[637] Ib. p. 237.
[638] Alnwick’s Visit. MS. f. 83. The Taxation of Pope Nicholas mentions a pension due to the Abbot of York of £3 for the church of Corby, which was appropriated to the nuns, and for other tithes elsewhere. The sum of £3 is occasionally mentioned in the account rolls of St Michael’s, Stamford, as having been paid to “our Lady of York,” or as being still due.
[639] Dugdale, Mon. IV, pp. 256 ff. Payments to the abbot and to other officiaries of Peterborough also occur very frequently in the conventual accounts.
[640] See above, p. [180]. Compare the case of St Mary’s, Winchester, where the nuns complained in 1468 that they were so burdened, that they could not fulfil the obligations of their order as to hospitality. V.C.H. Hants. II, pp. 123-4. The difficulty of keeping up the accustomed hospitality was one of the reasons for annexing Wothorpe to St Michael’s, Stamford, after the Black Death. Dugdale, Mon. IV, p. 268.
[641] Cal. of Papal Letters, V, p. 347. Compare Gynewell’s injunction in 1351: “E vous, Prioresse, chastiez les soers qils ne acuillent mie trop souent lour amys en la Priorie, a costage e damage de dit mesoun.” Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell, f. 34d.
[642] V.C.H. Yorks. III, pp. 117, 171, 172, 239. On the subject of abuse of monastic hospitality, see Jusserand, English Wayfaring Life, p. 121. Edward I forbade anyone to eat or lodge in a religious house, unless the superior had invited him or that he were its founder, and even then his consumption was to be moderate.
[643] Pope Boniface VIII’s edict for the stricter enclosure of nuns contained a clause warning secular lords against summoning nuns to attend in person at the law courts; they were to act through their proctors (see version promulgated by Simon of Ghent, Bishop of Salisbury in 1299. Reg. Simonis de Gandavo [Cant. and York Soc.], p. 11). The heads of the larger houses often did act through proctors, but less wealthy convents usually sent the head or one of the other nuns in person. See Eckenstein, Woman under Monasticism, pp. 362-3.
[644] Dugdale, Mon. III, p. 360.
[645] V.C.H. Oxon. II, p. 104. Compare a long lawsuit waged by Carrow Priory. Rye, Carrow Abbey, App. p. xxi.
[646] P.R.O. Mins. Accts. 1260/4. Compare the amusing account of how the Prior of Barnwell secured a favourable judgment from the itinerant justices. “Ipsis eciam justiciariis dedit herbagium alicui tres acras et alicui quatuor, et exennia panis, ceruisie et vini frequenter, in tantum quod in recessu suo omnes tam justiciarii quam clerici, seruientes et precones, gracias uberes referebant, et ipsi Priori (et) canonicis se et sua obligabant.” Liber Memorandorum Ecclesie de Bernewelle, ed. J. Willis Clark (1907), p. 171.