So much for what may be called book learning. Let us now examine for a moment the other accomplishments with which nunnery-bred young ladies have been credited. We may, as Mr Leach suggests, make a guess at spinning and needlework, though here also there is no evidence for their being taught to schoolgirls. Jane Scroupe, into whose mouth Skelton puts his “Phyllyp Sparowe,” was apparently being brought up at Carrow, and describes how she sewed the dead bird’s likeness on her sampler,
I toke my sampler ones,
Of purpose, for the nones,
To sowe with stytchis of sylke
My sparow whyte as mylke.
Confectionery does not seem very probable, for at this period the cooking for the convent was nearly always done by a hired male cook and not (as laid down in the Benedictine rule) by the nuns themselves, who were apt to complain if they had to prepare the meals. For “home medicine” there is absolutely no evidence, though all ladies of the day possessed some knowledge of simples and herb-medicines and the girls may equally well have learned it at home as among the nuns. It is probable that the children learned to sing, if the nuns took them into the quire; but for this there is no definite evidence, nor has any document been quoted to prove that they learned to play upon instruments of music. It is true that the flighty Dame Isabel Benet “did dance and play the lute” with the friars of Northampton[899] and that “a pair of organs” occurs twice in Dissolution inventories of nunneries[900], but an organ is hardly an instrument of secular music to be played by the daughter of the house in a manorial solar; and Dame Benet’s escapade with the lute was a lapse from the strict path of virtue. Finally to suggest that the nuns taught dances verges upon absurdity. That they did sometimes dance is true, and grieved their visitors were to hear it[901]; but what Alnwick would have said to the suggestion that they solemnly engaged themselves to teach dancing to their young pupils is an amusing subject for contemplation. Evidence for everything except the prayers of the church and the art of reading is non-existent; we can but base our opinion upon conjecture and probability; and the probability for instrumental music is so slight as to be non-existent. If it be argued that gentlewomen were expected to possess these arts, it may be replied that the children whom we find at nunneries probably had opportunity to learn them at home, for they seem sometimes to have spent only a part of the year with the nuns. It is true that board is sometimes paid for the whole year, and that little Bridget Plantagenet stayed at St Mary’s Winchester for two or three years, while her parents were absent in France; moreover we have already heard of poor Elizabeth and Jane Knyghte, left for over five years at Cornworthy. But an analysis of the Swaffham Bulbeck accounts shows that the children (if indeed they are children) stayed for the following periods during the year 1483, viz., two for forty weeks, one for thirty weeks, one for twenty-six weeks, two for twenty-two weeks, one for sixteen weeks, one for twelve weeks and one for six weeks. It is much more likely that girls were sent to the nuns for elementary schooling than for the acquirement of worldly accomplishments.
As has already been pointed out, it is difficult to get any specific information as to the life led by the schoolchildren in nunneries. But by good fortune some letters written by an abbess shortly before the Dissolution have been preserved and give a pleasant picture of a little girl boarding in a nunnery. The correspondence in question took place between Elizabeth Shelley, Abbess of St Mary’s Winchester, and Honor, Viscountess Lisle, concerning the latter’s stepdaughter, the lady Bridget Plantagenet, who was one of the twenty-six aristocratic young ladies then at school in the nunnery[902]. Lord Lisle was an illegitimate son of Edward IV, and had been appointed Lord Deputy of Calais in 1533; and when he and his wife departed to take up the new office, they were at pains to find suitable homes for their younger children in England. A stepson of Lord Lisle’s was boarded with the Abbot of Reading and his two younger daughters, the ladies Elizabeth and Bridget Plantagenet, were left, the one in charge of her half-brother, Sir John Dudley, and the other in that of the energetic Abbess of St Mary’s Winchester. It must be admitted that the correspondence between the abbess and Lady Lisle shows a greater preoccupation with dress than with learning. The Lady Bridget grew like the grass in springtime; there was no keeping her in clothes.
“After due recommendation,” writes the abbess, “Pleaseth it your good ladyship to know that I have received your letter, dated the 4th day of February last past, by the which I do perceive your pleasure is to know how mistress Bridget your daughter doth, and what things she lacketh. Madam, thanks be to God, she is in good health, but I assure your ladyship she lacketh convenient apparel, for she hath neither whole gown nor kirtle, but the gown and kirtle that you sent her last. And also she hath not one good partlet to put upon her neck, nor but one good coif to put upon her head. Wherefore, I beseech your ladyship to send to her such apparel as she lacketh, as shortly as you may conveniently. Also the bringer of your letter shewed to me that your pleasure is to know how much money I received for mistress Bridget’s board, and how long she hath been with me. Madam, she hath been with me a whole year ended the 8th day of July last past, and as many weeks as is between that day and the day of making this bill, which is thirty three weeks; and so she hath been with me a whole year and thirty three weeks, which is in all four score and five weeks. And I have received of mistress Katherine Mutton, 10s., and of Stephen Bedham, 20s.; and I received the day of making this bill, of John Harrison, your servant, 40s.; and so I have received in all, since she came to me, toward the payment for her board, 70s. Also, madam, I have laid out for her, for mending of her gowns and for two matins books, four pair of hosen, and four pairs of shoes, and other small things, 3s. 5d. And, good madam, any pleasure that I may do your ladyship and also my prayer, you shall be assured of, with the grace of Jesus, who preserve you and all yours in honour and health. Amen.”
But for the matins books, sandwiched uncomfortably between gowns and hosen, there is no clue here as to what the Lady Bridget was learning.
The tenor of the next letter, written about seven months later, is the same, for still the noble little lady grew:
“Mine singular and special good lady,” writes the Abbess, “I heartily recommend me to your good ladyship; ascertaining you that I have received from your servant this summer a side of venison and two dozen and a half of pee-wits.”
(What flesh-days there must have been in the refectory!)
“And whereas your ladyship do write that you sent me an ermine cape for your daughter, surely I see none; but the tawny velvet gown that you write of, I have received it. I have sent unto you, by the bringer of your letter, your daughter’s black velvet gown; also I have caused kirtles to be made of her old gowns, according unto your writing; and the 10s. you sent is bestowed for her, and more, as it shall appear by a bill of reckoning which I have made of the same. And I trust she shall lack nothing that is necessary for her.”