Medieval English nunneries c. 1275 to 1535 / by Eileen Power.

  • Eileen Power
Date:
1922
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medieval English nunneries c. 1275 to 1535 / by Eileen Power. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    to themselves. The nunnery of Carrow, for instance, was a favourite resort for girls of noble and of gentle birth, but it was also recruited from the daughters of prosperous Norwich citizens; among nuns with well-known county names there were also ladies such as Isabel Barbour, daughter of Thomas Welan, barber, and Joan his wife, Margery Folcard, daughter of John Folcard, alderman of Norwich, and Catherine Segryme, daughter of Ralph Segryme, another alderman; the latter attained the position of prioress at the end of the fifteenth century1. These citizens, wealthy and powerful men in days when Norwich was one of the most important towns in England, probably met on equal terms with the country gentlemen of Norfolk, and both sent their daughters with handsome dowries to Carrow. The nunneries of London and of the surrounding district contained a similar mix¬ ture of classes, ranging from some of the noblest ladies in the land to the daughters of city magnates, men enriched by honourable trade or by the less honourable capitalistic ventures of the king’s merchants. The famous house of Minoresses without Aldgate illus¬ trates the situation very clearly. It was always a special favourite of royalty; and the storm bird, Isabella, mother of Edward III, is by some supposed to have died in the order. She was certainly its constant benefactress2 as were Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester and his wife, whose daughter Isabel was placed in the nunnery while only a child and eventually became its abbess3. Katherine, widow of John de Ingham, and Eleanor Lady Scrope were other aristocratic women who took the veil at the Minories4. But this noble connection did not prevent the house from containing Alice, sister of Richard Hale, fishmonger5, Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Padyngton, fishmonger6, Marion, daughter of John Charteseye, baker7, and Frideswida, daughter of John Reynewell, alderman of the City of London8, girls drawn from the elite of the burgess class. An investigation of the wills enrolled in the Court of Husting shows the relative popularity 1 Rye, Carrow Abbey, App. ix, pp. xvi, xvii, xviii. 2 See Archaeolosia, xv (1806), pp. ioo-ioi: ib. xxxv (1853), p. 464. 3 V.C.H. London, 1, p. 518. 4 Ib. pp. 518-9. 5 Sharpe, op. cit. n, p. 267. Two years previously (1396) John de Nevill had left legacies to his sister Eleanor and to his daughter Elizabeth, minor¬ esses of St Clare; Durham Wills and Inventories (Surtees Soc.), p. 39. 6 Sharpe, op. cit. 11, p. 589.
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