The English Convents in Exile, 1600-1800: Communities, Culture and Identity [Reprint ed.] 1409450732, 9781409450733

Table of contents :
List of Plates vii
List of Tables xi
Notes on Contributors xiii
Series Editor’s Preface xvii
Acknowledgements xix
Note on the Text xxi
Introduction / Caroline Bowden, James E. Kelly and Michael C. Questier 1
Part I. Communities
1. From Community to Convent: The Collective Spiritual Life of Post-Reformation Englishwomen in Dorothy Arundell’s Biography of John Cornelius / Elizabeth Patton 19
2. Essex Girls Abroad: Family Patronage and the Politicization of Convent Recruitment in the Seventeenth Century / James E. Kelly 33
3. Missing Members: Selection and Governance in the English Convents in Exile / Caroline Bowden 53
Part II. Culture: Authorship and Authority
4. The Literary Lives of Nuns: Crafting Identities Through Exile / Jenna D. Lay 71
5. Naming Names: Chroniclers, Scribes and Editors of St. Monica’s Convent, Louvain, 1631–1906 / Victoria Van Hyning 87
6. Translating Lady Mary Percy: Authorship and Authority among the Brussels Benedictines / Jaime Goodrich 109
7. Barbara Constable’s 'Advice for Confessors' and the Tradition of Medieval Holy Women / Genelle Gertz 123
8. Shakespeare’s Sisters: Anon and the Authors in Early Modern Convents / Nicky Hallett 139
Part III. Culture: Patronage and Visual Culture
9. Petitioning for Patronage: An Illuminated Tale of Exile from Syon Abbey, Lisbon / Elizabeth Perry 159
10. Parlour, Court and Cloister: Musical Culture in English Convents during the Seventeenth Century / Andrew Cichy 175
11. Cloistered Images: Representations of English Nuns, 1600–1800 / Geoffrey Scott 191
Part IV. Identity
12. Archipelagic Identities in Europe: Irish Nuns in English Convents / Marie-Louise Coolahan 211
13. Divine Love and the Negotiation of Emotions in Early Modern English Convents / Laurence Lux-Sterritt 229
14. Avoiding 'Rash and Imprudent Measures': English Nuns in Revolutionary Paris, 1789–1801 / Carmen M. Mangion 247
Select Bibliography of Secondary Sources 265
Index 273

Citation preview

The English Convents in Exile, 1600–1800

The English Convents in Exile, 1600–1800 Communities, Culture and Identity

Edited by Caroline Bowden

Queen Mary University of London, UK

James E. Kelly Durham Unversity, UK

First published 2013 by Ashgate Publishing Published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © 2013 Caroline Bowden, James E. Kelly and the Contributors Caroline Bowden and James E. Kelly have asserted their moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows: The English convents in exile, 1600–1800: communities, culture, and identity / edited by Caroline Bowden and James E. Kelly. pages cm. – (Catholic christendom, 1300–1700) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4094-5073-3 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Monastic and religious life of women–Europe–History–17th century. 2. Monastic and religious life of women–Europe–History–18th century. 3. Monastic and religious life of women– England–History–17th century. 4. Monastic and religious life of women– England–History–18th century. I. Bowden, Caroline Mary Kynaston. II. Kelly, James E. (James Edward), 1981BX4220.E85E54 2013 271’.9004–dc23  2013013630 ISBN 9781409450733 (hbk)

Contents List of Plates   vii List of Tables xi Notes on Contributors   xiii Series Editor’s Preface   xvii Acknowledgementsxix Note on the Text   xxi Introduction1 Caroline Bowden, James E. Kelly and Michael C. Questier Part I

Communities

1

From Community to Convent:The Collective Spiritual Life of Post-Reformation Englishwomen in Dorothy Arundell’s Biography of John Cornelius   Elizabeth Patton

2

Essex Girls Abroad: Family Patronage and the Politicization of Convent Recruitment in the Seventeenth Century   James E. Kelly

3 Missing Members: Selection and Governance in the English Convents in Exile   Caroline Bowden Part II

Culture: Authorship and Authority

4

The Literary Lives of Nuns: Crafting Identities Through Exile   Jenna D. Lay



5 Naming Names: Chroniclers, Scribes and Editors of St Monica’s Convent, Louvain, 1631–1906   Victoria Van Hyning

19

33

53

71

87

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The English Convents in Exile, 1600–1800

6

Translating Lady Mary Percy: Authorship and Authority among the Brussels Benedictines   Jaime Goodrich

109

Barbara Constable’s Advice for Confessors and the Tradition of Medieval Holy Women   Genelle Gertz

123

8 Shakespeare’s Sisters: Anon and the Authors in Early Modern Convents   Nicky Hallett

139

7

Part III

Culture: Patronage and Visual Culture

9

Petitioning for Patronage: An Illuminated Tale of Exile from Syon Abbey, Lisbon   Elizabeth Perry

10 11

159

Parlour, Court and Cloister: Musical Culture in English Convents during the Seventeenth Century   175 Andrew Cichy



Cloistered Images: Representations of English Nuns, 1600–1800   Geoffrey Scott

Part IV

Identity

191

12 Archipelagic Identities in Europe: Irish Nuns in English Convents   Marie-Louise Coolahan

211

13 Divine Love and the Negotiation of Emotions in Early Modern English Convents   Laurence Lux-Sterritt

229

14 Avoiding ‘Rash and Imprudent Measures’: English Nuns in Revolutionary Paris, 1789–1801   Carmen M. Mangion

247

Select Bibliography of Secondary Sources   Index  

265 273

List of Plates The Plates are located between pages 138–9. 1

The first page of the list of those who stayed at St Monica’s during the siege of Louvain, 1635. MS ‘Little Chronicles’ C19, unnumbered page: courtesy of the nuns of Dove Cottage and Abbot Geoffrey Scott.

2

MS C2, the end of Hand A’s stint and the beginning of Hand B’s stint: courtesy of the nuns of Dove Cottage and Abbot Geoffrey Scott.

3

Pilgrimage, illustration, from a history of the peregrinations of the Syon Nuns, compiled in Lisbon in the early seventeenth century (vellum), Portuguese School (seventeenth century): His Grace The Duke of Norfolk, Arundel Castle / The Bridgeman Art Library.

4a, 4b

Building the Convent and Expelled from London, illustrations, from a history of the peregrinations of the Syon Nuns, compiled in Lisbon in the early seventeenth century (vellum), Portuguese School (seventeenth century): His Grace The Duke of Norfolk, Arundel Castle / The Bridgeman Art Library.

5a, 5b

Fetched Back to London and Departure from London, illustrations, from a history of the peregrinations of the Syon Nuns, compiled in Lisbon in the early seventeenth century (vellum), Portuguese School (seventeenth century): His Grace The Duke of Norfolk, Arundel Castle / The Bridgeman Art Library.

6a, 6b

Arrival in Flanders and Arrival at Rouen, illustrations, from a history of the peregrinations of the Syon Nuns, compiled in Lisbon in the early seventeenth century (vellum), Portuguese School (seventeenth century): His Grace The Duke of Norfolk, Arundel Castle / The Bridgeman Art Library.

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7a, 7b

Arrival at Lisbon and Prayer for His Majesty, illustrations, from a history of the peregrinations of the Syon Nuns, compiled in Lisbon in the early seventeenth century (vellum), Portuguese School (seventeenth century) / His Grace The Duke of Norfolk, Arundel Castle / The Bridgeman Art Library.

8

Elizabeth Clifford, oil painting: with permission of Sir David Davenport-Handley and Howard J. Green (photographer).

9

Margaret Clement, oil painting: with permission of the Community, Kingston near Lewes, Sussex.

10

Elizabeth Throckmorton, oil painting, Nicolas de Largillière: courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington. Digital image made possible by the Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund.

11

Clare of Jesus Warner, frontispiece: courtesy of the Abbess and Community at Much Birch, Herefordshire.

12

Margaret Wake, oil painting, Douai Abbey, Berkshire: with permission of the Trustees.

13

Catherine Gascoigne, engraving: courtesy of the Abbess and Community at St Mary’s Abbey, Colwich, Staffordshire.

14

Bruges Community Room, Octave Daumont, Le Cloître de Nazareth (Bruges, 1935), facing p. 298.

15

Aloysia Hesketh, oil painting: with permission of the Community, St Mary’s Abbey, Oulton, Staffs.

16

Mary Aloysia Joseph Wright, oil painting: courtesy of the Community of the Canonesses of the Holy Sepulchre, Colchester.

17

The Swarbrick Doll: courtesy of Bonhams, International Auctioneers and Valuers, London.

18

Susan Hawley, frontispiece, A brief relation of the order and institute of the English religious women at Liège (1652): courtesy of the Community of the Canonesses of the Holy Sepulchre, Colchester.

19

Mary of the Holy Cross Howard, A short account of the life and virtues of the venerable and religious mother, Mary of the Holy Cross, abbess of the English Poor Clares at Rouen (London, 1767), frontispiece. By permission of Jack Eyston Esq. and the Mapledurham Trust, Mapledurham, Berks.

list of plates

ix

20

Anne Worsley: courtesy of the Prioress and Carmelite Community, St Helen’s, Merseyside.

21

Gertrude More, engraving: courtesy of the Abbess and Community at St Mary’s Abbey, Colwich, Staffordshire.

22

Magdalen Ludowick Browne, book illustration, facing p. 55, ‘Registers of the English Poor Clares at Gravelines’, eds W.M. Hunnybun and J. Gillow, Miscellanea IX, CRS, 14 (London, 1914).

23

Thomas Robinson, The anatomie of the English nunnery at Lisbon in Portugall (London, 1630 ed.), by permission of the Folger Shakespeare Library.

24

‘The Abbess of Antwerp’, John Bowles and Carrington Bowles, British Museum, Prints and Drawings © Trustees of the British Museum.

25

‘The Fair Nun Unmask’d’, Henry Morland, 1769, mezzotint, British Museum, Prints and Drawings, AN960924001 © Trustees of the British Museum.

26

‘Pastime in Portugal or A Visit to the Nunnerys’, 1811, by T. Rowlandson, hand-coloured etching, British Museum, Prints and Drawings, AN189035001 © Trustees of the British Museum.

27

‘Blue Nun teaching’, watercolour, Douai Abbey, Teignmouth Abbey archives, T.I.A.3. Photograph courtesy of Abbot Geoffrey Scott.

28

The location of the three English convents in Paris. Map: ‘Nouveau Plan de Paris, ses faubourgs et ses environs, Revu, corrigé et augmenté par le Sr Desnos, 1767’.

List of Tables I.1

Overall convent recruitment figures  

16

2.1 2.2

Convent recruitment from Essex   Convent recruitment from the geographical area covered by the Jesuit College of the Holy Apostles (Cambridgeshire, Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk)  

34 38

5.1 Canonesses who stayed and left during the siege of Louvain  92 5.2 Dates of profession and death for nuns at the siege of Louvain, 1635   94 5.3 Excerpts from the Chronicle pertaining to those who remained in Louvain   96 11.1 Images cited in Geoffrey Scott’s essay  

192

Notes on Contributors Caroline Bowden is Research Fellow and former Project Manager of the ‘Who were the Nuns?’ project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) at Queen Mary, University of London. In 2001, she established the research network ‘History of Women Religious of Britain and Ireland’ with Carmen Mangion, which launched a corresponding website in 2006 . She has published a number of papers on women’s education and learning and the English convents in exile; most recently she acted as General Editor of English Convents in Exile, 1600–1800 (London, 2012–13), as well as editing the volume on ‘History Writing’. Andrew Cichy is a Clarendon Scholar at Merton College, Oxford, completing a DPhil on English Catholic music after the Reformation to 1700. He previously studied at the University of Western Australia. His doctoral thesis focuses on music in the English Catholic colleges, seminaries and convents that were established in continental Europe, and has several publications pending on this subject. An organist, he studied with Annette Goerke at the University of Western Australia, and is now specializing in eighteenth-century performance practice, while also undertaking freelance projects as a choral conductor. Marie-Louise Coolahan is Lecturer in English at the National University of Ireland, Galway. She worked with the Perdita Project on women’s manuscripts, and was a contributing editor to Early Modern Women’s Manuscript Poetry (Manchester, 2005). She was a member of the advisory board for the ‘Who were the Nuns?’ project and is currently secretary (management committee) and leader (Working Group 2) for the EU research network, ‘Women Writers in History’. She is the author of Women, Writing, and Language in Early Modern Ireland (Oxford, 2010) and articles on early modern women’s writing, devotional prose and Renaissance manuscript culture. Genelle C. Gertz is an Associate Professor of English at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. She received her PhD from Princeton University and is the author of Heresy Trials and English Women Writers, 1400–1670 (Cambridge, 2012), which includes a chapter on Margaret

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Clitherow. She has published articles on Milton’s Areopagitica, early women writers, and heresy prosecution in England. Currently she is working on a book-length study of the continuities between medieval and seventeenth-century women mystics. Jaime Goodrich is an Assistant Professor of English at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. Besides publishing a number of articles on the social and political functions of early modern Englishwomen’s religious translations, she has recently completed a book entitled Faithful Translators: Gender, Religion, and Authorship in Early Modern England (forthcoming from Northwestern University Press). Jaime is currently collaborating with Laurence Lux-Sterritt and Paul Arblaster on an edition of primary documents detailing seventeenth-century conflicts among the Brussels Benedictines. Nicky Hallett is a Senior Lecturer in the School of English at the University of Sheffield. As well as articles and chapters on nuns’ writing, she has also published two books on early modern convent material: Lives of Spirit: English Carmelite Self-Writing of the Early Modern Period and Witchcraft, Exorcism and the Politics of Possession: ‘How Sister Ursula Was Once Bewiched and Sister Margaret Twice’ (both Aldershot, 2007). She also edited a volume of female religious life-writing for the six-volume series English Convents in Exile, 1600–1800 (London, 2012). James E. Kelly is post-doctoral fellow at Durham University’s Centre for Catholic Studies. His interests are in post-Reformation Catholic history in Europe and Britain, particularly the experience of the English Catholic community at home and in exile. After completing his doctoral studies at King’s College, London, on the formation of post-Reformation English Catholic communities, he worked as research assistant on the AHRCfunded ‘Who were the Nuns?’ project at Queen Mary, University of London. He subsequently became Research Fellow and Project Manager of its AHRC-funded follow-on initiative. His publications include acting as editor of the volume on convent management in the series English Convents in Exile, 1600–1800. Jenna D. Lay is an Assistant Professor of English at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. She received her PhD from Stanford University and held a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Texas at Austin. Her essay on the manuscripts of Barbara Constable was published in Gender, Catholicism and Spirituality: Women and the Roman Catholic Church in Britain and Europe (Basingstoke, 2011). She is working on a book project entitled Beyond the Cloister: Catholic Englishwomen and

notes on contributors

xv

Early Modern Book Culture, in which she explores representations of nuns and recusant women in seventeenth-century English literature. Laurence Lux-Sterritt is a Lecturer of Early Modern English History in the Department of English Studies at Aix-Marseille Université (France); she is affiliated to the LERMA research centre (Laboratoire d’Études et de Recherches sur le Monde Anglophone). She is the author of Redefining Female Religious Life: French Ursulines and English Ladies in Seventeenth Century Catholicism (Aldershot, 2005), and of several articles on early modern Catholicism. She has co-edited three collections, including Gender, Catholicism and Spirituality: Women and the Roman Catholic Church in Britain and Europe (Basingstoke, 2011). More recently, she edited the volume on spirituality in the six-volume series English Convents in Exile, 1600–1800 (London, 2012). Carmen M. Mangion is currently a Lecturer at Birkbeck, University of London. She is the author of Contested Identities: Catholic Women Religious in Nineteenth-century England and Wales (Manchester, 2008) and has edited with Laurence Lux-Sterritt a collection of essays entitled Gender, Catholicism and Spirituality: Women and the Roman Catholic Church in Britain and Europe, 1200–1900 (Basingstoke, 2011). She has also edited a volume on convents and the outside world for the sixvolume series English Convents in Exile, 1600–1800 (London, 2013). Her current research examines nineteenth-century English women religious, Catholicism and health care. Elizabeth Patton teaches in the Humanities Center at Johns Hopkins University. She is a primary contributor of Catholic biographical essays to A Biographical Encyclopedia of Early Modern Englishwomen, Exemplary Lives and Memorable Acts, 1500–1650 (Farnham, 2013) and she is coediting the seventeenth-century biographies of Anne and Philip Howard, Earl and Countess of Arundel, for the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies. She holds a Research Fellowship at the Folger Institute and her current book project is a reconstruction of The Acts of John Cornelius, the lost biography of a Jesuit written by his spiritual disciple, Dorothy Arundell. Elizabeth Perry is Professor of Art History at Framingham State University in Massachusetts. She earned her PhD in Art History from Brown University in 1999 with a dissertation on colonial Mexican convents and miniature painting. She published the essay ‘Convents, Art, and Creole Identity’ in Woman and Art in Early Modern Latin America (Leiden, 2006) and contributed to the exhibition catalogue Painting a New World: Mexican

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Colonial Art, 1521–1821 (Denver Art Museum, 2004). She is currently researching art patronage at Syon Abbey in Lisbon, and is a contributing editor for English Convents in Exile, 1600–1800 (London, 2012–13). Michael C. Questier is Professor of Early Modern British and European History, at Queen Mary, University of London. His publications include Newsletters from the Caroline Court, 1631–1638: Catholicism and the Politics of the Personal Rule (Cambridge, 2005); Catholicism and Community in Early Modern England: Politics, Aristocratic Patronage and Religion, c 1550–1640 (Cambridge, 2006); with Ginevra Crosignani and Thomas McCoog, Recusancy and Conformity in Early Modern England: Manuscript and Printed Sources in Translation (Toronto, 2010); with Peter Lake, The Trials of Margaret Clitherow: Persecution, Martyrdom and the Politics of Sanctity in Elizabethan England (London, 2011). Geoffrey Scott is Abbot of Douai Abbey. He is a Lecturer at St John’s Seminary, Wonersh, and Blackfriars, Oxford, as well as president of the Catholic Archives Society. He gained his PhD at King’s College, London, with a thesis on the English Benedictine Congregation, 1685–1800. His publications include acting as joint editor on Catholic Gentry in English Society: The Throckmortons of Coughton from Reformation to Emancipation (Farnham, 2009), and with Frans Blom, Jos Blom and Frans Korsten, English Catholic Books. A Bibliography. 1701–1800 (Aldershot, 1996). He is also the author of Gothic Rage Undone: English Monks in the Age of Enlightenment (Downside Abbey, 1992). Victoria Van Hyning is a PhD candidate in English Literature at Sheffield University and holds a British Library Studentship. She received an MA in Middle English Language and Literature from Oxford (2008) and her BA in English Literature from Goucher College, Baltimore, Maryland (2002– 06). Her PhD concerns literary production, print and manuscript cultures at the Augustinian convents of St Monica’s in Louvain and Nazareth in Bruges, 1580–1744. She was a contributing editor for the volume on life writing in English Convents in Exile, 1600–1800 and is working on an edition of the ‘Louvain Chronicle’.

Series Editor’s Preface The still-usual emphasis on medieval (or Catholic) and reformation (or Protestant) religious history has meant neglect of the middle ground, both chronological and ideological. As a result, continuities between the middle ages and early modern Europe have been overlooked in favor of emphasis on radical discontinuities. Further, especially in the later period, the identification of 'reformation' with various kinds of Protestantism means that the vitality and creativity of the established church, whether in its Roman or local manifestations, has been left out of account. In the last few years, an upsurge of interest in the history of traditional (or catholic) religion makes these inadequacies in received scholarship even more glaring and in need of systematic correction. The series will attempt this by covering all varieties of religious behavior, broadly interpreted, not just (or even especially) traditional institutional and doctrinal church history. It will to the maximum degree possible be interdisciplinary, comparative and global, as well as non-confessional. The goal is to understand religion, primarily of the 'Catholic' variety, as a broadly human phenomenon, rather than as a privileged mode of access to superhuman realms, even implicitly. The period covered, 1300–1700, embraces the moment which saw an almost complete transformation of the place of religion in the life of Europeans, whether considered as a system of beliefs, as an institution, or as a set of social and cultural practices. In 1300, vast numbers of Europeans, from the pope down, fully expected Jesus's return and the beginning of His reign on earth. By 1700, very few Europeans, of whatever level of education, would have subscribed to such chiliastic beliefs. Pierre Bayle's notorious sarcasms about signs and portents are not idiosyncratic. Likewise, in 1300 the vast majority of Europeans probably regarded the pope as their spiritual head; the institution he headed was probably the most tightly integrated and effective bureaucracy in Europe. Most Europeans were at least nominally Christian, and the pope had at least nominal knowledge of that fact. The papacy, as an institution, played a central role in high politics, and the clergy in general formed an integral part of most governments, whether central or local. By 1700, Europe was divided into a myriad of different religious allegiances, and even those areas officially subordinate to the pope were both more nominally Catholic in belief (despite colossal efforts at imposing uniformity) and also in allegiance than they had been four hundred years earlier. The pope had

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become only one political factor, and not one of the first rank. The clergy, for its part, had virtually disappeared from secular governments as well as losing much of its local authority. The stage was set for the Enlightenment. Thomas F. Mayer, Augustana College

Acknowledgements In a collection of essays, it seems only natural – though no less heartfelt – for the editors to start by thanking the contributors for agreeing to join us in this venture: it has been a pleasure to work on the volume. We are also much indebted to the reviewers of each essay for their time and considered opinions. As this collection stems from a conference to mark the end of the ‘Who were the Nuns?’ project, which was run jointly with the History of Women Religious in Britain and Ireland research network, thanks is also due to all those who made the event possible and participated in any way. The support of others working in various fields of academia has been greatly appreciated. In particular, the assistance of the following deserves to be on record: Thomas M. McCoog, Anne Dillon, Simon Johnson, Nancy Bradley-Warren, Claire Walker, Janet Hollinshead, Paul Arblaster, Helen Hackett, Frances E. Dolan, Alexandra Walsham, Karen Hearn, Michael Emery, John Bergin, Susan O’Brien, Chris Sparks and Aidan Bellenger. We are grateful to the Congregation of Jesus, the St Cuthbert’s Society of Ushaw and Durham University’s Centre for Catholic Studies for their generous contributions which have meant that colour illustrations could be included in this volume. In addition, the role of the Arts and Humanities Research Council should be acknowledged for its funding of the ‘Who Were the Nuns?’ initiative and its follow-on project. We also wish to express our gratitude to all those who agreed to the use of their images in this volume and Pickering and Chatto for allowing us to use the table of overall convent recruitment figures first printed in History Writing, volume 1 of the series English Convents in Exile, 1600–1800, ed. Caroline Bowden. As ever, family and friends deserve special thanks for their mixture of patience and support in so many ways. Caroline Bowden would, as always, like to thank Richard Smerdon; James Kelly wishes to express his gratitude for the continuing support of Diane Kelly. Finally and most importantly, the communities past and present who wrote and looked after the texts over centuries and generously shared their heritage, their memories and precious objects with all of those involved in this volume, the project and its publications deserve our unstinting thanks. To them this book is dedicated.

Note on the Text The use of u and v, i and j have been modernized. Archaisms including ye and yt have been modernized and expanded; otherwise the spelling is as in the original. Contractions have been silently expanded. When a nun has been referred to, her name, profession and death date, and her code in the ‘Who were the Nuns?’ database have been given . Abbreviations Anstruther, I, II, etc.

Godfrey Anstruther, The Seminary Priests: A Dictionary of the Secular Clergy of England and Wales 1558–1850, 4 volumes (Ware and Durham and Great Wakering, [1968]–77).

Bellenger, Priests Aidan Bellenger, English and Welsh Priests 1558–1800 (Bath, 1984). CRS Catholic Record Society. English Convents

Caroline Bowden (gen. ed.), English Convents in Exile, 1600–1800, 6 vols (London, 2012–13).

ODNB

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Introduction Caroline Bowden, James E. Kelly and Michael C. Questier A recurring problem in the traditional historiography of the postReformation English Church is the assumption that if there was, in the early modern period, any kind of coherent Catholic residual presence within it, then it was by and large a hidden one. Furthermore, it was hidden for good reason: it was small, marginal, unrepresentative, and in some ways rather odd, a ‘stuck-in-the-mud’ obstacle to the drift of the broad mainstream consensus in the national Church along an essentially Protestant path, towards some version of modernity.1 There has always been a tendency in Catholic historical scholarship to give hostages to fortune. Why should other historians not take this line about the exclusiveness, excludedness and even marginality of English Catholicism when, for example, the peerless John Bossy decided to write (even if for entirely intellectually respectable reasons) about the Catholic community as essentially a closed entity? He portrayed it as separated, or in the process of separating, certainly from the rest of contemporary English society and culture, guided by different systems of regulation and deriving its spirit from European rather than English models of ecclesiology, spirituality and belief.2 If this was the case, then it is only natural that, to historians, the period’s Catholic culture should seem essentially ‘foreign’ and ‘other’. If there was a mainstream public cultural reaction to the Catholic Counter-Reformation in England, then it often took the form of what historians tend to call anti-popery. In short, it is suggested that there was both an elite and popular rejection of what many English people regarded as essentially corrupt forms of worship, as well as a good deal else which they tended to identify with Catholic Europe.3 It is precisely this caricature 1   For the zenith of this stance, see Arthur G. Dickens, The English Reformation (London, 1964), though the persistence of such views can be seen in works as recent as Eric Ives, The Reformation Experience: living throughout the turbulent sixteenth century (Oxford, 2012), which devotes a chapter to the ‘Protestant’ victims of Mary I’s reign but passingly mentions that Catholic clergy executed under Elizabeth I could be ‘understandably and justifiably’ viewed as traitors: pp. 221–33, 256. 2   John Bossy, The English Catholic Community 1570–1850 (London, 1975). 3   For the cultural and political assumptions and ramifications of contemporary anti-popery, see Peter Lake, ‘Anti-popery: the Structure of a Prejudice’, in Richard Cust and Ann Hughes (eds), Conflict in Early Stuart England (London, 1989), pp. 72–106.

