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IMC 2018: Sessions

Session 512: Female Abbatial Authority, I

Tuesday 3 July 2018, 09.00-10.30

Sponsor:Haskins Society / John Rylands Research Institute, University of Manchester
Organiser:Laura Gathagan, Department of History, State University of New York, Cortland
Moderator/Chair:Charles Insley, Department of History, University of Manchester
Paper 512-aChronicle of a Death Foretold: Hildegard of Bingen's Memory and Communal Identity at Rupertsberg
(Language: English)
Andra-Nicoleta Alexiu, Historisches Seminar, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster
Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Gender Studies, Monasticism
Paper 512-bAbbess Tiburga and the Rebranding of the Convent of St Catherine, Avignon
(Language: English)
Christine Axen, Center for Medieval Studies, Fordham University, New York
Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Economics - Urban, Gender Studies, Monasticism
Paper 512-cFrom Cash to Capons: How the Abbesses Established a Monastic Income at Saint-Amand, Rouen
(Language: English)
Charlotte Cartwright, Department of History, Christopher Newport University, Virginia
Index terms: Charters and Diplomatics, Economics - Urban, Gender Studies, Monasticism
Abstract

While abbatial authority has recently experienced something of a resurgence of interest in the historical community, female abbatial lordship remains largely unexamined. This session attempts to redress that imbalance, and is specifically concerned with the strategies abbesses used through memory to create community, fashion identity, and guard the resources and prestige of their communities. Themes of the panel include the role of abbesses in creating monastic memory, gender, and authority in the monastic world, abbatial monastic land management and jurisdiction, monastic documentary artifacts as material culture, production and dissemination of women's monastic writing, and female abbatial politics.