Preserved in a twelfth-century manuscript (Clm 19411) from the Bavarian abbey of Tegernsee are the voices of a number of remarkable medieval women.2 Scattered among a collection of approximately 300 letters these voices offer insight into the diverse ways in which elite women could use letters to perform and accomplish cultural work of varying kinds in the high medieval period. Beyond providing evidence of women’s intercessory activities and their maintenance of familial and social networks, these letters also demonstrate women’s engagement with philosophical and literary endeavours. The twelfth century has long been recognised as a period of cultural flourishing in Europe and evidence from the Tegernsee letters helps to situate women’s participation in this historical context. Eleven letters from the larger epistolary collection are collectively known as the Tegernseer Liebesbriefe (Tegernsee Love Letters). These letters, primarily written by women, are characterised by their engagement with philosophical reflections on the nature of love and friendship and the cultivation of intimate relationships. They form part of a long literary tradition celebrating love and friendship, which, while having its roots in antiquity, flourished in the cultural renewal of the later eleventh and twelfth centuries. An examination of the Tegernsee collection as a whole, and the Liebesbriefe specifically, illustrates how these letters offer a rich source of evidence to explore aspects of women’s cultural work, including maintaining patronage, familial, and social networks, and female literary artistry in the high medieval period. Letter writing offered these women not only an opportunity to participate in the cultural shaping of attitudes and ideas, but also an opportunity to critique and refashion them.
Letters as evidence of women’s work
Letters provide the historian with evidence of medieval women’s work, both in their contents as well as their deliberate and careful construction. Much of the research directly addressing women’s work in the Middle Ages has tended to focus on economic activity, such as cloth production, or household and estate management.3 Broadening our purview to consider how women’s intellectual and social activities contributed to cultural production significantly expands our conception of the nature of medieval women’s work. Scholarly studies have demonstrated the importance, for example, of women’s involvement in patronage activities and their maintenance of key political, social, and literary networks.4 In many cases these networks would have been sustained through frequent correspondence. In examining the women’s letters from Clm 19411 cultural work takes on a twofold meaning. Firstly, these women produced material artefacts through the process of writing letters. The act of writing the letter (or dictating to a scribe) produced and participated in culture. Secondly, through their letters these women engaged in, affirmed, and challenged various cultural processes, from patronage and network maintenance through to sophisticated philosophical discussions and talented literary displays. The letter became not only an item of cultural production, but its subject matter too participated in cultural processes. In these ways female letter writers helped shape the cultural norms and expectations for elite women in the twelfth century.
The large volume of letters preserved from the twelfth century offers vital evidence for the cultural flourishing of this period, leading some to claim it as a golden age for medieval epistolary production.5 A wide variety of work could be accomplished through the production of letters.6 Letters preserved records of business dealings, legal contracts, and estate management, as well as personal requests for assistance and support. Socially, letters were also extremely important in developing and maintaining relationships, and assisting in negotiations.7 In all of these uses the medieval letter provided opportunities for the display of education and the performance of identity. Letter writing was a culturally and socially significant act in the Middle Ages, one which declared that the author belonged to an educated, literate elite. For both men and women, the composition of elegant letters that were informed by classical models affirmed the writer’s place within this elite and offered the opportunity to reinforce or to challenge the cultural norms associated with such a milieu.
Using letters as evidence of medieval women’s work is a complex task.8 Women’s letters have been preserved with far less frequency than men’s, arguably the result of intentional selection as letter collections were compiled.9 Further complicating interpretation of medieval women’s letters is the fact that while letters operated as an important means through which work was done, they were also self-consciously and carefully considered rhetorical compositions in and of themselves.10 While the content of letters can reveal valuable information, the literary composition of the letters is also a form of work. This complicates ideas of female authorship as questions are frequently raised about whether letters written in the female voice were actually composed by women. Similar critical questions surround the ‘reality’ of a letter’s content, which can be obscured by its deliberate, performative construction, and which, in turn, potentially reduces the letter to a rhetorical exercise, with limited purpose beyond a display of literary artistry. John Van Engen summarises this interrelated relationship by explaining that ‘women authors have suffered, it turns out, from precisely this ambivalence between history and literature [in medieval letters], their work nearly always reduced to rhetoric rather than life, even their rhetoric credited to clerical “handlers” or “impersonators”’.11 Alison Beach posits that complex theories explaining how men authored texts in the female voice should only be presented if simpler explanations, for example, that a woman actually wrote (or dictated) the text, can be proven wrong.12 Applying Beach’s logic, it can be argued that the compilers of Clm 19411 did not reject the idea that women’s letters should be preserved as equally valid examples of rhetorical or compositional style alongside those composed by men, and that they are evidence of the scope of cultural engagement available to women.
The distinction between literary composition and spontaneous expression, or between fact and fiction, can be very difficult to define in medieval letters.13 The letter in the Middle Ages was a more public and participatory document than its modern counterpart. Scribes were often involved in the composition of letters and once delivered they were often read aloud to the recipient among a group of people.14 As a result there is often a sense of conscious literary construction in medieval letters, even when they appear to express sincere emotion. Building on Judith Butler’s work on gender as an identity that is continually constructed and performed,15 Elizabeth Freeman has applied similar concepts to medieval letter writing. She argues that ‘medieval letters were performances’ in which the writer consciously created and presented a subjective identity to a wide audience.16
It is not surprising, therefore, that there is an element of performance in the Tegernseer Liebesbriefe that belies any notion of purely private communication, despite the intimate topics discussed and language used. Letters thus become performances of philosophical skill, literary talent, and carefully constructed identities. The authors of the Liebesbriefe deliberately took advantage of the opportunities the epistolary format presented to them to display their learning and talent by engaging in philosophical debate. They created and staged identities carefully constructed to reflect their status as educated, talented writers proud to participate in a long-standing literary tradition of philosophical and ethical debate. The other letters written by, to, or concerning women throughout the collection testify to similar performances of learning and identity through women’s work in maintaining patronage, familial, and other social networks.
