one brother John Bengeworthe, a monk, who had been imprisoned for his ill desert, brake prison and went into apostasy, taking with him a nun of Godstow, but he has now been brought back to the monastery and is still doing penance.
The nun was Alice Longspey and it is significant that this particular escapade had been concealed from the Bishop at his recent visitation of Godstow[1406]. The most spirited enterprise of all, however, was the combined effort of William Fox, parson of Lea (near Gainsborough) and John Fox and Thomas de Lingiston, Friars Minor of Lincoln, who were indicted before the Kings Justices at Caistor, because they came to Brodholme Nunnery (one of the only two Premonstratensian houses in the kingdom) on January 15th, 1350, and then and there “violently took and carried away, against the peace of their lord the King, a certain nun, by name Margaret Everingham, a sister of the said house, stripping her of her religious habit and clothing her in a green gown of secular habit, taking also divers goods to the value of 40 shillings”[1407].
Much as the church hated sin, it hated scandal even more and a nun might often hope to have her frailty concealed by her fellows. Sometimes they may have condoned it, for they are occasionally found assisting an elopement[1408]; sometimes they feared episcopal interference and an evil reputation for their house. But it was not always possible to conceal these unhallowed unions and when a child was born the wretched nun could not hope to escape disgrace and punishment[1409].
And dame Peronelle a prestes file—Priouresse worth she neuere
For she had childe in chirityme—all owre chapitere it wiste.
Usually Dame Pernell fled in despair to any friendly asylum which she could find and only returned to her house after the birth and disposal of her child. Sometimes she remained there in what privacy she might; and the affair was managed with as little scandal as possible. The nuns of St Michael’s, Stamford, knew that their sister Margaret Mortimer had had a child on this side of Easter; but even the Subprioress did not know (or said she did not know) “of whom she conceived or whether she bare male or female; howbeit she was absent from quire for a fortnight”[1410]. Once we hear of an apostate, deserted and pregnant, coming back to St Mary’s, Winchester, and the wise and humane William of Wykeham writes to the Abbess bidding her receive the girl gently and kindly, and keep her in safety until the birth of her child, after which he will himself make ordinance concerning her[1411]. It is hard to discover what became of these most unwelcome children. It is not surprising that they sometimes died[1412]. But if they lived their origin probably weighed but lightly on them in those days, when it was regarded as no dishonour to have bastards, who were often acknowledged by their fathers and provided for in their wills side by side with true born sons and daughters. It is true that, like other illegitimates, they could not be ordained or hold ecclesiastical preferment, without a special dispensation. But even the son of a nun could obtain such dispensation[1413] and even the daughter of a nun did not always go undowered. There were not many monastic parents like that seventeenth century abbess of Maubuisson who was rumoured to have twelve children, who were brought up diversely, each according to the rank of the father[1414], or like the Prior of Maiden Bradley, as described by Henry VIII’s commissioner, “an holy father prior and hath but vj children and but one dowghter mariede, yet of the goods of the monasteries trysting shortly to mary the rest, [and] his sones be tale men waytting upon him”[1415]. Yet we hear of at least one Prioress who sold the goods of her house to make a dowry for her daughter[1416].
If it be sought to know whether any houses were particularly liable to scandals and enjoyed a bad name, it must be answered that it is almost impossible to say. But isolated cases of immorality and apostasy come from nunneries so widely distributed in different dioceses, that one must conclude that most of them had at one time or another a sinner in their midst. Often enough the case was isolated; occasionally there was scandal about the general condition of a house in its neighbourhood. The discipline and morals of convents were apt to vary with that of their heads. It is significant that when a house is in a bad moral state the fault may nearly always be traced to a weak or immoral prioress. So it was at Wintney in 1405, at Redlingfield in 1427, at Markyate in 1433, at Catesby in 1442, at St Michael’s, Stamford, in 1445, at Littlemore in 1517, and at several Yorkshire nunneries. It is plain also that when a convent was very small and poor, it was apt to become lax and disorderly. The small Yorkshire houses bear witness to this and if further proof be required the state of Cannington in 1351 and Easebourne in 1478 may be quoted from among several other instances.
Cannington in Somerset was a small and poor house, but its nuns were drawn from some of the best county families. In 1351 it was visited by commissioners of Ralph of Shrewsbury, Bishop of Bath and Wells, and they found something more like a brothel than a priory. Maud Pelham and Alice Northlode (a young lady whom the Bishop had forced on the unwilling convent, on his elevation to the See some twenty years before) were in the habit of frequently admitting and holding discourse with suspected persons. The inevitable chaplain was again the occasion for a fall. On dark nights they held long and suspicious confabulations with Richard Sompnour and Hugh Willynge, chaplains, in the nave of the convent church. Hugh was apparently only too willing and Richard was even as Chaucer’s summoner, “as hot he was and lecherous as a sparrow,” for (say the commissioners) “it is suspected by many that as a result of these conversations they fall into yet worse sin.” Moreover
“the said sisters, and in particular the said Maud, not content with this evil behaviour, are wont per insolencias, minas et tactus indecentes to provoke many of the serving men of the place to sin,” and, “to make use of her own words she says that she will never once say Mea culpa for these great misdeeds, but turning like a virago upon the prioress and the other sisters who abhor the aforesaid things, when they reproach her, she threatens to do manly execution upon them with knives and other weapons.”
Nor was this all:
In the said visitation the charge was made, dreadful to say, horrible to hear, and was proven by much evidence as to notoriety and by confession, that a certain nun of the said house, Joan Trimelet, having cast away the reins of modesty ... was found with child, but not indeed by the Holy Ghost, and afterwards gave birth to offspring, to the grave disgrace and confusion of her religion and to the scandal of many.