The following are a few books I found helpful, educational, and just plain fascinating while writing this story. Hopefully, I have not misinterpreted the concepts or information. If such proves to be the case, I apologize deeply. The authors are hardly to blame for my ineptitude. That said, I cannot thank them enough for the pleasant hours spent reading them all.
Treatises and Pastoral Prayer (Rule of Life for a Recluse) by Aelred of Rievaulx, Cistercian Publications, 1971.
A Medieval Life: Cecilia Penifader of Brigstock, c.1295-1344 by Judith M. Bennett, McGraw-Hill College, 1999.
Life in a Medieval Village by Frances and Joseph Gies, Harper Perennial, 1990.
Common Women: Prostitution and Sexuality in Medieval England by Ruth Mazo Karras, Oxford University Press, 1996.
Lives of the Desert Fathers, translated by Norman Russell, Cistercian Publications, 1980.
The Life of Christina of Markyate: A Twelfth Century Recluse, edited and translated by C.H. Talbot, University of Toronto Press, 1997.