Medieval English Nunneries c. 1275 to 1535 Part 44

Friar Laurence, my lord; Now holy water help us: Some witch or some devil is sent to delude us: _Haud credo, Laurentius_, That thou shouldst be pen'd thus In the press of a nun: We are all undone, And brought to discredence, If thou be Friar Laurence.

Philip's comment is pertinent:

How goes this gear? the friar's chest fill'd with a sausen nun.

The nun again locks friar up to keep him from the sun.

Belike the press is purgatory, or penance pa.s.sing grievous: The friar's chest a h.e.l.l for nuns! How do these dolts deceive us?

Is this the labour of their lives, to feed and live at ease?

To revel so lasciviously as often as they please?

I'll mend the fault, or fault my aim, if I do miss amending; 'Tis better burn the cloisters down than leave them for offending.

Eventually, Friar Laurence buys his freedom for a hundred pounds[1794].

In conclusion may be mentioned the entertaining little English _fabliau_, which was at one time attributed to Lydgate, called _The Tale of the Lady Prioress and her three Suitors_; this is not a _conte gras_, but recounts the adroit expedient, by which a prioress succeeded in ridding herself of her three wooers, a knight, a parson and a merchant[1795].

NOTE K.

NUNS IN THE _DIALOGUS MIRACULORUM_ OF CAESARIUS OF HEISTERBACH.

The _Dialogus Miraculorum_, written between 1220 and 1235 by Caesarius, Prior and Teacher of the Novices in the Cistercian Abbey of Heisterbach in the Siebengebirge, is one of the most entertaining books of the middle ages[1796]. Caesarius in a prologue describes how it came to be written and the plan upon which it is arranged, taking as his text a quotation from John vi. 12: "Gather up the fragments lest they perish":

Since I was wont to recite to the novices, as in duty bound, some of the miracles which have taken place in our time and daily are taking place in our order, several of them besought me most instantly to perpetuate the same in writing. For they said that it would be an irreparable disaster if these things should perish from forgetfulness which might be an edification to posterity. And since I was all unready to do so, now for lack of the Latin tongue, now by reason of the detraction of envious men, there came at length the command of my own abbot, to say naught of the advice of the abbot of Marienstatt, which it is not lawful for me to disobey. Mindful also of the aforesaid saying of the Saviour, while others break up whole loaves for the crowd (that is to say, expound difficult questions of the Scriptures or write the more signal deeds of modern days) I, collecting the falling crumbs, from lack not of good will but of scholarship, have filled with them twelve baskets. For I have divided the whole book into as many divisions. The first division tells of conversion, the second of contrition, the third of confession, the fourth of temptation, the fifth of demons, the sixth of the power of simplicity, the seventh of the blessed Virgin Mary, the eighth of divers visions, the ninth of the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, the tenth of miracles, the eleventh of the dying, the twelfth of the pains and glories of the dead. Moreover in order that I might the more easily arrange the examples, I have introduced two persons in the manner of a dialogue, to wit a novice asking questions and a monk replying to them.... I have also inserted many things which took place outside the [Cistercian] order, because they were edifying, and like the rest had been told to me by religious men. G.o.d is my witness that I have not invented a single chapter in this dialogue. If anything therein perchance fell about otherwise than I have written it, the fault should rather be imputed to those who told it to me[1797].

It will be seen from this sketch that the book is really a collection of stories grouped round certain subjects which they are intended to ill.u.s.trate and connected by a slender thread of dialogue. Such collections of _exempla_ are nearly always valuable, but the work of Caesarius is particularly so, because he does not confine himself to "stock" stories, but relates many with details of time and place, drawn from his own experience and from that of his friends. The book is full of local colour and gives an exceedingly vivid picture of lay and ecclesiastical life in medieval Germany. For our purpose it is interesting because it contains many _exempla_ concerning nuns, and any reader attracted by this particular cla.s.s of didactic literature may be glad to add some more stories to those quoted in the text.

