[171] See Wood, op. cit. II, nos. xxi, xxii, pp. 52-6. (See nos. xxiii, xxiv, xxv, lxxiii and lxxiv for further letters from Margaret Vernon.)
[172] See, for example, the account in the St Albans Chronicles (Rolls Series) of the great costs incurred by the Abbots of St Albans in seeking confirmation here. A detailed account of expenses incurred at Rome for the confirmation of Abbot John IV in 1302 has been translated in Coulton, Medieval Garner, p. 517; the total was 2561 marks sterling, i.e. about £34,000 in modern money. See also Froude’s essay entitled “Annals of an English Abbey” in his Short Studies on Great Subjects, 3rd ser. pp. 1 sqq.
[173] Pierre Du Bois, De Recuperatione Terre Sancte, ed. Ch.-V. Langlois (Paris, 1891), p. 83.
[174] Dugdale, Mon. III, p. 363.
[175] At the time of the suppression Joan Scott “late prioress” is placed second in the list of nuns at Handale and is described as “aet. 90 and blynd.” V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 166. At Esholt the ex-prioress was over 70 and is described as “decrepita et non abilis ad equitandum, neque eundum.” Ib. p. 162.
[176] Wood, op. cit. II, p. 153. See A. H. Thompson, English Monasteries, p. 123.
[177] V.C.H. Suffolk, II, p. 116. See also the provision made for Joyce Brome, ex-prioress of Wroxall. Dugdale, Mon. IV, p. 89 note. For the case of Isabel Spynys, prioress of Wilberfoss (1348), see V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 126; and for an example of such an arrangement at a priory of monks see the very detailed ordinance for the living of John Assheby, ex-prior of Daventry, by Bishop Flemyng of Lincoln in 1420. Linc. Visit. I, pp. 39-42. It was not unusual to make provision in the form of corrodies such as these for other nuns, who were prevented by age and infirmity from taking part in the communal life of the convent. Isabel Warde of Moxby, “impotens et surda,” held such a grant for life at the time of the dissolution (V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 239) and Margaret de Shyrburn of Yedingham, who was ill of dropsy, had a secular girl to wait on her in 1314. Ib. p. 127 note. Compare the amusing case of Joan Heyronne of St Helen’s, Bishopsgate (1385), who was ill of gout and not sympathised with by her sisters (V.C.H. London, I, p. 458), and see also cases at Romsey (1507), Liveing, op. cit. p. 230; Malling (1400), Cal. of Pap. Letters, V, p. 355; and St Mary’s, Neasham, V.C.H. Durham, II, p. 107.
[178] V.C.H. Yorks. III, pp. 120-1. Compare an amusing and very similar disturbance at Flixton between 1514 and 1532. Visit. of Dioc. Norwich, ed. Jessopp (Camden Soc.), pp. 142-4, 185, 190, 261, 318.
[179] The abbess’s or prioress’s chamber is constantly mentioned in the surveys of nunneries made at the time of the Dissolution, e.g. at Arthington, Wykeham, Basedale and Kirklees (Yorks. Archaeol. Journ. IX, pp. 212, 326, 327, 332); at Cheshunt (Cussans, Hist. of Herts., Hertford Hundred, II, p. 270), Sheppey (Mackenzie E. C. Walcott, Inventories of St Mary’s Hospital, Dover, etc. p. 28), Kilburn (Dugdale, Mon. III, p. 424). See also the inventory of the goods of Langley in 1485 (Walcott, Inventory of St Mary’s Benedictine Nunnery at Langley [Leic. Architec. Soc. 1872], p. 4). The last three contain interesting inventories of the furniture of the prioress’s chamber. At Sheppey it was hung with green “saye” and contained “a trussyng bed of waynscot with testar, sylar and cortens of red and yelow sarcenet”; at Kilburn it was hung with “four peces of sey redde and grene, with a bordure of story,” and contained “a standinge bedd with four posts of weynscott, a trundle bedd under the same ... a syller of yelowe and redde bokerame and three curteyns of the same work.” At Langley also there were two beds in the prioress’s chamber “hur owne bed” and “ye secunde bed in hur chambur.” Clearly the prioress nearly always had a nun to sleep with her, and the evidence of visitations bears this out; see e.g. cases at Redlingfield, 1427 (V.C.H. Suffolk, II, p. 83), Littlemore, 1445 (Linc. Visit. II, p. 217, “iacet de nocte in eodem lecto cum priorissa”), Flamstead, 1530 (V.C.H. Herts. IV, p. 433). For the position of the prioress’s chamber see plan of the nunnery buildings of St Radegund’s, Cambridge (now Jesus College) (Gray, Priory of St Radegund, Cambridge, p. 53).
[180] Dugdale, Mon. II, p. 458.