It appears probable from this ‘Charthe’ to the cellaress that the office of Kitchener at Barking was a permanent appointment, which is curious considering that in an ordinary way the members of the convent were bound to serve in the convent kitchen as cook, each for the term of a week. The injunction is repeated in every version of the Benedictine rule known to me. According to the rhymed version of the north the nun who has served her term in the kitchen is directed to leave the kitchen and the vessels clean for her who succeeded her in office. When her time is up she shall kneel before the assembled members of the convent saying, ‘Blessed be the Lord that has never failed me,’ whereupon the nun who is to act as cook shall say, ‘Lord, to my helping take thou heed.’ But this injunction was evidently disregarded in the wealthier houses at a later date, for in connection with St Mary’s, Winchester, we read of a convent-cook and an under convent-cook[927]. A nun of Campsey, an Austin house consisting at the time of a prioress and eighteen nuns, complained at the visitation of the house in 1532 of the unpunctuality of the meals, which she ascribed to the fault of the cook (culpa coci),—using a term which suggests that the cook in this case was a man[928].
An appointment in the nunnery which has led to some controversy is that of chaplain, it being alleged by some writers that the chaplain of the convent was necessarily a man. Certainly in most houses, especially in the wealthier ones, there were men chaplains; for example at the nunnery of Shaftesbury, where men chaplains are mentioned by the side of the abbess in various early charters and played an important part[929]. Again at St Mary’s, Winchester, at the time of the dissolution, men chaplains were among those who are described as resident in the monastery[930]; at Kilburn nunnery the fact that the chaplain who dwelt on the premises was a man is evident from the arrangement of the dwellings,—three chambers which lie together being designated as set apart for the chaplain and the hinds or herdsmen[931]. But the fact that the chaplain’s office could be and was held by a woman is established beyond a doubt by the following information. In consequence of an episcopal visitation (1478) of the Benedictine convent of Easebourne, injunctions were sent to the prioress, one of which directs that ‘every week, beginning with the eldest, excepting the sub-prioress, she shall select for herself in due course and in turns one of her nuns as chaplain (capellanissam) for divine service and to wait upon herself[932].’ This injunction is in accordance with the words of Chaucer, who says that the prioress who was on a pilgrimage to Canterbury had with her a nun who acted as chaplain to her (l. 163):
‘Another Nonne also with hire hadde she
That was hire chapelleine, and preestes thre.’
In the accounts of visitations in the diocese of Norwich between 1492 and 1532 the designation chaplain applied to an inmate of a nunnery appears in the Benedictine house of Redlingfield, in the Austin priory of Campsey and in others. In Redlingfield at the visitation of 1514 the complaint is made against the prioress that she does not change her chaplain, and at Flixton in 1520 it is alleged that the prioress has no chaplain and sleeps by herself in her chamber away from the dormitory[933]. At Elstow in Bedfordshire at the time of the surrender Katheryne Wyngate adds the designation ‘chapellain’ to her name[934], and among the nuns of Barking who were still in receipt of their pension in 1553 was Mathea Fabyan who is styled chaplain (capellan)[935]. How far the woman chaplain performed the same offices as the man chaplain seems impossible to tell; probably she recited the inferior services in the chapel of the nunnery.
In the rhymed version of the rule of St Benedict the office of chaplain is passed over, but in the poem of the ‘Spiritual Convent’ written by the beguine Mechthild, of which a former chapter has given an account, the chaplain is a woman. And similarly the English version of this poem called the ‘Ghostly Abbey’ which is attributed to John Alcock, bishop of Ely († 1500), refers to women chaplains. It says God had ordered His four daughters to come and dwell in the abbey; Charity was made abbess and to her Mercy and Truth were to be as ‘chapeleyns,’ going about with her wherever she goes. He bade also that Righteousness should be with Wisdom who was prioress, and Peace with Mekeness who was sub-prioress, Charity, Wisdom and Mekeness having chaplains because they were ‘most of worship[936].’
