Holy Virgins and Blessed Rulers

Many questions raised by the spread of female asceticism in Late Antiquity have now been answered. Other issues remain unresolved. The one to which we try to give more emphasis in this volume has to do with the institutional and economic aspects of women’s monasticism. They are the most difficult to discern solely based on literature aimed at creating models of behaviour and rules of spiritual life. Some reflections, however, can help our discussion. The exhortation to female sexual continence, exalting in women the inclination to live in total renunciation of material goods and sex, encouraged their exclusion from the hierarchies. We need to understand whether it became central in Christian preaching and treatises at a particular time because, whether effective or not in its outcomes, it allowed the Church to absorb much of the wealth of women who had been won over to that ideal of a Christianity of excellence.

Holy Virgins and Blessed Rulers: What We Know and What We Would Still Like to Learn About (Rita Lizzi Testa)

Il monachesimo e la questione della priorità delle adesioni (e comunità) femminili. Osservazioni sulle prime testimonianze (II-IV secolo) (Teresa Sardella)
Marcella, Melania the Younger, and Friends: Intergenerational Wealth amd Property in Rome (4^th-6^th Centuries) (Michele Renee Salzman)
Les enseignantes chrétiennes dans les interstices de l’enseignement doctrinal dans l’Antiquité tardive (III^e-IV^e siècles) (Marine Tesson)
Female Communities in Gaul. The Beginnings (and a Little Beyond) (Franca Ela Consolino)
Le travail des moniales, entre idéal et pratiques, d’après les sources franques (VI^e-VII^e siècle) (Isabelle Réal)
Patrimonium uirginitatis: From Virginity to Female Monasticism in Late Antique Hispania (4^th-6^th Centuries) (Pablo C. Díaz)
Imperial Patronage and Private Wealth in the Life of Matrona of Perge: Founding and Financing an Elite Female Monastery in Late Antique Constantinople (Anysia Metrakos)
Textile Production in Egyptian Monastic Communities (4^th-8^th Century AD): The Gender Aspect (Maria Mossokowska-Gaubert)
Organization and Subsistence of Self-governing Female Monasteries in Late Antique Egypt (María Jesús Albarrán Martínez)
Female Foundations of Male Monasteries in Palestine: The Economic Aspects (Alessandra Giomma)
Reflections on Female Monasticism and Ascetism in the Syriac World (4^th-7^th Century) (Florence Jullien)
Covenants of Labor: Economics and the Lives of bnat qyāmā in Early Syriac Christian Asceticism (Maria Doerfler)

Conclusions (Jean-Michel Carrié)

Index
The Authors