2

The English Convents in Exile, 1600–1800

that inadvertently points towards the dual nature of English Catholicism, as embodied by the experience of the English convents in exile. Decidedly English yet simultaneously emphatically Tridentine and European, the convents’ experience points to the idea that English Catholicism had a ‘foot in both camps’. Alexandra Walsham is one who has explored this ‘split personality’ for English Catholics in general,4 but, it could surely be argued, the English convents bring this supposed tension into even sharper focus as English communities formed in countries that followed Tridentine regulations and were thus a part of the Counter-Reformation. Indeed, where a convent ran a school, such as those in the Augustinian and the Sepulchrine cloisters, at least part of the aim was to prepare them to be ‘good Catholic wives and mothers and to recruit new members’.5 This may have ensured that the convents were self-perpetuating, but it also established a means by which Tridentine Catholic practices could be absorbed into English households as the girls set up their own families framed by the formation they had received when they were at school. In his contribution to this collection, James Kelly considers the ways in which such a process was not one-way traffic. Through the example of the Petre family, he shows how the patronage network which they created served as a recruiting engine for exilic convents. This is a significant case study, since there appears to be a direct correlation between the patronage and self-image of a major Catholic aristocratic family and the decision of specific women to enter certain convents, hints of which can be found at the Brussels Benedictine house. It also further underlines how, despite geographical distance, ‘English’ Catholic influences affected the convents and were, indeed, inescapable. In short, even if the convents had wanted to escape their English identity, such a feat was impossible due to the backgrounds of the individuals who made up the communities. Moreover, the feed of ‘news’ from England brought with it local problems with the understanding of Trent that manifested themselves in institutions formed along wholly Tridentine lines. Disagreements during the ‘approbation controversy’ severely traumatized the English Catholic

4  Alexandra Walsham, ‘Translating Trent? English Catholicism and the Counter Reformation’, Historical Research, 78 (2005): pp. 288–310. See also Alexandra Walsham, ‘Beads, books and bare ruined choirs: transmutations of Catholic ritual life in Protestant England’, in Benjamin Kaplan, Bob Moore, Henk van Nierop and Judith Pollmann (eds), Catholic Communities in Protestant States: Britain and the Netherlands c.1570–1720 (Manchester, 2009), pp. 103–22. 5   Caroline Bowden, ‘Community space and cultural transmission: formation and schooling in English enclosed convents in the seventeenth century’, History of Education, 34 (2005): p. 381.

introduction

3

community in the 1620s and 1630s.6 The approbation business was technically about the extent and limits of the episcopal jurisdiction of the recently appointed Bishop Richard Smith as bishop of Chalcedon, and how far his authority extended to, and over, the members of the religious Orders in England. From time to time, the tedious procedural aspects of the dispute turned into an argument about not just the regulation of Catholics in England but also the place of the religious Orders within the community, and spilled out, at times, into a seething row about the status of the religious life. One could thus read the foundation of the Augustinian house in Paris in 1634 – which enjoyed the patronage and protection of Cardinal Richelieu, the active involvement of Bishop Smith and leading members of the English secular clergy, with the cooperation of those female religious who entered the foundation – as part of an object lesson about the ideal relationship between the religious Orders and episcopal authority, and, of course, between male members of the clergy and nuns, all under the aegis of royal authority. Indeed, Smith preached at the convent’s inauguration in 1634 and did the same shortly after, when his niece was clothed there.7 The point is, though, that the convents, and the lives that nuns in them led, could potentially become part of these really quite widespread debates about the nature of Catholicism in a country and society which was not in communion with Rome. The convents may have been part of a Tridentine movement, but English domestic affairs were apparently inescapable, impacting on the flow of donations, recruits, dowries and visitors.8 Such a suggestion of split loyalties is evident in the claims of regime spokesmen in England about Catholicism, certainly through much of the Elizabethan and early Stuart period. They asserted that the ordination or profession of the queen’s subjects abroad was part of a more general threat to the monarch’s safety caused by the ambitions of her continental enemies; hence the need for harsh statutory penalties for both the Catholic seminary clergy and for a range of associated Catholic practices. Indeed, Thomas McCoog’s recent work explicitly recognizes the debt owed by 6   For the approbation controversy, see Anthony F. Allison, ‘A Question of Jurisdiction: Richard Smith, Bishop of Chalcedon and the Catholic Laity, 1625–1631’, Recusant History, 16 (1982), pp. 111–45; Anthony F. Allison, ‘Richard Smith’s Gallican Backers and Jesuit Opponents – part I’, Recusant History, 18 (1987), pp. 329–401); ‘part II’, Recusant History, 19 (1989), pp. 234–85; ‘part III’, Recusant History, 20 (1990), pp. 164–206. 7  Anthony F. Allison, ‘The English Augustinian Convent of Our Lady of Syon at Paris: Its foundation and struggle for survival during the first eighty years, 1634–1713’, Recusant History, 21 (1993), pp. 458–9; Newsletters from the Caroline Court, 163 –1638: Catholicism and the politics of the personal rule, ed. Michael C. Questier, Camden Society, Fifth Series, vol. 26 (Cambridge, 2005), p. 7; Mary Gildon (1638–90), PA063. 8  See for example, ‘Convent Management’, ed. James E. Kelly, English Convents, vol. 5, pp. 1–13, 64. See Table I.1, p. 16 this volume, for details of recruitment patterns.

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English Catholics to the Spanish monarch during Elizabeth I’s reign.9 This view persisted throughout the early modern period, even after the late seventeenth-century’s Glorious Revolution, Catholics then being partnered – not wholly inaccurately – with the Jacobite ‘bogeymen’, although penalties may have been less harshly applied.10 Despite the presence of the English convents in exile, there has previously been only limited effort to ‘re-integrate’ them into the story of English Catholicism or even women’s history. This is partly because of a lack of research and also perhaps due to an uncertainty about how they fit into the fabled ‘bigger picture’.11 This is even more marked when a study as thorough as that undertaken by Glickman neglects the convents, mentioning only that they were educating and financially supporting key figures around the Jacobite court in exile.12 Ironically, in the context of the determination by some historians to rectify what they regard as a kind of gender imbalance in the writing of the history of the early modern period, the contribution made by Catholic women to the history of their community and outside is remarkable mainly by its absence from ‘mainstream’ historical narratives and literary studies. As Jaime Goodrich points out in this collection, ‘the feminist recovery of writings by early modern Englishwomen during the 1980s and 1990s almost completely overlooked the texts produced by the continental convents for Englishwomen.’ It has only been in the last decade or so that real efforts have been made to remedy this situation.13 Although this collection is the first to focus solely on the English convents in exile, there has, for example, been the pioneering historical research of Claire Walker and her wide range of papers which have appeared since the publication of her monograph.14 Literary scholars on both sides of the Atlantic have been demonstrating new ways of approaching conventual  9   Thomas M. McCoog, The Society of Jesus in Ireland, Scotland, and England, 1589– 1597: Building the Faith of Saint Peter upon the King of Spain’s Monarchy (Farnham, 2012). 10   For example, see Gabriel Glickman, The English Catholic Community 1688–1745: Politics, Culture and Ideology (Woodbridge, 2009). For the commitment of religious Orders to the Jacobite cause see, for example, Geoffrey Scott, ‘Sacredness of Majesty: the English Benedictines and the cult of James II’, Royal Stuart Society Papers, XXIII (1984). 11   Claire Walker, Gender and Politics in Early Modern Europe: English convents in France and the Low Countries (Basingstoke, 2003) is the only comprehensive book-length study of the conventual foundation movement. After an initial flourish in the early twentieth century, few texts were published until the work of Dorothy Latz, Jan Rhodes and Nicky Hallett. 12  Glickman, Catholic Community, pp. 74–5, 199–202. 13  Work on the Bridgettine convent of Syon Abbey started earlier than for other convents: see writing by Jan Rhodes, Ann Hutchison, Virginia Bainbridge in the select bibliography. 14   For a full list, see the select bibliography.

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texts as new editions are published.15 Frances Dolan, Nancy Bradley Warren, Heather Wolfe and Nicky Hallett have shown how the religious lives and creativity of English women religious can be revealed in a close reading of their texts, and how to unpick layers of concealment and selfeffacement so frequently a fundamental part of conventual life.16 Another heartening development has been the growing inclusion (albeit brief) and discussion of manuscripts and books associated with the English convents in studies of women’s literary activities and education outside areas more usually associated with them.17 However, before such recent scholarship, in the eyes of contemporaries and one would venture even some historians, the only really interesting stuff about nuns came in prurient pamphlets such as Thomas Robinson’s The Anatomy of the English Nunnery at Lisbon in Portugall … (1622).18 Such pamphlets were not only few and far between but also part of an anti-popish fantasy very little of which appeared to be actually true. As Geoffrey Scott points out in his chapter in this volume, ‘the depiction of nuns’ was common enough in ‘illustrated social satires … especially in France and the Low Countries’. He suggests that Robinson’s images were 15  See, for instance, the Ashgate series ‘The Early Modern Englishwoman 1500–1700, Contemporary Editions’ and ‘The Early Modern Englishwoman: A Facsimile Library of Essential Works’: both of these series have included conventual texts. 16   Frances E. Dolan, Whores of Babylon: Catholicism, Gender, and SeventeenthCentury Print Culture (Ithaca, 1999); Frances E. Dolan ‘Reading, Work and Catholic Women’s Biographies’, English Literary Renaissance, 33.3 (2003): pp. 328–57; Frances E. Dolan, ‘Why Are Nuns Funny?’, Huntington Library Quarterly, 70.4 (2007): pp. 509–35; Nancy Bradley Warren, The Embodied Word: Female Spiritualities, Contested Orthodoxies and English Religious Cultures, 1350–1700 (Notre Dame, IN, 2010); Nancy Bradley Warren, Women of God and Arms: Female Spirituality and Political Conflict, 1380–1600 (Philadelphia, PA, 2005); Heather Wolfe, ‘Dame Barbara Constable: Catholic Antiquarian, Advisor, and Closet Missionary’, in Ronald Corthell, Frances E. Dolan, Christopher Highley and Arthur Marotti (eds), Catholic Culture in Early Modern England (Notre Dame, IN, 2007), pp. 158–88; Heather Wolfe (ed.), Elizabeth Cary, Lady Falkland: life and letters (Cambridge, 2001); Heather Wolfe, ‘Reading Bells and Loose Papers: Reading and Writing Practices of the English Benedictine Nuns of Cambrai and Paris’, in Victoria E. Burke and Jonathan Gibson (eds), Early Modern Women’s Manuscript Writing: Selected Papers from the Trinity/Trent Colloquium (Aldershot, 2004), pp. 135–56; Nicky Hallett, Lives of Spirit: An Edition of English Carmelite Auto/Biographies of the Early Modern Period (Aldershot, 2007); Nicky Hallett, Witchcraft, Exorcism and the Politics of Possession in a SeventeenthCentury Convent (Aldershot, 2007). 17  See for example, Helen Smith, ‘Grossly Material Things’: Women and Book Production in early modern England (Oxford, 2012), pp. 28–31; Amanda Capern, The Historical Study of Women: England, 1500–1700 (Basingstoke, 2010), pp. 208–10. 18   Thomas Robinson, The Anatomy of the English Nunnery at Lisbon in Portugall: Dissected and Laid Open by One that was sometime a yonger Brother of the Convent (London, 1622).

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borrowed from common European exemplars and had little to do with actual Englishwomen, despite Robinson’s claims to verisimilitude. Once again, this underlines the European nature of the English nuns’ experience: perhaps, to some degree in contemporary eyes, they were becoming European by the very adoption of the habit. Indeed, the recruitment of members into these convents could itself be seen as an assertion of Catholics’ rejection of statute law, which had accumulated since the 1559 settlement and which was supposed to guarantee a minimum level of conformity in the national Church. It is important to recall that the convents survived in spite of this legislation, enforced with variable degrees of severity over the whole recusant period. The legislation failed in its aim to prevent the survival of Catholicism in England and recruitment to Catholic institutions both male and female on the continent. In spite of attempts to suppress it, Catholicism survived through the ability of individuals to adapt to changing circumstances. For instance, Lisa McClain has shown how English Catholics re-conceptualized sacred space, utilizing whatever was available, including prisons. For Peter Davidson, Catholics’ self-image, expressed in their buildings and the decoration and inscribing of them with Catholic symbols, is reckoned to have made essentially covert statements about the meaning of the building’s owners, or very discreet expressions of Catholic dissent.19 In short, Catholic families continued to support the entry of their daughters into convents abroad. One might have imagined that, the more that those who were already separatists took themselves out of the country (and refrained from breeding), the happier their critics in the national Church would be. However, we have evidence, here and there, of how disturbing and irritating some Protestants found the sight of convent professions. In the regular reports sent home by, for example, the diplomat William Trumbull, who served as the English agent in Flanders, we find his complaints about the convent foundations there. He noted more than once that English gentlewomen were being received at the Benedictine convent of the Assumption in Brussels. For example, in September 1617, he wrote ‘last week two nuns took the vow’ and another one since … whereat (besyds all the better sorte of our countrymen lyveing hereaboute) did assiste the prime Jesuitts of our nation, It is a lamentable thing to see but,

19  Lisa McClain, ‘Without Church, Cathedral or Shrine: The Search for Religious Space among Catholics in England, 1559–1625’, Sixteenth Century Journal, XXXIII.2 (2002): pp. 381–99; Peter Davidson, ‘Recusant Catholic Spaces in Early Modern England’, in Ronald Corthell, Frances E. Dolan, Christopher Highley and Arthur Marotti (eds), Catholic Culture in Early Modern England (Notre Dame, IN, 2007), pp. 19–51.

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for ought I can perceive, almost irremediable, what concourse there is dayly of his Majesties people hether, the powder treason seemeing nowe to be quite forgotten.20

In Trumbull’s mind, the flagrant example of these women and their male sponsors could be viewed as part of the Catholic community’s tendency towards conspiracy against the nation and as acts of treason committed with foreign compliance. If the mode of expression of their faith which Catholic females chose to adopt involved entry into an enclosed house of religion, possible only if they went into exile, then, for a great deal of the period in England, this served as a double or perhaps treble confirmation of their deserved absence from a mainstream historical agenda. However, that did not mean that convents were completely isolated either politically or culturally from what went on in the rest of the world. Claire Walker and Caroline Bowden have both remarked on how, following the English Civil War, the convent at Ghent served as an intelligence and news-sending service for Charles II in exile.21 Involvement with the Jacobite court in exile furthered the Stuart connection, even to the point where two illegitimate Stuart daughters professed at Pontoise.22 Equally, the convents were also affected by events around them: the Louvain Augustinians lived through the siege of the city in 1635, the Bridgettines survived the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 and, ultimately, it was the domestic revolution of the French and the associated wars that drove many of the convents to England at the end of the eighteenth century. Culturally, the convents drew on local craftsmen, painters, printers, musicians and publishers to build and enhance their convents, furnish their libraries and perform liturgy that impressed visitors and enhanced their reputations.23 20   E.K. Purnell et al. (eds), Report on the Manuscripts of the Marquess of Downshire (5 vols, Historical Manuscripts Commission, London, 1924–28), pp. 296–7. See also the report of the Arundell clothing at the National Archives, SP77/6 Part 1, f. 73, in ‘Life Writing’, ed. Nicky Hallett, English Convents, vol. 3, pp. 257–8. 21   Caroline Bowden, ‘The Abbess and Mrs Brown: Lady Mary Knatchbull and Royalist Politics in Flanders in the late 1650s’, Recusant History, 24 (1999): pp. 288–308; Claire Walker, ‘Prayer, Patronage, and Political Conspiracy: English Nuns and the Restoration’, The Historical Journal, 43 (2000): pp. 1–23; Claire Walker, ‘“These Crumms of nuse”: Early Modern English Nuns and Royalist Intelligence Networks’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 42–3 (2012): pp. 635–55; Claire Walker, ‘“When God shall restore them to their kingdoms”: Nuns, Exiled Stuarts and English Catholic Identity, 1660–1745’, in Sarah Apetrei and Hannah Smith (eds), Religion and Women in Britain, c. 1660–1760 (Farnham, forthcoming). 22  See Arabella FitzJames (1690–1704), OB42, and Barbara FitzRoy (prof. 1691), OB043. See also ‘Convent Management’, Kelly, pp. 3–5. 23  See the discussion in Caroline Bowden, ‘Patronage and Practice: Assessing the Significance of the English Convents as Cultural Centres in Flanders in the Seventeenth Century’, English Studies, 92.5 (2011): pp. 483–95.

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The AHRC-funded ‘Who were the Nuns?’ project has continued the reappraisal of the convents and their members. The core of the undertaking is, of course, its prosopographical database, covering all the English convents in exile in the period 1600–1800, demonstrating how many people there were in the convents and where they came from. It suggests that (as might be expected) the recruits were mainly from the separated section of the Catholic spectrum, although members appear to have emanated from backgrounds that ran the spectrum of Catholic positions: in addition, a number of parents had made religiously mixed marriages and around a hundred members were converts. Also, the determined efforts of the project’s researchers located a good deal of additional material in conventual archives, much of which is being published.24 It is the topic of English Catholic convent culture that this present volume seeks to explore through an interdisciplinary lens. It is important to emphasise that this volume recognises that it is incomplete as a study of English women religious in the period by its focus on the enclosed communities. The omission of the Mary Ward Institute was based on the recognition that the historical and religious experience of the members of the Institute was distinct from that of the enclosed nuns. Many of their texts and images are comparable, but their religious life based on the active apostolate was so different that the editors considered they merited separate treatment. A comparative study awaits an author. The English convents are significant in that there is no other similar group of females from the British Isles during the early modern period with such a collection of archival records, interests and priorities, organised modes of life and patronage of various kinds. As Bossy hinted on the subject of Catholic laywomen, arguing ‘the Catholic community owed its existence to gentlewomen’s dissatisfaction at the Reformation settlement of religion, and that they played an abnormally important part in its early history.’25 It is easy to see how by extension one might make the case that the convents in exile were part of that impulse. Bossy’s influential and inventive thesis about post-Reformation Catholicism in England came, however, out of a sociological reading of certain specific sorts of evidence. There are other ways of looking at the same material and, indeed, other records in conjunction with it. It is arguable that, in the evidence base created by the ‘Who were the Nuns?’ project, we have the opportunity for a coherent enquiry into what might be called the distinctive culture of these convents; a culture which was, if not phrased in Mary Ward’s vision of female agency, then certainly one which was rooted in a kind of independent identity or, rather, independent of a good deal of the 24 25

 See the six volumes of English Convents.  Bossy, English Catholic Community, pp. 157–8.

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contemporary constraints and norms that lay Englishwomen might have been expected to observe in the post-Reformation period.26 Where was that culture derived from? In large part, in the first instance, it came from the family and other support networks which underpinned the convents, the ones that provided the material and financial wherewithal to run them, as indicated in James Kelly’s chapter. These convents were a snapshot of a predominantly Catholic section of contemporary English society, drawn mainly from landed families with a smattering of poorer women admitted with the common factor (as argued by Caroline Bowden in this collection) of a personal desire to enter.27 As we have already argued, the convents had their own institutional identities: dual in nature, they may have been English in origin and membership but, since they were located in confessionally Catholic countries, they inevitably fell under Tridentine and local influences. Out of necessity, the convents followed strict enclosure as decreed by the Council of Trent. Rather than being the oppressed recipients of such rulings, the nuns frequently embraced them and, like the Italian nuns in Naples, even used it to their advantage.28 In her chapter, Laurence Lux-Sterritt details the overtly Tridentine spirituality of English nuns. For instance, Christina Brent wrote of warfare upon earth due to the necessary continual combat against the devil. Penned in the first half of the seventeenth century, such Church Militant ideas show an English convent spirituality already strongly influenced by Tridentine views.29 Lux-Sterritt gives us a wonderful evocation of the means to divine union via spiritual exercises of considerable rigour. Here the aim was to beat down the quotidian temptations to sin. As she puts it, ‘in the cloister, the self was to have no importance and should, ideally, be progressively tamed, in order to allow nuns to become blank slates on which the divine spirit would inscribe its will.’ Further afield, the transnational nature of early reformed Carmelite foundations influenced the choice of books not only in Carmelite houses, 26   For the role of Catholic women, see also Marie B. Rowlands, ‘Harbourers and housekeepers: Catholic women in England 1570–1720’, in Benjamin Kaplan, Bob Moore, Henk van Nierop and Judith Pollmann (eds), Catholic Communities in Protestant States: Britain and the Netherlands c.1570–1720 (Manchester, 2009), pp. 200–15. 27   The convents although described as ‘English’ contained a substantial minority of members of other nationalities (including the Irish discussed by Marie-Louise Coolahan in this collection) who wished to join convents where the culture was definitively ‘English’. 28  See Helen Hills, Invisible City: the Architecture of Devotion in Seventeenth-Century Neapolitan Convents (New York, 2004), pp. 120–38, and Genelle Gertz’s chapter in this volume when she notes that ‘By recognizing the confessor as external to the convent, Constable draws upon the rhetoric of clausura to enhance the powers of the abbess.’ 29   For an overview of Tridentine Catholicism, see Ronnie Po-Chia Hsia, The World of Catholic Renewal (Cambridge, 1st edition 1998, 2nd edition 2005).

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but more widely. The link between Teresa of Avila through her companion, Anne of St Bartholomew (1550–1625) – who took the revised Carmelite rule first to France, then to Flanders – to the founding prioress (Anne of the Ascension Worsley) of the English foundation at Antwerp, underlines a wider phenomenon that helps to explain the presence of multiple copies of Teresian texts in several languages not only in English Carmels but also in many English convents of the period. Thus, Tridentine influences crossed national European boundaries, in this instance Spanish culture spreading outwards to English convents located elsewhere. Their location on the continent, together with their awareness of English political concerns, meant that the convents might feature on the landscape of England’s ‘European’ problems. For example, in this collection, Elizabeth Perry and Jenna Lay both consider the case of the Bridgettine convent at Lisbon, whose members were involved in the arguments about the Spanish match on at least two levels. First, they were the focus of the essentially rather nasty little pamphlet by Thomas Robinson (noted above) entitled The Anatomy of the English Nunnery at Lisbon … (1622), which deployed what was undoubtedly a very standard Protestant polemic about and against Catholic women who had gone into religion. Secondly – and perhaps more revealingly – Perry and Lay both highlight the different ways the illustrated petition prepared by the nuns for the Infanta Doña María (the intended bride of the future King Charles I) anticipated toleration in Britain if marriage negotiations were concluded successfully. Jenna Lay looks at the literary aspects and strategies of the pamphlet, which the nuns wrote in reply to Robinson, though it was never published. On her account, this is rather more than a simple tit-for-tat polemical spat. It is an indication that the nuns who wrote against Robinson were trying to establish a coherent identity for themselves through literary tropes and other devices. At a more basic level, though, it is an indication of how one English convent in exile could become a topic available for appropriation by those outside the convent world, and for whom the existence of these institutions was far from a merely private issue. Taken together, the manuscript petition, Robinson’s printed tract, and the nuns’ manuscript reply to it are a snapshot of how an otherwise politically marginalized and supposedly geographically exiled community might become connected with a major political event. As both Lay and Perry stress, the depiction of the peripatetic history of the Syon community in exile (portrayed in the very sophisticated and beautiful manuscript compiled for presentation at the Spanish court, which is the subject of Perry’s chapter) could be taken as an indicator of the possibility that its members would return if the Infanta came to wed Charles. It was undoubtedly significant that, as Perry stresses, the convent had a French leaguer past, and indeed was sited now in Lisbon because it vacated Rouen in 1594 after the tide of political events in France

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had turned decisively in favour of Henry of Navarre. As Perry describes the manuscript, it is ‘a window into the exile of an English convent, and the meaning of that exile from the point of view of the women themselves’ in that institution. This brings us to those chapters in the volume that address the relationship between the nuns and their writing and the question of how far one can recover the authorial identities of the nuns in the context of the heightened self-effacement techniques which the nuns practised. Victoria Van Hyning explores the creation and subsequent history of the Chronicle of St Monica’s, arguing that there are several explanations for not knowing the identities of nun authors. By bringing together a number of elements including different versions of the documents, contextual evidence and understanding the purpose of the text, she is able to argue convincingly that she has identified the author of the main part of the Chronicle, one of the best-known texts from the English convents. Further searches in the archives showed that in the course of publication the substantial input of a later woman religious was subsumed by the male editor. Since incomplete sources have in the past prevented nuns’ manuscripts from being incorporated into the canon of women’s texts, such careful forensic analysis makes an important contribution towards permitting deeper studies of documents from the English convents. Nicky Hallett’s chapter dealing with Carmelite texts likewise raises the issue of who is writing what, and how it has been treated by subsequent writers with close connections to the convent. Her claim is that the tendency towards self-concealment, or at least disguising, of the full extent of the nuns’ authorial role is a ‘performative routine’ and demonstrates how ‘such processes served to obscure’ their ‘identities’, exactly as the authors themselves tried to avoid self-promotion. Of course, this was not an uncommon literary strategy of this period, but in the case of the nuns we need to consider particular reasons related to the religious life for concealing their identities. The nuns, on Hallett’s account, seem to be doing something rather similar to lay authors, even though not, in the case of the written work cited here, for public or polemical purposes. It is the later authors who see their role as mediating between the enclosure and the outside world. Authorial identities might be expressed most strongly when all in the convents was not peace and tranquillity. Jaime Goodrich’s chapter demonstrates what happened when Abbess Mary Percy had to defend herself against her critics. Based on a study of Percy’s letters written during the course of the dispute over spiritual direction and the choice of confessors in the Brussels Benedictine convent, Goodrich demonstrates the skill with which Mary Percy used collaborative authorship to vindicate herself and enhance her authority. Goodrich also shows how nuns’ own work

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could be incorporated into and combined with that of the male associates through her selection of translators (particularly confessor chaplains) of these convents. She, too, stresses the ‘complexity of convent authorship’, showing how Percy’s translation activities, assisted for example by the leading Jesuit Anthony Hoskins, could be taken to have ‘legitimated an Ignatian-based form of spirituality’. In a similar vein, Genelle Gertz questions just how one-way was the spiritual traffic between nuns and convent confessor chaplains. Gertz explores Barbara Constable’s views when it came to questions of spiritual authority within the convent walls. For Constable, the abbess was the person in the best position to give spiritual direction to the community, rather than an outsider priest. This does not mean, of course, that Constable was some sort of conventual forerunner of feminism. But what makes Gertz’s account of this assertion of the authority of the abbess in spiritual matters interesting is that it is a negotiated one. In her text, Constable argues the right of the abbess to hear the ‘confessions’ of her nuns, although she will not be able to provide absolution and it is not intended in the sacramental sense of the word. One could suggest that such an understanding of an abbess’s responsibilities had its routes in preReformation Europe and figures such as the German nun and humanist scholar Caritas Pirckheimer.30 Equally, Constable’s thinking about this issue is linked, it appears, with the thought of Augustine Baker, whose writings she had transcribed (though he had been in the convent before her time).31 Portraits of nuns have been largely overlooked as a genre, but as the chapter from Geoffrey Scott argues, they are important to understanding convent culture and identities, both individual and institutional. As noted above, Geoffrey Scott points out that English representations of nuns almost completely disappeared from the English scene at the Reformation. Subsequently, depictions of English nuns came from the continent. Some of them, it has to be said, are absolutely stunning: perhaps their rarity augmented their impact. As Scott says, though, there were engravings of nuns as well, not just formal portraiture, and associated with them was a rich emblematic tradition which reflected the period’s fascination with emblem as a form of religious language. One wonders whether the designs and depictions are conscious retorts to the kind of low-level antipopish polemic of writers such as Robinson. Whatever the motivation for 30   Paula S. D. Barker, ‘Caritas Pirckheimer: a female humanist confronts the Reformation’, The Sixteenth-Century Journal, 26 (1995), pp. 259–72. 31   For Augustine Baker, see Michael Woodward (ed.), That Mysterious Man: Essays on Augustine Baker (Abergavenny, 2001); Geoffrey Scott (ed.), Dom Augustine Baker 1575– 1641 (Leominster, 2012).

