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Keeping Nuns in Order: Enforcement of the Rules in Thirteenth-Century Sempringham

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 October 2008

BRIAN GOLDING
BRIAN GOLDING
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton SO17 IBJ; e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

The statutes of the Gilbertine order, established by Gilbert of Sempringham in the second half of the twelfth century, underwent modification during the following century as a consequence of two legatine visitations, in 1238 and 1267. This paper examines these new regulations in the context of growing episcopal concern for the internal discipline of nunneries and considers the possible inter-relationships between the ‘self-regulating’ and internally-disciplined Gilbertine order and the synodal legislation of reforming bishops and their episcopal visitation of non-Gilbertine nunneries, particularly in Yorkshire. It suggests that the visitation by Ottobuono Fieschi of the Gilbertines in 1267 and his legatine council of London in 1268 informed the outcomes of both, leading to a convergence of Gilbertine legislation with the wider legislation that applied to all nunneries.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 59 , Issue 4 , October 2008 , pp. 657 - 679
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 Cambridge University Press

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References

1 Internal evidence indicates that this must date from between c. 1185 and c. 1195.

2 For a full discussion see B. Golding, Gilbert of Sempringham and the Gilbertine order, c. 1130–c. 1300, Oxford 1995, 71–137.

3 See ibid. 33–50.

4 Christopher Cheney drew attention to the close relation between papal statutes, visitors' articles and injunctions: Episcopal visitation of monasteries in the thirteenth century, 2nd edn, Manchester 1983, 72–3.

5 Unfortunately no records of visitations of English Fontevraudine houses detailing their internal governance and disciplinary problems have survived, although it is known that they were conducted: B. M. Kerr, Religious life for women, c. 1100–c. 1350: Fontevraud in England, Oxford 1999, 12, 113.

6 See Golding, Gilbert of Sempringham, 102–6, 158–64. Early records of these chapters do not survive, the first extant being a fragmentary account of that held at Sempringham in 1287. The first full account was provided in 1300: Bodleian Library, Oxford, ms Douce 136, fos 94v, 103–5.

7 This visitation was erroneously dated to 1223 in Golding, Gilbert of Sempringham, 161.

8 See Williamson, D. M., ‘Some aspects of the legation of Cardinal Otto in England, 1237–41’, EHR lxiv (1949), 145–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and ‘The legate Otto in Scotland and Ireland, 1237–40’, Scottish Historical Review xxviii (1949), 12–30.

9 Matthaei Parisiensis Chronica majora, ed. H. R. Luard (Rolls Series, 1872–84), iii. 499–517.

10 Graham, R., ‘A papal visitation of Bury St Edmunds and Westminster in 1234’, EHR xxvii (1912), 728–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 For the articles see ms Douce 136, fo. 100r–v.

12 That inequality in the quantity and quality of food was a common complaint in nunneries elsewhere is suggested by the statutes for the ‘Cistercian’ nunnery of Nun Cotham issued a few years earlier: W. Dugdale, Monasticon anglicanum, rev. edn, ed. J. Caley, H. Ellis and B. Bandinel, London 1817–30, v. 677. See also pp. 664, 666 below.

13 Monastic prisons have been little studied but seem to have been increasingly common in the thirteenth century: M. Cassidy-Welch, Monastic spaces and their meanings: thirteenth-century English Cistercian monasteries, Turnhout 2001, 123.

14 On lay sisters' habits see Golding, Gilbert of Sempringham, 124. Cistercian sisters wore white veils.

15 In normal circumstances the rule forbade the use of Latin to all members of the community, although there is clear evidence that individual nuns in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century read French. These ambiguities can perhaps best be resolved by recognising that nuns were expected to understand and use liturgical Latin, even if they did not speak it outside church. For the educational attainments of the Gilbertine nuns see Golding, Gilbert of Sempringham, 183–7; for a recent reassessment of the learning of nuns see A. Barratt, ‘Small Latin? The post–Conquest learning of English religious women’, in S. Echard and G. R. Wieland (eds), Anglo-Latin and its heritage: essays in honour of A. G. Rigg on his 64th birthday (Publications of the Journal of Medieval Latin iv, 2001), 51–66.

