CHAPTER XVI

ST. HELEN’S

The foundation of this House of Benedictine Nuns was in or about the year 1212, when Alardus de Burnham, who died in 1216, was Dean of St. Paul’s. The right, or permission, to found the House is contained in a deed still preserved.

The seal of the convent represents the finding of the Cross by St. Helen: she stands beside the Cross, holding in her hand the three nails, while a crowd of nuns are on their knees with uplifted hands.

In 1439 the then Dean, Reynold Kentwode, drew up a new set of Rules for the use of the Sisters. The following are the principal clauses:—

“‘Reynold Kentwode, Dean and Chapeter of the Church of Poules, to the religious women, Prioresse and Covent of the Priory of Seynt Eleyns, of owre patronage and jurisdictyon immediat, and every Nunne of the sayde Priory, gretyng in God, with desyre of religyous observances and devocyon. For as moche as in owre visitacyon ordinarye in youre Priorye boothe in the hedde, and in the membris late actually exersyd, we have founded many defautes and excesses, the whiche nedythe notory correccyon and reformacyon, we wyllyng vertu to be cherished, and holy relygion for to be kepte, as in the rules in youre ordyerre, we ordeyne and make certeyne Ordenauns and Injunccyons, weche we sende you wrete and seeled undir owre commone seele, for to be kepte in forme as thei ben articled and wretyn unto you.

Firste, we ordeyne and enjoyne yow, that devyne servyce be don by yow duly nythe and day, and silence duly kepte in the tyme and place, aftir the observaunce of yowre religione.

Also we ordayne and enjoyne you Prioresse and Covente, and eche of you synglerly, that ye make due and hole confession to the confessor assigned be us.

Also we enjoyne yow Prioresse and Covent, that ye ordeyne convenyent place of firmarye, in the wiche youre seeke sustres may be honestly kepte and relevyd with the costes and expences of yowre house, accustomed in the relygion durynge the tyme of heere sikenesse.

Also we enjoyne you Prioresse, that ye kepe youre dortour, and ly thereinne by nythe, aftyr observaunce of yowre religion, without that the case be suche that the lawe and the observaunce of youre religione suffreth yow to do the contrarye.

Also we ordeyne and injoyne yow Prioresse and Covent, that noo seculere be lokkyed withinne the boundes of the cloystere; ne no seculere personnes come withinne aftyr the belle of complyne, except, wym-ment servauntes and made childeryne lerners, also admitte noon, sojournauntes wymment withoute lycence of us.

Also we ordeyne and enjoyne yow Prioresse and Covent, that ye, ne noone of yowre sustres use nor haunte any place withinne the Priory, thoroghe the wiche evel suspeccyone or sclaundere mythe aryse; weche places, for certeyne causes that move us, we wryte not here inne in oure present injunccyone, but wole notyfie to yow Prioresse; nor have no lokyng nor spectacles owte warde, thorght the wiche ye mythe falle in worldlye delectacyone.

Also we enjoyne yow, that alle daunsyng and revelyng be utterlely forborne among yow, except Christmasse and other honest tymys of recreacyone, among youre selfe usyd, in absence of seculers in all wyse.

Also we ordene and injoyne yow Prioresse, that there be made a hache of cenabyle [reasonable?] heythe, crestyd withe pykys of herne, to fore the entre of yowre kechyne, that noo straunge pepille may entre with certeyne cleketts avysed be yow and be yowre st’ward to suche personys as yow and hem thynk onest and conabell.

Also we enjoyne yow Prioresse, that non nonnes have noo keyes of the posterne doore that gothe owte of the cloystere in the churchyard but the Prioresse, for there is moche comyng in and owte unlefulle tymys.’” (_Londina Illustrata_, vol. i.)

At the Dissolution the revenues of this House were valued, according to Dugdale, at £314: 12: 5, and according to Speed at £376: 6s.

The site and the church were given to Cromwell. Edward the Sixth gave the advowson to the Bishop of London, but it has since returned to the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s.

The buildings were purchased by the Leathersellers’ Company, who converted the Nuns’ Hall into their Common Hall, and so it continued until the demolition of all the ancient buildings in 1799.

It appears from Malcolm that he believed the Nuns’ Hall to have been demolished, and a new hall built in 1567. These are his words:—

“We will suppose the monastery of St. Helen demolished, the materials disposed of, and the purchase of the site compleated by the Company. The architect finds a foundation far superior to any their funds would supply, and therefore cases the basement walls with brick, and makes the pavement (ready for his purpose) serve as the floor for the new Hall. And thus far he acted wisely; for his work of 1567 became too ruinous and expensive for repair in 1797, was taken down, and will be forgotten. What remains to be said of the antient crypt? That it would not have required repair for 500 years to come. Had the enormous masses of fungous webs, which depended from the arches of this beautiful work, been carefully swept away, and the walls rubbed with a dry broom, the antient windows re-opened, the earth that clogged the pavement removed, and its other defilements cleared off, these crypts, now scattered in piles of rubbish, would have formed a church how infinitely superior to forty I could name!