Caesarius has much to say of the devil, a very visible and audible and tangible devil and one who can be smelt with the nose. His tales of devil-haunted nuns display a side of convent life about which English records are in the main silent; but that they represent with fair accuracy the sufferings of some half-hysterical, half-mystical women cannot be doubted by anyone familiar with the lives of medieval saints and mystics, such as Mary of Oignies, Christina of Stommeln and Lydwine of Schiedam. He tells in his section on "Confession" of a nun Alice or Aleidis, who had led an ill life in the world, but had repented her when her lover, a priest, hanged himself, and had taken the veil at Langwaden in the diocese of Cologne:

Once when she was standing in the dorter and looking out of the window, she beheld a young man, nay rather a devil in the form of a young man, standing hard by a well, which was near the wall of the dorter; who in her sight set one foot upon the wooden frame which surrounded the well, and as it were flying with the other, conveyed himself to her in the window, and tried to seize her head with his extended hand; but she fell back stricken with terror and almost in a faint, and cried out and hearing her call, her sisters ran to her and placed her upon her bed. And when they had gone away again and she had recovered her breath and lay alone, the demon was once more with her, and began to tempt her with words of love, but she denied him, understanding him to be an evil spirit. Then he answered "Good Aleidis, do not say so, but consent to me, and I will cause you to have a husband, honest, worthy, n.o.ble and rich. Why do you torture yourself with hunger in this poor place, killing yourself before your time by vigils and many other discomforts? Return to the world and use those delights which G.o.d created for man; you shall want for nothing under my guidance." Then said she, "I grieve that I followed thee for so long; begone for I will not yield to thee."

Then the foul fiend blew with his nostrils and spattered her with a foul black pitch and vanished. Neither the sign of the cross, nor sprinkling with holy water, nor censing with incense prevailed against this particular demon; he would retreat for a time and return again as soon as Aleidis ceased to employ these weapons against him. She was in despair, when one day

One of the sisters, of maturer years and wisdom than the others, persuaded her when the demon tried to approach her to hurl the angelic salutation[1798] in a loud voice in his face; and when she had done so the devil, as though struck by a dart or driven by a whirlwind, fled away and from that hour never dared to approach her.

Another time the same Aleidis went to confession, hoping thus to rid herself forever of her tormentor:

And behold as she was hastening along the road, the devil stood in her path and said: "Aleidis, whither away so fast?" And she replied: "I go to confound myself and thee." Then said the devil: "Nay, Aleidis, do not so! Turn again!" And she replied: "Oft hast thou put me to confusion, now will I confound thee. I will not turn back." And when he could turn her back neither by blandishments nor by threats, he followed her to the place of confession flying in the air above her in the form of a kite; and as soon as she bent her knee before the Prior and opened her lips in confession, he vanished, crying and howling and was never seen or heard by her from that hour. Behold here ye have a manifest example of what virtue lieth in a pure confession. These things were told to me by the lord Hermann, Abbot of Marienstatt[1799].

In his section "De Daemonibus" Caesarius has a yet more startling collection of stories about devils. The trials of sister Euphemia are described as having been related to him by the nun herself, at the instance of her abbess:

