EILEEN POWER.

Girton College,
Cambridge.
September 1922

CONTENTS

PAGE
[CHAPTER I.] THE NOVICE
Situation, income and size of the English nunneries[1]
Nuns drawn from (1) the nobles and gentry[4]
(2) the middle class[9]
Nunneries in medieval wills[14]
The dowry system[16]
Motives for taking the veil:
(1)a career and a vocation for girls[25]
(2)a ‘dumping ground’ for political prisoners[29]
(3)for illegitimate, deformed or half-witted girls[30]
(4)nuns forced unwillingly to profess by their relations[33]
(5)a refuge for widows and occasionally for wives[38]
[CHAPTER II.] THE HEAD OF THE HOUSE
Superiors usually women of social standing[42]
Elections and election disputes[43]
Resignations[56]
Special temptations of a superior:
(1)excessive independence and comfort[59]
(2)autocratic government[64]
(3)favouritism[66]
The superior a great lady in the country side[68]
Journeys[69]
Luxurious clothes and entertainments[73]
Picture of heads of houses in Bishop Alnwick’s Lincoln visitations (1436-49)[80]
Wicked prioresses[82]
Good prioresses[89]
General conclusion: Chaucer’s picture borne out by the records[94]
[CHAPTER III.] WORLDLY GOODS
Evidence as to monastic property in
(1)the Valor Ecclesiasticus[96]
(2)monastic account rolls[97]
Variation of size and income among houses[98]
Methods of administration of estates[99]
Sources of income:
(1)rents from land and houses[100]
(2)manorial perquisites and grants[103]
(3)issues of the manor[109]
(4)miscellaneous payments[112]
(5)spiritualities[113]
Expenses[117]
(1)internal expenses of the convent[119]
(2)divers expenses[123]
(3)repairs[123]
(4)the home farm[125]
(5)the wages sheet[129]
[CHAPTER IV.] MONASTIC HOUSEWIVES
The obedientiaries[131]
Allocation of income and obedientiaries’ accounts[134]
Chambresses’ accounts (clothes)[137]
Cellaresses’ accounts (food)[137]
Servants[143]
(1)chaplain[144]
(2)administrative officials[146]
(3)household staff[150]
(4)farm labourers[150]
Nunnery households[151]
Relations between nuns and servants[154]
Occasional hired labour[157]
Villages occasionally dependent upon nunneries for work[158]
[CHAPTER V.] FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES
Poverty of nunneries[161]
(1)prevalence of debt[162]
(2)insufficient food and clothing[164]
(3)ruinous buildings[168]
(4)nuns begging alms[172]
Reasons for poverty:
(1)natural disasters[176]
(2)ecclesiastical exactions and royal taxes[183]
(3)feudal and other services[185]
(4)right of patrons to take temporalities during voidance[186]
(5)right of bishop and king to nominate nuns on certain occasions[188]
(6)pensions, corrodies, grants and liveries[194]
(7)hospitality[200]
(8)litigation[201]
(9)bad management[203]
(10)extravagance[211]
(11)overcrowding with nuns[212]
Methods adopted by bishops to remedy financial distress:
(1)devices to safeguard expenditure by the head of the house[217]
(2)episcopal licence required for business transactions[225]
(3)appointment of a custos[228]
[CHAPTER VI.] EDUCATION
The education of the nuns:
Learning of Anglo-Saxon nuns, and of German nuns at a later date[237]
Little learning in English nunneries during the later middle ages[238]
Nunnery libraries and nuns’ books[240]
Education of nuns[244]
Latin in nunneries[246]
Translations for the use of nuns[251]
Needlework[255]
Simple forms of medicine[258]
Nunneries as schools for children:
The education of novices[260]
The education of secular children[261]
Boys[263]
Limitations:
(1)not all nunneries took children[264]
(2)only gentlefolk taken[265]
(3)disapproval and restriction of nunnery schools by the ecclesiastical authorities[270]
What did the nuns teach?[274]
Life of school children in nunneries[279]
‘Piety and breeding’[281]
[CHAPTER VII.] ROUTINE AND REACTION
Division of the day by the Benedictine Rule[285]
The Benedictine combination of prayer, study and labour breaks down[288]
Dead routine[289]
The reaction from routine[290]
(1)carelessness in singing the services[291]
(2)accidia[293]
(3)quarrels[297]
(4)gay clothes[303]
(5)pet animals[305]
(6)dancing, minstrels and merry-making[309]
[CHAPTER VIII.] PRIVATE LIFE AND PRIVATE PROPERTY
The monastic obligation to (1) communal life, (2) personal poverty[315]
The breakdown of communal life: division into familiae with private rooms[316]
The breakdown of personal poverty[322]
(1)the annual peculium[323]
(2)money pittances[323]
(3)gifts in money and kind[324]
(4)legacies[325]
(5)proceeds of a nun’s own labour[330]
Private life and private property in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries[331]
Attitude of ecclesiastical authorities[336]
[CHAPTER IX.] FISH OUT OF WATER
Enclosure in the Benedictine Rule[341]
The movement for the enclosure of nuns[343]
The Bull Periculoso[344]
Attempts to enforce enclosure in England[346]
Attempts to regulate and restrict the emergence of nuns from their houses[353]
The usual pretexts for breaking enclosure:
(1)illness[361]
(2)to enter a stricter rule[363]
(3)convent business[367]
(4)ceremonies, processions, funerals[368]
(5)pilgrimages[371]
(6)visits to friends[376]
(7)short walks, field work[381]
The nuns wander freely about in the world[385]
Conclusion[391]
[CHAPTER X.] THE WORLD IN THE CLOISTER
Visitors in the cloister are another side of the enclosure problem[394]
The scholars of Oxford and Cambridge and the neighbouring nunneries[395]
Regulations to govern the entrance of seculars into nunneries:
(1)certain persons not to be admitted[401]
(2)certain parts of the house and certain hours forbidden[402]
(3)unsuccessful attempts to regulate the reception of boarders[409]
The nuns and political movements[419]
Robbery and violence[422]
Border raids in Durham and Yorkshire[425]
The strange tale of Sir John Arundel’s outrage on a nunnery[429]
The sack of Origny in Raoul de Cambrai[432]
[CHAPTER XI.] THE OLDE DAUNCE
Nuns and the celibate ideal[436]
Sources of evidence for the moral state of the English nunneries[439]
Apostate nuns[440]
Nuns’ lovers[446]
Nuns’ children[450]
Disorder in two small houses, Cannington (1351) and Easebourne (1478)[452]
Disorder in the great abbeys of Amesbury and Godstow[454]
Moral state of the nunneries in the diocese of Lincoln at two periods[456]
Attempted statistical estimate of cases of immorality in Lincoln (1430-50),
Norwich (1514) and Chichester (1478, 1524) dioceses		[460]
Punishment of offenders[462]
General conclusions[471]
[CHAPTER XII.] THE MACHINERY OF REFORM
The chapter meeting[475]
Reform by external authorities:
(1)a parent house[478]
(2)the chapter general of the order[481]
(3)the bishop of the diocese[482]
The episcopal visitation and injunctions[483]
How far was this control adequate?
(1)concealment of faults[488]
(2)visitation too infrequent[490]
(3)difficulty of enforcing injunctions[492]
Value of visitation documents to the historian[493]
[CHAPTER XIII.] THE NUN IN MEDIEVAL LITERATURE
Value of literary evidence[499]
Autobiographies and biographies of nuns[500]
Popular poetry (chansons de nonnes)[502]
Popular stories (fabliaux, exempla)[515]
Didactic works addressed to nuns[523]
Satires and moral treatises[533]
Secular literature in general[555]
APPENDICES
[I.] Additional Notes to the Text:
A.The daily fare of Barking Abbey[563]
B.School children in nunneries[568]
C.Nunnery disputes[581]
D.Gay clothes[585]
E.Convent pets in literature[588]
F.The moral state of Littlemore Priory in the sixteenth century[595]
G.The moral state of the Yorkshire nunneries in the first half of
the fourteenth century		[597]
H.The disappearance or suppression of eight nunneries prior to 1535[602]
I.Chansons de Nonnes[604]
J.The theme of the nun in love in medieval popular literature[622]
K.Nuns in the Dialogus Miraculorum of Caesarius of Heisterbach[627]
[II.] Visitations of Nunneries in the Diocese of Rouen by Archbishop
Eudes Rigaud (1248-1269)		[634]
[III.] Fifteenth Century Saxon Visitations by Johann Busch[670]
[IV.] List of English Nunneries, C. 1275-1535[685]
BIBLIOGRAPHY[693]
INDEX[704]

LIST OF PLATES