Such were the chief sources from which a medieval nunnery derived its income. We must now consider the chief expenses which the nuns had to meet out of that income. It has already been shown that the total income of a nunnery was paid into the hands of the treasuress or treasuresses, save when the office of treasuress was filled by the head of the house, or when a male _custos_ was appointed by the bishop to undertake the business. It has also been shown that the treasuress paid out certain sums to the chief obedientiaries (notably to the cellaress), to whose use certain sources of income were indeed sometimes earmarked, and that these obedientiaries kept their separate accounts. The majority of nunnery accounts which have survived are, however, treasuresses' accounts; that is to say they represent the general balance sheet at the end of the year, including all the chief items of income and expenditure. The different houses adopt, as is natural, different methods of classifying their expenses[327]. The great abbey of Romsey classifies thus: (1) _The Convent_, including sums for clothing, for the kitchen expenses and for pittances, amounting in all to £105. 17_s._ 10_d._ (2) _The Abbess_, who kept her separate household in state; this includes provisions for herself and for her household and divers of their expenses, a sum of £8. 12_s._ in gifts, a sum in liveries for the household and spices for the guest-house and a sum in servants' wages, amounting to £108. 17_s._ in all. (3) _Divers outside expenses_, including repairs of houses belonging to the Romsey mills, a sum for legal pleas, another for annuities to the convent and to the king's clerks, who had stalls in the abbey, over £40 in royal taxes and £1. 14_s._ 8_d._ in procurations, amounting to £108 in all. (4) _Miscellaneous expenses_ include £8. 19_s._ 4_d._ in alms to the poor, £6. 13_s._ 4_d._ in wine for nobles visiting the abbess, a sum for mending broken crockery, a sum for shoeing the horses of the Abbess' household, and in horse-hire and expenses of men riding on her business, 14_s._ in oblations of the Abbess and her household and £10 in gift to Henry Bishop of Winchester on his return from the Holy Land. (5) _Repairs_ and other expenses at six manors belonging to this wealthy house, amounting to £77. 2_s._ 6-1/2_d._ The total expenses of the abbey this year (1412) came to £431. 18_s._ 8_d._, against a revenue of £404. 6_s._ 1_d._, drawn from six manors and including rents, the commutation fees for villein services, the sale of wool, corn and other stores and the perquisites of the courts. The deficit is characteristic of nunneries[328].
Neighborhoods Review
Medieval English Nunneries c. 1275 to 1535 — Part 81
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