noun
definition
A place of residence for nuns; a convent
definition
A brothel
Examples of nunnery in a Sentence
There was a Benedictine nunnery here in the 13th century.
Among other islands are Inch Cailliach (the "Island of Women," from the fact that a nunnery once stood there), Inchfad ("Long Island"), Inchcruin ("Round Island"), Inchtavannach ("Monks' Isle"), Inchconnachan ("Colquhoun's Isle"), Inchlonaig ("Isle of the Yews," where Robert Bruce caused yews to be planted to provide arms for his bowmen), Creinch, Torrinch and Clairinch (which gave the Buchanans their war-cry).
White Ladies was a Cistercian nunnery; and the slight remains are Norman.
The same monarch established an Augustinian nunnery on West Hill in 1355, of which, however, few remains exist.
On the mount of Olives are the Russian church, tower and hospice, near the chapel of the Ascension; the French Paternoster church; the Carmelite nunnery; and the Russian church of St Mary Magdalene, near Gethsemane.
The vestals were vowed to, chastity, lived together in a great nunnery, were forbidden to open or enter a tavern, and together with other votaries had many privileges.
Wenlock (Weneloche) is said to be of pre-Roman origin, but owed its early importance to the nunnery founded c. 680 by St Milburg, daughter of Merewald, king of Mercia.
The Norse colonies had twelve churches, one monastery and one nunnery in the Osterbygd, and four churches in the Vesterbygd.
S., where (in a former mansion) some of the conspirators in the Gunpowder Plot defied search for eight days (1605); and Westwood, a fine hall of Elizabethan and Carolean date on the site of a Benedictine nunnery, a mile west of Droitwich, which offered a retreat to many Royalist cavaliers and churchmen during the Commonwealth.
In 1001 Æthelred gave this monastery and the town of Bradford to the nunnery of Shaftesbury, in order that the nuns might have a safe refuge against the insults of the Danes.
No mention of the monastery occurs after the Conquest, but the nunnery of Shaftesbury retained the lordship of the manor until the dissolution in the reign of Henry VIII.
The manor at the Domesday Survey was in the possession of the nunnery at Barking, but the borough includes several estates, such as the manor of Lyllestone in the west, the name of which is preserved in Lisson Grove.
According to tradition, a nunnery to which the manor belonged existed here before the Conquest, and Earl Godwin, by bringing about its dissolution, obtained the manor.
They came accompanied by a band of Roman maidens vowed to live a celibate life in a nunnery in Palestine.
At Amesbury (Ambresberia, Aumbresbery) a witenagemot was held in 932, while about 980 Ælfthryth (Ethelfrida), queendowager of Edgar, erected here a nunnery in expiation of the murder of her stepson.
From this date, by a succession of royal charters and private gifts, the nunnery amassed vast wealth and privileges, and became a fashionable retreat for ladies of high rank, among whose number were Eleanor, widow of Henry III., and Mary, daughter of Edward I.
In the middle ages it had six churches and four monastic establishments, the oldest a Benedictine nunnery (1170).
If their character was approved they were taught during the winter months, when work was slack, for a space of three or four years; after that they were sent for two years to serve as menial assistants at a nunnery for women, which curiously enough existed in a recess of the valleys.
Other Saxon foundations were the nunneries at Folkestone (630), Lyminge (633; nunnery and monastery), Reculver (669), Minster-in-Thanet (670), Minster-in-Sheppey (675), and the priory of St Martin at Dover (696), all belonging to the Benedictine order.
At Foxford woollen-mills are established at a nunnery, in connexion with a scheme of technical instruction.
A mile north of Coalville is Whitwick, with remains of a castle of Norman date, while to the north again are slight remains of the nunnery of Gracedieu, founded in 1240, where, after its dissolution, Francis Beaumont, the poet-colleague of John Fletcher, was born about 1586.
It has two Evangelical churches, of which the Nikolai-kirche, dating in its present form from 1485, is a handsome edifice; a medieval town hall, a former Benedictine nunnery and a monument to Luther.
Other ancient towns are Zandpoort, Bakenes, Haarlem and Bennebroek, once the seat of a nunnery removed hither from Egmond by Dirk II.
