The Night Stair

Original photo from 1990 dig showing spiral stair
© Albion Archaeology, reproduced with permission

In 1990, workmen digging new drains on the south side of St Peter's church in Harrold uncovered the remains of a medieval spiral staircase.  There are no obvious clues as to what these stairs were for, but the assumption was made that they were something to do with the former Harrold Priory, which was known to be sited to the south of the church.

The remains form part of the foundations of the south east corner of the south aisle.  This aisle, it is clear from the records, archaeology and walls, was shortened at some stage in the late middle ages or early Tudor period.  Even before this shortening, a large doorway had been cut into this wall immediately above the remains of the staircase: this doorway was later blocked again on the outside, but is still clearly visible from within the church, where it can be seen behind the organ.

The 1990 work was overseen by Albion Archaeology from Bedford, and no further traces of Harrold Priory were found.  However, based on existing remains and archaeological work on other nunneries in England it is possible to speculate that the steps found at Harrold were the remains of the nuns' 'night stair'.   An example of one of these is described by Roberta Gilchrist and Marilyn Oliva at Carrow Priory in Norfolk.  This had a layout typical of medieval nunneries, with a row of monastic buildings joining the church at the south aisle - at the same point that the Harrold stair was discovered.  Carrow's stairs were in a 'slype' at the south transept, and led down from the nuns' dormitory.  They were used to allow the nuns access to their chapel for the night services (matins at 2 am daily).

Carrow's layout, with night and day rooms plus chapter house to the south of the church, and with cloisters attached to the west of these, was common enough both in women's houses and in men's.  Carrow had many similarities to Harrold Priory, having been founded in the same period, having been on the edge of a village, and having accommodated a maximum of a dozen nuns.  Carrow, like Harrold, was never well endowed and struggled on small benefactions and rents from landholdings.

Plan of Carrow Priory in Norfolk (source: georgeplunkett.co.uk)

The night stair idea at Harrold does not fit the evidence readily, though.  Why was it removed and built over?  When the door was cut into the south aisle, how did the nuns gain access from the dortor at night?   One possible explanation is that the remains discovered in 1990 were from very early in the Priory's life, and were in something like Carrow's slype, attached to the main aisle or nave of St Peter's.  When, in the 14th century, a new south aisle was constructed, the nun's access to the church was rebuilt further south.  In this scenario the new night stairs would be in a lobby or slype, which would then give access to the south aisle via a new doorway.

It is also possible that there was more than one chapel to the south, as can be seen at Carrow.  Perhaps the nuns had a private chapel to the south of the chancel (where there are no windows), while there was a new general 'public' aisle to the south of the nave.  This again was a common medieval arrangement where the nuns shared their space of worship with the townsfolk. We do know from the Harrold Cartulary (a collection of legal documents, now in the British Museum), that the nuns' chapel was distinct from the main church, as the bishop of Lincoln had to remind the Prioress of her duty to supply bread and wine for both the main church and the nuns' private chapel (Document 207 cited in Fowler 1935).

A conjectural plan of Harrold Priory, taking the Carrow model, would have accommodation extending south from the main church, and forming the east side of the cloister.  The west side would be service accommodation - kitchens (possibly with running water in an artificial stream beneath), brewery, dairy, stores, etc.  The north side of the cloister would adjoin the church's south aisle while the south side of the cloister would be enclosed.  But whereas the nuns of Carrow built a new guest wing and infirmary to the west of the cloister in the late middle ages, at Harrold - we can speculate - a new 'modern' building of this kind went up to the east of the cloister.  This was a more serviceable and comfortable building, with the Prioress's private lodgings as well as rooms with fireplaces for corrodians (people who had paid to be cared for in their old age).  If the Norfolk pattern from Carrow was repeated in Bedfordshire, at the time of the dissolution this new wing was then remodeled into what then became known as Harrold Hall.


References

• Gilchrist, Roberta, and Marilyn Oliva (1993), Religious women in medieval East Anglia, Norwich: University of East Anglia
• Fowler, G. Herbert (1935), Bedfordshire Historical Records Society volume 17

For more photographs of the Nuns' Stream and other remains, please visit my Harrold Priory collection on Flickr.

The Nuns' Stream

Remains of what may have been the walls of the Priory grounds

In 1268 Prioress Amice obtained the permission of Ralf Morin IV (Lord of the Manor of Harrold) to divert a brook.   As part of this agreement the Prioress undertook not to use the brook to drive a mill. The records do not specify where the stream was, but there is only one brook anywhere near to the site, the one running down what is now called Church Walk and then into the Great Ouse river.  This stream seems to have formed the western boundary of the Priory, and there are what appear to be the remains of substantial stone walls still standing here at what was probably the north west corner of the Priory precincts.

In their authoritative study of nunneries in East Anglia, Roberta Gilchrist and Marilyn Oliva found no evidence of diverted streams: indeed they point out that while the practice was common in men-only monasteries, "female houses seldom possessed such elaborate facilities".  Water was diverted to provide fresh water for the kitchens and channels to flush the monastic latrines. Eileen Power described how Abbess Euphemia had ordered a stream to be diverted for this purpose at Wherwell Abbey in the 13th century.  The agreement between Prioress Amice and Ralph Morin tells us that the new water course was not used for milling, but has no further details as to its purpose.

In September 2014 some local residents and I made a close inspection of the stream.  We had previously found a reference on the 1902 Ordnance Survey map to "sluices" part the way down the stream, as well as two footbridges.  We found no clear evidence of either, although there were some remains of a concrete structure on the bed of what we were now calling the Nuns' Stream.  However, we did find that downstream from the Wellocks bridge by Church Walk for about 100 metres, the stream had been carefully and substantially culverted between stone walls.  These were about 2 metres in height and extended the length of the stream to about 30 metres beyond the point where we suppose the sluices were installed (the stream takes a sharp right hand turn at this point).

What appears to be an arched entrance to a new underground
stream feeding the Priory with fresh water

The walls to the culvert are heavily overgrown now, and in places have been undermined by
flooding, but are still clearly visible.  As they follow the stream down from Wellocks, the space widens from about two metres to around five at its widest point.  This, with the stream being dammed by sluices lower down, would have created a very substantial artificial pond with a large head of water.  About a metre down from the top of the culverting, immediately before where we imagine the sluices were, there appear to be the remains of an arched opening to an underground channel to take water to the Priory.

This evidence, though, is inconclusive as the stream is heavily silted up at this point.  There is no evidence of the Priory stream today and it is likely to have been built over by later development in the 19th and 20th century.  However, on the opposite side of the former Priory site, along the banks of the Great Ouse, there are the remains of what appears to be a substantial stream or drain originating in the the remains of the Priory or Hall.  The outflow here is said to be arched and built of stone, similar to what we observed at the Nuns' Stream side of the site.  The remains are close to a Victorian boathouse, but have been buried in recent landscaping work by one of the local residents. This outflow is also visible on 19th century ordnance survey maps.

The new pond: stone lined, two metres deep and 5 metres wide
at this point.  A substantial body of water to feed the Priory.

It is possible that these works were done by one or other of the tenants at Harrold Hall, rather than the nuns at the Priory.  However, the stonework appears to be well weathered and consistent with other late medieval stonework nearby, such as the walls of St Peter's church.  My guess is that the nuns had the stream culverted in the 13th century, with an underground stream running to the western side of their cloister where perhaps there were kitchens or latrines.  The stream then carried on out and discharged into the Great Ouse. The flow of water into this culvert was controlled by means of sluices which kept a large head of water in the artificial pond on the edge of the site, and backing up Church Walk towards the High Street.


