Medieval English Nunneries c. 1275 to 1535 Part 18

The reaction from a strict routine of life led monks and nuns to a more serious modification of the Rule under which they lived than that represented by pet dogs and pretty clothes, which were after all only superficial frivolities. They sought also to modify two rules which were fundamental to the Benedictine ideal. One was the rigidly communal life, the obligation to do everything in company with everyone else. The other was the obligation of strict personal poverty. A monastery was in its essence a place where a number of persons lived a communal life, owning no private property, but holding everything in the name of the community. The normal routine of conventual life, as laid down in the Benedictine Rule, secured this end. The inmates of a house spent almost the whole of their time together. They prayed together in the choir, worked together in the cloister, ate together in the frater, and slept together in the dorter.

Moreover the strictest regulations were made to prevent the vice of private property, one of the most serious sins in the monastic calendar, from making its appearance. All food was to be cooked in a common kitchen and served in the common frater, in which no meat was allowed. All clothes were to be provided out of the common goods of the house, and it was the business of the chamberer or chambress to see to the buying of material, the making of the clothes and their distribution to the religious; so carefully was _proprietas_ guarded against, that all old clothes had to be given back to the chambress, when the new ones were distributed. Above all it was forbidden to monks and nuns to possess and spend money, save what was delivered to them by the superior for their necessary expenses upon a journey[989].

But this combination of rigid communism with rigid personal poverty was early discovered to be irksome. It seems as though the craving for a certain privacy of life, a certain minimum of private property, is a deeply rooted instinct in human nature. Certainly the attempt of monasticism to expel it with a pitchfork failed. Step by step the rule was broken down, more especially by a series of modifications in the prescribed method of feeding and clothing the community. Here, as in the enclosure question, the monks and nuns came into conflict with their bishops, though the conflict was never so severe. Here also, the result of the struggle was the same. A steady attempt by the bishops to enforce the rule was countered by a steady resistance on the part of the religious and the end was usually compromise.

The most marked breakdown of the communal way of life in the monasteries of the later middle ages is to be seen in the gradual neglect of the frater, in favour of a system of private messes, and in the increasing allocation of private rooms to individuals. The strict obligation upon all to keep frater daily was at first only modified in favour of the head of the house, who usually had her own lodgings, including a dining hall, in which the rule permitted her to entertain the guests who claimed her hospitality and such nuns as she chose to invite for their recreation.

From quite early times, however, there existed in many houses a room known as the _misericord_ (or indulgence), where the strict diet of the frater was relaxed. Here the occupants of the infirmary, those in their seynies and all who needed flesh meat and more delicate dishes to support them, were served. From the fourteenth century onwards, however, the rules of diet became considerably relaxed and flesh was allowed to everyone on three days a week[990]. This meant that the _misericord_ was in constant use and in many monasteries the frater was divided into two stories, the upper of which was used as the frater proper, where no meat might be eaten, and the lower as a _misericord_[991]. According to this arrangement a nun might sometimes be dining in the upper frater, sometimes in the _misericord_ and sometimes in the abbess' or prioress' lodgings; and, of these places, there was a distinct tendency for the upper frater to fall into disuse, since it could in any case only be used on fish (or, according to later custom, white meat) days.

But a habit even more subversive of strictly communal life and more liable to lead to disuse of the frater was rapidly spreading at this period. This was the division of a nunnery into _familiae_, or households, which messed together, each _familia_ taking its meals separately from the rest. The common frater was sometimes kept only thrice a week on fish days, sometimes only in Advent and Lent, sometimes (it would seem) never. This meant the separate preparation of meals for each household, a practice which, though uneconomical, was possible, because each nun's food allowance was fixed and could be drawn separately. Moreover, as we shall see hereafter, the growing practice of granting an annual money allowance to each individual, though used for clothes more often than for food, enabled the nuns to buy meat and other delicacies (if not provided by the convent) for themselves. The aristocratic ladies of Polsloe even had their private maids to prepare their meals[992].

This system was evidently well established at a comparatively early date.

