Medieval English Nunneries c. 1275 to 1535

by Eileen Power

In the light of these passages it is interesting to find that cows and pigs are among the legacies sometimes left to nuns[1050]. At Nuncoton, in 1440, where certain nuns were in the habit of wandering in their gardens and gathering herbs instead of attending Compline,

Dame Alice Aunselle prays that they may all live in common and that no nun may have anything, such as cups and the like, as her own; but that if any such there be, they be kept in common by their common servant and that they may not have houses or separate gardens appointed, as it were, to them[1051],

which illustrates how easily the household system slid into proprietas. It was sometimes even necessary to forbid nuns to make wills and bequeath their property. This was forbidden by the Council of Oxford in 1222[1052] and in 1387 William of Wykeham sent a stern injunction to the nuns of Romsey, pointing out that by making wills they were falling into the sin of property[1053]. In 1394, on the death of Joan Furmage, Abbess of Shaftesbury,

the bishop ordered the Abbey to be sequestrated and annulled the will by which she had alienated the goods of the house in bequests to friends, declaring such a disposition to be injurious to the community and contrary to the usage of religious women[1054].

The history of the attitude of ecclesiastical authorities to two sources of private income, the peculium and the gifts from friends to individuals, is of even greater significance than these attempts to cope with private goods, for it shows how powerless the bishops were against the steady weakening of discipline in monastic houses. Here, as in the enclosure struggle and the struggle against familiae, they were forced into compromise at best and at worst into acquiescence. At its first appearance the custom of giving a peculium to individuals was severely condemned as a manifest breach of the rule:

“Moneys shall not be assigned to each separately for clothes,” says the Council of Oxford in 1222, “But such shall be diligently attended to by certain persons deputed to this purpose, chamberers or chambresses, who according to the need of each and the resources of the house, shall minister garments to them.... Also it shall not be lawful for the chamberer or chambress to give to any monk, canon or nun, monies or anything else for clothes, nor shall it be lawful for monk, canon or nun to receive anything; otherwise let the chamberer be deposed from office and the monk, canon or nun go without new clothes for that year”[1055].

Similarly, in the Constitutions of the legate Ottobon in 1268, the peculium is grouped with other forms of property; ch. XL enacts that no religious is to possess property and that the head of the house is to make diligent search for such property twice a year[1056], and ch. XLI enacts that no money is to be given to a religious for clothes, shoes and other necessities, but he is to be given the article itself[1057]. In 1438 a severe injunction from Bishop Spofford of Hereford to the nuns of Aconbury shows the close connection between the peculium and the private camera of the nuns[1058]. Yet in 1380 we find a bishop of Salisbury assigning a weekly allowance of 2d. to each nun of Shaftesbury from the issues of the house[1059]; and in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries nuns regularly complain to their visitors when their allowances are in arrears and the bishops regularly ordain that the money is to be paid[1060]. In the thirteenth century it is a fault in the Prioress to give the nuns a peculium; in the fifteenth century it is a fault to withhold it.

The custom as to presents from friends was that the nuns might receive gifts, only by the permission of their superior, to whom everything must be shown[1061]. Thus Archbishop Wickwane writes to Nunappleton in 1281: “that no nun shall appropriate to herself any gift, garment or shoes of the gift of anyone, without the consent and assignment of the prioress”[1062]; Archbishop Greenfield in 1315 forbids the nuns of Rosedale to accept or give any presents without the consent of the Prioress[1063]; and Archbishop Bowet in 1411 enacts that any nun of Hampole receiving gifts or legacies from friends is at once on returning to reveal them to the Prioress[1064]. Occasionally a Prioress, whether out of zeal for the Rule or for some other reason, showed herself unwilling to allow the nuns to receive presents. The nuns of Flixton in 1514 complained: “that they receive no annual pensions and that the prioress is angry when anything is given to them by their friends”[1065] and Alnwick in 1441 wrote to the Prioress of Ankerwyke, whose nuns complained both of insufficient clothes and of her bad temper when their friends came to see them,

And what euer thise saide frendes wyll gyfe your sustres in relefe of thaym as in hire habyte and sustenaunce, ye suffre your sustres to take hit, so that no abuse of euel come therbye noyther to the place ne to the persones therof[1066].

It was indeed almost a necessity to encourage the reception of presents, when (as so often happened towards the close of the middle ages) nuns were dependent for clothes upon their friends. But with Bishop Praty ordering that the nuns of Easebourne shall receive half the sums paid them for their work, and with Bishop Alnwick encouraging presents and enforcing the payment of peculia, it is plain that the Lady Poverty had fallen upon evil days.