Chapter IX: Fish Out of Water (1)

De sorte qu'une Religieuse hors de sa cloture est comme une pierre
hors de son centre; comme un arbre hors de terre; comme Adam et Eve
hors du Paradis terrestre; comme le corbeau hors de l'arche qui ne
s'arreste qu'a des charognes; comme un poisson hors de l'eau, selon le
grand Saint Antoine et Saint Bernard; comme une brebis hors de sa
bergerie et en danger d'estre devoree des loups, selon Saint Theodore
Studite; comme un oiseau hors de son nid et une grenouille hors de son
marais, selon le meme Saint Bernard; comme un mort hors de son
tombeau, qui infecte les personnes qui s'en approchent, selon Pierre
le Venerable et la Regle attribuee a Saint Jerome; et par consequent
dans un etat tout a fait oppose a la vie Reguliere qu'elle a
embrassee.

J. B. THIERS (1681).

The famous chapter LXVI of the Benedictine Rule enunciated the principle that the professed monk should remain within the precincts of his cloister and eschew all wandering in the world[1067]. It is clear, however, that the Rule allowed a certain latitude and that monks and nuns were to be allowed to leave their houses under certain conditions and for necessary causes. Brethren working at a distance or going on a journey may be excused attendance at the divine office, if they cannot reach the church in time[1068]. Brethren sent upon an errand are forbidden to accept invitations to eat outside the house without the consent of their superior[1069]. Moreover longer journeys are plainly contemplated, in which they might have to spend a night or more outside their monastery[1070]. But no one might ever leave the cloister bounds without the permission of the superior; and it was the obvious intention of St Benedict to reduce to a minimum all wandering in the world. Strictly speaking this system of enclosure applied equally to monks and to nuns; but from the earliest times it was considered to be a more vital necessity for the well being of the latter; and the history of the enclosure movement is in effect the history of an effort to add a fourth vow of claustration to the three cardinal vows of the nun[1071]. The reasons for this severity are sufficiently obvious, and show that curious contradiction of ideas which is so common in all general theories about women. On the one hand the immense importance attached by the medieval Church to the state of virginity, exemplified in St John Chrysostom's remarks that Christian virgins are as far above the rest of mankind as are the angels, made it all important that this priceless jewel should not be exposed to danger in a wicked world[1072]. On the other hand the medieval contempt for the fragility of women led to a cynical conviction that only when they were shut up behind the high walls of the cloister was it possible to guarantee their virtue; _aut virum aut murum oportet mulierem habere_[1073]. Both views received support from the deep-rooted idea as old as the Greeks and an unconscionable time in dying, that "a free woman should be bounded by the street door"[1074]. Medieval moralists were generally agreed that intercourse with the world was at the root of all those evils which dimmed the fair fame of the conventual system, by affording a constant temptation to frivolity and to grosser misconduct. Moreover the tongue of scandal was always busy and the nun's reputation was safe only if she could be placed beyond reproach. Hence those regulations which Mr Coulton compares to "the minutely ingenious and degrading precautions of an oriental harem"[1075].

Based upon such considerations as these, the movement for the enclosure of nuns began very early in their history and continued with unabated vigour long after the Reformation[1076]. Some years before the compilation of the Benedictine Rule St Caesarius of Arles, in his Rule for nuns, had forbidden them ever to leave their monastery; and from the sixth to the eleventh century decrees were passed from time to time by various provincial councils, advocating a stricter enclosure of monks and nuns, but especially of the latter. Already by the twelfth century monasticism had declined from its first fervour, and it is significant that the reformed orders which sprang up during the great renaissance of that century all made a special effort to enforce enclosure upon their nuns. The nuns of Premontre and Fontevrault were strictly enclosed and in the middle of the following century the statutes promulgated by the Chapter-General of the Cistercian Order (1256-7) contain a clause ordering nuns to remain in their convents, except under certain specified conditions, while the rule given by Urban IV to the Franciscan nuns (1263) went further than any previous enactments in binding them by a vow of perpetual enclosure, against which no plea of necessity might avail. Various synods and councils continued to repeat the order that nuns were not to leave their houses, except for a reasonable cause, but it is plain from the evidence of ecclesiastics, moralists and episcopal visitations that the nuns all over Europe paid small heed to their words. Finally, at the beginning of the new century, came the first general regulation on the subject which was binding as a law upon the whole church, the famous Bull _Periculoso_, promulgated by Boniface VIII about the year 1299.

This decree, often afterwards confirmed by Popes and Councils, remained the standard regulation upon the subject and in view of its cardinal importance its terms are worthy of notice:

Desiring to provide for the perilous and detestable state of certain
nuns, who, having slackened the reins of decency and having
shamelessly cast aside the modesty of their order and of their sex,
sometimes gad about outside their monasteries in the dwellings of
secular persons, and frequently admit suspected persons within the
same monasteries, to the grave offence of Him to Whom they have, of
their own will, vowed their innocence, to the opprobrium of religion
and to the scandal of very many persons; we by the present
constitution, which shall be irrefragably valid, decree with healthful
intent that all and sundry nuns, present and future, to whatever order
they belong and in whatever part of the world, shall henceforth remain
perpetually enclosed within their monasteries; so that no nun tacitly
or expressly professed in religion shall henceforth have or be able to
have the power of going out of those monasteries for whatsoever reason
or cause, unless perchance any be found manifestly suffering from a
disease so great and of such a nature that she cannot, without grave
danger or scandal, live together with others; and to no dishonest or
even honest person shall entry or access be given by them, unless for
a reasonable and manifest cause and by a special licence from the
person to whom [the granting of such a licence] pertains; that so,
altogether withdrawn from public and mundane sights, they may serve
God more freely and, all opportunity for wantonness being removed,
they may more diligently preserve for Him in all holiness their souls
and their bodies.

