Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index


  • Record Number: 7039
  • Author(s)/Creator(s): Manzalaoui , Mahmoud A.
  • Contributor(s):
  • Title: English Medieval Nunneries: Buildings, Precincts, and Estates [The author surveys both archaeological and textual monastic buildings and estates. Bond concludes that women's houses, unlike men's monasteries, were not distinctive according to religious order. They tend to be poorer and were usually not able to increase their holdings after the twelfth century. Bond describes all the different kinds of buildings involved including churches, gatehouses, cloisters, refectories, bake houses, and barns. Title note supplied by Feminae.].
  • Source: Women and Religion in Medieval England.  Edited by Diana Wood.  Oxbow Books, 2003.  Pages 46 - 90.
  • Description:
  • Article Type: Essay
  • Subject (See Also): Administration Architecture- Religious Economics Euphemia, Abbess of Wherwell Monasticism Wales Women in Religion
  • Award Note:
  • Geographic Area: British Isles
  • Century: General
  • Primary Evidence:
  • Illustrations: Sixteen photographs and six maps. Figure One Photograph of Brewood White Ladies, Shropshire. It began under Augustinian rule but by the late Middle Ages it had apparently become Cistercian. Figure Two Map of Locations of nunneries, 1066-1540. Figure Three Map of double house locations, 1066-1540. Figure Eight Photograph of Romsey Abbey. Figure Nine Photograph of an early eleventh century sculpted crucifix, Romsey Abbey, now in the west wall of the south transept. Figure Ten Photograph of the south-east chapel, Romsey Abbey. Figure Eleven Photograph of the nave, Romsey Abbey. Figure Twelve Photograph of the site of the parochial nave, built after 1403 and removed after the Dissolution, Romsey Abbey. Figure Thirteen Photograph of the central tower of a formerly cruciform Benedictine nunnery church, Usk Priory, Gwent. Figure Fourteen Photograph of church with its original parochial nave, Goring, Oxfordshire. A small community of Augustinian sisters shared this church with a lay congregation. Figure Fifteen Map for the north and south orientations of nunnery cloisters, 1066-1540. Figure Sixteen Photography of the interior of the chapter-house, Lacock Abbey, Wiltshire. Figure Seventeen Photograph of a Franciscan refectory, Denny Abbey, Cambridgeshire, fourteenth century. Figure Eighteen Photograph of ruins sometimes identified as St. Leonard's Chapel, Godstow Abbey, Oxfordshire. Figure Nineteen Map of Godstow Abbey including its earthworks and boundaries. Figure Twenty Maps of the estates belonging to Shaftesbury Abbey in 1086. Figure Twenty-one Map of the wool available for export from English nunneries in the early fourteenth century. Figure Twenty-three Photograph of the outer gate into the yard of Shaftesbury Abbey's estate farm, Tisbury, Wiltshire. Figure Twenty-four Photograph of the inner gate linking the farmyard with the domestic court, Tisbury, Wiltshire. Figure Twenty-five Photograph of the great barn of the Shaftesbury Abbey, Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire. Figure Twenty-six Photograph of the interior of the great barn, Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire. Figure Twenty-seven Photograph of the medieval granary, Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire.
  • Table: Four graphs and one table. Figure Four Graph for the chronology of nunnery foundations in England and Wales indicating numbers and orders by twenty-five year spans, 975-1550. Figure Five Graph for the chronology of male and female Benedictine houses in England and Wales. Figure Six Graph for the chronology of male and female Cistercian houses, as well as houses of Savignac monks absorbed by Cistercians in 1147, in England and Wales. Figure Seven Graph for the chronology of houses of Augustinian canons and nuns in England and Wales. Figure Twenty-two Table of enclosures and evictions by nunneries recorded in 1517.
  • Abstract:
  • Related Resources:
  • Author's Affiliation: University of British Columbia
  • Conference Info: - , -
  • Year of Publication: 2003.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN/ISBN: 1842170988