The English Convents

The English Convent, Bruges

In addition to identifying individual nuns, this project also explores the convents, orders and community as a whole through the use of statistics. While limited by variation in sources between convents and lacunae in the surviving records, this statistical analysis enhances our understanding of the English convents in exile.

For the community of English nuns as a whole we can gain insights into:

• the reasons for nuns leaving their convents
• the characteristics of senior officeholders

We can explore variations between convents in:

• the social status of fathers
• the regional associations the nuns

Seven convents have sufficiently rich data sets to allow for analysis of the convent communities and the life cycles of their nuns over time.