Women Religious

Monastic Women in the Early Middle Ages.

It is interesting to note that a substantial amount of information from the early Middle Ages about women's religious houses was written by male clerics from the period. Throughout much of the Middle Ages many of the women dwelling in monastic communities lived lives not that much different from individuals in the male houses. In fact, there is not even a specific medieval Latin term for a female monastic house. The term "nunnery" only comes into use in the late medieval period and the term "convent" (conventus) could actually have applied to houses for both men and women. As early as the sixth and seventh centuries, a large number of noble female saints emerged from monastic houses in Merovingian territories, such as Gandersheim and Quedlinburg. They espoused a form of spirituality that put less emphasis on virginity and asceticism than on compassionate leadership, performance of miracles, and service (both charity and peacemaking) to the surrounding community. From the ninth through tenth centuries it appears there were very few women's monastic houses (likely fewer than forty in all of Europe) compared to the much larger numbers two centuries earlier. This is due in part to their destruction during the age of invasions and the reluctance to rebuild amid the insecurities of civil governments. Some of the early medieval convents and double houses (for both males and females) served as viable opportunities for women to devote themselves to spirituality during this period. Mixed houses in Germany, northern parts of Gaul, and Anglo-Saxon England were even run by abbesses instead of abbots.

Retreats and Renewed Opportunities.

During the tenth through mid-eleventh centuries, women in Europe lost some of their independence as the male-dominated church, which was putting more emphasis on celibacy, began to stress the moral and intellectual weakness of women. At this time, some of the nunneries began to function more or less as secure places for the retirement of widows and daughters of the nobility, who often had little vocation for the spiritual lifestyle. Such houses tended to be well endowed and frequently rather exclusive. The Canonesses at Farmontiers (France) and Essen (Germany) provided such comfortable living for eleventh-century women. While the number of nunneries declined throughout the tenth and early eleventh centuries, there were a few significant communities operating in Germany such as Herford, Gandersheim, and Quedlinburg. All of these houses received patronage from Matilda, the mother of Emperor Otto I. Women's houses in France and England began to rebound after 1000 with new or transplanted communities being established in Picardy, Arles, Nîmes, and Marseille. Between 1000 and 1080 some 36 convents were founded or restored in France and England. They were present in the French cities of Beauvais, Angers, Evreux, Angoulême, Rennes, LeMans, Rouen, Tours, and Verdun, as well as English centers such as Canterbury, Chatteris, Elstow or those attached to men's houses at Bury St. Edmunds, Ely, St. Albans, and Evesham. When double monasteries began to reappear in the eleventh-century reform movements, it was rather uncommon for abbesses to have any control over the male elements of the community. The female houses associated with the Cluny movement, while they did have claustral prioresses, were answerable to the priors of affiliated males houses who were under the authority of the abbot of Cluny. But, by the end of the eleventh century, there appears to have been a rapid proliferation of women's houses.

Female Achievement.

Early medieval Germanic communities often allowed females to occupy a higher position than their counterparts in other cultures or countries, which may be the reason why there were more independent houses for women in the Anglo-Saxon territories. That the middle twelfth century offered good examples of the heights to which women's religious life extended can be seen in the case of Hildegarde, the leader of the women's community at Bingen, just northwest of Mainz (1098–1179). Not only was she thought to be the spiritual equal to men of her day, but she left behind an immensely vivid body of literature that recounts the lives and thought of women within the cloister, along with their spiritual activities and the labors of their hands. Some of the twelfth-century mendicant orders of hermits had mixed houses associated with movements from places like Fontevrault (founded in 1101) and Prémontré (1115) in France. They attracted large numbers of women, and the fifteen Fontevrault communities all seemed to be female-centered, although they were clearly mixed houses; both the great patroness of courtly literature, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and her daughter, who ended her days as a nun, are buried there. At Prémontré the women occupied a less prominent place in the community, remaining strictly cloistered and tending to do much of the manual labor of the community. Double monasteries were also common in the Low Countries. Some of these double houses that felt it necessary to practice strict segregation gave way to allowing the nuns to run their own affairs and resulted in the eventual separation of these double communities when the women took up their own residences.

The BÉguines.

