Medieval English Nunneries c. 1275 to 1535 Part 22

Enough has been said to show why the authorities of the Church tried so hard to force enclosure upon nuns, and why they strove at least to limit excursions to "necessary occasions" and "convent business," to prevent unlicensed wandering and to provide that no nun went out without a companion. And enough has perhaps also been said to show how completely they failed. The modern student of monasticism, bred in an age which regards freedom as its _summum bonum_ and holds discipline at a discount, cannot but feel sympathy with the nuns. The enclosure movement did go beyond the restriction imposed upon them by their rule; they were themselves so often unsuited to the life into which circ.u.mstances, rather than a vocation, had forced them; and they would have been something less than human if they had not answered--as John of Ayton made them answer--"In truth the men who made these laws sat well at their ease while they laid such burdens upon us." It was the bishops, not the popes and the councils, who knew where the shoe pinched. Dalderby, rubbing his insulted shoulders, Alnwick, laboriously framing his minute injunctions, Rigaud, going away from Saint-Saens "quasi impaciens et tristis," these had little time to sit well at their ease; and the compromises which were forced upon them are the best proof that the ideal of _Periculoso_ was too high.

Nevertheless sympathy with the nuns must not blind us to the fact that hardly a moralist of the middle ages but inveighs against the wandering of nuns in the world and adds his testimony to the fact (already clear from the visitation _comperta_) that all the graver abuses which discredited monasticism rose in the first instance from the too great ease with which monks and nuns could leave their convents. "De la cloture," as St Francois de Sales wrote long afterwards, "depend le bon ordre de tout le reste." It is significant that on the very eve of the Reformation in England a last attempt was made to enforce a strict and literal enclosure. That ardent reformer of nunneries, Bishop Fox, frankly pursued the policy in his diocese of Winchester and was apparently accused of undue severity, for in 1528 he wrote to Wolsey in defence of his action:

Truth it is, my lord, that the religious women of my diocese be restrained of their going out of their monasteries. And yet so much liberty appeareth some time too much; and if I had the authority and power that your grace hath, I would endeavour me to mure and enclose their monasteries according to the observance of good religion. And in all other matters, concerning their living or observance of their religion, I a.s.sure your grace they be as liberally and favourably dealt with as be any religious women within this realm[1233].

Wolsey himself was driven to the same conclusion as to the necessity of enclosure, and tried to enforce it at Wilton, after the scandals which came to light there before the election of Isabel Jordan as Abbess. His chaplain, Dr Benet, who had been sent to reform the nunnery, wrote to him on July 18th and described his difficulty in "causing to be observed" the unpopular decree:

Please it your grace to be advertised, that immediately after my return from your grace I repaired to the monastery of Wilton, where I have continually made mine abode hitherto and with all diligence endeavoured myself to the uttermost of my power to persuade and train the nuns there to the accomplishment of your grace's pleasure for enclosing of the same; whom I find so untoward and refusal (_sic_) as I never saw persons, insomuch that in nowise any of them, neither by gentle means nor by rigorous,--and I have put three or four of the captains of them in ward,--will agree and consent to the same, but only the new elect and her sisters that were with your grace; which notwithstanding, I have closed up certain doors and ways and taken such an order there that none access, course or recourse of any person shall be made there.[1234]

About the same time the Abbess-Elect herself wrote to Wolsey, telling him that:

since my coming home I have ordered me in all things to the best of my power, according to your gracious advertis.e.m.e.nt by the advice of your chancellors and have ofttime motioned my sisters to be reclused within our monastery; wherein they do find many difficulties and show divers considerations to the contrary;

she besought him to have patience and promised to "order my sisters in such religious wise and our monastery according to the rule of religion, without any such resort as hath been of late accustomed"[1235]. Evidently nuns had not changed since the day when the sisters of Markyate threw the Bull _Periculoso_ at Bishop Dalderby's retreating back.

But their struggles were in vain and a worse fate awaited them. The Dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII was preceded by an order to his commissioners, that they should enforce enclosure upon the nuns. The injunction met with the usual resistance at the time and later apologists of the monastic houses have blamed the King for undue and unreasonable harshness. But if Henry VIII was too strict, so also was Ottobon, so Peckham, so Boniface VIII, so almost every bishop and council of the past three hundred years. In this at least, low as his motives may have been, the man who was to claim the heads.h.i.+p of the English Church was the lineal descendant of the most masterful of medieval popes. The instructions given to the commissioners were the last of a long series of injunctions, in which it was attempted to reform the nunneries by shutting them off from the world. It is plain that even in the thirteenth century some such reform was necessary, and the history of the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries only shows the necessity becoming more urgent.

