Like an abbot, after being confirmed in her office by the Holy See, an abbess is solemnly admitted to her office by a formal blessing, conferred by the bishop in whose territory the monastery is located, or by an abbot or another bishop with appropriate permission.

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.

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.

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.

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.

An abbess rises in haste and in the dark, with intent to surprise an accused nun in bed with her lover: thinking to put on her veil, she puts on instead the breeches of a priest that she has with her.

In 1138 she founded the large convent of St. Lazarus in Bethany where her younger sister Ioveta would rule as abbess.

Her sisters, the countess of Tripoli and abbess of Bethany, came to nurse her before she died on 11 September 1161.

Every Easter Monday the doge headed a procession from San Marco to the convent of San Zaccaria where the abbess presented him a new camauro crafted by the nuns.

* Adelaide II ( 1045, Goslar – 11 January 1096 ), abbess of Gandersheim from 1061 and Quedlinburg from 1063

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.

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.

Notably, from the 1640s onwards he sought the advice of a noted cloistered abbess, Sor María de Ágreda, exchanging many letters with her.

Above the entrance porch on the western façade one can see the ajimez window ( a mullioned window in Manueline and Moorish style ) in the room of the abbess, originating from the demolished palace of the dukes of Beja.

* Euphrosyne of Greater Poland ( 1247 / 50 – 1298 ), daughter of Duke Przemysł I of Greater Poland, abbess of Trzebnica from 1278

Commonly Irish monasteries were established by grants of land to an abbot or abbess who came from a local noble family.

The name Compton Abbas is derived from the Saxon nomenclature " cumb-ton " ( meaning ' village in a narrow valley '), plus " abbas " which refers to the abbey at Shaftesbury ( the land was owned by the abbess ).

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

The Problemata Heloissae ( Héloïse's Problems ) is a collection of 42 theological questions directed from Héloïse to Abélard at the time when she was abbess at the Paraclete, and his answers to them.

She was reportedly the mother of Warin, the abbot of Corvey from 826 to 856, Count Cobbo the Elder, and Addila or Mathilde, the abbess of Herzfeld.

Every Easter Monday the doge headed a procession from San Marco to the convent of San Zaccaria where the abbess presented him a new linen camauro crafted by the nuns.

Though not as influential as her sisters, she had some power as abbess ; a charter from 1157 survives in which she donated land to the Knights Hospitaller.

After this Ioveta disappears from history ; the date of her own death is unknown, but she was dead by 1178, when another abbess appears at the Convent of St. Lazarus.

Adelaide was " redeemed " from the convent by exchange with a parcel of land and became abbess of this new convent, initially established as an unusually late example of a community of canonesses.

Emperor Otto III reaffirmed Vilich's immunities from ecclesiastical interference and the right to appoint its own abbess, a title that remained only briefly in the founding family.

Isabelle refused to become an abbess, and she never entered the cloister, but from 1260 ( or 1263 ) she followed the rules in her own home nearby.

On her way to her execution as the earthquake strikes, Josephe rescues her son from the convent, where she had entrusted him to an abbess.

Popular belief has it that in 1602 Sheila was a young Irish noblewoman on her return trip sailing from France, where she had been studying in a French convent run by her aunt, an abbess.

Eastern monasticism is found in three distinct forms: anchoritic ( a solitary living in isolation ), cenobitic ( a community living and worshiping together under the direct rule of an abbot or abbess ), and the " middle way " between the two, known as the skete ( a community of individuals living separately but in close proximity to one another, who come together only on Sundays and feast days, working and praying the rest of the time in solitude, but under the direction of an elder ).

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia " the fame of her sanctity and of her gift of working miracles soon attracted the attention of Saint Heribert, Archbishop of Cologne ", who could scarcely have ignored an abbess of her high Carolingian and Ottonian connections.

In the Catholic Church ( both the Latin Rite 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.

Bede had another brush with Wilfrid, for the historian himself says that he met Wilfrid, sometime between 706 and 709, and discussed Æthelthryth, the abbess of Ely.

At the end of Errors, the world of the play is returned to normal when a Christian abbess interferes with the feuding.

Their nephew, returning home a desperate man, falls in love with an abbess, in whom he discovers the daughter of the King of England.

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.

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.

Therefore he and his brother Jasper were brought up in the care of Katherine de la Pole, abbess of Barking, with whom they remained till 1442.

For the most part, women are forbidden to enter the sanctuary, with the exception of elderly nuns who may be blessed to assist the priest during services, and an abbess in her own monastery, who is free to enter at any time.

The abbess, alarmed at the freedom of her views, arranged for Jean Baptiste Massillon to visit and reason with her, but he accomplished nothing.

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.

Sent to Paris in 1642 to study theology, he soon entered into relations with the Jansenist community at Port-Royal through his aunt, Marie des Anges Suireau, who was for a short time abbess of the convent, and he taught for a while at the Petites écoles de Port-Royal.

The abbess appointed a vogt to manage the lands, but ruled the lands with a light hand.

It gave a report of a 1552 public exorcism in Paris, and of the case of Magdalena de la Cruz of Cordova, an abbess who had confessed to sexual relations with the Devil over three decades.

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.

Coatbridge born Dame Laurentia McLachlan was the Benedictine abbess of the Stanbrook Community whose correspondence with George Bernard Shaw and Sydney Cockerell was the subject of the film The Best of Friends.

“ The Abbess and convent ... had begun and with great cost completed the erection of a certain edifice more spacious and convenient as well for the habitation of themselves as of the said religious brethren, which monastery so built anew and enlarged they have earnestly requested licence of us ... to consecrate and set apart as a habitation for them the said abbess and nuns and men of religion ... Know ye we therefore of our pity have ... permitted them ... to the said mansion so chosen and by the said abbess and convent erected edified built and enlarged as aforesaid ... to remove immediateley ...”