The Bull further, in order to avoid any excuse for wandering abroad in search of alms, forbids the reception into any non-mendicant order of more sisters than can be supported without penury by the goods of the house; and, in order to prevent nuns being forced to attend lawcourts in person, requires all secular and ecclesiastical authorities to allow them to plead by proctors in their courts; but if an Abbess or Prioress has to do personal homage to a secular lord for any fief and it cannot be done by a proctor, she may leave her house with honest and fit companions and do the homage, returning home immediately. Finally Ordinaries are enjoined to take order as soon as may be for proper enclosure where there is none to provide that it is strictly kept according to the terms of the decree, and to see that all is completed by Ash Wednesday, notifying any reasonable impediment within eight days of Candlemas[1077].

For the next three centuries Councils and Bishops struggled manfully to put into force the Bull _Periculoso_, but without success; the constant repetition of the order that nuns should not leave their convents is the measure of its failure. In the various reformed orders, which were founded in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the insistence upon enclosure bears witness to the importance which was attached to it as a vital condition of reform: Boniface IX's ordinances for the Dominicans (1402), St Francis of Paula's rule for his order in Calabria (1435), the rule of the Order of the Annunciation, founded by Jeanne, daughter of Louis XI, at the close of the fifteenth century, Johann Busch's reforms in Saxony, the reformed rules given by Etienne Poncher, Bishop of Paris, to the nuns of Chelles, Montmartre and Malnoue (1506) and by Geoffrey de Saint Belin, Bishop of Poitiers, to the nuns of the Holy Cross, Poitiers (1511), all insist upon strict enclosure[1078]. Similarly a long list might be drawn up of general and provincial councils and synods which repeated the ordinance, culminating in the great general Council of Trent, which renewed the decree _Periculoso_ and was itself followed by another long series of provincial councils, which endeavoured to put its decree into force. But these efforts were still attended by very imperfect success, for the worldly nuns of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries chafed at the irksome restriction no less than did their predecessors of the middle ages. When, in 1681, Jean-Baptiste Thiers published his treatise on the enclosure of nuns he announced his reason to be that no point of ecclesiastical discipline was in his day more completely neglected and ignored[1079].

This brief sketch of the enclosure movement in the Western Church is necessary to a right understanding of the special attempts which were made in England to keep the nuns in their cloisters by means of an absolute enforcement of the Benedictine Rule. Visitatorial injunctions on this subject during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and up to the Reformation were based upon three enactments: the constitutions of the legate Ottobon in 1268, the vigorous reforms of Archbishop Peckham (1279-92) and the Bull _Periculoso_. The Cardinal Legate Ottobon had come to England in 1265, on the restoration of Henry III after Evesham, with the purpose of punishing bishops and clergy who had supported the party of Simon de Montfort and the barons. When peace was finally signed in 1267, largely by his intervention, he was able to turn his attention to general abuses prevalent in the English church and one of the reforms which he attempted to enforce was the stricter enclosure of nuns. Chapter LII of his _Constitutions_ [_Quod moniales a certis locis non exeant_] is an amplification of the Benedictine rule of enclosure, made far more rigid and severe. "Lest by repeated intercourse with secular folk the quiet and contemplation of the nuns should be troubled," minute regulations were laid down as to their movements. They were allowed to enter their chapel, chapter, dorter and frater at due and fixed times; otherwise they were to remain in the cloister; and none of these places were to be entered by seculars, save very seldom and for some sufficient reason. No nun was to converse with any man, except seriously and in a public place, and at least one other nun was always to be present at such conversations. No nun was to have a meal outside the house except with the permission of the superior and then only with a relative, or some person from whose company no suspicion could arise. All other places, beyond those specified, were entirely forbidden to the nuns, with the exception, in certain circumstances, of the infirmary. No nun was to go to the different offices, except the obedientiaries, whose duties rendered it necessary and they were never to go without a companion. The Abbess or head of the house was never to leave it, except for its evident advantage or for urgent necessity, and she was always to have an honest companion, while the lesser nuns were never to be given licence to go out, except for some fit cause and in company with another nun. Finally nuns were not to leave their convents for public processions, but were to hold their processions within the precincts of their own houses. The legate strictly enjoined that "the prelates to whose jurisdiction belonged the visitation of each nunnery should cause these statutes to be observed"[1080].

