RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



19. THE PRIORY OF YEDINGHAM 



The priory of Yedingham, sometimes called 

 that of Little Mareis,^ from the site on which 

 the house was built, was founded before 1163^ 

 by Helewise de Clere. 



In 1239' a compact was entered into between 

 John, Prior of Guisborough, and Emma, Prioress 

 of Yedingham, and their respective convents, 

 that Guisborough should give the nuns 4 oxgangs 

 of land in Sinnington, with tofts, crofts, &c., the 

 nuns paying the canons yearly 15^. at Sherburn, 

 and undertaking to support the chapel of St. 

 Michael at Sinnington, and other buildings for 

 the better entertaining the canons when there, 

 with clean litter, candles, and fuel ; and to have 

 mass celebrated in St. Michael's chapel thrice a 

 week. This was not the parish church, but a 

 chapel north of it. 



On 16 August 1241 * the church of Yeding- 

 ham was consecrated by Gilbert, Bishop of 

 Whithern, suffragan of Archbishop Gray, in 

 honour of the most blessed Virgin Mary, at the 

 instance of Emma de Humbleton, the prioress, 

 and the convent. The bishop granted an 

 indulgence of 1 00 days to those present, and 

 directed that the anniversary should be kept as a 

 perpetual festival, with an indulgence of forty 

 days to those who came to it. It is not quite 

 clear whether this was the church of the monas- 

 tery, or the parish church. 



On I March 1279-80^ Archbishop Wick- 

 wane appointed Robert de Brus of Pickering to 

 the custody of the house of the nuns of Yeding- 

 ham and its temporalities, hoping that he might 

 by his diligence, God helping, be able to supply 

 the defects of the poor servants of Christ serving 

 God there. 



Monitions forbidding nuns of diflFerent houses 

 to take anyone to their habit without special 

 licence from the archbishop are commonly met 

 with in the injunctions issued after visitations. 

 Records of the granting of any such licences are 

 very rare, but on 23 March 1309-10* Arch- 

 bishop Greenfield wrote to Yedingham about 

 one Agnes de Daneby, whose honest conversation 

 he approved, and he permitted the prioress and 

 convent to receive her adhahitum et velum. Her 

 age is not given, but she is alluded to as puella. 



At his visitation of Arthington Archbishop 

 Greenfield dealt with the case of Isabella de 



* So called e.g. in ' Fee Farm Roll, Aug. Off.' 

 cited by Dugdale, Mon. Angl. iv, 277, no. xii ; also 

 ' moniales de Parvo Marisco ' confirmation of Henry II, 

 Dugdale, Mon. Angl. iv, 275, no. ii, &c. 



* This limit of date is ascertained as John, Treasurer 

 of York, is a witness. In 1 163 he became Bishop of 

 Poitiers ; Dugdale, Mon. Angl. iv, 275, no. ii. 



' Dugdale, Mm. Angl. iv, 273. 



* Ibid. 275, no. iii. 



' York Archiepis. Reg. Wickwane, fol. 12^, 115. 

 « Ibid. Greenfield, i, fol. 96^. 



Berghby, which is fully described in the account 

 of that house. There is nothing said there as 

 to sending her away from her house, but on 

 28 September 1312' the archbishop wrote to 

 the nuns of Yedingham that at his recent visita- 

 tion of the house of Arthington, of their order,* 

 he had found Isabella de Berghby had acted 

 contrary to the honesty of religion, and he there- 

 fore sent her to them for a season, to undergo 

 penance. 



In 1314' Archbishop Greenfield allowed the 

 prioress and convent to receive Alice daughter 

 of Roger de Wyghton to the habit of the 

 conversae in their monastery ; at the same time 

 very strictly enjoining them that no sister convena 

 was, on any account, to be allowed to wear the 

 black veil on her head, but was to use a white 

 veil. In this entry the lay sisters are called 

 conversae, and sorores conversae, whereas elsewhere 

 they are usually called sorores ^^ only, in contra- 

 distinction to the nuns (designated dominae or 

 moniales') on the one hand, and the conversi, or 

 lay brothers, on the other. The conversi seem 

 to have been attached to most of the nunneries.'^ 



In 1314 Archbishop Greenfield held a visita- 

 tion of Yedingham,^^ and issued a series of 

 injunctions to the nuns. No nun was to be 

 absent from service ' propter occupacionem operis 

 de serico.' Going to and from the kitchen through 

 the cloister, by secular men and women, was on 

 no account to be allowed. The prioress was to 

 depute a mature and honest nun to shut the 

 doors round the cloister at proper hours, and if 

 that nun was negligent, she was to correct and 

 chastise her. The parlour of the house was on 

 no account in future to be used by lay people. 

 The prioress was to be careful that none of the 

 nuns made themselves conspicuous as to their 

 girdles, or other ornaments. Rebellious nuns 

 were to be openly corrected before the convent 

 and not secretly, for that was agreeable with 

 divine and human law. The sick were to be 

 tended according to their needs, and as the means 

 of the house allowed. ^^ The prioress was not to 



' Ibid, ii, fol. 93. 



' The expression ' of your order ' should be noted. 

 Arthington was a Cluniac house, Yedingham Bene- 

 dictine. 



° York Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield, ii, fol. 105. 



'" ' Le sisterhouse ' at Yedingham is spoken of in 

 the grant to Emma Hert, quoted later. 



" Many instances occur, as at Arden, Marrick, 

 Swine, and several other nunneries in the county. 



'' York Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield, ii, fol. loi. 



" Earlier in the same year the archbishop had 

 granted licence to Margaret de Shyrburn, one of the 

 nuns ill of dropsy, that a secular girl, Maud de 

 Meteham, who used to wait upon her, but who had 

 had to leave on attaining the age of twelve, might 

 return, and serve her as before, and that for the sake 

 of improving her health she might with honest com- 

 pany visit her friends and relatives ; York Archiepis. 

 Reg. Greenfield, ii, fol. 1 04^. 



127 



