Female Monasticism

The central Middle Ages saw a wave of foundations of convents for women who desired to live the religious life secluded from the material world. In reality, however, convent life was never entirely secluded. Convents maintained relations with the outside world -be it to priests, who ministered to the nuns' spiritual needs; the nuns' families, whose dynastic interests could cause intervention; or the town that was home to the convent. This panel explores select convents and their relations to the outside world, relations that inform us of both the factual power of high medieval convents and the tensions that arose from the realities of women's religious life.

Es gelten unsere Allgemeinen Geschäftsbedingungen, siehe www.vandenhoeck-ruprecht-verlage.com Women's networks -their relations with other women, men, objects and place -were a source of power in various European and neighbouring regions throughout the Middle Ages. This interdisciplinary volume considers how women's networks, and particularly women's direct and indirect relationships to other women, constituted and shaped power from roughly 300 to 1700 AD. The essays in this collection juxtapose scholarship from the fields of archaeology, art history, literature, history and religious studies, drawing on a wide variety of source types. Their aim is to highlight not only the importance of networks in understanding medieval women's power but also the different ways these networks are represented in medieval sources and can be approached today. This volume reveals how women's networks were widespread and instrumental in shaping political, familial and spiritual legacies.

Mill contracts in the estates of the Cistercian convent in Żarnowiec (Świecino 1406, Wierzchucino 1516)

In the research into history of cloisters monastic orders, both male and female ones, a significant part is taken by studies concerning revenues that particular convents had at their disposal. With regard to reconstruction of agricultural economy run in monastic estates, a significant part is played by attempts of a more detailed reconstruction of existing economic connections. In this context, it seems essential to examine in a more detailed way the significance of flour-milling to agricultural economy of great monastic property.
The documents presented pertaining to the mills in Świecino and Wierzchucino offer insight into their organization and a role they played in agricultural economy of the Cistercian convent in Żarnowiec which was administered by Cistercians of Oliwa. The basis for the edition is a cartulary of privileges of the monastery kept in the Archives in Gdańsk.

Before the end of the thirteenth century, the two Ligurian female monasteries attested in the extant documentation show, albeit in different ways, the influence that the nuns’ natal families tended to exert on the two monastic communities. This influence was absorbed in a system of apparently peaceful balance between Genoese nuns and nuns of other origins in the Cistercian monastery of Santo Stefano di Millesimo, founded in the 1210s in the hinterland of western Liguria, perhaps supervised by the Cistercian order to which it belonged. In the case of the monastery, which remained staunchly Benedictine (and increasingly intolerant of claustration) of Sant'Andrea della Porta in Genoa – which seems to have had a sound but not particularly prosperous patrimony – an interference on the part of the powerful urban families who settled their daughters in the monastery. Especially in the concluding years of the thirteenth century, one notices internal conflicts perhaps echoing on the one hand the external factional struggles among aristocratic families, and on the other a capacity for recruiting from among the emerging segments of the Popolo.

This articles offers practical guidelines for religious institutes facing decline in an uncertain and changing world. In this difficult but grace-filled time, a community can live today's challenges with the same courage, fidelity and creativity that have marked its entire history. It discusses developing a timeline, identifying the covenant(s) and/or partnership(s) that will be helpful along the way and arranging for transition in:
    Sponsorship
    Eldercare
    Administration, Temporal Goods and Finance, and
    Leadership, both Canonical and Pastoral

Early Mediaeval monastic rules did not only provide outlines for organizing communities, behavioural norms and disciplinary measures but also aimed at controlling, repressing, and fostering emotions. They developed distinct strategies of emotional discipline based on different notions of the nature of emotions and their impact on the pursuit of salvation. I compare the emotional disciplines of three monastic rules: the Rule of Benedict, which became the guiding norm of Mediaeval monastic life; Caesarius of Arles’ Rule for Nuns, the oldest monastic rule written for a female community; and the Regula cuiusdam ad virgines, which responded to Benedict’s and Caesarius’ rules. Benedict’s emotional discipline centered on instilling fear and love and focused on repressing emotions that were harmful to the community and on fostering the motivation to submit to monastic discipline. Caesarius is primarily focused on a permanent spatial separation from the outside world and expected that enclosure and submission to the Rule made negative emotions irrelevant. The author of the Regula cuiusdam ad virgines considered emotions, rather than acts, the ultimate benchmark for attaining salvation and developed a disciplinary program that combined elements of Caesarius’ and Benedict’s rules with an elaborate system of incitement, surveillance and constant disclosure.

This article suggests to view monasticism as a sequence of 'unisex-experiments' and to reflect on the fact that the medieval world developed monastic ideals that were to a large extent applicable equally to women and men. Furthermore, it analyzes the different textual techniques to describe female religious life as a mere variant of a male model. It contrasts this marginalization of the female 'variant' with an archeology of concepts of religious life, which shows that a lot of central aspects of medieval religious life (of women and men) had its roots not in desert father asceticism but in the tradition of urban praying virgins and widows. The 'first medieval monk' was, in fact, a religious woman.