It is mentioned in Peckham's injunctions in 1279 and in Exeter and York injunctions belonging to the early years of the fourteenth century. To ill.u.s.trate how it worked, we may a.n.a.lyse the references to _familiae_ in Alnwick's visitations of the diocese of Lincoln (1440-5)[993]. The number of households in a nunnery necessarily differed with the size of the house and it is not always easy to determine the proportion of households to nuns, because internal evidence sometimes shows that all the inmates were not present and enumerated at the visitation. Thus at Elstow the abbess "says that there are five households of nuns kept in the monastery, whereof the first is that of the abbess, who has five nuns with her; the second of the prioress, who has two; the third of the subprioress, who has two; the fourth of the sacrist, who has three; and the fifth of Dame Margaret Aylesbury, who has two"; but only thirteen nuns gave evidence[994]. In this house the frater was kept on certain days of the week, one nun deposing "that on the days whereon they eat together in frater, they eat larded food in the morning and sup on flesh, and they eat capons and other two-footed creatures in frater." At Catesby the prioress deposed that she had four nuns in her _familia_ and that there were three other households in the cloister. At Stixwould there were "five separate and distinct households"; at Nuncoton there were three; at St Michael's Stamford, the prioress and subprioress each had one, but all ate together in the frater on fish-days; at Stainfield the prioress, the cellaress and the nun-sisters each kept a household. At Gokewell and Langley the nuns were said to keep divers households "by two and two" and at Langley the prioress added, "but they do eat in the frater every day"; also she says that she herself has three women who board with her and the subprioress one; also she says that the nuns receive naught from the house but their meat and drink and she herself keeps one household on her own account. At Gracedieu the prioress deposed

that frater is not kept nor has it been kept for seven years and that the nuns sit in company with secular folk at table in her hall every day and that they have reading during meals; also she says there are two households only in the house, to wit in her hall and the infirmary, where there are three at table together;

here the prioress' hall simply took the place of the frater. There were four households at G.o.dstow and apparently several at Legbourne.

This division into households which messed separately went hand in hand with another practice, which also softened the rigours of a strictly communal life, to wit the allocation of separate rooms to certain nuns.

The obedientiaries of a house often had private offices, or _checkers_, in which to transact their business, and the custom grew by which the head of each _familia_ had her own room, in which her household dined. The visitation reports continually refer to these private cells and to their use as dining rooms and places of reception for visitors. Sometimes the nuns even slept in them, though the dorter was always much more strictly kept than the frater; at G.o.dstow in 1432 for instance, Bishop Gray enjoins "that the beds in the nuns' lodgings (_domicilia_) be altogether removed from their chambers, save those for small children" (apparently their pupils) "and that no nun receive any secular person for any recreation in the nuns' chambers under pain of excommunication"[995]. Some light is thrown upon these _camerae_ by the inventories of medieval nunneries. Thus the inventory of the Benedictine Priory of Sheppey made at the Dissolution describes the contents of "the greate chamber in the Dorter," which was used as a treasury in which to keep the linen, vestments and plate of the house, and in which one of the nuns Dame Agnes Davye seems to have slept; there follows a description of the chambers of eight nuns, with the furniture in each, from which it is clear that they had brought their own furniture with them to the monastery. These "chambers" may have been separate rooms or may have been part.i.tions of the dorter, but if the latter they were evidently so large as to be to all intents and purposes separate rooms, for the furniture commonly includes painted cloth or paper hangings for the room, a chest and a cupboard, besides the bed; in three there is mention of windows and in two of fire irons. The most likely conjecture is that the dorter was used as a treasury and bedroom for one nun and the other chambers are separate rooms[996]. At some other houses the dorter is mentioned but was clearly divided into separate cells by wainscot part.i.tions, and the wainscotting was sometimes sold at the Dissolution[997].

The att.i.tude of ecclesiastical authorities to the modification of the communal rule involved in _familiae_ and _camerae_ was, for various reasons, one of strict disapproval. The custom of providing separate messes was extremely uneconomical; the pa.s.sing of much time in private rooms was open to suspicion, especially when male visitors were received there; communal life was an essential part of the monastic idea; finally the amenities of private life were apt (as we shall see) to bring in their train the amenities of private property. The policy of the bishops was, for all these reasons, to restore communal life. They made general injunctions that frater and dorter should duly be kept by all the nuns, they made special injunctions for the abolition of separate households, and above all they condemned private rooms:

"Also we enioyne yow, pryoresse," writes Alnwick to Catesby in 1442, "that ye dispose so for your susters that the morne next aftere Myghelma.s.se day next commyng wythe owten any lengare delaye, ye and thai aftere yowre rewle lyfe in commune, etyng and drynkyng in oon house, slepyng in oon house, prayng and sarufyng [serving] G.o.d in oon oratorye, levyng vtterly all pryuate hydles [hiding-places], chaumbres and syngulere housholdes, by the whiche hafe comen and growen grete hurte and peryle of sowles and noyesfulle sklaundere of your pryorye"[998].