The appearance of the Béguines in the early 1200s had much to do with the growing sense of lay piety that had developed throughout the preceding century. In the beginning the movement was not very organized, but it seems that groups of urban lay women began to assemble together in parts of Germany and the Lowlands to attempt to live holy lives in a similar fashion. Many were inspired by the story of Marie d'Oignies, a Flemish noble and mystic who renounced her family's wealth and gained stature as a spiritual healer. Eventually some of these women sought to live together in community. The Béguines came from all walks of life and all social classes although the wealthier members tended to congregate together. Attitudes toward poverty varied. While many members rejected the wealth of their families and chose to live in deliberate austerity, the decision to embrace radical poverty or to retain possessions was individual. A few groups even formed their own little villages in areas that were near large cities. They supported themselves with the labor of their own hands: many undertook weaving, sewing, and embroidery, although some groups resorted to begging. The Béguines took no formal vows but were committed to living in chastity. Some eventually left the communities and went on to marry, and many of the non-communal members continued their connection with the order though married. Their male counterparts were the Beghards, who commonly worked as weavers, fullers, or dyers. The Beghards did not own property and spent much of their time engaged in charity work or spiritual contemplation.

Patronage and Persecution.

The Beghards' and Béguines' lifestyles were ascetical, but they rejected the formalism of some of the other orders of their time. The Béguines often attended Mass and the daily offices at their local churches. Gradually these movements gained widespread acceptance from both church and secular authorities. Hundreds of houses sprang up throughout northern European towns. By the end of the thirteenth century, there were 54 houses in the city of Cologne alone. While noble families' or members' fortunes tended to support these groups, chapels like those of la Vigne were given over to Béguine communities for their use. Eventually church legislation of the thirteenth century forced the Béguines to confine themselves strictly to communal activities similar to those being practiced by contemporary convents. This did not stop outspoken Béguines like Marguerite Porete, who reproached the weakness of a male-dominated church and its outward signs, which served as a crutch to aid religion. Her book The Mirror of Simple Souls received much criticism, but remained immensely popular, even without the attribution of her authorship. She was eventually accused of heresy and burned at the stake in 1310. As hostility towards the Béguines grew in the church hierarchy, the movement suffered persecution in Germany, but it fared better in France, where it had the protection of powerful patrons.

Cistercians, Franciscans, and Dominicans.

In the years that followed the ground-swell of lay initiatives, there are numerous accounts of women connected to the Cistercian, Franciscan, and Dominican movements, thus contributing significantly to the European monastic presence. Although the male Dominican movement that arose after 1217 was defined as an order of preachers (called friars), St. Dominic's first religious house, founded in 1207 at Prouille, was a convent established for former Cathar women (members of a heretical sect chiefly in southern France). Likewise, although St. Francis of Assisi's male order, based on the ideal of complete poverty, sent friars on preaching missions throughout the world, his conversion of a wealthy young woman named Clare led to the founding of a female order (later known as the Poor Clares) that required a strictly enclosed life of asceticism, fasting, and perpetual silence. By 1223 there was already significant opposition throughout the Dominican Order in regard to the admission of more nuns. Maintaining convents would require ordained resident Dominican men who would say Mass and serve as confessors. Some felt such duties compromised the early mission and ideal of the friar ministry. The Dominican General Chapter of 1228 discouraged the admission of additional convents. The Cistercians also came to a similar conclusion at their General Chapter the very same year. But after 1245, papal legislation allowed for the multiplication of Dominican convents, particularly in Germany. The Dominican nuns, quite unlike the friars, could not leave their convents to beg or minister. Instead, they remained strictly cloistered, encouraged to develop interior lives of humility, poverty, and simple spirituality. Male Dominicans had no idea how popular this movement would become for medieval women, as some 150 Dominican convents were organized by 1300. The Cistercians experienced much greater growth with some 900 houses claiming to be Cistercian or Cistercian affiliates founded by 1325. Within less than a hundred years, however, the number of registered Cistercian convents dropped to somewhere around 211.

sources

Caroline Walker Bynum, Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982).

Peter Dronke, Women Writers of the Middle Ages (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1984).

Jeffrey Hamburger, "The Use of Images in the Pastoral Care of Nuns: The Case of Heinrich Suso and the Dominicans," Art Bulletin 71 (1989): 20–46.

Margaret Wade Labarge, A Small Sound of the Trumpet (Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press, 1986).

J. A. Nichols and L. T. Shand, eds., Distant Echoes; Medieval Religious Women. Vol. I (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Medieval Institute, 1984).

Walter Simons, Cities of Ladies: Béguine Communities in the Medieval Low Countries (Philadelphia, Pa.: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001).

Bruce Venarde, Women's Monasticism and Medieval Society (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1997).

Ulrike Wiethaus, "Religious Experience of Women," in Medieval France: An Encylopedia. Ed. William W. Kibler and Grover A. Zinn (New York: Garland, 1995).