Nor was it only the expenses of great lawsuits which bore heavily upon the nunneries; a great deal of lesser legal business had to be transacted from year to year. The treasuresses' accounts of St Michael's, Stamford, contain many notices of such business; the expenses of Raulyn at the sessions, expenses of the clerks at the Bishop's court or at the last session at Stamford, a suit against a neighbouring parson over tithes, four shillings to Henry Oundyl for suing out writs; and innumerable entries concerning the inevitable "presentz or pens," a douceur to the Bishop's clerk, a courtesy to the king's escheator, a present to the clerks at the sessions, a gift "to divers men of law for their help on divers occasions." All nunneries had constantly to meet such petty expenses as these; and if we add an occasional suit on a larger scale the total amount of money devoured by the Law is considerable. So far mention has been made only of such reasons for their poverty as cannot be considered the fault of the nuns. The inclemency of nature, the rapacity of lay and ecclesiastical authorities and the law's delays could not be escaped, however wisely a Prioress husbanded her resources. Nevertheless it cannot be doubted that the nuns themselves, by bad management, contributed largely to their own misfortunes. Bad administration, sometimes wilful, but far more often due to sheer incompetence, was constantly given as a reason for undue poverty. It was "negligence and bad administration" which nearly caused the dispersion of the nuns of Wintney during the famine year of 1316[647]; and those of Hampole in 1353[648]. At Davington in 1511 one of the nuns deposed that "the rents and revenues of the house decrease owing to the guilt of the officers"[649]. The fault was often with the head of the house, who loved to keep in her own hands the disposal of the convent's income, omitted to consult the chapter in her negotiations, retained the common seal and did not render accounts. An illustration of the straits to which a house might be reduced by the bad management of its superior is provided by the history of Malling Abbey in the early part of the fourteenth century, as told by William de Dene in his _Historia Roffensis_. In 1321 an abbess had been deposed, ostensibly on the complaint of her nuns and because the place had been ruined by her; but too much importance must not be assigned to the charge, for she was a sister of Bartholomew de Badlesmere, at that time a leader of the baronial party against Edward II, and it was by the King's command that Hamo of Hythe, Bishop of Rochester, visited Malling and deprived her[650]; her deposition was probably a political move. The same cannot however be said of Lora de Retlyng, who became abbess in 1324.