To The Nuns, From The Lady

This dissertation deals with the reasons of noblewomen entering monasteries or nunneries in medieval western Europe through analyzing four real cases.It is divided into two parts, six chapters. Part one is four monastic cases which are depicted in chapter one. Part two is the analysis of cases which are organized in the other five chapters.Chapter one: Four monastic cases. There are four medieval noblewomen who entering the nunneries depicted in this chapter. They are Radegund of Frankish, Hildegard of Bingen, Abelard's Lover Heloise, Edith of Scotland. Through their monastic tales the dissertation analyzes the factors why medieval women embraced the monastic life.Chapter two: The qualifications of nunneries. First, this chapter tells the social classes which nuns were drawn, then analyzes two limitations of entering nunneries. In fact, there are two qualifications for the women who dedicated themselves to the monastic life. One is entry gift, the other is lineage. These two qualifications limited the opportunities of leading monastic life to noble women. So the secular requirement was conflicted with religious vocation.Chapter three: Religious background. Christian advocated women monasticism in the medieval West. Women should preserve chastity and relinquished the secular world according to Bible and Church fathers. Women monasticism was encouraged by the early church and the new religious orders. From cases analysis we find religious factor played an important part in noblewomen's retreat to nunneries.Chapter four: Secular need. Each of the power, wealth, and military attribute made nobles particularly susceptible to thoughts of saving their souls and require the intercession of noblewomen. In the middle ages, decentralization of power, development of economics, and stability of society were attribute to women monasticism, in such a period nunneries were places of peace, safety, wealth. From tales of Radegund and Edith, we can see nunneries were refuges of escaping from the disturbance in the world. For the escapers, nunneries were necessary institutes to solute problems, far from for religious vocations. However, for whatever reason they entered, the secular society always supported and gave praises to nuns because each of them had a high glory life, the attitude of secular people promoted female monasticism. Chapter five: Family considerations. Medieval women, especially noblewomen were subordinated to the male authoritarians in the family. Family decided one whether took the veil or not. We can see that noblewomen had no choice from Hildegard's oblation; From Heloise and Edith's cases, women were sent to nunneries out of various family considerations, such as cheaper entry fee, handling deformed or half-witted girls, education, dumping wives and so on. Therefore to its different inmates, nunneries which should be places pursuing religious perfection were all these things: a career, a prison, a refuge.Chapter six: Female situation. In the medieval western Europe, there were only two legal way for noblewomen to choose, marriage or convent, so noblewomen who can't get married with various reasons had to take the veils, nunneries became the careers of noblewomen without marriage. Moreover, being a nun can make women transcend their gender, being equal with man and becoming honorary man. Nuns who were outstanding even could transcend their gender through super intelligence, high ability and perfect spirit.Through analyzing four cases, we can sure that religious atmosphere and secular requirement interweaved together when a noblewoman entered a convent, neither religious nor secular requirement could give a reasonable explanation. So noblewomen monasticism could just appear in the special culture of western Europe.