[1257] Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell, f. 34d.
[1258] Linc. Visit. II, pp. 133-5, passim. Compare the injunctions to some Yorkshire houses: at Marrick (1252) the nuns were forbidden to sit with guests or anyone else outside the cloister after curfew, or for a long time unless the guests arrived so late that it was impossible to serve them sooner, nor was a nun to remain alone with a guest. At Hampole (1302) no nun except the hostillaria was to eat or drink in the guest-house, save with worthy people, and at Wilberfoss (1302) they were forbidden to linger in the guest-house or elsewhere, for amusement with seculars. V.C.H. Yorks. III, pp. 117, 126, 163. At Elstow in 1432, however, Bishop Gray enjoined “that when parents or friends or kinsfolk of nuns, or other persons of note and honesty, shall journey to the same monastery to visit any nuns of the said monastery, the same nuns be nowise bound for that day to observance of frater, but be excused to this end by grace of the abbess or president.” Visit. of Relig. Houses in Dioc. Linc. I, p. 54.
[1259] Reg. Epis. J. Peckham, III, pp. 851-2.
[1260] Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell, f. 100d.
[1261] Wykeham’s Reg. II, pp. 73-4. The special prohibition of friars is significant, for their reputation was growing worse and worse throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. See also V.C.H. Yorks. III, pp. 164, 171, 181 and Arch. XLVII, p. 57. On the other hand it should be noted that “during the later thirteenth and earlier fourteenth centuries the bishops in many dioceses made a point of insisting that the confessors to the nuns should be chosen, not from the secular clergy, but from the Mendicant Orders, especially from the Minorites.” A. G. Little, Studies in English Franciscan Hist. (1917), p. 119 (and the references which he gives).
[1262] Visit. of Relig. Houses in Dioc. Linc. I, p. 66.
[1263] Yorks. Arch. Journ. XVI, p. 441. Compare Alnwick’s injunctions to Catesby (1442), Langley (1440-1) and St Michael’s, Stamford (1440). Linc. Visit. II, pp. 51, 117, Alnwick’s MS. f. 83d.
[1264] Yorks. Arch. Journ. XVI, p. 452 (cf. p. 440). These injunctions were very common, for the rule was often broken. Peckham’s regulation for Wherwell (1284) was that no man was to enter after sunset at night, or before the end of chapter (which followed directly after Prime) in the morning. Reg. Epis. J. Peckham, II, p. 653. For other examples see Romsey (1302-11), Liveing, op. cit. pp. 102, 103; Moxby (1318), V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 239; Sopwell (1338), Dugdale, Mon. III, p. 366; Wroxall (1338), Worc. Reg. Sede Vacante, p. 275; Heynings (1351), Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell, f. 34d; Elstow (1387), ib., Reg. Memo. Bokyngham, f. 343: St Mary’s Neasham (1436), V.C.H. Durham, II, p. 107; St Helen’s, Bishopsgate (1439), Dugdale, Mon. IV, p. 552; Nunappleton (1489), V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 172; Studley (1530-1), Archaeologia, XLVII, p. 59; Nuncoton (1531), ib. pp. 56, 59.
[1265] This certainly seems very strict, for (as appears from the injunctions quoted) it was customary to order the doors to be shut when the bell rang for Compline, the last office of the day. Vespers was the service immediately before supper.
[1266] Cantarista usually means a chantry-priest. The more usual word is Precentrix.