Reasons for poverty: (1) natural disasters 176 (2) ecclesiastical exactions and royal taxes 183 (3) feudal and other services 185 (4) right of patrons to take temporalities during voidance 186 (5) right of bishop and king to nominate nuns on certain occasions 188 (6) pensions, corrodies, grants and liveries 194 (7) hospitality 200 (8) litigation 201 (9) bad management 203 (10) extravagance 211 (11) overcrowding with nuns 212 Methods adopted by bishops to remedy financial distress: (1) devices to safeguard expenditure by the head of the house 217 (2) episcopal licence required for business transactions 225 (3) appointment of a _custos_ 228 CHAPTER VI. EDUCATION The education of the nuns: Learning of Anglo-Saxon nuns, and of German nuns at a later date 237 Little learning in English nunneries during the later middle ages 238 Nunnery libraries and nuns' books 240 Education of nuns 244 Latin in nunneries 246 Translations for the use of nuns 251 Needlework 255 Simple forms of medicine 258 Nunneries as schools for children: The education of novices 260 The education of secular children 261 Boys 263 Limitations: (1) not all nunneries took children 264 (2) only gentlefolk taken 265 (3) disapproval and restriction of nunnery schools by the ecclesiastical authorities 270 What did the nuns teach? 274 Life of school children in nunneries 279 'Piety and breeding' 281 CHAPTER VII. ROUTINE AND REACTION Division of the day by the Benedictine Rule 285