ABSTRACT
From the beginning of the fourteenth century some nunneries provided schooling not only for novices but also for children from the upper and wealthy classes. Their main motive in providing schools was financial and they accepted children, mainly girls but also young boys up to the age of ten, in return for cash payments of on average 6d. to 10d. a week for each child. Bishops did not regard teaching the young as part of a nun’s vocation but provided that the children, and in particular the male boarders, were not too old, they were prepared to countenance it. These nunnery schools were never large; they educated only a small proportion of the upper classes and in no way provided an education for the poor.
