Convents are communities organized for women (nuns) to devote themselves to spiritual life. Throughout the Middle Ages, religious people withdrew from the temptations of the world, living alone or in monasteries, where they tried to attain salvation through prayer, penance, and in some cases, good works.
Although monasticism had existed before Christianity, it flourished during the Christian era. The first full-scale religious community for both men and women was founded in Egypt in the fourth century. Hermits, who withdrew to live alone, were especially common in the early Middle Ages and in the East. Friars, who went out into the world to preach, became more and more visible as the Middle Ages continued. Hospitals, also religious communities, had lay brothers and sisters who assisted with the care of the sick. Hermits and friars, along with monks and nuns, became the most enduring symbols of Christianity during the Middle Ages.
Nuns usually entered a certain religious order or monastery (the term was used to refer to religious communities of men or women) as teenagers and later took vows that bound them to the order. Sometimes babies or young children were given to monasteries to be raised; these children were called oblates. Often, oblates were disabled or simply lacked physical beauty, which made it difficult for them to survive in the outside world. Too many children in a family resulted in a tremendous burden, so “extra” children were sent to a monastery. It was often cheaper to purchase an entry to a monastery than to provide a dowry for a daughter.
Usually, however, a person would decide as a teenager to enter a monastery, a comparative oasis of calm and order in a violent world. Such communities lived by a “rule,” specific guidelines for behavior. The age of majority for girls professing monastic vows was fourteen. They took a triple vow: obedience, poverty, and chastity. They cut their hair in order to become less attached to earthly beauty. Women who had their hair shorn could not continue to live in the outside world without embarrassment—everyone would know they had violated their vows. Women forced to enter monasteries would have their hair cut immediately as a symbol to them—and to the outside world—that they now belonged in a monastery. There was no way to hide short hair nor escape the meaning of it.
There were fewer monasteries for women than for men, and female monasteries had fewer members than male monasteries. For example, in the thirteenth century, there were one hundred English female convents as opposed to six hundred male monasteries. Eighty to one hundred nuns was not uncommon for a house; there was a definite trend toward social exclusiveness. Convents were poorer than male monasteries because nuns had a limited role in Christianity. Male monasteries had larger endowments and received more money from the church.
Most nuns were the unmarried daughters of a noble family or one of many daughters in a family. Widows often entered convents after their husbands died. Byzantine convents especially brimmed with cast-off mistresses, inconvenient wives, and former empresses. Some married couples entered monastic life together, although they had to set aside their marriage vows and agree to be celibate. This rule was almost certainly broken on occasion. Some women left unhappy marriages to become nuns; this required their husbands’ consent. Sometimes unwanted wives were forced to join a monastery, although this did not mean their husbands were free to remarry.
Convents also provided a place for female intellectuals to live. The most scholarly women were usually nuns; this scholastic tradition was especially strong in Germany. Many German abbesses made their convents into centers of culture, learning, and piety. Abbesses were extremely powerful, particularly in Saxony in the tenth and eleventh centuries. The abbesses of Quedlinburg and Gandersheim were powerful enough to strike their own coins. Abbesses like these ruled convents that owned large tracts of land and had their own knights and their own law courts. Important abbesses highly influenced the surrounding community, and people would name their children after them.
Most nuns saw themselves as religious people first and as women second. Very religious women would follow ascetic practices, such as fasting, which may have induced hallucinations (therefore, “visions”). Women in monasteries were thought of as brides of Christ—the consecration ceremony stressed this—whereas male monastics were identified as emulating Christ himself.
It was not uncommon for women to enter a convent, then leave to marry, bear children, and return, depending on political expediency. Sometimes they were known to have affairs and bear illegitimate children.
Kings and queens established royal monasteries. These secular rulers influenced monastic policy; by the same token, abbesses became integral to the secular government. Because they were educated, nuns wrote letters, acted as advisors, and served as diplomats. Nobles also established private monasteries, often for their unmarried daughters, who would become abbesses. The founder would often enter the monastery as well, after turning over worldly affairs to her children.
