2023-24 Abstract:

Gendering the Archive? The Power and Authority of the Abbesses of Quedlinburg, 1125–1511 

This project proposes to use the rich source material for the abbesses of Quedlinburg in Germany to address the vexed question of the gendered dimensions of power and authority. Quedlinburg was one of a small number of communities of religious women in the Holy Roman Empire that was, at least nominally, independent of all authority except that of the emperors. In other words, the abbesses were the rulers of the community’s territorial possessions, including the town of Quedlinburg itself. While a great deal of research has been done on the abbesses in the first two centuries of Quedlinburg’s existence (936-1125), in part because most of the source material is available in modern editions, the subsequent four centuries have received little scholarly treatment. As a result, the hundreds of surviving documents from this period that show how the abbesses interacted with both the people under their authority and their neighbors remain a largely untouched source base for the connection between gender and power. The central question driving the project is this: can archival evidence reveal how (or if) the abbesses’ exercise of their authority differed from that of their (male) contemporaries who were dukes, counts, bishops and abbots? 

Biography:

Jonathan Lyon's research and teaching focus on the political and social history of Germany, Austria, and the Holy Roman Empire in the medieval period, particularly the eleventh through fifteenth centuries. He has held fellowships from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Austrian Science Fund, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the J. William Fulbright Program, and the Dolores Zohrab Liebmann Foundation. His first book, Princely Brothers and Sisters: The Sibling Bond in German Politics, 1100–1250 (Cornell University Press, 2013), won the 2017 John Nicholas Brown Prize for the best first book from the Medieval Academy of America. His recently completed book, Corruption, Protection and Justice in Medieval Europe: A Thousand-Year History(Cambridge University Press, 2023), argues that corrupt practices of protection and justice were a persistent problem at the local level in Europe throughout the period from 750 to 1800. He has also published a volume of translated Latin sources entitled Noble Society: Five Lives from Twelfth-Century Germany (Manchester University Press, 2017). He teaches courses on topics relating to medieval Central Europe and the Holy Roman Empire, premodern political cultures, and European gender history.