Skip to content
1882
Volume 14, Issue 1
  • ISSN: 2034-3515
  • E-ISSN: 2034-3523

Abstract

Abstract

From about the thirteenth through to the seventeenth century in England and on the continent certain nuns held the office of chaplain in their monasteries, serving as companions and chaperones to their superiors. In England, evidence for their roles survives especially in bishops’ visitation reports, revealing for example the repeated desire that superiors regularly rotate their chaplains. Some literary evidence for the existence of nun chaplains also survives, as in Mechtild of Magdeburg’s and Geoffrey Chaucer’s . This article considers the origins of the office and the concerns surrounding those who held it.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1484/J.JMMS.5.150990
2025-01-01
2025-12-04

Metrics

Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Manuscripts and Archival Sources
    Oxford, New College Archives, MS 3691
  2. Primary Sources
    Bronnen voor degeschiedenis der abdii Rijnsburg, ed. by Maria Hüffer, 2 vols, RGP, Kleine Serie 31 (‘s-Gravenhage, The Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff, 1951)
  3. Dugdale, William, Monasticon Anglicanum, 6 vols (London: Sam Keble, 1693)
  4. Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, ed. by Larry D. Benson, The Riverside Chaucer, 3rd edn (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987)
  5. ———, The Canterbury Tales: A New Translation by Nevill Coghill (London: Penguin Classics, 1958)
  6. ———, The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer, ed. by J. M. Manly (New York: George G. Harrap, 1928)
  7. ———, The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, ed. by F. N. Robinson, 2nd edn (Boston: Oxford University Press, 1957)
  8. ‘Injunctions of John Longland, Bishop of Lincoln, to Certain Monasteries in his Diocese’, ed. by Edward Peacock, Archaeologia, 47 (1882), 49–64
  9. Mechthild of Magdeburg, The Flowing Light of the Godhead, trans. by Frank Tobin (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1998)
  10. ———, Offenbarungen der Schwester Mechthild von Magdeburg oder Das Fliessende Licht der Gottheit, ed. by P. Gall Morel [1869] (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1963)
  11. The Register of William Greenfield, Lord Archbishop of York, 1306–1315, 5 vols, ed. by A. Thompson Hamilton, Surtees Society, 145, 149, 151, 152, 153 (Durham: Andrews & Co., 1931–1940)
  12. The Register of William Melton, Archbishop of York, 1317–1340, 4 vols, ed. by Rosalind M. T. Hill (i, iii), David Robinson (ii), and Reginald Brocklesby (iv), Canterbury and York Society, 70, 71, 76, 85 (i and ii: Torquay: Devonshire Press; iii: York: Maxiprint; iv: Woodbridge: Boydell, 1977–1997)
  13. Registrum Epistolarum Fratris Johannis Peckham, Archiepiscopi Cantuariensis, 3 vols, ed. by Charles Trice Martin, Rolls Series 77 (London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longman and Roberts, 1882–1885)
  14. Registrum Roberti Winchelsey Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi, ad 1294–1313, 2 vols, ed. by Rose Graham, Canterbury and York Society, 51, 52 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1950–1952)
  15. The Rule of St Benedict in Latin and English with Notes, ed. by Timothy Fry (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1981)
  16. Statuta capitulorum generalium ordinis cisterciensis ab anno 1116 ad annum 1786, 8 vols, ed. by Joseph-Marie Canivez (Louvain: Bureaux de la Revue, 1933–1941)
  17. Three Middle-English Versions of the Rule of St Benet, ed. by Ernst A. Kock, Early English Text Society, original series 120 (London: Trench, Trübner and Co., 1902)
  18. Visitations of the Diocese of Norwich A.D. 1492–1532, ed. by A. Jessopp, Camden Society new series 43 (Westminster: Nichols and Son, 1888)
  19. Visitations of Religious Houses in the Diocese of Lincoln 1420 to 1436, ed. by A. Hamilton Thompson, Canterbury and York Society, 17 (London: for the Canterbury and York Society, 1915)