It will be realised that these injunctions were exceedingly severe and that the visitors were not likely to find their task a sinecure. There is little evidence for determining how far any serious attempt was made to enforce the legate's Constitutions[1081], but if we may judge from the language of Peckham, some ten years later, any attempts which may have been made had not been strikingly successful. One of the first actions of this energetic archbishop on his elevation to the see of Canterbury was to carry out a visitation of the nunneries of Barking and Godstow and to send to both houses injunctions laying great stress on strict enclosure (1279). In 1281 he followed up these injunctions by two general decrees for the enclosure of nuns; and in 1284 he visited the three nunneries of Romsey, Holy Sepulchre (Canterbury) and Usk and sent injunctions enforcing the Constitutions of 1281[1082]. In these injunctions he laid down with great exactness the conditions to be observed in granting nuns permission to leave their convents. The Godstow injunction runs thus:

For the purpose of obtaining a surer witness to chastity, we ordain
that nuns shall not leave the precincts of the monastery, save for
necessary business which cannot be performed by any other persons.
Hence we condemn for ever, by these present [letters] those sojourns
which were wont to be made in the houses of friends, for the sake of
pleasure and of escaping from discipline [_ad solatium et ad
subterfugium disciplinae_]. And when it shall befall any [nuns] to go
out for any necessity, we strictly order these four [conditions] to be
observed. First, that they be permitted to go out only in safe and
mature company, as well of nuns as of secular persons helping them.
Secondly that having at once performed their business, so far as it
can be by them performed, they return to their house; and if the
performance of the business demand a delay of several days, after the
first or second day it shall be left to proctors to finish it. Thirdly
that they never lodge in the precincts of men of religion or in the
houses of clergy, or in other suspected habitations. Fourthly that no
one absent herself from the sight of her companion or companions, in
any place where human conversation might be held, nor listen to any
secret whispering, except in the presence of the nuns her companions,
unless perchance father or mother, brother or sister have something
private to say to her[1083].

The Barking injunctions are slightly different and the first condition imposed therein is interesting: "That they be sent forth only for a necessary and inevitable cause, that is in particular the imminent death of a parent, beyond which cause we can hardly imagine any other which would be sufficient"[1084]. These injunctions are very severe, since they limit the occasions upon which a nun might leave her convent to the performance of some negotiation connected with the business of the house and to attendance at the deathbeds of relatives and entirely forbid all visits for pleasure to the houses of friends.

In 1281 Peckham published a mandate directed against the seducers of nuns; after excommunicating all who committed or attempted to commit this crime and declaring that absolution for the sentence could be given only by a Bishop or by the Pope (except on the point of death), he proceeded to deal with the question of the enclosure of nuns, on the ground that their wandering in the world gave opportunity for such crimes, and sternly forbade them to pay visits for the sake of recreation, even to the closest relatives, or to remain out of their houses for more than two days on business[1085]. The same year he also dealt with the subject in the course of a set of constitutions, concerning various abuses, which he considered to be in need of reform. The language of the chapter in which he treats of the claustration of nuns is in parts the same as that of the ordinance against seducers, but it is less severe, for it enacts only that nuns shall not stay "more than three natural days for the sake of recreation, or more than six days for any necessary reason, save in case of illness." Moreover the Archbishop adds: "we do not extend this ordinance to those who are obliged to beg necessities of life, while they are begging"[1086]. It was this modified version of his ordinance which he tried to impose in his visitation of 1284, for at Romsey he recognised that the nuns might be leaving the house for recreation and not merely upon the business of the convent; the Abbess, for instance, is to take her three coadjutresses with her when she goes out on business, and two of them if she go _causa solatii_. At this house he forbade nuns to go out without a companion, or to stay for more than three days with seculars and condemned their practice of eating and drinking in the town: no nun, either on leaving or returning to the convent, was to enter any house in the town of Romsey, or to eat or drink there, and no cleric or secular man or woman was to give them any food outside the precincts[1087]. At St Sepulchre (Canterbury) Peckham regulated the visits of nuns to confessors outside the house, and at Usk he ordered that no nun was to go out without suitable companions, or to stay more than three or four days in the houses of secular persons[1088].

The next effort made in England to enforce enclosure upon nuns was the result of Boniface VIII's Bull _Periculoso_. Bishops' registers about the year 1300 sometimes contain copies of this severe enactment. One of the earliest efforts to carry it out was made by Simon of Ghent, Bishop of Salisbury, who on November 28th, 1299, issued a long letter to the Abbess of Wilton (obviously inserted in the register as a specimen of a circular sent to each nunnery in the diocese), embodying the text of the bull and ordering her to put it into force, and in 1303 he issued a mandate for the enclosure of the nuns of Shaftesbury, Wilton, Amesbury, Lacock, Tarrant Keynes and Kington[1089]. The Register of Godfrey Giffard, Bishop of Worcester, contains a note in the year 1300:

As to the shutting up of nuns. It is expedient that a letter of
warning be sent according to the form of the constitution and directed
to every house of nuns, that they do what is necessary for their
inclusion and cause themselves to be enclosed this side the Gule of
August.

The Bishop seems however from the beginning to have doubted his capacity to carry out the decree, for further on the register contains another note, "As to whether it is expedient to enclose the nuns of the diocese of Worcester"[1090]. An undated note of _Inhibiciones facte monialibus de Werewell_ in the Register of John of Pontoise, Bishop of Winchester, among other documents belonging to 1299-1300, is probably in part a result of _Periculoso_:

We forbid on pain of excommunication any nun or sister to go outside
the bounds of the monastery until we have made some ordinance
concerning enclosure. Item let no one be received as nun or sister
until we have enquired more fully into the resources of the house.
Item we order the abbess to remove all secular women and to receive
none henceforth as boarders in their house. Item let her permit no
secular clerk or layman to enter the cloister to speak with the
nuns[1091].

