Medieval English Nunneries c. 1275 to 1535 Part 6

soc, sac, infangentheof, outfangentheof, waif, estray, treasure-trove, wreck of the sea, deodands, chattels of felons and fugitives, of outlaws, of waive, of persons condemned, of felons of themselves [suicides], escapes of felons, year day waste and estrepement and all other commodities, forfeitures and profits whatsoever.

They had the right to erect gallows, pillory and tumbrel for the punishment of malefactors. They even had

all issues and amercements, redemptions and forfeitures as well before our [the king's] heirs and successors, as before the chancellor, treasurer and barons of our exchequer, the justices and commissioners of us, our heirs or successors whomsoever, made, forfeited or adjudged ... of all the people ... in the lordships, lands, tenements, fees and possessions aforesaid[284].

In the eyes of the middle ages justice had one outstanding characteristic: it filled the pocket of whoever administered it. "Just.i.tia magnum emolumentum est," as the phrase went. All the manifold perquisites of justice, whether administered in her own or in the royal courts, went to the abbess of Syon if any of her own tenants were concerned. It is no wonder that out of a total income of 1944. 11_s._ 5-1/4_d._ the substantial sum of 133. 0_s._ 6_d._ was derived from perquisites of courts[285].

Few houses possessed such wholesale exemption from royal justice, but all possessed their manorial courts, at which tenants paid their heriots in money or in kind as a death-duty to the lord, or their fines on entering upon land, and at which justice was done and offenders amerced (or fined as we should now call it). Most houses possessed the right to hold the a.s.size of bread and ale and to fine alewives who overcharged or gave short measure. Some possessed the right to seize the chattels of fugitives, and the abbess of Wherwell was once involved in a law suit over this liberty, which she held in the hundred of Mestowe and which was disputed by the crown officials. One Henry Harold of Wherwell had killed his wife Isabel and fled to the church of Wherwell and the Abbess had seized his chattels to the value of 35. 4_s._ 8_d._ by the hands of her reeve[286]. A less usual privilege was that of the Abbess of Marham, who possessed the right of proving the wills of those who died within the precincts or jurisdiction of the house[287]. The courts at which these liberties were exercised were held by the steward of the nunnery, who went from manor to manor to preside at their sittings; but sometimes the head of the house herself would accompany him. Christian Ba.s.sett, the energetic Prioress of Delapre (St Albans), not content with journeying up to London for a lawsuit, went twice to preside at her court at Wing[288].

In rather a different cla.s.s from grants of jurisdictional liberties were special grants of free warren, felling of wood and fairs. Monasteries which possessed lands within the bounds of a royal forest were not allowed to take game or to cut down wood there without a special licence from the crown; but such grants to exercise "free warren" (i.e. take game) and to fell wood were often granted in perpetuity, as an act of piety by the king, or for special purposes. The Abbess of Syon had free warren in all her possessions, and in 1489 it was recorded that the Abbess of Barking had free chase within the bailiwick of Hainault to hunt all beasts of the forest in season, except deer, and free chase within the forest and without to hunt hares and rabbits and fox, badger, cat and other vermin[289]. Grants of wood were more often made on special occasions; thus in 1277 the keeper of the forest of Ess.e.x was ordered to permit the Abbess of Barking and her men to fell oak-trees and oak-trunks in her demesne woods within the forest to the value of 40[290], while in 1299 the Abbess of Wilton was given leave to fell sixty oaks in her own wood within the bounds of the forest of Savernake, in order to rebuild some of her houses, which had been burnt down[291]. The grant of fairs and markets was even more common and more lucrative, for the convent profited not only from the rents of booths and from the entrance-tolls, but not infrequently from setting up a stall of its own, for the sale of spices and other produce[292]. Henry III granted the nuns of Catesby a weekly market every Monday within their manor of Catesby and a yearly fair for three days in the same place; and almost any monastic chartulary will provide other instances of such rights[293].

The majority of the special perquisites which have been described would originate in special grants from the Crown; but it must be remembered that every manorial lord could count on certain perquisites _ex officio_, for which no specific grant was required. For his manor provided him with more than agricultural produce on the one hand and rents and farms on the other. Through the manor court he also received certain payments due to him from all free and unfree tenants, in particular those connected with the transfer of land, the heriot and the fines already mentioned. From unfree tenants he could also claim various other dues, the mark of their status; merchet, when their daughters married off the estate, leyrwite, when they enjoyed themselves without the intermediary of that important ceremony, a fine when they wished to send their sons to school and a number of other customary payments, exacted at the manor court and varying slightly from manor to manor. Moreover the tolls from the water- or wind-mill at which villeins had to grind their corn all went to swell the purse of the lord[294]. This is not the place for a detailed description of manorial rights, which can be studied in any text-book of economic history[295]; a word must, however, be said about the mortuary system, which did not a little to enrich the medieval church.

