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A nun is a woman who vows to dedicate her life to religious service, typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the enclosure of a monastery. Although the idea is usually associated with Roman Catholicism, nuns exist in various other Christian sects like the Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, and Lutheran, as well as other religions. In the Buddhist tradition, female monastics are known as Bhikkhuni, and take several additional vows compared to male monastics (bhikkhus). Nuns are most common in Mahayana Buddhism, but have more recently become more prevalent in other traditions.
Gertrude of Nivelles, O.S.B. was a seventh-century abbess who, with her mother Itta, founded the Abbey of Nivelles located in present-day Belgium.
Christina of Markyate was born with the name Theodora in Huntingdon, England, about 1096–1098 and died about 1155. She was an anchoress, who came from a wealthy English family trying to accommodate with the Normans at that time. She was niece of the powerful Bishop Ranulf Flambard. She later became the prioress of a community of nuns.
A double monastery is a monastery combining separate communities of monks and of nuns, joined in one institution to share one church and other facilities. The practice is believed to have started in the East at the dawn of monasticism. It is considered more common in the monasticism of Eastern Christianity, where it is traceable to the 4th century. In the West the establishment of double monasteries became popular after Columbanus and sprang up in Gaul and in Anglo-Saxon England. Double monasteries were forbidden by the Second Council of Nicaea in 787, though it took many years for the decree to be enforced. Double monasteries were revived again after the 12th century in a significantly different way when a number of religious houses were established on this pattern among Benedictines and possibly the Dominicans. The 14th-century Bridgittines were purposely founded using this form of community.
Liudolf was a Carolingian office bearer and count in the Duchy of Saxony from about 844. The ruling Liudolfing house, also known as the Ottonian dynasty, is named after him; he is its oldest verified member.
Erentrude, was a saint and abbess, born during the end of the 7th century, probably in present-day Germany or Austria. She was born into a Franconian-Merovingian royal house, and was the niece of Rupert of Salzburg. She left her home country to assist Rupert in establishing religious communities in Salzburg; in about 700, he built a convent, Nonnberg Abbey, and installed her as its first abbess. She and the nuns at Nonnberg served the poor, needy, and ill, striking a balance between living as cloistered nuns and engaging in charitable works. Erentrude died on 30 June 718. Her fame for healing miracles and intercession grew after her death, and many legends have arisen throughout the centuries since her death. In 2006, Erentrude's image appeared on the Austrian Nonnberg Abbey commemorative coin. Her feast day is celebrated on 30 June.
Saint Wiborada of St. Gall was a member of the Swabian nobility in what is present-day Switzerland. She was an anchoress, Benedictine nun, and martyr.
Chelles Abbey was a Frankish monastery founded around 657/660 during the early medieval period. It was intended initially as a monastery for women; then its reputation for great learning grew, and with the afflux of men wishing to follow the monastic life, a parallel male community was established, creating a double monastery.
Glodesind (572−608) was a saint, nun, abbess, and founder of a convent in Metz, France, during the time of King Childebert II (575−596) of Austrasia. She was a member of the Carolingian nobility. When she was 11 or 12 years old, she married a young nobleman, who was arrested by the French government shortly after their wedding and executed a year later. Instead of remarrying as her family wanted, she fled to Metz and took refuge at the Church of St. Stephen. Her family gave up forcing her to marry, and she became a nun and later, the abbess of a convent that was built by her parents. She was abbess for six years until her death in 608 at the age of 30. Her feast day is 8 July.
Wienhausen Abbey or Convent near Celle in Lower Saxony, Germany, is a community of Evangelical Lutheran women, which until the Reformation was a Cistercian Catholic nunnery. The abbey owns significant artworks and artifacts, including a collection of tapestries and the earliest surviving example of a type of eyeglasses.
St. Thaïs of fourth-century Roman Alexandria and of the Egyptian desert was a repentant courtesan.
