Historiographical issues and textual evidence for a survey on female monasteries and power in Naples during the early Middle Ages

Abstract

An investigation about the relations of early medieval Neapolitan female monasteries with pow- er and prominent families, must come to terms with the scarcity of documentary evidence and the lack of data for formulating plausible hypotheses. Most of the documents transcribed or recorded by Bartolommeo Capasso at the end of the nineteenth century (now mostly lost) to reconstruct a documentary history of the Duchy of Naples came precisely from female mon- asteries of the early medieval period. Yet, drawing a reliable picture of these monastic foundations is a difficult task, much more arduous than for other centres of the Italian peninsula, also because of a lack of modern critical literature on the subject. This article draws on these early medieval sources in order to find traces of these monasteries and their history. The conclusions that can be drawn from this analysis will be compared with chronicles and hagiographical texts. The latter particularly demonstrate that female monasteries stood out as focal points in the urban fabric, capable of conveying symbolic and representative functions assigned by the dukes through the foundation of monumental complexes, true monastic citadels, at the head of which they designated abbesses from their families.