The sculpted effigy of Margareta Puffen conveys a bold display of female spiritual authority. She is arrayed in the distinctive flowing habit and peaked hood of the nuns of the Cistercian convent of Medingen and in her right hand she clasps the crozier, symbol of abbatial office. Margareta led the monastery for 34 years (1479-1513), during which she reshaped it spiritually and materially. The framing inscription commemorates her as the monastery’s ‘restorer’ and ‘first abbess’, deepening the association between the image of the abbess and the religious life of the community she led. Margareta’s effigy presented a constant reminder to the nuns to pray for her and to emulate her exemplary lifestyle.

Margareta’s effigy presents a compelling example of how monumental tomb figures mediated between past and present, and individual and community. Figural tomb effigies such as Margareta’s shape, rather than simply reflect, collective identities and spiritual values. I examine how the visual rhetoric of her effigy conveys of ideals of female religious life and negotiates tensions between Margareta and clerical officials. Her effigy embodies collective values and aspirations, exhorting the nuns to follow her example and offering a model of spiritual authority to assert their place within the world.