The Convent and the Community in Late Medieval England

"Greatly to be welcomed...explores a variety of documentation (far richer than historians have been willing to allow) to investigate the role, and perceptions, of women religious between 1350 and 1540. AM HIST REVIEW A superlative work, based on sensible comparisons between monks and nuns, and showing how often women's communities at this time lived more closely to the essence of Christian monasticism than did monks... Conclusions from this study are applicable to a much wider region [and] Oliva's work provides the basis from which many studies of earlier medieval women will be able to interpret the more fragmentary records... A remarkable piece of careful scholarship, which should for evermore replace ... Power's very outdated treatment of nuns. This is also a tour de force of social history based on quantitative sampling, careful prosopography, and intensive archival research. ALBION [Berman] Its overall importance is substantial... We can no longer think of late-medieval nuns as spiritually insouciant, poor managers, or intellectually lightweight. These women, like this book about them, warrant respect." SPECULUM