The Celeres schal puruey for mete and drynke for seke and hole, and for mete and drynke, clothe and wages, for seruantes of householde outwarde, and sche shall haue all the vessel and stuffe of housholde under her kepynge and rewle, kepynge it klene, hole and honeste. So that whan sche receyueth newe, sche moste restore the olde to the abbes. Ordenyng for alle necessaryes longynge to al houses of offices concernyng the bodyly fode of man, in the bakhows, brewhows, kychen, buttry, pantry, celer, freytour, fermery, parlour and suche other, bothe outewarde and inwarde, for straungers and dwellers, attendyng diligently that the napery and al other thynge in her office be honest, profitable and plesaunte to al, after her power, as sche is commaunded by her souereyne[360].
A very detailed set of instructions how to cater for a large abbey is to be found in a Barking document called the Charthe longynge to the office of the Celeresse of the Monasterye of Barkinge[361]. (8) The Kitcheness superintended the kitchen, under the direction of the cellaress. (9) The Infirmaress had charge of the sick in the infirmary; the author of the Additions to the Rules of Syon, a person of all too vivid imagination, charges her often to
chaunge ther beddes and clothes, geue them medycynes, ley to ther plastres and mynyster to them mete and drynke, fyre and water and al other necessaryes, nyghte and day, as nede requyrethe, after counsel of the phisicians, ... not squames to wasche them, and wype them, nor auoyde them, not angry nor hasty, or unpacient thof one haue the vomet, another the fluxe, another the frensy, which nowe syngethe, now wel apayde, ffor ther be some sekenesses vexynge the seke so gretly and prouokynge them to ire, that the mater drawen up to the brayne alyenthe the mendes[362].
(10) The Mistress of the Novices acted as schoolmistress to the novices, teaching them all that they had to learn and superintending their general behaviour.
Certain of these obedientiaries, more especially the cellaress, chambress and sacrist, had the control and expenditure of part of the convent’s income, because their departments involved a certain number of purchases; indeed while the treasuress acted as bursar, the housekeeping of the convent was in the hands of the cellaress and chambress. Every well organised nunnery therefore divided up its revenues, allocating so much to the church, so much to clothing, so much to food, etc. Rules for the disposition of the income of a house were sometimes drawn up by a more than usually thrifty treasuress for the guidance of her successors, and kept in the register or chartulary of the nunnery. The Register of Crabhouse Priory contains one such document written (in the oddest French of Stratford-atte-Bowe) during the second half of the fourteenth century:
“The wise men of religion who have possessions,” says this careful dame, “consider according to the amount of their goods how much they can spend each year and according to the sum of their income they ordain to divers necessities their portions in due measure. And in order that when the time comes the convent should not fail to have what is necessary according to the sum of our goods, we have ordained their portions to divers necessary things. To wit, for bread and beer, all the produce of our lands and tenements in Tilney and all the produce of our half church of St Peter in Wiggenhall, and, if it be necessary, all the produce of our land in Gyldenegore. For meat and fish and for herrings and for feri and asser[363] and for cloves is set aside all the produce of our houses and rents in Lynn and in North Lynn and in Gaywood. For clothing and shoes all the produce of our meadow in Setchy, ... and the remnant of the land in Setchy and in West Winch is ordained for the purchase of salt. For the prioress’ chamber, for tablecloths and towels and tabites[364] in linen and saye, and for other things which are needed for guests and for the household, is set aside all the produce of our land and tenements in Thorpland and in Wallington. For the repair of our houses and of our church in Crabhouse and for sea dykes and marsh dykes and for the wages of our household and for other petty expenses is ordained all the produce of our lands, tenements and rents in Wiggenhall, with the exception of the pasture for our beasts and of our fuel. Similarly the breeding of stock, and all the profits which may be drawn from our beasts in Tilney, in Wiggenhall and in Thorpland, and in all other places (saving the stock for our larder, and draught-beasts for carts and ploughs and saving four-and-twenty cows and a bull) are assigned and ordained for the repair of new houses and new dykes, to the common profit of the house[365].”
