£100 and £200 and no less than 73 houses had under £100, of which 39 actually had under £50; and it must be remembered that the net annual income, after the deduction of certain annual charges, was less still[1]. An analysis of the numerical size of nunneries presents more difficulties, for the number of nuns given sometimes differs in the reports referring to the same house and it is doubtful whether commissioners or receivers always set down the total number of nuns present at the visitation or dissolution of a house; while lists of pensions paid by the crown to ex-inmates after dissolution are still more incomplete as evidence. A rough analysis, however, leaves very much the same impression as an analysis of incomes[2]. Out of 111 houses, for which some sort of numerical estimate is possible, only four have over thirty inmates, viz. Syon (51), Amesbury (33), Wilton (32) and Barking (30). Eight (Elstow, the Minories, Nuneaton, Denny, Romsey, Wherwell, Dartfordand St Mary's Winchester) have from 20 to 30; thirty-six have from 10 to 20 and sixty-three have under 10. These statistics permit of certain large generalisations. First, that the majority of English nunneries were small and poor. Secondly, that, as has already been pointed out, the largest and richest houses were all in London and south of the Thames; only four houses north of that river had gross incomes of over £200 and only three could boast of more than 20 inmates. Thirdly, the nunneries during this period owned land and rents to the annual value of over £15,500 and contained perhaps between 1500 and 2000 nuns.
To understand the history of the English nunneries during the later middle ages it is necessary not only to understand the smallness and poverty of many of the houses and the high repute of others; it is necessary also to understand what manner of women took the veil in them. From what social classes were the nuns drawn, and for what reason did they enter religion? What
- ↑ Based on Professor Savine's analysis of the returns in the Valor Ecclesiasticus (Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History), I, 269-288.
- ↑ I have based this estimate partly on a list compiled by M. E. C. Walcott, English Minsters, vol. II ("The English Student's Monasticon"), partly on one compiled by Miss H. T. Jacka in an unpublished thesis on The Dissolution of the English Nunneries; the figures, if not always exactly correct, are approximately correct as far as the classification into groups, according to size, is concerned. It must be remembered, however, that there were more nuns at the beginning than at the end of the period 1270-1536; the convents tended to diminish in size, especially those which were poor and small to begin with.
