_Item compertum est_, that the two windows, by which the food and drink of the canons and lay brothers are conveyed (to them), are not at all well guarded by the two nuns who are called janitresses, inasmuch as suspicious conversations are frequently held there between the canons and lay brothers on the one hand and the nuns and sisters on the other. _Item compertum est_ that the door which leads to the church is not at all carefully kept by a certain secular boy, who permits the canons and lay brothers to enter indiscriminately in the twilight, that they may talk with the nuns and sisters, the which door was wont to be guarded diligently by a trusty and energetic lay brother.
It has already been described how the ill-management of the canons and lay brothers ("who dissipate and consume, under colour of guardianship, the goods outside, which were wont to be committed to the guardianship of one of the nuns") caused the nuns to go short in clothes and food and even to be reduced to drinking water instead of beer twice a week, though the canons and their friends "did themselves very well" (_satis habundanter et laute procurantur_)[760]. In most cases this double constitution of nuns and canons was in abeyance in Cistercian houses before the fourteenth century, though a prior and canons are mentioned at Stixwould in 1308[761] and Richard de Staunton, "canon of Catesby," was made master of that house as late as 1316[762].
In other houses where no trace of canons has survived there are often references to the resident Prior, especially in the dioceses of York and Lincoln, and this official is sometimes found in Benedictine houses (e.g. Godstow[763], St Michael's Stamford[764], and King's Mead, Derby[765]). He seems to have acted as senior chaplain and confessor to the nuns as well as supervising their financial business. In cases where a nunnery was in some sort of dependence upon an abbey or priory of monks, it is usual to find a religious of that house acting as _custos_ of the nuns. At St Michael's Stamford, for instance, the abbots of Peterborough had the right of nominating a resident prior, subject to the approval of the Bishop of Lincoln, and the office was often held by a monk of Peterborough[766]. Similarly a monk of St Albans acted as _custos_ of Sopwell[767] and a canon of Newhouse dwelt at Brodholme "to say daily mass for the sisters and to overlook their temporalities"[768]. The joint rule of Cistercian houses by a Prior and Prioress seems to have died out in most cases by the end of the thirteenth century, but it was customary for some secular or regular cleric to be appointed in most of the small and poor houses of York and Lincoln to look after their business[769]. Usually the _custos_ appointed was the vicar or rector of some neighbouring parish. Archbishop Romeyn, for instance, placed Sinningthwaite, Wilberfoss and Arthington under the guardianship of the rectors of Kirk Deighton, Sutton-on-Derwent and Kippax respectively, and he made the vicars of Thirkleby and Bossall successively masters of Moxby[770]. Bishop Dalderby of Lincoln appointed neighbouring rectors and vicars to be masters of Legbourne, Godstow, Rowney, Sewardsley, Fosse, Delapré, St Leonard's Grimsby, and Nuncoton[771].