Chapter L: Part I: chs. 1-16 of a very interesting little book, the Traite de la (2)

[1232] At Esholt in 1535 Archbishop Lee even had to enjoin "that the prioress suffer no ale house to be kept within the precinct of the gates of the saide monasterie." _Yorks. Arch. Journ._ XVI, p. 452. An explanation of this may be found by comparing the evidence at Archbishop Warham's visitation of the Hospital of St James outside Canterbury in 1511. "The Prioress complains that Richard Welles stays and talks in the precincts of the house and his wife sells beer in the precincts. They are very quarrelsome people, brawlers and sowers of discord. There is always a crowd of people at the house of Richard." _E.H.R._ VI, p. 22. At both these houses the nuns probably employed a secular alewife to make their beer and she sold also to other customers within their precincts. Compare Peckham's injunction to Wherwell in 1284: "Iterum ob Dei reverentiam et ecclesiae honestatem perpetuo inhibemus ne mercatores sedere in ecclesia cum suis mercibus permittantur." _Reg. Epis. Johannis Peckham_ (Rolls Ser.), II, p. 654. Also Bishop Bokyngham's letter forbidding merchants to sell their wares in the conventual church or churchyard of Stainfield under pain of excommunication (1392). _V.C.H. Lincs._ II, p. 131. Medieval churches were put to strange uses. They served sometimes as a market-place, sometimes as a granary, sometimes as a playground, sometimes as a stage.

[1233] Wood, _Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies_, II, p. 35, note _b_.

[1234] Wood, _op. cit._ pp. 35-6.

[1235] Wood, _op. cit._ pp. 36-37 (No. XV).

[1236] On this subject see Part II of Thiers' treatise _De la Cloture_, pp. 265-497.

[1237] _Ancren Riwle_ (King's Classics), p. 67.

[1238] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 46-7. The Benedictine rule runs: "It is by no means lawful, without the abbot's permission, for any monk to receive or give letters, presents and gifts of any kind to anyone, whether parent or other." Cap. LIV.

[1239] _V.C.H. Oxon._ II, p. 104.

[1240] Liveing, _op. cit._ p. 232.

[1241] _Hist. MSS. Com. Report_, IX, App. p. 57 (early fifteenth century).

[1242] _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_, III, p. 847. From a letter which he wrote to the Abbess on Nov. 12, 1284, it appears that the Prioress had been defamed of incontinence, for, while professing his belief in her innocence, he repeated his prohibition of casual conversation between nuns and seculars, adding "Oveke ceo nous defendons de part Deu ke nule nonein ne parle a escoler de Oxeneford, se il nest sun parent prechein, e ovekes ceo saunz le conge la abbesse especial. E ceo meismes entendons nous de touz prestres foreins, le queus font mout de maus en mout de lus, e aussi de touz religieus ki ne venent pur precher u pur confesser oue lautorite le apostoile e le eveske de Nichole." _Ib._ III, p. 851. Compare an injunction to Nunmonkton in 1397: "Item non permittatis clericos prioratum vestrum frequentare absque causa rationabili." Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 194.

[1243] _Linc. Visit._ I, pp. 67-8.

[1244] _Ib._ p. 65.

[1245] See below, p. 449.

[1246] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 114. Alnwick made a very strong injunction: "For as mykelle as your saide monastery and diuerse singulere persones ther of are greuously noysed and sclaundred for the grete and contynuelle accesse and recourse of seculere and regulere persones, and in specyalle of scolers of Oxenford to your said monastery and seculere persones ther of, that fro hense forthe ye suffre no seculere persones scolers no othere ... to hafe any accesse or recourse to your said monastery ne to any singulere persone ther of, ne there to abyde nyght ne daye, etc." _Ib._ pp. 115-6.

[1247] _Ib._ II, p. 218.

[1248] See _V.C.H. Oxon._ II, pp. 76-7.

[1249] _Op. cit._ f. 26_d_.

[1250] Gray, _Priory of St Radegund, Cambridge_, p. 35.

[1251] Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 190. See below p. 602.

[1252] _Lambeth Reg. Langham_, f. 76_d_. Compare the note in Alnwick's visitation of Studley (1445): "Sister Isabel Bartone. It is said that there is great recourse of seculare guests to the aforesaid Isabel and to her chamber." _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 26_d_.

[1253] _Archaeologia_, XLVII, p. 57.

[1254] A few more examples may be quoted. At Swine one of the _comperta_ of Giffard's visitation in 1267-8 runs: "The household of Sir Robert de Hilton, knight, wanders about far too freely (_nimis dissolute_) in the cloister and parlour, and often holds very suspicious conversations with the nuns and sisters, whence it is feared that harm may come. And this same Robert is very injurious and dangerous to them, wherefore, for fear of his oppression, the canons of the house lately, without the consent of the convent, gave him a barn full of corn, with which the convent should have been maintained." _Reg. Walter Giffard_, p. 148. At Nunmonkton in 1397 the Prioress, Margaret Fairfax, was ordered to see that John Munkton (the same who scandalised the convent by feasting and playing tables with her in her room), Sir William Aschby, chaplain, William Snowe and Thomas Pape held no conversation nor kept company with her, nor with any nun of her house, except in the presence of two of the elder nuns, and she was warned not to allow clerks to frequent the priory without reasonable cause. Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 194. At Rusper in 1524 "a certain William Tychenor has frequent access to the said priory and there sows discord between the prioress and sisters and others living there." _Sussex Arch. Coll._ V, p. 257. It will be noticed how often these suspected visitors are clerics; the prefix "sir" in the Nuncoton extract quoted in the text almost certainly denotes a churchman and the persons mentioned are probably secular clergy or canons from neighbouring houses such as Newhouse, probably chantry-priests and parish chaplains. See below, p. 416.

[1255] The following examples are typical of a host of others. At Nunappleton (1281) external visitors come into frater and cloister. _Reg. William Wickwane_, p. 141. At Rosedale (1306) the infirmary is to be kept from the passing to and fro of seculars; at Arthington (1318) they are not to frequent cloister, infirmary or other private places; at Nunburnholme (1318) there is scandal from the frequent access and gossiping of seculars with certain of the nuns. _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 119, 174. At Ickleton (1345) the precincts are not to be made the resort of any secular woman, nor is any such person to come into the choir during the hours of service. Goddard, _Ickleton Church and Priory_ (_Cambridge Antiq. Soc. Proc._ XLV, p. 190). At Gracedieu (1440-1) seculars and nuns eat together _commixtim_ in the Prioress' hall. _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 122. At Heynings (1440) the infirmary was occupied by secular folk, "to the great disturbance of the sisters." _Ib._ p. 133. At Romsey (1492) people stand about chatting in the middle of the choir. Liveing, _op. cit._ p. 220.

[1256] On the right of the patron or founder of a monastery, or of persons of noble birth, to enter the cloistral precincts, see Thiers, _op. cit._ pp. 296-309. He quotes the rule of Fontevrault (cap. VII): "If the most Christian King, the Queen, the Dauphin and other princes of the blood-royal, the founders and foundresses, being instantly besought, refuse nevertheless to desist from entering the precincts, let them enter with as small a suite of attendants as you can arrange, in long and decent garments and not otherwise; but let them not seek to pass the night on pain of excommunication." _Ib._ p. 297. It was never possible in practice to keep out great lords and ladies.

