Page:Medieval English nunneries c. 1275 to 1535.djvu/55

Rh significant that it was sometimes necessary to procure the papal dispensation of an abbess- or prioress-elect for illegitimacy, before she could hold office. The dispensation in 1472 of Joan Ward, a nun of Esholt, who afterwards became prioress, is interesting, for the Wards were patrons of the house and her presence illustrates one of the uses to which such patronage could be put. The diocese of York affords other instances (they were common enough in the case of priests) of dispensation "super defectu natalium"; in 1474 one was granted to Cecily Conyers, a nun at Ellerton, "born of a married man and a single woman" and in 1432 Alice Etton received one four days before her confirmation as Prioress of Sinningthwaite. At St Mary's Neasham in 1437, the Bishop of Durham appointed Agnes Tudowe prioress and issued a mandate for her dispensation for illegitimacy and her installation on the same day.

Less defensible from the point of view of the house was the practice, which certainly existed, of placing in nunneries girls in some way deformed, or suffering from an incurable defect.

Now earth to earth in convent walls.

To earth in churchyard sod.

I was not good enough for man,

And so am given to God.