7. THE PRIORY OF LITTLEMORE
The Benedictine priory of Littlemore was
founded by Robert de Sandford, one of the
knights of the abbot of Abingdon, on a piece of
pasture in Sandford, called Cherley, and was endowed by him with 6 virgates of land. (fn. 1) As he
was of full age as early as 1111, (fn. 2) and when the
Pipe Rolls of Henry II begin had been succeeded
by his son Jordan, we may assign the foundation
of the nunnery to the reign of Stephen. A
charter of his is preserved by which he grants
'to St. Mary, St. Nicholas and St. Edmund' the
land of Cherley; and he speaks of the 'church
of Cherley' and Maud the prioress, and mentions that his young daughter was a nun there. (fn. 3)
In a few years, however, it seems to have been
settled that the patron saint was St. Nicholas only,
and the name of the priory, which for some
time varied between Sandford and Littlemore, is
always Littlemore after the middle of the thirteenth century. Various members of the family
of Sandford made other gifts; one gave 9 virgates more in Sandford; (fn. 4) one must have given
the church, of which the nuns had an appropriation as early as 1220; (fn. 5) in 1222 Hugh de Sandford granted 10s. a year from Wytham, Berkshire; (fn. 6) the priory also held tithes in Bayworth
(in the parish of Sunningwell), and Lambourn,
Berkshire; land in Sydenham, and Garsington,
Oxon; and Kennington, and Liverton in Chilton,
Berkshire: (fn. 7) it also claimed at one time the advowson of the church of Puttenham, Hertfordshire, but resigned it to Osbert, prior of Ashby,
for the annual payment of a mark. (fn. 8) It also
possessed some outlying property in Cambridgeshire in 'Bureweya' or 'Bergheia,' in the parish
of Soham, granted by Roger de Sandford and
confirmed by Henry II. (fn. 9) This property in
1279 brought in 40s. a year and 4,000 eels, (fn. 10) and
in 1433, when the priory was allowed to exchange it for houses in Oxford, it was worth
60s. a year. (fn. 11) When Thomas de Sandford
granted his share of the manor of Sandford to the
Templars, the advowson of the priory went with
it; and the Templars were the patrons from
about the year 1240 until their dissolution.
In the early years of Henry III the house
received several marks of royal favour. The
Close Rolls of 1220-2 show that the king paid
40s. a year for the maintenance of a 'boarder'
(prebendaria) at Littlemore; in 1232 he granted
it permission to send a sumpter horse twice a
day into Shotover Forest to collect dead wood,
and in the same year confirmed to it a hide of
land in Hendred, Berkshire. (fn. 12) In 1245 Pope
Innocent issued a bull to the effect that, as the
nuns were unable by their own resources to
complete the rebuilding of their church, he
granted during the next three years an indulgence of ten days to all who aided the work. (fn. 13)
From this date the history of the house is
almost a blank; it is not mentioned in the
papal registers, or the registers of the bishop
of Lincoln. In the Taxatio of 1291 it is
omitted, no doubt because of its poverty, while
it fails to appear in the Valor of 1535, because it
had already been dissolved.
When it was visited in 1445 by Dr. John
Derby, commissary of the bishop of Lincoln,
the number of nuns seems to have been seven.
