Prioress

“ The porter admitted all three of them through this door, and from that point they reached the inner, reserved parlor where Fauchelevent, on the preceding day, had received his orders from the prioress.
The prioress, rosary in hand, was waiting for them. A vocal mother, with her veil lowered, stood beside her.
A discreet candle lighted, one might almost say, made a show of lighting the parlor.
The prioress passed Jean Valjean in review. There is nothing which examines like a downcast eye. ”

“ The prioress is another respectable person, coy and simple, with dainty fingers, small mouth, and clean attire,—a refined sort of a woman for that age, ornamented with corals and brooch, so stately as to be held in reverence, yet so sentimental as to weep for a mouse caught in a trap: all characteristic of a respectable, kind-hearted lady who has lived in seclusion. ”

“ Here is what some tale-bearing nuns told the Bishop of Lincoln about their Prioress, fifty years after Chaucer wrote the Canterbury Tales. [pg 090] 'The Prioress,' they said with their most sanctimonious air, wears golden rings exceeding costly, with divers precious stones and also girdles silvered and gilded over and silken veils and she carries her veil too high above her forehead, so that her forehead, being entirely uncovered, can be seen of all, and she wears furs of vair. Also she wears shifts of cloth of Rennes, which costs sixteen pence the ell. ”

“ The prior leaves the high altar, and hastens to the stranger-penitent, who, murmuring in a failing voice that he hears spirits calling him to death and judgment, sinks into the arms of the priest, and whispers a bequest of all that he owns to the convent; praying only that he may be buried there. Meantime, the nuns, novices, and boarders, have all been driven off to their cells by the prioress, who had overheard a faint scream from one of them. ”

“ To the prioress most specially belongs the responsibility of seeing that all these rules be observed, and that if any rule has been neglected, the offence be not passed over, but carefully corrected and punished; it being, of course, open to her to refer to the presbyter any matter that goes beyond her province or power. But let her count herself happy not in exercising the power which rules, but in practising the love which serves. In honour in the sight of men let her be raised above you, but in fear in the sight of God let her be as it were beneath your feet. ”

“ Item, it is discovered that the Prioress is a suspicious woman and too credulous and breaks out at a mere word into correction, and frequently punishes unequally for the same fault and pursues with long rancour those whom she dislikes, until the time of their vindication cometh; whence it befals that the nuns, when they suspect that they are going to be burdened with too heavy a correction, procure the mitigation of her severity by means of the threats of their relatives. ”

“ Upon the Prioress's table, lay a beautifully executed copy of the Pope's mandate. Beside it, carefully pieced together, the torn fragments of the Bishop's copy.
Also, open upon the table, lay the Gregorian Sacramentary, and near to it strips of parchment upon which the Prioress had copied two of those ancient prayers, appending to each a careful translation.
These are the sixth century prayers which the Prioress had found comfort in copying and translating, during the long hours of her vigil.
O God, the Protector of all that trust in Thee, without Whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy ”

“ For the charge that the Prioress made the nuns work, compare the case of Eleanor Prioress of Arden in 1396 (pp. 85-6 below) and the case of the Prioress of Easebourne in 1441: “Also the Prioress compels her sisters to work continually like hired workwomen (ad modum mulieres conducticiarum) and they receive nothing whatever for their own use from their work, but the prioress takes the whole profit (totum percipit) .” ”

“ And let bailiffs be constituted of sufficient faculties and of commendable discretion and fidelity, the best that can be found, and let them similarly render due account every year before the same prioress and convent.... Furthermore we will that the Prioress and convent of the aforesaid house do not sell or concede in perpetuity or grant for a term corrodies, stipends, liveries or pensions to clerics or to laymen, save with our licence first sought and obtained [754] . ”

“ The fierce bigotry of the Prioress forms a fine back ground for her tender-hearted sympathies with the Mother and Child; and the mode in which the story is told amply atones for the extravagance of the miracle.— W. W. (added in 1827) .
In the editions of 1820 and 1827 The Prioress' Tale followed The White Doe of Rylstone. ”

