CAMBRIDGE STUDIES
IN MEDIEVAL LIFE AND THOUGHT
Edited by G. G. Coulton, M.A.
Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge
and University Lecturer in English
MEDIEVAL ENGLISH NUNNERIES
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PLATE I
PAGE FROM LA SAINTE ABBAYE
(At the top of the picture a priest with two acolytes prepares thesacrament; behind them stand the abbess, holding her staff, her chaplainand the sacristan, who rings the bell; behind them a group of four nuns,including the cellaress with her keys. At the bottom is a procession ofpriest, acolytes and nuns in the quire.)
MEDIEVAL
ENGLISH NUNNERIES
c. 1275 to 1535
BY
EILEEN POWER
SOMETIME FELLOW AND LECTURER
OF GIRTON COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE
MADAME EGLENTYNE
(From the Ellesmere MS.)
CAMBRIDGE
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
1922
TO
M. G. J.
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
GENERAL PREFACE
There is only too much truth in the frequent complaint that history, ascompared with the physical sciences, is neglected by the modern public.But historians have the remedy in their own hands; choosing problems ofequal importance to those of the scientist, and treating them with equalaccuracy, they will command equal attention. Those who insist that theproportion of accurately ascertainable facts is smaller in history, andtherefore the room for speculation wider, do not thereby establish anyessential distinction between truth-seeking in history and truth-seekingin chemistry.