Middle English Literature

parts. EETS, o.s. 129–30, 142. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner.
Hogg, J. (ed.) (1978–80) The Rewyll of Seynt Sauioure, 4 vols. Salzburg: Institut für
Englische Sprache und Literatur.
Hourigan, M. (1996) “Ther Was Also A Nonne, A Prioresse.” In L. C. Lambdin
and R. T. Lambdin (eds.) Chaucer’s Pilgrims: An Historical Guide to the Pilgrims
in The Canterbury Tales. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 38–46.
Oliva, M. (1998) The Convent and the Community in Late Medieval England: Female
Monasteries in the Diocese of Norwich, 1350–1540. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell.
Power, E. (1964) [1922] Medieval English Nunneries, c. 1275 to 1535. New York:
Biblo and Tannen.
Tolkien, J. R. R. (ed.) (1962) Ancrene Wisse: The English Text of the Ancrene Riwle.
EETS, o.s. 249. London: Oxford University Press.
Thompson, A. H. (ed.) (1919) Visitations of Religious Houses in the Diocese of Lincoln, Vol. 2:
Records of Visitations Held by William Alnwick, Bishop of Lincoln, 1436–1449. Part 1. London:
Canterbury and York Society, 1–9 (selections).
Language: Latin and English (Northeast Midland)
Manuscript date: 1441
The visitation of the priory of Ankerwyke of the order of St. Benet, the
diocese of Lincoln, begun and performed in its chapterhouse, on the tenth
day of the month of October in the year of our Lord, 1441, by the reverend
father in Christ and lord, William, by the grace of God bishop of Lincoln, in
the sixteenth year of his consecration and sixth of his translation . . .
1
[1.] Dame Margery Kyrkeby says that all the houses and buildings within
the priory are going to ruin, and three useful and necessary houses have
fallen down, thrown to the ground because of the carelessness and negli-
gence of the prioress, namely the sheepfold (which was worn out by the
fault of the prioress, who was then at a wedding at Bromhall),
2
another
house in which dairy products are made, also a barn of which the timber,
because it was not gathered together, is now burned. She
3
confesses being
1
William Alnwick, bishop of Norwich 1426–36, and Lincoln, 1436– 49.
2
About 6 miles from Ankerwyke.
3
I.e., Clemence Medforde, the prioress.

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at the wedding; she confesses the burning and also the remainder of the
article.
[2.] Also, that the prioress alone keeps and all her time has kept the
common seal of the house so that she can do with it whatever she wishes
without the knowledge and consultation of the nuns. She confesses that she
alone has kept the seal in her turn for the time, years and days, and some-
times with other fellow nuns, provided there have been any who are discrete
there.
[3.] Also, there used to be customarily many notable vestments; where
they have gone or whether they be there is not known; it is believed,
however, that they have been removed from the house. She says that all the
things that she received from the last prioress remain there in the house,
about which she shows a schedule concerning the donation of the vest-
ments and jewels.
[4.] Also, they had four chalices, and now they do not even have one. She
confesses that there were four, of which two were in the house; the third is
in pawn to Thomas Stanes [with the consent of the convent]; the fourth has
been taken apart, also with the convent’s consent.
[5.] Also, the prioress caused a silver thurible and a silver chalice, the
heaviest which they had, to be broken up to make a cup for use at table,
and she gave the chalice and censer as broken silver to one brother William
Tudyngtone, a monk of Chertsey,
4
so that he might take an order to make
the aforesaid cup from it and because the prioress had been given to under-
stand that he had paid for the making of the chalice . . .
5
and she did not
have enough to pay him. The cup remains in the hands of the said monk.
She confesses the article, but she first had communication, as she asserts,
with the convent, who all say that concerning this a discussion was not held
in the chapter nor was the consent of all had, but only that the majority had
no knowledge of the deed before it was done.
[6.] Also, she says that there used to be ten beautiful psalters kept in the
house, some of which the prioress has given away and alienated. She con-
fesses that she lent three, one to the prioress of Bromhall; she denies she did
it without the consent of the convent.
[7.] Also, that in the past year in a place called “ly parkis,” two miles
distant from the priory, she sold a hundred oaks without asking any counsel
or consent of the convent and under no compulsion of necessity. She denies
the article.
4
A Benedictine abbey of St. Peter in Surrey, about 20 miles southwest of Westminster.
5
A sum is illegible here.
Prioresses
39