References

• Power, Eileen (1922), Medieval English nunneries c. 1275 to 1536. Cambridge. [available through Project Guttenburg]
• Gilchrist, Roberta, and Marilyn Oliva (1993), Religious women in medieval East Anglia, Norwich: University of East Anglia
• Fowler, G. Herbert (1935), Bedfordshire Historical Records Society volume 17

For more photographs of the Nuns' Stream and other remains, please visit my Harrold Priory collection on Flickr.

Where was Harrold Priory?

Victorian maps of Harrold show the site of the Priory being to the south west of the main village, on a spot now occupied by Harrold Priory Middle School.  Archaeological work on the site in 2005 found considerable medieval remains here.  It would have been a sound choice for siting the Priory - being on slightly raised ground and so less liable to winter flooding.  In an earlier period than the map, the main east-west road ran along what is shown as an avenue of trees north of the Hall and along Wellocks, shown here as FP (footpath).  This would confirm the complaint of the nuns that being alongside the road was ruinous in terms of the hospitality they had to provide to travelers.

The 1901 Ordnance Survey map, showing the Priory top left, separate from Harrold Hall.
Source Bedford Community Archives

  

However, this map and others have the location wrong.  We know that the Priory did in fact flood (another of the nuns' compaints) and that it was located to the south side of the church, on the estate occupied in 1901 by Harrold Hall.  Some stone coffins, thought to have belonged to some of Harrold's nuns, was found in the grounds in 1890, and was moved to the porch of St Peter's church.  As the Bedfordshire Mercury reported the finds on 14th May 1887: “A stone coffin, seven feet long and about three wide, has recently been found by some men employed by Mr.G.Osborne, contractor, while digging in a shrubbery at Harrold Hall; and Mr.R.C.Alston has taken charge of it”.

The confusion, according to the Harrold Archaelogical Assessment, was caused in the late 18th century when print makers Samuel and Nathaniel Buck mistakenly labelled a building being used as a barn at Harrold Manor as being the former Priory Refectory.  The confusion here was the assumption that Manor and the Hall were the same property.  However, this print gained authority and was published in the Victoria County History, and the mistake found its way into early editions of the Ordnance Survey.  Even recent publications repeat the mistake - for example Geoffrey Boyer's brief history of Harrold in 1995.  And, of course, Harrold Priory Middle School, built on what was then thought to be the site of the medieval priory.

The engravings are of excellent quality, and to add to the confusion, in the background is a medieval chapel - although the Priory was alongside St Peter's church, the nuns of Harrold had their own separate chapel.  However, we do know that by 1292 the Manor had been granted licence to reopen a separate chapel there.  It is likely that these buildings were demolished in about 1890 and their remains are now under the school grounds, where earthworks are still visible, and where substantial quantities of medieval pottery have been found.

The Bucks' 18th century print, mistakenly describing these buildings as originally being part of Harrold Priory.

Source

• Harrold Archaeological Assessment (2003) , Document 2000/64, Produced for Bedfordshire County Council and English Heritage, available here
• Bowyer, Geoffrey A. (1995), A Bedfordshire village, a Bedforshire family, published privately.

Children at Harrold Priory

Harrold Priory may have taken in orphans, both during the plague years and at other times, and certainly took in children as boarders.  There is a record that in 1401-1402 the Priory received alms and gifts of 76 shillings and 8 pence, out of total income for the year of £60.  Further dontations in the accounts were for the boarding of three children at £7 and 10 shillings, of which £6 12s. 4d. was for the board of 'Lady de Ponynges', the daughter of Sir Reginald de Grey (Tillotson 1989).  De Grey was at the time being held hostage by Owain Glyndwr and the grant was made by his feoffee (trustee) Sir Gerard Braybrooke, who was the local Member of Parliament in this part of Bedfordshire and a generous patron of Harrold Priory.  Although Sir Reginald was eventually released (through the good offices of his friend Braybrooke), it may have been considered safest to keep his daughter Elizabeth Eleanor Grey (1393-1448) lodged in Harrold, far away from the fighting in Wales. Eleanor was only 8 or 9 at this time, although already married to Sir Robert Poynings.  The de Grey family continued to be patrons of St Peter's church, Harrold right up until recent years.

A child receives medical attention
British Library, MS 42130, f. 61r. Gallican Psalter 
(‘the Luttrell Psalter’,1325-1340)

Boys boarding at Harrold would have been moved to a monastery as soon as they were old enough.  When Bishop Alnwick visited Harrold in 1440, he set an upper age limit of 11 for boys and 12 for girls.  The Prioress, Dame Alice Decun confirmed that there were children living in the Priory at the time, two girls aged 6 or 7 who were sleeping in the nuns' dormitory (Power 2010).

A century later, at the dissolution in 1536, it was noted that there were three children living at Harrold Priory.  Dr Layton, the King's agent implied that the Priory had ceased to be in any real sense a religious house. He declared that he found there a prioress and four or five nuns, of whom one had 'two fair children' and another 'one child and no more'; (taken from The House of Austin Nuns 1904).

Layton was sneering about these children and made the assumption that these were the nuns' own offspring, the product of a dissolute lifestyle (the same assumptions were made about children living at the time in nearby Elstow Abbey).  It is likely, though, that children at Harrold and other nunneries were orphans or were otherwise being cared for as charity.  This would have been as natural to the nuns as caring for the sick or providing hospitality to travelers.  The children would probably also have received an education.


Sources

• William Page (editor) (1912), A History of the County of Bedford: Volume 3, Victoria County History, pp.63-68
• Power, Eileen (1922), Medieval English Nunneries: C1275 to 1535, Cambridge University Press
• Tillotson, John H. (1989), Marrick Priory: A nunnery in late medieval Yorkshire, Borthwick Institute Publications.
• 'House of Austin nuns: The priory of Harrold', A History of the County of Bedford: Volume 1 (1904), pp. 387-390.

Financial mismanagement and fraud

As holders of the 'livings' of the parishes of Harrold, Stevington and Brayfield, as well as other properties further afield, Harrold should have been well provided for materially. But as we have noted in an earlier blog, by the 15th century at least, poverty was a fact at the Priory.  In about 1402 they made their case for additional funds: not only was the cost of providing hospitality prohibitive, but "on account of the flooding of a certain great river called the Owse they very often suffered great losses; that its houses, buildings and inclosures were in a ruinous state, and that its fruits, &c were insufficient for such hospitality, for rebuilding and for other burdens..." (cited in the Victoria County History 1912).

How can this have happened?  Where did the money go?  There are three possible explanations: firstly the costs associated with these estates, particularly the churches; secondly financial mismanagement by successive Prioresses; and thirdly fraudulent or deceptive transactions carried out by the Priory's lay patrons.  At times the problems could have been a combination of all three.

St Mary's, Stevington. The various additions of the middle
ages are clearly seen, including chapels which were later
abandoned.  Harrold Priory would have paid for these changes

The 'livings' of the parishes listed above brought income, certainly, but they also brought costs.  The Priory would be responsible for the stipends (salaries) of the cannons (priests) at Harrold, Stevington and Brayfield, and they would also have had to pay for building and maintenance.  The 12th,13th and early 14th centuries saw a more than doubling of the population in Bedfordshire, particularly in rural areas.  The churches were forced to adapt their buildings, and Harrold and Stevington in particular added new aisles, chapels and windows to accommodate the increased numbers of worshipers.  Each of the churches added or enlarged towers during this period, with St Peter's at Harrold building the elegant spire we still see today.

