A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 



HOUSE OF AUGUSTINIAN NUNS 



15. THE PRIORY OF EASEBOURNE l 



The priory of the Nativity of the Blessed 

 Virgin Mary * was founded in the thirteenth 

 century by one of the family of Bohun of Mid- 

 hurst, probably Sir John, 3 for a prioress and ten 

 nuns 4 of the Augustinian order. 6 The original 

 endowment included the church of Easebourne, 

 of which Midhurst was a chapel, which was valued 

 in 1291 at 26 131. 4d., the temporalities of the 

 priory at the same date being worth 4 1 . 8 Property 

 had been acquired in the Isle of Thorney before 

 1313,' and in 1332 John de Bohun made a 

 considerable grant of land in Sturminster Mar- 

 shall (Dorset). 8 Five years later the priory had 

 licence to acquire lands to the value of 10 marks, 9 

 but only a few small grants appear to have been 

 made after this ; and the Black Death in 1350, 

 with the subsequent economic revolution, re- 

 duced the nuns to great poverty, to relieve which 

 the prior and convent of Lewes granted them 

 the churches of Compton and Up Marden, re- 

 serving a pension of 40 shillings and stipulating 

 for the provision of sufficient vicarages. 10 



Though but poorly endowed Easebourne ap- 

 pears to have always been an aristocratic com- 

 munity. In 1283 Archbishop Peckham, who 

 as primate had the right of appointing one nun, 

 desired the prioress to receive Lucy, daughter of 

 the late Sir William Basset, as an inmate, 11 and 

 in 1295 the prioress of Easebourne, one of the 

 ladies by whose oath Margaret de Camoys 

 purged herself on a charge of adultery, was 

 Isabel de Montfort. 12 Amongst later prioresses 

 and sisters of this house we find members of such 

 well-known families as Sackville, Covert, Hussey, 

 Tawke, and Farnfold. 



Unfortunately high birth is not the most 

 necessary qualification for the religious life, and 

 what we know of the inmates of this priory is 

 but little to their credit. A visitation 13 held in 

 January, 1442, revealed the fact that the house 



1 Dugdale, Man. iv, 423; Suss. Arch. Coll. ix, 1-32, 

 where the episcopal visitations are given in full. 

 ' L. and P. Hen. VIII, xi, 202 (37). ' Leland. 



4 Chich. Epis. Reg. Reade, fol. 47. 



5 Ibid. Sherborn, fol. 1 04 ; Obituary Rolls (Surtees 

 Soc.), 28. 



' Toxatio Eccl. (Rec. Com.), 139. 

 ' Hingeston-Randolph, Epis. Reg. of Exeter, Staple- 

 dm, 387. 



8 Pat. 6 Edw. Ill, pt. i, m. 30. 

 Pat. 10 Edw. Ill, pt. ii, m. 3. 



10 Chich. Epis. Reg. Reade, fol. 47; Pat. 10 Hen. IV, 

 m. 5. 



11 Reg. Epist. Peckbam (Rolls Ser.), ii, 577. 

 " Rot. Part. (Rec. Com.), i, 147. 



11 Chich. Epis. Reg. Praty, fol. 79. 



was in debt to the extent of 40 through the 

 extravagance of the prioress, who was continually 

 riding about with a large train of attendants, 

 fared sumptuously, and dressed so finely that the 

 fur trimmings of her mantle alone were worth 

 100 shillings (well over^ioo of modern money); 

 but though luxurious herself she apparently be- 

 lieved in vicarious mortification of the flesh, as 

 she made her sisters work like hired workwomen, 

 and kept them true to their vow of poverty by 

 appropriating all the profits of their labour. The 

 bishop removed the prioress from office, putting 

 the house under the control of a clerk and a lay- 

 man until it should be free from its debts, for the 

 reduction of which he ordered the prioress to 

 sell her costly furs ; at the same time she was 

 ordered to diminish her household and reduce 

 expenses in other ways, and to cease from com- 

 pelling the sisters to work ; if any of them 

 wished to work they might do so and might 

 receive half the profits, the other half being con- 

 verted to the advantage of the house. The suc- 

 cess of the commissioners in dealing with the 

 finances of the priory seems to have been small, 

 as in 1451 the debts and expenses of the house 

 were 66 6s. 8d., to meet which there was 

 only a sum of ^22 31." The inventory of the 

 furniture of the priory drawn up at this time u 

 seems to speak of a state between poverty and 

 riches. The community at this date probably 

 numbered eight, as there is mention of eight 

 psalters and eight beds ; there is also mention of 

 two other beds with hangings of red worsted, in 

 one of which we may no doubt see the ' bed of 

 red worsted with a half-canopy embroidered ' 

 which John de Bishopeston, chancellor of 

 Chichester, bequeathed to his niece, a nun of 

 Easebourne, in I374- 16 



When Edward Story was appointed bishop of 

 Chichester in 1478 he apparently heard that 

 things were not well at Easebourne, and in May 

 of that year took the unusual step of summoning 

 the prioress to Chichester, where she took an 

 oath to resign at once if the bishop should re- 

 quire it. At the same time the bishop enjoined 

 her immediately to remove the sub-prioress from 

 office ; to hold at least one chapter every week 

 and correct the faults of the nuns ; to see that 

 neither she herself nor any of the sisters should 

 leave the precincts for the purpose of drinking or 

 other improprieties ; and finally, to select every 

 week one of the nuns to be her personal chap- 

 lainess in order of seniority, but omitting the 



14 Suss. Arch. Coll. ix, 13. 



16 Ibid. 1 1 ; Macray, Mun. ofMagd. Coll. Oxon. 86. 



16 Will in P.C.C. Rous, fol. 5/5. 



84 



