Barking Abbey (founded c. 666 CE) was one of the oldest and most consequential nunneries in medieval England. This essay summarizes Barking’s history from the early medieval period to the dissolution of the monasteries in the early sixteenth century. It focuses on women’s participation in creating the abbey’s culture and the habits of literary production essential to their way of life. Barking was home to educated, ambitious women who read, wrote, and commissioned texts in Latin, English, and Anglo-Norman French. It maintained one of the largest and most dynamic libraries of Latin and vernacular texts among women’s religious houses until its closure (and dispersal of the abbey’s holdings) by order of Henry VIII. Two important twelfth-century hagiographies, a Life of Edward the Confessor and a Life of Catherine of Alexandria, were authored at Barking and circulated outside the community through the local and cross-channel family, religious, and political networks that were essential to the abbey’s survival and success. Women also composed and adapted liturgical texts throughout the abbey’s history; some of the best-known adaptations are for the liturgical dramas performed for important feasts and processions attended by lay people as well as by the nuns.