which illustrates how easily the household system slid into _proprietas_. It was sometimes even necessary to forbid nuns to make wills and bequeath their property. This was forbidden by the Council of Oxford in 1222[1052] and in 1387 William of Wykeham sent a stern injunction to the nuns of Romsey, pointing out that by making wills they were falling into the sin of property[1053]. In 1394, on the death of Joan Furmage, Abbess of Shaftesbury, the bishop ordered the Abbey to be sequestrated and annulled the will by which she had alienated the goods of the house in bequests to friends, declaring such a disposition to be injurious to the community and contrary to the usage of religious women[1054]. The history of the attitude of ecclesiastical authorities to two sources of private income, the _peculium_ and the gifts from friends to individuals, is of even greater significance than these attempts to cope with private goods, for it shows how powerless the bishops were against the steady weakening of discipline in monastic houses. Here, as in the enclosure struggle and the struggle against _familiae_, they were forced into compromise at best and at worst into acquiescence. At its first appearance the custom of giving a _peculium_ to individuals was severely condemned as a manifest breach of the rule: "Moneys shall not be assigned to each separately for clothes," says the Council of Oxford in 1222, "But such shall be diligently attended to by certain persons deputed to this purpose, chamberers or chambresses, who according to the need of each and the resources of the house, shall minister garments to them.... Also it shall not be lawful for the chamberer or chambress to give to any monk, canon or nun, monies or anything else for clothes, nor shall it be lawful for monk, canon or nun to receive anything; otherwise let the chamberer be deposed from office and the monk, canon or nun go without new clothes for that year"[1055].