A HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE 



men were to be excluded from the convent. 

 Special rules were also laid down as to the 

 dietary of the farmery, and as to blood- 

 letting. 1 



The claim of the Crown to enforce the 

 payment of corrodies and pensions from 

 monasteries under its patronage, to persons 

 nominated by it, was frequently insisted upon 

 at Romsey. In June, 1310, Juliana la Des- 

 penser was sent with letters under privy seal 

 to the abbess and convent to be provided with 

 fitting maintenance for herself and her maid 

 during her lifetime.* In 1315 the abbess and 

 convent were enjoined to give a pension to 

 Richard de Ayreminn, they being obliged to 

 grant a pension to one of king's clerks on 

 account of the new creation of an abbess. 3 

 For the same reason John de St. Paul obtained 

 a pension in 1333,* and Thomas Sampson, a 

 scholar, in 1515. The bishops of Winches- 

 ter in like manner claimed the right to 

 nominate a nun to be admitted to the abbey 

 at their consecration. 6 



On 1 1 May, 1315, Alice de Roffa and Mar- 

 garet de Middleton, nuns of Romsey, brought 

 news to the king of the death of Abbess Alice, 

 and obtained the necessary licence for another 

 election. 7 It was alleged that the late abbess 

 had come to her end by foul means, and on 

 28 May the justices, Henry de Scrop, John 

 Daubernoun and John Bluet, were appointed 

 a commission of oyer and terminer touching 

 the persons who killed the late abbess at 

 Romsey, on the confines of the counties of 

 Hants and Wilts, from which two counties 

 the jurors were to be selected. The cause 

 of death is stated in the letters patent to 

 have been intoxicationf, which we take to 

 be drugging or poisoning, and not ' forced 

 inebriation,' as Dugdale has it. 8 To this 

 commission John Randolf 9 was added in 

 July, but the result of the trial has not been 

 recorded. 



Meanwhile the king gave the custody of 

 the abbey to Master Richard de Clare, but 



1 Winton. Epis. Reg., Woodlock, f. 153. 



2 Close, 3 Edw. II. m. 3d. 



3 Ibid. 9 Edw. II. m. 23d. 



4 Ibid. 7 Edw. III. p. 2, I7d. 



6 Letters and Papers Hen. 111. ii. 914, 915, 

 935,942, 1008. 



' Winton. Epis. Reg., Sandale, f. 2 ; and 

 Asserio, f. i. 



7 Pat. 8 Edw. II. pt. 2, m. 17 Cal. 



8 Ibid. p. 2, m. lod ; Dugdale's Monaslicon, 

 ii. 507. The Calendarist of the Patent Rolls has 

 also blundered over intoxicatio, as if it meant 

 drunkenness. 



8 Ibid. 9 Edw. II. p. i, m. 3 id. 



the prioress and nuns recovered it on paying 

 a fine of forty marks. 10 



On 20 February, 1316, order was issued 

 to the abbess to examine the rolls, etc., 

 of Nicholas de Romsey, late justice-in-eyre 

 of the forests this side Trent, which were said 

 to be in her treasury, and all other muniments 

 touching the said matters in her possession, and 

 to send them under seal to Westminster. 11 



Bishop Orlton visited the house on Novem- 

 ber 28 and preached in the chapter house 

 from the text, ' ^ue parate erant intraverunt 

 cum et> ad nuptias.' 1 * 



In 1336 Edward III. granted to the con- 

 vent the custody of the temporalities of their 

 house during a vacancy, for which they were 

 to pay 20 for each month of the vacancy. 13 

 By the return of the aid for making Edward 

 the Black Prince a knight it appears that the 

 abbess held in perpetual alms half a knight's 

 fee in Sidmanton. 14 



In 1370 Bishop Wykeham authorized the 

 abbess to appoint one or two chaplains, clean 

 in life and pure in conscience, to confess her- 

 self and the sisters." Later in his episcopate 

 the bishop adopted the better plan of himself 

 appointing the confessors. By an undated com- 

 mission, apparently circa 1395, Ralph Basyng, 

 a monk of Winchester, and two other priests 

 were appointed to confess the abbess and nuns of 

 Romsey. 18 Basyng was appointed to a similar 

 position for the nuns of Wherwell in 1393. 

 At the time of the nomination of Basyng 

 and his two colleagues as confessors, the con- 

 fessor's licence held by Friar John Burgeys 

 was revoked, and a monition was issued to 

 the abbess warning her not to allow any 

 secular priest serving in the conventual church 

 or in the town of Romsey to have access to 

 her in the rooms or cloister of the abbey, nor 

 to hold with them any conversation save in 

 the presence of an honest and trustworthy 

 sister nun. 



On 29 May, 1372, Bishop Wykeham 

 wrote to the Abbess and Convent of Romsey 

 desiring them, at the request of William, Earl 

 of Pembroke, to receive his noble kinswoman, 

 Dame Elizabeth de Berkele, during the ab- 

 sence of Maurice Wytht, her husband, on 

 foreign service with the earl. 17 The letter 

 was to be taken as an episcopal licence, for 



10 Close, 8 Edw. II. m. I. 



11 Ibid. m. 25. 



12 Winton. Epis. Reg., Orlton, i. f. ii. 



13 Pat. 10 Edw. III. p. i. m. 43d. 



14 Feudal Aids, ii. 331. 



16 Winton. Epis. Reg., Wykeham, iii. f. 38. 

 1S Ibid, f. 29 1 b. 



17 Wykeham's Registers, iii. f. 



128 