The Tegernsee manuscript: The context of a letter collection
The Tegernseer Liebesbriefe have received most critical attention from German scholars,17 and they are also relatively well known in German popular culture because of the short vernacular love-lyric that concludes Liebesbrief 10.18 The Liebesbriefe have received little sustained criticism in Anglophone scholarship, and are usually considered in the context of a larger, synthetic study.19 The publication of a critical edition of the letters in Clm 19411 in 2002 has made these important texts more accessible to scholars in general.20
The Tegernsee letter collection, including the Liebesbriefe, forms the bulk of the material in Clm 19411. The manuscript was compiled in stages between 1160 and 1186 at the Benedictine abbey of Tegernsee and was likely intended as an educational resource in the monastery’s school.21 While the manuscript is well known for containing a copy of the Ludus de Antichristo (a twelfth-century liturgical drama), much of its content is dedicated to the art of letter writing. The manuscript as a whole appears to have had a didactic or referential purpose in teaching students how to compose good letters. Manuscript compilations such as this, which combined theoretical treatises and exemplary letters, are common to the period and represent a standard practice in teaching the art of letter writing.22 The letters of Clm 19411 include correspondence between popes and German emperors; correspondence of the abbots of Tegernsee; letters to, from, and between various lay nobles; a variety of letters about monks and nuns; and the small collection that comprises the Liebesbriefe. The precise date(s) of the Liebesbriefe composition is unknown, although Peter Dronke has argued that it likely occurred in the first half of the twelfth century.23
As the foliation of Clm 19411 in Appendix 1 demonstrates, it is misleading to refer to the Liebesbriefe as a separate, complete set of letters since they are interspersed throughout the collection. Connections between certain letters, however, have been identified. Helmut Plechl has suggested that Liebesbriefe 9 and 11, as well as 3 and 4, might be considered ‘letter pairs’ (Briefpaar).24 Dronke has identified 9, 10, and 11 as a sub-group, with 10 the first letter in the sequence, 11 a reply, and 9 the final letter.25 The confused order in the manuscript is likely the result of letters copied from loose leaves. Modern editors have traditionally separated the Liebesbriefe from the rest of the collection and assigned them a separate numbering system (see Appendix 2), reflecting, for the most part, their shared themes and concerns.26 Understanding this complexity is important for realising that the Liebesbriefe cannot be divorced entirely from the context of the other letters surrounding them.
Assessment of the women’s letters in the Liebesbriefe must also be accompanied by consideration of women’s letters preserved in the rest of the collection. While small in number, other letters written by or to women in the Tegernsee manuscript were also thought worthy of preservation by the compilers as exemplars of good compositional style and rhetoric.27 In this capacity women’s epistolary labour as well as men’s served to educate the next generation of letter writers studying at the monastery school.
Unlike other monastic houses, such as Admont in the southern German territories, the abbey of Tegernsee did not have a corresponding women’s community attached to it. Recent scholarship into the experience and writing of women in religious communities associated with the Hirsau reform in Germany during the twelfth century demonstrates that many religious women were highly educated.28 Corresponding study, however, of the religious houses that did not reform and which remained closely allied to the royal court of the Holy Roman Empire (such as Tegernsee itself), and the women connected to such houses, has been noticeably absent from recent scholarship.29 The anonymous nature of many of the women’s letters in Clm 19411 makes it difficult to identify their authors. It is possible that the female authors of the Liebesbriefe lived, either as nuns, students, or boarders in ancient female houses associated with royal or noble courts that advocated classical education rather than the educational ideals of religious reform. Examples of such female institutions include the abbeys of Wilton in England, Le Ronceray in Angers, and Argenteuil outside Paris, as well as Obermünster and Niedermünster in Regensburg. The Latinate education such houses advocated is related, at least in part, to training young elite and courtly women for careers as noble wives or high-ranking monastic officers. It is also possible, as some of the letters in the broader collection indicate, that the female authors may have been relatives, either nuns or laywomen, of the monks of Tegernsee.30 Tegernsee itself was aligned with the imperial court and geographically positioned close to the major route between the imperial heartland and Italy. The letters in the Tegernsee Collection reveal an interest in royal, papal, and other high-level politics, likely partly both a result and a cause of the abbey’s secular and classical focus on its educational practices. It is likely, then, that the female authors were part of this elite, educated social context and used elegant Latin composition to display their status and identity. In doing so they navigated the expectations of their social position with such skill that their letters were preserved as models.
The work of networking: Women and the broader letter collection of Clm 19411
Epistolary exchange provided a vital means through which social networks were created and managed. The social work of maintaining patronage systems and family ties fell to noble women as much as to men.31 The broader collection of letters in Clm 19411 offers evidence highlighting how important women were to the maintenance of such networks. The crucial role of women in processes of intercession and patronage is exemplified by Letter 80, written by a priest to a countess. The substance of the letter involves the priest complaining about the behaviour of the woman’s brother towards him. The brother, the priest claims, has not treated him with the dignity and respect he deserves after many years of faithful service to the family and he asks the woman to intercede on his behalf.32 The priest emphasises the woman’s capacity for intercession, implying her presumed ongoing contact with her brother, and the possibility that she could call upon this familial tie in order to offer redress to the priest.
Relying on family connections to help achieve ends is also exemplified in Letter 123. In this letter, dated to the period between 1173 and 1178, the dowager countess of Morit-Greifenstein writes to her relative, the abbot of Tegernsee, confidently asking for his thoughts on, and help in, designing and producing a reliquary.33 The countess’ act of commissioning a reliquary also highlights women’s involvement in religious patronage. Such work formed a key part of a royal or noble woman’s duty and, in this respect, the countess is acting within contemporary expectations as well as in accordance with her own spiritual inclinations.34
Familial support is also expected and requested in Letter 192, in which a nun writes to her brother requesting shelter during a troubling time at her monastery.35 A woman has been appointed abbess of the community at the insistence of the emperor and without the consent of the sisters. Subsequently, the abbess was excommunicated by agents of the pope, and her attempts to retain her position led to upheaval in the monastery. Nuns thus sought shelter from their male relatives until order could be restored and their autonomy preserved. Though arguably written under more distressing circumstances than Letter 123, Letter 192 displays the same sense of reciprocal obligation owed between family members, and the same expectation that support will be given when requested. Epistolary exchange offered a valuable means for maintaining and exploiting such networks.36
Evidence from the letters of Clm 19411 not only helps to illuminate women’s activity in maintaining social networks, but also their key involvement in the cultural work of literary patronage and textual production.37 Just as noblewomen were expected to be directly involved in religious patronage, taking a keen interest in the specifics of a project (as exemplified by the countess in Letter 123), they could also be actively involved in commissioning and overseeing the production of literary works. In Letter 292 a monk writes to a count to inform him of his inability to present a commissioned work on time. He claims that a representative of the count, Lady H (possibly the count’s wife), whom the count had sent to review the proposed work, decided that certain portions required amending. Her intervention led to the delay in finalising the project. It is possible that the count entrusted Lady H with the task of assessing the progress of the composition and that he was confident in her ability to critically review and analyse the work. After clarifying for the count that he had in fact met with Lady H, the monk reports that she took with her twenty-three quires from the larger piece. He emphasises that this action was due to the arguments of his enemies, rather than Lady H’s own idea.38 This could indicate his disbelief that she was capable of reviewing the work on her own, but it could also point to his desire to protect her integrity and not offend the count by insulting her behaviour. Her removal of the twenty-three quires suggests she evaluated the work and was not happy with a section; perhaps she wished to examine a portion more closely, confer with others, or keep the section for other purposes. The monk later reveals that it was Lady H’s continued possession of these quires which prevented him from presenting the work on time.39 It is because of this impasse that the monk is calling for the count’s intercession as he has the authority to bring an end to the matter.40 Despite his frustration the monk is keen to reiterate his obedience to Lady H, with the implication that he will continue to abide by the current situation until the count intervenes. Her authority in the matter is still confirmed, despite the dispute, reinforcing her ability to act as an appropriate intermediary.
This letter is significant for a number of reasons. Firstly, we encounter a woman acting as a trusted literary intermediary. Presumably, the count would not have sent H to confer with the monk if he did not trust her ability to properly assess the work and pass judgement on it. Further, her authority, whether derived from her social status and connection to the count and/or her literary ability, is ostensibly respected by the monk even if he disagrees with her actions. We also see a woman acting independently in assessing a literary composition. The monk makes it clear that it was her idea to take with her certain sections of the document and to keep them (though he suggests she may have been influenced in her decision by his ‘enemies’). Here we see a woman intervening in literary questions. This implies that H is learned and capable of sophisticated literary analysis. This account reveals how women could be involved in the work of literary composition; in addition to being authors themselves they could also work as collaborative partners and agents.41
These letters from the wider collection in Clm 19411 demonstrate the varied forms that medieval women’s cultural work could take.42 From intercession within and the maintenance of social networks, to the patronage of religious objects, and literary analysis and evaluation, these women were active in a broad spectrum of cultural work, evidenced within epistolary exchange. The desire to preserve the letters through which these roles and models were performed is eloquent testimony to the social and cultural significance of women’s epistolary labours.
A tradition of intimacy: The literary context of the Tegernseer Liebesbriefe
When analysing the Tegernseer Liebesbriefe it is important to understand that they form part of a long-standing literary tradition exalting love and friendship in which women’s participation is first evidenced during the later eleventh century. This tradition can be traced back to classical antiquity and, in particular, the writings of Ovid and Cicero. Ovid provided a model for understanding and describing love, and Cicero provided a foundation for understanding friendship. During the late Roman Republic Cicero had outlined, most famously in the De amicitia (On friendship), a pattern and definition for a system of true friendship between men that was based not on material gain, but on disinterested virtue, love, and devotion.43 In Cicero’s age friendship of this kind was presumed to exist only between patrician male equals.44 In the early medieval period this tradition was adapted and became the preferred mode of expressing the charismatic loving relationships ideally crafted between male masters and students. Famous writers such as Alcuin adopted its tropes and conventions in their correspondence with friends and colleagues.45 In the twelfth century the tradition was further adapted to articulate the affective bonds and relationships existing between monastic brethren and communities. Notable monastic writers such as Anselm of Canterbury and Aelred of Rievaulx expertly exploited its forms to express their love for their fellow monastic brothers.46 Women’s participation in this form of discourse is preserved from the later eleventh century. It is within this influential literary tradition of friendship that not only the Tegernseer Liebesbriefe but other intimate letter sets from the period should be placed, such as the correspondence of Baudri of Bourgueil and the nuns of Le Ronceray in Angers, the Epistolae duorum amantium, and the letters of Peter Abelard (d. 1142) and Heloise (d. 1163).47
Of particular relevance to the Tegernseer Liebesbriefe are the Regensburg Verses, a collection of letters dating to the eleventh century, written between a group of probably aristocratic women being educated in a convent and a schoolmaster from Liège.48 While not as sophisticated in their composition as the Tegernseer Liebesbriefe, and very likely to have been school exercises, the Regensburg Verses share many of the interests and characteristics of other intimate letters written during this period. The female writers in all of these sets use the opportunity afforded by letter writing to engage in philosophical discourse intended to develop and shape attitudes and to influence ideas about the nature of relationships; in short, to participate in contemporary practices of cultural production. This epistolary activity reveals not only their intimate knowledge of classical scholarship and skill in harnessing it to their intentions, but also, at times, their own unique thoughts on the nature of love and friendship.
The influence of Ovid and the Heroides: Tegernseer Liebesbriefe 1–8
Ovid’s Heroides, in particular, offered women a combined example of both female letter writing and female exploration of love. The Heroides are a collection of fictional letters written by Ovid in the voice of various heroines from Greek and Roman mythology.49 Although these were fictional letters written by a man, the Heroides provided women with a model for participating in the literary discourse of love and friendship while also offering a way for women to challenge the traditionally exclusively male nature of the discourse. During the medieval period Ovid’s works were viewed with ambivalence.50 While used as school texts from which young students could learn Latin grammar, the erotic content of much of Ovid’s work remained a concern for many medieval scholars and teachers who sought to neutralise this problem while preserving his writings as a teaching aid. To that end texts like the Heroides were presented as ethical works designed to teach young people about appropriate and inappropriate kinds of love.51 Despite these concerns the eleventh century witnessed something of an Ovidian revival, particularly in the region of the Loire Valley, where writers were keen to imitate Ovid’s style and his exploration of love through poetic composition and exchange.52 It is within this larger context of Ovidian influence on literary production that the first eight Tegernseer Liebesbriefe can be understood.
