Vescy has been to the house of Watton with a great number of women and dogs and other things, which have interfered with the devotions of the nuns and sisters.” Graham,St Gilbert of Sempringham and the Gilbertines, p. 83. The fact was that no one had any real control over these great ladies, least of all their hostesses.
[1298]Linc. Visit.II, p. 185.
[1299]Alnwick’s Visit.MS. f. 76. Compare acompertumat St Sepulchre, Canterbury, in 1367-8. “Perhendinantes male fame steterunt cum priorissa, ad quas habebatur eciam accessus nimium suspectus,”Lambeth Reg. Langham, f. 76d.
[1300]Linc. Visit.II, pp. 120, 122.
[1301]Alnwick’s Visit.MS. ff. 71d, 72. Compare the state of affairs at Hampole in 1411, when the Archbishop ordered the removal of “secular servants andcorrodiariiwho attracted to themselves other secular persons from the country, by whom the house was burdened.”V.C.H. Yorks.III, p. 165. When Bishop Grandisson of Exeter licensed the reception of Alice D’Aumarle at Cornworthy (1333) he added “proviso quod ad vos, per moram hujusmodi, secularium personarum non pateat suspectis horis liberior frequencia vel accessus.”Reg. Grandisson, pt.II, p. 724.
[1302]Visit. of Relig. Houses in Dioc. of Lincoln,I, p. 87.
[1303]Note for instance the Archbishop of York’s injunction when mitigating a severe penance on a nun of St Clement’s, York, which is clearly for immorality: “That twice a year if necessary she might receive friends ... but she was to have nothing to do with Lady de Walleys and if Lady de Walleys was then in their house, she was to be sent away before Pentecost (1310),”V.C.H. Yorks.III, p. 129.
[1304]V.C.H. Yorks.II, p. 165.
[1305]Alnwick’s Visit.MS. f. 39d.
[1306]Possibly a priest.
[1307]Sussex Arch. Coll.IX, p. 18.
[1308]Wilkins,Concilia,I, p. 592.
[1309]Visit. of Relig. Houses in Dioc. Lincoln,I, pp. 48-9. Compare Gray’s injunction, laying more stress on married boarders.Ib.p. 53.
[1310]Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell, f. 34d.
[1311]Visit. Linc.II, p. 135. For other injunctions against boarders see Godstow, Gracedieu, Harrold, Langley, Nuncoton, Stixwould,ib.pp. 115, 124-5, 131, 177,Alnwick’s Visit.MS. ff. 77d, 75d; Wherwell, Romsey (1284), Sheppey (1286),Reg. Epis. Peckham,II, pp. 653-4,III, p. 924; Wilberfoss, Nunkeeling and Nunappleton (1281-2),Reg. William Wickwane, pp. 112-3, 140-1; Polsloe (1319),Reg. W. de Stapeldon, p. 317; Canonsleigh (1391),Reg. of Brantyngham, pt.II, p. 724; Farwell (1367),Reg. R. de Stretton, p. 119; Polesworth (1352, 1456),V.C.H. Warwick,II, p. 63. These are only a few examples taken at random; the registers of the Archbishops of York and of the Bishops of Lincoln alone record many more. (See theV.C.H.for the counties in these dioceses,passim.)
[1312]Reg. Epis. J. Peckham,II, p. 664; Liveing,op. cit.pp. 102, 165.
[1313]Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell, f. 100d;Linc. Visit.I, p. 67;II, p. 115.
[1314]Gynewell, f. 139d,V.C.H. Beds.I, p. 355;Linc. Visit.I, pp. 48-9, 53.
[1315]“That ye receyve ne holde no suiournauntes, men, women ne childerne, wyth ynne your place, and thoe that nowe are there, ye voyde thaym wythe yn a quartere of a yere after the receyvyng of thise our lettres, but if ye here yn hafe specyalle licence of hus or our successours, bysshops of Lincolne, except our wele belufede doghters, dame Elizabeth Dymmok and dame Margaret Tylney, by whose abydyng, as we truste, no greve but rathere avayle is procured to your place.”Alnwick’s Visit.MS. f. 75d.
[1316]Reg. of Brantyngham, pt.II, p. 724.