Gary Macy on Women in Ministry in the Early Church/ Archbishop Matilda/ Ordination as a new role or function in community

"...Another reference to a woman as a bishop occurs on the tombstone of Matilda, the daughter of Otto I, who died in 999.  I think she probably tried to hold for a year, don’t you?  She’s described not only as an abbess, but also as the Metropolitana of Quinlinburg.  Metropolitana is a word that’s only used as a word for an archbishop.  It’s a very rare word, but it only means an archbishop.  Now what did she do as an abbess; or what did the 9^th century person think Bridget did?  Well, we have a pretty good idea of what they thought, because there were a number of abbesses who had episcopal authority.  The most powerful one is the one I mentioned: the Cisterian abbess of Las Huelgas, near Burgos, in northern Spain.  She wore her mitre, and as I said, carried her crosier until she was forbidden to do so in 1873; it took a year of litigation to get her out of there though.  These were really, really tough abbesses.  The history of Las Huelgas is impressive. Alphonse VIII of Castile and his wife Eleanor of England, daughter of the more famous Eleanor of Aquitane, decided to establish the monastery of Las Huelgas after Alphonsus victory over the Muslim armies at Cuenca in 1178. So we have 1178 to 1874.  Over the centuries the abbess accumulated complete ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the territory, villages, and villas subject to Las Huelgas.  She had the power to appoint parish priests for the countryside subject to the convent of Las Huelgas.  This involved some 64 villages.  So she established the parishes; she appointed the priests.  She could establish new parishes;  she could unite parish churches, or reopen closed churches.  She could approve confessors for all her subjects, and examine their credentials, if necessary.  Apart from and alongside the power the abbess had over her own clergy, she also had the power to confer licenses to say Mass, or to hear confessions, or to preach in those areas subject to her control.  She issued wedding licenses.  No bishop or delegate from the Holy See could perform a visitation of the churches, or the altars, or the curates, or the clerics, or the benefices under the care of the abbess.  They could not come in to regulate her.  She could commute last wills and testaments.  She had the power to visit and examine the adequacy of the apostolic, imperial or royal notaries; and if she found them delinquent in their duties, she could punish them, or prohibit them from office.  She had the authority to reserve cases regarded to her subjects, just like any other bishop; and finally, she was able to convene a synod, and make synodal constitutions and laws for both her religious and lay subjects.  So she was pretty much a full on bishop...  "

"So any ceremony and/or installation, or election of a bishop, or a priest, or a deacon, or a sub-deacon, or a porter, or a lector, or an exorcist, or an acolyte, or cannon, or an abbot, or an abbess, or a king, or a queen, or an empress, was an ordination.  Why?  Because what you were doing was that the local community was giving you a new state, a new role, a new function, within the community; and that’s what an ordo was.  That’s what an ordo meant, okay?  "

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