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40
Conventions and Institutions
[8.] Also, at Alderbourne
6
she caused beeches to be felled at an unseas-
onable time so that they will never grow again, and therefore they are
destroyed forever. She denies the article.
[9.] Also, the prioress has never rendered an account of her receipts and
expenses, and yet all alone she receives, pays, and administers everything
without any communication with the convent, even taking care of weighty
business and leases and, even though she says that at the time of her
installation the house had three hundred marks debt, this deponent says
distinctly that then it was only thirty pounds in debt, and this amount was
paid from other sources and in no way from the goods of the prioress or
priory. She confesses that she never has rendered an account; she confesses
also that she alone has received and administers everything without the
knowledge of the convent. She denies that she has made leases unless it be
with the knowledge of the convent.
10. Also, she caused a wood called Rowel, situated at Parnysshe,
7
to be
felled unseasonably, leaving the boughs to lie after felling so that it is not
likely that the wood will grow again for the profit of those now living. She
denies the article.
11. (See 1.) Also, she says that the prioress has destroyed an entry,
namely “a gatehouse,” through which necessary items were brought in and
chaff and other refuse were removed, and now that this entry has been
blocked up they are carried out through the church to the great disgrace of
the house. She confesses the whole article but says that she did it for greater
seemliness in order to shut the pigs and other beast out of the cloister,
which formerly, coming in through that entry, befouled it.
12. Also, to the fault of the prioress, six nuns have now left the house
in apostasy. She confesses that so many nuns have left but without her
knowledge.
13. Also, she has appropriated to herself in the dormitory four nuns’
places and has blocked up the view of the Thames, which was a great
comfort to the nuns. She confesses blocking up the view because she saw
that men stood in the narrow space close to the window and talked with the
nuns; she confesses the appropriation of the places.
14. Also, the prioress wears very expensive gold rings with diverse pre-
cious stones and also girdles silvered and gilded over, and silken veils, and
her veil is too high on her forehead so that her forehead, being entirely
uncovered, can be seen by all, and she wears furs of vair. She confesses the
6
In Buckinghamshire, west of Uxbridge.
7
Probably in Egham, Surrey.

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use of several rings and girdles, and silken veils and the high carriage of her
veils; she confesses also the use of vair furs. She has sworn that she will
reform these things, having pledged to do so.
15. Also, she wears shifts of cloth of Rennes, which costs sixteen pence an
ell. She denies the article.
16. Also, she wears kirtles laced with silk, and silver and silver gilt pins,
and she has made all the nuns wear the same. She confesses the article with
regards to herself; she has sworn that she will reform these things and has
sworn to perform her penance, etc.
[17.] Also, she wears above her veil a cap of estate furred with budge. She
confesses; however, it is because of various infirmities in her head. She has
sworn as above that she will reform these things.
[18.] Also, she does not supply, nor for three years has supplied, fitting
habits for the nuns to such an extent that the nuns go about in patched
clothes. The threadbareness of the nuns was apparent to the lord.
[19.] Also, the prioress invited several outside people from the neighbor-
hood to this visitation at great cost to the house, saying to them, “Stand on
my side in this time of visitation, for I do not want to resign.” She confesses
the entertainment of her friends, but it was not to this end . . .
And on this Monday, namely the twenty-ninth of the said month of
October, in this year and the aforesaid chapterhouse, the said reverend
father sat in his capacity of judge in the business of his visitation and then
ordered that the prioress and convent of the said place be called before him,
who all appeared before him in person. And when they thus appeared, the
same reverend father, the process of such business previously had and done,
and also the adjournment of the same visitation having been first recited by
him and acknowledged by the same nuns, put forth in detail and rehearsed
to the same prioress article by article all that had been made known to him
concerning the prioress. These things having been put to her, some the
same prioress confessed and some she denied, just as it is written down at
the end of every article; and concerning her denials, so far as they concern
dilapidation and so involve deprivation, the lord decreed that an inquiry
should be made after the summons of the same prioress and the others who
ought to be summoned for this purpose, reserving to himself the power of
proceeding against her as regards the rest according to her responses and
the process held concerning them. And because the same prioress com-
plained of sister Margery Kyrkeby in that she had called the same prioress a
thief, the same Margery, being judicially impeached touching this, expressly
denied the charge and cleared herself of it based alone on her own testi-
mony. Afterwards, because the prioress confessed that for a long time past,
Prioresses
41