The first eight Liebesbriefe, while intriguing, have not often been considered the stand-out letters from the collection. Dronke’s analysis of these letters is hardly encouraging: compared with the sophisticated compositions of Heloise he regards them as ‘often clumsy, often repetitive and vary[ing] considerably in manner and quality’.53 Dronke views the letters, particularly those exchanged between women, as ‘too long and aimless’ despite containing some ‘striking phrases’.54 However, these women writers, in part, perform a specifically Heroidian type of discourse in their attempts to discuss love and their relationships with the recipients. In each of the Tegernseer Liebesbriefe ideal love is characterised as something preferably exclusive, virtuous, true, pure, constant, and honourable. Many of the female letter writers lament the separation between them and their respective recipients (be they kinsmen, teachers, friends, or lovers) and call for their reunion as soon as possible. While longing for the beloved is a general theme characteristic of the Heroides, it also recurs among both male and female medieval monastic writings.55 The Heroides may have inspired the effusive display in these letters, but the language and phrasing could be drawn from other sources, including the Bible. In Liebesbrief 1, the author writes of her distress since her kinsman has left and longs for his return.56 In Liebesbrief 8 the author writes of her pain, day and night, as she awaits her lover’s return and questions her strength in the face of such torment.57
Lamenting a separation and pining for the return of the beloved are not the only characteristic Heroidian features within these letters; abandonment of the beloved, and the subsequent anger and pain it inspires in the writer, are found. For example, the author of Liebesbrief 2 describes herself as ‘abandoned’ (derelicta) by her male addressee, and she envisages that her soul will be destroyed by grief as a result.58 After acknowledging that the fault may be her own, she concludes that her lover is to blame and renounces both love and relationships with men in the future.59 While the traditional ideal of true friendships being exclusively male is overtly challenged by the female writers addressing other women in the Liebesbriefe, the striking feature in all of these letters is that women writers present exclusive, virtuous love as something that is not only possible for them, but is indeed the desired ideal relationship. Epistolary exchange thus allows these women not only to long for their recipients’ return, but also to participate within this literary tradition and demonstrate their own literary skill. These letters are both mirrors of the themes contained in the Heroides and also model Heroidian performances themselves.
The influence of Cicero: Liebesbrief 10 and the redefinition of literary and courtly traditions
For the vast majority of the female writers in the Liebesbriefe the rules and expectations of love are assumed. Through their description of feelings and desires—for example, longing to be with their addressees—the writers implicitly articulate assumptions about the ways in which relationships operate. These assumptions are shared with their recipients by virtue of the education and knowledge of classical texts promoted within an erudite courtly culture. The author of Liebesbrief 10, however, is unique in her active discussion of not only what constitutes true friendship, but also how that friendship should operate in her relationship with her recipient, her teacher and a man known only as H. She is keenly aware in her letter of how love and friendship can work in a broader, more abstract sense. This letter is a declaration of love for H, and also a platform for further philosophical and ethical reflection. For this writer, Cicero provides the inspiration for understanding true friendship, and epistolary exchange gives her and the addressee a place to discuss what friendship means, as well as a space in which to grow and strengthen their relationship. Unlike the other female writers in the Liebesbriefe this writer is acutely aware of and open about her enjoyment of letter writing and the opportunities it presents. In this letter little of the overtly Heroidian nature of the other letters is present. This author does not write of longing for her beloved to return to her, nor does she feel abandoned and lament the separation between H and herself.
Liebesbrief 10 is arguably the most complex and sophisticated of all the Tegernseer Liebesbriefe. It opens with a beautiful, complex salutation, full of classical allusion.60 H is described as the ‘flower of flowers’ (flori florum), crowned with good behaviour and possessing the beauty and standards of the virtues.61 The writer sends to him everything that can be valued, and finally sends her whole self. The salutation highlights not only her model epistolary style, but also literary creativity as she demonstrates her affection for H through vivid and effusive imagery. Her salutation is immediately followed by a passage in which she remarks on her inability to reply adequately to her teacher’s letters. Again, informed by classical allusion, she observes that even if she had the literary powers of Cicero and Ovid her talents would not be equal to those of her teacher. Despite her doubts and modesty (a standard medieval topos), however, she immediately begins the heart of her letter with a complex scholarly discussion of friendship. It is apparent from how the writer introduces her thoughts that it is customary for her and H to discuss this topic in their letters.62 Cicero provides her intellectual foundation, and from his ideas she uses both prose and verse (demonstrating her literary skill) to build a picture of friendship that is at once both erudite and intimate. Her letter here becomes a performance, demonstrating the author’s capacity to articulate an ideal of the truest friendship between a man and woman. She writes:
True friendship, as attested by Tullius Cicero, ‘is the agreement of all divine and human things in charity and benevolence,’ which also, as I have learned through you, is more excellent than all other human things and more eminent than all other virtues, it gathers together what is apart, preserves what is together [and] makes larger what has been kept. Nothing is more true than this description or definition.63
This passage reveals that friendship becomes the highest virtue that binds everything together. The writer then composes a short poem highlighting the characteristics of friendship: people strive for it and are strengthened through it, it is the hope of the desperate, it restores the fallen and refreshes those who are burdened, it does not allow error and orders things to love, and it rules and commands over all.64 Her writing begins to sound like a treatise on friendship; however, its epistolary nature allows her to simultaneously discuss these general themes while also reinforcing the intimate relationship she has with H. This woman may have read and studied these definitions before, but she has only experienced and learned them through her relationship with her recipient. Cicero may be her authority but it is the author’s intimate relationship with H that has taught her about ideal friendship. By implication, theory is not effective unless practised. The overarching theme of her entire letter is that love and friendship are truly present in a relationship that is exclusive, irreplaceable, and based on faith, trust, truth, strength, honour, and courtesy. As Cicero had advocated, material wealth does not strengthen love. The woman writes that in keeping mind and trust for her lover alone she has the gold and silver of a joyous soul that is more valued by her than if she were to be surrounded by gold and silver piled at her feet.65
In reading the whole of this woman’s letter one senses that she has spent much time thinking about the wider philosophical questions posed by friendship. She is certain of her convictions and proud of her ability to articulate them in a sophisticated manner, and she fully expects her teacher not only to agree with her, but to follow her precepts.66 If her teacher breaks faith with her an awful fate awaits him, as he will drown.67 If he does hold true to her he will have a blessed life, shine like the sun, and conquer the citadel of the virtues.68 The woman becomes not simply a definer of true friendship, but the arbiter of how a relationship of true friendship is to be achieved between them. She has set the standard and the rule for their continued intimacy.