“ At two other houses there were complaints against the head; at Legbourne Dame Sibil Papelwyk said that the Prioress was not indifferent in making corrections, but treated some too hardly and others too favourably; and at Heynings Dame Alice Porter said that the Prioress was an accepter of persons in making corrections,
for those whom she loves she passes over lightly, and those whom she holds not in favour she harshly punishes ... ”

“ The Prioress, considering that such self-will would cause much trouble, consulted with the Princess, her mother, that it would be better if the lady took a part of the house, where she could live with her servants and be visited by secular people, with a door to go to the cloister when she wished, but not any secular person to use it. ”

“ Even with this palliation, when the nuns put on this chemise on the 14th of September, they suffer from fever for three or four days. Obedience, poverty, chastity, perseverance in their seclusion,-- these are their vows, which the rule greatly aggravates.
The prioress is elected for three years by the mothers, who are called meres vocales because they have a voice in the chapter. A prioress can only be re-elected twice, which fixes the longest possible reign of a prioress at nine years. ”

“ The predicament of the Prioress is easily understood; how was she to refuse her noble brother and the Abbot of Roche? They could bring to bear far more pressure than a distant archbishop, who came upon his visitations at long intervals. Moreover the ever present need of ready money made the resistance of nuns less determined than it might otherwise have been; for a dowry in hand they were, as usual, willing to encumber themselves with a new mouth to feed throughout long years to come. ”

“ If a Prioress were found to be hopelessly incompetent or unscrupulous, but not bad enough to be deprived of her position, Bishops sometimes took the extreme measure of appointing one or more coadjutresses, to govern the house in conjunction with her; and often (even when there was no complaint against the Prioress) the nuns were ordered to elect treasuresses, to receive and disburse the income of the house from all sources. ”

“ By remaining with us you may find you have a vocation. Other women have persevered and discovered in the end—" The Prioress's face changed expression, and Evelyn began to think that perhaps the Prioress had discovered a vocation in herself, after long waiting, and though she had become Prioress discovered too late that perhaps she had been mistaken. ”

“ The danger of autocratic government to the convent is obvious; and it is significant that a really bad prioress is nearly always charged with having failed to communicate with her sisters in matters of business, turning all the revenues to any use that she pleased. ”

“ The wicked Prioress of Littlemore was found in 1517 to have ordered her nuns on virtue of their obedience to reveal nothing to the commissioners and in 1518 it was stated that she had punished them for speaking the truth at the visitation. V.C.H. Lincs. II, p. 75. At Flixton in 1514 it was said: “The sisters scarce dare to depose the truth on account of the fierceness of the prioress.” Visit. of the Dioc. of Norwich, ed. Jessopp (Camden Soc.) , p. 143. For episcopal injunctions against revealing or quarrelling over detecta made at the visitation, see Linc. Visit. ”

“ For this reason ‘the sub-prioress, sexton and other such officers shall not be chosen but appointed as the prioress desires,’ and if the sub-prioress does wrong and refuses to mend her ways ‘out of the flock she shall be fled.’
The duties of the person second in authority consisted in seeing that the hours of divine service were rightly kept. A manuscript now at Oxford, written in English, which came from Barking nunnery gives directions as to the formal appointment of the prioress in that house [921] . It belongs to the end of the 14th century. ”

“ Sometimes the revelation of convent secreta was made in a spirit of pure gossip, rather than with the object of obtaining external aid; the complaint of the nuns of Catesby in 1442 that the Prioress’ mother “knows well the secrets of the chapter and publishes them in the town; so also does the Prioress publish them,” and that of the nuns of Gracedieu in 1440-1 that “the Prioress makes the secrets of their religious life common among the secular folk that sit at table with her” are typical of many others [1500] . ”

