Note 427 — XI. SAXON ENGLAND.

“Munecas and mynecena canonicas and nunnan” (Concil. Ænham. c. 1). Spelman thinks that the mynecena were perhaps the wives or concubines of monks (Concil. I. 530). Mynecen is merely the feminine of munuc, a monk; Thorpe translates it as “mynchens,” and suggests that the “mynecena” were merely the younger nuns, not quite so strictly governed as the elder “nunnan.” To this opinion Bosworth (Dictionary, s. v. nunne) seems to incline. It would appear to be so from chapter XV. (be Mynecenan) of the “Institutes of Polity” (Thorpe, II. 322).