Eckenstein’s great study covers five centuries of nuns: the double monasteries of Anglo-Saxon England ruled by abbesses, the women saints and the cults built on them, Hrotsvitha writing plays in tenth-century Saxony, Hildegard of Bingen, and the steady later erosion of independence as the orders were brought under male control.
The standard work on medieval nuns, and on the only power women were allowed. Download the free EPUB.