A HISTORY OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE 



give alms for the maintenance of the ' poor 

 nuns of St. Margaret's priory ' ; from which 

 we may surely infer that he had visited the 

 house and was satisfied with its condition in 

 other respects. 1 Poverty and obscurity are 

 indeed in no sense a reproach to a convent of 

 nuns. Again in the fifteenth century (during 

 which only two names of prioresses can at 

 present be recovered) there is indirect evi- 

 dence of the faithful observance of the Bene- 

 dictine rule in this house. During the epis- 

 copate of Bishop Alnwick a nun of some 

 years' standing at the Augustinian priory of 

 Grace Dieu sought and obtained permission 

 to leave her own monastery and retire to St. 

 Margaret's, Ivinghoe. After she had actually 

 gone there, her original superior sent and 

 fetched her back again ; whereupon she ap- 

 pealed to the bishop. He examined the 

 matter, and finding that she had made the 

 change not from levity of mind, but from a 

 motive always sanctioned by the Church 

 the desire, namely, of passing a minore reli- 

 gione ad majorem, causa arctioris aut durioris 

 vitae ordered that she should be allowed to 

 remain at St. Margaret's. 2 Bishop Alnwick 

 was an energetic visitor of the monasteries in 

 his diocese, 3 and would soon have discovered 

 if the priory of Ivinghoe did not really offer 

 to the nun in question the stricter life which 

 she desired. 



Bishop Longland visited the house in 15 30* 

 and found there a prioress with three or four 

 nuns. The house was said to be in debt, but 

 under no other reproach, except that one of 

 the ladies had visited her friends without per- 

 mission, and stayed away from her monastery 

 from the Feast of St. Michael till Passion 



1 Bishop Dalderby knew the nunneries of his 

 diocese pretty well, as he had visited them all early 

 in his episcopate to explain the statute Pro clausura 

 monialium. 



" Ibid. Memo. Alnwick, 69. 



3 There is a series of visitations of Bishop Aln- 

 wick's still preserved at Lincoln ; they are not all 

 noticed in his Memoranda, and are probably very 

 little known : many of the heads of houses men- 

 tioned in them are not found in any of the lists in 

 Dugdale. 



Visitations of Bishop Longland, 1530. Many 

 of these also are not noticed in his Memoranda. 

 They are in the same form as those of Bishops Aln- 

 wick and Atwater : the bishop sat in the chapter 

 house and interrogated each religious in turn as to 

 the state of the house, so far as she was able to speak 

 of it ; at the end of the conference he delivered his 

 injunctions. Only a summary of the injunctions is 

 usually entered in the Memoranda : but the original 

 visitation report gives the actual answer of every 

 monk or nun in the house and very quaint 

 answers they sometimes are. 



Sunday in the next year. She was enjoined 

 not to go out again without permission from 

 the prioress : and for a penance she was to 

 say the seven penitential psalms every Tues- 

 day, Wednesday, and Saturday, with an addi- 

 tional Pater, Ave and Credo every day. 5 



In 1535 the local, commissioners found five 

 nuns here, of whom two were professed and 

 three only novices : three of these were suffi- 

 ciently attached to their religious life to 

 decline the opportunity of returning to the 

 world, and asked permission to enter another 

 house of the order. There were four ser- 

 vants living in the monastery, which was said 

 to be of competent estate and no longer in 

 debt. 8 



The house was originally endowed with 

 only a small portion of land in the wood of 

 Ivinghoe : to which was added later the 

 church of Merrow in Surrey with lands 

 attached, and ten acres of assart at Hemel 

 Hempstead. 7 The priory is not mentioned 

 in the Taxation of Pope Nicholas : its re- 

 venue is given in the Valor Ecdesiasticus as 

 14 3-f. id. clear. 8 The survey of the local 

 commissioners returned it first as worth 

 13 3/. \d. and later as 19 8/. <)d. ; the bells, 

 lead, etc., were valued at 8 los. 6d., and the 

 moveable goods at l 13*. ^d. The Minis- 

 ters' Accounts only give a total of 10 4*. i%d. 9 



PRIORESSES OF IVINGHOE 



Alice, 10 occurs 1237 

 Isolt, 11 died 1262 



Cicely, 12 elected 1262, resigned 1275 

 Maud de Hockliffe, 13 elected 1275, died 1296 

 Isolt de Beauchamp," elected 1296 

 Sibyl de Hampstead, 18 resigned 1340 

 Maud de Cheyney," elected 1340 

 Eleanor Cross, 17 died 1467 

 Eleanor Symmes, 18 elected 1467 



It is characteristic of Bishop Longland that 

 he does not say ' a -pater, ave, and credo,' but ' the 

 Lord's Prayer, the angelic salutation, and the sym- 

 bol of the apostles.' 



Dugdale, Man. iv. 269 ; from Browne Willis. 

 ' Cal. of Chart. R. i. 27, 1 86. 

 a Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), iv. 227. 

 8 Dugdale, Man. iv. 269. 

 1 Cal. of Chart. R. i. 226. 

 11 Line. Epis. Reg. R. of Gravesend. 

 " Ibid. ia Ibid. 



" Ibid. Inst. Sutton, iigd. 

 Dugdale, M on. iv. 268. Ibid. 



17 Line. Epis. Reg. Inst. Chadworth, 153. It is 

 a tempting conjecture that this may be the Augus- 

 tinian nun who came in 1447 to Ivinghoe in search 

 of a stricter life. Her name however is given in 

 Bishop Alnwick's Memoranda as Margaret Cross. 

 <> Ibid. 



354 



