Stratford wrote to Romsey Abbey that the house was notoriously burdened with ladies beyond the established number, and that he had heard that the nuns were being forced to receive more "damoyseles" as novices, which he forbade without special licence[1]. A very strong personal connection must in time have been established between a nunnery and certain families from which, in each generation, it received a daughter or a niece and her dower. Such was the connection between Shouldham and the Beauchamps[2] and between Nunmonkton and the Fairfaxes[3]. A close link bound each nunnery to the family of its patron. Thus we find a Clinton at Wroxall and a Darcy at Heynings; nor is it unlikely that these noble ladies sometimes expected privileges and homage more than the strict equality of convent life would allow, if it be permissible to generalise from the behaviour of Isabel Clinton[4] and from the fact that Margaret Darcy received a rather severe penance from Bishop Gynewell in 1351 and a special warning against going beyond the claustral precincts or speaking to strangers[5], while in 1393 there occurs the significant injunction by Bishop Bokyngham that no sister was to have a room to herself except Dame Margaret Darcy (doubtless the same woman now grown elderly and ailing) "on account of the nobihty of her race"; an old lady of firm will and (despite his careful mention of extra pittances and of tolerating for a while) a somewhat sycophantic prelate[6].
- ↑ Liveing, Records of Romsey Abbey, p. 98.
- ↑ William de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, mentions two daughters, nuns at Shouldham, in his will (1296). Sir Guy de Beauchamp mentions his little daughter Katherine, a nun there (1359) and his father Thomas de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, mentions the same Katherine and his own daughter Margaret, nuns there {1369). Katherine was still alive in 1400, when she is mentioned in the next Earl's will. Testamenta Vetusta, I, pp. 52, 63, 79, 153.
- ↑ See below, p. 15.
- ↑ See below, pp. 39—40.
- ↑ "Et pur certayn cause nous auens enioynt a dame Margaret Darcy, vostre soer, qel ne passe les lieus de cloistre, cest assauoir de quoer, de cloistre, de ffraitour, dormitorie ou fermerie, tantque nous en aueroms autre ordeigne, et qele ne parle od nul estraunge gentz, et soit darreyn enstalle, et en chescun lieu qele ne porte anele, et qele die chescun iour un sautier et june la quarte et la sexte ferie a payn et eu. Ensement voilloms qe la dit dame Margaret se puisse confesser au confessour de vostre couent quant ele auera mester." Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Gynewell, f. 34d. It looks like the penance for immorality.
- ↑ "Item quod nulla moniahs ibidem cameram teneat priuatam, sed quod omnes moniales sane in dormitorio et infirme in infirmaria iaceant
