Other finds from Hartlepool suggest that this early monastery, founded by a woman in the seventh century, was a place of wealth, privilege, power and learning. A gilded hairpin may have belonged to one of the nuns. Its imagery is not Christian, but more reminiscent of the interlacing biting beasts found on the Sutton Hoo treasures. This was an expensive item, designed to display the owner’s status. Despite Bede’s claims that no one at Hild’s monasteries was rich or poor, holding ‘all things in common’, early English medieval convents were not places of simple living and modesty. These
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