修女院天主教会信义宗普世圣公宗基督教宗派的女性修道人居住的地方或社群,在此她们可以不用生产、或与他人存有伴侣关系,以专事于祈祷或各种事工。中国的尼姑庵与此类似[1][2]。修女院是和修道院同时产生。帕克米乌斯于320年代在底比斯组建男修道院时,他帮助他的妹妹玛丽建立了一座修女院, 兄妹俩建立的这两所修院院规一致。本笃在建造修道修院外, 也为女性成立了数座修女院, 这些修女院与男修道院同样同守一个会规,由他的双胞胎妹妹思嘉英语Scholastica主持一座修女院。西欧中世纪早期的修女院数量不算多。修女院的院长大都由捐建修女院的贵族的女儿担任。[3]

参考文献

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  1. ^ Evangelisti, Silvia. Nuns: A History of Convent Life, 1450–1700. Oxford University Press. 2008: 38–39. ISBN 9780199532056 (英语). Finally, irrespective of religious beliefs, convents remained a possible model for women—Catholic as well as Protestant—to pursue. In Protestant Germany, forms of female religious associative life did not die out, but instead survived in the shape of Protestant convents. These could be governed by a Lutheran abbess, and inhabited by Lutheran nuns in religious habits who claimed membership of a monastic order, paradoxical though this may seem. 
  2. ^ 费欧文编;郭力安校译,新牛津魔鬼辞典,光明日报出版社,1997.03,第64页. 
  3. ^ 西欧中世纪修女院的产生与发展探略 贺璋王容 华南师范大学学报( 社会科学版) 2003年第6期.