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commissioning these things, and there were undoubtedly several incentives for their production, they are an extraordinary rendition of the self-image of exiled English religious. Another way of recovering the cultural life of the convents was their employment of musical forms to express their vocation. Andrew Cichy looks at music in three substantial convents, even though survival rates of manuscripts are not good, especially for the early part of the period. He argues that the convents were sites of mixed traditions of music-making which would have been culturally resonant for those in them; the nuns were forced, as it were, to begin again, since their own formal pre-Reformation musical inheritance had gone. What they brought with them, however, was a tradition of domestic music-making, once again underlining the contours of ‘Englishness’ running through continental-looking institutions. While there was always the possibility of engaging with local musical practice in the places where the convents were established, it appears from surviving evidence in the early period that there was a desire to use English people, including clergy, with musical gifts, for example, at the Augustinian foundation in Louvain. This provides us with a major insight into the liturgical operation of the convents; it suggests that they were not culturally absorbed by their host countries in a way that one might have expected, although they used continental liturgical books in the language they shared for common practice: Latin. Once again, this brings us back to the recurring theme of national and transnational influence in the convents. As already hinted, such considerations shaped community formation. Elizabeth Patton considers Dorothy Arundell’s life of the Jesuit John Cornelius and the link between the Chideock branch of that family and the founding of the Benedictine convent of the Assumption at Brussels. Like James Kelly’s, her chapter shows how some convents’ recruitment patterns may have been, in effect, a reflection of the social structure of the English Catholic community itself. Patton’s chapter also illustrates the religious life of a group based round committed religious women several of whom decided to join convents in exile. Most candidates arrived through a recommendation coming from an agent, family chaplain or well-connected family member with connections to a particular convent. It was a rarity for a candidate to arrive without recommendation at all. As a result, there are many nuns who had relatives already in the convent to which they sought entry. In Bowden’s chapter, the reader actually finds the nuns acting as a self-selecting group. She argues that by examining the reasons for some postulants not progressing to full and final profession, we have a window onto the way that convents governed recruitment and how senior members recognized the need to run the convents selectively: ‘only if they were successful in creating wellmanaged institutions would they be able to attract sufficient recruits to

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The English Convents in Exile, 1600–1800

survive in exile.’ Recruiting to institutions in exile was always going to be more challenging than drawing on a local hinterland. In the context of the kind of regime which some of the convents ran, it is surprising that more did not leave early, yet it underlines that the process was one of mutual ‘sizing-up’: both the potential nun and the already existing community had to be sure of their choices. As visible landmarks of Englishness in foreign lands, a bad choice could lead to a damaged reputation and disaster for the convent’s recruitment and survival.32 Equally, there was an added national angle to such considerations. Marie Louise Coolahan explores the issue of Irish nuns in English convents, mentioning the sometimes challenging job of identifying them. As she says, this can prove difficult when the convents were behaving the way they should, embodying the Tridentine ideals that nationality should play no role in the ‘new’ family into which one had entered, such as at the Gravelines Poor Clares. However, this was not always the case. For example, Coolahan follows the case of Bridget Barnwell at the Rouen Poor Clares, whose Irish self-identity was stirred by a fellow sister to the extent that the threat of public scandal became a reality. Such was the seriousness of this potential, other convents even sought to ban non-English entrants. This links into wider debates about ‘British’ history in this period (in the sense of the relationship between England, Scotland and Ireland, both before and after the union of the crowns of 1603): how easy was it for such people to integrate with each other in the convents? Were the difficulties which they both experienced and caused to others simply to do with different cultural assumptions? Was it also to do with different political perceptions of the place of Ireland in an English-dominated British polity? One of the remarkable things about the current ‘British’ historiography is that so few people seek to address the issue of the ‘Catholic’ component of the, as historians term it, ‘British problem’. The fact was that Catholicism even under (different degrees of) proscription in the British Isles had alternative meanings, just as it did in the rest of Europe. That some people might discern similar traditions of Protestant persecution did not mean that English and Anglo- and Gaelic Irish would see eye to eye, even though they shared what was technically a common religious heritage. Yet the conflicting identities of these convents were further complicated by the burgeoning notion of the nation state. Carmen Mangion’s chapter deals with the nuns who had the misfortune to be in Paris at the time of the revolution as they experienced their own version of A Tale of Two 32   For the Benedictine case, see Claire Walker, ‘Securing Souls or Telling Tales? The Politics of Cloistered Life in an English Convent’, in Cordula van Wyhe (ed.), Female Monasticism in Early Modern Europe: An Interdisciplinary View (Aldershot, 2008), pp. 227–44.

introduction

15

Cities. She finds the nuns stressing their Englishness as far as nationality was concerned, but underlining their rights as French citizens. Mangion asserts that the nuns used both identities, apparently without feeling any conflict between the two, just as they apparently did not wallow in tension between their English and Tridentine European identities. Whether nuns wanted to be shut off from the world or not, the French rage for liberty left them virtually no choice except to confront revolutionary attitudes; and here Mangion looks at the ways in which they were forced to deal with the unwelcome impact of revolutionary zeal, as the political system which had allowed or compelled them to live abroad swung into reverse. Interestingly, the English Augustinians remained in France throughout the revolution, and were in a position to recover their substantial property in central Paris as soon as it became possible to do so. What does this tell us about their identity? The asking of such questions pervades all the chapters in this collection. As such, the foundation and sustaining of the English convents in exile, and the decisions of a wide social range of women to enter them, is, one suspects, a crucial public element of the English and British phase of the CounterReformation.

pre 1600

Augustinians Bruges Louvain [25] Paris Benedictines Brussels 1 Cambrai Dunkirk Ghent Paris Pontoise Ypres Bridgettines 10 Carmelites Antwerp Hoogstraten Lierre Conceptionists Dominicans Franciscans Poor Clares Aire Dunkirk Gravelines [3] Rouen Sepulchrines Totals 39

1620s 8

37

39

6

19

16

2

34

20

5 23

8

26

17 1 14 113 194 156 167

42

22

19

5

36

16

1 19

10

2 10

19 21

9

3 3 24

31

1600s

27

1610s

27 1

8 12 17

1630s

3

45 1

1640s

Overall convent recruitment figures 1660s 3 10 9 12

4

9 4 5 24 14 28 1 8

12 15 15

1670s 5 2 7 13 11 13

3

3 9 11 2 4 28

8 11 12

1680s 6 15

6 8 8

3 9 8 10 8 10 2 9

27 16 22

1690s 6 6 5 3 3 9

8 10 11 5 4 6 1 12

17 14 19

1700s 6 4 5 7 7 6

3 10 7 11 1 3 8

14 13 11

1710s 6 5 4 3 6 10

10 6 5 15 2 8 6 4

12 17 7

1720s 6 4 5 7 3 14

6 6 12 16 1 9 5 7

16 18 11

1730s 6 5 2 5 8 16

12 8

10 3 9 14 1

7 13 2

1740s 7

3 4 4 9

7 4 11 5 2 4 2 7

13 8 4

1750s 7 8 6 4 9 9

10 6 8 5 3 7 1 4

10 6 5

1760s 4 4 4 3 3 15

1 4 3 4 6 1 0 3

4 9 6

1770s 2 3 2 4 1 4

3 4 6 6 3 8 4 7

10 5 9

5 5 7 4 4 6

9 6

9 4 2 7 6

7 9 6

1780s

4 12 10 8 8 8 7 6 10 3 8 8 18 2 1 7 14 19 20 5 7 14 8 9 6 4 2 2 9 20 14 24 23 11 21 18 3 11 9 9 2 4 21 2 13 15 10 7 9 14 10 5 9 20 23 21 21 10 10 11 6 8 13 15 5 8 8 15 25 15 198 242 213 250 217 150 187 214 157 132 148 124 138 124

11

8 1 11

6

21 2 9

19 13

21 15 17

1650s

Table I.1

135 60 80 73 75 231

186 143 99 225 58 121 54 133

196 295 189

Totals

126 118 294 1 181 15 199 69 3271

1 1 7 1 5 6

3 2

4 1 1 2 1

7 11

1790s

Part I Communities

Chapter 1

From Community to Convent: The Collective Spiritual Life of Post-Reformation Englishwomen in Dorothy Arundell’s Biography of John Cornelius Elizabeth Patton In the east of England, in the County of Dorchester, there lived a daughter of the Earl of Derby, a widow lady, who had been the wife of John Arundel, commonly called the “Great Arundel.” This gentlewoman, for the sake of retirement, lived in the country. The Lieutenant of the County suspected that she used to receive Catholic priests into her house, for she and all her family were Catholics, and her house was near the sea. He accordingly often sent spies to watch the place, to prowl around the house, and to ferret out its most secret affairs. (Dorothy Arundell, The Life of Father John Cornelius)1

The ‘daughter of the Earl Derby’ referred to in this description, which is printed here in English for the first time, is Anne Stanley, Lady Stourton (1548/49–1602), daughter of Edward, 3rd Earl of Derby and widow of Sir John Arundell (1527/30–90) of Lanherne, Cornwall. The text cited above comprises the opening paragraph of The Life of Father John Cornelius by Dorothy Arundell,2 daughter of Lady Stourton. This is the only known biography of a priest by an Elizabethan Englishwoman, and although it has been cited frequently by historians of the English mission, Arundell’s work remained in manuscript form and was never printed in its original 1   English translations of Arundell’s first draft of the Life of Cornelius cited in this chapter are taken from an anonymous manuscript translation of the Yepes chapter on Cornelius, written in a mid-twentieth-century hand and located in the Archives of the British Province of the Society of Jesus, filed with the papers of the Cause of the Holy Martyrs in a file marked ‘Cornelius’. I am grateful to Thomas M. McCoog SJ and Anna Edwards for their help with this manuscript. See also David M. Rogers, ‘Introduction’, Historia Particular (London, 1971). 2  Dorothy Arundell (1600–13), BB002.

20

The English Convents in Exile, 1600–1800

English; I discuss its complex provenance below.3 In this chapter, I draw on Arundell’s work in conjunction with additional primary and secondary sources to trace her transition from an actively apostolic Catholic community – established by her mother and operating under conditions of secrecy in Post-Reformation England – to a cloistered convent in the heart of Catholic Brussels, the Benedictine Monastery of the Assumption of Our Lady, which she herself took part in establishing. In the winter of 1590/91, following the death of Sir John Arundell, Lady Stourton relocated with a large group of Catholic family members to her jointure property at Chideock Castle, Dorset, near the south coast of England. Under the leadership of John Cornelius (1554–94), who may have become a Jesuit shortly before his death, the community was active for almost four years, from the winter of 1590/91 until the arrest and execution of Cornelius in the summer of 1594.4 The community was under the spiritual direction of Cornelius, who had been educated as a child by the Arundells and later sent by them to Oxford and the English College in Rome. In 1583, he returned to England as an ordained priest and rejoined the Arundell family in London, where Sir John was under house arrest for his opposition to the Elizabethan Settlement. Becoming the family’s confessor and spiritual adviser, Cornelius remained associated with the Arundells in London until Sir John’s death in 1590, after which he relocated with Lady Stourton to Chideock. Much of our knowledge of the community at Chideock comes from the work of Dorothy Arundell. In her early thirties when the community was established, she had a history of covert resistance to the Elizabethan Settlement both in her native Cornwall and in London, and after Cornelius returned to England in 1583, he became her spiritual director for ten years.5 In an associated vow taken at the same time, if not earlier, she promised 3  A partial list of later sources drawing on Arundell’s Life of Cornelius includes Diego de Yepes, Historia Particular de la Persecucion de Inglaterra (Madrid, 1599), pp. 633–40; The Elizabethan Jesuits: ‘Historia Missionis Anglicanae Societatis Jesu’ (1660) of Henry More, trans. and ed. Francis Edwards (London and Chichester, 1981); Danielo Bartoli, Dell’istoria della Compagnia di Giesu: L’Inghilterra parte dell’Europa (Rome, 1667), pp. 331–42; Richard Challoner, Memoirs of Missionary Priests, ed. John H. Pollen (London, 1924); Henry Foley, ‘John Cornelius’, Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus (London, 1877), vol. 1, pp. 435–73; Chronicle of the First Monastery Founded at Brussels (Bergholt, 1898), pp. 24–34; Leo Hicks, ‘John Cornelius: An Irish Martyr, 1554–1594’, Studies, an Irish Quarterly Review, 18 (1929): pp. 537–55; A.L. Rowse, Tudor Cornwall, Portrait of a Society (London, 1941), pp. 361–7. 4   For the circumstances under which Cornelius ‘was eventually “admitted” into the Society shortly before his execution in the summer of 1594’, see Thomas M. McCoog, The Society of Jesus in England, Scotland, and Ireland 1589–1597: Building the Faith of Saint Peter upon the King of Spain’s Monarchy (Farnham, 2012), p. 74. 5  Foley, Records, p. 437.

from community to convent

21

to join the exiled Bridgettines of Syon Abbey, which her sister Cycyll entered, but in practice, this second vow was deferred until the dispersal of the Chideock community in 1594. 6 In a final letter from prison shortly before his death, Cornelius urged her to proceed with her plan to enter the Bridgettines and she began preparing for that almost immediately. As I will discuss in the second section of this chapter, soon after her arrival in Brussels in the mid-1590s, Arundell once again came under the spiritual direction of a priest for a brief period prior to carrying out her vow to enter a contemplative Order in the fall of 1598. Provenance of Arundell’s Life of [Father John] Cornelius Although the manuscript of Arundell’s Life of Cornelius was long presumed to be held in the Jesuit Archives in Rome, a recent search has determined that it is now missing. The last person to mention consulting it was Richard Challoner (1691–1781), who reported that ‘a copy’ had been sent to him from St Omer, an outline of which he appended to his 1741 biography of Cornelius.7 Based on Challoner’s outline, collated with citations from other sources as referenced above, it now appears that Arundell’s work was translated at least twice for publication.8 It first appeared in a Spanish publication among similar accounts of the sufferings of English Catholics, the Historia Particular de la Persecucion de Inglaterra, published in 1599 by Diego de Yepes, later bishop of Tarazona.9 Over sixty years later, it was translated into Italian by the Jesuit Danielo Bartoli for a chapter on Cornelius in his 1667 history of the English Mission, Dell’istoria della Compagnia di Giesu: L’Inghilterra parte dell’Europa (hereinafter Inghilterra).10 As this chapter will show, the publications by Yepes and Bartoli appear to be based on separate manuscript accounts of the Life of Cornelius, the first written by Arundell almost immediately after the priest’s execution in 1594, and the second about five years later, after she entered the Brussels Benedictines in 1598.11 Her initial version was translated directly into Spanish in circumstances of some urgency for the  6

  Cecily Arundell (d. 1623), LB005.  Challoner, Memoirs, pp. 186–7.  8  My appreciation to Thomas M. McCoog SJ for his assistance with this as well as other aspects of research into Arundell’s work.  9  Yepes, Historia Particular, pp. 633–40. 10   Brief excerpts from the second manuscript of the Life are also included in the Chronicle of the First Monastery, pp. 26–7, 28–9, 31. 11   This first version provides a scribal publication date of 6 September 1594, just two months following the execution of Cornelius: ‘Martyrio del Padre Iuan Cornelio, y tres  7

22

The English Convents in Exile, 1600–1800

Historia Particular, either by Yepes or by his collaborator, Joseph Creswell SJ. The Historia Particular was part of an effort to attract donors for the English colleges and to build sympathy in Spain and the Spanish Low Countries for the large communities of English Catholic exiles now living there, as well as to remind King Philip, in particular, of the importance of persisting in plans for another Armada.12 Although Arundell was not identified by Yepes as the author of his chapter on Cornelius, and it has not previously been identified with her, I argue here that the intimate knowledge of events in the community at Chideock displayed in the Life of Cornelius, combined with both intertextual and extratextual evidence, serves to identify this person as Arundell. In contrast to the anonymous chapter on Cornelius in the Historia Particular, Arundell is clearly identified as the author of the second, considerably expanded, account published by Danielo Bartoli in his 1667 Inghilterra, which she is documented as having written after entering a Benedictine convent in Brussels in 1598.13 Bartoli identifies Arundell with respect as ‘the historian of her master’s life and death’ and affirms that ‘almost everything’ in his chapter on Cornelius in the Inghilterra comes from Arundell’s writing.14 His historian’s concern for accuracy is compounded by the need to preserve a clear line of transmission for evidence regarding the possible sainthood of Cornelius, and although he also draws on additional sources that had accumulated in the intervening half-century of assiduous record keeping by Jesuit historians, in certain key passages he clearly strives to transmit her precise wording to the extent possible in translation, helpfully flagging such moments for the reader with variations on the phrase, ‘this is what she herself wrote’. I have used English translations of these clearly identified passages for my partial reconstruction of Arundell’s lost final manuscript account, collated with direct citations from her work by later historians, who generally regard her biography of Cornelius as ‘the main groundwork of

Catolicos seglares, en Dorchestria de Inglaterra, en la Octava de los santos Apostoles san Pedro y san Pable, del año de 1594. Escrita a seys de Setiembre’ (Yepes, Historia Particular, p. 633). 12  See Rogers, Historia Particular, Introduction. As discussed by Albert J. Loomie in The Spanish Elizabethans (New York, 1963), additional Armadas against England took place in 1596 and again in 1597, but were unsuccessful: pp. 123, 158, 235. 13  Foley, Records, p. 437, n. 3. 14   ‘Poscia istorica della vita, e morte del suo maestro … E da lei che ne scriveas di veduta, sarà preso quasi quel tutto che ion e racconterò’, p. 352. Translations from the Inghilterra throughout are by Troy Tower, amplified by direct citations from Arundell’s work by later historians writing in English. Page references for Arundell’s final version of the Life throughout are from Bartoli’s Inghilterra; page references for her first draft are from the Historia Particular by Yepes.

from community to convent

23

the various histories of this martyr’.15 Although Bartoli seems not to have regarded the earlier Historia Particular as a significant source, his chapter on Cornelius follows the same narrative sequence as the earlier chapter by Yepes but considerably expands upon details of the activities at Chideock. While Arundell appears to have eliminated a few brief passages in her second version of the Life, which Bartoli used as his source text, she also added significant amounts of new and primarily autobiographical material, including an extended description of her rhetorically complex responses to interrogators following the raid in which Cornelius was arrested, which I have discussed elsewhere.16 Drawing on these two versions of the Life of Cornelius throughout this chapter, I examine the history and spiritual structure of the community at Chideock. I then trace the profound transition made by Arundell after the apostolic community at Chideock had disbanded in 1594. From that cloistered perspective, she wrote her second and final version of the Life of Cornelius, which is consistent with hagiographic tradition in that it establishes the spiritual commitment of Cornelius and provides testamentary evidence of his possibly miraculous deeds. In addition to this, however, as a literary and historical narrative intermixed at times with autobiography and authorial introspection, the Life also sheds light on the deliberately obscured activities of Catholics, and Catholic women in particular, during the Elizabethan period. The Community at Chideock: ‘She and all her family were Catholics, and her house was near the sea’ Arundell’s first version of the Life begins with the vignette of her mother in the process of establishing the Catholic community at Chideock cited in my opening anecdote. Lady Stourton’s castle was indeed ‘near the sea’: although it was destroyed during the Civil War, a simple martyrs’ memorial marks the former location just east of the border with Devon and less than a mile from the associated fishing village of Seatown on the south coast of England, an area distinguished by networks of sunken roads that had been used for centuries by smugglers and that now served the community’s needs as well. Priests were not only hidden in Lady Stourton’s house, they were using these existing smuggling routes to minister to Catholics in the surrounding countryside. 15

 Foley, Records, p. 437.   Elizabeth Patton, ‘Dorothy Arundell’s “Acts of Father John Cornelius”: “We Should Hear from Her, Herself––She who left a record of it in these words”,’ ANQ, 24:1–2 (2011): pp. 51–62. 16

24

The English Convents in Exile, 1600–1800

If we accept the figure given by Arundell in her later, expanded version of the Life, this group may have included as many as eighty individuals: ‘After John Arundell had died’, she says, Cornelius ‘persuaded the new widow to move the house and family, all in all a good eighty people, from London to their castle … in Dorchester’.17 Recent scholarship has explored the significance of such extended familial groupings for Catholics in post-Reformation England. In his study of the Sussex branch of the Catholic Montague family, for example, Michael Questier acknowledges the difficulty of assigning precise boundaries to relationships among the highly intermarried Catholics of Elizabethan and Jacobean England, and he uses the multivalent term, ‘entourage’, as a marker for such loosely defined yet interdependent social entities ‘grouped around leading members of the family’.18 In December 1590, just such an ‘entourage’ based on kinship and affinity formed around Lady Stourton as leader of the Arundell family at Chideock Castle, Dorset, almost certainly varying in size over time in response to occasion and circumstance (some had recently accompanied her to Cornwall for the burial of her husband, for example), but maintaining what appears to have been a substantial presence in Chideock.19 Under the guidance of Cornelius and protected by the social preeminence of Lady Stourton, this spiritual community flourished for almost four years, from the winter of 1590/91 until the execution of Cornelius in the late summer of 1594. Although Chideock residents are not mentioned by name in either version of the Life, documents from the 1594 raid on the community identify 35 individuals suspected of being involved in its affairs, either as residents or as participants in the religious services held there. These include members of three Cornish families: the Tremaines, the Tregians and the Bosgraves. Half a century of confessional conflict had weakened earlier familial ties, and names such as Carew, Edgcumbe and Grenville, with whom the Arundells had intermarried in the Henrician and

17  Bartoli, Inghilterra, p. 365; one additional reference to ‘eighty’ people occurs in this expanded text of the Life (p. 367), but whether it refers in the main to the Arundell family and its associates in London, to the group that eventually resettled in Chideock, or, most likely, to individuals from these and other locations who routinely visited the community, remains to be determined. 18  Michael C. Questier, Catholicism and Community in Early Modern England: Politics, Aristocratic Patronage and Religion, c. 1550–1640 (Cambridge, 2006), p. 2 and passim. See also James E. Kelly, ‘Kinship and religious politics among Catholic Families in England, 1570–1640’, History, 94.315 (2009): pp. 328–43. 19   He was buried in the family church of St Colomb Major, built by earlier generations of Arundells who had also endowed a nearby monastery; see article on ‘Arundell family (per. 1435–1590)’, by Pamela Y. Stanton, in ODNB.

from community to convent

25

Edwardian periods, are significant by their absence.20 During the preceding twelve years in London, the Arundells had formed new kinship associations with members of the Vaux, Tresham, Throckmorton and Browne families, all prominent Catholics whose names appeared regularly on recusant roles. Earlier ties between the Arundells and the leading Catholic peer, Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel, also came into prominence during the family’s years in London.21 Moreover, both Dorothy Arundell and Philip Howard’s wife, Anne Howard, Countess of Arundel, were patrons of the poet and Jesuit Robert Southwell, who dedicated one of his first English publications, Mary Magdalen’s Funeral Tears, to Dorothy Arundell; this work was published while Southwell was living under the protection of the Countess.22 It was against a background of such complex affiliations and networks that the spiritual community at Chideock was formed in the winter of 1590. When Cornelius arrived at Chideock with the Jesuit John Curry and a seminary priest, according to Arundell’s expanded account of the Life, he combined a fervid personal dedication to private meditation and prayer with a rigorous programme for the community of daily Mass at five o’clock in the morning, twice-weekly public sermons, and organized study and meditation. The ‘first action’ of Cornelius after arriving, she tells us, ‘was to survey the neighbourhood for some miles around to know what Catholic and Protestant families were there, and to take them as the basis upon which to adopt his approach to the surrounding community.’23 She describes the intensity with which he approached his future converts in some detail: … it was a marvel to witness what I will call the amorous persecution that he put up against them, never leaving their sides, their eyes, their hearts, now using deliberation, now threats, now prayers, but always with the most tender charity, until he had convinced them to review the accounts of their souls and square their entries with God.24

20   Pamela Stanton discusses these earlier affiliations in ‘Negotiating Change: The Gentry Families of the Southwest and the Rebellion of 1549’, unpublished University of Alberta PhD thesis (2003). 21  Sir John Arundell’s sister Mary, widow of Robert Radcliffe, 1st Earl of Sussex, married as her second husband Henry Fitzalan, Lord Lumley, whose daughter from his first marriage, Mary Fitzalan, was Philip Howard’s mother. The Wardour Arundells, a junior branch of the family, had also intermarried with the Howards, but the defining connection between the two families may have been Dorothy Howard, Countess of Derby and half sister of Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, who was Dorothy Arundell’s maternal grandmother. 22   Printed anonymously in 1591 by John Wolfe for Gabriel Cawood in the first commercial printing of Southwell’s work; see Nancy Pollard Browne, ‘Robert Southwell’s Mary Magdalen’, Recusant History 31.1 (2012): pp. 1–11. 23  Bartoli, Inghilterra, p. 365. 24  Ibid.

The English Convents in Exile, 1600–1800

26

This ‘amorous persecution’ had immediate results: ‘speaking only of Protestants’, Arundell continues, ‘it was not long before he added thirty families to the Catholic Church’, and this influx of the recently reconciled swelled the daily gatherings at which Cornelius ‘explain[ed] the mysteries of the Catholic faith’ to the Chideock household as well as to ‘whomever from outside wanted to enter’. Local officials began to ‘cast a wary eye’ on the castle, and the priest’s tactics changed accordingly, with additional Masses and administration of the sacraments now provided at various hidden outdoor sites ‘where a little shelter served him as the pulpit from which to preach’.25 Charitable visits to the sick and dying were also routine, and for nearly four years, according to Arundell’s expanded Life, ‘such were his efforts for the benefit of his neighbours, whether he was pressed to save souls from a state of damnation, or raise those already within the Catholic church to a higher rank through the perfection of the spirit … [that] there was no tactic or labour … he did not employ.’26 The spiritual education of future generations of Catholics seems to have been a central focus; catechetical instruction for children took place in the afternoons, and directed spiritual readings were held several evenings a week for young people ‘interested in the religious life’.27 And this bore fruit: John Tremaine, who became a Jesuit using the alias Cottam, reported at his entry into the English College in Rome that he had made some of his ‘rudimental’ studies in religion at Chideock.28 His sister Anne Tremaine, who is named in the arrest records, initially professed with the Augustinians in Louvain and subsequently joined the daughter house at Bruges, in 1629, as a founder member; her cousin Margaret Tremaine, also listed, professed with her sister Catherine in the Flemish convent of St Ursula’s in Louvain.29 Mary Tregian, the oldest daughter of Lady Stourton’s daughter Mary Stourton and her husband, Frances Tregian, nephew of Sir John Arundell, was about 14 years old in 1590 when the Chideock community was formed and almost certainly received her early education there; she later married Francis Yates, and three of their daughters entered the religious life: Frances and Anna Yates professed with the Poor Clares at Gravelines, and a third sister, Jane, professed with the Franciscans in Brussels.30 25

  Ibid., p. 366.  Ibid. 27  Ibid. 28   The Responsa Scholarum of the English College, Rome. Part I: 1598–1621, ed. Antony Kenny, CRS, 54 (London, 1962), p. 283. 29  Anne Tremaine (1609–37), LA272; Margaret Tremaine (1598–1624), LA274; Catherine Tremaine (1597–1603), LA273. 30   Frances of St Clare Yates (1617–25), GP300, and Anne Clare Yates (1621–67), GP299 (later a founder member of the Poor Clares in Rouen); and Jane Francis Yates (1622–59), BF279. 26

from community to convent

27

However, the influence of the Chideock community on the later spiritual choices of its members was more profound than the impact of its educational programme alone. As I discuss in the next section, the choice of convent community was limited: the only English community was the Bridgettines whose existence was peripatetic and often difficult. No convent specifically for English women had yet been founded on the continent prior to 1598; when Dorothy and her sister Gertrude Arundell chose to support Lady Mary Percy in her plan to establish a new institution for Catholic English women in exile on the continent, they displayed the same concern for future generations of Catholics that distinguished the Chideock community. Before moving on to a discussion of the role played by the Arundell sisters in the founding of the new convent, I need to ask one final question about the community at Chideock: what role did Arundell herself play in the apostolic programme that she later described in such detail? She says almost nothing about her own activities; our only evidence that she must have played some significant role is her intimate familiarity with the community’s agenda and outreach. The only exceptions to this reticence are her detailed descriptions of her own participation in events during the arrest and execution of Cornelius, which she witnessed.31 According to the second version of the Life, when she met with Cornelius a day or two before the execution, he asked her to make sure that ‘all my things go to the Fathers of the Society’, and just minutes before his death, he called on her to collect his outer garments, soon to be relics, along with those of his three fellow martyrs, all of whom had previously assisted him at Mass.32 He had also written to her from prison less than an hour before his execution to remind her urgently that it was now time for her to act on her earlier vow to enter the Bridgettines, and she began preparing for the journey this would involve within days of his death. But while Arundell’s assumption of these specific tasks and responsibilities under the guidance of Cornelius might be said to indicate some degree of formal role within the community, she provides no further evidence of this in either version of the Life. From the Chideock Community to the Convent of the Assumption in Brussels Although, as her own records show, she was intimately involved in the struggles of Catholics in England, Arundell nevertheless seems to have 31   See my initial assessment of the rhetorical strategies she used with arresting officials in ‘We Should Hear From Her’, pp. 54–6. 32   Thomas Bosgrave, son-in-law of Sir John Arundell, and Patrick Salmon and James Currie, former residents of Dublin.

