[251] Compare Archbishop Bowet’s injunction to the Prioress of Hampole in 1411 that “Alice Lye, her nun who held the office of hostilaria, or anyone who succeeded her in office, should henceforth be free from entering the rooms of guests to lay beds, but that the porter should receive the bedclothes from the hostilaria at the lower gate, and when the guests had departed, should give them back to her at the same place.” V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 165. For the charge that the Prioress made the nuns work, compare the case of Eleanor Prioress of Arden in 1396 (pp. [85-6] below) and the case of the Prioress of Easebourne in 1441: “Also the Prioress compels her sisters to work continually like hired workwomen (ad modum mulieres conducticiarum) and they receive nothing whatever for their own use from their work, but the prioress takes the whole profit (totum percipit).” Sussex Archaeol. Coll. IX, p. 7.
[252] Compare the case of Denise Loweliche, p. [458] below.
[253] Test. Ebor. I, pp. 283-5 (summary in V.C.H. Yorks. III, pp. 114-5).
[254] An analysis of receipts and expenditure by the Prioress during her term of office, given at the end of the comperta, stands thus:
| In the first year: | Receipts £22. 7s. 6d. | Expenses £27. 6s. 8d. | |
| In the second year: | Receipts £25. 3s. 0d. | Expenses £40. | |
| In the third year: | Receipts £26. 9s. 6d. | Expenses £27. 3s. 0d. |
[255] The nuns of Swine made the same complaint in 1268. “Binis, tamen, diebus in ebdomada aqua pro cervisia eisdem subministratur.” Reg. of Walter Giffard (Surtees Soc.), p. 148.
[256] Dugdale, Mon. IV, p. 506 note.
[257] Cal. of Papal Letters, VI, p. 55.
[258] V.C.H. Suffolk, II, pp. 83-4. The other cases may be noted more briefly. For the story of Denise Loweliche, Prioress of Markyate (Beds.), see Linc. Visit. I, pp. 82-6, and below, pp. [458-9]. Alice de Chilterne, Prioress of White Hall, Ilchester, was deprived for incontinence with the chaplain and for wasting the goods of the house to such an extent that the nuns were reduced to begging their bread (1323). Hugo, Med. Nunneries of Somerset, Whitehall in Ilchester, pp. 78-9 and Reg. John of Drokensford (Somerset Rec. Soc.), pp. 227, 245, 259. In 1325 Joan de Barton, Prioress of Moxby, was deprived super lapsu carnis with the chaplain. V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 240. In 1495 Elizabeth Popeley was deprived, two years after her confirmation as Prioress of Arthington, for having given birth to a child and for wasting the goods of the house. Ib. p. 189. The case of Katherine Wells, Prioress of Littlemore, who put her nuns in the stocks and took the goods of the house to provide a dowry for her illegitimate daughter is noted below, [Note F]. See also the stories of Elizabeth Broke, Abbess of Romsey, and Agnes Tawke, Prioress of Easebourne. Liveing, Rec. Romsey Abbey, pp. 211-222 and Sussex Archaeol. Coll. IX, pp. 14-19. Joan Fletcher, Prioress of Basedale, resigned from fear of deposition in 1527 and then cast aside her habit and left the house. Yorks. Archaeol. Journ. XVI, pp. 431-2.
[259] It was translated by the Rev. Dr Cox in V.C.H. Hants. II, pp. 132-3, from a chartulary of Wherwell Abbey compiled in the fourteenth century (Brit. Mus. Egerton MS. 2104) and quoted by Gasquet, English Monastic Life, pp. 155-8.