When a peasant died the lord of the manor had often the right to claim his best animal or garment as a mortuary or heriot, and by degrees there grew up a similar claim to his second best possession on the part of the parish priest.

"It was presumed," says Mr Coulton, "that the dead man must have failed to some extent in due payment of t.i.thes during his lifetime and that a gift of his second best possession to the Church would therefore be most salutary to his soul"[296].

From these claims, partly manorial and partly ecclesiastical, religious houses benefited very greatly, and their accounts sometimes mention mortuary payments. The Prioress of Catesby in the year 1414-15 records how her live stock was enriched by one horse, one mare and two cows coming as heriots, while she received a payment of 20_s._ for two oxen coming as heriot of Richard Sheperd[297]. In the chartulary of Marham is recorded a mortuary list of sixteen people, who died within the jurisdiction of the house, and the mortuaries vary from a sorrel horse and a book to numerous gowns and mantles[298]. The system was obviously capable of great abuse, and Mr Coulton considers that it did much to precipitate the Reformation, for the unhappy peasant resented more and more bitterly the greed of the church, which chose his hour of sorrow to wrest from him the best of his poor possessions; it must have seemed hard to him that his horse or his ox should be driven away, if he could not buy it back, to the well-stocked farm of a community which was vowed to poverty, far harder than if his lord were a layman, as free as he was himself to acc.u.mulate possessions without soiling the soul. When the parish priest followed the convent with a claim upon what was best, his despair must have grown deeper and his resentment more bitter. It was often difficult to collect these payments, just as it was often difficult to collect t.i.thes, even when a priest was less loth to curse for them than Chaucer's poor parson. Vicars were obliged to sue their wretched parishioners in the ecclesiastical courts, and monasteries were sometimes fain to commute such payments for an annual rent, collected by the tenants[299]. But the best ecclesiastics recognised that the system was somewhat out of keeping with Christian charity.

Caesarius of Heisterbach has a story of Ulrich, the good head of the monastery of Steinfeld, who one day

came to one of his granges, wherein, seeing a comely foal, he enquired of the [lay] brother whose it was or whence it came. To whom the brother answered, "such and such a man, our good and faithful friend, left it to us at his death." "By pure devotion," asked the provost, "or by legal compulsion?" "It came through his death," answered the other, "for his wife, since he was one of our serfs, offered it as a heriot." Then the provost shook his head and piously answered: "Because he was a good man and our faithful friend, therefore hast thou despoiled his wife. Render therefore her horse to this forlorn woman; for it is robbery to seize or detain other men's goods, since the horse was not thine before [the man's death]"[300].

(3) _Issues of the manor._ Before pa.s.sing on to sources of income of a more specifically ecclesiastical character, some account must be given of the third great cla.s.s of receipts which came to a convent in its capacity of landowner, to wit the "issues of the manor." Attached to almost every nunnery was its home farm, which provided the nuns with the greater part of their food[301]. A large nunnery would thus reserve for its own use several manors and granges, but usually other manors in its possession would be farmed by bailiffs, who sold the produce at market and paid in the profits to the treasuress or to one of the obedientiaries; or else a manor would be leased to a tenant. The surplus produce of the home farm, which could not be used by the nuns, was also sold. The treasuress usually entered the receipts and expenditure of the home farm in her household account and she had to keep two sets of records, the one a careful account of all the animals and agricultural produce on the farm, with details as to the use made of them; and the other (under the heading of "issues of the manor") a money record of the sums obtained from sales of live stock, wool or grain. An a.n.a.lysis of the produce of the home farm of Catesby (1414-5)[302] shows that the chief crops grown were wheat and barley. Of these a certain proportion was kept for seed to sow the new crops; almost all the rest of the wheat was paid in food allowances to the servants and 1 qr. 3 bushels in alms "to friars of the four orders and other poor"; most of the barley was malted, except 6 qrs. delivered to the swineherd to feed hogs; and what remained was stored in the granaries of the convent.

