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.