This practice of earmarking certain sources of income may be illustrated from almost any monastic chartulary, for it was common for benefactors to earmark donations of land and rent to certain special purposes, more especially for the clothing of the nuns, for the support of the infirmary, or for a special pittance from the kitchen[366]. Similarly bishops appropriating churches to monastic houses sometimes set aside the proceeds for special purposes[367]. The result of the practice was that the obedientiaries of certain departments, more especially the cellaress, chambress and sacrist, had to keep careful accounts of their receipts and expenditure, which were submitted annually to the treasuress, when she was making up her big account. Very few separate obedientiaries’ accounts survive for nunneries, partly because the majority were small and the treasuress not infrequently acted as cellaress and did the general catering herself. Cellaresses’ accounts, however, survive for Syon and Barking, chambresses’ accounts for Syon and St Michael’s Stamford (the latter merely recording the payment to the nuns of their allowances) and sacrists’ accounts for Syon and Elstow[368]. In one column these accounts set out the sources from which the office derives its income. This might come to the obedientiary in one of two ways, either directly from the churches, manors or rents appropriated to her, or by the hands of the treasuress, who received and paid her the rents due to her office, or if no revenues were appropriated to it, allocated her a lump sum out of the general revenues of the house. Thus at Syon the cellaress drew her income from the sale of hides, oxhides and fleeces (from slaughtered animals and sheep at the farm), the sale of wood, and the profits of a dairy farm at Isleworth, while the chambress simply answered for a sum of £10 paid to her by the treasuresses. In another column the obedientiary would enter her expenditure. This might take two forms. According to the Benedictine rule and to the rule of the newly founded and strict Brigittine house of Syon, all clothes and food were provided for the nuns by the chambress and cellaress; and accordingly their accounts contain a complete picture of the communal housekeeping. In the later middle ages, however, it became the almost universal custom to pay the nuns a money allowance instead of clothing, a practice which deprived the office of chambress of nearly all its duties and possibly accounts for the rarity of chambresses’ account rolls. The Syon chambress’ account is an example of the first or regular method; the St Michael’s, Stamford, account of the second. More rarely the nuns received money allowances for a portion of their food. The growth of this custom of paying money allowances will be described in a later chapter[369]; here it will suffice to consider the housekeeping of a nunnery in which that business was entirely in the hands of the chambress and cellaress.
The accounts throw an interesting light on the provision of clothes for a convent and its servants. An account of Dame Bridget Belgrave, chambress of Syon (who had to look after the brothers as well as the sisters of the house) has survived for the year 1536-7. It shows her buying “russettes,” “white clothe,” “kerseys,” “gryce,” “Holand cloth and other lynen cloth,” paying for the spinning of hemp and flax, for the weaving of cloth, for the dressing of calves’ skins and currying of leather, and for 3000 “pynnes of dyuerse sortes.” She pays wages to “the yoman of the warderobe,” “the grome,” the skinner and the shoemakers and she tips the “sealer” of leather in the market place[370]. Treasuresses’ accounts also often give interesting information about the purchase and making up of various kinds of material. At St Radegund’s, Cambridge, the nuns were in receipt of an annual dress allowance, but the house made many purchases of stuff for the livery of its household and in 1449-50 the account records payments
to a certain woman hired to spin 21 lbs. of wool, 22d.; and to Alice Pavyer hired for the same work, containing in the gross 36 lbs. of woollen thread 6s.; and paid to Roger Rede of Hinton for warping certain woollen thread 1½d.; and to the same hired to weave 77 ells of woollen cloth for the livery of the servants 3s. 5d.; and paid to the wife of John Howdelowe for fulling the said cloth 3s. 6d.; and paid to a certain shearman for shearing (i.e. finishing the surface of) the said cloth 14½d.
The next year the nuns make similar payments for cleaning, spinning, weaving, warping, fulling and shearing wool (an interesting illustration of the subdivision of the cloth industry) and disburse 9s. 9d. to William Judde of St Ives for dyeing and making up this cloth into green and blue liveries for the servants of the house[371].