There were other costs associated with the Priory's role: for example the bridge and causeway across the Great Ouse at Harrold was built and maintained jointly by the manors of  Odell, Carlton and Chellington and Harrold Priory.   It may be that in more experienced hands these costs and transactions would have been managed well, but Harrold Priory, it seems, did not always have capable leaders.  Things would certainly have been much more difficult after the arrival of the Black Death in 1348: the revenues of all landowners including the communities at Harrold and Lavendon, were squeezed as labourers died and the survivors demanded better pay for their services.  Many tenant farms lay uncultivated for generations: rentals dropped or dried up altogether and it was another 400 years before the population levels had recovered.

In 1442-1443 Bishop Alnwick of Lincoln complained that the Prioress of Harrold non reddidit compotum, meaning that she had not submitted annual accounts.  Indeed it seemed that she kept no records at all of transactions and had therefore been compromised when tradespeople demanded double the payment for goods or services than had been agreed.  As well as other shortcomings, the Bishop noted that the Prioress had sold a corrody (a lifetime's allowance of shelter, food and drink) for 20 marks, presumably far less than it cost to provide.  She was also rebuked for allowing woodland belonging to the Priory to be cut down, timber being a highly valued resource for building and for firewood.

At the time of the Bishop's visit, Harrold was in debt to the tune of 20 marks (13 pounds 12 shillings and 8 pence), a substantial amount equivalent to several months of rental income, but by no means the highest level of debt in the diocese.  But the Bishop singled out Harrold and stipulated in detail the type of agreements for which the Prioress was required to gain prior approval from Lincoln - contracts, grants of land, pensions, annuities, etc.  To make it clear, he told her that she and her successors must agree to this arrangement "vnder the payne of priouacyone" (Power, 2010, p.226).  All of this suggests that there was little attention being paid to these things and that the Priory's estates were being whittled away.

There was also the suggestion that some of the Priory's patrons were advising the nuns, not in the interests of the community but to the patrons' benefit.  This included the Priory selling or making grants of land or other property to local landowners at below market rates.  The Bishop's representatives also believed that the nuns had been fraudulently deceived in some cases and had signed documents written in latin without having any idea what they were giving assent to.

Interestingly, the same accusations were made in 1536 by the King's commissioner Dr Layton when he reported to Thomas Cromwell prior to the closure of Harrold Priory. Layton describes how "Lord Mordaunt had induced the prioress and her 'foolish young flock' to break open the coffer containing the charters of the priory, and to seal a writing in Latin of which they did not understand a word, but were told it was merely the lease of an impropriate benefice. 'All say they durst not say him nay,' he adds; 'and the prioress saith plainly that she would never consent thereto.'" (taken from A History of the County of Bedford, Volume 1).   Lord Mordaunt's ancestral seat was in nearby Turvey.  As the History's author notes, there is no actual evidence against the patron, "But unhappily there is nothing at all improbable in the story of Lord Mordaunt and the charters. The patron of a house so small and so poor would be in a position to take a very high hand with the little convent, especially as one or two of the nuns would very likely be members of his own family."

It is sad to reflect that Harrold Priory, for all its lands and buildings, should have been reduced to a state of poverty by a combination of misfortunes and mismanagement. Proper care and attention would have allowed it to continue its work in the Harrold community, providing for travelers, feeding the poor and caring for the sick.  At least there is a legacy in the fine church buildings at Stevington, Cold Brayfield and Harrold.


Sources

• Power, Eileen (2010), Medieval English Nunneries: C1275 to 1535, Cambridge University Press
• Spear, Valerie (2005), Leadership in Medieval English Nunneries, Boydell Press.
• 'House of Austin nuns: The priory of Harrold', A History of the County of Bedford: Volume 1 (1904), pp. 387-390.  http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=40042
• 'Parishes: Harrold', A History of the County of Bedford: Volume 3 (1912), pp. 63-68. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=42384 
• 'House of Premonstratensian canons: The abbey of Lavendon', A History of the County of Buckingham: Volume 1 (1905), pp. 384-386. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=40317

Charity

The endowments and gifts provided by a nun's family when she joined the community would cover a fairly modest lifestyle.  The sums were also important to the maintenance of the buildings and to providing charity to all-comers.  For although nunneries and monasteries were largely closed communities, for centuries they fed the poor and tended to the sick.  They also provided shelter for travelers, all part of their vocation and implicit in the 'Rules' of St Benedict and (in Harrold's case) St Augustine.

Pilgrims were a frequent sight on the roads
of medieval England, and would expect
hospitality from the religious houses they
passed by.

The nuns would have hoped and expected wealthy visitors to pay towards their keep, but they could not insist on this, and they could turn nobody away.  While many monastic communities were deliberately built in remote areas (like hermits, they would try and shut themselves away from the world), the Bedfordshire houses at Harrold, Elstow and Chicksands were all on busy medieval roads.

In the late 14th and early 15th centuries the nuns of Harrold had to plead poverty, citing their duty to "maintain great and expensive hospitality" through being close by the public road.  At this time one of the Bedford to Northampton roads passed through Pavenham and crossed the Great Ouse at Harrold bridge. According to the Viatores, at least some of this road was Roman in origin, and stretched back to Biggleswade. When it reached the Chellington and Carlton area it would have linked up with another former Roman road linking Wellingborough (a busy medieval market town), Irchester and Fenny Stratford on the old Watling Street in what is now Milton Keynes.  Apart from the wealthy, pilgrims and official travelers Harrold would have had to provide for the poor and homeless of the area for nearly four hundred years.

It is interesting to note that nearby Lavendon Abbey cited the same ruinous costs of providing hospitality to those coming along the high roads as a reason for financial hardship in the community. Although there were monastic communities at various time in Bedford, Northampton and Wellingborough, as well as in Lavendon, Harrold would have been the only provider of charity in a locality including Chellington, Carlton, Stevington, Odell and Sharnbrook.  With rich farmland and rising temperatures in the early medieval period, the population of this part of Bedfordshire boomed, with most of the local churches having to build new chapels and add aisles in the 13th and 14th centuries.  This growth stopped in about 1350 with the arrival of the Black Death.

Who was available to care for the sick at this time?  In the absence of any formal medical care it would have probably fallen to the nuns of Harrold Priory.   Chellington, just across the river from the priory, had been a busy and prosperous village up until this period, and there is speculation that the population was decimated by the Black Death or plague, with survivors moving to surrounding villages.



Sources

• William Page (editor) (1912), A History of the County of Bedford: Volume 3, Victoria County History, pp.63-68
• Power, Eileen (2010), Medieval English Nunneries: C1275 to 1535, Cambridge University Press
• Viatores (1964), Roman roads in the south-east midlands, Victor Gollancz
• 'House of Premonstratensian canons: The abbey of Lavendon', A History of the County of Buckingham: Volume 1 (1905), pp. 384-386. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=40317

Poverty and the Rule of St Augustine

The community at Harrold was originally an Arroaisian house, a French order of priests and nuns who lived by the Rule of St Augustine.  A generation later Harrold was able to gain its independence from Arrouaise, and instead became subject to the Bishop of Lincoln.  However, it still continued to live by the Augustinian Rule, although by this stage there were only women in the community.

In practical terms this meant a life of poverty and charity.  Most of the nuns entering Harrold would have been from the higher levels of medieval society, the landowning elite.  Although some would have joined as young novices, many nuns would have been widows and would previously have enjoyed a privileged life style. Becoming a nun would have meant turning their backs on an active social life and instead embracing a life of contemplation and prayer.  Harrold's nuns would have had to give up their jewellery and fine clothes in favour of the plain habit of Augustinians.

