Early Tests of Radegund’s Strategies

Chapter 2 examines the first tests of Radegund’s two strategies for protecting Sainte-Croix through three examples. First, it traces Radegund’s pursuit and installation of a prestigious relic at Sainte-Croix, over the hostile objections of her local bishop, through the support of kings, emperors, and more prominent bishops. Second, the chapter recalls the absence of this hostile bishop from Radegund’s funeral and how the Sainte-Croix’s Abbess Agnes calls on Gregory of Tours for assistance. And third, it examines the struggles of Leubovera, first abbess after the death of Sainte-Croix’s “founding generation,” as she dealt with an extensive rebellion within Sainte-Croix. All three of these women succeed over their local officials or rivals through the support of Frankish kings and bishops, whose alliances Radegund had established and subsequent leaders in the monastery cultivated.

Processions and Privileges

In the fifteenth century the abbess fought to maintain her superiority over the canons of Sainte-Radegonde when citizens were crafting a new identity for Poitiers. The flashpoints for this contest were the town’s public processions during Rogation Days and the nuns’ demand to have control over Sainte-Radegonde. While the canons drew upon rhetorical strategies that denied female competence, the abbess drew on theories championing women’s political abilities and demanded the canons serve in public displays according to her strict requirements. The king and his seneschal supported the nun’s position, suggesting that office trumped gender, and the female sex of the abbess did not diminish her claims to hold authority. Chapter 6 emphasizes the importance of material objects such as Radegund’s relics, the relic of the True Cross, and banners recalling her sanctity in the public performance of civic and ecclesiastical identity during town processions.

The Miracles and Decoration of Sainte-Radegonde

Chapter 5 examines the efforts of the canons of Sainte-Radegonde to enhance their community’s status in the thirteenth century. The canons commissioned new manuscripts, building projects, and church decoration that challenged previous depictions of Saint Radegund controlled by the abbess of Sainte-Croix, and asserted stronger ties between the saint and the canons’ church. Decoration, including a program of stained-glass windows, created a new biography for the saint that shifted Radegund’s power from the monastery to the church; new miracle tales recording healings at Radegund’s tomb demonstrated the power housed within the church. The canons also drew in royal patrons by focusing on Radegund’s royal, rather than monastic, identity. The canons worked subtle challenges in text and image to oppose the nuns’ control of the saint’s cult. Their work resulted in greater patronage and prestige, which placed new pressures on the abbess of Sainte-Croix, and new difficulties in asserting her authority.

Disputing Privileges

Chapter 4 examines disputes between the abbess of Sainte-Croix, canons of Sainte-Radegonde, and the bishop of Poitiers over jurisdiction and privileges between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries. Poitiers’ spatial, administrative, and mental orientation had shifted to give greater power to the Count and bishop, enhance Sainte-Radegonde’s canons’ status, and place new pressures on the nuns. When the canons resisted the abbess’s claims, she appealed to the papacy to defend their privileges. The pope supported Sainte-Croix’s abbesses’ authority, despite the supposed misogyny of the eleventh- and twelfth-century reform, and encouraged the bishop to intervene on the abbesses’ behalf. Poitiers’ bishop was also a rival to the abbess, however, complicating his response. Chapter 4 demonstrates that the gendering of authority in the high Middle Ages was complicated for both men and women, and that Sainte-Croix’s abbesses constantly sought ways to muster support from allies who were eager to demonstrate power.

Establishing Authority in Poitiers

Chapter 1 examines the sixth-century foundation of female monastic authority in Poitiers and its model created through artifacts of Radegund’s life written by Gregory of Tours, Venantius Fortunatus, and Baudonivia. Radegund’s biographies articulated her sanctity and established Radegund’s two strategies for protecting her monastery: first, she relied on networks of allies, primarily bishops and kings, to support her; and second, she created a set of cultural ideas, symbols, and materials that later nuns used to attach new allies to the Abbey. Radegund left two holy objects that became key elements in the abbess’s efforts to assert her authority: the True Cross relic and her own physical relics. Radegund sought to free Sainte-Croix’s abbesses from their local bishop and connect them, instead, to the bishop of Tours, Frankish kings, the Byzantine emperor, and the papacy, believing that this would strengthen Sainte-Croix. Documents Radegund secured began an archive of privileges crucial to the authority of future abbesses.

Introduction

The Introduction sketches Superior Women’s argument that the abbesses of Sainte-Croix relied upon two complementary strategies in claiming and exercising their authority throughout the medieval period: relying first for support from a network of allies made up of male officials, and second on cultural artifacts related to the abbey’s founder Saint Radegund to engage new patrons and supporters. The chapter situates this argument in the existing scholarship on medieval women and gender and of medieval monasticism and hagiography, particularly examining existing narratives about monastic women and authority. The status of Sainte-Croix’s abbesses remained consistent across the millennium of this study, largely as a result of their consistent use of these two strategies.

Conclusion

This book has examined the consistent vitality of female abbatial authority within one unusual community over the course of a millennium. In 2005, as a graduate student, I had the privilege of spending time at the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians discussing this project with Jo Ann McNamara. When I mentioned that the abbey of Sainte-Croix did not fit the pattern she and Penelope Johnson had discussed, she said “of course not, it’s Sainte-Croix!” Since this abbey was wealthier, better supported, and better managed than most other abbeys, she declared it an exception, one whose inclusion in larger narratives could not shift our understanding of medieval monasticism. This conversation fits well with the current “beyond exceptionalism” discussion taking place in studies of aristocratic and powerful women; it also was one I thought about often as a student. While Sainte-Croix was unusually wealthy, well supported, and well managed, it was not so exceptional that other abbeys could not or did not follow its model. Sherri Franks Johnson observed that nuns were quite aware of other female communities and able to draw on them as models or partners....

Illuminating the Saint

Chapter 3 establishes the relationship between Radegund’s foundations after her death. The abbesses engaged in the local community especially with their dependent canons at the church of Sainte-Radegonde. The nuns of Sainte-Croix cultivated friendships with Frankish monarchs and created an illuminated manuscript of Radegund’s vitae that presented the saint and her community as powerful, relevant, and well-connected. These illuminations emphasized that the foundress had willingly embraced claustration, a choice that positively reflected upon the monastic life and power of the nuns living in her community. They stressed Radegund’s ability to work miracles, and located that miraculous power with Sainte-Croix. This presentation of Radegund’s identity trumpeted the glory of Sainte-Croix and the power of a female monastic. Visible on the abbey church’s altar to the canons of Sainte-Radegonde and visiting patrons, the illuminations presented a powerful image of female authority at a time when the position of Sainte-Croix’s abbesses was threatened.

Contested Elections and Reform

Chapter 7 investigates conflicts within Sainte-Croix around contentious abbatial elections. These conflicts demonstrate that Sainte-Croix’s advocates respected a properly elected abbess’s authority, and reveal that an abbess could be seriously challenged by accusations of immorality or mismanagement of resources, even if there was little merit to the charges. A running theme through these conflicts was a desire for reform, either from a minority of the abbey community or by the abbess herself, with these two often in tension. The last of these conflicts, in 1512, resulted in the removal of Sainte-Croix’s abbess by the king of France and the imposition of monastic reform on the abbey. The chapter investigates the king’s motivations for reforming the abbey, and his selection of Fontevraud as a reform model. Since the king of France had long been an ally of the monastery, this chapter especially investigates Francis’s change from that established pattern of support.