What do a rnonastery and an airplane have in cornrnon? Both are closed cornmunities; rhere is no way out (at !east after the plane has started). Both are regulaced by rules different from those followed in the world outside. In both cases there is a clear sense of hierarchy and a common goal. Entering a monastery should bring us doser to paradise; a plane should bring us to sorne sort of holiday paradise (if not, we end up at a conference). There are, however, also sorne differences: a plane trip usually cakes a couple of hours, which makes bearable the rules imposed on us, the enforced asceticism, and the spatial limitations (which, of course, depend on the airline). Entering a monastery means committing oneself to living a restricted !ife in a closed communiry for the rest of one's earthly existence, and this individual commitment is only a short episode in the long !ife of an instirution thar is organized and endowed with the purpose of existing un til the end of time 1 • The sociologist Airlie Hochschild uses the example of flight attendanrs ro exemplify her mode! of whac she calls ,emotion work" and ,emotion management". Insread of assuming thar destructive emotions and their ourward expression simply have ro be suppressed, she investigates how in many work-spheres positive feelings are shaped by a conscious and strictly regulated ourward acting. For Hochschild, the relation berween feeling and acting is not a one-way road. Certain behavior-imposed and self-imposed-evokes feelings, nor only on chose within one's surrounding, but also within the one who aces. Flight attendants are trained to smile in orcier to shape ·a pleasanr atmosphere and to create happiness, which eventually affects themselves and brings them into a stace of happiness, which !ases as long as the specifie constellation, but inevitably creates painful tensions berween the artificial yet 1 This article is basd on a profound revision of an essay published several years ago: Albrecht DIEM, Van liefde, vrees en zwijgen. Emoties en ,emotioneel beleid' in vroegmiddeleeuwse kloosters. Groniek. Historisch Tijdschrift 173 (2006) 409-423; many ideas broughr forward in this ,,try our" needed to be modified and refined. -The following abbreviations will be used: RBen = Regula Benedicri, ed. Jean NEUPVILLE-Adalbert DE VoGÜÉ (SC 181-182, Paris 1971); RCaeV = Caesarius of Arles, Regula ad virgines, ed. Adalbert DE VoGÜÉ-Joël CouRREAu (SC 345, Paris 1988) 170-272; RMag = Regula Magistri, ed. Adalbert DE VoGüÉ (SC 105-106, Paris 1965}; Rcui =Regula cuiusdam ad virgines (also called Regula Waldeberci), ed. Jacques-Paul MIGNE (PL 88, Paris 1862) 1051-1070; quotations from tbe Rcui are based on a forthcoming new edition. 1 would like to thank Barbara Rosenwcin for her commems and suggestions and for allowing me to work with her forrhcoming article on ,Problems and Methods in the History of Emotions", and William Roberts for in: Christina Lutter (ed.), Funktionsräume, Wahrnehmungsräume, Gefühlsräume. Mittelalterliche Lebensformen zwischen Kloster und Hof, Vienna/Munich: Böhlau/ Oldenbourg 2011, pp. 17-39.

In the final decade of her life, Hildegard received a letter seeking her counsel and guidance from the abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Maulbronn. He addresses Hildegard as his 'spiritual mother and venerable sister', emphasizing the shared monastic bonds between himself and the visionary, and his respect for her spiritual teaching. 'We have heard good things about you', he proceeds, 'therefore, since I have some hope that I will be heard, whatever my condition, I send this letter to you and request the singular support of your prayers.' Anticipating Hildegard's intercession, he moves to the heart of his request: 'for I have an arduous and worrisome duty, that is the governance of souls, and so I request, I beseech, I implore help from the Lord, through you.' The abbot concluded with an eloquent expression of the solace he hoped his missive would elicit from the visionary: 'I trust that it will not be too burdensome or trivial for you to write back to me so that my body and soul might be instructed, comforted and consoled.' 1 On this occasion Hildegard's responseif indeed she did respondhas not survived. If this beleaguered abbot did hear from her, it probably contained a mix of admonition and encouragement conveyed in the imagery characteristic of the visionary's oblique style found in the scores of other epistolary exchanges that constitute her extant correspondence. 2 Hildegard's visions and prophecies created a public persona in which she was widely understood to be a mediator between divine and human needs. 3 She was perceived as a stable and reliable spiritual authority, a source of consolation for people experiencing uncertainty. In another illustrative example, an abbot from Averbode (in modern-day Belgium) alluded to her growing reputation, or fama, declaring that: 'your name has been diffused far and wide like a delicious fragrance, not only throughout Germany but also in other regions'. He refers to the impact of her teaching, likening her to an 'unmovable and unshaken column in the middle of the Church, so that among 1 Hildegardis Bingensis Epistolarium. ed. by L. Van Acker. 3 vols CCCM 91, 91A, 91B (with M. Klaes-Hachmöller), (Turnhout: Brepols, 1991-2001, II, Ep. 172, pp. 390-1; translated in The Letters of Hildegard of Bingen, trans. by Joseph L. Baird and Radd K. Ehrman, 3 vols (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994-2004), II, pp. 130-131. I use Baird and Ehrmann's translations, unless noted otherwise. 2 The abbot may have received a reply from Hildegard that has not survived, or one of the 'form' letters that were sent in response to the many requests for a word from the visionary. John van Engen critically appraises the methodological problems in reconstructing the correspondence in 'Letters and the Public Persona of Hildegard', in Hildegard von Bingen in ihrem historischen Umfeld, ed. by Alfred Haverkamp (Mainz:

One of the topics developed by the Clarissan abbess Isabel de Villena in her work "Vita Christi" was the politics. This text is framed in the cultural and political polemic known as "Querelle des Femmes" that was developed in the Late Middle Ages. The author vividly poses the issue "gender and sovereignty". She designs a complete political theory represented in a feminine paradigm: the Virgin is the theoretical and practical model of the “marvelous science” of human government. Strikingly, Mother Isabel offers this female model to any class of rulers, including men, who should look at themselves in that model, but especially those with institutional, secular or ecclesiastical, power. In order to develop these ideas, the Virgin is presented as the performer of the two main instances of power of that time embodying the functions of queen and female pope and offering a new basis to the “art of government” of the kingdoms and the Church.
Uno de los temas desarrollados por la abadesa clarisa Isabel de Villena en su obra "Vita Christi" fue la política. Esta obra se enmarca en la polémica política y cultural conocida como "Querella de las Mujeres", que se desarrolló en la Baja Edad Media. La autora plantea vívidamente el tema "género y soberanía". Diseña una teoría política completa encarnada en un paradigma femenino: la Virgen es el modelo teórico y práctico de la "ciencia maravillosa" del gobierno humano. Sorprendentemente, la madre Isabel ofrece este modelo femenino a cualquier clase de gobernantes, incluidos los hombres, que se deben mirar en él, pero especialmente aquellos con poder institucional, secular o eclesiástico. Para desarrollar estas ideas, la Virgen se presenta como la titular de las dos principales instancias de poder de aquel tiempo encarnando las funciones de reina y papisa y ofreciendo  un nuevo fundamento al "arte del gobierno" de los reinos y la Iglesia

The authorship of the Life of the twelfth-century English holy woman, Christina of Markyate (c. 1096–after 1155), has inspired considerable scholarly speculation. Though the writer never once positively identifies himself in extant versions of the text, oblique references locate his activity at the Benedictine monastery of St Albans in Hertfordshire during the 1130s under the patronage of the reigning abbot, Geoffrey de Gorron (1119–46), and intimate the close connections he enjoyed with his narrative’s subjects. Building off of these references, and incorporating clues from related sources from St Albans and Markyate, this article reconstructs the likeliest candidate for the writer—Robert de Gorron (d. 1166), Geoffrey’s nephew, appointed sacristan and later abbatial successor—and assesses his eligibility.

