Medieval English Nunneries c. 1275 to 1535 Part 8

accounts. The convent food was derived from two main sources, from the home farm and from purchase. The home farm was usually under the management of the cellaress and provided the house with the greater part of its meat, bread, beer and vegetables, and with a certain amount of dairy produce (b.u.t.ter, cheese, eggs, chickens). Anything which the farm could not produce had to be bought, and in particular three important articles of consumption, to wit the salt and dried fish eaten during the winter and in Lent, the salt for the great annual meat-salting on St Martin's day, and the spices and similar condiments used so freely in medieval cooking and eaten by convents more especially in Lent, to relieve the monotony of their fasting fare. The nuns of St Radegund's, Cambridge, used to get most of their salt fish at Lynn, whence it was brought up by river to Cambridge. From the accounts of 1449-51 it appears that the senior ladies made the occasion one for a pleasant excursion. There is a jovial entry in 1450-1 concerning the carriage by water from Lynn to Cambridge of one barrel[372] and a half of white herrings, two cades[373]

of red herrings, two cades of smelts, one quarter of stockfish and one piece of timber called "a Maste" out of which a ladder was to be made (2_s._ 4_d._), together with the fares and food of Dame Joan Lancaster, Dame Margaret Metham, Thomas Key (the bailiff) and Elene Herward of Lynn to Cambridge (2_s._ 8_d._). Another entry displays to us Dame Joan Lancaster bargaining for the smelts and the stockfish at Lynn. Fish was usually bought from one John Ball of Lynn, who seems to have been a general merchant of considerable custom, for the nuns also purchased from him all the linen which they needed for towels and tablecloths, and some trenchers. Occasionally, also, however, they purchased some of their fish at one or other of the fairs held in the district; in 1449-50 they thus bought 8 warp[374] of ling and 6 warp of cod from one John Antyll at Ely fair and 14 warp of ling from the same man at Stourbridge fair, an interesting ill.u.s.tration of how tradesmen travelled from fair to fair. At St John Baptist's fair in the same year they bought a horse for 9_s._ 6_d._, 2 qrs. 5 bushels of salt, some timber boards and three "pitcheforke staves." In the following year they bought timber, pewter pots, a churn, 10 lbs. of soap and 3 lbs. of pepper at the famous fair of Stourbridge, and salt and timber at the fair of St John Baptist. In 1481-2 they bought salt fish, salt, iron nails, paper, parchment and "other necessities" at the fairs of Stourbridge and of St Etheldreda the Virgin[375].

The fish-stores ill.u.s.trate a side of medieval housekeeping, which is unfamiliar to-day. Fresh fish was eaten on fish-days whenever it could be got. Most monastic houses had fis.h.i.+ng rights attached to their demesnes, or kept their own fish-pond or stew. The nuns of St Radegund's had fis.h.i.+ng rights in a certain part of the Cam known as late as 1505 as "Nunneslake"[376]. But a great deal of dried and salted fish was also eaten. In their storehouse the nuns always kept a supply of the dried cod known as stockfish for their guest-house and for the frater during the winter. It was kept in layers on canvas and was so dry that it had to be beaten before it could be used; it is supposed to have derived its name from the _stock_ on which it was beaten, or, as Erasmus preferred to say, "because it nourisheth no more than a dried stock"[377]. For Lent the chief articles of food were herrings and salt salmon, but the list of _salt store_ purchased by the cellaress of Syon in 1536-7 shows a great variety of fish, to wit 200 dry lings, 700 dry haberden (salted cod), 100 "Iceland fish," 1 barrel of salt salmon, 1 barrel of [white] herring, 1 cade of red herring and 420 lbs. of "stub" eels[378]. The chief food during Lent, besides bread and salt fish, was dried peas, which could be boiled or made into pottage. Thus Skelton complains of the monks of his day:

Saltfysshe, stocfysshe, nor heryng, It is not for your werynge; Nor in holy Lenton season Ye wyll nethyr benes ne peason[379].

