second teeth were whiter than her first teeth and that her nose was
broad but not snub, which was reassuring for Edward.[1] Last, but not
least, the historians found a multitude of documents about monasteries,
and among these documents they found visitation records, and among
visitation records they found Chaucer's Prioress, smiling full simple
and coy, fair forehead, well-pinched wimple, necklace, little dogs, and
all, as though she had stepped into a stuffy register by mistake for the
_Canterbury Tales_ and was longing to get out again.

This was the reason that Madame Eglentyne got into the register. In the
Middle Ages all the nunneries of England, and a great many of the
monasteries, used to be visited at intervals by the bishop of their
diocese--or by somebody sent by him--in order to see whether they were
behaving properly. It was rather like the periodical visitation of a
school by one of Her Majesty's inspectors, only what happened was very
different. When Her Majesty's inspector comes he does not sit in state
in the hall, and call all the inmates in front of him one after another,
from the head mistress to the smallest child in the first form, and
invite them to say in what way they think the school is not being
properly run, and what complaints they have to make against their
mistresses and which girl habitually breaks the rules--all breathed
softly and privately into his ear, with no one to overhear them. But
when the bishop came to visit a nunnery, that is precisely what
happened. First of all, he sent a letter to say he was coming, and to
bid the nuns prepare for him. Then he came, with his clerks and a
learned official or two, and was met solemnly by the prioress and all
the nuns, and preached a sermon in their church, and was entertained,
perhaps, to dinner. And then he prepared to examine them, and one by one
they came before him, in order of rank, beginning with the prioress, and
what they had to do was to tell tales about each other. He wanted to