The English Convents in Exile, 1600–1800

28

maintained a consistent focus on her goal of entering the contemplative life. Moreover, her vow to join the cloistered Bridgettines, made in the early 1580s if not earlier, was consistent with traditions in the Arundell and Stanley families. She interrogated her original vow only from the perspective of whether to forego entering the Bridgettines in order to support the new English enclosed Benedictine convent being proposed at the time by Lady Mary Percy. According to records compiled by her Order and printed in the late nineteenth century in the Chronicle of the First Monastery, some of the older nuns remembered that Dorothy Arundell and her much younger sister Gertrude,33 who had also taken a vow to enter the Bridgettines, had initially attempted to reach the Syon Abbey nuns in Lisbon, where they had settled in 1594 after years of disruption.34 It is recorded that, ‘the tradition of older members of the Brussels community asserts that, embarking on a Spanish vessel bound for Lisbon, they were driven by adverse winds to the coast of Flanders.’35 Rough weather diverted them to Brussels, however, where they became boarders in ‘the outquarters of an Augustinian convent’.36 At that point, both Dorothy and Gertrude Arundell appear to have followed advice given to Arundell by Cornelius during the prison visit she recounted in the final version of the Life, when he counselled her to seek ‘the help of the Fathers of the Society’ in fulfilling her ‘vow of Religion’.37 By 1596, as Paul Arblaster notes, they were on record as ‘living under Jesuit direction’ in Brussels with a small group of Catholic women from the English gentry, including Lady Mary Percy, Mary Greene, Mary Field, Anne Manners, Susanna Preston and Anne Issame. 38 Arblaster suggests that the women were all under the guidance of the Jesuit William Holt, ‘under simple vows of chastity and obedience,

33

  Gertrude Arundell (1600–36), BB003.  On the history of the Syon Abbey exiles, see Claire Walker, ‘Continuity and Isolation: The Bridgettines of Syon in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth centuries’, in E.A. Jones and Alexandra Walsham (eds), Syon Abbey and Its Books: Reading, Writing and Religion c. 1400–1700 (Woodbridge, 2009), pp. 155–76. 35   Chronicle of the First Monastery, p. 30. 36  Associated with the nearby monastery of St Ursula’s in Louvain, a Flemish convent with a growing population of English Catholic women exiles; in 1609, many of them left to establish their own English convent in Louvain, St Monica’s, also Augustinian. See Caroline Bowden, ‘The English Convents in Exile and Questions of National Identity c.1600–1688’, in David Worthington (ed.), British and Irish Emigrants and Exiles in Europe, 1603–1688 (Leiden, 2010), pp. 301–2. 37  Bartoli, Inghilterra, p. 359. 38   Paul Arblaster, ‘The Monastery of Our Lady of the Assumption in Brussels (1599– 1794)’, English Benedictine Congregation History Symposium, 25 (1999), p. 56. 34

from community to convent

29

a state of life much promoted by the Dutch and English Jesuits as suitable to a missionary Church’.39 Lady Mary Percy was the Arundell sisters’ cousin by marriage: her sister Lucy was the wife of Lady Stourton’s nephew Edward Stanley. Even without this close relationship to Lady Percy, however, the Arundell sisters were well-situated politically in Brussels, where they were also related, although somewhat more distantly, to William Stanley. He had spent time as a young man in their mother’s childhood home and had strong Jesuit connections. Stanley was a close supporter of Robert Persons, and William Holt had at one point been Stanley’s regimental chaplain major. In 1596, the first year the Arundell sisters were recorded as living in Brussels, and for most of 1597, Stanley led the English regiment in the city and was also involved in a project to update lists of English Catholics in the Low Countries who were receiving Spanish pensions.40 English exiles were in a relatively secure but none the less frustrating situation in 1596: in February, the Archduke Albert had arrived in Brussels to take up his position as governor general of the Habsburg Netherlands. An Armada in which the exiles had placed great hopes, and which had finally sailed in the autumn of that year after some months of indecision, ended in failure. Uncertainties about Spanish pensions, the very problem that Stanley and others were working to resolve, caused continuing factionalization and disputes, in which Dorothy and Gertrude Arundell seem to have become involved soon after their arrival in Brussels. In November 1596, they joined forces with Mary Percy, William Stanley and several other English exiles in signing a letter defending the Jesuits – and their adviser William Holt in particular – against charges stemming from perceived problems with pensions that Holt administered.41 Although 21 enclosed convents specifically for Englishwomen would be founded in the Spanish Low Countries and France before the end of the next century, none as yet existed, and Lady Mary Percy was intent on having Dorothy Arundell’s support, both personal and financial, for her plan to establish one in Brussels. But according to the records of her Order, Arundell felt doubly committed, both to her original vow and to 39   Ibid., pp. 57–9. On Lady Mary Percy, see article on ‘Lady Mary Percy (c.1570– 1642)’, by Caroline Bowden, in ODNB. 40  Loomie, Spanish Elizabethans, p. 32. Early in 1587, while fighting under the Earl of Leicester against Dutch rebels, Stanley had yielded territory to Spanish forces; subsequently, he and two-thirds of his regiment switched their national allegiances to Spain: pp. 137–41. 41  M.A. Tierney, Dodd’s Church History of England (Charles Dolman, 1840), vol 3, p. lxxxix. Arblaster identifies the other women signers as ‘Elizabeth Allen (the Cardinal’s sister), the widow Benedicta Gifford (or Guildford), and Mary Greene’: Arblaster, ‘Monastery’, p. 56. For an explanation of the complexities of these events, see McCoog, Society of Jesus, pp. 339–68 .

The English Convents in Exile, 1600–1800

30

the reaffirmation of that vow which Cornelius had asked for in the final letter he wrote from prison: ‘That Lady Mary Percy at once cherished the hope of gaining Dorothy Arundell for the new foundation, cannot be doubted, or how lovingly and earnestly she strove to win her to her cause’, the Chronicle relates; equally, however, ‘Dorothy Arundell’s determination to enter with the Bridgettines was irrevocably fixed, and no pleading … could induce her to change.’42 In contrast to her resistance to Mary Percy’s entreaties, Arundell appears to have responded immediately to another initiative involving the affairs of English Catholics that arose in Brussels in 1596. Diego de Yepes, working with Joseph Creswell SJ, had asked Robert Persons for help in gathering as many ‘narratives about English Catholics’ as possible for what was to become the Historia Particular, in which the first draft of Arundell’s Life of Cornelius would be published. Arundell may have given immediate permission for her work to be included, or perhaps it was obtained by her adviser William Holt, but in any event she does not seem to have opposed its publication among the planned collection of ‘narratives’.43 All three Jesuits with whom she was now associated, either directly or indirectly – Creswell, Holt and Persons – had been variously involved with Cornelius at the English College in Rome, so that by following his counsel that she should go to the Jesuits for help in carrying out her vow, Arundell found herself among people who had known her former mentor very well, and whose advice she had good reason to trust as she evaluated Lady Mary Percy’s persistent requests. And the Jesuits, it seems certain, were strongly in support of the new convent, as evidenced by Robert Persons’ efforts in Rome to obtain the necessary papal brief for the proposed foundation.44 On what was possibly a more personal level, the convent also had the support of William Stanley, whose regiment was to donate two months’ wages for the purchase of a building for the new convent.45 Nevertheless, Arundell’s decision to participate was not certain until 9 November 1597, when she ‘received some special great favor’ while at prayer in St Gudule’s Cathedral on the Feast of the Dedication of

42

  Chronicle of the First Monastery, p. 32.  According to Loomie in The Spanish Elizabethans, Joseph Creswell SJ had taken over from Robert Persons the task of collecting narratives detailing the exiles’ experiences in England: pp. 206–7. 44  Arblaster, ‘Monastery’, p. 57. Persons’ niece Mary Persons would join the Brussels Benedictines as a postulant in 1605: Mary Persons (1608–1642), BB137. 45   Ibid, p. 63. Ironically, in the same year the new convent lost its Spanish alms due to the revised dispersal of pensions that Stanley had helped to put in place, but this action was quickly reversed: Loomie, Spanish Elizabethans, p. 38. 43

from community to convent

31

St Saviour’s Church in Rome (known familiarly as the Lateran).46 As a result of this ‘great favor’, she clearly felt released from the particular aspect of her vow concerning the Bridgettines, while her intention to enter a contemplative Order remained unchanged. Ultimately, she and her sister Gertrude brought their spiritual commitment, their social prestige, and their substantial annual dowries of 500 florins to Lady Mary Percy’s endeavour. Plans went forward for the new convent: a building was bought by Percy in April 1598, Joanne Berkeley was established as abbess, and eight choir nuns were clothed on 21 November 1599.47 The full support of both church and state was signified by the presence of the Archdukes and the participation of both the Papal Nuncio and the Spanish Infanta in the elaborate clothing ceremony, and similar festivities recurred a year later when the nuns professed on 21 November 1600.48 In 1601, Philip III signalled his respect for the spiritual power of contemplatives by giving the new convent ‘a monthly pension of 50 crowns’ taken from Spanish military funds.49 While Arundell’s objective in both her original and her later expanded account of the Life of Cornelius was to create a comprehensive record of the martyred priest’s spiritual acts, her work also provides a rare opportunity to follow the transition of an Englishwoman who served the needs of her fellow Catholics in a covert religious community in the hinterlands of Reformed England, and then continued to serve those needs through her support for, and participation in, an enclosed contemplative convent in Catholic Brussels specifically for Englishwomen.

46   Chronicle of the First Monastery, p. 52. Built on the site of the Lateran Palace in Rome and now known as the Lateran, the cathedral’s full name is the Archbasilica of the Most Holy Saviour and SS John the Baptist and the Evangelist at the Lateran. This was a day of significance for Arundell, because the Bridgettines had been placed under ‘the Rule of St Savior’ in 1415 when they were first granted their charter in England by Henry V. 47   These included Lady Mary Percy (1600–42), BB135; Dorothy Arundell (1600–13), BB002; Gertrude Arundell (1600–36), BB003; Elizabeth Cansfield (1600–11), BB034; Frances Gawine (1599–1640), BB086; Margaret Smith (1599–1613), BB163; Elizabeth Southcote (1600–31), BB166, and Margaret Thomson (1600–13), BB177. Their abbess, Joanne Berkeley (1598–1616), BB015, had first professed as a choir nun at Rheims in 1580 and was brought to Brussels to assist in the foundation. 48  Arblaster, ‘Monastery’, pp. 59–60. 49   Ibid, p. 63.

Chapter 2

Essex Girls Abroad: Family Patronage and the Politicization of Convent Recruitment in the Seventeenth Century James E. Kelly Post-Reformation, Essex as a county has, amongst acquiring other more modern stereotypes, been better known for its Protestant credentials1 rather than for being a hotbed of extreme Catholic action. Yet it was a county divided along religious extremes: as well as Puritans, it was home to several major backers of the Jesuit mission to England, often characterized as the hard-line, no compromise wing of the English Catholic Mission. This chapter examines how this Jesuit support expressed itself in terms of convent recruitment. It will be argued that one family’s patronage of the Jesuits dominated convent recruitment in the area to such an extent that their demise as a political force coincided with the collapse of convent recruitment from the county. Thus, the selection of convent and candidates was a hugely politicized exercise, dictated by family patronage persuasions. Moreover, the ‘competing spiritualities’ that created fissures within the English Catholic community were live issues outside of the country and in the continental convents. Politicized Recruitment Table 2.1 shows Essex recruitment levels over the two hundred years that the English convents existed in exile. What is immediately apparent is that convent recruitment from Essex never really recovered after the English Civil War, which is somewhat surprising as it is usually argued 1   For example, ‘London, Kent and Essex were, by any criteria foremost in the [Protestant] movement’: Arthur G. Dickens, The English Reformation (London, 1964), p. 326. See also James E. Oxley, The Reformation in Essex to the Death of Mary (Manchester, 1965); John Craig, Reformation, Politics and Polemics: the growth of Protestantism in East Anglian market towns, 1500–1610 (Aldershot, 2002).

Benedictines Brussels Ghent Cambrai Dunkirk Paris Pontoise Ypres

1700–19

1720–39

3 1 1

2

1

5

2 3 4

3 1

1 2

1

1780–99

1680–99

1 2

1760–79

1660–79

(1) 5

1

2

1740–59

1640–59

Augustinians Bruges Louvain Paris

Convent recruitment from Essex 1620–39

Table 2.1

The English Convents in Exile, 1600–1800

1600–19

34

Totals

1

1

8 (1) 12 1

1

1 1

3

1

(1)

2

9 9 6 1 (1)

1

7

1

9 1 (1) 2 (1)

Bridgettines Carmelites Antwerp Hoogstraten Lierre

6

2 (1)

1

(1)

1

1

Dominicans 1

Franciscans

1

2

Mary Ward Poor Clares Aire Dunkirk Gravelines Rouen

2

Sepulchrines

3

4 2

1 2

2

1

1

Conceptionists Totals

5 2

7

20 (1) 16 (1) 5 (1)

8

11

6

4

6

10 1

2 (1)

85

Key: Figures in brackets indicate a nun who arrived from a different convent. This has been included in brackets in the totals.

Essex Girls abroad

35

that life under the later Stuarts was potentially far more conducive to the Catholic experience.2 Indeed, the convent figures overall would support such an assertion (see Table I.1). One explanation for this decline is that Catholics generally suffered privations during the civil war, usually through sequestration of their land and property. With its proximity to London and its reputation as solidly Parliamentarian during the civil war, it would appear that Essex Catholics were particularly vulnerable.3 By the eighteenth century, convent recruitment from the county had declined significantly. However, looking at the seventeenth century, the tale is slightly different. Prior to and during the civil war, Essex was supplying 5–6 per cent of convent recruits and that is just from those nuns recorded as being born in Essex or their fathers hailing from the county. If mothers are also included, the figure rises. After 1660, the figure slumps to 2 per cent, once again underlining the effect of the civil war on Essex Catholics. The next theme to explore is where these recruits were going in the seventeenth century. The Bruges and Louvain Augustinians were initially popular, both of whom had a distinctly Jesuit flavour amongst their confessors and patrons. The Brussels Benedictines proved an attractive destination at first, but recruitment totally collapsed after disagreements at the convent over the abbess’ decision to remove access to Jesuit confessors, a major cause of the breakdown in life at the convent.4 Whereas recruitment to this convent picked up again after 1650, once the initial damage to its reputation had passed, its popularity never did return in Essex. Instead, recruitment was directed to its Jesuit-supporting offshoot at Ghent and the Benedictine-patronized, Jesuit-leaning one at Cambrai.5 Notably, at the time, the Benedictines and the Jesuits, as regulars, were engaged in fierce debates with a wing of the secular clergy in England about the future of the Mission and Catholicism in the country. Indeed, the other major convent destination, the Antwerp Carmelites, was formed by a pro-Jesuit

2   Gabriel Glickman, The English Catholic Community, 1688–1745: politics, culture and identity (Woodbridge, 2009), pp. 28–32. 3   For example, Christopher Clay, ‘The Misfortunes of William, Fourth Lord Petre (1638–1655)’, Recusant History, 11 (1971): pp. 87–116. For the sequestration of Catholics’ property, see William Sheils, ‘English Catholics at war and peace’, in Christopher Durston and Judith Maltby (eds), Religion in Revolutionary England (Manchester, 2006), pp. 142–6. 4   For the Brussels split and its impact, see Claire Walker, ‘Securing Souls or Telling Tales? The Politics of Cloistered Life in an English Convent’, in Cordula van Wyhe (ed.), Female Monasticism in Early Modern Europe: An Interdisciplinary View (Aldershot, 2008), pp. 227–44. 5   Claire Walker, Gender and Politics in Early Modern Europe: English Convents in France and the Low Countries (Basingstoke, 2002), p. 140.

The English Convents in Exile, 1600–1800

36

refugee nun from the Brussels Benedictines.6 In short, recruits from Essex headed to those convents supporting and supported by the Jesuits. Those close to the anti-regular secular clergy, such as the Brussels Benedictines or the Paris Augustinians,7 received a negligible number of recruits from the county. This Jesuit support is not surprising when one looks at the major Catholic family in Essex, the barons Petre of Writtle. According to the constitutions of the Order, Jesuits, after completion of their novitiate, were forbidden from possessing money, though specifically named individuals could hold a common fund. Dispensation had been given by the Jesuit General Acquaviva to some on the English Mission to solicit alms with discretion.8 In England, a series of Jesuit communities were formed around residences and colleges.9 Bossy notes that the funds supplying the south of England ‘came from two large benefactors, one from William, second Lord Petre’, who founded the Jesuit College of Holy Apostles in 1633 to ‘supply’ Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire. It was founded with a vast capital sum of £8,000, half of it paid in cash, the other half ‘probably secured on land of which the trustee remained in the family’. Bossy explores the financial details further, estimating that in 1636, when the college was still in its early days, it was producing an annual income of £458, which later rose to £570.10 Startlingly, Bossy estimates that, combined with the other southern ‘backer’ (the daughters of William Vaux, 3rd baron Vaux of Harrowden): … these two funds provided the Jesuit mission with over a quarter of its regular income; they were intended to support fifty-five priests, twenty-five on the Petre foundation and thirty on the other … They were almost certainly the largest benefactions received by any body of clergy on the mission throughout these two centuries.

Furthermore, the combined funds of the Wales, Lancashire and London ‘colleges’ ‘only amounted to about two-thirds of the Petre and “Vaux”

 6

  Ibid., pp. 116–17, 136–7; Jane Lovell (d.1628), BB113.   Ibid., p. 27.  8   Thomas M. McCoog, ‘“The Slightest Suspicion of Avarice”: the finances of the English Jesuit Mission’, Recusant History, 19 (1988): pp. 105–6.  9   For Jesuit residences and colleges, see Thomas M. McCoog, ‘The Finances of the English Province of the Society of Jesus in the Seventeenth Century: Introduction’, Recusant History, 18 (1986), pp. 16–22. 10   John Bossy, The English Catholic Community 1570–1850 (London, 1975), pp. 232–3; for funding of the Jesuit Mission, see pp. 175–6.  7

Essex Girls abroad

37

foundations’.11 In plain terms, the Petres were backing what was perceived to be the ‘no compromise’ wing of the English Mission. Moreover, it was not just a lukewarm involvement into which they merely drifted; the Petres were amongst the principal supporters of the Jesuit Mission and all that it encapsulated. Thus, on 1 September 1633, the College of Holy Apostles was founded.12 Lord Petre granted the Society accommodation in Chelmsford, namely an inn called the Red Lion. Belatedly, on 6 April 1635, Lord Petre wrote to the general of the Society, Muzio Vitelleschi, thanking him for permission to found the college, which had allowed him to fulfil his desire of ‘extending the Catholic religion in my afflicted country’. However, the 2nd baron was not just intent on spreading Catholicism, but, more expressly, its Jesuit strain: ‘I seek this only honour of your Paternity, that you will believe me full of zeal and desire of serving your Paternity, and the whole Society; to which I pray God always to preserve your Paternity safe for many years to come.’ Due to the honour bestowed on him, he promised to endeavour ‘to leave proofs and marks of my esteem by fresh efforts’.13 It is unknown whether or not there ever was actually a Jesuit community at the Red Lion, McCoog suggesting that it could have been too small, and so was used as a school instead; the Petre residence at Thorndon Hall may have become the real base by 1638.14 Underlining the extent of Petre support for the Society, the family’s fund was still, despite a loss from fraud, returning something like its original income during the 1680s.15 The Petres’ support for the Society thus helps to explain patterns of convent recruitment in Essex. However, the importance of the family’s Jesuit patronage becomes even clearer when one considers the whole of the area covered by ‘their’ Jesuit College. Combined with Essex, one can see, in Table 2.2, that the same patterns are followed. Support for the Louvain Augustinians is initially strong, though the opening of more convents and its waning link with the Society explains its fading away. The Bruges Augustinian figures are remarkable, the geographical area ministered to by the Petre 11  Bossy, Catholic Community, pp. 233–4. See also pp. 53–4; John Bossy, ‘The English Catholic community 1603–1625’, in Alan G.R. Smith (ed.), The Reign of James VI and I (2nd edition, London and Basingstoke, 1977): pp. 98–9. 12   Thomas M. McCoog, ‘The Society of Jesus in England, 1623–1688: An Institutional Study’, unpublished University of Warwick PhD thesis (1984), p. 279. All wisely recognised that to have named the college in honour of St Peter would have been far too dangerous. 13   Henry Foley, Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus (7 volumes, London, 1877–83), vol. 2, p. 399. Despite Foley’s claim that it was the 3rd baron Petre who founded the college, this letter definitively proves that it was the 2nd baron, due to the dates: ibid., p. 394. 14  McCoog, ‘Institutional Study’, pp. 299–301. 15  Bossy, Catholic Community, p. 237.

The English Convents in Exile, 1600–1800

38

Benedictines Brussels Ghent Cambrai Paris Pontoise

1680–99

10 (1)

1660–79

2 (1)

1640–59

Augustinians Bruges Louvain Paris

1620–39

Convent recruitment from the geographical area covered by the Jesuit College of the Holy Apostles (Cambridgeshire, Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk) 1600–19

Table 2.2

5 (3)

6 (1) 3 1 (1)

11 (2)

4 8 (3)

5* 5 7 (2)

2 (1) 5 (4) 1 (2)

Totals % overall

1 (1)

22 (6) 15 (2) 6 (2)

23 9 5 13 12 8 3 9

1 4

4 (2)

1 1 (3)

2

16 (4) 14 (4) 8 (4) 1 7 (5)

3 (1) 3

5 (2)

1 5 (2)

19 (5) 13 (4)

23 35

1

9

6

1 1

9 (3) 6 (1)

4 6

Carmelites Antwerp Lierre

15 (4)

Franciscans

6

2

2 (2)

3 2 (1)

2 3

7 (3)

2 (2)

9 (5)

13

8

8

33

162

11

Poor Clares Gravelines Rouen

1 (1)

Sepulchrines Conceptionists 11 (4)

50 (9)

41 (17)

37 (9)

23 (5)

% of overall

8

15

12

13

6

Essex %

5

6

5

2

2

Totals

Notes: Percentages do not include origin of mothers. Convents where there is insufficient data have been removed. * No entries after 1624.

established Jesuit ‘college’ accounting for nearly a quarter of all recruits. The same is true of the Jesuit-friendly Carmelites at Antwerp and Lierre. Franciscan and Conceptionist recruitment picks up when Cambridgeshire, Suffolk and Norfolk are considered, perhaps indicating a different priestly circuit that did not reach the Petre-dominated geography of Essex. The early boom in recruitment at the Sepulchrines can be explained by the presence

Essex Girls abroad

39

of Joseph Simeons16 as first confessor, a Jesuit from the area under the remit of the College of Holy Apostles. Markedly, recruitment at the Brussels Benedictines can be seen to collapse after the removal of Jesuit influence at the convent. As such, it underlines that, with politically involved Catholics, networks of religious patronage overrode county networks; in this example, shared patronage of the Jesuits was spread over a wide geographical area with little heed taken of county boundaries. As a percentage of the total whole, recruitment from the area covered by the Petre-funded Jesuit college rises, remains steady and then collapses after 1680. A possible cause of this collapse again lies with the fate of the Petres. From 1679 to 1681, the anti-Catholic hysteria of the Popish Plot swept the country. Having already experienced a short imprisonment during the civil war, William, 4th baron Petre was to end his days in the Tower of London in 1684, a victim of Titus Oates, who claimed that Lord Petre had received a commission to be the lieutenant-general of an invading popish army.17 Another victim of the fictitious plot was the Jesuit provincial, Thomas Whitbread. Amongst the witnesses of the 3rd baron’s will had been William Whitbread, a man well known to the Petres. The Whitbread family rented land in Writtle and the manor of Fristling Hall, next to Ingatestone Hall, from the barons. Therefore, as Bennett suggests, the family ‘must have been in regular touch with the Petres, as clients and agents, as well as neighbours’,18 an assertion supported by the household account books.19 The Whitbreads may have attended Mass at Ingatestone Hall and, unsurprisingly, they formed part of the Petres’ Jesuit supporting network. Once ordained, Thomas Whitbread returned to England with another Petre-tied victim of Titus Oates, Edward Mico SJ, and used Fithlers near Writtle, home of the 4th baron’s uncle, John Petre, as his base.20 In 1677, Whitbread had been appointed provincial of the Society and so became the chief ecclesiastical victim of the Plot. As Bennett observes, by arresting Lord Petre and Whitbread, ‘the contrivers 16   Thomas M. McCoog, English and Welsh Jesuits, 1555–1650. Part II: G–Z, CRS, 75 (London, 1995), p. 295. 17   Clay, ‘Fourth Baron’, p. 88. 18   Essex Record Office, MSS D/DP/E40, D/DP/L22; J.S. Bennett, ‘Who was Fr. Thomas Whitbread?’, Recusant History, 16 (1982): p. 93. 19   ERO, MSS D/DP/A24 (week ending 28 July 1593), D/DP/A28 (24 April 1596), D/ DP/A30 (weeks ending 25 December 1596, 16 September 1598, 28 April 1599), D/DP/A25 (19 January 1605/6), D/DP/A35 (28 December 1617), D/DP/A40 (part Our Lady Day 1621– Candlemas) ff. 3r, 5r, 6r, 7r, 8r–9r, 11r, (part Our Lady Day 1623–1631) ff. 4v, 21v; Folger Shakespeare Library, V.a.334, f. 2r. A William Whitbread also acted as witness to the 2nd baron Petre’s will and seemingly served amongst the Petre household: ERO, MSS D/DP/F35, D/DP/Z30/25. 20  Article on Thomas Whitbread, by Joy Rowe, in ODNB.