In Lent also were eaten dried fruits, in particular almonds and raisins and figs, the latter being sometimes made into little pies called _risschewes_[380]. The nuns of Syon purchased olive oil and honey with their other Lenten stores. The list of condiments which they bought during the year, for ordinary cooking purposes, or for consumption as a relief to their palates in Lent, or as a pittance on high days and holidays, includes, in 1536-7, sugar (749-3/4 lb.), nutmegs (18 lb.), almonds (500 lb.), currants (4 lb.), ginger (6 lb.), isingla.s.s (100 lb.), pepper (6 lb.), cinnamon (1 lb.), cloves (1 lb.), mace (1 lb.), saffron (2 lb.), rice (3 qrs.), together with figs, raisins and prunes[381]. Surely the poor clown, whom Autolycus relieved so easily of his purse, was sent to stock a convent storehouse, not to furnish forth a sheep-shearing feast and the sister who sent him was a sister in Christ:

Let me see, what am I to buy...? Three pound of sugar; five pound of currants; rice,--what will this sister of mine do with rice?... I must have saffron, to colour the warden pies; mace, dates,--none; that's out of my note; nutmegs seven; a race or two of ginger,--but that I may beg;--four pound of prunes and as many of raisins of the sun[382].

Lent fare was naturally not very pleasant, for all the mitigations of almonds and figs. At other times of the year the convent ate on fish-days fresh fish, when they could get it, otherwise dried or salt fish, and on meat-days either beef or some form of pig's flesh, eaten fresh as pork, cured and salted as bacon, or pickled as _sowce_[383]. Mutton was also eaten, though much more seldom, for the sheep in the middle ages was valued for its wool, rather than for its meat, and was indeed a scraggy little animal, until the discovery of winter crops and the experiments of Bakewell revolutionised stock-breeding and the English food-supply in the eighteenth century. The nuns also had fowls on festive occasions, eggs, cheese and b.u.t.ter from the dairy and vegetables from the garden. The staple allowance of bread and beer made on the premises was always provided by the convent, even when the nuns had a money allowance to cater for themselves in other articles of food[384]. Some idea of the menu of an average house is given in the Syon rule:

For the sustres and brethren sche [the cellaress] shal euery day for the more parte ordeyne for two maner of potages, or els at leste for one G.o.de and that is best of alle. If ther be two, that one be sewe [broth] of flesche and fische, after [according to what] the day is; and that other of wortes or herbes, or of any other thing that groweth in the yerthe, holsom to the body, as whete, ryse, otemele, peson and suche other. Also sche schal ordeyne for two sundry metes, of flesche and of fysche, one fresche, another powdred [salted], boyled, or rosted, or other wyse dyghte, after her discrecion, and after the day, tyme and nede requyreth, as the market and purse wylle stretche. And thys schal stonde for the prebende, which is a pounde of brede, welle weyed, with a potel of ale and a messe of mete.... On fysche dayes sche schal ordeyn for whyte metes, yf any may be hadde after the rewle, be syde fysche metes, as it is before seyd. Also, ones a wyke at the leste, sche schal ordeyn that the sustres and brethren be serued withe newe brede, namely on water dayes, but neuer withe newe ale, nor palled or ouer sowre, as moche as sche may. For supper sche schal ordeyn for some lytel sowpyng, and for fysche and whyte mete, or for any other thynge suffred by the rewle, lyghte of dygestyon equyualente, and as G.o.de to the bodyly helthe.... On water dayes sche schal ordeyne for bonnes or newe brede, water grewel, albreys and for two maner of froytes at leste yf it may be, that is to say, apples, peres or nuttes, plummes, chiryes, benes, peson, or any suche other, and thys in competent mesure, rosten or sothen, or other wyse dyghte to the bodyly helthe, and sche must se that the water be sothen with browne brede in maner of a tysan, or withe barley brede, for coldenes and feblenes of nature, more thys dayes, than in dayes pa.s.sed regnynge[385].

