Joan of Leeds was resident in
St Clement's by York (also known as Clementhorpe), a
Benedictine nunnery in the early years of the 14th century. All that is known of her life comes from three letters copied into a "
registrum" of the
Archbishop of York, which scholars believe to be copies of Melton's original letters. One of these letters made the news in 2019. Two more previously unknown letters about Joan were discovered in 2020. In 1318, tired of her enclosed life, Joan faked a mortal illness and then her own death. She created a dummy "in the likeness of her body", to be buried instead of her corpse. A number of Joan's fellow nuns appear to have
aided and abetted her plan, although it is less certain whether they did so willingly or were tricked into helping her. Believing—or pretending to believe—her to be dead, and perhaps being deceived by the dummy, they buried it as her "in a sacred space amongst the religious of that place", wrote Archbishop Melton. Joan's motives for escaping the nunnery are unknown, but the Archbishop put it down to a desire to follow "the way of carnal lust", which she was unable to do in
orders having taken
vows of poverty and
chastity. Joan was eventually discovered in
Beverley, around from Clementhorpe, living "indecently" with a man. When this became known, it caused a scandal locally. Melton instructed her to return to her priory. In a letter to the Dean of Beverley, Melton wrote: Whether she ever did return remains unknown, and it is possible that the Archbishop considered that he had fulfilled his duty in demanding she return without actually taking steps to ensure that his edict was enforced. However, a letter to Melton from a local priest, dated 26 August 1318, informed the Archbishop that she had approached the priest with her record of events, specifically confirming that she had faked her death in order to abscond.
Overview Joan was not the first fugitive nun that St Clements by York had had to deal with. In 1301, another nun known only as Cecily had met a group of mounted men by the priory gate; throwing off her
habit, she put on an ordinary gown and escaped to
Darlington where she lived with one Gregory de Thornton for the next three years. In 1310 one of the nuns, Joan de Saxton, had been punished by Archbishop
William Greenfield for unknown offences, but which, according to the historian
Eileen Power, had probably involved immorality. Although the punishment was subsequently reduced, Greenfield wrote to the Prioress,
Agnes de Methelay, laying out certain conditions for Joan de Saxton's future conduct. Among other restrictions, she could not leave the
cloister except when accompanied by other nuns. She was forbidden from receiving visitors, and from having anything to do with one
Lady de Walleys: if de Walleys visited Clementhorpe, de Saxton "was to be sent away before Pentecost". For her part, the prioress was forbidden to employ girls over the age of 12 in the priory except when absolutely unavoidable. Only the year before Joan of Leeds' escape Melton had instructed the priory that "the frequent access of men and women to the house was not to be allowed, lest evil or scandal should arise". Problems continued at Clementhorpe, however; in 1318, Melton rebuked the priory for failing to enforce appropriate silence in the cloister, and, following further issues with troublesome nuns, de Methelay resigned as Prioress in 1324. ==Historical significance==