The English Convents in Exile, 1600–1800

40

of the “Plot” would have been striking not only at the Jesuits but at the Petre connection in Essex – one of the main surviving strongholds of the old religion in the Home Counties. Were these manoeuvres connected?’21 The question is, perhaps, best answered by recognising that this ‘Plot’ allowed for the removal of not only the Jesuits’ leading clerical figure in the country, but also the head of the principal supporting lay family. Thus, the Petre network was smashed; if its influence was not clear on convent recruitment before that, the collapse in recruitment levels afterwards underlines the importance of a major family’s patronage. A Family Affair Having identified a network of possible religious patronage centred round a major family, it is worth briefly considering their effect on convent recruitment and networks directly, including under the geographical remit of the Jesuit College of the Holy Apostles. Though the first English convent in exile was not founded until the end of the sixteenth century – the Benedictines at Brussels in 1597/8 – an earlier generation of the Petre family had laid the foundations of convent involvement. Sir John Petre, who became the 1st baron in 1603, married in 1570 Mary, daughter of Sir Edward Waldegrave, who had been prominent in Mary’s reign and had subsequently died in the Tower of London for hearing Mass and harbouring priests.22 Three of Mary Petre’s nieces became nuns on the continent. Hieronima Waldegrave was the daughter of Mary’s brother, Nicholas, who had succeeded their ‘disgraced’ father as head of the family and was himself ‘frequently in trouble for his faith’.23 She was professed a Benedictine nun at Ghent in 1627, the convent founded as a breakaway from Brussels following disagreements over the right to have Jesuit confessors.24 Mary Petre’s sister, Magdalen, had married John Southcote; their daughter, Elizabeth, became a nun at the Brussels house. She was joined there by her cousin, Apolonia, real name Barbara, another of Nicholas Waldegrave’s children.25 Finally, another Waldegrave, Katherine Gawen née Waldegrave, John Petre’s sister-in-law, wrote to him asking for help against her enemies, presumably those who sought

21

  Bennett, ‘Whitbread’, p. 96.  Arthur C. Edwards, John Petre: Essays on the life and background of John, 1st Lord Petre, 1549–1613 (London and New York, 1975), p. 17. 23   Brian C. Foley, ‘The Breaking of the Storm’, Essex Recusant, 3 (1961): p. 14. 24   Hieronyma Waldegrave (1627–35), GB241. 25   Barbara Waldegrave (1624–38), BB189. 22

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to undermine her because of her Catholicism.26 Her daughter, Frances, became a Benedictine nun in Brussels, and had apparently crossed to the convent with her cousin, Elizabeth Southcote.27 These nuns will feature prominently in the final part of this chapter. As well as famously acting as patron to the musician and composer, William Byrd, John Petre also had close contact with another well-known musician of the time. Originally from the south-west, like the Petre family, John Bolt had been summoned to Court as a musician. On learning of his resolution to convert to Catholicism, Elizabeth was allegedly so displeased that she turned on her Master of Music and threatened to throw ‘her pantoufle [slipper] at his head for looking no better unto him’; it was even rumoured that she would overlook Bolt’s Catholicism if he agreed to remain at Court.28 However, ‘Bolt preferred to live by teaching music in Catholic families, where he could practise his religion’, including with John Petre and the Wisemans in Essex.29 The English Augustinian nuns’ chronicle of St Monica’s convent, Louvain, reported that Bolt ‘had a great desire to become a Catholic, and therefore once seeing a fit time he stole away from the Court, and came to live among Catholics’; being reconciled, he then ‘lived secretly in gentlemen’s houses, being welcomed everywhere for his good parts’.30 Bolt was certainly with the Petres from 1586/87 to March 1592/93,31 not only showing that John’s house was one of the ‘Catholic families’ mentioned here, but strongly suggesting that Bolt was reconciled whilst with them. Bolt was arrested in March 1593/94 with William Wiseman and John Gerard’s assistant, Richard Fulwood, going to ‘the house in Golden Lane being used by John Gerard, SJ’.32 One again, there is the common theme of the Petres and Jesuit involvement: Bolt was ordained a priest in 1605 and from 1613 acted as chaplain and organist at the Louvain Augustinians until his death on 3 August 1640.33 A Mary Bolt entered the 26   ERO, MS D/DP/Z30/6; Recusants in the Exchequer Pipe Rolls 1581–1592, ed. Timothy J. McCann, CRS, 71 (London, 1986), pp. 66–7. 27   Frances Gawine (1600–40), BB086. For Southcote, see later. 28   ‘The Life and Martyrdom of Mr Maxfield, 1616: with portrait and facsimile letters of the martyr’, ed. John H. Pollen, Miscellanea III, CRS, 3 (London, 1906), p. 31. 29   Ibid. See also pp. 178, 184–5 below. 30   The Chronicle of the English Augustinian Canonesses Regular of the Lateran, at St. Monica’s in Louvain, 1548 to 1625, ed. Adam Hamilton (London, 1904), pp. 150–51. 31   For example, ERO, MSS D/DP/A20 (rewards February 1586/87), D/DP/A21 (diet 29 October 1589, December 1589, 19–20 June 1590, extraordinary charges 5 November 1589, January 1589/90, February 1589/90), D/DP/A29 (week ending 10 March 1592/93). 32   Gerard Kilroy, Edmund Campion: Memory and transcription (Aldershot, 2005), p. 63. 33  Anstruther, I, p. 32.

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Cambrai Benedictine convent as a lay sister in 163134 and was believed to be a relative of his. Another small but noteworthy convent link with the 1st baron Petre is that his former chaplain, a Marian priest named John Woodward who went abroad once the first seminary-trained clergy arrived in England and acted as a bridging point on the English mission, was a signatory to a letter supporting the exiled Bridgettine community in Rouen around 1580.35 As William, 2nd baron Petre, was responsible for the founding of the College of the Holy Apostles, it is not surprising that involvement with the English conventual movement became deeper during his time as head of the family from 1613 to 1637. William was a recusant, as his mother had been, in comparison to his father’s church papistry. In 1596 he married Katherine, daughter of Edward Somerset, 4th earl of Worcester, another Jesuit-supporting family. Katherine’s niece, Anne, professed with the Antwerp Carmelites in 1643.36 Another niece, Mary Wintour, entered the Brussels Benedictines in 1619.37 Having seemingly not enjoyed good health for a while,38 Katherine died of a fever on 30 October 1624 at the age of 49. However, before her death, she had made a list of remembrances that she wished her husband to perform, and which he promised to do. This list consisted of four entreaties: First I desire him to give as longe as hee shall live every yeare one hundred pownds of lawfull inglish monny to the Fathers of the Societye of Jesus and desire them that they will paye unto Margaret Sternauh one of the poore Clars that was once my Searvante 10li yearly as longe as she lives and xli more to one Anne Brumfeilde as long as she shall live if the Fathers receive it for longe.39

Immediately evident is that Katherine willed her husband to continue familial support for the Jesuits. Moreover, the remembrance indicates that the Jesuits with whom the Petres had had contact were part of a cross34

 Mary Boult (1633–59), CB014.   The National Archives, SP 12/146/114. The list includes a number of nuns with Petre-linked names, such as Wiseman, Tyrell, Sheldon and Arundell. 36  Anne Somerset (1643–50/51), AC114. 37  Mary Wintour (1620–30), BB198. 38   In February 1618/19, she received a letter from the bishop of London allowing her to eat meat during Lent, because not to do so would have been ‘daungerous and hurtfull for her body by reason of her infirmities and sicknes’: ERO, MS D/DP/F159. 39   ERO, MS D/DP/Z30/13. The practice of leaving a ‘secret’ will for the family to fulfil was a tactic employed by Catholic families wishing to leave specifically religious bequests; for example, see Cavalier Letters of William Blundell to his Friends, 1620–1648, ed. Margaret Blundell (London, 1933), pp. 7–8. 35

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Channel network, with links to English Catholic exiles abroad. As for Anna Broomfield, who may have served Katherine in some capacity, hence their acquaintance, she was among the nuns sent from St Ursula’s in Louvain in 1609 to establish the new convent of St Monica’s in Louvain. In the convent’s records she was recorded as ‘Anna Bromfield, who had gotten a grant of my Lady Petre of 10l. a year, which she faithfully performed for many years, so long as she lived.’40 Broomfield had been converted by the Jesuit John Gerard.41 Margaret Sternhold professed with the Gravelines Poor Clares and later moved to the Rouen community, where she acted as infirmarian. Her dowry was paid by Lady Petre.42 This example of Katherine’s support for women religious does not appear to have been an isolated one, for her third point, about her maids and servants, includes the following stipulation: As for Jane Bolte I desire that if she may bee admitted into religione that then my deere husbande will bestowe that sum of munny of her w[hi]ch hee and I have agreede upon but if she can not bee admitted then I desire that she may have xxli of that monny and xxli more of that monny to bee for Mary Tomson and Grace Okey w[hi]ch is xli a peace besides I desire they may all have gownes.43

Considering her first remembrance, Katherine’s household was seemingly something of a convent training ground. Her husband appears to have been fully aware of this character and perfectly agreeable with it. Indeed, the 2nd baron was donating alms to the Louvain Augustinians shortly before his death in 1637.44 William and Katherine’s children followed their parents’ example. For instance, their youngest daughter, Katherine, married John Caryll of Warnham, Sussex, a family that would go on to have strong links to the convents in exile. Their daughter, Mary, founded the Benedictine convent of the Immaculate Conception at Dunkirk, later becoming its abbess.45 They were to have another daughter at the Dunkirk convent, as well as two daughters at the Bruges Augustinians, one Ghent Benedictine and

40

 Hamilton, Chronicle, p. 78; Anne Bromfield (1599–1638), LA040.  Hamilton, Chronicle, p. 109. Having been captured, Gerard sent instructions to Henry Garnet SJ to assist Broomfield’s crossing to the continent. 42  Margaret Sternhold (1623–74), GP257. 43   ERO, MS D/DP/Z30/13. 44  Douai Abbey, The Archives of St Monica’s Louvain and St Augustine’s Newton Abbot, 1609–1976, P1, f. 17r. 45   ERO, MS D/DP/Z30/29, 30; Mary Caryll (1650–1712), GB040. 41

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one Antwerp Carmelite.46 The 2nd baron’s nephew, Sir Francis Petre of Cranham in Essex, had one daughter enter the Dunkirk Benedictines, another two the Ghent Benedictines, and three sons become Jesuits, including Edward Petre, alleged confessor to James II.47 Indeed, even the family’s servants were influenced: Mary, daughter of Andrew Pease, the 2nd baron’s steward, entered the Benedictine convent at Ghent in 1625, having been a scholar at Brussels before the anti-Jesuit actions.48 This is only a brief overview of direct Petre involvement with the convents but it underlines the strong Jesuit persuasion that dominated the family’s lives and subsequently influenced those Catholics who lived in the surrounding geographical area. Domestic Politics in Continental Convents So far it has been argued that a family’s patronage of a particular type of Catholic spirituality affected greatly the destination convent of women heading abroad. If this is taken as the case, then it would seem natural to explore how and if the divisions and arguments which fractured the English Catholic community at home impacted upon those already in the convents. As argued, it did have an effect upon patterns of convent recruitment, yet Claire Walker has suggested that it had limited, if any, impact at all amongst those living in convents. Thus, she argues that the breakdown in governance at the Brussels Benedictine convent during the 1620s, though appearing to be ‘subsumed with broader issues of politics and power’, had more to do with spirituality: ‘the bone of contention in each instance was competing spiritualities.’ She argues that ‘the sensitive issue of access to suitable confessors was not simply a question of clerical sympathies, nor of monastic obedience … it was central to their religious vocation and their salvation.’ From this, it evolved into issues of monastic obedience and government that had to be resolved externally, by the relevant Church authorities, and ‘Beyond the convent walls, the rhetoric of both sides inevitably reflected the Jesuit/secular debate and entered the purely political realm, all but obscuring its spiritual origin.’ Thus, Walker 46   Barbara Caryll (1656–83), BA045; Frances Caryll (d.1654), BA046; Elizabeth Caryll (1643–82), AC024; Catherine Caryll (pf.1689), DB027; Elizabeth Caryll (d.1700), DB028. Other grandchildren of the 2nd baron included Mary Petre (1665–92), BA153; Mary Roper (1641–aft.1672), GB198; Catherine Sheldon (1642–50), CB167; Lucy Petre (1657–1713), RP140; Mary Petre (1655–93), RP142; Elizabeth Petre (d.1659), RP212. 47  Article on Sir Edward Petre, by Stuart Handley, in ODNB. Winefrid Petre (1695– 1720), DB124; Elizabeth Petre (1653–98), GB176; Catherine Petre (1654–aft.1672), GB177. 48  Mary Pease (1626–43), GB172.

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concludes, ‘Brussels served as a warning to other cloisters of the politically charged nature of monastic spirituality.’49 Unquestionably, the cause of the fallout was spiritual, yet it could be argued that Walker creates a division where there was not one. It was not simply a case of spirituality in a wilderness, separate from all else. Rather, the choice of a specific Catholic spirituality was a political choice in itself, each option offering a totally different vision of the English Mission, of which the convents must be considered a part. Particularly since the entry of Edmund Campion and Robert Persons into England in 1580 and their attempt to differentiate temporal loyalty from religious persuasion,50 it had become abundantly clear that such a division could not be maintained. Religion was politicized and the same rang true within intra-Catholic feuds. Equally, the rhetoric of politics was frequently framed by religion. In short, the nuns were not taking decisions in a political void, cut off from all else: to argue that is to suggest that they had little interest in the English Mission or somehow forgot all they knew from the moment they stepped within the convent walls. There is a case study that amply demonstrates this argument. The Southcote family, who had residences at Witham and Bulmer in Essex, were very much part of the Petre network, tied by kinship and a shared support of the Jesuit vision of the English mission.51 It is demonstrable that John Southcote (who shall be referred to as John I) and William, 2nd baron Petre, were involved in a network for priestly ministration. Moreover, the priests in question were Jesuits, working out from the Petre centrepoint to minister to the community formed around the family. Perhaps the most notable of these Jesuits was Henry Floyd. Briggs suggests that a rather cryptic payment in the 2nd baron’s household accounts of 10 shillings to a Mr Flud on 10 February 1610/11 could well signify a payment to Henry Floyd.52 But there are other entries, for payments made by the future 3rd baron, that might also relate to him: one at Christmas 1622 of £5 to a ‘M[aste]r Flor:’; one just before Midsummer 1623 of over £5 to a ‘M[aste]r Fl’; and one of forty shillings soon after ‘to Pa: Sym’, possibly

49  Walker, Gender, pp.138–42. The point is reiterated in Walker, ‘Securing Souls’, pp. 233–4. 50   Peter Lake and Michael C. Questier, ‘Puritans, Papists and the “Public Sphere” in Early Modern England: the Edmund Campion affair in context’, The Journal of Modern History, 72 (2000): pp. 587–627. 51   James E. Kelly, ‘Kinship and Religious Politics among Catholic Families in England, 1570–1640’, History, 94 (2009): pp. 332–3. 52   ERO, MS D/DP/A33, f. 21r; Nancy Briggs, ‘William, 2nd Lord Petre (1575–1637)’, Essex Recusant, 10 (1968): p. 54.

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standing for Pater Symons, Symons being Floyd’s alias.53 This hypothesis is strengthened by the knowledge that Floyd definitely ministered to the Southcotes: John II (the priestly son of John I) records Floyd’s leaving the family home in Merstham, Surrey, on 14 February 1625/26.54 In fact, he had been associated with the family since about 1597, the later Petre chaplain, Henry More SJ, recording the following: After having been for some time Superior of the Residence of the English members of the Society [of Jesus] at Lisbon (which he had been made by Fr. Robert Parsons) he crossed over to England by a devious route, and lived with Mr. John Southcote (a man of great note among Catholics) for nineteen years, tried by many vicissitudes. In the fourth year of his residence there, he was caught by a party of pursuivants, who rushed into the hall and intercepted him before he could find his way into a hiding-place … Father Henry was taken before the Lord Chief Justice Popham, that most cruel enemy of the Catholics, who burning with the desire of invading the possessions of Mr. Southcote tried every means in his power to convict Father Henry of priesthood … but the Father eluded all these attempts by his prudence and caution, and thus preserved both himself and his host harmless.55

Floyd was therefore closely linked to the Southcotes for a long period of time. Having been arrested in 1601, and banished with the Petre-associated Ralph Bickley SJ in 1603, Floyd soon returned to England having spent time at Lisbon and St Omers, although the exact date of his return is sketchy and he may have travelled back and forth over the Channel.56 53   ERO, MS D/DP/A40, (part Our Lady Day to Candlemas 1621) f. 8v, (part Our Lady Day 1623–1631) f. 1r–1v. There is a possibility that ‘Pa: Sym’ could stand for Pater Simson, the alias of Peter Benson SJ, who at this time was the superior of the Jesuit residence of St. Francis Borgia (which became the College of the Holy Apostles following the Petre endowment) in nearby Suffolk though, in the context, it seems more likely that it refers to Floyd: CRS, 75, p. 117. 54   ‘The Note-Book of John Southcote, D.D.’, ed. John H. Pollen, Miscellanea I, CRS, 1 (London, 1905), p. 98. 55   The Elizabethan Jesuits: ‘Historia Missionis Anglicanae Societatis Jesu’ (1660) of Henry More, ed. Francis Edwards (London and Chichester, 1981), pp. 351–2. Popham was chief justice of the king’s bench 1592–1607: article on Sir John Popham, by David Ibbetson, in ODNB. In 1589, Floyd had been chosen as one of the first students to travel from Rheims to the new Jesuit institution at Valladolid, his travelling companions including the future Jesuit, John Blackfan. Following its creation, he was made superior of the seminary at Lisbon at the express wish of its founder, Robert Parsons. Henry More seemingly suggests that Parsons knew Floyd well, the two having previously travelled abroad together: ibid., p. 211; Foley, Records, vol. 1, pp. 503–5. 56  McCoog has him as confessor at Lisbon as late as 1612; Edwards claims that he was back working in London by 1607; whilst Knell convincingly estimates, based on More’s evidence, that Floyd returned to live with the Southcotes around 1610, possibly travelling

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Certainly, from 1620 to 1623, corresponding with a series of possible maintenance payments made to him by Lord Petre, Floyd was Superior of the Jesuit Mission in Suffolk, which included Essex under its jurisdiction.57 This is only a hint of the Jesuit’s endeavours though, for he was highly active in East Anglia, acting as a one-man recruiting machine for the Society,58 as well as the English Catholic enterprise abroad. For example, in September 1633, a government note recorded some of Floyd’s converts. These included, in 1622, a Mistress Brookes, whose brothers, John and Richard, he subsequently sent to St Omers. He was also accused of transporting abroad three of his own nephews – Henry, John and Thomas Compton – with the latter, and possibly one other, entering the Society. Moreover, it was alleged that Floyd had helped to convey the two daughters of Mr Yaxley of Yaxley Hall in Suffolk to the convent at Gravelines. One subsequently became a nun there, another at the Brussels Benedictines before leaving to be a founder of the Cambrai convent, where she was joined by a third sister.59 In his scurrilous attack on the English Bridgettines, Thomas Robinson alleged that Floyd was responsible for transporting would-be nuns not just to the Lisbon community, but also to the Brussels Benedictines and the Gravelines Poor Clares.60 It is little wonder that, following another arrest on 18 August 1633, two government informers described Floyd as ‘Henry Flood al[ia]s Frauncis Smyth al[ia]s Rivers al[ia]s Seymons a Jesuite dang[er]ous both back with John I after he had visited his nun-niece in Louvain: CRS 74, p. 172; Edwards, Elizabethan Jesuits, p. 389; P.R. Knell, ‘The Southcott Family in Essex, 1575–1642’, Essex Recusant, 14 (1972), pp. 8–9. Foley maintains that John Gerard recommended Floyd to Parsons for the St. Omers position in July 1606 and that he spent a year there before returning to England: Foley, Records, vol. 1, p. 507. However, a fiercely anti-Jesuit priest named Francis Tilletson claimed that Floyd was involved in several plots to kill the king. Between February and March 1607/8, Tilletson offered up a Jesuit plot to assassinate the king to avenge the death of Henry Garnet, the oath-takers being Parsons in Rome, Joseph Creswell in Madrid, William Baldwin in the Low Countries and Floyd in Lisbon: TNA, SP 14/31/62; CSPI, 1606–08, pp. 423–4. Thus, Floyd may still have been in Lisbon at this time, though Garnet was executed in May 1606. Edwards claims that Floyd, under the alias Anthony Rivers, was Garnet’s secretary, though this seems unlikely as he was in prison during the alleged time of service, plus the cipher that identifies Floyd with Rivers comes from a later date: Francis Edwards, ‘Identifying Anthony Rivers’, Notes and Queries, 239 (1994): pp. 62–3; Patrick Martin and John Finnis, ‘The Identity of “Anthony Rivers”’, Recusant History, 26 (2002): pp. 39–74. 57  Foley, Records, vol. 7, p. lxxi. 58   Kelly, ‘Kinship’, pp. 333–4. 59   TNA, SP 16/178/43; SP16/246/100, printed in Foley, Records, vol. 1, p. 511; Dorothy Yaxley (1619–53), GP301; Mary Yaxley (1621–54), BB201; Margaret Yaxley (1624–6), CB211. 60   Thomas Robinson, The Anatomie of the English Nunnery at Lisbon in Portugall (London, 1622), p. 8.

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for transporting and seducing of young p[er]sons’.61 He was also heavily involved in the disputes between the Jesuits and the secular clergy. As for the Southcotes, Knell notes that between Floyd’s departure around 1623/24 ‘and 1630 he was succeeded by no fewer than nine other Jesuits some of whom stayed only for a very short time.’62 It is worth noting that John Southcote I’s eldest child, Elizabeth, was clothed at the English Benedictine convent at Brussels only two years after Floyd’s arrival in the Southcote household.63 Walker correctly points out that many Southcote kin entered convents with Jesuit associations, though she does not explore this in any depth.64 Around the same time as Elizabeth entered the Brussels Benedictines, her cousin, Mary Welsh, joined the Augustinians at Louvain.65 As mentioned earlier, Elizabeth had travelled to the convent with another of her cousins, Frances Gawine. Two other cousins, Anna and Elizabeth Curson, followed Elizabeth only a few years later.66 John I himself was a brother in the Louvain Augustinians’ confraternity, raising money for them.67 When divisions broke out at the Brussels Benedictine convent over the leadership style of Abbess Mary Percy, Elizabeth Southcote was firmly on the side of those appalled at the abbess’ refusal to allow them access to a Jesuit confessor. She wrote to Jacob Boonen, the archbishop of Mechelen on several occasions. For example, in 1623, in her role as one of the deans, she pleaded with the archbishop to stop the abbess entering the nuns’ cells and reading their correspondence to him.68 In a complaint that was echoed by her cousin, Frances Gawine, she noted that the order of the convent had been disrupted by Abbess Percy, newer nuns treating their elders with disrespect due to their proximity to the abbess.69 Notably, Gawine departed for the new, Jesuit-friendly Benedictine convent at Cambrai in 1623. Just before her departure, another Southcote cousin arrived, Barbara Waldegrave. Notably, the next two Southcote-related arrivals went to another newly founded, pro-Jesuit convent: Elizabeth’s niece, Mary Southcote, was clothed at Ghent in 1626, having seemingly travelled there with Elizabeth’s cousin, 61

  TNA, SP 16/246/99.   Knell, ‘Southcott’, p. 9. 63   Elizabeth Southcote (1600–31), BB166. 64  Walker, Gender, pp. 28–9. 65  Mary Welsh (1599–1624), LA294. 66   Elizabeth Curson (1605–26), BB051; Anna Curson (1612–59), BB052. 67   ‘Convent Management’, ed. James E. Kelly, English Convents, vol. 5, p. 25. Tellingly, the entry above it records a gift from the Jesuit provincial, Henry More, who was sometimes resident with the Petres. 68  Walker, ‘Securing Souls’, p. 233. 69   Ibid., p. 237. Also pp. 239, 240 and Walker, Gender, p. 71. 62

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Hieronyma Waldegrave.70 Such an alteration in family patronage, at least as far as recruitment is concerned, is telling in itself. Nevertheless, Elizabeth remained at Brussels as the disputes continued to rage. In 1628, Archbishop Boonen appointed the notoriously anti-Jesuit priest, Anthony Champney, as confessor. According to Walker, this led to near-anarchy, a third of the convent opposing the newcomer and even blockading parts of the convent against the abbess.71 Shortly after this, at the start of 1630, Elizabeth received a letter72 from her priest brother, John II, who was virulently anti-Jesuit and one of the chief protagonists on the side of Bishop Richard Smith against his opponents in the religious Orders.73 Writing ‘out of brotherly affection and priestly care’ on the ‘theme of obedience’, he exhorted her not to be seduced by any claim into abandoning the obedience by which she had lived for thirty years. The letter is thus an allusion to the fierce intra-Catholic debate in England known as the Approbation Controversy. Loosely speaking, approbation was the right of a priest to hear confessions and reconcile accordingly. In an effort to underline his Episcopal authority, the fiercely anti-Jesuit Richard Smith decreed that no priest could hear confessions without the approval of the relevant bishop, that is, himself. Whilst his supporters amongst the secular clergy viewed this as a sensible move to bring order to the Catholic mission, those from religious Orders – particularly the Jesuits and the Benedictines – saw the presence of a Catholic bishop in the country as an unnecessary risk, particularly as he was trying now to bring all missionary activity under his control. In turn, Smith’s supporters alleged this opposition was a revolt against Episcopal authority and obedience, rather than being about the future of the English Catholic community.74 70  Mary Southcote (1627–41), GB208; for the Waldegraves, see earlier. Notably, Mary’s cousin, Mary Roper, left Brussels to help found the Ghent community, where she was joined by her sister, Margaret Roper: Mary Roper (1619–50), BB152; Margaret Roper (1627–41), GB197. 71  Walker, Gender, p. 71. 72  Archdiocesan Archives of Mechelen, Engelse benedictinessen Brussel, REG. 654.12. My thanks to Caroline Bowden for providing a translation from the original French. 73   Kelly, ‘Kinship’, pp. 334–7. He claimed to be writing the letter at the request of their father which appears highly unlikely: John I was, according to John II’s anti-Jesuit companions, partly responsible for his death, along with the Jesuit, Henry Floyd: Kelly, ‘Kinship’, pp. 338–9. John II’s letter refers to John I writing a long letter to Elizabeth which seemed to be ‘an exhortation to all virtue and religious observance, and particularly to that of true obedience according to the exigence of the bad times where we see legitimate authority of superiors … so little valued and so much opposed’. It is possible that father and son were talking at crosspurposes, the former about his bishop’s authority, the latter about that of the Jesuits. 74   For excellent full accounts, see Antony F. Allison, ‘A Question of Jurisdiction: Richard Smith, Bishop of Chalcedon, and the Catholic Laity, 1625–31’, Recusant History, 16 (1982): pp. 111–45; Michael C. Questier (ed.), Newsletters from the Caroline Court,

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Cheerily reminding her that she was old and near the end of her life, Elizabeth’s brother continued: Oh, take care that the last part of your life should not be contrary to the first which is so good and so praiseworthy. Your comportment has been not only irreprehensible and without offence, but also an example of true virtue and by this means you have earned good esteem and reputation among the rest of us outside the consolation of all your friends and relations here. You have been a mistress to teach obedience to others over the course of many years.

Apart from linking into ideas of convent reputation,75 this hints at the contact between Elizabeth, presumably along with other Brussels Benedictines, and the outside world. This is drawn out further by her brother’s following, far more explicit, words: Oh keep yourself from the filthy scandal of disobedience and don’t waste everything at the end to your disgrace, to the discomfort of your friends, to the disedification of your students and the general offence of all. Take care not to be the subject of them saying Dame Elizabeth an old religious having been mistress of a number of novices, sister of a priest, only daughter of one of the chief Catholic gentlemen of England, after having led a religious and exemplary life for the space of 28 or 29 years was attracted by some [youngsters?] … to separate you from your spiritual advisor, from your Abbess, from your Archbishop whom you should revere like the person of Jesus Christ himself in order to follow I know not what vain appearances and shadows under the colour of religion or piety.

This is strong and sharp stuff from her brother and indicates that Elizabeth had continued her opposition to the abbess. The mention of the new chaplain – a co-agitator against the Jesuits with her brother – infers that it was his appointment which had spurred her back into opposition. John II had form in writing such letters: he had written similarly to his brother, urging him to reject the Jesuits and support the secular clergy cause. As with his sister, he implied that to not do so was to put oneself outside the Catholic Church.76 Unlike her, he had turned his back on the Petres’ Jesuit patronage network from which he had sprung. 1631–1638: Catholicism and the Politics of the Personal Rule, Camden Society, Fifth Series, 26 (Cambridge, 2005). 75   For the importance of convent reputation, see ‘Convent Management’, Kelly, pp. 62–4. 76   Kelly, ‘Kinship’: p. 340. Such an attitude was not unique to Southcote; supporters of the different factions made lists of ‘authentic’ martyrs from the Mission dependent on their ‘political’ leanings: Thomas M. McCoog, ‘Construing martyrdom in the English Catholic

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Admittedly, this is just one case study, yet, combined with the changes in convent recruitment due to this fallout between regulars and seculars, can it be maintained that the political implications were secondary to the spiritual? Her priestly brother’s support for Bishop Richard Smith and his anti-Jesuit activities would not be described as spiritual with any political connotations written off as an unintended secondary by-product. He was involved in arguments about the shape of the Catholic community in England, how it behaved and how it interacted with a State that went through periodic bursts of bloody persecution against it. To suggest that somehow Elizabeth Southcote forgot her background on entering the convent would seem bizarre: to maintain that she treated her brother’s letter as a mere piece of spiritual advice is to render her naïve and even slightly stupid. Elizabeth died in March 1631 before the expulsion of several ringleaders of the Brussels Benedictine disturbances the following year. Whether she would have been one of them is impossible to tell. However, whilst the debates about the identity of the Catholic community and the surrounding disputes had a significant impact on patterns of convent recruitment, it should not be suggested that the convents were somehow immune from these disagreements. Not only were the nuns being brought up amongst these deliberations at home, they continued to be part of them once abroad. All the intra-Catholic debates throughout the first half of the seventeenth century were spiritual, but the nature of these arguments also meant that they were political. For John II, the convent was part of the English Mission and the Catholic community; it was not somehow isolated from events, the purely spiritual concerns of the nuns only tainted by outside interpretations later. If convent recruitment was politicized, then it seems highly unlikely that aspects of convent life would not be. John Southcote’s letter to his sister shows that he was as aware of that, as she must have been.

community, 1583–1602’, in Ethan Shagan (ed.), Catholics and the ‘Protestant nation’: religious politics and identity in Early Modern England (Manchester, 2005), pp. 118–20.

