... ‘that Dame Johane was a bastard
And Dame Clarice a knight’s daughter, a cuckold was her sire,
And Dame Purnell a priest’s concubine, she will never become prioress,
For she had a child in cherry time, all our chapter it wist.’
In consequence the nuns fall to quarrelling among themselves and end with attacking one another bodily. The picture, even if overdrawn, proves, in conjunction with the temper of the nuns at Easebourne, that peaceableness no longer formed the invariable concomitant of convent life during the 15th century.
Various particulars in the history of men’s houses corroborate the fact that considerable changes were going on inside the monastic body during the 15th century.
Reference has been made to the fluctuations in the history of alien priories. Some of the foreign houses, aware of the dangers to which their English colonies were exposed, advocated the sale of their property in England. Numerous grammar-schools and colleges profited by the change or owed their foundation directly to it. As early as 1390 William Wykeham bought estates of alien priories for New College, his foundation at Oxford. Waynfleet, bishop of Worcester, who in 1415 founded St Mary Magdalen College at Oxford, annexed to it Sele, an alien priory which had been admitted to denizenship[994]. It is noteworthy that some religious houses about this time dissolved of their own accord. Thus the master and brethren of St John’s hospital at Oxford obtained leave from Henry VI to convey their house to Waynfleet[995]. The Austin priory of Selborne, which ‘had become a desert convent without canons or prior,’ was likewise annexed to St Mary Magdalen College, a change which was ratified by a bull from Innocent VIII in 1486[996].
It has already been said that a change of attitude towards religious institutions on the part of the public was the direct outcome of the spread of Wyclif’s teaching. In 1410 Sir John Oldcastle, the so-called leader of the Lollards, who was burnt for heresy eight years later, made a proposal in the House of Commons which is curious in various ways. It was to the effect that their temporalities should be taken from bishop, abbot and prior, and the revenues of their possessions employed to pay a standing army, to augment the income of the noblemen and gentry, to endow a hundred hospitals and to make small payments to the clergy[997]. No notice in this case was taken of the donors or representatives of the settlement, to whom land and tenements upon default, or neglect of those to whom they were granted, otherwise reverted. The proposal was accompanied by a list of monasteries which might be appropriated, but the proposal was summarily quashed.
The Church Council held at Basel (from 1418), at which English prelates also were present, was emphatic in urging the need of monastic reform. It would be interesting to ascertain if this was prompted solely by the feeling that the recognised abuses of convent life lowered religion in general estimation, or if suspicions were entertained that religious houses might be harbouring unorthodox elements. Great efforts at reform were made within the Benedictine order; chapters were held by the abbots at regular intervals and the system of visitations formulated for mutual supervision and control by the various monasteries once more received attention. We shall see this system in full operation on the Continent. In England we have accounts of several chapters of Benedictine abbots held between 1422 and 1426, in which reports of extensive visitations were given[998]. The chapter of 1473 appointed the abbot of St Albans (Alboin, 1464-1476) to visit at Glastonbury, and the abbot of Eynsham to visit at St Albans[999].
Churchmen on all sides were eager to promote monastic reforms and interfere with monastic privileges. In 1418 Pope Martin V sent a bull to the archbishop of Canterbury bidding him hold visitations regularly[1000]. But the story of the gradual encroachment of the Church on monastic privilege and property is less striking in England than abroad, for the independent spirit of individual houses was less strong, and convents generally, especially those of women, seem to have yielded without opposition to the claims made by energetic churchmen. Some monasteries of men, however, resented interference and maintained their rights. An episode in this struggle deserves attention, as it reflects unfavourably on two nunneries which were dependencies of the abbey of St Albans. There was a long-standing jealousy between the lord abbot of St Albans and the lord primate of Canterbury, renewed by a quarrel between Abbot Wallingford and Archbishop Bourchier, which had been decided in favour of the former. The abbey enjoyed exemption from episcopal visitation, not only for itself but for its dependencies or cells, among which were the nunneries of Sopwell and St Mary Prée. In 1489 Archbishop Morton of Canterbury secured a Papal bull[1001] which empowered him to visit all the monasteries of his diocese, those subject to his visitation and those exempt from it. And this, as the document says, ‘not only because the former strictness of life is abandoned ... but also because life is luxurious and dissolute.’
In consequence of the authority conferred by this bull the primate penned a letter[1002] to the abbot of St Albans containing charges of a serious nature. After a few opening sentences it continues in the following strain:
‘... Moreover, among other grave enormities and wicked crimes of which you are accused and for which you are noted and defamed, you admitted a certain married woman named Elena Germyn, who some time ago wrongfully left her husband and lived in adultery with another man, to be sister and nun in the house or priory of Pré, which you hold to be in your jurisdiction; and there you appointed her prioress notwithstanding her husband was living and is alive now. Further, brother Thomas Sudbury, your fellow-monk, publicly and notoriously and without interference or punishment from you, associated and still associates with this woman on terms of intimacy, like others among your brethren and fellow-monks who had access and still have access to her and to others elsewhere as to a brothel or house of ill fame. And not only in the house of Pré but also in the nunnery of Sopwell, which you contend is under your jurisdiction also, you change the prioresses and superiors (praesidentes) again and again at your will and caprice, deposing good and religious women and promoting to the highest dignity the worthless and wicked, so that religion is cast aside, virtue is neglected, and many expenses are incurred by reprehensible practices through your introducing certain of your brethren who are thieves and notorious villains to preside there as guardians to manage the goods of the priories, which more correctly speaking are wasted, and those places which were religious are rendered and reputed profane and impious, and so far impoverished by your doings and the doings of those with you as to be brought to the verge of ruin.
‘Similarly in dealing with other cells of monks which you say are subject to you within the monastery of the glorious protomartyr Alban, you have dilapidated the common property in its possessions and jewels; you have cut down, sold and alienated indiscriminately copses, woods, underwood, oaks and other forest trees to the value of 8000 marks and more; while those of your brethren and fellow-monks, who, as is reported, are given over to all the evils of the world, neglecting the service of God, and openly and continually consorting with harlots and loose women within the precincts and without, you knowingly defend instead of punishing them; others too you protect who are covetous of honour and promotion and bent on ministering to your cupidity, and who steal and make away with chalices and other jewels of the church, going so far as to extract sacrilegiously precious stones from the very shrine of St Alban.’