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42
Conventions and Institutions
even for very many days and years, she had had in her own keeping the
common seal and very many, even all, of the archives of the house, the lord
ordained that all these should be kept in one chest under two locks, the
keys of which the prioress should wear one and sister Margery Kyrkeby,
chosen for this by the convent, the other; and that nothing should be sealed
with the said seal unless with the common counsel and consensus of the
more reasonable part and majority of the convent and in the chapterhouse;
and until provision of such locks should be made, the lord had the common
seal shut up in a little box under his own seal. And then the same reverend
father warned the said prioress, in virtue of the obedience proffered by her,
to admonish and correct her sisters who are at fault in any way in the
chapter, not in the hearing of any secular people, in a motherly and sisterly
and temperate manner, and in no way severely, as has been her way, and in
all other respects to treat them gently and supply and cause to be supplied
to them sufficient raiment, habits, bed clothes, and nourishment. He also
enjoined the individual members of the convent, under pain of imprison-
ment, that they should humbly obey the prioress in all lawful things and pay
her reverence and show her honor, not any disobedience or disgrace. And
because the young nuns asked that a governess in reading, song, and the
regular observances should be appointed them, the lord, with the consent of
all, appointed sister Juliane Messangere, enjoining her to perform the charge
laid upon her and to instruct them in good manners and in no way so that
they go contrary to the prioress in anything . . .
[T]he same deputy, wishing first and before all to obtain the clearest and
fullest information and assurance concerning the observance or want of
observance of such injunctions, as he affirmed, caused all the nuns except
the prioress to go out of the chapterhouse and, proceeding in such business
of the inquiry and having required the same prioress to tell the truth in
virtue of obedience, diligently examined her concerning all and each indi-
vidual injunction, and whether she, her fellow nuns, and the sisters have
observed or not observed the same injunctions or any of them. And she,
answering, said that these injunctions were and are in effect and according
to her power well observed as regards both her and her sisters except the
injunction whereby she is bound to supply to her sisters sufficient raiment
for their habits and, concerning the non-observance of that injunction, she
responds that she cannot observe it because of the poverty and insufficiency
of the resources of the house, which have been much lessened because of
the lack of a surveyor or steward. For which reason she besought the lord’s
goodwill and assistance that he would deign with charitable consideration
to make provision for such a steward or director.

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[Injunctions:] Wyllyam, by the grace of God, bysshope of Lincoln, to our
wele belufed doghters in Cryste, the prioresse, and the covent of the priorye
of Ankerwyke, of the ordere of Seynt Benette, of our diocyse, helthe, grace,
and our blessyng. Now late we visytyng yow and your saide pryorye, by our
inquisicyon then made fonde certeyn grete and notable defautes, grete and
dewe [refor]macyone requiryng, for the reformacyone whereof we sende
yowe here theise our injunccyons, comaundementes, and ordynaunces by
yow to be keppede undere the peynes here by nethe writen.
1 . . . In the fyrste we commaunde, charge, and enjoyne yowe, prioresse,
undere payne of grete contempte, that nyghtly ye lygge in the dormytorye
to oversee your susters how thai are there governede after your rewle, and
that often tyme ye come to matynes, messe, and other houres, ther to be
present in the qwere but if grete sekenesse or unevytable occupacyons lette
yowe. And also if hit happe yow to come late to the qwere at any houre,
that ye make not the qwere to begynne agayne any houre than begunne, ne
that ye putte the qwere to any other observaunce in saying of devyne servyce
other wyse than the laudable custome of the place has been here afore.
2 . . . Also, we enjoyne yow, pryoresse, undere the same peyne, that
oftentymes ye come to the chapitere for to correcte the defautes of your
susters, and that as wele then as att other tymes and places ye treyte your
saide su[sters] moderlie wyth all resonable favour, and that ye rebuke ne
repreve thaym cruelly ne fervently at no tyme, specyally in audience of
seculeres, and that ye kepe pryvye fro seculeres your correccyons and actes
of your chapitere.
3. Also, undere the same peyne we enjoyne yow, prioresse, that aftere
your rewle ye kepe the fraytour
8
but if resonable cause excuse yowe ther fro.
Also, we enjoyne yowe of the covent and everyche oon of yowe undere
peyn of imprisonyng, that mekely and buxumly ye obeye the prioresse,
procedyng discretely in hire correccyone, and also that in every place ye do
hire dewe reverence, absteynyng yowe fro alle elacyone of pryde and wordes
of disobeysaunce or debate.
4. Also, we enjoyne yowe, prioresse and covente and everyche one of
yowe undere peynes here above and bynethe wryten, that ye absteyne yow
fro all drynkenges after complyne but if sekenesse cawse the contrary and
that every day and on one as complyne is sayde, ye alle go to the dormytorye,
not to come owte save to matynes un to pryme be runge on the morwe
next aftere.
8
refectory.
Prioresses
43

