Chapter II: The Head of the House (2)

"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 travelled still 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 Pre, rode to London 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 xvj_s_ v_d_, whereof the
stewards fee was that of vj_s_ viij_d_; item paid to the fermour of
Wynge for his expenss ix_d_[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 3_s._" "in the expenses of the Prioress going to Rockingham about our woods 1_s._ 2-1/2_d._," "paid for the hire of two horses for the prioress and her expenses going to Liddington to the Bishop for a certificate 2_s._ 8_d._," "paid for the expenses of the Prioress at Burgh (i.e. Peterborough) for two days 5_s._ 8_d._"; 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 L5. 13_s._ 4_d._" (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 15_s._"[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 or _custos_ charged 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 urgent necessity"[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 male _custos_ the Prioress would have less occasion and less excuse for journeys, though for important affairs her presence was probably always necessary; Bishop Drokensford, appointing a _custos_ to Minchin Barrow, warns the Prioress no longer "to intermeddle with rural business (_negociis campestribus_) and other secular affairs" but to leave these to the _custos_ and 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 the difficulty 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 y{t}
day hafe iii_s_ iiij_d_ and ilke chanon and Nune xij_d_ ... and Ilke
prior and priores that comes to the xxx day (the month's-mind) hafe
vj_s_ viij_d_ and Ilke chanon or none that comes to the said xxx day
haf xx_d_[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 plentevous
It 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:

The lopp (flea) and the gout on a time spake together, and among other
talking either of them asked [the] other of their lodging and how they
were harboured and where, the night next before. And the flea made a
great plaint and said, "I was harboured in the bed of an abbess,
betwixt the white sheets upon a soft mattress and there I trowed to
have had good harbourage, for her flesh was fat and tender, and
thereof I trowed to have had my fill. And first, when I began for to
bite her, she began to cry and call on her maidens and when they came,
anon they lighted candles and sought me, but I hid me till they were
gone. And then I bit her again and she came again and sought me with a
light, so that I was fain to leap out of the bed; and all this night I
had no rest, but was chased and chevied ['charrid'] and scarce gat
away with my life." Then answered the gout and said, "I was harboured
in a poor woman's house and anon as I pricked her in her great toe she
rose and wetted a great bowl full of clothes and went with them unto
the water and stood therein with me up to her knees; so that, what for
cold and for holding in the water, I was nearhand slain." And then the
flea said, "This night will we change our harbourage"; and so they
did. And on the morn they met again and then the flea said unto the
gout, "This night have I had good harbourage, for the woman that was
thine host yesternight was so weary and so irked, that I was sickerly
harboured with her and ate of her blood as mickle as I would." And
then answered the gout and said unto the flea: "Thou gavest me good
counsel yestereven, for the abbess underneath a gay coverlet, and a
soft sheet and a delicate, covered me and nourished me all night. And
as soon as I pricked her in her great toe, she wrapped me in furs, and
if I hurt her never so ill she let me alone and laid me in the softest
part of the bed and troubled me nothing. And therefore as long as she
lives I will be harboured with her, for she makes mickle of me." And
then said the flea, "I will be harboured with poor folk as long as I
live, for there may I be in good rest and eat my full and nobody let
[hinder] me"[228].

The Durham man, William of Stanton, who went down St Patrick's hole on September 20th, 1409, and was shown the souls in torment there, has much the same tale to tell. He witnessed the trial of a prioress, whose soul had come there for judgment, and

the fendis accusid hir and said that she come to religion for pompe
and pride and for to have habundaunce of the worldes riches, and for
ese of hir bodi and not for deuocion, mekenesse and lowenesse, as
religious men and women owte to do; and the fendes said, "It is wel
knowen to god and to al his angels of heven and to men dwellyng in
that contree where she dwellid ynne, and all the fendes of hell, that
she was more cosluer (_sic_) in puler [fur] weryng, as of girdelles of
siluer and overgilt and ringes on hir fingers, and siluer bokeles and
ouergilt on hir shone, esy lieng in nyghtes as it were [a quene] or an
emprise in the world, not daynyng hir for to arise to goddis
servis[229]; and with all delicate metes and drinkes she was fedde ...
and then the bisshop [her judge] enioyned hir to payne enduryng
evermore til the day of dome"[230].