But such injunctions were not easily enforced, and the politic bishops sometimes tried to reduce rather than to abolish the households and private rooms. It was often necessary--and indeed reasonable--to recognise the three _familiae_ of the abbess' or prioress' lodgings, the _misericord_ or infirmary and the frater[999]. Sometimes the bishops tried to enforce the rule, laid down by the legate Ottobon (1268), to limit the number who dined at the superior's table, viz. that at least two-thirds of the convent were to eat each day in the frater[1000]. At G.o.dstow Bishop Gray, in 1432, allowed three households besides that of the frater[1001].

The condemnation of private rooms, and more especially of the reception of visitors therein, was more severe; but here too, it was necessary in large convents for the obedientiaries to have their offices, and other individuals were sometimes given special permission to use separate _camerae_. Some bishops allowed them to sick nuns, but others enforced the use of the common infirmary[1002].

It has already been said that this approximation to private life was bound to bring with it an approximation to private property and it remains now to a.n.a.lyse the process by which these new methods of providing food, and even more effectively, new methods of providing clothes, resulted in a spread of _proprietas_, which was considered perfectly legitimate by the nuns and within limits condoned by the bishops. The impression left upon the mind by a study of monastic records during the last two centuries of the middle ages is that in many houses the rule of strict personal poverty was in practice almost completely abrogated, for it is quite obvious that the nuns had the private and individual disposal of money and goods.

Indeed some convents seem almost like the inmates of a boarding house, each of whom receives lodging and a certain minimum of food from the house, but otherwise caters for herself out of her private income. This is a considerable departure from the rule of St Benedict, and it is worth while to a.n.a.lyse the sources from which the nuns drew the money and goods of which they disposed. These sources may be cla.s.sified under five headings: (1) the annual allowance of pocket money (called _peculium_) which was allowed to each nun from the funds of the house and out of which she had to provide herself with clothes and other necessities; (2) pittances in money; (3) gifts in money and kind from friends; (4) legacies; (5) the proceeds of their own labour.

(1) The practice of giving a _peculium_ in money out of the common funds of the house to monks and nuns began at quite an early date (it is mentioned at the Council of Oxford in 1222) and was so much an established custom in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries that to withhold it was considered by bishops a legitimate cause of complaint against superiors.

The amount of the _peculium_ varied at different houses. In the majority of cases it was intended to be used for clothes and its payment is sometimes entered in account rolls. At Gracedieu the nuns had "salaries"

of 6_s._ 8_d._ a year each for their vesture and the careful treasuress enters all their names[1003]. At St Michael's, Stamford, a chambress'

account, which has been preserved among the treasuress' accounts, shows that in 1408-9 the prioress was paid 5_s._ for her "camise" and all the other eleven nuns 4_s._ each, while the two lay sisters had 3_s._ each[1004]. Similarly at St Radegund's, Cambridge, a certain pension from St Clement's Church was ear-marked for the clothing of the nuns and was paid over directly to them[1005]; and the Prioress of Catesby in 1414-5 includes under "customary payments" money paid "to the lady Prioress and her six nuns and to one sister and her three brethren by the year for clothing"[1006]. The fact that the _peculium_ was a payment made from the common funds and not the privately owned income of an individual allowed it to escape the charge of _proprietas_, but it was nevertheless an obvious departure from the Benedictine rule, which forbade the individual disposal of property and made quite different arrangements for the provision of clothing.

