There is an air of verisimilitude about the injured convent’s argument, though the visitation report of 1440-1 does not show them as the strict and pious community which they claim to be; but what came of the affair we do not know.
One plea to lead a stricter life was, however, less open to suspicion; that was the request to be enclosed as an anchoress. Sometimes an anchoress had a companion, sometimes a servant[1134], but in any case her life was stricter than that of a nun, for she devoted herself to constant prayer and was bound to remain always in her little cell, which was usually attached to a church. There are several instances of nuns who left their communities to lead a solitary life in some anchorage. On one occasion when the nuns of Coldingham had been dispersed by the Scots, Beatrice de Hodesak left her convent and with the permission of the Archbishop and of her Prioress retired to an anchorage at St Edmund’s Chapel, near the bridge of Doncaster; another anchoress Sibil de Lisle was already living there (c. 1300)[1135]. Twenty years later Archbishop Melton gave Margaret de Punchardon, nun of Arden, permission to be enclosed, as an anchoress, in the cell attached to St Nicholas’ Hospital at Beverley, in company with Agnes Migregose [? Mucegrose, i.e. Musgrave] already a recluse there[1136]. The register of Bishop Gray of Lincoln contains an interesting commission (1435-6) addressed to the Abbot of Thornton, bidding him enclose Beatrice Franke, a nun of Stainfield, in the parish church of Winterton, together with the Abbot’s certificate that he has examined her and found her steadfast in her purpose and therefore
shutting up the aforesaid sister Beatrice in a building and enclosure constructed on the north side of the church and making fast the door thereof with bolts, bars and keys, we left her in peace and calm of spirit, as it is believed by the more part, in the joy of her Saviour[1137].
Some nunneries themselves had anchorages attached, for instance Davington[1138], Polesworth[1139] and Carrow; and Julian of Norwich, anchoress at the parish church of Carrow in the fourteenth century, was one of the most famous mystical writers of the middle ages[1140]. Anchoresses do not seem always to have been content with their life and the strict preliminary examination of Beatrice Franke “concerning her withdrawal from the life of a community to the solitary life, concerning the length of time wherein she had continued in this purpose, concerning the perils of them that choose such a life and afterwards repent thereof” was probably a necessary precaution. The register of Bishop Dalderby of Lincoln contains a mandate to the nuns of Marlow, to readmit one such faint-heart, Agnes de Littlemore, a lay sister of the house, who had left it to become an anchoress and had repented of her decision[1141].
Illness and the desire to embrace a stricter rule were exceptional causes for a temporary breach of enclosure. The great difficulty in administering Periculoso arose over more usual pretexts. The least objectionable occasion for leaving cloistral precincts was when convent business demanded it and this happened frequently to the superior and the treasuress or cellaress. The journeys which were frequently taken by the head of a house have already been considered[1142]; but the obedientiaries also found much scope for wandering in the duties of their offices. The treasuress and cellaress might be obliged day by day to visit, in the course of their duties, offices and buildings which lay outside the walls, and if they were not sober minded women there were ample opportunities for lingering and gossiping with secular persons and with servants. The Constitutions of the Legate Ottobon in 1268 attempted to minimise this danger by enacting that no nun was to go into the different officinae, except those whose offices rendered it necessary to do so, and they were never to go unaccompanied[1143]. The complaints brought by the nuns of Gracedieu in 1440-1 against their self-confident cellaress Margaret Belers show that some such regulation was necessary; it was said that she was accustomed to visit all the offices by herself, even the granges and other places where menfolk were working, and that she went there (good zealous housewife!) “over early in the morning before daybreak”; whereupon Bishop Alnwick ordered the Prioress to “suffre none of thaym, officiere ne other, to go to any house of office wythe owte the cloystere, but if ther be an other nunne approveded in religyone assigned to go wythe hire, eyther to be wytnesse of others conversatyon”[1144]. Convent business, however, frequently took the officials further afield than outlying granges and they undertook journeys hardly less often than did the head of the house. The Cistercian statutes of 1256-7, in forbidding nuns to leave their convents, make exception “for the Abbess with two or at most three nuns and for the cellaress with one, who are permitted to go forth to look after the business of the house or for other inevitable causes”[1145]. The evidence of account rolls is invaluable in this connection and shows us the nuns going marketing or seeking tithes from recalcitrant farmers, or interviewing tenants about rent. The Chambress of Syon went to London three times in 1536, doubtless to buy the russets, white cloth, kerseys, friezes and hollands which figure so largely in her account and to take the spectacles to be mended; she was a thrifty lady and her expenses were only 6d., 2d. and 20d. respectively. Her sister the cellaress also went to London that year and spent 6d. on the jaunt[1146]. The nuns of St Michael’s, Stamford, sometimes took long journeys on convent business; in 1372-3 Dame Katherine Fitzaleyn went “to London and other places about our tithes,” at the heavy cost of 15s. 8d.[1147] From Stamford to London was a considerable journey, but the convent could not afford to lose its tithes. The same business took Dame Katherine to the capital another year; she hired three horses for six days and a serving man to go with them and she took with her Dame Ida, in accordance with the regulations; the whole cost of the expedition was £2. 11s., a very large sum, and we will hope that the tithes brought in more than enough to cover it[1148].
