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In Catholicism, an abbess (Latin abbatissa, feminine form of abbas, abbot) is the female superior of a community of nuns, which is often an abbey. In the Catholic Church (both the Latin Church and Eastern Catholic), Eastern Orthodox, Coptic and Anglican abbeys, the mode of election, position, rights, and authority of an abbess correspond generally with those of an abbot.
Historical origin
Monastic communities for women had sprung up in the East at a very early period. After their introduction into Europe, towards the close of the fourth century, they began to flourish also in the West, particularly in Gaul, where tradition ascribes the foundation of many religious houses to St. Martin of Tours. Cassian the great organizer of monachism in Gaul, founded a famous convent at Marseilles, at the beginning of the fifth century, and from this convent at a later period, St. Caesarius (d. 542) called his sister Caesaria, and placed her over a religious house which he was then founding at Arles. St. Benedict is also said to have founded a community of virgins consecrated to God, and to have placed it under the direction of his sister St. Scholastica, but whether or not the great Patriarch established a nunnery, it is certain that in a short time he was looked upon as a guide and father to the many convents already existing. His rule was almost universally adopted by them, and with it the title Abbess came into general use to designate the superior of a convent of nuns. Before this time the title Mater Monasterii, Mater Monacharum, and Praeposisa were more common. The name Abbess appears for the first time in a sepulchral inscription of the year 514, found in 1901 on the site of an ancient convent of virgines sacræ which stood in Rome near the Basilica of St. Agnes extra Muros. The inscription commemorates the Abbess Serena who presided over this convent up to the time of her death at the age of eighty-five years: "Hic requieescit in pace, Serena Abbatissa S. V. quae vixzit annos P. M. LXXXV."
In medieval times the Abbesses of the larger and more important houses were not uncommonly women of great power and distinction, whose authority and influence rivalled, at times, that of the most venerate bishops and abbots. In Saxon England,
they had often the retinue and state of princesses, especially when they came of royal blood. They treated with kings, bishops, and the greatest lords on terms of perfect equality;. . . they were present at all great religious and national solemnities, at the dedication of churches, and even, like the queens, took part in the deliberation of the national assemblies, and affixed their signatures to the charters therein granted. (Montalembert, "The Monks of the West," Bk. XV.)
In Germany the Abbesses of Quedimburg, Gandersheim, Lindau, Buchau, Obermünster, etc., all ranked among the independent princes of the Empire, and as such sat and voted in the Diet as members of the Rhenish bench of bishops. They lived in princely state with a court of their own, ruled their extensive conventual estates like temporal lords, and recognized no ecclesiastic superior except the Pope. After the Reformation, their Protestant successors continued to enjoy the same imperial privileges up to comparatively recent times.
In France, Italy, and Spain, the female superiors of the great monastic houses were likewise very powerful. But the external splendour and glory of medieval days have now departed from all.