De ambigue observantie en heterogene identiteit van vrouwengemeenschappen in Saksen, ca. 800-1050

When researching the observance and institutional identity of communities of women religious in the ninth to the eleventh century, historians took the Aachen council of 816 as an objective yardstick to evaluate female religious life. This council classified female religious life into two distinct groups, according to the Rule of Benedict and the canonical Institutio sanctimonialium. Despite the regulations of the Aachen council, the institutional identity and observance of female communities was in many cases ambiguous. Their lifestyle was a combination of Benedictine elements with stipulations from the Institutio, or a freer interpretation of these rules. Historians were very much troubled by such an ambiguous lifestyle. Indications of an ambiguous identity were seen as signs of decay or decadence, were ignored or forced into a rigorous institutional framework, or remained without interpretation. Recent research has shed new light on the processes of reform and the objectives of the Aachen council, and the intellectual creativity of women religious to reflect upon their institutional identity. Despite these recent developments, an outdated Kloster oder Stift-narrative remains firmly embedded in historical scholarship. This is especially the case for literature concerning female communities in Saxony. This region, in the northern part of presentday Germany, is remarkable because of the high number of convents in this region. Between the first missionary activities between the end of the eighth-century and the beginning of the eleventh-century, no fewer than 59 communities for women religious were established. Because of the density of the Saxon monastic landsape, researchers suspected that the diversity of female monastic lifestyles must have been significant, but a thorough and systematic analysis is lacking. The aim of this doctoral dissertation is twofold. In the first place, this research will make a critical analysis of the current literature regarding female monastic communities in ninth- to eleventh-century Saxony. Secondly, this dissertation will, by looking at the social embedment of convents, provide an alternative interpretation for the ambiguous identity of communities of women religious in this region. A first part offers a critical analysis of the concept of ambiguous identity: how have researchers interpreted ambiguities with regard to the institutional organisation of women's communities so far; and how have sanctimoniales and stakeholders conceptualised the institutional framework for women religious. I will point out that a clear and unambiguous observance, either according to the Benedictine rule or to the Institutio, for women religious and their stakeholders was secondary tot the question whether the way of life of the community guaranteed the functioning of the monastery as a whole. A second part seeks to address how we can understand the ambiguous organisation and identity of female communities in Saxony from a localised and socially embedded point of view. An analysis of the social embedment of convents and how they sustained their individual members in their livelihood, the contacts with the outside world and the pastoral responsibilities of women religious make clear that the institutional identity of female communities took shape against a dynamic and layered social background. Two dynamics played a key role in this: on the one hand, the interaction between the expectations of patrons, donors and lay communities with the interests of the community; and the relationship between community's religious purpose and spiritual, liturgical and worldly needs, and the social and religious ambitions of the individual nuns on the other hand. A third and last part re-evaluates the eleventh century, which is often seen as a period of reform. Although there was increasing criticism of the way of life of religious women and a couple of monasteries adopted a clear - often - Benedictine identity in the course of the late tenth and eleventh centuries, there was no such thing as a systematically and actively pursued reform impetus that was to erase all ambiguous forms of institutional and religious organisations.status: publishe