Whatever may have been Henry VIII's motives, however greedy, however licentious, however unspiritual, it would be impossible to contend that his decree of enclosure was not in accordance with the best ecclesiastical tradition and amply justified by the condition of the monastic houses.

CHAPTER X

THE WORLD IN THE CLOISTER

es maisons de nonnains aucun sont bien venut, Et as gens festyer n'a nul regne tenut; On y va volentiers et souvent et menut Mais mieuls sont festyet jovene que li kenut.

GILLES LI MUISIS ([dagger] 1352).

In the last chapter the question of enclosure was considered only from one point of view, that of keeping the nuns within the precincts of their cloister. But there was another side to the problem. In order to preserve them unspotted from the world it was necessary not only that the nuns should keep within their cloisters, but that secular persons should keep outside. It was useless to pa.s.s regulations forbidding nuns to leave their houses, if visitors from the world had easy access to them and could move freely about within the precincts. Ottobon, Peckham, Boniface VIII, Henry VIII, and all who legislated on the subject from the earliest years to the Council of Trent, combined a prohibition against the entrance of seculars, with their prohibition against the exit of nuns[1236]. Some intercourse with seculars was bound to occur, even in the best regulated nunnery. The nuns were often served by layfolk and it was a recognised obligation that they should show hospitality to guests. In both cases they were of necessity brought in contact with worldly folk, and as usual they made the most of their opportunity.

Even more disturbing to monastic discipline were the casual visits of friends in the neighbourhood, coming to see and talk with the nuns for a few hours. Visitation doc.u.ments show that there was a steady intercourse between the convent and the world. Letters and messages pa.s.sed between the nuns and their friends outside, and a great many of the private affairs of the convent found their way to the ears of seculars. "From miln and from market, from smithy and from nunnery, men bring tidings" ran the proverb[1237], and complaints were common that the secrets of the chapter were spread abroad in the country side. At the ill-conducted house of Catesby in 1442 the Prioress (herself the blackest sheep in all the flock) complained that

secular folk have often recourse to the nuns' chambers within the cloister, and talkings and junketings take place there without the knowledge of the Prioress; ... also the nuns do send out letters and receive letters sent to them without the advice of the prioress. Also ... that the secrets of the house are disclosed in the neighbourhood by such seculars when they come there. Also the nuns do send out the serving-folk of the priory on their businesses and do also receive the persons for whom they send and with whom they hold parleyings and conversations, whereof the Prioress is ignorant[1238].

At Goring in 1530 the Prioress complained that one of the nuns persisted in sending messages to her friends[1239], and at Romsey in 1509 Alice, wife of William c.o.ke, the cook of the nunnery, was enjoined "that she shall not be a messenger or bearer of messages or troths or tokens between any nun and any lay person on pain of excommunication and as much as in her lies shall hinder communications of lay persons with nuns at the kitchen window"[1240]. At St Helen's, Bishopsgate, it was even necessary to order the nuns to refrain from kissing secular persons[1241].

Sometimes the visitation _detecta_ or _comperta_ or injunctions give specific details as to the visitors who were most a.s.siduous in haunting a nunnery. It is amusing to follow the reference to scholars of Oxford in the records of those houses which were in the neighbourhood of the University. G.o.dstow was the nearest and the students seem to have regarded it as a happy hunting ground const.i.tuted specially for their recreation.

Peckham, in his set of Latin injunctions to the Abbey, wrote after giving minute regulations as to the terms upon which nuns might converse with visitors:

When the scholars of Oxford come to talk with you, we wish no nun to join in such conversations, save with the licence of the Abbess and unless they be notoriously of kin to her, in the third grade of consanguinity at least; we order the nuns to refuse to converse with all scholars so coming; nor shall you desire to be united in any special tie of familiarity with them, for such affection often excites unclean thoughts[1242].

The most detailed information, however, is to be found in the injunctions sent by Bishop Gray to G.o.dstow in 1432:

That no nun receive any secular person for any recreation in the nuns'

chambers under pain of excommunication. For the scholars of Oxford say they can have all manner of recreation with the nuns, even as they will desire.... Also that the recourse of scholars of Oxford to the monastery be altogether checked and restrained.... Also that (neither) the gatekeeper of the monastery, nor any other secular person convey any gifts, rewards, letters or tokens from the nuns to any scholars of Oxford or other secular person whomsoever, or bring back any such scholars or persons to the same nuns, nay, not even skins containing wine, without the view and knowledge of the abbess and with her special licence asked and had, under pain of expulsion from his office (and) from the said monastery for ever; and if any nun shall do the contrary she shall undergo imprisonment for a year[1243].

