[418] Liveing, op. cit. pp. 229-30, 232.
[419] Essays on Chaucer, 2nd Series, VII (Chaucer Soc.), pp. 191-4; also in Dugdale, Mon. II, 456-7.
[420] Gray, op. cit. p. 158; cf. p. 174.
[421] V.C.H. Hants. II, 151.
[422] Alnwick’s Visit. MS. f. 71d. The Bishop forbade them to keep more than the necessary servants and made the same injunction at Legbourne. Linc. Visit. II, p. 187.
[423] Archaeologia, XLVII, pp. 57-8. Compare his injunction to Studley, ib. pp. 54-5. In 1306 every useless servant who was a burden to the impoverished house of Arden was to be removed within a week. V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 113. In 1326 the custos of Minchin Barrow was told to remove the onerosa familia. Reg. John of Drokensford (Somerset Rec. Soc.), p. 242.
[424] P.R.O. Suppression Papers, 833/39.
[425] Linc. Visit. II, pp. 4, 121, 131; Alnwick’s Visit. MS. f. 6. At Ankerwyke Alnwick enjoined “that ye hafe an honeste woman seruaund in your kychyne, brewhowse and bakehowse, deyhowse and selere wythe an honeste damyselle wythe hire to saruf yowe and your sustres in thise saide offices, so that your saide sustres for occupacyone in any of the saide offices be ne letted fro diuine seruice.” Compare the complaint of the nuns of Sheppey that they had no “covent servante” to wash their clothes and tend them when they were ill, unless they hired a woman from the village out of their own pockets. E.H.R. VI, pp. 33-4. The provision of a laundress was ordered at Nunappleton in 1534. Yorks. Arch. Journ. XVI, p. 444.
[426] Yorks. Arch. Journ. XVI, p. 443.
[427] “Also she says that secular servingwomen do lie among the sisters in the dorter, and especially one who did buy a corrody there” (Heynings, 1440). Linc. Visit. II, p. 133. The Abbess of Malling in 1324 was forbidden to give a corrody to her maid. Wharton, Anglia Sacra, I, p. 364.