On certain special days the nuns received a pittance, or extra allowance of food, sometimes taking the shape of some special delicacy consecrated to the day. On Shrove Tuesday they often had the traditional pancakes, or fritters, called _crisps_ at Barking[386] and _flawnes_ at St Michael's, Stamford[387]. Maundy Thursday, otherwise called Shere Thursday (the Thursday before Easter) was the great almsgiving day of the year. On this day the kings and queens of England, as well as the greatest dignitaries of the church and of the n.o.bility, were accustomed to give gowns, food and money to the poor, who cl.u.s.tered round their gates in expectance of the event, and ceremonially to wash the feet of a certain number of poor men and women, to commemorate Christ's was.h.i.+ng of His disciples' feet.

Benefactors who left land to monastic houses for purposes of almsgiving often specified Maundy Thursday as the day on which the alms were to be distributed. It was customary also for monks and nuns to receive a pittance on this day; and welcome it must have been after the long Lenten fast. The nuns of Barking had baked eels, with rice and almonds and wine.

The nuns of St Mary de Pre (St Albans) had "Maundy ale" and "Maundy money"

given to them. The nuns of St Michael's, Stamford, had beer and wafers and spices[388]. There was always a feast on Christmas day and on most of the great feasts of the church and the various feasts connected with the Virgin. There was a pittance on the dedication day of the convent and sometimes on other saints' days. There were also pittances on the anniversaries of benefactors who had left money for this purpose to the convent, and sometimes also on profession-days, which were "the official birthdays of the nuns"[389]. In the monotonous round of convent life these little festivities formed a pleasant change and were looked forward to with ardour; in some of the larger houses a special obedientiary known as the _Pittancer_ had charge over them.

Food is one of the housekeeper's cares; servants are another; and between them they must have wrinkled many a cellaress' brow, though the servant problem at least was a less complicated one in the middle ages than it is to-day. The persons to whom regular yearly wages were paid by a convent fall into four cla.s.ses: (1) the chaplains, (2) the administrative officials, steward, rent-collectors, bailiff, (3) the household staff and (4) the hinds and farm-servants.

(1) _The chaplains._ The account rolls of a nunnery of average size usually contain payments to more than one priest. The nuns had to pay the stipend of their own chaplain or ma.s.s-priest, of any chaplains or vicars whom they were bound to provide for appropriated churches, and sometimes of a confessor. The number of chaplains naturally varied with the size of the house and with the number of appropriated churches. Great houses such as Barking, Shaftesbury and Wilton had a body of resident chaplains attached to the nunnery church and paid the stipends of priests ministering to appropriated parishes. Poor and small nunneries, such as Rusper, paid the fee of one resident chaplain. It is worthy of note that certain important and old established abbeys in Wess.e.x had canons'

prebends attached to their churches. At each of the abbey churches of Shaftesbury, St Mary's Winchester, Wherwell and Wilton there were four prebendary canons, at Romsey there were two (one of whom was known as sacrist). Moreover at Malling in Kent there were two secular prebends, known as the prebends of _magna missa maioris altaris_ and _alta missa_.

These prebends were doubtless originally intended for the maintenance of resident chaplains, but as early as the thirteenth century the prebends were almost invariably held by non-residents and pluralists as sinecures, the reason being, as Mr Hamilton Thompson points out, "the rise in value of individual endowments and the consequent readiness of the Crown, as patron of the monasteries, to discover in them sources of income for clerks in high office." Thus these great abbeys also followed the usual custom of hiring chaplains to celebrate in their churches, though some of the wealthier prebends were taxed with stipendiary payments towards the cost of these[390].

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE III

PAGE FROM _LA SAINTE ABBAYE_

(In the top left hand corner is a nun at confession; in the other corners are visions appearing to a nun at prayer.)]