In a commission addressed two years later to the Abbot of Oseney and to Master Robert Thornton the Bishop spoke in very severe terms of the bad behaviour of the nuns, and ordered the commissioners to proceed to G.o.dstow and to inquire whether a nun, who had been with child at the time of his visitation, had been preferred to any office or had gone outside the precincts and whether his other injunctions had been obeyed, especially "if any scholars of the university of Oxford, graduate or non-graduate, have had access to the same monastery or lodging in the same, contrary to the form of our injunctions aforesaid"[1244]. But the situation was unchanged when, thirteen years later, Alnwick came to G.o.dstow. Elizabeth Felmersham, the Abbess, deposed

that secular folk have often access to the nuns during the divine office in quire, and to the frater at meal-time.... She cannot restrain students from Oxford from having common access in her despite to the monastery and the claustral precincts. The nuns hold converse with the secular folk that come to visit the monastery, without asking any leave of the abbess.

Other nuns deposed that sister Alice Longspey[1245] often conversed in the convent church with Hugh Sadler, a priest from Oxford, who obtained access to her on the plea that she was his kinswoman and that Dame Katherine Okeley:

holds too much talk with the strangers that come to the monastery in the church, in the chapter-house, at the church-door, the hall door and divers other places; nor is she obedient to the orders and commands of the abbess according to the rule[1246].

Other houses also found the clerks of Oxford too attractive. At Alnwick's visitation of Littlemore Dame Agnes Marcham (a lady with a tongue) spoke of "the ill-fame which is current thereabouts concerning the place," and said

that a certain monk of Rievaulx, who is a student at Oxford and is of the Cistercian order, has common and often access to the priory, eating and drinking with the prioress and spending the night therein, sometimes for three, sometimes for four days on end. Also she says that master John Herars, master in arts, a scholar of Oxford and a kinsman of the prioress, has access in like manner to the priory, breakfasting, supping and spending the night in the same[1247].

The state of the house in the sixteenth century was infinitely worse and it well merited its early suppression in 1526[1248]. At another house, Studley, visited by Alnwick in 1445, the significant request was made:

that the vicar of Bicester, who is reckoned to be of ripe judgment and age and sufficient knowledge, may be appointed as confessor to the convent and in no wise an Oxford scholar, since it is not healthy that scholars of Oxford should have a reason for coming to the priory[1249].

Nor does the proximity of Cambridge appear to have had a less disturbing effect upon morals and discipline. In 1373 it was found that the Prioress of St Radegund's

did not correct Dame Elizabeth de Cambridge for withdrawing herself from divine service and allowing friars of different orders, as well as scholars, to visit her at inopportune times and to converse with her, to the scandal of religion[1250],

and in 1496, when John Alc.o.c.k, Bishop of Ely, converted the nunnery into the college afterwards known as Jesus College, its dilapidation was ascribed to "the negligence and improvidence and dissolute disposition and incontinence of the religious women of the same house, by reason of the vicinity of Cambridge University"[1251]. Plainly the scholars who hung about the portals and tethered their horses in the paddocks of G.o.dstow, and who gossiped with the sisters of Studley and Littlemore and St Radegund's, were not of the type of that clerk of Oxenford, who loved his twenty red and black-clad books better than "robes riche or fithele or gay sautrye"; and it is to be feared that their speech was not "souninge in moral vertu." Rather they belonged to the tribe of Absolon, who could trip and dance in twenty manners:

After the scole of Oxenforde tho, And with his legges casten to and fro, And pleyen songes on a small rubible,

or of hende Nicholas ("of derne love he coude and of solas"), or of those two clerks of Cambridge, Aleyn and John, who harboured with the Miller of Trumpington, or of "joly Jankin," the Wife of Bath's first husband. The nuns certainly got no good from these young men of light heart and slippery tongue.

Sometimes, as it appears from the cases of Alice Longspey, Katherine Okeley and Elizabeth de Cambridge, certain nuns rendered themselves particularly conspicuous for intercourse with seculars, or certain men were a.s.siduous nunnery-haunters and forbidden by name to frequent the precincts. At a visitation of St Sepulchre's, Canterbury, in 1367-8, it was found that

Dame Johanna Chivynton, prioress there, does not govern well the rule nor the religion of the house, because she permits the rector of Dover Castle and other suspect persons to have too much access to sisters Margery Chyld and Juliana Aldelesse, who have a room contrary to the injunction made there on another occasion by the Lord [Archbishop], and these suspect persons often spend the night there[1252].

