[816] Capgrave, Life of St Katharine of Alexandria, ed. Horstmann (E.E.T.S. 1893), Introd. p. xxix.
[817] St John’s Coll. MS. 68. Other psalters from the aristocratic house of Wherwell are MS. add. 27866 at the British Museum and MS. McClean 45 at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
[818] MS. 136 (T. 6. 18). See J. Young and P. Henderson Aitkin, Cat. of MSS. in the Lib. of the Hunterian Museum in the Univ. of Glasgow (1908), p. 124. In the introduction the book is conjectured to have belonged to the Carthusian monastery at Sheen, where it obviously was written; but the reference to “sorores et ffratres” and the name of Elizabeth Gibbs (see Blunt, Myroure of Oure Ladye (E.E.T.S.), p. xxiii), show clearly that it belonged to Syon.
[819] So John of Pontoise sends Juliana de Spina to Romsey on the occasion of his consecration (1282), with the recommendation “Ejusdem Juliane competenter ad hujusmodi officii debitum litterate laudabile propositum speciali gracia prosequentes, etc.” Reg. J. de Pontissara (Cant. and York Soc.), I, p. 240. Cp. ib. p. 252.
[820] Collectanea Anglo-Praemonstratensia, II, p. 267.
[821] Linc. Visit. I, p. 53.
[822] Gesta Abbatum (Rolls Ser. 1867), II, pp. 410-2. But professions were often written by others, and the postulant only put his or her cross. So also with the vote.
[823] Ib. II, p. 213. This was a not uncommon method of voting. It is clear, too, from prohibitions of letter-writing in various injunctions that nuns could sometimes write.
[824] Sussex Archaeol. Coll. V, p. 256. Compare the editor’s note on the education of Christina von Stommeln: “Simul cum psalterio videtur tantum didicisse linguae latinae, quantum satis erat non solum illi legendo, sed etiam epistolis ad se Latine scriptis pro parte intelligendis, ac vicissim dictandis: nam scribendi ignoram fuisse habeo.” Acta SS. Junii, t. IV, p. 279.
[825] Jusserand, A Literary History of the English People, I, pp. 239-40.