RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



house and issued a series of injunctions. Due care 

 was to be taken of the nuns who were ill, and 

 sick nuns in the infirmary should be attended to 

 according to their state and the nature of their 

 illness, so far as the means of the house allowed. 

 The prioress and sub-prioress were not to 

 permit boys or girls to eat flesh meat in Advent 

 or Sexagesima, or, during Lent, eggs or cheese, in 

 the refectory, contrary to the honesty of religion, 

 but at those seasons when they ought to eat 

 such things they should be assigned other places 

 in which to eat them. 



Mendicant friars were not to enter the private 

 places of the house, but were to be received out- 

 side the cloister and inner cloister of the nuns, 

 in the hall of the hospitium, or some other 

 exterior building appointed for the purpose. 

 However, they might hear the confessions of the 

 nuns in the church. No one admitted as a 

 sister was to wear the black veil, and the prioress 

 was not to place sisters above nuns, contrary to 

 the rules and the honesty of religion. 



The prioress and all the nuns were ordered 

 not to allow William de Tymberland, or any 

 other man, to sleep in the wool-house under the 

 dormitory of the nuns, or elsewhere within the 

 inner cloister, whence it would be possible to 

 have access to the nuns, or for the nuns to have 

 access to that building. 



The archbishop concluded with the usual 

 prohibition as to giving exeats for longer periods 

 than fifteen days, or without good cause, as well 

 as selling corrodies, granting long leases, and 

 taking boarders, &c. 



Archbishop Melton in 1 3 1 9 " strictly forbade 

 frequent goings to and fro in the cloister, either 

 by the priests who held corrodies {per preshyteros 

 corredianos), or their servants who were in the 

 habit of fetching their food and liveries through 

 the middle of the cloister. Such were to be 

 delivered in outside places appointed for the 

 purpose. Those ofiFending were each time to 

 fast on bread and water on Wednesday. 



It would seem as if the nuns had hitherto been 

 dependent on the good offices of their relatives 

 and friends for their clothing, as the archbishop 

 directed that as it had appeared at his visitation 

 that those nuns who had no elders, relatives, and 

 friends [senes, parentes et amicoi) lacked necessary 

 clothes, and so were afflicted by the cold con- 

 trary to the honesty of religion, such nuns so 

 lacking the assistance of friends should have the 

 necessary clothes as the means of the house 

 allowed. 



The prioress was enjoined to take counsel 

 with the older nuns, and in all writings under 

 the common seal a faithful clerk was to be em- 

 ployed, and the deed was to be sealed in the 

 presence of the whole convent, the clerk reading 

 the deed plainly in the mother tongue and 



" York Archiepis, Reg. Melton, fol. 134. 



3 177 



explaining it, and those who spoke against it on 

 reasonable grounds were to be heard, and if 

 necessary the deed was to be corrected. The 

 prioress and convent were to provide themselves 

 with a competent gardener for their curtilage, so 

 that they might have an abundance of vegetables. 

 No nuns or sisters, &c., were to be taken, or 

 girls over twelve retained without special licence. 



Archbishop Zouch on i February 1343 '* 

 wrote to the Prioress and convent of Sinning- 

 thwaite concerning Margaret de Fonten, one of 

 their nuns who had left the house pregnant, but 

 as she had only done so once, her penance was 

 mitigated and she was not to be locked up, 

 but not allowed to go out of the cloister and 

 church. 



On 25 May 1482" Alice Etton, nun of 

 Sinningthwaite of the Cistercian order, received 

 a dispensation super defectu natalium, and on 

 29 May^" her election as prioress was confirmed 

 by Archbishop Rotherham. At a later period 

 the house had fallen heavily into debt, and 

 Archbishop Lee (13 February 1534)^^ granted 

 the nuns licence to pledge jewels to the value of 

 5^15 in consequence of the reduced state of the 

 nunnery. At the end of the same year ^^ 

 Anne Goldesburgh resigned the office of prioress, 

 and the convent deputed the choice of her 

 successor to the archbishop. He appointed 

 Katherine Foster, who is described as a nun of 

 the order of St. Benedict, and a yearly pension 

 of ^10 was assigned to Anne Goldesburgh, 

 which she was receiving at the Dissolution. 



In September 1534 Archbishop Lee visited 

 Sinningthwaite, and issued injunctions in English 

 which have been printed in full by Mr. W. 

 Brown ^^; an outline must suffice here. The 

 prioress was to provide that the doors of the 

 cloister were locked every night ' incontinent as 

 compleyn is done,' and not unlocked in winter 

 till 7 o'clock the next morning, or in summer 

 not till 6 o'clock. Every night the prioress was 

 to provide that the door ' of the dortore be surely 

 and fast lockyd, that none of the susters may gett 

 ou3tt vntill service tyme, ne yet any parsone gett 

 in to the dortore to them.' No secular women 

 of any kind were to sleep in the dorter. Hence- 

 forth no secular or religious persons were to have 

 any resort to any of the sisters ' onles it be their 

 fathers or moders or other ther nere kynsefolkes; 

 in whom no suspicion of any yll can be thought." 

 The prioress was to admit no one to her own 

 company ' suspectly or be in familier communi- 

 cation with her in her chamber or any odre 

 secret place.' 



The sisters and nuns were to keep no secular 

 women to serve them, unless sickness demanded it. 



»» Ibid. Zouch, fol. 153,5. 



" Ibid. Rotherham, fol. 20. 



'» Ibid. " Ibid. Lee, fol. 893. 



" Ibid. fol. lob. 



" Torks. Arch. Joum. xvi, 440 



23 



