‘For the Solace of their Advanced Years’: The Retirement of Monastic Superiors in Late Medieval England

Abstract

This article explores the retirement of male and female monastic superiors in late medieval England. It examines the practicalities of abbatial retirement, along with attitudes towards resigning and resigned superiors, and developments taking place in these matters over the later Middle Ages. The majority of monastic heads died in office, and attempts to resign might be resisted by convents and/or the ecclesiastical authorities. On the other hand, the retirement of infirm or incompetent superiors could protect monastic communities from serious mismanagement. The cost of maintaining a quondam superior was not negligible, and gradually grew over the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, as retirement provision for ex-heads became more generous. This had ramifications for the Dissolution process, in which a similar process of pensioning off monastic superiors was deployed.

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