Abbesses managed large tracts of land and needed knights to administer the holdings

What is it about?

In the feudal order, the typical tool to structure the administration of large landholdings was the fief. The monasteries presided over by abbesses often had large and spread-out land holdings, and so needed managers to administer their land. Feudal law did not permit clergy to hold fiefs, so abbesses had to enfeoff lay knights with the job. The article analyses the literature to find evidence for this proposition.

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Why is it important?

In the later Middle Ages, the Church moved to limit the power of abbesses and imposed more restrictions on the female clergy, and in the Empire, there was a growing consolidation of power and bureaucratisation of administration. These developments obscure the importance of female abbeys in the Early and High Middle Ages. While abbesses did not project power - they did not wage war on their neighbours, unlike some abbots -, they were militarily quite powerful. By being essentially in a state of armed neutrality, they acted as a stabilising factor in the feudal order.

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