ABSTRACT
Female monasteries throughout Europe were often homes to family groups of sisters, cousins, aunts, and nieces. Such women were generally members of local families, with those who were professed nuns often coming from wealthy and prominent noble, gentry, or patrician families from the city where the convent was located or the surrounding countryside. This was a very different pattern than male monasteries, whose residents generally came from a much broader geographic area, with fewer ties to locally prominent families. Women thus maintained family ties within convent walls, and were often quite able to maintain ties with family members outside of the convent, including those with brothers or with sisters who were not in the convent. Nuns often depended on their family members outside of the convent for financial and political support; brothers represented their sisters in court battles involving convent property, or provided extra donations from the family inheritance if convent incomes declined. Some nuns also had close intellectual friendships with siblings outside, exchanging letters, books, and ideas.