Fish was a major part of the monastic diet
(source http://cookit.e2bn.org)

Meals were to be eaten without conversation, the only voice breaking the silence being one of the sisters reading from devotional books.  Even the meals would have seemed plain to many as the Rule encouraged moderation as well as regular fasting and abstinence.  Meat would have been rare, particularly in the winter months when the nuns would have subsisted mostly on vegetables and fish.  No meat would have been eaten during Lent (the 40 days leading up to Easter) and on Fridays.  Many monastic communities had fishponds which were stocked with carp and other fish, and the archaeological evidence of these is still visible.  In Harrold's case it is known that there were numerous fisheries close by in the Great Ouse.

Despite mostly being well-bred women from the upper levels of medieval society, most of the nuns of Harrold would have been involved in growing food for the community as well as preparing it.  They would have grown fruit and vegetables, kept chickens and bees and possibly other small livestock.  The nuns would also have brewed beer (this was safer to drink than water), being helped in all these tasks by (paid) lay servants (unpaid) lay sisters.  The nuns. when times were hard, may have resorted to spinning thread and even weaving their own cloth.

For the later years at Harrold, at least, poverty was a reality rather than just a virtue.  The nuns were rebuked during a visitation (inspection) by Bishop Alnwick of Lincoln in 1442-1443 as he found that they could only afford a 'common washerwoman' four times a year: he was scandalized that at other times they were forced to wash their own clothes on the bank of the river Great Ouse (Spear 2005).

The Rule of St Augustine allow some leniency in regard to diet and creature comforts.  The elderly and sick were provided with better food and more of it, and were permitted warm clothing.  This flexibility in the application of monastic rules probably allowed widows and other new entrants to places like Harrold Priory a lifestyle that was not as austere as one might imagine.  In the later middle ages it was often felt that this flexibility had turned to licence, and that monks and nuns were often leading lives of debauchery.  There is no evidence for this at Harrold although in 1442-1443 Prioress Dame Alice Decun complained to Bishop Alnwick that the nuns 'all wear their veils spread up to the top of their foreheads', and Hodges (2005) wonders if the Bishop was "being worn down by the collective disobedience of the nuns".  At nearby Elstow the Bishop of Lincoln was forced to remind the community of their duties in terms of meals, clothing and other comforts.

By avoiding the excesses of consumption - both food, clothes and other material goods - it was believed that religious communities could focus better on the contemplative life. But at Harrold poverty at times meant that the nuns had to forgo their spiritual duties, simply to be able to feed and clothe themselves.


Sources

• Hodges, Laura Fulkerson (2005), Chaucer and clothing: Clerical and academic costume in the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, DS Brewer
• Power, Eileen (2010), Medieval English Nunneries: C1275 to 1535, Cambridge University Press
• Spear, Valerie (2005), Leadership in Medieval English Nunneries, Boydell Press.

Daily life for the nuns of Harrold

Harrold Priory was a small community of nuns, probably never numbering more than 12 plus the prioress.  We know very little about them, as the few surviving records tend to be legal documents and rarely concern themselves with individuals and the everyday work of the Priory.  However, most orders of nuns, whether following the Rules of Benedict (as nearby Elstow did) or Augustine (as Harrold did), followed a similar routine.  Richard Chipchase has written the following general description of daily life, which would probably have applied to Harrold Priory in most respects:

"[The nuns] would rise at 2am for Matins Laud, the first service of the day. After this they would return to bed and rise again with the sun. At this point [they] would wash and have breakfast. Nuns usually drank beer with their meals due to it being cleaner than the water. At 7am they would go to Prime, the second service of the day. After this the nuns would meet in the chapter house where readings from the Bible would be heard [and the business of the day discussed]. The third service was Tierce at 9am and following this the nuns would occupy themselves with work in the convent until midday and the fourth service, Sext None. After this, they would eat before returning to their work until Vespers, the fifth service of the day which started at 5pm. This would be followed by a light supper and later the final service of the day, Compline, which took place at 7pm. The nuns went to bed after this, ready for the process to start again at two the next morning. This format varied through the different orders with some splitting Matins and Lauds, having an extra service at 5am. Others would split Sext None with a service at noon and another at 3pm."

Modern-day nuns at prayer: source Augustiniannuns.org

All of these services would be marked with the ringing of bells, and Harrold folk would in turn be measuring the day by reference to these.  The reports of local courts contain references to the time of day related to the hours of the office.  In a flat landscape like north Bedfordshire the sounds of the bells would carry great distances.  Today in Harrold the bells of St Peter's church still ring the hours and the quarter hours - but not the offices of the day.

Chipchase goes on:

"The nuns did various types of work while in the convent, they also received an education with many learning to read and write. Often, the convent was the only source of education for women during the middle ages. The nuns had also various tasks to do including washing and cooking, farming, brewing, bee-keeping, medical care, teaching, spinning, weaving and embroidery and illuminating manuscripts. It was usual for nuns from wealthy families to be given the lighter tasks and very often the convent had its own lay sisters who carried out a lot of the manual work. These were members of the convent who were not bound to the various services of the day. The nuns themselves had various roles within the convent, the head of which was the Abbess, a position which was for life. Other titles were the Almoner, any nun who dispensed alms to the sick and needy. Other roles were the Cellarer, who was basically the convent housekeeper and the Infirmarian who looked after the infirmary."

This latter point is important in Harrold, as the nuns cited the needs of the poor and travelers in appeals for charity right up to the late middle ages, stating that providing these was stretching the community's resources. But as Chipchase notes, the life of the nuns centred on the spiritual.  At Harrold the nuns would take part in the main sacraments (for example holy mass) through St Peter's church where they may have had an adjoining chapel, separated from the main congregation.  They also had their own chaplain who may have provided other sacraments (for example confession) in the Priory itself.  The daily services would probably have been held in the Priory, and nuns were put in charge of this, as Chipchase goes on to say:

The Sacrist was an educated nun who would be in charge of all books, vestments and vessels and was also a medieval property manager being responsible for maintenance. Finally, there was the Prioress. This role was taken by a senior nun and in an Abbey she was the Abbess’ deputy and in a convent without the status of an abbey, she would be in charge... "The most important part of the nun’s day were the services, the day was entirely structured around these and any work ceased immediately at times of prayer."


Sources

• Richard Chipchase, The Daily Life of a Nun in Medieval England, published: June 14, 2011 on Humanities360.com
• Hull, Robert – Nun (Medieval Lives) – Franklin Watts (2008)
• Goldberg, P.J.P. – Medieval England: A Social History 1250-1550 – Bloomsbury (2004)
• Kerr, Julie – Life in the Medieval Cloister – Hambledon (2009)

Nuns, priests and prioresses

Hall Close, Harrold today (source bedfordshire.gov.uk)

There are no visible archaeological remains of Harrold Priory.  After its successor Harrold Hall burned down in 1961 the estate was cleared and new exective homes were built in what is now Hall Close.  There appear to have been no archaeological excavations, although older local residents remember that what was called the dining hall had been used as stables and garaging.

It is likely that the old priory would have adjoined St Peter's church, or at least had a chamber attached where the nuns could take part in the services and receive communion from the canons, probably through a narrow window or other opening.  As a typical nunnery the community would consist of a head (in the case of Harrold the Prioress) and a maximum of 12 nuns (Venarde 1997).  The Gilbertines (such as those at nearby Chicksands) often had communities numbering into the hundreds, but these were exceptions.  Larger nunneries such as these would have had cloisters, but these are not mentioned in Harrold.

