RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



From 1461 to 1493 the accounts of the house,'* 

 now kept by the prioress, again supply many 

 details about its administration.** There were 

 then nine or ten nuns besides the prioress, and 

 the expenses were usually kept within the limits 

 of an income of about ,^65. The house finan- 

 cially seems generally to have been well ordered. 

 Of its condition in other respects nothing is 

 known*" except from the letter of Archbishop 

 Morton to the Abbot of St. Albans in July 

 1490." Morton had heard on good authority, 

 ■ he said, that Helen Germyn, the prioress, was a 

 married woman who had left her husband for a 

 lover, and that she and others of the convent 

 were leading notoriously immoral Uves with 

 some of the monks of St. Albans. There was 

 enough truth in the report to cause Helen's 

 removal,*^ and apparently the selection of the 

 next prioress from Sopwell.*' 



Beyond the accounts of the prioress in 15 15 *^ 

 and in 1526-7 *^ there is no further information 

 about Pre until April 1528, when it was found 

 on an inquiry ** that the last prioress, Eleanor 

 Barnarde, had died in the previous June, and 



38 Mins. Accts. bdle. 867, no. 30, 32, 33-6; 

 Hen. VII, no. 274. 



39 The nuns had lOi^. a week for board, and 

 pittances on feasts of St. Nicholas, St. Leonard, the 

 Circumcision, Epiphany, St. Mary Magdalene, and 

 Nativity of B. V. Mary, 1 6 December and the anni- 

 venary of Henry V. On the Nativity of die Virgin 

 Mary, the ftirtime, over ^^i was spent on the convent 

 and visitors. Payments for wassail at New Year and 

 Twelfth Night, harpers and players at Christmas, for 

 May games, for bread and ale on bonfire nights, and 

 for coals in the dormitory show that the nuns had 

 amusements and even Ivixuries. A good deal of hospi- 

 tality was shown to tenants, strangers and the poor, 

 and rooms were let in the precinct, so that the con- 

 vent was by no means cut off from the world. The 

 accounts of 1490-3 (Mins. Accts. Hen. VII, no. 274) 

 include payments for cutting the vine, mowing the 

 convent garden, shaking the fruit trees there, gather- 

 ing palm and flowers for Palm Sunday, cartage of 

 herrings and sprats from London, and cleaning the 

 great kitchen and guest-chamber, and making trestles 

 and forms in connexion with the fair. 



*" A certain Joan Sturmyn had so much confidence 

 in Alice Wafer, prioress 1480-5, that she entrusted 

 to her keeping goods worth £^0. It is clear, too, 

 that though the goods were afterwards detained from 

 Joan's executors, Alice was not to blame (Early Chan. 

 Proc. bdle. 97, no. 6). 



^^ Wilkins, Concilia, iii, 632. 



^2 Theaccountsofthe house (Mins. Accts. Hen. VII, 

 no. 275) show that shortly before Michaelmas 1490 

 Amy Goden had succeeded Helen, here called 

 Kydyer, who must therefore have been removed, 

 unless by a coincidence she had died. 



^3 In 1465 there was at Sopwell a nun called 

 Amy Godyn (Anct. D. [P.R.O.], A 2491), the name 

 of Helen's successor. 



" L. and P. Hen. Fill, ii, 959. 



" Aug. Off. Misc. Bks. cclxxii, fol. 79. 



« Cardinal's Bdles. i. 



that the three nuns composing the convent 

 had deserted the place. It had apparently 

 been represented to Pope Clement VII before 

 that regular discipline was much relaxed and 

 the nuns did not live as good lives as they 

 ought ; for it was on this ground that in May 

 1528 he dissolved the priory and annexed it to 

 the abbey of St. Albans, then held by Cardinal 

 Wolsey in commendam." In July Henry VIII 

 granted the site of the late nunnery with all its 

 possessions to Wolsey himself,*' who conferred 

 it on his new college at Oxford.*' Its property 

 comprised *" the manors of Pre, ' Playdell ' ^^ 

 and Beaumonts, rent in lieu of tithes in Red- 

 bourn, Sarratt, Codicote (co. Herts.) and 

 Dallow^^ (in Luton, co. Bedford), and various 

 parcels of land, the manor of Wing with the 

 advowson of the church and the rectory and 

 the manor of Swanbourne (co. Bucks.), in 

 which place the nuns had a holding in 1252.^ 



Wardens or Masters of St. Mary de Pre 

 Priory 



John de Walden, the first master ^* 



Richard, occurs 1235 ^^ 



Wilham, occurs 1248 °' 



Richard, occurs 1278^' 



Roger, occurs c. 1316^' 



John le Patere, occurs March 1325 ^* 



Richard de Bovyndon, occurs September 1 341 



to September 1342 '" 

 Nicholas Redhod, occurs March 1352 to 



March 1353 *^ 

 John de Kyrkely, occurs 13 August 1356 to 



25 March 1357®^ 



Prioresses of St. Mary de Pre Priory 

 — de la Moote, occurs 1401 ^ 

 Lucy Botelere (.?), occurs 1430 «* 



*' Dugdale, Man. iii, 361, no. xi. 



« L. and P. Hen. VIII, iv, 4472. 



« Ibid. 5714, 5786. 5° Ibid. 4472. 



*i In I 3 50-1 they kept a tenator and a huntsman 

 here (Mins. Accts. bdle. 867, no. 24). 



^2 They had property here in 1350-1 (ibid, 

 no. 23). 



53 Cal. Pat. 1247-58, p. 139. 



w Gesta Abbat. \, 201. " Ibid. 305. 



56 Feet of F. Herts. 32 Hen. Ill, no. 344. 



6'' Ibid. 7 Edw. I, no. 97. 



68 Rentals and Surv. portf 8, no. 38. 



68 Lansd. MS. 375, fol. 95 d.-96. 



«» Mins. Accts. bdle. 867, no. 21. 



61 Ibid. no. 25. ^^ Ibid. no. 26. 



63 The sister of John de la Moote, Abbot of St. 

 Albans, who when dying asked the convent to restore 

 to her X40 which had been used for the monastery, 

 or provide for her otherwise, such as by a livery (Gesta 



Abbat. \\\, Ml). L • L , 



6^ She is not called prioress, but as she is the only 

 one named among several nuns then received into the 

 fraternity of St. Albans (Amundesham, Annaks, \, 

 5 I ), it is probable that she was the head. 



431 



