The confessor made periodical visits to the convent; and if the prioress found it necessary that anyone should confess, the latter was told to go to the place appointed, and two "discreet sisters" sat apart from the window of the confessional, where they could hold the nun under observation and see how she behaved. The confessor also was under supervision as to his conduct, for he was to "shun talking vain and unnecessary things; nor ask who she was, whence she came, and such things."
The ceremony with regard to the taking of vows by the nuns was threefold. The first was called the consecration of the nun, and was made on solemn days, preferably Epiphany or on the festivals of the Virgin. After the Epistle was read, the virgin who was to be consecrated came before the altar, dressed in white, carrying in her right hand the religious habit and in her left an extinguished taper. After the bishop had consecrated the habit, he gave it to her, saying: "Take, girl, the robe which you shall wear in innocence." After assuming this, the taper in her hand was lighted, and she intoned the words: "I love Christ, into whose bed I have entered." Then, after the Epistle, Gospel, and Creed, the bishop said: "Come, come, come, daughter, I will teach you the fear of the Lord." The nun then prostrated herself before the altar, and after the _Veni Creator_ began, she arose. The bishop then invested her with the veil and pronounced a curse against all those who would disturb her holy purpose. The second ceremony related to a nun who was to make profession, but who had before been blessed, and the third ceremony related to the consecration of a nun who was not a virgin. Such, in brief, is a sketch of the convent routine and exercises. It will now be in place to take a more general view of the nun's environment.
As the hospitality of the convent was often extended to strangers, it will not be without interest to give a list of the contents of a chamber which was allotted to a "Dame Agnes Browne" in the Priory of Minster, in Sheppey: "Stuff given her by her friends:--A fetherbed, a bolster, 2 pyllows, a payre of blankatts, 2 corse coverleds, 4 pare of shets good and badde, an olde tester and selar of paynted clothes and 2 peces of hangyng to the same; a square cofer carvyd, with 2 bed clothes upon the cofer, and in the wyndow a lytill cobard of waynscott carvyd and 2 lytill chestes; a small goblet with a cover of sylver parcell gylt, a lytill maser with a brynne of sylver and gylt, a lytill pese of sylver and a spore of sylver, 2 lytyll latyn candellstyks, a fire panne and a pare of tonges, 2 small aundyrons, 4 pewter dysshes, a porrenger, a pewter bason, 2 skyllotts (a small pot with a long handle), a lytill brasse pot, a cawdyron and a drynkyng pot of pewter."