Bishop Pontoise ordered that at Romsey an account should be rendered twice a year and at the end thereof the state of the house should be declared by the auditors of the convent, or at least by the seniors of the convent, but finding the practice in abeyance in 1302 he ordered the account to be rendered once a year[721]; his ordinance was repeated by Bishop Woodlock in 1311[722] and by William of Wykeham in 1387[723], both of whom specially refer to the rendering of accounts by officials and obedientiaries as well as by the Abbess[724]. More frequently, especially in the smaller houses, the Bishops confined their efforts to extracting the main account from the Prioress, with the double object, so ungraciously expressed by Archbishop Lee, "that it may appere in whate state the housse standith in, and also that it may be knowen, whethur she be profitable to the house or not"[725]. How far it was a common practice that the accounts should be audited by some external person, it is impossible to say. Our only evidence lies in occasional injunctions such as those sent by Bishops Pontoise and Woodlock to Romsey, or by Bishop Buckingham to Heynings; or an occasional remark, such as the Prioress of Blackborough's excuse that she did not render account in order "to save the expenses of an auditor"[726]; or an occasional order addressed by a Bishop to some person bidding him go and examine the accounts of a house. In 1314 William, rector of Londesborough, was made _custos_ of Nunburnholme on peculiar terms, being ordered to go there three times a year and hear the accounts of the ministers and _prepositi_ of the house; his duties were thus, in effect, those of an unpaid auditor and no more[727]. It is probable that the accounts of bailiffs and other servants were audited by the _custos_, in those houses to which such an official was attached[728]; whether his own accounts were scrutinised is another matter. In 1309 Archbishop Greenfield wrote to his own receiver, William de Jafford, to audit the accounts of Nunappleton[729], and after the revelations of Margaret Wavere's maladministration at Catesby in 1445, a commission for the inspection of the accounts was granted to the Abbot of St James, Northampton[730]. In some cases the annual statement of accounts was ordered to be made before the Bishop of the diocese, as well as the nuns of the house, and in such cases he would act as auditor himself[731].