Nun
a virgin or widow who has consecrated herself to the service of God by the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, and bound herself to live in a religious house under a certain rule. The first authentic notice of nuns is that by St. Anthony, who, when retiring from the world, placed his sister in a house of virgins. St. Augustin, of Hippo, and St. Scholastica, sister of St. Benedict, both founded nunneries, and all the great orders of men have orders of women affiliated to them or following their rule as closely as difference of sex will permit. Communities founded since the Council of Trent mostly follow the rule ish church, some remains of a 12th-century nunnery, with a modern church built thereon, and a grammar school (1553). The ribbon manufacture has given place to worsted, cotton, and woolen spinning. "George Eliot," born at Griff, 2 miles to the S., went to school at Nuneaton, and here witnessed the riot described in "Felix Holt."