“ But the cases (quoted below) of the prioresses of St Michael’s Stamford and of Gracedieu prove that an aged and impotent head was bad for the discipline of the house, and it appears that a prioress who was too old or in too weak health to fulfil her arduous duties, was often allowed to resign or was relieved of her office [175] . Sometimes an ex-superior continued to live a communal life as an ordinary nun, under her successor, but sometimes she was granted a special room and a special allowance of food and attendance. ”

“ Item, a lady who goes a long distance to visit her friends, in the aforesaid form, should return to the house within a month at the latest, or within a shorter space if it be assigned her by the Prioress, having regard to the distance or proximity of the place, where dwell the friends whom she is going to visit, but a longer term ought the Prioress never to give her, save in the case of death, or of the known illness of herself or of her near friends. ”

“ The Superior and the Superioress commonly pay them a Visit: Towards the time of Recreation the Superioress tinkles her Bell, to which the Prioress answers by her’s, and the Hermits of both Sexes tinkle their’s also, as a Token that they have heard their Summons to their Superior. ”

“ You can well understand that, the responsibility for the good conduct of that entire Community resting upon the Prioress, she is bound to regard with disfavour any innovation which might tend to provoke a scandal. ”

“ The fundamental difficulty was that the bishop was obliged in the nature of things to trust largely to the prioress and to the nuns themselves to enforce his decrees. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Sometimes the very women whom he singled out for special trust were subsequently found to be worse than their sisters. Indeed it is sometimes difficult to account for the principle on which coadjutresses were appointed. ”

“ When convicted of the fault, it is her duty to submit to the corrective discipline which may be appointed by the prioress or the prior. If she refuse to submit to this, and does not go away from you of her own accord, let her be expelled from your society. ”

“ The account of Margaret Ratclyff, Prioress of Swaffham Bulbeck in 1482, contains notice of payments “to the official of the lord bishop, at the installation of the said prioress for his fee i. li.” and to one Bridone “for the transcript of the decree of election of the prioress v. s.” [156] . ”

“ When she was young she was something of a religious enthusiast, and because enthusiasm was rare in the cloister, she was promoted by her sisters to high station. When they made her Sacrist she had her one and dearest wish. To have the charge of the beautiful [Pg 85] church, of the books, vestments and jewels of the sanctuary, to live in the holy place, with holy thoughts for companions, and in the unfailing round of holy duties—was not that a happy lot? Dignified too the office was; for in the little cloister world the Prioress herself was scarcely a greater lady than the Sacrist. ”

“ Also ... that the secrets of the house are disclosed in the neighbourhood by such seculars when they come there. Also the nuns do send out the serving-folk of the priory on their businesses and do also receive the persons for whom they send and with whom they hold parleyings and conversations, whereof the Prioress is ignorant [1238] . ”

“ Thou Christian Bishop, thou Lord Chancellor Of England! no more rein upon thine anger Than any child! Thou mak'st me much ashamed That I was for a moment wroth at thee. MARY. I come for counsel and ye give me feuds, Like dogs that set to watch their master's gate, Fall, when the thief is ev'n within the walls, To worrying one another. My Lord Chancellor, You have an old trick of offending us; And but that you are art and part with us In purging heresy, well we might, for this Your violence and much roughness to the Legate, Have shut you from our counsels. ”

“ Yet, for all her worthiness, she was not reverend. Also I have heard tell of a certain Prior, not many miles from here, who, borrowing money, never repays it; who oppresses the poor, driving them from the Priory gate; who maltreats the monks, and is kind unto none, saving unto himself. ”

“ I have seen an individual of this justly respected class, who had been long employed in diplomatic business, and even honoured with the title of minister plenipotentiary, the son-in-law and nephew of colonels and town mayors, and, on his mother’s side, nephew of a lieutenant-general with a cordon rouge, unable to introduce his sons as sous-lieutenants into a regiment of foot.
Another decision of the Court, which could not be announced by an edict, was that all ecclesiastical benefices, from the humblest priory up to the richest abbey, should in future be appanages of the nobility. ”