they being bound to grant a pension to one of the King’s clerks, by reason of the new creation of an abbess, and the King having requested them to grant in lieu of such pension the allowance of one of their nuns to Ellen, daughter of Alice de Leygrave, to be received by her for life, to which they replied that they could not do so, for certain reasons[624].
In 1313, in pursuance of his right to nominate a nun on the new creation of an abbess, he had sent Juliana de Leygrave “niece of the King’s foster-mother, who suckled him in his youth,” to St Mary’s, Winchester, in order that she might be given a nun’s corrody for life (the value of which was to be given her wherever she might be) and a suitable chamber within the nunnery for her residence, whenever she might wish to stay there[625].
The obligation to provide corrodies for royal nominees pressed more heavily than the duty of pensioning royal clerks. A corrody was originally a livery of food and drink given to monks and nuns, but the term was extended to denote a daily livery of food given to some person not of the community and frequently accompanied by suitable clothing and a room in which to live. Hence corrodians were often completely kept in board and lodging, having the right to everything that a nun of the house would have (a “nun’s corrody”) and sometimes allowed to keep a private servant, who had the right to the same provision as the regular domestics of the house (a “servant’s corrody”). The King, indeed, looked upon the monastic houses of his realm as a sort of vast Chelsea Hospital, in which his broken-down servants, yeomen and officials and men-at-arms, might end their days. Thus he obtained their grateful prayers without putting his hand into his purse. There must have been hundreds of such old pensioners scattered up and down the country, and judging from the number of cases in which one man is sent to receive the maintenance lately given to another, deceased, some houses had at least one of them permanently on the premises. Many a hoary veteran found his way into the quiet precincts of a nunnery:
His helmet now shall make a hive for bees;
And, lovers’ sonnets turn’d to holy psalms,
A man-at-arms must now serve on his knees,
And feed on prayers, which are Age his alms.
In the intervals between feeding on prayers he must have been vastly disturbing and enthralling to the minds of round-eyed novices, with his tales of court and camp, of life in London town or long campaigns in France, or of how John Copeland had the King of Scots prisoner and what profit he got thereby.
In the last three months of 1316 Edward II sent seventeen old servants to various religious houses, and among them Henry de Oldyngton of the avenary was sent to Barking, to receive such maintenance as William de Chygwell, deceased, had in that house[626]. In 1328 Roger atte Bedde, the King’s yeoman, who served the King and his father, was sent to St Mary’s, Winchester, instead of James le Porter, deceased[627]; and in 1329 the Abbess and Convent of Shaftesbury were requested to admit to their house Richard Knight, spigurnel of the King’s chancery, who had long served the King and his father in that office, and to administer to him for his life such maintenance in all things as Robert le Poleter, deceased, had in their house[628]. The unlucky convent of Wilton apparently had to support two pensioners, for in 1328 Roger Liseway was sent there in place of Roger Danne and the next year John de Odiham, yeoman of the chamber of Queen Philippa, took the place of John de Asshe[629].
It was doubtless even more common for the widows of the King’s dependents to be sent to nunneries, and he must often have received such a petition as was addressed by Agnes de Vylers to Edward III:
A nostre Seigneur le Roi et a son Conseil, prie vostre poure veve Agneys, qi fut la femme Fraunceys de Vylers, jaditz Bachiler vostre piere, qe vous pleise de vostre grace avoir regard du graunt service qe le dit Fraunceys ad fait a vostre dit piere et ed vostre ayel, en la Terre Seinte, Gascoigne, Gales, Escoce, Flaundres et en Engleterre, et graunter au dit Agneys une garisoun en l’Abbeye de Berkyng, c’est assaver une mesoun & la droite de une Noneyme pour la sustinaunce de lui et de sa file a terme de lour vie, en allegaunce de l’alme vostre dit piere, qi promist al dit Fraunceys eide pour lui, sa femme et ses enfaunz.
“Il semble a conseil q’il est almoigne de lui mander ou aillours, s’il plest a Roi,” was the reply; so Agnes and her daughter might end their days in peace, and Barking be the poorer for their appetites[630]. At Barking the King had the right to claim a corrody at each new election of an abbess, as Agnes de Vylers doubtless knew; as early as 1253 its Abbess was exempted from being charged with conversi and others, because she had granted food and vesture for life to Philippa de Rading and her daughter[631]. Other nunneries in the royal patronage were under a similar obligation. In 1310 Juliana la Despenser was sent to Romsey, to be provided with fitting maintenance for herself and for her maid during her lifetime[632] and in 1319 Mary Ridel was sent to Stainfield to be maintained for life[633]. There were the usual attempts to escape from a costly and burdensome obligation; Romsey seems to have been successful in repelling Juliana la Despenser, for in the following month the King sent her to Shaftesbury, requesting the nuns to “find her for life the necessities of life according to the requirements of her estate, for herself and for the damsel serving her, and to assign her a chamber to dwell in, making letters patent of the grant”[634]. Stainfield was less successful in the matter of Mary Ridel; the usual plea of poverty was considered insufficient and the convent was ordered to receive her, to supply her with food, clothing and other necessities and to make letters patent, specifying what was due to her[635].
Certain convents were in addition handicapped by the obligation to make certain grants or liveries, in kind or in money, to other monastic houses. The nunneries of St Clement’s, York, and Moxby seem to have involved themselves—as a condition, perhaps, of some past benefaction—in a curious obligation to the friars of their districts. At a visitation of the former house in 1317, Archbishop Melton found that the Friars Minor of York, every alternate week of the year, and the Friars Preachers of York in the same manner, had for a long time been receiving fourteen conventual loaves; the nuns were ordered to show the friars the Archbishop’s order and to cease from supplying the loaves as long as their own house was burdened with debt; and in no case was the grant to be made without special leave from the Archbishop[636]. The next year, on visiting Moxby, Melton was obliged to make an injunction as to the bread and ale called “levedemete,” which the Friars Minor were accustomed to receive from the house; if it were owed to them it was to be given as due, if not it was not to be given without the will of the head[637]. At Alnwick’s first visitation in 1440 the Prioress of St Michael’s, Stamford, declared that the house was burdened with the payment of an annual pension of 60s. to the monastery of St Mary’s, York, “and that for tithes not worth more than forty pence annually; also it is in arrears for twenty years and more”[638]. The nuns also had to pay various small sums to Peterborough Abbey, by which they had been founded and to which they always remained subordinated[639].