Lindsay Rudge PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

continuing existence of individual dedicated women, or those in small, family-based
religious communities.
One further subject tackled by the council of Verneuil was the movement of
abbesses outside of their communities:
We establish that no abbess has licence to leave the monastery unless
hostility forces her to do so. But the lord king says that he wishes that
whenever he orders any abbess to come to him, once a year and with the
consent of the bishop of the diocese in which she is, then she shall come to
him, and at his command, if it is necessary; then she is not to pass through
any villas or any other places, unless thereby she is able to come and
return the more quickly. And she is not to move from her monastery until
she has sent her own notice to the king. And if the king orders her to
come, let her come. But if not she is to remain in the monastery...
Similarly, no other consecrated woman ought to go outside the monastery.
MGH Capit 1, cap. 6, p.34
It is in this canon that we see perhaps for the first time the status accorded to abbesses as
officers of the realm. While the bishops at the council desired the abbesses never to leave
their communities, Pippin needed to ensure that they would be able to travel to carry out
their responsibilities towards him. 128
Yet to what degree could the decisions taken towards a uniform Benedictinism
ever be expected to have an effect on the entire Frankish territory? The personnel at the
Concilium Germanicum, listed after Boniface himself, show a preponderance of bishops
from eastern Francia. They are Burchard of Würzburg, Reginfred of Cologne, Wintan of
Buraburg, Willibald of Eichstätt, Dada, whose see is unknown, and Edda of Strasburg. 129
The sees of Burchard and Wintan had been created by Boniface himself. While Boniface
128 D. Hochstetler, A Conflict of Traditions: Women in Religion in the Early Middle Ages, 500-840
(Lanham, 1992), 38-9.
129 MGH Conc. II:I, 1.
204