Medieval English Nunneries c. 1275 to 1535 Part 46

But in vain; each nun clung to her own hen; still there continued the rivalry when eggs were counted, the jealousy over the possession of a good layer, the turmoil when some fickle fowl laid in the wrong nest. After all it was a _Nonnes Prest_ who described that immortal farmyard lorded over by Chantecler and his seven wives. Could the happy owner of "damoysele Pertelote," bearing herself so fair and companionable, be expected to give her up into cold communal owners.h.i.+p? Two years later the Archbishop remarked in his diary that nothing had been done about the poultry[1969].

Some nuns even had rents of their own, which they kept for their private use instead of adding the money to the common income of the priory. This was the case at Bondeville[1970] and at St Desir de Lisieux[1971]. At the latter Rigaud began by ordering these rents to be held in common, but in later years contented himself with an injunction that they should be retained only at the discretion of the Abbess. At St Saens in 1250 it was noted: "They receive gifts and retain and expend them without licence"[1972]. Usually the injunction was that the nuns were to receive nothing from their friends without licence from the head of the house[1973]; the poverty of some convents made it impossible altogether to prohibit such gifts.

Closely connected with this sin of property was the failure to live a communal life. Already at this early date the practice of eating in separate chambers and of receiving separate allowances of food was becoming common. The most comprehensive indictment was made at Almeneches.

In 1250 (the same year that Rigaud found them to be _proprietarie_, owning pots and pans) he noted:

They run up debts in the town and eat together and sit at table in cliques (_per societates_). To each money is given to provide herself with food. Many stay away from compline and from matins and they drink after compline[1974].

On this occasion the moral record of the convent was found to be peculiarly bad. In 1255 there was no further complaint of immorality but the nuns were as lax as ever in keeping the rule as to communal life:

They have chambers with part.i.tions in the dorter. They have separate maids of their own, who do not serve the community[1975]. They do not eat out of the same dish but have divers dishes. Each had one loaf to herself and kept what was over; we ordered the abbess to give them bread without livery (i.e. in common) and to take back what was over.

They do not live on the same pittance; in short they do not live in common[1976].

In 1260 it was the same story:

The frater was often left empty, to wit because they did not eat together therein, but they ate meat scattered in cliques by twos and by threes in their chambers (_due et due, tres et tres, sparsim et socialiter in cameris_). They had many chambers and five maid servants to boot.... Each of them had one loaf daily and retained what remained over. We ordered that the remnant should be given in alms and counselled them to eat and to live in common and to remove the chambers[1977].

At Montivilliers the order to dine together was repeated at almost every visitation; the nuns had separate dishes cooked for themselves in the kitchen and when they were in the infirmary "for recreation or for slight ailments" they used to eat separately in little companies (_per conventicula_)[1978]. At St Saens[1979] and at St Leger de Preaux[1980]

also the nuns had separate food allowances and ate in the infirmary; at Bival some of them had food prepared separately[1981], and at Villarceaux in 1266 the Archbishop made the following injunction:

We ordered her (the Abbess) to permit them to dine together twice a day according to their rule and to have a bell rung twice, to wit for dinner and for supper, so that they might come together at the sound into the frater, in a more seemly way than they have been wont. For they often ate separately in their chambers[1982].

At St Sauveur also Rigaud ordered all to dine together in the frater, and in the infirmary all nuns, except those actually in bed, were to use the same food at the same table[1983]. At Bondeville the nuns seem to have been in the habit of congregating, with the servants of the house, in a certain oven room, doubtless for the sake of the warmth; and the Archbishop several times forbade the practice on account of possible scandal[1984]. Private drinking parties sometimes occurred; at St Sauveur the nuns occasionally drank outside the frater or infirmary in their own chambers[1985] and at Almeneches they drank after Compline[1986].

(4) It has already been said that the nunneries were often reduced to great straits by poverty. As a result they invented a number of devices for obtaining ready money. Some of these devices seem to modern eyes harmless enough; but they were opposed by medieval Visitors because they brought the nunneries into too close contact with the world and were subversive of discipline. One of their devices has already been described.