The chaplain of a house usually resided on the premises, sometimes receiving his board from the nuns; occasionally inventories mention his lodgings, which were outside the nuns' cloister. Thus the Kilburn Dissolution inventory, after describing all the household offices, goes on to describe the three chambers for the chaplain and the hinds, the "confessor's chamber" and the church[391]. At Sheppey the chamber over the gatehouse was called "the confessor's chamber" and was furnished forth with

a hangyng of rede clothe, a paynted square sparver of lynen, with iij corteyns of lynyn clothe, a good fetherbed, a good bolster, a pece of blanketts and a good counterpeynt of small verder, in the lowe bed a fetherbed, a bolster, a pece of blanketts olde, and an image coverled, a greate joynyd chayer of waynscot, an olde forme, and a cressar of iron for the chymneye[392].

The relations between the nuns and their priest were doubtless very friendly; he would be their guide, philosopher and friend, sometimes acting as _custos_ of their temporal affairs and always ready with advice.

Madame Eglentyne, it will be remembered, took three priests with her upon her eventful pilgrimage to Canterbury, and one was the never-to-be-forgotten Sir John, whom she mounted worse than his inimitable skill as a _raconteur_ deserved:

Than spak our host, with rude speche and bold And seyde un-to the Nonnes Preest anon, "Com neer, thou preest, com hider thou sir John, Tel us swich thing as may our hertes glade, Be blythe, though thou ryde up-on a jade.

What though thyn hors be bothe foule and lene, If he wol serve thee, rekke not a bene; Look that thyn herte be mery evermo."

"Yis, sir" quod he, "yis, host, so mote I go, But I be mery, y-wis I wol be blamed":-- And right anon his tale he hath attamed, And thus he seyde unto us everichon, This swete preest, this goodly man, sir John[393].

Certainly the convent never went to sleep in a sermon which had the tale of Chauntecleer and Pertelote for its _exemplum_.

Yet the nuns were not always happy in their priests. There is the case (not, it must be admitted, without its humour) of Sir Henry, the chaplain of Gracedieu in 1440-41. Sir Henry was an uncouth fellow, it seems, who was more at home in the stable than at the altar. He went out haymaking alone with the cellaress, and in the evening brought her back behind him, riding on the same lean jade. Furthermore "Sir Henry the chaplain busies himself with unseemly tasks, cleansing the stables, and goes to the altar without was.h.i.+ng, staining his vestments. He is without devotion and irreverent at the altar and is of ill reputation at Loughborough and elsewhere where he has dwelt." Poor Sir Henry,--

See, whiche braunes hath this gentil Preest, So greet a nekke, and swich a large breest!

He loketh as a sperhauk with his yen; Him nedeth nat his colour for to dyen With brasil, ne with greyn of Portingale.

The bishop swore him to "behave himself devoutly and reverently henceforward at the altar in making his bow after and before his ma.s.ses"[394].

(2) _The administrative officials._ These varied in number with the size of the house and the extent of its possessions. The chief administrative official was the _steward_, who is not, however, found at all houses.

Sometimes the office of steward was complimentary and the fee attached was nominal. The _Valor Ecclesiasticus_ shows that great men did not disdain the post; Andrew Lord Windsor was steward of the Minoresses without Aldgate, of Burnham and of Ankerwyke[395]. Henry Lord Daubeney was steward of Shaftesbury[396], George Earl of Shrewsbury of Wilton[397], Henry Marquess of Dorset of Nuneaton[398], Sir Thomas Wyatt of Malling[399], Sir W. Percy of Hampole, Handale and Thicket[400], Lord Darcy of Swine[401], the Earl of Derby of St Mary's Chester[402], and Mr Thomas Cromwell himself of Syon and Catesby[403]. Some houses, such as Wilton, had more than one steward, and Syon maintained stewards as well as bailiffs in most of the counties in which it had land. Some of these great men were obviously not working officials; but many of the houses maintained stewards at a good salary, who superintended their business affairs, kept the courts of their manors, and were sometimes lodged on the premises[404]. The larger houses also paid one or more receivers and rent-collectors and sometimes an auditor, but in the average house the most important administrative official was the bailiff.

While large landowners kept bailiffs at each of the different manors which they held, most nunneries employed a single bailiff, an invaluable factotum who performed a great variety of business for them, besides collecting rents from their tenants and superintending the home farm.

Thomas Key, the bailiff of St Radegund's Cambridge, 1449-51, is an active person; he receives a stipend of 13_s._ 4_d._ per annum and an occasional gift from the nuns; he rides about collecting their rents in Cambridges.h.i.+re; he accompanies them to Lynn on the annual journey to buy the winter stock of salt fish, or sometimes goes alone; he can turn his hand to mending rakes and ladders (for which he gets 8_d._ for four days'

work), or to making the barley mows at harvest time, taking 3_d._ a day for his pains; and indeed he is regularly hired to work during harvest, at a fee of 6_s._ 8_d._ and two bushels of malt[405]. Often the bailiff's wife was also employed by the nuns; the nuns of Sheppey paid their bailiff, his wife and his servant all substantial salaries[406]. Some nunneries had a lodging set apart for him in the convent buildings, outside the nuns' cloister[407].

Evidence often crops up from a variety of sources concerning the relations between the nuns and this important official. That these might be very pleasant can well be imagined. Sometimes a bailiff of substance and standing will place his daughter in the nunnery which he serves[408]; sometimes when he dies he will remember it in his will[409]. But all bailiffs were not good and faithful servants. Mr Hamilton Thompson considers that male stewards and bailiffs were often "responsible for the financial straits to which the nunneries of the fifteenth century were reduced, and ... certainly did much to waste the goods of the monasteries, generally in their own interests"[410]. Such a man was Chaucer's Reeve, though he did not waste land, for the reason that one does not kill the goose that lays the golden eggs:

His lordes sheep, his neet, his dayerye, His swyn, his hors, his stoor and his pultrye, Was hoolly in this reves governing, And by his covenaunt yaf the rekening....

His woning was ful fair upon an heeth, With grene trees shadwed was his place.

He coude bettre than his lord purchace.

Ful riche he was astored prively, His lord wel coude he plesen subtilly, To yeve and lene him of his owne good, And have a thank, and yet a cote and hood[411].

Several records of law-suits are extant, in which prioresses are obliged to sue their bailiffs in the court of King's Bench for an account of their periods of service[412], and visitation doc.u.ments sometimes give a sorry picture of the convent bailiff. The bailiff of G.o.dstow (1432) went about saying that there was no good woman in the nunnery[413]; the bailiff of Legbourne (1440) persuaded the prioress to sell him a corrody in the house and yet he "is not reckoned profitable to the house in that office, for several of his kinsfolk are serving folk in the house, who look out for themselves more than for the house"[414]; the bailiff of Redlingfield (1427) was the prioress's lover[415].

Romsey Abbey seems at various times to have been peculiarly unfortunate in its administrative officials. In 1284 Archbishop Peckham had to write to the abbess Agnes Walerand and bid her remove two stewards, whom she had appointed in defiance of the wishes of the convent and who were to give an account of their offices to his official[416]. At the close of the fifteenth century, when the abbey was in a very disorderly state under Elizabeth Broke, there was serious trouble again. In 1492 this Abbess was found to have fallen under the influence of one Terbock, whom she had made steward. She herself confessed that she owed him the huge sum of 80_l._ and the nuns declared that in part payment of it she had persuaded them to make over to him for three years a manor valued at 40_l._ and had given him a cross and many other things. His friends haunted her house, especially one John Write, who begged money from her for Terbock. The nuns suspected him of dishonesty, asked that the rolls of account for the years of his stewards.h.i.+p might be seen and declared that the house was brought to ill-fame by him[417]. In 1501 Elizabeth Broke had fallen under the influence of another man, this time a priest called Master Bryce, but she died the next year. Her successor Joyce Rowse was equally unsatisfactory and equally unable to control her servants. Bishop Foxe's vicar-general in 1507 enjoined that a nun should be sought out and corrected for having frequent access, suspiciously and beyond the proper time, to the house of the bailiff of the monastery, and others who went with her were to be warned and corrected too; moreover he summoned before him Thomas Langton, Christopher George and Thomas Leycrofte, bailiffs, and Nicholas Newman, _villic.u.m agricultorem_, and admonished them to behave better in their offices on pain of removal[418].

