Forasmoche as many of you, though ye can synge and rede, yet ye can not se what the meanynge therof ys; therefore to the onely worshyp and praysyng of oure lorde Jesu chryste and of hys moste mercyfull mother oure lady and to the gostly comforte and profyte of youre soules, I haue drawen youre legende and all youre seruyce in to Englyshe, that ye shulde se by the vnderstondyng therof, how worthy and holy praysynge of oure gloryous Lady is contente therin & the more deuoutely and knowyngly synge yt & rede yt and say yt to her worshyp. He adds that he has explained the various parts of the divine service for "symple soulles to vnderstonde," but that he has translated few psalms, "for ye may haue them of Rycharde hampoules drawynge, and out of Englysshe bibles, if ye haue lysence therto"[852]. From a passage in the _Myroure_ it appears that the sisters were accustomed to spend some of their time in reading and advice is given to them as to the sort of books to read and the way in which to profit by them; from this it is quite clear that secular learning had no place among them, their reading being confined to works of ghostly edification[853]. It was their ignorance of Latin which caused the insertion of English rubrics in the Latin _Processionale_ of the house and which inspired Richard Whytford, one of the brothers, to translate the splendid _Martilogium_, which is now in the British Museum, "for the edificacyon of certayn religyous persones unlerned that dayly dyd rede the same martiloge in Latyn, not understandynge what they redde"; his translation was printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1526[854]. Gascoigne's mention of English bibles is interesting. Miss Deanesly, in her study of _The Lollard Bible_, has shown that "it is likely that English nuns were the most numerous orthodox users of English bibles between 1408 and 1526," but that the evidence for this use is slight and drawn almost entirely from Syon and Barking, two large and important houses[855]. Her conclusion is that it was not the case that the best instructed nuns used Latin Bibles and the most ignorant English ones: but that the best instructed nuns were allowed to use English translations, perhaps by themselves, perhaps to help in the understanding of the Vulgate, while the smaller nunneries and least instructed nuns almost certainly did not have them at all. This goes to confirm the conclusion that even in the greatest houses, where the nuns were drawn from the highest social classes and might be supposed to be best educated, the knowledge of Latin was dying out.