Medieval English Nunneries c. 1275 to 1535 Part 45

Perhaps the difficulty found by so many of the houses in collecting the debts due to them may be set down in part to the incompetence of the nuns.

At St Amand, for instance, in 1262, as much as 377 7_s._ seems to have been owing to the nuns at a time when they themselves were 142 in debt, and at the next two visitations complaint was made of debts (described in 1264 as "bad" debts, _debitis male solubilibus_) owing to them[1836].

Other nunneries were from time to time owed large sums of money, religiously recorded by Rigaud in his diary. The case of St Saens ill.u.s.trates this difficulty particularly well; in 1261 the nuns had sold part of their wood at Esquequeville for 350 and had received 240 of the total sum owing to them; the next year the 110 left owing had swelled with interest to 160; in 1264 40 was said to be owing on the same sale and 55 on a sale of fallen trees and wood (_de caablo_); but in 1267 the Archbishop noted, "A great sum of money is to come to them from the sale of woods," and in 1269 the amount still owing on the sale had risen with interest to 100, while 80 was owing to the nuns from another source[1837].

Another instance of the incompetence of the nuns was their laxity in the matter of keeping accounts, in which the Rouen nuns were in no way exceptional. At Caen, in 1250 Rigaud wrote:

They do not know how much they have in rents and they say that more is owed to them than they owe, neither do they know the state of the monastery; but the Abbess accounts in her chamber before several nuns annually elected for this purpose, and the account is announced in the chapter before them all; and they said that this was quite sufficient for them.

The Archbishop appears to have obtained a statement of their rents by some means and he contented himself with confirming the arrangement that the Abbess should account annually to certain nuns elected _ad hoc_[1838].

Certainly when the head of the house was competent there was no need for the convent to know the details of administration; but sometimes even the head was unable to inform Rigaud of those details. At Villarceaux in 1258 he wrote: "They did not know how much they owed and they were somewhat ignorant of the state of the house"[1839]; and in the following year the Prioress of St Saens was found to be an incompetent administrator and was ordered to draw up an account, which two neighbouring priors were deputed to hear[1840]. At St Amand in 1262 the Abbess had not prepared a proper account, so that the Archbishop was unable to get full information as to the state of the house; he noted however that the nuns believed that more was owing to them than they owed, and he ordered the Abbess to inspect her papers and to certify him concerning the state of the house[1841]. On several other occasions he ordered her to account more often (on one of these it had transpired that she had not done so for three years) before the elder nuns, and to call in the Prioress, Subprioress or one of these _maiores_ to help her[1842]. At Villarceaux in 1253 the Prioress did not account and in 1254 a coadjutress was appointed to a.s.sist her[1843].

Sometimes Rigaud ordered the income of a house to be written down in rolls, or in books[1844]. Sometimes he provided for the more frequent rendering of accounts; twice or thrice yearly was the usual injunction, sometimes simply "more often," the minimum being once a year[1845]; occasionally a small account of current expenses was to be read monthly[1846]. Sometimes he ordered the accounts to be read before certain nuns elected _ad hoc_ (with the addition of the priest at Villarceaux in 1249), the elder nuns being often specified[1847]. At the same time, although nothing was to be done without the knowledge and consent of the convent, the nuns were not to interfere unduly in the management of temporal affairs, for the prioress of Bondeville was sentenced to receive one discipline before the a.s.sembled chapter, as a punishment for giving up the common seal to them, without the Archbishop's knowledge, "because of their clamour"[1848]. Nuns were notoriously bad financiers, but even where a male _custos_ had charge of their business the arrangement was not invariably satisfactory; and at Bondeville in 1261 Rigaud noted, "We removed Melchior the priest, who had managed the business of the convent for some time, for the reason that the convent had not full confidence in him and that he was odious to them." The house was heavily in debt, so that the mistrust of the nuns, if not their dislike, was clearly justified, and the Archbishop evidently decided not to replace Melchior by another man, for he ordered the Abbess to make one of the nuns treasuress to look after the expenditure of the house, receiving the income and administering it[1849].

