In 1995 I had occasion to publish a study of books and libraries in the nunneries of medieval England. It was entitled What Nuns Read: Books and Libraries in Medieval English Nunneries [hereafter WNR] and was divided into two parts. The second part comprised a list of all those books, manuscript and printed, surviving and not surviving, which (at the time) had been traced to English nunneries. The first part contained a summary of the second part, and also (especially in Chapter 3) a discussion of what could be learned from these materials with regard to the learning and literacy of English nuns in the Middle Ages, especially the later Middle Ages. The Anglo-Saxon nuns – different women in a different world – were not my concern. My conclusion, which now needs some slight amendment, was that

WNR was not, of course, the first book to deal at length with female religious in England. Eileen Power's Medieval English Nunneries had been published in 1922 and still remains an invaluable repository of information. Nowadays, naturally, we must read it with caution, for Miss Power was too deeply influenced by the work of George G. Coulton, whose views were far from unbiased, and her main sources – primarily the series of episcopal Visitations edited by A. Hamilton Thompson – were somewhat too limited, but the book remains of interest and use. The author could also write English, which, these days, is not a common accomplishment.