Not only in their clothes did medieval nuns seek to enliven existence after the manner of their lay sisters. The bishops struggled long and unsuccessfully against another custom of worldly women, the keeping of pet animals[947]. Dogs were certainly the favourite pets. Cats are seldom mentioned, though the three anchoresses of the _Ancren Riwle_ were specially permitted to keep one[948], and Gyb, that "cat of carlyshe kynde," which slew Philip Sparrow, apparently belonged to Carrow; perhaps there was spread among the nunneries of England the grisly tradition of the Prioress of Newington, who was smothered in bed by her cat[949]. Birds, from the larks of the Abbaye-aux-Dames at Caen, to the parrot Vert-Vert at Nevers, are often mentioned[950]. Monkeys, squirrels and rabbits were also kept. But dogs and puppies abounded. Partly because the usages of society inevitably found their way into the aristocratic convents, partly because human affections will find an outlet under the most severe of rules: (Objet permis a leur oisif amour, Vert-Vert etait l'ame de ce sejour), the nuns clung to their "smale houndes." Archbishop Peckham had to forbid the Abbess of Romsey to keep monkeys or "a number of dogs" in her own chamber and she was charged at the same time with stinting her nuns in food; one can guess what became of the "rosted flesh or milk and wastel-breed"[951]. At Chatteris and at Ickleton in 1345 the nuns were forbidden to keep fowls, dogs or small birds within the precincts of the convent or to bring them into church during divine service[952]. This bringing of animals into church was a common custom in the middle ages, when ladies often attended service with dog in lap and men with hawk on wrist[953]; Lady Audley's twelve dogs, which so disturbed the nuns of Langley, will be remembered[954]. Injunctions against the bringing of dogs or puppies into choir by the nuns are also found at Keldholme and Rosedale early in the fourteenth century[955]. But the most flagrant case of all is Romsey, to which in 1387 William of Wykeham wrote as follows: