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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture "Ms B.M. Cook" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >...Not that the future abbesses of the P. were expected to be elected from the "deo sacrata" = nuns consecrated to God = virgins. On the contrary, I seem to recall that the Institutes of the Paraclete lay down that the elected jobs in the abbey ...had to be drawn from the "moniales", that is the nuns who were widows or the equivalent.... >Any comments ? no, just a knit to pique. whence commeth this exclusionary definition of "moniales," as only being "nuns who were widows"? i've always assumed (on no evidence whatever) that the term simply referred to "nuns", i.e., the professed religious of the house, hymen intactu or not. in my understanding, all "deo sacrata" members of the community would be "moniales," but not all of the latter were the former. but i never came across any narrrative texts using the latter term in a context which would make the distinction (as your Institutes do) --just preambles to charters, where the term seems to be used generically. or at least so i have always supposed. corrections, please. best from here, christopher ********************************************************************** To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME to: [log in to unmask] To send a message to the list, address it to: [log in to unmask] To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion to: [log in to unmask] In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to: [log in to unmask] For further information, visit our web site: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html