Contents

• Pt. I. The Creation of an Idea
• 1. Female Monasticism
• Separation
• Communal Life
• Regular Life
• Separation of Individual and Institution
• Economic Foundations of Separation
• Voluntary Personal Poverty
• Perseverance - - Stability
• Obedience
• 2. The Nonmonastic Forms of Female Consecration
• Consecrated Widowhood
• Deaconesses
• Canonesses
• Consecrated Women in the Sacral Functions of the Church
• Pt. II. Modification of the Monastic Ideal
• 3. The Attitudes of Consecrated Noblewomen
• Inequality within Religious Communities
• Control of Religious Communities by the Nobility
• Noble Rejection of Separation and Obedience
• 4. The Effect of Noble Patronage on Women’s Communities
• The Nobility and the Selection of Abbesses
• Actual Duties and Rights of the Abbesses
• Noble Proprietary Attitudes toward Women’s Communities
• 5. Consecrated Women as Property Owners
• Ecclesiastical Legislation Regulating Possession of Property
• Land Transfer Charters of Consecrated Women
• 6. The Carolingian Family as Patrons of Women’s Communities: The Ideal Betrayed