[865] Ancren Riwle, ed. Gasquet, p. 318.
[867] Wood, Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies, II, pp. 229-31.
[868] Peckham, forbidding the nuns of Barking (1279) to eat or sleep in private rooms or to receive mass there, makes an exception for those who are seriously ill, “in which case we permit the confessor and the doctor, also the father or brother, to have access to them.” Reg. Epis. Johannis Peckham, I, p. 84. Cf. ib. II, pp. 652, 663. For nuns and medicine see S. Luce, La Jeunesse de Bertrand de Guesclin (1882), p. 10.
[869] At Romsey Abbey a pittance of sixpence was due to each nun “when blood is let” (see Bishop John de Pontoise’s injunctions in 1302 and those of Bishop Woodlock in 1311, both of which refer to the payments not having been made). Bishop Woodlock enjoined that “Nuns who have been bled shall be allowed to enter the cloister if they wish.” Liveing, Records of Romsey Abbey, pp. 100, 103, 104. In 1338 Abbot Michael of St Albans orders all the nuns of Sopwell to attend the service of prime, “horspris les malades et les seynes.” Dugdale, Mon. III, p. 366. At Nuncoton in 1440 the sub-prioress deposed that “the infirm, the weakminded and they that are in their seynies ... do eat in the convent cellar.” Alnwick’s Visit. MS. f. 71d. Bishop Stapeldon forbids the nuns of Polsloe in 1319 to enter convent offices outside the cloistral precincts “pour estre seigne ou pur autre encheson feynte.” Reg. Stapeldon, ed. Hingeston-Randolph, p. 317.
[870] On the custom of periodical bleeding in monasteries see J. W. Clark, The Observances ... at Barnwell, Introd. pp. lxi, ff. It is interesting to note that medieval treatises on the diseases of women occasionally refer specifically to nuns, e.g. in a fourteenth century English MS. a certain “worschipfull sirop” for use in cases of anaemia is said to be “for ladyes & for nunnes and other also þat ben delicate.” Brit. Mus. MS. Sloane 2463, f. 198 vº.
[871] E.g. Nicholaa de Fulham dates her will in 1327 from Clerkenwell and leaves certain rents for life to Joan her sister, a nun there. Sharpe, Cal. of Wills enrolled in Court of Husting, I, p. 324. The will of Elizabeth Medlay “of the house of St Clement’s in Clementthorpe” directs her body to be buried in the conventual church, bequeathes legacies to the high altar, the Prioress and each nun there and appoints dame Margaret Delaryver, prioress, as executor (1470). V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 130.
[872] New Coll. MS. ff. 88, 88dº.
[873] The Fifty Earliest Wills in the Court of Probate, ed. F. J. Furnivall (E.E.T.S.), p. 54. But she may have been a sister from a hospital.
[874] Linc. Visit. II, pp. 4, 5, 6.