We have few traces of who lived and prayed at Harrold Priory, although in 1390 a Clerical Subsidy record was made which listed three chaplains to the house  - Robert Lary, William Yelden and Adam Seyyor.  They all had their own parishes (Lary is described as parson of both Stoke Goldington and Walton (a church now physically part of the Open University in Milton Keynes), and Seyyor of Great Brickhill (also adjoining modern Milton Keynes) in contemporary deeds.  Presumably they served as chaplain by rotation. At this time the women at the priory comprised the prioress and nine nuns, the latter being: Joan Causom; Joan Trokesforde; Elizabeth Bewmys; Leticia Tuttebyry; Margaret Wyks; Margaret Northwode; Emmota Drakelowe; Margaret Crouston; Emmota Wendylborogh.  Emmota (or Emma) Drakelowe went on to become prioress fourty years from 1394 and so must have been a relatively young woman at the time of the survey.  The other nuns and novices would have been from families of minor nobility, and the Clerical Subsidy would not have recorded the names of lay servants.

50 years later (1443) a visitation by the Bishop of Lincoln recorded a prioress and a sub-prioress and six nuns who were: Emma Welde; Alice Dekun; Agnes Grene; Agnes Tyringham; Thomasine Courteney; Grace Melton; Elizabeth Cotyngham.  Thomasine or Thomasina went on to become prioress.

Little more is said about the ordinary nuns until the end.  Thomas Cromwell's agent Dr. Layton reported in 1535 that there were at Harrold merely a prioress and four or five nuns, of whom one had 'two fair children' and another 'one child and no more'.

The Bedfordshire County History has extracted the names of many of the prioresses from the Harrold Cartulary in the British Museum. The list details where available the dates of election as Prioress, their resignation or merely the year when they are mentioned. Clearly the list is incomplete.  Further revision was made by Dr Herbert Fowler in 1935 as follows:

• 1188: Gila - she came from the Arrouaisian priory of Maroueil near Arras;
• c.1190-1210: Jelita or Julitta who came from the Arrouasian house in Boulogne;
• 1227-1245: Agnes - she died in 1245;
• 1245-1254: Basile Mauduit or Basile de la Lee or Legha, a nun from the priory instituted on the death of Agnes; daughter of Guntolda Mauduit, sister of Harrold landowner Ralph Morin;
• 1262-1268: Amice;
• c.1270: Juliana;
• c.1270-1304: Margery of Hereford; she resigned in 1304; a serious scandal occurred under her rule;
• 1304-1311: Cecily de Cancia; her election was at first declared void but was ultimately approved by the Bishop of Lincoln; she may have been daughter of Thomas de Kent or Cancia and Cecily de Birkin;
• 1335-1354: Petronilla de Rydeware; her institution and resignation dates are all that is known of her;
• 1354-1357: Cristiana Murdac or Murdak; a nun of the priory; she resigned in 1357;
• 1357-1362: Matilda de Tichmersh;
• 1367-1394: Katherine de Tutbury;
• 1394-1434: Emma Drakelowe; a nun of the priory noted in the 1390 Clerical Subsidy;
• 1440-1442: Alice Wautre or Wauter;
• 1452: Thomasina Courtney; a nun of the priory appointed a vicar (though not able to administer the sacraments) of Harrold church on 15 Dec 1452 under the title "administrator of the priory and convent there" - which probably means she was the prioress;
• 1464-1470: Elizabeth Chilteron or Chilton; she resigned in 1470;
• 1470-1474: Margaret Pycard; a nun of the priory;
• 1495-1501: Elena Crabbe; she died in 1501;
• 1501-1509: Eleanor Pygot or Paget; she died in 1509;
• 1509: Agnes Gascoigne or Gascony; a nun from "Shiphay" - if Sheppey is meant it is unusual as it was a Benedictine rather than an Augustinian house;
• 1536; Eleanor Warren: prioress on the dissolution of the priory.

Sources

• Venarde, Bruce L. (1997), Women's monasticism and medieval society: nunneries in France and England, 890-1215, Ithaca: Cornell University Press
• 'House of Austin nuns: The priory of Harrold', A History of the County of Bedford: Volume 1 (1904), pp. 387-390. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=40042
• Dr.G.Herbert Fowler, Bedfordshire Historical Records Society volume 17 [1935]
• Power, Eileen (2010), Medieval English Nunneries: C1275 to 1535, Cambridge University Press

Sequere pecuniam: Follow the money

The Tythe Barn, Harrold. Close to the Priory site but
not medieval.    Source: rightmove.co.uk

The foundation of Harrold Priory was based on the grant of the churches of Harrold and Brayfield to the new community.  These had been inherited by Albreda de Blosseville from her father, who held the manor of Harrold. They were then gifted by Albreda's husband Samson le Fort to the priory.  These churches would in turn yield an income sufficient to pay for the upkeep of the churches, the costs of the cannons (priests) serving in them, and provide a surplus besides.  The revenue would mostly have come in the form of tithes (a quantity of the crops grown each year), or occasionally in services rendered or rarely in coin.  The immediate area was some of the richest agricultural land in England and so the priory should have been well provided for.  A 17th century building named 'The Tythe Barn' still stands today on Church Walk in Harrold, right on the corner of what would have been the precincts of the St Peter's church and the priory. This is unlikely to have ever served for receiving tythes as the practice had died out by this period.

This type of transaction was normal in the early medieval period, especially in England, when there was very little coin in circulation in the countryside except at harvest time, when accounts were settled and labourers were paid their wages for the year.  So it was normal practice to gift property to the monasteries and nunneries, and many of these were adept at managing these effectively to maximise their revenues. Bruce Vernarde points to the detailed accounts for Fontevraud abbey in France in the 12th century to show that almost all donations were of land, with building and revenue from customs and tolls coming a distant second and third.  It was also the case that most of Fontevraud's purchases were of land and buildings (especially mills).  It is not known if the water mill which still exists in Harrold was ever part of the priory's patrimony: a mill is listed in the 11th century Domesday book but it does not appear explicitly in Harrold Priory's cartulary.

During the four centuries following the foundation, the priory would have continued to receive grants of land and buildings, as well as occasional sums of money and annual grants of grain or other produce.  These 'gifts' would invariably accompany the entry of a new nun or novice to the community.  Religious communities were not allowed to charge new members or their families for entry - this constituted 'simony' and was frowned on by the church.  Instead they had to rely on 'donations' accompanying the 'gift' of the woman in question to the community.   In the formal documentation which accompanied a new arrival, these gifts may have been expressed in spiritual terms: but as Kathleen Cooke has observed they were understandable in terms of cost-effective solutions to long-term care for elderly widows, provision for unmarried daughters or care homes for the terminally ill. A life in a nunnery, as far as families were concerned, could be seen as a good investment.

From the Harrold cartulary we know that Baldwin des Ardres, Count of Guisnes granted the church of Stevington some time before 1153.  The church of Shakerstone in Leicestershire came to Harrold in the 15th century but the priory, historians seem agreed, was never rich. While at Fontevraud the first prioress Petronille de Chemillé proved to be an excellent steward, actively developing 'the business' through shrewd management and acquisitions, there appears to have been no equivalent prioress at Harrold, which continued to live off its modest landholdings until the end, making the occasional plea for charity.

Bedford's Community Archives describe the priory's financial position as follows:

"A partially complete account roll for 1401-1402 has survived in the ownership of the Boteler family and was transcribed by G.D.Gilmore in Volume 49 of the Bedfordshire Historical Records Society publications called Miscellanea [1970]. It shows that the priory made a small surplus but was certainly not rich.

"The house's lands were never great, in fact in 1291 Pope Nicholas did not bother to include the house in his taxation of the church. In the Hundred Rolls of 1274-1279 the priory is recorded as owning 410 acres of land. By 1340 this figure had actually fallen to about 360 acres. 

"When the foundation was dissolved it was described as having an income of £57/10/- of which £31 came from four rectories (Harrold, Cold Brayfield, Stevington and Shakerstone) £13/18/- from land in Harrold and £12/12/- from small rents in seventeen different villages."