Our visitation documents show us many abbesses and prioresses like the gout's hostess or the tormented lady in St Patrick's Purgatory. In the matter of dress the accusations brought against Clemence Medforde, Prioress of Ankerwyke, in 1441, will suffice for an example:

The Prioress wears golden rings exceeding costly with divers precious
stones and also girdles silvered and gilded over and silken veils, and
she carries her veil too high above her forehead, so that her
forehead, being entirely uncovered, can be seen of all, and she wears
furs of vair.... Also she wears shifts of cloth of Reynes which costs
sixteen pence the ell.... Also she wears kirtles laced with silk and
tiring pins of silver and silver gilt and has made all the nuns wear
the like.... Also she wears above her veil a cap of estate furred with
budge. Item she has round her neck a long cord of silk, hanging below
her breast and on it a gold ring with one diamond.

She confessed all except the cloth of Rennes, which she totally denied, but pleaded that she wore fur caps "because of divers infirmities in the head." Alnwick made an injunction carefully particularising all these sins:

And also that none of yow, the prioresse ne none of the couente, were
no vayles of sylke ne no syluere pynnes ne no gyrdles herneysed with
syluere or golde, ne no mo rynges on your fyngres then oon, ye that be
professed by a bysshope, ne that none of yow vse no lased kyrtels, but
butoned or hole be fore, ne that ye vse no lases a bowte your nekkes
wythe crucyfixes or rynges hangyng by thame, ne cappes of astate abowe
your vayles ... and that ye so atyre your hedes that your vayles come
down nyghe to your yene[231].

If anyone doubts the truth of Chaucer's portrait of a prioress, or its satirical intent, he has only to read that incomparable observer's words side by side with this injunction of Alnwick:

But sikerly she hadde a fair forheed;
It was almost a spanne brood, I trowe;
For, hardily, she was nat undergrowe.
Ful fetis was her cloke, as I was war.
Of smale coral aboute hir arm she bar
A peire of bedes, gauded al with grene;
And ther-on heng a broche of gold ful shene,
On which ther was first write a crowned A
And after, _Amor vincit omnia_.

Margaret Fairfax of Nunmonkton (1397) and the lady (her name is unknown) who ruled Easebourne in 1441 are other examples of worldly prioresses; they clearly regarded themselves as the great ladies they were by birth, and behaved like all the other great ladies of the neighbourhood. Margaret Fairfax used divers furs, including even the costly grey fur (gris)--the same with which the sleeves of Chaucer's monk were "purfiled at the hond"; she wore silken veils and "she frequently kept company with John Munkton and invited him to feasts in her room ... and John Munkton (by whom the convent had for long been scandalised) frequently played at tables" (the fashionable game for ladies, a kind of backgammon) "with the Prioress in her room and served her with drink." No wonder she had to sell timber in order to procure money[232]. The Prioress of Easebourne was even more frivolous; the nuns complained that the house was in debt to the amount of L40 and this principally owing to her costly expenses:

because she frequently rides abroad and pretends that she does so on
the common business of the house, although it is not so, with a train
of attendants much too large, and tarries long abroad, and she feasts
sumptuously both when abroad and at home, and she is very choice in
her dress, so that the fur trimmings of her mantle are worth a hundred
shillings,

as great a scandal as Clemence Medforde's cloth of Rennes at sixteen pence the ell. The Bishop took strong measures to deal with this worldly lady; she was deposed from all administration of the temporal goods of the priory, which administration was committed to "Master Thomas Boleyn and John Lylis, Esquire, until and so long as when the aforesaid house or priory shall be freed from debt." It was also ordered

that the Prioress with all possible speed shall diminish her excessive
household and shall only retain, by the advice and with the assent of
the said John and Thomas, a household such as is merely necessary and
not more. Also that the Prioress shall convert the fur trimmings,
superfluous to her condition and very costly, to the discharge of the
debts of the house. Also that if eventually it shall seem expedient to
the said Masters Thomas and John at any time, that the Prioress should
ride in person for the common business of the house, on such occasions
she shall not make a lengthened stay abroad, nor shall she in the
interval incur expenses in any way costly beyond what is needful, and
thus when despatched to go abroad she must and ought rightly to
content herself with four horses only;

and those perhaps "bothe foul and lene," like the jade ridden by the Nonnes Preeste when Chaucer met him on the Canterbury road[233].

