SOURCE: Lifshitz, Felice. “Is Mother Superior? Towards a History of Feminine Amtscharisma.” In Medieval Mothering, edited by John Carmi Parsons and Bonnie Wheeler, pp. 117-38. New York: Garland Publishing, 1996.

In the following essay, Lifshitz explores the nature of the authority exercised by abbesses.

No studies have yet explored the authority and office of female monastic superiors, nor have the latter been taken into account in studies of male monastic authority. Various sources, particularly monastic rules and conciliar legislation, are used to open the issue.

Amtscharisma: Is Mother Superior?

Many studies have explored the authority and office of male superiors of male monastic communities, particularly within the framework of Benedictine monasticism,¹ that form of communal regular life that was founded by Benedict of Monte Cassino (480-c. 560), and whose generalized enforcement—through the reformations of Boniface, then of Benedict of Aniane—became a central feature of Carolingian policy from the...