Probably the most famous was the monastery founded by St Hild at Whitby (in what is now North Yorkshire) in about 657. Her monastery achieved fame across Europe for its sanctity and learning and played an important role in the evangelisation of the north. St Hild was born a princess and her monastery at Whitby was intimately connected with the ruling dynasty of the Northumbrian kingdom. For that reason, in 664, the abbey was the location for the so-called Synod of Whitby, called by King Oswiu of Northumbria to settle the rivalry between the two strands of Christianity in England – Irish-influenced and Roman – over aspects of Christian custom.

The monastery at Wenlock (Shropshire) likewise had its origins as a double house with a high-born abbess at its head. Founded by Merewalh, a sub-king of Mercia, in about 670–80, its first abbess is likely to have been a nun at Chelles. She was succeeded as abbess by St Milburga, the daughter of Merewalh and his queen, Domne Eafe (who was also a founder of monasteries). Indeed, Wenlock may well have been founded to enable Milburga to pursue a monastic vocation; two of her sisters also became nuns.

Post-Conquest nunneries

The violence of the Norman Conquest meant that numbers at these nunneries were swelled by the widows and daughters of the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy. The foundation of new nunneries started in the late 11th century. Although occasionally drawn from the ecclesiastical and military elite, for the most part the founders were from the knightly, second-tier class. This had predictable consequences for the wealth of the 100-plus nunneries established between the 12th and early 13th centuries. In many instances, their landed endowment was as scant as any surviving documentary record.

White Ladies Priory (Shropshire) is typical. Also known as the Priory of St Leonard in Brewood, it was a monastery of Augustinian canonesses, or nuns. It was known as White Ladies because of the colour of their habits, or clothing, and to distinguish the monastery from the nearby Benedictine convent of St Mary, Brewood (Benedictines wore black habits).

The date of White Ladies’ foundation is uncertain, as is the identity of its founder. A document from 1186 mentions the priory as being already in existence, and architectural details from what survives of the nuns’ church date to the late 12th century. This period was the high-water mark for monastic foundations in England, including nunneries.

Almost all these nunneries were priories, with a prioress at their head – an indication of their relatively lowly status: priories were usually smaller than abbeys and sometimes subordinate to them. The White Ladies community typically consisted of five or so nuns and the prioress; only a minority of post-Conquest nunneries had more than a dozen or so nuns.

Like nunneries across the land, the abbey also acted as a sort of elementary and ‘finishing’ school. Indeed, nunneries provided a standard of female education not attained again in England until the 18th century. Nunneries were also important local employers and landlords. The servants at Denny included both men and women.

In about 1512 Elizabeth Throckmorton, a member of a rising Warwickshire gentry family, became abbess of Denny. She corresponded with Erasmus, the leading scholar of the age. A manuscript book containing religious verse now at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, has her ownership inscription and speaks of her piety, erudition and learning.