The accounts throw an interesting light on the provision of clothes for a convent and its servants. An account of Dame Bridget Belgrave, chambress of Syon (who had to look after the brothers as well as the sisters of the house) has survived for the year 1536-7. It shows her buying "russettes," "white clothe," "kerseys," "gryce," "Holand cloth and other lynen cloth," paying for the spinning of hemp and flax, for the weaving of cloth, for the dressing of calves' skins and currying of leather, and for 3000 "pynnes of dyuerse sortes." She pays wages to "the yoman of the warderobe," "the grome," the skinner and the shoemakers and she tips the "sealer" of leather in the market place[370]. Treasuresses' accounts also often give interesting information about the purchase and making up of various kinds of material. At St Radegund's, Cambridge, the nuns were in receipt of an annual dress allowance, but the house made many purchases of stuff for the livery of its household and in 1449-50 the account records payments
to a certain woman hired to spin 21 lbs. of wool, 22_d._; and to Alice Pavyer hired for the same work, containing in the gross 36 lbs. of woollen thread 6_s._; and paid to Roger Rede of Hinton for warping certain woollen thread 1-1/2_d._; and to the same hired to weave 77 ells of woollen cloth for the livery of the servants 3_s._ 5_d._; and paid to the wife of John Howdelowe for fulling the said cloth 3_s._ 6_d._; and paid to a certain shearman for shearing (i.e. finishing the surface of) the said cloth 14-1/2_d._
The next year the nuns make similar payments for cleaning, spinning, weaving, warping, fulling and shearing wool (an interesting illustration of the subdivision of the cloth industry) and disburse 9_s._ 9_d._ to William Judde of St Ives for dyeing and making up this cloth into green and blue liveries for the servants of the house[371].
The cellaresses' accounts, which show us how the nun-housekeeper catered for the community, are even more interesting than the chambresses' accounts. The convent food was derived from two main sources, from the home farm and from purchase. The home farm was usually under the management of the cellaress and provided the house with the greater part of its meat, bread, beer and vegetables, and with a certain amount of dairy produce (butter, cheese, eggs, chickens). Anything which the farm could not produce had to be bought, and in particular three important articles of consumption, to wit the salt and dried fish eaten during the winter and in Lent, the salt for the great annual meat-salting on St Martin's day, and the spices and similar condiments used so freely in medieval cooking and eaten by convents more especially in Lent, to relieve the monotony of their fasting fare. The nuns of St Radegund's, Cambridge, used to get most of their salt fish at Lynn, whence it was brought up by river to Cambridge. From the accounts of 1449-51 it appears that the senior ladies made the occasion one for a pleasant excursion. There is a jovial entry in 1450-1 concerning the carriage by water from Lynn to Cambridge of one barrel[372] and a half of white herrings, two cades[373] of red herrings, two cades of smelts, one quarter of stockfish and one piece of timber called "a Maste" out of which a ladder was to be made (2_s._ 4_d._), together with the fares and food of Dame Joan Lancaster, Dame Margaret Metham, Thomas Key (the bailiff) and Elene Herward of Lynn to Cambridge (2_s._ 8_d._). Another entry displays to us Dame Joan Lancaster bargaining for the smelts and the stockfish at Lynn. Fish was usually bought from one John Ball of Lynn, who seems to have been a general merchant of considerable custom, for the nuns also purchased from him all the linen which they needed for towels and tablecloths, and some trenchers. Occasionally, also, however, they purchased some of their fish at one or other of the fairs held in the district; in 1449-50 they thus bought 8 warp[374] of ling and 6 warp of cod from one John Antyll at Ely fair and 14 warp of ling from the same man at Stourbridge fair, an interesting illustration of how tradesmen travelled from fair to fair. At St John Baptist's fair in the same year they bought a horse for 9_s._ 6_d._, 2 qrs. 5 bushels of salt, some timber boards and three "pitcheforke staves." In the following year they bought timber, pewter pots, a churn, 10 lbs. of soap and 3 lbs. of pepper at the famous fair of Stourbridge, and salt and timber at the fair of St John Baptist. In 1481-2 they bought salt fish, salt, iron nails, paper, parchment and "other necessities" at the fairs of Stourbridge and of St Etheldreda the Virgin[375].