Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 3.djvu/37

 ID-- s. in. JAX. 14, 1905.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

the first article in the book is headed, " Soluto matrimonio quemadmodum dos petatur." There are no underlinings or MS. notes.

W. R. B. PRIDEAUX.

THE HOLY MAID OF KENT. Mr. Sidney j Lee, at p. 48 of his new book, ' Great English- men of the Sixteenth Century ' (1904), in his interesting account of Sir Thomas More, refers to Elizabeth Barton, " the Holy Maid of Kent," as "staying with the monks of the Charterhouse at Sion House, London."

I may perhaps be allowed to point out that it is against the rules of the Order of Carthusians to permit women to enter a Charterhouse unless it be a nunnery, which the one referred to evidently was not ; indeed, the order had no nunnery in the English Province, all their priories being for monks. Further, there was no Charter- house at Sion House.

There was a Carthusian Priory or Charter- house, founded by Henry V., at (West) Sheen, now known as Richmond in Surrey, and the priory would not be far from where the Observatory now is, in the Old Deer Park. More, in his letter to Cromwell, printed in the Rev. T. E. Bridgett's 'Life and Writings of Sir Thomas More' (1892), refers to " the Prior of the Charter- house at Shene" coming to him and talking about the Maid (p 330); and further on he states " that after her own confession declared at Paul's Cross" on 23 November, 1533, he sent word by his servant "unto the Prior of the Charterhouse, that she was undoubtedly proved a false, deceiving hypo- crite." But there does not appear to be any- thing to show that the Maid ever went to Sheen Charterhouse.

In the same letter, however, More expressly states (p. 326) :

"After this, I being upon a clay at Sion, and talking with the fathers together at the grate, they showed me that she [i.e., the Maid] had been with them, and showed me divers things

that some of them misliked in her Afterwards,

when I heard that she was there again, I came thither to see her, and to speak with her myself. At which communication had, in a little chapel, there were none present but we two."

Compare also F. A. Gasquet, ' Henry VIII. and the Eng Mon.' (1895), vol. i. p. 143.

Sion Monastery was on the opposite side of the river to Sheen, the site being now occupied by Sion House, between Isleworth and Brentford, in the county of Middlesex. It was a foundation of the Order of St. Bridget of Sweden, and according to the rule of the order monks and nuns lived under the same roof, though the two communities were completely separate. The sisters, with the

abbess, dwelt in one court, and the canons- and lay brothers in a separate court by them- selves (' Mon. Angl.,' Ellis, vol. vi. p. 542). Ifc is said that the rule, although less austere than that of the Carthusians, included a strict enclosure and the exercises of a contempla- tive life. (See Hendriks's 'The London Charterhouse,' 1889, pp. 127-8, and G. J. Aungier's ' The History and Antiq. of Syoii Mon.,' 1840 ; see p. 85 as to More's meeting, with the Maid.)

It may be worth while also to call attention here to the note on p. 13 of Thomas Wright's ' Letters relating to the Suppression of the Monasteries' (Camden Soc., 1843), wherein, referring to the subject of the Holy Maid, he- mentions "the fathers and nuns of Syon, the Charter House, [sic] and Sheen," as if there were three places. What, of course, must have been intended was the monks and nuns of Syon and the monks of Charterhouse at Sheen. H. W. UNDERDOWN.

ENGLISH CANONIZED SAINTS. The following list is perhaps not complete, and some details I am unable to fill in ; but, such as it is, it may be of interest in reference to the recent discussion in 'N. & Q.' under the heading ' Martyrdom of St. Thomas ; St. Thomas of Hereford.'

/. Formal Canonizations.

1. St. Alban is stated by Matthew Paris to have been canonized by Pope Adrian I. in 794.

2. St. Willibald was canonized by Leo VII. in 938.

3. Pope Adrian IV., the only English Pope, canonized St. Siegfried in 1158.

4. 5. Alexander III. canonized St. Edward the Confessor, 7 February, 1161/2, by the bull Uliiis devotionis constantiiun, and St. Thomas of Canterbury on 22 March, 1173/4, by the bull Gandendv.m estunirersitati.

6, 7. Innocent III. canonized St Gilbert of Sempringham in 1202 (bull lost), and St. Wol- stan, 14 May, 1203, by the bull Gum secundum evanyelicam.

8, 9. Honorius III. canonized St. Hugh of Lincoln, 18 February, 1220/1, by the bull Dirince dignatio ])ietatis, and St. William of York, 18 March, 1226/7, by the bull Qui statuit terminos.

10. St. Edmund Rich was canonized by the bull of Innocent IV., dated 11 January, 1247/8, Novum, mat r is ecclesice.

1 1 St. Richard of Chichester was canonized 20 February, 1261/2, by the bull of Urban IV., Exidtet angelica turba.

12. St. Thomas of Hereford was canonized 17 April, 1320, by the bull of John XXII,. Uniyenitus Filius.