Alice Hampton (14?? – 1516) was a rich English vowess and benefactor. She is considered to be the only vowess who was not married. She became rich when her uncle, William Hampton, died.
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Alice was unusual in being the only unmarried vowess known. It is surmised that she decided to be a vowess rather than a nun when she realised that she had become wealthy. A vowess was usually a widow or a woman who had with her husband's consent taken a vow of chastity. Vowesses devoted their life to religion and they were subject to only church law.
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William Hampton or Sir William Hampton (13?? – 1480) was an English Lord Mayor of London and a member of parliament. He died chilldless and left his estate to Alice Hampton, vowess and benefactor.
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Page, 'Priory of Flixton', citing Norwich Episcopal Registers, VI, fol. 34. Copinger, County of Suffolk, II, p. 391 (from Stowe Charters). In 1381 Alice, widow of John Brakenest of Halesworth, made her promise of chastity as a vowess at Flixton, and was granted a corrody.
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As a vowess Isabella Countess of Suffolk continued to enjoy much of her husband's estate during her lifetime,K. Clark, 'Vowesses', in M. Schaus, Women and Gender in Medieval Europe: An Encyclopedia (Routledge, Abingdon 2006), pp. 822-23 (Google). and at her death in 1416 requested to be buried with him in the priory church.
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We know some details of the priory from an agreement made between Alice Hampton and the prioress Elizabeth Prudde in 1492. Alice was the only known unmarried vowess; she was rich and had influence in London. She had inherited her uncle's riches but also his influence. She paid the prioress eight pounds of pepper a year.
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See discussion at Ælfgifu of Shaftesbury#Family background Her will lists holdings and estates including Faccombe Netherton (modern Netherton, Hampshire) and Charlton Horethorne along with estates and moveable goods such as tents, chests, cups, and clothing. Wynflaed is acknowledged as a widow vowess probably connected to Shaftesbury Abbey, with connections also to Wilton Abbey, another royal abbey.
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He had made his money selling fish. From 1454 to 1459 he suppliedHenry VI. He had risen to a position where he was not only selling fish but also offering "loans" to Edward IV. The loans were demanded by the king and each of the aldermen gave £10 and the mayor was required to make a contribution of £30. He married twice, but died childless. His money was left to his niece Alice Hampton who became a vowess and benefactor.
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Edgar's paternal grandmother was Eadgifu of Kent. She may well be the nun or vowess (religiosa femina) of this name in a charter dated 942 and preserved in the abbey's chartulary. It records that she received and retrieved from King Edmund a handful of estates in Dorset, namely Cheselbourne and Winterbourne Tomson, which somehow ended up in the possession of the community.S 485 (AD 942); Yorke, Nunneries and the Anglo-Saxon royal houses. pp. 82-3. See further Kelly, Charters of Shaftesbury Abbey. pp. 53-9.
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Robert and Edith had at least two children: Henry, buried at Osney in 1163, and Gilbert. In 1129, Edith persuaded her husband to build the Church of St Mary, in the Isle of Osney, near Oxford Castle, for the use of Augustine Canons: this was to become Osney Abbey. She told him that she had dreamt of the chattering of magpies, interpreted by a chaplain as souls in Purgatory who needed a church founding to expiate their sins. Edith was buried in Osney Abbey, in a religious habit, as John Leland describes upon seeing her tomb as it was on the eve of the Dissolution: ‘Ther lyeth an image of Edith, of stone, in th' abbite of a vowess, holding a hart in her right hand, on the north side of the high altaire’.
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