At Nuncoton in 1531 Longland writes:

We chardge you, lady prioresse, undere payne of excommunicacon that ye from hensforth nomore suffre Sir John Warde, Sir Richard Caluerley, Sir William Johnson, nor parson ..., ne the parson of Skotton, ne Sir William Sele to come within the precincts of your monasterye, that if they by chance do unwares to you that ye streight banish them and suffre not theme ther to tary, nor noone of your sustres to commune with them or eny of them. And that ye voyde out of your house Robert lawrence and he nomore resorte to the same[1253].

Incidents such as these can be multiplied from the records of episcopal visitations[1254] and general complaints are even more common. It appears that secular persons set at naught the rule which confined them to the prioress' hall, the parlour and the guest-house, and penetrated at will into the private parts of the monastery, haunting now the cloister, now the infirmary, now the frater, now the choir[1255]. Bishop Gynewell's injunction to Heynings in 1351 called attention to a state of affairs which was common enough in the century which opened with _Periculoso_:

"Because," he wrote, "we have heard that great disturbance of your religion hath been made by seculars, who enter into your cloister and choir, we charge you that henceforth ye suffer no secular man, save your patron or other great lord[1256] to enter your cloister, nor to hold therein parley or other dalliance with any sister of your house, whereby your silence or religion may suffer blame"[1257].

Moreover it is clear that the nuns sometimes escaped to the guest-house to enjoy a gossip with their visitors; at Alnwick's visitation of Heynings in 1440 a lay sister deposed "that the nuns do hold drinkings of evenings in the guest-chamber even after compline, especially when their friends come to visit them" and the Bishop enjoined

for as muche as we founde that there are vsede late drynkynges and talkyng by nunnes as wele wythe yn as wythe owte the cloystere wythe seculeres, where thurgh some late ryse to matynes and some come not at thayme, expressly agayns the rule of your ordere, we charge yow and yche oon singulere that fro this day forthe ye neyther vse spekyng ne drynkyng in no place aftere complyne, but that after collacyone and complyne sayde ych oon of yow go wythe owte lengere tarying to the dormytorye to your reste[1258].

In the course of time a series of regulations was devised to govern the entrance of seculars into the nunneries, hardly less detailed than those which governed the visits of nuns to the world. An attempt was made to prevent certain cla.s.ses of persons from being allowed to sleep in a house; also to keep all visitors out of certain places and during certain hours; and elaborate rules were made fixing the conditions under which nuns might hold conversations or exchange letters with seculars. The rule which forbade nuns to harbour in houses of religious men was often supplemented by a regulation forbidding friars, or other men belonging to religious orders, from being received as guests by nuns. At G.o.dstow in 1284 Peckham forbade the reception of religious men for the night[1259] and in 1358 Bishop Gynewell enjoined the same convent "for certain reasons, that no friars of any order whatever be harboured by night within the doors of your house, nor by day save it be for great necessity and reasonable cause, and not habitually"[1260]. William of Wykeham directed a special mandate on the subject to Wherwell in 1368:

"Lately," he says, "it has come to our ears by popular report of trusty men, that contrary to the honesty of religion you admit various religious men, especially of the mendicant orders, lightly and promiscuously to pa.s.s the night in your habitations, from which grows much matter for laxity and scandal, since the cohabitation of religious clerks and nuns is altogether forbidden by the const.i.tutions of the holy fathers."

He proceeds to forbid the reception of friars or other religious men to lodge in the abbey, though food might be given them in alms[1261]. As in the rules regulating visits paid by nuns, attempts were sometimes made though not insisted upon with any severity, to restrict the visitors who might spend the night to near relatives. At G.o.dstow, for instance, Bishop Gray ordered in 1432 that strangers "in no wise pa.s.s the night there, unless they be father and mother, brother and sister of that nun for whose sake they have so come to the monastery"[1262]; and Archbishop Lee wrote to Sinningthwaite in 1534 forbidding any visitor to have recourse to the Prioress or nuns "onles it be their fathers or moders or other ther nere kynesfolkes, in whom no suspicion of any yll can be thought"[1263].

The chief efforts of the authorities were, however, directed not towards keeping certain persons altogether out of the nunneries, but towards keeping all visitors out of certain parts of the house and during certain hours. The general rule was that no secular was to enter after sunset or curfew, and elaborate arrangements were made for locking and unlocking the doors at certain times. At Esholt and Sinningthwaite Archbishop Lee enjoined

that the prioress provide sufficient lockes and keys to be sett upon the cloyster doores, incontinent after recept of thies injunctions and that the same doores surely be lockid every nyght incontinent as complane is doone, and not to be unlocked in wynter season to vij of the clock in the mornyng and in sommer vnto vj of the clock in the mornyng; and that the prioresse kepe the keyes of the same doores, or committ the custodie of them to such a discrete and religious suster, that no fault nor negligence may be imputed to the prioresse, as she will avoyde punyshment due for the same[1264].