(3) The _household staff_ naturally varied in size with the size of the nunnery. The Rule of St Benedict contemplated the performance of a great deal if not all of the necessary domestic and agricultural work of a community by the monks themselves. But this tradition had been largely discarded by the thirteenth century, and if the nuns of a small convent are found doing their own cooking and housework, it is by reason of their poverty and they not infrequently complain at the necessity. They were of gentle birth and ill accustomed to menial tasks. The weekly service in the kitchen would seem to have disappeared completely. The larger houses employed a male cook, sometimes a.s.sisted by a page, or by his wife, and supervised by the cellaress, or by the kitcheness, where this obedientiary was appointed. There were also a maltster, to make malt, and a brewer and baker, to prepare the weekly ration of bread and ale; sometimes these offices were performed by men, sometimes by women. There was a _deye_ or dairy-woman, who milked the cows, looked after the poultry, and made the cheeses. There was sometimes a _lavender_ or laundress, and there were one or more women servants, to help with the housework and the brewing. The gate was kept by a male porter; and there was sometimes also a gardener.

In large houses there would be more than one servant for each of these offices; in small houses the few servants were men or maids of all work and extra a.s.sistance was hired when necessary for making malt or was.h.i.+ng clothes. In large houses it was not uncommon for each of the chief obedientiaries to have her own servant attached to her _checker_ (office) and household, who prepared the meals for her mistress and for those nuns who formed her _familia_ and messed with her. The head of the house nearly always had her private servant when its resources permitted her to do so, and sometimes when they did not.

(4) _The farm labourers._ Finally every house which had attached to it a home farm had to pay a staff of farm labourers. These hinds, whose work was superintended by the bailiff and cellaress, always included one or two ploughmen, a cowherd and oxherd, a shepherd, probably a carter or two and some general labourers. Again the number varied very considerably according to the size of the house and was commonly augmented by hiring extra labour at busy seasons. The farm was cultivated partly by the work of these hired servants, partly by the services owed by the villeins.

The nuns, with their domestic and farm servants, were the centre of a busy and sometimes large community, and a very good idea of their social function as employers may be gained from the lists of wage-earning servants to be found in account rolls or in Dissolution inventories. We may take in ill.u.s.tration the large and famous abbey of St Mary's, Winchester, and the little house of St Radegund's, Cambridge. St Mary's, Winchester, had let out the whole of its demesne in 1537, and the inventory drawn up by Henry VIII's commissioners therefore contains no list of farm labourers. The household consisted of the Abbess and twenty-six nuns, thirteen "poor sisters," twenty-six "chyldren of lordys knyghttes and gentylmen browght vp yn the sayd monastery," three corrodians and five chaplains, one of whom was confessor to the house, and twenty-nine officers and servants. The Abbess had her own household, consisting of a gentlewoman, a woman servant and a laundress, and the prioress, subprioress, sacrist and another of the senior nuns each had her private woman servant "yn her howse." There were also two laundresses for the convent. The male officers and servants were Thomas Legh, _generall Receyver_ (who also held a corrody and had two little relatives at school in the convent), Thomas Tycheborne _clerke_ (who likewise had two little girl relatives at school and a boy who will be mentioned), Lawrens Bakon, _Curtyar_ (officer in charge of the secular buildings of the nunnery), George Sponder, _Cater_ (caterer or manciple, who purchased the victuals for the community), William Lime, _Botyler_, Rychard Bulbery, _c.o.ke_, John Clarke, _Vnderc.o.ke_, Richard Gefferey, _Baker_, May Wednall, _convent c.o.ke_, John Wener, _vndercovent c.o.ke_, John Hatmaker, _Bruer_, Wylliam Harrys, _Myller_, Wylliam Selwod, _porter_, Robert Clerke, _vnderporter_, William Plattyng, _porter of Estgate_, John Corte and Hery Beale, _Churchemen_, Peter Tycheborne, _Chyld of the hygh aulter_, Rychard Harrold, _seruaunt to the receyver_ and John Serle, _seruaunt to the Clerke_[419].

