Bishop Pontoise ordered that at Romsey an account should be rendered twice a year and at the end thereof the state of the house should be declared by the auditors of the convent, or at least by the seniors of the convent, but finding the practice in abeyance in 1302 he ordered the account to be rendered once a year[721]; his ordinance was repeated by Bishop Woodlock in 1311[722] and by William of Wykeham in 1387[723], both of whom specially refer to the rendering of accounts by officials and obedientiaries as well as by the Abbess[724]. More frequently, especially in the smaller houses, the Bishops confined their efforts to extracting the main account from the Prioress, with the double object, so ungraciously expressed by Archbishop Lee, “that it may appere in whate state the housse standith in, and also that it may be knowen, whethur she be profitable to the house or not”[725]. How far it was a common practice that the accounts should be audited by some external person, it is impossible to say. Our only evidence lies in occasional injunctions such as those sent by Bishops Pontoise and Woodlock to Romsey, or by Bishop Buckingham to Heynings; or an occasional remark, such as the Prioress of Blackborough’s excuse that she did not render account in order “to save the expenses of an auditor”[726]; or an occasional order addressed by a Bishop to some person bidding him go and examine the accounts of a house. In 1314 William, rector of Londesborough, was made custos of Nunburnholme on peculiar terms, being ordered to go there three times a year and hear the accounts of the ministers and prepositi of the house; his duties were thus, in effect, those of an unpaid auditor and no more[727]. It is probable that the accounts of bailiffs and other servants were audited by the custos, in those houses to which such an official was attached[728]; whether his own accounts were scrutinised is another matter. In 1309 Archbishop Greenfield wrote to his own receiver, William de Jafford, to audit the accounts of Nunappleton[729], and after the revelations of Margaret Wavere’s maladministration at Catesby in 1445, a commission for the inspection of the accounts was granted to the Abbot of St James, Northampton[730]. In some cases the annual statement of accounts was ordered to be made before the Bishop of the diocese, as well as the nuns of the house, and in such cases he would act as auditor himself[731].
It was also a common practice for the Visitor to demand that the current balance sheet and inventory (the status domus) of a monastic house should be produced, together with its foundation charter and various other documents, before he took the evidence of the inmates at a visitation. The register of Bishop Alnwick’s visitations shows the procedure very clearly; usually there is simply a note to the effect that the Prioress handed in the status domus, but at some houses the Bishop encountered difficulties. At St Michael’s Stamford, in 1440, the old Prioress (who, it will be remembered, had rendered no account at all during her twelve years of office) was unable to produce a balance sheet, or one of the required certificates, and Alnwick was obliged to proceed with her examination “hiis exhibendis non exhibitis.” He made shift however to extract some verbal information from her; she said that the house was in debt £20 at her installation and now only 20 marks, that it could expend £40, besides 10 marks appropriated to the office of pittancer and besides “the perquisites of the stewardship”; she said also “that they plough with two teams and they have eight oxen, seven horses, a bailiff, four serving-folk, a carter for the teams, and a man who is their baker and brewer, whose wife makes the malt”[732]. At Legbourne also the Prioress
showed the state of the house, as it now stands, as they say, but not annual charges, etc.... She says that the house owed £43 at the time of her confirmation and installation and now only £14; nevertheless because the state of the house is not fully shown, she has the next day at Louth to show it more fully[733].
At Ankerwyke also Clemence Medforde gave in an incomplete balance sheet:
she shewed a roll containing the rents of the house, which, after deducting rent-charges, reach the total of £22. 6. 7. Touching the stewardship of the temporalities and touching the other receipts, as from alms and other like sources, she shews nothing, and says that at the time of her preferment the house was 300 marks in debt, and now is in debt only £40, and she declares some of the names of the creditors of this sum[734].
A special demand for a complete statement of accounts was sometimes made in cases where gross maladministration was charged against a prioress. Thus in 1310 Archbishop Greenfield ordered an investigation of certain charges (unspecified, but clearly of this nature) made against the Prioress of Rosedale; her accounts,
as well as those of all bailiffs and other officials and servants who were bound to render accounts, were to be examined and the prioress was ordered to render to the commissioners full and complete accounts from the time of her promotion, as well as a statement of the then position of the house,
and a further letter from the Archbishop to the Subprioress and nuns ordered them to display the status domus to the commissioners, as it was when the Prioress took office and as it was at the time he wrote. She resigned shortly afterwards, sentiens se impotentem; but in 1315 her successor was enjoined to draw up a certified statement showing the credit and debit accounts of the house and to send it to the Archbishop before a certain date[735]. Usually the Bishop demanded not only the account roll of a house, but also an inventory, doubtless in order that he might see whether anything had been alienated, and these inventories sometimes remain attached to the account of the visitation preserved in the episcopal register[736].
If a Prioress were found to be hopelessly incompetent or unscrupulous, but not bad enough to be deprived of her position, Bishops sometimes took the extreme measure of appointing one or more coadjutresses, to govern the house in conjunction with her; and often (even when there was no complaint against the Prioress) the nuns were ordered to elect treasuresses, to receive and disburse the income of the house from all sources. One of the comperta at the visitation of Swine in 1268 was to the effect that
the sums of money which are bestowed in charity upon the convent, for pittances and garments and other necessary uses, are received by the Prioress; which ought the rather to be in the custody of two honest nuns and distributed to those in need of them, and in no wise converted to other uses[737].