Keldholme Priory election dispute
After a series of resignations by its prioresses, the establishment was in a state of turmoil, and the Archbishop of York, William Greenfield, appointed one of the nuns to lead the house.
The convent was not deterred: the campaign against de Pykering continued until eventually Greenfield allowed the prioress to resign and the nuns to elect one of their number again.
St Mary of Keldholme Priory, founded during the reign of King Henry I,[1] was a small Cistercian nunnery[2] situated a couple of miles east of Kirkbymoorside, Yorkshire.
[11] De Stapleton's 1301 resignation was probably directly related to Archbishop Melton's episcopal visitation of the same year, in the course of which he discovered malpractice.
The final criterion was significant because a vacancy of over six months allowed the archbishop to bypass the nuns' right to appoint their own prioress, and install a candidate of his choosing.
[2] The rectors' task did not take long, and although they were equivocal regarding the precise length of the vacancy,[10] they reported that the appointment was now the archbishop's responsibility on account of the lapse of time.
[8] Greenfield was forced to accept her cession as prioress and on 5 August announced that, finding no suitable candidate from within Keldholme itself, he had chosen Joan de Pykering from the nearby[note 6] Benedictine[2] Rosedale Priory.
She, says the VCH, "from the testimony of trustworthy persons, was deemed competent"[1] and of "good reputation";[16] it is probable that she had indicated willingness to put Keldholme in order at Greenfield's command.
[20][note 10] Four days later the Archbishop instigated a commission to investigate the offences he had uncovered,[20] and placed the priory under interdict[23] until Pykering was accepted as prioress.
[1]Other nuns were removed by Greenfield to Esholt and Nunkeeling priories at around the time of de Stapleton's election, but this was probably for reasons of immorality rather than any connection to the political dispute.
Further, instructed Greenfield, "they were not to meddle with any internal or external business of the house in any way, or to go outside of the enclosure of the monastery, or to say anything against the prioress, on pain of expulsion and of the greater excommunication".
[6][note 13] The Registers and Episcopal records make little mention of Keldholme Priory after the election dispute until the house was closed in 1536 by the dissolution of the monasteries.
[19] The historian Martin Heale has described the situation at Keldholme between 1308 and 1309 as an example of the "considerable friction" the imposition of a perceived outsider could cause within an enclosed community.
[20] Janet Burton concurs, noting that it demonstrates that both the person of the prioress and her election were clearly of great interest to the wider community as well as the priory, between whom there was clearly a "close interaction".
[8] She also questions Archbishop Greenfield's supposition that there was no nun at Keldholme willing or able to be prioress; perhaps, she suggests, there were too many candidates, and the election dispute was a power struggle between them.
[12] It also suggests, she wrote, that female resistance to male authority was not as unknown as might have been presumed: "the Archbishop had stated that there were no nuns at Keldholme capable of holding office.
