Lineage interests and nonreproductive strategies - An evolutionary approach to medieval religious women

The nonreproductive role of religious women in the European Middle Ages pre sents the ideal forum for the discussion of elite family strategies within a historical context. I apply the evolutionary concept of kin selection to this group of women in order to explain how a social formation in which rel igious women failed to reproduce benefited medieval noble lineages. After a brief review of the roles of noble women in the later Middle Ages, I ident ify two benefits that nonreproductive women provided within a patrilineal i nheritance system. First, spatial segregation and Christian ideology togeth er served to curtail the production of offspring who could pose a threat to lineage interests. Second, cloistered noble women served as a strong polit ical and economic bloc that could further lineage interests within a religi ous context. Finally, I discuss the evolutionary basis for the formation of groups of nonreproductive women. Using the foundation provided by animal b ehavioral studies, I apply the twin concepts of cooperative breeding and pa rental manipulation to noble lineages of the medieval period.