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Initiated in Burgundy in the early fifteenth century by Colette of Corbie (1381–1447), the Colettine reforms soon expanded to eastern Iberia, reaching Portugal by the end of the century. In this paper I show how the context in which the first Colettine convents were founded in Portugal – a time when Clarissan reform was struggling to take the first steps in this territory and Colette's endeavours were still a novelty – was reflected in the efforts developed by these communities and their patrons to promote a Colettine identity through the translation and use of a set of normative and para-normative texts, which would become the Colettines' textual support in Portugal. I also demonstrate that these efforts were accompanied by the promotion of Colette of Corbie's figure and sanctity through art. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of landscape has long been recognized within monastic studies, both as an economic and spiritual resource. This paper focuses on the surrounding landscape of a single monastic site, that is Kirkjubæjarklaustur on Síða (south Iceland), one of the two female monasteries established in Medieval Iceland. Through written sources, legends, and placenames, the aim of this paper is to reconstruct the biography of the landscape from before the founding of the monastery to after the Reformation. In particular, the paper considers how the perceived sacredness of the site of Kirkjubæjarklaustur may have been shaped by stories of Christian settlers prior to the monastic foundation and how the monastic memory informed the way in which the landscape was experienced after the Reformation and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The charism of care inspired the foundation of various medieval religious orders, the Order of St John of Jerusalem being the most renowned of these. This article uses a case study of a female Hospitaller convent in Bargota in the kingdom of Navarre, to examine to what extent the charism of hospitality influenced the Order's decision-making. By identifying the factors lying behind the foundation of the convent in the early fourteenth century and its dissolution a century later, it contributes to the discussion on the relevance of female Hospitaller monasticism in the Late Middle Ages and argues that the Order sustained the convent as long as the women's care-worthiness outweighed the burden of cura monialium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of what held functionally differentiated societies together was one of the key concerns that drove the nascent social sciences in the late nineteenth century. Whereas the term society did not imply personal attachment, the idea of community, by contrast, was thought to be rooted in belonging and togetherness, and hence in emotions. In the social world of medieval monasticism community and society were interwoven in myriad ways. Over time, the lines that connected them, both discursively and praxeologically, shifted in unison with changes to their ascribed meanings. My study is divided into three parts, in each of which practices of commemorating the dead are connected to issues of gender and kinship. In the first section, I will focus on the Revelations of Gertrud the Great, in order to draw attention to the eschatological and anthropological foundations of memorial practice. The second section will focus on anniversary endowments that are documented in monastic charters and seek to establish the extent to which they offered leeway to tailor commemoration. The third section will focus on the same question, but use a single necrology as a starting point. The chronological focus will rest primarily, but not solely, on the fourteenth century, which in many respects marks a turning point in the history of the ever-changing, always gendered relationship between the individual, community and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Observant reforms marked the religious landscape of late medieval Europe, changing the Church as a whole and initiating a wave of reforms and the foundation of convents in all the major religious orders. Recent studies devoted to the subject have revealed the pluralities of the movement in each territory and congregation and alerted scholars to the necessity of studies that go beyond the official accounts of reform produced by the Observants within a propagandistic agenda. Centring on the spread of Observance in the Dominican province of Portugal—for which the main reference remains early modern chronicles, based on the accounts of the reformers—this paper seeks to bring new insights to the dynamics and agents behind the spread of this reform among the Portuguese Dominicans, in particular the female branch of the order, in which proliferation was deeply connected with the reformative politics of the time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Responding to and building upon José Cabezón's groundbreaking work, Sexuality in Classical South Asian Buddhism (2017), this essay challenges a hermeneutic that capitulates to the androcentrism and misogyny of classical South Asian Buddhist views on female sexuality by suggesting avenues for 'reading against the grain' in search of alternative gynocentric views. In particular, it points to glimpses of a female sexuality that is relational, active, and creative in premodern South Asian Buddhist sources, especially vinaya. It also argues that a full and balanced treatment of sexual violence against women is an essential component of any comprehensive study of sexuality in classical South Asian Buddhism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have been studying images produced by nuns in the late Middle Ages, paying special attention to the illumination of devotional texts where the absence of models gave rise to non-canonical images, closely related to a visually centred piety. Among the manuscripts from the scriptorium of Aveiro, some liturgical books stand noticeably outside canonical models because of their illuminations, although they otherwise are in accord with normative precepts. Considering the rigour and standardisation to which liturgical manuscripts were subject, to analyse these images solely as a product of the nature of female piety seems simplistic. The role of the cura monialium in the community’s spiritual and temporal autonomy, especially where art is concerned, needs further analysis in order to understand the background to these images. Aveiro’s illuminations were informed by a complex visual culture where the nuns’ voice was intertwined with the cura monialium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1221 and 1236, Jordan of Saxony, the general master of the Order of Friars Preachers, and Diana Andaló, nun of the monastery of St. Agnes in Bologna, were frequent correspondents. From the exchange of epistles that characterized their friendship, only a few dozen letters written by the friar reached us. In them we can see the growth of the Order in those early years of its institution, its gradual organization as well as the policy of the master in relation to women's religious life, among allusions to the details of everyday life of a religious in the thirteenth century. It is in this documentary corpus that we support ourselves to comprehend the power relations which guided the process of institutionalization of the newly created Order of Friars Preachers, specially the affiliation of women's houses, a subject on which the friars oscillated between resistance and acceptance, because of the material and administrative implications that such an association meant. We will focus, in the discursive analysis, in three cards - two sent to Diana, and one sent to the provincial of Lombardy, Stephen of Spain - to understand the issues involved in the formation of a women's branch of the Order. We can conclude that this specific discussion comprehended a much bigger cenary of internal disputes for the control of the