RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



three of the nuns, Alexandra de Langtoft, 

 Cecilia Fleming, and Margery Arkeld ; the 

 offences of the two first are not named, but 

 Margery is said to have been excommunicated 

 for laying violent hands upon Emma, a novice, 

 the daughter of Matthew dc Eston, who had been 

 recently admitted to the priory.^ Abbot Godfrey 

 de Crowland formally visited the priory on 

 20 July, 1300.^ The result was probably 

 omne bene, otherwise visitation injunctions and 

 decrees would have been recorded in the register ; 

 the like seems to have been the case with another 

 visitation held by the same abbot on Wednesday 

 after the Purification, 1303.' Shortly before this 

 Abbot Godfrey detected some mismanagement 

 of the revenues of the priory, and appointed 

 Thomas of Salisbury, a monk of Peterborough, 

 special warden for a season, with full powers 

 over the temporalities and of adjudicating and 

 ordering all temporal matters both within and 

 without the convent as he should think profit- 

 able, reserving to the prior and prioress the 

 spiritual disposition of all things concerning their 

 house.* 



Abbot Adam of Boothby visited the priory in 

 the autumn of 1323. His mandate for an impend- 

 ing visitation, dated 6 October, was directed to 

 the prior, prioress, and convent, and bade the 

 prior issue visitation summonses for the Monday 

 before the feast of St. Luke. On the appointed 

 day the prior and prioress, with all the nuns, 

 brethren, and lay sisters who by right or custom 

 were obliged to be present at the visitation, 

 assembled in the conventual church of St. Michael. 

 The lord abbot, who had associated with himself 

 for visitation purposes two of his fellow monks, 

 Hugh of Stukcly and Robert of Tanser, began 

 his inquiries touching the state of the monastery, 

 the life and conversation of the prior and prioress, 

 as also of the nuns and other persons there 

 abiding. The reality of the visitation, which 

 included private interrogation of each member of 

 the house, is evident from the fact that the 

 inquiry extended over the wliole of Monday and 

 Tuesday, so that it was found necessary to 

 adjourn the visitation of the hospital of 

 St. Thomas and the lazar-house of St. Giles of 

 Stamford Baron, which were also under the 

 abbot's jurisdiction, until the Wednesday.^ 



The sad story of Sister Agnes of this house, 

 extending over nine years, so far as it can be 

 gleaned from the episcopal registers, affords 

 striking evidence of the zeal and painstaking 

 determination of Bishop Dalderby. In 1309 the 

 bishop excommunicated Agnes de Flixthorp {iiUus 

 de Wissenden), nun of the house of St. Michael 

 without Stamford, for apostasy in leaving the 

 monastery and leading a secular life, and warned 

 all persons not to receive her into their houses 



1 Cott. MS. Vesp. E. xxii. f. 33. 



2 Ibid. f. 53. 8 Ibid. f. 57d. 

 * Ibid. f. 78d. 6 Ibid. f. ^4. 



nor give her aid or counsel, and that any who did 

 so should be cited to appear before the bishop.* 

 In 1 3 10 the bishop sent a letter to the crown 

 authorities asking for the arrest of Agnes, an 

 apostate. She was then living at Nottingham, 

 and the archdeacon was instructed to warn her 

 to return to her monastery, resume the habit, and 

 submit to discipline. 7 In the same year the 

 bishop caused it to be generally proclaimed that 

 Agnes de Flixthorp, a nun of this house, was 

 leading a worldly life, and lay under excommuni- 

 cation. He also addressed a letter to the abbot 

 of Peterborough to see to her being taken back 

 to her monastery, and there shut up and guarded 

 by persons whom he could trust, forbidding all 

 the sisters of the house to go to her, except for the 

 health of her soul, under pain of excommunica- 

 tion. The defaulter was then secured and re- 

 turned to Stamford. Her imprisonment was to 

 be very rigid, for a further letter to the prioress of 

 St. Michael's ordered that Agnes should be con- 

 fined in a chamber with stone walls, and that each 

 leg {utramque tihiam) should be shackled with 

 fetters until she consented to resume her habit.^ 

 In March, 131 1, the bishop sent a letter to Ada, 

 sister of William de Helewell, instructing her to 

 take the custody of Agnes, the apostate nun of 

 St. Michael's without Stamford. In August of 

 the same year the bishop issued his mandate to the 

 official of the archdeacon of Lincoln, the rector of 

 Barnack, and another, to go to the convent 

 of St. Michael, and there to inquire, by the con- 

 fession of Agnes and others, into the truth of the 

 matter of her apostasy ; for Agnes had declared 

 that she was never professed, as she was married 

 to one whose name she refused to give before she 

 entered religion, and still continued in her 

 obstinacy .9 The report of this commission is not 

 entered in the diocesan register, but the substance 

 of it can be gathered from a letter addressed by 

 the bishop of Lincoln to the bishop of Exeter in 

 November of the same year. In that letter it 

 was stated that Agnes Flixthorpe, after having 

 been a professed nun of St. Michael's for twenty 

 years, left the house and was found wearing a 

 man's gilt embroidered gown ; that she was 

 brought back to her house, excommunicated, and 

 kept in solitude ; and that she remained obstinate 

 and refused to put on her religious habit. The 

 bishop, thinking it desirable that she should be 

 removed from the diocese for a time, prayed his 

 brother of Exeter that she might be received into 

 the house of Cornworthy,^" there to undergo 

 penance, and to be kept in safe custody away 

 from all the sisters. A mandate was at the same 

 time sent to the prioress of St. Michael's to 

 deliver Agnes to Peter de Helewell, clerk, to be 



s Line. Epis. Reg. Memo, of D.ilderhy, f. 137. 

 " Ibid. f. 152. 8 Ibid. ff. ,61, 167b, 168. 



9 Ibid. fF. I Sod, 199. 

 ^0 Cornworthy was a Devonshire priory of Austin 



nuns. 



99 



