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
Account of Isabel of Lancaster. 493 was a powerful nobleman and as patron of the sister house of Nuneaton, Warwickshire, a potential benefactor to the Order1). Indeed in 1331-32 he was paying the prioress of Amesbury a pension2). His son ‘out of the sincere affection that he bore his dearly beloved sister’s later granted to Amesbury the advowson of East Garston, Berkshire, and secured the appropriation of the rectory 3). It would have been folly to pen the gosling whose parent laid such golden eggs. That Isabel led a worldly life there is no shadow of doubt. It is true that she made offerings at the altar and submitted herself to the routine discipline of bleeding. But, as we have seen, she often broke her claustration, held much converse with laymen and kept sporting dogs. Her expenditure on clothing and shoes, wine, sweetmeats and spices was not inconsiderable, though some of the spices may have been used medicinally. She ordered a mazer to be harnessed with a silver-gilt band. She bought, apparently for her own use, a trunk (male), a purse (aloer) and an ebony tablet furnished with a chain and case. At Christmas time she sent for a viol-player and at Epiphany presented the ‘king of the bean’ with two gallons of wine. From other evidence she is known to have owned a book of romances which she sold to Edward III at a high price 4). There is nothing strange in all this. The secular life of English nuns at this time is unhappily a commonplace. What is the importance of this manuscript ? Few accounts of private households earlier than the fifteenth century have survived and fewer still have been printed. Any additional text of early date must therefore be welcome. This, however, is no ordinary account, for the accountant’s mistress was both noblewoman and nun, and the co-existence of these qualities in the same person has seemed a decisive justification for textual reproduction. The dual condition of the principal, however, renders the account an abnormal one. Whether it ever contained (as would be usual in the account of a layman) a section devoted to the daily purchases of food cannot now be determined; but there is at least a possibility that it did not. Isabel lived much apart from the convent; but not wholly so. If a note in the ‘wines’ section of the account has been rightly interpreted she ‘stood at her own costs in all things that she spent outside the hall’; from which we may deduce that she commoned with her sisters in religion and shared their regimen in other ways. If this is so the roll is a record of luxury or extra expenditure—a fact which would at the same time limit and enhance its value to the student of accounting procedure. II Edition. Birmingham Central Reference Library. MS. 473424. GARDEROBA. In j panno camelini pro domina empto continente xxvj virgas lvj s. In xvij ulnis [m.d.] panni bruneti pro ij tunicis domine lxxv s. In iij robis panni straglanti pro coco, gardenario et ballivo de Staundon’ xxxiij s. iiij d. In vij ulnis panni solsequii coloris pro supertunicis estivalibus ad opus domini Petri Colswein et Philippi Lambrist emptis de dono domine xvj s. vij d. ob. In tonsura xvij virgarum panni bruneti ij s. In tonsura panni camelini ij s. quia bis. In tonsura panni straglanti ix d. In tonsura panni coloris solsequii iij d. In scissura iij tunicarum albarum domine et nigrarum per Philippum Lambrist videlicet pro coadjutoriis suis ij s. In emendacione coopertorii lecti domine de bisso per Philippum 1) The account shows him to have visited ‘Eton’ within the year. 2) D. L. 40/1/11 f. 48 v. 3) Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1343-5, 354 (advowson); Calendar of Papal Petitions, I, 98 (rectory); D. L. 42/2 f. 160 v. 4) Chettle loc. cit. quoting Eileen Power: Medieval English Nunneries, 240.
