A HISTORY OF BEDFORDSHIRE 
time of the dissolution it seems that there 
were only two prioresses' instead of the 
three prescribed by the rule; but there is no 
means of finding out whether this was only 
an accident or whether it was a change of 
custom. The Gilbertines were exempt from 
episcopal visitation ; and beyond a few grants 
of indulgences for their chapels and altars, no 
mention is made of Chicksand in the Lincoln 
registers.? The argument from silence is 
not a very valuable one; but in the case of 
such an order as this, it is certainly the evi- 
dence which the nuns themselves would have 
preferred, if they were faithful to the spirit of 
their rule. In passing from the rule of St. 
Benedict to that of Sempringham, we enter a 
wholly different atmosphere, and have to do 
with quite another ideal in the religious life. 
The rule of St. Benedict owes its great and 
lasting influence mainly to the fact that its 
author sought to define and organise the 
normal religious life, to establish a ‘ school of 
the service of the Lord’ in which large 
numbers of very varying disposition and 
attainment might live together in unity. In 
consequence of this aim his rule is as broad as 
it is high, and has as much power to tran- 
quillise as to inspire. But the ideal of 
the Gilbertines was strictly an ascetic one, 
for the few and not for the many ; and their 
rule is full of petty regulations and restric- 
tions which would be intolerable to all but 
those who sought after a ‘strange and separate 
perfection’; who desired not merely to be 
free from the ‘evil that is in the world,’ but 
to shut the world out utterly and for ever. 
No doubt after a time their asceticism, like 
that of the Cistercians to whom they were so 
closely allied, became much modified ; but so 
long as therule in its main outlines remained the 
same, nuns of such strict enclosure, separated 
alike from their brethren in the order and the 
world outside, bound even to recite their office 
in so low a tone that it could scarcely be 
heard beyond the party wall of their choir,? 
could wish no higher praise than that of being 
quite unknown. The evil report which Lay- 
1 Wright, 
Letter xlii. 
2 Linc. Epis. Reg., Memo. Dalderby, 49d; 
for the altar of the B.V.M. in the conventual 
church; ibid. Memo. Burghersh, 28d; the 
same for the altar of St. Katherine ; ibid. Memo. 
Repingdon, 37, the same for the chapel of the 
B.V.M. in the priory of Chicksand. 
3 The rule of St. Gilbert is given at length in 
Dugdale, Mon. vi. x.-xcix.; and summarised in 
Miss R. Graham’s St. Gilbert of Sempringham and 
his order ; which contains also some of the above 
references to the Patent and Close Rolls. 
Suppression of Monasteries, 
91, 
ton gave them at the last is worth very little 
consideration. He clearly testified that he 
found them strictly enclosed ; and also that 
the charges which he laid against two of the 
nuns on the evidence of ‘an old beldame’ 
were absolutely denied by the accused, by 
their two prioresses, and by all their sisters.* 
If the character of the ladies of the convent 
(we might add also, the ladies of the Hall) 
were to stand or fall by the testimony of the 
village gossips and their own dismissed ser- 
vants, it would have a poor chance at any 
period of history. 
In spite of Layton’s charges, the priory of 
Chicksand was not surrendered till 22 October 
1538,° and pensions were then assigned to all 
the canons and probably all the nuns also ; 
the prioresses received £3 6s. 8d. each.® 
Payn and Roais de Beauchamp endowed 
the priory at its foundation with the church 
of Chicksand and lands attached ; the grange 
of Haynes with 400 acres, and the church 
there with its appurtenances ; a mill and half 
a virgate with a house in Willington ; 20 acres 
in Cople and 3 virgates in Campton, besides 
half the demesne of another benefactress, 
Adeliza, wife of Walter de Mareis, consisting 
of wood, plain, meadow and pastures.” To 
this Simon de Beauchamp added the churches 
of Cople and Keysoe, Stotfold with the chapel 
of Astwick, and Linslade, Bucks ; confirming 
a number of small gifts besides.° ‘The income 
of the priory in 1291 was £124 15s. 52d.,° 
besides the churches in Bedfordshire; but 
this of course takes no account of its debts. 
By this time some lands had been acquired in 
the counties of Northampton, Buckingham, 
Huntingdon, Norfolk and Suffolk, and por- 
tions of tithes in the three London churches 
of St. Mary’s Colechurch, St. Mildred’s Wall- 
brook, and St. Stephen’s Jewry*®; and shortly 
afterwards the manor of Tadlow, Cambridge- 
4 Wright, Suppression of Monasteries, Letter xiii. 
He accused two of the nuns of having broken their 
vow of chastity; and involves in the same con- 
demnation the sub-prior and a serving man. 
6 Deed of Surrender (P.R.O.), 56. 
6 Willis, History of Abbeys, etc. ii. 2, says that in 
1553 pensions were still paid to seven canons and 
eight nuns. 
7 Dugdale, Mon. vi. 950. 
8 Ibid. The priory of Chicksand had very few 
suits about its churches : only the chapel of Astwick 
seems to have been disputed in 1198-9 (Feet of 
F. [Rec. Com.], 21), and in 1242 (Cur. Reg. R. 125, 
n. 22) Simon de Beauchamp supported the prior’s 
claim on the first occasion, and William de Beau- 
champ opposed it on the second. 
8 Pope Nich. Tax. (Rec. Com.) 
10 Tbid. 
392 