St Radegund's, Cambridge, in 1450 was a much smaller community, numbering about a dozen nuns. In the treasurers' accounts the wage-earning household is given as follows, together with the annual wages paid by the nuns. The confessor of the house came from outside and was a certain friar named Robert Palmer, who received 6_s._ 8_d._ a year for his pains; they also paid a salary of 5_l._ a year to their ma.s.s-priest, John Herryson, 2_s._ 4_d._ to John Peresson, the chaplain celebrating (but only _per vices_, from time to time) at the appropriated church of St Andrew's, and 13_s._ 4_d._ to the "clerk" of that church, a permanent official. Thomas Key, the invaluable bailiff and rent-collector mentioned above, got the rather small salary of 13_s._ 4_d._, but added to it by exactly half as much again during harvest. Richard Wester, baker and brewer to the house, received 26_s._ 8_d._, John c.o.kke, maltster (and probably also cook, as his name suggests) received 13_s._ 4_d._ The women servants included one of those domestic treasures, who effectively run the happy household which possesses them, or which they possess: her name was Joan Grangyer and she is described as dairy-woman and purveyor or housekeeper to the Prioress; the nuns paid her 20_s._ in all, including 6_s._ 8_d._ for her livery and 2_s._ 4_d._ as a special fee for catering for the Prioress. Then there was Elianore Richemond, who seems to have been an a.s.sistant dairy-maid, for in the following year the nuns had replaced her by another woman, hired "for all manner of work in milking cows, making cheese and b.u.t.ter," etc.; her wages were 8_s._ 4_d._, including a "reward" or gift of 20_d._ The other women servants were Elizabeth Charterys, who received 3_s._ 1_d._ for her linen and woollen clothes and her shoes, but no further wages, and Dionisia _yerdwomman_, who received 9_s._ and doubtless did the rough work. This completed the domestic household of the nuns. Their hinds included three ploughmen, John Everesdon (26_s._ 8_d._), Robert Page (16_s._) and John Slibre (13_s._ 4_d._ and 2_s._ 6_d._ for livery); the shepherd, John Wyllyamesson, who received 22_s._ 8_d._ and 8_d._ for a pair of hose; the oxherd Robert Pykkell, who took 6_s._ 8_d._; and Richard Porter, husbandman, who was hired to work from Trinity Sunday to Michaelmas for 13_s._ 4_d._[420]

It will thus be seen that the size of a convent household might vary considerably. The twenty-six nuns of St Mary's Winchester had gathered round themselves a large household of nine women servants, five male chaplains and twenty male officers and servants; but they boarded and educated twenty-six children, gave three corrodies and supported thirteen poor sisters (who may however have done some of the work of the house).

The twelve nuns of St Radegund's lived more economically, with three male and four female servants and six hinds, besides the chaplains; but even their household seems a sufficiently large one. The ten nuns of Whitney Priory employed two priests, a waiting maid for the prioress, nine other women servants and thirteen hinds[421]. It is notable that the maintenance of a larger household than the revenues of the house could support is not infrequently censured in injunctions as responsible for its financial straits. At Nuncoton in 1440 the Prioress said that the house employed more women servants than was necessary[422] and a century later Bishop Longland spoke very sternly against the same fault:

that ye streight upon sight herof dymynishe the nombre of your seruants, as well men as women, which excessyve nombre that ye kepe of them bothe is oon of the grette causes of your miserable pouertye and that ye are nott hable to mayntene your houshold nouther reparacons of the same, by reason whereof all falleth to ruyne and extreme decaye.

And therefore to kepe noo moo thenne shalbe urged necessarye for your said house[423].