But the most detailed information as to the efforts of a conscientious bishop to enforce Boniface VIII's decree in England is contained in the Register of Bishop Dalderby of Lincoln. Dalderby was a new broom in the diocese and he determined to sweep clean. On June 17th, 1300, he directed a mandate to the archdeacons of his diocese ordering each to associate with himself some other mature and honest man and to visit the religious houses in his own archdeaconry, explaining the terms of the new bull intelligibly to the nuns and ordering them to remain within their nunneries and to permit no one to enter the precincts contrary to the tenour of the decree, until the Bishop should be able to visit them in person; the heads of the houses were to be specially warned to carry out the decree and for better security a sealed copy of it was to be deposited in each house by the commissioners[1092].

In the course of the next two months Dalderby visited, either in person or by commissioners, Marlow, Burnham, Flamstead, Markyate, Elstow, Goring, Studley, Godstow, Delapre (Northampton) and Sewardsley[1093]. At each house the bull was carefully explained to the nuns in the vulgar tongue, they were ordered to obey it and a copy was left with them. But this campaign was not unattended with difficulties. The nuns were bitterly opposed to the restriction of a freedom to which they were accustomed and which they heartily enjoyed, and an entry in Dalderby's Register, describing his visitation of Markyate, shows that even in the middle ages a bishop's lot was not a happy one:

On July 3rd, in the first year [of his consecration], the Bishop
visited the house of nuns of Markyate and on the following day he
caused to be recited before the nuns of the same [house] in chapter
the statute put forth by the lord Pope Boniface VIII concerning the
enclosure of nuns, explained it in the vulgar tongue and giving them
a copy of the same statute under his seal, ordered them in virtue of
obedience henceforth to observe it in the matter of enclosure and of
all things contained in it, and especially to close all doors by which
entrance is had into the inner places of their house and to permit no
person, whether dishonest or honest, to enter in to them, without
reasonable and manifest cause and licence from the person to whom [the
granting of such a licence] pertains. Furthermore he specially
enjoined the Prioress to observe the said statute in all its articles
and to cause it to be observed by the others. But when the Bishop was
going away, certain of the nuns, disobedient to these injunctions,
hurled the said statute at his back and over his head, and as well the
Prioress as the convent appeared to consent to those who threw it,
following the bishop to the outer gate of the house and declaring
unanimously that they were not content in any way to observe such a
statute. On account of which, the Bishop, who was then directing his
steps to Dunstable, returned the next day and having made inquisition
as to the matters concerned in the said statute, imposed a penance on
four nuns, whom he found guilty and on the whole convent for their
consent, as is more fully contained in his letters of correction sent
to the aforesaid house.

Afterwards he sent letters to the recalcitrant convent warning them for the third time (they had already been warned once by the Official of the Archdeacon of Bedford and a second time at the visitation which has just been described) to keep the new decree, on pain of the major excommunication, from which only the Pope could absolve them[1094].

There was opposition at other convents, too, though we hear of no more attacks on the episcopal shoulders. On August 19th Dalderby wrote as follows to Master Benedict de Feriby, rector of Broughton, Northants (a church in the presentation of the Abbess and Convent of Delapre):

It has come to our ears, by clamorous rumour, that some of the nuns of
our diocese, spurning good obedience, slackening the reins of honesty
and shamelessly casting aside the modesty of their sex, despise the
papal statute concerning enclosure directed to them, as well as our
injunctions made to them upon the subject, and frequent cities and
other public places outside their monasteries, and mingle in the
haunts of men;

he proceeded to order Feriby to visit nunneries wherever he considered it expedient to do so, and to punish those who were guilty of breaking the statute, signifying to the Bishop, by a certain date, the names of all who had been accused of doing so, whether they had been found guilty or not[1095]. This mandate is no doubt in part explained by two other letters which he dispatched on the same day; one of them was directed to the Archdeacon of Northampton and set forth (in language which often repeats _verbatim_ the phrases of the papal bull) that at the Bishop's recent visitation of Delapre (Northampton) he had found three nuns in apostasy, having cast off their habits after being a long time professed, and left their house to live a secular life in the world[1096]. The other letter contains a sentence of the greater excommunication against a nun of Sewardsley, for similar conduct[1097]. These cases of apostasy were less rare than might be imagined; Dalderby had to deal with two others during his episcopate, one at St Michael's, Stamford[1098], and the other at Goring[1099]; and during the rule of his predecessor Sutton three nuns had escaped from Godstow and one from Wothorpe[1100]. They illustrate the undoubted truth that it was only the existence (already in the thirteenth century) of very grave disorders, which led reformers like Ottobon, Peckham and Boniface VIII to "beat the air" with such severe restrictions.

