Abbesses and Their Fighting Men

From the Carolingian Capitularies to the Libri Feudorum

  • Jürg Gassmann Independent Scholar
Keywords: Abbey, Abbess, Ecclesiastical Prince, Medieval Military, Carolingian, Ottonian, Libri Feudorum, Military, miles, Zurich

Abstract

The position of male ecclesiastical princes – bishops and abbots – as integral elements of Carolingian military organisation is well established. Less investigated is the corresponding role of female ecclesiastical princes, the abbesses. This article demonstrates that the function of abbesses was not materially different to that of their male colleagues-in-office, tracks the legal and political development into the High Middle Ages and considers some ramifications of our findings. In particular, we conclude that convents were politically powerful and integrated into the secular military organisation, but within the context of the secular polity played a power-neutralising and stabilising role.

References

Adalbert of Prague, ‘Vita S. Adalberti Episcopi’, in MGH – SS, Vol. 4, ed. by Georg Heinrich Pertz (Hanover: Hahn, 1841), 581-595
Capitularies I, MGH – Capit. Vol. 1, ed. by Alfred Boretius (Hanover: Hahn, 1883)
Capitularies II, MGH – Capit. Vol. 2, ed. by Alfred Boretius and Victor Krause (Hanover: Hahn, 1897)
Conrad II, in MGH – DD – Ko II (Die Urkunden der deutschen Könige und Kaiser) Vol. 4, ed. by Harry Bresslau (Hanover and Leipzig: Hahn, 1909)
Eangyth, in MGH – Epp Vol. 3, ed. Ernst Dümmler (Berlin: Weidmann, 1892)
Henry II, MGH – DD – H II (Die Urkunden der deutschen Könige und Kaiser) Vol. 3, ed. by Harry Bresslau (Hanover: Hahn, 1900-1903)
Henry IV, in MGH – DD – H IV I (Die Urkunden der deutschen Könige und Kaiser) Vol. 6.1, ed. by Dietrich von Gladiss and Alfred Gawlik (Berlin: Weidmann, 1941)
Hetti Archbishop of Treves, in MGH – Epp Vol. 5, ed. Ernst Dümmler (Berlin: Weidmann, 1899)
Hincmar of Reims, Collectio de ecclesiis et capellis, in MGH – Fontes Iuris, Vol. 14, ed. by Martina Stratmann (Hanover: Hahn, 1990)
Libri Feudorum, Das langobardische Lehnsrecht, ed. by Karl Lehmann (Göttingen: Dietrich, 1896)
Loup of Ferrières, Epistolae, in MGH – Epp, Vol. 6, ed. by Ernst Perels (Berlin: Weidmann, 1925)
Otto I, MGH – DD – O I (Die Urkunden der deutschen Könige und Kaiser) Vol. 1, ed. by Theodor Sickel (Hanover: Hahn 1879-1884)
Otto III, MGH – DD – O III (Die Urkunden der deutschen Könige und Kaiser) Vol. 2, ed. by Theodor Sickel (Hanover: Hahn, 1893)
Pippin, Pippini principis capitulare Suessionense, in MGH – LL Vol. 1, ed. Georg Pertz (Hanover: Hahn, 1835)
Wolfram von Eschenbach, Willehalm, ed. and trans. by Dieter Kartschoke, 3rd ed. (Berlin: DeGruyter, 2003)
Arnold, Benjamin, ‘German Bishops and their Military Retinues in the Medieval Empire,’ German History 7/2 (1989): 161-183
Auer, Leopold, ‘Der Kriegsdienst des Klerus unter den sächsischen Kaisern, Zweiter Teil: Verfassungsgeschichtliche Probleme,’ in Mitteilungen des Instituts für österreichische Geschichtsforschung 80 (1972): 48-70
Auer, Leopold, ‘Der Kriegsdienst des Klerus unter den sächsischen Kaisern, Erster Teil: Der Kreis der Teilnehmer,’ Mitteilungen des Instituts für österreichische Geschichtsforschung 79 (1971): 316-407
Bernhardt, John W., Itinerant Kingship and Royal Monasteries in Early Medieval Germany, c. 936-1075 (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1993)
