time or in any other manner than in the form aforesaid, let her never set foot outside the outer gate of the Priory for the next two years; and nevertheless let her be punished otherwise for disobedience, in such manner as is laid down by the rule and observances of the order of St Benet for the fault; and leave procured by the prayer of her friends ought not to excuse her from this penance[1102]. No lady of your religion, professed or unprofessed, shall come to the external offices outside the door of the cloister to be bled or for any other feigned excuse, save it be by leave of the Prioress or of the Subprioress, and then for a fit reason and let her have with her another professed lady of your religion, to the end that each of them may see and hear that which the other shall say and do[1103]. The main lines along which the bishops attempted to regulate the movements of the nuns outside their houses appear clearly in these injunctions. It was their invariable practice to forbid unlicensed visits, in accordance with the Benedictine rule; no nun might leave her house without a licence from her superior and such licences were not to be granted too easily[1104] or with any show of favouritism[1105]; sometimes the licence of the Bishop was required as well[1106]. Such licences were not to be granted often (once a year is usually the specified rule)[1107] and the bishops sometimes tried to confine the visits of nuns to parents or to near relatives[1108]. An attempt was also made to regulate the length of the visits. A maximum number of days was fixed and the nun was to be punished if she outstayed her leave[1109], except when she was detained by illness. This maximum differed from time to time and from place to place. Bishop Stapeldon, it will be recalled, allowed the nuns in his diocese to remain away for a month and longer; how he reconciled such laxity with his conscience and the Bull _Periculoso_ is not plain. Archbishop Greenfield, at the same date, permitted his Yorkshire nuns a maximum visit of fifteen days[1110], and in 1358 Bishop Gynewell of Lincoln forbade the nuns of Godstow to remain away for longer than three weeks[1111]. When Alnwick visited the diocese of Lincoln in 1440-5, he made careful inquiry into the length of the visits paid by the nuns and at Goring, Gracedieu, Markyate, Nuncoton and St Michael's, Stamford, he found that the superior usually gave the nuns licence to remain away a week, though the Prioress of Studley gave exeats for three or four days only[1112]. A week does not seem a very lengthy absence, but Alnwick would have lifted horrified eyebrows at the action of his predecessor Gynewell, for he ordered the superiors "that ye gyfe no sustere of yowres leue to byde wythe thaire frendes whan thai visite thaym, overe thre dayes in helthe, and if thai falle seke, that he do fecche thaym home wythe yn sex dayes"[1113]. He