The charge of gadding about the country side, sometimes (as in the Prioress of Easebourne's case) with a retinue which better beseemed the worldly rank they had abjured, was one not infrequently made against the heads of nunneries[234]. The Prioress of Stixwould was accused, in 1519, of spending the night too often outside the cloister with her secular friends and the Bishop ordered that in future she should sleep within the monastery, but might keep a private house in the precincts, for her greater refreshment and for receiving visitors[235]. The Prioress of Wroxall was ordered to stay more at home in 1323[236], and in 1303 Bishop Dalderby even found that the Prioress of Greenfield had been absent from her house for two years[237]. Even more frequent was the charge that abbesses and prioresses repaid too lavishly the hospitality which they doubtless received at neighbouring manors. Many abbesses gave that "dyscrete enterteynement," which Henry VIII's commissioners so much admired at Catesby[238]; but others entertained too often and too well, in the opinion of their nuns; moreover family affection sometimes led them to make provision for their kinsfolk at the cost of the house. In 1441 one of the nuns of Legbourne deposed that many kinsmen of the prioress had frequent access to the house, though she did not know whether it was financially burdened by their visits; Alnwick ordered

that ye susteyn none of your kynne or allyaunce wythe the commune
godes of the house, wythe owten the hole assent of the more hole parte
of the couent, ne that ye suffre your saide kynne or allyaunce hafe
suche accesse to your place, where thurghe the howse shall be
chargeede[239].

A similar injunction had been made at Chatteris in 1345, where the abbess was warned not to bestow the convent rents and goods unlawfully upon any of her relatives[240]. The charge was, however, most common in later times, when discipline was in all ways relaxed. At Easebourne in 1478 one of the nuns complained "that kinsmen of the prioress very often and for weeks at a time frequent the priory and have many banquets of the best food, while the sisters have them of the worst"[241]. The neighbouring nunnery of Rusper was said in 1521 to be ruinous and "greatly burdened by reason of friends and kinsmen of the lady prioress who continually received hospitality there"[242]; at Studley in 1520 there were complaints that the brother of the prioress and his wife stayed within the monastery, and ten years later it was ordered that no corrody should be given to the prioress' mother, until more was known of her way of life[243]. At Flixton in the same year one of the nuns asserted that the mother of the prioress had her food at the expense of the house, but whether she paid anything or not was unknown; it appears, however, that she was in charge of the dairy, so that she may have been boarded in return for her services. A characteristic instance is preserved in Bishop Longland's letter to the Prioress of Nuncoton in 1531, charging her

that frome hensforth ye do nomore burden ne chardge your house with
suche a nombre of your kinnesfolks as ye haue in tymes past used. Your
good mother it is meate ye haue aboute yow for your comforte and hirs
bothe. And oon or ij moo of suche your saddest kynnes folke, whome ye
shall thynk mooste conuenyent but passe not.... And that ye give
nomore soo lyberally the goods of your monastery as ye haue doon to
your brother george thomson and your brodres children, with grasing of
catell, occupying your lands, making of Irneworke to pleugh, and
carte, and other like of your stuff and in your forge[244].

Much information about the conduct of abbesses and prioresses may be obtained from a study of episcopal registers, and in particular of visitation documents. An analysis of Bishop Alnwick's visitations of the diocese of Lincoln (1436-49) gives interesting results. In all but four houses there were few or no complaints against the head. Sometimes it was said that she failed to dine in the frater or to sleep in the dorter, sometimes that she was a poor financier, and in two cases the charge of favouritism was made; but the complaints at these sixteen houses were, on the whole, insignificant. The four remaining heads were unsatisfactory. The Prioress of St Michael's Stamford was so incompetent (owing to bodily weakness) that she took little part in the common life of the house and regularly stayed away from the choir, dined and slept by herself, though the Bishop refused to give her a dispensation to do so. The administration of the temporalities of the house was committed by Alnwick to two of the nuns, but when he came back two years later one of these had had a child and the other was unpopular on account of her autocratic behaviour. The moral condition of the house (one nun was in apostasy with a man in 1440, and in 1442 and 1445 two nuns were found to have borne children) must in part be set down to the lack of a competent head[245]. The Prioress of Gracedieu was also old and incompetent; her subprioress deposed that

by reason of old age and incapacity the prioress has renounced for
herself all governance of matters temporal, nor does she take part in
divine service, so that she is of no use; but if she makes any
corrections, she makes them with words of chiding and abuse.... She
makes the secrets of their religious life common among the secular
folk that sit at table with her ... and under her religious discipline
almost altogether is at an end.

