Advocates for ecclesiastical reform in the eleventh and early twelfth centuries notably used letters to spread their ideas as well as to recruit and encourage supporters. In a study of Pope Gregory VII's register, Ian Robinson dubbed these communities of correspondents “friendship circles” and underscored their importance in advancing ecclesiastical change. Subsequent scholarship has used network theory to deepen this emphasis on discrete human connections across considerable distances and upon letters as key tools of reform. In my own research on clerical clothing, I was struck by the number of letters sent to elite women by episcopal advocates of reform. Bishops such as Ivo of Chartres wrote to queens and countesses, generally asking support for their churches but often specifically requesting liturgical vestments. While such requests tapped into women's control of textile workshops, and traditional associations of feminine virtue with needlework, they also proffered a spiritual relationship to women. Ivo, for example, promised Queen Matilda of England that if she sent him “an alb or some other priestly garment,” he would wear it as he celebrated Mass, implicitly inviting Matilda through her handiwork to be present at the altar with him. We know, moreover, that at least some women seem to have cherished such spiritual intimacy: according to Eadmer of Canterbury, Countess Adela of Blois had chosen Bishop Anselm as “the instructor and tutor of her life,” and the intensity of Matilda of Canossa's relationship with Pope Gregory VII aroused rumors of scandalous impropriety.

Might women, then, have been key supporters of reform? Might their traditional roles as religious educators of their children and stewards of the pious commemoration of deceased members of their families have made them particularly interested in the quality of prayer offered in ecclesiastical institutions? Opponents of some of the ecclesiastical changes advocated in the late eleventh century voiced anxiety about the power of elite women: the imperial bishops who renounced Gregory VII's leadership at Worms in 1076 accused the pope of running the church with “a new senate of women.” Invective this certainly was. But were there important ties of support between women and advocates for ecclesiastical change in the eleventh and early twelfth centuries?