The author of Liebesbrief 10, rather than lamenting the separation that forces her and H to communicate via letter, instead celebrates it. She indicates that their epistolary exchange creates an intimacy between them akin to physical closeness and more important than conversation. She employs a rather unusual metaphor when describing this, writing:
From the day I saw you I began to love you, you penetrated strongly the inner parts of my heart, and there, wonderful to say, you prepared a seat as a meeting place of pleasant conversation, and so that it would not be broken by any impulse, you established it [the seat] with epistolary discourse most firmly, as a three-legged stool, or rather a four-legged chair.69
The metaphor emphasises the importance of epistolary exchange to the relationship. Their love was born of meeting and being physically close at one time; however, epistolary exchange has helped to strengthen their love and provided them with an avenue of continued intimacy. The epistolary format not only gives her the power and opportunity to discuss philosophical and scholarly ideas, and to adapt those ideas to her own intimate relationship, but it also gives both her and H the power and opportunity to continue growing their relationship. According to her literary construct, without epistolary exchange their relationship would wither and die.
In two important respects the author of Liebesbrief 10 moves beyond the expressions and feelings of other female letter writers who participated in this literary tradition. The first is in her experimentation with writing in the vernacular in the short, sweet German poem which concludes her letter. It is a tender message of love that compliments, yet in its simplicity contrasts with the preceding complex arguments about love presented by the author:
(‘You are mine, I am yours, this you should know; you are locked in my heart, the key is lost, you must always remain therein’.)
Having relied on and demonstrated her capacity for classical learning throughout her letter, the author finally, and most powerfully, declares her love in her own language.
The second way in which she deviates from her fellow female letter writers is in her engagement with themes of courtly behaviour and the regulation of relationships beyond the intimate one between her teacher and herself. She writes:
You are doing well in that you attempt to warn me away from the knights as from certain portents. I know indeed what I should fear, lest I fall into a trap, yet keeping the trust I have in you I do not completely cast them aside, nor do I succumb to that vice of which you accuse them. For they are ones through whom, so to speak, the laws of courtliness are governed. For they are the source and origin of all integrity, about them let these things suffice as long as they do not impede at all our love.71
The implication is that she is writing in an environment where the ‘laws of courtliness’ (iura curialitatis) were respected and adhered to. This may be a secular courtly setting, rather than a monastic one; however, it is unclear from the letter. Regardless, curialitas, implying a respect for courtly manners, was a relatively rare word in the twelfth century.72 For this woman, the knights, or milites, are neither to be feared nor dismissed because they practise curialitas. They are the paragons of courtly virtue and integrity, and, despite her teacher’s warnings, she is secure enough in her own understanding of the concept, and her judgement of the knights’ behaviour, to continue associating with them and dismisses H’s concerns. Similarly, in her salutation to H, she declared him as crowned with good behaviour. Her value of correct courtly behaviour extends beyond the knights to include her teacher as well.
H, in his reply to the woman in Liebesbrief 11, expresses his happiness in corresponding with her, but criticises her for sending poetry without giving more of herself. He subtly and slyly proposes, through suggestive language, that it is time for her to follow up in action what she has declared in words, otherwise she will have violated the law of friendship.73 The woman, in Liebesbrief 9, responds with a mixture of humour and tenderness, rebuffing his suggestion while protecting his ego.74 As previously mentioned, the tradition exalting virtuous friendship between men during the earlier Middle Ages was adapted to suit the loving relationships that were encouraged between masters and their male students. C. Stephen Jaeger has described how charismatic, virtuous friendship became an integral part of a German courtly tradition during the Ottonian period that had its roots in the Carolingian age and promoted the virtues associated with correct behaviour and manners.75 The passionate and articulate author of Liebesbrief 10 is clearly positioned as a woman participating in a similar courtly culture where outward behaviour was perceived as a reflection of inward virtue. This woman, moreover, was not only participating in it, but importantly, determining and directing how it should operate.
Conclusion
The letters, and particularly the Liebesbriefe, preserved in Clm 19411 offer insights into women’s cultural participation in the High Middle Ages, helping to broaden scholarly understanding of what medieval women’s work could entail through examination of how women used epistolary practices to promote and achieve their aims. Cultural work in this context involves not only the production of the letter itself, but also the processes, ideas, and negotiations letter exchange allows. For the women of Clm 19411 this involves the maintenance of patronage and familial networks as well as participation in literary and philosophical traditions. The authors of the Liebesbriefe utilise the opportunities epistolary exchange provides to present their own thoughts on the nature of love and friendship and how intimate relationships should and could be constructed within a literary tradition customarily engaged with by men. Despite being few in number, women’s letters in Clm 19411 were thought worthy of preservation by the manuscript’s compilers for their stylistic and rhetorical merit and presumed use in aiding the next generation of letter writers. The composition of these letters along with their contents demonstrate that these women were known and understood to be educated and eager to use the epistolary format to display their learning, perform their identity, and shape cultural processes. The twelfth century is celebrated as a great age of letter writing. Famous female writers from the period, such as Heloise and Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179), engaged in cultural work by exchanging letters, and the women of Clm 19411, particularly those of the Liebesbriefe, help to illustrate the broader context in which these highly talented women operated. The evidence from Clm 19411 broadens our understanding of women’s involvement in important cultural production and indicates that women like Heloise were not exceptional anomalies. The Liebesbriefe demonstrate that women were actively involved in a literary tradition celebrating love and friendship, ethical debates about intimate relationships and behaviour, as well as the development of courtly ideals. The evidence of Liebesbrief 10 indicates that women were part of the process of shaping courtly ideals and behaviour. The women of Clm 19411 were working participants in all these traditions and their contributions will only continue to enhance understanding of women’s cultural production in the High Middle Ages.
