Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Convent and the Community in Late Medieval England: Female Monasteries in the Diocese of Norwich, 1350-1540

The Convent and the Community in Late Medieval England: Female Monasteries in the Diocese of Norwich, 1350-1540

Oliva, Marilyn

Hardcover

Series: Studies in the History of Medieval Religion, Book 12

CatholicismBritish HistoryWomen's Studies

ISBN10: 0851155766
ISBN13: 9780851155760
Publisher: Boydell Press
Published: Mar 20 1998
Pages: 288
Weight: 1.23
Height: 0.92 Width: 6.45 Depth: 9.44
Language: English
Convents were an important part of medieval monastic life, but only now, with the upsurge of interest in women's history, are they beginning to receive the attention they deserve. The prevailing view has been that female monasticism was bankrupt, spiritually and socially as well as financially, but Professor Oliva shows the reality to have been otherwise. In her study of the eleven female monasteries in the diocese of Norwich between 1350-1540, the convents emerge as integral parts of the local social and spiritual landscape, with nuns more active in the local community than their male counterparts, and markedly more popular with parish gentry and yeoman farmers (as their wills prove). The majority of nuns are shown to have been from these parish gentry families, not from the upper gentry or aristocracy as has been thought, and the records of their active lives, so rewardingly examined here, reveal mobility within the nunnery too, the existence of a career ladder' enabling nuns to progress to more important and prestigious household offices. Professor MARILYN OLIVA teaches in the Center for Medieval Studies at Fordham University.

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