Account rolls often throw a flood of light upon the income derived from appropriated churches. To the nuns of St Michael's Stamford had been assigned by various abbots of Peterborough the churches of St Martin, St Clement, All Souls, St Andrew and Thurlby, and in the reign of Henry II two pious ladies gave them the moieties of the church of Corby and chapel of Upton[316]. Moreover in 1354, after the little nunnery of Wothorpe had been ruined by the Black Death, all its possessions were handed over to St Michael's and included the appropriation of the church of Wothorpe; the bishop stipulated that the proceeds of the priory with the rectory should be applied to the support of the infirmary and kitchen of St Michael's and that the nuns should keep a chaplain to serve the parish church of Wothorpe[317]. Corby and Thurlby were afterwards farmed out by the nuns[318] and in 1377-8 they brought in £19 and £20 respectively, while the nuns got £26. 0_s._ 8_d._ from "the church of All Saints beyond the water," £1. 13_s._ 4_d._ from the parson of Cottesmore and a pension of 6_s._ 8_d._ from the church of St Martin. They paid the vicar of Wothorpe a stipend of £2 a year[319]. Over half their income was usually derived from "farms, tithes and pensions," i.e. from ecclesiastical sources of revenue.
It was also very common to make grants of tithes out of piety to a monastery, even when a grant of the advowson of the church was not made. A lord would make over to it the tithes of wheat, or a portion of the tithes, in certain parishes, or perhaps the tithes of his own demesne land. Sometimes the rector of a parish would pay the monks or nuns an annual rent in commutation of their tithes; sometimes he would dispute their claim and the tedious altercation would drag on for years, ending perhaps in the expense of a law-suit[320]. Besides advowsons and tithes various other pensions and payments were bestowed upon religious houses by benefactors, who would leave an annual pension to a monastery as a charge upon a particular piece of land, or church, or upon another monastery[321].
Another "spiritual" source of revenue consisted in alms and gifts given to the nuns as a work of piety. Sometimes a nunnery possessed a famous relic, and the faithful who visited it showed their devotion by leaving a gift at the shrine. The _Valor_ sometimes gives very interesting information about these cherished possessions, described under the unkind heading _Superstitio_. The Yorkshire nuns possessed among them a great variety of relics, some of them having the most incongruous virtues. At Sinningthwaite was to be found the arm of St Margaret and the tunic of St Bernard "believed to be good for women lying in"[322], at Arden was an image of St Bride, to which women made offerings for cows that had strayed or were ill. The nuns of Arthington had a girdle of the Virgin and the nuns of St Clement's York and Basedale both had some of her milk; at St Clement's pilgrimages were made to the obscure but popular St Syth[323]. In other parts of the country it was the same. St Edmund's altar in the conventual church of Catesby was a place of pilgrimage, for he had bequeathed his pall and a silver tablet to his sister Margaret Rich, prioress there[324]; and in 1400 Boniface IX granted an indult to the Abbess of Barking to have mass and the other divine offices celebrated in an oratory called "Rodlofte" (rood-loft), in which was preserved a cross to which many people resorted[325]. The nuns of St Michael's Stamford not infrequently record sums received from a pardon held at one of their churches, and almost every year they received sums of money in exchange for their prayers for the souls of the dead. "Almes et aventures," souls and chance payments, was a regular heading in their account roll, and the name of the person for whose soul they were to pray was entered opposite the money received. Miscellaneous alms from the faithful were always a source of revenue, though necessarily a fluctuating source[326].