The nunneries of the Order of St. John in medieval Italy

Abstract

This paper’s focus is women as professed members of the Order of St John in Italy, as documented in cities such as Milan, Florence, Venice, Genova, Monteleone di Spoleto, Perugia, Penne and Sovereto. The adherence of women to the Order came under several institutional forms. Some women were laypeople, associated consorores who carried out the Order’s activities, sometimes working in its hospitals. Others lived in the houses of the Order of St John, where they could also take the vows, with consequent formation of “mixed” convents or monasteries. But in some cases, separate nunneries were created or assimilated from other communities. Some historians have seen a different evolution from the initial vocation of women, which consisted of field activities in support of the poor and the sick, and would later become a strictly cloistered life. This change can be observed by examining the biographies of the two Italian female Hospitaller saints, Ubaldesca and Toscana. Yet, local development varied, and the situation in an important city like Florence differed from nunneries in smaller localities like Sovereto or Penne. Finally, several interesting sources allow us a glimpse of the spirituality and norms in those women’s daily lives compared to male religiosity. The medieval Italian nunneries of St John never became an autonomous branch of the Order, but at the same time, they were not a rare or exceptional phenomenon.