That same year, as Ealdred was returning to England he met Sweyn, a son of Godwin, Earl of Wessex, and probably absolved Sweyn for having abducted the abbess of Leominster Abbey in 1046.

Godwine ( Bishop of Rochester ), Leofrun ( abbess of St Mildrith's ), and the king's reeve, Ælfweard were captured also, but the abbot of St Augustine's Abbey, Ælfmaer, managed to escape.

Her elder sister Agnes married King Philip II of France ( annulled in 1200 ) and her sister Gertrude ( killed in 1213 ) King Andrew II of Hungary, while the youngest Matilda ( Mechtild ) became abbess at the Benedictine Abbey of Kitzingen in Franconia, where Hedwig also received her education.

After her husband had died in 936, Matilda and her son Otto established Quedlinburg Abbey in his memory, a convent of noble canonesses, where in 966 her granddaughter Matilda became the first abbess.

Agnes became abbess at Gandersheim Abbey, place of several famous women, such as Hroswitha of Gandersheim, recorded by Conrad Celtes.

Also opposing the Supremacy and consequently imprisoned were leading Bridgettine monks from Syon Abbey ; although the Syon nuns, being strictly enclosed, escaped sanction at this stage ; the personal compliance of the abbess being taken as sufficient for the government's purposes.

Among those consecrated by Paulinus were Hilda, later the founding abbess of Whitby Abbey, and Hilda's successor, Eanflæd, Edwin's daughter.

Hilda, however, remained a Christian, and eventually went on to become abbess of the influential Whitby Abbey.

While in the Tower Lady Margaret fell ill with a fever, and the King allowed her to be moved to Syon Abbey under the supervision of the abbess.

At the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries, it was said that " if the abbess of Shaftesbury and the abbot of Glastonbury Abbey had been able to wed, their son would have been richer than the King of England " because of the lands which it had been bequeathed.

He appointed Lady Hilda, abbess of Hartlepool Abbey and niece of Edwin the first Christian king of Northumbria, as founding abbess.

She took a close interest in the well-being of several abbeys, and as overseer of Barking Abbey she deposed and later reinstated the abbess.

They had two sons, Ecgberht and Hlothhere, who each consecutively became king of Kent, and two daughters who both were eventually canonized: Saint Eorcengota became a nun at Faremoutiers Abbey on the continent, and Saint Ermenilda became abbess at Ely.

A final legend tells of one of Cunigunde's nieces, Judith, the abbess of Kaufungen Abbey.

Odile ( also known as Hohenburg Abbey ) in the Hochwald ( Hohwald ), Bas-Rhin, where Odile became abbess and where Etichon was later buried.

Eleanor fled to exile in France where she became a nun at Montargis Abbey, a nunnery founded by her deceased husband's sister Amicia, who remained there as abbess.

His daughter, Louise Adélaïde de Bourbon, who was a nun and had become the abbess of Remiremont Abbey, survived until 1824.

* Milburga of Wenlock ( died 715 ), Benedictine abbess of Wenlock Abbey

The first mention of the town ( as Chama ) occurred on 16 April 858 when King Louis the German gave the town to his daughter, Hildegard, the abbess of the Fraumünster Abbey in Zürich.

He spent most of the last 40 years of his life visiting and inspecting monasteries and convents, including Escherde ( 1441 ), Brunswick, and Wienhausen Abbey, then a Cistercian nunnery, where he removed the abbess in 1469.

In 1976 she resigned from her position as abbess of Shasta Abbey and went into retreat in Oakland, California.

Another renowned double house, Barking Abbey, followed the Gallic tradition of separation of the sexes with one exception: under Hildelith, abbess of Barking, both male and female burials were combined into a single mass grave.

When she was about six years old, Matilda of Scotland ( or Edith as she was then probably still called ) and her sister Mary were sent to Romsey Abbey, near Southampton, where their aunt Cristina was abbess.

The office of abbess is of considerable social dignity, and in the past, was sometimes filled by princesses of the reigning houses.

The last such ruling abbess was Sofia Albertina, Princess of Sweden.

The only dominion it had was over Burtscheid, a neighbouring territory ruled by a Benedictine abbess.

Through Ealdred's intercession, Sweyn was restored to his earldom, which he had lost after abducting the abbess and murdering his brother Beorn.

(; ) ( 1098 – 17 September 1179 ), also known as Saint Hildegard, and Sibyl of the Rhine, was a German writer, composer, philosopher, Christian mystic, Benedictine abbess, visionary, and polymath.

Baldwin was married to the Armenian noblewoman Morphia of Melitene, and had four daughters: Hodierna and Alice, who married into the families of the Count of Tripoli and Prince of Antioch ; Ioveta, who became an influential abbess ; and the eldest, Melisende, who was his heir and succeeded him upon his death in 1131, with her husband Fulk V of Anjou as king-consort.