Another matter about which Rigaud inquired and entered particulars in his diary was the amount of provisions in the granaries and storehouses of the nuns. Had they enough corn and oats to last till the next harvest? Had they a good supply of wine and cider to drink? The number of cases in which it is noted that the nuns had "_pauca estauramenta_," or not enough to last till the new year, points to a mixture of poverty and of bad management[1850]. The nuns of Bival in 1263 had few stores and no corn for sowing[1851]; those of St Saens in 1250 had no wine or cider to drink nor corn to last till Whitsuntide[1852]; at St Aubin in 1259 the Archbishop noted comprehensively that they had no stores[1853]. Oats seem to have run short in a number of cases[1854], and sometimes wine[1855].

But occasionally Rigaud's diary contains even fuller information about the temporal affairs of a nunnery. It was his regular practice at Villarceaux (why at Villarceaux only it is impossible to say) to enumerate the live stock possessed by that impecunious house, horses, mares, foals, bullocks, cows, calves, sheep and pigs. And on two occasions the happy accident of a Prioress' resignation (always an occasion for the presentation of an account) has left us with complete inventories of the possessions and expenses of two houses, St Saens in 1257 and Bondeville in the same year.

The inventory of St Saens runs as follows:

They owe 212. The king gave them Esquequeville with its appurtenances, which is worth 230 and 4 carucates of land worth 40, and thus they have in all rents to the value of 290 (_sic_). To the house of nuns of St Saens there belong 245 acres of land in all and 7 acres of meadow, of which 115 acres in all are sown with wheat (_frumento_), corn (_blado_, probably rye), barley and other vegetables (_leguminibus_). They have in money rents 170. 2_s._ 8_d._; in corn rents 8 _modii_; in rents of oats 66 _minae_[1856]; in rents of capons 220; item in egg rents 1100 eggs[1857]; item they have in money rents, paid with the capons and the eggs, 27_s._ 6_d._ Item they have a mill at Esquequeville and a wood of which they do not know the size[1858] and the priest of the same place takes a t.i.the in the said mill. Item they have rights of pannage and stubble and multure (i.e. payment by their tenants for grinding at their mill) of which they know not the value. Item they have a mill at St Saens of small value. Item they have 57 sheep, item 12 plough horses and one waggon (_quadrigam_); item they have 18 beasts, as well cows as oxen. Item they have only 2 _modii_ of corn for their food until harvest. They have nothing to drink. There is owing to them 26. 5_s._ 2_d._ The debts which they owe amount in all to 234. 3_s._ 3_d._[1859]

The inventory of Bondeville for the same year is equally interesting:

These are the goods and rents of the house of Bondeville: 93 _tournois_; of common corn 30 _modii_; in the grange of Heaus they believe that they have 7 _modii_ of common corn; in the abbey grange about one _modium_ of barley; in the other granges nothing. In the abbey there are 2 waggons (_quadrige_), with 6 horses and one riding horse, 6 cows and 14 calves. They have in the granges 264 sheep; item in the grange of Heaus 27 cows; item 30 little pigs; item three ploughs (_aratra_) in all, each for three beasts; item 4 little foals.

These are the debts of the house, concerning which account has been rendered to the convent: 220 in money and 2 _modii_ of barley; [wages] to the household for the harvesting. Item they had no oats save for sowing time. They expend each month at least 68 _minae_ of corn; item they have in the cellar 6 barrels of wine and 2 of cider; item they do not think that the buildings can be repaired [at a less cost than] for 80 _tournois_; item after Easter they will be obliged to buy all the other foodstuffs for the house, save bread, peas and vegetables[1860].

Mention is sometimes made in Rigaud's register of dependent cells attached to some of the houses. St Paul by Rouen was thus attached to Montivilliers, Bourg-de-Saane to St Amand and Ste Austreberte to St Saens.

