What can we say about the way of life in these nunneries?

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Abbess and nuns
© British Library
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Whereas some nunneries were officially sanctioned by the General Chapter of Cîteaux and formally acknowledged as part of the Cistercian family, others simply claimed a Cistercian identity or were considered Cistercian by others. Communities that were officially accepted as belonging to the Order came under the jurisdiction of the General Chapter and were placed under the direct supervision of a neighbouring Cistercian abbot, who conducted a yearly visitation to oversee discipline and the administration of the house. The Order accepted no such responsibility for unofficial nunneries who were generally subject to their diocesan, whether the bishop, the archdeacon or his representative. Nevertheless, the daily life of the nuns may not have been substantially different.

Many of the Cistercian nunneries in Europe were established in towns, but most of those in England had a rural location. The majority were poorly endowed and were financially rather less well-off than the male houses. Bishop Gravesend of Lincoln (1258-79) remarked on the extreme poverty of the nunneries in his diocese which he himself had witnessed, and claimed that the nuns had scarcely enough to eat.(6) In Yorkshire, Handale, alone had a baronial founder (William de Percy).(7)

An unmarried brother provides for his spinster sister
Ralph of Waterville, who was unmarried, gave the Lincolnshire priory of Stixwould a considerable grant of land and rights when his sister, Muriel, took the habit there. It is interesting to note that Ralph and Muriel’s brother was the abbot of Peterborough (1155-1175),
[Graves, ‘The organization of an English nunnery’, p. 350.]

In most cases the nunneries were founded by important local men, frequently on the understanding that one or several of their daughters might enter the community as a nun; in other words, these grants often functioned as ‘entry fees’.(8) This practice was not peculiar to the nunneries, but it was certainly more common than in the monasteries. The nunneries also received grants to help with running costs, often from relatives of inmates or from members of the locality, sometimes in return for burial within the precinct. These were usually gifts of land, rights, fuel or grain; more unusual bequests include mattresses, gowns, and girdles. In 1341 Elizabeth Patefyn left her sister, the prioress of Esholt, in Yorkshire, all her corn at Burnely and a steed. In the late fifteenth century a local nobleman, William Calverley, left a cow with its calf to his sister who was a nun of Esholt, and five cows with their calves and twenty sheep to his daughter who was also a member of the community there. She received an additional bequest from her uncle of mattress, two coverlets, sheets and blankets.(9)

There were several ways in which a community might seek to reduce its expenditures, primarily by limiting numbers and restricting hospitality, which was often a considerable drain on the community’s resources. Bishop Hugh of Wells fixed the number of nuns at Nun Cotham at thirty and lay-sisters at ten; the male community was to be made up of three chaplains and twelve lay-brothers. (10) When Archbishop Wickwane of York visited Nun Appleton in 1281 he expressed concern at the number of seculars visiting the house and the length of time they were staying. The archbishop stressed that although he had no objection to the nuns offering ‘decent hospitality’ for a night or two, he was concerned that long visits might cripple the community financially and lead to scandal.(11)