that hereafter fit persons be received as nuns; for whose reception or entrance let no money or aught else be demanded; but without any simoniacal bargain and covenant of any sum of money or other thing whatsoever, which were accustomed to be made by the crime of simony, let them henceforth be admitted to your religion purely, simply and for nothing[90].
But the most detailed information as to the prevalence of the dowry-system is contained in the records of Bishop Alnwick’s visitations of religious houses in the diocese of Lincoln in 1440[91]. When the Bishop came to Heynings (which had already been in trouble under Bokyngham) one of the nuns, Dame Agnes Sutton, gave evidence to the effect that
her friends came to the Prioress and covenanted that she should be received as a nun for twelve marks and the said money was paid down before she was admitted, and she says that no one is admitted before the sum agreed upon for her reception is paid.
She added that nothing was exacted save what was a free offering, but from her previous words it is obvious that no nuns were received at Heynings without a dowry. Similarly at Langley Dame Cecily Folgeham said that her friends gave ten marks to the house “when she was tonsured, but not by covenant.” The most interesting case of all was that of Nuncoton. The Subprioress, Dame Ellen Frost, said “that it was the custom in time past to take twenty pounds or less for the admission of nuns, otherwise they would not be received.” The Bishop proceeded to examine other members of the house; Dame Maud Saltmershe confirmed what the Subprioress had said about the price for the reception of nuns; two other ladies, who had been in religion for fifteen and eight years respectively, deposed to having paid twenty pounds on their entrance and Dame Alice Skotte said that she did not know how much she had paid, but that she thought it was twenty pounds. Clearly there was a fixed entrance fee to this nunnery and it was impossible to become a nun without it; all pretence of free-will offerings had been dropped. When it is considered that this entrance fee was twenty pounds (i.e. about £200 of modern money) it is easy to see why poor girls belonging to the lower orders never found their way into convents; such a luxury was far beyond their means.
In each of these cases and at two other houses (St Michael’s Stamford, and Legbourne) Alnwick entered a stern prohibition, on pain of excommunication, against the reception of anything except free gifts from the friends of a novice. His injunction to Heynings may be quoted as typical of those made by medieval bishops on such occasions:
For as mykelle as we founde that many has been receyvede here afore into nunne and sustre in your sayde pryory by covenaunt and paccyons made be fore thair receyvyng of certeyn moneys to be payed to the howse, the whiche is dampnede by alle lawe, we charge yowe under the payn of the sentence of cursyng obove wrytene that fro hense forthe ye receyve none persons in to nunne ne sustre in your sayde pryore by no suche couenant, ne pactes or bargaines made before. Whan thai are receyvede and professede, if thaire frendes of thaire almesse wylle any gyfe to the place, we suffre wele, commende and conferme hit to be receyvede[92].
But the efforts at reform made by Alnwick and other visitors were never very successful; Nuncoton evidently continued to demand its entrance fee, for in 1531 the practice was once more forbidden by Bishop Longland[93]. Moreover it is easy to see that the distinction between the reception of what was willingly offered by friends (which was specifically permitted by the rule of St Benedict and by synods and visitors throughout the middle ages), and what was given by agreement as payment for the entry of a novice (which was always forbidden) might become a distinction without a difference, as it clearly was in the case of Heynings quoted above. The Prioress of Gokewell, who declared to Alnwick that “they take nothing for the admission of nuns, save that which the friends of her who is to be created offer of their free-will and not by agreement”[94], may have acted in reality not very differently from her erring sisters of Heynings, Nuncoton and Langley. The temptation was in fact too great. The clause of the Oxford decree, which permitted poor houses if necessary to receive a sum sufficient for the vesture of a new member and no more, broadened the way already opened by the permission of free-will offerings. The concluding words of Bishop Flemyng’s prohibition of dowries at Elstow in 1422 show that this permission had been abused; “if they must be clothed at their own or their friends’ expense, let nothing at all be in any sort exacted or required, beyond their garments or the just price of their garments”[95]. Throughout the later middle ages an increase in the cost of living went side by side with a decrease in the monastic ideal of poverty, showing itself on the one hand in the constant breach of the rule against private property, on the other in the exaction of money with novices, until the dowry system (although never during the middle ages recognised by law) became in practice a matter of course.
Lest it should seem that everyone who had enough money could become a nun, it must, however, be added that the bishops took some pains that the persons who were received as novices should be suitable and pleasing to their sisters. They seldom exercised their right of nomination without some assurance that their nominee was of honest life and station, “Mulierem honestam, ut credimus”[96], “bonae indolis, ut credimus, juvenculam”[97], “jeovene damoisele et de bone condicion, come nous sumez enformez”[98], “competeter ad hujusmodi officii debitum litterate”[99]. They were always ready to hear complaints if unsuitable persons had been admitted by the prioress; and they sometimes made special injunctions upon the matter. Bokyngham at Heynings in 1392 ordered “that they receive no one to the habit, nor even to profession, unless she be first found by diligent inquisition and approbation to be useful, teachable, capable, of legitimate age, discreet and honest”[100]. At Elstow Bishop Gray made a very comprehensive injunction:
Furthermore we enjoin and charge you the Abbess ... that henceforward you admit no one to be a nun of the said monastery, unless with the express consent of the greater and sounder part of the same convent; and no one in that case, unless she be taught in song and reading and the other things requisite herein, or probably may be easily instructed within short time, and be such that she shall be able to bear the burdens of the quire (with) the rest that pertain to religion[101].
Nevertheless, for all their precautions, some strange inmates found their way into the medieval nunneries.