ABSTRACT
In 1495 and earlier there were at least two Hospitaller convents of choir-nuns in Frisia. 'Singing nuns' seem to have been present in the Hospitaller house of Sneek. Another early report of sisters in a Frisian Hospitaller house related to the Commandery of Strückhausen, in the Bremen Stadland on the west bank of the Weser estuary. In 1423 the Hospitaller priest-brother Hilderyck made a statement on his deathbed regarding the foundation of a convent. Bredehorn and the Benedictine double monasteries confront immediately with the problem of the composition of the Hospitaller convents. The nunneries of Warffum and Wijtwerd aside, the many convents of lay sisters discussed do not fit well in the existing picture of the Hospitaller women's convents. The 'admission costs' could be kept low because the sisters were able to use a large part of their time for the house in an economically productive way.