(2) Another cla.s.s of payments made to individuals from the convent funds was that of pittances. A pittance was originally an extra allowance of food and it was quite common for a benefactor to leave money to a convent for a pittance on the anniversary of his death. These pittances were, however, sometimes paid in money and most account rolls will provide examples of both. The nuns of Barking receive "Ruscheaw silver" as well as the little pies called "risshowes" in Lent; the nuns of St Mary de Pre (St Albans) had "Maundy silver" as well as ale and wine on Maundy Thursday; the nuns of St Michael's Stamford receive their pittances sometimes in money, sometimes in spices or pancakes, wine or beer. The nuns of Romsey had a pittance of 6_d._ each on the feast of St Martin and another of 6_d._ each "when blood is let"[1007].

(3) The third source from which nuns obtained private possessions lay in the gifts, both in money and in kind bestowed upon them by their friends.

It has already been shown, in Chapter I, that there was a growing tendency in the later middle ages for a nun to be supported by means of an annuity, paid by her relatives and often ending with her life. The fact that these annuities were ear-marked for the support of individuals must have increased the temptation to regard them as the property of those individuals, a temptation which was not present in the old days when an aristocratic nun brought with her a grant of land to the house. One is tempted to conjecture that individuals occasionally retained in their own hands the expenditure of part at least of their annuities. Specific information from English sources is unfortunately rare; but in the diocese of Rouen in the middle of the thirteenth century Archbishop Eudes Rigaud sometimes found it necessary to enjoin that certain nuns who possessed rents which were reserved for their own use, should either transfer them to the common funds, or else dispose of them only with the consent of the prioress, a significant modification, which suggests that he was unable to eradicate a deeply rooted custom, although it was strictly against the rule[1008]. It was some twenty years later (c. 1277) that Bishop Thomas of Cantilupe, writing to the nuns of Lymbrook, enjoined:

Let none of you keep in her own hand any possession or rent for clothing and shoeing herself, even with the consent of the prioress, albeit such possession or rent may be given to her by parents or friends, because the goods of your community suffice not thereto; but let it be given up wholly to your prioress, that out of it she may minister to those to whom the gift was made, according to their needs; otherwise they may easily fall into the sin of property and a secular craving for gifts, thus rashly violating their vow[1009].

There are also occasional references to "poor" nuns, without such annuities or dress-allowances, which suggest that the annuitants had personal disposal of their own money. Thus John Heyden, esq., in 1480, bequeaths "to every nun in Norfolk not having an annuity 40d"[1010], and Bishop Gray in 1432 refers to "a certain chest within the monastery [of G.o.dstow] for the relief of needy nuns," to which the sum of a hundred shillings was to be restored[1011].

But whether or not nuns were in the habit of retaining in their own possession regular annuities, it is plain that they did so retain the various gifts in kind and in money, brought to them from time to time by their friends; and, judging from the constant references in the visitation reports, these presents must have been fairly numerous. They varied from the gifts, rewards, letters, tokens and skins of wine, which the gatekeeper of G.o.dstow smuggled in to the nuns from the scholars of Oxford, to the more sober presents of money, clothes and food given to them by fond relatives for their relief "as in hire habyte and sustenaunce."

(4) One kind of gift deserves, however, a more careful consideration, for the preservation of many thousands of medieval wills allows us to speak in detail of legacies to individual nuns, which occur sometimes in company with legacies to the whole community, sometimes alone. These bequests took many different forms. Sometimes a father leaves an annuity for the support of his daughter in her convent[1012]. More frequently a nun becomes the recipient of a lump sum of money and from the wording of the legacies it is perfectly clear that these sums are to be delivered into her own hands for her own use. Let us, for instance, a.n.a.lyse the legacies left by Sir John Depeden, a northern knight who was a good friend to poor nuns. He first of all leaves twenty shillings each to the following twelve nunneries, that they may pray for his soul and his wife's: Esholt, Arthington, Wilberfoss, Thicket, Moxby, Kirklees, Yedingham, Clementhorpe, Hampole, Keldholme, Marrick (all in Yorkshire) and Burnham (in Buckinghamshire). He then continues:

And I give and bequeath to dame Joan Waleys, nun of Watton, to her own use (_ad usum suum proprium_), 40_s._ And I give and bequeath to dame Margaret Depeden, nun of Barking, to her own use, 5 marks and one salt cellar of silver. And I give and bequeath to Elizabeth, daughter of John FitzRichard, nun of Appleton, to her own use, 40_s._;

moreover he leaves to the Prioress of the last mentioned house 6_s._ 8_d._ and to each nun there 2_s._[1013] There is an obvious distinction here between the lump sums left to the common funds of the twelve nunneries grouped together and the gifts to individuals which follow. It is moreover quite common for a testator, who wishes to give money in charity to a whole house (as distinct from one who makes a bequest to a relative or friend therein), to distinguish the amounts to be paid to the prioress and to each of the nuns. Thus John Brompton, merchant of Beverley (n.d., c.

