[191] Ib. f. 83d. The next year when Alnwick came again this prioress announced that she did not lie in the dorter, nor keep frater, cloister and church on account of bodily weakness; she alleged that he had dispensed her from these observances, which he denied. Ib. f. 39d. Compare injunctions to Godstow, Gracedieu and Langley, Linc. Visit. II, pp. 115, 125, 177. For other injunctions on these points, see Alnwick’s Visit. MS. f. 78 (Nuncoton, 1440); V.C.H. Yorks. III, pp. 119 (Nunburnholme, 1318), 120 (Nunkeeling, 1314), 124 (Thicket, 1309), 188 (Arthington, 1318), 239 (Moxby, 1318).
[192] Reg. Epis. Johannis Peckham (Rolls Series), II, p. 662. Compare V.C.H. Yorks. III, pp. 113, 239 and Alnwick’s Visit. MS. f. 6.
[193] Before it was realised that this office was often held by a woman in nunneries, scholars were much exercised to explain this passage in Chaucer’s Prologue, though a search through Dugdale would have provided them with several instances. The office is still held in modern convents, and Dr Furnivall printed an interesting letter from a Benedictine nun, describing the duties attached to it. “It is in fact the nun who has special charge of attending on the Abbess and giving assistance when she needs it, either in writing when she (the Abbess) is busy, or in attending when sick, etc., but that which comes most often to claim her services is, on the twelve or fourteen great festivals,” when the chaplain attends the Abbess in the choir and holds her crosier, while she reads the hymns, lesson, etc. Anglia, IV, pp. 238-9. In the middle ages the chief stress was laid on the constant presence of a witness to the superior’s mode of life, that it might be beyond suspicion. Miss Eckenstein has pointed out that in the allegory of the “Ghostly Abbey,” by the béguine Mechthild of Magdeburg, in which the nuns are personified Virtues, Charity is Abbess and Meekness her Chaplain; and in the English version of the poem printed by Wynkyn de Worde (1500), Charity was Abbess and Mercy and Truth were to be her “chapeleyns” and to go about with her wherever she went. The Prioress (Wisdom) and the Sub-Prioress (Meekness) were also to have chaplains (Righteousness and Peace) because they were “most of worship.” Eckenstein, Woman under Monasticism, pp. 339, 377.
[194] New College MS., f. 88d.
[195] Sussex Archaeol. Coll. IX, p. 15.
[196] Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich (Camden Soc.), p. 190.
[197] Ib. p. 108.
[198] Ib. p. 138.
[199] Linc. Visit. I, p. 50. For other references to the abbess’s nun-chaplain at Elstow, see Archaeologia, XLVII, p. 52 and Dugdale, Mon. III, p. 415.
[200] Alnwick’s Visit. MS. f. 6. The Prioress was Denise Loweliche (see p. [458] below) and at the visitation Dame Margaret Loweliche “cappellana priorisse” (evidently a relative) said that she had held the office for the last eight years. Another nun said “that the Prioress ever holds and has held for seven years, one and the same nun as chaplain, without ever replacing her by another, and when she goes out she always has this young nun with her.”