A HISTORY OF DORSET 



of the abbey of St. Edward.'^ The house 

 was visited from time to time by the bishop of 

 Salisbury or his commissary ; he received the 

 profession of canonical obedience from the abbess, 

 and bestowed the benediction on her election. 

 The episcopal registers record the appointment 

 by him of confessors to the abbey and the recep- 

 tion of the profession of the nuns. An order 

 was sent in 1298 to Robert, rector of the church 

 of Donington, desiring him to enforce suitable 

 penance to the abbess and nuns of Shaftesbury, 

 who, ' for their offences against God and by the 

 creation of scandal,' had incurred sentence of 

 excommunication.'* A copy of the edict of 

 Pope Boniface for the stricter inclosure of nuns 

 was forwarded to the sisters at the beginning of 

 the fourteenth century by Simon of Ghent, who 

 announced that by the ' new constitution ' he was 

 bound to visit yearly the nuns subject to his 

 authority.'' The abbess, after a visitation in 

 1309, was strictly admonished not to allow the 

 sisters to go out into the town of Shaftesbury 

 save under special conditions, ' lest scandal enter 

 in and not without negligence on your part.' '^ 

 Further, one of the nuns, Christina Baryl, was 

 ordered to be confined within the cloister of the 

 monastery until notice had been sent by the 

 bishop." The archdeacon of Dorset and William 

 of Braybrook, canon of Salisbury, were ordered in 

 131 6 to adjudicate in a dispute which had arisen 

 in the monastery between the abbess and certain 

 of the nuns.^' Joan Formage, who was elected 

 abbess in 1362, received a dispensation from the 

 bishop in 1368 to leave the abbey for a year and 

 reside in her manors for the sake of air and 

 recreation." On her death in August, 1394, 

 the bishop ordered the abbey to be sequestrated, 

 and annulled a will by which she had alienated 

 the goods of the house in bequests to friends, 

 declaring such a disposition to be injurious to 

 the community and contrary to the usage of 

 religious women. ^*"' A good deal of disturbance 

 and a species of interregnum ensued before the 

 appointment of a successor, in spite of the con- 

 sideration of Richard II, who granted a licence 

 to elect immediately on the voidance of the 

 abbey,'**^ and, ' in pity for the poverty of the house,' 



" The register of Mitford contains a letter from 

 the pope to the bishop desiring him to restore Alice 

 Wilton, nun of Shaftesbury, to the position in the 

 abbey which she had forfeited by the most grievous 

 lapse of which a religious could be convicted, the sin 

 of incontinence. The bishop, in accordance with the 

 order, reinstated the nun, who had proved her 

 penitence for the offence, and declared her eligible for 

 all offices in the monastery save that of abbess ; Sarum 

 Epis. Reg. Mitford, fol. 122. 



" Ibid. Simon of Ghent, i, fol. 5 d. 



"Ibid. fol. 33. »« Ibid. fol. 127. 



" Ibid. =" Ibid. Mortival, ii, fol. 47 d. 



^ Ibid. Wyville, ii, fol. 230. 



""> Ibid. W.iltham, fol. 24. 



"" Pat. 18 Ric. II, pt. l,m. 10. 



directed the bishop to signify the royal assent 

 without delay to the choice of the community.'"' 

 In November of the same year Richard Pittes, 

 canon of Salisbury, John Gowayn, and Thomas 

 Bonham were appointed to examine and take 

 charge of the abbey, to inform themselves as to 

 its condition, the withdrawal and waste of its 

 goods, as well as to make allowances for the 

 maintenance of the nuns and their household, 

 holding the remainder of the revenues in charge 

 until further orders. According to the letters 

 patent of this commission the king had been 

 forced to abrogate the grant made by himself and 

 his predecessors to the prioress and convent of the 

 temporalities of the abbey during voidance, as 

 by fraudulent means an election had been obtain- 

 ed of an unfit person, who, with the object of 

 securing confirmation of her appointment, had 

 repaired with an excessive number of men to 

 places remote, to the waste and destruction of the 

 possessions of the community.'"' Richard II, after 

 an interval of more than six months had elapsed 

 since the death of abbess Joan Formage, wrote 

 to the bishop, April, 1395, desiring him to pro- 

 vide a fit person to the abbey, which by this time 

 had lapsed to his collation.'"* The choice fell 

 on Egelina de Counteville ; the pope, at the 

 king's special request, confirmed her election 

 as abbess, ' although Lucy Fitzherberde has the 

 greater number of votes,' '"' and so the matter 

 ended. Bishop Hallam in 1 410, on a report 

 that the nuns were given to frequenting places 

 outside the monastery, addressed a letter of 

 admonition to the abbess and convent, bid- 

 ding them consider the punishment that overtook 

 Dinah the daughter of Jacob for yielding to 

 the desire to go abroad.'"' In the same year 

 the bishop issued an indulgence for those who 

 should visit the monastery on the principal feasts 

 of St. Edward, King and Martyr, from the time 

 of the first to the second vespers.'*" In 141 2 

 letters of indulgence were published for those 

 visiting the shrine of St. Edward on the feast of 

 his translation, 20 June.'"* There are no visita- 

 tion reports of Shaftesbury during the fifteenth 

 century, and few references during the remainder 

 of its existence save those recording the election 

 of superiors and the admission of the profession 

 of nuns.'"' 



The last abbess ot Shaftesbury, Elizabeth 

 Zouche, hoped doubtless by a conciliatory attitude 

 to secure from the court party some measure 

 ot consideration for her house. Sir Thomas 



"' Ibid. m. 5. "» Ibid, 



x" Ibid. 18 Ric. II, pt. 2, m. 15. 



102 



78 



Col. of Pap. Letters, iv, 524. Lucy Fitzherberde 

 was probably the 'unfit person' elected on the first 

 occasion. '°* Sarum Epis. Reg. Hallam, fol. 29. 



"" Ibid. '»» Ibid. fol. 56. 



"" In 1442 the profession was received by the 

 bishop of fifteen of the nuns, and in 1453 of fourteen ; 

 ibid. Aiscough, fol. 97 ; Beauchamp, i (2), fol. 150. 



