page_title: White Ladies Priory
section_title: Estates and finances
hierarchical_section_title: White Ladies Priory / Estates and finances
caption_attribution_description: Relief map of Nottinghamshire, UK. Equirectangular map projection on WGS 84 datum, with N/S stretched 165% Geographic limits: West: 1.37W East: 0.42W North: 53.51N South: 52.78N
context_page_description: White Ladies Priory, once the Priory of St Leonard at Brewood, was an English priory of Augustinian canonesses, now in ruins, in Shropshire, in the parish of Boscobel, some eight miles northwest of Wolverhampton, near Junction 3 of the M54 motorway. Dissolved in 1536, it became famous for its role in the escape of Charles II of England after the Battle of Worcester in 1651. The name 'White Ladies' refers to the canonesses who lived there and who wore white religious habits.
context_section_description: White Ladies benefited considerably from royal generosity in the reign of John. He visited Brewood on at least three occasions and it was possibly on one of these that he gave the priory a weir called Withlakeswere on the River Severn near Bridgnorth, which would create fishing rights. This was later rented out to a local man, Henry FitzRobert, half by Prioress Alditha in 1225 at 5 shillings, and the other half subsequently by Prioress Cecilia, also at 5 shillings. White Ladies must have held 12 bovates of land at Calverton in Nottinghamshire from early in its history but in 1212 a charter of King John removed all secular demands and obligations stemming from it. Issued during the Interdict, this demonstration of the king's piety was witnessed by a group of notables, headed by a favourite, William d'Aubigny, 3rd Earl of Arundel. This foothold in Sherwood Forest was enlarged, at least in value, by John's son, Henry III. On 8 December 1232, while visiting Shrewsbury, he granted the priory the right to assart, enclose and cultivate an acre and a half in the woods near Calverton. In 1241 he allowed the priory to assart and cultivate as they wished a further three acres of land which they already held but were half covered in dead oaks. These areas were enhanced in value by being taken out of waste and exempted from the control of royal forest officials.
  Another relatively distant possession of White Ladies was the church at Tibshelf in Derbyshire, the advowson of which must have been granted early in the history of the priory. In 1291 the Taxatio Ecclesiastica of Pope Nicholas IV assessed the rectory as worth £8 but also recorded £1 going to the nuns of Brewood. Early in the following century the priory moved to appropriate the church: essentially taking over the tithes and employing a vicar to serve the church and its congregation. In order to obtain a licence from Edward II to appropriate the church into mortmain, the prioress and convent had to part with a fine of £10, a very large sum for the priory at any stage in its history. The licence was duly granted on 1 November 1315. Evidently the details of the transaction took some time to work out, as it was not until 7 July 1319 that Bishop Walter Langton was able to issue an ordinance defining the vicar's allotment of land and directing that he be paid 40 shillings annually, divided into equal payments at Easter and Michaelmas. This was reinforced by a papal ordinance, which erroneously attributed to the priory a dedication to St Lawrence. Evidently Tibshelf proved a good long-term investment: before the dissolution, the Valor Ecclesiasticus reported Tibshelf bringing in £5 6s. 8d. However, to continue holding the rectory, the priory was required to pay a pension of 20 shillings a year to the vicars of Lichfield cathedral, a condition not mentioned in Langton's ordinance but in force by 1402 at the latest, as in that year the Archdeacon of Stafford's court passed an ordinance on its payment.
  Beside its holdings in the East Midlands, the priory held many very small pieces of property, mostly donated by local families, around Brewood and scattered across Shropshire to its south and west. On 6 October 1254, for example, Philip de Beckbury, in response to a fine levied at Westminster, agreed to pay the priory one mark annually as rent for two mills at Beckbury. In 1256 William de Ercall, and Prioress Agnes engaged in a complicated series of lawsuits, including a fine of lands, to transfer to the convent a very small rent (a ninth of the sheaves on three carucates of land) and small piece of land for a weir. This involved settling any competing claim that might come from Wombridge Priory. Some small transfers represented the dowries of canonesses on their admission to the community.  Bartholomew Terret gave a virgate in Lawley as dowry for his sister Gundred. Richard de Harley and his wife Burga went to considerable trouble and expense to donate property and rights to the priory, the most important being the advowson of Bold church, which was in southern Shropshire and part of t
caption: Relief map of Nottinghamshire, showing locations of estates held by White Ladies in that county and Derbyshire.
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