ABSTRACT
The expectations of nunnery rules were not simply directed at defining the physical enclosed space. Within the enclosure which constructed and was constructed by nunnery space the rules placed varying emphases upon the virtues needed and the activities performed by the nuns, and behavioural expectations sprang from the spatial separation from secular experience. Within nunnery space religious women were further defined by their abstinence from worldly interests, from food, sexual fulfilment, conversation, bodily adornment. Indeed enclosure itself was an element of the self denial of worldly pleasures and status. This definitive self denial was integral to their relationship with God. Abstinence and self-denial included the denial of familial relationships and secular friendships and contacts. Indeed, even the companionship of fellow nuns was to be kept to a minimum as the woman religious was required to abstain from developing any friendships other than her spiritual bond with God. One of the ways in which companionship was denied was through the expectation that all religious would maintain silence for long periods of the day and night. The comfort of conversation and sharing of intimacies, ideas or gossip was to be excluded from the lives of religious women. Poverty and denial of worldly goods, property and rank were also regarded as part of the abstinence which defined the female monastic. The denial of self was a broad expectation which incorporated the comforts of bed, sleep, food and clothing. Each woman within a nunnery put aside her worldly position and became the spiritual equal of each of her sisters. As a result of this theoretical equality women of high birth had no superiority over women from lower down the social scale, and women of lower birth were not to perceive themselves as having acquired better status.
