As to their lands and estates, in their later history they were sometimes farmed out at mere annual rents with but small control from the religious, so that they would differ but little from any ordinary landed property. But this was the exception, and unknown in the earlier centuries of their existence. The Gilbertine houses had canons attached to them with the avowed object of looking after the temporal affairs of the nuns, and in their elaborate statutes there are the fullest details as to the management of the granges by the lay-brothers, as lately set forth in English in Miss Graham’s interesting book on this Order. To most of the older Benedictine nunneries, as well as to the two large houses of Nuneaton and Amesbury, dependencies of Fontevrault, special officials were attached to superintend the tenants. Nevertheless, the abbess or prioress, if manors pertained to the house, had all the privileges and responsibilities attached to the position, notwithstanding her sex, and was the lady of the manor. The abbesses of Barking, Nunnaminster, Shaftesbury, and Wilton, held of the king an entire barony, and were actually summoned for a time to parliament as barons. Now and again the convents had for their superiors ladies who were as remarkable for their zeal in temporal as in spiritual matters. In the chartulary of the Hampshire abbey of Wherwell, at the British Museum, is an interesting and beautiful account of “the blessed mother, the abbess Euphemia”, who ruled the house from 1226 until her death in 1257. The following extracts of part of the story of her rule, written by an inmate of the house shortly after her death, show the thoroughness of her administration in temporal matters, leaving out the account of her rebuilding most of the conventual buildings on improved sanitary lines, and planting and draining the precincts, and doubling the number of the sisters: