In the houses of the friars[200] there were few signs of anything approaching domestic comfort. The kitchens had various necessary utensils, more, apparently, than the communities would require for their own cooking, and pointing probably to considerable dispensation of charity and poor relief. There was a considerable amount of church furniture--vestments, candlesticks, etc.,--but practically nothing at all in the way of bedding or linen. The records by no means show that the religious, either monks, nuns, or friars, were living a life more luxurious than the generality of people. If we are to take the prices at which their live stock was sold it must have been of inferior breed. The sales being “compulsory” tended to lower the prices realized, but the monks had, in all probability, sold as much as they could and dared as the imminence of dissolution became more threatening, and of course their better animals would find the readiest sale. As regards the furniture of the houses, the inventories of the sales may well be compared with other contemporary lists of a similar nature, such as the “Inventory of the Goods and Catales of Richd. Master, Clerk, Parson of Aldington” [Kent], in 1534, which is given by Froude.[201] If Dieulacres really had only sixty sheep in the sixteenth century it had sadly declined from its earlier wealth in that branch of industry, and there was little occupation for the servants. But, probably, as we have said, the number represents the remainder which had not been sold. All sales so made were by law _ipso facto_ void if they became known, so that no extraordinary number could have been parted with. The inference therefore is that their sheep-farming had declined, and the monks of Dieulacres, at any rate, had not taken the part in the conversion of arable into pasture of which the monasteries have often been accused. Ronton Priory had enclosed all its demesne, but there is no evidence that it was for the purpose of forming large sheep-runs--it may have been merely in order to facilitate “convertible husbandry”--a very different matter.