pitying the miserable state of St Bartholomew’s at Newcastle-on-Tyne, both as to spirituals and temporals, and dreading the immediate ruin thereof, unless some speedy remedy should be applied, committed it to the care of Hugh de Arnecliffe, priest in the church of St Nicholas in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, strictly enjoining the prioress and nuns to be obedient to him in every particular and trusting to his prudence to find relief for the poor servants of Christ here, in their poverty and distress.[785]
Sometimes the nuns themselves begged for a custos to assist them, in terms which show that they found the management of their own finances too much for them. At Godstow in 1316 the King was obliged, at the request of the Abbess and nuns, to take the Abbey into his special protection “on account of its miserable state,” and he appointed the Abbot of Eynsham and the Prior of Bicester as keepers, ordering them to pay the nuns a certain allowance and to apply the residue to the discharging of their debts[786]. Similarly in 1327 the Prioress and nuns of King’s Mead, Derby, represented themselves as much reduced, and begged the King to take the house into his special protection, granting the custody of it to Robert of Alsop and Simon of Little Chester, until it should be relieved. Three months later Edward III granted it protection for three years and appointed Robert of Alsop and Simon of Little Chester custodians, who, after due provision for the sustenance of the prioress and nuns, were to apply the issues and rents to the discharge of the liabilities of the house and to the improvement of its condition[787]. Some interesting evidence in this connection was given during Alnwick’s visitations of the diocese of Lincoln. When Clemence Medforde, the Prioress of Ankerwyke, was asked whether she had observed the Bishop’s injunctions, she answered
that such injunctions were, and are, well observed as regards both her and her sisters in effect and according to their power, except the injunction whereby she is bound to supply to her sisters sufficient raiment for their habits, and as touching the non-observance of that injunction she answers that she cannot observe it, because of the poverty and insufficiency of the resources of the house, which have been much lessened by reason of the want of a surveyor or steward (yconomus). Wherefore she besought my lord’s good-will and assistance that he would deign with charitable consideration to make provision of such steward or director.... And when these nuns, all and several, had been so examined and were gathered together again in the chapter house, the said Depyng (the Visitor) gave consideration to two grievances, wherein the priory and nuns alike suffer no small damage, the which, as he affirmed, were worthy of reform above the rest of those that stood most in need of reform, to wit the lack of raiment for the habit, of bedclothes and of a steward or seneschal, but in these matters, as he averred, he could not apply a remedy for the nonce without riper deliberation and consultation with my lord[788].
Similarly the old Prioress of St Michael’s Stamford, when asking for the appointment of two nuns as treasuresses, complained “that she herself is impotent to rule temporalities, nor have they an industrious man to supervise these and to raise and receive (external payments)”; another nun said that “they have not a discreet layman to rule their temporalities,” and a third also complained of the lack of a “receiver”[789]. At Gokewell, on the other hand, the Prioress said “that the rector of Flixborough is their steward (yconomus) and he looks after the temporalities and not she”; he was evidently a true friend to the nuns, for she said “that the house does not exceed £10 in rents and is greatly in debt to the rector of Flixborough”[790]. The terms of appointment of custodes often specify the inexpertness of the nuns, or their need for someone to supervise the management of their estates[791]. Perhaps the fullest set of instructions to a custos which have survived are those given by Archbishop Melton to Roger de Saxton, rector of Aberford, in making him custos of Kirklees in 1317:
Trusting in your industry, we by tenour of the present (letters) give you power during our pleasure to look after, guard and administer the temporal possessions of our beloved religious ladies, the Prioress and convent of Kirklees in our diocese, throughout their manors and buildings (loca) wherever these be, and to receive and hear the account of all servants and ministers serving in the same, and to make those payments (allocandum) which by reason ought to be made, as well as to remove all useless ministers and servants and to appoint in their place others of greater utility, and to do all other things which shall seem to you to be to the advantage of the place, firmly enjoining the said prioress and convent, as well as the sisters and lay brothers of the house, in virtue of holy obedience, that they permit you freely to administer in all and each of the aforesaid matters[792].
It must have been of great assistance to the worried and incompetent nuns to have a reliable guardian thus to look after their temporal affairs, and it is difficult to understand why the practice of having a resident prior died out at the Cistercian houses and at Benedictine houses (e.g. St Michael’s, Stamford) which had such an official in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. Even the appointment of neighbouring rectors as custodes of nunneries in the York and Lincoln dioceses ceased, apparently, to be common by the middle of the fourteenth century[793]. It is a curious anomaly that this remedy should have been applied less and less often during the very centuries when the nunneries were becoming increasingly poor, and stood daily in greater need of external assistance in the management of their temporal affairs.
CHAPTER VI
EDUCATION