[727] V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 119.
[728] Sometimes specific mention is made of this duty, e.g. in 1318 Thomas de Mydelsburg, rector of Loftus, was ordered to administer the temporal goods of the Cistercian house of Handale, to receive the accounts of the servants and to substitute more capable ones for those who were useless. Ib. III, p. 166. Cf. the commission to the rector of Aberford to be custos of Kirklees about the same time. Yorks. Archaeol. Journ. XVI, p. 362.
[729] V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 171.
[730] Linc. Visit. II, pp. 52-3.
[731] In 1442, for instance, the Prioress of Rusper was ordered to render accounts yearly before the Bishop of Chichester and the nuns of the house (Sussex Arch. Coll. V, p. 255), and at Sheppey in 1511, two nuns having complained that the Prioress did not account, she was ordered to render accounts, with an inventory to the convent and to Archbishop Warham (E.H.R. VI, p. 34).
[732] Alnwick Visit. MS. f. 83.
[733] Linc. Visit. II, p. 184.
[734] Linc. Visit. II, p. 1.
[735] V.C.H. Yorks. III, p. 174.
[736] An inventory of the goods of Easebourne Priory, drawn up for the Bishop of Chichester on May 27th, 1450, has survived. It is very complete and comprises all departments of the house, together with a list of land, chapels and appropriated churches and a note that the house can expend in all £22. 3s. on repairs and other expenses and that the debts “for repairs and other necessary expenses this year” amount to £66. 6s. 8d. Sussex Arch. Coll. IX, pp. 10-13. It may be of interest to quote the briefer inventory of the poor house of Ankerwyke, as presented to Bishop Atwater at his visitation in 1519 and copied by his clerk into the register. There were at the time five nuns in the house and one in apostasy. “Redditus ibidem extendunt prima facie ad xxxiij li. x s. Inde resoluunt pro libris (sic) redditibus v li. x s. Et sic habent clare ad reparacionem & alia onera sustinenda ultra xl marcas. Jocalia in Ecclesia: Habent ibidem vestimenta sacerdotalia ad minus serica xiij. Habent eciam vnicam capam de serica & auro. j calicem de argento deaurato. j par Turribulorum. j pixidem de argento pro sacramento. ij libros missales impressos. j magnum par candelabrorum ante summum altare. j paruum par candelabrorum super summum altare. ij urciolos argenteos. j paxbread de argento, una parua campana argentea. Catalla: Habent vaccas duas, ij equas, boues senes iij, unus bouiculus (sic), j vaccam anne (sic) (blank), iij equas pro aratro. Vtensilia vj plumalia, x paria linthiaminum, iiij superpellectilia, iiij paria de le blanketts, ij le white Testers. Habent Redditus Annuales preter terras ipsarum dominicalium (sic) in earundem manibus occupatas xlvj li. xj s. x d.” Linc. Epis. Reg. Visit. Atwater, f. 42. A fair number of inventories of convent property made for this or for other purposes is extant; notably those drawn up, for purposes of spoliation instead of preservation, at the Dissolution. See [Bibliography].