Medieval English Nunneries c. 1275 to 1535 Part 40

The state of Keldholme was even worse. In 1287 Archbishop Roma.n.u.s ordered the nuns to receive back an apostate, Maud de Tiverington. In 1299 a similar order was issued on behalf of Christiania de Styvelington. In 1308 began the violent election struggle over Emma of York and Joan of Pickering, which has already been described. In the course of the struggle four nuns were sent as rebels to other convents in 1308 and two in 1309, and from the nature of the penance imposed on the last two it would seem that they had been guilty of immorality. In 1318 Mary de Holm, who was one of the ejected rebels of 1308 and had been censured for disobedience to the new prioress in 1315, was sentenced to do penance "for the vice of incontinence committed by her with Sir William Lyly, chaplain"[1713]; and in 1321, Maud of Terrington (who may be the Maud of Tiverington who apostatised in 1287), was given a heavy penance for incontinence and apostasy[1714]. The history of the house during the stormy years from 1308 to 1321 shows how far from being a home of peace and good living a nunnery might be; and ill.u.s.trates well the difficulty of reforming it while even one incorrigible rebel and sinner such as Mary de Holm dwelt there.

The state of Arthington was very similar. Here in 1303 Custance de Daneport of Pontefract had apostatised and was to be received back; trouble seems to have begun in that year, for the Prioress Agnes de Screvyn resigned. In 1307 a visitation revealed considerable disorder and Dionisia de Hevensdale and Ellen de Castleford were forbidden to go outside the convent precincts. In 1312 the subprioress and convent were ordered to render due obedience to the Prioress Isabella de Berghby, who was given Isabella Couvel as a coadjutress. Evidently she resented having to share her authority in temporal matters with another nun, for soon afterwards Isabella de Berghby and Margaret de Tang are said to have cast off their habits and left the convent. Eighteen months later a new prioress was appointed and the two runaways returned and did penance. In 1315 there is mention of quarrels among the nuns and in 1319 Margaret de Tang once more engaged the attention of the Archbishop and was sent to Nunkeeling and prescribed the usual penalty for immorality. In 1321 she was again in trouble; she had apostatised and committed grave misdemeanours; and was again sent back to her convent, to be imprisoned and if necessary chained there, until she showed signs of repentance. In 1349 Isabella de Berghby, in spite of her past apostasy, was once more elected Prioress[1715].

At Moxby, the other Cluniac house in the diocese, Archbishop Greenfield ordered the Prioress to receive back Sabina de Apelgarth, who had apostatised, but was returning in a state of penitence. Her penitence was of the usual type of these Yorkshire ladies and her reputation did not prevent her from rising to the high rank in the convent, for in 1318 Archbishop Melton ordered her to be removed from office and ordained that henceforward no one convicted of incontinence was to hold any office[1716]. In 1321 a penance was p.r.o.nounced on Joan de Brotherton for having been twice in apostasy; but a note in the margin of the register where the penance is entered takes her history a stage further: "Memorandum quod dominus Walterus de Penbrige, stans c.u.m domina regina, postea impregnavit eandem"[1717]. The next year a Scottish raid dispersed the nuns; Sabina de Apelgarth and Margaret de Neusom were sent to Nunmonkton; Alice de Barton, the Prioress, to Swine; Joan de Barton and Joan de Toucotes to Nunappleton; Agnes Ampleford and Agnes Jarkesmill to Nunkeeling; Joan de Brotherton and Joan Blaunkfront to Hampole[1718]. This disturbance did not improve their morals. In 1325 the Prioress Joan de Barton resigned, having been found guilty of incontinence with the inevitable chaplain. The nuns could find no better successor for her than Sabina de Apelgarth and in 1328 that lady was once more in difficulties; the Archbishop removed her "for certain reasons" and imposed the usual penance for immorality and Joan de Toucotes became Prioress in her stead.