There have been Basilian nuns from the beginning, St Macrina, St Basil's sister, having established a nunnery which was under his direction.
Herford owes its origin to a Benedictine nunnery which is said to have been founded in 832, and was confirmed by the emperor Louis the Pious in 839.
The old Franciscan monastery, with fine cloisters, founded in 1250, contains the gymnasium; a Cistercian nunnery of 1214 has been converted into barracks; and the Augustinian monastery of 1390 has been a hospital since 1525.
There is reason for believing that there were organized convents for women before there were any for men; for when St Anthony left the world in 270 to embrace the ascetic life, the Vita says he placed his sister in a nunnery (irapOEv6v).
Merewald, king of Mercia, is said to have founded a religious house in Leominster (Llanlieni, Leofminstre, Lempster) in 660, and a nunnery existed here until the Conquest, when the place became a royal demesne.
On the final defeat of Mordred she retires to a nunnery, takes the veil, and is no more heard of.
Finally he removed to Hampole, near Doncaster, invited by an inmate of the Cistercian nunnery of St Mary.
No traces remain of the Greyfriars' or Franciscan convent founded by Alexander II., nor of the nunnery that was erected in the parish of Kirkcudbright.
A nunnery was afterwards founded beside it, but both institutions were abandoned after the passing of the associations law in 1901.
The buildings of the nunnery, reconstructed in the early 18th century, now serve as a hospital.
Of other buildings may be mentioned the Library, with upwards of 80,000 printed books and many valuable MSS., the stately palace with its gardens and orangery, the former Benedictine nunnery (founded 1625, and now used as a seminary), and the Minorite friary (1238) now used as a furniture warehouse.
It has several schools, among them being one which was originally founded as a nunnery in 1185.
Other noteworthy buildings are the nunnery, ecclesiastical seminary and episcopal palace.
The oldest nunnery is that founded on the Nonnberg by St Rupert, the Gothic church of which dates from 1423 and contains some fine stained glass and some old frescoes.
Adjoining the priory was St Mary's Benedictine nunnery, St James's church (1792) marking the site, and preserving in its vaults some of the ancient monuments.
The monastic remains in Bedfordshire include the fine fragment of the church of the Augustinian priory at Dunstable, serving as the parish church; the church (also imperfect) of Elstow near Bedford, which belonged to a Benedictine nunnery founded by Judith, niece of William the Conqueror; and portions of the Gilbertine Chicksands Priory and of a Cistercian foundation at Old Warden.
A Gilbertine nunnery, founded later in the same century, stood adjacent to the church, and portions of the buildings appear in an existing block of almshouses.
Pachomius spent his life in organizing and directing the great order he had created, which at his death included nine monasteries with some three thousand monks and a nunnery.
Richardson the novelist, in Sir Charles Grandison, wishes there could be a Protestant nunnery in every county, " with a truly worthy divine, at the appointment of the bishop of the diocese, to direct and animate the devotion of such a society "; in 1829 the poet Southey, in his Colloquies (cxiii.), trusts that " thirty years hence this reproach also may be effaced, and England may have its Beguines and its sisters of mercy.
A large nunnery, called St Augustine's Priory, was erected near the town in 1861; while eastward is the Jacobean Forde House, belonging to the earl of Devon, and visited by Charles I.
Essen was originally the seat of a Benedictine nunnery, and was formed into a town about the middle of the 10th century by the abbess Hedwig.
The abbess of the nunnery, who held from 1275 the rank of a princess of the Empire, was assisted by a chapter of ten princesses and countesses; she governed the town until 1803, when it was secularized and incorporated with Prussia.
The revival of monasticism after the Conquest resulted in the erection of ten Benedictine monasteries, and a Benedictine nunnery at Stainfield.
Barking was celebrated for its nunnery, one of the oldest and richest in England, founded about 670 by Erkenwald, bishop of London, and restored in 970.
The Augustinian nunnery of Marienberg founded in 1176 is now a Lutheran school.
Literatur des Mittelalters im Abendlande, 2 Cuthburga, sister of King Ine of Wessex, and therefore related to Aldhelm, left her husband Aldfrith, king of Northumbria, to enter the nunnery at Barking.
She afterwards founded the nunnery of Wimborne, of which she became abbess.