A HISTORY OF NORFOLK HOUSE OF AUSTIN NUNS 39. THE PRIORY OF CRABHOUSE In 1765 there was presented to the British Museum an interesting fourteenth-century MS. Register of Crabhouse Nunnery in French,' which escaped the attention of monastic and topographical writers until 1892, when it received full and competent treatment in the publication of the Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological Society .- From this register and that of Castle Acre,' it is established that Lena, the daughter of Godric de Lynne, 'a maiden whose heart the Holy Spirit moved to seek a desert place where she might serve God without disturbance of any earthly thing, found the place called Crabhouse (in Wiggenhall parish) all wild, and far around on every side was no human habitation.' This site was granted about 1 1 8 1 to the maiden by Roger, the prior of Ranham and his canons, with the consent of William de Lesewis, lord of the site and founder of Normansburgh Priory. ' In this place,' continues the register, ' there assembled along with Lena other maidens, and there they caused a chapel to be reared in honour of God, and of His dear Mother the Virgin Mary, and of St. John the Evangelist, in which place for many a day they served God.' Godfrey de Lesewis (William's son) granted the cell in Normansburgh to the monks of Castle Acre, and included amongst its lands the hermitage of Wiggenhall used by the hermit Joan.* This hermit Joan is mentioned, though not by name, in the Crabhouse register, wherein the overwhelming of the nuns' original habita- tion by a flood is described, and all save one, ' who made herself a. recluse in the cemetery of Mary Magdalene of Wigenhall,' departed. It is difficult, however, to reconcile the picturesque narrative of the French register with the docu- ments of the Castle Acre chartulary,' but it was definitely established as an Austin nunnery early in the thirteenth century. The register contains particulars of a great variety of small undated bequests made to the priory in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and similar entries are to be found from time to time in the patent rolls. Incidental mention is made of the building of the church, frater, dorter, and farmery ; and there are frequent ' Add. MS. 4731. " Sorf. Arch, xi, 1-71. The original MS. has been carefully consulted for the purposes of this sketch, but the descriptive article and excerpts by Miss Mary Bateson hive proved most helpful. ^ Dugdale, Mon. v, 69-70. ' Ibid. 69. ^ See Dr. Jessopp's explanation in Miss Bateson's article, t<orf. Arch, xi, 5. references to the conventual mill. Most of its property was in the same marshy situation as the actual site of the house, which was on the banks of the tidal Ouse ; the boundaries named are fre- quently dykes, and it is evident that the priory took its full share in the draining of the fens." There is no record of this house in the taxation roll of 1291. Licence was obtained in 1328 by the priory, at the request of John de Ros, steward of the household, to appropriate that moiety of the church of St. Peter, Wiggenhall, which was of their advowson. This appropriation was chiefly brought about, as we learn from the register, by Robert Welle, a great benefactor of the nuns. He pardoned them a debt of p^ioo in return for a field in Setchey ; but he eventually restored the land to provide the habits of the ten nuns of the house who had been the longest professed. Agnes de Methelwold, prioress from 1315 until her death in 1344, seems to have been a good administrator, as well as a bringer of com- parative wealth to the convent. We are told that she spent over one hundred pounds of silver in building a hall, a grange, a stable, a bakery, and a noble room {une chambre nobeles). Under her rule particular rents were assigned for pro- viding the house with bread, ale, flesh, fish, and red herrings ; others for iron and nails for re- pairs ; and others for dress and shoes, and for towels and linen. Further sums were set aside for the repairs of the house and church, the sea and marsh dykes, the wages of the household servants, the feeding of the cattle, and for fuel. Margaret de Hattisle and Cicely de Beauprey, nuns of Crabhouse, obtained indults in 1352, to choose confessors for plenary remission at the hour of death.* Joan Wiggenhall, a famous prioress, was elected on 28 October, 1420, and confirmed and in- stalled on 25 November.^ In the year of her election Prioress Joan took down the great barn by the convent gatehouse, and rebuilt it in time for the next harvest, at a cost of £if^ 9;. 6d., exclusive of the timber that was felled on their own lands, and of the tiles that were re-used from the old barn. To this barn-making Sir John Inglethorpe, the convent's patron, be- queathed ;£20, and the archdeacon of Lincoln gave ten marks. In 1421 Joan extended the prioress's lodgings at a cost of ten marks, and spent twenty marks for the rebuilding of the convent's moiety of the chancel of ' Hund. R. (Rec. Com.), i, 459. ' Cul. of Pat. 2 Edw. Ill, pt. i, m. 25.
- Cal. Papal Reg. iii, 474.
' Reg. p. 151. The account of the worjts of this prioress are added to the register in English. 408
