Female monasticism in Italy in the Early Middle Ages: new questions, new debates
From Firenze University Press Journal: Reti Medievali
Veronica West-Harling, University of Oxford
This collection of essays has, at its heart, the papers of a one day-conference held at Ca’ Foscari on 4 May 2017, entitled Family, Power, Memory: fe-male monasticism in Italy from 700 to 1100. The volume has been augmented and restructured to create a coherent study of greater scope and organic unity for publication as a monographic section. At the beginning of this project, the bibliography available was somewhat limited in its attention to the topic.
The study of monasteries in the early Middle Ages between the 17th and the early-20th centuries has been centred on their spiritual function; then on the role of new monastic orders from the Cistercians in the 12th century and the Mendicants in the later Middle Ages; and in recent years on monastic origins in Late Antiquity or its formidable role in the construction of Carolingian Europe in the 8th and 9th centuries. Most of these studies have, of course, been mostly interested in male monasticism. In the last thirty years or so, studies of female monasticism have begun to appear, specifically of Anglo-Saxon, Frankish Merovingian and German Ottonian nuns. In Italy too, although an increasing amount of work had been carried out recently, studies until lately limited themselves to one religious house, and to a single regional framework, to discuss the role and evolution of one monastery. Nuns were, of course, mentioned in general works on Italian monasticism, or on Italian women, especially in relation to queens. Until very recently, however, with the partial exception of one article by Alessandra Veronese, there had been relatively little attempt at putting together such individual knowledge to create a picture of even regions of the peninsula, let alone all of it — for, in particular, it is very rare for studies to look at the South of Italy together with the North.
Moreover, studies tended to be largely narrative, or occasionally analytical on specific topics, such as the economic possessions of religious houses (Sant’Andrea Maggiore in Ravenna), the individual families of the nuns and abbesses (San Zaccaria in Venice, Santa Sofia of Benevento), female monasteries in specific areas and cities, or the queens and their founding and patronage of nunneries (Queen Ansa for San Salvatore, Queen Angilberga for San Sisto of Piacenza). In the last few years, there has been a considerable expansion and important work on female monasticism in a comparative context, in terms of political and social, as well as from an anthropological perspective. This has been general in the historiography, in the work of Giulia Barone, Anne-Marie Helvétius and most recently Steven Vanderputten. It has also been especially well represented in relation to female monasticism in Italy. Key papers are those by Cristina La Rocca, Tiziana Lazzari, Anna Rapetti, Eleonora Destefanis, who have led the way into the areas of work of which this study is a part.Italian nunneries during this period fell into several geographical groupings, with multiple houses in the core Lombard royal area of Pavia, Piacenza and Brescia, four in Venice, over five in Rome, several in Naples, a group of small nunneries in Lombard southern Italy, and various others in Emilia-Romagna, for example in Verona, and Liguria. Studying them together in a comparative way allows one to see whether they function differently across centuries and across the extent of Italy.
The houses mentioned were, broadly speaking, the most significant in terms of size, wealth and power, and consequently often of documentation, many being foundations by the ruling families in the areas in which they found themselves, whether ducal or royal and, uniquely for Rome, San Ciriaco in Via Lata by the women of Prince Alberic’s family. We travel geographically, throughout the volume, from one city to another across seven urban centres. These are, from North to South, Brescia, Verona, Venice, Ravenna, Rome, Naples and Benevento. More significant than the geography itself are the political and cultural traditions in place in those cities: Lombard then Carolingian for Brescia and Verona, and technically also for Benevento in the South, Byzantine and post-Byzantine in Ravenna and Venice, as well as Naples, and Rome itself, with its rather complex individual case, technically post-Byzantine too, but adapted in various ways by popes, Carolingian emperors, then aristocratic reformers.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.6092/1593-2214/6122
Read Full Text: http://www.rmojs.unina.it/index.php/rm/article/view/6122
