failure to expel women from their order, can be seen as a century of religious
fervour that women were determined to be a part of regardless of male reluctance. 146 Yet amongst these developments, once again there remained
constants in the religious dynamics between the sexes. Whilst society’s value of
female piety and the cult of the Virgin Mary increased, the suspicion between
the sexes in religious settings persisted which in turn increased female enclosure. 147 Furthermore, female houses continued to be less well-endowed than male ones and their prayers for society and the dead were viewed to have less efficacy. 148 Eremitical lifestyles did develop where a woman could have her
own relationship with God free from the male dominance of an organised house,
but the dominant reality was that religious women remained dependent upon men for their material welfare. 149 Therefore, whilst the religious opportunities
were expanding it is essential to remember that they did so in a context where
women’s lower religious status was maintained.
The unceasing influence that sexual morality had upon the respectability
of one’s religious identity is another area to be considered. It has been
established that the continental wide reinvigoration of basic Christian principles
had an effect on both the Anglo-Norman realm and its female community, but
its core value to religious women can be viewed in the nun at Watton affair.
Regardless of status in society all needed to adhere to sexual morality, and the
nun’s reaction to their pregnant counterpart presents the severe importance
146 See Thompson, p 232-3 and p. 238. The various decrees and attempts to prevent convents which failed to take effect. 147 Green, p. 361. For the suspicions and accusations against Christina of Markyate and Geoffrey of St Albans see, Giles Constable, ‘Aelred of Rievaulx and the nun of Watton: an episode in the early history of the Gilbertine Order’, in Medieval Women , ed. by Derek Baker and Rosalind M. T. Hill (Oxford: Blackwell for the Ecclesiastical History Society, 1978), pp. 205-226 (p. 220). See also Leyser, p. 201. 148 Green, p. 384-5. See also, p. 412. For the practices involving prayer for the dead see, Georges Duby., Women of the Twelfth Century / Vol. 2, Remembering the Dead. (Oxford: Polity, 1997). 149 Green, p. 388. See also Leyser, p. 190.
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