Showcased here is the introduction to the article. For the complete article, follow the link provided.

Building upon the efforts made by scholars over the past twenty years to enrich our understanding of the vibrancy and sophistication of literary cultures fostered within English communities of women religious during the central Middle Ages, this article offers evidence of these women keeping their communities’ histories and preserving their saints’ cults through their own writing. This evidence is uncovered through comparative analysis of the two extant versions of the post-mortem miracula of the late Anglo-Saxon saint, Edith of Wilton (c.961–c.984): the vita et translatio Edithe composed by the Flemish hagiographer Goscelin of Saint-Bertin (c.1040–d. after 1107) circa 1080 and the early fifteenth-century Middle English Wilton Chronicle. This analysis not only confirms that the Wilton women provided the necessary patronage and oral and written reports for the authoring of their saint’s life and miracles, but also discloses the very histories that these women first recorded.

The Late Medieval English nun has been portrayed as playing hard and praying softly, either too worldly to care or too poor to be able to. Her art has been ignored or deplored. Past scholarship has claimed that almost no late medieval wall painting exists from an English nunnery with the exception of a few sixteenth-century heraldic items recorded in a building associated with the Cistercian convent at Hampole. However this is not true.

Klášter sv. Jiří na Pražském hradě se řadil mezi nejvýznamnější církevní instituce v českých zemích. Je známo mnohé z jeho kulturních, politických i hospodářských dějin, ale samotné dějiny kláštera zůstávají stále prakticky neodhaleny. Během letitého průzkumu písemných i hmotných pramenů se podařilo identifikovat konkrétní svatojiřské abatyše a jeptišky, včetně specifikace jejich původních rodin. Článěk byl publikován v jubilejním sborníku Náchodsko od minulosti k dnešku. Sborník příspěvků k šedesátinám PhDr. Václava Sádla. Sv. 6. Náchod: Okresní muzeum Náchod 2009, ISBN 978-80-86807-43-0, s. 83-102

St. George´s Monastery at the Prague Castle belonged to the most powerful and important monasteries in Czech countries. It has been known better for  its political, economic and cultural history, but less about its own history. It was successful to identify some names of abbesses and nuns of this monastery from written and other sources. This article presents not only their names but also their familiar connections and other details.

pp., 79 tavv. Nel ciclo della Basilica Superiore di Assisi, tra gli episodi della vita di Francesco, Giotto affrescò anche il famoso colloquio del santo con il crocifisso di S. Damiano, di cui parla Tommaso da Celano nella Vita seconda. Al di sopra del catino absidale della piccola chiesa pericolante sono raffigurati sei candelabri sospesi nell'aria. Il significato di questi oggetti, nel contesto della scena, è sempre sfuggito agli esegeti del ciclo assisiate. Per Chiara Frugoni, invece, la rappresentazione, ermetica e vagamente surreale, non ha una valenza puramente decorativa: Giotto consegnava agli Assisani un messaggio in codice che essi però erano immediatamente in grado di comprendere. I sei candelabri indicavano Chiara e le sue prime compagne -cinque, secondo la Legenda agiografica -, e S. Damiano, la chiesa in rovina, sarebbe diventata lo scrigno sacrale di queste vergini prudenti, secondo il dettato della parabola evangelica.

L’antico monastero delle Clarisse di San Lodovico e Santa Chiara a Mirandola, accogliendo nei suoi trecento anni di vita le principesse di Casa Pico e le esponenti della nobiltà dello Stato, costituì un centro di vita non solo religiosa ma anche sociale e culturale strettamente vincolato alla corte mirandolese. Fondato nel 1460 per volontà dei signori di Mirandola, il conte Giovan Francesco I e la consorte Giulia Boiardo, e soppresso in epoca napoleonica, visse la stagione più prospera nel secolo aureo del ducato dei Pico, il Seicento. Le modalità di amministrazione del monastero, le doti monacali, il ricco patrimonio, le splendide committenze delle varie principesse monache che qui vissero tra costrizioni e privilegi, le devozioni che vi si svilupparono talora con risvolti politici, le ripercussioni dei dettami del Concilio tridentino - dalla clausura alla "vita comune" - le reti familiari, l'attività letteraria e la pratica musicale ambientata nel "sacro teatro" della sontuosissima chiesa esterna, anch'essa purtroppo scomparsa: tanti sono gli spunti che, su base cronachistica e documentaria, offre la storia plurisecolare di questa comunità di religiose. Soprattutto nei decenni del secondo Seicento, sotto il fastoso ducato di Alessandro II, si realizzò quel rapporto tra corte principesca e monastero femminile, assurto a "centro importante della socialità barocca". Nonostante le severe prescrizioni tridentine, il monastero di San Lodovico grazie alla sua prosperità economica, ai legami con influenti famiglie, al prestigio delle monache e delle principesse in particolare, divenne un polo, seppure appartato, della vita culturale e artistica mirandolese. Se, di tanto, poco è rimasto, questo è purtroppo dovuto all’infausto destino, a tutti noto, che travolse la piccola ma fiorente capitale dei Pico.

https://www.chbeck.de/breitenstein-benediktiner/product/27671842
Ora et labora – bete und arbeite! Das benediktinische Mönchtum hat mit der Verbindung von Askese und tätigem Leben die Kultur Europas geformt. Mirko Breitenstein schildert die Geschichte der Benediktiner von ihrem sagenumwobenen Gründer Benedikt von Nursia und seiner Ordensregel bis zur Gegenwart und macht deutlich, warum Lebensformen und Spiritualität der Benediktiner einen so nachhaltigen Einfluss auf Politik, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft hatten.

