As the first study specifically dedicated to Old English references to nuns, this essay aims to assess how terms for ‘nun’ are used, particularly in the earlier Anglo-Saxon period. Recent research, particularly by Sarah Foot, as will be discussed below, has demonstrated the difficulty of establishing patterns for Old English vocabulary referring to Anglo-Saxon nuns. The lack of standardized monastic rules for earlier female houses and the complex chronological development of any existing monastic rules contribute to this difficulty. One area which has not yet been investigated is the corpus of references to non-Anglo-Saxon nuns, particularly that contained in the Old English translation of Gregory's Dialogues. The picture that emerges from this and other earlier texts is in many ways misogynistic in its connotations. The negativity associated with early literary representations of nuns may well have contributed to a tenth-century shift in the use of the relevant vocabulary.

Old English Vocabulary

One important research area in which the Dictionary of Old English and the Toronto Corpus have made important contributions is the charting of lexical change which occurred during the period in which Old English was in use. One example presenting quite drastic lexical change is the semantic field describing nuns. Old English presents a good range of vocabulary for ‘nun’, the general meaning of which could be defined as a devout woman living communally, having taken vows, and, in some cases, following a rule. The Old English Thesaurus lists munuc, mynecen(u), mynsterfæmne, nunfæmne, nunne, sweostor as belonging to this field. The vocabulary seems to vary greatly in its distribution and number of attestations in the Old English corpus. OE nunne, nonne, is an early loan from post-classical Latin nonna (‘nun’) and seems to have been the most widely used English term for ‘nun’ until the tenth century. Its use is not particularly frequent in the surviving Old English literature, however, with c. 120 occurrences. As the Toronto Corpus shows, what survives seems fairly polarized, with about a third of all attested cases occurring in a single text, Werferth's ninth-century Old English translation of Gregory's Dialogues. A related compound, nunfæmne, survives in the Dialogues only (eight occurrences).