Thurstan, Archbishop of York, founded Clementhorpe nunnery in 1130 to service the parish of St Clement – an area bounded by the River Ouse, York’s city walls, the Knavesmire and the adjoining parish of Bishopthorpe to the south.
It was the first monastic institution to be established in the North of England after the Norman Conquest and enjoyed a long life until it fell into disrepair in the c. 16th. In the c. 18th much of its masonry was used to repair the city walls, until only the extant wall remained.
Throughout its history, the nunnery was relatively small, being populated by no more than 12 nuns. But despite this, it was beset by scandal on more than a few occasions: the nunnery was criticised for allowing men and women to come and go freely; subsequently, men, girls and secular women were forbidden from sleeping in the dormitory. Once, a nun named Isabella was accused of apostasy and ‘a lapse of the flesh’; on another occasion, a nun called Joan was banned from having anything to do with one Lady de Walleys (presumably as a result of more ‘lapses of the flesh’.) Most interestingly, a court of assize recorded that one day “certain men came to the priory gate leading a saddled horse. Here Cecily, a nun, met them, and, throwing off her nun’s habit, put on another robe and rode off with them to Darlington, where Gregory de Thornton was waiting for her, and with him she lived for three years or more.”
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