Oats and peas were also grown and part of the crop used for seed, part for food-allowances to the servants and oatmeal for the nuns. The Prioress also kept a most meticulous account of the livestock on her farm. All were numbered and cla.s.sified, cart-horses, brood-mares, colts, foals, oxen, bulls, cows, stirks (three-year old), two-year old, yearlings, calves, sheep, wethers, hogerells, lambs, hogs, boars, sows, hilts, hogsters and pigs. In each cla.s.s it was carefully set down how many animals remained in stock at the end of the year and what had been done with the others. We know something of the consumption of meat by the nuns of Catesby and their servants in this year of grace 1414-5, when the old rule against the eating of meat was relaxed; and we see something of the cares of a medieval housewife in those days before root-crops were known, when the number of animals which could be kept alive during the winter was strictly limited by the amount of hay produced on the valuable meadow land. Only in summer could the convent have fresh meat; and on St Martin's day (Nov. 11) the business of killing and salting the rest of the stock for winter food began[303]. From good Dame Elizabeth Swynford's account it appears that five oxen, one stirk, thirty hogs and one boar were delivered to the larderer to be salted; in summer time, when the convent could enjoy fresh meat, five calves, fourteen sheep, ten hogs and twelve pigs were sent in to the kitchen; and twenty cows were divided between the larder and the kitchen, to provide salt and fresh beef. There is unfortunately no record of the produce of the dairy, which supplied the convent with milk, cheese, eggs and occasional chickens.

But the home-farm served the purpose of providing money as well as food.

The hides of the oxen and the "wool pells" of the sheep, which had been killed for food or had fallen victim to that curse of medieval farming, the murrain, were by no means wasted. Five hides belonging to animals which had died of murrain were tanned and used for collars and other cart gear on the farm; but all the rest were sold, thirty-six of them in all.

Most lucrative of all, however, was the sale of wool pells and wool, and Dame Elizabeth Swynford is very exact; eighteen wool pells, from sheep which the convent had eaten as mutton, sold before shearing for 35_s._ 10_d._, thirty-eight sold after shearing for 9_s._ 6_d._, thirty-six lamb skins for 1_s._; and 6_d._ was received "for wynter lokes sold." Moreover the convent also sold one sack and eight weight of wool at 5. 4_s._ the sack, for a total of 6. 16_s._ Altogether the "issues of the manor"

amounted to the substantial sum of 24. 8_s._ 8_d._, chiefly derived from these sales of wool and wool pells and from the sale of some timber for 6. 13_s._ 4_d._[304] These details about wool are interesting, for it is well known that the monastic houses of England, especially in the northern counties, were great sheep farmers. Most accounts mention this important source of revenue and in the series of rolls kept by the treasuresses of St Michael's Stamford, it is regularly entered under the heading "Fermes, dismes, leynes et pensions," a somewhat miscellaneous cla.s.sification[305].

In the thirteenth-century _Pratica della Mercatura_ of Francesco Pergolotti there is incorporated a list of monasteries which sell wool, compiled for the use of Italian wool merchants and giving the prices per sack of the different qualities of wool at each house. The list contains a section specially devoted to nunneries, in which twenty houses are mentioned, all but two of them in Lincolnshire or Yorkshire[306]. Armed with this information the Italians would journey from nunnery to nunnery and bargain with the nuns for their wool: the whole crop would sometimes be commissioned by them in advance, sold on the backs of the sheep. The English distrusted these dark smooth-spoken foreigners; many years later the author of the _Libel of English Policie_ charged them with dishonest practices and complained of the freedom with which they were allowed to buy in England:

In Cotteswold also they ride about, And all England, and buy withouten doubte What them list with freedome and franchise, More than we English may gitten many wise[307].

But it must have been a great day for the impoverished nuns of Yorkshire when slim Italian or stout Fleming came riding down the dales under a spring sun to bargain for their wool crop. What a bustling hither and thither there would be, and what a confabulation in the parlour between my lady Prioress and her steward and her chaplain and the stranger sitting opposite to them and speaking his reasons "ful solempnely." What a careful distinguishing of the best and the medium and the worst kind of wool, which the Italian calls _buona lana_ and _mojano lana_ and _locchi_. What a haggling over the price, which varies from nunnery to nunnery, but always allows the merchant to sell at a good profit in the markets of Flanders and Italy. What sighs of relief when the stranger trots off again, sitting high on his horse and taking with him a silken purse, or a blood-band or a pair of gloves in "courtesy" from the nuns. What blessings on the black-faced sheep, when the sorely-needed silver is locked up in the treasury chest and debts begin to look less terrible, leaking roofs less incurable, pittances less few and far between.

(4) _Miscellaneous payments._ A last source of temporal revenue consisted in the sums paid for board and lodging by visitors, regular boarders and schoolchildren. Though such visitors were frowned at by bishops as subversive of discipline, the nuns welcomed their contributions to the lean income of the convent, and in most nunnery accounts payments by boarders will be found among other miscellaneous receipts.

