A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE 



accordance with the charters of the church of 

 Downholme and of Thomas Horneby and others, 

 £^\ IS. id.; similar alms yearly given to weak 

 and sick persons coming to the priory building, 

 according to the charter of Adam de Kyrkby, 

 I2S. ; also IIS. b\d. a year to poor folk at the 

 obit of Roger de Aske the founder ; 38J. ^d. at 

 the obit of Hugh Magnaby and Geofirey de For- 

 cett, benefactors ; and 10/. at the obit of Thomas 

 Richardson — the whole amounting to ^^9 41. 8^;/., 

 a large sum for so small a monastery. The 

 prioress received a pension of iooj." and the 

 other nuns pensions varying in amount from 

 66j. Si. to 205. 



Prioresses ^' of Marrick 



Agnes," c. 1200 



Alina, c. 1280" 



Isabella Surrais, occurs 1250, 1257, 1263 



Margaret, occurs 1282 



Alice de Helperby, occurs 1293 



Juliana, occurs 1298 



Margaret, occurs 132 I, 1327"* 



Elizabeth de Berden, occurs 1326, 1333 



Elizabeth, 1351 '° 



Maud de Melsonby, occurs 1376 



Elizabeth, occurs 139 1 



Agnes, occurs 1400, 1406,^' 1413 



Alice de Ravenswathe, occurs 1433, I 449 



Cecilia Aletcalf, occurs 1464, 1498, died 



1502 

 Agnes Wenslawe, occurs 1502, died 1 5 10 

 Isabella Berningham, occurs 15 II, died 151 1 

 Christabella Cowper, occurs 1530 



14. THE PRIORY OF NUNBURN- 

 HOLMEi 



Dugdale ' states that the priory of Nunburn- 

 holme (or Brunnum) was founded by the an- 

 cestors of Roger de Mcrlay, lord of the barony 

 of Morpeth, whose daughter and co-heir married 

 in 1265-6 William, Baron of Greystoke. This 

 is corroborated ^ by Drs. Layton and Legh in 



" Dugdale, Men. Angl. iv, 246. 



'' From the list in Misc. Tcpcg. et Gen. v, 239, where 

 in each case the proofs are given. 



" Coll. Topog. £t Gen. v, 253 ; Cott. MS. Nero D. iii, 

 fol. 22. 



"Anct. D. (P.R.O.), B. 3682. 



'*' Plac. de Banco, Hil. 7 Edw. Ill, m. 24 d; 



" Ajsize R. II 29, m. 17 (probably the same as 

 E. de Berden). 



" Baildon's MS. notes. 



' There is a very strange mistake in Dugdale {Mm. 

 Angl. iv, 279, no. 3 and p. 278), where ttis little 

 Benedictine nunnery is confused with the house of 

 Augustinian nuns at Bumham in Buckinghamshire. 



' Dugdale, Mm. Angl. iv, 278, 279, no. i, ii. 



' Ibid, iv, 278. 



118 



their comperta, that * Lord Dakcrs ' was ' 

 founder, and agrees with Burton,* who says ti 

 the priory was founded in the reign of Henry 



Very little is known as to the possessions 

 the priory, or from whom they were receive 

 According to the later evidence of the Fa 

 Ecclesiasticus^ the possessions comprised mer- 

 the site of the monastery and demesne lands, a 

 small property in nine or ten places in ( 

 neighbourhood. The external history of 1 

 house is practically a blank, and not much 

 known of its internal afiairs. The outstandi 

 incident of interest is the claim which its prior 

 made, and which she substantiated, that t 

 monastery of Seton in Coupland was a cell of t 

 house of Nunburnholme.' How this relations! 

 came about has not been explained. 



The Registers at York have very few entr 

 about Nunburnholme. The first allusion is t 

 record of a donation of 20s. from Archbish 

 GifFard as alms to the nuns in 1270.* I 

 inquiry by Archbishop Wickwane was address 

 on 19 March 1279-80° to the Prior of Wan 

 as to Avice de Beverley, who, having left t 

 house, desired to return. The prioress ai 

 convent said that Avice de Beverley, formerly 

 nun professed of their house, had thrice left 

 of her own will to lead a more ascetic life el< 

 where ; further that fourteen years at least h 

 elapsed since she last left them, but they believ 

 she had lived a chaste life, though when wi 

 them she was constantly disobedient, and s 

 had been thirty years a nun of their house befc 

 she left it.'" Avice de Beverley ' nun of Killin] 

 [Nunkeeling] was elected as Prioress of Nu 

 burnholme on the death of Joan de Holm, 

 that if this was the same person, she had a 

 parently not returned to Nunburnholme. 

 1 3 10" the archbishop directed the rector 

 Londesborough to confirm the election of a nc 

 prioress, the office being vacant by the death 

 Avice de Beverley. If the statement of t 

 prioress and convent in 1279-80 is correct, th 

 she had been absent for fourteen years, and h 

 previously been a nun for thirty years, Avice 

 Beverley cannot have been much less thi 

 ninety years of age at her death, and over eigh 

 when, as a nun of Nunkeeling, she was elect 

 prioress of the house in which she had be( 

 originally professed, but probably they overstat 

 the facts. On 14 June 1313 " Archbishi 

 Greenfield granted the Prioress of Nunburnholr 



* Burton, Mm. Ebor. 57. 



' Dugdale, Mon. Angl. iv, 279, no. i. 



* Op.cit. v, 129. In the Ministers' Accounts (Du 

 dale, Mm. Angl. iv, 280) are fuller details of t 

 former property of the dissolved priory. 



' See below. 



* Archbp. Giffard's Reg. (Sort. Soc), 123. 



' York Archiepis. Reg. Wickwane, fol. \i%b. 



" Ibid. Greenfield, i, fol. 103. 



"Ibid. fol. 122. "Ibid, ii, fol. 118 



