Vision: Hildegard von Bingen

From the New York Times:

“Vision,” Margarethe von Trotta’s sympathetic imagining of the life of the 12th-century Benedictine nun Hildegard von Bingen, opens with a prologue that establishes a contemporary secular distance from the film’s devotional medieval ethos. The members of a millennialist sect anticipating their last night on earth prostrate themselves in an abbey overnight only to awaken in the bright morning sun to discover that the world hasn’t ended.

“Vision” offers a hard-headed view of 12th-century religiosity in which church politics and money conflict with the characters’ asceticism. It portrays Hildegard as a passionate humanitarian and a lover of nature who is shocked and disgusted by the mortification of the flesh through rituals like self-flagellation and extreme fasting.

E-Book: Equal in Monastic Profession

E-Book of interest: Equal in Monastic Profession: Religious Women in Medieval France by Penelope Johnson.

In this study of the manner in which medieval nuns lived, Penelope Johnson challenges facile stereotypes of nuns living passively under monastic rule, finding instead that collectively they were empowered by their communal privileges and status to think and act without many of the subordinate attitudes of secular women. In the words of one abbess comparing nuns with monks, they were "different as to their sex but equal in their monastic profession."

Johnson researched more than two dozen nunneries in northern France from the eleventh century through the thirteenth century, balancing a qualitative reading of medieval monastic documents with a quantitative analysis of a lengthy thirteenth-century visitation record which allows an important comparison of nuns and monks. A fascinating look at the world of medieval spirituality, this work enriches our understanding of women's role in premodern Europe and in church history.

Role of Medieval Women as Patrons

Essay by Erin Lambert @ Medievalists on The Role of Medieval Women as Monastic Patrons:

Studies of the medieval world reveal a deeply hierarchical society in which wealth, freedom, and piety were among the marks of an individual’s status. An analysis of the ways in which people expressed their piety and used their material wealth reveals an age in which spiritual and worldly matters were closely intertwined. In addition, it sheds light on medieval ideas of class and gender, which were significant in determining an individual’s opportunities for the possession and disposal of wealth.For example, those with the resources to do so often ensured their salvation through the patronage of religious institutions. While both men and women became patrons, the role of women as patrons must be considered separately because of the social and legal restrictions placed upon them. Despite the often-limited sphere in which they operated and the challenges of carrying out a benefaction, many women were devoted to the support of religious institutions and emerged as important patrons of monastic activity.