On the other hand many nunneries could by no means be charged with keeping up an excessive household. Rusper, which had leased all its demesnes, had only two women servants in its employ at the Dissolution[424], and nuns sometimes complained to their visitors that they were too poor to keep servants and had to do the work of the house themselves, to the detriment of their religious duties in the choir. At Ankerwyke one of the nuns deposed that

they had not serving folk in the brewhouse, bakehouse or kitchen from the last festival of the Nativity of St John the Baptist last year to the Michaelmas next following, in so much that this deponent, with the aid of other her sisters, prepared the beer and victuals and served the nuns with them in her own person.

At Gracedieu there was no servant for the infirmary and the subcellaress had to sleep there and look after the sick, so that she could not come to matins. At Markyate and Harrold the nuns had no washerwoman; at the former house it was said "that the nuns have no woman to wash their clothes and to prepare their food, wherefore they are either obliged to be absent from divine service or else to think the whole time about getting these things ready"; at the latter a nun said "that they have no common washerwoman to wash the clothes of the nuns, save four times a year, and at other times the nuns are obliged to go to the bank of the public stream to wash their clothes"[425]. It was probably on account of the poverty of Sinningthwaite that Archbishop Lee ordered "the susters and the nonys there [that] they kepe no seculer women to serve them or doe any busynes for them, but yf sekenes or oder necessitie doe require"[426].

As to the relations between the servants and their mistresses both visitation reports and account rolls sometimes give meagre sc.r.a.ps of information, which only whet the appet.i.te for more. The payment of the servants was partly in money, partly in board or in allowances of food, partly in livery; stock-inventories constantly make mention of allowances of wheat, peas, oats or oatmeal and maslin (a mixture of wheat and rye) paid to this or that servant, and account rolls as constantly mention a livery, a pair of hose, a pair of shoes, or the money equivalent of these things, as forming part of the wage. The more important agricultural servants had also sometimes the right to graze a cow, or a certain number of sheep on the convent's pastures. Some servants, however, received wages without board, others wages without livery. Account rolls seem to bear witness to pleasant relations; there is constant mention of small tips or presents to the servants and of dinners made to them on great occasions.

This was Merry England, when the ploughman's feasts enlivened his hard work and comfortless existence; he must have his Shrovetide pancakes, his sheep-shearing feast, his "sickle goose" or harvest-home, and his Christmas dinner; and the household servants must as often as may be have a share in the convent pittance. The very general custom of allowing the female servants to sleep in the dorter (against which bishops were continually having to make injunctions) must have made for free and easy and close relations between the nuns and the secular women who served them; and sometimes one of these would save up and buy herself a corrody in the house to end her days[427]. Occasionally these close relations led to difficulties; a trusted maid would gain undue influence over the prioress and the nuns would be jealous of her. Thus at Heynings in 1440 it was complained that the prioress "encourages her secular serving women, whom she believes more than her sisters in their words, to scold the same her sisters"[428]. Sometimes also a servant would act as a go-between between the nuns and the outside world, smuggling in and out tokens and messages and sundry _billets doux_[429].

On the other hand there were sometimes difficulties of a different nature.

The servants got out of hand; they brought discredit on the nuns by the indiscretions of their lives; they gossiped about their mistresses in the neighbourhood, or were quarrelsome and pert to their faces. At Gracedieu in 1440-41 a nun complained "that a Frenchwoman of very unseemly conversation is their maltstress, also that the secular serving folk hold the nuns in despite; she prays that they may be restrained; and chiefly are they rebellious in their words against the kitchener"[430]; evidently the author of the _Ancren Riwle_ spake not utterly from his imagination when he bade his ladies "be glad in your heart if ye suffer insolence from Slurry, the cook's boy, who washeth dishes in the kitchen"[431]. At Markyate also the servants had to be warned "that honestly and not st.u.r.dyly ne rebukyngly thai hafe thaym in thaire langage to the sustres"[432] and at Studley a maidservant had boxed the ears of a novice of tender age[433]. At Sheppey in 1511 it was said that "the men servants of the prioress do not behave properly to the prioress, but speak of the convent contemptuously and dishonestly, thus ruining the convent"[434].