Appendices
Appendix 1: Foliation of Clm 19411
Table 2.1Foliation of Clm 19411.
Note: This table is an overview of the main items contained in Clm 19411. See Plechl for full foliation details.
Source: Plechl, Die Tegernseer Briefsammlung, x–xi.
Appendix 2: Tegernseer Liebesbriefe overview
Table 2.2Tegernseer Liebesbriefe overview.
| Liebesbrief | Sender | Recipient |
| 1 | Anonymous Woman | Anonymous Man |
| 2 | Anonymous Woman | Anonymous Man |
| 3 | Anonymous Woman | Anonymous Man |
| 4 | Anonymous Man | Anonymous Woman |
| 5 | Anonymous Man | Anonymous Man |
| 6 | Anonymous Woman | Anonymous Woman |
| 7 | Anonymous Woman | Anonymous Woman |
| 8 | Anonymous Woman | Anonymous Woman |
| 9 | Anonymous Woman | Anonymous Man |
| 10 | Anonymous Woman | Anonymous Man |
| 11 | Anonymous Man | Anonymous Woman |
Notes
1I would like to acknowledge and thank Constant Mews, Tomas Zahora, and the participants of the Latin Reading Group at Monash University for their help and support with my translations of certain of the Tegernsee letters. I am also grateful to the editors of this volume, particularly Julie Hotchin, for their invaluable comments on earlier drafts of this essay.
2Munich, Staatsbibliothek Clm 19411. The manuscript is titled in the library catalogue as Ludus de aventu et interitu Antichristi. Literae multae et alia excerpta ex Ottonis Frisingensis Gestis Imperatoris Friderici [u.a.] BSB – Clm 19411. A digital copy of the manuscript exists. Accessed August 28, 2017. http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/bsb00008249/images/index.html?id=00008249&fip=xdsydxsewqxdsydeayaewqxdsydeayasdassdas&no=17&seite=1.
3See, for example: David Herlihy, Opera Muliebria: Women and Work in Medieval Europe (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990); Herbert Applebaum, The Concept of Work: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), 289–307; Barbara Hanawalt, ed., Women and Work in Preindustrial Europe (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986). See also the following essays in The Oxford Handbook of Women and Gender in Medieval Europe, ed. Judith M. Bennett and Ruth Mazo Karras (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013): Joanna H. Drell, ‘Aristocratic Economies: Women and Family’, 327–42; Martha C. Howell. ‘Gender in the Transition to Merchant Capitalism’, 561–76; Kathryn Reyerson, ‘Urban Economies’, 295–310; and Jane Whittle, ‘Rural Economies’, 311–26.
4See, for example, June McCash, ed., The Cultural Patronage of Medieval Women (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996).
5Jonathan Lyon, ‘The Letters of Princess Sophia of Hungary, a Nun at Admont’, in Writing Medieval Women’s Lives, ed. Charlotte Newman Goldy and Amy Livingstone (New York: Palgrave, 2012), 51.
6The classic introduction to letter writing in the medieval period is Giles Constable, Letters and Letter Collections (Turnhout: Brepols, 1976). This has been supplemented now by Medieval Letters: Between Fiction and Document, ed. Christian Høgel and Elisabetta Bartoli (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015). For an overview of medieval women’s letter writing specifically, see: Karen Cherewatuk and Ulrike Wiethaus, eds., Dear Sister: Medieval Women and the Epistolary Genre (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993). For a recent example of scholarship addressing the multiple uses to which the letter could be put in the medieval period, see: Martha Carlin and David Crouch, eds., Lost Letters of Medieval Life: English Society, 1200–1250 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013).
7See Kathleen Neal, ‘Words as Weapons in the Correspondence of Edward I with Llywelyn ap Gruffydd’, Parergon 30 (2013); Julian Haseldine, ‘Understanding the Language of amicitia: The Friendship Circle of Peter of Celle (c. 1115–1183)’, Journal of Medieval History 20 (1994); Julian Haseldine, ‘Friendship, Intimacy and Corporate Networking in the Twelfth Century: The Politics of Friendship in the Letters of Peter the Venerable’, English Historical Review 126 (2011). Joan Ferrante, ‘Women’s Roles in Latin Letters from the Fourth to the Early Twelfth Century’, in The Cultural Patronage of Medieval Women, ed. June McCash (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996); Joan Ferrante, To the Glory of Her Sex: Women’s Roles in the Composition of Medieval Texts (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997), 10–35.
8For an overview of approaching medieval women’s correspondence, see: Joan Ferrante, ‘What Really Matters in Medieval Women’s Correspondence’, in Medieval Letters: Between Fiction and Document, ed. Høgel and Bartoli.
9Sally Vaughn, St Anselm and the Handmaidens of God: A Study of St Anselm’s Correspondence with Women (Turnhout: Brepols, 2002), 254–55.
10John Van Engen, ‘The Voices of Women in Twelfth-Century Europe’, in Voices in Dialogue: Reading Women in the Middle Ages, ed. Linda Olsen and Kathryn Kerby-Fulton (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), 204.
11Van Engen, ‘The Voices of Women’, 204.
12Alison Beach, ‘Listening for the Voices of Admont’s Twelfth-Century Nuns’, in Voices in Dialogue: Reading Women in the Middle Ages, ed. Olsen and Kerby-Fulton (Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), 195–96.
13Constable, Letters and Letter Collections, 11–14.
