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Women as benefactors (continued) (4/5)
In the later Middle Ages men and women might purchase corrodies from a religious community, a practice that was less common amongst the Cistercians than other religious orders. In return for a down payment or a grant of land, rights or goods, the donor was provided regularly with food, drink, perhaps candles and lodgings, the right to dine with the abbot or to receive a small sum of money. These arrangements were profitable for the community if the donor died shortly after making the grant, but backfired if he or she enjoyed a long life. One female corrodian of Roche Abbey was Anabilia, a recluse from Doncaster. In the late thirteenth century she sued Abbot Stephen (c.1286-?) for withdrawing her weekly corrody of five monastery loaves and three gallons of monastery ale, which, she claimed, had been granted for life by Abbot Walter (1254-68). The case was in the courts from 1289-93.(9) |
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