In 1598, the first English convent was established in Brussels and was to be followed by a further 21 enclosed convents across Flanders and France with more than 4,000 women entering them over a 200 year period. In theory they were cut off from the outside world, however.

Introduction Part I Communities 1 From Community to Convent: The Collective Spiritual Life of Post-Reformation Englishwomen in Dorothy Arundell’s Biography of John Cornelius 2 Essex Girls Abroad: Family Patronage and the Politicization of Convent Recruitment in the Seventeenth Century 3 Missing Members: Selection and Governance in the English Convents in Exile Part II Culture: Authorship and Authority 4 The Literary Lives of Nuns: Crafting Identities Through Exile 5 Naming Names: Chroniclers, Scribes and Editors of St Monica’s Convent, Louvain, 1631–1906 6 Translating Lady Mary Percy: Authorship and Authority among the Brussels Benedictines 7 Barbara Constable’s Advice for Confessors and the Tradition of Medieval Holy Women 8 Shakespeare’s Sisters: Anon and the Authors in Early Modern Convents Part III Culture: Patronage and Visual Culture 9 Petitioning for Patronage: An Illuminated Tale of Exile from Syon Abbey, Lisbon 10 Parlour, Court and Cloister: Musical Culture in English Convents during the Seventeenth Century 11 Cloistered Images: Representations of English Nuns, 1600–1800 Part IV Identity 12 Archipelagic Identities in Europe: Irish Nuns in English Convents 13 Divine Love and the Negotiation of Emotions in Early Modern English Convents 14 Avoiding ‘Rash and Imprudent Measures’: English Nuns in Revolutionary Paris, 1789–1801

’This is an important book in many respects. The editors have assembled fourteen chapters that bring together in one volume much impressive work that has been undertaken recently... The volume is exceptionally well-presented... An unexpected delight in a work of this nature is the collection of twenty-eight colour illustrations - many of them never seen widely before or never seen in colour... this is a book not to be missed by all with an interest in Catholic history, women’s history, cultural history, the history of female religious, or just ’history’ in this period.' Historians of Women Religious of Britain and Ireland '... the book is beautifully produced and contains twenty-eight stunning color plates... the collection as a whole inaugurates an exciting new era in scholarship on the exilic convents, and will no doubt prove to be invaluable to researchers in religious history, women’s literature, book history, art history, and musicology.' Recusant History 'The studies presented here will, therefore, offer food for thought for scholars in history, art history, literature, and religion, and ensure that the English convents on the Continent can no longer be isolated from early modern scholarship.' Renaissance Quarterly 'Caroline Bowden and James E. Kelly have produced a much-needed and very useful collection of essays. ... that any early modern British historian should have on their shelf, because it paves the way for further work on the Catholic component of the "British problem:'' Sixteenth Century Journal 'This lively and far-ranging interdisciplinary collection performs a remarkable service in bringing to public attention a group whose lives and works have long been victim to history's silencing of women ... a welcome addition to an invaluable body of scholarship.' Journal of Jesuit Studies ’This volume makes an invaluable contribution to the history of early modern women, and is a vital text for scholars of early modern literature, women’s