When the aforesaid nun was a little maid in her father's house, the devil ofttimes appeared to her visibly in divers shapes, and in divers ways affrighted and saddened her tender age. And since she feared to be driven mad she expressed her wish to be converted[1800] into our order. One night the devil appeared to her in the form of a man and tried to dissuade her, saying: "Euphemia, do not be converted, but take a young and handsome husband and with him thou shalt taste the joys of the world. Thou shalt not want for rich garments and delicate meats. But if thou enter the order, thou wilt be forever poor and ragged, thou wilt suffer cold and thirst, nor will it ever be well with thee henceforth in this world." To which she replied: "How would it be with me if I should die amidst those delights, which thou dost promise me?" To these words the devil made no reply, but seizing the maid and carrying her to the window of the chamber wherein she was lying, he sought to throw her out. And when she said the angelic salutation the enemy let her go, saying, "If thou goest to the cloister, I will ever oppose thee. For hadst thou not in that hour called upon _that woman_ I should have slain thee." And having spoken thus, squeezing her tightly, he sprang out of the window in the shape of a great dog and was seen no more. Thus was the virgin delivered by invoking the Virgin Mother of G.o.d. How hara.s.sing the devil is to those who have been converted and in how many and divers ways he vexes and hinders them, the following account shall show. When the aforesaid maiden had been made a nun, one night as she lay in her bed and was wakeful, she saw around her many demons in the form of men. And one of them of an aspect most foul was standing at her head, two at her feet and the fourth opposite her. And he cried in a loud voice to the others: "Why are you standing still? Take her wholly up as she lies and come." And they replied: "We cannot. She has called upon _that woman_."... Now the same demon, after she had said the angelic salutation, seized the maiden by her right arm, and squeezed her so tightly as he dragged at it, that his grasp was followed by a swelling and the swelling by a bruise. Now when she had her left hand free, she in her great simplicity dared not make the sign of the cross therewith, deeming that a sign with the left hand would avail her nought. But now, driven by necessity, she signed herself with that hand, and put the demons to flight. Delivered from them she ran half fainting to the bed of a certain sister, and, breaking silence, told her what she had seen and suffered. Then, as I was informed by the lady Elizabeth of blessed memory, abbess of the same convent, the sisters laid her in her bed, and reading over her the beginning of the Gospel of St John, found her restored on the morrow. Now in the following year, in the dead of night when the same nun was lying awake on her couch, she saw at a distance the demons in the shape of two of the sisters who were most dear to her; and they said to her: "Sister Euphemia, arise, come with us to the cellar to draw beer for the convent." But she suspecting them, both on account of the lateness of the hour and of their breach of silence, began to tremble, and, burying her head in the bedclothes, replied nothing. Straightway one of the malignant spirits drew near and laying hold of her breast with his hand, squeezed it until the blood burst forth from her mouth and nose. Then the demons, taking the shape of dogs, leaped out of the window. When the sisters, rising for matins, beheld her worn out, as it were pale and bloodless, they inquired of her the reason by signs; and when they had learned it from her, they were much perturbed, both on account of the cruelty of the demons and of the distress of the virgin. Two years before this, when a new dorter had been made for the convent and the beds had been placed therein, the same nun saw a demon in the shape of a deformed and very aged mannikin, going round the whole dorter and touching each of the beds, as though to say: "I will take careful note of each place, for they shall not be without a visit from me"[1801].

The abbey of Hoven, which sheltered Euphemia, seems to have been subjected to a continual siege by devils; or perhaps, as the more materially-minded might suggest, Euphemia's malady was contagious. Sister Elizabeth of the same house had a short way with such gentry:

"In the same monastery," says Caesarius, "was a nun named Elizabeth, who was oftentimes haunted by the devil. One day she saw him in the dorter, and since she knew him, she boxed his ears. Then said he: 'Wherefore dost thou strike me so hardly?' and she replied: 'Because thou dost often disturb me,' to which the devil replied: 'Yesterday I disturbed thy sister the chantress far more, but she did not hit me.'

Now she had been much agitated all day, from which it may be gathered that anger, rancour, impatience, and other vices of the sort are often sent by the devil. On another occasion when the same Elizabeth, very late for matins (owing, as afterwards appeared, to the machinations of the devil), was hurrying along to the belfry, bearing a lighted candle in her hand, just as she was about to enter the door of the chapel, she saw the devil in the shape of a man, dressed in a hooded tunic, standing in front of her. Thinking that some man had got in, she recoiled in alarm and fell down the dorter stairs, so that for some days she lay ill of the sudden fright as well as of the fall.... And when she was asked the cause of her fall and her scream and had expounded this vision, she added: 'If I had known that it was the devil and not a man, I would have given him a good cuff.' By that time, however, she had girded her loins with strength and strengthened her arm against the devil"[1802].

