significant that it was sometimes necessary to procure the papal dispensation of an abbess- or prioress-elect for illegitimacy, before she could hold office. The dispensation in 1472 of Joan Ward, a nun of Esholt, who afterwards became prioress, is interesting, for the Wards were patrons of the house and her presence illustrates one of the uses to which such patronage could be put[1]. The diocese of York affords other instances (they were common enough in the case of priests) of dispensation "super defectu natalium"; in 1474 one was granted to Cecily Conyers, a nun at Ellerton, "born of a married man and a single woman"[2] and in 1432 Alice Etton received one four days before her confirmation as Prioress of Sinningthwaite[3]. At St Mary's Neasham in 1437, the Bishop of Durham appointed Agnes Tudowe prioress and issued a mandate for her dispensation for illegitimacy and her installation on the same day[4].
Less defensible from the point of view of the house was the practice, which certainly existed, of placing in nunneries girls in some way deformed, or suffering from an incurable defect.
Now earth to earth in convent walls.
To earth in churchyard sod.
I was not good enough for man,
And so am given to God.
- ↑ V.C.H. Yorks. iii, p. 161.
- ↑ Test. Ebor. iii, p. 289, note. She was one of the Conyers of Hornby (Richmondshire) and is mentioned in the will of her brother Christopher Conyers, rector of Rudby in 1483.
- ↑ V.C.H. Yorks. iii, p. 177.
- ↑ V.C.H. Durham, ii, p. 107. For another instance of dispensation and installation on the same day see Reg. of Bishop Bronescombe of Exeter, ed. Hingeston-Randolph, p. 163. For other dispensations super defectu natalium, see Cal. of Papal Letters, iii, p. 470 (cf. Cal. of Petit, i, p. 367), v, p. 549 and Reg. Johannis de Trillek Episcopi Herefordensis (Cantilupe Soc.), p. 404.
by your Visitacyon she haythe commawynment to departe, and knowythe not whether Wherefore I humely besuche youre Mastershipe to dyrect your Letter to the Abbas there, that she may there contynu at hur full age to be professed. Withoute dowyte she ys other xxiiij yere full, or shalbe at shuche tyme of the here as she was boren, which was abowyte Mydelmas. In this your doyng your Mastershipe shall do a very charitable ded, and also bynd hur and me to do you such servyce as lyzthe in owre lytell powers; as knowythe owre Lord God, whome I liumely besuche prosperyiisly and longe to preserve you. Your orator John Clusey." Ellis, Original Letters, Series I, ii, pp. 92-3. An injunction had been made that profession made under twenty-four years was invalid, and that novices or girls professed at an earlier age were to be dismissed.