At St Saens, Villarceaux, Bival and St Sauveur it is evident that the nuns were in the habit not merely of giving away but actually of selling the food and drink left over from meals and their old clothes to people outside the convent. At Bondeville Rigaud had, in 1251, to forbid them to sell their thread and their spindles[1987]. At many houses they were accustomed to knit or embroider silken purses, ta.s.sels, cus.h.i.+ons or needle cases, either for sale or as gifts to their friends, and the Archbishop forbade them to do any silkwork except for church ornament[1988]. He was not remarkably successful, since he had to repeat the injunction eight times at St Amand, between 1254 and 1267. It is interesting to compare his att.i.tude with the similar prohibition made to the anch.o.r.esses of the _Ancren Riwle_ early in the same century: "Make no purses to gain friends therewith, nor blodbendes of silk; but shape and sew and mend church vestments and poor people's clothes"[1989].

Another means of getting money was by taking schoolchildren as boarders and the general att.i.tude of the Church towards this custom is strikingly ill.u.s.trated in Eudes Rigaud's Register. The provincial council of Rouen in 1231, attempting to deal with the bad discipline in Benedictine nunneries, had promulgated a statute forbidding the reception of children to be educated, and the context shows that the practice was regarded solely in the light of an interference with convent discipline, by bringing the nuns into contact with the world:

On account of the scandals which rise out of the conversation of nuns, we ordain for black nuns that they shall receive nothing to be deposited with them in their houses by any persons; above all let them by no means permit the strong-boxes of clergy, or of the laity too, to be placed in their custody[1990]. Boys and girls who are accustomed to be brought up and taught there are immediately to be put away[1991].

In accordance with this statute and with the invariable custom of ecclesiastical authorities it was Eudes Rigaud's practice to order the expulsion of children wherever he found them, and the number of these prohibitions increased during the last years covered by his diary, which points to a firm determination to eradicate the fault, though it would also seem to imply a certain flouting of his authority by the nuns. In four cases (St Saens, St Aubin, Bival and Villarceaux) the moral record of the houses concerned was so disgraceful that the Archbishop might well be thought to have been actuated by concern for the children growing up under such evil influences[1992]; but the fact that he took the same course at Bondeville, St Sauveur, St Amand and St Leger de Preaux, against which none but minor breaches of the rule were charged, shows that his policy was dictated by care for the nuns and not for their pupils. Bondeville was an obstinate offender. There in 1255 the Archbishop ordered the Prioress and Subprioress to remove their little nieces[1993] and a certain other girl[1994]; in 1257 he noted the presence of five ladies (_domicelle_) who had not been received as novices[1995]; and in 1261 he noted again that "Many secular girls were used to be placed there with their costs"[1996].

In the two last cases the Register--probably, as Mr Coulton suggests, by a clerical oversight--contains no injunction to remove the children; and in 1266 only one boarder, "a lady of Rouen, Laurentia called _quatuor Homines_" was ordered to be sent away, though the Archbishop explicitly stated that "Certain girls (_iuvencule_), daughters of burgesses of Rouen, were there as it were in charge [of the nuns], which displeased us"[1997]. There was, however, no ambiguity about his action in 1268 when he ordered a certain

Basiria, daughter of Amelina of Aulnay, who was there as a boarder, to be sent away and forbade the Prioress henceforth to keep any girl or girls there, except such as had been received as novices[1998].

But it was a difficult task to force the needy nuns, reduced already to p.a.w.ning the very vessels of the altar, to give up this more certain and less sacrilegious method of adding to their income.

