I bequeath to Isabel, my daughter, a nun of St Clement’s, York, to buy her black flannels (pro flannelis suis nigris emendis), according to the arrangement of my wife Agnes and of my other executors, at fitting times, according to her needs, four marks of silver[463].
Sir Thomas Cumberworth, dying in 1451, specifically directed that “ye blak Curteyne of lawne be cut in vailes and gyfyn to pore nones”[464].
The nuns were not always able to obtain adequate help from external friends in the matter of food and clothes; and evidence given at episcopal visitations shows that they sometimes went cold and hungry. Complaints are common that the allowance paid to the nuns (in defiance of canon law) for the provision of food and of garments had been reduced or withdrawn; and so also are complaints that the quality of beer provided by the convent was poor, though here the propensity of all communities to grumble at their food has to be taken into account[465]. But more specific information is often given; and though it is clear that financial mismanagement was often as much to blame as poverty, the sufferings of the nuns were not for that reason any less real. The Yorkshire nunnery of Swine is a case in point. It was never rich, but at Archbishop Giffard’s visitation in 1268 the nuns complained that the maladministration of their fellow canons[466] had made their position intolerable. Although the means of the house, if discreetly managed, sufficed to maintain them, they nevertheless had nothing but bread and cheese and ale for meals and were even served with water instead of ale twice a week, while the canons and their friends were provided for “abundantly and sumptuously enough”; the nuns were moreover insufficiently provided with shoes and clothes; they had only one pair of shoes each year[467] and barely a tunic in every three and a cloak in every six years, unless they managed to beg more from relatives and secular friends[468]. Fifty years later there was still scarcity at Swine, for the Prioress was ordered to see that the house was reasonably served with bread, ale and other necessities[469]. At Ankerwyke (1441) the frivolous and incompetent Prioress, Clemence Medforde, reduced her nuns to similar discomfort. Margery Kirkby, whose tongue nothing could stop, announced that “she furnishes not nor for three years’ space has furnished fitting habits to the nuns, insomuch that the nuns go about in patched clothes. The threadbareness of the nuns” added the bishop’s clerk “was apparent to my lord. (Patebat domino nuditas monialium.)” Three of the younger nuns also made complaints; Thomasine Talbot had no bedclothes “insomuch that she lies in the straw,” Agnes Dychere “asks that sufficient provision be made to her in clothing for her bed and body, that she may be covered from the cold, and also in eatables, that she may have strength to undergo the burden of religious observance and divine service, for these hitherto had not been supplied to her”; and Margaret Smith also complained of insufficient bedclothes. Poor little sister Thomasine also remarked sadly that she had no kirtle provided for her use[470].
The history of Romsey shows that even the rich houses suffered from similar inconveniences. In 1284 Peckham speaks of a scarcity of food in the house and forbids the Abbess to fare sumptuously in her chamber, while the convent went short[471]; in 1311 it was ordered that the bread should be brought back to the weight, quantity and quality hitherto used[472]; and in 1387 William of Wykeham rather severely commanded the Abbess and officiaries to provide for the nuns bread, beer and other fit and proper victuals, according to ancient custom and to the means of the house[473]. Campsey was another flourishing house, but in 1532 a chorus of complaint greeted the ears of the visitor, and (as in so many cases) the ills were all put down to the mismanagement of the Prioress, Ela Buttry. She was not too luxurious, but too stingy; Katherine Symon said that noble guests, coming to the priory, complained of the very great parsimony of the Prioress; Margaret Harmer said that the sisters were sometimes served with very unwholesome food; Isabel Norwich said that the friends of the nuns, coming to the house, were not properly provided for; Margaret Bacton said that dinner was late through the fault of the cook and that the meat was burnt to a cinder; Katherine Grome said that the beef and mutton with which the nuns were served were sometimes bad and unwholesome and that within the past month a sick ox, which would otherwise have died, had been killed for food, and that the Prioress was very sparing both in her own meals and in those with which she provided the nuns; and four other sisters gave evidence to the same effect[474]. One has the impression that the nuns were elderly and fussy, but there was evidently a basis for their unanimous complaint, and it is easy to imagine that food may sometimes have been very bad in convents which (unlike Campsey) were burdened with real poverty[475].
Another sign of the financial distress of the nunneries was the ruinous condition of their buildings. The remark written by a shivering monk in a set of nonsense verses may well stand as the plaint of half the nunneries of England:
Haec abbathia ruit, hoc notum sit tibi, Christe,
Intus et extra pluit, terribilis est locus iste.
(“This abbey falleth in ruins, Christ mark this well! It raineth within and without; how fearful is this place!”)[476]. Time after time visitations revealed houses badly in need of repair and roofs letting in rain or even tumbling about the ears of the nuns; time after time indulgences were granted to Christians who would help the poor nuns to rebuild church or frater or infirmary. The thatched roofs especially were continually needing repairs. It will be remembered how the Abbess Euphemia of Wherwell rebuilt the bell tower above the dorter,
which fell down through decay one night, about the hour of mattins, when by an obvious miracle from heaven, though the nuns were in the dorter, some in bed and some in prayer before their beds, all escaped not only death but any bodily injury[477].
PLATE IV