[1257] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell_, f. 34_d_.

[1258] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 133-5, _passim_. Compare the injunctions to some Yorkshire houses: at Marrick (1252) the nuns were forbidden to sit with guests or anyone else outside the cloister after curfew, or for a long time unless the guests arrived so late that it was impossible to serve them sooner, nor was a nun to remain alone with a guest. At Hampole (1302) no nun except the _hostillaria_ was to eat or drink in the guest-house, save with worthy people, and at Wilberfoss (1302) they were forbidden to linger in the guest-house or elsewhere, for amusement with seculars. _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 117, 126, 163. At Elstow in 1432, however, Bishop Gray enjoined "that when parents or friends or kinsfolk of nuns, or other persons of note and honesty, shall journey to the same monastery to visit any nuns of the said monastery, the same nuns be nowise bound for that day to observance of frater, but be excused to this end by grace of the abbess or president." _Visit. of Relig. Houses in Dioc. Linc._ I, p. 54.

[1259] _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_, III, pp. 851-2.

[1260] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell_, f. 100_d_.

[1261] _Wykeham's Reg._ II, pp. 73-4. The special prohibition of friars is significant, for their reputation was growing worse and worse throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. See also _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 164, 171, 181 and _Arch._ XLVII, p. 57. On the other hand it should be noted that "during the later thirteenth and earlier fourteenth centuries the bishops in many dioceses made a point of insisting that the confessors to the nuns should be chosen, not from the secular clergy, but from the Mendicant Orders, especially from the Minorites." A. G. Little, _Studies in English Franciscan Hist._ (1917), p. 119 (and the references which he gives).

[1262] _Visit. of Relig. Houses in Dioc. Linc._ I, p. 66.

[1263] _Yorks. Arch. Journ._ XVI, p. 441. Compare Alnwick's injunctions to Catesby (1442), Langley (1440-1) and St Michael's, Stamford (1440). _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 51, 117, _Alnwick's_ MS. f. 83_d_.

[1264] _Yorks. Arch. Journ._ XVI, p. 452 (cf. p. 440). These injunctions were very common, for the rule was often broken. Peckham's regulation for Wherwell (1284) was that no man was to enter after sunset at night, or before the end of chapter (which followed directly after Prime) in the morning. _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_, II, p. 653. For other examples see Romsey (1302-11), Liveing, _op. cit._ pp. 102, 103; Moxby (1318), _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 239; Sopwell (1338), Dugdale, _Mon._ III, p. 366; Wroxall (1338), _Worc. Reg. Sede Vacante_, p. 275; Heynings (1351), _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell_, f. 34_d_; Elstow (1387), _ib._, _Reg. Memo. Bokyngham_, f. 343: St Mary's Neasham (1436), _V.C.H. Durham_, II, p. 107; St Helen's, Bishopsgate (1439), Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 552; Nunappleton (1489), _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 172; Studley (1530-1), _Archaeologia_, XLVII, p. 59; Nuncoton (1531), _ib._ pp. 56, 59.

[1265] This certainly seems very strict, for (as appears from the injunctions quoted) it was customary to order the doors to be shut when the bell rang for Compline, the last office of the day. Vespers was the service immediately before supper.

[1266] _Cantarista_ usually means a chantry-priest. The more usual word is _Precentrix_.

[1267] Chaucer, _Boke of the Duchesse_, ll. 300-4.

[1268] _E.H.R._ VI, pp. 33-4.

[1269] This was reiterated in Ottobon's Constitutions and in the Bull _Periculoso_. See also Thomas of Cantilupe's letter to Lymbrook in 1277 (_Reg. Thome de Cantilupo_, p. 201) and Archbishop Peckham's injunction to Godstow, both based upon Ottobon. _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_, III, p. 848. Also Bishop Brantyngham's commission concerning the nuns of Polsloe in 1376, which is based upon _Periculoso_. _Reg. of Bishop Brantyngham_, pt. II, pp. 152-3.

[1270] _Reg. Epis. Johannis Peckham_, II, pp. 652-3. Compare injunctions to Barking, _ib._ I, p. 84, and to St Sepulchre's, Canterbury, _ib._ II, p. 706.

[1271] _Ib._ II, p. 663 "volentes ibi moniales curiose respicere vel cum eis garrulas attemptare."

[1272] _Archaeologia_, XLVII, p. 52. Compare Bishop Gray's injunction to Godstow in 1432-4. "Also that all the doors of the nuns' lodgings towards the outer court, through which it is possible to enter into the cloister precinct, even if the other doors of the cloister be shut for the time being, be altogether blocked up, or that such means of barring or shutting be placed upon them that approach or entrance through the same doors may not be given to secular folk." _Linc. Visit._ I, p. 68. Compare also Dean Kentwode's injunction to St Helen's, Bishopsgate, in 1432: "Also we injoyn yow, Prioresse, that there may be a doore at the Nonnes quere, that noo straungers may loke on them, nor they on the straungers, wanne thei bene at dyvyne service. Also we ordene and injoyne yow, prioresse, that there be made a hache of conabyll heythe, crestyd with pykys of herne to fore the entre of yowre kechyne, that noo straunge pepille may entre with certeyne cleketts avysed be yow and be yowre steward to suche personys as yow and hem thynk onest and conabell. Also we injoyne yew, prioresse, that non nonnes have noo keyes of the posterne doore that gothe owte of the cloystere into the churche yerd but the prioresse, for there is moche comyng in and owte unlefulle tymys." Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 554.

[1273] _Loc. cit._ With this compare Alnwick's visitation of Ankerwyke in 1441, at which one of Margery Kyrkeby's charges against the Prioress Clemence Medeforde was: "Also she has ... blocked up the view Thamesward, which was a great diversion to the nuns. She confesses blocking up the view, because she saw that men stood in the narrow space close to the window and talked with the nuns." _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 3.

[1274] _Yorks. Arch. Journ._ XVI, pp. 452-3. Compare Bishop Stapeldon's injunction to Canonsleigh in 1320: "Et pur ceo que nous avoms oyi et entendu par ascune gent qe par my deus us dedenz vostre abbeye ileoqes plusours mals esclandres et deshonestetes sunt avenues avant cest hure, et purront ensement avenir apres, si remedie ne soit mys, ceo est asavoir, un us qe est en lencloistre au celer desouz la Sale la Abbesse devers la court voloms, ordinoms et comaundoms qe meisme ceux deus us soyent bien estupees par mur de pere, entre cy et la Paske procheyn avenir." _Reg. W. de Stapeldon_, p. 96.

[1275] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 172. He also said that "No man loge undir the dortir nor oon the baksede, but if hit be such sad persones by whome your house may be holpyne and socured w{t}out slaundir or suspicion."

