Antigone a Port-Royal: obbedienza monastica e autonomia femminile in un’abbazia di Antico Regime

Abstract

Can a superior command to the conscience? Set inside a female religious tradition which for centuries answered in an affirmative way to this question, the nuns of Port Royal became rebels “proud as demons”, when they decided to say no to a document that required from them blind obedience. The History of Port Royal is indeed a history of a rebellion. The “day of the judas” and the denial of the Formulary are just the tip of the iceberg: the responsible consensus given by the nuns to the Benedettinian rules implies in itself the opposition to the rules of power. The model of an obedient nun is swept away by the obedience itself. Is it possible to apply Rossana Rossanda’s question «why disobedience is woman» to a monastery of the ancient regime?