16 See p. 668 below.

17 Such knives were a potential hazard: see the sad story of the accidental death of a friend of a canon of Shouldham who tripped and fell on the canon's knife while they were playing football together in 1321: Calendar of entries in the papal registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland: papal letters, II: 1305–1342, ed. W. H. Bliss, London 1895, 214.

18 That is not to say that there were not many versions of the Benedictine rule for women both in Latin and vernacular languages, but all were more or less accurate versions of the original: see, for example, Krochalis, J., ‘The Benedictine rule for nuns: Library of Congress, ms 4’, Manuscripta xxx (1986), 21–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 Councils and synods with other documents relating to the English Church, I: A.D. 871–1204, ed. D. Whitelock, M. Brett and C. N. L. Brooke, Oxford 1981, ii. 749, 778.

20 Ibid. i/2, 1050.

21 Ibid. i/2, 747, 987.

22 Decrees of the ecumenical councils, ed. N. P. Tanner, Georgetown 1990, i. 198 (c. 8), 203 (cc. 26, 27).

23 Ibid. 217–18 (c. 11).

24 See Cheney, Episcopal visitation, 32–3, 19–25 for an overview of the theoretical position. For Cistercian exemption see Mahn, J.-B., ‘L'Ordre cistercien et son gouvernement des origines au milieu du xiiime siècle (1098–1265)’, Bibliothèque des Ecoles françaises d' Athènes et de Rome clxi (1945), esp. pp. 88–101, 119–55Google Scholar.

25 For the sources see Cheney, Episcopal visitation, 1–16.

26 See Dugdale, Monasticon, v. 677–8, and for a very brief discussion Graves, C. V., ‘English Cistercian nuns in Lincolnshire’, Speculum liv (1979), 494Google Scholar and n.15. See also Cheney, Episcopal visitation, 33, 98 n. 2. The ambiguous status of Nun Cotham within the Cistercian order is discussed by Graves, ‘English Cistercian nuns’, 492–9.

27 See Cheney, Episcopal visitation, 33.

28 Tanner, Decrees of the ecumenical councils, i. 264–5 (c. 64). This canon, although addressed to the issue of simony in all communities, is explicitly directed primarily at the latter.

29 J. H. Lynch, Simoniacal entry into religious life from 1000–1260, Columbus 1976, 193–5.

30 Tanner, Decrees of the ecumenical councils, i. 240–1. Still important on Innocent iii's visitation policies and the Benedictines are Berlière, U., ‘Les Chapitres généreaux de l'ordre de S. Benoît’, Revue bénédictine xviii (1901), 364–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and ‘Innocent iii et le réorganisation des monastères bénédictins’, ibid. xxxii (1920), 22–42, 145–59.

31 See, for example, Gerald's comments in his Speculum Ecclesie (Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, ed. J. S. Brewer and others [Rolls Series, 1861–91], iv. 93).

32 Golding, Gilbert of Sempringham, 141–2.

33 The most convincing and fullest recent study, which considers the nunnery's affinities with Gilbertine practice, is J. E. Burton, ‘The “chariot of Aminadab” and the Yorkshire priory of Swine’, in R. Horrox and S. R. Jones (eds), Pragmatic utopias: ideals and communities, 1200–1630, Cambridge 2001, 26–42.

34 Ibid. 28–9.

35 The register of Walter Giffard, lord archbishop of York 1266–79, ed. W. Brown (Surtees Society cix, 1904), 147. This was a common complaint in visitations of both male and female communities: see, for example, Giffard's visitation, made a month earlier, of Bolton priory (p. 145).

36 Ibid. 248–9.

37 See J. E. Burton, ‘Yorkshire nunneries in the Middle Ages: recruitment and resources’, in J. C. Appleby and P. Dalton (eds), Government, religion and society in northern England, 1000–1700, Stroud 1997, 104–17.

38 Reg. Giffard, 20–1. See also ibid. 113; The Register of John Romeyn, lord archbishop of York, 1284–1296, and of Henry of Newark, lord archbishop of York, 1296–1299, ed. W. Brown (Surtees Society cxxiii, 1913), 55, 177, 225.

