It is possible to determine the exact nature of these costs and charges from an account of the expenses of the executors of Elizabeth Sewardby, who died in 1468. This lady, the widow of William Sewardby of Sewardby, had left a legacy of £6. 13s. 4d. to her namesake, little Elizabeth Sewardby, to be given her if she should become a nun. The executors record certain payments made to the Prioress of Nunmonkton during the period when Elizabeth was a boarder there, before taking the vows, and then follows a list of “expenses made for and concerning Elizabeth Sewardby when she was made a nun at Monkton”:
They say that they paid and gave to the Prioress and Convent of Monkton, for a certain fee which the said Prioress and Convent claim by custom to have and are wont to have from each nun at her entrance £3. And in money paid for the habit of the said Elizabeth Sewardby and for other attire of her body and for a fitting bed, £3. 13s. 6½d. And in expenditure made in connection with the aforesaid Prioress and Convent and with the friends of the aforesaid Elizabeth coming together on the Sunday next after the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary A.D. 1460, £3. 11s. 4d. In a gratuity given to brother John Hamilton, preaching a sermon at the aforesaid Monkton on the aforesaid Sunday, 2s. And in a certain remuneration given to Thomas Clerk of York for his wise counsel concerning the recovery of the debts due to the said dame Elizabeth Sewardby, deceased, 12d. Total £10. 7s. 10½d.[80]
It will be noticed that Elizabeth took with her not only a lump sum of money, but also clothes and a bed, the cost of which more than doubled the dowry. Canon law specifically allowed the provision of a habit by friends, when the poverty of a house rendered this necessary; and it is clear from other sources that it was not unusual for a novice to be provided also with furniture. The inventory of the goods belonging to the priory of Minster in Sheppey, at the Dissolution, contains, under the heading of “the greate Chamber in the Dorter,” a note of
stuff in the same chamber belonging to Dame Agnes Davye, which she browghte with her; a square sparver of payntyd clothe and iiij peces hangyng of the same, iij payre of shets, a cownterpoynt of corse verder and i square cofer of ashe, a cabord of waynscott carved, ij awndyrons, a payre of tonges and a fyer panne.
And under “Dame Agnes Browne’s Chamber” is the entry:
Stuff given her by her frends:—A fetherbed, a bolster, ij pyllowys, a payre of blankatts, ij corse coverleds, iiij pare of shets good and badde, an olde tester and selar of paynted clothes and ij peces of hangyng to the same; a square cofer carvyd, with ij bad clothes upon the cofer, and in the wyndow a lytill cobard of waynscott carvyd and ij lytill chestes; a small goblet with a cover of sylver parcel gylt, a lytill maser with a bryme of sylver and gylt, a lytyll pece of sylver and a spone of sylver, ij lytyll latyn candellstyks, a fire panne and a pare of tonges, ij small aundyrons, iiij pewter dysshes, a porrenger, a pewter bason, ij skyllots, a lytill brasse pot, a cawdyron and a drynkyng pot of pewter.
She had apparently been sent into the house with a complete equipment in furniture and implements[81].
Throughout the middle ages a struggle went on between the Church, which forbade the exaction of dowries, and the convents which persisted in demanding them, sometimes in so flagrant a manner as to incur the charge of simony. The earliest prohibition of dowries in English canon law occurred at the Council of Westminster in 1175[82] and was repeated at the Council of London in 1200[83] and at the Council of Oxford in 1222[84]; this last had been anticipated by a decree of the fourth Lateran Council. The history of the struggle to apply it is to be gathered from visitational records. Archbishop Walter Giffard, visiting Swine in 1268, finds that Alicia Brun and Alicia de Adeburn were simoniacally veiled[85]; Bishop Norbury has to rebuke the Prioress of Chester for the simoniacal receipt of bribes to admit nuns[86]; Bishop Ralph of Shrewsbury has heard that the Prioress of Cannington received four women as sisters of that house for £20 each, falling into the pravity of simony[87]; William of Wykeham writes to the nuns of Romsey in 1387 that
in our said visitations it was discovered and declared that, on account of the reception of certain persons as nuns of your said monastery, several sums of money were received by the Abbess and Convent by way of covenant, reward and compact, not without stain of the pravity of simony and, if it were so, to the peril of your souls,
and he proceeds to forbid the exaction of a dowry “on pretext of any custom (consuetudinis) whatsoever, which is rather to be esteemed a corruption (corruptela),” a significant phrase, which shows that the practice was well established[88]. Bishop Buckingham of Lincoln warns the nuns of Heynings against “the reception or extortion of money or of anything else by compact for the reception of anyone into religion” (1392)[89]; and Bishop Flemyng enjoins at Elstow in 1422