At the same time Joan Blaunkfront's penance was relaxed, so she too had apparently fallen; lovely and white-browed she must have been, from her name ("But sikerly she hadde a fair foreheed"), nor could she bear to hide her beauties beneath the hideous garb of a nun. Seventeen long years afterwards, when the forehead was growing wrinkled and the beauty fading, she wished to reconcile herself with the G.o.d whom she had flouted. She had powerful friends and could afford to pet.i.tion the Pope himself, and in 1345 Clement VI gave orders for Joan Blankefrontes, nun of Moxby, who had left her order, to be reconciled to it[1719].

Kirklees, known to romance as the house where a wicked prioress bled Robin Hood to death, was in a deplorable state about the same time. In 1306 Archbishop Greenfield wrote to the house bidding them take back Alice Raggid, who, several times led astray by the temptations of the flesh, had left her convent for the world; in 1313 a similar order was made for Elizabeth de Hopton. The two nuns seem, however, to have been incorrigible, for in 1315 the Archbishop wrote to the Prioress saying that public rumour had reached his ears that some of the nuns of the house, and especially Elizabeth de Hopton, Alice "le Raggede" and Joan de Heton, were wont to admit both secular and religious men into the private parts of the house and to hold many suspicious conversations with them. He forbids these or any other nuns to admit or talk with any cleric or layman save in a public place and in the presence of the Prioress, subprioress or two other nuns; and he specially warns a certain Joan de Wakefeld to give up the private room, which she persists in inhabiting by herself. He refers also to the fact that these and other nuns were disobedient to the Prioress, "like rebels refusing to accept her discipline and punishment."

On the same day he imposed a special penance on Joan de Heton for incontinence with Richard del Lathe and Sir Michael, "called Scot," a priest, and on the unhappy Alice Raggid for the same sin with William de Heton of Mirfield, possibly a relative of her fellow nun[1720]. Here again we have an incorrigible offender, guilty of apostasy and immorality off and on during ten years. Swine was not much better. In 1289 a nun of the great St Quintin family was in disgrace, probably (though not certainly) for immorality. In 1290 there was the usual trouble over a new Prioress and Elizabeth de Rue was sent to Nunburnholme under the charge of a brother of the house and a horseman, apparently for immorality as well as contumacy. At the same time another nun, Elizabeth Darrains, had part of her penance lightened; but in 1291 she was sent away to Wykeham Priory. In 1306 John, son of Thomas the Smith, of Swine, was charged with having seduced Alice Martel, a nun of the house, and in 1310 Elizabeth de Rue (whom we have seen was in trouble twenty years before) was said to have sinned with two monks from the Abbey of Meaux. The house had evidently not improved very much at a later date, for in 1358 Alice de Cawode had twice been out in apostasy[1721].

Even close to the city of York itself, the Benedictine house of St Clement's or Clementhorpe did not escape the prevalent decay of morals. In 1300 the Archbishop rehea.r.s.es unsympathetically a romantic tale of how "late one evening certain men came to the priory gate, leading a saddled horse; here Cecily a nun, met them and, throwing off her nun's habit, put on another robe and rode off with them to Darlington, where Gregory de Thornton was waiting for her; and with him she lived for three years and more." In 1310 Greenfield mitigated a penance, of the kind usually imposed for immorality, upon another nun Joan de Saxton. In 1318 there is mention of Joan of Leeds, another apostate, and in 1324 the Prioress resigned after serious trouble in the house, details of which have not been preserved. In 1331 Isabella de Studley (who had been made a nun there by express permission of the primate in 1315) was found guilty of apostasy and fleshly sin, besides blasphemy and other misdeeds; she had apparently been sent to Yedingham for a penance some time before and was now allowed to return, with the warning that if she disobeyed, quarrelled or blasphemed any more she would be transferred permanently to another house[1722].