Sometimes, again, nuns left their houses to take part in ecclesiastical ceremonies, such as processions. There does not seem much harm in the whole convent sallying forth on these solemn occasions and indeed bishops sometimes gave orders that they were to do so. In 1321 Rigaud de Asserio, Bishop of Winchester, sent a letter to the Prior of St Swithun’s monastery “to pray for peace, with solemn processions”; he was to cause the Abbot and Convent of Hyde, the Abbess and Convent of St Mary’s, Winchester, and all the other religious houses and parish priests of Winchester to come together in the Cathedral and then to proceed in solemn procession through the town[1149]. The strictest disciplinarians, however, looked with suspicion even upon religious processions and sought to keep nuns within the precincts of their cloister. Ottobon’s Constitutions contain a proviso that nuns are not to go out for public processions, but are to hold their processions within the bounds of their own house[1150] and the prohibition was repeated by Thomas of Cantilupe, Bishop of Hereford, writing to Lymbrook in 1277[1151], and by William of Wykeham (who specifically based his words upon Ottobon), writing to Romsey in 1387[1152]. A century later the custom was forbidden in France at the provincial Council of Sens, in 1460 and again in 1485, where it was referred to as “a dangerous and evil abuse”[1153]. Some explanation of this severity, which seems excessive, may perhaps be gleaned from an injunction sent by Bishop Longland to Elstow in 1531:
Moreover forasmoche as the ladye abbesse and covent of that house be all oon religious bodye unite by the profession and rules of holy sainct benedicte, and is nott conuenyent ne religious to be disseuerd or separate, we will and Inioyne that frome hensforth noon of the said abbesse seruauntes nor no ther secular person or persones, whatsoeuer he or they be, goo in eny procession before the said abbesse betwene hir and hir said covent, undre payne of exccommunycacon, and that the ladye abbesse ne noon of hir successours hereafter be ladde by the arme or otherwise in eny procession ther as in tymes paste hath been used, undre the same payne[1154].
Other religious ceremonies of a less formal nature occasionally called nuns, in a body or individually, out of their cloister. For instance some of the greater abbeys were accustomed to receive into their fraternity benefactors and persons of distinction, both men and women, whom they wished to honour, nor were kings too proud to call themselves the confratres of Bury St Edmunds or St Albans and to receive from the monks the kiss of peace[1155]. The ceremony took place with great solemnity in the chapter-house and it is recorded that on one occasion (in 1428), when the Earl of Warwick and the Duke of Gloucester and their households were received into the Fraternity of St Albans, Cecilia Paynel and Margaret Ewer, nuns of Sopwell, were also admitted. At another time the Prioress of Sopwell, together with a certain John Crofton and his wife, were received and gave the abbey a pittance and wine and a sum of money; while on another occasion still the Prioress and another nun of St Mary de Pré were similarly made consorores of the abbey, and marked their appreciation by the gift of a frontal for the high altar in the lady chapel[1156]. Sopwell and St Mary de Pré were dependents of St Albans and it is not improbable that their superiors and seniors often visited it on great occasions such as this; certainly the great magnates of the realm often called at Sopwell on their way from St Albans, and nuns of the house figure in its book of benefactors as donors of embroidery to the church[1157], while in matters of government the Abbot always kept a tight hand upon both houses. Again nuns sometimes attended the funerals of great folk; not only priors and prioresses, but also canons and nuns were expected to be present at Sir Thomas Cumberworth’s funeral and “month’s-mind”[1158] and in an account roll of St Michael’s, Stamford, there is an entry “paye a nos compaygnounes alaunt a Leycestre al enterment la Duchesse ij s”[1159].
Attendance at religious processions and ceremonies might be, and attendance at funerals undoubtedly was, regarded by the more moderate and reasonable visitors as a legitimate reason for going outside the precincts of the cloister. One other excuse of the same nature, however, sometimes took a nun away from her convent for a considerable length of time and was never looked upon with any favour by the authorities of the church. Yet it is an excuse which we have the best of reasons for recognising, which is, indeed, bound up with all that most people know of the medieval nun—for Chaucer has taught us that nuns were wont to go upon pilgrimages. All pilgrimages did not, indeed, involve as long a journey as that taken by Madame Eglentyne. The ladies of Nuncoton could make a pilgrimage to St Hugh of Lincoln, without being away for more than a night and the ladies of Blackborough would not have to follow for a long distance the milky way to Walsingham[1160]. Nevertheless it is unnecessary to go further than Chaucer to understand why it was that medieval bishops offered a strenuous opposition to the practice; one has only to remember some of the folk in whose company the Prioress travelled and some of the tales they told. If one could be certain that she rode with her nun and her priests, or at least between the Knight and the poor Parson! But there were also the Miller and the Summoner and, worst of all, that cheerful and engaging sinner the Wife of Bath. If one could be certain that she listened only to the tale of Griselda, or of Palamon and Arcite, or yawned over Melibeus, and that she fell discreetly to the rear when the company laughed over the “nyce cas of Absalon and hende Nicholas”! If one could be certain that it was to the Wife of Bath alone that the Merchant made his apology
Ladies, I prey yow that ye be nat wrooth;
I can nat glose, I am a rude man.