Founded in 1415, the double monastery of Syon Abbey was the only English example of the order established by the fourteenth-century mystic St Bridget of Sweden. After its dispersal at the Dissolution, the community survived in exile and was briefly restored during the reign of Mary I; but with the accession of Elizabeth I, some of the nuns and brothers once again sought refuge on the Continent, first in the Netherlands and later in Lisbon. This volumeof essays traces the fortunes of Syon Abbey and the Bridgettine order between 1400 and 1700, examining the various ways in which reading and writing shaped its identity and defined its experience, and exploring the interconnections between late medieval and post-Reformation monastic history and the rapidly evolving world of communication, learning, and books. They extend our understanding of religious culture and institutions on the eve of the Reformationand the impulses that inspired initiatives for early modern Catholic renewal, and also illuminate the spread of literacy and the gradual and uneven transition from manuscript to print between the fourteenth and the seventeenth centuries. In the process, the volume engages with larger questions about the origins and consequences of religious, intellectual and cultural change in late medieval and early modern England. E.A. JONES is Senior Lecturerin English, University of Exeter; ALEXANDRA WALSHAM is Professor of Modern History and a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Contributors: E.A. Jones, Alexandra Walsham, Peter Cunich, Virginia Bainbridge, Vincent Gillespie, C. Annette Grise, Claire Walker, Caroline Bowden, Claes Gejrot, Ann Hutchison

The University of Hong Kong was one of only a handful of fully autonomous colonial universities in the British Empire in the first half of the twentieth century. From its founding in 1911, the institution was intended as a"'British lighthouse in the Orient," with a broad remit to educate a new generation of Chinese youth who would lead the tp the modernization of China. This book evaluates the success of that mission while also demonstrating the importance of the university to the development of Hong Kong and Malaya, the two areas supplying the most students to the university. As the first university established in Hong Kong, the early decades of its history represent the foundations of China's higher education system. This study provides fresh insight into the character of colonial education and the development of Hong Kong and tracks the fortunes of the colony from the peak of imperial British power to the catastrophic Japanese occupation of 1941 to 1945.

This book examines in detail the efforts of the University of Hong Kong to provide adult education opportunities at university level, the establishment of its Department of Extra-Mural Studies in 1956 and the School of Professional and Continuing Education (HKU SPACE) in 1992.