She later became the abbess of the great double monastery
at Whitby, ruling over not only her own community but a monastery of friars as well.
She returned to Ely where she founded a double monastery
over which she served as abbess until her death in 679.
After the religious wars in the 1450s, the abbesses in charge were able to transform in every detail the Abbey Fontevraud, a double monastery
of women and men religious, to the ostentation of the Counter-Reformation in the 1630s.
There will also be events linked to St Ebba, the sister of King Oswald, who founded a double monastery
for monks and nuns at Coldingham, just north of Berwick, where she was abbess.
What is" known of this extraordinary woman, abbess of a double monastery
of women and men, comes from the historian Venerable Bede, who chronicled the development of the early English church, including the contributions of this woman called "Mother" by all who knew and revered her.
Fontevrault is a compelling subject for this investigation since, as a double monastery, it contained communities for women and for men within one complex.
14) The term double monastery is somewhat misleading as it applies to Fontevrault, for several reasons.
Hilda was born in 614 of noble birth, she became a nun at the age of 33, but went on to become Abbess of Whitby, a double monastery
of monks and nuns.
focuses on Fontevrault, a double monastery
headed by women, and its relationship with several culturally and politically powerful women of the French and English royal families, including Eleanor of Aquitaine.
The indigenous model of joint overlordship by king and queen, reflected in the ecclesiastical hierarchy in the relationship between bishop and (royal) abbess of the double monastery
, then is replaced by the joint rule by king and bishop over state and monastic foundations.
Of course, Elisabeth herself may have had more than a passing interest in the legitimizing quality of kinship ties: she maintained a close relationship with her brother Ekbert throughout her life, even prompting him to join her in the religious life at the double monastery
of Schonau, where he served as her secretary and aide until her death.
The demise of the double monastery
and the enforced claustration of women religious, both of which, with few exceptions, were matters of fact by the beginning of the ninth century, are seen as emblematic of the gradual yet persistent suppression of women's power and influence by the official Church.