Women Religious: The Founding of English Nunneries after the Norman Conquest

by Sally Thompson

This book is a study of English nunneries in the years between 1100 and 1250, the heyday of monastic foundation. Based on a detailed analysis of the primary sources, it traces the early history of the many convents founded after the Norman Conquest, and relates this expansion to the
development of the new European religious orders. Thompson examines the role played by patrons and founders in the growth of female monasticism. She penetrates the obscurity surrounding the foundation of the nunneries, and shows that many developed slowly from an initial focus provided by an
anchoress or from an earlier association with another religious institution. Several nunneries were linked with monasteries, and their development as separate communities reflected tensions between the sexes. Thompson examines the poverty and difficulties faced by religious women, and explores the
consequences of their dependence on men for practical and spiritual support.

Genres: History

334 pages, Hardcover

First published May 16, 1991

About the author

Award-winnng author and anthropologist Sally Thompson received her Ph.D. at the Univ. of Colorado in 1980, the same year she moved to Missoula to start the archaeology program at Historical Research Associates. A decade later, she says, she began her real education. That was when she shifted her focus to working with Native communities as a consultant and collaborator.

She served as (1) Expert Witness for the Taos Pueblo Water Rights case; (2) Cultural Consultant to assess the cultural significance of the Badger-Two Medicine area in the traditional Blackfeet homeland; and (3) Expert Witness for the Confederated Salish & Kootenai Tribes on the ARCO lawsuit regarding off-reservation treaty losses due to pollution of the Clark Fork River.

In 2001, she founded and directed the Regional Learning Project at UM focused on working with tribes to develop curriculum resources on history, geography and culture. During that decade, Sally interviewed over 200 elders from tribes all along the ancient trails that Lewis & Clark followed. When that program ended, she served as NAGPRA Coordinator for UM, with the humbling responsibility of repatriating human remains to the tribal communities of western Montana. She is currently working with State Parks and the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes of Fort Hall to improve interpretive information at Bannack State Park.

Sally directed a federally-funded a Teaching American History grant focused on teaching American History in the Northwest, with a viewpoint from the people and place, in addition to those better known perspectives of explorers, fur traders, missionaries, treaty-makers and pioneers.