Lindsay Rudge PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

when he first set out for Francia as a missionary. 61 Largely describing affairs across the
Channel, the significance of these letters to the present study lies in the insights they offer
into the mental world of dedicated women, and also into the broad scope of their
concerns and activities. Identifying the variety of forms of life available to dedicated
women, they additionally serve as a comparison to their counterparts in the north and
south of Gaul.
i) Career and contacts with Anglo-Saxon religious women
Some of the most revealing documents concerning the practical and emotional life
of nuns and, in particular, abbesses in the eighth century are the letters from the nuns
supporting Boniface in his mission to Bavaria from 718 until his death in 755. Although
somewhat beyond the stated geographical compass of this study, much of what they have
to say has universal relevance to a consideration of enclosed women.
Boniface, a West Saxon who had had an active career in his native church, arrived
on the Continent in 718, having had one abortive attempt at missionary work two years
before. 62 Boniface himself made monastic foundations for both men and women.
Kitzingen in the diocese of Würzburg was reputedly founded by him in c.734-749 and
placed in the charge of abbess Thecla, although it is unknown whether the earliest nuns
came from England or from Germany. 63 One exception to this anonymity is Leoba, who
was credited with miraculously saving the monastery from burning down. 64 In 828, Louis
the Pious ordered the bishop of Würzburg to reform the monastery. More well-known is
the monastery of Tauberbischofsheim, founded in c. 748, which was governed by
61 Much of this section makes use of the excellent Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England database:
www.pase.org.uk). Essential studies of Anglo-Saxon dedicated women are S. Hollis, Anglo-Saxon women
and the church: sharing a common fate (Woodbridge, 1992); S. Foot, Veiled Women 2 vols. (Aldershot,
2000); B. Yorke, Nunneries and the Anglo-Saxon royal houses (London, 2002); for literary perspectives,
see now C.A. Lees and G.R. Overing, Double agents : women and clerical culture in Anglo-Saxon England
(Philadelphia, 2001).
62 See B. Yorke, ‘The Bonifacian mission and female religious in Wessex’, EME 7:2 (1998) 145-172.
63 DHGE XXIX, col. 211.
64 Vita Leobae 13.
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