[221] Wood, op. cit. II, pp. 156-7. Even Ap Rice seems to have considered Dr Legh’s enforcement of enclosure as overstrict “for as many of these houses stand by husbandry they must fall to decay if the heads are not allowed to go out.” Gairdner, Letters and Papers, etc. IX, no. 139; cf. preface, p. 20.
[222] Rye, Carrow Abbey, p. 8.
[223] Linc. Dioc. Documents, ed. A. Clark (E.E.T.S.), pp. 50, 53.
[224] Test. Ebor. I, p. 314.
[225] For instance Margaret Fairfax of Nunmonkton was one of the supervisores testamenti of John Fairfax, rector of Prescot, in 1393 and of Thomas Fairfax of Walton in 1394. Ib. I, pp. 190, 204. The abbess of Syon was one of the three overseers of the will of Sir Richard Sutton, steward of her house in 1524. Aungier, Hist. and Antiquities of Syon Mon. p. 532. Emmota Farethorpe, Prioress of Wilberfoss, was executrix of John Appilby of Wilberfoss in 1438. V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 126 note. Margaret Delaryver, Prioress of St Clement’s York, was executrix of Elizabeth Medlay (probably a boarder there). Ib. III, p. 130. Joan Kay in 1525 left most of her property to her daughter the Prioress of Stixwould to found an obit there and made her executrix. Linc. Wills, ed. C. W. Foster (Linc. Rec. Soc.), I, p. 155. Sir John Beke, vicar of Aby, who left the greater part of his property to Greenfield for the same purpose, made the Prioress Isabel Smith executrix. Ib. I, p. 162. These offices were sometimes filled by nuns other than heads of houses, e.g. the will of John Suthwell, rector of St Mary’s South Kelsey, Lincs., was witnessed by his sister Margaret, a nun, in 1390. Gibbons, Early Linc. Wills, p. 76. Alice Conyers of Nunappleton was made coadjutress of the executors of Master John de Woodhouse in 1345. Test. Ebor. I, p. 15. For Carrow nuns (usually the prioress) as executors, supervisors and witnesses, see Rye, Carrow Abbey, pp. xv, xvi, xxii, xxiii, xxix.
[226] Linc. Visit. II, p. 2.
[227] V.C.H. Sussex, II, p. 84. See Rot. Parl. I, p. 147.
[228] An Alphabet of Tales, ed. M. M. Banks (E.E.T.S., 1904), no. XV, pp. 13-14. I have modernised spelling. This fifteenth century English version is ultimately derived from an exemplum by Jacques de Vitry, of which it is a close translation. Exempla e sermonibus vulgaribus J. Vitriacensis, ed. T. F. Crane, no. LIX, pp. 23-4.
[229] “Item Priorissa raro venit ad matutinas aut missas. Domina Katerina Hoghe dicit quod quedam moniales sunt quodammodo sompnolentes, tarde veniendo ad matutinas et alias horas canonicas.” Linc. Visit. II, p. 133.
[230] J. P. Krapp, The Legend of St Patrick’s Purgatory; its later Literary History (1899), pp. 75-6.