Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0009-0006-0824-5186

Semester

Summer

Date of Graduation

2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Type

PhD

College

Eberly College of Arts and Sciences

Department

History

Committee Chair

Kate Kelsey Staples

Committee Member

Matthew Vester

Committee Member

Joseph Hodge

Committee Member

Christian Knudsen

Abstract

Within monastic life, the Benedictine Rule prioritized the role of the abbot, and much of the everyday running of the house was left to his discretion. He was the elected father of the community, the pastor of the flock, the educator who instructed by word and example. He should discipline firmly but be loved and not feared, and he should play no favorite but rather adapt to the situation at hand. His brethren should obey him without question as the representative of Christ in the monastery, their self-will and earthly possessions submitted to him. These elements are also present in versions of the Rule written for nuns. As such, there was a sense of trust built into the Rule as superiors were given the authority to administer to both the health of the monastery and its inmates. How superiors’ authority operated in monastic daily life in practice is understudied, even as monastic studies themselves are a well-plowed field, with notable early historians like Eileen Power and David Knowles setting the path for later scholars. Inspired by Knowles and Power, scholars have examined diverse areas of monastic life: patronage, identity, charity, secular relations, apostasy, devotion, gift-giving, sexual misconduct, and leadership. I address this gap in my examination of a set of episcopal visitation records, the Benedictine Rule, central and local court cases, and royal commissioners’ correspondence and visitations to highlight how authority was contextual as it was asserted, negotiated, and challenged in three nunneries and three male monasteries in the Diocese of Lincoln, 1400-1540. This complexity requires an ability to track individuals both within primary sources and across sources and archives. Undergirding my close reading is a prosopographical database that records each mention or appearance of monks, nuns, and the laity they encountered, allowing me to draw out their interactions on a personal level as I trace the monastics across twenty-five visitations, eighty-two central court cases, multiple local courts, and sixteenth-century correspondence. In a comparative gender analysis, I contend that these relationships were reciprocal, in which the superior received obedience so long as they faithfully fulfilled their obligations to the episcopacy, fellow monastics, and their lay neighbors and tenants. When that trust was violated, monks and nuns could justify disobedience against their superiors, and the laity could challenge their authority in the court of law. Further, I find that the political and religious upheavals of the sixteenth century stressed intra-claustral relations as the community tried to cope with the changing landscape around them.

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