It is indeed a significant fact, as Mr Coulton has pointed out, that "the prohibitions are in inverse proportion to the temporal prosperity of the convent"[1999]. The wealthy Abbaye-aux-Dames at Caen had no need to take in school children. But Villarceaux, 50 in debt in 1249 and going steadily downhill, vainly struggling in the toils of Jews and Caursini, was the most frequent offender of all and resisted the most stubbornly Rigaud's attempts at reform. In 1257 he ordered the nuns to remove all the boys and girls who were in the house, except one girl who was going to be veiled[2000]. The next year they were threatened with severe punishment if they postponed any longer the ejection of the children "whom they are bringing up in their house against our inhibition"[2001]. Follows silence for the next three visitations; then, eight years later, "There were several girls there, as it were in the charge of certain nuns, which displeased us exceedingly and shortly afterwards we ordered the Prioress by our letters to remove all secular girls" within a certain date[2002]; and in 1268

We ordered, as we had done before, that the nuns should utterly put away all secular ladies or girls (_domicellas seu puellulas_), if any were there, and that they should suffer neither one nor more of such girls to remain there, except such as were to be made nuns[2003].

What of St Saens, with bad morals, growing debts and a deficiency of cider? In 1260, "We ordered secular girls to be removed," with one favoured exception[2004]; in 1261, "They were keeping in the priory two ladies, to wit the daughter of the chatelain of Belencombre and the elder daughter of the lord of Mesnieres (de Maneriis) whom we ordered to be sent away"[2005]. It is the same with St Aubin, with its bad morals and its tumble-down buildings[2006]; with Bival, immoral also, overcome with debts even to its own servants for their wages, and always short of stores; in 1252 the nuns had ten children there to be brought up (_pueros decem nutriendos_) and Rigaud ordered their removal[2007]. It is the same, too, with St Amand, where the debts increased from year to year and the nuns could not even get in the money due to them; in 1263 a certain daughter of Lady Aeliz de Synoz was found there and removed[2008]. At St Leger de Preaux (1249) secular girls were all to be sent away[2009]; and at St Sauveur d'Evreux all unveiled children (_infantes non velatas_) were immediately to be removed[2010], while some years later Rigaud made a general injunction there against receiving relatives of the nuns as boarders[2011]. A mysterious child was being brought up in a grange belonging to the Abbey of Bival at Pierremans, but why or whose we know not; was it a needy relative of the Abbess, or an indiscretion of sister Isabel or sister Florence, or merely an ordinary paying boarder? History is silent, but the Archbishop was sufficiently annoyed when his order to remove it in 1268 was still disregarded in the following year[2012].

The constant attempts of the nuns to add to their numbers were actuated by the same desire to obtain ready money, in the shape of a dowry; the Archbishop was more far-seeing and recognised that the immediate good would be out-balanced by the strain on their scanty revenues in the future; nor was he unmindful of the fact that the demand for a dowry was contrary to the rule. The heavy debts and the insufficiency of stores, which he found at convent after convent, certainly seem to indicate that their only hope lay in a rigid limitation of members.h.i.+p. Moreover overcrowding was certainly subversive of discipline and it looks as though Rigaud had, in some cases (e.g. at Villarceaux in 1249)[2013], been unwilling to permit new recruits to enter a house whose moral record was bad. This may explain in part his long struggle with St Saens and with St Aubin, though here, as at Villarceaux, poverty was always the chief reason noted in his diary. At St Aubin the financial _arriere pensee_ is very clear. In 1251 Rigaud noted that nuns were received simoniacally; on this and on the four subsequent visitations the Prioress was forbidden to receive any girl as a nun without special licence, and girls received in contravention of this rule were not to be considered veiled or recognised as nuns[2014] (this was the usual form in which his prohibition was couched). Then in 1259 came another case of simony; in spite of the Archbishop's former inhibition the nuns had received and veiled a certain lady, the daughter of Sir Robert Mauvoisin (_Mali Vicini_), knight. Asked why they had done this they said that urgent necessity and poverty had forced them to it and that the father of the girl had given them an annual rent of 10_s._ with her; but they admitted that they had acted against the wish of the Prioress and without her consent. The Archbishop "seeing them to have acted with cupidity and with the vice of simony" soon afterwards ordered the girl to be removed, unveiled and sent back to her father's house and enjoined a penance upon the nuns[2015]; the prohibition to receive nuns without licence was repeated at subsequent visitations[2016].

