Lindsay Rudge PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

The impact of the Institutio sanctimonialium is thus difficult to determine. While
there is some evidence of religious communities taking decisions over how best to live a
dedicated life, it would be inappropriate to view the document in isolation as the catalyst
behind such a decision. As the annals show, it was seen by its creators as part of a much
wider programme of reform. Moreover, the manuscript evidence does not permit firm
conclusions to be drawn on how effectively it was circulated or the extent to which it was
used. The final part of this chapter may permit fresh perspectives on such text-based
questions, by examining (where possible) dedicated life for women in practice.
Ninth century religious life for women
Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg’s statistical study of foundations made in the early
middle ages shows a decline in the proportion of new foundations for women in the ninth
century. 137 In her period of 750-799, she notes that there were ninety-one new
foundations, of which eleven, or 12.1%, were for women. In 800-849, the total number of
foundations increased to one hundred and forty six, with twelve for women: a drop to
8.2% of the total. By the second half of the century, only eight out of one hundred and
seven new foundations were for women, amounting to 7.5% of the total. Clearly, the
figures involved are so small that the decline in percentages of the total matters less than
the large difference in overall proportions of male and female institutions.
One reason behind this may have been the increasing wish for the dead to be
commemorated with masses rather than solely prayer. This has been explored, notably in
the work of Jane Martindale, through the example of Immena. Jane Martindale’s detailed
study reveals the religious career of the daughter of a distinguished family, given as a
child to a foundation on her family’s lands in 823, involved in donating and selling land
both as an individual and as part of a family group. 138 Despite the wish of her parents that
137
J.T. Schulenburg, ‘Women’s monastic communities, 500-1100: Patterns of expansion and decline’
Signs 14:2 (1989) 261-92, at 266.
138
J. Martindale, ‘The nun Immena and the foundation of the Abbey of Beaulieu: a woman’s prospects in
the Carolingian Church’ Studies in Church History 27 (1990) 27-42.
247