Woman under Monasticism

It was the duty of the sexton to ring the bells in the women’s part of the house; the ringing of a bell regulated throughout the life of those assembled at Sion. It roused the brothers and sisters from sleep, summoned them to church, called them to meals, and ever and anon gave notice for a devotional pause in whatever occupation was going on at the moment. When one of the community passed away from life the large or curfew bell was tolled continuously.

Another appointment in the women’s convent was that of the legister or reader at meals (c. 50), who was directed to read out distinctly and openly, that all might understand, whatever the abbess or chauntress had assigned. On one day of the week she read out the rule. Absolute silence reigned during meals. If anyone had a communication to make, this was done by means of signs, used also at other times when silence was to be observed. A curious ‘table of signs used during the hours of silence by the sisters and brothers in the monastery of Sion’ was drawn up by Thomas Betsone961, one of the brothers. Together with other tables of the kind, it suggests the origin of the method by which the deaf and dumb were formerly taught.

At Sion the abbess had her meals with the sisters, sitting at a high table while they sat at side tables (c. 51-52), and the servitors or lay sisters waited. When they had done the sisters wiped their knives and spoons on the napkins (without washing them?); they were to guard against spotting the cloth, and spilling the food, and were directed to put away their cups and spoons honest and clean (without washing them?) into the ‘coffyns’ which were kept underneath the table, or in some other place ordered by the abbess. At the end of a meal the sisters swept together the crumbs with their napkins, and then, at a sign from the abbess, they bore the food away to the serving-house. The youngest sister took the first dish, and each one carried away something according to age. The language in which the utensils are described presents some difficulties. They carried away the drink and then ‘the garnapes that they sette on, ther pottes and cruses, after thys, brede, hole, kytte, cantelles, ande crommes, and laste of alle salt,’ ending evermore with the abbess or president, and inclining to each sister as they took them up and they again to them.

The behaviour of the sisters to each other and to the abbess in the refectory, the dormitory, the chapter-house, etc. was carefully regulated (c. 53). The sisters when they met the abbess bowed to her, ‘for love without reverence is but childish love.’ The desire for refinement in bearing and behaviour is manifested throughout by these directions, and some of them are curious. Thus the sister who washed her hands was directed not to ‘jutte up’ the water on another, nor to spit in the lavatory, nor to presume to go without her veil and crown upon her head, except only in her cell, washing-house, etc. Judging from this reference to cells, the dormitory at Sion was divided by partitions or curtains, so that each sister practically had a room to herself.

Many details are then given concerning the duties of the prioress and other appointments. The nuns appointed to enquire into shortcomings are here designated as serchers (c. 55). The treasurer and her fellow kept the muniments of the monastery and its possessions in gold and silver in the treasury, in a large chest to which there were two keys, one kept by the treasurer and the other by her fellow (c. 56). These sisters also provided and paid for all necessary medicines, spices and powders, etc.

Duties of no small importance devolved on the chambres, or mistress of the wardrobe, who saw to the raiment of the sisters and the brothers, both in regard to linen and to woollen clothes, shaping, sewing, making, repairing and keeping them from ‘wormes,’ and shaking them with ‘the help of other sisters.’ I transcribe in the original spelling the things she is told to provide: ‘canuas for bedyng, fryses, blankettes, shetes, bolsters, pelowes, couerlites, cuschens, basens, stamens, rewle cotes, cowles, mantelles, wymples, veyles, crownes, pynnes, cappes, nyght kerchyfes, pylches, mantel furres, cuffes, gloues, hoses, shoes, botes, soles, sokkes, mugdors (sic), gyrdelles, purses, knyues, laces, poyntes, nedelles, threde, —waschyng bolles and sope, – (written in the margin) and for all other necessaries, as directed by the abbess, which shall not be over curious but plain and homely, without wearing of any strange colours of silk, gold or silver, having all things of honesty and profit and nothing of vanity after the rule, their knives unpointed and purses being double of linen cloth, and not silk.’

In illustration of the office of the chambress, Blunt has published a document preserved in the Record Office, which contains the account of Dame Bridget Belgrave, chambress at Sion from Michaelmas 1536 to Michaelmas 1537, the year preceding the dissolution962. This shows that the chambress provided the material for the dress of the sisters and other items. She buys russettes, white cloth, kerseys, fryce, Holland cloth and other linen cloth mostly by the piece, which varies in the number of its yards; she provides soap, calf-skins, thread, needles and thimbles; she purchases new spectacles and has old ones mended. Among many other items of interest we find fox-skins, paper, and pins of divers sorts; she sets down a sum for burying poor folks, and ‘expences at London,’ from which we gather that she had been there; and pays ‘rewards’ and ‘wages’ to the grome, the skynner, and the shumakers.