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44
Conventions and Institutions
5. And also that none of yow, the prioresse ne none of the covente, were
no vayles of sylke, ne no sylvere pynnes, ne no gyrdles herneysed wyth
sylvere or golde, ne no mo rynges on your fyngres then oon, ye that be
professed by a bysshope, ne that none of yow use no lased kyrtels, but
butonede or hole be fore, ne that ye use no lases a bowte your nekkes wythe
crucyfixes or rynges hangyng by thayme, ne cappes of astate obove your
vayles . . . othere then [your r]ule askes, and that ye so atyre your hedes that
your vayles come downe nyghe to your yene.
6. Also, we enjoyne yow, prioresse, undere paynes of contempte and
grete cursyng that ye ministre to your susters of the covent sufficyently in
mete and drynke, and also in clothes to thair habite and beddes, as your
religyone wylle demaunde; and also that when frendes of your sustres come
to visite thaym honestly, ye receyve hem and suffre thaym to speke wyth
hem so that no sclaundere ne token of evelle falle ther bye to your saide
susters ne to your place. And what ever thise saide frendes wyll gyfe your
sustres in relefe of thaym, as in hire habyte and sustenaunce, ye suffre
your sustres to take hit so that no abuse of evel come therbye noyther to
the place ne to the persones therof.
7. Also, we enjoyne yowe, prioresse, undere peyne of cursyng, that fro
hense forthe ye susteyne ne seculere persones wythe the commune godes
of the place neyther wyth ynne ne wythe owte; and that fro hens forthe ye
receyve no mo in to nunnes then may competently be susteyned of the
commune godes of the place, ne that for receyvyng of any in to nunnes, ye
exacte, ne receyve by paccyon, ne covenaunt, or promysse none wardly
gode otherwyse then thai or thaire frendes of thair charitee wylle gyfe yowe.
8. Also, we charge yow, prioresse, undere the same payne of cursyng,
that ye hafe an honeste woman servaund in your kychyne, brewhowse and
bakehowse, deyhowse,
9
and selere wythe an honeste damyselle wythe hire to
saruf
10
yowe and your sustres in thise saide offices so that your saide sustres
for occupacyone in ony of the saide offices be ne letted fro divine seruice ne
fro lernyng of thaire servyce and observaunces of religyone, lyke as we
assygnede thaym a nunne to informe thaym ther yn.
9. Also, we enjoyne yowe, prioresse, undere payne of deposicyone, that
fro hense forthe the commune seale and all the munymentes of your place
be surely keppede in a chyste undere two lokkes of diverse forme and
makyng, the keyes where of oon shalle remeyne in your kepyng and an
other in the kepyng of dame Margery Kyrkeby, chosen ther to by the
9
dairy.
10
serve.

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covent, and that nothyng be sealed wythe the saide seale but in the chapitere
and by the fulle assent of the more parte of the covent.
10. Also, we charge yow, prioresse, undere the payne of perpetuelle
privacyone fro your state and dignytee of prioressye, that fro hense forthe ye
graunte, gyfe, ne selle to any manere persone fee, rente, annuytee, corrodye,
ne lyverye to terme of lyve, certeyn tyme ne perpetuelly, ne that ye gyfe ne
selle no wodes ne tynbere wythe owtene specyalle leve of us or our
successours, bysshops of Lincolne, asked and had, and wythe the assent of
the more partye of the covent . . .
11. Also, we charge yow, prioresse, unde[r] peyne of cursyng, that ye do
take downe that perclose
11
that ye dyde make in the dormytorye and that ye
oversee that every nunnes celle be open in toward the dormytory, as your
rewle demaundes.
12. Also, we enjoyne yow, pryoresse, undere peyne of suspensyone fro
alle administracyone in spirituele and temporele, that as ye may resonabylly
come to aftere the suffycyence of your commune godes, ye do repare the
howses and beeldynges wythe yn your place, specyally thoe that are falle to
ruyne in your tyme and defawte, and also your tenementes owtward, the
whiche are ryght ruynouse, as we are informede; and also that wyth yn this
and the fest of Paske next folowyng,
12
ye do bryng in to the place alle the
jewels of the place, as chalices, censures, psawters, and other what ever thai
be the whiche ye hafe oythere lente owte or laide to wedde.
13
13. And also that every yere be twyx the festes of Seynt Mighelle in
Septembre and Seynt Martyne in Novembre ye shew to your susters in
playn chapytere or to whome you wylle assigne a fulle and playn accompte
of your mynystracyone in all the commune goodes of your place what is
dewe and receyved and how th[ai a]re dispendede.
11
screen.
12
Easter.
13
I.e., in pawn.
Prioresses
45

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46
Force and Order