of their privileges. They were never ordained,
nor did they ever have the right to ordain others, although they
claimed the latter as one of their privileges.

They were subject to deposition if they abused their office. Not
infrequently the nuns would carry their complaints to the bishop,
and seek from him redress for their grievances. If the circumstances
warranted his so doing, the bishop would occasionally take the
direction of the nunnery into his own hands instead of appointing an
abbess, or else he might place it temporarily in the charge of one or
more of the nuns. All the affairs of the convent were directed by the
abbess--the tillage of the grounds and4the repairs to the buildings,
as well as the internal ordering of the establishment and the
discipline of its inmates. Also, she was directed to assist, by her
own labor as far as she was able, in clothing herself. When a nun
became refractory, she might be consigned to punishment outside of
the convent. Thus, by the decree of a council near Paris in the eighth
century, it was ordered that the bishop as well as the abbess might
send a nun to a penitentiary. The same council prescribed that an
abbess should not superintend more than one monastery or quit its
precincts more than once a year. One of the rules which was at one
time in force prohibited abbesses from walking alone, thus placing
them under the surveillance of the sisterhood. But their powers varied
according to the period and the order with which they were connected.

Through the necessities of their office, the abbesses were brought
into closer relationship with the outside world than were the other
nuns. Sometimes they were made respondents in a suit at law with
regard to the estates of the convent, or to retain the property
brought to them by some one of the sisters, who, renouncing her vows,
sought to recover her possessions. In 1292 the prioress of an abbey in
Somersetshire had to answer in a suit brought against her by a widow
and two men in regard to the right of common pasturage upon lands held
by the convent, and the case was decided against the religious house;
but both the prioress and the widow escaped paying their respective
costs in the case, on the plea of poverty.

Not only were the abbesses sued, but they themselves did not hesitate
to institute legal proceedings in defence of what they believed were
their rights. In the reign of Edward III., a prioress sued a sheriff
for the recove