Women Religious are often seen as the workhorses of the Church, an ever-present force ready to meet the needs and requests, spiritual and apostolic, of the laity, the clergy and the bishops.It has not always been like this. Medieval female religious life had its own periods of rise and decline but with the dissolution of the monasteries in the 1530s, monastic life on these isles came to a rather abrupt end – or so it seems. More than 140 women’s religious communities were dispersed, and two, the Bridgettines of Syon Abbey and the Dominicans of Dartford, fled to the Continent. Then, 60 years after the dissolution, daughters of recusants began founding monasteries for English women on the Continent. These English convents in exile became a powerhouse of English spirituality whil