The second limitation of convent education in medieval England is contained in the words "girls of gentle birth." Tanner's statement that "the lower rank of people, who could not pay for their learning"[881], as well as noblemen's and gentlemen's daughters, were educated in nunneries has not a shred of evidence to support it, though it has been repeated _ad nauseam_ ever since he wrote it. Every scrap of evidence which has come down to us goes to prove that the girls educated in nunneries were of gentle birth, daughters of great lords, or more often daughters of country gentlemen, or of those comfortable and substantial merchants and burgesses, who were usually themselves sprung from younger sons of the gentry. The implication is plain in Chaucer's description, in _The Reves Tale_, of the Miller's wife, who was "y-comen of noble kin" and daughter of the parson of the toun, and who "was y-fostred in a nonnerye": Ther dorste no wight clepen hir but "dame" ... And eek, for she was somdel smoterlich She was as digne as water in a dich; And ful of hoker and of bisemare. Her thoughte that a lady sholde hir spare, What for hir kinrede and hir nortelrye That she had lerned in the nonnerye. An analysis of some of the schoolgirls whose names have come down to us confirms this impression. The commissioners who visited St Mary's, Winchester, in 1536 drew up a list of the twenty-six "chyldren of lordys, knyghttes and gentylmen brought up yn the saym monastery." They were Bryget Plantagenet, dowghter unto the lord vycounte Lysley (i.e. Lisle); Mary Pole, dowghter unto Sir Geffrey Pole knyght; Brygget Coppeley, dowghter unto Sir Roger Coppeley knyght; Elizabeth Phyllpot, dowghter unto Sir Peter Phyllpot, knyght; Margery Tyrell; Adrian Tyrell; Johanne Barnabe; Amy Dyngley; Elizabeth Dyngley; Jane Dyngley; Frances Dyngley; Susan Tycheborne; Elizabeth Tycheborne; Mary Justyce; Agnes Aylmer; Emma Bartue; Myldred Clerke; Anne Lacy; Isold Apulgate; Elizabeth Legh; Mary Legh; Alienor North; Johanne Sturgys; Johanne Ffyldes; Johanne Ffrances; Jane Raynysford.