Again not only weddings, but also christenings, often involved unseemly revels and this could not fail to affect nuns who, despite canonical prohibition, were somewhat in demand as godmothers. Christening parties were gay affairs; the gossips would return to the house of the child's parents to eat, drink and make merry: "adtunc et ibidem immediate venerunt in domam suam ad comedendum et bibendum et adtunc sibi revelaverunt de baptismo"[1183]. If Antoine de la Sale's witty account of the "third joy of marriage" has any truth[1184], and it is upheld by more sober documents, bishops did well to mislike the christening parties for nuns; Mrs Gamp was quite at home in the middle ages; she was probably a crony of the Wife of Bath. It was in fact forbidden for monks and nuns to become godparents, not only, as Mr Coulton has pointed out, "because this involved them in a fresh spiritual relationship incompatible with their ideal, but because it entangled them with worldly folk and worldly affairs"[1185]. Thus in 1387 William of Wykeham wrote to the nuns of Romsey: "We forbid you all and singly to presume to become godmothers to any child, without obtaining our licence to do so, since from such relationships expense is often entailed upon religious houses"[1186]. At Nuncoton in 1440 two nuns asked that their sisters might be forbidden the practice and Alnwick enjoined "that none of yowe have no children at the fount ne confirmyng"[1187] and nearly a century later a similar injunction was sent by Bishop Longland to Studley[1188]. There does indeed seem a certain incongruity in the presence of one who had renounced the world at a wedding or a christening, even had such ceremonies not been accompanied by very worldly revels. But they were less incongruous than was the attendance of Mary, daughter of Edward I, the nun-princess of Amesbury, upon her step-mother Queen Margaret and later upon her niece Elizabeth de Burgh, during their confinements. A king's daughter, however, could not be subjected to ordinary restraints; Mary led a particularly free life, constantly visiting court and going on pilgrimages, and there is no reason to suppose that ordinary nuns shared her privileges[1189].