(5) _Spiritualities._ In the revenues which have hitherto been considered, the monastic rent-rolls differed in no way from those of any lay owner of land. The source of revenue now to be distinguished was more specifically ecclesiastical. All monasteries derived a more or less large income from certain grants made to them in their capacity as religious houses. Most important of these was the appropriation of benefices to their use. When a church was appropriated to a monastery, the monastery was usually supposed to put in a vicar at a fixed stipend to serve the parish, and the great t.i.thes (which would otherwise have supported a rector) were taken by the corporation. Sometimes half a church was so appropriated and half the t.i.thes were taken. The practice of appropriating churches was widespread; not only the king and other lay patrons, but also the bishops used this means of enriching religious bodies and the favourite pet.i.tion of an impecunious convent was for permission to appropriate a church[308]. Over and over again the gift of the advowson of a church to a monastery is followed by appropriation[309]. The permission of the bishop of the diocese and of the pope was necessary for the transaction, but it seems rarely to have been refused; and

it has been calculated that at least a third part of the t.i.thes of the richest benefices in England were appropriated either in part or wholly to religious and secular bodies, such as colleges, military orders, lay hospitals, guilds, convents; even deans, cantors, treasurers and chancellors of cathedral bodies were also largely endowed with rectorial t.i.thes[310].

The practice of appropriation became a very serious abuse, for not all monasteries were conscientious in performing their duties to the parishes from which they derived such a large income, and ignorant and underpaid vicars often enough left their sheep enc.u.mbered in the mire, or swelled with their misery and discontent the democratic revolution known by the too narrow name of the Peasants' Revolt[311]. Moreover there is no doubt that sometimes the monks and nuns neglected even the obvious duty of putting in a vicar, and the hungry sheep looked up and were not fed. The _Valor Ecclesiasticus_ throws an interesting light on this subject. The nuns of Elstow Abbey held no less than eleven rectories, from which they derived 157. 6_s._ 8_d._, but they paid stipends to four vicars only, and the total of the four was 6. 6_s._ 8_d._[312] The nuns of Westwood received 12. 12_s._ 10_d._ from two rectories and paid to a deacon in one of them 11_s._ 4_d._[313] The Minoresses without Aldgate held four rectories; from that of Potton (Beds.) they received 16. 6_s._ 8_d._ and paid the vicar 2; from that of Kessingland, Suffolk, 9 and paid the vicar 2. 4_s._ 4_d._[314] Another very common practice which cannot have conduced to the welfare of the parishioners was that of farming out the proceeds of appropriated churches, just as manors were farmed out. The farmer paid the nuns a lump sum annually and took the proceeds of the t.i.thes. The purpose of such an arrangement was convenience, since it saved the convent the trouble of collecting the revenues and t.i.thes. It was open to objection from all points of view; for on the one hand the nuns might, and often did, make bad bargains, and on the other they were still less likely to care for the spiritual welfare of the unfortunate parishioners, whose souls were to all intents and purposes farmed out with their t.i.thes; though the payment of a vicar was sometimes made by the nuns or stipulated for in the agreement with the farmer. The _Valor Ecclesiasticus_ gives the total spiritual revenue of the 84 nunneries holding spiritualities as 2705. 17_s._ 5_d._ and of this sum spiritualities to the value of 1075.

0_s._ 6_d._, belonging to 33 houses were entered as being at farm[315].

Account rolls often throw a flood of light upon the income derived from appropriated churches. To the nuns of St Michael's Stamford had been a.s.signed by various abbots of Peterborough the churches of St Martin, St Clement, All Souls, St Andrew and Thurlby, and in the reign of Henry II two pious ladies gave them the moieties of the church of Corby and chapel of Upton[316]. Moreover in 1354, after the little nunnery of Wothorpe had been ruined by the Black Death, all its possessions were handed over to St Michael's and included the appropriation of the church of Wothorpe; the bishop stipulated that the proceeds of the priory with the rectory should be applied to the support of the infirmary and kitchen of St Michael's and that the nuns should keep a chaplain to serve the parish church of Wothorpe[317]. Corby and Thurlby were afterwards farmed out by the nuns[318] and in 1377-8 they brought in 19 and 20 respectively, while the nuns got 26. 0_s._ 8_d._ from "the church of All Saints beyond the water," 1. 13_s._ 4_d._ from the parson of Cottesmore and a pension of 6_s._ 8_d._ from the church of St Martin. They paid the vicar of Wothorpe a stipend of 2 a year[319]. Over half their income was usually derived from "farms, t.i.thes and pensions," i.e. from ecclesiastical sources of revenue.

It was also very common to make grants of t.i.thes out of piety to a monastery, even when a grant of the advowson of the church was not made. A lord would make over to it the t.i.thes of wheat, or a portion of the t.i.thes, in certain parishes, or perhaps the t.i.thes of his own demesne land. Sometimes the rector of a parish would pay the monks or nuns an annual rent in commutation of their t.i.thes; sometimes he would dispute their claim and the tedious altercation would drag on for years, ending perhaps in the expense of a law-suit[320]. Besides advowsons and t.i.thes various other pensions and payments were bestowed upon religious houses by benefactors, who would leave an annual pension to a monastery as a charge upon a particular piece of land, or church, or upon another monastery[321].