[1276] Dugdale, _Mon._ III, p. 366. But at Barking Peckham ordered in 1279: "In officiis, autem, quae per foeminas fieri nequeunt, operariorum cum eisdem cautelis introitus admittatur." _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_, I, p. 84. On the entrance of carpenters, masons and other workmen into convents see Thiers, _op. cit._ II, ch. xxvi. He insists that the work must be a necessity and something which could not be done by the nuns themselves. "Ainsi les artisans sont coupables du violement de la cloture, lorsqu'ils entrent pour des ouvrages de bienseance ou de commodite, pour des decorations ou des embelissemens; en un mot, pour des ouvrages dont les Religieuses se peuvent passer; et je ne vois pas en quelle seurete de conscience les abbesses, les Prieures et les autres superieures des Religieuses, les y laissent entrer, soit pour polir des grilles, pour tendre et pour detendre des chambres et des lits, pour faire et pour peindre des plat-fonds et des alcoves, pour boiser des chambres, des galleries et des cabinets, pour faire de beaux vitrages, de belle volieres a petits oiseaux et d'autres choses semblables. Car outre que tout cela est directement oppose a la modestie et a la pauvrete, dont elles font profession, quel pretexte peuvent-elles alleguer pour se mettre a couvert de l'excommunication que les Conciles, les Papes et les Eveques ont fulminee contre les Religieuses, qui laissent entrer les personnes etrangeres dans leur cloture sans necessite." _Op. cit._ pp. 412-3. He is particularly urgent that nuns should cultivate their own gardens and should have their vegetable gardens outside the precincts: "par ce moyen elles ne seroient point obligees d'ouvrer et fermer si souvent les portes de leur cloture, a des jardiniers qui ne sont pas toujours exempts de scandale" (_ib._ p. 414), which recalls a famous story of Boccaccio's. _Decameron_, 3rd day, novel I.

[1277] _Loc. cit._ and compare his injunction to Wherwell, _ib._ p. 268. Bishop Flemyng's introduction to Elstow is rather contradictory: "Also that no nun admit secretly to her chamber any seculars or other men of religion and that if they be admitted she do not keep them there too long." _Visit. of Relig. Houses in Dioc. Lincoln_, I, p. 51. At Godstow (1432) the injunction ran: "Also that the beds in the nuns' lodgings be altogether removed from their chambers, save those for small children and that no nun receive any secular people for any recreation in the nuns' chambers under pain of excommunication." _Ib._ I, p. 67.

[1278] As at Godstow in 1432, _Linc. Visit._ I, p. 67, or Romsey in 1523, Liveing, _Records of Romsey Abbey_, p. 244.

[1279] _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_, II, p. 664. Cf. his injunctions to other nunneries.

[1280] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 116. Compare injunctions to Catesby, Langley, Markyate and St Michael's, Stamford. _Ib._ pp. 51, 177, and _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. ff. 6, 83_d_. For other examples see Lymbrook (1277), _Reg. Thome de Cantilupo_, p. 201; Polsloe (1319), _Reg. W. de Stapeldon_, p. 317; Studley (1530), _Archaeologia_, XLVII, p. 54.

[1281] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 83_d_, cf. f. 6, and _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 177.

[1282] Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 554. Compare Romsey (1387), _New Coll._ MS. f. 86; Nuncoton (1531), _Archaeologia_, XLVII, p. 60. St Benedict's Rule forbids all letters (cap. LIV).

[1283] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 46, 177; _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. ff. 39_d_, 76, 95_d_.

[1284] _Ib._ p. 119.

[1285] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 185.

[1286] _Ib._ p. 133.

[1287] _Ib._ pp. 113, MS. ff. 71_d_, 72, 77.

[1288] For other examples see Romsey (1311), Liveing, _op. cit._ p. 104; Clementhorpe (1317), Hampole (1308, 1314), Nunappleton (1346), Rosedale (1315), Arthington (1315, 1318); _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 129, 163-4, 172, 174, 188. Sopwell (1338), Dugdale, _Mon._ III, p. 366; Heynings (1392), _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Bokyngham_, f. 397_d_; Lymbrook (1437), _Hereford Epis. Reg. Spofford_, p. 81; Burnham (1432-6), _Visit. of Relig. Houses in Dioc. Lincoln_, I, p. 24; Redlingfield (1514), _Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich_, pp. 139-40; Flamstead (1530), _V.C.H. Herts._ IV, p. 433; Nuncoton (1531), _Archaeologia_, XLVII, p. 58; Sinningthwaite (1534), _Yorks. Arch. Journ._ XVI, pp. 440-1. The injunction to St Helen's, Bishopsgate, in 1432 has an odd variation: "withowte specialle graunte hadde in the chapetter house, among yow alle." Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, pp. 553-4.

[1289] _Reg. of John of Drokensford_, p. 81. The Isabel Fychet mentioned in 1336 was probably one of these ladies.

[1290] _Wykeham's Reg._ II, pp. 162-3. On this couple, see Smyth, _Lives of the Berkeleys_, pp. 364 ff.

[1291] _Reg. Ralph of Shrewsbury_, pp. 277, 278, 744-5. A few out of many other examples may be quoted: Alice, wife of John D'Aumarle, _domicellus_, may stay at Cornworthy from January till September (1333), _Reg. of J. de Grandisson_, pt. II, p. 724; Beatrix Paynell, sister of Sir John Foxley, may stay at Whitney from December to the Feast of St John the Baptist (1367), _Wykeham's Reg._ II, p. 7; Avice de Lyncolnia, niece of William de Jafford, may stay for four years in Nunappleton (1309); he was the Archbishop's receiver. _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, 171; Alice, wife of Alan of Ayste, may spend two years in Godstow (1363), _V.C.H. Oxon._ II, p. 73. It will be noted that nearly all these are great folk, who cannot lightly be refused.

[1292] _Reg. J. de Grandisson_, pt. I, p. 190.

[1293] _V.C.H. Beds._ I, p. 355.

[1294] _Reg. John le Romeyn_, I, p. 114.

[1295] See the list in Rye, _Carrow Abbey_, pp. 48-52, _passim_. Some of the men also brought servants or chaplains with them, e.g. William Wryght and servants, William Wade and William his chaplain, John Bernard and John his chaplain. The men must have been lodged outside the cloister precincts.

[1296] _Paston Letters_, ed. Gairdner (1900 ed.), II, p. 390 (no. 633). See also no. 617 and Introd. pp. ccxc-ccxcii.

[1297] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 175 (at this house there were also three women boarding with the Prioress and one with the Subprioress). Compare the case of Agnes de Vescy at Watton in 1272. The King wrote to the sheriff of Yorkshire that "Agnes de Vescy has been to the house of Watton with a great number of women and dogs and other things, which have interfered with the devotions of the nuns and sisters." Graham, _St Gilbert of Sempringham and the Gilbertines_, p. 83. The fact was that no one had any real control over these great ladies, least of all their hostesses.

[1298] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 185.

[1299] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 76. Compare a _compertum_ at St Sepulchre, Canterbury, in 1367-8. "Perhendinantes male fame steterunt cum priorissa, ad quas habebatur eciam accessus nimium suspectus," _Lambeth Reg. Langham_, f. 76_d_.

[1300] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 120, 122.