These three documents, the Constitutions of Ottobon and of Peckham and the Bull _Periculoso_, were the standard decrees on the subject of the claustration of nuns in England and were used as a model by visitors in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. William of Wykeham, for example, in the exceptionally full and formal injunctions which he sent to Romsey and to Wherwell in 1387 continually refers by name to Ottobon and to Peckham, and the wording of the Bull _Periculoso_ is followed _verbatim_ in the mandate directed by Bishop Grandisson of Exeter to Canonsleigh in 1329 and in the commission sent by his successor Bishop Brantyngham to two canons of Exeter in 1376, concerning the wanderings of the nuns of Polsloe. But a study of the visitation documents of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries makes it clear that the nuns never really made any attempt to obey the regulations which imposed a strict enclosure upon them; and that the bishops upon whom fell the brunt of administering _Periculoso_ themselves allowed a considerable latitude, directing their efforts towards regulating the conditions under which nuns left their convents, rather than to keeping them within the precincts. _Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien_ and the steady opposition of the nuns forced a compromise upon their visitors. The canonist John of Ayton, reciting the decrees of Ottobon and of Boniface, with their injunction that bishops shall "cause them to be observed," exclaims

Cause to be observed! But surely there is scarce any mortal man who
could do this: we must therefore here understand "so far as lieth in
the prelate's power." For the nuns answer roundly to these statutes or
to any others promulgated against their wantonness, saying "In truth
the men who made these laws sat well at their ease, while they laid
such burdens upon us by these hard and intolerable restrictions!"
Wherefore we see in fact that these statutes are a dead letter or are
ill-kept at the best. Why, then, did the holy fathers thus labour to
beat the air? Yet indeed their toil is none the less to their own
merit; for we look not to that which is but to that which of justice
should be[1101].

Dalderby's experience at Markyate shows that John of Ayton's picture was not too highly coloured, and since it was impossible to enforce "hard and intolerable restrictions" without at least a measure of co-operation from the nuns themselves, the bishops took the only course open to them in trying to minimise the evil. Their expedients deserve some study, and as a typical set of episcopal injunctions dealing with journeys by nuns outside their cloisters it will suffice to quote those sent by Walter Stapeldon, Bishop of Exeter, to the nunneries of Polsloe and Canonsleigh. These rules were drawn up in 1319, only twenty years after the publication of the Bull _Periculoso_, but they are already far removed from the strict ideal of Boniface VIII. Stapeldon was a practical statesman and he evidently realised that the enforcement of strict enclosure was impossible in a diocese where the nuns had been used to considerable freedom and where all the counties of the West saw them upon their holidays.

The clauses dealing with the subject run as follows:

_De visitacione amicorum._ No lady of religion is to go and visit her
friends outside the priory, but if it be once a year at the most and
then for reasonable cause and by permission; and then let her have a
companion professed in the same religion, not of her own choice, but
whomsoever the Prioress will assign to her and she who is once
assigned to her for companion shall not be assigned the next time, so
that each time a lady goes to visit her friends her companion is
changed; and if she have permission to go to certain places to visit
her friends, let her not go to other places without new permission.
_De absencia Dominarum et regressu earum._ Item, when any lady of
religion eats at Exeter, or in another place near by, for reasonable
cause and by permission, whenever she can she ought to return the same
or the following day and each time let her have a companion and a
chaplain, clerk or serving-man of good repute assigned by the
prioress, who shall go, remain and return with them and otherwise they
shall not go; and then let them return speedily to the house, as they
be commanded, and let them not go again to Exeter, wandering from
house to house, as they have oftentimes done, to the dishonour of
their state and of religion. _De Dominabus "Wakerauntes"_ [i.e.
_vagantibus_]. Item, a lady who goes a long distance to visit her
friends, in the aforesaid form, should return to the house within a
month at the latest, or within a shorter space if it be assigned her
by the Prioress, having regard to the distance or proximity of the
place, where dwell the friends whom she is going to visit, but a
longer term ought the Prioress never to give her, save in the case of
death, or of the known illness of herself or of her near friends.
_Pena Dominarum Vagancium._ And if a lady remain without for a long
time or in any other manner than in the form aforesaid, let her never
set foot outside the outer gate of the Priory for the next two years;
and nevertheless let her be punished otherwise for disobedience, in
such manner as is laid down by the rule and observances of the order
of St Benet for the fault; and leave procured by the prayer of her
friends ought not to excuse her from this penance[1102]. No lady of
your religion, professed or unprofessed, shall come to the external
offices outside the door of the cloister to be bled or for any other
feigned excuse, save it be by leave of the Prioress or of the
Subprioress, and then for a fit reason and let her have with her
another professed lady of your religion, to the end that each of them
may see and hear that which the other shall say and do[1103].

