ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses that having originated long before, female recolhimentos became more common in the later Middle Ages, when there was a reshaping of the behavioural patterns that guided the way women conducted themselves, and expanded exponentially in post-Tridentine Europe even outside Catholic areas. The role of women in society, the qualities they should have and the rules they should obey were issues on which theologians, moralists and social reformers were in relative agreement. Under the mantle of strict discipline, often-compulsory labour, frequent prayers and silence, the recolhimentos tried to mould the character of some women, change that of others and train them all to reproduce the social order and avoid destitution. Voluntary confinement was also the aim of some of the women who founded recolhimentos, which leads us to another aspect: the motives of the founders of this kind of institution.
