[2] I have based this estimate partly on a list compiled by M. E. C. Walcott, English Minsters, vol. II (“The English Student’s Monasticon”), partly on one compiled by Miss H. T. Jacka in an unpublished thesis on The Dissolution of the English Nunneries; the figures, if not always exactly correct, are approximately correct as far as the classification into groups, according to size, is concerned. It must be remembered, however, that there were more nuns at the beginning than at the end of the period 1270-1536; the convents tended to diminish in size, especially those which were poor and small to begin with.
[3] These are discussed in Liveing, Records of Romsey Abbey, pp. 112 sqq.
[4] V.C.H. Sussex, II, p. 84.
[5] Ib. II, p. 63.
[6] Hugo, Medieval Nunneries of the County of Somerset, Minchin Barrow, p. 108.
[7] Well-known names occur, for instance, among the prioresses of the poor convents of Ivinghoe, Ankerwyke and Little Marlow in Bucks. V.C.H. Bucks, I, p. 355.
[8] Lysons, Magna Britannia, V, p. 113. Compare the remark of a nun of Wenningsen, near Hanover, who considered herself insulted when the great reformer Busch addressed her not as “Klosterfrau” but as “Sister.” “You are not my brother, wherefore then call me sister? My brother is clad in steel and you in a linen frock” (1455). Quoted in Coulton, Medieval Garner, p. 653.
[9] Wykeham’s Register (Hants. Rec. Soc.), II, p. 462. Cf. ib. II, p. 61.
[10] E.g. Reg. ... of Rigaud de Asserio (Hants. Rec. Soc.), p. 394; Reg. ... Stephani Gravesend (Cant. and York. Soc.), p. 200; Wykeham’s Register, loc. cit.
[11] Bishop Cobham of Worcester at Wroxall in 1323 (V.C.H. Warwick, II, p. 71). Cf. the case of Usk in Monmouthshire, “in quo monasterio solum virgines de nobili prosapia procreate recipi consueverunt et solent” (Chron. of Adam of Usk, ed. E. M. Thompson, p. 93).