Start Date
12-6-2011 9:30 AM
End Date
12-6-2011 12:00 PM
Subject Areas
Europe, medieval, gender, politics, religion
Abstract
By the year 1200, the ancient, successful, male Benedictine monastery at Lorvão, Portugal had submitted to the administration of the Princess/Queen Teresa of Portugal for reform. Teresa’s father King Sancho I turned the monastery over to his daughter: out went the men, in came the first Cistercian women in Portugal. Teresa’s reforms re-established a monastery that would survive until the dissolution of the monasteries in the 19th century, but they were not without challenges. Furthermore, this very process challenges certain historiographic models, primarily that the Cistercian order was resistant to women, secondarily that male monasteries were more likely to take over female monasteries (such as Saint Denis had with Argenteuil earlier in the preceding century.) In my paper, I will show how royal intervention was the key to this transformation, and suggest ways in which this reform was parallel to similar foundations and reform in contemporary Castile (notably, Las Huelgas and Buenafuente.) I will explore what was at stake for the monarchy in sponsoring this reform. King Sancho I put his daughter in charge of this reform, which might also be termed a revolution; their choice of the Cistercian Order and Teresa’s effectiveness as a secular administrator (she took Holy Orders herself only in 1230) were key to the crucial role Lorvão played in Portuguese society at this time.
Keywords
Portugal, queens Cistercian Order, reform, Teresa of Portugal
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Royal Intervention and the Reformation of the Monstery of Lorvao (Portugal), c. 1200: Male to Female, Benedictine to Cistercian
By the year 1200, the ancient, successful, male Benedictine monastery at Lorvão, Portugal had submitted to the administration of the Princess/Queen Teresa of Portugal for reform. Teresa’s father King Sancho I turned the monastery over to his daughter: out went the men, in came the first Cistercian women in Portugal. Teresa’s reforms re-established a monastery that would survive until the dissolution of the monasteries in the 19th century, but they were not without challenges. Furthermore, this very process challenges certain historiographic models, primarily that the Cistercian order was resistant to women, secondarily that male monasteries were more likely to take over female monasteries (such as Saint Denis had with Argenteuil earlier in the preceding century.) In my paper, I will show how royal intervention was the key to this transformation, and suggest ways in which this reform was parallel to similar foundations and reform in contemporary Castile (notably, Las Huelgas and Buenafuente.) I will explore what was at stake for the monarchy in sponsoring this reform. King Sancho I put his daughter in charge of this reform, which might also be termed a revolution; their choice of the Cistercian Order and Teresa’s effectiveness as a secular administrator (she took Holy Orders herself only in 1230) were key to the crucial role Lorvão played in Portuguese society at this time.