Tarrant Keynes was quite well off, but as early as 1292 the nuns asked the royal leave to sell forty oaks to pay their debts[451]. Godstow was rich, but in 1316 the King had to take it under his protection and appoint keepers to discharge its debts, "on account of its poverty and miserable state," and in 1335 the profits during vacancy were remitted to the convent by the King "because of its poverty and misfortunes"[452]. St Mary's, Winchester, was a famous house, but it also was in debt early in the fourteenth century[453]. It should be noticed that the last cases (and that of St Michael's Stamford, 1304-5) are anterior to the Black Death, to whose account it has been customary to lay all the financial misfortunes of the religious houses. It is undeniable that the Black Death completed the ruin of many of the smaller houses, and that matters grew steadily worse during the last half of the fourteenth and throughout the fifteenth century; but there is ample evidence that the finances of many religious houses, both of men and of women, had been in an unsatisfactory condition at an earlier date; and even the golden thirteenth century can show cases of heavy debt[454]. In the smaller houses the constant struggle with poverty must have entailed no little degree of discomfort and discouragement. Sometimes the nuns seem actually to have lacked food and clothes, and it seems clear that in many cases the revenues of these convents were insufficient for their support and that they were dependent upon the charity of friends. A typical case is that of Legbourne, where one of the nuns informed Bishop Alnwick (1440) that since the revenues of the house did not exceed L40 and since there were thirteen nuns and one novice, it was impossible for so many of them to have sufficient food and clothing from such inadequate rents, unless they received assistance from secular friends[455]. Fosse in 1341 was said to be so slenderly endowed that the nuns had not enough to live on without external aid[456]; and in 1440 Alnwick noted "all the nuns complain ever of the poverty of the house and they receive nothing from it save only food and drink"[457]. Of Buckland it was stated that "its possessions cannot suffice for the sustenance of the said sisters with their household, for the emendation of their building, for their clothes and for their other necessities without the help of friends and the offering of alms"[458]. Cokehill in 1336 was excused a tax because it was so inadequately endowed that the nuns had not enough to live upon without outside aid[459]. Davington in 1344 was in the same position; although the nuns were reduced to half their former number, they could not live upon their revenues without the charity of friends[460]. Alnwick's visitations, indeed, show quite clearly that in poor houses the nuns were often expected to provide either clothes or (on certain days) food for themselves, out of the gift of their friends[461]. At Sinningthwaite, in