Convent, assembly of persons gathered together in retirement from the world, and also the house in which such a community dwells. In this wider sense it denotes either a monastery or a nunnery, or the fraternity or sisterhood of an abbey or priory; but the word is most often used of an establish housing a female community of a contemplative order or active congregation.
The Convent Architecture
This Architecture was an instrument to establish the generalization and the religious domain of the territory. The convents built by the Franciscans, Augustinians and Dominicans continued a secular monastic tradition that was forced to adapt to the new demands imposed by a conquest and that profoundly affected its typology. From a religious point of view, this architecture had to function as an instrument of attraction for a population that had not yet converted to Christianity or had just done so. Hence, the conventual architecture emerges characterized by the imprint of a juncture that is designed for specific needs, loses its effectiveness.
In the eighteenth century, the education of girls of good society (Nobility and Bourgeoisie) is mostly convent. Considered to be the “delights of society by their charm and spirit,” girls are cut off from the outside world and often subject to a very strict discipline. The fictional literature has made the convent a place of intrigue and strange or scandalous facts: plots by high-ranking people, meeting places of secret societies, black masses, kidnappings, assassinations or even worse
The most n important of these were Shaftesbury (Dorset-it shire) which, traditionally, was founded by h Alfred, and became extremely wealthy; Barking e (Essex), founded by Erkenwald, bishop of e London, in the 7th cent., Ethclburga being its ,r first abbess; Amesbury (Wiltshire), founded in D Saxon times, and redounded by John in 1199; St e Mary, Winchester; Mailing (Kent); Markyate.
we can say convent is a land of church organization representing a community of monks or nuns. Monasteries are an instrument of political oppression and exploitation of the masses.
