4 - Financing the Conventual Movement

Summary

This chapter considers the financial management of the English convents in Catholic Europe. It places the convents’ economic dealings in the context of their overall history, underlining just how vital this aspect of convent life was to their very survival and function. This chapter starts by briefly considering the nuns’ devotion to poverty, before exploring some of the necessary expenses accrued by the foundations. The different economic income strands exploited by the English convents is then outlined, before some of the problems they experienced in their finances are explored. The chapter finishes with a consideration of whether the convents were ever able to separate completely from their English roots as far as finances were concerned. Though the English convents adopted similar approaches to financial management as their continental equivalents and were frequently the model of Tridentine economic behaviour, they did face additional problems as a result of their nationality. Ultimately, the English convents existed in a precarious economic zone that could easily fall prey to both domestic and international fluctuations in more than just the economic environment.