shared the views of an even stricter reformer, Peckham[1114]. It was often stipulated that the nuns, whether they went on long or on short journeys, were to go only to the place which they had received permission to visit[1115]; and sometimes they were specially told that if they were obliged to spend the night away from their friends they were to do so, whenever possible, in another nunnery[1116]. But they were strictly forbidden to harbour in the houses of monks, friars, or canons[1117]. On short journeys, or on errands which could be speedily accomplished, they were forbidden to eat or drink out of their monasteries or to make unnecessary delay, but were to return at once and in no case to be out after nightfall[1118]. Moreover it was invariably ordered that a nun was on no account to leave her house, without another nun of mature age and good reputation who would be a constant witness to her behaviour[1119]; and both were to wear monastic dress[1120]. The chief aim of the ecclesiastical authorities was, however, to secure that leave of absence should be granted only for a reasonable cause. All conciliar and other injunctions for enclosure added a saving clause of "manifest necessity" and this gave an opening for an infinite variety of interpretation. The nuns, indeed, could fall back upon a threefold line of defence against the intolerable restrictions. They could appeal to the undoubted fact that strict and perpetual enclosure went beyond the requirements of their rule. They could adduce the custom by which, as long as their memory ran, nuns had been allowed to leave their convents under conditions. Finally they could with a little skill, stretch the "manifest necessity" clause to cover almost all their wanderings. Thus it happened that in enforcing the Bull _Periculoso_ the visitors of the later middle ages found themselves obliged to define, more or less widely according to local conditions, what was and what was not a reasonable cause, and to combat one after another certain specific excuses put forward by the nuns. The sternest reformers were agreed that enclosure might be broken, when the lives of the nuns were endangered. Fire, flood, famine, war and the ruin of their buildings were universally accepted as reasonable excuses[1121]. A nun could leave her house to be superior of another nunnery (a not infrequent practice), or to found new houses or to establish reform elsewhere.[1122] Moreover when a culprit stood in need of condign punishment, she might be and often was sent to another house to do penance among strangers, who would neither sympathise with her nor run the risk of being contaminated by her[1123].