Other nuns gave similar evidence and all complained of her favouritism for two young nuns, whom she called her disciples. Here, as at St Michael's Stamford, the autocratic behaviour of the nun who was in charge of the temporalities had aroused the resentment of her sisters and the whole convent was evidently seething with quarrels[246]. The Prioress of Ankerwyke, Clemence Medforde, was equally unpopular with her nuns. The ringleader against her was a certain Dame Margery Kirkby, who poured out a flood of complaints when Alnwick came to the house. The chief charge against her was that of financial mismanagement. She was obliged to admit that she received, paid and administered everything without consulting the convent, keeping the common seal in her own custody all the year round and never rendering account. She was also said to have allowed the sheepfold, dairy and granary to be burned down owing to her carelessness, one result of which was that all the grain had to stand in the church. She had alienated the plate and psalters of the house, having lent three of the latter and pawned a chalice; another chalice and a thurible had been broken up to make a drinking cup, but, as she had been unable to pay the sum demanded, the pieces remained in the hands of a monk, who had undertaken to get the work done. She was charged with having alienated timber in large quantities and with having cut down trees at the wrong time of year, so that no new wood grew again; but she denied this accusation. Another charge made against her by Margery Kirkby, that of wearing jewels and rich clothes, has already been described; she admitted it and the fault was the more grave in that she omitted to provide suitable clothes for the nuns, who went about in rags. It was also complained that she behaved with undue severity to her sisters; she made difficulties about giving them licence to see their friends; and she had a most trying habit of coming late to the services, and then making the nuns begin all over again. It is obvious that she was greatly disliked by the convent, perhaps because she was a stranger in their midst, having been imported from Bromhale to be Prioress; she evidently sought relief from the black looks of her sisters by visiting her old home, for she was away at a wedding in Bromhale when the farm buildings caught fire, and one of the missing psalters had been lent to the prioress of that place. Her _regime_ at Ankerwyke had been fraught with ill results to the convent, for no less than six nuns had (without her knowledge, so she said) gone into apostasy; perhaps to escape from her too rigorous sway. Nevertheless one cannot help feeling that Margery Kirkby may have been a difficult person to live with; the Prioress complained that the nuns were often very easily moved against her and that Dame Margery had called her a thief to her face; and though it may have been conducive to economy that the triumphant accuser (elected by the convent) should share with the Prioress the custody of the common seal, it can hardly have been conducive to harmony[247]. At any rate poor luxury-loving Clemence died in the following year and Margery Kirkby ruled in her stead[248].

But the most serious misdemeanours of all were brought to light when Alnwick visited Catesby in 1442[249]. Here the bad example of the Prioress, Margaret Wavere, seems to have contaminated the nuns, for all of them were in constant communication with seculars and one of them had given birth to a child. The Prioress' complaint that she dared not punish this offender is easily intelligible in the light of her own evil life. The most serious charge against her was that she was unduly intimate with a priest named William Taylour, who constantly visited the nunnery and with whom she had been accustomed to go into the gardens in the village of Catesby; and one of the younger nuns had surprised the two _in flagrante delicto_. She was a woman of violent temper; two nuns deposed that when she was moved to anger against any of them she would tear off their veils and drag them about by the hair, calling them beggars and harlots[250], and this in the very choir of the church; if they committed any fault she scolded and upbraided them and would not cease before seculars or during divine service; "she is very cruel and severe to the nuns and loves them not," said one; "she is so harsh and impetuous that there is no pleasing her," sighed another; "she sows discord among the sisters," complained a third, "saying so-and-so said such-and-such a thing about thee, if the one to whom she speaks has transgressed." More serious still, from the visitor's point of view, were the threats by which she sought to prevent the nuns from revealing anything at the visitation; two of them declared that she had beaten and imprisoned those who gave evidence when Bishop Gray came to the house, and sister Isabel Benet whispered that the Prioress had boasted of having bribed the bishop's clerk with a purse of money, to reveal everything that the nuns had said on that occasion. Her practice of compelling the nuns to perform manual labour was greatly resented--why should they

Swinken with hir handes and laboure
As Austin bit? How shal the world be served?
Lat Austin have his swink to him reserved.

It appeared, however, that they were anxious to

studie and make hemselven wood
Upon a book in cloistre alwey to poure,

or so they informed Alnwick. One Agnes Halewey complained that, though she was young and wished to be instructed in her religion and such matters, the Prioress set her to make beds and to sew and spin; another sister declared that when guests came the Prioress sent the young nuns to make up their beds, which was "full of danger and a scandal to the house"[251]; another deposed that the choir was not properly observed, because the Prioress was wont to employ the younger nuns upon her own business. There were also the usual charges of financial mismanagement and of wasting the goods of the convent; she had let buildings fall to ruin for want of repair and two sheepfolds had stood roofless for two whole years, so that the wood rotted and the lambs died of the damp. Whereas thirteen years ago, when she became prioress, the house was worth L60 a year, now it was worth a bare L50 and was in debt, owing to the bad rule of the Prioress and of William Taylour, and this in spite of the fact that she had on her entry received from Joan Catesby a sack and a half of wool and twelve marks, with which to pay debts and make repairs. She had cut down woods. She had pawned a sacramental cup and other silver pieces; the tablecloths "fit for a king" (_mappalia conueniencia pro seruiendo regi_), and the set of a dozen silver spoons which she had found at the priory, all had vanished away. She had not provided the nuns with clothes and money for their food for three quarters of the year, and she never rendered an account to them. Moreover all things in the house were ordered by her mother and by a certain Joan Coleworthe, who kept the keys of all the offices; and both the Prioress and her mother revealed the secrets of the chapter to people in the village. Examined upon these separate counts, the Prioress denied the majority of them; she said that she had not been cruel to the nuns or laid violent hands upon them, or called them liars and harlots or sowed discord among them; that she had not set them to make beds or to do other work; that she had never punished the nuns for giving evidence at the last visitation or bribed the Bishop's clerk; that she had never allowed her mother and Joan to rule everything; and that she had never revealed the secrets of the chapter; on the contrary those secrets were spread abroad by the secular visitors of the nuns. She admitted her failure to render account, and gave as a reason that she had no clerk to write it for her; she said that she had pawned the cup with the consent of the convent, in order to pay tithes, and that she had cut down trees for the use of the house, partly with and partly without the consent of the house; as to the ruinous buildings, she said that some had been repaired and some not, and as to the outside debts she professed herself ready to render an account. The most serious charge of all, concerning William Taylour, she entirely denied. The Bishop thereupon gave her the next day to purge herself with four of her sisters for the things which she denied; but she was unable to produce any compurgatresses[252] and Alnwick accordingly found her guilty and obliged her to abjure all intercourse with Taylour in the future.

