Fontevraud also took up a feature that had appeared sporadically in early centuries whereby its houses were double monasteries, with separately housed convents of both men and women, under a common superior, which in the case of the Order of Fontevraud was a prioress. The men had their own male superior, but he was subject to the prioress. At Amesbury and in some other locations this model seems to have broken down and by the beginning of the 15th century Amesbury seems to have become an exclusively women's house, with a small group of priest-chaplains external to the Order.