The fourth richest monastery of England in the late eleventh century was a Benedictine monastery for monks – a male institution, one might suppose. Yet, women played an important role in its life. As landholder, Abbot Baldwin was in charge of his landed estate, and the names of his peasant tenants (male and female, predominantly English), have been preserved. Higher up the social ladder among the (Norman) knightly class far less evidence of women has come down to us. Women also lived in the borough that grew up around the monastery. The Domesday survey compiled in 1086 tells of more than 300 dwellings where families were living, though it remains shadowy on the individuals. Washerwomen, for example, are singled out but not their names. My chapter would not be included here if that was the sum total of our information about Bury women. Surprisingly, perhaps, this monks’ community was surrounded by an assortment of single women who lived an informal religious life, attracted no doubt by the presence of St Edmund's body. The Domesday survey records twenty-eight nonnae (nuns or vowesses) and poor persons, while the abbey's rich hagiographical dossier reveals the names and actions of some of them, as does the correspondence of Anselm of Canterbury (1093–1109). Although small communities of religious women at monasteries were a normal feature in western Europe, the scale of female presence at Bury is exceptional.