14Elizabeth Freeman, ‘Medieval Women, Letter Writing and Performance’, Lilith: A Feminist History Journal 10 (2001): 62; Walter Fröhlich, trans., The Letters of Saint Anselm of Canterbury, Volume One (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1990), 25; Constable, Letters and Letter Collections, 53–55.
15Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York and London: Routledge, 1990).
16Freeman, ‘Medieval Women’, 63.
17For example, see: Sabine Buttinger, Das Kloster Tegernsee und sein Beziehungsgefüge im 12. Jahrhundert (Munich: Verein für Diözesangeschiechte von München und Freising e.V., 2004); Josef Breinbauer, ‘Kaiser Friedrich Barbarossa und das Kloster Tegernsee’, in Von Sacerdotium und Regnum, Geistliche und weltliche Gewalt im frühen und hohen Mittelalter: Festschrift für Egon Boshof zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Franz-Reiner Erkens and Hartmut Wolff (Cologne: Böhlau Verlag, 2002); Jürgen Kühnel, ed., Du bist min. Ih bin din: Die lateinischen Libes –(und Freundschafts) Briefe des clm 19411. Abbildungen, Text, und Übersetzung (Göppingen: Alfred Kümmerle, 1977). Certain of the Tegernseer Liebesbriefe have also been translated into French. See Étienne Wolff, trans. and ed., La lettre d’amour au Moyen Âge (Paris: NiL Éditions, 1996).
18The love-lyric in question is the famous Du bist min (Du bist min, ih bin din, des solt du gewis sin; du bist beslossen in minem herzen, verlorn ist das sluzzellin, du most och immer dar inne sin); see discussion p. 41. See Friedrich Vogt, ed., Des Minnesangs Frühling: Mit Bezeichnung der Abweichungen von Lachmann und Haupt und unter Beifügung ihrer Anmerkungen, 2nd edn. (Leipzig: Hirzel, 1914), 262–65. This is a collection of famous traditional love-lyrics.
19For example, see Peter Dronke, Medieval Latin and the Rise of the European Love-Lyric: Volume One, Problems and Interpretations (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), 231–32; Peter Dronke, Medieval Latin and the Rise of the European Love-Lyric: Volume Two, Medieval Latin Love Poetry (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), 472–82; W.H. Jackson, Chivalry in Twelfth-Century Germany (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1994); Constant Mews, The Lost Love Letters of Heloise and Abelard: Perceptions of Dialogue in Twelfth-Century France (New York: Palgrave, 1999), 101–04; Barbara Newman, Making Love in the Twelfth Century: ‘Letters of Two Lovers’ in Context (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016), 229–55.
20Helmut Plechl, ed., Die Tegernseer Briefsammlung Des 12. Jahrhunderts (Hanover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 2002).
21Plechl, Die Tegernseer Briefsammlung, ix.
22For more details on these texts and other early letter writing treatises, see William D. Pratt, ‘The Early Ars Dictaminis as Response to a Changing Society’, Viator 9 (1978); Martin Camargo, Ars Dictaminis, Ars Dictandi (Turnhout: Brepols, 1991); Carol Lanham, ‘Freshman Composition in the Early Middle Ages: Epistolography and Rhetoric before the Ars Dictaminis’, Viator 23 (1992).
23Peter Dronke, ‘Women’s Love Letters from Tegernsee’, in Medieval Letters: Between Fiction and Document, ed. Høgel and Bartoli, 216 n. 10.
24Plechl, Die Tegernseer Briefsammlung, xvi.
25Dronke, ‘Women’s Love Letters from Tegernsee’, 215–45.
26See, for example, the numbering system employed by Plechl in Die Tegernseer Briefsammlung, that used by Peter Dronke in his translation of certain of the letters in the second volume of Medieval Latin and the Rise of the European Love-Lyric, as well as the numbering followed by Étienne Wolff in La lettre d’amour au Moyen Âge and Barbara Newman in Making Love in the Twelfth Century. For the purposes of this essay I follow the numbering system (1–11) assigned by Plechl.
27Including the Liebesbriefe there are fifteen letters out of over 300 in the total collection written by or to women. These include Epistles (hereafter Ep.) 80, 123, 131, 189, and 192, Tegernseer Briefsammlung (hereafter TB), ed. Plechl, 106–08, 154–55, 162, 221–22, and 224–25.
28See: Beach, ‘Listening for the Voices’; Alison Beach, Women as Scribes: Book Production and Monastic Reform in Twelfth-Century Bavaria (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); Alison Beach, ‘Voices from a Distant Land: Fragments of a Twelfth-Century Nuns’ Letter Collection’, Speculum 77 (2002); Julie Hotchin, ‘Female Religious Life and the Cura Monialium in Hirsau Monasticism, 1080–1150’, in Listen Daughter: The Speculum Virginum and the Formation of Religious Women in the Middle Ages, ed. Constant Mews (New York: Palgrave, 2001). See also the essays by Beach and Hotchin, among others, in Alison Beach, ed., Manuscripts and Monastic Culture: Reform and Renewal in Twelfth-Century Germany (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007).
29Studies of women’s connections to male monasteries in the later eleventh and early twelfth century tend to concentrate on the double monasteries associated with reforming movements, such as Admont. For recent work on the relationships between religious men and women in high medieval Germany, see Fiona J. Griffiths and Julie Hotchin, eds., Partners in Spirit: Women, Men, and Religious Life in Germany, 1100–1500 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014).
30See, for example, Ep.123, discussed below.
31See, for example, Kimberly LoPrete, Adela of Blois: Countess and Lord (c. 1067–1137) (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007). See also Ferrante’s work in both To the Glory of Her Sex as well as ‘Women’s Roles in Latin Letters’ for detail on the connection between letter writing and the maintenance of patronage and familial networks.
32Ep. 80, TB, ed. Plechl, 107–08.
33Ep. 123, TB, ed. Plechl, 154–55.
34For a concise overview of the patronage expectations of a noblewoman, see the example of Queen Matilda, wife of Henry I of England in Lois Huneycutt, Matilda of Scotland: A Study in Medieval Queenship (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2003), 158–65.