“Coming Into Our Own,” the second part of the two-part “Remaking of the Bhikkhunī Saṅgha in Transcultural Contexts,” offers internal perspective on how Dhamma and Vinaya studies are brought into and inform bhikkhunīs’ monastic community life (with highlights on the role of the Bhikkhunī Vibhaṅga Project), together with offering a look at some of the puzzles or problems that bhikkhunīs are working on within the Theravāda tradition. The author draws from her experience with ordinations and bhikkhunīs’ individual and community life including but not limited to North America, Australasia, India, Sri Lanka & Thailand over a 30 year period, from approximately the last decade of the 20th century to the second decade of the 21st. Topics of active interest and work center on a dynamic and creative tension or fusion between ideals and vision, with striving, attainments and lived practices in the renascent bhikkhunīs’ community. These topics include:

I. From past to present—the dynamic interplay between envisioned past (or pasts) and present;
II. From “ordination” to “full acceptance”—forms of dual ordination and one-sided ordination; upasampadā as “full acceptance” or “fully sharing in the training and way of life” and the actuality in the contemporary greater Saṅgha; questions of belonging, lineage and saṃvāsa;
III. From text to congruence in cultural context/s—the gārudhammas and sikkhamānā; the position of senior teaching bhikkhunīs with regards to ovāda, and bhikkhunī teachers’ and community leaders’ position in Buddhist monastic teaching and leadership structures; support, living with Vinaya, and religious alms mendicancy in the contemporary West;
IV. From renascence to renaissance—bhikkhunīs’ discipline and developing bhikkhunī saṅgha/s as optimal container or the most optimal conditions for supporting and effecting the Buddhist intention and aim of women’s liberation, ceto-vimutti.

http://www.earlymedievalmonasticism.org/bibliographymonasticism.htm

This bibliography of academic literature on late antique and early medieval monasticism will be updated about twice a year. Please contact me ([email protected]) if you would like to add titles (including your own work) or make corrections.

Available records, when gathered together, could be seen as suggesting that in the past there have been both bhikkhunis and samaneris in the lands now known as Thailand, from the time of the Aśokan missions of arahants Sona and Uttara to Suvannabhumi, up until the Ayutthaya Period, and even into the twentieth century in the northern regions. However, there is little or no public knowledge nor a sense of connectedness to this distant and more recent past within contemporary Theravada Buddhist communities.  The updated version of this paper, originally published as an appendix to the 2007 First International Congress on Buddhist Women paper "Mining for Gold" and now republished indepedently in the July 2015 issue of Gautami Samayiki, gathers such records. It aims to share knowledge and foster a sense of connectedness with our shared past as well as to contribute to further reflection and consideration, potentially leading to a shift in perspective with regards Buddhist monastic women's history, the history of the monastic Sangha and the history of Buddha Catu Parisa (Buddha's Fourfold Community) in Southeast Asia, particularly in the region/s now known as Thailand.

This article concerns four liturgical codices copied in the scriptorium of the Monastery of Alcobaça between the mid-fifteenth and the seventeenth centuries. The late textual additions that concern rituals specific to Cistercian nunneries will be examined with the aim of understanding the uses of such additions in their context, and of determining their impact on our knowledge of female Cistercian monasteries and on Alcobaça’s jurisdiction over the women under its wing during this period.

Attraverso un imponente scavo documentario, questo studio ricostruisce un capitolo quasi sconosciuto della storia di Venezia nell’età medievale, il monachesimo femminile. A partire dagli insediamenti del IX secolo, attraverso le molteplici esperienze di vita comunitaria dei movimenti religiosi femminili dei secoli XII e XIII, fino alla loro istituzionalizzazione e trasformazione in monasteri e alle tensioni del XIV secolo, la storia religiosa delle donne appare a Venezia ricca di forme variegate e di contrasti. I rapporti con i pontefici, i vescovi, i dogi, così come le relazioni con le comunità maschili furono al centro delle dinamiche istituzionali e religiose che caratterizzarono la Chiesa veneziana e i suoi rapporti con il potere civile. L’immagine che emerge dalla ricerca è quella di un mondo religioso femminile plurale, irrequieto e dinamico, in un contesto, quello della società veneziana medievale, che appare aperto e sperimentale.

Inventario a cura di: S. Manali Profilo storico Il complesso architettonico di Santa Caterina si trova nel cuore del centro storico di Palermo. Il perimetro dell'area di sedime è delimitato a nord dalla via Vittorio Emanuele, a ovest da piazza Pretoria, a sud da piazza Vincenzo Bellini -di fronte alla più nota chiesa di Santa Maria dell'Ammiraglio, detta anche Martoranae a est dalla via Schioppettieri.

Italian scholarship has already underscored the similarities between the royal foundation of St. Salvatore of Brescia and St. Sofia of Benevento, founded by Arechis, duke of Benevento, before 774. However, St. Sofia is still considered not only as a family foundation but also as the “Lombards’ national sanctuary” in Southern Italy. Taking into account Arechis’ political project and strategies of representation of his public authority, this study aims to reconsider both the family dimension and the political and religious role of St. Sofia in Lombard Southern Italy. During the first half of the ninth century, the role of the monastery changed as a consequence of the political, social and devotional transformations that were taking place in Benevento. The last part of this study, therefore, focuses on the role of St. Sofia and the monastery’s relationship with the princes after the end of Arechis’ dynasty.

