since, according to the constitutions of the holy fathers, younger members must take a pattern from their rulers (_prelati_) and those prelates ought to have a number of witnesses to their own behaviour, we strictly order you (lady abbess) in virtue of obedience, that you annually commit the office of chaplain to one of your nuns ... and thus the nuns themselves, who shall have been with you in the aforesaid office, shall (by means of laudable instruction) be the better enabled to excel in religion, while you will be able immediately to invoke their testimony to your innocence, if (which God forbid) any crime or scandal should be imputed to you by the malice of any person[194].
So at Easebourne in 1478 the Prioress was ordered
that every week, beginning with the eldest ... she should select for herself in due course and in turns, one of her nuns as chaplain for divine services and to wait upon herself[195].
The Norwich visitations of Bishop Nykke afford further information; at Flixton discontented Dame Margaret Punder complained that the Prioress had no sister as chaplain, but slept alone as she pleased, in a chamber (_cubiculo_) outside the dorter, "without the continual testimony of her sisters," and the visitors enjoined that henceforth she should have with her one sister in the office of chaplain for a witness, and especially when she slept outside the dorter[196]. At Blackborough one of the nuns complained that the Prioress had kept the same chaplain for three years[197] and at Redlingfield it was said that she never changed her chaplain[198]; the Abbess of Elstow in 1421-2[199] and the Prioress of Markyate in 1442[200] were ordered to change their chaplains every year, and this seems to have been the customary arrangement. The title of "chaplain" is sometimes found after the name of a nun in lists of the inmates of nunneries[201].
Besides the temptation to live too independent an existence the head of a house had also the temptation to abuse the considerable power given to her by the monastic rule. She was apt to govern autocratically, keeping the business of the house entirely in her own hands, instead of consulting her sisters (assembled in chapter) before making any important decision. There were constant complaints by the nuns that the Prioress kept the common seal in her own custody and performed all business without consulting them. Peckham's letter to the Abbess of Romsey illustrates the variety of matters which might thus be settled without any reference to the nuns; she had evidently been misusing her power, for he wrote sternly:
