CHAPTER X

THE CLERKENWELL NUNNERY

It has been generally believed that the founder of the Convent, dedicated to the Honour of God and the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, was one Jordan Briset about the year 1100. Stow speaks as if there was no doubt of the matter at all:—

“Beyond this house of St. John’s, was the Priory of Clerkenwell, so called of Clarks-Well adjoining; which Priory was also founded, about the Year 1100, by Jorden Briset, Baron, the son of Ralph, the son of Brian Briset: Who gave to Robert, a Priest, fourteen Acres of Land, lying in the Field next adjoining the said Clarks-Well, thereupon to build an House for religious persons, which he built to the Honour of God, and the Assumption of our Lady; and placed therein black Nuns. This Jorden Briset gave also to that House one piece of Ground, thereby to build a Windmill upon, etc. Upon the Dissolution of this Priory, it became a Parish Church, called St. James, Clerkenwell.”

Mr. J. H. Round, however, has discovered that the date of the Foundation has been placed too early, and that the founder was not Jordan Briset at all, but a certain person identified as the younger son of a Domesday under-tenant, who had himself founded the Priories of Bricett for Austin Friars and of Stanegate for Cluniac Monks. Both this House and the Priory of St. John adjacent were founded, in Mr. Round’s view, about the year 1145.

The value of the House at the surrender was, according to Dugdale, £262: 19: 0; according to Speed, £282: 16: 5. In the _Calendar of Wills_ there is not a single bequest to the nuns of this House.

Isabella, the last prioress, was a daughter of Sir Richard Sackville. She furnishes another instance tending to prove that the monasteries and nunneries had fallen into the hands of the noble and gentle families. She received a pension of fifty pounds a year on the Dissolution; she died in 1569, and was buried in her own church.

The site of the House was given to the Duke of Norfolk, who exchanged it with the King for another place. Then Walter Henley and John Williams, knights, got a grant of it. It passed through many hands during the next hundred years. Among others, it was possessed by Sir Thomas Challoner, tutor to Prince Henry, son of James the First. He built a spacious house within the Close of the Priory, on the front of which he engraved the following lines, a rare tribute to the memory of the departed Sisters:—

“Casta Fides superest, velare tecta Sorores Ista relagatæ deseruere licet: Nam venerandus Hymen his vota jugalia servet, Vestalemque focum mente fovere studet.”

Thus Englished by Fuller:—

“Chaste Faith still stays behind though hence be flown Those veyled nuns who here before did rest: For reverend marriage wedlock vows doth own, And sacred flames keep here in loyal brest.”

Some remains of the cloisters were standing in 1785. They were figured in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ for that year.

The Church of St. James was originally the choir of the nunnery, and was made a Parish Church on the Dissolution.

“Strype, in his additions to Stow’s account of the church, says, ‘About the year 1623 the steeple fell down, having stood time out of mind without any reparation; nor among the records of that church could any mention be found of any such thing. This Steeple in the rebuilding thereof, and being near finishing, fell again, upon the undertaker’s neglect in not looking into the strength of that upon which he was to rear such a burthen. With the steeple fell the bells, their carriages and frames, beating a great part of the roof down before them, the weight of all these together bearing to the ground two large pillars of the south aisle, a fair gallery over against the pulpit, the pulpit, all the pews, and whatsoever was under or near it.’ The church, however, was thoroughly repaired, and the steeple renewed, by 1627, at the expense of £1400.

On August 25th, 1788, the ground was first prepared for the reception of a new church, which was consecrated on July 10th, 1792, by Beilby Porteus, Bishop of London.” (_London and Middlesex Notes_, pp. 80-81.)