Binard, Fanny, ‘Investigation on the collation of the first Fight book (Leeds, Royal Armouries, Ms. I.33),’ Acta Periodica Duellatorum 4.1 (2016): 3-21, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/apd-2016-0001
Brown, Elizabeth, ‘The Tyranny of a Construct: Feudalism and Historians of Medieval Europe,’ The American Historical Review 79.4 (1974): 1063-1088
Bourgeois, Gisèle, ‘Formation et structure d’un village médiéval en Rouergue: Saint-Jean-d’Alcas,’ Annales du Midi: revue archéologique, historique et philologique de la France méridionale 86/116 (1974): 1-20, DOI: https://doi.org/10.3406/anami.1974.4853
Bourgeois, Luc, ‘La fortification des abbayes et des collégiales aux IXe-Xe siècles: quelques pistes de recherche,’ in Revue belge de philologie et d’histoire 96/1 (2018): 193-207, DOI: https://doi.org/10.3406/rbph.2018.9165
Chantinne, Frédéric, ‘Fortification et fonctions militaires des abbayes et chapitres dans l’Entre-Sambre-et-Meuse aux IXe-XIe siècles,’ in Bulletin du centre d’études médiévales d’Auxerre, Hors-série 12 (2020), DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/cem.17412
Chantinne, Frédéric, ‘Quelques questions sur la place des laïcs dans la clôture de l’abbaye de Nivelles (VIIe-XIe siècle),’ in Bulletin du centre d’études médiévales d’Auxerre, Hors-série
8 (2015), DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/cem.13612
Cinato, Franck, ‘Development, Diffusion and Reception of the “Buckler Play”: A Case Study of a Fighting Art in the Making,’ in Late Medieval and Early Modern Fight Books, ed. by Daniel Jaquet, Karin Verelst, Timothy Dawson (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 481-546
Duggan, Lawrence G., ‘The Evolution of Latin Canon Law on the Clergy and Armsbearing to the Thirteenth Century,’ in Between Sword and Prayer: Warfare and Medieval Clergy in Cultural Perspective, ed. by Radosław Kotecki, Jacek Maciejewski, John S. Ott (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 497-516
Gaillard, Michèle, ‘Les fondations d’abbayes féminines dans le nord et l’est de la Gaule, de la fin du VIe siècle à la fin du Xe siècle,’ Revue d’histoire de l’Église de France 76/196 (1990): 5-20, DOI: https://doi.org/10.3406/rhef.1990.3482
Gassmann, Jürg, ‘Combat Training for Horse and Rider in the Early Middle Ages,’ in Acta Periodica Duellatorum 6.1 (2018): 63-98, DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/apd-2018-0003
Gassmann, Jürg, ‘A Well Regulated Militia: Political and Military Organisation in Pre-Napoleonic Switzerland (1550-1799),’ in Acta Periodica Duellatorum 4.1 (2016): 23-52, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/apd-2016-0002
Goosmann, Erik, ‘Aristocratic Exploitation of Ecclesiastical Property in the Ninth Century: The Case of the villa Gendt,’ in Francia – Forschungen zur westeuropäischen Geschichte 45 (2018): 27-59, DOI: https://doi.org/10.11588/fr.2018.0.70108
Gräf, Julia, ‘Fighting in women’s clothes: The pictorial evidence of Walpurgis in Ms. I.33,’ in Acta Periodica Duellatorum 5.2 (2017): 47-71, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/apd-2017-0008
Hälg-Steffen, Franziska, ‘Manesse,’ in: Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz (HLS), version of 27 October 2009 < https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/de/articles/020296/2009-10-27/ >, consulted 8 December 2021
