The ruling abbesses
First little gem from the Mediev-L email list, the information that there were German mini-states ruled only by women (abbesses) for hundreds of years.
"...the female abbey of Essen which lasted 873-1803, and was I believe territorially the largest of them. ... The bucolic town of Essen was founded in the tenth century by the abbess Hedwig I. ... It became a principality of the empire in 1275. The ruling abbess was assisted by a chapter of ten other nuns, who were largely aristocratic...
Here is a snip from the 14th century.
Kunigunde II of Berg 1328-1336
Katarina of La Marck 1336-1360
Irmgard II of Bruch 1360-1370
Elizabeth III of Nassau 1370-1412"
I'm keen to find a source to find out more. (In English - can't do German, sorry!)
posted by Natalie Bennett at 3/26/2006 09:55:00 am
2 Comments:
As ever Clanger - you are a wonder. I'm going to have to work really hard to think up a history topic on which you won't be able to make a suggestion :-) Definitely a challenge.
if you find results online, I'd be happy to translate (the gist) of them from German: I used to do a lot of philosophical and religious research bilingually. There's a lot of great stuff out there in German.
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