Political prisoners and inconvenient claimants to the throne were sometimes confined to monasteries. Clerics who were criminals were forced to live in monasteries as prison sentences. Women also became nuns to answer a call or vocation, to escape criminal penalties through lifelong penance, or if no other livelihood were available.
The purposes of life in a convent were prayer, work, and study. People gave donations in order to have prayers said for them or for their loved ones. Burial in hallowed ground in a convent was much sought-after and could be purchased for the right price.
Abbesses and nuns founded almshouses to care for the poor and hospitals to care for the sick. Some medical training was given to nuns who were expected to take care of the other members of the community. Convents often accepted orphans, and nuns taught the girls in the outside community. Nuns also served as stewards of property and executors of wills and assisted with other legal affairs. They issued mortgages, lent money, and engaged in trade.
Abbesses—indeed, all members of a convent—had to enlist the support of the surrounding community, as they were defenseless in times of war. Their property was at risk, although physical harm to nuns occurred less often than to lay women. Nuns often played political roles, but if they found themselves on the losing side, their convent could be dissolved. They used their spiritual clout as a political tool.
A limited number of nuns could be admitted to an order, depending on the wealth of the monastery. If a nun brought her own wealth, she could be admitted. Often one nun had to die in order for another to be admitted. Although requiring an entry fee was condemned by the church as simony, and male monasteries stopped accepting such fees in the thirteenth century, women’s monasteries received little financial support from the church and continued to require them. Although nuns were supposed to be personally poor, the monastery had to be financially solvent in order to support its members. Early monasteries were self-sufficient, raising their own food and making their own clothes, but over time this became more difficult. Money was needed to pay for cloth and to purchase the services of laborers and other employees. Donations and entry fees were therefore important. Novices were accepted for their money, not for their suitability for religious life. Private property was “loaned” to nuns to ensure their survival. Papal exemptions were sometimes sought in order to hold inherited property. Nuns were more likely to have personal property than monks; their orders had fewer financial resources, and their families were likely to try to support them by giving them private incomes or control of what would have been their marriage dowries.
Gifts often came with strings. Donors could have the final say over who was elected abbess, for instance, or pressure the convent to accept certain novices.
A monastery was organized on hierarchical grounds. The abbess was the master of the monastery. She was usually much superior to the nuns over whom she presided. Abbesses were almost always members of the nobility. They often had their own separate houses and participated in the secular world. They were supposed to be elected by the nuns in a monastery, but were usually appointed by a secular ruler or the pope. In smaller convents, the prioress was the leader. A subprioress assisted her. A treasurer kept track of the convent’s funds. Obedientiaries, the officials who managed various aspects of community living, included the chantress, who organized church services; the sacrist, who was responsible for vestments, altar cloths, candles, and sacred utensils; the fratress, who was responsible for chairs, tables, linens, and dishes; the almoness, who was responsible for almsgiving; the chambress, who was responsible for making, cleaning, and repairing clothing and bed linens; the cellaress, who was responsible for food and for gardening/farming; the kitcheness, who was responsible for food preparation and was subordinate to the cellaress; the infirmaress, who was responsible for nursing the sick; and the novice mistress, who educated and oversaw novices. In small convents, one person could have multiple duties; in larger convents, the officials had assistants. Convents also hired a chaplain who lived outside the convent grounds; he was responsible for saying mass and hearing confessions.
It was the bishop’s responsibility to oversee monasteries and make sure they were run correctly. Documents show that some monastics were unwilling to follow the bishop’s instructions. There are records of nuns having children, sometimes more than one, taking in novices they could not afford, and otherwise bending, if not breaking, the rules of the order. Exemptions from Episcopal oversight, which some powerful abbesses eagerly sought, made the house directly responsible to the pope. These nuns often challenged the authority of male superiors although in general nuns accepted their place in a patriarchal society.
The church encouraged cloistering and enclosure because authorities believed women were extremely susceptible to temptation. Although strict cloister was the ideal, in reality nuns needed to maintain ties with their families and friends and to oversee worldly business. Thus, there were two kinds of cloister, active and passive. In active cloistering, nuns were not allowed to leave the convent. In passive cloistering, outsiders were not allowed in. Nuns were forbidden to attend weddings and baptisms because such events encouraged dancing, drinking, and other merriment. Nuns were not allowed to go on pilgrimages, since they could easily be led astray during such a trip; nonetheless, as Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales tells us, this rule was not strictly obeyed. The cloistering of nuns was considered more important than the cloistering of monks, although many monastic rules imposed cloistering on men, too.
Most nuns remained firmly attached to their families and visited them even if officially in cloister. Nuns needed to leave the cloister for their own interests as well as to see to the convent’s interests. Relying on male proxies often resulted in disaster. More than one convent that relied on proxies quickly found itself bankrupt. Nuns were criticized for leaving the cloister to attend to these needs, although the nuns and abbesses rarely saw anything wrong with it.
Often many relatives lived in the same convent. Convents were not just spiritual places, but institutions created and existing for the well-being of family members.
Often monasteries consisting of one gender had some members of the other who lived in affiliation with them because they were related—brother and sister, mother and son. Sometimes lay people who were relatives lived closely with professed monastics.
Unlike the traditional plan of a monastery composed of individual cells in which each monk slept, nuns were supposed to sleep in cubicles separated by low walls to prevent them from yielding to sexual temptation. In the Benedictine Order, nuns were supposed to stay silent except during service or during chapter meetings. All orders had chapter meetings, in which misbehavior was discussed and punishment and penance meted out.
Often, however, nuns had private chambers and had their food specially prepared for them. They ate their meals in their chambers and even entertained guests there.
In the ninth century, the Second Council of Aix-la-Chapelle (836) denounced some convents, saying they resembled brothels and asserting that nuns frequently broke their vows of chastity. In many cases, only a small number of monastics were incontinent, possibly those whose reasons for joining the convent were not religious. It is also likely that nuns were occasionally coerced by male clergy and male laborers as well.
Poverty and unchastity were linked; the poorer houses suffering financial hardship had less control over their members. Small and isolated houses were more prone to this problem as well. Low morale and a difficult life made unchastity more common. All convents had male staff—a chaplain, priest, lay brothers, laborers, overseers—so it was not difficult for a nun to find a sex partner.
When monks were sexually active, they tended to have fleeting relationships and were thus less likely to be discovered, although by the fourteenth century, the male clergy had a notorious reputation for lewd behavior. Nuns who were involved in sexual relations were likely to enter long-term relationships and also ran the risk of becoming pregnant; for these reasons, they were more likely to be discovered in their error.
Anyone who left a monastery denied a binding vow, and therefore it was a reprehensible act to leave a monastery in order to marry. Having an affair, on the other hand, was considered a temporary human failing and could be forgiven with penance and a vow to do better in the future.
Besides becoming nuns in convents, women could follow a religious life in other ways. Canonesses lived in convents and were celibate and obedient to the order’s rule, but they did not take a vow of poverty and were not cloistered. Béguines were free to leave the sisterhood when they wished.
When orders of friars became more common, many women embraced this type of religious vocation, but the church was slow in accepting female friars. (Female Franciscans and Dominicans lived like other nuns, unlike male Franciscans and Dominicans, who lived as friars.) Women sometimes chose to become anchoresses in cells built adjacent to churches, monasteries, and even castles. A mass for the dead would be celebrated and earth scattered over her to show her soul’s “death” to the world. There were twice as many female anchoresses and recluses as there were male.
Women sometimes took vows of virginity (performed in front of the parish priest and witnesses) and remained with their families; although such vows were binding, they usually did not offer a woman protection if her family wanted her to marry someone.
Written by Jennifer Lawler in "Encyclopedia of Women in the Middle Ages", McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers USA, 2008. Digitized, adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.