1441-4) while leaving a lump sum of 20_s._ to the nuns of Watton "for a pittance," 10_s._ to the nuns of Nunkeeling and 5_s._ to the nuns of Burnham, thus provides for all the inmates of Swine:

Item I bequeath to the Prioress of Swine, 3_s._ 4_d._, and to each nun of the said house 2_s._, and to the vicar there 3_s._ 4_d._ and to each chaplain there celebrating divine service in the churches of the said town 12_d._, item to Hamond, servant there 12_d._, and to each woman serving the aforesaid nuns within the aforesaid abbey, 6_d._[1014]

Thus also James Myssenden of Great Limber (1529) distinguishes between the convent and the individual nuns of Nuncoton: "To the monastery of Cotton, 3l. 6s 8d, to Dame Johan Thomson, prioress of the same 40s, to Dame Margaret Johnson 6s 8d, to Dame Elynor Hylyarde 6s 8d, to every other nun of the convent 12d"; and Dame Jane Armstrong, vowess, of Corby, in the same year leaves the nuns of Sempringham 6_s._ 8_d._, "of which Dame Agnes Rudd is to have 40d"[1015]. Similar instances may be multiplied from any collection of wills[1016].

Moreover it seems plain that the money thus willed was actually paid over to individuals by their convent. The account roll of the treasuress of St Radegund's Cambridge, in 1449-50, contains an item:

And to Dame Alice Patryk lately dead in full payment of all debts 3_s._ 4_d._ from the legacy of Peter Erle, chaplain, lately deceased.

And to Dame Joan Lancaster in part payment of 6_s._ 8_d._ bequeathed to her by the aforesaid Peter 3_s._ 4_d._, and to Dame Agnes Swaffham, subprioress, in part payment of 6_s._ 8_d._, 20_d._[1017]

But it was not only money which was bequeathed to nuns. They often received quite considerable legacies of jewels and plate, robes and furniture. What would we not give today to look for a moment at the beautiful things which Walter Skirlaw, Bishop of Durham, left to his sister Joan, the Prioress of Swine, in 1404?

Item, one large gilded cup, with a cover and a round foot, and in the bottom a chaplet of white and red roses and a hind carven in the midst and all round the outside carven with eagles, lions, crowns and other ingenious devices (_babonibus_), and in the pommel a nest and three men standing and taking the chicks from the nest, of the weight of 18 marks.... Item a robe of murrey cloth of Ypres (? _yp'n_) containing a mantle and hood furred with budge (? _purg'_), another hood furred with ermine, a cloak furred with half vair, a long robe (_garnach'_) furred with vair.... Item one bed of tapestry work of a white field, with a stag standing under a great tree and on either side lilies and a red border, with the complete tester and three curtains of white boulter[1018].

In the same year Anne St Quintin left the same n.o.ble lady "one silken quilt and one pair of sheets of cloth of Rennes"[1019]. Eleven years earlier Sir John Fairfax, rector of Prescot, had left his sister Margaret Fairfax, Prioress of Nunmonkton (of whom we have already heard much that was not to her good):

one silver gilt cup with a cover, and one silver cup with a cover, one mazer with a cover of silver gilt, one pix of silver for spices, six silver spoons, one cloak of black cloth furred with gray, one round silver basin and ten marks of silver[1020].

Master John de Wodhouse in 1345 leaves Dame Alice Conyers, nun of Nunappleton, "fifteen marks [and] a long chest standing against my bed at York, one maser cup with an image of St Michael in the bottom and one cup of silver, which I had of her gift, with a hand in the bottom holding a falcon"[1021], and Isabella, widow of Thomas Corp, a London pepperer, in 1356, leaves

to Margaret, sister of William Heyroun, vintner, nun at Barking, a silver plated cup with covercle, twelve silver spoons, two cups of mazer and a silver enamelled pix, together with three gold rings, with emerald, sapphire and diamond respectively and divers household goods[1022].

