A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE 



Prioresses of Rosedale 



Alfreda, occurs 1246" 



Juliana, occurs 1252^^ 



Isabella Waloue, occurs 1281 " 



Mary de Ros, resigned 1310" 



Joan de Pickering, confirmed 1310-11" 



Isabella Whiteby, resigned 1336^° 



Elizabeth de Kirkeby Moresheved, confirmed 



1336" 

 Joan Colvyle, occurs 1378-9'' 

 Isabel de Lomley, occurs 1399^' 

 Katherine de Thweng, before 1410 '^ 

 Alice Gower, occurs 1 41 3'' 

 Margaret Chambirlayn, resigned 1468 '^ 

 Joan Bramley, elected 1468 " 

 Margaret Ripon, died 1505 ^ 

 Joan Badesby, appointed 1505'' 

 Matilda Felton, confirmed 1521 '^ 

 Mary Marshall, confirmed 1527" 



38. THE PRIORY OF SINNING- 

 THWAITE 



Sinningthwaite Priory, in Bilton-in-Ainsty, 

 was founded about 1 160 by Bertram Haget, who 

 gave the site,' and the gift was confirmed by his 

 overlord, Roger de Mowbray,- who at the same 

 time confirmed other gifts made to the nuns by 

 Geoffrey Haget the founder's son, when they 

 received his sister.' 



From Gundreda Haget, another daughter of 

 the founder, the nuns received the advowson of 

 the church of Bilton.* In 1293, however, the 

 prioress and convent made over the church of 

 Bilton ' to Archbishop Romanus, who founded 

 the prebend of Bilton in St. Peter's, York, out 

 ol it, and in 1295 ° ordained a perpetual vicarage 

 of Bilton, in the patronage of the prioress and 

 convent. 



" Feet of F. file 38, no. 11 (Trin. 30 Hen. III). 



" Ibid, file 44, no. 79 (Mich. 36 Hen. III). 



" Vork Archiepis. Reg. Thoresby, i, fol. 134^. 



" Ibid. Greenfield, i, fol. loi. 



"Ibid. fol. 102. 



« Ibid. IMelton, fol. 262. " Ibid. 



"Suhs. R. 63, no. II. 



" Cal. Pat. I 399-1401, p. 15;. 



" Dugdale, Man. Angl. iv, 3 1 7. 



" Baildon, Mm. Isota, i, 188. 



'''' York Archiepis. Reg. G. Nevill, fol. too. 



" Ibid. " Ibid. Savage, fol. 65. 



»^ Ibid. « Ibid. Wolsey, fol. 6\b. 



" Ibid. fol. 86^ ; a nun of Appleton. 



' Dugdale, iVoff. Angl. v, 463. 



' Ibid. 464, no. i. 



' Besides this member of the founder's family, his 

 great-granddaughter Euphemia afterwards became 

 prioress. 



* Dugdale, Mm. Angl. v, 464, no. iii. 

 ' Burton, Mm. Ebor. 325. 



• Lawton, Coll. Rerum Eccl. 52. 



176 



All the difTerent gifts arc recorded by Burton 

 in his usual manner.' The most important, as 

 raising a difBcult question, was the gift of 

 Esholt in Guiseley by Simon Ward, Maud 

 his wife, and William Ward his son, which is 

 dealt with in the account of Esholt Priory. 

 Probably some of the nuns from Sinningthwaite 

 afterwards formed a separate nunnery there. 



As a Cistercian house the convent of Sinning- 

 thwaite contested the right of the archbishop to 

 visit them and appealed to the pope in 1276* 

 against a visitation of Archbishop GifFard, but 

 the decision, though not recorded, was evidently 

 against them, although echoes of a claim by 

 Cistercian abbots of authority over nunneries of 

 their order are to be met with here and there 

 in the Archbishops' Registers, but only to be 

 repudiated. In 1276° Archbishop Giffard or- 

 dered the nuns to have Friars Minor as confessors 

 in spite of the inhibition of the Cistercian 

 abbots, who had no jurisdiction over them. 



Among the privileges granted in 1172'" by 

 Pope Alexander III to Sinningthwaite was that 

 of receiving clerks or laymen fleeing from the 

 world {a seculo fugientes), as conversi [ad conversionem 

 vestram), coupled with a prohibition of the 

 brethren or sisters of Sinningthwaite leaving their 

 monastery without licence. 



Archbishop Romanus wrote on 12 June 1286'' 

 to the nuns to receive back Agnes de Bedal, 

 one of their number who had apostatized, and on 

 22 January following'^ sent another letter in 

 favour of a certain Margaret de la Batayle, who 

 desired to enter their house as a nun. Rather 

 more than two years later (12 April 1289)'' he 

 committed the custody of the monastery of 

 Sinningthwaite to Robert de Muschamp, rector 

 of the church of 'Dichton' (Kirk Deighton) 

 and on 18 August 1294 '^ he issued a commission 

 to Mag" Thomas de Wakefield, Chancellor of 

 York, and Mag' Robert Nassington to receive 

 the cession of the Prioress of Sinningthwaite 

 and to confirm the election of her successor. 



Archbishop Corbridge had to interfere in 1300 

 on behalf of a certain Maud de Grymston,'' 

 who, having undergone her year of probation, 

 was to have received the black veil and been 

 admitted a nun. This the prioress and convent 

 had refused for some reason, to the scandal of 

 their order, and the archbishop, writing from 

 Scrooby on 21 December, ordered them to 

 admit her. 



On Tuesday after the Conversion of St. Paul 

 13 14-15,'* Archbishop Greenfield visited the 



' Burton, Mon. Ebor. ^i^-j. 



* Dugdale, Mon. Angl v, 464-5. 



' Arcibfi. Giffard's Reg. (Surt. Soc), 295. 



" Dugdale, Mon. Angl. 466, no. vii. 



" York Archiepis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 26. 



" Ibid. fol. 29. "Ibid. fol. 33. 



" Ibid. fol. 46. " Ibid. Corbridge, fol. 8. 



" Ibid. Greenfield, ii, fol. 83^. 



