The Cistercian order had some problems with the lifestyle of its monks or nuns andwith the upkeep of monastic seclusion. A major issue was that a monastery couldbecome subordinate to the local bishop. The earliest cases concern nunneries. Aconflict in Sko nunnery in Uppland in 1432 is known through a collection of testi-monies gathered by clergymen and members of the king’s council. The document,previously unpublished, is here presented in an edition with comments.Prioress Katarina Konradsdotter was accused of verbal and physical abuse andof countermanding orders from the abbess. Five nuns were her accomplices: thegroup was opposed to the nunnery being subordinate to the archbishop instead ofbeing under “rules of the monks”. It was decided that the prioress and her follow-ers were to move to Vårfruberga nunnery, 50 kilometres away.
Several thousands of manuscript fragments from medieval Sweden have been discoveredand registered in the research project Medeltida Pergamentsomslag, but thevast majority of these contain liturgical texts in Latin. Here I will present a newlydiscovered fragment of a text in Old Swedish, currently in a private collection inSweden. Three parchment leaves from a manuscript copy of the Old Swedish translationof Pseudo-Bonaventure’s Meditationes Vitae Christi survive pasted onto theinside of a small wooden chest. This text in this translation is only known fromthree other manuscripts, all of which derive from Vadstena Abbey. In what followsI will present the textual tradition as well as the physical context of the survival ofthe leaves. The article also includes a critical edition of the text.