The first extant document subsequent to the severance of the connection between the Scottish cell and the English monastery is dated the 1st of July, 1318, and is a deed of gift by which William, Bishop of St. Andrews, makes over to the Canons of the Monastery of St. Andrews an annual pension of sixteen merks formerly due by the Priory of May to the Monastery of Reading.[223] In 1415 there is an obligation by Henry, Bishop of St. Andrews, for payment to the same canons of twenty pounds Scots out of the sequestrated revenues of the Priory of May. About the middle of the century the "Priory of Pittenweem or May" was annexed by Pope Paul II to the See of St. Andrews, as a mensal possession of the bishop's, during his lifetime. In 1472 this annexation was made perpetual by Pope Sixtus IV.[224] In this deed of annexation, and in others anterior to it, from 1318 onwards, the alternative appellation "May or Pittenweem" occurs. According to the editor of the _Records_, the explanation seems to be "that the Monks of May had, from the first, erected an establishment of some sort on their manor of Pittenweem, on the mainland of Fife, which, after the priory was dissevered from the House of Reading and annexed to that of St. Andrews, became their chief seat, and that thereafter the monastery on the island was deserted in favour of Pittenweem, which was less exposed to the incursions of the English, nearer to the superior house at St. Andrews, and could be reached without the necessity of a precarious passage by sea".[225] By a charter bearing the date of the 30th of January, 1549, John Roull, Prior of Pittenweem, feued the Isle of May to Patrick Learmonth of Dairsy, Provost of St. Andrews. The deed of conveyance describes the island as waste and spoiled by rabbits, which had once been an important source of revenue, but of which the warrens were now completely destroyed. As reasons justifying the alienation of the May, Roull referred to its remoteness and to the consequent difficulty of access to it, to its unprofitableness, and to its liability to invasion by those ancient enemies, the English, who on the outbreak of hostilities were wont to take possession of it, thus rendering it a useless adjunct to his monastery. Amongst the rights ceded to Learmonth was that of patronage of the church, which was to be maintained, and to which he was to appoint a chaplain, for the purpose of continuing divine service therein, out of reverence for the relics and sepulchres of the saints interred in the island, and for the reception of pilgrims and their offerings, according to the custom of old times, and even within memory of man.[226]