Were There Twelfth-Century Cistercian Nuns?

1999 ◽  
Vol 68 (4) ◽  
pp. 824-864 ◽  
Author(s):  
Constance H. Berman
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Golden Age ◽  
Double Standard ◽  
Religious Orders ◽  
Religious Order ◽  
Gender Neutral ◽  
Cistercian Order ◽  
History Of

It has been a truism in the history of medieval religious orders that the Cistercians only admitted women late in the twelfth century and then under considerable outside pressure. This view has posited a twelfth-century “Golden Age” when it had been possible for the abbots of the order of Cîteaux to avoid contact with women totally. Only later did the floodgates burst open and a great wave of women wishing to be Cistercians flood over abbots powerless to resist it. This paper reassesses narrative accounts, juridical arguments, and charter evidence to show that such assertions of the absence of any twelfthcentury Cistercian nuns are incorrect. They are based on mistaken notions of how the early Cistercian Order developed, as well as on a biased reading of the evidence, including a double standard for proof of Cistercian status—made much higher for women's houses than for men's. If approached in a gender-neutral way, the evidence shows that abbeys of Cistercian women appeared as early as those for the order's men. Evidence from which it has been argued that nuns were only imitating the Cistercian Order's practices in the twelfth century in fact contains exactly the same language that when used to describe men's houses is deemed to show them to be Cistercian. Formal criteria for incorporation of women's houses in the thirteenth century are irrelevant to a twelfth-century situation in which only gradually did most communities of monks or nuns eventually identified as Cistercian come to be part of the newly developing religious order.

The Problem of the Cistercian nuns in the Twelfth and Early Thirteenth centuries

1978 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 227-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sally Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Female Sex ◽  
The Feminine ◽  
Cistercian Order ◽  
Religious Body

The early Cistercians were remarkable for their hostility to the feminine sex. ‘No religious body’ wrote Southern, was ‘more thoroughly masculine in its temper and discipline than the Cistercians, none that shunned female contact with greater determination or that raised more formidable barriers against the intrusion of women.’ The whole tenor of several of the early Cistercian statutes was that women were to be avoided at all costs. One decree enjoined the monks to sing like men and not imitate the high-pitched tinkling of women. Apart from these disparaging references to the female sex in general, an early statute explicitly stated that no Cistercian abbot or monk should bless a nun. In the thirteenth century this was interpreted as applying to the solemn consecration of nuns—a task which pertained to the bishop. It is stated that abbots did have the power to bless nuns at the end of their novitiate. But this later interpretation may well reflect later subtleties. It seems probable that the decree was originally intended to stop the Cistercians concerning themselves with nuns. The view that it was originally a straight-forward prohibition is strengthened by the fact that the same early decree went on to forbid the baptizing of infants. This decree, therefore, is crucial to any analysis of the position of nuns within the Cistercian order in the twelfth century. Dating it is difficult.

The Library at Monte Cassino

2020 ◽  
pp. 788-804
Author(s):  
Francis Newton
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Golden Age ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Constantine The African ◽  
History Of

This chapter surveys the history of the library at Monte Cassino from the earliest known manuscripts beginning with the time of St. Benedict in the sixth century, continuing through the better Carolingian period and the monastery’s Golden Age in the eleventh century under Abbots Desiderius and Oderisius, and ending in the thirteenth century. Illustrious teachers and writers, including Paul the Deacon, Alberic, Alfanus, Constantine the African, Amatus, and Peter the Deacon, are discussed, as is the abbey’s production of important classical and patristic texts.

The Liber Theoreumacie (1214) and the Early History of the Quadrans Vetus

2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-74
Author(s):  
C. Philipp E. Nothaft
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Critical Edition ◽  
Graphical Method ◽  
Early History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Practical Geometry

The Liber theoreumacie is a neglected work of practical geometry, written in Strasbourg in 1214, which sheds valuable light on the study and practice of astronomy in early thirteenth-century Europe. In this article, I focus on the first two chapters of Book IV, which both deal with the construction of horary instruments. The first of these chapters contains the earliest known account of the type of universal horary quadrant known as quadrans vetus, which is here given a biblical pedigree by labelling it the “sundial of Ahaz.” The second chapter describes a graphical method of inscribing hour markings on the surface of an astrolabe’s alidade, which appears to have been introduced into Latin Europe by the twelfth-century translator John of Seville. A critical edition and translation of the relevant passages will conclude the article.

On the History of the Jews in Twelfth- and Thirteenth-Century Poland

1997 ◽  
pp. 287-318
Author(s):  
Israel M. Ta-Shma
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Community ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Direct Descendant ◽  
Religious Learning ◽  
History Of ◽  
Hasidei Ashkenaz

This chapter traces the history of the Jews in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Poland. Jewish traders of Ashkenazi origin passed through Poland on their way to Russia on business as early as the first half of the eleventh century. The Jewish traders who passed through Poland in the twelfth century included scholars and other individuals versed in religious learning. By the last quarter of the twelfth century, there was a well-established Jewish community in Cracow, probably a direct descendant of the community whose existence was recorded some 150 years earlier. The chapter then considers a variety of Hebrew sources that reveal more about the existence of an admittedly sparse Jewish presence, including Jews well versed in Torah, in thirteenth-century Poland; about the continuous existence of this presence throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; and, above all, about its Ashkenazi origins and its special, ongoing contacts with the circles of ḥasidei Ashkenaz in Germany. The extent of the links between Russia–Poland and Ashkenaz, particularly eastern Ashkenaz, was much greater than believed up to the present. Moreover, these links were essentially persistent and permanent, rather than a series of random occurrences.

The Theory of Natural Consequence

Vivarium ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 56 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 340-366
Author(s):  
Christopher J. Martin
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Natural Consequence ◽  
History Of ◽  
Connexive Logic ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Special Case

Abstract The history of thinking about consequences in the Middle Ages divides into three periods. During the first of these, from the eleventh to the middle of the twelfth century, and the second, from then until the beginning of the fourteenth century, the notion of natural consequence played a crucial role in logic, metaphysics, and theology. The first part of this paper traces the development of the theory of natural consequence in Abaelard’s work as the conditional of a connexive logic with an equivalent connexive disjunction and the crisis precipitated by the discovery of inconsistency in this system. The second part considers the accounts of natural consequence given in the thirteenth century as a special case of the standard modal definition of consequence, one for which the principle ex impossibili quidlibet does not hold, in logics in which disjunction is understood extensionally.

The Assise Sur La Ligece and the Commune of Acre

Traditio ◽  
1971 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 179-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Riley-Smith
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Constitutional History ◽  
Practical Application ◽  
Middle Years ◽  
Long Period ◽  
Great Achievement ◽  
Final Failure ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Government

No law of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and few incidents in its constitutional history have received so much attention from recent historians as the Assise sur la ligece and the establishment of the Commune of Acre. But perhaps for the reason that a great achievement of the last few years has been the delineation of the twelfth-century monarchy, the later history of the Assise and its practical application in a series of disputes between the government and the baronage have not received much attention. The sources for the Assise all date from the middle years of the thirteenth century, by which time the Palestinian jurists' interpretation of it was at the end of a long period of development; and there is something to be said for trying to trace its history from that moment towards the end of the twelfth century when it became the basis for baronial resistance to the crown. In this paper, therefore, I will study the law's development from the reign of Aimery (1198-1205). I will argue that it was in the course of a dispute between that king and Ralph of Tiberias that the Assise was interpreted in such a way as to justify open opposition to arbitrary acts by the king; that this interpretation was used with most success early in 1229, during the Crusade of the Emperor Frederick II; but that, as far as the Kingdom of Jerusalem was concerned, the creation of the Commune of Acre in 1231-2 coincided with its final failure, and events at that time revealed inherent weaknesses in its use as an instrument of resistance. It follows that the detailed treatment of the law by Philip of Novara and John of Jaffa some decades later is a further demonstration of their fascinating but essentially unrealistic vision.

Enseignantes et cloîtrées: Les ursulines de la congrégation de Bordeaux en Bretagne au XVIIe siècle. A la recherche d’un modèle conventuel

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-115
Author(s):  
Chantal Aravaca
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Spatial Organization ◽  
Special Care ◽  
Council Of Trent ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Religious Orders ◽  
Religious Order ◽  
Young Girls ◽  
History Of ◽  
Xviie Siecle

Abstract On 3 December 1563, the fathers of the Council of Trent made provision for the enclosure of nuns: “the Holy Council command all bishops they made it their special care that in all monasteries subjected to their authority the enclosure of nuns be restored wherever it has been violated and that it be preserved wherever it has not been violated”. In 1566, the constitution Circa pastoralis completed that reform and obliged every religious order of women to the enclosure. The communities of nurses or teachers had to make a choice between enclosure or apostolate. Nevertheless, the ursulines successfully adapted their way of life, and continued to teach young girls. Some religious orders drew up plans in order to manage the observance of the rule and the enclosure thanks to an appropriate spatial organization. The ursulines of the Congregation of Bordeaux did not produce such a document, but the architecture of their convents in Brittany reveals that the communities transmitted the plans to each other. This detailed analysis of plans and facades of their convents in Brittany prepares the ground for the history of the architectural practices of a female order that is still little known in France.

