[468] Reg. of Walter Giffard (Surtees Soc.), pp. 147-8.
[469] V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 181.
[470] Linc. Visit. II, pp. 4, 5. This lack of bedclothes for the younger nuns was partly due to the fact that the Prioress did not want them to sleep in the dorter, for Thomasine adds “and when my lord had commanded this deponent to lie in the dorter and this deponent asked bedclothes of the Prioress, she said chidingly to her ‘Let him who gave you leave to lie in the dorter supply you with raiment.’” Mr Hamilton Thompson thinks that “probably sister Thomasine had previously been lodged separately with the other younger nuns and the Prioress and elders objected to the crowding of the dorter.” But poverty was the main cause, for at a later visitation the Prioress stated that she was unable to supply the sisters with sufficient raiment for their habits “because of the poverty and insufficiency of the resources of the house.” Ib. p. 7.
[471] The same injunction was sent to Wherwell. Reg. Epist. Johannis Peckham (Rolls Ser.), II, pp. 651, 659-60.
[472] Liveing, Records of Romsey Abbey, p. 103.
[473] New Coll. MS. f. 86d.
[474] Visit. of the Diocese of Norwich (Camden Soc.), pp. 290-2. Cf. the complaint of the nuns of Studley in 1530: “They be oftentymes served with beffe and no moton upon Thursday at nyght and Sondays at nyght and be served oftentymes with new ale and not hulsome.” V.C.H. Oxon. II, p. 78.
[475] Other houses in the diocese of Norwich which complained of bad food were Flixton (1520) and Carrow (1492, 1514, 1526). Carrow was one of the most famous nunneries in England, but in 1492 one of the Bishop’s comperta ran: “That the present sisters are restricted to eight loaves, and this is very little for ten sisters, for the whole day. Item there is often a lack of bread in the house, contrary to the good repute of the place.” See Visit. of the Diocese of Norwich, pp. 16-17, 145, 185-6, 209.
[476] Reliquiae Antiquae, I, p. 291. Translated in Coulton, A Medieval Garner, p. 597.
[477] V.C.H. Hants. II, p. 135. The belfry of St Radegund’s, Cambridge, fell down and injured the church in 1277. Gray, Hist. of the Priory of St Radegund, Cambridge, pp. 37-8; cf. p. 79. That of Esholt fell in 1445. V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 161.