Not all the visions seen by these nuns of whom Caesarius writes were evil visions. He has several tales to tell of appearances of the Virgin Mary and of the saints. Besides the well-known story of Sister Beatrice and of the nun whose ears were boxed by the Virgin, the most charming Mary-miracle related by Caesarius tells of a nun who genuflected with such fervour to the blessed Mother that she strained her leg; and as she lay asleep in the infirmary, she saw before her the Virgin, bearing a pyx of ointment in her hand; and the Virgin anointed her knee with it, till the sweet odour brought the sisters running to find out the cause; but the nun held her peace and bade them leave her. Sleeping again, she found herself once more in the company of the Virgin, who led her into the orchard, and

placing her hand beneath the nun's chin, said to her, "Now do thou kneel down upon thy knee"; and when she had done so our Lady added: "Henceforth do thou bow thy knee thus, modestly and in a disciplined manner," showing her how. And she added: "Every day thou shouldst say to me the sequence 'Ave Dei Genitrix,' and at each verse thou shouldst bow thy knee. For I take great delight therein." And the nun, waking, looked upon her knee, to see whether aught had been accomplished in the vision, and in great surprise she saw that it was whole[1803].

Another pretty story tells how, when a certain sister was reading her psalter before a wooden statue of the Virgin and child, "the little boy suddenly came to her and as though he would know what she was reading, peeped into her book and went back again"[1804].

Sometimes it is not the Virgin or her Son but a patron saint who appears to a nun who holds him in veneration. Caesarius tells the following tale of a nun who specially venerated St John the Baptist:

More than all the saints she took delight in him. Nor did it suffice her to think upon him, to honour him with prayers and devotions, to declare his prerogatives to her sisters, but in order to perpetuate his memory she made verses concerning his annunciation and nativity and the joy of his parents. For she was learned and sought therefore to describe in verse anything which she had read concerning his sanct.i.ty. Moreover she exhorted and besought all secular persons with whom she spoke to call their children John or Zacharias, if they were boys, Elizabeth if they were girls. Now when she was about to die John a monk of the Cloister came to visit her, and knowing her affection towards St John, said: "My aunt, when you are dead, which ma.s.s would you have me say first for your soul, the ma.s.s for the dead or of St John the Baptist?" To which she without any hesitation replied: "Of St John, of St John!" And when she was at the point of death, having compa.s.sion upon the sister who was tending her, she said: "Go upstairs, sister, and rest for a little." When the sister had done so and was resting in a light sleep, she heard in her slumber a voice saying, "Why liest thou here? St John the Baptist is below with Sister Hildegunde"--for that was her name. Roused by this voice the sister, not waiting to put on her clothes, came down in her shift and found the nun already dead; and round her was so sweet a perfume that the sister doubted not that St John had been there, to accompany the soul of his beloved to the angelic host[1805].

Some of Caesarius' anecdotes show an amusing rivalry, if not among the company of heaven, at least among their votaries on earth. Two delightful stories may be quoted to show how deep-rooted is the compet.i.tive instinct, which, baulked in one direction by the prohibition of property, showed itself in hot disputes as to the rival merits of patron saints:

There were and I think still are, in Fraulautern in the diocese of Treves, two nuns, of whom one took special delight in St John the Baptist and the other in St John the Evangelist. Whenever they met, they contended together concerning which was the greater, so that the mistress was scarce able to restrain them. The one declared the privileges of her beloved in the presence of all, the other set up against them the very real prerogatives of hers.

One night, however, before matins St John the Baptist appeared to his worshipper in her sleep and set forth a list of the virtues of the other St John, declaring that the latter was far greater than he, and bidding her the next morning call her sister before the mistress and seek her pardon for having so often annoyed her because of him. That morning after matins, however, St John the Evangelist also visited his champion in her sleep and after retailing all St John the Baptist's claims to superiority, a.s.sured her that the latter was far greater and gave her a similar order to ask pardon of her sister:

"On the morrow," says Caesarius, "they came separately to the mistress and revealed what they had seen. Then together prostrating themselves and asking pardon of each other as they had been bidden, they were reconciled by the mediation of their spiritual mother, who warned them that henceforth they should not contend about the merits of the saints, which are known to G.o.d alone"[1806].