This study aims to understand the Monastery of S. Salvador of Vairão after the extinction of religious orders, namely the new uses of the complex, and the construction of the public cemetery. The construction of the cemetery begun in 1876, since in that decade several parishes around Porto built public cemeteries. The construction was delayed because of other constructions in the parish such as the aqueducts for the managing of water of the public fountain. The cemetery's main door indicates 1878 as its date of completion. The last abbess died in 1891, and from then began the process of integrating assets into the National Treasury. The inventory of all the assets of the churches and chapels of Vairão of July 9 1912 mentions the church with a tower and its dependencies, the chapel of St. John, and the address of houses with backyards, which served as the parish priest's house, as well as several chapels that were incorporated into the National Treasury, along with its objects. The monastery and its dependencies were heavily transformed in 1922, 1944 and 1966 due to renovations and expansions. Those were documented by DGEMN because they were in the protection area of the St. John chapel, classified as of public interest. Having been a Nursery and Vocational School, the monastery is now an inn for pilgrims of Santiago de Compostela, and a holiday center, while the church continues to be used as the parish temple. The appreciation of the monastery's heritage is seen on the PDM provided by the Vila do Conde City Council that informs that the church was proposed to be classified as of Public Interest. The monastery is still surrounded by agricultural land, probably not to the full extent it would have been. This space is not used, except for a small building that serves as the parish headquarters of the Association of Portugal´s Young Farmers.

"Jusqu’à présent, les abbayes de moniales cisterciennes qui se multiplièrent en Castille à partir des années 1160 ont souvent été assimilées à la plus puissante d’entre elles, Las Huelgas de Burgos, leur modèle et leur porte-parole suivant les analyses inspirées par le droit canonique ou l’histoire du genre. Les chartriers de communautés ordinaires comme Cañas, Vileña ou Herce mettent toutefois en évidence des modes de  fonctionnement différents de ceux du grand monastère royal et même un antagonisme essentiel. L’explication tient aux relations étroites que les institutions entretenaient avec les fondateurs et leurs descendants, membres de la très haute noblesse des ricoshombres. Usant de leur droit de patronage, les principaux lignages s’assuraient une influence exclusive dans les cloîtres et en faisaient leurs centres de pouvoir. Les temporels permettaient notamment de préserver l’intégrité de pans importants de leur patrimoine dans les zones rurales. L’obédience cistercienne, qui ne s’accompagnait alors d’aucune contrainte institutionnelle, renforçait leur autonomie. Pour contrecarrer ce phénomène et contenir les prétentions de l’aristocratie, Alphonse VIII fonda Las Huelgas en 1187, la dota de moyens hors normes et la plaça à la tête d’une hiérarchie créée pour l’occasion, le chapitre des abbesses cisterciennes de Castille et de Léon. Dans les années 1220-1230, l’ordre cistercien lutta à son tour contre le patronage des laïcs afin d’affirmer l’autorité qu’il revendiquait depuis peu sur les religieuses. Seules les abbayes de première génération purent prolonger la relation gagnant-gagnant avec leurs patrons. Elles prospérèrent tout au long du XIIIe siècle, avant de pâtir des grands bouleversements que connut la noblesse castillane au début du siècle suivant."

This study aims at providing an overview of the everyday life of Russian nuns in Palestine after World War II. This research encompassed the following tasks: to analyze the range of ego-documents available today, characterizing the everyday life and internal motivation of women in choosing the church jurisdiction; to identify, on the basis of written sources, the most active supporters of the Moscow Patriarchate to examine the nuns’ activity as information agents of the Russian Orthodox Church and Soviet government; to characterize the actors influencing the everyday life of the Russian nuns in the context of the creation of the state of Israel and new borders dividing the Holy Land; to present the motives and instruments of influence employed by the representatives of both secular and church diplomacies in respect to the women leading a monastic life; to describe consequences of including
the nuns into the sphere of interest of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR; to show the specific role of “Russian women” in the context of the struggle for securing positions of the USSR and the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in the region. The sources for the study were prodused by the state (correspondence between the state authorities, meeting notes) and from the religious actors (letters of nuns to the church authorities, reports of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission, memoirs of the clergy). By combining the methods of micro-history and history of the everyday life with the political history of the Cold War, the study examines the agency of the nuns — a category of women traditionally unnoticeable in the political history. Due to the specificity of the sources, the study focuses exclusively on a group of the nuns of the Holy Land who came under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate.
The majority of the Russian-speaking population of Palestine in the mid-1940s were women in the status of monastic residents (nuns and novices) and pilgrims, and in the 1940s–1950s, they were drawn into the geopolitical combinations of the Soviet Union. The Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem, staffed with representatives
of the Russian Orthodox Church, becomes a key institution of influence in the region. This article shows how elderly nuns became an object of close attention and even funding by the Soviet state. The everyday life of the nuns became directly dependent on the activities of the Soviet agencies and Soviet-Israeli relations after the arrival of the Soviet state representatives. At the same time, the nuns became key participants in the interjurisdictional conflicts and began to act as agents of influence in the region. The study analyzes numerous ego-documents created by the nuns themselves from the collection of the Council on the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church under the USSR Council of Ministers. The study shows how nuns positioned themselves as leading a monastic life in the written correspondence with the ROC authorities and staff of the Soviet MFA. The instances of influence of different secular authorities on the development of the female monasticism presented here point to
promising research avenues for future reconstruction of the history of women in the Holy Land based on archival materials from state departments, alternative sources should also be found. The study focused on the life of elderly Russian nuns in the Holy Land and showed their activity in the context of the geopolitical transformations in the Near East in the 1940s–1950s.

Riassunto: Viene offerta l'edizione critica della Regola che Urbano IV promulgò per le Clarisse il 18 ottobre 1263. Vengono pubblicati anche altri testi giuridici, emanati dal cardinale protettore dell'Ordine e dal ministro generale (san Bonaventura), che illustrano il difficile processo di introduzione della nuova normativa e permettono di interpretare meglio il suo contenuto e l'intento del pontefice. Si analizzano le fonti della Regola urbanista e le effettive novità introdotte nella legislazione monastica, mettendo in rilievo anche alcune immediate mitigazioni di certe norme.
Abstract: A critical edition of the Rule of the Poor Clares promulgated by Urban IV on 18 October 1263 is offered here. The other legislative texts by the Order's Cardinal Protector and its General Minister (St Bonaventure) are also given here and they serve to illustrate the difficult process of implementing the Rule and to facilitate a better interpretation of its contents and the intent of the pontiff. The sources of Urban IV's Rule and the actual innovations introduced into the monastic legislation thereby are also analysed, highlighting some immediate mitigations of certain norms.

