to purge herself with four of her sisters for the things which she denied; but she was unable to produce any compurgatresses[252] and Alnwick accordingly found her guilty and obliged her to abjure all intercourse with Taylour in the future. It might be imagined that such a case as that of Margaret Wavere was in the highest degree exceptional, likely to occur but once in a century. Unfortunately it appears to have occurred far more often. In the fifty years, between 1395 and 1445, Margaret Wavere can be matched, in different parts of the country, by no less than six other prioresses guilty of immorality and bad government; and it must be realised that this is probably an understatement, because so much evidence has been destroyed, or is as yet unexplored in episcopal registries. Of these cases two belong to the diocese of York, one (besides the case of Margaret Wavere) to the diocese of Lincoln, one to the diocese of Salisbury, one to the diocese of Winchester and one to the diocese of Norwich. Fully as bad a woman as Margaret Wavere was Eleanor, prioress of Arden, a little Yorkshire house which contained seven nuns, when it was visited by Master John de Suthwell in 1396 (during the vacancy of the see of York)[253]. The nuns were unanimous and bitter in their complaints. The Prioress kept the convent seal in her possession, sometimes for a year at a time, and did everything according to her own will without consulting her sisters. She sold woods and trees and disposed of the money as she would, and all rents were similarly received and expended by her. When she assumed office the house was in good condition, owing some five marks only, but now it owed great sums to divers people, amounting to over L16 in the detailed list given by the nuns[254], and this in spite of the fact that she had received many alms and gifts during her year of office--L18. 13_s._ 4_d._ in all; indeed the two marks which had been given her by Henry Arden's executors that the convent might pray for his soul, had been concealed by her from the nuns, "to the deception of the said Henry's soul, as it appeared to them." She had pawned the goods of the house, at one time a piece of silver with a cover and a maser worth 40_s._, at another time a second maser and the Prioress' seal of office itself, for which she got 5_s._; even the sacred vestments were not safe in her rapacious hands and a new suit was pawned, with the result that it was soiled and worn and not yet consecrated. The walls and roof of the church and dorter and the rest of the house were in ruins; there were no waxen candles round the altar, no lights for matins or for the other canonical hours, no Paschal candles; when she first took office she found ten pairs of sheets of good linen cloth (cloth of "lake" and "inglyschclath," to wit) and now they were worn out and in all her time not one new pair had been made; the nuns had only two sacred albs and one of them had been turned to secular uses, viz.