The Limited Impact of the Usatges de Barcelona in Twelfth-Century Catalonia

Traditio ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
pp. 53-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam J. Kosto
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Important Place ◽  
Legal Traditions ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
Judicial Proceedings ◽  
Local Law ◽  
Formed Part

The twelfth-century legal compilation known as the Usatges de Barcelona holds an important place in the history of Catalonia. Recognized as authoritative by kings and parliaments alike from at least the thirteenth century, the Usatges were integrated into the official collection of Catalan law commissioned by the Corts and the new king of Aragón, Fernando de Antequera, in 1412–13. The work of the jurists who carried out this task was eventually fixed in print (in Catalan) in 1495 as the Constitutions y altres drets de Cathalunya, which was reissued in 1588–89 and again in 1704. The Usatges thus formed part of the law of the region for over 500 years, until the suppression of Catalan local law in the Decreto de Nueva Planta of 1716; thereafter, they survived — and still survive — as a focus of Catalan nationalism and regional pride. For medieval historians, the Usatges usefully supplement Catalonia's abundant documentary evidence, evidence unaccompanied before the thirteenth century by significant narrative sources. Individual articles cover such diverse topics as composition payments for injuries, guidelines for judicial proceedings, inheritance rules, military obligation, the status of Jews and Muslims, marriage, rape, treason, and public highways. Drawn from and influenced by a wide variety of sources — including the Visigothic code, Roman law, comital charters, and royal decrees — they provide valuable information about legal traditions and reasoning in Catalonia.

scholarly journals Irish clergy in late medieval England

2000 ◽  
Vol 32 (126) ◽  
pp. 145-160
Author(s):  
Virginia Davis
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Medieval England ◽  
Religious Order ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Geographic Origins ◽  
History Of ◽  
Place Of Origin ◽  
Late Medieval England

This article examines a hitherto unexplored source for the history of the Irish clergy in England — English episcopal ordination lists — to see what they can reveal about Irish clergy in medieval England: their geographic origins, their numbers and, less tangibly, their motivation both for coming to England and for remaining there.Episcopal ordination lists survive, with gaps, for most English dioceses from the later thirteenth century onwards and are the formal records of the diocesan ordination ceremonies held quarterly by bishops or their suffragans, at which men wishing to be ordained to the priesthood were ordained successively to the orders of acolyte, subdeacon, deacon and priest. The ordination lists can add substantially to our knowledge of the vast mass of the medieval clergy, especially the unbeneficed, who frequently remain almost hidden from the historian. Episcopal ordination lists detail information such as the date and place of ordination, the ordinand’s diocese of origin, and occasionally a more precise place of origin and educational qualifications. If the candidate for ordination belonged to a religious order, usually this order and the actual house to which he was attached are listed. Thus these lists can provide a substantial corpus of information, particularly since every member of the clergy ought to be included in the ordination lists as they climbed the ranks of the clerical hierarchy; the same information should be available for everybody, whether they later became an archbishop or found themselves scratching out a living as an underpaid vicar or an unbeneficed mass priest. Over the last few years the computerisation of this material has produced a database of English medieval clergy drawn from the contents of surviving English episcopal ordination lists.

The Conquest in Historical Writing from the Late Thirteenth Century

2020 ◽  
pp. 173-208
Author(s):  
George Garnett
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Old English ◽  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Historical Writing ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of

Chapter 5 analyses three genres of historical writing about England in the later middle ages: histories of individual churches, universal histories, and histories of the kingdom. It confirms the provisional judgement reached in Chapter 4: that with respect to the Conquest and earlier England, historical writing fossilized. There were, however, exceptions, most of which could be categorized in the first genre. These are examined in great detail, and follow on from the treatment of the unusual episodes recorded during the thirteenth century at St Augustine’s, Canterbury and Burton Abbey which were considered in Chapter 4. The first is the problematic, neglected Historia Croylandensis attributed to (Pseudo-)Ingulf, which is for the most part a fabrication of the fourteenth or fifteenth century, but which masquerades as the work of the abbot at Crowland at the end of the eleventh century, and therefore as contemporaneous with the great post-Conquest histories of England. The second is the early fourteenth-century Lichfield Chronicle, written by Alan of Ashbourn. The third is a general history of England conventionally attributed to John Brompton, abbot of Jervaulx in the early fifteenth century, and perhaps written at the abbey. All three pay a great deal of attention to (different) twelfth-century compilations of Old English and immediately post-Conquest law. This unusual characteristic accounts for their exceptional interest in the Conquest. The chapter also includes a briefer discussion of the more conventional histories into which condensed earlier discussions of the Conquest were inserted.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document