The 3rd Session of the 2024 Medieval Studies Seminar will be held online via Zoom on May 8, 2024, at 4:00 p.m.

Dedicated to the theme “Cistercian nuns in troubadour lyric”, this session will be led by Luís Rêpas (CHSC – UC).

The recent compilation of biographical data on Portuguese Cistercian nuns, based on documentary sources from the different monastic houses, the vast majority of which are unpublished, has provided new information that allows us, and in some cases even forces us, to rethink the chronology that has been attributed to some compositions in Galician-Portuguese that refer to them, as well as the context for their production and the interpretation of these texts. In this conference, we will review the songs addressed to Cistercian nuns or alluding to them in the light of these new data.

Luís Rêpas has a PhD in Medieval History from the University of Coimbra, with a thesis entitled “Esposas de Cristo. As Comunidades Cistercienses Femininas na Idade Média” was distinguished in 2021 with the “A. de Almeida Fernandes Prize” for Portuguese Medieval History. He is an integrated researcher at the Center for the History of Society and Culture (CHSC – UC) and a collaborator at the Institute of Medieval Studies (IEM – NOVA FCSH). He has dedicated himself to the study of the Middle Ages, focusing his research on the History of Monasticism, Nobility, Women, and Written Culture, and it is precisely at the confluence of these four areas that this conference is located. Among his historiographical productions, his master’s thesis, “Quando a Nobreza Traja de Branco, A Comunidade Cisterciense de Arouca durante o Abadessado de D. Luca Rodrigues (1286-1299)” published in 2003, and a considerable set of articles on Portuguese female Cistercian monasteries and their communities and liturgical manuscripts, stands out.

He was part of the team at the Cistercian Horizons Project, which studied the Alcobaça scriptorium and its production. He is a researcher at the Project Books, rituals and space in a female Cistercian monastery. Living, reading, and praying in Lorvão in the 13th to 16th centuries (https://doi.org/10.54499/PTDC/ART-HIS/0739/2020), both funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology and is currently a Guest Assistant Professor at the University of Coimbra.