Female Monasticism and Family Strategy: The Guises and Saint Pierre de Reims

Abstract

This article argues for the existence of female social networks, which were centered around abbeys and which can be viewed as a female dimension to male patron-client networks. This female dimension forces some reevaluation of the nature of male patron-client networks away from the model of power structures towards a function of noble society. A study of the nuns who resided at the abbey of Saint Pierre de Reims, which was headed by a member of the Guise family, shows an expansive and interwoven network of women, both kinship and affinity, occupying the same physical space or communicating with each other. It also shows that a member of a noble family who was assigned to a church career had a valuable and significant role to play in family strategies and dynastic planning.