Another "spiritual" source of revenue consisted in alms and gifts given to the nuns as a work of piety. Sometimes a nunnery possessed a famous relic, and the faithful who visited it showed their devotion by leaving a gift at the shrine. The _Valor_ sometimes gives very interesting information about these cherished possessions, described under the unkind heading _Superst.i.tio_. The Yorkshire nuns possessed among them a great variety of relics, some of them having the most incongruous virtues. At Sinningthwaite was to be found the arm of St Margaret and the tunic of St Bernard "believed to be good for women lying in"[322], at Arden was an image of St Bride, to which women made offerings for cows that had strayed or were ill. The nuns of Arthington had a girdle of the Virgin and the nuns of St Clement's York and Basedale both had some of her milk; at St Clement's pilgrimages were made to the obscure but popular St Syth[323]. In other parts of the country it was the same. St Edmund's altar in the conventual church of Catesby was a place of pilgrimage, for he had bequeathed his pall and a silver tablet to his sister Margaret Rich, prioress there[324]; and in 1400 Boniface IX granted an indult to the Abbess of Barking to have ma.s.s and the other divine offices celebrated in an oratory called "Rodlofte" (rood-loft), in which was preserved a cross to which many people resorted[325]. The nuns of St Michael's Stamford not infrequently record sums received from a pardon held at one of their churches, and almost every year they received sums of money in exchange for their prayers for the souls of the dead. "Almes et aventures," souls and chance payments, was a regular heading in their account roll, and the name of the person for whose soul they were to pray was entered opposite the money received. Miscellaneous alms from the faithful were always a source of revenue, though necessarily a fluctuating source[326].

Such were the chief sources from which a medieval nunnery derived its income. We must now consider the chief expenses which the nuns had to meet out of that income. It has already been shown that the total income of a nunnery was paid into the hands of the treasuress or treasuresses, save when the office of treasuress was filled by the head of the house, or when a male _custos_ was appointed by the bishop to undertake the business. It has also been shown that the treasuress paid out certain sums to the chief obedientiaries (notably to the cellaress), to whose use certain sources of income were indeed sometimes earmarked, and that these obedientiaries kept their separate accounts. The majority of nunnery accounts which have survived are, however, treasuresses' accounts; that is to say they represent the general balance sheet at the end of the year, including all the chief items of income and expenditure. The different houses adopt, as is natural, different methods of cla.s.sifying their expenses[327]. The great abbey of Romsey cla.s.sifies thus: (1) _The Convent_, including sums for clothing, for the kitchen expenses and for pittances, amounting in all to 105. 17_s._ 10_d._ (2) _The Abbess_, who kept her separate household in state; this includes provisions for herself and for her household and divers of their expenses, a sum of 8. 12_s._ in gifts, a sum in liveries for the household and spices for the guest-house and a sum in servants'

wages, amounting to 108. 17_s._ in all. (3) _Divers outside expenses_, including repairs of houses belonging to the Romsey mills, a sum for legal pleas, another for annuities to the convent and to the king's clerks, who had stalls in the abbey, over 40 in royal taxes and 1. 14_s._ 8_d._ in procurations, amounting to 108 in all. (4) _Miscellaneous expenses_ include 8. 19_s._ 4_d._ in alms to the poor, 6. 13_s._ 4_d._ in wine for n.o.bles visiting the abbess, a sum for mending broken crockery, a sum for shoeing the horses of the Abbess' household, and in horse-hire and expenses of men riding on her business, 14_s._ in oblations of the Abbess and her household and 10 in gift to Henry Bishop of Winchester on his return from the Holy Land. (5) _Repairs_ and other expenses at six manors belonging to this wealthy house, amounting to 77. 2_s._ 6-1/2_d._ The total expenses of the abbey this year (1412) came to 431. 18_s._ 8_d._, against a revenue of 404. 6_s._ 1_d._, drawn from six manors and including rents, the commutation fees for villein services, the sale of wool, corn and other stores and the perquisites of the courts. The deficit is characteristic of nunneries[328].

An interesting picture of many sides of monastic life is given by a general a.n.a.lysis of the chief cla.s.ses of expenditure usually mentioned in account rolls. They may be cla.s.sified as follows: (1) internal expenses of the convent, (2) divers miscellaneous expenses connected with external business, (3) repairs, (4) the expenses of the home farm and (5) the wage-sheet.

(1) _The internal expenses of the convent._ The details of this expenditure are sometimes not given very fully, because they were set forth at length in the accounts of the cellaress and chambress; but a certain amount of food and of household goods and clothes was bought directly by the treasuress and occasionally the office of cellaress and treasuress was doubled by the same nun, whose account gives more detail.