  20. Visitations of Religious Houses in the Diocese of Lincoln 1436 to 1449, ed. by A. Hamilton Thompson, 2 vols, Canterbury and York Society, 24, 33 (London: W. K. Morton and Sons, 1919; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1927), ii, part 1
  21. Yorkshire Writers: Richard Rolle of Hampole … and His Followers, ed. by Carl Horstmann, 2 vols (London: S. Sonnenschein & Co, 1895)
  22. Secondary Works
    Abrams, M. H., and Stephen Greenblatt, eds, The Norton Anthology of English Literature, vol. 1A, The Middle Ages, seventh edn (New York and London: W. W. Norton, 2000)
  23. Bauer, Nancy, ‘Monasticism After Dark: From Dormitory to Cell’, American Benedictine Review, 38 (1987), 95114
    [Google Scholar]
  24. Bell, David N., What Nuns Read, Cistercian Studies Series, 158 (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1995)
  25. Bennett, Judith M., and Ruth Mazo Karras, eds, The Oxford Handbook of Women and Gender in Medieval Europe (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013)
  26. Berman, Constance Hoffman, The White Nuns: Cistercian Abbeys for Women in France (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018)
  27. Blaauw, W. H., ‘Episcopal Visitations of the Benedictine Nunnery of Easebourne’, Sussex Archaeological Collections, 9 (1857), 132
    [Google Scholar]
  28. Bugyis, Katie Ann-Marie, The Care of Nuns (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019)
  29. Burton, Janet, Monastic and Religious Orders in Britain 1000–1300 (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 1994)
  30. Daichman, Graciela S., ‘Misconduct in the Medieval Nunnery: Fact, Not Fiction’, in That Gentle Strength: Historical Perspectives on Women in Christianity, ed. by Lynda L. Coon, Katherine J. Haldane, and Elisabeth W. Sommer (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 1990), pp. 97–117
  31. de Moor, Geertruida, Verborgen en geborgen. Het cisterciënzerinnenklooster Leeuwenhorst in de Noordwijkse regio (1261–1574) Middeleeuwse studies en bronnen, 42 (Hilversum: Verloren, 1994)
  32. Dümling, Heinrich C., Geschichtliche Nachrichten über das Kloster S. Gertrud und die Gemeinde zu Hedersleben (Kreis Aschersleben) (Hedersleben: privately printed, 1895)
  33. Dutton, Marsha L., ‘Chaucer’s Two Nuns’, in Monasteries and Society in Medieval England, ed. by Benjamin Thompson, Harlaxton Medieval Studies, 6 (Stamford: Watkins, 1998), pp. 296–311
  34. Eckenstein, Lina, Woman Under Monasticism [1896] (New York: C. J. Clay and Sons, 1963)
  35. Edwards, Jennifer C., Superior Women: Medieval Female Authority in Poitiers’ Abbey of Sainte-Croix (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019)
  36. Eliason, Norman A., ‘Chaucer’s Second Nun?’, Modern Language Quarterly, 3 (1942), 916
    [Google Scholar]
  37. Emerson, Oliver F., ‘Some Notes on Chaucer and Some Conjectures’, Philological Quarterly, 2 (1928), 8196
    [Google Scholar]
  38. Förster, Max, ‘Chauceriana I’, Herrig’s Archiv, 132 (1914), 399401
    [Google Scholar]
  39. Freeman, Elizabeth, ‘Medieval English Nuns and the Benedictine Rule: The Evidence and Example of Wintney Priory’, in A Not-So-Unexciting Life, ed. by Carmel Posa, Cistercian Studies Series, 269 (Collegeville, MN: Cistercian Publications, 2017), pp. 233–66
  40. Furnivall, F. J., ‘Chaucer’s Prioress’s Nun-Chaplain’, Academy (22 May 1880), 385
  41. ———, ‘Chaucer’s Prioress’s Nun-Chaplain’, Anglia, 4 (1881), 23839
    [Google Scholar]
  42. Griffiths, Fiona J., Nuns’ Priests’ Tales (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018)
  43. HMH Into Literature, Teacher Edition (Orlando, FL: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2022)
  44. Hotchin, Julie, and Jirki Thibaut, eds, Women and Monastic Reform in the Medieval West, c. 1000–1500 (Rochester, NY: Boydell and Brewer, 2023)
  45. Johnson, Penelope D., Equal in Monastic Profession (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991)
