Noun
A female superior or governess of a nunnery, or convent of nuns, having the same authority over the nuns which the abbots have over the monks. See Abbey.
Source: Webster's dictionaryAnna Silvas (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999), pp. 52-55 and 69; and John Van Engen, "Abbess: 'Mother and Teacher', in Barbara Newman, ed., Voice of the Living Light (California: University of California Press, 1998), pp. 30-51, at pp. 32-33. Source: Internet
Also in 1157, on the death of patriarch Fulcher, Melisende, her half-sister Sibylla of Flanders, and Ioveta the Abbess of Bethany, had Amalric of Nesle appointed as patriarch of Jerusalem. Source: Internet
Having been eased out of a Benedictine convent, where she had been placed at the age of seven, she built her own convent, over which she ruled as Abbess. Source: Internet
Her sisters, the countess of Tripoli and abbess of Bethany, came to nurse her before she died on 11 September 1161. Source: Internet
At the abbey, Maria says that she is ready to take her monastic vows ; but the Mother Abbess realizes that she is running away from her feelings. Source: Internet
Even in the late 18th century the Abbess of Burtscheid was prevented from building a road linking her territory to the neighbouring estates of the duke of Jülich ; the city of Aachen even deployed its handful of soldiers to chase away the road-diggers. Source: Internet