The English Brigittines and Minoresses provide prime examples of nuns’ temporal independence; in these communities are found degrees of financial autonomy and success in keeping with, and possibly enabled by, the enlarged spiritual and material foundations laid down in profession and visitation. I wish to stress that I am not arguing for a simple or direct correlation between modes of profession and visitation and material success or lack thereof. There were certainly Benedictine nunneries (for instance, Barking) that achieved notable economic success, and there were houses of Minoresses (for example, Bruisyard) of decidedly modest means. Furthermore, it is important to note that the much more recent origins of the Franciscan, and especially the Brigittine, Rules allowed for a closer “fit” between monastic theory and later medieval practice than that enabled by the centuries-old Rule of St. Benedict. Clare, Isabella, and Birgitta had the advantage of observing the difficulties inherent in shaping Benedictine monasticism for women, and they were able to craft religious identities with reference to systems of social relations they themselves inhabited.
Houses of Brigittine and Franciscan nuns were fortunate to be not only generally wealthy but also largely independent of secular and ecclesiastical authorities. This status allowed them to manage their property without a great deal of outside intervention and to increase their wealth. Syon’s foundation charter, for example, gives the community significant privileges. Henry V granted that during a vacancy, the nuns would have custody of all lands, rents, tenements, profits, and emoluments “without the interference of us, our heirs or successors.”1 They were not even required to present “any accounts thereof … to us, our heirs or successors” at the time of the vacancy.2 When a new abbess was created, the charter ensured that the community would not have to pay any charges for the right to nominate, nor would they “be charged in future with the giving, granting, or assigning of any pension, portion or maintenance for any person or persons at the request of us, our heirs, or successors.”3 This was no small freedom, since the right of a founder to nominate women religious or corrodians was a common feature of nunneries’ foundation charters. Supporting those nominated members of the community could be a financial as well as a social burden for the nuns.4
In 1447, Syon was granted “vast liberties … so that the tenants upon its estates were almost entirely exempt from royal justice.”5 Their perquisites of justice extended to “all issues and amercements, redemptions and forfeitures as well before our heirs and successors, as before the chancellor, treasurer and barons of our exchequer, the justices and commissioners of us, our heirs or successors whomsoever made, forfeited or adjudged … of all the people … in the lordships, lands, tenements, fees and possessions aforesaid.”6 In the Valor Ecclesiasticus Syon’s income from all its perquisites of court was 133li 0s 6d out of a total income of 1944li 11s 5 1/4d,7 so these privileges clearly did much to add to Syon’s great wealth. Building on such grants and privileges, Syon became the wealthiest nunnery in England.
Syon’s foundation charter also manifests the abbess’s power in the Brigittine tradition, stressing her control of the house’s resources. It states that Matilda Newton, whom Henry V preferred as abbess, and her successors, “shall preside over the nuns or sisters aforesaid, and take upon themselves the whole government of the aforesaid monastery, as well in spirituals as temporals, and that they shall do and execute those things which in anywise do or may belong to the abbess of the said place, (excepting only that the same confessor shall preside over the aforesaid religious men in spirituals as is aforesaid).”8 A letter written to the abbess of Syon by a servant makes clear that the authority constructed for her in profession and visitation and reiterated in the foundation charter was recognized in materially significant ways. The servant reports to the abbess that as promised he has “delyuered to maister confessor a bill of all the some of wode in eny lordship that I haue sold & taken money for sethen I was furst offecer.”9 He says that of the total sum he delivered 3li 11s 4d to the Lord of Surrey’s officer since that officer claimed that amount of wood as his. Thus, he continues:
the hole some with that cometh to xvli viiis iiiid[.] [O]f this xvli viiis iiiid[,] xiiili part of xxxili that my ladie alowed me in myn acount is parte ther of as the boke of acount will shewe[.] [T]his will I abide bie[.] [I]f eny persone or persones will sey the contrarie[,] or that I haue done eny extorcion[,] taken eny brybes[,] or mysordered my self wetyngly & wylfully in eny cause othrwyse than a true crysten man or true offecer shuld[,] so lete hym or theym be cald be fore you & your councell & I in lyke case[.] & in eny thyng then so proued contrarie to this my wrytyng take of me what ye will in satesfaccon.10
The letter attests to the abbess’s active involvement in the details of the house’s business, and the servant responds to her as he would to any man of business. The details show that he fully expects the abbess to comprehend accounts, and he clearly thinks that she will be up to date on the state of the house’s possessions. Since Syon was a community in which female education and literacy flourished, the servant’s belief that the abbess would be well equipped to manage the house’s considerable resources was likely accurate.11 The servant’s statement concerning the funds “that my ladie alowed me” reveals both the abbess’s secular dignity in the form of address (“my ladie”) and her authoritative agency in the allocation of resources. The fact that the servant reports to the abbess having delivered the bill of sale to the master confessor underscores her role as the community’s chief administrator of money and property. Furthermore, the servant’s concern with proving he has not taken bribes or otherwise behaved improperly highlights the abbess’s status as an acknowledged judge of morality and equity with the power to punish transgressions.
The Syon servant’s addressing the abbess as “my ladie” also suggests that in daily life, as in visitation practices, the high social status of the Brigittine nuns may have enhanced their independence. St. Birgitta herself was, after all, connected with the royal house of Sweden, a fact that certainly helped her further her efforts to found a new religious order (and that may well have helped to protect her from the worst sort of persecution faced by less well-connected holy women, visionaries, and religious reformers, including Margery Kempe, who identified so closely with Birgitta). Religious identity and social identity are not entirely separable, even though theoretically both men and women religious leave behind their secular identities upon entry into a monastic order. The assertion of female power at Syon is thus simultaneously an assertion of aristocratic privilege, just as the symbolic capital available to Benedictine brides of Christ works in concert with the aristocratic origins of the Barking nuns to enhance their ability to command social and spiritual respect.
English Minoresses share with the Brigittines an aristocratic heritage, tracing their lineage back to Isabella’s own foundation of Longchamp. English communities of Minoresses also possessed privileges nearly as enviable as those of Syon. The London Minoresses, like the Brigittines, enjoyed significant independence from secular authority which bolstered their wealth and their ability to administer their resources. For instance, as a consequence of a 1404 grant by Henry IV, which exempted the community from all lay jurisdiction except in cases of treason or felony touching the Crown, they were entirely outside even the mayor of London’s jurisdiction.12
The Minoresses also had important ecclesiastical freedoms which enhanced their material circumstances. Bulls from 1295 and 1296 exempted the London house “from episcopal and archiepiscopal jurisdictions, payment for chrism, sacraments, and consecration of their church and altars and excommunication by bishops and rectors.” As Martha Carlin observes, “These privileges reduced the nuns’ obligations to and dependence on their parish church (St. Botolph Aldgate) and its rector, the prior and convent of Holy Trinity.” Additionally, in 1303, the London community’s