With the precentress, or mistress of the choir, rested the responsibility for the church music. She was to train the choir, and to teach music, in which she must be well versed. Besides this, she was the librarian, must give out and take in the books, and take care of books and illuminations. In case of the illness or other incapacity of the abbess, the precentress took her place. One of the most trying places must have been that of infirmaress, who not only had charge of the sick in the capacity of nurse, but "must keep herself supplied with proper medicines, according to the resources of the place, and this she can do the better if she knows a little of medicine.... She must know how to let blood (the medicine of the period relied very largely upon phlebotomy), so that this operation may not require the access of any man among the nuns." Much of the simpler knowledge and practice of medicine was permitted to women; the simpler medicine, indeed, was the only hope of the unfortunate sick in the days of drastic doctoring. The nun called the _robaria_, who had charge of the wardrobe, we have christened "vesturess," for lack of a better name. She provided and cared for the clothing of both monks and nuns, not so simple a matter as it might seem, for "she shall have the sheep sheared, and shall receive the leather (for shoes, etc.); she shall collect and take care of the wool and linen and see to the making of the cloth from them; she shall distribute thread, needles, and scissors (to the nuns assigned to work under her). She shall have charge of the dormitory and of the beds; and she shall be charged with directing the cutting, sewing, and washing of the table-cloths, napkins, and all the linen of the monastery.... She shall have all the necessary implements for her work, and shall regulate the tasks assigned to each sister. She shall have charge of the novices until they are admitted to the community." The novices, by the way, were regularly taught in the convent, and a good deal of the work for which religious exercises left the nuns little time was assigned to them.