RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



Hurstbourne to whomsoever she would in order 

 to pay her debts.^' 



Save for the record of their temporal posses- 

 sions the community rarely emerge from the 

 obscurity that veils their history. It is evident 

 that the name by which they continued to be 

 known, ' the poor nuns of Tarrant,' "* was 

 something of a misnomer if it should be read to 

 imply absolute poverty. The time had long 

 gone by since the days when the sisters were 

 warned by the bishop to avoid the holding of 

 personal property : ' Ye shall not possess any 

 beast, mv dear sisters, except only a cat,' or, when 

 seeking their pittance in the hall of their early 

 founder, were bidden ' be glad in your heart if 

 ye suffer insolence from Slurry the cook's boy 

 who washeth dishes in the kitchen.' " As 

 belonging to the Cistercian order the house was 

 technically ' exempt,' and beyond forwarding a 

 copy of the Constitutions of Pope Boniface for 

 enforcing the stricter inclosure of nuns in 1301 

 the bishop, so far as we can gather from the 

 registers, made no attempt to impose his authority 

 therein.^^ At all events history does not deprive 

 us of the hope that these ladies remained true 

 to the ideal of the Christian life pointed out to 

 them by their early friend. 



In the fourteenth century certain chantries 

 were founded in the conventual church that 

 prayers might continually be offered for the souls 

 of royal and distinguished benefactors. In 1347 

 in consideration of the sum of 4.6s. 8d., Thomas 

 Baret obtained a licence to bestow certain mes- 

 suages and lands in Charlton and Little Crawford 

 for the provision of a chaplain to celebrate every 

 IVIonday in the abbey church at the altar of St. 

 Mary for the good estate of the king, for his soul 

 when dead, the souls of his progenitors, the 

 grantor and his heirs.^' Thirty years later, by 

 an indenture dated 'Nuns Tarent, Saturday, St. 

 Mark,' the nuns granted to ' Sir ' Thomas Gilden, 

 chaplain, a weekly corrody for life from their 

 abbey, with a chamber in the houses lately built 

 by Thomas Baret to be kept in repair by the 

 abbess, and assigned to him the office of chaplain 

 of the parish church of All Saints, Little Crawford, 

 'otherwise called St. Margaret's Chapel,' in return 



" Close, 20 Edw. I, m. 9. 



" The name by which the sisters are designated 

 in the reigns of Henry III and Henry IV, and later 

 still when they were declared to be 'exempt' by 

 ancient custom from the payment of tax and subsidy. 

 Close, 1 7 Hen. Ill, m. l^J.; Pat. i Hen. IV, pt. 2, 

 m. 17, 28 ; Sarum Epis. Reg. Beauchamp, fol. 

 187 </. 



"The 'Jncrert Ritv/e' (the King's Classics), 316, 

 287. 



^ Sarum Epis. Reg. Simon of Ghent, fol. 73. The 

 abbess, in common with Bindon and the heads 

 generally of Cistercian houses, was blessed by the 

 bishop, to whom she made profession on her 

 election. 



" Pat. 21 Edw. Ill, pt. 2, No 21. 



2 



for ;^20 paid by him to the abbess and for other 

 benefits.'^ In 1383 Sir Robert Rous, whom 

 Leland mentions as a great benefactor of the 

 sisters,^' desired by his will to be buried in the 

 abbey, ' the place of St. Richard the Bishop ; ' 

 among other legacies bequeathing to every nun 

 at Tarrant 40d., to every sister 2s., and an annual 

 rent of 8 marks for the provision of four priests tcj 

 celebrate at the altar ' near the body of St. Richard 

 in St. Michael's church in Tarrant Kaines,' and 

 two priests in the church of St. Mary at Tarrant 

 Crawford ; to the abbess he left a pair of gold 

 beads with other plate engraved with his own 

 and his wife's arms.'" On 23 February, 1389, a 

 licence was granted for the alienation of the 

 manor of Tarrant Keynston by Robert, bishop 

 of London, Walter Clopton, William Gascoigne, 

 and John, parson of Keynston, to the abbess and 

 convent for the ordination of a chantry of two 

 chaplains in the abbey to celebrate daily for the 

 souls of Robert Rous, knt., Joan his wife, his 

 parents and friends, and to perpetuate various acts 

 of piety for the benefit of their souls and the 

 souls of the father and mother of Joan, according 

 to the ordinance of the bishop. '^ 



The fifteenth century is almost bare of records 

 relating to this house. Henry IV on 3 March, 

 1403, inspected and confirmed letters patent of 

 Richard II in 1394, confirming the charter of 

 Henry III for the right of free warren within all 

 the demesne lands of the abbey.'' The grant 

 may have been specially made in consequence of 

 a complaint lodged by the Abbess Joan in May, 

 1402, that Robert Turbulville, ' chevalier,' and 

 others had transgressed her right of free warren 

 at Beer, hunted and fished her preserves, felled 

 her trees, and assaulted her servants.'' The epis- 

 copal registers record that a dispensation was 

 granted to the abbess on 9 September, 1406, 

 allowing her to have divine service celebrated for 



" The corrody was to consist of a weekly allowance 

 of bread and ale, with a daily pittance of fish or flesh 

 'such as each nun received,' a cart-'.oad of wood and a 

 cart-load of litter yearly at Michaelmas. Pat. 5 Ric. II, 

 pt. I, m. 31. By insfeximus. 



" Leland, Itin. iii, 62. 



^^ The terms of the will, if correctly reported by 

 Hutchins {Hist, of Dorset, iii, 122), are somewhat per- 

 plexing, as the bishop of Durham, Richard Poor, was 

 buried in the church of Tarrant Crawford or Litde 

 Crawford, and not in the church of Tarrant Kaines. 

 The two churches are described as ' not 4 furlongs apart,' 

 and were united in the seventeenth century. Ibid, 

 iii, 122. See a paper of the Rev. E. Highton, Last 

 Resting Place of a Scottish Queen and a great English 

 Bishop. 



^' Pat. 12 Ric. II, pt. 2, m. 20. This foundation 

 is not entered in the list of chantries suppressed by 

 the Acts of Henry VIII and Edward VI. 



" Ibid. 4 Hen. IV, pt. 2, ra. 37. 



" A commission was appointed to investigate the 

 case. Ibid. 3 Hen. IV, pt. 2, m. 17 </. ; 5 Hen. IV, 

 pt. I, m. \zd.\ pt. 2, m. 29 -s*. 

 89 12 



