Lindsay Rudge PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

This relationship also worked the other way. As a member of the family which
had founded and endowed a monastery, an abbess could decide the direction and nature
of her community with little to prevent her (which may explain the care taken in the
Institutio to describe the responsibilities of the abbess, and its place as the first canon of
the rule 144 ). The charters of another major abbey, Fulda, reveal the case of Emhilt, who
founded and became the abbess of Milz. 145 In her deed of gift, she made it plain that the
monastery adhered to the Benedictine rule and was to continue to do so. Although taking
the advice of her fellow nuns, the land and monastery were hers.
Among houses such as these, however, explicit statements of adherence to one
variety of life or another are rare: again, the choice of Benedictine or canonical life does
not seem to have been a major issue. The familial nature of foundations such as
Immena’s means that they often enter record only in connection with land transactions,
which would seldom encompass a discussion of lifestyle and practices. There is no way
of knowing which mode of religious observance the majority of dedicated women
followed either before or after the synod of Aachen set to work. It may be significant here
that only five female houses were included in the Notitia de servitio monasteriorum, the
list of forty-eight royal Benedictine houses drawn up in 819 for Louis the Pious. 146
However, as Semmler underlines, taking even this document to be an accurate statement
of any monastery’s actual adherence is dangerous. 147
However, one indication that abbesses did feel themselves to be presented with a
decision to make over the direction their community would follow is provided by the vita
Odiliae. 148 This tenth (or possible late ninth) century vita makes the early eighth century
abbess peculiarly concerned with Carolingian issues of reform. Calling the nuns from her
two monasteries together, she presents them with a choice between monastic and
144
Canon 7.
145
The case is discussed by Hochstetler, Conflict, 161-2.
146
These were Notre-Dame in Soissons, Baume-les-Dames in the Jura, Holy Cross in Poitiers, Notre-Dame
in Limoges, and Swarzach in Würzburg.
147
J. Semmler, ‘Benedictus II’ 8-9.
148
Vita sanctae Odiliae virginis MGH SSRM VI 37-50.
249