Another sign of the financial distress of the nunneries was the ruinous condition of their buildings. The remark written by a shivering monk in a set of nonsense verses may well stand as the plaint of half the nunneries of England: Haec abbathia ruit, hoc notum sit tibi, Christe, Intus et extra pluit, terribilis est locus iste. ("This abbey falleth in ruins, Christ mark this well! It raineth within and without; how fearful is this place!")[476]. Time after time visitations revealed houses badly in need of repair and roofs letting in rain or even tumbling about the ears of the nuns; time after time indulgences were granted to Christians who would help the poor nuns to rebuild church or frater or infirmary. The thatched roofs especially were continually needing repairs. It will be remembered how the Abbess Euphemia of Wherwell rebuilt the bell tower above the dorter, which fell down through decay one night, about the hour of mattins, when by an obvious miracle from heaven, though the nuns were in the dorter, some in bed and some in prayer before their beds, all escaped not only death but any bodily injury[477]. [Illustration: PLATE IV Brass of Ela Buttry, the stingy Prioress of Campsey ([dagger] 1546), in St Stephen's Church, Norwich. Stingy even in death, she has appropriated to her own use the brass of a 14th century laywoman.] At Crabhouse in the time of Joan Wiggenhall the dortour that than was, as fer forthe as we knowe, the furste that was set up on the place, was at so grete mischeef and, at the gate-downe, the Prioresse dredyinge perisschyng of her sistres whiche lay thereinne took it doune for drede of more hermys,