The methods of distributing charity employed in the monasteries were little better. It is true that the services rendered by the monks and nuns to education were considerable, and that a number of old people and children were maintained in some of the religious houses. Lodging also was given to wayfarers, and thus a very useful function was fulfilled in countries where there were few inns and no casual wards. But much of the relief given to the poor by the monks seems to have been distributed in a similar manner to that of the Countess of Shrewsbury. Alms were given to the poor at the gates: many testators had left money to be distributed in small doles at certain stated periods. Moreover the relief given at different monasteries was not coordinated in any way. The members of each institution gave their alms in their own way without any reference to the gifts of their neighbours. Besides, monks were not primarily intended to be relieving officers, and were not placed where they would be most useful for that purpose; there might be many in one neighbourhood and few or none in another. The charity distributed by the monks therefore was to a great extent unorganised and indiscriminate and did nearly as much to increase beggars as to relieve them[39]. [39] The monks were also probably poorer at the beginning of the sixteenth century than they had been in times past, and were so less able to give relief. Father Gasquet quotes several cases in which the revenues of the monasteries had been diminished by the demands made upon them by those in power. He quotes a letter from the son of the Duke of Buckingham, showing that in some cases they seem to have been expected to provide free board and lodging for the poor relations of wealthy families. "And because," the writer says, "he hath no dwelling place meet for him to inhabit (he was) fain to live poorly at board in an Abbey this four years day with his wife and seven children." _Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries_, Gasquet, I. p. 34 n. See also p. 29. The revenues of the monastic bodies also largely consisted of payments of fixed amounts, and would be unfavourably affected by the rise in prices, which was especially great after the alteration of the coinage in 1527. [Sidenote: (3) Hospitals.]