oldshrewsburyian:

I am most gratified by this interest, which you share with @the-moon-loves-the-sea and two anonymous inquirers. So, lesbian* nuns in the Middle Ages, as per this post. First, the asterisk: most of the time, throughout history, we don’t know about people’s sexual activities, and this goes at least double for those who have taken vows of No Sex, Ever. But still, there’s plenty of grounds to discuss the queer loves of women who were free to explore their own interior lives (and to do gardening) in all-female communities.

Peter Damian, 11th-century abbot of Cluny, tells the most explicitly-lesbian nun story I know. The ostensible purpose of the anecdote was to reinforce the importance of confession. A young woman living in a nunnery received a vision of her godmother, who had recently died. The older woman told her goddaughter about “a sin which she had forgotten until the virgin Mother of God intervened on her behalf.” This was “succumbing to wanton lust with girls [her] own age.” She’d been spared the punishment for unconfessed sin (another prominent theme of edifying medieval anecdotes: the Blessed Virgin Mary has your back, always.) But she thought she’d come back and give the handy reminder. Notably, while “succumbing to wanton lust” is always a bad thing in monastic writings (obviously), the lesbianism of it all is not treated as shocking or especially sinful. (Story translated here.)

Then there’s the erotic poetry: “It is you alone I have chosen for my heart… / I love you above all else, / You alone are my love and desire …When I recall the kisses you gave me, / And how with tender words you caressed my little breasts, / I want to die / Because I cannot see you.” (Found here.)

So yeah, we have sexually explicit stuff. Moving beyond that, there are the gorgeous and heart-rending letters of Hildegard to Richildis (excerpts here.) As alluded to in that linked article, religious women’s imaginations of the infinitely desirable often looked… suspiciously like vulvas. See e.g. Rosalynn Voaden, “All Girls Together: Community, Gender and Vision at Helfta.” The work of Ulrike Wiethaus and others has explored the queerness of embodied mysticism for beguines (not nuns, strictly speaking, but also in women’s communities) and other religious women. Mechthild of Magdeburg’s writing, where gender is fluid and spiritual encounters are erotic, is a great example of this. In conclusion: lesbian nuns, probably not that unusual, and living their best lives, mostly gardening and illuminating manuscripts.