The regret with which I saw those slender pillars torn from their bases, and the strong though delicate arches sundered in masses, is still warm to my remembrance. The angles were filled with white sand, a layer of earth, another of sand, a layer of oak chips; one now lays before me. Six hundred years have passed since this wood was cut, and the mark of the axe is fresh upon it, and so on till the spaces were filled.” (Vol. iii. pp. 562-563.)

The representation of the hall given by Wilkinson and that given by Malcolm do not seem to agree in all particulars.

Malcolm adds a view not presented by Wilkinson showing the ruins of the cloisters.

I have elsewhere called attention to the remarkable fact that London possessed, down to the end of the eighteenth century, a greater collection of mediæval ruins than any city of Europe, and that no one, poet, historian, antiquary, essayist, took the least notice of them. Wilkinson, however, does remark that the group of ruins “reminds us rather of some romantic fragment of antiquity to be found in distant countries than of one situated in the very centre of populous London, and were it not for the modern buildings made out in the background, a spectator might be led to imagine the scene many miles distant from the Metropolis of England.”

This House of Benedictine Nuns pursued its uneventful course for more than three hundred years. Now and then the nuns stopped a lane across their property, or they let their land at long leases, or they inherited new lands, or they mismanaged and wasted their property, or they buried a Prioress and had to elect another. Very little else can be recorded of them. It was on this land that Crosby House was built on a ninety-nine years’ lease. Meantime, the church of St. Helen’s did duty both for the nuns and for the parish.

In the year 1534 the value of the House was estimated at £376: 6s. a year. The property of the nuns shows that this House was always exclusively a London Foundation. They had houses in the City, in Middlesex, Kent, Essex, Hertford, and Buckingham—but these were all home counties. In the country they held little, if any, property.

The collection of facts concerning the last years of the nunnery, made by the late Rev. Thomas Hugo, throws considerable light on the position of the House.

In the first place, the names of the successive Prioresses and those of the Sisters seem to be chiefly of London origin; secondly, the bequests recorded in the _Calendar of Wills_, twenty-seven in number, are all made by London citizens. They are, moreover, situated in various wards, showing that the House was regarded as belonging to the whole of the City, and not to any part of it. Some of the bequests are made without any specified purpose; some have conditions and duties attached; thus, one is for providing communion wine, while others are to be accompanied by permission of burial in the church.

In reading the disposition and management of their property by the nuns, one cannot avoid the suspicion that they were sometimes under the influence of certain persons not wholly disinterested. Thus, there was one Richard Berde, citizen and girdler. He first takes over a tenement in the parish of St. Ethelburga belonging to the House for a term of forty years at the rent of 20s. He then takes another tenement in the same parish for sixty years at 45s. a year. Then he becomes tenant to the Sisters for the great messuage, or inn, called the “Black Bull,” with cellars, etc., and two adjoining tenements for one-and-twenty years at a rent of £9: 14s. a year. So that he became the holder on long leases of one great house and four tenements. It is perfectly certain, of course, that he intended to sublet them all at a profit to himself, and that the Sisters in this transaction got the worst of it. But Richard Berde got more than this out of the nuns: they made him their seneschal, receiver and collector, with a salary of £12, the annual sum of 20s. for his livery, board and lodging, with allowances of beer and wine, an allowance of fuel, and the free use of a chamber and a parlour. The Dissolution must have been a heavy blow to good Richard Berde: he lost his salary and his allowances; one supposes that he was still allowed to retain his tenancy of the houses. He received a pension of 40s., but what was that compared with the extremely comfortable little job that was taken away?

The name of the last Prioress was Mary Rollesley. What relative was this lady to John Rollesley, gentleman? One asks because John Rollesley seems to have done pretty well with the Sisters, too. He got the manor of Burston from them on a lease for eighty years at a rent of £9. And the year after this concession, he obtained a messuage in the Close of St. Helen’s, which must have been a great house, because it had been occupied by the Bishop of Llandaff, on a lease of fourscore years at a rent of 46s. 8d. More than that, he obtained the lease, for the same time, of ten tenements, also in St. Helen’s Close, at a yearly rent of £15. And on the same day he got two more tenements outside the Close and a marsh at Stebenhithe (Stepney) for a term of sixty years at a rent of £8: 15: 4. Two years later the grateful nuns gave John Rollesley a small pension of four marks a year for good counsel, and Edward Rollesley, gentleman—clearly one of the same family,—received an annuity of 40s. also for good counsel. One of the last acts of the last Prioress was to leave to John Rollesley the manor of Marke, in the parish of Leyton and Walthamstow, for fourscore years at a rent of £8. Probably all the estates of the House were let in this way to men who farmed them, making their profit by subletting them. These facts show how lucky it might be, in the blessed and religious days before the Reformation, for a family to have a Prioress among them.