These houses were all clearly extremely immoral, but there is evidence of less extreme trouble in other houses in the same diocese. At Arden Joan de Punchardon had become a mother in 1306 and Clarice de Speton confessed herself guilty with the bailiff of Bulmershire in 1311[1723]. At Thicket Alice Darel of Wheldrake was an apostate in 1303 and in 1334 Joan de Crackenholme was said to have left her house several times[1724]. At Wilberfoss Agnes de Lutton was in trouble in 1312[1725]. At Esholt Beatrice de Haukesward left the house pregnant in 1303[1726]. At Hampole Isabella Folifayt was guilty in 1324, and Alice de Reygate in 1358[1727].

At Nunappleton Maud of Ripon apostatised in 1309 and in 1346 Katherine de Hugate, a nun, went away pregnant and a lay sister was said to have been several times in the same condition[1728]. At St Stephen's, Foukeholm, a nun Cecilia, who had run away with a chaplain, returned of her own accord in 1293 and another apostate, Elena de Angrom, returned in 1349[1729].

Agnes de Bedale, an apostate, was sent back in 1286; and in 1343 Margaret de Fenton, who left the house pregnant, had her penance mitigated "because she had only done so once," a startling commentary on the state of the Yorkshire houses[1730]. At Rosedale an apostate Isabella Dayvill was sent back to do penance in 1321[1731]. Of Nunmonkton there is little record during the first half of the century, but it was in a bad state at the end[1732]; at Wykeham also there seems to have been no case of apostasy in the fourteenth century, but in the fifteenth century the Prioress Isabella Wykeham was removed for serious immorality in 1444 and in 1450 two nuns had gone on an unlicensed pilgrimage to Rome, which had led to one of them living with a married man in London[1733].

NOTE H.

THE DISAPPEARANCE OR SUPPRESSION OF EIGHT NUNNERIES PRIOR TO 1535.

It seems clear that even before the Dissolution proper decay was manifest in some of the smaller nunneries; numbers were dwindling and morals were not always beyond suspicion. At all events in the forty years before Henry VIII's first act of dissolution, no less than eight nunneries[1734], all of which had at one time been reasonably flourishing, faded away or were dissolved. Something may, and indeed must, be allowed for the ulterior motives of those who desired the revenue of these houses; but it is impossible to suspect men like John Alc.o.c.k, Bishop of Ely, John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, even Cardinal Wolsey, of being willing without any excuse to suppress helpless nunneries in order to endow their new collegiate foundations with the spoils. Some truth there must be in the allegations of ill behaviour brought against certain of these houses; and the reduction in numbers seems to point to a decay, more spontaneous than forced.

The first of the houses thus to be dissolved was St Radegund's, Cambridge, the accounts of which we have so often quoted. In 1496 John Alc.o.c.k, Bishop of Ely, visited the house and found but two sisters left there; and he thereupon obtained letters patent from Henry VII to convert the nunnery into a college, founded (like the nunnery) in honour of the Virgin, St John the Evangelist and St Radegund, but called henceforward Jesus College. Some light is thrown by these letters patent on the condition of the convent in 1496. It is therein stated that the king,

as well by the report of the Bishop as by public fame, that the priory ... together with all its lands, tenements, rents, possessions and buildings, and moreover the properties, goods, jewels and other ecclesiastical ornaments anciently of piety and charity given and granted to the same house or priory, by the neglect, improvidence, extravagance and incontinence of the prioresses and women of the said house, _by reason of their proximity to the university of Cambridge_, have been dilapidated, destroyed, wasted, alienated, diminished, and subtracted; in consequence of which the nuns are reduced to such want and poverty that they are unable to maintain and support divine services, hospitality and other such works of mercy and piety, as by the primary foundation and ordinance of their founders are required; that they are reduced in number to two only, of whom one is elsewhere professed, the other is of ill-fame, and that they can in no way provide for their own sustenance and relief, insomuch as they are fain to abandon their house and leave it in a manner desolate[1735].

