L’abatissato conteso. Rossi contro Stampa per il controllo del monastero di Santa Maria in Valle di Milano (1449-ante 1466)

A petition from 1450 and a series of ducal letters and papal and archbishops’ acts provide us with information about a quarrel between some religious women living in the Benedictine monastery of Santa Maria in Valle of Milan. At stake was the role of the abbess. Every avenue was pursued, violence, both psychological and physical, and diplomacy. The aim of this paper is to deepen the knowledge of the following points: ecclesiastical, of course, as the event shows the more or less canonical ways that led to obtaining a religious position; cultural, as the documentation asks us to think about the writings of religious women; social, as we understand relationship dynamics both inside and out of those osmotic places which were cloisters; political, as from the narrow corridors of a small monastery the stage opens on the large scene of the Sforza duchy.