We note, further, that the nuns paid a chief steward, a receiver, and an auditor; that they paid pension to three chantry chaplains; and yearly payments to the church wardens of St. Mary Bothaw, to the wardens of a fraternity in Bow Church, to the Bishop of Lincoln for procurations, etc., to the Abbess of Barking, and annual doles to the poor on certain days. All these facts, taken together, seem to throw unexpected light upon the ramifications and divisions of ecclesiastical property.

The nuns were dispersed in 1538. Eighteen years later, in 1556, a list of the survivors shows that the last Prioress, Mary Rollesley, and six sisters, still survived. Of these six sisters, five received a pension of £2: 13: 4, and one, who had probably held some conventual post, received a pension of £3: 6: 8. At the Dissolution there were two Chantry Priests who had stipends of £8 and £7 respectively.

A considerable part of the ruins of this House was standing until the end of the eighteenth century. Wilkinson has figured some of the details. The following description is from the Survey of the King’s Offices, taken when the nuns left it (_Archæologia_, vol. xvi. 1806):—

“_The late Priorye of Saint Elenes within the Citye of London._

The View and Surveye ther taken the xxith daye of June, in the xxxiij Yeare of the raigne of our Soveraigne Lord Kinge Henrye the viijth, by Thomas Mildmay, one of the King’s Auditors thereunto assigned. That is to saye,

Fyrste, the cheaf entre or cominge into the same late Priory ys in and by the street gate lyying in the pishe of St. Elenes in Bysshopsgate Streat which leadeth to a little cowrte next adjoining to the same gate, havinge chambers, howses, and buyldinges, environinge the same, out of wch cowrte there is an entre leadinge to an inner cowrte wch on the North side is also likewies environed with edificyons and buyldings, called the Stewardes lodging, with a Countinge house apperteninge to the same. Item, next to the same cowrte ther ys a faire Kechinge, withe a pastery house, larder houses, and other howses of office, apperteninge to the same: and at the Est ende of the same Kechyn and entre leadinge to the same hall, with a litle plor adioyning, having under the same hall and plor sondrie bowses of office, next adioyning to the Cloyster ther, and one howse called the Covent plor. Item, iij. fair Chambers adioyninge to the hall, whearof the one over the entree leadinge to the cloyster, thother over the Buttree, and the third over the larder. Item, from the said entre by the hall, to the Cloyster, which cloyster yet remaneth holly leaded, and at the North side of the same cloyster a fare long howse called the Fratree. Item, at thest end of the same Cloyster, a lodginge called the Suppryors lodging, with a little gardin lieng to the same. And by the same lodginge a pare of staires leading to the Dortor, at the Southend whearof ther is a litle hows, wherein the Evidence of the said hows nowe dou remayne, with all howses and lodginges under the same Dortor. Item, at the Westende of the same cloyster, a dore leadinge in to the nunes late Quire, extending from the dore out of the churche yarde unto the lampe or pticyon deviding the priorye from the pisshe which is holly leaded. Item, at thest ende of the said cloyster, an entre leading to a little Garden, and out of the same littell garden to a faire garden called the Covent garden conteninge by estimacn half an acre. And, at the Northend of the said garden, a dore leading to another garden called the Kechin garden: and at the Westende of the same ther is a Dovehowsshe; and in the same garden a dore to a faire Woodyerd, with howses, pticons, and gardens, within the same Woodyerd a tenement with a garden, a stable, and other thapptances to the same belonginge, called Elizabeth Hawtes lodginge.”

Ogilby’s map (see end of _London in the Time of the Stuarts_) shows the site as it was a hundred years later. There is part of the cloister left, part of the nuns’ garden. As for limits in 1542, the southern boundary of the Nunnery was the partition wall dividing the church of St. Helen’s; the eastern boundary was St. Mary Axe, or perhaps a row of houses on the west side; the western boundary was Bishopsgate Street within, and the northern was Camomile Street, or London Wall, unless there was a row of houses on its south side.

I have before me a voluminous mass of MS. notes referring to this important London House. Most of the notes are of small importance. It must, however, be acknowledged that the chronicles of the House show, perhaps, more quarrels than we find in the monasteries of men.

In 1432 the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s issue ordinances for the Reformation of the Convent. A little earlier the same body excommunicate a certain Jowsa or Joyssa who, after taking the veil as a professed nun of St. Helen’s, left the House and contracted marriage. About the same time there was a scandal concerning the treatment of Joan Heyron, one of the nuns, by the Prioress. Joan had gout in her hands and feet so badly that she could not perform her canonical duties. The Prioress, probably thinking that Joan was shamming, had, therefore, put her in prison, from which the Dean of St. Paul’s ordered her release, and the Pope—no less an authority—gave instructions for her maintenance. This little anecdote opens the door for speculation of a very interesting kind as to the Row Royal which should demand the intervention of the Dean first, and an appeal to the Pope afterwards. One understands, for instance, that Joan Heyron was a Londoner by birth, that she had relations of influence, and that they were not going to stand it. We find the admission of Chantry priests by bequest; petitions to elect a prioress in the room of the late sister deceased; grants of tenements; petitions for a market; and so on.