The head of a religious house, whether abbot or abbess, had a great many secular duties. At Sion Monastery, which was a double house founded by Henry V. in 1415, the abbess who was at the head had the charge of all the money derived from the proceeds of the nuns’ work, and also from the endowments of the foundation. In the charter it is set forth—
“that the abbess of the aforesaid place and her successors shall be persons able to prosecute all manner of causes and actions real and personal and mixed, of whatsoever nature or kind they may be, and to answer and defend the same as well in courts spiritual as temporal, before all judges, ecclesiastical and secular whatsoever.”[17]
There was very often a certain amount of Church patronage connected with a religious house. The Prioress of Cannyngton Priory had the living of a church in the diocese of Exeter in her hands, and frequently ecclesiastics were admitted to Holy Orders on titles granted by a prioress and her convent.
Mynchin Buckland, which was a preceptory as well as a priory, was disturbed in 1270 by the conduct of the preceptor, who did not like to see any money paid for the maintenance of the sisterhood. This was the only community of women established by the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.
Nunneries were generally under the superintendence of the local clergy, who were responsible to the bishop, and if there were any disorders, an official was sent down to inquire into the matter. The diocesan officials had large powers, and used them liberally.
Another thing which brought the convent into relationship with the outer world, was the fact of their being used as houses of entertainment, and as places of residence for ladies temporarily in want of a home.[18] Visitors were constantly sent by the bishop to lodge and board at a priory. These ladies always lived at their own cost, and it was specially enjoined that they were not to interfere with the routine of the establishment. They brought their own servants, and sometimes remained a considerable time. These visitors never came without an express order from the bishop.
The kind of accommodation to be found in a priory may be gathered from the following inventory of the contents of a chamber allotted to one “Dame Agnes Browne” in the priory of Minster, in Sheppey.
“Stuff given her by her frends:—A fetherbed, a bolster, 2 pyllows, a payre of blankatts, 2 corse coverleds, 4 pare of shets good and badde, an olde tester and selar of paynted clothes and 2 peces of hangyng to the same; a square cofer carvyd, with 2 bed clothes upon the cofer, and in the wyndow a lytill cobard of waynscott carvyd and 2 lytill chestes; a small goblet with a cover of sylver parcell gylt, a lytill maser with a brynne of sylver and gylt, a lytell pese of sylver and a spore of sylver, 2 lytyll latyn candellstyks, a fire panne and a pare of tonges, 2 small aundyrons, 4 pewter dysshes, a porrenger, a pewter bason, 2 skyllotts
There were occasions when the lady abbess dispensed hospitality on a liberal scale. At the convent of Sion, in London, it was the custom at Pardon-time, which was in the month of August, for the Court of Aldermen to pay a visit to the convent.[19] It will easily be imagined that a good deal of preparation had to be made for these visitors. They recognized the demands made upon their hostess by sending the appropriate acknowledgment of a present of wine.
In the Middle Ages nuns were allowed, under regulations, to go out and see their friends. The rule was stricter in earlier periods, and strictest of all among the double monasteries. In the first six centuries of the Christian Church, the general rule seems to have been that—