This chapter examines the relations of the abbess or prioress with her spiritual and temporal monarchs, whose separate, and sometimes intersecting, spheres of authority both supported and restricted the scope of her leadership. As indicated by Figure 2, the female superior's perspective on some individuals and pressure groups did not necessarily match that of those in authority over her. Hence, the boarders, whom the ecclesiastical authorities strove to keep at a distance, loom much larger in this diagram than in Figure 1. Since the abbess or prioress saw the papacy as a somewhat remote entity, the pope appears in Figure 2 as less significant in the general scheme of things than in the previous representation of the power network.

The king, unlike the pope, functioned on a number of levels in his relationships with the female superiors. For some he was a patron and therefore exercised the traditional patronal rights. These included access to the spiritual services of the nuns, influence over the outcome of monastic elections, and the right to claim the temporalities of the house in a vacancy. As in the case of other patrons, his help and protection were expected in times of need. Unlike other patrons, the king was in a position to request material assistance from monastic resources; accordingly, successive kings prevailed upon royal houses for benefits to favoured ex-employees, in the form of corrodies and pensions, throughout the late medieval period. Also, in time of war, there were successive purveyancing demands of religious houses, in addition to ad hoc tax levies.