The Colville family is perhaps responsible for the foundation, according to S. Thompson (Women Religious: The Founding of English Nunneries After the Norman Conquest, 221).
The community may have been incorporated by St James Hospital in Northallerton after dissolution. Further research is necessary to verify whether this is accurate or not.
A charter, which probably dates from the first decades of the 13th century, states that the prioress and convent entrust themselves and all their goods to William de Coleville, their patron. On the death of the prioress, another shall be elected with the agreement of William or his heirs, also no magister or custos shall be given authority and no new nuns taken in the community without the patron's or his heir's consent. It would seem that this agreement was to settle previous disputes between the nuns and Philip de Coleville, William's father (Women Religious: The Founding of English Nunneries After the Norman Conquest, 186).
The plea roll of John I (about 1200/ 1240) describes a negotiation with a patron.
Women Religious: The Founding of English Nunneries After the Norman Conquest
Medieval Religious Houses in England and Wales, 212.
The Nunnery of St. Stephen of Thimbleby
The Victoria History of the County of York3:116 available online ">http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=36226&strquery=Thimbl... [Victoria County History]
Foundation date: during the reign of John I.
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The last record of the priory is in 1349 and it possibly became extinct at the Black Death (Medieval Religious Houses in England and Wales, 212).
