The thirteenth century abbesses followed one another in quick succession, no good thing for the discipline of the abbey. When Matilda died in 1219, the old gallows on which the abbess had had the right of hanging offenders condemned by her court, fell into disuse, but the right was restored by the King to Amicia. Towards the end of the century, episcopal visitations began, and the Bishop of Winchester looked into various disorders that had grown up among the abbesses and sisters. The various methods of procedure and the things forbidden give us some idea of the abuses that prevailed. The abbess was required in the injunction issued about 1283 not to exercise an autocratic power but only a constitutional one, being guided by the advice of her chapter. It was forbidden to any men except the confessor, and the doctor in case of illness of a nun, to enter the convent; all conversation with outsiders was to take place in the presence of witnesses and in an appointed place. The nuns were forbidden to visit the laity in Romsey, and other like ordinances were enjoined. Philippa de Stokes and Clementia de Guildeford were infirm, and Clementia's successor, Alicia de Wynterseshull, was poisoned soon after her election, but no evidence could be produced to convict the murderer. Many episcopal visitations took place during the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. The injunctions issued at many of them are in existence: these deal only with what is blameworthy, not with that which calls for no reproof. Some of the things objected to seem to us very trivial. On one occasion the nuns were forbidden to keep pet animals, as the abbess was charged with giving her dogs and monkeys the food intended for the sisters. Sometimes the abbess was forbidden to take into the convent more than a certain number of nuns. In 1333 there were ninety-one, but after a time the numbers decreased, and at the dissolution there were only twenty-six. The injunctions of 1311 were very strict, some of them deal with the locking of doors, forbid the presence of children, whether boy or girl, in the dormitory or in the choir. Romsey, like many other religious houses, suffered severely at the time of the Black Death. The number and names of the ninety-one nuns voting in 1333 at the election of Johanna Icthe has come down to us. The pestilence reached Weymouth from the east in August, 1348, and of it died the abbess Johanna, two vicars, one prebendary, and no doubt many of the sisters, as in 1478 the number of nuns had dropped from ninety-one to eighteen, and after this there were never more than twenty-six nuns at Romsey. The reduction in the nuns not only decreased the importance of the abbey but led to a terrible relaxation of discipline.