The main lines along which the bishops attempted to regulate the movements of the nuns outside their houses appear clearly in these injunctions. It was their invariable practice to forbid unlicensed visits, in accordance with the Benedictine rule; no nun might leave her house without a licence from her superior and such licences were not to be granted too easily[1104] or with any show of favouritism[1105]; sometimes the licence of the Bishop was required as well[1106]. Such licences were not to be granted often (once a year is usually the specified rule)[1107] and the bishops sometimes tried to confine the visits of nuns to parents or to near relatives[1108]. An attempt was also made to regulate the length of the visits. A maximum number of days was fixed and the nun was to be punished if she outstayed her leave[1109], except when she was detained by illness. This maximum differed from time to time and from place to place. Bishop Stapeldon, it will be recalled, allowed the nuns in his diocese to remain away for a month and longer; how he reconciled such laxity with his conscience and the Bull _Periculoso_ is not plain. Archbishop Greenfield, at the same date, permitted his Yorkshire nuns a maximum visit of fifteen days[1110], and in 1358 Bishop Gynewell of Lincoln forbade the nuns of Godstow to remain away for longer than three weeks[1111]. When Alnwick visited the diocese of Lincoln in 1440-5, he made careful inquiry into the length of the visits paid by the nuns and at Goring, Gracedieu, Markyate, Nuncoton and St Michael's, Stamford, he found that the superior usually gave the nuns licence to remain away a week, though the Prioress of Studley gave exeats for three or four days only[1112]. A week does not seem a very lengthy absence, but Alnwick would have lifted horrified eyebrows at the action of his predecessor Gynewell, for he ordered the superiors "that ye gyfe no sustere of yowres leue to byde wythe thaire frendes whan thai visite thaym, overe thre dayes in helthe, and if thai falle seke, that he do fecche thaym home wythe yn sex dayes"[1113]. He shared the views of an even stricter reformer, Peckham[1114]. It was often stipulated that the nuns, whether they went on long or on short journeys, were to go only to the place which they had received permission to visit[1115]; and sometimes they were specially told that if they were obliged to spend the night away from their friends they were to do so, whenever possible, in another nunnery[1116]. But they were strictly forbidden to harbour in the houses of monks, friars, or canons[1117]. On short journeys, or on errands which could be speedily accomplished, they were forbidden to eat or drink out of their monasteries or to make unnecessary delay, but were to return at once and in no case to be out after nightfall[1118]. Moreover it was invariably ordered that a nun was on no account to leave her house, without another nun of mature age and good reputation who would be a constant witness to her behaviour[1119]; and both were to wear monastic dress[1120].

The chief aim of the ecclesiastical authorities was, however, to secure that leave of absence should be granted only for a reasonable cause. All conciliar and other injunctions for enclosure added a saving clause of "manifest necessity" and this gave an opening for an infinite variety of interpretation. The nuns, indeed, could fall back upon a threefold line of defence against the intolerable restrictions. They could appeal to the undoubted fact that strict and perpetual enclosure went beyond the requirements of their rule. They could adduce the custom by which, as long as their memory ran, nuns had been allowed to leave their convents under conditions. Finally they could with a little skill, stretch the "manifest necessity" clause to cover almost all their wanderings. Thus it happened that in enforcing the Bull _Periculoso_ the visitors of the later middle ages found themselves obliged to define, more or less widely according to local conditions, what was and what was not a reasonable cause, and to combat one after another certain specific excuses put forward by the nuns. The sternest reformers were agreed that enclosure might be broken, when the lives of the nuns were endangered. Fire, flood, famine, war and the ruin of their buildings were universally accepted as reasonable excuses[1121]. A nun could leave her house to be superior of another nunnery (a not infrequent practice), or to found new houses or to establish reform elsewhere.[1122] Moreover when a culprit stood in need of condign punishment, she might be and often was sent to another house to do penance among strangers, who would neither sympathise with her nor run the risk of being contaminated by her[1123].

At this point, however, agreement ceased. The question of illness was beset with difficulties. It was agreed that a nun might leave her house, if she suffered from some contagious disease which threatened the health of her sisters[1124], but opinions differed as to whether any relaxation was to be allowed in less severe cases, when only her own health was in question. The visitors sometimes issued licences for nuns to leave their houses in order to recruit their health; thus in 1303 Josiana de Anelaby, Prioress of Swine, had licence to absent herself from her house on account of ill-health[1125], in 1314 Archbishop Greenfield licenced a nun of Yedingham, who was suffering from dropsy, to visit friends and relatives with honest company, for the sake of improving her health[1126] and in 1368 Joan Furmage, Abbess of Shaftesbury, actually received a dispensation to leave the abbey for a year, and reside in her manors, for the sake of air and recreation[1127]. It is significant that the _Novellae Definitiones_ of the Cistercian Order in 1350 strictly forbade nuns to go to the public baths outside their houses, which shows that they had been in the habit of doing so[1128]. But strict reformers were always opposed to such licences, and the specific prohibition of exeats for purposes of cures and convalescences was common in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the practice had become almost universal in France[1129].

Again there was some difference of opinion as to whether a nun might leave her house, in order to enter one professing a stricter rule. Such a desire was in theory laudable and by Innocent III's decretal _Licet_ the principle was laid down that a bishop was bound _de jure_ to grant leave for migration "sub praetextu majoris religionis et ut vitam ducant arctiorem," as long as the motive of the petitioner was love of God and not merely _temeritas_[1130]. But _temeritas_ was often to be suspected; women, as St Francis de Sales complained, were full of whimsies[1131]; ennui, fancy, a craving for change, a friend in another house, might masquerade as a desire to lead a stricter life elsewhere. Moreover a nun who desired to remove herself was not unlikely to encounter opposition from her own convent. An interesting case of such opposition occurred at Gracedieu in 1447-8. Margaret Crosse, a nun of that house, desired to be transferred to the Benedictine Priory of Ivinghoe "of a straiter order of religion and observance, not for a frivolous or empty reason, but that she may lead a life altogether and entirely harder." She obtained letters of admission from the Prioress of Ivinghoe, but when she came to ask for leave to migrate, the Prioress and Convent of Gracedieu refused to release her from her obedience and confiscated the letters. Bishop Alnwick then wrote to Gracedieu, requiring the Prioress either to let her go, or to furnish him with a reason for their refusal. The Prioress and Convent replied with some acerbity. Margaret, they said, desired to lead a life of less and not of more restraint and her real object was to join her sister, who was at that time Prioress of Ivinghoe, if indeed her request were not a mere pretext for apostasy; for

the said Margaret Crosse has caused and commanded certain goods,
property and jewels belonging to our priory to be stealthily conveyed
by certain of the said Margaret's friends in the flesh from our priory
to foreign and privy places, and to such conveyance done in her name
has lent her authority, with the purpose, as is strongly suspected, of
taking advantage of the darkness one night ... and transferring
herself utterly and entirely of her own motion to places wholly
strange, without having or asking and against our will[1132].