Chapter 3

Missing Members: Selection and Governance in the English Convents in Exile Caroline Bowden Rd Mother Abbess assembled the discreets to decide about Mrs Murphy who had been 9 months Postulant: her health & other talents not altogether answering to the character which had been given of her, yet mother Abbess and discreets were not willing to decide her case absolutely: her reverence therefore assembled the Community and proposed to them their deciding it by private votes, in which it was found she was received only by one third, upon which her reverence & the Community discharged her in the most charitable manner they cou’d.1

This extract relating to her leaving the convent in 1765 is the only record we have of Ruth Murphy who tested her vocation with the Conceptionists in Paris. Her appearance in the diary also demonstrates that the Conceptionists (like other English convents) did not accept all those who offered themselves for membership and took considerable care in reaching their conclusions. The episode is a long way from accounts of entry into Italian convents where, it has been argued by a number of historians, unwilling professions were frequent in the early modern period.2 Murphy was not alone in finding the religious life challenging; many others faced similar difficulties. Accounts like this provide us with substantial 1   Joseph Gillow and Richard Trappes-Lomax, The Diary of the ‘Blue Nuns’ or Order of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady, at Paris, 1658–1810, CRS, 8 (London, 1910), p. 152; see also pp. 25 and 42. Ruth Murphy, PC079, was clothed August 1764 and left April 1765. 2  See, for example, Jutta Gisela Sperling, Convents and the Body Politic in Late Renaissance Venice (Chicago, 1999), chapter 1; Mary Laven, Virgins of Venice: Enclosed Lives and Broken Vows in the Renaissance Convent (London, 2001), pp. 22–38: Kate J. P. Lowe, Nuns’ Chronicles and Convent Culture in Renaissance and Counter-Reformation Italy (Cambridge, 2004), p. 230: Silvia Evangelisti, Nuns: A History of Convent Life (Oxford, 2007), pp. 21–3; Craig A. Monson, Nuns Behaving Badly (Chicago, IL, 2010), pp. 8–10 discusses the prevalence of convents as destinations for young women in Italy: the rest of the book looks at accounts of transgressions of conventual rules resulting from the lack of religious vocations.

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evidence regarding selection procedures that reveal conscious attempts to create sound communities and argue against the existence of forced professions in the English convents throughout the exile period. Questions regarding candidates’ motivation for joining strictly enclosed religious Orders have been exercising outsiders for centuries and strong opinions have been expressed on all sides of the argument. Often these views have been inflamed by polemic regarding enclosure which existed then as now.3 Public reaction to enclosed convents has tended to obfuscate discussion about religious vocations and has often led to pre-judged discussion of the entry process. This chapter will look at the process of joining English convents in order to consider questions of free will, vocation and the role of senior members of the convents in the selection process. Scholarly research and writing on the English convents in exile has focused (naturally enough) on the members who entered, professed and lived the rest of their lives in the particular convent they selected when they first decided to enter. This was the experience of the majority, although some moved into daughter houses after profession and a small minority transferred to a different Order before finally settling and finding their spiritual home.4 One group, which has so far been overlooked, can also provide significant insights into religious life, both on what the communities expected and what individuals wanted: the ‘early leavers’, that is, those candidates who did not proceed to full membership or who left after profession. I will argue that by looking at their abbreviated convent careers we can consider important questions regarding motivation and selection: the chapter will consider the candidates as well as those responsible for deciding their future as nuns. By focusing on those who failed to fulfil their original intentions for any reason, I argue we will be better able to understand the composition and significance of the English convents in exile. Finding evidence regarding the early leavers has been facilitated by the scale of the ‘Who were the Nuns?’ project and the generous access to documents granted by present members of the convents and their archivists.5 3  See, for example, Thomas Robinson, The Anatomie of the English Nunnery at Lisbon in Portugal (London, 1622): John Gee, New shreds of an Old Snare (London, 1624), pp. 113– 17. See also the discussion in ‘Convents and the Outside World’, ed. Carmen M. Mangion, English Convents, vol. 6, pp. 1–42; and Frances E. Dolan, Whores of Babylon: Catholicism, Gender and Seventeenth-Century Print Culture (Notre Dame, IN, 2005), preface to paperback edition. For an example of current attitudes towards the enclosed religious life see 12 March 2011 ‘A life dedicated to prayer: Why is this so hard to fathom?’: accessed 23 September 2012. 4   These have been included with the ‘early leavers’ for the purposes of this chapter. 5  As always, my research has been made possible by the support of the communities and their archivists, which I hereby acknowledge with gratitude.

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As well as profession records, we located related texts from several of the larger convents which included candidates who did not proceed to solemn profession and a life within the enclosure: instead they ‘returned to the world’.6 On one level they can be labelled as ‘failures’, but a closer reading of the sources suggests this is an oversimplification and also misleading. By examining the whole process of joining and explanations given for leaving, we begin to see a considered selection process in operation. Surviving texts, including advice to superiors indicate that convent leaders were often taking into account the welfare of the community as well as the interests of the candidates when making decisions regarding membership. Even within brief references it is possible to tell where a candidate herself decided to withdraw or whether the community voted against her and she was, in effect, dismissed. Some assessment of the numbers of early leavers can be made from documents in those convents which recorded all entrants.7 Figures can only be approximations because of variations in record-keeping practices. For instance, in some convents it is possible to differentiate between categories of entrants, whether schoolgirls, boarders, or potential members; in other places, arrivals are less clearly defined and also some candidates moved from one category to another. However, given that numbers of leavers are likely to be under-reported, their numbers are striking. Taking four convents where we have such records; at the Conceptionist convent in Paris, 42 candidates who arrived to try out the religious life left the convent before taking vows and 73 women professed. At the Benedictines at Cambrai, early leavers among aspirants recorded up to 1725 accounted for 43 names with a total of 115 professions. For the Franciscans (of Princenhof, Bruges), documents show that 24 left before taking vows, 229 professed and five of those left afterwards; and at the Bruges Augustinians, 56 early leavers are recorded and a total of 196 professed.8 Other convents, such as the Augustinians and Benedictines in Paris and the Lisbon Bridgettines recorded almost none: this can largely be explained either by the way members are documented or the relative paucity of texts rather than an 6   The phrase was marked on Sepulchrine profession records and the rest of the page heavily crossed through when candidates withdrew: see MS Chapter Book, Colchester, Canonesses of the Holy Sepulchre, Liège, unfoliated. 7  Mentions of those who left before profession often appear with few means of identifying the individual concerned beyond a name and date of the event. For this reason, many of them have not been entered into the ‘Who were the Nuns?’ database. 8   Figures are based on my calculations from: Gillow and Trappes-Lomax, The Diary of the ‘Blue Nuns’; Richard Trappes-Lomax, Franciscana: The English Franciscan Nuns, 1619–1821, CRS, 24 (London, 1922); Joseph Gillow, ‘Records of the Abbey of our Lady of Consolation at Cambrai 1620–1793’, Miscellanea VIII, CRS, 13 (London, 1913); Typescript of Chronicles vols 1 and 2 from the English Convent, Bruges; afterwards Bruges Chronicles. I am indebted to Sister Mary Aline and the community for permission to quote from this document.

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absence of early leavers. The English convents kept meticulous records of members and many of them have survived later catastrophic events. Some convents, as we have seen, kept additional records of women and girls who tried out but then decided to leave before profession either by their own choice, in consultation with the abbess or occasionally dismissed by a vote of the community in chapter.9 Early leavers may appear in documents such as Chapter and Council Books and in also in Chronicles and Annals. As well as providing a record of the event, some accounts provide explanations for rejection or withdrawal. For instance, Cecilia Webbe left the Franciscans after two years because she was ‘not willing to submit herself or bear the humiliations of religion’.10 Her appearance in the text (albeit brief) is, I would argue, recognition of the event’s importance in the life of the community. The English convents established in exile were institutions that incorporated key regulations of the Council of Trent promulgated in 1563: requiring (among other things) enclosure for women and stipulating the examination of candidates before clothing and profession.11 From the outset, the new convents were aware of the importance of following the rule and constitutions closely in order to establish a reputation. Only if they were successful in creating well-managed institutions would they be able to attract sufficient recruits to survive in exile and fulfil their goal: to sustain English conventual life for women. Steady recruitment was vital to the financial and spiritual health of the institutions and an indicator that a particular convent was a desirable place to send a daughter. At the same time, in order to maintain standards, the convents had to be able to select their intake based on commitment to the religious life. They continued to attract members over the whole period of exile albeit with periods of fluctuating success and variations across cloisters.12 I have argued (as has Claire Walker) that the situation regarding profession in the English convents was different from the experiences discussed, for example, for Italy where the number of unwilling professions remained high even after the Council of Trent attempted to forbid the practice.13  9   For an explanation of the process of entering see ‘Spirituality’, ed. Laurence LuxSterritt, English Convents, vol. 2, pp. 1–94. 10   Cecilia Webbe, BF261, left in 1786: Trappes-Lomax, Franciscana, p. 83. 11   Enclosure for nuns was promulgated at the Council of Trent, Session 25, Chapter V: Examinations in Session 25, Chapter XVII: see Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, trans. H.J. Schroeder (Rockford, IL, 1978). I am grateful to James Kelly for locating the relevant sections. 12  See Table I.1. 13  See, for example, Claire Walker, Gender and Politics in Early Modern Europe: English Convents in France and the Low Countries (London, 2003), pp. 31, 36.

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Elizabeth Rapley in her study of French convents finds a variety of explanations for profession including ‘conditioned vocations’.14 These were young girls, placed by their parents or guardians in convents as young as age 5 or 6, who grew up knowing little of life outside the convent and who then became nuns. Claire Walker has noted some evidence of them in the English cloisters and explains that they seemed ‘more or less destined to become nuns’ as they had so little experience of the outside world.15 Such conditioning appears to fit the record of Lucy Hamilton at the Augustinian convent in Bruges who ‘was dedicated to religion by her parents when she was but eight years old’.16 She was effectively brought up by the nuns starting as a schoolgirl in 1648 under the watchful eye of her aunt, prioress Helen Bedingfield.17 She died in 1693, having been professed 37 years.18 The Bedingfield family has a remarkable place in the history of the English convents. Lucy’s mother Elizabeth Hamilton (a widow) was the last of eleven sisters to enter religion: three of them became Mary Ward sisters and the others joined six different convents. Family experience must have played a part in attracting girls towards the convent life and evidence of networks within extended families can be identified over the whole exile period. Surnames such as Howard, Gage, Petre, Bedingfield, Caryll, Blundell and Talbot occur regularly in convent records.19 However, while they might influence the initial acceptance of candidates, connections alone were not sufficient to gain a place as a full member if they failed to meet the criteria of entry and did not receive the majority of votes needed for endorsement in Chapter. For instance, Frances Parker, daughter of Lord Morley was turned down by the Brussels

14   Elizabeth Rapley, The Dévotes: Women and Church in Seventeenth-Century France (Montreal, 1992), pp. 174–8, 185–8; Elizabeth Rapley, A Social History of the Cloister: Daily Life in the Teaching Monasteries of the Old Regime (Montreal, 2001), chapter 9. 15  Walker, Gender and Politics, pp. 34–7. 16  Lucy Hamilton (1656–93), BA095. Her mother, Elizabeth Hamilton (BA094) professed at the same convent as a widow in 1674. 17   Helen Bedingfield (1622–61), Prioress 1640–61, LA023. See also, for instance, the experience of the daughters of Lady Trevor Warner (see p. 000), Susan Warner (1680–96), DB179 and Catherine Warner (1686–1711), DB180: and at the Antwerp Carmelites, Teresa Worsley (1620–42), AC141; Grace Palmes (1630–79), AC099; ‘Life Writing II’, ed. Katrien Daemen de Gelder, English Convents, vol. 4, pp. 70, 123. 18   Bruges Chronicles, vol. 1, p. 174. 19   I would to like to record my appreciation of the work of Katharine Keats-Rohan in identifying family connections during the course of the ‘Who were the Nuns?’ project and the impact it has made in furthering research on the families connected with the convents. The extent of family networks in the convents can be seen through a surname search of the project database on the website.

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Benedictines in 1622 because of her health, although she was later allowed to join the Augustinians at Louvain.20 Evidence from a variety of sources suggests that a sense of vocation explains most professions at the English convents for a number of reasons to be discussed in this chapter. Many of the candidates were older than the girls discussed by Rapley, they had experience of life in the outside world before entering and were taking decisions at a more mature age. Jan Broadway’s analysis of age at entry in six English convents shows that the mean average age at entry varied between age 20 and 22 across the whole period.21 Nicky Hallett’s writing about English Carmelite lives shows just how important their vocation was to them and indicates the extent and variety of experiences of women before they joined the convents in exile.22 Claire Walker having raised questions about motivation, herself acknowledges; ‘it would be wrong to assume that women took the veil solely for worldly reasons.’23 Indeed much of the rest of her study shows the commitment of many of the nuns to fulfilling their solemn vows in the religious life. Chronicles and biographical writing add considerably to our understanding of the entry process by providing some evidence of personal reasons for joining and occasionally leaving.24 Convent leaders were effectively operating a selective system of entry either by allowing candidates to leave if they considered them unsuitable or after discussion in Chapter and Council, dismissing them. Monastic Rules provided general guidance to convents on choosing members. For instance the constitutions of the Poor Clares recognized how some candidates might find it difficult to live under their ascetic regime and required the most challenging parts of the rule to be fully understood before clothing.

20

  Frances Parker (1626–53), LA196.   Jan Broadway in personal communication: her statistical analysis is to be made available on the project website in 2013. 22  Nicky Hallett, Lives of Spirit: An Edition of English Carmelite Auto/Biographies of the Early Modern Period (Aldershot, 2007): Nicky Hallett, Witchcraft, Exorcism and the Politics of Possession in a Seventeenth-Century Convent (Aldershot, 2007). 23  Walker, Gender and Politics, p. 36. 24  See, for example, entries in the Carmelite ‘Collections’, Catherine Windoe (1623– 66), AC137, pp. 99–101; Mary White (1623–40), AC133, p. 102; Helen Wigmore (1628– 72), MW170, pp. 121–2; Frances Turner (1647–93), AC121, pp. 208–9; Anne Nettleton (1677–91), AC097, p. 258; Lucy Howard (1709–19), AC067, pp. 299–300, in ‘Life Writing II’, de Gelder; and the conversion narrative of Catherine Holland (1664–1720), BA106, in Catherine S. Durrant, A Link between Flemish Mystics and English Martyrs (London, 1925), pp. 271–306. For clothing image see Plate 12. 21

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When any person shal present her self to the embracing of your holy Order: before she changeth her secular habit into that of Religion, the most hard and difficult points to be observed in Religion, shal be first declared unto her; soe that, after her reception, she may have noe occasion to excuse her self by ignorance or misunderstanding. And none moreover, are to be admitted, who, for age, corporal infirmitie, or natural simplicitie, shal be less able to undertake this course of life; it oftentimes happening that the state and vigour of Religion, is by such like persons, much slack’ned and destroyed.25

The Benedictine Statutes translated for the convent at Ghent emphasized the crucial importance of choosing the right candidates: ‘lest by admitting such that are unfitt their spirituall progresse and vigour of disciplyne fall and decay’. The rules required potential members to have demonstrated commitment to a virtuous life before they entered, and in addition required that full details regarding the scholars and novices should be disclosed to the community before they were to be voted on.26 How far can such directions be seen in action at the English convents? Evidence of awareness by leaders of the English convents of their responsibilities when agreeing to candidates can be seen in advisory texts created for their use. For instance, an interesting and important manuscript text from the Carmelite convent at Hoogstraten discusses why it is important to be sure of the candidates’ motivation for the religious life. Ascribed to the Jesuit John Rigouleuc (1596–1658) and copied in order to be read by senior members of the convent and by all able to vote in Chapter, it registered anxieties about vocations and highlighted the importance of choosing committed candidates in order to create communities able to fulfil their obligations to the religious life and live harmoniously. At the same time, it demonstrates awareness of the impact of poor decisions in Chapter on the candidate herself. This is from the opening paragraph: The greatest disorder in nunneries, and yet little regarded, is to receive Novices without a vocation. Thos who receive them, and thos who give their voices are equally prejudicial to the Order, to the Novice, and to them selves. To the Order: by receiving one not call’d, and having not the Grace of a vocation, nor able to complie with duties, and one that will rather bring in laxityes, divisions, scandals. To the Novice: by exposing her to eminent danger of being lost in a state improper; in a yoak which she is not able to endure; in a Rule, she’ll not 25   The First Rule of the Glorious Virgin S. Clare, Audomari, 1665, The Constitutions, pp. 184–5: accessed EEBO, Wing F980B-227_02. 26   Statutes compyled for the better observation of the Holy Rule of the most Glorious Father and patriarch S. Benedict, Gant, Second Parte, Chapter XVII ‘Of those that are admitted in to the Monastery to receave the Habitt and to make holy Vowes and Profession of Religion’, pp. 61–75; accessed EEBO, STC-17552-1027_08.

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observe, & in an opposit way to that prepar’d for her salvation by providence. To them selves: for they are accountable to God for her ruin, and the disorders in Religion by such a Novice intruded contrary to Gods designes.27

The author saw clearly the dangers of permitting candidates without a vocation to join a community. He also recognized the difficulty of living under strict discipline in total obedience, describing it as becoming an unendurable ‘yoak’, if she has no vocation. It was not only the candidate, but the whole community which suffered in the end and those who made the decision ‘are accountable to God for her ruin’. Voting in Chapter for candidates therefore was a heavy responsibility for the members and to be taken seriously. Only the most committed aspirants would undertake the journey to the English convents: travel was expensive, complicated to arrange and must have deterred the faint hearted. The challenges facing those living in Maryland or the West Indies in the eighteenth century interested in joining one of the English convents were far greater than for those already living in Europe. Monica and Elizabeth Hagan,28 writing from Rouen in 1783 to friends and family back in Port Tobacco, Maryland, served as intermediaries and offered advice. Their niece Monica had been considering entering a convent in Europe, but her practical aunts recommended that she should be tested while still in America; ‘as tis a young very long and expensive journey to make without we see a solid prospect of her doing well; thats to say being called to a Religious state.’29 In a letter dated 1785, another sister, Teresa Hagan, wrote from Paris that she was not surprised that in the end her niece had remained in America because ‘I did not find by your letter that you give the least hint of a vocation.’ Later in the same letter, she refers to her own vocation and experience of convent life at the Benedictines in Paris: ‘I must tell you Sir that I think if I had been to chouse of all the convents in France, I could not have found any one so much to my great satisfaction as this which I am in. The great union & charity which found in the community I bless almighty God still reigns more & more in our house.’30 Candidates of all ages arrived at the convents: the very young were admitted as ‘convictrices’ or schoolgirls who may have had no intention 27

  ‘Treatise the 5th’, quoted in ‘Spirituality’, Lux-Sterritt, pp. 31–5.  Monica Hagan (1764–1807), RP081; Elizabeth Hagan (1764–1806), RP081. 29   Elizabeth Clare (RP080) and Monica Clare (RP081) Hagan to Fr John Bolton, 11 February 1783. Five letters from the Hagan sisters in Europe are printed in ed. Caroline Bowden, ‘American Connections’, in ed. Carmen M. Mangion, English Convents, vol. 6, pp. 145–52. 30   Teresa Hagan (1760–1816) PB036; to Fr John Bolton, 15 January 1785, volume as above, printed as Letter 3. 28

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of becoming nuns, and older ones as scholars or potential members. If they were considered to be of appropriate age, they went through a few months’ trial before being given a habit and the little veil as a postulant. Before clothing, a candidate was discussed in Chapter when all the choir nuns gave their vote: a simple majority was needed. If accepted, she was then examined by a representative of the convent Visitor. A small number of aspirants were advised to leave before they faced the votes of the community and across the convents a variety of explanations are provided ranging from unsuitability and lack of vocation to infirmity. A few appear to have been rejected on the grounds that they had no dowry, although this was negotiable if the potential novice had special skills. Most rejections appear to be on health grounds: for instance at the Conceptionists in Paris, ‘not being fitt’ or ‘not healthy enough’ was used for quite a few.31 Are we seeing here a face-saving way of ending a convent career for candidates who were unsuitable? Some candidates recognized that monastic life was not for them and withdrew: several aspirants gave reasons such as the religious ‘life was too severe.’32 The Bruges Chronicle reports on one case: ‘This novice’s disposition was not fit for religion, and we may esteem it an especial providence of God for the good of our cloister, that she took this resolution of her self; for it is probable our Convent would not have consented to her Profession.’33 In these cases, conclusions could be discreetly reached by the abbess before formal voting without offence being caused to the candidate or her family. Such concerns were real in convents containing extended family networks and keeping their goodwill through skilled handling of exit strategies might pay dividends in the future. For instance, Christine Charlton left the Bruges Augustinian convent under rather dramatic circumstances and one week after leaving the convent married Captain George Talbot. In fact, their daughter Catherine later

31  Among those leaving the Conceptionists on health grounds were Elizabeth Brothers, 1760, PC011: Frances Brown, 1711, PC012; Elizabeth Charker, 1784, PC017; Elizabeth Davis, 1763–64, PC026; Jane Mins, 1768–69, PC077; Ann Silvertop, 1734–35, PC098; see Gillow and Trappes-Lomax, The Diary of the ‘Blue Nuns’, pp. 143, 64, 181, 151, 158, 98. 32   Examples of candidates withdrawing can be found: Bruges Augustinians, Nanny Taunton, 1771–72, BA197; Elizabeth Willeck, 1754, BA220: Franciscans, Helen Gage, 1624, BF095; Aloyzia Lyttleton, 1757, BF154; Sara Major 1683–84, BF156; Dorothy Wall, 1640, BF252; Cecilia Webbe, 1784–86, BF261: Benedictines Cambrai, Margarette Jenison, 1688, CB103; Dorothy Radcliffe, 1662, CB155; Mary Trowlope, 1694, CB194: and Sepulchrines, Mary Alder, 1772, LS002. Others who commented that the monastic life was too hard include Charlotte Eure who left the Paris Augustinian convent in 1708 (PA051) and Mary MacDonald, 1775–77, at the Conceptionists, PC075. 33   Bruges Chronicles, vol. 1, p. 72.

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entered the Benedictines at Ghent before finally professing at the Carmelite convent in Hoogstraten.34 Lack of health was a real concern for a number of reasons. A regime that required constant broken and short nights together with strict dietary limits placed heavy demands on a body. Once a candidate had been professed she was a member until death, whatever happened to her health. Two issues can be identified in conventual texts: first, taking responsibility for nuns confined to the infirmary for many years could be challenging and expensive especially to a small community. Secondly, as we have seen, the Rule pointed out that sickness prevented a nun from following the practice of a full monastic office and might lead to a lowering of standards in a convent if too many exceptions had to be made to accommodate ill-health. Jane Frances Sanders professed at the Conceptionists in Paris, but seems to have spent long periods of time away from her convent because of her health: she finally returned to die in her convent after an absence of twelve years.35 There were a few others who appear to have drifted away from the convent. For instance, when the candidate needed to return to their family home to collect money owed for the dowry or to settle the estate before proceeding to the next stage, they had every intention of returning, but other events interfered with their good intentions.36 In one case, a candidate, Margaret Turberville left the Sepulchrines before profession, returned to England but changed her mind 23 years later in 1689 and professed at Liège aged 45.37 Records of rejections by Chapter meetings are difficult to pin down, since surviving records tend to be formulaic reports of the election of successful candidates.38 However, there are enough appearances in Chronicles to see that voting could be used as a means to remove the few candidates held to be a potential threat to good order who did not make their own decision 34   Christine Charlton 1676–77, AD015: her daughter Catherine Talbot (1720–50), HC061: see Bruges Chronicles, vol. 1, pp. 126–7. 35   Jane Frances Sanders (1679–1717), PC094; Gillow and Trappes-Lomax, The Diary of the ‘Blue Nuns’, p. 63. 36  See for instance the case of Catherine Burlacy, 1672–73, RP040, in ‘History Writing’, ed. Caroline Bowden, English Convents, vol. 1, pp. 134–5; and Mary Shamon (cl. 1675), LA225, agreed terms, but changed her mind and left the Augustinians at Louvain. 37  Margaret Turberville (1687–1717), LS231. 38  See, for instance, the Augustinian Chapter Book from Paris which routinely records acceptance of candidates between 1700 and 1720 and thereafter sporadically: Augustinian Chapter Book, in Archives of the Archdiocese of Westminster and ed. Caroline Bowden, ‘Governance, Leadership and Authority’ in ed. James E. Kelly, English Convents, vol. 5, pp. 355–72. A letter from Mary Caryll to John Caryll, 25 January 1700 reports the unexpected rejection of their niece Barbara just before her clothing: British Library Add MS 35,221, f. 113. I am grateful to Laurence Lux-Sterritt for this reference.

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to withdraw.39 Convent records differentiate between those occasions where there was genuine regret that a candidate had not succeeded, and others where there was relief in the community. Mrs Critchley in Paris was one of those regretted, being described as being ‘charitably dismissed’ at the Conceptionists in 1707. It was reported that when Barbara Diconson left the Augustinian convent in Paris in February 1756, she was much regretted because she had been such a fine postulant.40 On the other hand, in the archives at Mechelen are letters relating some problems in the novitiate at Brussels while Mary Percy was abbess: for instance, senior members of the convent wrote to the archbishop requesting permission to dismiss Sister Benoit, aged 70, because of her behaviour ‘which is annoying and unsettled, her nature which is stubborn and her little attachment to any virtue needed for the religious life’.41 The Examinations before clothing and profession followed the same pattern across all convents (English and local) as required by the Council of Trent, in order to test that all candidates entered of their own free will. A representative of the bishop visited the convent to administer the examination: a formally structured questionnaire consisting of between 14 and 16 questions with space for the candidate to write her answers. Full versions have survived from a number of English convents: these or an abbreviated record were kept by the episcopal authorities. Questions were asked about age, parents, health, dowry and whether any pre-existing contract to marry existed. The test of the candidate’s commitment to the religious life came in answering questions about understanding the meaning of the promises made, whether she entered of her own free will, whether any pressure had been placed on her to enter. It is important to raise questions regarding how far the examination process was truly able to discern individual commitment to the religious life. Candidates passed to the examination after they had been accepted by Chapter so there were unlikely to be negative responses in existence: the examinations were a structured process at the end of two periods of 39   It was recorded in 1690 that Elisabeth Heath (BA100) was clothed for a lay sister, ‘tho’ she was not very well liked; but she promised and we hoped for great amendment’. When it came to the election she failed to gain enough votes to make her profession and left: Bruges Chronicles, vol. 1, pp. 149, 157. See also Lady Barbara Campbell (1643–88), BB033: Frances Timperley (1661), PC117: for other examples of changing convents, see note 000. 40   Gillow and Trappes-Lomax, The Diary of the ‘Blue Nuns’, p. 58. Barbara Diconson clothed September 1754, left February 1756, PA045; Augustinians Paris, Journal vol. II, Archives Archdiocese Westminster, part unfoliated. 41  Sister Benoit (cl. 1627), BB202, in letter from Abbess Mary Percy to Jacob Boonen 2 July 1630, in ed. Caroline Bowden, ‘Governance, Leadership and Authority’ in ‘Convent Management’, ed. Kelly, p. 406: see also Mary Hall ‘put out of the habit’, 1664, PC042; Gillow and Trappes-Lomax, The Diary of the ‘Blue Nuns’, p. 16.

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formation under the Novice Mistress. In order to test the questionnaires’ validity we should examine other evidence of motivation. Obituary notices record a majority of exemplary religious lives, suggesting highly motivated individuals following the religious life fully. Finding personal expressions relating to the decision to join a convent is more difficult, although, as we have seen, there are letters and other documents which provide insights into the process of joining. Prioress Lucy Herbert at Bruges wrote in January 1724 to the aunt of one of her postulants (Mary Huddleston) commenting; ‘I find her constant without the least wavering from the first declareing of her inclinations; & her behaviour being allso correspondent with it; which has not only gained my affections but those of our whole familie.’ The rest of the letter provided details of the practical arrangements needed before clothing.42 How much evidence is there of reluctant candidates or parental pressure in the English convents? Clearly examples can be found, but they are few and far between, and if candidates found they were not suited, as we have seen, they were able to extricate themselves before profession.43 Dorothy Radcliffe entered the Benedictine convent at Cambrai where two of her sisters had professed in 1655. She came from a family with many nuns and therefore connections to the convents, but had decided she wanted to leave. Writing to her father in 1662, she admitted: ‘The truth is I came not upon my true vocation to religion or my owne inclination to that course, but rather by the suggestion of others.’44 Her explanation in this letter to her father is a thoughtful and realistic appraisal of her state of mind, suggesting that inside convents, conversations were taking place regarding the intentions and attitudes of candidates. Dorothy was allowed to withdraw and she later married. William Blundell of Lancashire had five daughters in convents and tried to persuade two others, although unwilling, to join.45 According to Geoff Baker, he saw it ‘both a source of

42   Cambridgeshire Record Office, Huddleston Correspondence 488/C1/MF8, Prioress Lucy Herbert (1693–1744), BA101; about Mary Huddleston (1725–57), BA114, to Lady Mary Fortescue. 43   Several candidates withdrew for a time and returned to their first choice to profess: see, for instance, Elizabeth Stapleton (1789–99), PA157; Margarite Franck (1630–47), BF094; Dorothy Moore (1722–26), CB133; and Alathea Widdrington (1726–75), CB202. 44  Letters from Dorothy Radcliffe to her father in Radcliffe/Derwentwater Papers, Ushaw College, Durham, UC/P 30, 65a and b. Interestingly, Dorothy Radcliffe’s name does not appear in the Cambrai records. 45  Margarett Blundell (1693–1709), GP040; Winefride Blundell (1709–43), GB022; Frances Blundell (1708app.–1711), GB021; Ann Blundell (1702–19), GP038; Mary Blundell (1690–1719), GP042; Geoff Baker, Reading and Politics in Early Modern England: The Mental World of a Seventeenth-century Catholic Gentleman, (Manchester, 2010), pp. 82–3.

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prestige and a spiritual necessity.’46 Another case illustrates how difficult it is to pin down circumstances regarding parental influence on professions. Lucy Fortescue professed with the English Franciscans in 1649 as a choir nun aged 17, and was a founding member of the Conceptionists in Paris in 1658.47 We know little about her life as a Franciscan, but the Diary of the Conceptionists gives details of two occasions when she obtained permission to go to England on visits lasting several months; the second time was on her own business. For an enclosed nun to undertake these lengthy absences is surprising, particularly since she had been chosen procuratrix in January 1661.48 By 1663, the Diary refers to her being very discontented, claiming that she had been forced into religion by her mother, and that she professed under age. Sister Lucy obtained permission to return to England a third time, ostensibly to collect a bequest by her father owed to the convent for her portion. On her return, she refused to re-enter the enclosure unless she was granted freedom of movement, a concession the Abbess considered she was unable to grant. As a result, Sister Lucy decided to leave. The tone of the Diary hints that the claim regarding her mother’s undue influence had only recently been made, possibly as a result of Lucy Fortescue’s discontented state. Whatever the truth of her claim, the incident indicates that the use of undue pressure was an issue taken seriously by convent authorities: much more frequent in their appearance in documents are examples of families where parents supported their daughters. A few cases are more ambiguous with family members intervening before profession to remove a candidate without the attitude of either parent or aspirant being clearly explained in the sources.49 Qualities of convent leadership were identified in different ways; of particular relevance to this chapter is the ability of the abbess or prioress to attract recruits in order to secure the long-term future and maintain high standards in the practice of the religious life, while persuading weak candidates to withdraw. At the same time, it was considered that superiors ought not be influenced by the size of a dowry when deciding whether 46

 See the discussion in ‘History Writing’, Bowden, p. xix.   Lucy Fortescue (1649–?) BF093; Franciscan MS Annals 11–14, Microfilms 6610 and 6611, Archives Générales du Royaume, (AGR) Brussels; Gillow and Trappes-Lomax, The Diary of the ‘Blue Nuns’, pp. 14–15. Another example where claims of force being used were made was for Apollonia Widdrington (1701–1718), PA192; at the Augustinians Paris, although she denied this and the matter was said to have been resolved: Chapter Book 37, 39, 40, Archives Archdiocese of Westminster. 48   The procuratrix was responsible for organizing financial matters and housekeeping in the convent. 49  See, for example the cases of Elizabeth Joseph Willeck, BA220, fetched by her brother in 1754 and Miss Parish, AD014, a convert who was collected by her uncle from the Augustinians in Bruges in 1786; Bruges Chronicles, vol. 2, pp. 121–3, 290–93. 47

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to admit or reject a candidate, regardless of the state of the finances of the house. For instance, it was written of Clementia Cary of the Paris Benedictines that she was ‘so firme in the maintaning of this intern and contemplative spirit that she would not varye from our constitutions by admitting any to religion that had not a true propention for it though likely to conduce never so much to the temporall good of the monastery’.50 In the same convent, Prioress Justina Gascoigne was pressed to take a candidate with a dowry of £500 and additional benefactions. Having made a sufficient trial, she found her not fit and returned the £500. The same candidate tried out unsuccessfully at another convent (unspecified) and the source comments they did not give back the £500.51 In practice, in times of economic hardship or with a lack of recruits, it must been difficult for superiors to follow this advice to the letter. There was a small number of women who found themselves unable to settle in their original convent of choice before and after profession. They too should be considered ‘early leavers’, raising similar questions about selection and community formation. For each of these nuns, special permission would first have to be obtained from the bishop for her to leave one convent and to transfer her membership to another and terms agreed between the two cloisters before any move could take place. It is not always clear from the documents what the explanations for the move were, but they were difficult to arrange and could take several years to effect.52 A few candidates transferred to other Orders before settling. It seems that the un-named applicant received by the Sepulchrines at Liège in April 1715 and accepted as a lay sister with exemptions ‘not to be put to the cows, the first in the kitchen, the brewing & bake house nor to have any great burden in the washing’, and with a note appended ‘this person went to Hooghstrat to be a quire sister’, was probably Jane Frazier, the daughter of two Protestants. She later professed with the Carmelites in August 1717 with a dowry of £20 per annum.53 Her early death in 1721, aged 36, suggests health concerns which might explain the agreed exemptions. Her change in status from lay sister to choir nun is unusual: 50   Clementia Cary (1640–71), CB027. According to her obituary, she refused to accept the leadership role but remained influential in the convent. 51   Justina Gascoigne (1640–90) Prioress 1665–1690, CB075; J.S. Hansom, ‘English Benedictine nuns of Paris, now at Colwich, Staffs: notes and obituaries’, Miscellanea VII, CRS, 9, (London, 1911), p. 342, pp. 356–7. 52  See, for example, the cases of Melchiora Campbell (1643–88), BB033, who left the Benedictine convent in Brussels for ten years before returning; Magdalen Street (1666–1700), BB170, who was given permission to leave her convent for health reasons; and Mary Havers (1681–1733), BA099, granted permission to leave the Augustinians at Bruges in 1710 to go to a Dutch convent in Brussels: she returned to her old cloister in 1712. 53   Chapter Book, Canonesses of the Holy Sepulchre, Colchester, unfoliated.

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the lack of a capital sum for dowry as a choir nun was acceptable to the Carmelites but not the Sepulchrines. The case of Gertrude Aston,54 whose father was 2nd lord Aston and whose mother was the daughter of Lord Weston, earl of Portland, illustrates how well-connected families were able to look after their daughters even though they were not ideal conventual candidates. She first entered the Sepulchrines in Liège in 1658, but was not happy and also couldn’t learn Latin. She lived for a time with her aunt, who boarded with the Augustinians at Louvain, then returned to England having given up on the religious life. However, teaching from a Carmelite Father transformed her intentions. As a result, Gertrude Aston decided to return to Flanders and entered the Carmelite convent at Lierre in 1671, where she remained for the rest of her life, spending most of her time making sandals for the community. The detail of the events appear in her ‘life’, written by the Lierre nuns. Margaret Mostyn (Mrs Fettiplace)55 had more changes than most and the start of her convent career was not encouraging. She entered the Rouen Poor Clares in 1691 as a widow in her early thirties. Their Chronicle records that she found it difficult to settle, delayed taking the habit, constantly asked for dispensations and could hardly be brought to frequent Mass. She left after only a few months in March 1692. In December that year, she tried the Benedictines at Dunkirk for a few months, before finally professing at the Carmelite convent in Lierre in 1694, where she had an aunt and two sisters and eventually became prioress.56 It seems that she finally found a convent that suited her, where she earned the respect of her community. We can learn much about community formation and governance by looking at the experience of the early leavers, the circumstances surrounding their candidacies and the way their leaving was handled. The existence of candidates who failed to take solemn vows, or who left after profession, is an indication that we are looking at institutions which 54   Gertrude Aston entered Liège in 1658, aged 21; (1672–1682 at Lierre), LS008: See Nicky Hallett, Lives of Spirit, (Aldershot, 2007), pp. 211–13. 55  Margaret Mostyn (1694–1743), Prioress Lierre 1740–43, LC065. Others who changed convents include Elizabeth Browne (1707–45), OB014, who having left her own convent in Rouen, tried first the Augustinians at Bruges, then the Benedictines in Brussels and finally the Benedictines at Pontoise where she remained for twenty years; Trevor Hanmer (1667–70), GP303; her sister-in-law Elizabeth Warner (1667–81), GP302, and daughters Catherine (1680–96), DB180, and Susan Warner (1686–1711), DB179, all changed convents. Frances Timperley entered the Benedictines at Cambrai in 1654 and moved to the Conceptionists (1661 deathbed profession), PC117. 56   A History of the Benedictine Nuns of Dunkirk, ed. by the community (London, n.d.), pp. 38–9; Hallett, Lives of Spirit, pp. 191–2: ‘History Writing’, Bowden, p. 161: Anne Hardman, English Carmelites in Penal Times (London, 1936), pp. 86–7. The Dunkirk History, p. 38, explains that her deafness was brought on by walking barefoot.

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were in effect managing the membership of their own communities. The formation, testing and rejection of unsuitable candidates were dependent, as we have seen, on discussion and collective responsibility, but ultimately on the authority of the abbess. Selecting members able to meet the rigorous demands of the religious life was crucial to the reputation and success of the English convents in exile. Surviving texts show that abbesses and their advisers recognized that disputes damaged communities on many levels and took steps to create harmonious communities able to focus on their core activities. By studying the early leavers, we gain a better understanding of convent management. Senior members, through a careful process of weeding out candidates unlikely to be able to contribute positively (as seen in the quotation at the head of the chapter) were consciously seeking to manage a selection process and find committed candidates. While the focus of this chapter has been on those who found themselves unable to fit into life in the cloister of their original choice or into the religious life at all, and thus on negative beginnings, by considering a range of texts, the overall impact of the selection process ultimately leaves positive conclusions.

Part II Culture: Authorship and Authority

Chapter 4

The Literary Lives of Nuns: Crafting Identities Through Exile Jenna D. Lay Our identity is at once plural and partial. Sometimes we feel that we straddle two cultures; at other times, that we fall between two stools. But however ambiguous and shifting this ground may be, it is not an infertile territory for a writer to occupy. Salman Rushdie, ‘Imaginary Homelands’

Thomas Robinson’s The Anatomy of the English Nunnery at Lisbon, first published in 1622 and reprinted throughout the seventeenth century, was one of the most well-known anti-Catholic pamphlets in early modern England, and it remains a popular touchstone for both historians and literary critics. Contemporary readers included the playwright Thomas Middleton, who incorporated Robinson’s depiction of Jesuits trafficking in seduced young women into the pawn’s plot of A Game at Chess, as well as Robinson’s fellow pamphleteers, many of whom referenced his book as an authoritative source on the inner workings of an English convent displaced to continental Europe.1 Today, The Anatomy is most frequently cited in one of two ways: first, as a representative example of Protestant propaganda – to the extent that almost any scholar writing on Syon Abbey in the seventeenth century now seems compelled to invoke Robinson in order to deny the historical merits of his claims – and secondly, as the source of a glancing critique of one of Shakespeare’s narrative poems.2 For 1   Books that cited Robinson include John Gee’s New Shreds of the Old Snare (1624), Peter Heylyn’s Mikrokosmos (1625), William Vaughan’s Golden Fleece (1626), Lewis Owen’s The Running Register (1626) and The Unmasking of All Popish Monks, Friers, and Jesuits (1628), William Prynne’s Philanax Protestant (1663), and John Williams’s A Vindication Of The History Of The Gunpowder-Treason (1681). 2   For an excellent example of the former, see Frances E. Dolan’s analysis of Robinson’s denial of nuns’ agency in ‘Why Are Nuns Funny?’, Huntington Library Quarterly, 70.4 (2007): pp. 509–35, especially pp. 526–8. Nancy Bradley Warren offers sensitive readings of Robinson’s rhetorical and political strategies in Women of God and Arms: Female Spirituality and Political Conflict, 1380–1600 (Philadelphia, PA, 2005), pp. 164–7 and The Embodied Word: Female Spiritualities, Contested Orthodoxies, and English Religious Cultures, 1350–1700 (Notre Dame, IN, 2010), pp. 224–30. In a recent collection on the pre- and post-Reformation

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Robinson was not content simply to rehash the conventions of monastic satire; instead, he skilfully deployed details of person, place and incident, including the claim that the convent’s confessor, Fr Seth Foster, read Venus and Adonis, the Jests of George Peele, and other similarly ‘scurrilous’ material to the nuns.3 Though it is famous as a reference to Shakespeare, this description of the priest’s reading material captures the thrust of Robinson’s repeated accusations against Fr Foster as a seducer of England’s Catholic daughters. In Robinson’s depiction, Foster manipulates the women in his charge by means of his control over the convent’s book culture, exposing them to corrupting (and corrupted) texts in order to ‘more freely enjoy the scope of his lascivious and sacrilegious desire’ (14). This portrait of ‘silly seduced women’ at the mercy of a religious hierarchy that denies them access to the Word is only one example of many in post-Reformation English literature (14).4 The perception of female monasticism that these representations helped to foster has proven tenacious in the centuries since, and even the most reluctant citations of Robinson suggest that modern scholars feel unable to ignore his book’s description of the convent in Lisbon, unreliable and hyperbolic though it may be. This continued dependence on The Anatomy reveals that historians and literary critics are in a position similar to that of Robinson’s earliest readers: in the absence of first-hand evidence, we rely on representation to lessen geographical and historical distance. But why do we so frequently rely on authors such as Robinson to represent women who were perfectly capable of representing themselves? This chapter will attempt to answer that question, first by identifying how Robinson’s rhetorical and representational strategies efface female contributions to monastic book culture, and then by examining the strategies used by members of the history of Syon Abbey, both Claire Walker and Caroline Bowden effectively call into question Robinson’s ‘veracity’: Walker, ‘Continuity and Isolation: The Bridgettines of Syon in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’, p. 166, and Bowden, ‘Books and Reading at Syon Abbey, Lisbon, in the Seventeenth Century’, p. 185, in E.A. Jones and Alexandra Walsham (eds), Syon Abbey and its Books: Reading, Writing and Religion c. 1400–1700 (Woodbridge, 2010). 3   Thomas Robinson, The Anatomy of the English Nunnery at Lisbon (London, 1622), p. 17. Future citations of The Anatomy will appear parenthetically. Both Stephen Orgel and Sasha Roberts cite this passage when examining early responses to Shakespeare’s narrative poems: Orgel, ‘Mr. Who He?’, London Review of Books, 8 August 2002, rpt. in Michael Schoenfeldt (ed.), A Companion to Shakespeare’s Sonnets (Oxford, 2007), pp. 137–44; Roberts, Reading Shakespeare’s Poems in Early Modern England (Houndmills, 2003), p. 79, and ‘Shakespeare “creepes into the womens closets about bedtime”: Women Reading in a Room of Their Own’, in Gordon McMullan (ed.), Renaissance Configurations: Voices/ Bodies/Spaces, 1580–1690 (Houndsmills, 2001), pp. 30–63. 4   For further examples of this trope, see Frances E. Dolan, Whores of Babylon: Catholicism, Gender, and Seventeenth-Century Print Culture (Ithaca, NY, 1999).

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convent to refute his claims in a manuscript response written in the months following his pamphlet’s first printing. The relationship between these two texts reveals the necessity of reading early modern polemic not only with an eye for historical detail, but also with an ear for literary tropes and techniques, which enable a more flexible understanding of the rhetorical construction of communal textual identities and offer a corrective to the idea that Catholic women – and nuns in particular – were victims of, rather than participants in and shapers of, early modern book culture. The first edition of Robinson’s pamphlet reveals that literature and representation are at the heart of his polemical project. The epigraph on the title page, replaced in all four subsequent printings with a woodcut and explanatory poem, reads ‘Virg. Lib.I. Æneid. – – Cæcumq’ domus scelus omne retexit’. This line, translated ‘uncovering all the dark crime of the house’, appears in Venus’s narrative of Dido’s past – her marriage to Sychaeus, to whom her ‘her father had given her, / A virgin still’, his death ‘sacrilegiously’ committed ‘before the altars’ by her brother Pygmalion, Pygmalion’s ‘cozening’ and ‘deluding the sick woman with false hope’, and the dream in which Sychaeus reveals the nature of his death to his grieving wife: But the true form of her unburied husband Came in a dream: lifting his pallid face Before her strangely, he made visible The cruel altars and his body pierced, Uncovering all the dark crime of the house. He urged her then to make haste and take flight, Leaving her fatherland.5

Dido stands in for the reader of Robinson’s pamphlet, accepting a revelation of wickedness performed at the altar of God. But she also evokes the nuns whose ruin he purports to reveal, both in the transformation Venus describes – she is a figure of chastity and exile whose life has been destroyed by a wicked man – and through her position in the early modern imaginary as an enigmatic figure of female constancy and sexual frailty. The seventeenth century inherited two competing narratives surrounding Dido, both of which include the story outlined above. In the non-Virgilian histories, Dido, the founder of Carthage, kills herself rather than remarry after her husband’s death. In Virgil’s account, Aeneas arrives while the walls of Carthage are being built, Dido is seduced by him and his story of Troy, and she kills herself after Aeneas abandons her in favour of his

5

 Virgil, The Aeneid, trans. Robert Fitzgerald (London, 1984), p. 16.

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own imperial journey.6 Robinson’s title page suggests that the nuns at this convent in Lisbon are Dido’s daughters,7 and it does so through an allusion that treats the founder of Carthage as the pitiful victim of male transgression. I would nevertheless suggest that such an allusion cannot completely elide the Dido who awakes from this dream vision – ‘captaining the venture’ to Carthage ‘was a woman’ who became a powerful agent of imperial conquest – and that this is one possible explanation for the disappearance of the epigraph in future printings of The Anatomy.8 The Virgil epigraph, allusive and elusive, frames a text that purports to offer a ‘plain’ discourse of Robinson’s ‘owne experience’ as eyewitness (‘oculatus testis’) to the convent’s hypocrisy and sin (A3r, A4v). His account is a striking blend of the quotidian (the nuns’ travels on the continent, the songs they sing, the food available in the convent) and the grotesque (violated confessional rooms, nuns with the clap, dead babies in the walls), constructed around the nuns’ supposed violation of their vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Robinson claims that he collected this information after being ‘inticed ... to abide with [Fr Foster] in the house’, where he was employed ‘dayly in copying out certaine Treatises of Obedience, which [Fr Foster] had composed for the Nunnes’ (1). Robinson points to this scribal position as the source for his detailed information about the convent’s history and its inhabitants: ‘I continued in writing over divers bookes for them, and amongst the rest, the Register of their House, whereby I came to some understanding of their estate, beginning and successe untill this present, which for the satisfaction of the Reader, I thought good to set downe as briefely as I could’ (2). Robinson’s self-representation as a writer bookends The Anatomy, which concludes with his ultimate removal from the convent, precipitated by Foster’s discovery of ‘a blotted Copy of [Robinson’s] Articles’ enumerating his principal allegations against confessor and convent – a rough draft, it seems, for the pamphlet itself (29). 6  Margaret Ferguson offers an illuminating summary of these narratives in Dido’s Daughters: Literacy, Gender, and Empire in Early Modern England and France (Chicago, IL, 2003), pp. 19–20. 7   I borrow this phrase from Ferguson, who suggests that ‘Dido’s fate as a maker, receiver, and subject of narrative turns out to be intricately tied up with debates about the history and legitimacy of the Roman empire … . She became a focus for enduring debate about history and fiction, about licit and illicit sexual behavior, about masculine and feminine social roles, and about the dangers of speaking and listening to strangers’ (1). The same could be said of the post-Reformation English nun, with ‘church’ substituted for ‘empire’. 8   The woodcut, by contrast, depicts a fairly literal interpretation of the pamphlet’s titular metaphor of dissection and display: various scenes at the convent culminate in an image of Robinson pulling back the curtain on the priest’s bedchamber. The poem describes the woodcut in detail, with an emphasis on female passivity: ‘a Nun doth kneele’, ‘Friers have power silly Nuns to charme’, ‘they collude, / And doe poore silly Novices delude’. Both woodcut and poem are reproduced in Warren, The Embodied Word, pp. 226–7.

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Robinson’s development as a writer is closely related to the books he encounters in the convent, and he crafts an authorial persona of an active and engaged reader whose familiarity with book culture allows him to interrogate priestly authority. As copyist and compiler of Foster’s authorial works, he claims to inscribe the misdeeds that Foster incarnates through the physical corruption of textual materials. Robinson’s detailed description of the process of book production at the convent is worth quoting at length: Having made these bookes of Obedience, he caused mee to write them out faire, omitting in many places a Leafe, and in some two or three together, which contained any false doctrine and unallowable perswasions to draw them to obedience in unlawfull things; and being finished in this sort, he bringeth them to Father Newman to be signed with his approbation and testimonie, that there was nothing in them repugnant to the Catholique faith; which beeing done, hee then interserteth and soweth in the aforesaid omitted Leaves, and so delivereth them to his daughters to be practised, who take the approbation at the end of the booke for a sufficient warrantie of all the doctrine therein contained. And this is a principall furtherance to his sacrilegious lusts: for I am verily perswaded that not one amongst them will (for feare of being disobedient) refuse to come to his bed whensoever he commands them. (18–19)

In this anomalously sympathetic account, neither the doctrines of obedience, the Catholic hierarchy that approves them, nor the nuns with ‘feare of being disobedient’ are fundamentally in error. Instead, Robinson treats Foster as the source for a ‘false doctrine’ of obedience that is able to flourish because the priest alone controls Syon’s book production. As a result, the corruption of the book, accomplished through the insertion of leaves and sowing of false doctrine, leads directly to the corruption of the nuns’ bodies: deviant textuality anticipates and prefigures deviant sexuality. Robinson’s legacy thus lies not only in his fascination with nuns’ sexuality but also in his more mundane description of nuns’ passive relationships with their books. Women are the victims of the monastic book culture Robinson describes – a culture marked by illicit reading materials, access to ‘idle Pamphlets printed in England’ (which Robinson claims make their way to the convent by means of ‘Father Newman an English Priest, who hath an office in the Inquisition house to peruse all English books that are brought into Lisbon’), and books materially altered to include false doctrine (17). Male superiors limit female access to the textual community of which they are a part, allowing the nuns only circumscribed forms of engagement with the written word. They are not allowed to write uncensored letters to their families in England; instead, Foster ‘will make them to Article one against the other in writing’ (15).

