Alice Henley (died 1470) was an English abbess at the Benedictine Godstow Nunnery, Godstow, Oxfordshire.
Life
Henley was a senior nun of Godstow Nunnery in 1445. She was elected abbess in 1446 and ruled until she died in 1470. During her rule, a royal confirmation of Godstow's foundation charters was obtained in 1462.
Her tenure as abbess was during a time when religious women's lack of education in Latin was beginning to cause administrative developments to meet their needs. She commissioned a summarised English translation of her abbey's Latin charters by a "poor brother and admirer" of Henley and her convert. He created the "English Register" which allowed the nuns to better understand their muniments and instruct their servants without having to consult an outsider. According to medieval historian Katie Ann-Marie Bugyis, the cartulary is the only one that has survived intact and is also more extensive and covers a longer time period than other cartularies of the time.
References
- ^ Orme, Nicholas (3 January 2008) . "Henley, Alice (d. 1470), abbess of Godstow". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/54450. Retrieved 8 January 2025.
- Orme, Nicholas (1 January 2006). Medieval Schools: From Roman Britain to Renaissance England. Yale University Press. p. 276. ISBN 978-0-300-11102-6.
- Power, Eileen (31 October 2010). Medieval English Nunneries: C.1275 to 1535. Cambridge University Press. pp. 252–253. ISBN 978-1-108-01714-5.
- ^ Eckenstein, Lina (1896). Woman Under Monasticism: Chapters on Saint-lore and Convent Life Between A.D. 500 and A.D. 1500. University Press. pp. 359–360. ISBN 978-0-7905-4226-3.
- Oliva, Marilyn (1998). The Convent and the Community in Late Medieval England: Female Monasteries in the Diocese of Norwich, 1350-1540. Boydell & Brewer Ltd. p. 75. ISBN 978-0-85115-576-0.
- Bugyis, Katie Ann-Marie (1 April 2019). The Care of Nuns: The Ministries of Benedictine Women in England during the Central Middle Ages. Oxford University Press. p. 242. ISBN 978-0-19-085130-9.