Moreover had the holy father considered the merits of their house and the loss to it, if Margaret seceded?

Inasmuch as in our priory according to the observances of the rule God
is served and quire is ruled both in reading and singing and chanting
the psalms and toiling in the vineyard of the Lord of Sabaoth at the
canonical hours by day and night, while we also patiently endure
grievous cares, fastings and watchings and further are instant
together in contemplation, even as the holy Spirit designs to give us
His inspiration. And the said Margaret Crosse, who is sufficiently
trained in such regular observances and is very needful for the
service of God in our priory aforesaid, wherein such regular
observances and contemplations are not so fully kept as in our
aforesaid priory ... would give herself to secular business in all
matters, rather than to such contemplation or observance of the rule;
and thereout shall arise to us and our priory not only grievous ill
repute, but also no small loss, especially in that such chantings and
regular observances would in likelihood suffer damage by reason of the
said Margaret's absence[1133].

There is an air of verisimilitude about the injured convent's argument, though the visitation report of 1440-1 does not show them as the strict and pious community which they claim to be; but what came of the affair we do not know.

One plea to lead a stricter life was, however, less open to suspicion; that was the request to be enclosed as an anchoress. Sometimes an anchoress had a companion, sometimes a servant[1134], but in any case her life was stricter than that of a nun, for she devoted herself to constant prayer and was bound to remain always in her little cell, which was usually attached to a church. There are several instances of nuns who left their communities to lead a solitary life in some anchorage. On one occasion when the nuns of Coldingham had been dispersed by the Scots, Beatrice de Hodesak left her convent and with the permission of the Archbishop and of her Prioress retired to an anchorage at St Edmund's Chapel, near the bridge of Doncaster; another anchoress Sibil de Lisle was already living there (c. 1300)[1135]. Twenty years later Archbishop Melton gave Margaret de Punchardon, nun of Arden, permission to be enclosed, as an anchoress, in the cell attached to St Nicholas' Hospital at Beverley, in company with Agnes Migregose [? Mucegrose, i.e. Musgrave] already a recluse there[1136]. The register of Bishop Gray of Lincoln contains an interesting commission (1435-6) addressed to the Abbot of Thornton, bidding him enclose Beatrice Franke, a nun of Stainfield, in the parish church of Winterton, together with the Abbot's certificate that he has examined her and found her steadfast in her purpose and therefore

shutting up the aforesaid sister Beatrice in a building and enclosure
constructed on the north side of the church and making fast the door
thereof with bolts, bars and keys, we left her in peace and calm of
spirit, as it is believed by the more part, in the joy of her
Saviour[1137].

Some nunneries themselves had anchorages attached, for instance Davington[1138], Polesworth[1139] and Carrow; and Julian of Norwich, anchoress at the parish church of Carrow in the fourteenth century, was one of the most famous mystical writers of the middle ages[1140]. Anchoresses do not seem always to have been content with their life and the strict preliminary examination of Beatrice Franke "concerning her withdrawal from the life of a community to the solitary life, concerning the length of time wherein she had continued in this purpose, concerning the perils of them that choose such a life and afterwards repent thereof" was probably a necessary precaution. The register of Bishop Dalderby of Lincoln contains a mandate to the nuns of Marlow, to readmit one such faint-heart, Agnes de Littlemore, a lay sister of the house, who had left it to become an anchoress and had repented of her decision[1141].