I have found very little information about the arrangements made in the nunnery for the young people who boarded with and were taught by the nuns, and hardly a clue is to be had as to the number of those who might stay in one house at the same time. The only allusion on this point is to St Mary’s, Winchester, where twenty-six girls, mostly daughters of knights, were staying at the time of the dissolution. Rogers refers to a roll of expenditure of the Cistercian priory, Swine, in Yorkshire, on which he says are enumerated a number of young persons, daughters of the surrounding gentlefolk, who lived ‘en pension’ in this small community[937]; and Rye has compiled a list of those who boarded at Carrow at different times[938]. From ‘The Death of Philip Sparrow,’ a poem written by John Skelton († 1529), we gather that the girl who is represented as intoning the lament over a tame bird, lived and boarded with the ‘Nuns Black’ at Carrow, where her sparrow was devoured by the cat, whereupon she took out a sampler and worked the sparrow in stitches of silk for her solace[939]. Apparently not only girls, but boys also, were given into the care of nuns, for injunctions forwarded to Romsey in 1310 by the bishop of Winchester forbade that boys and girls should sleep with the nuns or be taken by them into the choir during divine service[940]. Injunctions sent to Redlingfield in 1514 also directed that boys should not sleep in the dormitory[941]; and Bishop Kentwode in the directions he sent to St Helen’s in London ordered that none but ‘mayd learners’ should be received into that nunnery[942]. In the year 1433 Catherine de la Pole, abbess of Barking, petitioned Henry V. for a sum of money due to her for the maintenance of Edward and Jasper Tudor, sons of Catherine, the queen dowager, by Owen Tudor. It seems that these boys were receiving their education at this abbey[943]. But the popularity of the convent even as an educational establishment began to decrease at the close of the 14th century. Judging from the Paston Letters it was no longer customary in Norfolk to send girls to board with the nuns; they were sent to stay away from home with some other country family.
Other offices held by members of the convent are as follows: thesaurissa,—the nun bursar who was responsible for the revenues coming through the Church; the precentrix and succentrix,—the leaders and teachers of the choir, who are sometimes mentioned together (Campsey); the cameraria or chambress,—who saw to the wardrobe; the infirmaria or keeper of the infirmary,—who took charge of the sick nuns; the refectuaria,—who had the care of the refectory or dining hall; the elemosinaria,—who distributed alms; the magistra noviciarum,—who taught the novices. The cantarista occurs in connection with Sheppey; no doubt she is identical with the precentrix of other places. The further designations of tutrix, or teacher, occurs in connection with Shaftesbury, and eruditrix, instructress, in connection with Thetford; I have not come across these terms elsewhere.
All these appointments were made by the superior of the house and declared in the presence of the convent, and all except those of chaplain and kitchener seem to have been permanent. The chaplain was probably changed because it was a privilege to go about with the abbess, and the kitchener because of the hard work her duties involved. On the death of the abbess often the prioress, sometimes the cellaress, was appointed to succeed her, but not necessarily so.
Having so far treated of the duties of the convent inmates, we will examine the form of admission for novices and the daily routine of the nun.
According to the rhymed rule of St Benedict (l. 2155) the girl who was old enough to be admitted as nun into a religious community was granted entry as a novice and after two months had ‘the law’ read to her, and then the question was put if she wished to stay or to go. If she stayed, it was for six months; after which, if still desirous of being received, she proffered her petition to the abbess. If after twelve months she still persisted in her resolution, she was received as a member of the convent and pronounced these words before the altar: ‘Suscipe me, domine, secundum eloquium tuum, et vivam. Et non confundas me in expectatione mea.’ The formal profession or consecration was undertaken by the bishop, who visited the nunnery periodically, but as these visits were often years apart, it is probable that the declaration made before the superior of a house and the priest constituted a novice a member of a convent, and for all practical purposes made her a nun. Fosbroke is of opinion that the girl who entered at the age of twelve made profession after she had passed a year in the community: he adds that she was consecrated by the bishop when she had reached the age of twenty-five and not before[944]. But it is impossible to draw a line between profession and consecration, as the ‘non-professed’ nun was invariably the nun who had not been installed by the bishop. In 1521 at the visitation of Rusper the settlement consisted of the prioress, one professed nun and two nuns entered on the list as not professed, of whom one declared that she had lived there awaiting profession for twelve years, the other for three[945]. Women who had been professed at one house were sometimes inmates of another; and I have not found any remark which leads to the inference that this was thought objectionable. A nun residing at Rusper was afterwards prioress of Easebourne. The record of a visitation at Davington in Kent (1511) shows that the convent contained four inmates, of whom two were professed nuns. The one, professed at Cambridge, had been there for twenty years; the other, professed at Malling, had been there for ten. The other two inmates entered on the list as not professed were girls of ten and fifteen[946].