[1131] See his letter to a superior, quoted by Thiers: “Je suis tout-à-fait d’avis que l’on n’ouvre point la porte au changement des Maisons pour le souhait des filles: car ce changement est tout-à-fait contraire au bien des Monasteres qui ont la clôture perpetuelle pour article essentiel. Les filles comme foibles, sont sujettes aux ennuis et les ennuis leur font trouver des expediens et importuns et indiscrets. Que les changemens doncques procedent des jugemens des superieurs et non du désir des filles, qui ne sçauroient mieux declarer qu’elles ne doivent point estre gratifiées, que quand elles se laissent emporter a des desirs si peu justes. Il faut donc demeurer là, et laisser chaque rossignol dans son nid; car autrement le moindre deplaisir qui arriveroit à une fille, seroit capable de l’inquieter et luy faire prendre le change: Et au lieu de se changer elle-même, elle penseroit d’avoir suffisament remedié à son mal, quand elle changeroit de Monastere.” Thiers, op. cit. pp. 160-1.
[1132] Plainly she regarded the things as her own private property and was thus guilty of the sin of proprietas as well. Compare the evidence of the Abbot of Bardney concerning one of his monks in 1439-40. “Also he deposes that brother John Hale sent out privily all his private goods, with the mind and intent, as it appeared, to leave the house in apostasy and especially a silver spoon and a mazer garnished with silver; and yet he has not yet gone, nor will he disclose to the abbot where such goods are.” Linc. Visit. II, p. 26.
[1133] Linc. Visit. II, pp. 127-9.
[1134] The three anchoresses of The Ancren Riwle and their maids will be remembered.
[1135] Raine, Letters from Northern Registers (Rolls Ser.), pp. 196-8. See also Rotha Clay, Hermits and Anchorites of England, pp. 93-4.
[1136] V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 113 (cf. Test. Ebor. II, p. 98). Two other Yorkshire nuns are found as anchoresses in the first part of the fourteenth century. Joan Sperry, nun of Clementhorpe, was anchoress at Beeston near Leeds in 1322, and in 1348 Margaret la Boteler, nun of Hampole, was anchoress at the chapel of East Layton, Yorks. Clay, op. cit. pp. 254-5, 256. See also the curious case of Avice of Beverley, a nun of Nunburnholme, concerning whom “the Prioress and nuns say that Avice of Beverley, sometime professed nun of Nunburnholme, thrice left the house to the intent that she might lead a stricter life elsewhere. They say that fourteen years at least have passed since she last went away; howbeit they believe her to have lived in chastity. They say that she was disobedient every year and very often while she was with them. They say that she dwelt with them for thirty years before she left the monastery for the first time.” The inquiry which elicited this information was made because she wanted to return (1280). Reg. Wm. Wickwane, p. 92. She had probably tried being an anchoress.
[1137] Visit. of Relig. Houses in Dioc. Linc. I, pp. 113-15. The prioress’ licence addressed to Beatrice is also printed. It may be well here to repeat the editor’s warning that “acts of this description probably form the foundation for the ridiculous superstition, made famous by a striking passage of Scott’s Marmion, that nuns and others who had broken the laws of the church were commonly walled up and left to perish.” Another and perhaps more probable explanation of the superstition is that Scott probably, and certainly others after him, misinterpreted the words immuratio, emmurer, which are constantly used of strict imprisonment by inquisition officials and others. See on the subject, H. Thurston, S.J., The Immuring of Nuns (Catholic Truth Soc. Historical Papers, No. V).
[1138] Celestria (? Celestina), nun, and Adilda, nun, are mentioned as anchoresses there. Clay, op. cit. pp. 222-3.
[1139] Ib. p. 184. An “ancress” was found at this house at the time of the Dissolution.
[1140] For her works see Revelations of Divine Love, recorded by Julian, Anchoress at Norwich, ed. Grace Warrack (1901). She is apparently not to be confused with another famous anchoress, Julian Lampet, bequests to whom are often recorded in Norwich wills between 1426 and 1478. The priory seems to have had a succession of two or even three anchoresses named Julian. See Rye, Carrow Abbey, pp. 7-8 and App. IX, passim. For anchoresses enclosed at conventual houses of men, see Clay, op. cit. pp. 77-8; anchoresses are sometimes described as “nun,” ib. pp. 224, 232, 238, 244. Matilda Newton, a nun of Barking, who had been appointed to rule the new Abbey of Syon, but for some reason did not become abbess, returned to her own house as a recluse in 1417. Ib. p. 144.