These cells were doubtless used partly as centres of administration for the more distant estates of the convent, partly as places of recreation or convalescence, where sick nuns could be sent for a change. For instance there were six nuns of Montivilliers at St Paul by Rouen in 1263 and it was noted that there ought to be four, but that two others were there because of illness; the nuns had a lay boarder staying with them and two servants; their income--as a.s.sessed for the t.i.the--was 140 and their debts amounted to 40; they complained that the king's foresters oppressed them by frequently dining at their expense and by unjustly molesting their servants in the forest, although they had usage (i.e. rights of hunting, gathering wood, etc.) there; the Archbishop had no fault to find with them except that they did not sing the service _c.u.m nota_, because there were so few of them, and that they had only a single ma.s.s, the parochial ma.s.s, daily[1861]. It is evident that a close connection was supposed to be kept up between the mother house and the cell, for in 1260 the Abbess of Montivilliers had been ordered to visit them diligently[1862]; and in 1258 Rigaud noted, "Alice prioress of Saint Paul by Rouen was presented to us by the prioress of Montivilliers, she having been elected by the convent of the said place"[1863]. At his first visitation of St Amand in 1248 the Archbishop found that they had a single priory at Saane, where there are four nuns[1864]. In 1261 he ordered the Abbess to visit these nuns at Saane more often than had been her custom and at subsequent visitations he noted the number of nuns (varying from four to five) in residence there[1865]. Ste Austreberte, the daughter cell of St Saens, was hardly more than a grange with a chapel attached. In 1254 Rigaud found that one nun was living there alone and ordered that another should be sent to join her; in 1257 there was still a single inmate, but in 1258 and 1259 the number had been raised to two[1866]. In 1260 the Archbishop decided to recall the inmates to St Saens:

Because truly the place of St Austrebert is very slenderly endowed with rents, so that these two nuns cannot live there conveniently and decently, we ordered the prioress to call them back and forbade her henceforth to send any more thither, on account of the danger[1867].

But now complications arose. Evidently the dependent house had been used for the purpose of getting rid of a quarrelsome nun, for in 1261 Rigaud found that the Prioress had not obeyed his order to recall the two nuns, "because, as she says, Marie d'Eu (_de Augo_) one of these two, was a scold and she feared lest she should upset the whole convent if she returned"[1868]. The order was repeated and was apparently obeyed as far as the ill-tempered Marie was concerned (although there were still two nuns at Ste Austreberte in 1264[1869]), for in 1265 the Archbishop found the whole convent "living in discord and in disorder, especially the prioress and Marie d'Eu"[1870]; he would perhaps have done better to leave her where she was. An echo of her _regime_ at Ste Austreberte was heard in 1265, when Marie d'Eu was ordered to return the chalice of the chapel of Ste Austreberte as quickly as possible and to restore to the Prioress any charter or letters concerning the manor of Ste Austreberte, which she had received from the convent. At the same time the Prioress was ordered to provide the chapel there with a suitable server (_servitore_)[1871].

Mention of visits to the granges or farms of the convents sometimes occurs. At Bondeville in 1251 it was found that "the sisters drank in the granges"[1872] and in 1255 that a lay sister and a lay brother were living alone in a grange (perhaps in the grange of Heaus, mentioned in the inventory), whereupon the Archbishop ordered the sister to be withdrawn or else given a companion[1873]. In 1268 the Abbess of Bival was ordered to remove "a certain child," whom she was having brought up in the grange of Pierremans (which had been so improvidently let to William of the Fishponds twelve years before) and a penance was imposed upon her in 1269 because she had not obeyed the injunction[1874].

So far only the temporal affairs of these Rouen nunneries have been considered; there remains the more important question of their social, moral and spiritual condition. A clearer idea will be formed of the results of Eudes Rigaud's investigations, if the chief sources of complaint be cla.s.sified under the following heads:

(1) Complaints of incompetence and irregular behaviour against the head of a house,

(2) General laxity in keeping the rule,

(3) The sin of property and the failure to live a communal life,

(4) Various attempts to make money by illicit means,

(5) Leave of absence and intercourse with seculars, both within and without the cloister precincts,

(6) Frivolous clothes and amus.e.m.e.nts, and

(7) Serious moral faults, such as drunkenness, quarrelsomeness and incontinence.

(1) Complaints of incompetence, laxity, self-indulgence or favouritism against the head of a house are common in visitation records. The charge of failure to render accounts has already been dealt with, but hardly less usual was the charge of failure to live a communal life. The abbess or prioress of a house had separate apartments and it was always a temptation to dine or to sleep alone, instead of keeping the frater and the dorter.

Again the charges of favouritism on the one hand and of undue harshness on the other were very common. Rigaud's register provides examples of all these faults. At two visitations (1254 and 1257) the Archbishop remarked that the Abbess of St Leger de Preaux did not live a communal life in dorter and frater nor attend the chapter[1875]; the same charge was made against the Prioress of Villarceaux in 1253 and it was mentioned that she did not often get up to matins nor daily hear ma.s.s[1876]; and the Abbess of St Amand did not keep the frater, but ate in her own room and always had the same companions there, instead of calling the others for recreation[1877]. Not all prioresses were, like Chaucer's, "ful plesaunt and amiable of port." The Abbess of Montivilliers seems to have been a forbidding lady; in 1260 the Archbishop ordered her to minister pilches, cloth and other necessary things more carefully than had been her custom to the nuns, not forgetting their ginger "hot i' the mouth"[1878], and also to bear herself more courteously and affably towards their friends particularly in the matter of their admission (on visits); at the same time she was warned to be present in chapel more often and to live the communal life better[1879]. This warning apparently bore no fruit and in 1262 the Archbishop noted, "because she was slow to administer new pilches, headdresses and cloth and other things to the nuns for their needs, we ordered her to labour to minister better and more fitly to them in this matter and to be careful about it"; it was also remarked that she frequented the convent but little and was seldom present at chapter and frater; and she was ordered to render a general account once a year and to hear and receive the particular accounts of the obedientiaries. The next year her failure to frequent chapter, dorter and choir was again noted and some of the nuns still complained of her harshness, whereupon the Archbishop (apparently despairing of inducing her to look after them properly herself), ordered her to depute two or three nuns, "with whom the others could talk more familiarly and more boldly, to minister to their sisters small things for their needs, ginger and other things of the kind"; the quality of the wine was also to be improved. The difficulties, however, continued. In 1265 the Abbess was ordered to provide the nuns more carefully with pilches and in the following year she was again ordered

"prudently to cause the pilches and robes of the nuns to be repaired, so that she may provide them with such things more fitly than she is used and have more workpeople than she has been accustomed to do. For in this," adds the Archbishop, "we found a deficiency"[1879].

Rigaud had a great deal of difficulty with the Prioress of Bondeville. In 1251 there were many complaints against her; she exercised favouritism in the distribution of clothes and in the provision of food in the infirmary and she did not look after the sick; when in the infirmary she ate at a table by herself and she did not live a communal life; she wandered about a great deal outside the convent, even without the excuse of convent business, and when she went to Rouen she stayed there for three or four days; moreover she was quarrelsome and stirred up discord in the house "so that she could not have peace with the convent nor with anyone." The next year she resigned, probably as a result of these complaints and of the financial condition of the house, but in 1255 the register has an entry: "We found the Prioress quarrelsome and sharp of tongue, not knowing how to make corrections and also speaking ill of her sisters; we warned her to desist from these things"; so that her resignation had evidently not been accepted. In 1257 she made another attempt at resignation, and the occasion is interesting because it provides us not only with an inventory of Bondeville, but also with the sole complete list of inmates preserved among the Rouen nunneries[1880]. The Archbishop decided to take an inquisition in the convent as to whether the Prioress should or should not be removed; and the votes of the twenty-six nuns and three brothers of the house were taken upon oath. Of these nineteen were in favour of her removal and nine of her retention, while Brother Roger permitted himself to express the ambiguous opinion that "it would be evil for temporal affairs and good for spiritual affairs to remove the prioress" (_quod dampnum esset temporale et utilitas spiritualis removere priorissam_!)[1881]. It is not clear from the Register whether she was removed; Rigaud notes: "Item we received the resignation of Marie, late the prioress," but in 1261 there occurs a further entry: "Item the Prioress offered us her seal, begging us to absolve her from her office, but we, being unwilling to condescend to her in this matter, ordered her to exercise her office with greater zeal." In particular she was ordered "to frequent the convent at least by day (viz. chapter, frater and choir) better than she was wont and not to stand about talking in the cemetery or outside the house after Compline, as she had been in the habit of doing"[1882]. At Bival an abbess resigned in 1248, doubtless owing to the unsatisfactory moral conditions revealed at the visitation[1883]; there were no complaints against her successor until 1268 (though two cases of immorality occurred in the convent before that date); then, among minor injunctions concerning matters of administration, she was ordered to bear herself more kindly and courteously towards the nuns[1884].