Expenditure on clothing appears in one of two forms, either as dress-allowances paid annually to the nuns[329], or as payments for the purchase of linen and cloth and for the hiring of work-people to spin and weave and make up the clothes[330]. Expenditure on food is usually concerned with the purchase of fish and of spices, the only important foods which could not be produced by the home farm.

Among other internal expenses are the costs of the guest-house and the alms, in money and in kind, which were given to the poor. Account rolls sometimes throw a side light on the fare provided for visitors: for instance the treasuress of St Radegund's, Cambridge, enters upon her roll in 1449-50 the following items under the heading _Providencia Hospicii_:

And paid to William Rogger, for beef, pork, mutton and veal bought for the guest house, by the hand of John Grauntyer, 24_s._ 8_d._ And for bread, beer, beef, pork, mutton, veal, sucking pigs, capons, chickens, eggs, b.u.t.ter and fresh and salt fish, bought from day to day for the guest house during the period of the account, as appears more fully set out in detail, in a paper book examined for this account, 11.

7_s._ 4-1/2_d._ And for one cow bought of Thomas Carrawey for the guest house vj s viij d. Total: 13. 8_s._ 8-1/2_d._[331]

In this year the total receipts were 77. 8_s._ 6-1/2_d._ and the expenditure 72. 6_s._ 4-3/4_d._, so that quite a large proportion of the nuns' income was spent on hospitality. On the other hand the food was no doubt partly consumed by these "divers n.o.ble persons," who paid the convent 8. 14_s._ 4_d._ this year for their board and lodging. It is a great pity that the separate guest-house account book referred to has not survived. At St Michael's Stamford the roll for 15-16 Richard II contains a payment of 26_s._ 10_d._ "for the expenses of guests for the whole year," and 6_s._ 8_d._ "for wine for the guests throughout the year"[332]; this is a very small amount out of a total expenditure of 116. 15_s._ 4-1/2_d._ and it seems likely that the greater part of the food used for guests was not accounted for apart from the convent food.

The expenditure of nuns on alms is interesting, since almsgiving to the poor was one of the functions enjoined upon them by their rule; and many houses held a part of their property on condition that they should distribute certain alms. Some information as to these compulsory alms, though not of course as to the voluntary almsgiving of the nuns, is given in the _Valor Ecclesiasticus_. A few entries may be taken at random. St Sepulchre's, Canterbury, paid 6_s._ 8_d._ for one quarter of wheat to be given for the soul of William Calwell, their founder, the Thursday next before Easter[333]. Dartford was allowed 5. 12_s._ 8_d._ for alms given twice a week to thirteen poor people[334]; Haliwell distributed 12_s._ 8_d._ in alms to poor folk every Christmas day in memory of a Bishop of Lincoln[335]. Nuneaton was allowed "for certain quarters of corn given weekly to the poor and sick at the gate of the monastery at 12_d._ a week, by order of the foundress, 2. 12_s._ 0_d._; for certain alms on Maundy Thursday in money, bread, wine, beer and eels by the foundation, to poor and sick within the monastery, 2. 5_s._ 4_d._"[336] Polesworth gave "on Maundy Thursday at the washing of the feet of poor persons, in drink and victuals, by the foundation 1. 6_s._ 0_d._"[337] A chartulary of the great Abbey of Lac.o.c.k, drawn up at the close of the thirteenth century, contains an interesting list of alms payable to the poor and pittances to the nuns themselves on certain feasts and anniversaries. It runs:

We ought to feed on All Souls' day as many poor as there are ladies, to each poor person a dry loaf and as a relish two herrings or a slice of cheese, and the convent the same day shall have two courses. On the anniversary of the foundress (24 Aug. 1261) 100 poor each shall have a wheaten loaf and two herrings, be it a flesh-day or not, and the convent shall have to eat simnels and wine and three courses and two at supper. On the anniversary of her father (17 April 1196) each year thirteen poor shall be fed. On the anniversary of her husband thirteen poor shall be fed, and the convent shall have half a mark for a pittance. On the anniversary of Sir Nicholas Hedinton they should distribute to the poor 8_s._ and 4_d._, or corn amounting to as much money, i.e. wheat, barley and beans, and the convent half a mark for a pittance. The day of the burial of a lady of the convent 100 poor, to each a mite or a dry loaf.... The day of the Last Supper, after the Maundy, they shall give to each poor person a loaf of the weight of the convent loaf, and of the dough of full bread, and half a gallon of beer and two herrings, and half a bushel of beans for soup[338].

