But sikerly she hadde a fair forheed;
It was almost a spanne brood, I trowe;
For, hardily, she was nat undergrowe.
Ful fetis was her cloke, as I was war.
Of smale coral aboute hir arm she bar
A peire of bedes, gauded al with grene;
And ther-on heng a broche of gold ful shene,
On which ther was first write a crowned A
And after, Amor vincit omnia.
Margaret Fairfax of Nunmonkton (1397) and the lady (her name is unknown) who ruled Easebourne in 1441 are other examples of worldly prioresses; they clearly regarded themselves as the great ladies they were by birth, and behaved like all the other great ladies of the neighbourhood. Margaret Fairfax used divers furs, including even the costly grey fur (gris)—the same with which the sleeves of Chaucer’s monk were “purfiled at the hond”; she wore silken veils and “she frequently kept company with John Munkton and invited him to feasts in her room ... and John Munkton (by whom the convent had for long been scandalised) frequently played at tables” (the fashionable game for ladies, a kind of backgammon) “with the Prioress in her room and served her with drink.” No wonder she had to sell timber in order to procure money[232]. The Prioress of Easebourne was even more frivolous; the nuns complained that the house was in debt to the amount of £40 and this principally owing to her costly expenses:
because she frequently rides abroad and pretends that she does so on the common business of the house, although it is not so, with a train of attendants much too large, and tarries long abroad, and she feasts sumptuously both when abroad and at home, and she is very choice in her dress, so that the fur trimmings of her mantle are worth a hundred shillings,
as great a scandal as Clemence Medforde’s cloth of Rennes at sixteen pence the ell. The Bishop took strong measures to deal with this worldly lady; she was deposed from all administration of the temporal goods of the priory, which administration was committed to “Master Thomas Boleyn and John Lylis, Esquire, until and so long as when the aforesaid house or priory shall be freed from debt.” It was also ordered
that the Prioress with all possible speed shall diminish her excessive household and shall only retain, by the advice and with the assent of the said John and Thomas, a household such as is merely necessary and not more. Also that the Prioress shall convert the fur trimmings, superfluous to her condition and very costly, to the discharge of the debts of the house. Also that if eventually it shall seem expedient to the said Masters Thomas and John at any time, that the Prioress should ride in person for the common business of the house, on such occasions she shall not make a lengthened stay abroad, nor shall she in the interval incur expenses in any way costly beyond what is needful, and thus when despatched to go abroad she must and ought rightly to content herself with four horses only;
and those perhaps “bothe foul and lene,” like the jade ridden by the Nonnes Preeste when Chaucer met him on the Canterbury road[233].
The charge of gadding about the country side, sometimes (as in the Prioress of Easebourne’s case) with a retinue which better beseemed the worldly rank they had abjured, was one not infrequently made against the heads of nunneries[234]. The Prioress of Stixwould was accused, in 1519, of spending the night too often outside the cloister with her secular friends and the Bishop ordered that in future she should sleep within the monastery, but might keep a private house in the precincts, for her greater refreshment and for receiving visitors[235]. The Prioress of Wroxall was ordered to stay more at home in 1323[236], and in 1303 Bishop Dalderby even found that the Prioress of Greenfield had been absent from her house for two years[237]. Even more frequent was the charge that abbesses and prioresses repaid too lavishly the hospitality which they doubtless received at neighbouring manors. Many abbesses gave that “dyscrete enterteynement,” which Henry VIII’s commissioners so much admired at Catesby[238]; but others entertained too often and too well, in the opinion of their nuns; moreover family affection sometimes led them to make provision for their kinsfolk at the cost of the house. In 1441 one of the nuns of Legbourne deposed that many kinsmen of the prioress had frequent access to the house, though she did not know whether it was financially burdened by their visits; Alnwick ordered
that ye susteyn none of your kynne or allyaunce wythe the commune godes of the house, wythe owten the hole assent of the more hole parte of the couent, ne that ye suffre your saide kynne or allyaunce hafe suche accesse to your place, where thurghe the howse shall be chargeede[239].
A similar injunction had been made at Chatteris in 1345, where the abbess was warned not to bestow the convent rents and goods unlawfully upon any of her relatives[240]. The charge was, however, most common in later times, when discipline was in all ways relaxed. At Easebourne in 1478 one of the nuns complained “that kinsmen of the prioress very often and for weeks at a time frequent the priory and have many banquets of the best food, while the sisters have them of the worst”[241]. The neighbouring nunnery of Rusper was said in 1521 to be ruinous and “greatly burdened by reason of friends and kinsmen of the lady prioress who continually received hospitality there”[242]; at Studley in 1520 there were complaints that the brother of the prioress and his wife stayed within the monastery, and ten years later it was ordered that no corrody should be given to the prioress’ mother, until more was known of her way of life[243]. At Flixton in the same year one of the nuns asserted that the mother of the prioress had her food at the expense of the house, but whether she paid anything or not was unknown; it appears, however, that she was in charge of the dairy, so that she may have been boarded in return for her services. A characteristic instance is preserved in Bishop Longland’s letter to the Prioress of Nuncoton in 1531, charging her
that frome hensforth ye do nomore burden ne chardge your house with suche a nombre of your kinnesfolks as ye haue in tymes past used. Your good mother it is meate ye haue aboute yow for your comforte and hirs bothe. And oon or ij moo of suche your saddest kynnes folke, whome ye shall thynk mooste conuenyent but passe not.... And that ye give nomore soo lyberally the goods of your monastery as ye haue doon to your brother george thomson and your brodres children, with grasing of catell, occupying your lands, making of Irneworke to pleugh, and carte, and other like of your stuff and in your forge[244].