Yorkshire Almanac At a tithe tribunal, elderly ex-nuns recall hay-making at Moxby Priory before its dissolution in 1536

25 June 1586: At a tithe tribunal, elderly ex-nuns recall hay-making at Moxby Priory before its dissolution in 1536

John Stanley Purvis. 1949. Select XVI Century Causes in Tithe. Yorkshire Archaeological Society. Reproduction by kind permission of Yorkshire Archaeological and Historical Society. Get it:

Unedited excerpt

If an excerpt is used in the book, it will be shorter, edited and, where applicable, translated.

Isabel Murton of Sutton in Galtres widow aged 60 . . .
.. for six yeres together ended about xxxv yeres ago was houshoulde servante to Lyonell Taylor then dwellinge at the nunnrie or monasterie of Moulsebie and occupyinge certain groundes belonginge to the monasterie and especiallye these groundes folowinge viz. the Wood Close the Myll Close the Stock Inge the Lyones Garth twoo closies called Warme Parkes . . .

Joan Cockell of Pylmore Hall parochie de Brafferton vidua etatis sue lxx annorum . . .
… for vii yeres together nexte and immediatlye before the dayes or tyme of the dissolucion of the monasterie or nunnrie of Moulsebye dwelte and remayned at the nunnrie and by all the said tyme wente yerelie in hay tyme furthe with the priores and nunnes there to see the hay maikars of suche hay as growed in the growndes belonginge to the… nunnrie and see the hay yerelie mowne maid into cockes and ledd away
[There was no tithe hay paid]… of hir knowledge beinge butler at the monasterie or nunnrie duringe the said vii yeres… and was privie to the commodities commynge in and goinge furthe of the monasterie or nunnrie. She named: Dame Agnes Tuite laite pryores of the monasterie who died aboute foure or fyve yeres before the dissolucion of the monasterie; Dame Phillipp Jennyson next Prioris after; Dame Margaret Cuniston an ould nun of the nunnrie; Dame Joan Ellarie an oulde nun there Also Dame Joan Hunton then a nun there and yet levinge; Dame Agnes Posgait an ould nun Also Dame Eliz. Burnet her conteste, Dame Dorothie Standishe, Dame Margt. Thormanbie also hir conteste all nunns of the said nunnrie at the dayes of the dissolucion thereof or a litle before . . .

Eliz. Burnett of Helperbie spinster aged 73…
… for xiii or xiiii yeres together dwelte contynewed and remayned at the monasterie or nunnrie of Moulsebie next and immediatlie before the dissolucion or suppression of the said . . . nunnrie and was a nunn there hir selfe aboute v or vi yeres before the said dissolucion.
… she hir selfe did yerely for the moste parte in hay tyme helpe to strawe and coke the hay…

Margt. Newstead of Thornabie uxor Rogeri Newstead gresman, aged 72 …
… for xi yeres together nexte and immediatlye before the dissolucion and suppression of the . . . nunnrie of Molseby was ae professed nunn there and for dyvers yeres before dwelte and contynewed in the monasterie all which tyme she saithe that she amongste other yoounge nunns of the nunnrie helped to do suche necessarie busines as was to be done aboute the same and especiallye she saithe yerelye duringe the tyme afforesaid helped in hay tyme to maike the hay…

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

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3 May 1641: On the day of the discovery of the True Cross, Driffield folk start moving their livestock out of town to high summer pasture, endangering crops

3 March 1607: During a tithe case at Kirkbymoorside, George Hutton (82) recalls Roland Blyton hunting at Skiplam and Welburn before the Dissolution 70 years ago

29 August 1570: On arriving in Yorkshire, Archbishop Grindal declares war on bloody-minded folk-Catholicism

13 January 1536: Richard Layton, dissolver of monasteries, writes to Thomas Cromwell claiming that Yorkshire clergy use birth control

20 January 1536: Thomas Cromwell’s dissolvers of monasteries, Richard Layton and Thomas Legh, report allegations of whoring and theft by William Thirsk, Abbot of Fountains

21 September 1549: Egalitarian, republican and Catholic, the leaders of the Seamer Rebellion against the Edwardian Reformation are hanged at York

25 October 1536: God stands between Henry VIII’s army at Doncaster and a superior force of Catholic rebels from the Pilgrimage of Grace, according to a Tudor chronicler

20 September 1319: During the Anglo-Scottish wars, seasoned raiders encounter an improvised Yorkshire home guard of clergy, peasants and officials at Myton-on-Swale

12 October 0709: St Wilfrid of York’s soul departs with the birds at Oundle (Northants)

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Date relies on the discussion in Colgrave:

October 12th is the day always kept in his honour, though this was not a Thursday [as given in the text] in 709 but a Saturday. On the other hand, the Psalm quoted … occurs in the ordinary course of the Psalms for Saturday mattins in both the Roman and Benedictine breviaries. This would support the traditional date of October 12th. Bede in his Martyrologium Poeticum dates it April 24th. This however does not fit in with the events. It was in fact the date of his Translation Festival. The statement which occurs in Bright and Plummer, quoted from Raine, that the obituary of the church of Durham gives October 3rd as the date of his death is inaccurate. The MS reads quite clearly iii id Oct. [i.e. 13 October]. The date of his death cannot really be settled on the evidence we have at present.
(Colgrave 1985)

See the same page for souls as birds, and Fridegoda’s description of his spirit flying from his body “like a bird freed from the lime of the flesh.” Quite irrelevantly, I imagine that the bird wasn’t Leeds’s owl:

On the window-sill the night before [Kafka] died Dora Dymant found an owl waiting. The owl has a complex imagery in art. Just as in Freudian psychology an emotion can stand for itself and its opposite, so is the owl a symbol of both darkness and light. As a creature of the night the owl was seen as a symbol of the Jews, who, turning away from the light of Christ, were guilty of wilful blindness. On the other hand the owl was, as it remains, a symbol of wisdom. It is fitting that this bird of ambiguity should come to witness the departure of a man who by belief was neither Christian nor Jew, and had never wholeheartedly felt himself a member of the human race. He had written of himself as a bug and a mouse, both the natural prey of the bird now waiting outside the window (Bennett 2014).

Colgrave has indigenis in the last line as needy (indigens) where I have native (indigenus), probably because he knows more than me about medieval Latin declension.

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