The words of Beatrix's maid in _Much Ado About Nothing_ spring to the mind: "But methinks you look with your eyes as other women do." For three weary centuries the bishops waged a holy war against fashion in the cloister and waged it in vain, for as long as the nuns mingled freely with secular women it was impossible to prevent them from adopting secular modes. Occasionally a conscientious visitor found himself floundering unhandily through something very like a complete catalogue of contemporary fashions. So Bishop Longland at Elstow in 1531: We ordeyne and by way of Iniuncon commande undre payne of disobedyence from hensforth that no ladye ne any religious suster within the said monasterye presume to were ther apparells upon ther hedes undre suche lay fashion as they have now of late doon with cornered crests, nether undre suche manour of hight shewing ther forhedes moore like lay people than religious, butt that they use them without suche crestes or secular fashions and off a lower sort and that ther vayle come as lowe as ther yye ledes and soo contynually to use the same, unles itt be at suche tymes as they shalbe occupied in eny handycrafte labour, att whiche tymes itt shalbe lefull for them to turne upp the said vayle for the tyme of suche occupacon. And undre like payne inoyne that noon of the said religious susters doo use or were hereafter eny such voyded shoys, nether crested as they have of late ther used, butt that they be of suche honeste fashion as other religious places both use and that ther gownes and kyrtells be closse afore and nott so depe voyded at the breste and noo more to use rede stomachers but other sadder colers in the same[944]. It is interesting to conjecture how the nuns obtained these gay garments and ornaments. The growing custom of giving them a money allowance out of which to dress themselves instead of providing them with clothes in kind out of the common purse, certainly must have given opportunity for buying the gilt pins, barred belts and slashed shoes which so horrified their visitors. We know from Gilles li Muisis that Flemish nuns at least went shopping[945]. But an even more likely source of supply lies, as we shall see, in the legacies of clothes and ornaments, which were often left to nuns by their relatives[946].