Illness and the desire to embrace a stricter rule were exceptional causes for a temporary breach of enclosure. The great difficulty in administering _Periculoso_ arose over more usual pretexts. The least objectionable occasion for leaving cloistral precincts was when convent business demanded it and this happened frequently to the superior and the treasuress or cellaress. The journeys which were frequently taken by the head of a house have already been considered[1142]; but the obedientiaries also found much scope for wandering in the duties of their offices. The treasuress and cellaress might be obliged day by day to visit, in the course of their duties, offices and buildings which lay outside the walls, and if they were not sober minded women there were ample opportunities for lingering and gossiping with secular persons and with servants. The Constitutions of the Legate Ottobon in 1268 attempted to minimise this danger by enacting that no nun was to go into the different _officinae_, except those whose offices rendered it necessary to do so, and they were never to go unaccompanied[1143]. The complaints brought by the nuns of Gracedieu in 1440-1 against their self-confident cellaress Margaret Belers show that some such regulation was necessary; it was said that she was accustomed to visit all the offices by herself, even the granges and other places where menfolk were working, and that she went there (good zealous housewife!) "over early in the morning before daybreak"; whereupon Bishop Alnwick ordered the Prioress to "suffre none of thaym, officiere ne other, to go to any house of office wythe owte the cloystere, but if ther be an other nunne approveded in religyone assigned to go wythe hire, eyther to be wytnesse of others conversatyon"[1144]. Convent business, however, frequently took the officials further afield than outlying granges and they undertook journeys hardly less often than did the head of the house. The Cistercian statutes of 1256-7, in forbidding nuns to leave their convents, make exception "for the Abbess with two or at most three nuns and for the cellaress with one, who are permitted to go forth to look after the business of the house or for other inevitable causes"[1145]. The evidence of account rolls is invaluable in this connection and shows us the nuns going marketing or seeking tithes from recalcitrant farmers, or interviewing tenants about rent. The Chambress of Syon went to London three times in 1536, doubtless to buy the russets, white cloth, kerseys, friezes and hollands which figure so largely in her account and to take the spectacles to be mended; she was a thrifty lady and her expenses were only 6_d._, 2_d._ and 20_d._ respectively. Her sister the cellaress also went to London that year and spent 6_d._ on the jaunt[1146]. The nuns of St Michael's, Stamford, sometimes took long journeys on convent business; in 1372-3 Dame Katherine Fitzaleyn went "to London and other places about our tithes," at the heavy cost of 15_s._ 8_d._[1147] From Stamford to London was a considerable journey, but the convent could not afford to lose its tithes. The same business took Dame Katherine to the capital another year; she hired three horses for six days and a serving man to go with them and she took with her Dame Ida, in accordance with the regulations; the whole cost of the expedition was L2. 11_s._, a very large sum, and we will hope that the tithes brought in more than enough to cover it[1148].

Sometimes, again, nuns left their houses to take part in ecclesiastical ceremonies, such as processions. There does not seem much harm in the whole convent sallying forth on these solemn occasions and indeed bishops sometimes gave orders that they were to do so. In 1321 Rigaud de Asserio, Bishop of Winchester, sent a letter to the Prior of St Swithun's monastery "to pray for peace, with solemn processions"; he was to cause the Abbot and Convent of Hyde, the Abbess and Convent of St Mary's, Winchester, and all the other religious houses and parish priests of Winchester to come together in the Cathedral and then to proceed in solemn procession through the town[1149]. The strictest disciplinarians, however, looked with suspicion even upon religious processions and sought to keep nuns within the precincts of their cloister. Ottobon's Constitutions contain a proviso that nuns are not to go out for public processions, but are to hold their processions within the bounds of their own house[1150] and the prohibition was repeated by Thomas of Cantilupe, Bishop of Hereford, writing to Lymbrook in 1277[1151], and by William of Wykeham (who specifically based his words upon Ottobon), writing to Romsey in 1387[1152]. A century later the custom was forbidden in France at the provincial Council of Sens, in 1460 and again in 1485, where it was referred to as "a dangerous and evil abuse"[1153]. Some explanation of this severity, which seems excessive, may perhaps be gleaned from an injunction sent by Bishop Longland to Elstow in 1531:

Moreover forasmoche as the ladye abbesse and covent of that house be
all oon religious bodye unite by the profession and rules of holy
sainct benedicte, and is nott conuenyent ne religious to be disseuerd
or separate, we will and Inioyne that frome hensforth noon of the said
abbesse seruauntes nor no ther secular person or persones, whatsoeuer
he or they be, goo in eny procession before the said abbesse betwene
hir and hir said covent, undre payne of exccommunycacon, and that the
ladye abbesse ne noon of hir successours hereafter be ladde by the
arme or otherwise in eny procession ther as in tymes paste hath been
used, undre the same payne[1154].

Other religious ceremonies of a less formal nature occasionally called nuns, in a body or individually, out of their cloister. For instance some of the greater abbeys were accustomed to receive into their fraternity benefactors and persons of distinction, both men and women, whom they wished to honour, nor were kings too proud to call themselves the _confratres_ of Bury St Edmunds or St Albans and to receive from the monks the kiss of peace[1155]. The ceremony took place with great solemnity in the chapter-house and it is recorded that on one occasion (in 1428), when the Earl of Warwick and the Duke of Gloucester and their households were received into the Fraternity of St Albans, Cecilia Paynel and Margaret Ewer, nuns of Sopwell, were also admitted. At another time the Prioress of Sopwell, together with a certain John Crofton and his wife, were received and gave the abbey a pittance and wine and a sum of money; while on another occasion still the Prioress and another nun of St Mary de Pre were similarly made _consorores_ of the abbey, and marked their appreciation by the gift of a frontal for the high altar in the lady chapel[1156]. Sopwell and St Mary de Pre were dependents of St Albans and it is not improbable that their superiors and seniors often visited it on great occasions such as this; certainly the great magnates of the realm often called at Sopwell on their way from St Albans, and nuns of the house figure in its book of benefactors as donors of embroidery to the church[1157], while in matters of government the Abbot always kept a tight hand upon both houses. Again nuns sometimes attended the funerals of great folk; not only priors and prioresses, but also canons and nuns were expected to be present at Sir Thomas Cumberworth's funeral and "month's-mind"[1158] and in an account roll of St Michael's, Stamford, there is an entry "paye a nos compaygnounes alaunt a Leycestre al enterment la Duchesse ij s"[1159].