Henning, Joachim, ‘Early European Towns: The development of the economy in the Frankish realm between dynamism and deceleration AD 500-1100,’ in Millennium Studies: Post-Roman Towns, Trade and Settlement in Europe and Byzan¬tium, Vol. 1: The Heirs of the Roman West, ed. by Joachim Hen¬ning (Berlin/New York NY: de Gruyter, 2007), 3-40
Kaiser, Reinhold, ‘Vom Früh- zum Hochmittelalter,’ in Geschichte des Kantons Zürich, Vol. 1, ed. by Niklaus Flüeler and Marianne Flüeler-Grauwiler (Zurich: Werd, 1995), 130-171
Kind, Thomas, ‘Das karolingerzeitliche Kloster Fulda – ein “monasterium in solitu-dine”:
Seine Strukturen und Handwerksproduktion nach den seit 1898
gewonnenen archäologischen Daten,’ in Millennium Studies: Post-Roman Towns, Trade and Settlement in Europe and Byzan¬tium, Vol. 1: The Heirs of the Roman West, ed. by Joachim Hen¬ning (Berlin/New York NY: de Gruyter, 2007), 367-410
Lesne, Émile, ‘Les ordonnances monastiques de Louis le Pieux et la Notitia de servitio monasteriorum,’ in Revue d’histoire de l’Église de France, Part 1: Vol. 6/31 (1920): 161-175, DOI: https://doi.org/10.3406/rhef.1920.2144; Part 2: Vol. 6/32 (1920): 321-338, DOI: https://doi.org/10.3406/rhef.1920.2152; Part 3: Vol. 6/33 (1920): 449-493, DOI: https://doi.org/10.3406/rhef.1920.2160
Leyser, Karl, ‘Early Medieval Canon Law and the Beginnings of Knighthood,’ in In-stitutionen, Kultur und Gesellschaft im Mittelalter: Festschrift für Josef Fleckenstein, ed. by Lutz Fenske, Werner Rösener, Thomas Zotz (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1984), 549-566
Mériaux, Charles, ‘Comtes et abbayes dans le monde franc: quelques réflex¬ions limi-naires,’ Trajectoires, Hors série 2 (2017), DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/trajectoires.2224
Mordini, Maura, Il feudo ecclesiastico nella prima età dei glossatori (Milan: Giuffrè, 2013)
Mordini, Maura, “Aspetti della disciplina del feudo ecclesiastico nei secoli XII e XIII. Parte II. Graziano e l’apparato ordinario al Decretum,” Studi Senesi 123 (III serie, LX), fasc. 1 (2011): 52-157
Mordini, Maura, “Aspetti della disciplina del feudo ecclesiastico nei secoli XII e XIII. Parte I. La feudistica da Pillio da Medicina all’apparato ordinario,” Studi Senesi 122 (III serie, LIX), fasc. 2 (2010): 208-285
Müller, Annalena, ‘Le manuscrit ADA H 1508:
le Cartulaire de Notre-Dame de Soissons. Une étude codicologique contextualisée,’ Mémoires de la Fédération des Sociétés d’histoire de l’Aisne 65 (2020): 115-132
Nakashian, Craig M., Warrior Churchmen of Medieval England 1000-1250: Theory and Reality (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2016)
Nelson, Janet L., ‘Women and Word in the Earlier Middle Ages,’ Studies in Church History 27 (1990): 53-78
Ortenberg, Veronica, ‘Virgin Queens: Abbesses and Power in Early Anglo-Saxon England,’ in Belief and Culture in the Middle Ages: Studies presented to Henry Mayr-Harting, ed. by Richard Gameson and Henrietta Leyser (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001), 59-68
Planitz, Hans, ‘Die Scharmannen von Prüm,’ in Festschrift für Heinrich Lehmann zum 60. Geburtstag (Cologne: Rechtswissenschaftliche Fakultät, 1937), 55-70
Pöschl, Arnold, Bischofsgut und mensa episcopalis: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des kirchlichen Vermögensrechtes (Bonn: Peter Hanstein, 1908)