39 Reg. Romeyn, 55. J. E. Burton, The Yorkshire nunneries in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries (Borthwick Paper lvi, 1979), 30, identifies mismanagement as one of the ‘three main areas of complaint’ in visitation records of Yorkshire nunneries: unfortunately, the northern houses were not exceptional. For a southern example see the case of Malling in 1299: Registrum Roberti Winchelsey, Cantuarensis archiepiscopi, ed. R. Graham (Canterbury and York Society li, 1952), 835–6.

40 The register of William Wickwane, lord archbishop of York, 1279–1285, ed. W. Brown (Surtees Society cxiv, 1907), 140–1.

41 Councils and synods with other documents relating to the English Church, II: A.D. 1205–1313, ed. F. M. Powicke and C. R. Cheney, Oxford 1964, i/1, 93, 123–4.

42 Tanner, Decrees of the ecumenical councils, i. 243 (c. 16).

43 Councils and synods, ii/1, 118–19. See also ii/1,153, 191–2.

44 Periculoso was rapidly noted and disseminated in England. Within a year of its issuance archbishop Winchelsey sent a copy to the nuns of Sheppey ordering its observance, and bishops across the country quickly brought the bull to the attention of nunneries in their dioceses. See Councils and synods, ii/2, 1205 and n. 3, and E. Power, Medieval English nunneries, c. 1275–1535, Cambridge 1922, 350–3. On Periculoso and its afterlife see now E. Makowski, Canon law and cloistered women: Periculoso and its commentators, 1298–1545, Washington 1999.

45 For the history of women's claustration in the early Middle Ages see J. T. Schulenberg, ‘Strict active enclosure and its effects on the female monastic experience’, in J. A. Nichols and L. T. Shank (eds), Medieval women, I: Distant echoes (Cistercian Studies lxxi, 1984), 51–86, and references there cited.

46 Councils and synods, ii/1, 123–4.

47 Ibid. ii/1,127. For other similar legislation see ii/1, 270, 312, 347, 405, 429, 604, 711.

48 Ibid. ii/1, 385.

49 The Gilbertine chapter of 1300 similarly insisted that all letters sent from outside should be received via the fenestra versatilis: ms Douce 136, fo. 103v.

50 Ibid. fo. 88r.

51 He was in Montgomery on 29 September and Marlborough on 18 November.

52 They are found in ms Douce 136, fos 88–94.

53 Ibid. fo. 89r.

54 Ibid. fos 89v, 91r.

55 Ibid. fo. 91r.

56 Ibid. fos 89v, 91r-v.

57 See Golding, Gilbert of Sempringham, 40–51. Increasingly lay brethren were causing problems in all the orders where they were to be found. For the Cistercian experience see, for example, J. Donnelly, The decline of the Cistercian lay brotherhood, New York 1949, and Cassidy-Welch, Monastic spaces, 180–90.

58 ms Douce 136, fo. 89v.

59 Ibid. fo. 88v.

60 Ibid. fo. 90r.

61 Ibid. fo. 90v.

62 Ibid. fo. 90r.

63 Ibid. fo. 90v. This stipulation is very similar to that noted above for lay brothers.

64 Ibid. fo. 101v.

65 Ibid. fo. 90v.

66 Ibid. This issue was not confined to nunneries. Archbishop Wickwane's visitation of Newburgh in 1279–80, for example, forbade the reception of any woman in the priory, apart from the ‘noble wife’ of the patron, who could stay one night only ‘in a secluded place’: Reg. Wickwane, 56. The canons of Healaugh Park were forbiden to have women staying as guests or for any other reason (Ibid. 131).Yet Wickwane was prepared to allow Roger de Mowbray's wife to stay at Newburgh up to the quindene after St Michael as a result of the priory's petition (Ibid. 278). The Cistercians took infringements of their statutes, even if for good cause, very seriously. In 1245 the royal family were at Beaulieu for the church's dedication. While there Prince Edward was taken ill and his mother, Queen Eleanor, was obliged to stay at the abbey for almost three weeks. At the next visitation the prior and cellarer were dismissed for allowing this offence: Annales monastici, ed. H. R. Luard (Rolls Series, 1864–9), ii. 337. On patronal rights of hospitality generally see S. Wood, English monasteries and their patrons in the thirteenth century, Oxford 1955, 101–7.

67 ms Douce 136, fo. 99v.

