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The nunneries (continued)
(2/19)
Recent historical research has highlighted the difficulties
there are in establishing which nunneries were Cistercian, and
what precisely this meant. It is not, as was once thought, simply
a case of defining communities
as Benedictine, Augustinian, Cistercian or Gilbertine.
It is rather more complex. Contemporaries were frequently confused
as to what constituted
a Cistercian nunnery, especially in England where Gilbertine and
Cistercian communities were sometimes muddled.(1) The
Gilbertine priory of Halverholme,
for example, was endowed at its foundation by Bishop Alexander
of Lincoln who gave land ‘to the nuns following the life of the monks
of Cîteaux
as far as the strength of their sex allowed.’ (2) Whereas
Bishop Gravesend of Lincoln pronounced that several nunneries in
his diocese were
Cistercian on account of their poverty, their adoption of the white
habit and observance
of Cistercian customs, Abbot John of Cîteaux (1265-84) stated that
these female communities were not, in fact, members of the Cistercian
Order.(3) To confuse matters yet further, the
organisation of these Cistercian nunneries
was generally not straightforward. It often combined customs and
practices of different orders resulting in what has recently been
described as a ‘cross-fertilisation
of influences’. The Yorkshire priory of Swine, for example, was ‘possibly
Gilbertine-influenced yet not Gilbertine …. calling itself Cistercian
yet not officially recognised as such.’ (4) Clearly,
we cannot simply describe nunneries as Cistercian or non-Cistercian.
There were
various ways in which a community might claim Cistercian identity
and various degrees
of its acceptance by the General Chapter; indeed some communities
that were not formally acknowledged by the General Chapter were
nonetheless fairly
well accepted by the Order. Analysis of the Cistercian nunneries
is therefore a complex and rather murky area, which should be broached
with care and
an awareness of the wider implications of the term ‘Cistercian.’
The
following list of Cistercian nunneries in England, Ireland, Scotland
and Wales, is a guideline to those communities that either
thought of themselves or were described at some time in their history
as Cistercian,
whether this meant that they were fully acknowledged by the General
Chapter of Cîteaux or whether they simply followed the Cistercian
customs, wore the Cistercian habit, or claimed Cistercian privileges.
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