2023/09/21 by Benjamin Pohl · 1 voice
Arts and Humanities · #Early Modern Women Writers #Medieval Literature and History #Reformation and Early Modern Christianity
paper · doi:10.1093/oso/9780198795377.003.0002
openalex publication_date 2023/09/21 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
Abstract This chapter provides a conceptual investigation of abbatial authorship in the Middle Ages. It commences with a review of the scholarly état présent (1.1) before examining the relationship between authorial composition and authority (1.2), historiography as a strategic means of abbatial self-fashioning (1.3), and the significance of female abbatial authorship (1.4), a subject too often glossed over in scholarship. The conclusions are summarized at the end of the chapter (1.5). Authorial composition was a significant facet of abbatial historiographical activity, and monastic superiors were amongst the most prolific authors of historical narratives across the medieval Latin West. Abbatial authors were set apart less by what they wrote than by their ability to imbue their works with a unique sense of authority that combined institutional auctoritas with lordly potestas. Contrary to some pessimistic assessments of historiographical production in communities of medieval religious women, the evidence presented here paints a picture of medieval abbesses as regular and instrumental authors of historical narratives.