Dark Age Nunneries: The Ambiguous Identity of Female Monasticism, 800–1050

326 Pages·2018·9.832 MB·English

by  Steven Vanderputten

DARK AGE NUNNERIES

DARK AGE
NUNNERIES
THE AMBIGUOUS IDENTITY
OF FEMALE MONASTICISM, 800–1050
Steven Vanderputten
CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS
Ithaca and London
Copyright © 2018 by Cornell University
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this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any
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First published 2018 by Cornell University Press
Printed in the United States of Amer i ca
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Vanderputten, Steven, author.
Title: Dark age nunneries : the ambiguous identity of
female monasticism, 800–1050 / Steven Vanderputten.
Description: Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2018. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017038573 (print) | LCCN 2017039896
(ebook) | ISBN 9781501715969 (epub/mobi) |
ISBN 9781501715976 (pdf) | ISBN 9781501715945 |
ISBN 9781501715945 (cloth :alk. paper) |
ISBN 9781501715952 (pbk. :alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Monastic and religious life of
women— Europe— History— Middle Ages, 600–1500. |
Monasticism and religious orders for women—
Europe— History— Middle Ages, 600–1500. |
Convents— Europe— History— To 1500. | Europe—
Church history— Middle Ages, 600–1500.
Classification: LCC BX4220.E85 (ebook) | LCC BX4220.
E85 V36 2018 (print) | DDC 271/.90009021— dc23
LC rec ord available at https:// lccn . loc . gov / 2017038573
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Detail from an illustration of Cesarius of Arles offering
his Rule to the religious of Niederminster in Regensburg,
c. 990-1020. Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Ms. Lit. 142, f. 65r.
© Staatsbibliothek Bamberg.
Contents
List of Illustrations vii
Preface and Acknowl edgments ix
Abbreviations xiii
Introduction 1
1. Setting the Bound aries for Legitimate
Experimentation 11
2. Holy Vessels, Brides of Christ:
Ambiguous Ninth- Century Realities 37
3. Transitions, Continuities, and the
Strug gle for Monastic Lordship 65
4. Reforms, Semi- Reforms, and the
Silencing of Women Religious in
the Tenth Century 88
5. New Beginnings 111
6. Monastic Ambiguities in the
New Millennium 135
Conclusion 155
Appendix A: The Leadership and Members of Female
Religious Communities in Lotharingia, 816–1059 159
Appendix B: The Decrees on Women Religious from the
Acts of the Synod of Chalon- sur- Saône, 813, and the
Council of Mainz, 847 167
Appendix C: Jacques de Guise’s Account of the
Attempted Reform of Nivelles and Other Female
Institutions in the Early Ninth Century 172
vi Contents
Appendix D: The Compilation on the Roll of
Maubeuge, c. Early Eleventh Century 176
Appendix E: Letter by Abbess Thiathildis of Remiremont
to Emperor Louis the Pious, c. 820s–840 183
Appendix F: John of Gorze’s Encounter with Geisa,
c. 920s–930s 185
Appendix G: Extract on Women Religious from the
Protocol of the Synod of Rome (1059) 189
Appendix H: The Eviction of the Religious of Pfalzel as
Recounted in the Gesta Treverorum, 1016 192
Appendix I: The Life of Ansoaldis, Abbess of Maubeuge
(d. 1050) 195
Appendix J: Letter by Pope Paschalis II to Abbess Ogiva
of Messines (1107) 198
Notes 201
Bibliography 255
Index 301
Illustrations
Figures
1. Tombstone of Abbess Ruothildis of Pfalzel 2
2. Cesarius of Arles offers his Rule to the religious of
Niedermünster 31
3. First page of the Indicularius Thiathildis 42
4. Hamage before and after the reconversion in the
ninth century 48–49
5. The Codex Eyckensis I 55
6. Small reliquary from the trea sury of Aldeneik 80
7. Bishop Gozelin’s foundation charter for Bouxières 97
8. Church of Saint- Pierre- aux- Nonnains 107
9. Tower of the abbatial church at Epinal 123
10. Extract from the Roll of Maubeuge 141
11. Eleventh- century coins of Munsterbilzen 149
Maps
1. Female religious communities in Lotharingia, c. 870 60
2. Female religious communities in Lotharingia, c. 960 101
3. Female religious communities in Lotharingia, c. 1050 113
vii

Preface and
Acknowl edgments
Historians today widely reject “dark age” as an
accurate term for describing the early Middle Ages and the way in which its
society and culture impacted on people’s lives and attitudes. Almost on a weekly
basis, they can be seen deploring its injudicious use in pol iti cal discourse, the
media, and everyday language, providing in the proc ess ample evidence to argue
its origins as a modern ideological construct. Partly as a result of the scholarly
efforts to demonstrate the fallacy of this construct, over the past few de cades
the story of the centuries between c. 500 and the so- called Re nais sance of the
1100s has emerged as a profoundly complex one, where nuanced arguments
have substituted for the sweeping statements of yore.
An exception to this rule may be found in accounts of the years be-
tween c. 800 and 1050, a phase in the history of women religious that many
scholars still tend to think of as a “dark age.” Dark, in the sense that the reali-
ties of life in and around the cloister are difficult to access: the primary evi-
dence from many communities is fragmented; the social, economic, intellectual,
and religious context ill-u nderstood; and research findings are scattered
across a multitude of case studies. But dark also in the sense that, according to
the dominant academic narrative, female monasticism in many places suffered
from the physical and social isolation of its members, the progressive transfer
of its institutions into the hands of the laity, and the precipitous decline—
brought about by the former two f actors—of women’s intellectual life and
spirituality.
With this study I hope to tell a more nuanced story, where the testimony of
the primary evidence takes prec ed ence over established scholarly accounts. It is
a story, moreover, that dismantles the view of w omen religious in this period as
the disempowered, at times even disinterested, witnesses to their own lives. As a
running thread throughout the discussion, I highlight their attempts (and those
of the clerics and the laymen and laywomen sympathetic to their cause) to
construct localized narratives of self, nurture mutually beneficial relations with
their social environment, and remain involved in shaping the attitudes and
ix