[1297] Linc. Visit. II, p. 175 (at this house there were also three women boarding with the Prioress and one with the Subprioress). Compare the case of Agnes de Vescy at Watton in 1272. The King wrote to the sheriff of Yorkshire that “Agnes de Vescy has been to the house of Watton with a great number of women and dogs and other things, which have interfered with the devotions of the nuns and sisters.” Graham, St Gilbert of Sempringham and the Gilbertines, p. 83. The fact was that no one had any real control over these great ladies, least of all their hostesses.
[1298] Linc. Visit. II, p. 185.
[1299] Alnwick’s Visit. MS. f. 76. Compare a compertum at St Sepulchre, Canterbury, in 1367-8. “Perhendinantes male fame steterunt cum priorissa, ad quas habebatur eciam accessus nimium suspectus,” Lambeth Reg. Langham, f. 76d.
[1300] Linc. Visit. II, pp. 120, 122.
[1301] Alnwick’s Visit. MS. ff. 71d, 72. Compare the state of affairs at Hampole in 1411, when the Archbishop ordered the removal of “secular servants and corrodiarii who attracted to themselves other secular persons from the country, by whom the house was burdened.” V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 165. When Bishop Grandisson of Exeter licensed the reception of Alice D’Aumarle at Cornworthy (1333) he added “proviso quod ad vos, per moram hujusmodi, secularium personarum non pateat suspectis horis liberior frequencia vel accessus.” Reg. Grandisson, pt. II, p. 724.
[1302] Visit. of Relig. Houses in Dioc. of Lincoln, I, p. 87.
[1303] Note for instance the Archbishop of York’s injunction when mitigating a severe penance on a nun of St Clement’s, York, which is clearly for immorality: “That twice a year if necessary she might receive friends ... but she was to have nothing to do with Lady de Walleys and if Lady de Walleys was then in their house, she was to be sent away before Pentecost (1310),” V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 129.
[1304] V.C.H. Yorks. II, p. 165.
[1305] Alnwick’s Visit. MS. f. 39d.
[1306] Possibly a priest.