Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations and Tables
- Editor’s Preface
- Dedication
- Abbreviations
- The Planctus on the Death of William Longsword (943) as a Source for Tenth-Century Culture in Normandy and Aquitaine (The R. Allen Brown Memorial Lecture, 2013)
- Biblical Vocabulary and National Discourse in Twelfth-Century England
- Border, Trade Route, or Market? The Channel and the Medieval European Economy from the Twelfth to the Fifteenth Century
- Guerno the Forger and His Confession
- From Codex to Roll: Illustrating History in the Anglo-Norman World in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries
- The Adoption and Routinization of Scottish Royal Charter Production for Lay Beneficiaries, 1124–1195
- Women and Power in the Roman de Rou of Wace
- Literacy and Estate Administration in a Great Anglo-Norman Nunnery: Holy Trinity, Caen, in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries
- The King and His Sons: Henry II’s and Frederick Barbarossa’s Succession Strategies Compared
- In vinea Sorech laborare: The Cultivation of Unity in Twelfth-Century Monastic Historiography
- The Redaction of Cartularies and Economic Upheaval in Western England c.996–1096
- Monastic Space and the Use of Books in the Anglo-Norman Period
- 1074 in the Twelfth Century
- Contents Of Volumes 1–34
Literacy and Estate Administration in a Great Anglo-Norman Nunnery: Holy Trinity, Caen, in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 March 2023
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations and Tables
- Editor’s Preface
- Dedication
- Abbreviations
- The Planctus on the Death of William Longsword (943) as a Source for Tenth-Century Culture in Normandy and Aquitaine (The R. Allen Brown Memorial Lecture, 2013)
- Biblical Vocabulary and National Discourse in Twelfth-Century England
- Border, Trade Route, or Market? The Channel and the Medieval European Economy from the Twelfth to the Fifteenth Century
- Guerno the Forger and His Confession
- From Codex to Roll: Illustrating History in the Anglo-Norman World in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries
- The Adoption and Routinization of Scottish Royal Charter Production for Lay Beneficiaries, 1124–1195
- Women and Power in the Roman de Rou of Wace
- Literacy and Estate Administration in a Great Anglo-Norman Nunnery: Holy Trinity, Caen, in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries
- The King and His Sons: Henry II’s and Frederick Barbarossa’s Succession Strategies Compared
- In vinea Sorech laborare: The Cultivation of Unity in Twelfth-Century Monastic Historiography
- The Redaction of Cartularies and Economic Upheaval in Western England c.996–1096
- Monastic Space and the Use of Books in the Anglo-Norman Period
- 1074 in the Twelfth Century
- Contents Of Volumes 1–34
Summary
In an article published in 2007, Kathleen Thompson presents a vivid picture of the authority and administrative efficiency of the abbesses of Caen at the beginning of the thirteenth century:
En ce temps-là, en 1230, Isabelle de Crèvecoeur, nouvelle abbesse de La Trinité de Caen, fit un voyage en Bretagne pour faire hommage au roi anglais, Henri III, pour les terres anglaises de sa maison. Malgré la séparation entre la Normandie et l’Angleterre les religieuses avaient gardé ces terres et les géraient efficacement. Isabelle et ses avocats plaidèrent dans les cours anglaises et l’existence de plusieurs « surveys » des terres normandes de cette abbaye au XIIe siècle suggère une grande compétence. L’abbesse Juliane de Saint-Sernin (1237–c. 1265), en particulier, semble avoir été une femme d’affaires exceptionnelle.
The abbey of Holy Trinity, Caen – also known as the Abbaye-aux-Dames – provides an exceptionally good example of how high status Norman women retained their ability to take action in Anglo-Norman society both before and after 1204. This excerpt emphasizes some of the key aspects of how the abbesses of Caen directed their monastery during the thirteenth century: their decision – despite a difficult political context – to conserve the abbey’s Anglo-Norman estate, as it had been established at the end of the eleventh century by Queen Matilda, the wife of William the Conqueror; their active involvement in the management of their lands; and their consistency in drawing up a vast series of comprehensive land surveys, documents which testify to their mastering of literacy. At the heart of this article will be a key element underlined by Kathleen Thompson: the link between the literacy of these women and their management skills.
The impressive wealth of administrative documents produced by this famous abbey, founded by William the Conqueror and his wife in around 1059, is now well known. As early as the beginning of the twelfth century, surveys were carried out of the whole Anglo-Norman estate of the nunnery: the first one dates from the years 1106–1130 (survey A), and the second one from the years 1170 x 1185 (survey B-C). During the thirteenth century, this well established practice was still followed, as is shown by the preservation of surveys concerning specific English manors of the abbey (surveys D, c.1200 and c.1223–1224).
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- Anglo-Norman Studies 36Proceedings of the Battle Conference 2013, pp. 135 - 148Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2014