It might be imagined that such a case as that of Margaret Wavere was in the highest degree exceptional, likely to occur but once in a century. Unfortunately it appears to have occurred far more often. In the fifty years, between 1395 and 1445, Margaret Wavere can be matched, in different parts of the country, by no less than six other prioresses guilty of immorality and bad government; and it must be realised that this is probably an understatement, because so much evidence has been destroyed, or is as yet unexplored in episcopal registries. Of these cases two belong to the diocese of York, one (besides the case of Margaret Wavere) to the diocese of Lincoln, one to the diocese of Salisbury, one to the diocese of Winchester and one to the diocese of Norwich. Fully as bad a woman as Margaret Wavere was Eleanor, prioress of Arden, a little Yorkshire house which contained seven nuns, when it was visited by Master John de Suthwell in 1396 (during the vacancy of the see of York)[253]. The nuns were unanimous and bitter in their complaints. The Prioress kept the convent seal in her possession, sometimes for a year at a time, and did everything according to her own will without consulting her sisters. She sold woods and trees and disposed of the money as she would, and all rents were similarly received and expended by her. When she assumed office the house was in good condition, owing some five marks only, but now it owed great sums to divers people, amounting to over L16 in the detailed list given by the nuns[254], and this in spite of the fact that she had received many alms and gifts during her year of office--L18. 13_s._ 4_d._ in all; indeed the two marks which had been given her by Henry Arden's executors that the convent might pray for his soul, had been concealed by her from the nuns, "to the deception of the said Henry's soul, as it appeared to them." She had pawned the goods of the house, at one time a piece of silver with a cover and a maser worth 40_s._, at another time a second maser and the Prioress' seal of office itself, for which she got 5_s._; even the sacred vestments were not safe in her rapacious hands and a new suit was pawned, with the result that it was soiled and worn and not yet consecrated. The walls and roof of the church and dorter and the rest of the house were in ruins; there were no waxen candles round the altar, no lights for matins or for the other canonical hours, no Paschal candles; when she first took office she found ten pairs of sheets of good linen cloth (cloth of "lake" and "inglyschclath," to wit) and now they were worn out and in all her time not one new pair had been made; the nuns had only two sacred albs and one of them had been turned to secular uses, viz. to "bultyng mele," and on several occasions had been found on the beds of laymen in the stable. The allowances of bread and beer due to the nuns were inadequately and unpunctually paid; sometimes she would withdraw them altogether and the sisters would be reduced to drinking water[255]. She was not even a good bargainer, for by her negligence a bushel of corn was bought by an agreement for 11_d._, when it could have been had in the public market for 9_d._, 8_d._ or 7_d._ Domineering she was, too, and sent three young nuns out haymaking, so that they did not get back before nightfall and divine service could not be said until then; and she provoked secular boys and laymen to chatter in the cloister and church in contempt of the nuns. There were graver charges against her in connection with a certain married man, John Bever, with whom she was wont to go abroad, resting in the same house by night; and once they lay alone within the priory, in the Prioress' chamber by night; and during the whole summer she slept alone in her principal room outside the dorter and was much suspected on account of John Bever. It will be noticed that this case presents many points of similarity with that of Margaret Wavere, the chief difference being that at Arden the Prioress alone seems to have been in grave fault; she made no accusation against her nuns, save that they talked in the choir and in the offices and that the sacrist was negligent about ringing the bell for divine service. Nor had they anything to say against each other. The other Yorkshire case came to light in 1444, when Archbishop Kemp stated that at his visitation of the Priory of Wykeham very grave defaults and crimes had been detected against the Prioress, Isabella Westirdale, "who after she had been raised to that office had been guilty of incontinence with many men, both within and outside the monastery"; she was deprived and sent to do penance at Nunappleton.

After the case of Eleanor of Arden the next scandal concerning a prioress was discovered in 1404 at Bromhale in Berkshire. The nuns complained in that year to the Archbishop of Canterbury that the Prioress Juliana had for twenty years led an exceedingly dissolute life and of her own temerity and without their consent had usurped the rule of Prioress, in which position she had wasted, alienated, consumed and turned to her own nefarious uses the chalices, books, jewels, rents and other property of the house[256]. The next year an even more serious case occurred at Wintney in Hampshire, if the charges contained in a papal commission of 1405 were true[257]. The Archdeacon of Taunton and a canon of Wells were empowered to visit the house:

the Pope having heard that Alice, who has been Prioress for about
twenty years, has so dilapidated its goods, from which the Prioress
for the time being is wont to administer to the nuns their food and
clothing, that it is 200 marks in debt; that she specially cherishes
two immodest nuns one of whom, her own (_suam_) sister, had
apostatized and left the monastery and, remaining in the world, had
had children, the other like the first in evil life and lewdness but
not an apostate, and feeds and clothes them splendidly, whilst she
feeds the other honest nuns meanly and for several years past has not
provided them with clothing; that she has long kept and keeps Thomas
Ferring, a secular priest, as companion at board and in bed (_in
commensalem et sibi contubernalem_), who has long slept and still
sleeps, contrary to the institutes of the order, within the monastery,
beneath the dorter, in a certain chamber (_domo_), in which formerly
no secular had ever been wont to sleep and in which the said priest
and Alice meet together at will by day and night, to satisfy their
lust (_pro explenda libidine_), on account of which and other enormous
and scandalous crimes, which Alice has committed and still commits,
there is grave and public scandal against her in those parts, to the
great detriment of the monastery.

