Lindsay Rudge PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

perpetual virginity of Mary at the moment of Christ’s birth, to the nuns of Soissons, who
had asked for his opinion on the matter. 159 Paschasius, abbot of Corbie, was born c.790
and given as an infant to the monastery of Saint-Marie in Soissons. The abbess was
Theodrada, a cousin of Charlemagne and the sister of Adalhard and Wala of Corbie, who
were also in turn abbots of Corbie, in 780-815 and 826-835 respectively. Female
communities were as well-connected as they had even been.
In terms of the impact of the reforming councils and texts of 813-819, little direct
evidence remains. Even for a community at the heart of Benedict of Aniane’s ‘reformed’
monasteries, a female community appears to have been founded along the same only
semi-formal structures as those in previous centuries. William, the second count of
Toulouse, later celebrated in poems as one of Charlemagne’s most steadfast followers,
decided to retire to a monastery. 160 The monastery of Gellone, founded in 804, was
placed under the authority of Benedict’s community at Aniane, marked by William’s
acceptance of the habit there. 161 According to William’s vita, William’s sisters Abbana
and Bertana gained permission to accompany him to Gellone and dedicate themselves to
God at the same time. 162 The vita gives no further details on the women’s subsequent
residence, although Verdon suggests that they inhabited a small house near to the
monastery which in its turn became a community of nuns. 163 This was still not the
monastic landscape that Louis and Benedict appear to have envisaged, where women
were expected to join existing monasteries rather than set up smaller institutions of their
own.
A much later piece of evidence indicates that a typology of women’s communities
was still not particularly important in law. Charles the Bald’s (840-77) Capitulare
missorum Suessionense of 853 orders a count to be made of all dedicated religious in his
159 Paschasius Radbertus, De partu Virginis, ed. E.A. Matter CCCM 56C (Turnhout, 1985), 11.
160 J.M. Ferrante (ed.), Guillaume d'Orange : four twelfth-century epics (New York, 1991).
161 The vita Willelmi and his charters of donation to Gellone, now Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert, are in AASS,
May 26, cols. 811-822. For the connection to Aniane and further bibliography, see P. Bonnerue Benedicti
Anianensis Concordia Regularum CCCM 168 (Turnhout, 1999), 42-3.
162 Vita Willelmi 11, AASS, May 26, col. 813.
163 J. Verdon ‘Recherches sur les monastères féminins dans la France du sud aux IXe – XIe siècles’
Annales du Midi 88 (1976) 117-138, at 128.
252