Leo Santifaller: Ergänzungsband 2/1. Festschrift zur Feier des 200 jährigen Bestandes des HHStA 2 Bände (1949)
IV. Quellen und Quellenkunde - 31. R. B. Pugh (London): Fragment of an account of Isabel of Lancester, nun of Amesbury, 13331334
487 Fragment of an Account of Isabel of Lancaster, Nun of Amesbury, 1333—4. By R. B. Pugh (London). I Introduction. Amongst the Hampton Manuscripts in the Birmingham Reference Library are to be found the records of the dissolved priory of Westwood, Worcestershire, a house of the Order of Fontevrault. These records include a set of ministers’ accounts, one of which, MS. 473424, was kept by Sir William de Kanigg during the period 22nd February to 29th September 1355. It is written upon what was originally part of the dorse of an account of earlier date. It is the extended text of this earlier account that is printed below1). The manuscript consists of two irregularly-shaped membranes sewn head to foot. The length of the upper membrane is 321/2 inches on one side and 321/8 inches on the other; its breadthis 83 */g inches at the top, 83/4 inches in the middle and 85 */g inches at the bottom. The length of the other membrane is 127/g inches on one side and 13 inches on the other; its breadth is 81/2 inches at the top, 85/g inches in the middle and 83/4 inches at the bottom. At the head of the upper membrane there are sewingholes and a little twine, showing that there was originally a membrane above. There are no corresponding holes at the foot of the lower membrane, which is cut straight; but a fragment of a letter appearing above the line of scission proves that something formerly lay below. The mutilation of the manuscript has deprived posterity of the name and quality of the accountant and the date of the account. Fortunately, however, internal evidence will supply some of these deficiencies. It is at once apparent that the accountant is in the service of a woman of substance who had close connexions with the priory of Amesbury in Wiltshire. Amesbury was of the same Order as Westwood. There are curiously few evidences of any association between the two houses, but the re-use of this scrap of parchment by an officer of the Worcestershire priory in later days is one of them. Further study of the manuscript shows that the father of the accountant’s principal was an earl who lived at Tutbury, Staffordshire, and at Kenilworth, Warwickshire, and that he had other daughters called Lady Wake, Eleanor and Mary. These facts taken together prove that the principal was Isabel, the only unmarried daughter of Henry, third Earl of Lancaster, who professed as a nun at Amesbury on Ascension Day 1327 and later became prioress there2). The date of the account can be determined almost as satisfactorily. In the section called ‘wages of grooms’ the accountant answers for payments made between the morrow *) I am indebted to the late S. C. Ratcliff, my revered master, for bringing this MS. to my notice; to the librarian and staff of the Birmingham Reference Library for easing my access to it; to Mr. A. B. Emden for references in bishops’ registers to Masters Henry de la Dale and Walter de Longstock; to Mr. R. Somerville for reading the transcript and introduction in draft and putting at my disposal his great knowledge of the Duchy of Lancaster records; and to Miss Elizabeth Crittall for helping me to check the text. 2) The Order of Fontevrault was represented in England by the three double houses of Nuneaton (Warwickshire), Westwood and Amesbury and by the community of male religious at Grovebury, near Leighton Buzzard (Bedfordshire), who were the business managers of the English houses. A brief but valuable account of these four communities will be found in an article by Lt. Col. H. F. Chettle in The Downside Review for January 1942, which notices at pp. 43 and 44 the career of Isabel herself.
