I have a wealth of experience as a journalist working in Switzerland and enjoy producing videos, articles and podcasts on a range of subjects, recently focused mainly on politics and the environment.
Born in the UK, I studied law at Nottingham University, then went on to attend the first-ever post-graduate radio journalism college in London. After working as a radio journalist in the UK and then Switzerland from 1984 to 1995, I returned to the UK to complete a post-graduate diploma in film at Bournemouth Film School. I have been working as a video journalist ever since.
The Middle Ages were a rough time for women. They were considered inferior to men, and very few were educated. Convents offered them opportunities that might otherwise have been denied them: access to schooling, social welfare and the chance to break away from the close strictures of their families.
An exhibitionExternal link now on at the Swiss National Museum in Zurich looks at how ecclesiastical women lived in the Middle Ages, and the opportunities open to them. It explores the important position of nunneries in educational matters, their links to politics and the influence some of these women had on theology.
Many nuns excelled as illustrators, tapestry-makers, musicians, gardeners and cooks. Some wrote diaries and texts that survive today and provide interesting insights into the way in which they lived and thought.
The highest office was that of abbess, prioress or mistress. Managing a nunnery was challenging, requiring diplomatic skills and a high level of education. Religious centres often had close ties to politics and business, and helped shape secular affairs.
In the 13th century, the abbess of the Fraumünster abbey in Zurich was the chief office-holder of the city. She appointed mayors and judges, had voting rights and the right to sit in the Imperial Diet of the assembly of Princes of the Holy Roman Empire.
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Brother Thomas Fässler made the discovery while working on his thesis for his theology degree. It covers the history of the Benedictine Abbey of Einsiedeln, from 1934 to the present. “I work in the archive and sometimes I discover little stories that I can’t really use for my dissertation,” Fässler told swissinfo.ch. Yet it would…
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