There were similarly protracted struggles between the Archbishop and the nuns at St Saens and at St Amand. At St Saens, when he came to visit it in 1258, he found two little girls in residence and in spite of the prayers of the Prioress and some of the nuns that he would allow the children (_puellule_) to be received and veiled, he ordered them to be removed within a week[2017]. The next year, however, he found that the obstinate nuns had promised four girls, nieces of certain of the nuns, that they should be received if his consent could be obtained, whereupon the Archbishop in great irritation tore up the letters before the a.s.sembled chapter and once more repeated his prohibition[2018]. In 1260 he made an exception in favour of one girl[2019], and in 1261, when the nuns asked permission to veil five new inmates "in order that the divine service might be increased" (_ampliandum_), he ordered them to send the candidates or their relatives to him and promised to give the necessary licence if it seemed expedient[2020]. In 1262 and 1264[2021] the usual prohibition was repeated.

The nuns of St Amand persisted with equal obstinacy in admitting novices without licence. In 1254 and again in 1257 the Archbishop noted the presence of four girls who had been promised admission as soon as there was a vacancy[2022]. In 1263 he ordered one of them to be removed[2023].

In the next year he found that four ladies (_domicelle_) in secular habit had been received, one of them in spite of his inhibition; the Abbess was punished for disobedience and the girl was sent home[2024]. In 1267 seven girls were waiting to be veiled, but he seems to have made no objection[2025]. At Villarceaux in 1257 the niece of a neighbouring prior was found in the house, in secular dress; "and she in the chapter," says Rigaud, "throwing herself upon her knees, besought us to permit her to be received by them, because the Prioress and convent had promised to veil her"[2026]. Whether he acceded to her request is not known, but in the following year there was serious trouble, because the Prioress had raised the number of nuns above the statutory number of twenty, by receiving two girls against the bishop's order and the convent's will, one to be a nun and the other to be a lay sister. The Archbishop ordered their instant expulsion and specifically mentioned that his former prohibition had been dictated by a desire to do what was best for the convent, "since its resources hardly suffice for a small number of persons"[2027]. At Bondeville also a girl had been received without licence in 1266 and the Archbishop forbade her to be veiled[2028]. Sometimes it is clear that he had to protect the nuns, less against their own improvidence than against the enforced reception of nuns "dumped" upon them by powerful people outside their own ranks. The nuns of Villarceaux were forbidden to receive any lay sister or novice "even if the abbess of St Cyr send her"[2029]. At Bival, in 1254, where it is specifically stated that no more nuns are to be received without licence on account of the poverty of the house, he ordered no exception to be made even for two girls sent by the bishop and one by Sir William of Poissy[2030]; and at Montivilliers in 1266 he noted that in spite of his prohibition a girl had been placed there by the Legate[2031].

(5) A very common fault in these Rouen (and indeed in all) houses was the imperfect claustration of the nuns; seculars entered the precincts; nuns left them. There were constant injunctions that no secular or suspected persons were to enter the cloister precincts[2032] or to talk with the nuns anywhere save in the parlour[2033]. At Bival, however, a significant exception was made to the general prohibition; no one was to be introduced except those whom it would be a scandal to turn away[2034]--potential benefactors and other powerful folk, no doubt. It seems that the nuns were in the habit of dining and of eating meat with seculars (at Bival they absented themselves from Compline for this purpose)[2035], and the Archbishop forbade, time after time, the eating together of nuns and seculars[2036]. No secular person was to sleep in the house[2037]; and no nun was to converse with seculars, even in the parlour, without licence from the head of the house and without a suitable companion, such as the doorkeeper[2038]. These precautions seem to have been necessary, for one is left with the impression that secular visitors gained access without much difficulty to the cloister precincts; at Bival it was complained that brothers and relatives of the nuns and others, entered the house[2039]; and at Bondeville friends and relatives used to come into the cloister at will and talk with the nuns in the meadows and guest rooms of the house[2040]; at a later visitation the archbishop remarked that the house where guests were received was too close to the cloister and to the conventual buildings[2041]. The abuses to which such freedom of access might give rise are obvious. They appear in the case of St Aubin, morally the worst of all the houses; the state of that community at the visitations of 1254, 1256, 1257 and 1261 will be referred to later; in 1266 a certain miller was not to be allowed to frequent the house, as scandal had arisen through him, and the schoolmaster (_Rector scolarum_) of Beauvoir had "sometimes impudently frequented the said house or priory, from which evil rumours had arisen," and he was to be warned to desist[2042]; next year the same miller and two clerics (a rector and a clerk) were frequenting the house and causing scandal and the Archbishop forbade them to enter it[2043].

