ABSTRACT
In their evaluation of early modern convents, historians have often employed the lens of the Council of Trent's (1563) decree that all solemnly professed nuns observe strict enclosure. By the late medieval period Spanish nuns lived in institutions shaped by a gender-specific ideology of monastic discipline. Although monasteries and convents were united by liturgical responsibilities like Divine Office and offering intercessory prayers, female convents in Spain were nonetheless more consistently and rigidly held to a code of enclosure than were their male counterparts. The virginity and chastity of monks and nuns set them apart from secular contemporaries; they had achieved a kind of perfection unavailable to those still mired in quotidian world. Various geographical and spatial means were employed to protect nuns from their propensity for sinful behavior. Ecclesiastical reformers also worried about the space of the convent church - the part of the convent that was regularly turned over to public use, thus allowing for presence of secular individuals.
