Medieval English Nunneries c. 1275 to 1535

by Eileen Power

This system was evidently well established at a comparatively early date. It is mentioned in Peckham’s injunctions in 1279 and in Exeter and York injunctions belonging to the early years of the fourteenth century. To illustrate how it worked, we may analyse the references to familiae in Alnwick’s visitations of the diocese of Lincoln (1440-5)[993]. The number of households in a nunnery necessarily differed with the size of the house and it is not always easy to determine the proportion of households to nuns, because internal evidence sometimes shows that all the inmates were not present and enumerated at the visitation. Thus at Elstow the abbess “says that there are five households of nuns kept in the monastery, whereof the first is that of the abbess, who has five nuns with her; the second of the prioress, who has two; the third of the subprioress, who has two; the fourth of the sacrist, who has three; and the fifth of Dame Margaret Aylesbury, who has two”; but only thirteen nuns gave evidence[994]. In this house the frater was kept on certain days of the week, one nun deposing “that on the days whereon they eat together in frater, they eat larded food in the morning and sup on flesh, and they eat capons and other two-footed creatures in frater.” At Catesby the prioress deposed that she had four nuns in her familia and that there were three other households in the cloister. At Stixwould there were “five separate and distinct households”; at Nuncoton there were three; at St Michael’s Stamford, the prioress and subprioress each had one, but all ate together in the frater on fish-days; at Stainfield the prioress, the cellaress and the nun-sisters each kept a household. At Gokewell and Langley the nuns were said to keep divers households “by two and two” and at Langley the prioress added, “but they do eat in the frater every day”; also she says that she herself has three women who board with her and the subprioress one; also she says that the nuns receive naught from the house but their meat and drink and she herself keeps one household on her own account. At Gracedieu the prioress deposed

that frater is not kept nor has it been kept for seven years and that the nuns sit in company with secular folk at table in her hall every day and that they have reading during meals; also she says there are two households only in the house, to wit in her hall and the infirmary, where there are three at table together;

here the prioress’ hall simply took the place of the frater. There were four households at Godstow and apparently several at Legbourne.

This division into households which messed separately went hand in hand with another practice, which also softened the rigours of a strictly communal life, to wit the allocation of separate rooms to certain nuns. The obedientiaries of a house often had private offices, or checkers, in which to transact their business, and the custom grew by which the head of each familia had her own room, in which her household dined. The visitation reports continually refer to these private cells and to their use as dining rooms and places of reception for visitors. Sometimes the nuns even slept in them, though the dorter was always much more strictly kept than the frater; at Godstow in 1432 for instance, Bishop Gray enjoins “that the beds in the nuns’ lodgings (domicilia) be altogether removed from their chambers, save those for small children” (apparently their pupils) “and that no nun receive any secular person for any recreation in the nuns’ chambers under pain of excommunication”[995]. Some light is thrown upon these camerae by the inventories of medieval nunneries. Thus the inventory of the Benedictine Priory of Sheppey made at the Dissolution describes the contents of “the greate chamber in the Dorter,” which was used as a treasury in which to keep the linen, vestments and plate of the house, and in which one of the nuns Dame Agnes Davye seems to have slept; there follows a description of the chambers of eight nuns, with the furniture in each, from which it is clear that they had brought their own furniture with them to the monastery. These “chambers” may have been separate rooms or may have been partitions of the dorter, but if the latter they were evidently so large as to be to all intents and purposes separate rooms, for the furniture commonly includes painted cloth or paper hangings for the room, a chest and a cupboard, besides the bed; in three there is mention of windows and in two of fire irons. The most likely conjecture is that the dorter was used as a treasury and bedroom for one nun and the other chambers are separate rooms[996]. At some other houses the dorter is mentioned but was clearly divided into separate cells by wainscot partitions, and the wainscotting was sometimes sold at the Dissolution[997].

The attitude of ecclesiastical authorities to the modification of the communal rule involved in familiae and camerae was, for various reasons, one of strict disapproval. The custom of providing separate messes was extremely uneconomical; the passing of much time in private rooms was open to suspicion, especially when male visitors were received there; communal life was an essential part of the monastic idea; finally the amenities of private life were apt (as we shall see) to bring in their train the amenities of private property. The policy of the bishops was, for all these reasons, to restore communal life. They made general injunctions that frater and dorter should duly be kept by all the nuns, they made special injunctions for the abolition of separate households, and above all they condemned private rooms:

“Also we enioyne yow, pryoresse,” writes Alnwick to Catesby in 1442, “that ye dispose so for your susters that the morne next aftere Myghelmasse day next commyng wythe owten any lengare delaye, ye and thai aftere yowre rewle lyfe in commune, etyng and drynkyng in oon house, slepyng in oon house, prayng and sarufyng [serving] God in oon oratorye, levyng vtterly all pryuate hydles [hiding-places], chaumbres and syngulere housholdes, by the whiche hafe comen and growen grete hurte and peryle of sowles and noyesfulle sklaundere of your pryorye”[998].