The wandering of nuns outside the precincts was even more dangerous, and it is significant that after the terrible revelations at Villarceaux in 1249 the Archbishop, in his injunctions, paid special attention to the entrance of seculars into the convent and to the conditions under which the nuns were wont to leave it. Rigaud strictly forbade any nun to go out without special licence from the head of the house and that licence was not to be given except for an adequate reason[2044]; "not quickly and easily but with difficulty and for an appointed time only"[2045], ran the injunction to the Abbess of St Amand. A term was always to be fixed by which the nun had to return and she was always to have a suitable companion allotted to her[2046]. This seems to have been a necessary precaution, for at St Saens the nuns were found to stay away alone for fifteen days or more[2047]; it is perhaps not accidental that St Saens was one of the immoral houses. At St Leger de Preaux, also, the nuns were in the habit of going out alone to the houses of relatives[2048]: "They go outside the abbey when they can and return when they will," says the Archbishop[2049]; in 1267 one of them was found to be alone with her mother at Argoulles, "which displeased us and we forbade the Abbess to give any nun permission to go out without company"[2050]. At Bondeville they used often to go to Rouen[2051]. Another precaution taken against the wandering of nuns in the world was the closing or careful guarding of the cloister doors; it was ordered at Bival in 1257 that a door opening on to the meadows, which was often unlocked, should be kept locked[2052]. The causes which took nuns outside the gates were many: sometimes they seem to have gone simply to take a walk; sometimes to visit relatives or to act as G.o.dmothers to the children of friends (a practice which was specifically forbidden at Montivilliers in 1257 and again in 1265)[2053]; sometimes on business to the granges of the convent; sometimes to work in the fields (three of the nuns of St Aubin were absent at the vintage (_in vindemiis_) when the Archbishop came in 1267)[2054]; sometimes to beg (at St Aubin in 1261 it was ordered that the younger nuns were not to be sent out to beg (_pro questu_)[2055] and two years later two nuns of this poverty-stricken house were absent in France, seeking alms)[2056]; sometimes for less reputable reasons. There is no more striking commentary on the writings of contemporary moralists like Matheolus and Gilles li Muisis than the Register of Eudes Rigaud[2057]; and the stress laid upon the ill results of allowing seculars to enter and nuns to leave the cloister, shows that the attempts of the medieval Church to impose strict claustration upon nuns, harsh as they seem to modern minds, were dictated by a real social necessity.

(6) Modern minds would also be inclined to consider as trifling offences the various cases of frivolous behaviour--games, gay clothes, pet animals--which the Archbishop entered from time to time in his diary. The custom of indulging in games on Innocents' Day, which prevailed in certain English nunneries, was fairly common in Rigaud's diocese. In 1249 he made the following injunction at Villarceaux:

Item we forbid you in future to indulge in your accustomed gaieties (_ne ludibria exerceatis consueta_) to wit, dressing yourselves up in secular clothes or leading dance-songs (_ch.o.r.eas_) among yourselves or with seculars[2058].

But the nuns clung to their rare amus.e.m.e.nts and in 1253 the Archbishop noted: "They sing ditties (_cantilenas_) on the Feast of Innocents"[2059].

