Another “spiritual” source of revenue consisted in alms and gifts given to the nuns as a work of piety. Sometimes a nunnery possessed a famous relic, and the faithful who visited it showed their devotion by leaving a gift at the shrine. The Valor sometimes gives very interesting information about these cherished possessions, described under the unkind heading Superstitio. The Yorkshire nuns possessed among them a great variety of relics, some of them having the most incongruous virtues. At Sinningthwaite was to be found the arm of St Margaret and the tunic of St Bernard “believed to be good for women lying in”[322], at Arden was an image of St Bride, to which women made offerings for cows that had strayed or were ill. The nuns of Arthington had a girdle of the Virgin and the nuns of St Clement’s York and Basedale both had some of her milk; at St Clement’s pilgrimages were made to the obscure but popular St Syth[323]. In other parts of the country it was the same. St Edmund’s altar in the conventual church of Catesby was a place of pilgrimage, for he had bequeathed his pall and a silver tablet to his sister Margaret Rich, prioress there[324]; and in 1400 Boniface IX granted an indult to the Abbess of Barking to have mass and the other divine offices celebrated in an oratory called “Rodlofte” (rood-loft), in which was preserved a cross to which many people resorted[325]. The nuns of St Michael’s Stamford not infrequently record sums received from a pardon held at one of their churches, and almost every year they received sums of money in exchange for their prayers for the souls of the dead. “Almes et aventures,” souls and chance payments, was a regular heading in their account roll, and the name of the person for whose soul they were to pray was entered opposite the money received. Miscellaneous alms from the faithful were always a source of revenue, though necessarily a fluctuating source[326].
Such were the chief sources from which a medieval nunnery derived its income. We must now consider the chief expenses which the nuns had to meet out of that income. It has already been shown that the total income of a nunnery was paid into the hands of the treasuress or treasuresses, save when the office of treasuress was filled by the head of the house, or when a male custos was appointed by the bishop to undertake the business. It has also been shown that the treasuress paid out certain sums to the chief obedientiaries (notably to the cellaress), to whose use certain sources of income were indeed sometimes earmarked, and that these obedientiaries kept their separate accounts. The majority of nunnery accounts which have survived are, however, treasuresses’ accounts; that is to say they represent the general balance sheet at the end of the year, including all the chief items of income and expenditure. The different houses adopt, as is natural, different methods of classifying their expenses[327]. The great abbey of Romsey classifies thus: (1) The Convent, including sums for clothing, for the kitchen expenses and for pittances, amounting in all to £105. 17s. 10d. (2) The Abbess, who kept her separate household in state; this includes provisions for herself and for her household and divers of their expenses, a sum of £8. 12s. in gifts, a sum in liveries for the household and spices for the guest-house and a sum in servants’ wages, amounting to £108. 17s. in all. (3) Divers outside expenses, including repairs of houses belonging to the Romsey mills, a sum for legal pleas, another for annuities to the convent and to the king’s clerks, who had stalls in the abbey, over £40 in royal taxes and £1. 14s. 8d. in procurations, amounting to £108 in all. (4) Miscellaneous expenses include £8. 19s. 4d. in alms to the poor, £6. 13s. 4d. in wine for nobles visiting the abbess, a sum for mending broken crockery, a sum for shoeing the horses of the Abbess’ household, and in horse-hire and expenses of men riding on her business, 14s. in oblations of the Abbess and her household and £10 in gift to Henry Bishop of Winchester on his return from the Holy Land. (5) Repairs and other expenses at six manors belonging to this wealthy house, amounting to £77. 2s. 6½d. The total expenses of the abbey this year (1412) came to £431. 18s. 8d., against a revenue of £404. 6s. 1d., drawn from six manors and including rents, the commutation fees for villein services, the sale of wool, corn and other stores and the perquisites of the courts. The deficit is characteristic of nunneries[328].
An interesting picture of many sides of monastic life is given by a general analysis of the chief classes of expenditure usually mentioned in account rolls. They may be classified as follows: (1) internal expenses of the convent, (2) divers miscellaneous expenses connected with external business, (3) repairs, (4) the expenses of the home farm and (5) the wage-sheet.
(1) The internal expenses of the convent. The details of this expenditure are sometimes not given very fully, because they were set forth at length in the accounts of the cellaress and chambress; but a certain amount of food and of household goods and clothes was bought directly by the treasuress and occasionally the office of cellaress and treasuress was doubled by the same nun, whose account gives more detail. Expenditure on clothing appears in one of two forms, either as dress-allowances paid annually to the nuns[329], or as payments for the purchase of linen and cloth and for the hiring of work-people to spin and weave and make up the clothes[330]. Expenditure on food is usually concerned with the purchase of fish and of spices, the only important foods which could not be produced by the home farm.
Among other internal expenses are the costs of the guest-house and the alms, in money and in kind, which were given to the poor. Account rolls sometimes throw a side light on the fare provided for visitors: for instance the treasuress of St Radegund’s, Cambridge, enters upon her roll in 1449-50 the following items under the heading Providencia Hospicii:
And paid to William Rogger, for beef, pork, mutton and veal bought for the guest house, by the hand of John Grauntyer, 24s. 8d. And for bread, beer, beef, pork, mutton, veal, sucking pigs, capons, chickens, eggs, butter and fresh and salt fish, bought from day to day for the guest house during the period of the account, as appears more fully set out in detail, in a paper book examined for this account, £11. 7s. 4½d. And for one cow bought of Thomas Carrawey for the guest house vj s viij d. Total: £13. 8s. 8½d.[331]
In this year the total receipts were £77. 8s. 6½d. and the expenditure £72. 6s. 4¾d., so that quite a large proportion of the nuns’ income was spent on hospitality. On the other hand the food was no doubt partly consumed by these “divers noble persons,” who paid the convent £8. 14s. 4d. this year for their board and lodging. It is a great pity that the separate guest-house account book referred to has not survived. At St Michael’s Stamford the roll for 15-16 Richard II contains a payment of 26s. 10d. “for the expenses of guests for the whole year,” and 6s. 8d. “for wine for the guests throughout the year”[332]; this is a very small amount out of a total expenditure of £116. 15s. 4½d. and it seems likely that the greater part of the food used for guests was not accounted for apart from the convent food.
The expenditure of nuns on alms is interesting, since almsgiving to the poor was one of the functions enjoined upon them by their rule; and many houses held a part of their property on condition that they should distribute certain alms. Some information as to these compulsory alms, though not of course as to the voluntary almsgiving of the nuns, is given in the Valor Ecclesiasticus. A few entries may be taken at random. St Sepulchre’s, Canterbury, paid 6s. 8d. for one quarter of wheat to be given for the soul of William Calwell, their founder, the Thursday next before Easter[333]. Dartford was allowed £5. 12s. 8d. for alms given twice a week to thirteen poor people[334]; Haliwell distributed 12s. 8d. in alms to poor folk every Christmas day in memory of a Bishop of Lincoln[335]. Nuneaton was allowed “for certain quarters of corn given weekly to the poor and sick at the gate of the monastery at 12d. a week, by order of the foundress, £2. 12s. 0d.; for certain alms on Maundy Thursday in money, bread, wine, beer and eels by the foundation, to poor and sick within the monastery, £2. 5s. 4d.”[336] Polesworth gave “on Maundy Thursday at the washing of the feet of poor persons, in drink and victuals, by the foundation £1. 6s. 0d.”[337] A chartulary of the great Abbey of Lacock, drawn up at the close of the thirteenth century, contains an interesting list of alms payable to the poor and pittances to the nuns themselves on certain feasts and anniversaries. It runs:
We ought to feed on All Souls’ day as many poor as there are ladies, to each poor person a dry loaf and as a relish two herrings or a slice of cheese, and the convent the same day shall have two courses. On the anniversary of the foundress (24 Aug. 1261) 100 poor each shall have a wheaten loaf and two herrings, be it a flesh-day or not, and the convent shall have to eat simnels and wine and three courses and two at supper. On the anniversary of her father (17 April 1196) each year thirteen poor shall be fed. On the anniversary of her husband thirteen poor shall be fed, and the convent shall have half a mark for a pittance. On the anniversary of Sir Nicholas Hedinton they should distribute to the poor 8s. and 4d., or corn amounting to as much money, i.e. wheat, barley and beans, and the convent half a mark for a pittance. The day of the burial of a lady of the convent 100 poor, to each a mite or a dry loaf.... The day of the Last Supper, after the Maundy, they shall give to each poor person a loaf of the weight of the convent loaf, and of the dough of full bread, and half a gallon of beer and two herrings, and half a bushel of beans for soup[338].
Account rolls sometimes contain references to food or money distributed to the poor on the great almsgiving day of Maundy Thursday, or on special feast days. The nuns of St Michael’s Stamford regularly bought herrings to be given to the poor on Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, St Laurence’s day, St Michael’s day and St Andrew’s day. The nuns of St Radegund’s, Cambridge, in 1450-1 distributed 2s. 1d. among the poor on Maundy Thursday and gave 10d. “to certain poor persons lately labouring in the wars of the lord king”[339]. The Prioress of St Mary de Pré, St Albans, has an item “paid in expenses for straungers, pore men lasours, tennents and fermours for brede and ale and other vitaills xxxvjs viijd”[340]. It is interesting to note that nunneries are not infrequently found giving alms in money or kind to the mendicant friars. The Prioress of Catesby gave away 1 qr. 3 bushels of wheat “to brethren of the four orders and other poor” in 1414-5[341]. The Oxford friary received from Godstow in memory of the soul of one Roger Whittell fourteen loaves every fortnight and 3s. 4d. in money and one peck of oatmeal and one of peas in Lent. The Friars Minor of Cambridge were sometimes sent a pig by the Abbess of Denny[342]. It will be seen in a later chapter that the poor Yorkshire nunneries of St Clement’s York and Moxby were considerably burdened by the obligation to pay 14 loaves weekly to the friars of York[343]. In general, however, it is difficult to form any just estimate as to how much almsgiving was really done by the nuns. There is no evidence as to whether they daily gave away to the poor, as their rule demanded, the fragments left over from their own meals; for such almsgiving would be entered neither in account rolls nor in chartularies and surveys dealing with endowments earmarked for charity.