La présente enquête remet en cause un jugement répandu parmi les historiens des cisterciennes, qui consiste à considérer l'apparition subite des moniales dans les décrets du chapitre général de Cîteaux au début du XIIIe siècle comme un progrès de leur condition. En réalité, les capitulants multipliaient leurs champs d'action depuis la fin du XIIe siècle et construisaient alors le droit cistercien. Les communautés féminines, au statut mal défini, leur posaient donc problème, jusqu'à ce que le Chapitre, en 1213, réclamât le monopole des procédures de fondation; Rome le lui concéda tardivement, en 1251. Ce changement d'attitude des cisterciens n'était donc nullement motivé par la prise en compte des intérêts spirituels des femmes, et ne constituait pas une réponse à un afflux des vocations, à ce Frauenbewegung dont la réalité est d'ailleurs discutable. Il s'inscrivait dans une période où se définissaient progressivement les contours juridiques de l'Ordre. Au XIIe siècle, aucun aval de Cîteaux n'était nécessaire pour fonder une communauté féminine; au XIIIe, le Chapitre contrôlait désormais la procédure de fondation, et il imposait en outre aux communautés, par l'intermédiaire des abbés-pères, des règles de vie quotidienne. Simples émules des communautés masculines au XIIe siècle, les abbayes féminines étaient devenues leurs sujettes.


Imitators and later Subjects of the Cistercian Order. The Cistercian Nuns of Castille and Elsewhere and the General Chapter in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries

The present study challenges a judgment common among historians of the Cistercian nuns, which regards their sudden appearance in the statues of the General Chapter of Cîteaux in the early 13th century as an improvement in their situation. In actual fact, the abbots of the Chapter had been extending their fields of action since the end of the 12th century and were then in the process of constructing the edifice of Cistercian law. The nuns' communities, with their poorly defined status, were therefore a problem for them until the 1213 Chapter claimed a monopoly on foundation procedures, which was belatedly accepted by Rome in 1251. This change of attitude on the part of the Cistercian monks was by no means motivated by consideration for the spiritual interests of the nuns; neither was it a response to an influx of vocations - the so-called Frauenbewegung (whose existence is in fact debatable). It is part of a period during which the legal contours of the Order were being gradually defined. In the 12th century, no endorsement from Cîteaux was necessary in order to found a community of nuns; from the 13th century onwards, the Chapter controlled the foundation procedure, and moreover, through the father-abbots, it regulated the everyday life of the communities. From mere imitators of the men's communities in the 12th century, the women's abbeys became their subjects.


Nachahmer und Abhängige des Zisterzienserordens: Die zisterziensischen Nonnen von Kastilien und anderenorts und das Generalkapitel im 12. und 13. Jahrhundert

Die vorliegende Studie stellt ein allgemeines Urteil von Historikern, die sich mit Zisterziensernonnen beschäftigen, in Frage. Es betrifft die Interpretation des plötzlichen Auftretens von zisterziensischen Nonnen in den Statuten des Generalkapitels von Cîteaux im frühen 13. Jahrhundert als eine Verbesserung ihrer Situation. Tatsächlich hatten die Äbte des Kapitels ihren Handlungsbereich seit dem Ende des 12. Jahrhunderts ausgeweitet und waren anschliessend mit der Konstruktion des Gebäudes der zisterziensischen Gesetzgebung beschäftigt. Die Gemeinschaften der Nonnen mit ihrem schlecht definierten Status waren daher ein Problem für sie bis die Kapitelwersammlung von 1231 ein Monopol für die Gründungsprozeduren einforderte, welches von Rom 1251 verspätet angenommen wurde. Dieser Wandel in der Haltung seitens der Zisterziensermönche war keinesfalls durch die Berücksichtigung der spirtuellen Interessen der Nonnen motiviert; auch war es keine Antwort auf einen Zustrom von Berufungen - der sogenannten Frauenbewegung, deren Existenz in der Tat fraglich ist. Sie war Teil einer Periode, in der die gesetzlichen Konturen des Ordens allmählich genau bestimmt wurden. Im 12. Jahrhundert war keine Bestätigung von Cîteaux notwendig, um eine Gemeinschaft für Nonnen zu gründen. Seit dem 13. Jahrhundert kontrollierte das Generalkapitel jedoch die Gründungsprozedur; darüber hinaus regulierte es durch die "Vater-Äbte" das tägliche Leben dieser Gemeinschaften. Ausgehend von schlichten Nachahmern der Mönchsgemeinschaften im 12. Jahrhundert wurden die Nonnenklöster deren Abhängige.

In 1218, Saint Dominic founded in Madrid the second female monastery (after Prouilhe) of the Order of Preachers, and the first in the Iberian Peninsula. Coinciding with the 800th anniversary of the founder's death in 1221, this long overdue monograph, the first dedicated to the study of Dominican female monasteries in the “Province of Spain”, is finally being published by Trea. Just as the Dominicans had, from the beginning, placed the divine office at the center of the nuns’ religious life, this book uses liturgy as a prism through which to study female monasteries. It has therefore been embedded in the “liturgical turn” which, far from being simply a trend, is shown here as absolutely necessary to go beyond the existing methodological horizons in the study of Dominican female foundations in Castile. This approach was adopted not only for a typological and functional analysis of the physical monastic spaces (mainly in chapter IV), images and artefacts (chapter III), but also for an in-depth study of the social, legislative and institutional history of these foundations (chapter I), and of their cultural, devotional and liturgical contexts (chapters II-III). As a result, this perspective touches on several disciplines: art history, musicology and studies on liturgy, gender studies, literary studies, institutional history of religious orders, cultural history, anthropology, etc.
Despite great efforts to encourage centralization and uniformity in the Order of Preachers from the mid-13th century onwards, this goal remained a utopian dream. Idiosyncrasies in matters of legislation, jurisdiction, enclosure, liturgy, and, of course, architecture, endured largely as a result of the local religious contexts. As the Master General Humbert of Romans (1254-1263) pointed out, the Dominicans had buildings and churches of various types and layouts. In female monasteries diversity was defined by the enclosure, where observance varied from place to place, as well as by the importance of lay patronage and how the nuns’ collective identity was shaped. All these factors had material consequences in the buildings, determining different articulations and functions of the liturgical space, as for instance, the wide range of locations of the nuns’ choirs. A selection of the most significant plans and illustrations at the end of this volume aims to provide a better understanding of the theoretical discourse.
This book is an important contribution to what is still a largely unexplored area of research on sacred topography and spatial functionality in female monasteries in the Iberian Peninsula. It caters to an increasing interest in female and religious networks, as well as the evolution of women’s role in various artistic and cultural processes. Lastly, the comparative approach guiding this work goes beyond the 21 monasteries analyzed, placing Castilian Dominican nuns within the broader contexts of both the Order of Preachers, and European female monasticism.

https://www.trea.es/books/arte-y-liturgia-en-los-monasterios-de-dominicas-en-castilla-desde-los-origenes-hasta-la-reforma-observante-1218-1506
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En 1218, Saint-Dominique a fondé à Madrid le deuxième monastère féminin, après Prouilhe, lié à l'Ordre des Prêcheurs, et le premier de la péninsule ibérique. Coïncidant avec le 800e anniversaire de la mort du fondateur, survenue en 1221, cette attendue monographie, la première consacrée à l'étude des monastères féminins dans la «province d’Espagne» de l’ordre dominicain, est enfin publiée par Trea. De la même manière que les dominicains placèrent l'office divin au centre de la vie religieuse des moniales, ce livre prend la liturgie comme prisme à travers lequel sont étudiés les monastères féminins. L’ouvrage s'inscrit donc dans le liturgical turn qui, loin d'être une tendance, se présente ici comme une approche absolument nécessaire pour dépasser les horizons méthodologiques existants dans l'étude des monastères de moniales dominicaines en Castille. Cette méthode a été adoptée non seulement pour réaliser une analyse typologique et fonctionnelle des espaces monastiques (chapitre IV) et des images et des artefacts (chapitre III), mais aussi pour étudier l'histoire sociale, législative et institutionnelle de ces fondations (chapitre I) et de leurs contextes culturel, dévotionnel et liturgique (chapitres II-III). Ainsi, plusieurs disciplines s’entrecroisent au fil des pages : histoire de l'art, musicologie et études sur la liturgie, études de genre, études littéraires, histoire institutionnelle des ordres religieux, histoire culturelle, anthropologie.
La centralisation et l'uniformité auquel aspirait l’ordre dominicain depuis le milieu du XIIIe siècle constituaient un objectif ambitieux et, malgré les grands efforts déployés, l’uniformitas allait rester une utopie. Les particularités locales perdurèrent dans de nombreux domaines tels que la législation, la juridiction, la clôture, la liturgie et, bien sûr, l'architecture, largement déterminées par les contextes religieux locaux. Par conséquent, comme l'admit le maître général Humbert de Romans (1254-1263), leurs maisons avaient des bâtiments et des églises de divers types et dispositions. Dans les monastères de moniales la diversité fut définie par la clôture, dont l'observance variait d'un endroit à l'autre, par l'importance du patronage exercé sur les monastères et de la formation de l'identité collective des moniales.
Tous ces facteurs eurent des conséquences matérielles sur les bâtiments, déterminant différentes articulations de l'espace liturgique, comme par exemple la variété des solutions dans l'emplacement du chœur des moniales. L’inclusion d’une sélection des plans et illustrations les plus significatifs à la fin du volumen vise à faciliter la compréhension du discours théorique.
Ce livre vient donc contribuer aux études encore rares sur la topographie sacrée et la fonctionnalité spatiale dans les monastères féminins de la péninsule ibérique et répond à l’intérêt croissant pour les réseaux féminins et religieux et pour la réévaluation du rôle des femmes dans divers processus artistiques et culturels. Pour conclure, l'approche comparative guidant ce travail est allée au-delà des 21 monastères analysés, plaçant les moniales dominicaines castillanes dans les contextes plus larges de l'Ordre des Prêcheurs et du monachisme féminin européen.

https://www.trea.es/books/arte-y-liturgia-en-los-monasterios-de-dominicas-en-castilla-desde-los-origenes-hasta-la-reforma-observante-1218-1506

M o n a c h e s i m i f e m m i n i l i i n F r i u l i n e l D u e c e n t o [A stampa in Il monachesimo benedettino in Friuli in età patriarcale (Atti del Convegno internazionale di studi, Udine-Rosazzo, 18-20 novembre 1999), a cura di C. Scalon, Udine 2002 ("Studi per la storia della Chiesa in Friuli", 3), pp. 167-211 © dell'autore -Distribuito in formato digitale da "Reti Medievali"] Premessa Il titolo del mio contributo echeggia alcuni problemi storici e storiografici di questi ultimi decenni. Il soggetto intende riferirsi a gruppi di donne unite in forme di vita più o meno stabili, ufficiali e riconosciute in un modello monastico, mentre l'aggettivazione ha volutamente escluso la qualifica "benedettina" e il campo temporale è stato circoscritto al secolo XIII, nella parte friulana della diocesi patriarcale 1 . La delimitazione spaziale si fonda sulla presunzione di selezionare un ambito culturalmente e geograficamente omogeneo, quella cronologica si spiegherà da sé -mi auguro -nel corso dell'esposizione; non mi pare invece inutile dire qualcosa di più sulla specificazione di genere.