(2) Besides injunctions dealing specially with the behaviour of the head of a house, the Archbishop was obliged to deal with breaches of the rule by the convent generally. Many of his regulations were concerned with the strictly religious duties of the nuns. Sometimes the church services were not being properly performed, as at St Amand, St Aubin, Villarceaux, St Saens and Montivilliers. The most common defect was failure to sing these services with music (_c.u.m nota_ or _ad notam_)[1885]; at St Saens (a constant offender--Rigaud notes the fault at eight visitations) the nuns did not do so even on Sundays[1886]. Occasionally a specific excuse was given; the nuns of Villarceaux omitted the music on the days upon which they received the periodical bleeding considered necessary to the health of those who embraced the monastic life[1887]; at St Aubin in 1264 they complained that many of them were often ill[1888] and at St Saens also (in 1257) they dwelt upon their infirmities[1889]. At St Paul's by Rouen they were too few in number to perform the service properly[1890]. The Archbishop contented himself at St Aubin (1251) with the injunction that they should sing at least in monotone--_saltem c.u.m ba.s.sa nota_[1891].

Moreover even when the nuns did sing the services they occasionally did so carelessly. At St Amand the Archbishop made a significant injunction:

They sometimes sing the hours of the Blessed Virgin and the psalms of suffrage with too great haste and precipitation of words. We ordered them to sing in such a way that the side [of the choir] singing the first half of the verse should hear the end of the preceding verse and the side singing the second half should hear the beginning of the next verse[1892].

Evidently both sides of the choir came in too soon in their anxiety to hurry through the service--a clear case for Tuttivillus. At Montivilliers the fault lay in beginning too late and Rigaud ordered that better provision should be made for ringing a bell at the due hours, so that the service might be said without haste and finished while it was light (_de luce_)[1893]. At Villarceaux he ordered that all the nuns should at once a.s.semble in the church when the bell rang, unless they were ill or had special leave of absence[1894]. Even at the great abbey of Caen the service was being said "_confuse et male_, one part in the choir and one outside"[1895]. At St Amand (1263), which evidently contained young and obstreperous--or perhaps only ignorant--members, it was ordered that the nuns should be equally divided in the choir, so that all the young ones might not be together[1896]. At St Saens (1254) a nun served the ma.s.s with the priest; and at Bondeville (1263) the nuns had not the necessary priests and did not hear enough sermons[1897]. St Aubin apparently shared the parish priest; there were only fifteen parishioners (most of them doubtless dependents of the nunnery) and the priest dwelt with the nuns and was maintained at their expense; in 1257 the Archbishop ordered them to find a clerk to a.s.sist him[1898]. The nuns of St Paul's heard only one ma.s.s--that of the parish--daily[1899]. Sometimes deficiencies in the services may have been due to lack of books. At St Sauveur d'Evreux, in 1258, it was found that the nuns did not possess adequate books and they were ordered to procure some[1900]; at Villarceaux in 1257 they lacked two antiphonaries and in 1261 it was again noted that their books were insufficient and worn out[1901]. At Montivilliers the Archbishop in 1260 ordered the chantress to have an ordinal of the hours made at the Abbess'

cost; this had not yet been done in 1262 and from Rigaud's injunction on this occasion it appears that the nuns were expected to write the book themselves, for the ordinal was "to be made by the chantress and by the more discreet nuns, i.e. by the older ones who knew and understood better the service of the order." At the same house reference was made three years later to a certain glossed psalter which had been bequeathed to it by a benefactor, and had been alienated without the knowledge of the convent; the Abbess was told to have it restored without delay and replied "that she could do so easily enough, because Master William de Beaumont had it"[1902].

