Recovering female cultures of debate: Women religious in Western Europe, c. 800-1100

The period between c. 800 and 1050 is traditionally thought of as a ‘dark age’ in the history of female monasticism. Ever since the beginning of modern scholarship, historians have argued the progressive ‘secularisation’ of women's institutions and their estates, and the marginalization of female religious in contemporary intellectual life and ecclesiastical government. As a consequence, female religious’ observance and spirituality went into steep decline, prompting a need for drastic interventions by external - exclusively male - reformers. However, recent studies of the contents of monastic libraries, the creation of new texts in female monastic contexts, and interactions between female religious and male intellectuals have allowed questioning this standard narrative. Based on analysis of primary evidence relating to these aspects, this paper will argue three things. First, that there existed a vibrant culture of reflection in female monastic contexts on the nature and purpose of religious life for women; second, that this culture relied on a specifically gendered approach to monastic literary traditions; and finally, that it was disrupted, and its memory deliberately suppressed, in the context of male reformers’ interventions. Reconstruction of this ‘forgotten’ female culture of reflection over the purpose and organization of communal life allows reconsidering the traditional narrative not only on female religious in this period, but also on reformers’ motivations for intervening in this culture and the impact of their interventions.