[1301] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. ff. 71_d_, 72. Compare the state of affairs at Hampole in 1411, when the Archbishop ordered the removal of "secular servants and _corrodiarii_ who attracted to themselves other secular persons from the country, by whom the house was burdened." _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 165. When Bishop Grandisson of Exeter licensed the reception of Alice D'Aumarle at Cornworthy (1333) he added "proviso quod ad vos, per moram hujusmodi, secularium personarum non pateat suspectis horis liberior frequencia vel accessus." _Reg. Grandisson_, pt. II, p. 724.

[1302] _Visit. of Relig. Houses in Dioc. of Lincoln_, I, p. 87.

[1303] Note for instance the Archbishop of York's injunction when mitigating a severe penance on a nun of St Clement's, York, which is clearly for immorality: "That twice a year if necessary she might receive friends ... but she was to have nothing to do with Lady de Walleys and if Lady de Walleys was then in their house, she was to be sent away before Pentecost (1310)," _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 129.

[1304] _V.C.H. Yorks._ II, p. 165.

[1305] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 39_d_.

[1306] Possibly a priest.

[1307] _Sussex Arch. Coll._ IX, p. 18.

[1308] Wilkins, _Concilia_, I, p. 592.

[1309] _Visit. of Relig. Houses in Dioc. Lincoln_, I, pp. 48-9. Compare Gray's injunction, laying more stress on married boarders. _Ib._ p. 53.

[1310] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell_, f. 34_d_.

[1311] _Visit. Linc._ II, p. 135. For other injunctions against boarders see Godstow, Gracedieu, Harrold, Langley, Nuncoton, Stixwould, _ib._ pp. 115, 124-5, 131, 177, _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. ff. 77_d_, 75_d_; Wherwell, Romsey (1284), Sheppey (1286), _Reg. Epis. Peckham_, II, pp. 653-4, III, p. 924; Wilberfoss, Nunkeeling and Nunappleton (1281-2), _Reg. William Wickwane_, pp. 112-3, 140-1; Polsloe (1319), _Reg. W. de Stapeldon_, p. 317; Canonsleigh (1391), _Reg. of Brantyngham_, pt. II, p. 724; Farwell (1367), _Reg. R. de Stretton_, p. 119; Polesworth (1352, 1456), _V.C.H. Warwick_, II, p. 63. These are only a few examples taken at random; the registers of the Archbishops of York and of the Bishops of Lincoln alone record many more. (See the _V.C.H._ for the counties in these dioceses, _passim_.)

[1312] _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_, II, p. 664; Liveing, _op. cit._ pp. 102, 165.

[1313] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell_, f. 100_d_; _Linc. Visit._ I, p. 67; II, p. 115.

[1314] _Gynewell_, f. 139_d_, _V.C.H. Beds._ I, p. 355; _Linc. Visit._ I, pp. 48-9, 53.

[1315] "That ye receyve ne holde no suiournauntes, men, women ne childerne, wyth ynne your place, and thoe that nowe are there, ye voyde thaym wythe yn a quartere of a yere after the receyvyng of thise our lettres, but if ye here yn hafe specyalle licence of hus or our successours, bysshops of Lincolne, except our wele belufede doghters, dame Elizabeth Dymmok and dame Margaret Tylney, by whose abydyng, as we truste, no greve but rathere avayle is procured to your place." _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 75_d_.

[1316] _Reg. of Brantyngham_, pt. II, p. 724.

[1317] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 173.

[1318] See examples above, p. 410.

[1319] See Ch. VI, _passim_.

[1320] _Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich_ (Camden Soc.), p. 290.

[1321] _Cal. of Papal Letters_, IV, pp. 37-8.

[1322] _Ib._ IV, p. 212.

[1323] _Ib._ IV, p. 167.

[1324] _Ib._ IV, p. 182.

[1325] _Ib._ IV, p. 394.

[1326] For example, _ib._ I, pp. 522, 526; IV, p. 38; VII, pp. 70, 440, 617. Sometimes, too, they were ordered to pay their own expenses, e.g. _ib._ VI, p. 293.

[1327] _Ib._ VI, p. 132.

[1328] _Ib._ VII, p. 220.

[1329] _Ib._ V, p. 91.

[1330] I.e. Jean de Dormans, bishop of Beauvais 1360-8, cardinal 1368, d. 1373.

[1331] _Cal. of Papal Letters_, IV, p. 170.

[1332] _V.C.H. Northants._ II, p. 126. Sewardsley was near Grafton Regis, where Jacquetta, then widow of Richard Wydville, earl Rivers, lived. This recalls the more famous case of Eleanor de Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester. It is worth noticing also that on the eve of the Reformation the famous Elizabeth Barton, called "the Holy Maid of Kent," found refuge for a part of her short career in the nunnery of St Sepulchre's, Canterbury. Archbishop Warham secured her admission there in 1526, and she became a nun and remained there for seven years, until the fame of her outspoken condemnations of the royal divorce finally brought about her execution in 1533. See Gasquet, _Hen. VIII and the English Monasteries_ (Pop. Edit. 1899), ch. III, _passim_.

[1333] _Le Livere de Engletere_ (Rolls Series), p. 344.

[1334] _Cal. of Close Rolls_ (1318-23), p. 428.

[1335] _Ib._ (1323-7), pp. 88-9; cf. _Le Livere de Engletere_, p. 350.

[1336] _V.C.H. Lincs._ II, p. 184.

[1337] _Cal. of Close Rolls_ (1307-13), p. 114.

[1338] _Ib._ (1302-7), p. 419.

[1339] _Cal. of Close Rolls_ (1313-18), p. 43. Sometimes the King sent his friends as well as his enemies to board in a convent and occasionally he endeavoured to do so without paying for them. In 1339 he sent first to Wilton and then to Shaftesbury "Sibyl Libaud of Scotland who lately came to England to the king's faith and besought that he would provide for her maintenance, requesting them to provide her and her son Thomas, who is of tender age, with maintenance from that house, in food and clothing, until Whitsuntide next, knowing that what they do at this request shall not be to the prejudice of their house in the future." _Cal. of Close Rolls_ (1339-41), pp. 261, 335. John of Gaunt made use of the convent of Nuneaton to provide a home for five Spanish ladies, who had doubtless come to England with his duchess Constance of Castile; early in 1373 he wrote to his receiver at Leicester bidding him pay the prioress for their expenses 13_s._ 4_d._ each week; but evidently they found the convent too dull for their tastes, for in August one of them was "demourrant a Leycestre ovesque Johan Elmeshalle," and in December the Duke wrote to his receiver again to say that he had heard "que noz damoisels d'Espaigne demurrantz a Nouneton ne voullont pas illoeques pluis longement demurrer"; so it was "Farewell and adieu to you, Spanish ladies" at Nuneaton. It is probable that these "damoisels" were quite young girls, and had been placed at the convent to learn "nortelry." _John of Gaunt's Reg._ (R. Hist. Soc.), II, pp. 128, 231, 276-7. See, for more about these ladies, pp. 320-1, 328, 338.

[1340] Browning, _Fra Lippo Lippi_.

