Beyond Boundaries: Testing the Borders of Monastic Reform in the Twelfth Century Holy Roman Empire
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2533-2325/19091Keywords:
Gender Studies, Monasticism, Mysticism, Reform, Religious LifeAbstract
In the unstable and politically charged atmosphere in the Holy Roman Empire during the twelfth century, there were multiple systemic changes that derived from secular and clerical institutions, which targeted the scope of authority and daily behavior of individuals who had taken monastic vows. This article questions the narrative that these systemic changes were boundaries that females were made to capitulate to overcome or subvert. By using Elisabeth and Eckbert of Schönau’s involvement in verifying the sanctity of the remains of male individuals discovered amongst St. Ursula’s entourage of 11,000 virgin martyrs in Cologne as a case study, I examine how these changes provided religious, male and female, with new opportunities to create opportunities to cultivate and voice their individual interests. In doing so, I hope to demonstrate how targeted case studies of individuals who are navigating the prescribed borders of their sociopolitical context can captivate the attention of nascent historians and inspire seasoned scholars.
References
Alexiu, Andra. “Magistra Magistrorum: Hildegard of Bingen as a Polemicist against False Teaching.” Medieval Worlds, no. Volume 7. 2018 (2018): 170–89.
Andenna, Cristina. “Female Religious Life in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries.” In The Cambridge History of Medieval Monasticism in the Latin West, edited by Alison I. Beach and Isabelle Cochelin, 1st ed., 1039–56. Cambridge University Press, 2020.
Beach, Alison I. The Trauma of Monastic Reform: Community and Conflict in Twelfth-Century Germany. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017.
Beach, Alison I., and Andra Juganaru. “The Double Monastery as a Historiographical Problem (Fourth to Twelfth Century).” In The Cambridge History of Medieval Monasticism in the Latin West, edited by Alison I. Beach and Isabelle Cochelin, 1st ed., 561–78. Cambridge University Press, 2020.
Brunn, Uwe. Des Contestataires aux 'Cathares:’ discours de réforme et propagande antihérétique dans le pays du Rhin et de la Meuse avant l’Inquisition. Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 2006.
Cartwright, Jane. “Introduction.” In The Cult of St Ursula and the 11,000 Virgins, edited by Jane Cartwright, 19–28. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2016.
Carty, Carolyn M. The Political Message of the Shrine of St. Heribert of Cologne: Church and Empire after the Investiture Contest. Leeds: Arc Humanities Press, 2022.
Clark, Anne L. Elisabeth of Schönau: A Twelfth-Century Visionary. Middle Ages Series. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992.
Coakley, John Wayland. Women, Men, and Spiritual Power: Female Saints and Their Male Collaborators. Gender, Theory, and Religion. New York, NY: Columbia Univ. Press, 2006.
Deane, Jennifer Kolpacoff, and Anne Elisabeth Lester, eds. Between Orders and Heresy: Rethinking Medieval Religious Movements. Toronto Buffalo London: University of Toronto Press, 2022.
Duvernoy, Jean. La Religion des Cathares: Les Catharisme. Toulouse: Bibliothèque historique Privat, 1986.
Embach, Michael. “Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179): A History of Reception.” In A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen, edited by Debra Stoudt, George Ferzoco, and Beverly Kienzle, 273–304. Brill, 2014.
Felten, Franz J. “St. Disibod and the History of the Disibodenberg up to the Beginning of the 12th Century.” In A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen, edited by Beverly Mayne Kienzle, Debra L. Stoudt, and George Ferzoco, 39–56. Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition, volume 45. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2014.
——— “What Do We Know About the Life of Jutta and Hildegard at Disibodenberg and Rupertsberg?” In A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen, edited by Beverly Mayne Kienzle, Debra L. Stoudt, and George Ferzoco, 15–38. Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition, volume 45. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2014.
Flynn, William. “Hildegard (1098-1179) and the Virgin Martyrs.” In The Cult of St. Ursula and the 11,000 Virgins, edited by Jane Cartwright, 105–29. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2016.
Freed, John B. Frederick Barbarossa: The Prince and The Myth. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016.
Geary, Patrick J. “The Magi and Milan.” In Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages, 243–56. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994.
Griffiths, Fiona J. “Monks and Nuns at Rupertsberg: Guibert of Gembloux and Hildegard of Bingen.” In Partners in Spirit, edited by Fiona J. Griffiths and Julie Hotchin, 24:145–69. Medieval Women: Texts and Contexts. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2014.
——— “Reform and the Cura Monialium at Hohenbourg.” In The Garden of Delights: Reform and Renaissance for Women in the Twelfth Century, 24–48. Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007.
——— “Siblings and the Sexes within the Medieval Religious Life.” Church History 77, no. 1 (March 2008): 26–53.
——— “Speaking to the Bridegroom: Women and the Power of Prayer.” In Nuns’ Priests’ Tales: Men and Salvation in Medieval Women’s Monastic Life. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018.