35Ep. 192, TB, ed. Plechl, 224–25.
36For further examples and detail on women’s involvement in maintaining family ties, see LoPrete, Adela of Blois, as well as Amy Livingstone, Out of Love for My Kin: Aristocratic Family Life in the Lands of the Loire, 1000–1200 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2010).
37On women’s literary patronage in the early high medieval period, see: Ferrante, ‘Women’s Role in Latin Letters’, 73–104.
38Ep. 292, TB, ed. Plechl, 324.
39Ep. 292, TB, ed. Plechl, 324.
40Ep. 292, TB, ed. Plechl, 324–25.
41For further examples of women working in collaboration on literary projects, see: Ferrante, To the Glory of Her Sex, 39–135.
42For recent reflections on the study of medieval women and cultural patronage, and new directions scholarship can/should take on this point, see: Therese Martin, ‘Exceptions and Assumptions: Women in Medieval Art History’, in Reassessing the Role of Women as ‘Makers’ of Medieval Art and Architecture, ed. Therese Martin (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 8–12.
43Cicero, De amicitia, trans. William Falconer (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1923), 139.
44For amicitia in the Roman Republic, see: Neal Wood, Cicero’s Social and Political Thought (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988).
45See Mia Münster-Swendsen, ‘The Model of Scholastic Mastery in Northern Europe c. 970–1200’, in Teaching and Learning in Northern Europe, 1000–1200, ed. Sally N. Vaughn and Jay Rubenstein (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006), 307–42. C. Stephen Jaeger has also written extensively on this topic. For a concise overview, see C. Stephen Jaeger, Ennobling Love: In Search of a Lost Sensibility (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), 59–81.
46For more detail on medieval monastic friendship see, for example, Brian McGuire, Friendship and Community: The Monastic Experience, 350–1250 (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publishing, 1988).
47All of these letter sets were produced in French-speaking territories during the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries.
48The letters are preserved in a twelfth-century manuscript—Munich, Staatsbibliothek Clm 17142—and Dronke suggests that they formed part of an eleventh-century master’s papers that were copied haphazardly into Clm 17142 sometime during the early twelfth century. See Dronke, Medieval Latin: Vol. One, 221. For Dronke’s edition and translation of the letters, see Dronke, Medieval Latin: Vol. Two, 422–47. For Barbara Newman’s translation, see Newman, Making Love in the Twelfth Century, 257–78.
49Ovid, Heroides and Amores, trans. Grant Showerman (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977), 1–311.
50Ralph Hexter, ‘Ovid in the Middle Ages: Exile, Mythographer and Lover’, in Brill’s Companion to Ovid, ed. Barbara Boyd (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 413–42.
51Personal conversation with Natasha Amendola, Monash University. See also Ralph Hexter, Ovid and Medieval Schooling: Studies in Medieval School Commentaries on Ovid’s Ars Amatoria, Epistulae ex Ponto, and Epistulae Heroidum (Munich: Bei der Arbeo-Gesellschaft, 1986), 137–43.
52Gerald Bond, ‘“Iocus Amoris”: The Poetry of Baudri of Bourgueil and the Formation of the Ovidian Subculture’, Traditio 42 (1986).
53Dronke, Medieval Latin: Vol. Two, 482.
54Dronke, Medieval Latin: Vol. Two, 482.
55E. Ann Matter, ‘My Sister, My Spouse: Women-Identified Women in Medieval Christianity’, in The Boswell Thesis: Essays on Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality, ed. Matthew Kuefler (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 155.
56Liebesbrief 1 (hereafter Lb.), Tegernseer Liebesbriefe (hereafter TL), ed. Plechl, 345. Refer to Table 2.2 above for an overview of the senders and recipients of each of the Tegernseer Liebesbriefe.
57Lb. 8, TL, ed. Plechl, 356.
58Lb. 2, TL, ed. Plechl, 347. ‘Derelicta’.
59Lb. 2, TL, ed. Plechl, 347.
60Dronke, ‘Women’s Love Letters’, 217.
61Lb. 10, TL, ed. Plechl, 361.
62Lb. 10, TL, ed. Plechl, 362.
63Lb. 10, TL, ed. Plechl, 362. ‘Amicicia vera attestante Tullio Cicerone est divinarum humanarumque omnium rerum cum karitate et benivolentia consensio, que etiam ut per te didici, excellentior est omnibus rebus humanis cunctisque aliis virtutibus eminentior.’
64Lb. 10, TL, ed. Plechl, 362.
65Lb. 10, TL, ed. Plechl, 363.
66Lb. 10, TL, ed. Plechl, 362–63.
67Lb. 10, TL, ed. Plechl, 363.
68Lb. 10, TL, ed. Plechl, 363.
69Lb. 10, TL, ed. Plechl, 362. ‘Nam a die, qua te primum vidi, cepi diligere te, tu cordis mei intima fortiter penetrasti tibique inibi, quod dictu mirabile est, sedem affamine iocundissime confabulationis tue preparasti et, ne aliquo deiciatur impulsu, epistolari sermone firmissime quasi / tripodam immo quatripodam collocasti.’
70Lb. 10, TL, ed. Plechl, 363.
71Lb.10, TL, ed. Plechl, 363. ‘Porro quia me a militibus quasi a quibusdam portentis cavere suades, bene facis. Ego quidem scio, quid caveam, ne incidam in caveam, tamen salva fide ad te habita illos omnino non abicio, dum tamen non succumban illi, quod eis infligis, vicio. Ipsi enim sunt, per quos, ut ita dicam, reguntur iura curialitatis; ipsi sunt fons et origo totius honestatis. De istis ista sufficiant, dummodo amori nostro nihil officiant.’
72The word is rare in the Library of Latin Texts database (published online by Brepols) for the twelfth century.
73Lb. 11, TL, ed. Plechl, 365.
74Lb. 9, TL, ed. Plechl, 359.
75C. Stephen Jaeger, The Origins of Courtliness: Civilizing Trends and the Formation of Courtly Ideals, 939–1210 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985).
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