Lay Sisters and Brothers in Medieval German Convents

Medieval nuns were supported by a wide range of people, including lay sisters and brothers who performed much of the physical and manual work of the convent. Yet scholarship has long ignored these members of the monastic community. My research attempts to address this gap by focusing on lay sisters and brothers in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century German convents. I would like to request funding to spend three months in southern Germany next summer, from the beginning of May 2020 through to the end of July 2020. During this time, I will search through archival documents from medieval convents, including deeds, visitation records, account books, necrologies, and convent statutes, to find references to lay sisters and brothers in various archives in southern Germany. I am a third-year PhD student at the Centre for Medieval Studies in the University of Toronto, and this ground-breaking research will help to nuance our understanding of women’s daily lives, religiosity, and the intersections of gender and class in medieval Europe––subjects that have historically been neglected by historians. I believe that undertaking this research next summer will provide me with the remaining research necessary for my dissertation and greatly contribute to the study of female monasticism.

Faculty Supervisor:

Shami Ghosh;Isabelle Cochelin

Student:

Partner:

University of Tübingen

Discipline:

Sociology

Sector:

Other

University:

University of Toronto

Program: