In most account rolls a careful distinction was drawn between "rents of assize" and "farms." The former were the payments due from the tenants (whether freehold or customary) who held their holdings at a money rent; these rents were collected by the different collectors of the nunnery or brought to the treasurers by the tenants themselves. "Farms" were leases, i.e. payments for land or houses which were held directly in demesne by the nunnery, but instead of being worked by a bailiff, or occupied by the household, were "farmed out" at an annual rent. A "farmer" might thus hold in farm an entire manor, and, for the payment of an annual sum to the nuns, he would have the right to the produce of the demesne and to the rents of rent-paying tenants. He might be quite a small person and hold in farm only a few acres of the demesne (in addition perhaps to an ordinary tenant's holding on the manor). He might hold the farm of a mill, or a stable, or a single house[281]. In any case he paid a rent to the nuns and made what he could out of his "farm"; while they much preferred these regular payments to the trouble of superintending the cultivation of distant lands, in an age when communication was difficult and slow. Nevertheless the rents were not always easy to collect, for all the diligence of the bailiff and of the various rent-collectors[282]. There are some illuminating entries in the accounts of St Radegund's Cambridge. In 1449-50 the indignant treasuress debits herself with "one tenement in Walleslane lately held by John Walsheman for 6_s._ 8_d._ a year, the which John fled out of this town within the first half of this year, leaving nought behind him whereby he could be distrained save 7_d._, collected therefrom"; and in the following year she again debits herself "for part of a tenement lately held by John Webster for 12_s._ a year, whence was collected only 7_s._ for that the aforesaid John Webster did flit [literally, _devolavit_] by night, leaving naught behind him whereby he could be distrained." Yet these nuns seem to have been indulgent landlords; in this year the treasuress debits herself "for a tenement lately held by Richard Pyghtesley, because it was too heavily charged before, 2_s._ 3_d._, ... and for a portion of the rent owed by Stephen Brasyer on account of the poverty and need of the said Stephen, by grace of the lady Prioress this time only, 15_d._" and there are other instances of lowered rents in these accounts[283]. Other account rolls sometimes make mention of meals and small presents of money given to tenants bringing in their rents.