‘The Hours that They Ought to Direct to the Study of Letters’: Literate Practices in the Constitutions and Rule for the Dominican Sisters

The place of reading and learning in the lives of Dominican nuns has, in recent years, been the focus of significant scholarly study. This research has examined the ways in which religious women engaged with, and contributed to, literate cultures. Here, attention is focused on the requirements for reading and learning in the thirteenth-century constitutions for the Dominican Sisters. These are read in conjunction with the requirements of the Augustinian Rule and the Friars Preachers’ constitutions to elucidate the possibilities that were enabled for the literate practices of Dominican women.