“Stuff given her by her frends:--A fetherbed, a bolster, 2 pyllows, a payre of blankatts, 2 corse coverleds, 4 pare of shets good and badde, an olde tester and selar of paynted clothes and 2 peces of hangyng to the same; a square cofer carvyd, with 2 bed clothes upon the cofer, and in the wyndow a lytill cobard of waynscott carvyd and 2 lytill chestes; a small goblet with a cover of sylver parcell gylt, a lytill maser with a brynne of sylver and gylt, a lytell pese of sylver and a spore of sylver, 2 lytyll latyn candellstyks, a fire panne and a pare of tonges, 2 small aundyrons, 4 pewter dysshes, a porrenger, a pewter bason, 2 skyllotts [a small pot with a long handle], a lytill brasse pot, a cawdyron and a drynkyng pot of pewter.” There were occasions when the lady abbess dispensed hospitality on a liberal scale. At the convent of Sion, in London, it was the custom at Pardon-time, which was in the month of August, for the Court of Aldermen to pay a visit to the convent.[19] It will easily be imagined that a good deal of preparation had to be made for these visitors. They recognized the demands made upon their hostess by sending the appropriate acknowledgment of a present of wine. In the Middle Ages nuns were allowed, under regulations, to go out and see their friends. The rule was stricter in earlier periods, and strictest of all among the double monasteries. In the first six centuries of the Christian Church, the general rule seems to have been that-- “a virgin was not permitted to leave the house or monastery except for special reason, and no one had access to her but bishop or priest.” But this was subject to variation, for in the Roman Church, about the fourth century, we read of “holy virgins” frequenting the public baths, for which they were blamed by Cyprian. A male or female devotee could, at any time, return to the world and marry.[20] The injunctions made in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries show that a great deal of latitude was permitted to nuns. It was not until the sixteenth century that they were rigidly confined to the cloister.[21] In the Middle Ages they were not much more under restraint, in the matter of visiting, than girls in boarding-schools and colleges at the present day. They were not to go out without express permission, or to wander from house to house when they went into the neighbouring city. Sometimes it was enjoined that they should only go to places from which they could return the same day, and at other convents they were permitted to remain out one night. In one case they were not to go “beyond the vill except from great and lawful cause; in pairs and in nun’s habit.”