At St Leger des Preaux in 1254 the diary has: "We forbade disorders (_inordinaciones_) on the Feast of Innocents"[2060] and at the Holy Trinity of Caen two years later: "The younger ones on the Feast of Innocents sing the scriptures with _farsa_; this we forbade"[2061].

Montivilliers was a serious offender and the Archbishop's note is learnedly technical over the different kinds of songs sung by the nuns:

Item on the Feasts of St John, St Stephen and the Innocents they use excessive frivolity (_nimia iocositate_) and scurrilous songs, to wit, farces (_farsis_), canticles (_conductis_) and motets (_motulis_); we ordered that they should bear themselves more fittingly and with greater devotion[2062].

The order seems to have borne fruit, for in 1262 he noted: "The frivolities which used to take place on Innocents' Day have been utterly given up, so they say"; and then, and again in 1265, he simply repeated the injunction that such things should cease[2063]. At St Amand in 1263 he ordered:

That the younger nuns are not to remain behind in the choir on the Feast of Innocents, as they have done in the past, singing the office and proses which belong to the day, the seniors having gone away and left the juniors there[2064].

But afterwards we hear no more of these sports among the nuns; so perhaps Rigaud succeeded in stamping them out. They were perhaps (if one may judge from the usual character of the Feast of Fools) more scurrilous and less innocently pretty than they sound; but it is difficult not to feel a little out of sympathy with the conscientious Archbishop[2065].

The keeping of pet animals here, as in England, was a common fault and one against which Rigaud's animadversions were singularly unsuccessful. The nuns of St Sauveur d'Evreux had small dogs, squirrels and birds, "and we ordered such things to be removed; they do not profit the rule"[2066]; but we had to repeat our injunction in 1258 and again in 1269[2067]. At St Leger des Preaux they had two small dogs and three squirrels[2068], and at the Holy Trinity of Caen they kept larks and little birds in cages, which were to be removed[2069]; but the cage birds were still there six years later[2070]. The most amusing case was at Villarceaux in 1268, where for once one of the nuns gave the Archbishop a piece of her mind. "Eustachia, late prioress" (we shall hear of her again), "had a certain bird, which she kept to the annoyance and displeasure of some of the more elderly nuns" (did it disturb their slumbers?) "For the which reason we ordered her to remove it; and she thereupon bespake us with little discretion or reverence, which greatly displeased us"[2071]. One may forgive the archbishop for this lapse in his sense of humour; he had had trouble with Eustachia before; it was just like her to keep a bird that squawked in the dorter.

Nor probably did Rigaud fare better than any other medieval visitor in his attempts to turn fas.h.i.+onable clothes out of the nunneries. The disreputable ladies of Villarceaux (1249) curled their hair and scented their veils with saffron, they had pilches of rabbit and hare and fox fur, they wore belts adorned with silver-work and steel-work[2072]. Those of Montivilliers (1265 and 1266) were nearly as luxurious, though their morals were unimpeachable; they also wore their hair in ringlets, had pilches of squirrel fur and of the costly "griz," and used girdles curiously adorned with ironwork; they ornamented their collars and cuffs with expensive cloth tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs and possessed "excessively curious and precious knives, with carved and silvered handles"[2073]. The nuns of St Amand also used not only s.h.i.+fts and pilches, but also pillows and bedclothes soft with the fur of rabbit, hare, fox and cat[2074]; and the ornamented girdles of ironwork were found at St Aubin and at St Sauveur[2075]. The Archbishop strenuously forbade long hair and curls, belts of ironwork, saffron, rich cloth and the more costly kinds of fur.

It is unlikely that he was successful. The world never called more seductively to medieval nuns than in contemporary fas.h.i.+ons. The Church clung to the belief that the habit made the nun, but the souls of sister Jacqueline and sister Johanna, and sister Philippa and sister Marguerite expressed themselves appropriately in furs and saffron and, one fears, would not have been less frivolous in the regular garb of their order:

Il est bien vray que tourel, voille ou guymple Fort scapullaire ou autre habit de corps, Ne rend jamais homme ou femme plus simple, Mais rompt souvent l'union et accords Mectant divorce entre l'ame et le corps[2076].

(7) It is now necessary to consider the more serious faults, such as quarrelling, drunkenness or immorality, detected by Eudes Rigaud in his visitations, and to give a fuller account of those nunneries which were in a particularly evil state. The quarrels which were inseparable from convent life continually occupied his attention; and nine out of the twelve houses which he visited more than once were at one time or another disturbed by petty squabblings among the nuns. It is clear--as might be expected--that the discord was worse in those convents where discipline was loose, and where the behaviour of the nuns in other directions was open to grave censure. At the visitation of Villarceaux in 1249, for instance, Ermengarde of Gisors and Johanna of Auvilliers beat one another and the Archbishop was obliged to order the punishment of quarrels pa.s.sing from words to blows[2077] (_de verbis ad verbera_--he was not above a mild ecclesiastical pun in the privacy of his diary)[2078]. At St Aubin (1254) Agnes of the Bridge (_de Ponte_) and Petronilla refused to speak to each other, and Agnes, "who is a fomenter of discord and a scold," was ordered to give up her rancour against Petronilla, on pain of being removed from the convent[2079]. At Bival in 1252 two sisters were described as rebellious[2080] and two years later the Register contains the following entry:

There are two sets of couples who refuse to speak to one another and we caused them to make peace with each other and to kiss and be friends (_quantum ad os, et deosculari ad invicem_), and we forbade that any mention should henceforth be made of the bone of contention between them, on pain of excommunication, which we have called down upon her who shall be the first to mention it, and we ordered the Abbess to keep us informed[2081].

At St Saens a certain Johanna Martel--evidently a lady of substance with relatives in the neighbourhood--was said in 1259 to be rebellious, disobedient and given to wrangling with the Prioress[2082], and in 1265 the house was full of discord[2083]. At Almeneches (1250) there was a good deal of quarrelling in cloister and choir[2084].

Quarrels were common, however, in houses against which no grave moral disorders were ever charged. St Amand was perhaps the worst of these; there in 1258 the Archbishop ordered that each nun was to forget the injury and offence of the other, before she presumed to receive communion[2085]; but the discords continued and in 1262 he wrote:

Because we found there many heart-burnings and rancours among the nuns, we ordered the abbess and the confessor that they should reconcile those whom they knew to have fallen into this fault before, and that they should live in charity as far as they were able, punis.h.i.+ng offenders by taking away their beer and pittances[2086].

But it was in vain, and after seven years Rigaud was still commanding the Abbess to labour to the best of her ability that the nuns should live in peace and concord[2087]. At Bondeville (1251 and 1255) it will be remembered that one of the charges against the Prioress was her quarrelsomeness[2088]; and in 1259 a certain Lucy was found to be a quarrelsome and ill-tempered person, disobedient to the Prioress and given to wrangling with her in the frater, whereupon the Archbishop enjoined a penance of silence upon her[2089]. At St Desir de Lisieux (1254) there were two or three nuns who would not speak to the rest[2090]; and even at the great Abbaye aux Dames at Caen Rigaud noted in 1267, "There was great contention among them and concerning this they had a case in the law-courts"[2091].

Quarrelsomeness was, however, a mild fault compared with the really bad immorality which prevailed in some of the houses. At three of them, St Aubin, St Saens and Bival, this state of affairs continued from visitation to visitation; they were evidently hopelessly corrupt. At the two others (Villarceaux and Almeneches) there is mention of serious disorders only once and from the Archbishop's silence on later occasions it may be hoped that he succeeded in reforming the houses. One of these isolated cases was in many ways the most serious of all; Rigaud's note of his visitation of Villarceaux in 1249 reads more like a description of La Maison Tellier than that of a priory; except that the former was more discreet:

We visited the priory of Villarceaux. There are twenty-three nuns and three lay sisters. [Here follow several minor disorders.] Only four nuns there are fully professed, to wit Eustachia, Comitissa, Ermengarde and Petronilla. Many of them have pilches made from the fur of rabbits, hares and foxes. They eat flesh unnecessarily in the infirmary; they do not observe silence anywhere and they do not keep within the cloister. Johanna of "Aululari" once went out of the cloister and lived with someone, by whom she had a child; and she sometimes goes out of the cloister to see that child; item she is ill-famed (_infamata_) with a certain man called Gaillard. Isabella la Treiche is a fault finder, murmuring against the Prioress and others.

The cellaress is ill-famed with a man called Philip of Villarceaux.

The Prioress is too negligent and does not reprove, nor does she get up [for matins]. Johanna of Auvilliers goes outside the house alone with Gayllard and within the year she had a child by him. The cellaress is ill-famed with Philip of Villarceaux and with a certain priest of her own neighbourhood. Item the subprioress with Thomas the carter. Idonia her sister with Crispinatus. Item the prior of Gisors frequents the house for the sake of the said Idonia. Philippa of Rouen is ill-famed with the priest of Suentre, in the diocese of Chartres; Marguerita the treasuress with Richard de Geneville, clerk. Agnes of Fontenoy is ill-famed with the priest of Guerreville, of the diocese of Chartres. La Tooliere [? the chambress] is ill-famed with Sir Andrew de Monchy, knight. They all wear their hair long to their chins (_nutriunt comam usque ad mentum_) and scent their veils with saffron.

Jacqueline came back pregnant from a certain chaplain, who was expelled from the house for this. Item Agnes de Montsec was ill-famed with the same. Ermengarde of Gisors and Johanna of Auvilliers beat each other. The Prioress is drunk almost any night ... she does not rise for matins nor eat in the frater nor correct faults[2092].

After these terrible revelations the Archbishop directed a letter of injunctions to the convent, which, contrary to his usual practice, was copied into his diary[2093]. These injunctions deal only with general breaches of the rule, which by loosening discipline would tend to give opportunities for the behaviour described in the _comperta_, and they contain no reference to specific cases of immorality. Thus he provides for the proper performance of divine service; for the maintenance of silence; for the simultaneous entry of the nuns into their dorter, the keys of which and of the cloister were to be carefully kept and a "Visitor"

appointed to see that the rule was kept in these matters; he forbids secular or suspected persons to be entertained or lodged within the cloister, and nuns to be given permission to go outside without good reason and a companion, or to speak with any external person unlicensed and unaccompanied; he deals also with the frivolous garments, the sports on Innocents' Day and the quarrels which he had found; he forbids the reception of any more nuns without licence, orders the frequent rendering of accounts, warns them to live in common, and ends with an order to recite his letter at least once a month in the chapter. These injunctions seem strangely superficial in comparison with the _comperta_ which precede them; but a note entered in the Register, on the occasion of the next visitation of Villarceaux, would seem to suggest that the Archbishop had taken other steps to deal with the matter. It is there written: "Here are twenty nuns, but six of them were not present; for one of them left the house and married in the world and two are without the house, according to a previous mandate and ordinance of ours"[2094]. It is possible that the Archbishop had sent separate letters (not copied into his Register) dealing with the worst cases of immorality, and that he had sent two of the erring nuns to do penance in another house. At any rate there are no further complaints of immorality against Villarceaux, and perhaps prompt measures at the beginning of his career as visitor had stayed the nuns on their downward course.

It was on Rigaud's first visitation of Almeneches also that moral disorders were found. He went there in 1250 and found that the rule had been greatly relaxed. The nuns (who were among the most inveterate property owners recorded in the Register) used to run up debts in the town, doubtless with the money given to them for the purchase of their food. They did not live a communal life, they admitted seculars to talk with them in the cloister, they remained away from Matins and Compline, they had drinking parties after Compline, and they were always quarrelling. The result of this laxity showed in more serious faults.