In the well-known case of Nunnaminster, Winchester, there were, at the time of the suppression, twenty-six girl boarders who were reported by the local commissioners to be daughters of “lords, knights, and gentlemen.” The list that is set forth begins with a Plantagenet and includes Tichbornes, Poles, and Tyrrells. So, too, in the case of the Benedictines of Barking, of Kingsmead, Derby, and of Polesworth and Nuneaton, Warwickshire; of the Cluniacs of Delapré, Northampton; of the Cistercians of Wintney, Hants; and of the Gilbertines of Shouldham, Norfolk, it can be established that not only were many of the nuns of good birth, but that their pupils were in the main drawn from the same class.
The Episcopal Visitations of the Diocese of Norwich for 1492 to 1532, edited by Dr. Jessop, throw some interesting light on the inner life and social working of the nunneries of East Anglia. From the names of the inmates it becomes evident that some of these houses were in the main occupied by ladies of gentle birth, such as Willoughbys, Everards, Wingfields, Jerninghams, and the like. This was especially the case with the Austin house of Campsey and the Benedictine houses of Bungay and Thetford. When Bishop Nicke visited the last of these houses in 1514, complaint was made to him by one of the ladies that the prioress was intending to admit an ignorant (indocta) novice, and particularly one Dorothy Sturges, who was deaf and deformed. Apparently the arguments of the objector prevailed, but poor Dorothy was, not long after, admitted to the smaller nunnery of Blackborough.
When the priory of Carrow, a favourite retreat for the religious daughters of the citizens of Norwich, was visited in 1526, several of the ladies were advanced in years. The sub-prioress, Dame Anna Marten, had been in the convent for sixty years, and two others, Dames Margaret and Katherine, had been thirty-eight years in religion. It is a little touching to note that almost the only complaints that reached the bishop’s ears were those of the aged sub-prioress and Dame Margaret that the pace of chanting the Office by the sisters was too rapid, and lacking the proper pauses, and that of Dame Katherine who found the beer too small. At the next recorded visitation, six years later, all these good old ladies were still at Carrow, though Dame Anna’s age did not allow her to discharge the duties of sub-prioress; but she was then (1532) in charge of the infirmary. At this time the bishop interfered, probably at the suggestion of the aged dames, to stop an accustomed Christmas game (on Holy Innocents’ Day), when the youngest of the novices assumed the functions of a lady abbess, after the same fashion as a boy-bishop amongst the choir boys. The nuns of Carrow maintained a school for some of the better-class girls of the city and district, and doubtless this Christmas-tide sport was intended in the main for their delectation.
NUN ASKING PARDON OF AN ABBESS
CHAPTER IX
EXTERNAL RELATIONS OF THE MONASTIC ORDERS