[1536] As full reports containing detecta or comperta are specially valuable, it may be useful to indicate those concerning nunneries, which have been published: (1) The earliest comperta extant are those of Archbishop Giffard’s visitation of Swine in Yorkshire in 1267-8; the individual detecta are absent, but there is a fine set of injunctions, issued two months later, the earliest English nunnery injunctions which we possess, Reg. Walter Giffard (Surtees Soc.), pp. 147-8, 248-9. (2) The comperta of Archbishop Wittlesey’s metropolitan visitation of St Radegund’s, Cambridge (including only interim injunctions) have been published in Gray, Priory of St Radegund, Cambridge, pp. 35-6. (3) The Sede Vacante visitation of Arden in 1396 includes detecta but no injunctions, Test. Ebor. I, pp. 283-5 (note) and that of Nunmonkton in the same year includes comperta and injunctions, Dugdale, Mon. IV, p. 194; both of these are concerned almost entirely with charges against the respective prioresses. (4) The finest collection in existence is Alnwick’s book of Lincoln visitations, which is in the course of publication, Linc. Visit. II and III (in the press). (5) Records of visitations of Rusper and Easebourne from the Chichester registers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries contain detecta and some injunctions, Sussex Arch. Coll. V and IX, passim. (6) Records of the visitations of monastic houses in the diocese of Norwich by Bishops Goldwell (1492-3) and Nykke (1514-32) include detecta and injunctions (sometimes only interim), Visit. of Dioc. of Norwich, ed. Jessopp, passim. (7) Dr Hede’s Sede Vacante visitations of the four houses in the diocese of Winchester in 1501-2, summarised in V.C.H. Hants. II, passim, include detecta, but not injunctions. (8) Archbishop Warham’s visitations of houses in the diocese of Canterbury (Holy Sepulchre, Canterbury, the hospital of St James, Canterbury, Sheppey and Davinton) in 1511 include detecta and sometimes injunctions, Eng. Hist. Review, VI. When more registers are published other detecta and comperta will doubtless appear; there are some valuable sets, still in manuscript in Linc. Epis. Reg. Visit. Atwater and ib. Reg. Visit. Longland.
[1537] Linc. Visit. II, p. xlviii; for an admirable and detailed discussion of the whole question, in the light of Alnwick’s records, Mr Hamilton Thompson’s introduction to this volume (especially pp. xliv-li) should be studied. See also the learned article by Mr Coulton on “The Interpretation of Visitation Documents,” E.H.R. 1914, pp. 16-40.
[1538] Liveing, op. cit., pp. 99, etc.
[1539] Revelationes Gertrudianae ac Mechthildianae, ed. Oudin (Paris, 1875). See also Preger, Geschichte der deutschen Mystik im Mittelalter (1874), I, pp. 70-132; Eckenstein, Woman under Mon. pp. 328-53; Taylor, The Medieval Mind, I, pp. 481-6; A. M. F. Robinson (Mme Darmesteter), The End of the Middle Ages (1889), pp. 45-72 (the Convent of Helfta); A. Kemp-Welch, Of Six Medieval Women (1913), pp. 57-82 (Mechthild of Magdeburg); G. Ledos, Ste Gertrude (Paris, 1901). The name of the Abbess Gertrude of Hackeborn, who ruled the house during the greater part of the time that these three mystics lived there, deserves to be added to theirs. For her life see Revelationes, etc., I, pp. 497 ff.
[1540] See her life by Thomas of Chantimpré, Acta SS. Jun., t. III, pp. 234 ff. See also Taylor, op. cit. I, pp. 479-81.
[1541] See E. Gilliat Smith, St Clare of Assisi, her Life and Legislation (1914); Mrs Balfour, Life and Legend of the Lady St Clare, with introd. by Father Cuthbert (1910); Fr. Marianus Fiege, The Princess of Poverty (Evansville, Ind. 1900) which contains a translation of Thomas of Celano’s Life of St Clare (Acta SS. Aug. t. II, pp. 754-67), Paschal Robinson, Life of St Clare (1910), Locatelli, Ste Claire d’Assise (Rome, 1899-1900). Also La Vie et Légende de Madame Sainte Claire par Frère Françoys de Puis, 1563, ed. Arnauld Goffin (Paris, 1907).
[1542] Acta SS. Mar. t. I, pp. 501-31. See also Jentsch, Die Selige Agnes von Böhmen. She is always regarded as a saint but was never officially canonised.
[1543] Pirckheimer, B. Opera, ed. Goldast (1610). See also, T. Binder, Charitas Pirkheimer (1878), and Eckenstein, op. cit. pp. 458-76.
[1544] The Life of St Theresa of Jesus, written by Herself, tr. D. Lewis, ed. Zimmerman (1904). The Letters of St Theresa, tr. J. Dalton (1902). See also G. Cunningham Grahame, Santa Teresa, 2 vols. (1894).
[1545] See A. Gagnière, Les Confessions d’une Abbesse du xvie siècle (Paris, 1888), based on a manuscript at Ravenna (“Vita della Madre Donna Felice Rasponi, Badessa di S. Andrea, scritta da una Monaca”) which the author considers to be an autobiography. Some interesting details as to the scandalous condition of Italian convents at the end of the century are to be found in J. A. Symonds’ Renaissance in Italy: The Catholic Reaction, pt. I (1886), pp. 341-70, dealing with the careers of Virginia Maria de Leyva, in the convent of S. Margherita at Monza and Lucrezia Buonvisi (sister Umilia) in the convent of S. Chiara at Lucca.