From whatever source nuns obtained control of money and goods, whether from the _peculium_, from gifts, from legacies, or from the proceeds of their own labour, one thing is clear: in a fourteenth or fifteenth century house, where the system of the _peculium_ and the _familia_ obtained, there was a considerable approximation to private life and to private property. The control of money and goods and the division into households, catering separately for themselves, worked in together. The responsibility of the convent towards its members was sometimes limited to a bare minimum of food, such as the staple bread and beer, and perhaps a small dress allowance. All the rest was provided by the nuns themselves. In strict theory annuities, gifts and legacies, were put into common stock and administered by the convent. In practice they were obviously retained in individual possession and administered as private property by the nuns. Even legacies of lump sums to a whole convent were probably divided up between the nuns, an equal sum being paid to each and perhaps double to the prioress. An analysis of the conditions revealed at Alnwick's visitation of the Lincoln diocese in 1440-5 throws an exceedingly interesting side-light, not only on the vow of monastic poverty, as understood in the fifteenth century, but also on the domestic economy of the houses, the majority of which were small and poor. It may also conveniently be compared with the evidence given by the same visitations as to the system of _familiae_ in these houses. At some the house supplied all food and clothes or a _peculium_ for clothes, at some it provided only a bare minimum of food, at some neither dress nor dress allowance was provided. At Legbourne every nun has one loaf, one half gallon of beer a day, one pig a year, 18_d._ for beef, every day in Advent and Lent two herrings, and a little butter in summer and sometimes two stone of cheese a year and 8_d._ a year for raiment and no more; the sum of 2_s._ 2_d._ a year for beef and clothes was certainly not excessive[1038]. At Stixwould every nun receives in the year one pig, one sheep, a quarter of beef, two stones of butter, three stones of cheese, every day in Advent and Lent three herrings, six salt fish and twelve doughcakes a year; and they were wont to have 6_s._ 8_d._ for their raiment, but for several years back (one nun said for twenty years) as regards raiment they have received nothing.