(no subject)
WHOA, WAIT, STOP EVERYTHING. I discovered earlier this week while I was reading an article about nuns that several women from the diocese of Nantes (which I am totally counting as Brittany for the purposes of my dissertation, although people who work on Anjou might disagree) became nuns at the abbey of Ronceray in Angers, or its priories in and around Nantes. Then after strenuous googling efforts, I found the cartulary of Ronceray in a digital edition (it's published as volume three of Paul Marchegay's mid-nineteenth century Archives d'Anjou collection). Because my university doesn't actually have a subscription to the digital library where I found it, I had to download the 22 pages of relevant charters page by page.
This afternoon, I've been working on reading through the charters and copying out the ones with monastic vocations in them (I've discovered that typing them out is a good way to read them carefully), and WHOA. I've just discovered a woman from the Pays de Retz who decided to go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem in the 1080s. THIS IS AWESOME. No, really:
A certain woman, noble and pleasing to God, Adenor by name, having already returned once from that highest court of the lord, which is called Jerusalem, where he deemed it worthy to suffer, to die, to be buried and to rise again; when, having been stricken anew by divine love, desiring to return to the same place, [desiring] to take to the road [that] she and her companions had already taken, with everything that had been necessary for her on so great a journey already experienced gathered together, with the toil that she had longed for taken up, her sons, grieving for their separation from their mother and not assured that they would see her again thereafter, obtained from her that in their land, which was also hers, from that revenue which she had left with them, she would construct a church in honor of whatever saint was pleasing to her, where the divine office would forever be celebrated. Accordingly, the wise woman trusted the advice of her illustrious sons, and built the aforesaid church in devotion to the virgin Mary, trusting that by means of this she would please the lord from the beginning of the journey.
Nobilis quedam Deoque amabilis femina, Adenor nomine, jam semel ab illa summa domini curia que Jerusalem nuncupatur, ubi ipse pati, mori, sepeliri ac resurgere dignatus est, regressa; cum deno divino amore repercussa, ad eundem locum repedare cupiens, coadunatis omnibus que sibi in tanto itinere jam experta fuerat necessaria, labore quem desiderabat arrepto, ipsa suique comites viam carpere jam cepissent[*], filii ejus, super separatione matris sue dolentes nec ulterius eam se visuros confidentes, obtinuerunt ab ea ut in terra eorum, que et sua erat, de censu illo quem secum deferebat, ecclesiam in cujus sibi placuisset sancti honorem construeret, ubi divinum perhenniter celebraretur officium. Credit itaque sagax mulier illustrium filiorum conilio, edificavitque predictam in sancte Marie virginis devotione ecclesiam, per hod se confidens ab incepte vie dimissione dominum placaturam.
[*] I'm still not sure I have this right; I've attached the infinitive to cupiens, but in doing so created what needs to be a relative clause, but that isn't written as one. Suggestions?
How great is this? Adenor went to Jerusalem, came back, and decided she wanted to go again. It's actually a little ambiguous whether she did leave a second time (the charter goes on to talk about what happened after her death), but still! Also, she had a bunch of sons, and a daughter named after her who became a nun at Ronceray. She sounds like an eleventh-century woman who managed to have it all. She sounds kind of badass! She makes me super-glad I found out about these Ronceray charters!
This entry was originally posted at http://monksandbones.dreamwidth.org/710441.html. Talk to me here or there, whichever you prefer.
This afternoon, I've been working on reading through the charters and copying out the ones with monastic vocations in them (I've discovered that typing them out is a good way to read them carefully), and WHOA. I've just discovered a woman from the Pays de Retz who decided to go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem in the 1080s. THIS IS AWESOME. No, really:
A certain woman, noble and pleasing to God, Adenor by name, having already returned once from that highest court of the lord, which is called Jerusalem, where he deemed it worthy to suffer, to die, to be buried and to rise again; when, having been stricken anew by divine love, desiring to return to the same place, [desiring] to take to the road [that] she and her companions had already taken, with everything that had been necessary for her on so great a journey already experienced gathered together, with the toil that she had longed for taken up, her sons, grieving for their separation from their mother and not assured that they would see her again thereafter, obtained from her that in their land, which was also hers, from that revenue which she had left with them, she would construct a church in honor of whatever saint was pleasing to her, where the divine office would forever be celebrated. Accordingly, the wise woman trusted the advice of her illustrious sons, and built the aforesaid church in devotion to the virgin Mary, trusting that by means of this she would please the lord from the beginning of the journey.
Nobilis quedam Deoque amabilis femina, Adenor nomine, jam semel ab illa summa domini curia que Jerusalem nuncupatur, ubi ipse pati, mori, sepeliri ac resurgere dignatus est, regressa; cum deno divino amore repercussa, ad eundem locum repedare cupiens, coadunatis omnibus que sibi in tanto itinere jam experta fuerat necessaria, labore quem desiderabat arrepto, ipsa suique comites viam carpere jam cepissent[*], filii ejus, super separatione matris sue dolentes nec ulterius eam se visuros confidentes, obtinuerunt ab ea ut in terra eorum, que et sua erat, de censu illo quem secum deferebat, ecclesiam in cujus sibi placuisset sancti honorem construeret, ubi divinum perhenniter celebraretur officium. Credit itaque sagax mulier illustrium filiorum conilio, edificavitque predictam in sancte Marie virginis devotione ecclesiam, per hod se confidens ab incepte vie dimissione dominum placaturam.
[*] I'm still not sure I have this right; I've attached the infinitive to cupiens, but in doing so created what needs to be a relative clause, but that isn't written as one. Suggestions?
How great is this? Adenor went to Jerusalem, came back, and decided she wanted to go again. It's actually a little ambiguous whether she did leave a second time (the charter goes on to talk about what happened after her death), but still! Also, she had a bunch of sons, and a daughter named after her who became a nun at Ronceray. She sounds like an eleventh-century woman who managed to have it all. She sounds kind of badass! She makes me super-glad I found out about these Ronceray charters!
This entry was originally posted at http://monksandbones.dreamwidth.org/710441.html. Talk to me here or there, whichever you prefer.