At Sheppey also, in 1511, there was no infirmary and when ill the nuns had to hire women for themselves and pay for them out of their own money[1044]. At Langley in 1440 Alnwick ordered that each nun should have yearly a cartload of fuel, cut at the cost of the house, but carried at the cost of the nuns[1045]. At Wherwell there was a custom by which, on the first occasion that a nun took her turn in reading from the pulpit, a certain sum of money or a pittance was exacted from her for the benefit of the convent, a custom forbidden by Bishop John of Pontoise in 1302[1046]; and there is mention of another pittance in 1311, when Bishop Woodlock ordered that for digging the grave and preparing the coffin of a nun who had died and for pittances to the sisters on the day of her burial, the goods of the deceased nun should not be expended, because she ought not to have private property, but the common goods of the church were to be spent; which seems like locking the stable door after the horse has gone[1047]. It is interesting to trace the attitude of ecclesiastic authorities to these various manifestations of _proprietas_. The bishops found some difficulty in persuading nuns, accustomed to expend money for themselves and to dine in _familiae_ in separate rooms, accustomed also to receive gifts and legacies in money and kind, that they must hold all things in common. At Arthington, in 1307, two nuns, Agnes de Screvyn (who had resigned the post of Prioress in 1303) and Isabella Couvel, asserted that certain animals and goods belonging to the priory were their private property and Archbishop Greenfield bids the Prioress admonish them to resign these within three days "to lawful and honest uses," according to her judgment[1048]. Similarly Bishop Bokyngham writes to Heynings in 1392: We order that cows, sows, capons, hens and all animals of any kind soever, together with wild or tame birds, which are held by certain of the nuns (whether with or without licence) ... shall be delivered up to the common use of the convent within three days, without the alienation or subtraction of any of them[1049]. In the light of these passages it is interesting to find that cows and pigs are among the legacies sometimes left to nuns[1050]. At Nuncoton, in 1440, where certain nuns were in the habit of wandering in their gardens and gathering herbs instead of attending Compline, Dame Alice Aunselle prays that they may all live in common and that no nun may have anything, such as cups and the like, as her own; but that if any such there be, they be kept in common by their common servant and that they may not have houses or separate gardens appointed, as it were, to them[1051],