At Arthington in 1318 the Prioress was specially ordered to consult the convent in sales of wool and other business matters[714]; the Prioress of Sinningthwaite the next year was told to take counsel with the older nuns and in all writings under the common seal to employ a faithful clerk and to have the deed read, discussed and sealed in the presence of the whole convent, those who spoke against it on reasonable grounds being heard and the deed if necessary corrected[715]. Provision for the safe custody of the common seal, and for the assent of the whole convent to all writings which received its imprint, was a necessary corollary to the demand that the Prioress should consult her nuns in matters of business. Medieval superiors were constantly charged with keeping the common seal in their own custody[716] and nuns and bishops alike objected to a custom which rendered the convent responsible for any rash agreement into which the Prioress might enter. Elaborate arrangements for the custody of the seal are therefore common in visitatorial injunctions. In 1302 Bishop John of Pontoise wrote to Romsey that whereas from the bad keeping of the common seal many evils to the house have hitherto happened (as the Bishop has now learned from the experience of fact), and also may happen unless wholesome remedy be applied, three at least of the discreeter ladies shall be appointed by the Abbess and by the larger and wiser part of the convent to keep the seal; and when any letter shall be sealed with the common seal in the chapter before the whole convent, it shall be read and explained in an intelligible tongue to all the ladies, publicly, distinctly and openly and afterwards sealed in the same chapter, (not in corners or secretly, as has hitherto been the custom,) and signed as it is read, so that what concerns all may be approved by all. Which done the seal shall be replaced in the same place under the said custody[717]. These injunctions were repeated by Bishop Woodlock nine years later, but in 1387 William of Wykeham laid down much more stringent rules. The seal was to be kept securely under seven, or at least five locks and keys, of which one key was to be in the custody of the abbess and the others to remain with some of the more prudent and mature nuns, nominated by the convent; no letter was to be sealed without first being read before the whole convent in the vulgar tongue and approved by all or by the greater and wiser part of the nuns[718]. Seven locks was an unusually large number; usually three, or even two, were ordered. At Malling, where, as we have seen, Bishop Hamo of Hythe unwillingly confirmed an "insufficient and ignorant" woman as Abbess, he took the extreme step of sequestrating the common seal and forbidding it to be used without his permission[719].