Lindsay Rudge PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

communication with the outside world.
Leoba was so greatly esteemed by Boniface that he requested that her remains
should be buried in his tomb. 72 Rudolf also notes the regard in which Leoba was held by
members of Charlemagne’s court: ‘Many times he [Charlemagne] summoned the holy
virgin to court, received her with every mark of respect and loaded her with gifts suitable
to her station’. Hildegard, Charlemagne’s wife, also seems to have enjoyed Leoba’s
company; she ‘revered her with a chaste affection and loved her as her own soul’, and
asked Leoba to visit her when she was dying. 73 Indeed, Leoba seems to have attained the
status of a spiritual advisor to Charlemagne and his court. ‘And because of her wide
knowledge of the scriptures and her prudence in counsel they often discussed spiritual
matters and ecclesiastical discipline with her’. 74 Not only that, but Leoba also took on
wider responsibilities. ‘…her deepest concern was the work she had set on foot. She
visited the various convents of nuns and, like a mistress of novices, stimulated them to
vie with one another in reaching perfection.’ 75 Leoba’s spiritual authority and ability to
interpret the Regula Benedicti are unquestioned. In this regard, her situation has parallels
with that of the two abbess Caesarias of Arles in the practical application of a written
text. Leoba seems to have had a role at Charlemagne’s court not dissimilar (although
somewhat circumscribed by her gender) to that of Benedict of Aniane at his son Louis the
Pious’, in terms of spiritual consultation at court and the re-energising of female
communities along stricter, presumably Benedictine, lines. No-one seems to have been
concerned that Leoba herself was not adhering to directives to remain inside a monastery.
However, Leoba’s continental career contrasts with her life at Wimborne, where
she had grown up and begun her religious career. There, ‘any woman who wished to
renounce the world and enter the cloister did so on the understanding that she would
never leave it… Furthermore, when it was necessary to conduct the business of the
monastery and to send for something outside, the superior of the community spoke
72 Vita Leobae 19.
73 Vita Leobae 18, tr. Talbot, The Anglo-Saxon missionaries, 223-4.
74 Vita Leobae 18, tr. Talbot, The Anglo-Saxon missionaries, 223-4.
75 Vita Leobae 18, tr. Talbot, The Anglo-Saxon missionaries, 223.
189