[1341] _V.C.H. Norfolk_, II, p. 352. This case is particularly interesting, because it would seem to show that "benefit of clergy" was not claimed by nuns. On this point see Pollock and Maitland, _Hist. of Engl. Law_, 2nd ed. I, p. 445. "There seems no reason for doubting that nuns were entitled to the same privilege, though, to their credit be it said, we have in our period, found no cases which prove this." Maitland cites Hale, _Pleas of the Crown_, II, p. 328, as saying: "Nuns had the exemption from temporal jurisdiction but the privilege of clergy was never granted them by our law"; but elsewhere (_Pleas of the Crown_, II, p. 371): "Anciently nuns professed were admitted to privilege of clergy"; he cites a case from 1348 (Fitzherbert's _Abridgment Corone_, pl. 461) which speaks of a woman, not expressly called a nun, being claimed by and delivered to the ordinary. Stephen, _Hist. of Crim. Law of England_, II, p. 461, thinks that "all women (except, till the Reformation, professed nuns) were for centuries excluded from benefit of clergy, because they were incapable of being ordained."

[1342] Mr Hamilton Thompson thinks that "Mestowe" is probably the hundred of Meon-Stoke (Hants.), in a distant part of the county; it is difficult to see why the Abbess made a general claim there and in any case Wherwell, where Henry Harold lived, is in Wherwell Hundred.

[1343] _V.C.H. Hants._ II, p. 135.

[1344] Dugdale, _Mon._ III, p. 369.

[1345] Gibbons, _Ely Epis. Records_, p. 406.

[1346] _Cal. of Pat. Rolls_ (1381-5), p. 355.

[1347] On the other hand for a case of spoliation in which Juliana Yong, a nun, was involved as one of the aggressors see _Cal. of Pap. Petit._ I, pp. 333-4.

[1348] _Linc. Reg. Dalderby_, f. 16.

[1349] _Linc. Visit._ I, pp. 108-9. Compare a case in 1375 at Romsey when certain persons broke into the houses of the Abbess within the Abbey and carried off Joan, late the wife of Peter Brugge, and her property, consisting of her gold rings, gold brooches or bracelets with precious stones, linen and woollen clothes and furs; her chaplain aiding. Liveing, _op. cit._ p. 166.

[1350] _Cal. of Pat. Rolls_ (1340-3), p. 127.

[1351] _Ib._ (1367-70), p. 10. The Abbess was the worldly Joan Formage. Licences for crenellating monasteries are rather unusual; but cathedral closes were very generally crenellated at the end of the thirteenth and beginning of the fourteenth centuries, e.g. Lincoln, York, Lichfield, Wells and Exeter. There is a good example of a crenellated monastery at the Benedictine Priory of Ewenny near Bridgend, Glamorgan, a cell of Gloucester. This is near the south coast of Wales, where, as along the Welsh border, towers either crenellated or with certain defensive features are common. Cf. the numerous fortified churches in the south of France, e.g. Albi Cathedral (Tarn) and Les Saintes-Maries (Bouches-du-Rhone), the latter close to the shore of the Mediterranean. (For this note I am indebted to Mr A. Hamilton Thompson.)

[1352] Froissart, tr. Berners, I, ch. xxxviii. For the sufferings of other monasteries on the south coast see P. G. Mode, _The Influence of the Black Death on the English Monasteries_, p. 31.

[1353] See Denifle, _La Desolation des Eglises ... pendant la Guerre de Cent Ans_ (1899). In t. I is a long list of monasteries which had been ruined during the fourteenth century. The following (no. 176) is typical: "Monasterium monialium B. Mariae de Bricourt O.S.B. Trecen. dioec., causantibus a 40 annis guerris desolatum et destructum, libris aliisque destitutum et ab omnibus monialibus derelictum 1442" (pp. 55-6).

[1354] Dugdale, _Mon._ II, pp. 316, 452, 636.

[1355] Serjeantson, _Delapre Abbey_ (1909), pp. 21-3.

[1356] Graham, _Essay on Engl. Monasteries_ (Hist. Ass. 1913), p. 29. The text of the assessment is given in the notes to the _Taxatio Ecclesiastica Pape Nicholai_ (Record Com. 1802).

[1357] _The Chronicle of Lanercost_, translated by Sir Herbert Maxwell [1913], p. 136.

[1358] _Reg. Palat. Dunelm._ I, p. 353. In 1291 the number of nuns was twenty-seven, together with four lay brothers, three chaplains and a master. Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 197.

[1359] _Hist. Letters from the Northern Reg._ ed. Raine, pp. 319-23.

[1360] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 175, 240.

[1361] Froissart, tr. Berners, I, ch. cxxxvii. The English army on its way to Neville's Cross was also a sore burden to the religious houses of the neighbourhood. See the very interesting document about Egglestone Abbey quoted from Archbishop Zouche's Register (under the date 1348) by A. Hamilton Thompson, _The Pestilences of the Fourteenth Century in the Diocese of York_ (_Archaeol. Journ._ vol. LXXI, New Series, vol. XXI, p. 120, n. 4). It is probable that this campaign, together with the Black Death, which followed hard upon it, brought about the final ruin of the little nunnery of St Stephen's near Northallerton, which is not heard of after 1350. See _ib._ p. 121, n. 12, and _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 116.

[1362] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 160, cp. the case of Armathwaite below. The muniments of Carrow were burnt during the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. Hoare, C. M., _Hist. of an East Anglian Soke_ (Bedford 1918), p. 112. "The destruction of charters, privileges and muniments was a severe loss; evidence for the holding of each strip of land and in support of every custom was of the utmost importance." Graham, _St Gilb. of Semp. and the Gilbertines_, p. 138.

[1363] _V.C.H. Cumberland_, II, p. 190, and Dugdale, _Mon._ III, pp. 271-2.

[1364] _Aug. Off. Misc. Books_, 281, f. 11 [_P.R.O._]. For the sufferings of Northern monasteries from the Scots 1330-50 see references collected from the patent rolls in P. G. Mode, _op. cit._ p. 32.

[1365] _Chronicon Angliae_, ed. E. M. Thompson (R.S. 1874), pp. 247-53.

[1366] It is extremely difficult to identify the nunnery spoken of in the story. According to Froissart the expedition sailed from Southampton (Froissart, _Chron._ I, ch. ccclvi); according to another account the port of departure was Plymouth (see J. H. Ramsay, _The Genesis of Lancaster_, II, p. 131). If Southampton be correct, Romsey Abbey would be the nearest nunnery answering to the description in the text, though it stands some miles from the coast. If Sir John sailed from Plymouth the only nunnery in the vicinity would be the little priory of Cornworthy, which certainly never contained a large number of nuns and boarders (though as to this the chronicler may be exaggerating). It is strange that no record of the crime appears to have survived in episcopal registers or in any official document; but it seems unlikely that the story is pure invention, since we know from other sources that the troops were notorious for general depredations along the coast. A petition presented to the King in Parliament (1379/80) runs: "Item, beseech the commons and the good folk who dwell near the coasts of the sea, to wit, of Norfolk, Suffolk, Kent, Surrey, Hampshire, Dorset and Cornwall: That whereas they and their chattels have oftentimes been robbed, and are destroyed and spoiled by men-at-arms, archers and others coming and going by the said ports to the service of our Lord the king at the war and by their long sojourn; and chiefly the people of Hampshire during the last expedition which was ruled and ordered, for by the sojourn and destruction made by men ordered upon the said expedition, the goods and chattels of the good people of Hampshire are destroyed, spoiled and annihilated, to the very great abashment and destruction of all the Commons of those parts, as well folk of Holy Church as others; and they will lodge themselves of their own authority, having no regard to the billets (herbegage) assigned to them by our lord [the king], to the destruction of the common people, if it be not remedied as soon as may be." (_Rot. Parl._ III, p. 80.) The other nunneries in Hampshire were St Mary's Winchester, Wherwell, and Whitney.