The next nunneries to disappear were Bromhale in Windsor Forest and Lillechurch or Higham in Kent. Their dissolution was begun in 1521 and completed in 1524, when their possessions were granted to St John's College, Cambridge, the foundation of which was then being carried out by John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, as executor of the Lady Margaret. Only three nuns were left in Bromhale and Wolsey directed the Bishop of Salisbury to "proceed against enormities, misgovernance and slanderous living, long time heretofore had, used and continued by the prioress and nuns"[1736]; but there is no further evidence as to the moral condition of the convent. The moral as well as the financial decay of Lillechurch is more certain, for the resignations of the three nuns who remained, together with the depositions of those who accused them of want of discipline, have survived. Their revenues were stated to be in great decay and divine service, hospitality and almsgiving had almost ceased. Moreover it was said that "the same priory was situated in a corner out of sight of the public and was much frequented by lewd persons, especially clerks, whereby the nuns there were notorious for the incontinence of their life,"

two of them having borne children to one Edward Sterope, vicar of Higham.

Some witnesses were heard as to one of them, including a nurse who had taken charge of her baby and a former servant of the nunnery, who had been sent by the bishop to investigate the matter. "He entered the cloister of the aforesaid priory, where he saw the lady sitting and weeping and said to her 'Alas madam, howe happened this with you?' and she answered him, 'And [if] I had been happey [i.e. lucky] I myght a caused this thinge to have ben unknowen and hydden'"[1737].

The next nunneries to be suppressed were a group which went to enrich Cardinal Wolsey's foundations. The Cardinal's policy of dissolving small decayed houses in order to devote their revenues to collegiate foundations, especially to his new college at Oxford, was by no means generally approved and a pa.s.sage in Skelton's bitterly hostile _Colin Clout_ refers particularly to the case of the nunneries:

And the selfe same game Begone ys nowe with shame Amongest the sely nonnes: My lady nowe she ronnes, Dame Sybly our abbesse, Dame Dorothe and lady Besse, Dame Sare our pryoresse, Out of theyr cloyster and quere With an heuy chere, Must cast vp theyr blacke vayles[1738].

The nunneries dissolved were Littlemore (1525), Wix (1525), Fairwell (1527), and St Mary de Pre, St Albans, of which all went to Cardinal College, except Fairwell, which went to Lichfield Cathedral. Of these Littlemore, under the evil prioress Katherine Wells, had been in a state of great disorder since 1517[1739], while Cardinal Morton's famous letter of 1490 showed that there was at least suspicion of immoral relations between the nuns of St Mary de Pre and the monks of St Albans[1740]. Of the other two nunneries little is known at this time, save that they were very small; there were four nuns at Wix. Another house, Davington in Kent, vanished only a few months before the act would have dissolved it; in 1535 it was found before the escheator of the county that no nuns were left in it[1741].

NOTE I.

CHANSONS DE NONNES.

The theme of the nun in popular poetry deserves a more detailed study than it has yet received, both on account of the innate grace of the _chansons de nonnes_ and on account of their persistence into modern times. The earliest examples (with the exception of the two old French poems quoted in the text) occur in German literature, always rich in folk song. With the song from the _Limburg Chronicle_ and the Latin _Plangit nonna fletibus_ should be compared the following amusing little poem:

Ich solt ein nonne werden ich hatt kein l.u.s.t dazu ich ess nicht gerne gerste wach auch nicht gerne fru; gott geb dem klaffer ungluck vil der mich armes magdlein ins kloster haben wil!

Ins kloster, ins kloster da kom ich nicht hinein, da schneidt man mir die har ab, das bringt mir schware pein; gott geb dem klaffer ungluck vil der mich armes magdlein ins kloster haben wil!

Und wenn es komt um mitternacht das glocklein das schlecht an, so hab ich armes magdlein noch keinen schlaf getan; gott geb dem klaffer ungluck vil der mich armes magdlein ins kloster haben wil!

Und wenn ich vor die alten kom so sehn sie mich sauer an, so denk ich armes magdlein hett ich ein jungen man und der mein stater bule sei so war ich armes magdlein des fasten und betens frei.