Possibly some of these splendid pieces of plate found their way to the altar, and the cups and spoons to the frater of the house, but the nuns undoubtedly sometimes kept them for private use in their own _camerae_.

Here also were kept the beds, such as that splendid one left by Bishop Skirlaw to his sister, the "bed of Norfolk" which Sir Robert de Roos left to his daughter Joan (1392)[1023], the "bed of worstede with sheets, which she kindly gave me," left by William Felawe, clerk, to Katherine Slo, Prioress of Shaftesbury (1411)[1024]. Doubtless Juliana de Crofton, nun of Hampole, knew what use to make of "six shillings and eightpence and a cloak lined with blue and two tablets and one saddle with a bridle and two leather bowls"[1025]; here at one gift was the wherewithal for writing a letter to announce a visit and for paying that visit on horseback, in gay and unconventual attire. Indeed the constant legacies of clothes to nuns go far to explain where it was that they obtained those cheerful secular garments, against which their bishops waged war in vain. In days when clothes were made of heavy and valuable stuffs and richly adorned, it was a very common custom for a woman to divide up her wardrobe between different legatees, and men also handed on their best garments. When in 1397 Margaret Fairfax is found using "divers furs and even gray fur (_gris_)"[1026], one remembers, with a sudden flash of comprehension, the "cloak of black cloth furred with gray" which her brother left her four years earlier. What did Elizabeth de Newemarche, nun, do with the mantle of brounemelly left her by Lady Isabel Fitzwilliam?[1027] What did Sir William Bonevyll's sister at Wherwell do with "his best hoppelond with the fur"?[1028] What above all did the Prioress of Swine do with all those costly fur tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs left her by the Bishop of Durham? Yorkshire nunneries were apt to be undisciplined and worldly; great ladies there, if Archbishop Melton is to be believed, sometimes considered that they might dress according to their rank[1029]. We may safely guess that the Prioress of Swine, like her contemporary at Nunmonkton, wore the furs; and visitation records do not lead us to suppose that other nuns sold their blue-lined cloaks and houppelonds for the sake of their convents, or bestowed them on the poor.

It is a common injunction that nuns are to wear no other ring than that which, at their consecration, made them brides of Christ[1030]; but the rule was often disobeyed and Dame Clemence Medforde's "golden rings exceeding costly with divers precious stones"[1031] are explained when we remember the "three gold rings, one having a sapphire, another an emerald and the third a diamond" which the rich pepperer's widow left to Dame Margaret Heyroun[1032]. Madame Eglentyne herself may have owed to one of the many friends, who held her digne of reverence, her "peire of bedes, gauded al with grene," of small coral. When Sir Thomas c.u.mberworth died in 1451 he ordered that "the prioris of Coton, of Irford, of Legburn and of Grenefeld have Ilkon of yam a pare bedys of corall, as far as that I have may laste, and after yiff yam gette [give them jet] bedes"[1033], and so also Matilda Latymer left her daughter at Buckland a set of "Bedys de corall"[1034] and Margerie de Crioll left a nun of Shaftesbury "my paternoster of coral and white pearls, which the Countess of Pembroke gave me"[1035].

(5) The fifth and last source from which nuns could derive a private income was by the work of their own hands and brains. It has been stated above that very little is known about the sale of fine needlework by nuns, but a very interesting case at Easebourne seems to show that they sometimes considered themselves ent.i.tled to retain for their own private use the sums which they earned. In 1441 one of the complaints against the gay prioress was that she "compels her sisters to work continually like hired workwomen, and they receive nothing whatever for their own use from their work, but the prioress takes the whole profit." The bishop's injunction is extremely significant:

the prioress shall by no means compel her sisters to continual work of their hands and if they should wish of their own accord to work, they shall be free to do so, but yet so that they may reserve for themselves the half part of what they gain by their hands; the other part shall be converted to the advantage of the house and unburdening it from debt[1036].