Account rolls sometimes contain references to food or money distributed to the poor on the great almsgiving day of Maundy Thursday, or on special feast days. The nuns of St Michael's Stamford regularly bought herrings to be given to the poor on Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, St Laurence's day, St Michael's day and St Andrew's day. The nuns of St Radegund's, Cambridge, in 1450-1 distributed 2_s._ 1_d._ among the poor on Maundy Thursday and gave 10_d._ "to certain poor persons lately labouring in the wars of the lord king"[339]. The Prioress of St Mary de Pre, St Albans, has an item "paid in expenses for straungers, pore men lasours, tennents and fermours for brede and ale and other vitaills x.x.xvj_s_ viij_d_"[340].

It is interesting to note that nunneries are not infrequently found giving alms in money or kind to the mendicant friars. The Prioress of Catesby gave away 1 qr. 3 bushels of wheat "to brethren of the four orders and other poor" in 1414-5[341]. The Oxford friary received from G.o.dstow in memory of the soul of one Roger Whittell fourteen loaves every fortnight and 3_s._ 4_d._ in money and one peck of oatmeal and one of peas in Lent.

The Friars Minor of Cambridge were sometimes sent a pig by the Abbess of Denny[342]. It will be seen in a later chapter that the poor Yorkshire nunneries of St Clement's York and Moxby were considerably burdened by the obligation to pay 14 loaves weekly to the friars of York[343]. In general, however, it is difficult to form any just estimate as to how much almsgiving was really done by the nuns. There is no evidence as to whether they daily gave away to the poor, as their rule demanded, the fragments left over from their own meals; for such almsgiving would be entered neither in account rolls nor in chartularies and surveys dealing with endowments earmarked for charity.

Another cla.s.s of gifts which deserves some notice consists of gratuities to friends, well-wishers or dependents of the house, for benefits solicited or received. No one in the middle ages was too dignified to receive a tip. The nuns of St Michael's, Stamford, regularly give what they euphemistically term "gifts" or "courtesies" to a large number of persons, ranging from their own servants at Christmas to men of law, engaged in the various suits in which they were involved. To the high and mighty they present wine, or a capon, or money discreetly jingling in the depths of a silken purse. To the lowly they present a plain unvarnished tip. The nuns of St Radegund's, Cambridge, pay 12_d._ "for a crane bought and given to the chancellor of the university of Cambridge, for his good friendship in divers of my lady's affairs in the interest of the convent"; and "the four waits of the Mayor of Cambridge" receive a Christmas box of 2_s._ 3_d._ "for their services to the lady Prioress and convent." _Dono Data_ is a regular heading in their accounts, and in 1450-1 there is a long list of small gifts to dependents, ranging from 1_d._ to 10_d._, and a sum of 2_s._ for linen garments bought for gifts at Christmas[344].

Similarly the cellaress of Syon in 1536-7 gave her servants at Christmas a reward of 20_s._ "with their ap.r.o.ns"[345]. Whether to ensure that a lawsuit should go in favour of the convent, or merely to reward faithful service or to celebrate a feast, such payments were well laid out and no careful housekeeper could afford to neglect them.

(2) _Divers expenses_ include payments for various fines, amercements and legal expenses and also for the numerous journeys undertaken by the prioress or by their servants on convent business. The legal expenses which fell upon the nuns of St Michael's, Stamford, ranged from a big suit in London and various cases over disputed t.i.thes at the court of the bishop of Lincoln, to divers small amercements, when the convent pigs "trespa.s.sed in Castle meadow"[346]. The payments for journeys often give a vivid picture of nuns inspecting their manors and visiting their bishop[347]. Under this heading is also included a payment for ink and parchment and for the fee of the clerk who wrote out the account.

(3) _Repairs_ were a very serious item in the balance sheet of every monastic house, and in spite of the amount of money, which account rolls show to have been spent upon them, visitation reports have much to say about crumbling walls and leaking roofs. It was seldom that a year pa.s.sed without several visits from the plumbers, the slaters and the thatchers, to the precincts of a nunnery; and once arrived they were not easy to dislodge. If perchance the nunnery buildings themselves stood firm, then the houses of the tenants would be falling about their ears; and once more the distracted treasuress must summon workmen. Usually the nuns purchased the materials used for repairs and hired the labour separately, and the workers were sometimes fed in the nunnery kitchen; for it was customary at this time to include board with the wages of many hired workmen.