St. Giulia’s Museum in Brescia preserves a capital that is a veritable rarity in the artistic pro- duction linked to the nunnery, founded by the last Lombard kings and dedicated to Christ the Saviour. On the basis of an iconological reading of the images carved on the four faces of the capital, this paper correlates those representations with a precise phase in the history of the monastery, the late Carolingian age, when the daughters of Lothair I and Louis II, both named Gisla, became members of the monastic community.

St Caesarius, Bishop of Arles, has often been recognized as a powerful evangelizer of Arles and the surrounding countryside, through his promotion of the monastic life and calling the faithful laity to an uncompromising moral standard and elevated piety. Yet few have understood the active role the cloistered women played in much of the pastoral work of the Arlesian bishop. Two of Caesarius’ greatest achievements, the founding of the female Monastery of St John in Arles with its Rule and the widespread preaching campaign, should be considered as the joint project of Caesarius and the first two abbesses, Caesaria the Elder and Caesaria the Younger, with their congregations. The inhabitants of the monastery were not guinea pigs on which Caesarius tested his monastic innovations, particularly strict enclosure, but rather co-authors of the final redaction of the Rule and active participants in shaping the monastic life inside. Though strictly cloistered, they also collaborated in a material way to the Christianization of the area: through their scribal labor, the sisters probably provided the local church with manuscripts of the Sacred Scrip- tures, and Caesarius with copies of his sermons which he gave to so many of his fellow clerics to read far beyond Arles.

La bibliothèque médiévale des cisterciennes castillanes de Cañas était réputée perdue. Cette recherche, menée notamment dans le fonds privé de la communauté et dans la documentation d’époque moderne conservée à l’Archivo Histórico Nacional de Madrid, a permis d’établir l’existence de sept manuscrits médiévaux et de révéler la présence d’un antiphonaire bourguignon du début du XIIIe siècle. Au sein de cet ensemble, les ouvrages de méditation sont moins rares que ce que l’on attendait pour une communauté de moniales. Un nombre important de fragments retrouvés forment un corpus de membra disjecta provenant d’un même codex démembré. L’étude du texte liturgique, des caractéristiques paléographiques et codicologiques, de la décoration, ainsi que la comparaison avec des manuscrits similaires, permettent de préciser qu’il s’agit d’un missel réalisé entre 1267 et 1279 dans le nord du royaume de Castille, peut-être dans le scriptorium de Las Huelgas, par une main cistercienne expérimentée.

A medieval library for Cistercian nuns in Castile. Cañas and the membra disjecta of their missal.

The medieval library of the Cistercian nuns from the Castilian abbey of Cañas was thought to be entirely lost. This research – from the archives of the current community and modern papers in the Archivo Histórico Nacional de Madrid – reveals the existence of seven medieval manuscripts, including a Burgundian antiphonary from the early 13th century. Among them, works on meditation are not as scarce as one might expect for a community of nuns. Several retrieved fragments form a corpus of membra disjecta coming from a single codex. The study of its liturgical text, paleographical or codicological characteristics, and decoration – as well as comparisons with similar manuscripts – make it possible to establish that this was a missal copied between 1267 and 1279 in northern Castile, maybe even in the Las Huelgas scriptorium, by an experienced Cistercian hand.


Eine mittelalterliche Bibliothek für Zisterziensernonnen in Kastilien. Cañas und the membra disjecta ihres Missales.

Es wurde angenommen, dass die mittelalterliche Bibliothek der Zisterziensernonnen der kastilischen Abtei von Cañas gänzlich verloren gegangen sei. Diese Studie – basierend auf den Archiven der heutigen Kommunität und modernen Dokumenten im Archivo Histórico Nacional de Madrid – enthüllt jedoch die Existenz von sieben mittelalterlichen Manuskripten, inklusive eines burgundischen Antiphonars auf dem frühen 13. Jahrhundert. Unter diesen sind Werke über Meditation nicht so selten als wie man für eine Gemeinschaft von Nonnen annehmen würde. Verschiedene wiedergefundene Fragmente aus einem Corpus von membra desjecta entstammen einem einzigen Codex. Die Studie seines liturgischen Textes, paleographische oder codicologische Charakteristika und die Dekoration – ebenso wie Vergleiche mit ähnlichen Manuskripten – machen es möglich, dieses Manuskript als ein Missale zu bestimmen, das zwischen 1267 und 1279 in Nord-Kastilien möglicherweise im scriptorium von Las Huelgas) durch eine erfahrende zisterziensische Hand kopiert wurde.

L’article analyse les miniatures de saint Jérôme dans le fonds des manuscrits réalisés sous l’abbatiat d’Étienne Harding, afin de saisir la manière dont ce Père de l’Église est appréhendé dans l’abbaye de Cîteaux. Jérôme s’avère être une figure de référence dans l’abbaye, où il était particulièrement apprécié en tant que traducteur de la Vulgate et comme promoteur du monachisme féminin. Étienne Harding en fait son modèle, allant probablement jusqu’à s’identifier avec lui. Les actions de Jérôme (traduction de la Bible, promotion du monachisme féminin) sont célébrées et rappelées par les images ; sa mémoire participe ainsi à la construction identitaire de la communauté monastique de Cîteaux, récemment formée. Les images de Jérôme ont pu enfin avoir comme but de donner davantage de poids à certaines actions d’Étienne Harding susceptibles de soulever des critiques, comme sa révision du texte biblique et la fondation de l’abbaye de moniales de Tart.

Quiroga nº 7, enero-junio 2015, 10-22 · ISSN 2254-7037 Resumen El "giro cultural" de los Estudios Atlánticos ha abierto nuevas perspectivas, situando el género y la religión en el centro de las investigaciones sobre el mundo Atlántico. En consecuencia, los estudios sobre el monacato femenino en estos territorios han crecido en popularidad en las últimas décadas. Sin embargo, en lo que respecta a la historia del arte, hay todavía una falta de estudios sobre estas fundaciones y es necesaria una renovación metodológica. En el presente artículo se analiza la historiografía sobre el monacato femenino en México y Perú y se plantea la necesidad de un estudio del arte y arquitectura en relación a la liturgia, desde una perspectiva comparativa atlántica.