[1367] Dugdale, _Mon._ II, pp. 452, 636.

[1368] To show how a twelfth century baron might speak to a cloistered nun, the mother of one of his knights, his words deserve quotation:

Voir, dist R. vos estes losengiere.
Je ne sai rien de putain, chanberiere,
Qi est este corsaus ne maaillere,
A toute gent communax garsoniere.
Au conte Y. vos vi je soldoiere,
La vostre chars ne fu onques trop chiere;
Se nus en vost, par le baron S. Piere!
Por poi d'avoir en fustes traite ariere.
_Raoul de Cambrai_, ll. 1328-1335.

[1369] _Raoul de Cambrai_, pub. P. Meyer et A. Longnon, _Soc. des Anc. Textes Fr._ 1882, stanzas LXIII-LXXI, _passim_ (pp. 42-50).

[1370] "Incontynent it was taken by assaut and robbed and an abbey of ladyes vyolated and the town brent." Froissart, _Chronicles_, tr. Berners.

[1371] See M. K. Brady, _Psycho-Analysis and its Place in Life_ [1919], p. 117; H. O. Taylor, _The Medieval Mind_ [2nd ed., 1914], I, ch. XX.

[1372] See above, p. 29. For the effects of this at a later period in Italy see J. A. Symonds, _The Renaissance in Italy. VI. The Catholic Reaction_, pt. I (1886), pp. 339 ff.

[1373] See below, p. 502.

[1374] See above, pp. 422 ff.

[1375] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Sutton_, ff. 5_d_, 32_d_.

[1376] The unions were sometimes referred to as "marriages" and a priest unaware of the facts of the case may have been got to celebrate them. For instance Bishop Gynewell recites how Joan Bruys, nun of Nuneaton, was abducted by Nicholas Green of Isham and "postmodum se in nostram diocesim divertentes matrimonium de facto in eadem nostra diocesi scienter inuicem contraxerunt et incestum ibidem commiserunt et in ea cohabitant indies vir et vxor." _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell_, f. 102. Marriage is also referred to in the case of Joyce, an apostate from St Helen's, Bishopsgate, in 1388. _Hist. MSS. Com. Rep._ IX, App. pt. I, p. 28. At Atwater's visitation of Ankerwyke in 1519 it was stated "Domina Alicia Hubbart stetit ibidem in habitu per quatuor annos et tunc in apostasiam recessit et cuidam ... Sutton consanguineo Magistri Ricardi Sutton Senescalli de Syon fuit nupta et cum eo in patria ipsius Sutton remanet in adulterio." _Linc. Epis. Reg. Visit. Atwater_, f. 42.

[1377] _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Dalderby_, f. 16. Translated in R. M. Serjeantson, _Hist. of Delapre Abbey, Northampton_, pp. 7-8.

[1378] _P.R.O. Chancery Warrants_, Series I, File 1759; _Cal. of Patent Rolls_ (1381-5), p. 235. This file of Chancery Warrants contains a large number of petitions for the arrest of vagabond monks and nuns. These petitions usually emanate from the head of the apostate's house, but occasionally from the Bishop of the diocese, as in another warrant in the same file in which the Bishop of Norwich petitions for the arrest of Katherine Montagu, Benedictine nun of Bungay (1376). Other petitions besides those quoted in the text concern Alice Romayn, Austin nun of Haliwell (1314, _ib._), Matilda Hunter, Austin nun of Burnham (1392), (File 1762); Alice de Everyngham, Gilbertine nun of Haverholm (1366), (File 1764); and the following sisters of Hospitals, Agnes Stanley of St Bartholomew's, Bristol (1389), Johanna atte Watre of St Thomas the Martyr at Southwark (1324) and Elizabeth Holewaye of the same house (File 1769, nos. 1, 15, 18). On receipt of these petitions the writ _De apostata capiendo_ would be issued and the royal commissions for the arrest of the delinquents are sometimes found enrolled on the patent rolls, as in the cases quoted in the text. Alice Everyngham was excommunicated by the master of Sempringham; but on her case being brought to the papal court and committed by the Pope to the dean and two canons of Lincoln, she was absolved by them. The master appealed to the Pope against her absolution, and the case was committed for trial to the Archbishop of York. _Cal. of Papal Letters_, IV, pp. 69-70. For a royal commission to arrest Mary de Felton of the House of Minoresses at Aldgate, see _Cal. Pat. Rolls_, 1385-9, p. 86.

[1379] _P.R.O. Chancery Warrants_, Series I, File 1759; _Cal. of Pat. Rolls_, 1401-5, pp. 418, 472.

[1380] There are several references to this ceremony: "Dictam igitur commonialem vestram, iniuncta ei penitencia seculari pro suis reatibus atque culpis, ad vos et domum vestram, a qua exiit, remittimus absolutam; deuocionem vestram firmiter in Domino exhortantes quatinus ... dictam penitentem ... si in humilitatis spiritu, reclinato corpore more penitencium, pulset ad portam, misericordiam deuote postulans et implorans, si suum confiteatur reatum, si signa contricionis ac correccionis appareant in eadem, secundum disciplinam vestri ordinis, filiali promptitudine admittatis" (Maud of Terrington at Keldholme, 1321), _Yorks. Arch. Journ._ XVI, pp. 456-7. Compare _ib._ XVI, p. 363 (Margaret of Burton at Kirklees, 1337); Wm. Salt Archaeol. Soc. Coll. I, p. 256 (case against Elizabeth la Zouche who, with another nun, had escaped from Brewood in 1326; she was not recovered until 1331).

[1381] _V.C.H. Lincs._ II, pp. 99-100.

[1382] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 159.

[1383] _V.C.H. Lincs._ II, p. 138. The surname "Suffewyk" should probably read Luffewyk, i.e. Lowick.

[1384] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 171.

[1385] _Ib._ III, p. 177.

[1386] See for Renaissance Italy, J. A. Symonds, _The Renaissance in Italy_ (1886), VI, p. 340; A. Gagniere, _Les Confessions d'une Abbesse du xvi{e} siecle_ (Paris, 1888), pp. 128 ff. (Felice Rasponi); G. Marcotti, _Donne e Monache_ (Firenze, 1884); but ecclesiastics were found among these _monachini_. In France the same pursuit became fashionable under the League. For a later date the _Memoirs_ of Casanova provide the most striking illustrations.