Sources

• Cooke, Kathleen (1990), "Donors and Daughters: Shaftesbury Abbey's benefactors, endowments and nuns, c1086-1130", Anglo Norman Studies. 12 pp. 29-45
• Venarde, Bruce L. (1997), Women's monasticism and medieval society: nunneries in France and England, 890-1215, Ithaca: Cornell University Press
• 'House of Austin nuns: The priory of Harrold', A History of the County of Bedford: Volume 1 (1904), pp. 387-390.  http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=40042

Chastity, celibacy and virginity

A woman joining the religious community at Harrold in the middle ages would have had to have made vows of celibacy and chastity.  While the first meant that she would renounce marriage (a nun was considered to be 'the bride of Christ' and wore a ring to mark this fact), the second meant in practice a life of sexual abstinence.

Virginity was a more complex virtue, as many women joining the community would not have been virgins in the strict sense.   There were many widows, as well as younger women who were unmarried mothers.  Indeed in the history of the medieval church, some of the most successful and well known nuns have been figures such as Petronille de Chemillé and Héloïse d'Argenteuil who were in this category, and yet went on to become abbesses of important communities.  As Martyn Whittock has noted, though, in this period virginity was seen as something which could be 'recovered', in a sense, through a life of repentance, prayer, celibacy and chastity.

Bishop Grosseteste: Harrold Priory was
governed by the bishops of Lincoln

Given the varied motivations of women joining a community like Harrold, it is perhaps unsurprising that here and elsewhere there would be occasional transgressions.  In 1298, for example, one of Harrold's nuns was found to have breached her vows of chastity (Power 1010).  Her lover was sentenced by a church court, to be beaten in the market place, but refused to submit to the punishment and so was excommunicated (excluded from the rites of the church).  In 1311 the bishop of Lincoln, who had oversight over the Harrold community, appointed a commission to investigate and correct wrongdoing here and at other unspecified communities.  It is not know what these alleged misdeeds were as no record of the 'visitation' remains.

However, this was by no means unusual.  In a celebrated case a century before, in about 1166, it was reported that a nun from the Gilbertine house at Watton in East Yorkshire had become pregnant by one of the lay brothers of the house: in this case he was apprehended and was said to have been castrated by the nuns.  This and other alleged scandals led to the whole order coming under the scrutiny of the church under the direction of Pope Alexander III.  While the problem was said to be sexual licence within the order, the investigation focused more on dissatisfaction among the lay brothers about working conditions.

Similarly, in 1177 Henry II of England expelled the Anglo-Saxon nuns of Amesbury and replaced them with 24 nuns from Fontevraud.  He cited instances of moral laxity on the part of the English sisters, whom he claimed were debauched (the abbess was said to have been the mother of three children).    And some time in the 1190s Gerald of Wales wrote of the lust of a Gilbertine for her aged master.  These reported happenings were commonplace in fiction at the time: Giovanni Bocaccio's Decameron (1353) contains tales of sexual licence set in nunneries.

Elstow Abbey, less than a day away from Harrold on foot, was frequently the subject of the Bishops' scrutiny, Lincoln's Bishop Gravesend referring in 1260 to "disgraceful acts" which he said were "'from that house more frequently than from any other".  In 1369 the bishop complained that the nuns of Elstow were "wandering" out of the community far too much.  Moreover, many of Elstow's nuns were from artistocratic families and had regular visitors of family and friends (noble ladies and even queens) from their previous lives.  By 1379 Bishop Buckingham was having to instruct the nuns of Elstow not to talk to men at all, not to leave the house without permission and to be back before sunset.  The fact that he had to remind them that they should not be wearing fur or jewelry suggests that the nuns were interpreting the rules of dress rather too liberally for the church's liking.  

In 14th century Harrold, though, the problems did not seem to want to go away, and in 1369 Bishop Glynwell of Lincoln appointed Dame Katherine of Tutbury to reform the excesses of the Priory during a period when there was no prioress. As the County History notes, from the cartularly records little more is said until the priory was visited in 1535 by Thomas Cromwell's agent Dr Layton.  He reported that there were just four or five nuns and a prioress, two of whom had children.  Once again, though, this kind of allegation was commonly being made at the time, and as with Henry II they may have been motivated by a desire to discredit the community for other purposes.

Sources

• Elkins, Sharon (1988), Holy women of 12th century England, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
• Venarde, Bruce L. (1997), Women's monasticism and medieval society: nunneries in France and England, 890-1215, Ithaca: Cornell University Press
• Brewer, J.S. (ed), (1862), Gerald of Wales Gemma Ecclesiastica
• Whittock, Martyn (2009), A brief history of life in the middle ages, London: Constable & Robinson
• 'Houses of Benedictine nuns: The abbey of Elstow', A History of the County of Bedford: Volume 1 (1904), pp. 353-358. 
• Power, Eileen (2010), Medieval English Nunneries: C1275 to 1535, Cambridge University Press

The Community of Harrold

The middle ages in Europe witnessed a massive expansion in the number of monastic institutions for women. Bruce Verande's study of the phenomenon shows that England was no exception, and Samson le Fort's foundation was just one of dozens made in the aftermath of the Norman conquest.  Including Harrold, 114 new nunneries were established in England in the period 1126 to 1200. There were 5 other women's houses founded in the area in the late 11th century and 12th, including the well known Bedfordshire communities of Chicksands (1150) and Elstow (1078).  It is worth noting, of course, that there were far more communities for men founded at this time, around a hundred or so (Verande 1997).

The Prioress, from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales

We know almost nothing about the women who joined the Harrold community, apart from some isolated names (mostly the prioresses).  Two of the original members, Jelita and Gila came to Harrold from the mother community at Arouaise near Calais. In the early years of the Priory, most of nuns would have been from Anglo-Norman ruling families.  Nunneries, like the male counterparts, were mostly populated by the families of the landed classes.

The nuns of Harrold would have been wives and daughters from wealthy families.  The attraction for many women would have been spiritual: they would have looked forward to a life of contemplation and prayer, shut away from the concerns and stresses of the material world.  Such a life, though, came at a price and their families would have been expected to contribute to the cost of their upkeep through grants of land, money or goods.

Nunneries were given an additional impetus by Norman inheritance practices and the norms of medieval society. Unless a woman married her place in society as an adult was vulnerable: she had no way of earning her own living and maintaining herself, and would only rarely inherit sufficient from her family to live independently. Inheritance laws meant that when her father died a woman's brother or male heir would take over the family home and invariably she would no longer have a place in the household.  A place in a nunnery would mean that she was provided for in a safe place.

Similar considerations often applied when it came to widows, many of whom would have been unable to re-marry and would have ended their days in a place like Harrold Priory rather than in a son's extended household.  There are also examples of women escaping a difficult marriage or prospect of one by entering a convent (Venarde 1997).  Some community leaders such as Robert of Arbrissel were prepared to defy church authorities and give such women protection from their estranged husbands and the law.

Indeed in some cases in the middle ages it appears that by forcing their wives into nunneries powerful men were able to renounce their first wives and re-marry.  On occasion men would cite new concerns about consanguinity and incest to have first marriages annulled and their former wives consigned to nunneries, leaving them free to make new, politically advantageous marriages elsewhere.  To make things worse for women (in England at least) aristocratic widows and orphans often became the 'property' of the king, to dispose of at will or to the highest bidder: Henry II of England, for example, 'owned' 80 widows in this position. The temptation would have often to have been to take oneself out of such servitude and into a nunnery.  According to Venarde a typical community of the time would have been made up of 35% of inmates who were described as widows, wives, mothers or grandmothers.  It seems possible that "massive numbers of women [were] being thrust willy nilly into the cloister by (usually) male relatives eager to rid themselves of the responsibility for caring for them and in some cases to come into control of the women's property" (Venarde 11997, p.101).