Prinz, Friedrich, Klerus und Krieg im früheren Mittelalter: Untersuchungen zur Rolle der Kirche beim Aufbau der Königsherrschaft, (Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann, 1971)
Renard, Étienne, ‘La politique militaire de Charlemagne et la paysannerie franque,’ in Francia – Forschungen zur westeuropäischen Geschichte 36 (2009): 1-34
Renard, Étienne, ‘Une élite paysanne en crise? Le poids des charges militaires pour le petits alleutiers entre Loire et Rhin au IXe siècle,’ in Les élites au haut Moyen Âge: crises et renouvellements, ed. by François Bougard, Laurent Feller, Régine Le Jan
(Turnhout: Brepols, 2006), 315-336
Renard, Étienne, ‘Les herescarii, guerriers ou paysans?’ in Archivum latinitatis medii aevi. Bulletin du Cange 57 (1999): 261-272
Reuter, Timothy, ‘Episcopi cum sua militia: The Prelate as Warrior in the Early Staufer Era,’ in Warriors and Churchmen: Essays presented to Karl Leyser, ed. by Timothy Reuter (London and Rio Grande OH: Hambledon, 1992), 79-94
Reynolds, Susan, Fiefs and Vassals (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994)
Sarti, Laury, ‘Der fränkische miles: Weder Soldat noch Ritter,’ Frühmittelalterliche Studien 52/1 (2018): 99-117, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/fmst-2018-006
Schwind, Fred, ‘Zu karolingerzeitlichen Klöstern als Wirtschaftsorganismen und Stätten handwerklicher Tätigkeit,’ in Institutionen, Kultur und Gesellschaft im Mittelalter: Festschrift für Josef Fleckenstein, ed. by Lutz Fenske, Werner Rösener, Thomas Zotz (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1984), 101-124
Siegrist, Jean Jacques, ‘Zur Frühzeit der Pfarrei Schöftland,’ Argovia 93 (1981): 5-98
Stafford, Pauline, ‘Powerful Women in the Early Middle Ages: queens and abbesses,’ in The Medieval World, ed. by Peter Linehan and Janet L. Nelson (Abingdon: Routledge, 2001), 398-415
Steinmann, Judith, ‘Fraumünster,’ in Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz (HLS), version of 9 November 2006 < https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/de/articles/011612/2006-11-09/ >, consulted 8 December 2021
Verbruggen, J. F., ‘Women in Medieval Armies,’ in Journal of Medieval Military History 4 (2006): 119-136 (= ‘Vrouwen in de middeleeuwse legers,’ in Revue Belge d’histoire militaire 24 (1982): 617–34, trans. by Kelly DeVries)
Verdon, Jean, ‘Recherches sur les monastères féminins dans la France du Sud aux IXe-XIe siècles,’ in Annales du Midi: revue archéologique, historique et philologique de la France méridionale 88/127 (1976): 117-138, DOI: https://doi.org/10.3406/anami.1976.1632
Werner, Karl Ferdinand, ‘Formation et carrière des jeunes aristocrates jusqu’au Xe siècle,’ in L’écriture de l’Histoire, ed. by Georges Duby (Brussels: De Boeck-Wesmael, 1996), 295-306
Werner, Karl Ferdinand, ‘Heeresorganisation und Kriegführung im deutschen Königreich des 10. und 11. Jahrhunderts,’ in Structures politiques du monde franc (VIe-XIIe siècles): études sur les origines de la France et de l’Allemagne (London : Variorum Reprints, 1979), 791-843
Published
2023-05-15
How to Cite
Gassmann, J. (2023). Abbesses and Their Fighting Men: From the Carolingian Capitularies to the Libri Feudorum. Acta Periodica Duellatorum, 10(1), 43–73. https://doi.org/10.36950/apd-2022-004
Section
Articles