The accounts of St Radegund's, Cambridge, in 1449-50 will serve as an example of the expenditure under this heading[348]. It was a heavy year, for the nuns were having two tenements built in "Nunneslane" adjoining their house, and the accounts give an interesting picture of the building of a little medieval house of clay and wattle, with stone foundations, whitewashed walls and thatched roof. First of all Henry Denesson, carpenter, a most important person, was hired to set up all the woodwork at a wage of 23_s._ 4_d._ for the whole piece of work; he had an a.s.sistant John c.o.kke, who was paid 14_d._ for ten days' work; Simon Maydewell was kept hard at work sawing timber for his use for ten days at 14_d._ and over a cart load and a half of "splentes" (small pieces of wood laid horizontally in a stud wall) were purchased at a cost of 6_s._ 2_d._ Henry and John spent ten days setting up the framework of the two cottages, but they were not the only workers. The "gruncill" (or beam laid along the ground for the rest to stand on) had to be laid firmly on a stone foundation; the walls had to be filled between the beams with clay, strengthened with a mixture of reeds and sedge and bound with hemp nailed firmly to the beams. The account tells us all about these operations:

and in hemp with nails bought for binding the walls 16_d._, and in stone bought from Thomas Janes of Hynton to support the gruncill 6_s._ 8_d._, and in one measure of quicklime bought for the same work 3_s._, and in six cartloads of clay bought of Richard Poket of Barnwell 18_d._, and in the hire of Geoffrey Sconyng and William Brann, to lay the gruncill of the aforesaid tenements and to daub the walls thereof (i.e. to make them of clay), for the whole work 17_s._ 3_d._ And in reeds bought of John Bere, "reder," for the aforesaid tenements 2_s._ 4_d._, and in "1000 de les segh" (sedge) for the same work 5_s._ And in 22 bunches of wattles 22_d._, and in boards bought at the fair of St John the Baptist to make the door and windows 2_s._ 10_d._, and in 1000 nails for the said work, together with 1000 more nails bought afterwards 2_s._ 8-1/2_d._

Finally the houses had to be roofed with a thatch of straw and a fresh set of workmen were called in:

and for the hire of John Scot, thatcher, hired to roof with straw the two aforesaid tenements, for 12 days, taking 4_d._ a day, at the board of the Lady (Prioress) 4_s._ And for the hire of Thomas Clerk for 8-1/2 days and of Nicholaus Burnefygge for 10 days, carrying straw and serving the said thatcher 3_s._ 1_d._; and in the hire of Katherine Rolf for the same work (women often acted as thatchers' a.s.sistants) for 12 days at 1-1/2_d._ a day, 18_d._

And behold two very nice little cottages.

But let not the ignorant suppose that this completed the expenditure of the nuns on building and repairs. Henry Denesson, the indispensable, soon had to be hired again to set up some woodwork in a tenement in Precherch Street, and to build a gable there. A kitchen had to be built next to these tenements, and the business of hiring carpenters, daubers and thatchers was repeated; John Scot and John c.o.kke once more scaled the roofs. Then a house in Nun's Lane was burnt and sedge had to be bought to thatch it. Then three labourers had to be hired for four days to mend the roofs of the hall, kitchen and other parts of the nunnery itself, taking 5_d._ a day and their board. Then the roofs of the frater and the granary began to leak and the same labourers had to be hired for four more days.

Then, just as the treasuress thought that she had got rid of the ubiquitous Henry Denesson for good, back he had to be called with a servant to help him, to set up the falling granary again. Then a lock had to be made for the guests' kitchen and for three other rooms in the nunnery; and when John Egate, tiler, and John Tommesson, tenants of the nuns, got wind that locks were being made, they must needs have some for their tenements. Then a defect in the church had to be repaired by John Corry and a cover made for the font. There was more purchase of reeds and sedge, boards and "300 nails (12_d._) and 100 nails (2_d._) bought at Stourbridge Fair" for 14_d._ Last came the inevitable plumber:

And for a certain plumber hired to mend a gutter between the tenement wherein Walter Ferror dwells and a tenement of the Prior of Barnwell, with lead found by the said Prior, together with the mending of a defect in the church of St Radegund 14_d._ And in the hire of the aforesaid plumber to mend a lead pipe extending from the font to the copper in the brewhouse, together with the solder of the said plumber 8_d._

In all the cost of repairs and buildings came to 8. 3_s._ 7_d._ out of a total expenditure of 72. 6_s._ 4-3/4_d._

(4) _Expenses of the home farm._ The home farm was an essential feature of manorial economy and particularly so when the lord of the manor was a community. The nuns expected to draw the greater part of their food from the farm; livestock, grain and dairy all had to be superintended. A student of these account rolls may see unrolled before him all the different operations of the year, the autumn ploughing and sowing, the spring ploughing and sowing, the hay crop mown in June and the strenuous labours of the harvest. He may, if he will, know how many sheep the shepherd led to pasture and how many oxen the oxherd drove home in the evening, for the inventory on the back of an account roll enumerates minutely all the stock. There is something homely and familiar in lists such as the tale of cattle owned by the nuns of Sheppey at the Dissolution: