This survey includes some seven hundred religious houses of canons and canonesses, monks and nuns of all religious orders active in England and Wales during the late medieval period. Other religious establishments, including houses of friars as well as the military orders of the Templars and the Hospitallers, together with hospitals, colleges and chantries, although largely contemporary with the focus of the present study, have been specifically excluded from the survey. Also excluded are those religious houses which failed before or very shortly after 1300. In the case of refoundations of monasteries or nunneries as houses of a different order, these are listed under the religious order to which they belonged after 1300. Where gaps remain in the survey, they normally relate to the patrons of smaller, often obscure and impoverished monasteries, and are therefore likely to represent unidentified laymen and laywomen. Royal or episcopal patrons of religious houses are much more likely to appear in the records at some point than are lay patrons. Specific dates in the survey indicate specifically dated entries in the sources, normally relating to particular events in connection with which the patron of a monastery was mentioned.

Sources: Manuscript and printed sources, as indicated in the text.