ABSTRACT
Among the eighty-four monasteries, nunneries, friaries, hospitals and preceptories established in Yorkshire in the Middle Ages, the Benedictine priory of Monk Bretton attracted little attention for sanctity, learning or wealth. Rooted and grounded in the rural society of south Yorkshire, with most of its estates in the vicinity of Monk Bretton and its monks and servants recruited locally, it closely resembled the other apparently equally undistinguished smaller religious houses in the county. The relative abundance of its documentation alone differentiates the priory from the rest. An unusually varied selection of Monk Bretton records has happened to survive, which means that more can be discovered about the relationships between individual members of the community and the ties between the community and its hinterland, than for virtually any other Yorkshire house of a comparable size in the generations immediately before and after the dissolution.
