| PLATE | ||
| I | Page from La Sainte Abbaye | [FRONTISPIECE] |
| (Brit. Mus. MS. Add. 39843. Folio 6vº.) | ||
| TO FACE PAGE | ||
| II | Abbess receiving the pastoral staff from a bishop | [44] |
| (From The Metz Pontifical, 82(b)vº and 90vº, in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.) | ||
| III | Page from La Sainte Abbaye | [144] |
| (Folio 29.) | ||
| IV | Brass of Ela Buttry, the stingy Prioress of Campsey († 1546), in St Stephen’s Church, Norwich | [168] |
| (From Norfolk Archaeology, Vol. VI; Norf. and Norwich Archaeol. Soc. 1864.) | ||
| V | Page from La Sainte Abbaye | [260] |
| (Folio 1vº.) | ||
| VI | Dominican nuns in quire | [286] |
| (From Brit. Mus. Cott. MSS. Dom. A XII f.) | ||
| VII | The nun who loved the world | [388] |
| (From Queen Mary’s Psalter, Brit. Mus. Royal MS. 2 B. VII.) | ||
| VIII | Plan of Lacock Abbey | [403] |
| (From Archaeologia, LVII, by permission of the Society of Antiquaries and Mr Harold Brakspear.) | ||
| MAP | ||
| Map showing the English Nunneries in the later middle ages | [AT END] | |
MEDIEVAL ENGLISH NUNNERIES
CHAPTER I
THE NOVICE
| Then, fair virgin, hear my spell, For I must your duty tell. First a-mornings take your book, The glass wherein yourself must look; Your young thoughts so proud and jolly Must be turn’d to motions holy; For your busk, attires and toys, Have your thoughts on heavenly joys: And for all your follies past, You must do penance, pray and fast. You shall ring your sacring bell, Keep your hours and tell your knell, Rise at midnight to your matins, Read your psalter, sing your Latins; And when your blood shall kindle pleasure, Scourge yourself in plenteous measure. You must read the morning mass, You must creep unto the cross, Put cold ashes on your head, Have a hair cloth for your bed, Bind your beads, and tell your needs, Your holy Aves and your Creeds; Holy maid, this must be done, If you mean to live a nun. The Merry Devil of Edmonton. |
There were in England during the later middle ages (c. 1270-1536) some 138 nunneries, excluding double houses of the Gilbertine order, which contained brothers as well as nuns. Of these over one half belonged to the Benedictine order and about a quarter (localised almost entirely in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire) to the Cistercian order. The rest were distributed as follows: 17 to the order of St Augustine and one (Minchin Buckland), which belonged to the order of St John of Jerusalem and followed the Austin rule, four to the Franciscan order, two to the Cluniac order, two to the Premonstratensian order and one to the Dominican order. There was also founded in the fifteenth century a very famous double house of the Brigittine order, Syon Abbey. Twenty-one of these houses had the status of abbeys; the rest were priories. They were distributed all over the country, Surrey, Lancashire, Westmorland and Cornwall being the only counties without one, but they were more thickly spread over the eastern than over the western half of the island. They were most numerous in the North, East and East Midlands, to wit, in the dioceses of York, Lincoln (which was then very large and included Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Rutland, Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, Leicestershire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and part of Hertfordshire) and Norwich; there were 27 houses in the diocese of York, 31 in the diocese of Lincoln, ten in the diocese of Norwich and in London and its suburbs there were seven. On the other hand if nunneries were most plentiful in the North and East Midlands it was there that they were smallest and poorest. The wealthiest and most famous nunneries in England were all south of the Thames. Apart from the new foundation at Syon, which very soon became the largest and richest of all, the greatest houses were the old established abbeys of Wessex, Shaftesbury, Wilton, St Mary’s Winchester, Romsey and Wherwell, which, together with Barking in Essex were all of Anglo-Saxon foundation; and Dartford in Kent, founded by Edward III. The only houses north of the Thames which approached these in importance were Godstow and Elstow Abbeys, in Oxfordshire and Bedfordshire respectively; the majority were small priories with small incomes.
An analysis of the incomes and numerical size of English nunneries at the dissolution gives interesting and somewhat startling results. Out of 106 houses for which information is available only seven had in 1535 a gross annual income of over £450 a year. The richest were Syon and Shaftesbury with £1943 and £1324 respectively; then came Barking with £862, Wilton with £674, Amesbury with £595, Romsey with £528 and Dartford with £488. Five others (St Helen’s Bishopsgate, Haliwell and the Minories all in London, Elstow and Godstow) had from £300 to £400; nine others (Nuneaton, Clerkenwell, Malling, St Mary’s Winchester, Tarrant Keynes, Canonsleigh, Campsey, Minchin Buckland and Lacock) had from £200 to £300. Twelve had between £100 and £200 and no less than 73 houses had under £100, of which 39 actually had under £50; and it must be remembered that the net annual income, after the deduction of certain annual charges, was less still[1]. An analysis of the numerical size of nunneries presents more difficulties, for the number of nuns given sometimes differs in the reports referring to the same house and it is doubtful whether commissioners or receivers always set down the total number of nuns present at the visitation or dissolution of a house; while lists of pensions paid by the crown to ex-inmates after dissolution are still more incomplete as evidence. A rough analysis, however, leaves very much the same impression as an analysis of incomes[2]. Out of 111 houses, for which some sort of numerical estimate is possible, only four have over thirty inmates, viz. Syon (51), Amesbury (33), Wilton (32) and Barking (30). Eight (Elstow, the Minories, Nuneaton, Denny, Romsey, Wherwell, Dartford and St Mary’s Winchester) have from 20 to 30; thirty-six have from 10 to 20 and sixty-three have under 10. These statistics permit of certain large generalisations. First, that the majority of English nunneries were small and poor. Secondly, that, as has already been pointed out, the largest and richest houses were all in London and south of the Thames; only four houses north of that river had gross incomes of over £200 and only three could boast of more than 20 inmates. Thirdly, the nunneries during this period owned land and rents to the annual value of over £15,500 and contained perhaps between 1500 and 2000 nuns.
To understand the history of the English nunneries during the later middle ages it is necessary not only to understand the smallness and poverty of many of the houses and the high repute of others; it is necessary also to understand what manner of women took the veil in them. From what social classes were the nuns drawn, and for what reason did they enter religion? What function did monasticism, so far as it concerned women, fulfil in the life of medieval society?