Description
Book SynopsisA selection of documents, translated primarily from medieval Latin but occasionally from Old French, that shows how religious women and their patrons managed resources to make monastic communities - particularly a variety of Cistercian communities - work. The records help us reconstruct how nuns and abbesses of Cistercian communities in the thirteenth century organized and kept records, managed their properties, responded to attempts at usurpation, and balanced their lives between devotional practices, which were part of their cloistered world, and family and social responsibilities beyond the convent walls.
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction Part I: Charters for Houses Clearly Those of Cistercian Nuns Foundation Charters Reconstructing the Origins of Rifreddo The Urban Scene: Cistercian Nuns at Saint-Antoine-des-Champs near Paris A Foundation in Fulfillment of a Crusader Vow: Port-Royal Queen Blanche of Castille, and Her Cousin, Isabelle of Chartres
Part II: More Problematic Examples Coyroux/Obazine: Double-House or Family Monastery? Le Tart and Jully
Part III: Statistical Sources Part IV: Narrative and Normative Sources Glossary Further Suggestions for Reading