If these things were found to be true the commissioners were ordered to deprive the Prioress. In 1427 there occurred another very serious case of misconduct in a Prioress, which (as at Catesby) seems to have tainted the whole flock and is a still further illustration of the fact that a bad prioress often meant an ill-conducted house. By her own admission Isabel Hermyte, Prioress of Redlingfield in Suffolk, had never been to confession nor observed Sundays and principal double feasts since the last visitation, two years before. She and Joan Tates, a novice, had not slept in the dorter with the other nuns, but in a private chamber. She had laid violent hands on Agnes Brakle on St Luke's day; and she had been alone with Thomas Langeland, bailiff, in private and suspicious places, to wit in a small hall with closed windows "and sub heggerowes." Nor was the material condition of the house safer in her hands. There were only nine nuns instead of the statutory number of thirteen and only one chaplain instead of three; no annual account had been rendered, obits had been neglected, goods alienated and trees cut down without the knowledge and consent of the convent. Altogether she confessed that she was neither religious nor honest in conversation and the effect of her conduct upon her charges was only too apparent, for the novice Joan Tates confessed to incontinence and asserted that it had been provoked by the bad example of the Prioress. The result of this exposure was the voluntary resignation of the guilty woman, in order to save a scandal, and her banishment to the priory of Wix; the whole convent was ordered to fast on bread and beer on Fridays, and Joan Tates was to go in front of the solemn procession of the convent on the following Sunday, wearing no veil and clad in white flannel[258].

It is the darker side of convent life that these ancient scandals call up before our eyes. The system produced its saints as well as its sinners; we have only to remember the German nunnery of Helfta to be sure of that. The English nunneries of the later middle ages produced no great mystics, but there have come down to us word-pictures of at least two heads of houses worthy to rank with the best abbesses of any age; not women of genius, but good, competent housewives, careful in all things of the welfare of their nuns, practical as well as pious. The famous description of the Abbess Euphemia of Wherwell (1226-57) is too well-known to be quoted here in full[259]:

"It is most fitting," says her convent chartulary, "that we should
always perpetuate the memory, in our special prayers and suffrages, of
one who ever worked for the glory of God, and for the weal of both our
souls and bodies. For she increased the number of the Lord's handmaids
in this monastery from forty to eighty, to the exaltation of the
worship of God. To her sisters, both in health and sickness, she
administered the necessaries of life with piety, prudence, care and
honesty. She also increased the sum allowed for garments by 12_d._
each. The example of her holy conversation and charity, in conjunction
with her pious exhortations and regular discipline, caused each one to
know how, in the words of the Apostle, to possess her vessel in
sanctification and honour. She also, with maternal piety and careful
forethought, built, for the use of both sick and sound, a new and
large farmery away from the main buildings and in conjunction with it
a dorter and other necessary offices. Beneath the farmery she
constructed a watercourse, through which a stream flowed with
sufficient force to carry off all refuse that might corrupt the air.
Moreover she built there a place set apart for the refreshment of the
soul, namely a chapel of the Blessed Virgin, which was erected outside
the cloister behind the farmery. With the chapel she enclosed a large
place, which was adorned on the north side with pleasant vines and
trees. On the other side, by the river bank, she built offices for
various uses, a space being left in the centre, where the nuns are
able from time to time to enjoy the pure air. In these and in other
numberless ways, the blessed mother Euphemia provided for the worship
of God and the welfare of her sisters."

Nor was she less prudent in ruling secular business: "she also so conducted herself with regard to exterior affairs," says the admiring chronicler, "that she seemed to have the spirit of a man rather than of a woman." She levelled the court of the abbey manor and built a new hall, and round the walled court "she made gardens and vineyards and shrubberies in places that were formerly useless and barren and which now became both serviceable and pleasant"; she repaired the manor-houses at Tufton and at Middleton; when the bell tower of the dorter fell down, she built a new one "of commanding height and of exquisite workmanship"; and one of the last acts of her life was to take down the unsteady old presbytery and to lay with her own hands, "having invoked the grace of the Holy Spirit, with prayers and tears," the foundation stone of a new building, which she lived to see completed:

These and other innumerable works our good superior Euphemia performed
for the advantage of the house, but she was none the less zealous in
works of charity, gladly and freely exercising hospitality, so that
she and her daughters might find favour with One Whom Lot and Abraham
and others have pleased by the grace of hospitality. Moreover, because
she greatly loved to honour duly the House of God and the place where
His glory dwells, she adorned the church with crosses, reliquaries,
precious stones, vestments and books.

Finally, she "who had devoted herself when amongst us to the service of His house and the habitation of His glory, found the due reward for her merits with our Lord Jesus Christ," and died amid the blessings of her sisters.