{"product_id":"the-white-nuns-cistercian-abbeys-for-women-in-medieval-france-the-middle-ages-series-9780812250107","title":"The White Nuns: Cistercian Abbeys for Women in Medieval France (The Middle Ages Series)","description":"\u003cp\u003eModern studies of the religious reform movement of the central Middle Ages have often relied on contemporary accounts penned by Cistercian monks  who routinely exaggerated the importance of their own institutions while paying scant attention to the remarkable expansion of abbeys of Cistercian women. Yet by the end of the thirteenth century  Constance Hoffman Berman contends  there were more houses of Cistercian nuns across Europe than of monks. In The White Nuns  she charts the stages in the nuns gradual acceptance by the abbots of the Cistercian Orders General Chapter and describes the expansion of the nuns communities and their adaptation to a variety of economic circumstances in France and throughout Europe. While some sought contemplative lives of prayer  the ambition of many of these religious women was to serve the poor  the sick  and the elderly.  Focusing in particular on Cistercian nuns abbeys founded between 1190 and 1250 in the northern French archdiocese of Sens  Berman reveals the frequency with which communities of Cistercian nuns were founded by rich and powerful women  including Queen Blanche of Castile  heiresses Countess Matilda of Courtenay and Countess Isabelle of Chartres  and esteemed ladies such as Agnes of Cressonessart. She shows how these founders and early patrons assisted early abbesses  nuns  and lay sisters by using written documents to secure rights and create endowments  and it is on the records of their considerable economic achievements that she centers her analysis.  The White Nuns considers Cistercian women and the women who were their patrons in a clear-eyed reading of narrative texts in their contexts. It challenges conventional scholarship that accepts the words of medieval monastic writers as literal truth  as if they were written without rhetorical skill  bias  or self-interest. In its identification of long-accepted misogynies  its search for their origins  and its struggle to reject such misreadings  The White Nuns provides a robust model for historians writing against received traditions.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67600680222773,"sku":"ByrdShop_0812250109","price":63.3,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780812250107.jpg?v=1790978102","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-white-nuns-cistercian-abbeys-for-women-in-medieval-france-the-middle-ages-series-9780812250107","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}