Another proof of the growing unfamiliarity with Latin in nunneries is afforded by the introduction to the register of Godstow, which was one of the wealthier English Benedictine nunneries. This register was written under the abbess Alice Henley, who is known to have been ruling in the year 1464, and consists of 126 folio leaves of vellum. According to Dugdale[887] it comprises ‘an account of the foundation of the house, an A. B. C. of devotion, a kalendar of the year, and all the charters of the house translated into English.’ The translator has left an introduction to his work which in modern English runs as follows: ‘The wise man taught his child to read books gladly and to understand them well, for lack of such understanding has often caused negligence, hurt, harm and hindrance, as experience proves; and since women of religion in reading Latin books are excused from much understanding where it is not their mother tongue, therefore if they read their books of remembrance and of gifts written in Latin, for want of understanding they often take hurt and hindrance; and since for want of truly learned men who are ready to teach and counsel them, and for fear also of publishing the evidence of their titles which has often caused mischief, it seems right needful to the understanding of these religious women that they have besides their Latin books some written in their mother tongue, by which they may secure better knowledge of their property and more clearly give information to their servants, rent-gatherers and receivers in the absence of their learned counsellors; therefore I, a poor brother, and ‘wellwyller’ to the abbess of Godstow Dame Alice Henley and to all her convent, which are for the most part well learned in English books ... have undertaken to make this translation for them from Latin into English.’
I have come across very few references to books which have come from nunneries. A celebrated manuscript in Latin, which contains a collection of the lives of the saints and is written on vellum, belonged to the convent at Romsey[888]; a copy of ‘The life of St Katherine of Alexandria’ by Capgrave (in English verse of the 15th century), which has lately been printed, is designated as belonging to Katherine Babington, subprioress of Campsey in Suffolk[889]; and the famous Vernon manuscript which contains the most complete collection of writings in Middle English on salvation or ‘soul-hele’ probably came from a nunnery.
The inventories taken of the goods and chattels belonging to convents at the time of the dissolution contain few references to books. Probably only books of devotion were numerous, and these were looked upon by the nuns as their personal property like their clothes, and were taken away with them when they left. The inventory of the nunnery of Kilburn mentions that two copies of the Legenda Aurea, the one written, the other printed, were kept in the chamber of the church[890]. In connection with Sion, the only house in England of the order of St Bridget, we shall hear of a splendid collection of books, all I believe of a devotional character.
An inventory of the goods of the comparatively insignificant priory of Easebourne in Sussex, which never numbered more than five or six nuns, was taken in the year 1450 and shows what books of devotion were then in its possession. The following are enumerated: two missals, two breviaries, four antiphonies, one large legenda or book of the histories of the saints, eight psalters, one book of collects, one tropon or book of chants, one French Bible, two ordinalia or books of divine office, in French, one book of the Gospels, and one martyrology[891]. It is in accordance with the exclusively pious training shown by the possession of books such as these that Chaucer lets his prioress, when called upon to contribute a tale, recount the legend of a boy-martyr who was murdered at Alexandria, and the nun who was with her tell the legend of St Cecilia. The prioress in this case did not fail to impress her hearers, while the monk, who was also of the party and told of worthies of biblical and of classical repute, roused no interest.
In the eyes of Chaucer the prioress was a thoroughly estimable person. ‘Madame Eglentine,’ whose smiling was ‘ful simple and coy,’ and who spoke French fluently, was distinguished also for elegance of manners at table. She neither dropped her food, nor steeped her fingers in the sauce, nor neglected to wipe her mouth, and throughout affected a certain courtly breeding which went well with her station.
‘And sikerly she was of grete disport,
And ful plesant, and amiable of port,
And peined hire to contrefeten chere
Of court, and ben estatelich of manere,
And to ben holden digne of reverence.’
Her sensitiveness was so great that she wept on seeing a mouse caught in a trap, and the death of one of the small dogs she kept caused her great grief. She could not bear to see one of them beaten, for in her ‘all was conscience and tendre herte.’ The only ornament she wore was a brooch which was attached to her beads and on which were inscribed the words Amor vincit omnia. The poet’s designating her companion as the ‘other nun,’ suggests that the prioress in this case was a nun herself, that is that she was not the superior of a priory, but prioress and member of a convent which was under an abbess.
Education in a nunnery at this period secured the privilege of being addressed as ‘Madame,’ the title of a woman of the upper classes. Directions in English about the consecration of nuns which were in use in the diocese of Lincoln about the year 1480 are in existence[892]. In these the bishop at the conclusion of the service is directed to offer words of advice to the newly professed nuns, which begin as follows: ‘Daughters and virgins, now that you are married and espoused to Him that is above king and ‘kaysor,’ Jesus Christ, meet it is and so must you from henceforth in token of the same be called ‘madame or ladye[892].’
Judging from a passage in Chaucer (l. 3940) this privilege was apparently kept by those who had been educated in a nunnery and returned to the world. The reeve tells about the miller’s wife who was ‘come of noble kyn; she was i-fostryd in a nonnerye,’ and on account of her kindred and the ‘nostelry’ she had learned, no one durst call her but ‘Madame.’