It should be remembered that in the commissariat of Grace Dieu was evidently included the feeding of the retainers of the convent, as well as that of the nuns. These domestics were many, and were fed certainly as well, and sometimes apparently better than were the ladies themselves. The names of two-and-twenty men-servants and eight women who were retainers of the convent, and their wages, or "rewards" as they are called, are preserved in the account-book. They vary very considerably, from 26_s._ 8_d._ paid to one Henry Smith, to 2_s._ 6_d._ bestowed on "Hirdeman"; and among the women the difference ranges from 22_s._ 6_d._ paid to Isabel Botelor, to 1_s._ 8_d._ to Matilda Gerrard. Henry Smith, named above, seems to have been a sort of factotum, a real treasure and excellent servant. He is called bailiff in one place, and was no doubt of a higher standing than most of the others. Whatever there was to be done, inside or outside the house, it is evident that no one but Henry Smith could see to it properly.
Besides their wages, these retainers of the Augustinian dames had their cottages and clothes looked to for them by the convent bursar. Thus before the autumn work of cleaning the land and sowing the winter corn commences, we find a record of "twenty-four pairs of shoes" given out, which are charged to the convent account at 2_s._ 8-1/2_d._--not the pair, but the two dozen. This sum would appear, perhaps, ridiculously small, even for those days, had we not some reason to think that the leather for making them was provided to the local cobbler from the convent store; for on one occasion Dame Petronilla notes that she paid 8_d._ for tanning (_pro albacione_) the skin of a horse, bought of Robert Harston. Another present from the nuns to their workpeople in view of these autumn works, the cost of which appears in these accounts, was a pair of gloves to each of the thirty men and women about to be engaged in the weeding and ditching and hedging; as for their clothes, these were all made on the premises from the raw material. Thus in one year we read:--
"Paid for the spinning of six score (bundles) of linen flax, 5_s._; paid for weaving the three score ells of linen cloth from the same, 3_s._ 4_d._; paid for woofing and warping three-and-twenty ells of woollen cloth, 6_s._ 2_d._; paid for spinning twenty lbs. of wool at 1-1/4_d._ the pound, 2_s._ 6_d._; paid for dyeing twenty-seven ells of cloth blood red, at 4_d._ the ell, 7_s._ 8_d._; paid for spinning woollen cloth for ordinary livery, 11_d._"; and so on.