And the stallis with the reredose, the person beforeseyde payde fore xx pounde of his owne goode. And xxvi mark for ij antiphoneres whiche liggen in the queer. And xx li. Jon Lawson gaf to the chirche. And xx mark we hadde for the soule of Jon Watson. And xx mark for the soule of Stevyn York to the werkys of the chirche and to other werkys doon before. And xxi mark of the gylde of the Trinite which Neybores helde in this same chirche. The glasynge of the chirche, the scripture maketh mencyon; onli God be worshipped and rewarde to all cristen soules.
After the death of the good parson of Watlington, another cousin of the Prioress, Dr John Wiggenhall, came to her aid, and in her ninth year, she set to work once more upon the church, and she
arayed up the chirche and the quere, that is for to seye, set up the ymagis and pathed the chirche and the quere, and stolid it and made doris, which cost x pownde, the veyl of the chirche with the auterclothis in sute cost xls.[262]
During the building of the church the Prioress had not neglected other smaller works and a long chamber on the east side of the hall was built; but it was not until her tenth year, when the building and “arraying” of the church was finished, that she had time and money to do much; then she made some necessary repairs to the barn at St Peter’s and built a new malt-house, which cost ten marks. In her twelfth year “for mischeef that was on the halle she toke it downe and made it agen”; but alas, on the Tuesday next after Hallowmas 1432, a fire broke out and burned down the new malt-house, and another malt-house with a solar above, full of malt. This misfortune (so common in the middle ages) only put new heart into Joan Wiggenhall:
thanne the same prioresse in here xiij yere with the grace of owre Lord God and with the helpe of mayster Johnne Wygenale beforseyd, and with helpe of good cristen men which us relevid made a malthouse with a Doffcote, that now ovyr the Kylne, whiche house is more than eyther of thoo that brent. And was in the werkynge fulli ij yere tyl her xiiij yere were passyd out, which cost l pounde. Also the same prioresse in her xv yere, sche repared the bakhous an inheyned [heightened] it and new lyngthde it, which cost x marc. And in the same yere she heyned the stepul and new rofyd it and leyde therupon a fodyr of led whiche led, freston, tymbur and werkmanshipe cost x pounde. Also in the same yere sche made the cloystir on the Northe syde and slattyd it, and the wal be the stepul, which cost viij li.
Then she began her greatest work, after the building of the church:
Also in the xvj yere of the occupacion of the same prioresse (1435) the dortoure that than was, as fer forthe as we knowe, the furste that was set up on the place, was at so grete mischeef and at the gate-downe [falling down], the Prioresse dredyinge perisschyng of her sistres whiche lay thereinne took it downe for drede of more harmys and no more was doon thereto that yere, but a mason he wande[263] with hise prentise, and in that same yere the same prioresse made the litil soler on the sowthe ende of here chaumber stondyng in to the paradise, and the wal stondinge on the weste syde of the halle, with the lityl chaumber stondynge on the southe syde, and the Myllehouse with alle the small houses dependynge there upon, the Carthouse, and the Torfehouse, and ij of stabulys and a Beerne stondynge at a tenauntry of oure on the Southe syde of Nycolas Martyn. Alle these werkys of this yere with the repare drewe iiij skore mark. In the xvij yere of the same Prioresse, be the help of God and of goode cristen men sche began the grounde of the same dortoure that now stondith, and wrought thereupon fulli vij yere betymes as God wolde sende hir good.
In the twenty-fourth year of her reign Joan Wiggenhall saw the last stone laid in its place and the last plank nailed. The future was hid from her happy eyes; she could not foresee the day, scarcely a century later, when the walls she had reared so carefully should stand empty and forlorn, and the molten lead of the roof should be sold by impious men. She must have said with Solomon, as she looked upon her great church, “I have surely built thee an house to dwell in, a settled place for thee to abide in for ever”; and no flash of tragic prescience showed her the sheep feeding peacefully over the spot where its “heyned stepul” pointed to the sky. In 1451 she departed to the heaven she knew best, a house of many mansions; and her nuns, who for four and twenty years had lived a proud but uncomfortable life in clouds of sawdust and unending noise, buried her (one hopes) under a seemly brass in her church.
The mind preserves a pleasant picture of Euphemia of Wherwell and of Joan Wiggenhall, when Margaret Wavere, Eleanor of Arden, Isabel Hermyte and the rest are only dark memories, not willingly recalled. Which is as it should be. The typical prioress of the middle ages, however, was neither Euphemia nor Margaret. As one sees her, after wading through some hundred and fifty visitation reports or injunctions, she was a well-meaning lady, doing her best to make two ends of an inadequate income meet, but not always provident; ready for a round sum in hand to make leases, sell corrodies, cut down woods and to burden her successor as her predecessor had burdened her. She found it difficult to carry out the democratic ideal of convent life in consulting her sisters upon matters of business; she knew, like all rulers, the temptation to be an autocrat; it was so much quicker and easier to do things herself: “What, shulde the yong nunnes gyfe voices? Tushe, they shulde not gyfe voices!” So she kept the common seal and hardly ever rendered an account. She found that her position gave her the opportunity to escape sometimes from that common life, which is so trying to the temper; and she did not always keep the dorter and the frater as she should. She was rarely vicious, but nearly always worldly; she could not resist silks and furs, little dogs such as the ladies who came to stay in her guest-room cherished, and frequent visits to her friends. When she was a strong character the condition of her house bore witness, for good or evil, to her strength; when she was weak disorder was sure to follow. Very often she won a contented “omnia bene” from her nuns, when the Bishop came; at other times, she said that they were disobedient and they said that she was harsh, or impotent, or addicted to favourites. In the end it is to Chaucer that we turn for her picture; as the Bishops found her, so he saw her, aristocratic, tender-hearted, worldly, taking pains to “countrefete chere of court,” smiling “ful simple and coy” above her well-pinched wimple; a lady of importance, attended by a nun and three priests, spoken to with respect and reverence by the not too mealy-mouthed host (no “by Corpus Dominus,” or “cokkes bones,” or “tel on a devel wey!” for her, but “cometh neer my lady prioresse,” and “my lady prioresse, by your leve”); clearly enjoying a night at the Tabard and some unseemly stories on the road (though her own tale was exquisite and fitting to her state). Religious? perhaps; but save for her singing the divine service “entuned in her nose ful semely” and for her lovely address to the Virgin, Chaucer can find but little to say on the point:
But for to speken of hir conscience
She was so charitable and so pitous—