Adelaide II, a member of the Salian dynasty, was Abbess of Gandersheim from 1061 and Abbess of Quedlinburg from 1063 until her death.
Adelaide I, a member of the royal Ottonian dynasty was the second Princess-abbess of Quedlinburg from 999, and Abbess of Gernrode from 1014, and Abbess of Gandersheim from 1039 until her death, as well as a highly influential kingmaker of medieval Germany.
Sophia I, a member of the royal Ottonian dynasty, was Abbess of Gandersheim from 1002, and from 1011 also Abbess of Essen. The daughter of Emperor Otto II and his consort Theophanu, she was an important kingmaker in medieval Germany.
Women in Church history have played a variety of roles in the life of Christianity - notably as contemplatives, health care givers, educationalists and missionaries. Until recent times, women were generally excluded from episcopal and clerical positions within the certain Christian churches; however, great numbers of women have been influential in the life of the church, from contemporaries of Jesus to subsequent saints, theologians, doctors of the church, missionaries, abbesses, nuns, mystics, founders of religious institutes, military leaders, monarchs and martyrs.
In the history of the Catholic Church, women have played a variety of roles and the church has affected societal attitudes to women worldwide in significant ways. Influential Catholic women have included theologians, abbesses, monarchs, missionaries, mystics, martyrs, scientists, nurses, hospital administrators, educationalists, religious sisters, Doctors of the Church, and canonised saints. Women constitute the majority of members of consecrated life in the Catholic Church: in 2010, there were around 721,935 professed women religious. Motherhood and family are given an exalted status in Catholicism, with The Blessed Virgin Mary holding a special place of veneration.
Eustadiola (594–684) was a saint, widow, and abbess. She was born to wealthy and politically powerful parents in Bourges, France. She married due to pressure from her family, but became a widow at a young age, which gave her the financial and social independence to live what Sainted Women of the Dark Ages centuries later called a "semiretired religious life". She gave away her wealth to the poor, founded churches, monasteries, and convents, and used her wealth and influence to expand and decorate the buildings. Eustadiola was abbess of the convent she founded in Bourges, and lived as an ascetic for 70 years. Many miracles and healings were attributed to her. Her feast day is celebrated on 8 June.
Baudonivia was a nun and hagiographer at the convent of Holy Cross of Poitiers. Very little is known about her.
Margaret “the Lame” of Magdeburg (1210–1250) was an anchoress of the St. Albans Church in Magdeburg. There she spent her days and years in total renunciation of the world in order to give honor to God. People believed she received visions from the Lord and her experiences were later documented in Vita Margaretae Contractae.
Hunegund of France was a 7th century French saint and nun and founder of a convent in Homblières in Northern France. She was betrothed to a French nobleman, but while visiting Rome before their marriage, she chose to become a nun instead. Hunegund built a church on the grounds of a convent in Homblières; eventually her fiancé donated everything that he would have given to her if they had married to the convent, "became her most devoted friend and servant", and took care of her and the convent's financial needs. Hunegund became abbess of the convent and was considered its founder. She died in 690; her feast day is celebrated on 25 August by the Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox Church and on 1 November by the Catholic Church in France. Hunegund's body and relics were translated to the church she founded in 946; she performed miracles and appeared in visions that solidified her cult and veneration. In the mid- and late 10th century, two hagiographic texts about the life and miracles of Hunegund were written and published to connect the community to Hunegund's relics and cult. Her body and relics were translated again, during the Hundred Years War in the late 14th century.
References
- 1 2 3 LaBarge, Margaret Wade, "The Mould for Medieval Women", Women in Medieval Life, chap. 2, Hamish Hamilton, 1986
- 1 2 Pertz G. H. Medieval Sourcebook: The Life of St. Liutberga, 9th Century , trans. Jo Ann McNamara.
- ↑ McAvoy, Liz Herbert (2010). Anchoritic Traditions of Medieval Europe. Boydell & Brewer. p. 48. ISBN 9781843835202.