Another common fault was negligence in the matter of confession and communion. Sometimes a house had a fixed rule as to the number of times the nuns had to confess and communicate. At Bival, for example, the nuns seem to have attended communion seven times a year, though they confessed more often[1903]. At Villarceaux they confessed and communicated six times a year[1904]. At St Aubin the Archbishop noted that they were bound to confess and to communicate seven times a year, but that they had sometimes been negligent in the matter; they gave an inadequate excuse, and Rigaud ordered them on no account to be absent from communion and warned the Prioress to consider any such absence without due cause as a serious fault[1905]. At St Leger de Preaux in 1249 he found that the nuns confessed and communicated only four times a year and ordered them to do so monthly[1906]. At Montivilliers[1907] and at Bondeville[1908] they were supposed to confess and to communicate monthly, but at the latter house he found them negligent in 1261, and ordered that the nun who did not communicate with the others or within the next two or three days was to be punished by abstention from wine and pottage for three days[1909]. The Archbishop's usual custom was to order monthly confession and communion[1910]. Sometimes there seems to have been some difficulty about getting a confessor; at Almeneches (where, in 1250, the nuns had no rule or term for confession or communion[1911]) it was found in 1260 that they were in the habit of confessing to pa.s.sing friars when they wished to do so, and Rigaud ordered the Bishop to provide them with regular confessors, friars minor or others[1912]. At St Saens in 1261 they had not had a confessor for a long time and were ordered to procure the Prior of Crissy[1913], but in 1265 the Archbishop still found that they did not go to confession as well as they should[1914]. At Ariete the nuns did not all confess to their own priest[1915].

Other minor faults were late rising[1916], breach of silence[1917] and laxity in causing novices to make their profession[1918]. At Villarceaux in 1249 only four out of the twenty-three nuns had been properly professed[1919]. The Archbishop ordered the vows to be taken when the novices reached the age of fourteen years[1920]; this was not to be done before[1921] and if any refused to do so at the appointed age they were to be sent back to the world[1922]; he also ordered in several cases that only the three vows of poverty, chast.i.ty and obedience should be taken[1923].

Another set of injunctions is concerned with the conduct of the frater, the infirmary and the chapter house. The Archbishop dealt with the observances of the frater from the point of view of the communal life, from that of the food eaten by the nuns and from that of almsgiving. The growing practice among the nuns of dining separately in their rooms or in little cliques, instead of keeping the frater, was a menace to a strictly communal life, and as such will be considered later, with other practices which tended in the same direction. Here it may be noted that already in the thirteenth century the regulations of the monastic rule as to diet were being contravened. Many convents were convicted of eating meat unnecessarily, _etiam sane_, "even when in good health"[1924], and it was becoming the custom--in Rigaud's diocese as elsewhere--to use the infirmary as a _misericord_, in which meat was eaten on certain days of the week, generally thrice a week[1925]. Sometimes even fast days were not regularly kept[1926]. Another breach of the rule frequently encountered by the Archbishop was inadequate almsgiving. The nuns were supposed to give alms regularly to the poor and in particular to give them the food which remained over from the convent meals; but in view of the poverty of some of the houses it is not surprising that the rule was sometimes un.o.bserved.

