Women's Literacy in a Late Medieval Religious Community: Organisation and Memorialisation at Santa Marta in Milan, 1405–1454

Abstract

This article argues for literacy as a form of memorialisation in female religious organisations in late medieval Italy. Using freshly discovered archival materials from the Archivio di Stato in Milan, focus is placed on organisation and memorialisation in one particular community, the women of Santa Marta during the period 1405–1454. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, new communities formed who wished to organise according to their own principles. Some of these communities eventually adopted an official rule, such as the Rule of Saint Augustine, and obtained papal approval for their specific way of living when they did not follow the rule absolutely. This article argues that access to reading and writing were fundamental aspects in these communities, and enabled women to empower themselves in ways that had not been possible. I focus on the writing of a semi‐religious nun, Margherita Lambertenghi, and the other narratives relating to the convent of Santa Marta in Milan during the early fifteenth century, as a case‐study to show the central role that literacy played in the development of the community. Since the extant writing of the convent reveals interesting practices of copying and memorialisation, sometimes mediated by men, the article also discusses these issues.