They did not sleep in the dormitory, for fear it
should fall; it was stated that they broke their
rule, by eating flesh every day in the refectory;
a certain Cistercian monk, and also a secular
clerk, visited the prioress frequently and drank
with her; there were three lay women who
boarded in the nunnery, one paying 8d. a week
and the two others 4d. each. Among other
injunctions the visitor ordered that no secular
persons, especially scholars of Oxford, were to be
admitted to the convent, and that each nun
should be allowed a separate bed. (fn. 14) Two years
later a clerk of Oxford left them a small legacy
to repair the house. (fn. 15)
When a visitation was held in 1517 by
Edmund Horde, commissary of the bishop, the
house was in a shocking state. The comperta
are, that the prioress had ordered the five nuns
under her to say that all was well; she herself had an illegitimate daughter, and was
still visited by the father of the child, Richard
Hewes, a priest in Kent; that she took
the 'pannes, pottes, candilsticks, basynes,
shetts, pellous, federe bedds, &c.,' the property
of the monastery, to provide a dowry for this
daughter; that another of the nuns had, within
the last year, an illegitimate child by a married
man of Oxford; that the prioress was excessive
in punishments, and put the nuns in stocks when
they rebuked her evil life; that almost all the
jewels were pawned, and that there was neither
food, clothing, nor pay for the nuns; that one
who had thought of becoming a nun at Littlemore was so shocked by the evil life of the
prioress that she went elsewhere. A few months
afterwards (fn. 16) the bishop summoned the prioress to
appear before him, and after denying the charges
brought against her, she finally admitted them;
her daughter, she said, had died four years before,
but she owned that she had granted some of the
plate of the monastery to Richard Hewes. In
her evidence she stated that though these things
had been going on for eight years, no inquiry
had been made, and, as it seems, no visitation of
the house had been held; only, on one occasion, certain injunctions of a general kind had
been sent her. As a punishment, she was deposed
from the post of prioress, but was allowed to perform the functions of the office for the present,
provided that she did nothing without the advice
of Mr. Edmund Horde. But some nine months
later when the bishop himself made a visitation
'to bring about some reformation,' things were
as scandalous as ever. The prioress complained
that one of the nuns 'played and romped
(luctando)' with boys in the cloister, and refused
to be corrected. When she was put in the
stocks, three other nuns broke the door and rescued her, and burnt the stocks; and when the
prioress summoned aid from the neighbourhood, the four broke a window and escaped to
friends, where they remained two or three weeks;
that they laughed and played in church during
mass, even at the elevation. The nuns complained that the prioress had punished them for
speaking the truth at the last visitation; that
she had put one in the stocks for a month without any cause; that she had hit another 'on the
head with fists and feet, correcting her in an
immoderate way,' and that Richard Hewes
had visited the prioress within the last four
months. From the evidence it is clear that
the state of things was well-known in Oxford,
where each party seems to have had its
adherents. (fn. 17) The record carries us no further
than 1518, but it shows that in this case at all
events Cardinal Wolsey was justified, when in
1524, he asserted that Littlemore ought to be
dissolved. It was worth at that time, £12 in
spiritualities (no doubt the church of Sandford), and
£21 6s. 6d. in temporalities, (fn. 18) some part of this
being from houses in Oxford. At a collection
for a subsidy in the previous year the income
was stated to be £34 13s., of which £7 6s. 8d.
was in spiritualities. (fn. 19) The priory was actually
dissolved in February, 1525, (fn. 20) the prioress receiving a pension of £6 13s. 4d. (fn. 21)
Prioresses of Littlemore
Maud, (fn. 22)
c. 1150
Amice, occurs 1219, (fn. 23) and after 1221 (fn. 24)
Isabel de Henred, elected 1230 (fn. 25)
Isabel de Turribus, occurs 1265, (fn. 26) died 1266
Amabilia de Saunford, elected 1266, died
1274 (fn. 27)
Amice de Saunford, elected 1274, (fn. 28) died 1277
Maud, elected 1277 (fn. 29)
Maud de Gloucester, died 1293 (fn. 30)
Emma de Waneting, elected 1293 (fn. 30)
Alice de Abendon, occurs 1303 (fn. 31) and 1326 (fn. 32)
Agatha, occurs 1334 (fn. 33) and 1335 (fn. 34)
Agatha de Oxford, died 1340 (fn. 35)
Maud de la Rye, appointed 1340, (fn. 35) occurs
1343 (fn. 36)
Asselina Bulbek, appointed 1349 (fn. 37)
Maud Paunesfot, occurs 1374 (fn. 38) and after
1392 (fn. 39)
Joan, occurs 1403 (fn. 40)
Agnes Pydyngtone, occurs 1409 (fn. 41) and 1415 (fn. 42)
Alice Wakeley or Wakelyn, occurs 1445 (fn. 43)
and 1457 (fn. 44)
Christina, occurs 1462 (fn. 45) to 1489 (fn. 46)
Katherine Wells, 1507 (fn. 47) and 1518 (fn. 48)
The seal is a pointed oval, representing a
tabernacle or shrine with closed doors; below
in adoration, a figure with a pastoral staff between two swinging censers. Legend:—
S' COE P'ORIE SCE MARIE ET SCI NICHI DE
LITLEMORA . . . . . . ANNO DNI MCCCXVIII.