Leoba of Tauberbischofsheim and the women in bonifacian missions: a study of vita leobae (9th century)

Leoba de Tauberbischofsheim e as mulheres nas missões bonifacianas: um estudo da Vita Leobae (Século IX)

Authors

  • Clarissa Mattana Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ)

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.31668/revistaueg.v13i1.14472

Abstract

Leoba was an Anglo-Saxon nun from the eighth century, who joined Boniface in his mission in Frankish territories east of the Rhine. Boniface entrusted Leoba with the leadership of the female monastic community of Tauberbischofsheim, where she established an education center for women and a support station for missionary work. In this paper, we aim to present a general view of the Bonifacian missions and the role of women in them, through a study of Leoba’s career and an analysis of the portrayal of her as a missionary woman in the hagiography Vita Leobae, written in 836 by Rudolf of Fulda. At the end of the eighth century and the beginning of the ninth, there was a strengthening of restrictive ideas concerning the agency of abbesses and nuns outside the monasteries and their coexistence with the opposite sex, which caused an impact on abbesses' influence and the economies of women ́s communities. In this paper, we analyze how the hagiographer conciliated these ideologies with the memory of a missionary woman, who was a great authority in the time and place in which she lived.

Keywords: Hagiography. Gender. Christianization. Missionary Life. Monasticism. Carolingian Period.

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Author Biography

  • Clarissa Mattana, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ)

    Doutoranda em História Comparada pela Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), com período de doutorado-sanduíche na Maynooth University (Irlanda), financiado pelo programa PDSE-CAPES; vinculada ao Programa de Estudos Medievais (PEM-UFRJ), ao Grupo de Estudos sobre Britânia, Irlanda e Ilhas do Arquipélago Norte na Antiguidade e Medievo (Insulae) e à Rede Internacional Multidisciplinar de Estudos de Gênero (RIMEG)

Published

2024-01-30

How to Cite

Leoba of Tauberbischofsheim and the women in bonifacian missions: a study of vita leobae (9th century): Leoba de Tauberbischofsheim e as mulheres nas missões bonifacianas: um estudo da Vita Leobae (Século IX). (2024). REVHIST - Revista De História Da UEG, 13(1), e312402. https://doi.org/10.31668/revistaueg.v13i1.14472