It’s an Arden’ough’ life...
By Judith Arnopp
Many years ago now I was lucky enough to study medieval
monastic history beneath the tutorage of Janet Burton. I attended her first
lecture with a idealistic view of the medieval period. For me then the medieval
period was a crystal clear world in which the laity were shielded from their
sin by the selfless devotion of the Roman church. I signed up to the module on monasticism
expecting to study a simple life, goodly men praying for the souls of their
fellows. The monks of my imagination were self-denying, nurturing, healing. The
nuns were Ingrid Bergman figures, their faces illuminated with religious
goodness, mouthing gentle prayers in softly lit chapels, accompanied wherever
they went by strains of plainsong. A single lecture with Janet shattered this
ideal and made me sit bolt upright and vow that one day I would write a
historical novel about nuns.
 François Bonvin [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons |
Popular history tends to focus on the vast abbeys like
Fountains, Glastonbury and Rievaulx which somewhere along the way lost sight of
the simple life they initially embraced. By the time of the dissolution these
abbeys had become immensely rich and in some cases, were no stranger to corruption.
In the case of the Cistercians, who had broken from the mainstream monastic way
to ahdere closer to the rule of St Benedict, and forbidden the extravagance of
stained glass, patterned floor tiles and multitudinous chapels, the regulations
were clearly breached. But it was difficult to avoid. By way of securing
themselves a place in Heaven, laymen endowed lavish gifts on the abbeys: gifts
of land, chapels, windows etc. They paid for prayers to be said for their souls
for all eternity. Ultimately the wealth of the monasteries outstripped that of
the crown. It was affluence that drew the greedy eye of Cromwell and his king,
and the accusations of corruption had less to do with outrage and more to do
with the desire to justify their plundering of the holy church.
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Hans Holbein
[Public domain], via Wikimedia
Commons
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Cromwell’s campaign to close the monasteries began slowly at
first. Picking up where his old master, Wolsely, had left off, he began
tentatively chipping away at smaller, less profitable foundations or houses
where moral decay had become the rule rather than the exception. Abbey
treasures went straight into the king’s coffers, the lands became the property
of the crown, leased to the king’s favourites by way of securing both their
loyalty and ensuring their support for the dissolution of the monasteries. But some
of the smaller abbeys closed at this time were barely scraping a living.
Arden Priory was situated in an unpopulated region on the
edge of the North Yorkshire moors, the inhabitants now nothing more than a
whisper on the historical record. There was nothing romantic about the
cheerless life they led. The nuns at Arden were a group of half starved women
living on the edge of civilisation, closed off from the world, from family and
friends and all comforts. Assisted by just a few servants, the women undertook
all manual work themselves, caring for livestock, cooking, cleaning, nursing …
everything. Even today, stripped of twenty-first century luxuries of glazing
and heating, life in rural North Yorkshire can be hard; in 1536 it was extreme.
 Arden Hall on the site of the priory. Uncredited / Arden Hall via Wikimedia |
Arden Priory was founded in 1150 by Peter de Hoton, confirmed
by Roger de Mowbray between 1147 and 1169. It was never a rich foundation. One
can only imagine the misery of a life of unceasing labour, meagre accommodation,
glassless windows, fasting, overworked and ill-clad. In 1397, long before the
dissolution, there were just six nuns at Arden: Christina and Elizabeth Darrel,
Elizabeth Slayne, Alicia Barnard Agnes of Middleton, and Elizabeth of Thronton.
They were overseen by the Prioress, who is named simply as Eleanor. At this time it seems relations between the
nuns was not good. The sisters accused the prioress of pawning the church
silver, selling wood without consent and providing so few candles in the quire that
there was insufficient light to say the offices. They also complained the buildings
were in a state of disrepair. But this doesn’t necessarily suggest the prioress
was corrupt, it rather points to dire need. Janet Burton in her book Monasteries and Society in the British Isles
in the Late Middle Ages says:
“What emerges from their
complaints is that this small community of seven women, living in the bleak
environment of the North Yorkshire Moors, was suffering conditions of extreme
poverty and hardship. It was life on the edge.”
This picture of hardship, so far from my initial imaginings,
has stayed with me during the ten years or so since I first heard of Arden.
Being so far from the ‘concourse of men’ there few rich benefactors, the priory
would have had little chance of increasing their wealth. If there was such a
degree of poverty in the fourteenth century, what was the financial state by
the time of the dissolution? ‘Valor
Ecclesiasticus’ (a survey of
church finances in England, Wales and parts of Ireland made in 1535 on Henry
VIII’s orders) suggests
that very little had changed. Poverty was aways the rule at Arden.
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| Young nun digging a grave — Wikipedia |
The priory was visited by the king’s commissioners on 8th
May 1536 and it was suppressed the following August. At the time of dissolution
there were just six sisters, three of whom received pensions of twenty
shillings each, two of ten shillings and one six shillings and eightpence.
Sister Elizabeth Johnson, who was an octgenarian with limited hearing was
granted forty shillings ‘toward her sustenance.’ The church ‘treasure’ seized by the king’s men consisted of a gilt
challice weighing 14.5 oz and a flat piece of white silver weighing 8oz, and
two bells valued at ten shillings. According to the ‘Valor Ecclesiasticus’ the value of the house in 1536 was £12. 0s
and 6d. It is noted that the nuns also had an image of St Brigid to whom they
made offerings for cows that were ill or had strayed.
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This points to a reality quite different from tales that were
circulated in 1536 of corruption and ungodliness. Motivated by his favour of
the new learning Cromwell and his men put forward stories of nuns indulging in
sexual misconduct with monks, murdering
their own infants, enjoying lewd and promiscuous lives. Even if they had the inclination,
I would be surprised if the nuns of Arden found either the time or the energy
for such practices.
The dissolution was almost universally resented by monks and
traditionalists. Monasteries were a life-line; common people relied on them
from birth to death for charity, employment and for healthcare. The closures
united the populace both rich and poor, culminating in widespread protest that posed
the biggest threat to the crown during Henry VIII’s reign. The first rising
took place in Lincolnshire in October but was quickly put down, only to spring
up again in Yorkshire when the people of the north, led by lawyer, Robert Aske,
embarked upon a ‘Pilgrimage of Grace’.
Richard Croft / Lincolnshire
Rising plaque
Gentry as well as commonfolk joined the peaceful march to
persuade the king to change his mind; monks and laymen, nuns and children were
among those who took to the road to preserve their way of life. The Pilgrimage
of Grace was the worst uprising during Henry VIII’s reign, the rebels reaching
more than 30,000, far outnumbering the royal army but after initially agreeing
to consider their complaints, the king managed to get the upper hand. He ‘invited’ Robert Aske to spend Christmas at
court, promising to consider their requests but when unrest broke out again in
the East Riding it provided the king with the excuse he needed. The Duke of
Norfolk was sent to deal with the rebels. The leaders were executed, and there
were widespread hangings of common people, a deterrent to further protesters.
Robert Aske was hung in chains on the walls of York and left to die.
By
Banner_of_the_Holy_Wounds_(Pilgrimage_of_Grace).png: self-createdderivative work:
Diego Sanguinetti [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
One by one the abbeys fell, monks and nuns were turned out,
some abbots were tortured and executed. By 1540 the largest of the abbeys were closed,
the lands distributed among the nobilty, the remains of once glorious buildings
subjected to neglect and decay.
The plight of those affected by the dissolution has always
intrigued me and I have enjoyed revisiting the period in Sisters of Arden which is due for publication later on this year. The
records of Arden are scanty but by piecing together what little we know with
wider records of the dissoultion and the pilgrimage of Grace, I have at last
been able to explore the closure of the abbeys and the uprisings that followed
from the perspective of a group of insignificant nuns.
Sisters of Arden follows the path of three nuns,
Margery, Grace and Frances, from the closure of Arden, through the journeyings
of the pilgrims on their march for Grace, where they experience the outside
world for the first time. As their adventures take them the length and breadth
of Yorkshire they move from determination to despair, from hope to disillusion.
But, with their world in pieces, the only thing they can do is try to rebuild
it.
Sisters of Arden
Arden
Priory has remained unchanged for almost four hundred years. When a nameless
child is abandoned at the gatehouse door, the nuns take her in and raise her as
one of their own.
After
the execution of Anne Boleyn in 1536, the embittered King strikes out, and
unprecedented change sweeps across the country. The bells of the great abbeys
fall silent, the church fragments and the very foundation of the realm begins
to crack.
Determined
to preserve their way of life, Margery and the sisters of Arden join a
pilgrimage thirty thousand strong and attempt to lead the heretic king back to
grace.
Sisters
of Arden is a story of valour, virtue and veritas.
Coming soon — December 2018
Judith Arnopp
 Judith Arnopp is the author of ten historical novels
including The Winchester Goose, The Beaufort Chronicle (three book series), The
Kiss of the Concubine and A Song of Sixpence. You can find her on Facebook • Twitter • Website • Blog. |
