The Economic Autonomy of Medieval Women: Abbesses, Managers, and Landholders

"Different as to Their Sex but Equal in Their Monastic Profession": Reassessing Female Authority in Medieval Monasticism

The oft-repeated feminist assertion that women were categorically excluded from centers of power in premodern society is critically undermined by the testimony of medieval religious women themselves. One of the most striking counterexamples is preserved in the statement of a medieval abbess, cited in Penelope Johnson’s Equal in Monastic Profession (1991), who declared that women religious were “different as to their sex but equal in their monastic profession.” This remarkable claim, voiced from within the very structures of the medieval Church, is not an isolated expression of symbolic equivalence, but rather a reflection of actual institutional parity within specific ecclesiastical domains.

Johnson’s study highlights the ways in which abbesses—particularly in influential and often aristocratically connected convents—exercised genuine authority. They governed religious communities, managed large landed estates, presided over legal matters, and even interacted with secular rulers. These women were autonomous actors within a religious-political framework that recognized their spiritual and administrative roles, often granting them powers that rivaled or even exceeded those of their male counterparts in similar positions. Far from being passive recipients of male oversight, many medieval nuns operated within communal structures of privilege and legal protection that allowed for a robust female presence in monastic and economic life.

The statement by the abbess thus offers a contemporaneous counter-discourse to modern feminist historiography, which frequently imposes anachronistic categories of oppression onto complex social arrangements. It reveals a self-conscious awareness of gendered difference that did not imply inferiority, and it underscores how the medieval worldview could accommodate forms of female power that do not easily map onto modern ideological binaries.

This perspective invites a reevaluation of feminist claims to historical marginalization, suggesting instead that the historical record is more nuanced, contingent, and diverse than current ideological frameworks often allow. To ignore such voices from the past is not only a methodological failure but a political erasure, where ideological convenience takes precedence over historical accuracy.

Thus, the widespread assumption that women were categorically excluded from centers of power in the medieval period collapses upon closer inspection of economic history—particularly within the domain of monastic life, noble estates, and widowed proprietorship. Economic autonomy was not merely incidental to a few exceptional women; it was embedded in the structural fabric of medieval society, albeit in gender-specific forms. This section explores how abbesses, widows, and noblewomen exercised substantial economic authority, managing landholdings, negotiating with secular and ecclesiastical powers, and controlling the material resources that undergirded spiritual and political influence.

This reality directly challenges the feminist historical revisionism that has dominated much of modern historiography. Rather than presenting a nuanced account of women’s roles across varying contexts, many feminist scholars have retrofitted the past into a rigid victim-oppressor binary rooted in modern political ideologies. This approach tends to erase complexity, flatten historical agency, and selectively amplify narratives of subjugation while suppressing evidence of female authority, competence, and autonomy—especially when such evidence emerges from religious or hierarchical institutions deemed incompatible with feminist dogma. By framing history primarily as a struggle against patriarchal domination, feminist historiography often dismisses or distorts the testimonies and records of women who did not see themselves as oppressed, but rather as empowered participants in their own socio-religious systems.

1. Abbesses as Economic Governors

Female religious superiors, especially abbesses, presided over vast estates that rivaled or exceeded the holdings of many male lords. In England, institutions like Barking Abbey and Shaftesbury Abbey held considerable wealth, derived from tithes, rents, donations, and direct ownership of productive land. These abbesses functioned as feudal overlords in their own right, often holding court, collecting dues, and even exercising juridical rights within their territories.

The abbess of Fontevraud, a double monastery in France, wielded authority over both monks and nuns, directly supervising extensive landholdings. This structure persisted despite Church attempts to restrict female oversight of male religious life, showing how economic power could reinforce institutional resilience against patriarchal pressure.

2. Noblewomen and Estate Management

In aristocratic households, noblewomen regularly managed estates in their husbands’ absences—during crusades, wars, or diplomatic duties. This was not merely a ceremonial role; they actively oversaw agricultural production, resource allocation, tenant relations, and even armed defense.

For example, during the absence of their male kin, women in the Angevin Empire and Norman England were known to issue charters, administer justice, and maintain household economies. Eleanor of Aquitaine and Matilda of Tuscany stand as prominent examples, but even lesser-known noblewomen fulfilled managerial roles vital to the sustenance of aristocratic power.

3. Widows as Autonomous Economic Agents

Widowhood offered women unique legal and economic autonomy. Unlike married women, whose property was subsumed under coverture, widows could own, bequeath, and litigate property in their own name. Many chose to found religious houses, fund chantries, or engage in local patronage. Legal records from thirteenth-century England show widows suing for land, making contracts, and asserting their dower rights—a legal entitlement to a portion of their husband’s estate.

In towns and cities, some widows even took over commercial enterprises, from brewing and cloth production to real estate and moneylending. These examples counter the notion of a rigid public/private binary that feminists often impose anachronistically on premodern life.

4. Institutional Power as Economic Power

Religious institutions run by women were not merely spiritual centers but economic engines. They employed laborers, negotiated leases, extracted dues, and reinvested resources into local economies. The economic influence of female religious institutions—whether Benedictine, Cistercian, or Augustinian—extended into multiple sectors, from agriculture and viticulture to manuscript production and education.

This form of “spiritual capitalism” demonstrates that women were not merely passive recipients of male charity but active stewards of institutional wealth. It also challenges the feminist framing that religious life was a site of escape from oppression rather than a structured avenue of authority.

5. Economic Power and Political Negotiation

Economic power granted women bargaining leverage. Abbesses often negotiated directly with kings and bishops for privileges, exemptions, and protection. In many cases, royal charters granted to female houses gave them immunities similar to those enjoyed by male abbots and monasteries.

The correlation between landholding and political capital was well understood in the medieval world. That some women were landholders and institutional heads means that they also participated, directly or indirectly, in the formation and maintenance of political order.

References:

1. Jo Ann McNamara and John E. Halborg, trans., Sainted Women of the Dark Ages (Durham: Duke University Press, 1992).

2. Penelope D. Johnson, Equal in Monastic Profession: Religious Women in Medieval France (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991).

3. Eileen Power, Medieval Women (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1922).

4. Jennifer Ward, Women in Medieval Europe: 1200–1500 (London: Routledge, 2002).