ll that women can do better than men.... Men and women both shall
vow obedience to the abbess."

Though not so radical in some respects as the constitution which Robert
D'Arbrissel imposed upon his monastery of Fontevrault, where women were
exalted above men in all respects, the provisions cited above seem
sufficient to insure the independence of the nuns. There are, of course,
careful rules to safeguard the virtue of both monks and nuns in the
close relations necessitated by the conventual scheme; but as these are
not different from what ordinary prudence would suggest--and ordinary
craft circumvent--we need not pause to give them.

The deaconess or abbess was not absolute; she must take counsel with her
subordinates, and for some things she must convene the whole convent to
ask advice and consent. Her subordinates had duties and responsibilities
of no mean sort. The sacristan, who is also treasurer, shall have charge
of the chapel and its ornaments, their repairs, etc. She must care for
the things needful for the services of the church, such as the incense,
the relics, the bells, and the communion wafers, which latter the nuns
are to make of pure wheat flour. The sacristan, too, having to decorate
the church in keeping with the seasons of the religious year, must be
enough of a scholar to know how to compute and determine the feast days
according to the calendar.

With the precentress, or mistress of the choir, rested the
responsibility for the church music. She was to train the choir, and to
teach music, in which she must be well versed. Besides this, she was the
librarian, must give out and take in the books, and take care of books
and illuminations. In case of the illness or other incapacity of the
abbess, the precentress took her place.

One of the most trying places must have been that of infirmaress, who
not only had charge of the sick in the capacity of nurse, but "must keep
herself supplied with proper medicines, according to the resources of
the place, and this she can do the better if she knows a little of
medicine.... She must know how to let blood (the medicine of the period
relied very largely upon phlebotomy), so that this operation may not
require the access of any man among the nuns." Much of the simpler
knowledge and practice of medicine was permitted to women; the simpler
medicine, indeed, was the only hope of the unfortunate sick in the days
of drastic doctoring.

The nun called the _robaria_,