——— “The Cross and the Cura Monialium: Robert of Arbrissel, John the Evangelist, and the Pastoral Care of Women in the Age of Reform.” Speculum 83, no. 2 (April 2008): 303–30.
——— “The Mass in Monastic Practice: Nuns and Ordained Monks, c. 400–1200.” In The Cambridge History of Medieval Monasticism in the Latin West, edited by Alison I. Beach and Isabelle Cochelin, 1st ed., 729–46. Cambridge University Press, 2020.
——— “Women and Reform in the Central Middle Ages.” In The Oxford Handbook of Women and Gender in the Middle Ages, edited by Judith Bennett and Ruth Karras, 1:1–13. Oxford University Press, 2013.
Griffiths, Fiona J., and Julie Hotchin. “Women and Men in the Medieval Religious Landscape.” In Partners in Spirit, edited by Fiona J. Griffiths and Julie Hotchin, 24:1–45. Medieval Women: Texts and Contexts. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2014.
Harrison, Robert. “Eckbert of Schönau’s ‘Sermones Contra Katharos.’” Ohio State University, 1990.
Heinzer, Felix. “Unequal Twins: Visionary Attitude and Monastic Culture in Elisabeth of Schönau and Hildegard of Bingen.” In A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen, edited by Beverly Mayne Kienzle, Debra L. Stoudt, and George Ferzoco, 85–108. Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition, volume 45. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2014.
Hotchin, Julie, and Jirki Thibaut. “Debating Identities: Women and Monastic Reform in the Medieval West, c. 1000–1500.” In Women and Monastic Reform in the Medieval West, c.1000-1500: Debating Identities, Creating Communities, edited by Julie Hotchin and Jirki Thibaut, 1–23. Studies in the History of Medieval Religion 54. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2023.
Howe, John. Before the Gregorian Reform: The Latin Church at the Turn of the First Millennium. Ithaca; London: Cornell University Press, 2019.
Lauwers, Michel, and Matthew Mattingly. “Constructing Monastic Space in the Early and Central Medieval West (Fifth to Twelfth Century).” In The Cambridge History of Medieval Monasticism in the Latin West, edited by Alison I. Beach and Isabelle Cochelin, 317–39. Cambridge University Press, 2020.
Mews, Constant J. “Hildegard of Bingen and the Hirsau Reform in Germany 1080-1180.” In A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen, edited by Beverly Mayne Kienzle, Debra L. Stoudt, and George Ferzoco, 57–84. Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition, volume 45. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2014.
Militzer, Klaus. “The Church of St Ursula in Cologne: Inscriptions and Excavations.” In The Cult of St. Ursula and the 11,000 Virgins, edited by Jane Cartwright, 46–87. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2016.
Montgomery, Scott. “What’s in a Name? Navigating Nomenclature in the Cult of St. Ursula and the Eleven Thousand Virgins.” In The Cult of St Ursula and the 11,000 Virgins, 28–46. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2016.
Mooney, Catherine M. “Interdisciplinarity in Teaching Medieval Mysticism: The Case of Angela of Foligno.” Horizons 34, no. 1 (2007): 54–77.
Moore, R. I. The War on Heresy: Faith and Power in Medieval Europe. London: Profile Books, 2014.
Muschiol, Gisela, and Alison I. Beach. “Gender and Monastic Liturgy in the Latin West (High and Late Middle Ages).” In The Cambridge History of Medieval Monasticism in the Latin West, edited by Alison I. Beach and Isabelle Cochelin, 1st ed., 803–15. Cambridge University Press, 2020.
Newman, Barbara. Voice of Living Light: Hildegard of Bingen and Her World. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
Newman, Martha G. “Reformed Monasticism and the Narrative of Cistercian Beginnings.” Church History 90, no. 3 (September 2021): 537–56.
Rainini, M. G. “From Regensburg to Hirsau and Back: Paths in 11th-12th Century German Theology.” Archa Verbi 13 (2017): 9–29.
Ritchey, Sara Margaret. Holy Matter: Changing Perceptions of the Material World in Late Medieval Christianity. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2014.
Röckelein, Hedwig. “Monastic Landscapes.” In The Cambridge History of Medieval Monasticism in the Latin West, edited by Alison I. Beach and Isabelle Cochelin, 1st ed., 816–30. Cambridge University Press, 2020.
Vanderputten, Steven. “Monastic Reform from the Tenth to the Early Twelfth Century.” In The Cambridge History of Medieval Monasticism in the Latin West, edited by Alison I. Beach and Isabelle Cochelin, 1st ed., 599–617. Cambridge University Press, 2020.
Wittekind, Susanne. “Two Saintly Archbishops, Their Cult, and Their Romanesque Shines.” In Romanesque Saints, Shrines and Pilgrimage, edited by John McNeill and Richard Plant. New York, NY: Routledge, 2020.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2024 Rachel Ernst
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
