Nuns - Notes

1. See J. Burton, ‘The ‘Chariot of Aminadab’ and the Yorkshire priory of Swine’, in Pragmatic Utopias: Ideals and Communities 1200-1630, ed. R. Horrox and S. Rees Jones (Cambridge, 2001), pp. 26- 42 at p. 26.
2. Burton, ‘Chariot of Aminadab’, p. 27.
3. C. Graves, ‘English Cistercian Nuns in Lincolnshire’ Speculum 54: 3 (1979), pp. 492-499 at pp. 495-7.
4. Burton, ‘Chariot of Aminadab’, p. 27.
5. For example, the current work of Dr Elizabeth Freeman of the University of Tasmania.
6. Graves, ‘English Cistercian nuns’, p. 497.
7. J. Burton, The Yorkshire Nunneries in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, Borthwick Papers 56 (York, 1979), p. 24
8. Burton, Yorkshire Nunneries, p. 21; examples include Nun Appleton and Sinningthwaite. See C. Graves, ‘The organization of an English Cistercian nunnery in Lincolnshire’, Cîteaux 33 (1982), pp. 333-350, at pp. 348-350, for the twenty-three dowries that feature in the chartulary of Stixwould Priory. For examples at Esholt Priory, Airedale, see H. E. Bell, ‘Esholt Priory’, Yorkshire Arch. Journal 33 (1938), pp. 5-33, at p. 8.
9. Bell, ‘Esholt Priory’, p. 10.
10. Graves, ‘The organization of an English nunnery’, p. 341.
11. Burton, Yorkshire Nunneries, p. 32; see VCH York III, pp. 170-171.
12. J. Nichols, ‘The organisation of the English nunneries’, Cîteaux 30 (1979), pp. 23-40 at pp. 39-40.
13. Nichols, ‘The organisation of English Cistercian nunneries’, p. 40.
14. See D. Williams, Cistercians in the Early Middle Ages (Leominster, 1998), p. 405.
15. The Register of William Greenfield, Lord Archbishop of York 1306-1315, III, ed. W. Brown and A. H. Thompson, Surtees Soc. 151, no. 1629 (p. 233). Similar warnings were issued to the nuns of Yedingham and Nunkeeling, see ibid., nos. 1327 and 1629 (pp. 85 and 231).
16. Records of Visitations held by William Alnwick, Bishop of Lincoln 1436-1449, ed. A. H. Thompson, Publications of the Lincoln Record Society (1918-1919), II, p. 47.
17. See Burton, ‘Chariot of Aminadab’, p. 34; for Meaux’s version of the event, see Chronica Monasterii de Melsa I ed. E. A. Bond (RS, 1868-88), pp. 354-357.
18. Cited in Williams, Cistercians, p. 411.
19. Bell, ‘Esholt Priory’, p. 8.
20. Nichols, ‘The organisation of English Cistercian nunneries’, p. 25.
21. Graves, ‘The organization of an English nunnery’, p. 340; for the Latin account of this see ibid., p. 347.
22. Nichols, ‘The organisation of English Cistercian nunneries’, p. 25.
23. From an account of Alice de la Flagge, who was unanimously elected prioress of Whistones Priory, Worcestershire, but who, with befitting modesty, resisted this honour until she could resist no more and conceded, Nichols, ‘The internal organisation’, p. 26.
24. Nichols, ‘The organisation of English Cistercian nunneries’, p. 25.
25. Records of Visitations held by William Alnwick, Bishop of Lincoln 1436-1449, II, no. xi (pp. 46-53), at p. 47; this was the prioress of Catesby in 1442. It was also said that she pulled off the nuns’ veils, ibid., p. 49.
26. Nichols, ‘The organisation of English Cistercian nunneries’, p. 27.
27. Records of Visitations held by William Alnwick, Bishop of Lincoln 1436-1449, II, p. 133, pp. 183-7.
28. Register Greenfield, no. 1158 (pp. 12-13).
29. Nichols, ‘The organisation of English Cistercian nunneries’, pp. 28-29; Graves, ‘The organization of an English nunnery’, p. 25; Register Greenfield, p. xxix.
30. Burton, ‘Chariot of Aminadab’, p. 38, argues that whereas the Gilbertine prioresses were subdued by the male components of the Order, male assistants did not diminish the Cistercian prioress’s power and could, in fact, strengthen her position.
31. Records of Visitations held by William Alnwick, Bishop of Lincoln 1436-1449, II, no. xxvi (pp. 116-7).