Krstjanice, bosanske redovnice, u očima suvremenika / Krstjanice, Bosnian Nuns, in the Eyes of Contemporaries

Abstract

The paper is conceived as a contribution to the study of a larger topic about the role and position of women in the medieval Bosnian society. Considering that this subject is extremely broad and all encompassing, the author only directed his curiosity towards the members of a distinct group which did not draw much attention of contemporaries despite of their great reputation achieved by their life calling and work in the service. This concerns females in the Church, more specifically Bosnian nuns, those within the Catholic Bosnian bishopric, as well as those which appear later as Krstjanice within the heterodox Bosnian Church. The advantage of male Church members was obvious, females were simply their inevitable followers who “quietly” performed their “female chores” and helped the monks in the fulfilment of their mission. Everyday life placed in front of them various lures, especially in those times when discipline slackened and passions flared, which inflicted great and irreparable damage to the mixed monastic communities, so the Church and monastic authorities ordered the avoidance of suspicious circumstances which were later compared by contemporaries to the difficult scenes of Biblical temptations. The real life was always different in the altruistic dignity but also in the unrepentant sinfulness, piety was a protocol which was strictly adhered to by god-fearing individuals, while others took more care about worldly goods and the comforts of life. The Benedictine motto “ora et labora” divided jobs and daily tasks of the social community of “oratores” and revived the economic life of Western Europe. Bosnian nuns in their old age and sickness were dependent on the goodness and help of others. The question whether they rejected the worldly goods because of their “proverbial” piety or whether this was merely a result of the poverty of their class still remains unanswered.