The characteristics they shared with many Merovingian female saints may be mentioned: Regenulfa of Incourt, a 7th-century virgin in French-speaking Brabant of the ancestral line of the dukes of Brabant fled from a proposal of marriage to live isolated in the forest, where a curative spring sprang forth at her touch ; Ermelindis of Meldert, a 6th-century virgin related to Pepin I, inhabited several isolated villas ; Begga of Andenne, the mother of Pepin II, founded seven churches in Andenne during her widowhood ; the purely legendary " Oda of Amay " was drawn into the Carolingian line by spurious genealogy in her 13th-century vita, which made her the mother of Arnulf, Bishop of Metz, but she has been identified with the historical Saint Chrodoara ; finally, the widely-venerated Gertrude of Nivelles, sister of Begga in the Carolingian ancestry, was abbess of a nunnery established by her mother.

As a young girl, she was sent to the convent of Herford, where her grandmother Matilda was abbess and where her reputation for beauty and virtue ( probably also her Westphalian dowry ) is said to have attracted the attention of Duke Otto I of Saxony, who betrothed her to his recently divorced son and heir, Henry the Fowler.

The first abbess was Mathilde, granddaughter of Henry and Saint Mathilde.

It has been speculated that Æthelburh was the abbess who was a kinswoman of King Ealdred of the Hwicce, but there are other prominent women named Æthelburh during that period.

He also corresponded with the abbess and philosopher Claude de Bectoz, of whose letters he was so fond that he would carry them around and show them to the ladies of his court.

The Abbess of Port-Royal-des-Champs was Marie Angélique Arnauld, who had become abbess in 1602 and had begun to reform the discipline of the convent after a conversion experience in 1608.

Her body was taken to France and interred at the church in the Convent of Saint-Pierre in Reims, where Mary's sister Renée was abbess.

In the early years the Plantagenets were great benefactors of the abbey and while Isabella d ' Anjou was abbess, Henry II's widow Eleanor of Aquitaine became a nun there.

Government lawyers scripted a legal pretext, in that the superior of a religious house ( abbot, abbess, prior or prioress ) was the " owner " of the monastic property of the house and hence, if the superior were to be convicted of treason, all the property of the abbey would legally revert to the Crown.

Correggio's first major commission ( February – September 1519 ) was the ceiling decoration of the private dining salon of the mother-superior ( abbess Giovanna Piacenza ) of the convent of St Paul called the Camera di San Paolo at Parma.

She was a nun at, and possibly abbess of, the Nunnaminster in Winchester where she was buried.

The abbess also traditionally adds a pectoral cross to the outside of her habit as a symbol of office, though she continues to wear a modified form of her religious habit or dress, as she is unordained-not a male religious-and so does not vest or use choir dress in the liturgy.

The Caeremoniale Episcoporum recommends, but does not impose, that in solemn celebrations a bishop should also wear a dalmatic, which can always be white, beneath the chasuble, especially when administering the sacrament of holy orders, blessing an abbot or abbess, and dedicating a church or an altar.

The political power of the convent slowly waned in the 14th century, beginning with the establishment of the Zunftordnung ( guild laws ) in 1336 by Rudolf Brun, who also became the first independent mayor, i. e. not nominated by the abbess.

Edgar also had a daughter, possibly illegitimate, by Wulfryth, who later became abbess of Wilton.

A claim made in a ninth-century list of donations from the abbey of Gloucester that Æthelbald had " stabbed — or smitten " to death the kinsman of a Mercian abbess has also contributed negatively to his reputation.

An Eastern archimandrite ( high-ranking abbot ), hegumen ( abbot ) or hegumenia ( abbess ) who leads a monastic community also bears a crosier.

She also became the abbess of the monastery at Santa Clara la Real de Toledo, and she is buried there.

Eanflæd ( 19 April 626 – after 685, also known as Enfleda ) was a Kentish princess, queen of Northumbria and later, the abbess of an influential Christian monastery in Whitby, England.

Saint Frithuswith ( c. 65019 October 727 ; ; also known as Frideswide, Frideswith, Fritheswithe, Frevisse, or simply Fris ) was an English princess and abbess who is credited with establishing Christ Church in Oxford.

The museum houses also the funeral monuments in late-Gothic style of the first abbess D. Uganda and of the Infante Fernando, Duke of Viseu and his wife Beatriz of Portugal.

Brahm has also been influential in establishing Dhammasara Nuns ' Monastery at Gidgegannup in the hills north-east of Perth to be a wholly independent monastery, where the Sri Lankan trained, Australian nun Ajahn Sr. Vayama is currently abbess.

Saint Cyra ( also Chera, Crea, and Cere filia Duibhrea ) was an early Irish abbess.

Historical records also indicate that Kenelm's sister, Cwenthryth ( Quendryda ), had entered the cloister at the time of her father's death and was the abbess of Minster-in-Thanet.

In Russian practice, a nun who is not an abbess may also be granted the privilege of wearing a pectoral cross, as an honorary award ( however, this award is not granted to monks who are not priests ).