Some fantastic websites by and for those working on early modern English nuns in exile:
- The Haslemere Collection, The Archive of the English Monastery of the Glorious Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary held at Downside Abbey, from the foundation of the convent in 1597 until its closure in 1975. The website contains a blog and some beautiful images.
- Who Were the Nuns? A Prosopographical Study of the English Convents in Exile, 1600– 1800. The initial website to get “nuns studies” rolling. In 2008, the ‘Who were the nuns?’ project team began investigating the membership of the English convents in exile.The site offers a searchable database, links to some primary sources such as chronicles and obituaries, useful notes on the convents, and some elements of statistical analysis.
- The History of Women Religious of Britain and Ireland. The H-WRBI network encourages research of women religious and make available material to facilitate that research. The scope of the network is broad, and time period ranges from medieval to modern times. H-WRBI have a very useful listserve where members can answer each other’s questions on anything nun-related. They also publish reviews of recent publications and have a very detailed bibliography for each period. They organise an annual conference, the location of which changes often; the 2018 conference will be held at Galway.
- The Umilta website, though it is dedicated to the study of Julian of Norwich and her writings, also has some very informative pages on Gertrude More and on Catherine Gascoigne, both related to their defense of Augustine Baker’s way of prayer.