In spite of this excellent moral, however, Caesarius has very clear ideas himself as to the respective merits of certain saints; and, if we are to believe him, even St John the Evangelist was sometimes guilty of a scandalous neglect of duty:

"It is not long ago," says he, "that a certain nun of the monastery of Rheindorf near Bonn, by name Elizabeth, went the way of all flesh. Now this monastery is of the rule of St Benedict the Abbot. But the said Elizabeth delighted specially in St John the Evangelist, lavishing on him all the honour she could. She had a sister in the flesh in the same monastery, who was called Aleidis. One night when the latter was sitting upon her bed after matins and saying the office of the dead for the soul of her sister, she heard a voice near her. And when she demanded who was there, the voice replied, 'I am Elizabeth, thy sister.' Then said she, 'How is it with thee, sister, and whence comest thou?' and it answered, 'Ill indeed has it been with me, but now it is well.' Aleidis asked, 'Did St John in whom thou didst so ardently delight avail thee aught?'--and it replied, 'Truly, naught.

It was our holy father Benedict who stood by me. For he bent his knee on my behalf before G.o.d'"[1807].

St John the Evangelist, it will be perceived, suffered from the incalculable disadvantage of never having thought of founding a monastic order.

Caesarius narrates a great many other _exempla_ concerning nuns, but I have quoted the most characteristic. There never was a book so full of meat; and it is greatly to be regretted that no translation has as yet placed it within the reach of all who are interested, not only in medieval life but in the medieval point of view[1808].

APPENDIX II

VISITATION OF NUNNERIES IN THE DIOCESE OF ROUEN BY ARCHBISHOP EUDES RIGAUD, 1248-1269

For twenty-seven years in the thirteenth century the Archbishopric of Rouen was held by a man who was at once a scholar and a man of action, a great saint and a great reformer. Eudes Rigaud (Odo Rigaldi), "the Model of Good Life," as he was afterwards called, was among the most able and energetic churchmen produced by the middle ages. Salimbene, that gossiping friar of Parma to whom we owe perhaps the most entertaining chronicle of all the middle ages, describes him thus:

Now this Brother Rigaud was of our order [Franciscan] and one of the most learned men in the world. He had been doctor of theology in the convent [at Paris]: being a most excellent disputator and a most gracious preacher. He wrote a work on the Sentences; he was a friend of St Louis, King of France, who indeed laboured that he might be made Archbishop of Rouen. He loved well the Order of the Friars Preachers, as also his own of the Friars Minor and did them both much good; he was foul of face but gracious in mind and works, for he was holy and devout and ended his life well; may his soul, by G.o.d's mercy, rest in peace[1809].

This great scholar, with an admirable devotion to duty, renounced for ever the leisure of a man of books, and spent his life, from the moment that he became Archbishop, in a ceaseless peregrination of his diocese; and by a dispensation of providence (so the historian must think) he kept a diary.

For twenty-one years (1248-1269) he moved about from parish to parish, from monastery to monastery, inquiring into the life and discipline of secular and of regular clergy alike, hearing complaints, giving injunctions, removing (though seldom) offenders, and making notes of the results of his visits, place by place and day by day, in his great _Regestrum Visitationum_[1810]. His diocese was in a bad state; and his discouragement sometimes found its way into the official record of his inquisitions. The few words which betray his feelings, together with the particularity and detail with which the visits are recorded, make the register of Eudes Rigaud a very human doc.u.ment.

It would be beyond the scope of this book to enter into any discussion of the general picture of the medieval church which it leaves upon the mind.

But it is both useful and interesting to detach those parts of it which deal with the nunneries visited and reformed (with varying success) by the Archbishop. In the first place the records of his visitations, though not as complete as those of the visitations of the Lincoln diocese by Bishop Alnwick in the early fifteenth century, or of the diocese of Norwich by Bishops Goldwell and Nykke, during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, or of the Sede Vacante visitations of the Winchester diocese by Dr Hede in 1502, are nevertheless a great deal more detailed than any series of English visitation records of an equally early date. The report of Walter Giffard's visitation of Swine in 1267-8, which comprises both the _comperta_ and the injunctions based upon them, is indeed fuller than any of Rigaud's notes, which contain only _comperta_ and _ad interim_ injunctions[1811]; but this is an isolated case. The only other thirteenth century doc.u.ments at all comparable with those of Rigaud are Peckham's injunctions to Barking (1279), G.o.dstow (1279 and 1284), Wherwell (1284) and Romsey (? 1284), and Wickwane's injunctions to Nunappleton (1281) and these are the final injunctions only, the _comperta_ upon which they were based having disappeared. There is, so far as it is possible to ascertain, no English register of the thirteenth century recording regular visitations of all the nunneries in a diocese over a period of years and the study of Rigaud's register is therefore of unique interest. In the second place it is of special interest to English readers because of the close connection which at one time existed between the religious houses of England and Normandy. Most of the alien priories in England were cells of Norman houses and several of the nunneries visited by Rigaud had possessions in England. Stour in Dorset was a cell of St Leger de Preaux, founded by Roger de Beaumont as early as William I's reign[1812].

Levenestre or Lyminster in Suss.e.x was founded some time before 1178 as a cell of Almeneches probably by Roger de Montgomery Earl of Arundel, to whom the mother house owed its foundation and was apparently the only alien priory in England in which a community of nuns actually resided during the later middle ages.[1813] In 1255 Almeneches possessed twenty-five marks of annual rent in England[1814]. The great Abbaye aux Dames at Caen had two cells in England, Horstead in Norfolk (which afterwards became part of the endowment of King's College, Cambridge, and was founded in William II's reign[1815]) and Minchinhampton in Gloucestershire (afterwards cell of Syon)[1816]. In Rigaud's day this house had rents to the value of 160 sterling in England[1817] and at the visitation of 1256 the Abbess did not appear, because she was absent there[1818]. French moreover was still the language of daily speech in thirteenth century England, and there was constant intercourse between the two countries. It is not unreasonable to expect that we may learn something to our purpose by a comparison of French and English nunneries.

The Register includes visitations of fourteen religious houses of women[1819]. Seven of these were visited with great regularity during the twenty-one years covered by the Register; the Priory of St Saens fourteen times, the abbey of Bival and the priory of St Aubin each thirteen times, the abbey of Montivilliers twelve times, the abbeys of Villarceaux and St Amand of Rouen each eleven times and the priory of Bondeville ten times.

Of the others the abbeys of St Leger de Preaux and St Desir de Lisieux (both in the diocese of Lisieux) and St Sauveur of Evreux each received four visits and the abbeys of St Mary of Almeneches and the Holy Trinity of Caen three. Two other houses, St Paul by Rouen (a dependent cell of Montivilliers) and Ariete (a very poor and small Benedictine house), appear to have been visited only once. For the most part these nunneries were large houses, often having lay sisters and sometimes lay brothers attached to them. The Archbishop made very careful notes of the temporal affairs of each and generally entered in his Register the number of nuns and lay sisters and often also the number of secular maidservants in the employ of each house. The largest of all was the Abbaye aux Dames or Holy Trinity at Caen, "one of the great nunneries of Christendom"; in Rigaud's time its numbers ranged between sixty-five and eighty. St Sauveur of Evreux and Montivilliers both contained at least sixty nuns and the other houses were all comparatively large, with the exception of St Saens, Villarceaux, St Aubin and Ariete. Even these, however, were large compared with some of the small nunneries in England.