Ade, ade feins klosterlein, Ade, nu halt dich wol!

ich weiss ein herz allerliebsten mein mein herz ist freuden vol; nach im stet all mein zuversicht, ins kloster kom ich nimmer nicht, ade, feins klosterlein![1742]

From the time of the Minnesingers comes a charming, plaintive little song, which rings its double refrain on the words "Lonely" and "O Love, what have I done?" It tells how the nun, behind a cold grating, thinks of her lover as she chants her psalter; and how her father and mother visit her and pray together, clad like gay peac.o.c.ks, while she is shrouded in cord and cowl; and how

At even to my bed I go-- The bed in my cell is lonely.

And then I think (G.o.d, where's the harm?) Would my true love were in my arm!

O Love--what have I done?[1743]

A thirteenth century poem, hailing from Bavaria or Austria, strikes a more tragic note:

Alas for my young days, alas for my plaint. They would force me into a convent. Nevermore then shall I see the gra.s.s grow green and the green clover flowers, nevermore hear the little birds sing. Woe it is, and dead is my joy, for they would part me from my true love, and I die of sorrow. _Alas, alas for my grief, which I must bear in secret!_ Sisters, dear sisters, must we be parted from the world? Deepest woe it is, since I may never wear the bridal wreath and must make moan for my sins, when I would fain be in the world and would fain wear a bright wreath upon my hair, instead of the veil that the nuns wear.

_Alas, alas for my grief, which I must bear in secret!_ I must take leave of the world, since the day of parting is come. I must look sourly upon all joy, upon dancing and leaping and good courage, birds singing and hawthorn blooming. If the little birds had my sorrow well might they sit silent in the woods and upon the green branches. _Alas, alas for my grief, which I must bear in silence_[1744].

A sixteenth century French song has something of the same serious tone, though it is more sophisticated and less poignant than the medieval German version:

Une jeune fillette de n.o.ble coeur gratieuse et honeste de grand valeur, contre son gre l'on a rendu nonette point ne le voloit estre par quoy vit en langueur.

One day after Compline she was sitting alone and lamenting her fate and she called on the Virgin to shorten her life, which she could endure no longer:

If I were married to my love, who has so desired me, whom I have so desired, all the night long he would hold me in his arms and would tell me all his thought and I would tell him mine. If I had believed my love and the sweet words he said to me, alack, alack, I should be wedded now. But since I must die in this place let me die soon. O poor heart, that must die a death so bitter! Fare you well, abbess of this convent, and all the nuns therein. Pray for me when I am dead, but never tell my thought to my true love. Fare you well, father and mother and all my kinsfolk; you made me a nun in this convent; in life I shall never have any joy; I live unhappy, in torment and in pain[1745].

Usually, however, the _chanson de nonne_ is more frivolous than this and all ends happily. A well defined group contains songs in the form of a round with a refrain, meant to be sung during a dance[1746]. One of the prettiest has a refrain rejecting the life of a nun for the best of reasons:

Derriere chez mon pere Il est un bois taillis (Serai-je nonnette, oui ou non?

Serai-je nonnette? je crois que non!)

Le rossignol y chante Et le jour et la nuit.

Il chante pour les filles Qui n'ont pas d'ami, Il ne chante pas pour moi, J'en ai un, dieu mercy[1747].

Another (first found in a version belonging to the year 1602) has the dance-refrain:

Trepignez vous, trepignez, Trepignez vous comme moy,

and the words seem to trip of themselves:

Mon pere n'a fille que moy-- Il a jure la sienne foy Que nonnette il fera de moy, Et non feray, pas ne voudray.

J'amerois mieux mary avoir Qui me baisast la nuit trois fois.

L'un au matin et l'autre au soir, L'autre a minuit, ce sont les trois[1748].

Another song of the same date has the refrain:

Je le diray, Je le diray, diray, ma mere, Ma Mere, je le diray,

and tells the same tale:

Mon pere aussi ma mere Ont jure par leur foy Qu'ils me rendront nonnette Tout en despit de moy.