The duties of the cellaress stand next in the additional rules (c. 56), and they recall the complex duties belonging to the same post at Barking. Blunt has also illustrated these duties by publishing the accounts, rendered by Dame Agnes Merrett, for the last year preceding the dissolution963. This cellaress also charged herself with various sums received for hides, calf-skins and wool-felles or sheep-skins. She received payment for boarding My Lady Kyngeston and her servants, and sister Elizabeth Nelson. She received rent from various tenants and managed the home farm at Isleworth. We hear of her buying horses, cattle, hogs and peacocks for its storing. Its dairy was managed by paid servants. This cellaress, like her fellow at Barking, purchased provisions and fish for the use of the convent, but her entries are more numerous and infer a higher standard of living, perhaps due to the fact that these accounts are more than a hundred years later than the ‘charge of the cellaress at Barking.’ The cellaress at Sion also bought salt salmon, herrings by the barrel, and red herrings by the ‘caade’; also stubbe eels. She further bought spices, fruits, sugar, nutmegs, almonds, currants, ginger, isinglass, pepper, cinnamon, cloves, mace, figge doodes (sic), topnettes (sic), great raisins, prunes, saffron and rice. Her ‘foreign payments’ include seed for the garden, boat-hire, and expenses at London, by which we see that she too, like the chambress of the house, had been there. Among her other expenses are rewards to the ‘clerke of the kechyn,’ the ‘baily of the husbandry,’ the ‘keper of the covent (convent) garden,’ and the ‘cookes.’ Members of the convent were deputed by the abbess to look after the sick (c. 57), and the writer insists upon the need of gentleness and patience in dealing with them.

‘Often change their beds and clothes,’ he says, ‘give them medicines, lay to them plaisters and minister to them meat and drink, fire and water, and all other necessaries night and day, as need requires after the counsel of the physicians, and precept of the sovereign; do not be squeamish in washing and wiping them by avoiding them, be not angry nor hasty, nor impatient though one have the vomit, another the flux, another the frenzy, and now sings, now cries, now laughs, now weeps, now chides, now is frightened, now is wroth, now well apayde, for there be some sickness vexing the sick so greatly and provoking them to ire that the matter drawn up to the brain alienates the mind. And therefore those in attendance should have much patience with them, that thereby they may secure an everlasting crown.’

Aungier has also reprinted lists of the capabilities of indulgence granted to Sion, and of the pardons secured by those who offered prayers in the chapel there964. This shows one of the means by which money was secured to religious houses in the 15th century. Indulgences were granted at Sion on almost every festival in the year. By ‘devoutly giving somewhat to the reparation of the said monastery’ and offering prayers on Midlent Sunday, the visitor at Sion might secure pardon extending from a hundred days to ‘clean remission of all sin except in the points which are reserved to the Pope.’ To give alms on the feast of St Bridget, the patron saint of the house, secured to him who sought help ‘pardon and clean remission in all cases reserved and unreserved,’ according to the wording of the document. This power, as the manuscript informs us, had been granted ‘by diverse holy fathers, popes at Rome, archbishops, bishops, cardinals and legates.’ Aungier supplements it by printing a document which came from Norfolk on the capabilities of pardon possessed by different religious houses965. There are entries in this referring to the ‘pardoun of beyds’ of the Charterhouse of Mount Grace and of the Charterhouse at Sheen, and to the pardon of beads at Sion and at the ‘Crossed Friars’ beside London Tower.

A number of devotional books were written for the nuns at Sion; some in Latin, some in English. A few of the service books of the house have been preserved. Among them is the Martyrology which was in daily use among the brothers and which contains historical memoranda, accounts of the saints, the records of the deaths of the sisters, brothers and benefactors of the house between 1422 and 1639, and extracts from religious writers. This martyrology accompanied the women’s convent on their wanderings, and since their return it has been acquired by the British Museum966. A translation of it into English was made by Richard Whytford († 1542), a brother of Sion, ‘for the edificacyon of certayn religyous persones unlerned that dayly dyd rede the same martiloge in Latyn not understandynge what they redde967.’ Whytford wrote other religious books, among them the ‘Pype or Tonne of Perfection’; the ‘Fruyte of redempcyon,’ which is now held to be by ‘Simon, the anker of London,’ has been attributed to him.

