RELIGIOUS HOUSES were addicted to vanity in dress,^' perhaps a result of the entertainment of guests by the prioress, which was forbidden in future. The prioress seems not to have taken her position seriously enough : she was told to content her- self with one or two dogs, and one of her maids was to be removed for certain causes moving the dean and chapter, 'et hoc propter majorem honestatem dicte priorisse.' The dean was probably not satisfied about the administration of the house, since he required the holder of a corrody to show the grant, that it might be known whether he had fulfilled the services due from him, and ordered an inquiry to be made of the prioress and each nun whether there were other burdens on the nunnery ; the prioress was also to show who had the custody of the missals, books, and ornaments, and how they were kept ; and the number of seals was to be reported. Dean Kentwode in 1432, after providing that divine service should be performed night and day, that the rule of silence was to be duly observed, and full confessions made to the confessor appointed by him, proceeded to order that secular women were not to sleep in the dorter ; nor were secular persons to be admitted after compline or locked within the bounds of the cloister ; a discreet nun was to be appointed to lock the convent doors so that nobody could get in or out, that the place be not slandered in future, and the prioress herself was to keep the keys of the postern door between the cloister and churchyard, ' for there is much coming in and out at unlawful times ' ; the nuns were not to look out into the street, not to speak to secu- lar persons, nor receive gifts or letters from them without leave of the prioress, and the letters were to be such as could cause no ill report ; measures were to be taken that strangers should not see the nuns nor the nuns them at service in the church ; sisters appointed to office must be of good character ; a suitable sister was to be chosen to teach the rule to those who did not know it ; a proper infirmary was to be estab- lished where the sisters could be tended in illness ; no dancing or revelling except at Christmas and other suitable times, and then in absence of seculars, was to be allowed. As was not un- natural amid so much laxity the business of the house was mismanaged, and fees, liveries, and perpetual corrodies were given to various persons, officers of the house and others, ' to . . . the dilapi- dation of the house's goods.' The impression gathered from the injunctions is that the priory was regarded as a kind of boarding-house. It is not unlikely that the rich City families found it a convenient place in which they could dis- pose of their unmarried daughters with an allow- " They were ordered to wear veils according to the rules of their order, not too sumptuous in cha- racter. ance,'° and did not much consider whether they had a religious vocation. The convent in 1458 paid £■](} ids. 8d. in part payment of a larger sum, and this bor- rowing of money may be a sign that they had begun the alterations to the church to which Sir John Crosby is said to have contri- buted 500 marks.'* Crosby would have been interested as a parishioner of St. Helen's, for he built his magnificent house close to the priory upon land rented to him by the convent in 1466. The satisfactory state of the house in the early sixteenth century is shown by the bishop of London's choice of one of the sisters to be prioress of Holy Cross at Castle Hcding- ham ; *" but the spirit of unrest roused by the religious changes under Henry VIII seems soon to have affected the priory, since in 1532 some nuns ran away.^' A proof of the im- portance of the house at this time is furnished by the intrigues over the election of the last prioress in 1529.^^ A certain Margaret Vernon, who was not a member of the convent, solicited the support of Wolsey and of Cromwell in turn. According to her, the king's saddler had offered 200 marks to secure the appointment of his sister, and Margaret herself owned that she had been willing to pay Wolsey ;^ioo for the post, which she however never obtained, Mary Rol- lesley, a sister of the house,^' being made prioress. There is some excuse for the nuns in the grants of annuities made by them in 1534-8, although they were forbidden by the Kentwode Injunctions : one was to Cromwell,** and the " Besides the provisions by legacies already men- tioned there is a deed (B.M. Chart. Toph. 39, quoted in Dugdale, op. cit. iv, 552) where a sum of looj. was to be paid annually to the convent during the life of one of the nuns, Joan de Bures. The fact that Richard II in 1 377 exercised his coronation right and nominated a nun to the priory seems to imply that by that time admission was desirable but not easy. Cal. of Pat. 1377-81, p. 20. " Doc. of D. and C. of St. Paul's, A. Box 77, No. 2046. M Weever, Ancient Fun. Monum. 421. " Add. MS. 15664, fol. 228-30. " Lond. Epis. Reg. Fitz James, fol. 137B. ^^ L. and P. Hen. Fill, v, 982. Petition to the king of John Stanton, servant to Thomas Patmer, late merchant of London, now in the bishop of London's prison. On complaining to Parliament on behalf of his master he had been told by the Lord Chancellor that he was at the conveying of certain nuns from St. Helen's. " Ibid. V, 19. Margaret Vernon's letters are placed under 1531, but the last prioress was elected in 1529. " Madox, Formul. Angl. 440. Elizabeth RoUesley, by will dated 1 5 1 3, left to her daughter Mary, a nun of St. Helen's, a legacy of j^'5.
- Cox, op. cit. 14.
459
