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Rh give alms for the maintenance of the ' poor nuns of St. Margaret's priory ' ; from which we may surely infer that he had visited the house and was satisfied with its condition in other respects. Poverty and obscurity are indeed in no sense a reproach to a convent of nuns. Again in the fifteenth century (during which only two names of prioresses can at present be recovered) there is indirect evi- dence of the faithful observance of the Bene- dictine rule in this house. During the epis- copate of Bishop Alnwick a nun of some years' standing at the Augustinian priory of Grace Dieu sought and obtained permission to leave her own monastery and retire to St. Margaret's, Ivinghoe. After she had actually gone there, her original superior sent and fetched her back again ; whereupon she ap- pealed to the bishop. He examined the matter, and finding that she had made the change not from levity of mind, but from a motive always sanctioned by the Church the desire, namely, of passing a minore religione ad majorem, causa arctioris aut durioris vitaeordered that she should be allowed to remain at St. Margaret's. Bishop Alnwick was an energetic visitor of the monasteries in his diocese, and would soon have discovered if the priory of Ivinghoe did not really offer to the nun in question the stricter life which she desired.

Bishop Longland visited the house in 1530 and found there a prioress with three or four nuns. The house was said to be in debt, but under no other reproach, except that one of the ladies had visited her friends without per- mission, and stayed away from her monastery from the Feast of St. Michael till Passion Sunday in the next year. She was enjoined not to go out again without permission from the prioress : and for a penance she was to say the seven penitential psalms every Tues- day, Wednesday, and Saturday, with an addi- tional Pater, Ave and Credo every day.

In 1535 the local, commissioners found five nuns here, of whom two were professed and three only novices : three of these were suffi- ciently attached to their religious life to decline the opportunity of returning to the world, and asked permission to enter another house of the order. There were four ser- vants living in the monastery, which was said to be of competent estate and no longer in debt.

The house was originally endowed with only a small portion of land in the wood of Ivinghoe : to which was added later the church of Merrow in Surrey with lands attached, and ten acres of assart at Hemel Hempstead. The priory is not mentioned in the Taxation of Pope Nicholas : its re- venue is given in the Valor Ecclesiasticus as £14 3s. 1d. clear. The survey of the local commissioners returned it first as worth £13 3s. 1d. and later as £19 8s. 9d. ; the bells, lead, etc., were valued at £8 10s. 6d., and the moveable goods at £l 13s. 4d. The Minis- ters' Accounts only give a total of £10 4s. 1½d.

Alice, occurs 1237 Isolt, died 1262 Cicely, elected 1262, resigned 1275 Maud de Hockliffe, elected 1275, died 1296 Isolt de Beauchamp, elected 1296 Sibyl de Hampstead, resigned 1340 Maud de Cheyney, elected 1340 Eleanor Cross, died 1467 Eleanor Symmes, elected 1467