Among other books written for the nuns is a curious discourse in English by Thomas Fishbourne, father confessor in 1420, to which is added a portion of the gospel of St Peter ad Vincula968. It contains a discussion on the nature of pardons and indulgences, particularly of those procured at Rome. Symon Wynter, another brother of the house (1428), wrote a treatise for them in praise of the Virgin (Regina Coeli)969; and Thomas Prestius wrote instructions for the novices970. The house owned a large library, to the celebrity of which Sir Richard Sutton added by a splendid work printed at his expense by Wynkyn de Worde in 1519 and called in honour of the monastery ‘The Orchard of Syon971’.

The most important work in English however compiled for the nuns was a devotional treatise on divine service with a translation into English of the Offices, called the ‘Mirror of Our Lady,’ first printed in 1530, the authorship of which is attributed by its latest editor, Blunt, to Thomas Gascoigne (1403-1458)972. Gascoigne was an eminent divine, at one time Chancellor of the University of Oxford; he caused the life of St Bridget to be translated into English and bequeathed most of his books by will to the sisters at Sion. The Offices in this book are amplified, and Blunt was much struck by the similarity of many passages to the Book of Common Prayer. The purpose of the writer is expressed in the following words973:

‘As many of you, though you can sing and read, yet you cannot see what the meaning thereof is… I have drawn your legend and all your service into English, that you see by the understanding thereof, how worthy and holy praising of our glorious Lady is contained therein, and the more devoutly and knowingly sing it and read it, and say it to her worship.’

The ‘Mirror of Our Lady’ is very instructive with regard to the just estimation of the position and feelings of religious women during the later Middle Ages. There is much in it that is eloquent, refined, and beautiful, but its insistence on detail is sometimes wearisome. The style of the writer is fitly illustrated by the following passages, which are taken from the introductory treatise on the reading of religious books974. The wording of the original is retained as closely as possible, but the spelling is modernized.

‘Devout reading of holy books is called one of the parts of contemplation, for it causes much grace and comfort to the soul if it be well and discreetly used. And much reading is often lost for lack of diligence, that it is not intended as it ought to be. Therefore if you will profit in reading you must keep these five things. First you ought to take heed what you read, that it be such thing as is speedwell for you to read and convenient to the degree you stand in. For you ought to read no worldly matters nor worldly books, namely such as are without reason of ghostly edification or belong not to the need of the house; you ought also to read no books that speak of vanities and trifles, and much less no books of evil or occasion to evil. For since your holy rule forbids you all vain and idle words in all times and places, by the same it forbids you reading of all vain and idle things, for reading is a manner of speaking. The second, when you begin to read or to hear such books of ghostly fruit as accord for you to read or to hear, that then you dispose yourselves thereto with meek reverence and devotion… The third that you labour to understand the same thing that you read. For Cato taught his son to read so his precepts that he understand them. For it is, he says, great negligence to read and not to understand. And therefore when you read by yourself alone you ought not to be hasty to read much at once but you ought to abide thereupon, and sometimes read a thing again twice or thrice or oftener till you understand it clearly. For St Austin said that no man should ween to understand a thing sufficiently in any wise by once reading. And if you cannot understand what you read, ask of others that can teach you. And they that can ought not to be loth to teach others… The fourth thing that is to be kept in reading is that you dress so your intent that your reading and study be not only for to be cunning or for to be able to speak it forth to others, but principally to inform yourself and to set it forth in your own living… The fifth thing is discretion. So that according to the matter you arrange your reading. For you must understand that different books speak in different wise. For some books are made to inform the understanding and to tell how spiritual persons ought to be governed in all their living that they may know how they shall live and what they shall do, how they shall labour in cleansing their conscience and in getting virtues, how they shall withstand temptation and suffer tribulations, and how they shall pray and occupy themselves with ghostly exercise, with many such other full holy doctrines… Other books there be that are made to quicken and to stir up the affections of the soul, as some that tell of the sorrows and dreads of death and of doom and of pains, to stir up the affection of dread and of sorrow for sin. Some tell of the great benefits of our Lord God, how He made us and bought us and what love and mercy He shewed continually to us to stir up our affections of love and of hope in Him. Some tell of the joys of heaven, to stir up the affections of joy to desire thitherward. And some tell of the foulness and wretchedness of sin, to stir up the affections of hate and loathing thereagainst.’