The financial condition of many of these houses was very bad, and there is evidence both of the poverty and of the bad management which seem to have been characteristic of nunneries everywhere. The care with which Rigaud entered into his diary, at almost every visitation, the debts owed by a house and the condition of its stores, makes it possible to follow with some ease the financial progress of the nunneries from year to year. Some houses were evidently in a flourishing condition; the abbey at Caen was very rich and never in difficulties (its debts were suddenly a.s.sessed at the huge sum of 1700 in 1267 but at the previous visitations it had been stated that more was owed to the nuns than they owed). Montivilliers was also well managed and in a good condition; here again the debts due to it were larger than those which it owed, and on several occasions the Archbishop found a good round sum in the treasury, a plentiful supply of stores and some valuable plate, which the nuns had been rich enough to purchase recently. Similarly St Desir de Lisieux and St Leger de Preaux, though debts are mentioned, were evidently living well within their respective incomes of 500 and 700 (in rents). But the other houses display a lamentable list of debts growing heavier and heavier. In spite of St Amand's income of 1000 to 1200, its debts rose from 200 in 1248 to 900 in 1269. Almeneches, with an income of a little over 500, had debts to the amount of 500 in 1260. Bondeville obviously had a quite insufficient income (it was given as 93 in 1257); on three occasions its debts reached the sum of 140 and on two other occasions they were 200 and 250. St Saens, St Aubin, Bival and Villarceaux (it is significant that these are the houses whose moral record was bad) were always in difficulties. Bival went steadily from bad to worse; its debts rose from 40 in 1251 to 60 in 1268 and in 1269 they had exactly doubled themselves (120) since the previous visitation. The debts of St Saens rose from 60 in 1250 to 100 in 1269; and in 1260 they stood at 350. At Villarceaux (the income of which was placed at 100 in 1249) the debts ranged between 30 in 1251 and 100 in 1264 and 1265. At St Aubin the actual sums of money owed by the nuns were small, ranging between 5 and 40 (except in 1257 when their debts were a.s.sessed at 1000, which is probably a mistake), but the house was evidently in grave financial straits. When even a wealthy house such as St Sauveur of Evreux could not keep out of debt (the amount owed by it varied from 200 to 600), one cannot wonder that smaller and poorer houses were deeply involved. Occasionally the diary throws some light on special causes of impoverishment; thus the nuns of St Amand were in debt to the large sum of 400 in 1254 and the reason given was "on account of a conduit (_aqueductum_), which they had to make again, because it was needed"[1820]; St Sauveur of Evreux was burdened with the payment of about 40 in pensions[1821]; and in 1263 the nuns of St Aubin complained that they owed some 20 "for a certain ferm (or payment) by which they held themselves to be greatly burdened"[1822].

Other evidence besides that of debts is not wanting to show that some of the houses were in great financial straits. The Archbishop constantly gave poverty as a reason for limiting the number of nuns, e.g. at St Aubin, Bival and Villarceaux[1823]. At Almeneches poverty was given as a reason for the imperfect observance of the rule[1824]. At St Saens (1262) and at Villarceaux (1264) the roofs of the monastic buildings were in need of repair[1825]; in the latter year the roofs of the buildings at St Aubin were _male cooperte_ also and that of the nave of the church was so bad that the nuns could hardly stay there in rainy weather[1826]. Bondeville was so badly in need of repairs in 1257 that it was said that 80 would not suffice for the work[1827]. Sometimes the devices by which the nuns strove to gain a little ready money are noted down in Rigaud's diary. At Villarceaux in 1254 a book of homilies and some silken copes were in pledge to the Prior of Serqueu[1828]; at Bival in 1269 the old abbess had pledged a chalice which the new abbess was ordered to redeem[1829]; and at Bondeville in 1257 the nuns had p.a.w.ned two chalices "for their needs"[1830]. When they tried to borrow money outright matters were even worse; at Villarceaux in 1266, Rigaud notes, "they owed 100, of which 20 was owed to the Jews and Caursini (_Catturcensibus_) of Mantes at usury"[1831]. Sometimes they were reduced to selling part of their property, as at St Saens, where they sold a wood at Esquequeville[1832], and at Bondeville, where they parted with land to the value of 300[1833].

But they were apparently bad women of business, for at the latter house in 1257 the Archbishop complained that they had pledged a certain t.i.the for 75 for three years, whereas its real value was 40 per annum[1834]; and in 1256 it transpired that the nuns of Bival had given up the manor of Pierremains (without Rigaud's consent) to a certain Master William of the Fishponds (_de Vivariis_) for 50, while it was really worth 140[1835].