In fine, the Bishop is obliged to acquiesce in a serious breach of the Benedictine rule: the plea of the nuns to commit the sin of _proprietas_ is considered as a reasonable demand; and the compromise that half their earnings should go to the common fund is intended rather to check the prioress than the nuns. From the injunctions of other bishops it would appear that the private boarders and private pupils taken by individual nuns sometimes paid their fees to those individuals and not to the house[1037]; the "household" system made the reception of such boarders easy.

From whatever source nuns obtained control of money and goods, whether from the _peculium_, from gifts, from legacies, or from the proceeds of their own labour, one thing is clear: in a fourteenth or fifteenth century house, where the system of the _peculium_ and the _familia_ obtained, there was a considerable approximation to private life and to private property. The control of money and goods and the division into households, catering separately for themselves, worked in together. The responsibility of the convent towards its members was sometimes limited to a bare minimum of food, such as the staple bread and beer, and perhaps a small dress allowance. All the rest was provided by the nuns themselves. In strict theory annuities, gifts and legacies, were put into common stock and administered by the convent. In practice they were obviously retained in individual possession and administered as private property by the nuns.

Even legacies of lump sums to a whole convent were probably divided up between the nuns, an equal sum being paid to each and perhaps double to the prioress.

An a.n.a.lysis of the conditions revealed at Alnwick's visitation of the Lincoln diocese in 1440-5 throws an exceedingly interesting side-light, not only on the vow of monastic poverty, as understood in the fifteenth century, but also on the domestic economy of the houses, the majority of which were small and poor. It may also conveniently be compared with the evidence given by the same visitations as to the system of _familiae_ in these houses. At some the house supplied all food and clothes or a _peculium_ for clothes, at some it provided only a bare minimum of food, at some neither dress nor dress allowance was provided. At Legbourne

every nun has one loaf, one half gallon of beer a day, one pig a year, 18_d._ for beef, every day in Advent and Lent two herrings, and a little b.u.t.ter in summer and sometimes two stone of cheese a year and 8_d._ a year for raiment and no more;

the sum of 2_s._ 2_d._ a year for beef and clothes was certainly not excessive[1038]. At Stixwould

every nun receives in the year one pig, one sheep, a quarter of beef, two stones of b.u.t.ter, three stones of cheese, every day in Advent and Lent three herrings, six salt fish and twelve doughcakes a year; and they were wont to have 6_s._ 8_d._ for their raiment, but for several years back (one nun said for twenty years) as regards raiment they have received nothing.

At St Michael's Stamford, the house provided only "bread and beer and a mark for fish and flesh and other things and as to their raiment they receive naught of the house"; out of the mark the nuns catered for themselves. Other houses provided still less out of the common funds; at Gokewell the nuns received nothing from the house but bread and beer and at Markyate (a poor house, of not unblemished reputation and badly in debt) "they receive of the house only bread, beer and two marks for their raiment and what else is necessary for their living, which are less than enough for their sundry needful wants"; Alnwick ordered all victuals to be given them "of the commune stores of the house owte of one selare and one kytchyne" and fixed the dress allowance at a n.o.ble yearly, but he did not say how the house was to raise funds. At Nuncoton the allowance was 8_s._ a year, but when Alnwick came the nuns had received only 1_s._ each. At Fosse, Langley and Ankerwyke the houses provided meat and drink, but no dress or dress allowance; and at Catesby it was complained that "the prioress does not give the nuns satisfaction in the matter of their raiment and money for victuals and touching the premises the prioress is in the nuns' debt for three-quarters of the year"[1039]. From these references it is plain that the nuns usually bought their own clothes and often catered for themselves in flesh food; also that the poverty of many houses was so great that the nuns could not have lived decently without the help of friends, whether because their dress allowances were always in arrears, or because the house recognised no responsibility to clothe them from its exiguous funds. Yet as regards food at least, the habit of catering separately for separate messes was undoubtedly less economical than the regular maintenance of a common table would have been.

A highly interesting light on the control of money allowances for the purchase of food by the individual nuns of a convent is thrown by convent account rolls. These accounts show two different methods of catering in force. In one all the housekeeping was done by the cellaress, who bought such stores as were needed to supplement the produce of the home farm and provided the nuns with the whole of their food. This is the normal method, which accords with the Rule; it is to be found in the Syon cellaresses'