With so many hundreds of young men from landed families joining monasteries each year, combined with the effect of the almost continual wars of the middle ages, the pool of marriageable young men was always going to be smaller than the available women - although the high levels of mortality in childbirth did something to redress this imbalance.   For those women unable or unwilling to marry life as a nun offered an alternative. An example of this would be Hertfordshire's Christina of Markyate who escaped the attentions of would-be suitors and lovers by hiding and devoting herself to a life of prayer. Many others, like Christina, were given no choice.  Convents were also known to take children, for example orphans, and provide for them.  They would also accept women who were sick and take care of them (Thompson 1991).

Harrold Priory, like others, would have had more than ordained nuns.  There would have been novices who were working towards ordination, as well as number of lay sisters who were generally uneducated, from poorer families, whose role would be as servants, preparing food, cleaning, providing for guests, etc.  There would likely have been male and female paid servants also, for example.

The nuns themselves would more than likely have been literate and would have managed in Norman French (or later, English) as well as Latin.


Sources

• Venarde, Bruce L. (1997), Women's monasticism and medieval society: nunneries in France and England, 890-1215, Ithaca: Cornell University Press
• Thompson, Sally (1991), Women religioius: The founding of English Nunneries after the Norman conquest, Oxford: Clarendon Press

The break from Arrouaise: 1170-1188

Harrold Priory was originally founded as a 'daughter' house of the abbey of Arrouaise, near Calais in northern France.  From its foundation it appears to have been successful, attracting canons (priests), monks and nuns to its walls.  But a generation later its character had changed: Harrold appears now to be purely a nunnery with a prioress in charge, and it wanted its independence.  Following the death of Abbot Gervase the order had seemed to have lost control over its houses and was unsure of its direction.

The Arrouasian order resisted the call for autonomous houses but Harrold insisted that the distances involved made the control of their house from France impractical.  Other abbeys and nunneries in England in the 12th century argued the same, although many found little difficulty in being managed from a distance in this way.

Missenden Abbey as it is today

A compromise solution was suggested, that the Bedfordshire priory should instead be governed by the Abbey of Great Missenden in Buckinghamshire (two days travelling away).  Harrold's prioress Gila undertook to gain the agreement of Arrouaise to this.  Details of this are recorded in the Great Missenden Cartulary (a collection of legal documents now in the British Library).  It was suggested that Harrold pay Arrouaise half a mark in rent to sweeten the arrangement.

Later, Abbot Walter of Arrouaise argued in the church courts that Missenden had obtained a forged charter from the Pope, and that any agreements made in respect of Harrold's changing status were null and void.  However, he maintains that Harrold should be subservient to Missenden.  Missenden, in turn, agreed to allow Harrold its independence in respect of a payment of half a mark - an agreement brokered by the bishop of Lincoln on 18 October 1188.

Thenceforth the Priory of Harrold came to be an independent house of nuns, living under the rule of St Augustine and answering to the Bishop of Lincoln.  The Augustinian rule was effectively no change for the nuns of Harrold - as Arrouasians they would have lived under it in any case.  The main change was that they were now effectively self-governed, something that would persist until the dissolution in the 16th century.

Some of the buildings of Great Missenden Abbey survive to this day: the site is currently owned by Buckingham New University and is run as a conference centre.


Sources:

The Cartulary of Missenden Abbey
Thompson, Sally (1991), Women religious: The founding of English nunneries after the Norman Conquest, Oxford: Clarendon Press

Venarde, Bruce L. (1997), Women's monasticism and medieval society: nunneries in France and England, 890-1215, Ithaca: Cornell University Press

Harrold families

The original founder of Harrold Priory was Samson Fortis.  The name is associated with nearby Turvey village, rather than Harrold.  However, it is suggested by historians that Fortis was only able to grant the churches of Harrold and Brayfield to the new priory through his wife, Albreda de Blosseville.

Harrold Hall, originally Harrold Priory,
with St Peter's church: source: www.harrold.info

Albreda was born in 1113 in Harrold and would have been around 23 years old when the grant was made.

 She would likely have inherited the lands in her own right from her father William de Blosseville (born 1080), the lord of Harrold manor.  He in turn had inherited the village from his father, Gilbert de Blosseville (b 1050), who as a young solider or knight had served with William the Conqueror and been granted the village of Harrold.

Fast forward to 1170 and in the dispute between Harrold Priory and the abbey of Arouaise, Robert de Braose solemnly declares that he had inherited Harrold church and had granted it to Arrouaise.  Robert's mother was Albreda de Blosseville.  Is it possible, then, that Samson Fortis (or Samson le Fort) had died, and his young widow had married Payn de Braose (b 1112)?  Their son then inherited the manor of Harrold through his mother, which he then confirmed on the burgeoning priory of Harrold?

Robert was born in Bradwell, which is now a district of Milton Keynes in 1140.  This would suggest that Samson's decision to endow the new priory of Harrold in 1136 may have been one of his last, and that he died shortly after.  Such an endowment close to death would have represented, to him at least, a sound investment in his afterlife.

The de Braose family connection was maintained with Harrold in later generations, though.  Robert's daughter, also called Albreda, married Ralph de Morin from Harrold.  The income from St Peter's in Harrold and from Brayfield was by this time confirmed on Harrold Priory.


Sources:

The Cartulary of Missenden Abbey
Thompson, Sally (1991), Women religious: The founding of English nunneries after the Norman Conquest, Oxford: Clarendon Press
The Domesday Book entry for Harrold
Venarde, Bruce L. (1997), Women's monasticism and medieval society: nunneries in France and England, 890-1215, Ithaca: Cornell University Press

Men or women? Priests, nuns and monks at Harrold

At the time of the forced closure of Harrold Priory (1536), it was was an all-woman community headed by a prioress. However, this was not the case in its early days. The documents relating to the foundation mention only 'canons', lay priests rather than monks and make no reference to women.  These men would have been responsible for the religious life of Harrold, centering on St Peter's Church.  According to the chronicles it was Hilbert Pelice, one of founder Samson le Fort's kinsmen, who persuaded him to found the priory, and who was early on given care of the church and new community.

A Gilbertine nun
Source: www.historyfish.net

The first prior, Guy, may have been brother to Abbot Gervase of Arrouaise, and he seems to have set up house with a monk referred to as 'B' in the chronicles.  The burgeoning community appears several times in historical documents in its first 30 years or so, where there are references to lay priests (canons), to brothers and to sisters (monks and nuns).  The names of two French nuns in Harrold, Jelita and Gila, appear early on, although it is made clear that the women's role is subservient to the men in the community.  It is not known if they were nuns (ordained) or lay sisters, although both went on in later years to become prioress at Harrold, so presumably would have become ordained.

By about 1188, though, when Harrold was fighting Arrouaise for its independence, the references are to the nuns of the community: canons and monks are no longer in the picture.  A mixed community would have been unusual, but by no means unique.  Indeed, Chicksands Priory which was both close by and a contemporary of Harrold, housed monks and nuns right up to the dissolution.  Chicksands was part of the Gilbertine order with many houses across England and Wales, mostly mixed sex.

The Arrouasian order, by contrast, all but disappeared in the later middle ages, and seems to have tolerated mixed houses at the time of Gervase.  The norm in religious life, though, was for strict segregation: it was felt that by having men and women together it created distractions which would impact poorly on contemplation and prayer.  Mixed sex communities also had the potential for scandal: it was reported that a Gilbertine nun at Watton in East Yorkshire in the mid 12th century was made pregnant by one of the community's lay brothers.