But such injunctions were not easily enforced, and the politic bishops sometimes tried to reduce rather than to abolish the households and private rooms. It was often necessary—and indeed reasonable—to recognise the three familiae of the abbess’ or prioress’ lodgings, the misericord or infirmary and the frater[999]. Sometimes the bishops tried to enforce the rule, laid down by the legate Ottobon (1268), to limit the number who dined at the superior’s table, viz. that at least two-thirds of the convent were to eat each day in the frater[1000]. At Godstow Bishop Gray, in 1432, allowed three households besides that of the frater[1001]. The condemnation of private rooms, and more especially of the reception of visitors therein, was more severe; but here too, it was necessary in large convents for the obedientiaries to have their offices, and other individuals were sometimes given special permission to use separate camerae. Some bishops allowed them to sick nuns, but others enforced the use of the common infirmary[1002].

It has already been said that this approximation to private life was bound to bring with it an approximation to private property and it remains now to analyse the process by which these new methods of providing food, and even more effectively, new methods of providing clothes, resulted in a spread of proprietas, which was considered perfectly legitimate by the nuns and within limits condoned by the bishops. The impression left upon the mind by a study of monastic records during the last two centuries of the middle ages is that in many houses the rule of strict personal poverty was in practice almost completely abrogated, for it is quite obvious that the nuns had the private and individual disposal of money and goods. Indeed some convents seem almost like the inmates of a boarding house, each of whom receives lodging and a certain minimum of food from the house, but otherwise caters for herself out of her private income. This is a considerable departure from the rule of St Benedict, and it is worth while to analyse the sources from which the nuns drew the money and goods of which they disposed. These sources may be classified under five headings: (1) the annual allowance of pocket money (called peculium) which was allowed to each nun from the funds of the house and out of which she had to provide herself with clothes and other necessities; (2) pittances in money; (3) gifts in money and kind from friends; (4) legacies; (5) the proceeds of their own labour.

(1) The practice of giving a peculium in money out of the common funds of the house to monks and nuns began at quite an early date (it is mentioned at the Council of Oxford in 1222) and was so much an established custom in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries that to withhold it was considered by bishops a legitimate cause of complaint against superiors. The amount of the peculium varied at different houses. In the majority of cases it was intended to be used for clothes and its payment is sometimes entered in account rolls. At Gracedieu the nuns had “salaries” of 6s. 8d. a year each for their vesture and the careful treasuress enters all their names[1003]. At St Michael’s, Stamford, a chambress’ account, which has been preserved among the treasuress’ accounts, shows that in 1408-9 the prioress was paid 5s. for her “camise” and all the other eleven nuns 4s. each, while the two lay sisters had 3s. each[1004]. Similarly at St Radegund’s, Cambridge, a certain pension from St Clement’s Church was ear-marked for the clothing of the nuns and was paid over directly to them[1005]; and the Prioress of Catesby in 1414-5 includes under “customary payments” money paid “to the lady Prioress and her six nuns and to one sister and her three brethren by the year for clothing”[1006]. The fact that the peculium was a payment made from the common funds and not the privately owned income of an individual allowed it to escape the charge of proprietas, but it was nevertheless an obvious departure from the Benedictine rule, which forbade the individual disposal of property and made quite different arrangements for the provision of clothing.

(2) Another class of payments made to individuals from the convent funds was that of pittances. A pittance was originally an extra allowance of food and it was quite common for a benefactor to leave money to a convent for a pittance on the anniversary of his death. These pittances were, however, sometimes paid in money and most account rolls will provide examples of both. The nuns of Barking receive “Ruscheaw silver” as well as the little pies called “risshowes” in Lent; the nuns of St Mary de Pré (St Albans) had “Maundy silver” as well as ale and wine on Maundy Thursday; the nuns of St Michael’s Stamford receive their pittances sometimes in money, sometimes in spices or pancakes, wine or beer. The nuns of Romsey had a pittance of 6d. each on the feast of St Martin and another of 6d. each “when blood is let”[1007].