Order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses aspects of medieval feminine religious life, comparing the Vita Sancti Frutuosi (VSF), written in Latin in the 7th Century, and the version of this text in archaic Portuguese, within the Flos Sanctorum (FS) of the UNB, in a single manuscript dating from the 14th Century. Our aim is, from the analysis of the sections that tell the relationship of Fructuoso with the nun Benedita, to identify and discuss the similarities and particularities between the narratives. Despite they present the same plot, the VSF aims to emphasize the superiority of Christianity and legitimize the monastic life, while the FS's version wins organizing character of the feminine religious life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the geopolitical manoeuvres of the comital House of Flanders, especially of Countess Clemence of Burgundy, to consolidate comital influence and power in the border region of western Flanders, specifically in the area of Bourbourg. By analysing and mapping the shifting patterns of interaction between alliances of both secular and ecclesiastical stakeholders in the charters issued for the abbey of Bourbourg, a female house, during the first decades of the twelfth century, it argues that the foundation and patronage of Bourbourg were engineered to create a symbolic and geo-strategic key site where the interests of the counts of Flanders and their local representatives, the abbot of Saint-Bertin, and members of the local elite converged, and alliances balanced each other. Moreover, through an anthropological approach in which the charters are also considered within the supra-institutional context of the reform movement, this study offers new insights into the dynamic role of Countess Clemence as a promoter and benefactor of Bourbourg Abbey, and also as a manager of her personal network of allies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The subject matter of this paper is a review of the key moments of the foundation and daily life at the female monastery within the church St. Archangel Michael in Berovo. The female monastic life in the monastery is an activity which has been taking place continuously for more than one and a half century. The religious services in this monastery besides the nuns from Berovo are attended by the nuns from the monastery of Veljusa. The monastery is open for visitors. They can also use the library of the monastery, which keeps the memory of enlightening work of Joakim Krchovski, the founder of the first cell school. Life in the monastery takes place following the hesychastic typikon (svetogorski), although it has an urban location and it is much visited. The monastery functions as an intensive hesychasm, hesychasterion. Inside the church, there is a small chapel dedicated to St. Gregory Palamas and Elder Joseph the Hesychast. Religious services and liturgies are held every day in the monastery. The monastery is headed by an abbess. The functioning of the monastery is organized by duties, which are called obediences. The specific characteristic of this monastery is the preparation of food products which are traditional for this region, as well as the creation of mosaics. Although MOC - OA is not recognized by the orthodox churches throughout the world, the nuns at this monastery have frequent communication with the nuns who are not from their immediate vicinity, but from Romania and Greece. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper problematizes certain topics related to female monasticism in the Serbian Orthodox Church. Since the mere phenomenon of female monasticism and the practice present in this region are very rich, we were inclined to focus on specific aspects of the monastic life: the identity of nuns and the relation towards marriage and family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cultural turn in Atlantic studies has opened new research ways placing gender and religion at the centre of the inquiries about the Atlantic World. Therefore, studies on Female Monasticism history on those territories have grown in popularity in the past few decades. Nevertheless, regarding art history, there is still a lack of studies on these foundations, and a methodological renewal is needed. I analyse the existant historiography on female monasticism in México and Perú and I argue the necessity of a study of art and architecture in relation to liturgy, within an Atlantic framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How have Buddhist nuns in Myanmar engaged themselves in monastic relationships while being officially excluded from the monastic institution (the Sangha) since the female order disappeared? This article examines the term "nuns" and monastic status through the way it is embodied in everyday interactions. I begin by presenting the main characteristics of the ambivalent status of Buddhist nuns and the methodological problem this raises--an analysis of donation interactions between nuns and lay donors indicates the different paths that lead to monastic identification. I then focus on the various relationships in which nuns are engaged in Myanmar, with a description of the combination of relationships between nuns, monks, and lay donors that highlights the monastic system as a network of dynamic relationships in which monastic social identity and its processes of legitimation can take place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the current history of ideas and intellectual itineraries, it is very rare to find studies on the circulation of religious ideas associated to social environments and power relations in early modernity. This paper analyzes the conflicts that prompted the intervention of the Holy Office of the Inquisition in the monastery of St. Placid in the early seventeenth century. The authors locate this analysis at the intersection of the new studies on the Catholic identity of the Habsburg monarchy, the inquisitional trials, the birth of a novel individualism, the contrasts between a refined theological culture --always on the lookout for any signs of deviation from orthodoxy-- and ancient religious beliefs, and lastly, the infernal and external rivalries of the conventual community. The research is based on the official correspondence (letters) between the accused, and between them and high-ranking figures, testimonies, and memorials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In medieval studies, the personal ownership and use of spiritual works by cloistered women as well as their participation in book production remain largely terra ignota. Apart from the lives and works of a few outstanding individuals who achieved recognition as saints and/or mystics, scholars know little about the devotional concerns and spiritual practices of ordinary medieval nuns. The current image of female spirituality thus relies primarily on the experiences of extraordinary women, while questions about what nuns read and how they prayed still remain. In order to address this issue, it is necessary to also ask: can authentic women’s voices and spiritual concerns be recovered without the distortion caused by the cura monialium? Three prayer books from the former Cistercian convent of Wienhausen in Lower Saxony illustrate the devotional concerns of ordinary nuns as well as provide evidence of female involvement in book production. Recounting the meditative prayer of the Dornenkron, these manuscripts reveal the nuns’ individual spiritual concerns through their variations in content and composition. Produced in the wake of a spiritual revival emerging from the convent’s initially un-wanted reform in 1469, these works indicate how the religious women of this community actively shaped their private devotions within the context of sweeping monastic reform. Detailed scrutiny of these prayer books, a careful reading between the lines, indicates that individual spiritual concerns and personal choices influenced the composition of each nun’s work. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]