Houses of Benedictine monks: The cell of St Pega

7. THE CELL OF ST. PEGA

It seems very doubtful whether this was ever a monastery in the strict sense of the word. St. Pega, the sister of St. Guthlac, is said to have occupied a cell somewhere near her brother's monastery, and the traditional site of her hermitage is in Northamptonshire. But the chronicle of Ingulf (fn. 1) asserts that her cell was on the east side of the monastery of Crowland; and also that on the rebuilding of the abbey Abbot Turketyl established in the cell of St. Pega, and to her honour, a community of learned clerks, who were to keep the canonical hours day and night, and to be maintained by the abbey, though they were not monks. Seculars who wished to embrace the regular life at Crowland were sometimes tested here first. Some years later, however, when nearly all these clerks had become monks, Turketyl decided that it would be better not to have a regular community at St. Pega's, as it might prove prejudicial to the abbey. He therefore withdrew the remaining clerks, and appointed a single priest to serve the chapel of St. Pega at the expense of the monastery. There was still a chapel of St. Pega within the precincts of Crowland in 1434 (fn. 2); but never again a community of clerks to serve it.