“We enjoin and command by these presents that from henceforth the prioress shall diligently provide that no secular nor religious persons have resort or recourse at any time to her or any of the said sisters on any occasion, unless it be their fathers and mothers or other near kinsfolk.”
Also—
“We command and exhort the said prioress in virtue of obedience that she from henceforth license none of her sisters to go forth of the house unless it be for the profit of the house, or to visit their fathers and mothers or other their near kinsfolk, if the prioress shall think it convenient, and then the prioress shall assign some sad and discreet religious sister to go with her, and that she limit them a time to return, and that they be not over long out of the monastery.”
The nuns were accustomed to indulge in amusements, for there are injunctions which show that games and revels were common.
“Also we enjoyne you that alle daunsyng and revelyng be utterly forborne among you except Christmasse and other honest tymys of recreacyone, among yourse selfe in absence of seculars in all wyse.”
The nuns of Appleton, Yorkshire, were apparently rather jovial, and the prioress is commanded in 1489 to see “that none of your sisters use the alehouse nor the watersyde where course of strangers dayly resorte.” It was likewise ordered that the sisters should not—
“bring in, receave, or take any layman religious or secular into the chambre or any secrete place day or night, nor with thaim in such private places to commine, ete or drinke, without lycence of your priorisse.”
At Sion Monastery the rule was stricter.
“Conversation with seculars was permitted only in company and with the license of the abbess from noon to vespers, and this only on Sundays, and the great feasts of the Saints, not however by going out of the house, but by sitting at the appointed windows; for to none was it permitted after their entrance to leave the cloisters of the monastery. If any sister desired to be seen by her parents or honest and dear friends, she might, with the permission of the abbess, open the window occasionally during the year; but if she did not open it, a more abundant reward was assured to her hereafter.”[23]
This monastery is described by Wriothesley as “the vertues [most virtuous] house of religion that was in England.” Taine speaks of it in very different terms: “Au monastère de Sion les moines confesseurs des nonnes les debauchent et les absolvent tout ensemble.” Sion Monastery was of the Order of St. Bridget which was reputed to be one of the best. It was suppressed in 1539.