English Cistercian Nuns and Administrative Documents: The Cartulary of Nun Cotham Priory (Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries)

Many medieval Cistercian nuns’ houses from continental Europe are renowned for their active scriptoria and production of devotional manuscripts. Such is not the case for Cistercian nuns’ houses in medieval England. Of the approximately thirty-five houses of Cistercian nuns in medieval England, none is definitely known to have produced any literary, theological, devotional, or historical compositions. On the other hand, administrative documents do survive. This article studies the cartulary produced during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries at the nuns’ monastery of Nun Cotham in Lincolnshire, and argues that this administrative text provides rich insights in the experiences, and aspirations, of the community of Nun Cotham, as well as insights into local interactions between a Cistercian nuns’ house and nearby monasteries. The cartulary was edited in 1977 by Elizabeth Hyde, but since then has been little studied. Building on the extensive ground-work laid by Hyde, this article focuses on two sections of the cartulary – its copies of papal privileges, and a section referring to requests for financial contributions and Nun Cotham’s active efforts to be excused from these payments. In lobbying for exemption from payment, Nun Cotham and seven other Cistercian nuns’ houses in Lincoln diocese worked in unison, with Nun Cotham taking a leading role, and the grounds for their claim to exemption were that these houses were “of the Cistercian Order”. The entries about financial contributions were later additions to the cartulary, but they were not “mere” additions. Rather, these additions superimposed a narrative meaning on the entire cartulary, that is, they provided a clear and unmistakable argument that the community at Nun Cotham considered itself, and the other nuns’ houses in Lincoln diocese, to be part of the ordo Cisterciensis. Although the cartulary provides evidence of challenges to the nuns’ claim, what is more striking is how many individuals (bishops, archbishops, monks, abbots, kings) and communities supported the nuns in their self-identification as Cistercians. The cartulary’s papal privileges also emphasise Nun Cotham’s enjoyment of certain rights on the basis of its Cistercian affiliation. Some of these privileges were likely lent to Nun Cotham by nearby houses of Cistercian monks, another example of Cistercian life as it was lived at the local level.