[1187] Alnwick’s Visit. MS. f. 77d.
[1188] “That frome hensforthe ye give noo more licence ne suffre eny of your susters to be godmother to eny child, nither at the christening nother at the confirmacon, and undre like payne chardge you nott to be godmother to eny child in christening nor confirmacon.” Archaeologia, XLVII, p. 54. Compare similar prohibitions by Eudes Rigaud, Archbishop of Rouen, addressed to the nuns of Montivilliers in 1257 and 1265. Reg. Visit. Archiepis. Rothomag. ed. Bonnin (1852), pp. 293, 517. The prohibition was frequently broken by monks as well as by nuns. See e.g. the comperta at Alnwick’s visitation of Higham Ferrers College in 1442: “Also Sir William Calverstone haunts suspect places and especially the house of Margery Chaumberleyn, for whose son he stood sponsor at his confirmation, and, though warned by the master, he does not desist. The same does also haunt the house of one Plays, for whose son he likewise stood sponsor.” Linc. Visit. II, p. 138. Also the complaint of Guy Jouenneaux, Abbot of St Sulpice de Bourges in his Defence of Monastic Reform (1503): “Sometimes they eat in the houses of their gossips, though the law forbids them such relationships, or again among citizens, at whose houses they are as frequent guests, or more frequent, than even worldly-minded folk.” Coulton, loc. cit. It is interesting that Barbara Mason, ex-Prioress of Marham, who died shortly after the dissolution in 1538, mentions two god-daughters. “I wyll Barbara Barcom my goddowter and seruant, shall haue my wosted kyrtyll and clothe kyrtell and my frok in Hayll. Itm. I bequeth to Elyn Mason’s chyld, my goddowter xij d.” Bury Wills and Inventories, ed. S. Tymms (Camden Soc.), p. 134. Henry VIII’s visitors gave her a bad character.
[1189] For her life see M. A. E. Green, Lives of the Princesses of England, II, pp. 404-42.
[1190] Their gardens are often mentioned, e.g. at Nuncoton in 1440 it was complained that the nuns had private gardens and that some of them did not come to Compline, but wandered about in the gardens, gathering herbs. Alnwick’s Visit. f. 72. At Stainfield in 1519 a similar complaint was made that on feast days they did not stay in the church and occupy themselves in devotion, between the Hours of Our Lady and High Mass, but came out and walked about the garden and cloisters. V.C.H. Lincs. II, p. 131. The nuns of Sinningthwaite (1319) were ordered to provide themselves with a competent gardener for their curtilage, so that they might always have an abundance of vegetables. V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 177. Christine de Pisan’s description of the great gardens of the convent of Poissy is most attractive. See below, p. [560].
[1191] Quoted in Gasquet, English Monastic Life, p. 177.
[1192] One of the charges against Eleanor Prioress of Arden in 1396 was that “she compelled three young nuns to go out haymaking very early in the morning and they did not come back before nightfall and so divine service was not yet said.” Test. Ebor. (Surtees Soc.), p. 283.
[1193] Alnwick’s Visit. f. 71d.
[1194] Ib. pp. 120, 121, 123, 125. At Bishop Atwater’s visitation of Legbourne in 1519 it was stated that the nuns often worked at haymaking, but only in the presence of the Prioress. V.C.H. Lincs. II, p. 154.