Monasteries and nunneries were institutions which were, in some senses, cut off from the world. Some were independent, self-governing institutions; others were members of a wider, international order or organization. Yet how did members of the Yorkshire religious houses view themselves? What did they perceive to be their cultural identity? Was it determined by their monastic affiliation and belonging? Or did they, despite the universal and international character of their vocation, continue to feel their cultural leanings to be rooted in the locality from which they came? Such questions are not easy to answer, but the traces are there in the literary and material culture – the books, manuscripts, and buildings – which the monastic order in the county has bequeathed. The evidence is once more incomplete. Manuscripts can be identified from only a minority of houses; the production of literary, historical, and theological writings are limited to a few individuals; and the surviving buildings dating from before c. 1215 are dominated by the large male houses. The first part of this chapter reviews the evidence for the collection and transmission of manuscripts, and the writings produced in Yorkshire monasteries, and discusses the implications for their cultural contacts and identities. The second part considers the material remains of the monastic buildings primarily from the point of view of what they suggest about cultural contacts and influences.

Manuscripts and Writers

In contrast to the cathedral priory of Durham and the great Benedictine abbeys of the south and the midlands, the evidence for the contents of the libraries of the Yorkshire monasteries is meagre.