Very often the nuns, instead of collecting the fragments left over in frater and infirmary, each kept what remained of her own share and sold it or gave it away to people outside the convent. St Amand was a constant offender; in 1248 the Archbishop had occasion to forbid the unequal distribution of wine to the nuns "to one more and to another less," and he added that if any of them gave away any part of her measure of wine to anyone outside the house without licence she was to be punished by being deprived of wine the next day[1927]; in 1251 he enjoined that no nun was to put forth any of her food save in the way of alms[1928]; but some thirteen years later St Amand (doubtless on account of its poverty) was still remiss in the matter of almsgiving and Rigaud warned the nuns separately that it must not be diminished and that everything left over from meals must be given to the poor[1929]. At St Saens it was discovered that the nuns had separate portions of bread allotted to them and that the fragments were never given in alms, because each either sold or gave away these fragments as she pleased[1930]. At Montivilliers almsgiving was diminished because the nuns gave away the remnants of the portions of bread, wine and other food to "serving maids and other acquaintances"[1931]; and at Villarceaux and Bival also it was necessary to warn the nuns not to give away or sell any of their clothes or food[1932]. The practice was the more reprehensible in the Archbishop's eyes in that it savoured of the private ownership of property. Rigaud made general orders for the increase of almsgiving and for the more careful collection of food after meals in the frater and in the infirmary[1933].

Sometimes the custom of a house prescribed special obligations; the Abbess of Montivilliers was required to give alms thrice a week and to entertain thirteen poor men daily[1934]. Sometimes the revenues of a special manor or rent were earmarked for the expenses of almsgiving; the recalcitrant St Amand was found to have abstracted the rents of a certain manor from the almoness and was ordered to restore them to their proper purpose[1935].

Other departments of the convent of which mention is made in Rigaud's Register are the infirmary and the chapter house. At Montivilliers the Archbishop, in 1262, ordered the infirmary to be repaired and the convent to be provided with physic[1936]; and at Bondeville, St Sauveur and St Amand he was obliged to order that sick nuns should be better looked after[1937]. There are some interesting notes about the meetings of the chapter in various houses. At several (Bondeville, St Saens and Villarceaux) the Archbishop found that the chapter was seldom held[1938].

At others the duty inc.u.mbent upon the nuns to accuse or proclaim (_clamare_) each other's faults was imperfectly performed. There was a most natural reluctance on the part of the elder nuns to allow the indiscriminate criticism of their juniors and a tendency to keep the latter in their place by allowing them only to be accused and never to retaliate. At Caen (1250) the Archbishop found that none made the statutory accusations save certain nuns who were deputed to reveal the faults of the younger ones[1939] and at St Amand also only the elder nuns made accusations, and he ordered that all without exception should reveal what they saw amiss[1940]. At Montivilliers the same complaint that the nuns refrained from accusing each other was made[1941]. From one point of view this imperfect performance of their duty in chapter meant that the nuns were winking at each other's peccadilloes, and it was for the sake of discipline that the Archbishop insisted upon a more strict obedience to the rule. From another point of view the obligation certainly gave rise to much ill-feeling; the author of the _Ancren Riwle_ placed "Exposing faults" and "Backbiting" among the brood of seven, offspring of "the venomous serpent of h.e.l.l, Envy"; for human nature would need to be very perfect if the accusations were always to be made in the spirit of sisterly admonition, "sweetly and affectionately," which the same treatise describes so eloquently a few pages later[1942]. It is significant that the Abbess of Montivilliers had to be warned in no way to molest one of her nuns, nor to conceive rancour against her on account of anything that she said in chapter[1943].

Finally the Archbishop sometimes found fault with the management of the secular servants and of the lay brothers and sisters attached to different houses. It was his custom to note the number of maidservants (_ancille_, _pedissece_) employed and to reprove the nuns if he thought that they were employing too many, or falling into the sin of property by keeping certain maids in the service of individual nuns, as they did at Almeneches in 1255[1944], at St Leger de Preaux in 1267[1945] and at St Sauveur in 1269; at the last house he noted:

The convent had three common maids and several special maids were kept at the cost of the house; so we ordered that there were henceforth to be no special maids, but that if necessary the number of common maids might be increased[1946].