Porch at nearby Oakley church: the priest(s)
would originally live in the room above

In Harrold, meanwhile, the canons serving the churches of St Peters and the smaller church at Brayfield, seem to have moved out some time before 1188.  Often the priests would have been housed in a room over the church porch, but in Harrold there is no evidence of this as no porch survives.  There was a small thatched house which in the later middle ages came to be known as the vicarage, and which remains to this day in Church Walk.  This only starts to appear in the records in the 17th century, after the Priory had been dissolved.


Sources

• Thompson, Sally (1991), Women religious: The founding of English nunneries after the Norman Conquest, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• Venarde, Bruce L. (1997), Women's monasticism and medieval society: nunneries in France and England, 890-1215, Ithaca: Cornell University Press

Altruism and self-interest

Why did Samson le Fort (or Samson Fortis as he is sometimes known) decide to establish a religious community in Harrold?  And why an Arouasian house?  As we know almost nothing about Samson we can only speculate.

There were many motivations for this type of  decision.   It cannot have been taken lightly: Samson gave up some significant personal wealth - enough to build a large house and to support a sizeable community of religious men and women, plus their servants.

Glastonbury Abbey as it might have been:
source www.photosofchurches.com

Probably the single most important reason would have been spiritual.   By establishing Harrold Priory Samson would have been investing in his afterlife.  As founder and benefactor the priests of Harrold (it was originally priests and nuns) would have been contracyed to pray for Samson's soul after his death: generally the founder would have a daily mass said for his benefit each day as well as having other prayers offered up for his soul. He may originally have had a special chapel built for this purpose in Harrold church.  Monasteries such as Glastonbury had packages available for benefactors: the more you gave, the more they prayed. It may be that Samson himself was buried in St Peter's, Harrold.

Another common reason for founding a religious community was as a result of a 'deal' with God. In this scenario the benefactor would be in a situation where he or she felt his life was in mortal danger. In this time of stress they would vow to do something amazing if only God (or a saint) would intervene and save their lives.  Common times for such vows were wars, sickness and travel.

Samson would have been required to provide military assistance to his king, Henry I, but in the years leading up to the foundation of Harrold Priory the realm was relatively peaceful.   After Henry's death,  by contrast,  the country descended into 20 years of civil war, but that's another story).  It  could simply have been a travelling drama: Samson would have had to move between his estates in England and those in Normandy: perhaps on one of these trips his ship got into difficulties and Samson 'did a deal' with God: save my life and I will found a monastery?  Some monasteries and nunneries were founded when their patrons set off for one of the Crusades: in this case, though, the First Crusade was over several years previously, and it would be another  few years before the next got underway.

Such a scenario is not so far fetched,  and this type of  vow was commonplace even at the end of the 19th century.   The endowment of Waterford church in Hertfordshire and its priceless collection of stained glass, was triggered by such a 'deal' when the wealthy benefactor was 'miraculously' cured of a terminal disease.  Medieval England, meanwhile,  was still affected by the White Ship tragedy of 1320 when 300 people,  including the heir to the throne and many leading nobles drowned in a simple accident off the coast of Normandy.

But why Arouaise?  The original 'mother' community seems to have been somewhere in the Pas de Calais region.  Perhaps Samson's ancestral lands were there?  Maybe he was merely seduced by the charms of Abbot Gervase?  The end result was that Harrold Priory was founded in 1336, as a daughter house of the Abbey of Arouaise.

Sources

Venarde, Bruce L. (1997), Women's monasticism and medieval society: nunneries in France and England, 890-1215, Ithaca: Cornell University Press

Foundation

Harrold Priory was founded sometime between 1136 and 1138.  There is no exact date available, and in any case it could often take years between a foundation being pledged and the community being give licence by the church and crown to open.

However, there were two key men involved in the foundation: Samson le Fort and Abbot Gervase.  Both of these men appear to be Norman French, part of the new ruling class in England in the 12th century.

We know little about Samson le Fort, although the likelihood is that he was a descendant of one of William I's retinue of knights who provided troops and support for his conquest of England in 1066.  He and his wife (Harrold's Albreda de Blosseville) were what historians such as Bruce Venarde would call 'minor nobility'. There is evidence of a le Fort family in Turvey at around this time - Turvey is just two villages away from Harrold, and connected by the old Roman road and the river Great Ouse.  Despite his 'minor' status, Samson le Fort appeared to be connected to Malcolm, king of Scotland, possibly via the Earl of Huntingdon, and Samson's grants were confirmed by these more powerful overlords.  There was a complex system of land holding at the time, and Malcolm's name crops up in the history of nearby Elstow Priory later in the middle ages.  Samson granted to the new monastic house the 'living' of St Peter's in Harrold and the living of the church at Brayfield, two villages upstream on the river Great Ouse.

The expectation at the time was that the people of a parish such as Harrold would donate 10% of their income to support the church - which could amount to a tidy sum.  In the case of a prosperous parish like St Peters this would grow and grow.  However, Brayfield never seemed to get past the early middle ages.

St Peter's church, Harrold

The other key figure in the foundation of Harrold was Abbot Gervase of Arouaise.  There is still some debate as to where Arouasise was: the consensus seems to be somewhere in northern France, in an area which was in the front lines during the Great War of 1914-18.  Gervase seems to have been a charismatic man, and traveled widely both in Normandy and England, founding religious houses under the Arouasian rule. Gervase seems to have persuaded Samson le Fort to finance Harrold Priory, as a 'daughter' house of Arouasie.  Gervase seems to have been able to put forward a relative, Guy de Arromanches, as the first prior.

In this way the priory was established in Harrold, linked spiritually and financially to the parish church of St Peter, a beautiful medieval church which remains to this day.

Sources

• Venarde, Bruce L. (1997), Women's monasticism and medieval society: nunneries in France and England, 890-1215, Ithaca: Cornell University Press
• Thompson, Sally (1991), Women religioius: The founding of English Nunneries after the Norman conquest, Oxford: Clarendon Press

Introduction

Harrold Priory was a religious house serving the community of north Bedfordshire for nearly four hundred years.  The original establishment was shut down during the English reformation and the buildings sold for private use, and in time came to be known as Harrold Hall.  These were then rebuilt and extended over the following centuries until they burned down in 1961.

Harrold Hall in 1957 (Bedfordshire Community Archives)

Now nothing remains of the Priory apart from some isolated traces in the neighbouring St Peter's Church.  The site was redeveloped as executive housing.  Very few records remain apart from a 'cartulary' (a collection of historical legal documents) now in the British Museum.  These were translated in 1935 for the Bedfordshire Historical Society and form the basis of most of what is now known about the Priory.

In this blog we will draw on the cartulary and other sources to try and piece together a picture of Harrold Priory: who lived and worked there, what was its role, what problems did it face?

Harrold is a forgotten priory: it remained small and inconspicuous.  For most of its life it had very little wealth and few high profile patrons. Other similar houses in the region such as the nunneries at Elstow and Chicksands are better known and documented.  These pages aim to put a little more detail around Harrold Priory and the women who served there.

Soucres:

• Dr.G.Herbert Fowler, Bedfordshire Historical Records Society volume 17 [1935]
• Venarde, Bruce L. (1997), Women's monasticism and medieval society: nunneries in France and England, 890-1215, Ithaca: Cornell University Press
• 'House of Austin nuns: The priory of Harrold', A History of the County of Bedford: Volume 1 (1904), pp. 387-390. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=40042 Date accessed: 21 August 2014.
• Thompson, Sally (1991), Women religioius: The founding of English Nunneries after the Norman conquest, Oxford: Clarendon Press