[943] Linc. Visit. II, p. 118. Similar detecta and injunctions at Catesby, Rothwell and Studley (ib. pp. 47, 52; Alnwick’s Visit. MS. ff. 38, 26d) and at Ankerwyke (quoted above, p. [76]). Also at Studley (1531), Archaeol. XLVII, p. 55, and Romsey (1523), Liveing, op. cit. p. 244.

[944] Archaeol. XLVII, p. 52. For an equally detailed account see the case of the Prioress of Ankerwyke, quoted above p. [76].

[945] See below, p. [543].

[946] See below, pp. [325-30].

[947] For nunnery pets as a literary theme, see [Note E] and for pet animals in the nunneries of Eudes Rigaud’s diocese see below, p. [662].

[948] “Ye shall not possess any beasts, my dear sisters, except only a cat.” Ancren Riwle, p. 316. At the nunnery of Langendorf in Saxony, however, a set of reformed rules drawn up in the early fifteenth century contains the proviso “Cats, dogs and other animals are not to be kept by the nuns, as they detract from seriousness.” Eckenstein, op. cit. p. 415.

[949] “Mem. quod apud manerium de Newenton fuerunt quedam moniales.... Et postea contingit [sic] quod priorissa eiusdem manerii strangulata fuit de cato suo in lecto suo noctu et postea tractata ad puteum quod vocatur Nunnepet.” Quoted from Sprott’s Chronicle in The Black Book of St Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury (British Acad. 1915), I, p. 283. In Thorn’s Chronicle, however, the crime is attributed to the prioress’ cook. See Dugdale, Mon. VI, p. 1620. The nuns were afterwards removed to Sheppey.

[950] There really seems to have been a parrot at Fontevrault in 1477, to judge from an item in the inventory of goods left on her death by the Abbess Marie de Bretagne, “Item xviij serviecttes en une aultre piece, led. linge estant en ung coffre de cuir boully, en la chambre ou est la papegault (perroquet).” Alfred Jubien, L’Abbesse Marie de Bretagne (Angers and Paris 1872), p. 156. It is interesting to note that J. B. Thiers, writing on enclosure in 1681, mentions “de belles volieres à petits oiseaux” as one of those unnecessary works for which artisans may not be introduced into the cloister. Thiers, De la Clôture, p. 412.

[951] Reg. Epis. Peckham (R.S.), II, p. 660.

[952] Dugdale, Mon. II, p. 619 (Chatteris) and Camb. Antiq. Soc. Proc. XLV (1905), p. 190 (Ickleton).