At St Amand he twice ordered the removal of all superfluous servants, adding in 1267 that all were to be paid at a fixed rate out of the common funds[1947]. At St Aubin in 1265 he found two servants, one of whom was incontinent and of ill repute (little wonder, considering the evil morals of the nuns) and he ordered her instant expulsion[1948]. Of the lay sisters attached to some of the houses there is less mention; in 1259 Rigaud noted that two of those at Bondeville were of weak intellect (_fatue_)[1949]. There was sometimes trouble with the lay brothers; at Bondeville (1251) he made a list of corrections for them[1950] and in 1259 a certain brother Roger (doubtless the same whose dark saying about the Prioress has already been recorded) was announced to be disobedient and rebellious, and the injunction that he should obey the Prioress had to be repeated in 1268, nearly ten years later[1951]. There was occasionally also need for correction in the behaviour of the convent priest, for it is clear that an unsuitable chaplain might give great cause for scandal. The not very reputable houses of St Saens and Bival both suffered in this way; in 1254 the Archbishop found that the priest of the former house was incontinent and ordered the nuns to find another[1952]; and in 1256, at Bival, he noted: "We removed the priest from this place on account of the scandal of the nuns and of the populace, though we found nothing which we could prove against him"[1953]. At St Aubin in 1261 the nuns were ordered not to drink with seculars in the priest's house[1954].

(3) The most frequent fault which Eudes Rigaud found in the nunneries under his care was the persistent hankering of the nuns after private property and their failure to live a communal life according to the rule.

The possession of private property was a very common charge. The nuns had chests in which to keep such possessions as they were allowed and there was a perpetual struggle over the question as to whether or not they were to be allowed keys, with which to lock the boxes. The nuns of Montivilliers begged for keys in 1257 and the stern Rigaud refused[1955]; of this refusal they took not the smallest notice, and in 1262 the Register contains the injunction that keys were to be given up and that those who were unwilling to obey were to be severely punished; "for,"

added the Archbishop,

We understood that when the abbess asked them for their keys certain of them would not give the keys up for two or three days, until they should have gone through their things and taken away those which they did not want the Abbess to see, and so we ordered these nuns to be punished for disobedience and for the ownership of property[1956].

The injunction that the boxes should be inspected frequently was repeated at three subsequent visitations[1957]. It was the Archbishop's usual custom to order the Abbess or Prioress to look into the nuns' boxes often and unexpectedly in order to remove private property, and the injunction was repeated from year to year, which looks as though it were greatly honoured in the breach[1958]. Besides the injunction against closed boxes there was an oft-repeated injunction to the effect that, in accordance with the rule[1959], no nun was to have more than one set of garments; directly new clothes were given out the old ones were to be handed back (and given to the poor), so that no nun might rejoice in the semblance of a wardrobe[1960]. At St Amand in 1264 the Archbishop made the following note of his action:

Item we ordered them that when they received new pilches, shifts and any sort of new garments or foot-wear (_calciamentorum_), they were to give the old in alms, whereat they murmured somewhat to our displeasure, and we forbade the abbess to give them any new clothes until they had rendered up the old[1961].

It appears from an injunction given at St Sauveur in 1258[1962] that the nuns sometimes sold or gave away their old clothes as they did with the remains of their portions of food and drink; in both cases the sin of property was encouraged and almsgiving diminished. Rigaud made the most comprehensive injunction on these points at Villarceaux in 1249:

We warn you, all and sundry, that ye observe the communism which ought to be observed in religion in the matter of clothes, food and other like things, neither sell nor give away at your own will any of those things which belong to the common food or dress; and if ye shall have received anything from your friends, ye shall apply it to the use of the community and not each to your own use[1963].

In one case at least, that of Bival, the practice (which afterwards became common) of giving each of the nuns a separate allowance with which to buy her own clothes or food was already in force; the Abbess of Bival gave to each an annual sum of 12_s._ out of which to buy her clothes[1964]. At Montivilliers Rigaud ordered the nuns to be clothed in common[1965] and at St Aubin he made a special injunction that they were to use their scapularies in common[1966].

But the sin of property crept into convents in every direction and was most difficult of all to eradicate. At Almeneches in 1250 Rigaud noted: "All are _proprietarie_, owning saucepans, copper kettles and necklaces of their own"[1967]. At St Aubin in 1265 there is the entry:

Because divers of the nuns have divers c.o.c.ks and hens and often quarrel over them, we ordered that all c.o.c.ks and hens were to be nourished alike and to be kept in common and the eggs ministered equally among the nuns and fowls sometimes given to the sick to eat in the infirmary[1968].