Medieval English Nunneries c. 1275 to 1535

by Eileen Power

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 Léger de Préaux 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 Almenèches (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 passing 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 Saëns 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, chastity 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 unobserved. 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 Saëns 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 Saëns and Villarceaux) the Archbishop found that the chapter was seldom held[1938]. At others the duty incumbent 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 hell, 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 Almenèches in 1255[1944], at St Léger de Préaux 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 Saëns 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: