[102] Testamenta Vetusta, I, pp. 63-4.
[103] See above, p. [7], note 2.
[104] V.C.H. London, I, p. 518.
[105] Linc. Visit. II, p. 5.
[106] Alnwick’s Visit. MS. f. 26d.
[107] Linc. Visit. II, p. 217.
[108] Liveing, Records of Romsey Abbey, p. 248.
[109] V.C.H. Yorks, III, p. 163. In 1312 the prioress of Hampole was rebuked for receiving a little girl (puellulam), not on account of her youth, but because she had omitted to obtain the archbishop’s licence. Ib.
[110] Reg. of Archbishop John le Romeyn (Surtees Soc.), I, p. 66.
[111] Reg. Epis. Johannis Peckham (Rolls Series), I, p. 356. Compare Caesarius of Heisterbach: “In the diocese of Trèves is a certain convent of nuns named Lutzerath, wherein by ancient custom no girl is received but at the age of seven years or less; which constitution hath grown up for the preservation of that simplicity of mind which maketh the whole body to shine” (Dial. Mirac. I, p. 389, quoted in Coulton, Medieval Garner, p. 255). The thirteenth century visitations of the diocese of Rouen by Eudes Rigaud make it clear that novices there were often very young, e.g. at St-Saëns in 1266 “una earum erat novicia et minima” (Reg. Visit. Archiepiscopi Rothomagensis, ed. Bonnin, p. 566). The Archbishop ordered novices to be professed at the age of fourteen and not before (ib. pp. 51, 121, 207).