Many women visionaries in early medieval England and the Frankish territories (500–1000) were exceptionally resourceful leaders of their communities and often powerful abbesses and foundresses of monastic houses. Hailing from noble families and often maternal in their exercise of authority, these seers were warmly celebrated by their spiritual sisters, whose own visions, in content and emphasis, helped fashion new images of sanctity. Such visions reinforced social cohesion among the faithful alongside devotion to the saints, especially household ones.