Priests' Wives and Concubines in the Medieval West
This conference focuses on medieval women married to or living with priests, with the goal of restoring priests’ wives to scholarship on gender, spirituality, family life, and the church, particularly in western Europe. Speakers will explore the lives and circumstances of priests’ women, the sources that can reveal or shed light on their status or experiences, and the various roles—social as well as cultural—that they played within the family, their local communities, and the church more broadly. More information about the project can be found .
Conference Program
Thursday, October 27, 2022
8:30-9:15 am: Coffee
9:20 am: Greeting and Introduction
9:30 -11:00 am:
- (Universität Tübingen) and (Universität Tübingen): Contexts for the Defense of Clerical Marriage in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries
Coffee break
11:30 am -1:00 pm:
- (Université de Limoges): L’entourage féminin des chanoines de la collégiale Saint-Seurin de Bordeaux au XIIe siècle : épouses et veuves dans la vie communautaire séculière
- (University of Sheffield): Ego Agna, mater tua: Priests' wives and Female Relatives as Protagonists in Frankish and Spanish Charters, c. 900-1100
1:00 -2:30 pm: Lunch (Citrus Courtyard)
2:30 - 4:00 pm:
- (University of California- Berkeley): Priest’s Wives, their Children, and the Bishop’s Notaries: The Thirteenth-century Visitation Records of Città di Castello
- (Université de Poitiers): Priests’ and Bishops’ Wives in Tuscany (10-12th): An Ambiguous Recognition
Coffee
4:30-6:00
- (Université de Lille): Ecclesia, quae sponsa vel uxor eius dicitur: Priests, Women and Churches in the early medieval West
- (University of Sheffield): “Since a priest or deacon cannot have a lawful wife”: Rather of Verona’s struggle against clerical families in late tenth-century northern Italy.
Friday, October 28, 2022
8:30 - 9:00 am: Coffee
9:00-10:30 am:
- (Bar-Ilan University): Riding the Black Mare, Casting Away a Hungry Rat: The Priest’s Concubine in Medieval Folklore
- (University of Santiago de Compostela): Put the Blame on Her? Wives, Lovers, Daughters, and Sisters Facing Priest's Celibacy (NW Iberia, 800-1200)
Coffee
11:00-12:30 pm:
- (Stephen F. Austin State University): Priests, Concubines, and Slaves in Central-Medieval Bavaria
- (èצӰĎń): Making Men “Worthy of the Priesthood”: Clerical Wives and Ordained Husbands
12:30-2:00 pm: Lunch (Citrus Courtyard)
2:00-4:15 pm:
- (Université Paris 1 – Panthéon-Sorbonne): Cleric's wives in Britanny: Exceptions or Models for Clerical Couples in France ? (late 10th-early 11th century)
- (John Jay College of Criminal Justice): The Bishop’s Wife
- (Independent Scholar): Describing Priests' Wives in Normandy and England, 1050-1150
Coffee
4:45 pm: Wrap up and conference conclusions