[1387] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 39_d_.

[1388] _Linc. Visit._ I, p. 84.

[1389] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 113.

[1390] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. ff. 83, 83_d_.

[1391] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 181.

[1392] "En visitaunt vostre mesun por plusure fiez truuames nus ke Johan de Seuekwurth, clerk, se auoit si mauuesement porte en demurant en la mesun ke il esteit atteint de folie de cors od vne de vos nuneins e vne autre esteit de ly atteinte, par defaute de purgaciun ke ele ne se poeit de li purger. Par quei nus defendimes a vus ke vus no le suffrissez en vostre mesun demurer, e a li ke la euene demurast." _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Sutton_, f. 129_d_.

[1393] _V.C.H. Somerset_, II, p. 157.

[1394] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 240.

[1395] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 47.

[1396] See below, p. 545.

[1397] Gascoigne accuses John Stafford, Archbishop of Canterbury, of having had sons and daughters by a nun at a time when he was Bishop of Bath and Wells. "In diebus meis, anno Domini 1443, electus fuit, vel verius intrusus, unus archiepiscopus qui fuit genitus ex manifesto adulterio, et existens genuit filios et filias ex una moniali, in episcopali gradu existens antequam fuit archiepiscopus." _Loci e Libro Veritatum_, ed. J. E. Thorold Rogers (1881), p. 231. Gascoigne was a learned Doctor of Theology and Chancellor of the University of Oxford. His theological dictionary gives an extraordinarily vivid and gloomy picture of the corruptions of the church in his day. It must be noted however that Stafford's support of the heretical Bishop Reginald Pecok (author of the _Repressor of Overmuch Blaming of the Clergy_) made Gascoigne his implacable enemy, while there is no foundation for his statement that Stafford was of illegitimate birth. His charge is therefore unworthy of belief. The scandal which later connected the name of John Stokesley, Bishop of London, with Anne Colte, Abbess of Wherwell, seems likely to be equally devoid of foundation, though she was several times summoned before the Council in 1534; the King and Cromwell evidently resented her refusal to give a farm to one of their proteges. _L. and P. Hen. VIII_, VI, 1361, VII, 527-9, 907; _V.C.H. Hants._ II, p. 136.

[1398] See, besides the references given above, cases in which a priest or chaplain was implicated at St Stephen's Foukeholm (abduction of Cecilia by William, Chaplain of Yarm, 1293), _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 113; Nunkeeling (Avice de Lelle had confessed to incontinence; ordered not to talk to Robert de Eton, chaplain, or any other person, 1318), _ib._ p. 121; Keldholme, 1318 (Mary de Holm and Sir William Lely, chaplain, 1318), _ib._ p. 169; Kirklees (Joan de Heton and Sir Michael, called the Scot, priest, 1315), _Yorks. Arch. Journ._ XVI, p. 361; Godstow (Sir Hugh Sadylere of Oxford, chaplain, and Alice Longspee, 1445), _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 114; Littlemore (Prioress Katherine Wells and Richard Hewes, priest of Kent, 1517), _V.C.H. Oxon._ II, p. 76; Wintney (Prioress and Thomas Ferring, a secular priest, 1405), _Cal. Papal Letters_, VI, p. 55; Romsey (charge against Emma Powes and the vicar of the parish church, 1502), _V.C.H. Hants._ II, p. 130; Easebourne (Sir John Smyth, chaplain, concerned in abduction of two nuns, 1478), _Sussex Arch. Coll._ IX, p. 17; and various other instances of suspicious behaviour or of chaplains and priests warned off the premises. Some of these cases are described in detail below, _passim_.

[1399] E.g. "Fatebatur se carnaliter cognitam a D.B. apud S. in domo habitacionis sue ibidem situata," _Linc. Visit._ I, p. 71. "Item dicit quod priorissa consueuit sola accedere ad villam de Catesby ad gardinas cum vno solo presbytero." _Ib._ II, p. 47.

[1400] E.g. "Domina Agnes Smyth inquisita dicit quod Simon Prentes cognovit eam et suscitavit prolem ex ea infra prioratum, extra tamen claustrum." Jessopp, _Visit. of Dioc. Norwich_, p. 109. There are many references to and injunctions against suspicious confabulations with men in the nave and other parts of the priory church.

[1401] See above, pp. 386-9, 401.

[1402] _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_, II, p. 708.

[1403] _Reg. Thome de Cantilupo, Epis. Herefordensis_ (Canterbury and York Society), p. 265.

[1404] _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 181.

[1405] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 83. See above, p. 310.

[1406] _Linc. Visit._ II, pp. 91, 116.

[1407] R. E. G. Cole, _The Priory of Brodholme_ (_Assoc. Architec. Soc. Reports and Papers_, XXVIII), p. 66.

[1408] At Markyate in 1336 "an apostate nun was received back again and absolved by Bishop Burghersh and three others sought absolution at the same time for having aided and abetted her in her escape." _V.C.H. Beds._ I, p. 360.

[1409] It must be conceded that the Church gave the nuns every inducement to take measures to prevent such disasters; for instance in the _Liber Poenitentialis_ of Theodore the Anglo-Saxon nun guilty of immorality is given eight years of penance and ten if there be a child; a married layman and a nun who are lovers have six years of penance and seven if there be a child. Here, as ever, the Church went on the principle that sin was bad but scandal worse; _si non caste tamen caute_. Of the practice of abortion I find no record in English pre-Reformation documents, though Henry VIII's disreputable commissioner, Dr Layton, accused the Yorkshire nuns of taking potations "ad prolem conceptum opprimendum." _Letters Relating to the Suppression of the Monasteries_ (Camden Soc. 1843), p. 97. There is a proved case of it in Eudes Rigaud's visitation of St-Aubin (1256), and a suspicion at St Saens (1264), _Reg. Visit. Rigaud_, ed. Bonnin, pp. 255, 491. See below, p. 668. One of Caesarius of Heisterbach's _exempla_ hangs upon it. Caes. Heist. _Dial. Mirac._ ed. Strange, II, p. 331. In seventeenth and eighteenth century Italy the practice seems to have been common, witness Casanova.

[1410] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 96.

[1411] _Wykeham's Reg._ II, pp. 114-5.

[1412] "Et proles obiit immediate post." Jessopp, _op. cit._ p. 109.

[1413] See e.g. faculty given "to dispense twenty persons of illegitimate birth of the realms of France and England, whether sons of priests or married persons, or monks, _or nuns_, to be ordained and to hold two benefices apiece." _Cal. of Papal Letters_, IV, p. 170.

[1414] M. E. Lowndes, _The Nuns of Port Royal_ (1909), p. 13. The Abbess in question was Angelique d'Estrees, sister of Gabrielle, Henry IV's mistress, and famous for her scandalous life and her struggle with her successor, the famous Mere Angelique (Jacqueline Arnauld) of Port Royal.

[1415] _Letters Relating to the Suppression of the Monasteries_ (Camden Soc. 1843), p. 58. But it must be remembered that we cannot believe uncorroborated a single word that Layton says.

[1416] See below, Note F.

[1417] _Reg. Ralph of Shrewsbury_ (Som. Rec. Soc.), pp. 683-4; the charge is not given in full in this edition of the Register and must be eked out from the extract in Dugdale, _Mon._ IV, p. 416 (note).

[1418] _Reg. John of Drokensford_, pp. 60, 126, 167, 287.

[1419] _Sussex Arch. Coll._ IX, pp. 17-19.

[1420] _Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi Benedicti Abbatis_, ed. Stubbs, Rolls Ser., I, pp. 135-6.

[1421] Dugdale, _Mon._ II, p. 334.

[1422] _Cal. of Pap. Letters_, III, p. 169. She was born 11 March 1278 and took the veil at the age of seven years. Some annalists put the date of her profession at 1285 and some at 1289; in any case the Warenne charge was not made until 1345. See above, p. 381, note 1.

[1423] _Cal. of Papal Letters_, V, p. 161.

[1424] _Ib._ VII, p. 373.

[1425] _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_, III, p. 851.

[1426] See Note G, p. 597, below.

[1427] In general an apostate may be said to mean a lover, but there must also have been cases of nuns apostatising out of general discontent with the convent or Prioress.

[1428] Two of these, St Mary de Pre (St Albans) and Sopwell ought not, however, to be counted, being entirely under the control of the Abbey of St Albans and exempt from episcopal visitation. It was concerning St Mary de Pre that Archbishop Morton made the charges against St Albans, rendered famous by Froude.

[1429] Above, p. 440.

[1430] _V.C.H. Northants._ II, p. 101 (note), from _Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Sutton_, f. 154.

[1431] _V.C.H. Beds._ I, p. 389.

[1432] _V.C.H. Northants._ II, p. 126.

[1433] _V.C.H. Oxon._ II, p. 103.

[1434] _V.C.H. Beds._ I, p. 360.

[1435] _V.C.H. Lincs._ II, p. 179.

[1436] _V.C.H. Bucks._ I, p. 383.

[1437] _V.C.H. Northants._ II, p. 114.

[1438] _V.C.H. Northants._ II, p. 101.

[1439] See A. H. Thompson, "Registers of John Gynewell, Bishop of Lincoln, for the Years 1347-1350." _Archaeol. Journ._ 2nd ser., vol. XVIII, p. 331.

[1440] _Linc. Visit._ I, pp. 81-2.

[1441] _Linc. Visit._ I, pp. 82-6.

[1442] _Ib._ pp. 111-2. It should be noted that the word "incest" is used in its religious sense; it was properly used of intercourse between persons who were both under ecclesiastical vows and thus in the relation of spiritual father and daughter, or brother and sister, but it soon came to be used loosely to denote a breach of chastity in which one party was professed.

[1443] Lambeth, _Reg. Courtenay_, I, f. 336.

[1444] _Linc. Visit._ I, p. 50. Flemyng adds "or manifestly suspect."

[1445] _Ib._ p. 54.

[1446] _Ib._ p. 65.

[1447] _Ib._ pp. 69-71.

[1448] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 6.

[1449] See above, p. 449.

[1450] See above, pp. 82-4, 388.

[1451] See above, pp. 80, 310, 449.

[1452] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 3. The form of her admission is curious: "Fatetur totidem moniales recessisse, absque tamen sciencia sua."

[1453] Jessopp, _Visit. of Dioc. Norwich_ (Camden Soc.) gives also Bishop Goldwell's visitations some ten years before, which brought to light no cases of immorality among nuns.

[1454] _Ib._ p. 109.

[1455] See _V.C.H. Hants._ II, pp. 129-31 (Romsey, where the date is wrongly given as 1312 by a slip), 124, 135, 151. Unfortunately all but the Romsey visitation are given in the barest summary.

[1456] _V.C.H. Hants._ II, p. 130.

[1457] Above, pp. 453-4.

[1458] _Sussex Arch. Coll._ IX, pp. 25-6.

[1459] _Linc. Visit._ II, p. 48.

[1460] In Archbishop Walter Giffard's York Register occurs the following entry of payments for Agatha: "Item A. Giffard xx_s._ Item Thomae de Habinton ad Expensas versus Elnestowe" (1271), _Reg. W. Giffard_ (Surtees Soc.), p. 115. This seems sufficient reason for identifying the Elstow sister as Agatha, though the editor identifies her with Mabel "afterwards abbess of Shaftesbury," _ib._ p. 164.

[1461] _Reg. W. Giffard_ (Surtees Soc.) p. 164 and _Hist. Letters and Papers from the Northern Regs._ ed. J. Raine (Rolls Ser.), pp. 33-4.

[1462] _V.C.H. Dorset_, II, p. 78.

[1463] She was in trouble in 1287 for refusing to pay certain moneys left for an obit and had to be threatened with excommunication; see _Worc. Reg. Godfrey Giffard_, Introd. pp. cxxxvi-vii.

[1464] _Worc. Reg. Godfrey Giffard_, II, pp. 278-80. It is followed by a letter enjoining the Abbess and convent of Wilton to receive back the two nuns.

[1465] For another version of the penance see _Reg. Epis. J. Peckham_, III, pp. 916-7. This forbids him to enter any nunnery or speak with any nuns without special licence from their metropolitan.

[1466] _V.C.H. Beds._ I, p. 389.

[1467] _Alnwick's Visit._ MS. f. 39_d_. Compare the case of Thomas de Raynevill who in 1324 was ordered, as penance for seducing a nun of Hampole, to stand on a Sunday, while high mass was being celebrated, in the conventual church of Hampole, bareheaded, wearing only his tunic and holding a lighted taper of one pound weight of wax in his hand, which he was to offer, after the offertory had been said, to the celebrant, who was to explain to the congregation the cause of the oblation. Also on feast days he was to be beaten round the parish church of Campsall. But two years later the Archbishop was still repeating directions for the performance of the penance. _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, p. 164.

[1468] From Nunkeeling to Yedingham (1444); from Arthington to Yedingham (1310); from St Clement's, York, to Yedingham (1331); from Basedale to Sinningthwaite (1308); from Hampole to Swine (1313); four disobedient nuns of Keldholme to Handale, Swine, Nunappleton and Wallingwells respectively (1308); and two others to Esholt and Nunkeeling (1309); from Nunappleton to Basedale (1308); from Rosedale to Handale (1321); from Swine to Wykeham (1291); from Wykeham to Nunappleton (1444); from Arthington to Nunkeeling (1219). _V.C.H. Yorks._ III, pp. 121, 127, 130, 159, 163-4, 168, 171, 175, 180, 183, 189. Also from Kirklees to Hampole (1323) and from Basedale to Rosedale (1534). _Yorks. Arch. Journ._ XVI, pp. 362, 431-3.

[1469] _V.C.H. Suffolk_, II, p. 84.

[1470] See for instance the insistence on costs and charges in Archbishop Lee's letter transferring Joan Fletcher, ex-Prioress of Basedale, from Rosedale where she was doing (or not doing) her penance, back to Basedale again. _Loc. cit._ pp. 431-3.