It has been generally believed that the founder of the Convent, dedicated to the Honour of God and the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, was one Jordan Briset about the year 1100. Stow speaks as if there was no doubt of the matter at all:—
“Beyond this house of St. John’s, was the Priory of Clerkenwell, so called of Clarks-Well adjoining; which Priory was also founded, about the Year 1100, by Jorden Briset, Baron, the son of Ralph, the son of Brian Briset: Who gave to Robert, a Priest, fourteen Acres of Land, lying in the Field next adjoining the said Clarks-Well, thereupon to build an House for religious persons, which he built to the Honour of God, and the Assumption of our Lady; and placed therein black Nuns. This Jorden Briset gave also to that House one piece of Ground, thereby to build a Windmill upon, etc. Upon the Dissolution of this Priory, it became a Parish Church, called St. James, Clerkenwell.”
Mr. J. H. Round, however, has discovered that the date of the Foundation has been placed too early, and that the founder was not Jordan Briset at all, but a certain person identified as the younger son of a Domesday under-tenant, who had himself founded the Priories of Bricett for Austin Friars and of Stanegate for Cluniac Monks. Both this House and the Priory of St. John adjacent were founded, in Mr. Round’s view, about the year 1145.
The value of the House at the surrender was, according to Dugdale, £262: 19: 0; according to Speed, £282: 16: 5. In the Calendar of Wills there is not a single bequest to the nuns of this House.
Isabella, the last prioress, was a daughter of Sir Richard Sackville. She furnishes another instance tending to prove that the monasteries and nunneries had fallen into the hands of the noble and gentle families. She received a pension of fifty pounds a year on the Dissolution; she died in 1569, and was buried in her own church.
The site of the House was given to the Duke of Norfolk, who exchanged it with the King for another place. Then Walter Henley and John Williams, knights, got a grant of it. It passed through many hands during the next hundred years. Among others, it was possessed by Sir Thomas Challoner, tutor to Prince Henry, son of James the First. He built a spacious house within the Close of the Priory, on the front of which he engraved the following lines, a rare tribute to the memory of the departed Sisters:—
“Casta Fides superest, velare tecta Sorores
Ista relagatæ deseruere licet:
Nam venerandus Hymen his vota jugalia servet,
Vestalemque focum mente fovere studet.”