68 The fact that this case is recorded in the cartulary of another Gilbertine priory, Alvingham (Bodl. Lib., ms Laud Misc. 642, fo.36) suggests, however, that the order was sufficiently concerned to note its incidence more generally: Golding, Gilbert of Sempringham, 320–1.

69 ms Douce 136, fo. 90v.

70 Ibid. fo. 91r.

71 Ibid. fo. 88r–v; cf. Augustine, Regula tertia, in L. Verheijen, La Règle de saint Augustin, Paris 1967, i. 436, and Benedicti regula, ed. R. Hanslik, CSEL lxxv. 151.

72 ms Douce 136, fo. 88v.

73 Ibid. fo. 89r.

74 Ibid. fo. 88v.

75 Ibid. fo. 90v.

76 Ibid. fo. 90r.

77 Ibid. fo. 90v. For similar arrangements at Nun Cotham see Dugdale, Monasticon, v. 677.

78 Such a language was probably French or English, rather than Latin. See pp. 660–1 and n. 15 above.

79 ms Douce 136, fos 89v–90r.

80 Ibid. fo. 90v. See especially Lynch, Simoniacal entry, 193–4, 202 nn. 59, 60 and pp. 662, 3 above.

81 ms Douce 136, fo. 88v.

82 Ibid.

83 Ibid.

84 Ibid. fo. 90r.

85 Ibid. fos 89v, 91r.

86 See D. Knowles, The monastic order in England, Cambridge 1940, 484.

87 ms Douce 136, fo. 88v.

88 Ibid. fos 89r–90v. Ottobuono observed that though the Virgin was greater than all the Apostles yet she did not have this power committed to her.

89 Ibid. fo. 100v.

90 Aelred of Rievaulx, De institutione inclusarum, ed. C. H. Talbot, CCCM i. 658–9; The English text of the Ancrene Riwle: Ancrene Wisse edited from MS. Corpus Christi College 402 by J. R. R. Tolkien (Early English Text Society o.s. ccxlix, 1962), fo. 5r/28–5v/5. I am greatly indebted to Bella Millett for her discussion of this issue.

91 ms Douce 136, fo. 91r-v.

92 Ibid. fo. 91v. The reason for the honouring of Gilbert and Benedict is clear. St Andrew was the dedicatee of the parish church of Sempringham, St Margaret was probably chosen as a model of female sanctity, the choice of Mark and Luke is less clear.

93 See Golding, Gilbert of Sempringham, 186–7.

94 It may well have been on the nuns' initiative also that in 1307 John de Avernia gained a papal indult that the nuns might have grated windows made through which they might see and worship at mass: Calendar of papal registers: papal letters, ii. 22.

95 Councils and synods, ii/2, 739.

96 Ibid. ii/2, 783–92.

97 Ibid. ii/2, 789–91.

98 Ibid. ii/2, 789, 911–12. The topos of Dinah is fluently discussed by M. Erler, Women, reading and piety in late medieval England, Cambridge 2002, introduction, esp. pp. 7–10. She observes that there were two medieval interpretations of Dinah, one attributing her fate to her own gaze and to her being gazed upon, and the other to her wandering.

99 For Archbishop Pecham's emphasis on the chastity of both nuns and monks see J. J. Smith, The attitude of John Pecham toward monastic houses under his jurisdiction, Washington 1949, 89–93. For earlier legislation imposing heavy penalties on all those violating virgins or nuns see, for example, the mid tenth-century legislation of King Edmund and the early eleventh-century Northumbrian priests' law which denied Christian burial to those who violated nuns and died without absolution: Councils and synods, i/1, 63, 466; and see also ii/1, 73 (Salisbury, 1217×1219), 189 (1225×1230?).

100 Councils and synods, ii/2, 911, 1124–5.

101 See Power, Medieval English nunneries, 347–50.

102 Ibid. 346, 353, 367 n. 2.

103 Councils and synods, ii/2, 912. A draft canon for Lambeth had been even more rigorous (ii/2, 1125). See also another statute attributed to Pecham (ii/2, 1122).

104 Tillotson, J., ‘Visitation of the Yorkshire nunneries in the fourteenth century’, Northern History xxx (1994), 1–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar.