Medieval English Nunneries c. 1275 to 1535

by Eileen Power

[777] Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Sutton, ff. 25, 92d.

[778] Sometimes the chaplain of the house must have acted as an unofficial custos and sometimes he held the position by special mandate, e.g. in 1285 Bishop Giffard ordered the nuns of Cookhill that “for the better conduct of temporal business and for the increase of divine praise,” Thomas their chaplain was to have full charge of their temporal affairs. Reg. of Godfrey Giffard (Worc. Hist. Soc.), II, p. 267.

[779] Reg. Epis. Johannis Peckham (Rolls Ser.), I, pp. 72-3; II, pp. 708-9, III, p. 806.

[780] V.C.H. Northants. II, p. 99.

[781] V.C.H. Somerset, II, p. 157. Text in Hugo, Medieval Nunneries of the County of Somerset: Whitehall in Ilchester, App. VII, pp. 78-9.

[782] Reg. of Ralph of Shrewsbury (Somerset Rec. Soc.), p. 177.

[783] Hugo, op. cit. Minchin Barrow Priory, App. II, pp. 81-3. With these cases compare the appointment of custodes to the worldly Prioress of Easebourne in 1441. See above, p. [77].

[784] Dugdale, Mon. IV, p. 413.

[785] Ib. IV, p. 485.

[786] V.C.H. Oxon. II, p. 73.