  46. Kelly, Henry Ansgar, ‘A Neo-Revisionist Look at Chaucer’s Nuns’, The Chaucer Review, 31 (1996), 12124
    [Google Scholar]
  47. Kuhl, Ernest P., ‘Notes on Chaucer’s Prioress’, Philological Quarterly, 2 (1928), 30405
    [Google Scholar]
  48. Kurath, Hans, Sherman Kuhn, and others et al., eds, The Middle English Dictionary (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1952–2001)
  49. Landrum, Graham, ‘The Convent Crowd and the Feminist Nun’, Tennessee Philological Bulletin, 13 (1976), 512
    [Google Scholar]
  50. Latham, R. E., Medieval Latin from British Sources (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975)
  51. Leclercq, Jean, ‘Eucharistic Celebrations without Priests in the Middle Ages’, Worship, 55 (1981), 16068
    [Google Scholar]
  52. Lester, Anne E., Creating Cistercian Nuns: The Women’s Religious Movement and Its Reform in Thirteenth Century Champagne (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011)
  53. Lewis, Katherine J., ‘The Prioress and the Second Nun’, in Historians on Chaucer: The ‘General Prologue’ to the Canterbury Tales, ed. by Stephen Rigby and Alastair Minnis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 94–113
  54. Littré, Émile, Dictionnaire de la langue française (Paris: Hachette, 1863–1877)
  55. Oefelein, Cornelia, Das Nonnenkloster St Jacobi und seine Tochterkloester im Bistum Halberstadt, Studien zur Geschichte, Kunst und Kultur der Zisterzienser, Band 20 (Berlin: Lukas, 2004)
  56. Oliva, Marilyn, The Convent and the Community in Late Medieval England (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1998)
  57. Page, William, ed., The Victoria History of the County of Suffolk, 5 vols (London: Archibald Constable, 1902–1914)
  58. ———, ed., The Victoria History of the County of York, 3 vols (London: Constable and Company, 1907–1913)
  59. Power, Eileen, Medieval English Nunneries c. 1275 to 1535 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1922)
  60. Schotel, G. D. J., De Abdij van Rijnsburg (‘s-Herbogenbosch: Gebruder Müller, 1851)
  61. Schrader, Franz, Die ehemalige Zisterzienserinnenabtei Marienstuhl vor Egeln: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Zisterzienserinnen und der nachreformatorischen Restbestände des Katholizismus im ehemaligen Herzogtum Magdeburg (Leipzig: Sankt Benno, 1964)
  62. Sherbo, Arthur, ‘Chaucer’s Nun’s Priest Again’, PMLA, 64 (1949), 23646
    [Google Scholar]
  63. Sherman, Gail Berkeley, ‘Saints, Nuns, and Speech in the Canterbury Tales’, in Images of Sainthood in Medieval Europe, ed. by Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski and Timea Szell (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991), pp. 136–60
  64. Spear, Valerie G., Leadership in Medieval English Nunneries (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2005)
  65. Tancock, O. W., ‘Chaucer, “Prologue,” LL. 166, 203, 146’, Notes and Queries, seventh series, 6 (22 December 1888), 425–26
  66. Thompson, Sally, Women Religious: The Founding of English Nunneries After the Norman Conquest (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991)
  67. van Lommel, A., ‘Actestukken betreffende de verkiezing van vrouwe Elburch van Langerack tot abdis van Rijnsburg in 1553 en eene informatie tegelijkertijd gehouden door den abt van Bonnef en den president van ‘s keizers raad te Utrecht’, Bijdragen voor de geschiedenis van het bisdom Haarlem, 23 (1898), 321–71
  68. Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal, seventh edn (‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1882–1998)
/content/journals/10.1484/J.JMMS.5.150990
Loading
  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): bishop; chaperone; chaplain; companion; liturgical; secretary; superior
This is a required field.
Please enter a valid email address.
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An error occurred.
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error:
Please enter a valid_number test
aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYnJlcG9sc29ubGluZS5uZXQv