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Robinson summarizes one such document, the content of which matches its function as a tool for the disruption of female community: It was my chance one day to finde a paper of these Articles in a walke in the Friers Garden, which had unawares fallen from him; being drawne by one Sister Anne, alias Josepha Bingham, against Sister Suzan Bacon: Wherein the said Sister Susan stood accused, for blaming her ghostly Father, and the Abbesse and Prioresse of partialitie to some of their children more then to others. (15)

The very thing Sister Susan verbally complains about – a social system marked by favouritism and division – is re-inscribed through Sister Anne’s written document, which suggests her own favoured position in the eyes of the convent’s hierarchy. Female monastic writing is here just another sign of Foster’s dominance, and the absence of truly female-authored texts in the convent serves as Robinson’s justification for his own textual intervention: he writes for the nuns … in whose behalfe I am bound to intreat their friends to enter into a further search of their miserable estate and condition … themselves not being able to send any word thereof, because all their Letters must bee given to him to be sent into England; which if they contain any thing contrary to his mind, shal never be sent; for hee will peruse them all. (30)

Robinson presents himself as the benign protector of seduced women and an alternative to Foster’s corrupt textual patriarchy. His printed book will serve as the material proxy for the nuns’ letters – unwritten, unsent, and unread. The content of Robinson’s pamphlet serves as a gloss on its epigraph, erasing female agency not only from contemporary monastic practice and book culture, but also from the history of literary constructions of national identity. Like Dido, imagined by Virgil as a brief diversion from someone else’s imperial destiny, nuns are relegated to the margins of English history. The subjects of Robinson’s pamphlet – the Bridgettine nuns of Lisbon, formerly of Syon Abbey in England – could trace the history of their foundation to Henry V. Theirs was the only English convent that survived the dissolution: a group of the Syon nuns fled to the continent under Henry VIII, returned briefly at the invitation of Mary, and eventually settled in Lisbon in 1594, after years of wandering through the Low Countries and France.9 Their Order thus served as a material link to England’s Catholic past.10 Robinson established this context in the opening pages of The Anatomy:  9

 Walker offers a concise summary of their travels in ‘Continuity and Isolation’, p. 157.   For information on Syon Abbey in England, see David Knowles, Bare Ruined Choirs: The Dissolution of the English Monasteries (Cambridge, 1976), pp. 96–103; David N. Bell, 10

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The Nuns thereof doe challenge (and indeed truely) a succession from the Abbey of Sion in England, now belonging unto the Earle of Northumberland, which house, together with another Monasterie of Carthusian Monkes, called Shyne, beeing both scituated upon the Thames, were erected and built by King Henry the 5. at his returne from his famous Conquest in France. (2)

Robinson simultaneously acknowledges and dismisses the nuns’ link to England: what was once Syon Abbey is now Northumberland’s house. Other pamphleteers followed suit, making the transition from the ‘late dissolved Abbey of Sion’ to the Earl of Northumberland’s ‘very faire house’ a synecdoche for the Reformation as a whole.11 Nuns, in these formulations, belong only in England’s past; they are a brief diversion from the nation’s Protestant destiny. Despite Robinson’s claims in The Anatomy, the nuns of Syon were actively involved in the production of religious and political discourse. The manuscripts and printed books written by and about the Syon nuns after the Reformation reveal the convent’s contemporary engagements with England’s religious politics. When, for example, the dangers of life on the continent led one group of young nuns to journey back into England during the 1570s, a number of manuscripts recorded their efforts to secure patronage for the convent. Elizabeth Sander wrote of the substance of their time in England in letters to Sir Francis Englefield, a Catholic exile on the continent and patron of Syon.12 Her descriptions of the difficulties endured by English Catholics – including an account of her repeated imprisonments – were ultimately translated into Spanish and printed in Robert Persons’ 1590 Relacion de Algunos Martyrios and Diego de Yepes’ 1599 Historia Particular de la Persecucion de Inglaterra.13 Sander’s letters became, in these printed editions, material evidence in a lengthy case against English What Nuns Read: Books and Libraries in Medieval English Nunneries (Kalamazoo, MI, 1995); Christopher De Hamel ‘The Library: the Medieval Manuscripts of Syon Abbey, and their Dispersal’, in Christopher De Hamel (ed.), Syon Abbey: the library of the Bridgettine nuns and their peregrinations after the Reformation (Otley, 1991); the special edition of Analecta Cartusiana 35:19 edited by James Hogg: ‘Studies in St. Birgitta and the Brigittine Order’, vol. 2 (1993); and the recent volume edited by Jones and Walsham. For a fascinating early account of Syon’s history, see John Rory Fletcher, The Story of the English Bridgettines of Syon Abbey (Devon, 1933). 11  Lewis Owen, The Running Register: Recording a True Relation for the State of the English Colledges, Seminaries and Cloysters in all forraine parts (London, 1626), p. 105. 12   For an analysis of the letters and their circulation history, see Betty S. Travitsky, ‘The Puzzling Letters of Sister Elizabeth Sa[u]nder[s]’, in Zachary Lesser and Benedict S. Robinson (eds), Textual Conversations in the Renaissance: Ethics, Authors, Technologies (Aldershot, 2006), pp. 131–45. 13  Robert Persons, Relacion de Algunos Martyrios, que do nuevo han hecho los hereges en Inglaterra, y de otras cosas tocantes a neustra santa y Catolica Religion (Madrid, 1590),

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Protestants. Their Spanish print publication suggests that Persons, Yepes and Joseph Creswell – the compilers of these volumes – were hoping to encourage popular support for the English exiles who had begun erecting seminaries in Spain. Both books also included brief histories of Syon and city-by-city descriptions of the nuns’ exile.14 A more detailed history of the Order was printed in 1594, on the occasion of their arrival in Lisbon: Persons wrote the preface for the Relacion que embiaron las Religiosas del Monesterio de Sion de Inglaterra, but the history itself was signed by ‘las Monjas de Sion’.15 The nuns of Syon, in other words, were the named authors of texts printed in support of their order’s continued survival. Life in a post-Reformation English convent located in Spanish territory did not preclude female participation in either book culture or political discourse centred on questions of national and religious identity.16 Instead, it provided a motive for such engagement. In exile on the continent, the nuns maintained Syon’s pre-Reformation textual practice – including a reading library of print and manuscript books that facilitated strategic print publication – in support of the composition of explicitly political texts in both print and manuscript.17 In the early 1620s, they created an illuminated manuscript as a gift for King Philip III of Spain, which was simultaneously a more direct intervention into Spanish/English relations than the nuns had previously attempted and an explicit bid for economic support.18 Written in Spanish and accompanied by miniatures illustrating the nuns’ history, the text of the manuscript includes a petition to the Infanta Maria of Spain, an account of the foundation fols 42r–61v. Diego de Yepes, Historia Particular de la Persecucion de Inglaterra (Madrid, 1599), pp. 724–37. 14  Ann M. Hutchison offers a detailed account of the content of these volumes and their publication history in ‘Syon Abbey Preserved: Some Historians of Syon’, in Syon Abbey and its Books, pp. 228–51. 15   Carlos Dractan, trans., Relacion que embiaron las Religiosas del Monesterio de Sion de Inglaterra (Madrid, 1594), fol. 58v. This final page of the book indicates that the relation was completed in Lisbon on 30 July 1594. 16   Christopher Highley examines the nuns’ strategies for maintaining ‘their unique institutional and national identity’, but with a focus on ‘the dangers of hispaniolization’ in Catholics Writing the Nation in Early Modern Britain and Ireland (Oxford, 2008), pp. 182–3. 17   Bowden points out that ‘the Bridgettines, like the other members of the English convents in exile, can be seen from evidence in manuscripts and from the books themselves as buyers, recipients of donations, librarians, readers, annotators, performers of texts, listeners, donors, translators, compilers and editors, authors, patrons, dedicatees, subjects, repairers and copyists of the books in their collection’: ‘Books and Reading’, p. 180. 18   The manuscript history is transcribed and translated in De Hamel (ed.), Syon Abbey, which also includes facsimile copies of the manuscript’s illuminations. See also Elizabeth Perry, ‘Petitioning for Patronage: An Illuminated Tale of Exile from Syon Abbey, Lisbon’, in this volume.

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of Syon Abbey, and a detailed description of the Bridgettines’ exile from England.19 At the height of speculation over the Spanish Match,20 the nuns of Syon attempted to support and participate in the marriage negotiations, in the hopes that the Infanta Maria would become ‘Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales’, as she was hailed in the petition.21 The nuns thus confirmed the worst fears of Protestant propagandists, who warned that the Spanish Match would lead not only to the restoration of Catholicism but also to Spanish rule over England. The manuscript expresses the hope that ‘this marriage of Your Highness [has] opened the door for our holy Catholic faith to enter England’.22 This very scenario – the Infanta Maria as a catalyst for the restoration of Catholicism in England – was cause for concern in Thomas Scott’s Vox Populi, a pamphlet written against the prospective marriage. Scott imagined that English Catholics ‘hoped hereby at least for a moderation of fynes and lawes, perhaps a tolleration, and perhaps a total restauration of their religion in England … So that by this marriage it might be so wrought, that the state should rather be robd and weakened’.23 Robinson’s attack on Syon in 1622 may thus be read as part of the larger Protestant effort to undermine the Catholic supporters of the Spanish Match.24 Rather than a ‘plain’ discourse of Robinson’s ‘owne experience’, The Anatomy is a text with specific motivations, including the erasure of any form of political efficacy or engagement on the part of the convent’s female inhabitants (A3r, A4v). As I have demonstrated, The Anatomy of the English Nunnery at Lisbon depicts a monastic book culture controlled by a single masculine 19   For a full account of the manuscript, see the ‘Introduction’ by John Martin Robinson in De Hamel, p. 3ff. 20   In his introduction, John Martin Robinson explains that ‘the relation is a product of the brief moment when an Anglo-Spanish royal match seemed almost certain, during the shortlived rapprochement between the Protestant Stuarts and the Catholic Spanish Hapsburgs in the reign of James I. It can, from the historical evidence, be dated with confidence to the early 1620s, probably to the year 1623’ (3). While this date is plausible for the petition to the Infanta Maria, which refers to her father in the past tense, the same petition twice explains that ‘this account of the pilgrimage’ was ‘presented’ to Philip III, who died early in 1621 (23, 26). Even if the nuns meant that they intended to present the petition to the former king, or had presented an earlier version to him, this suggests that some version of the relation and illuminations were at least in process before his death and before the publication of Robinson’s pamphlet. For English Catholics and the Spanish Match, see Michael C. Questier, Stuart Dynastic Policy and Religious Politics, 1621–1625 (Cambridge, 2009). 21  De Hamel (ed.), Syon Abbey, p. 23. 22   Ibid., p. 24. 23   Thomas Scott, Vox Populi or Newes from Spayne (London, 1620), fol. B2r. 24   Both Highley and Warren offer readings of this kind. Highley, Catholics Writing, pp. 188–98; Warren, Women of God and Arms, pp. 164–7; and Warren, The Embodied Word, pp. 220–32.

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authority, and it suggests that the alternative lies not in the nuns’ own writing – for who could imagine that nuns wrote? – but in the substitution of Protestant pamphleteer for Catholic cleric. Robinson thus erased the long history of the convent’s collective interventions in both print and manuscript, including the 1594 printed Spanish history signed by ‘las Monjas de Sion’ and the early 1620s illuminated manuscript signed by ‘Sister Barbara, Abbess, and other English Sisters of the Order of Saint Bridget’.25 But English Protestants were not the only readers of Robinson’s pamphlet; within seven months of The Anatomy’s appearance in the Stationer’s Register in May 1622, members of the convent received, read, and wrote a rebuttal to it.26 The relatively short interval between the print publication of Robinson’s pamphlet and its arrival at the convent suggests that the Syon community did have ready access to ‘idle Pamphlets printed in England’ as Robinson claimed, but other elements of the manuscript force its reader to question not only the pamphlet’s content but also its undergirding assumptions about individual authorship and monastic authority. In what follows, I will analyse how this unsigned text manipulates authorial voice and the flexibility of anonymity, establishes generic classifications, and adopts literary figures and forms in order to construct a communal textual identity, thus revealing the significance of literary acuity in facilitating the collective interventions of exiled English nuns into religious and political discourse. In opposition to Robinson’s insistent eyewitness ‘I’, the voice of the convent’s response is variable and flexible. The first line of the manuscript declares that ‘about the first of December 1622, Syon had a full notice and syghte of a most slaunderous printed lybell, sett forth by one Thomas Rbinson against them’.27 Even after the destruction of their abbey in England, ‘Syon’ remained the collective appellation for the monastic community based in Lisbon, but this introductory description does not seem to be written in Syon’s collective voice: the community is comprised of ‘them’ rather than us. This first paragraph suggests an anonymous and omniscient narrator and it does so in order to emphasize the impartiality of the response:

25

 De Hamel (ed.), Syon Abbey, p. 26.   Edward Arber, A Transcript of the Registers of the Company of Stationers of London; 1554–1640 A.D., 5 vols (London, 1877), vol. IV, p. 67. Mylbourne is also spelled ‘Milbourne’ and ‘Milborne’. The manuscript response is dated 16 December 1622. 27   British Library, Additional MS 21203 (Papers Relating to the English Jesuits), fols 42–55, fol. 42v; cited parenthetically as ‘Response’. John Rory Fletcher’s early twentiethcentury transcription of the manuscript is printed in James Hogg, ‘Answer to an attack on the nuns of Sion’, Analecta Cartusiana, 244 (2006): pp. 85–121. 26

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… first of all, because the goodnes or the badnes of the author, is not impertinent, that the reader credite or discredite his worke, therfore they are first of all to speak of the author himselfe, and then of his booke or lybell, and not as he doth of them, making himselfe both the accusor and witnes, but as those who proceed judicially, bringing in his owne evydence, and hand wrightinge, which he cannot deny, against him, as in the dclaration heere following, it shall by and by apeare. (42v)

‘They’ – the plural Syon – ‘will speak’ in the ‘dclaration heere following’, and the authorial voice of the second section of the manuscript – which shifts into the first-person plural, with repeated references to ‘us’ and ‘we’ – does seem to represent the collective voice of the community. It is worth pausing over this framing device, which offers a seemingly detached description of the ensuing narrative as a kind of trial, in which the convent will provide material evidence to contradict Robinson’s tautological use of his self-proclaimed eyewitness status as the proof of his claims. The author or authors of this manuscript use multiple forms of anonymity strategically in what amounts to an implicit challenge to Robinson’s insistent naming of both himself and the men and women associated with the convent at Lisbon.28 As Marcy North has argued: Catholic authors manipulated anonymity’s ambiguities to make it a more effective protective device and to further their own side’s religious and political platforms. They show how anonymity allowed for the creation of complex authorial identities that often proved more important and more useful than names.29

Anonymity in this manuscript is not an absence to be filled in with a name but rather a complex strategy that itself serves as a partial response to the claims of Robinson’s pamphlet. From the outset, then, the very voice in which the manuscript is written suggests the necessity of qualifying a central stylistic claim of the introduction: that ‘it was then no tyme to prolong the answere of it, with longe discourses & exquisite termes, and phrases’ (42v). To suggest that ‘exquisite termes, and phrases’ – the adornments of rhetoric and literature – were neglected in the community’s haste is itself a rhetorical manoeuvre, of course, and it precedes a figurative and allusive characterization of Robinson in the second section of the manuscript, entitled ‘A declaration of such deeds and actions, as Thomas Robinson set forth of himselfe, and 28   Because the manuscript is framed in collective terms, I will use the plural for future references to its author/s. 29  Marcy North, The Anonymous Renaissance: Cultures of Discretion in Tudor-Stuart England (Chicago, IL, 2003), p. 118.

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left in his owne hand wryghtinge’ (43r). The collective voice describes how ‘the father Confessor’ gave Robinson ‘certaine bookes of meditation, and of such lyke devotion … to be written or coppyed forthe’, but this partial validation of Robinson’s claim to have been Foster’s copyist in the convent (they later deny that he ever saw or copied the register) serves primarily as the foundation for a description of Robinson’s authorial practice that weds the materials of book production to biblical allusion (43r). Upon gaining access to the convent’s scribal materials, Robinson ‘takinge hould uppon, and covering himselfe with a sheepskine … craftely framed a certaine narration, in Inglishe ryme, of his former sinnes’ (43r). This is a sophisticated elaboration upon Matthew 7:15 – ‘Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves’ – a passage that had evolved into a popular and adaptable topos for both Catholic and Protestant authors by the seventeenth century.30 Robinson is the wolf, crept into the sheepfold of the monastery, but his sheepskin is not simply figurative: it is the material upon which he writes his narration, the parchment leaf that he simultaneously takes ‘hould uppon’ and ‘cover[s] himselfe with’ in order to ‘insynuate himselfe, in this humble ^manner,^ and penitentiall shape or figure’ (44r). The authors of the manuscript response thus turn Robinson’s description of monastic book culture against him: the false pages he writes in the convent are not bound into a book of obedience but crafted into his own narrative history. The material specificity of this figurative classification of Robinson forms the basis for an extended analysis of the autobiographical manuscript he left at the convent, which the authors of the manuscript response cite by leaf, side and margin: ‘in the first leafe whearof’, ‘even theare in the margine, he confesseth that’, ‘in the seaventh leafe and second syde he sayeth’ (43r–v). Literary technique shifts into what Jesse Lander describes as one of the formal markers of early modern polemic: … elaborate protocols of quotation and citation, of both authorities and opponents, are developed in the maelstrom of polemic. Here, the ‘fixity’ of the printed book matters, as polemicists accompany their copious quotations with exact page citations, which allow the reader to check for accuracy.31

Of course, neither the response nor the manuscript it cites is fixed in print. Instead, the authors deploy this polemical technique as a fictive device in support of their attempt ‘to give satisfaction, to their ^fore^ sayed frinds or catholikes, who happely have seene or heard’ of Robinson’s 30

  The Holy Bible: Douay-Rheims Version .   Jesse Lander, Inventing Polemic: Religion, Print, and Literary Culture in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 2006), p. 31. 31

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pamphlet (42v). Their intended audience cannot check Robinson’s autobiographical manuscript for accuracy – it is a unique document, enclosed in a convent in Lisbon – but the detailed page-by-page reading experience produced in the manuscript response creates the fiction of evidentiary proof. Rather than claiming the status of eyewitness on behalf of the community or any individual in it, the manuscript authors instead treat books as witnesses and thereby directly counter Robinson’s claim that nuns cannot interpret or engage textual evidence. In their descriptive summary of ‘his owne evydence, and hand wrightinge, which he cannot deny’, the physical marks of Robinson’s hand are as essential as the material pages upon which he wrote, and the authors repeatedly invoke ‘his owne booke and hand wrightinge’ and ‘his owne carrackter and hand wrightinge’ as evidence against him (42v, 44v, 45v). Since the facts cannot be verified by outside readers – a copy of Robinson’s manuscript would, of necessity, erase his hand in it, rendering its physical relationship to him invisible – the authors instead adopt one of the generic markers of polemic as a tool for transforming representation into the illusion of reality. The authors of the manuscript response, in other words, are both skilled literary craftspeople and skilled literary critics, deploying figurative language and polemical reading practices to characterize Robinson’s authorial position and analyse his manuscript. Syon’s participation in a specifically literary project of analysis and authorship is especially visible in the authors’ formal and generic classifications of Robinson’s writing, including their description of his manuscript as ‘a certaine narration, in Inglishe ryme’ (43r). Instead of copying the convent’s ‘bookes of meditation, and of such lyke devotion’, he writes this ‘Inglishe ryme’ delineating his pre-monastic life and travels, including participation in English piracy expeditions – a displacement of devotional literature by poetry; religious texts by profane (43r). Their characterization of his printed pamphlet builds upon this critique of the manuscript poem: they claim that Robinson printed The Anatomy on his return to England because ‘he knewe it to be necessary for him to frame an apt ^or dexterous^ tale, and give some plausible account, as well of his sea jornye amongst pyrotts, as of his land Jornys amongst Catholikes’ (45r). Indeed, their most effective opening salvo is not an attack on Robinson’s character as a pirate – it is this classification of his pamphlet as a ‘tale’. As they point out: … if you reade but the story of pope Joane, and howe … she laboured of chylde birthe: and of the fishe ^pond^ of saint Gregory full of drowned childrens heads, to the nomber of sixe thouzand, and a thousand such lyke, you shall easely perceave, that it is neither greate or newe matter, that our persecutors easely permitt men of their owne secte, to publishe infamous lyes against us: who seeke not liberty as they doe, but have holly rules, and most worthy superiors. (45v)

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The collective voice here identifies itself with the nuns – the ‘us’ who ‘have holly rules, and most worthy superiors’ – and proceeds to note the similarities between Robinson’s work and pamphlets such as The Friers Chronicle or The anatomie of the Romane clergie, propaganda that looked to the medieval past for oft-recycled stories of papist bogeymen (and women).32 According to the nuns, Robinson is unable to move beyond discredited notions of the Catholic hierarchy and its religious women: his printed claims about their involvement in the Lopez plot and the Gunpowder Plot are simply extensions of earlier lies about Catholic saints and bear no relationship to the actual circumstances of life on the continent for English women religious. Robinson’s The Anatomy of the English Nunnery at Lisbon is, in other words, merely a sensationalist fantasy that adapts conventional anti-monastic satire in order to condemn post-Reformation English Catholicism. Even as the authors dismiss Robinson’s accusations by lumping his writing into a series of questionable generic categories, they nevertheless articulate their response in literary terms in order to craft a competing representation of post-Reformation English Catholicism in exile. At the end of the second part of the manuscript, the collective voice announces that the narrative perspective will shift yet again in its third and final section: … nowe it followeth, to speake of his other booke, or rather lybell an^d^ badd speeches of others, the which being nothing else, but a conflicte of falshood against the truth: the modest reader must give truthe leave, to call falshood a lye, and the falsifyer a lyer; which if she should not, she should not be her selfe, nor speake the truth. (45v)

To put it more clearly: the bulk of the manuscript response, which addresses the substance of The Anatomy in a point-by-point rebuttal, is written in the voice of the allegorical figure of ‘truth’. This first-person singular (and feminine) narrator defends the nuns in a textual trial that elaborates upon the literary skills the authors have already demonstrated and adds further ‘exquisite termes, and phrases’ that demonstrate Syon’s rhetorical and literary sophistication (42v). Robinson, for example, has … the poysonable, and conninge craft of a Crocadell: who after he hath most wickedly, and in the hyest degree slaundred them, and done the worst he cane to kill thear good name, then to lamente & weepe over them, seeminge to give them a remedy, therby to credite hi^s^ lyes, and overthrowe patient Syon. (54v) 32   For an alternate reading of The Friers Chronicle that suggests its contemporary relevance, see Warren, The Embodied Word, pp. 233–40.

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Truth speaks on behalf of Syon as a singular entity, while treating the nuns whose individual good names Robinson lists in the final pages of The Anatomy – from Abbess Barbara Wiseman to Maudlyn Shelly, Katherine Dendy and Elizabeth Cole ‘of the Kitchin’ (Robinson 31–2) – as if they were possessed of a collective yet singular ‘good name’. The metaphorical image of Robinson is not incidental here: at the same time that the authors craft a plural identity for the convent’s inhabitants out of the contradictory tension of voice and grammatical person exhibited here and throughout the manuscript, they deconstruct Robinson’s authorial identity. For how can you believe someone’s claim to be an eyewitness when in fact he is never what he seems? The show of ‘devotion or contrition’ is everywhere ‘thrust into his narration, wherby of an angell of satan, he labours to transfigure himselfe into angell of lyghte’ (44v). Robinson is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a pirate in penitential garb, a man in show but a crocodile in sentiment, and this series of identifications transfigures his own self-representation in The Anatomy. Individual identity is unstable and partial in the manuscript response, and the unnamed authors dismiss the lure of individualism in favour of a collective identity associated with Syon. The monastic whole that emerges out of the three narrative voices that shift and sometimes meld offers the convent’s implicit rebuttal to Robinson’s titular claim that he has ‘truly anatomized this handmayd of the Whore of Babylon; laying open her principall veines and sinewes’ (A4r). Robinson textually penetrates and disassembles the walls of Syon’s enclosure, but the manuscript is at once a material sign that the community inside is intact and a textual exploration of how walls might be reconstructed through words. For when the authors reach Robinson’s claim that Fr Foster would ‘daily without any companion goe into the Nunnes Cloister’ (27), their response suggests a complex process of literary substitution, in which formal qualities of the text replicate the physicality of the convent’s walls. They explain that Foster could not enter the enclosure, ‘for to goe into the Nuns, first theare is a speake house, with a grate for the nuns to speake with the seculars, and those of the house ^& this speke house^ hath a locke and key, and within this is the inclosure doore, which the nuns lockes on ^within^ their syde’ (54r). The manuscript’s description of the nuns’ enclosure is nearly as impossible to penetrate as the enclosure itself: layers of sequential clauses and grammatical confusion, along with words and phrases inserted into the text, double for the walls, doors and locks which separate the nuns from their confessor, and from Robinson’s accusations against them.33 33   Compare the confusing restrictions listed by Francisca in Measure for Measure: ‘when you have vow’d, you must not speak with men / But in the presence of the prioress; / Then, if you speak, you must not show your face, / Or if you show your face, you must not speak’: William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, ed. Jonathan Crewe (New York, 2000), I, iv, 10–13.

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In Syon’s manuscript response to Robinson, literary technique is essential to the construction of a text that serves as both appeal and evidence. The manuscript’s second section, in which the first-person plural voice speaks explicitly as the nuns, demonstrates that Robinson’s depiction of a corrupt monastic book culture controlled by a domineering priest is necessarily false. Rather than allowing themselves to be portrayed as ‘silly seduced women’ (Robinson, 14), the nuns participated in shaping the manuscript that would serve as their self-representation. While they could not invite concerned readers of Robinson’s pamphlet to enter their enclosure in Lisbon, their narrative strategies disable the representational power of The Anatomy, while at the same time they offer an alternative reading of the convent’s post-Reformation religious and political history. The manuscript response is thus far more than an archival curiosity demonstrating that nuns could write for themselves; instead, it offers a powerful critique of how and why female monastics were silenced in Protestant propaganda. By recognizing how literary forms, genres and hermeneutics shape this remarkable text, we can begin to acknowledge the myriad strategies that early modern nuns used to intervene in contemporary religious politics and thereby prevent the erasure of female intellectual engagement from the historical record.

Chapter 5

Naming Names: Chroniclers, Scribes and Editors of St Monica’s Convent, Louvain, 1631–19061 Victoria Van Hyning The following account of the chroniclers of the English Augustinian convent of St Monica’s in Louvain is an attempt to reveal authors and scribes involved in writing the history of this community, c. 1631–1906. This piece establishes the identity of the first, hitherto anonymous, St Monica’s chronicler who began her work in the seventeenth century, and several scribes, editors and authors who perpetuated her narrative and extended it in multiple manuscript versions into the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The twentieth century saw the chronicle edited in print, first in the Bridgettine periodical Poor Souls Friend and St Joseph’s Monitor and then in a two-volume production of its own, both edited by Dom Adam Hamilton and nuns of the Priory of Our Lady, Haywards Heath.2 Authorial anonymity was common within medieval and early modern convent contexts; works concerning institutional history and even personal papers were more likely to be unattributed than attributed. However, the practice of anonymity within monastic settings was by no means universal at any point in time. Where authors deployed anonymity, their reasons for 1  St Monica’s, Louvain was founded in 1609 by English nuns from the Flemish convent of St Ursula’s, Louvain. The community returned to England during the French Revolution and settled in Newton Abbot, naming their new foundation St Augustine’s Priory. The bulk of their archival documents are now housed at the Douai Abbey Archive, Reading, UK. I gratefully acknowledge the support and hospitality of particular individuals and their three communities: Archivist Sister Margaret Mary and the nuns of Dove Cottage for permission to quote from their manuscripts; archivist Sister Mary Aline and the nuns at Bruges, and Abbott Geoffrey Scott and the community at Douai. I am also grateful to the present volume editors and my supervisors, Nicky Hallett and Frances Harris, for their support and encouragement. 2  The Poor Souls Friend and St Joseph’s Monitor (hereafter PSF) edition were published serially between April 1901 (X.2) and November 1908 (XVI.9). The Chronicle of the English Augustinian Canonesses Regular of the Lateran, at St. Monica’s in Louvain (now at St. Augustine’s Priory, Newton Abbot, Devon), ed. Adam Hamilton (2 vols, Edinburgh and London, 1904, 1906): Vol. I: 1548–1625; Vol. II: 1625–1644. Chronicle hereafter refers to the print edition and ‘Louvain Chronicle’ to the manuscript tradition preserved in multiple manuscript versions, see note 4.

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doing so were not uniform. As Nicky Hallett points out in her article in this volume, anonymity within a convent context often flowed from humility or self-effacement. In addition to the claims of humility, there were, in some instances, practical and literary reasons for self-concealment. The first author of the ‘Louvain Chronicle’ was writing approximately one hundred years after the earliest events of her chronicle (starting in 1535), and though she made use of papal bulls, official letters to her community, biographical accounts of nuns who lived before her time, profession documents, obituaries and oral stories, she was still attempting to patch together a history to which she was not an immediate witness. Despite her temporal remove from the earliest events in her narrative, she recounts imprisonments, conversions, martyrdoms and heroism in rich detail, such as we expect of an eye-witness account. To have firmly fixed her identity or her dates of composition would have been to detract from the realism of her narrative. By remaining anonymous, the first Louvain chronicler remained timeless and enabled readers to elide the gap between 1535 and the 1630s when she began writing. If each successive chronicler chose anonymity then, at least in theory, the narrative could be seamless, but for the perceptible shifts in tone, style and hand in the manuscripts. Whereas anonymity can be understood as self-negating, it might equally be read as a powerful and freeing literary device when consciously deployed. At the heart of this study is a consideration of the two earliest manuscript versions of the ‘Louvain Chronicle’ which have not been described in any detail in PSF, Chronicle, nor elsewhere. An unknown nun of St Augustine’s Priory, Newton Abbot, writing in the nineteenth century, described her convent’s earliest chronicle holdings as follows: ‘1 Old Book of Chronicles from the year 1548 to 1836; 1 Modern Book from 1837; 5 Small Books of Chronicles said to be very imperfect’.3 The first and last items are the only exile-period manuscript versions of the ‘Louvain Chronicle’ that are known to survive, but neither appears to be the original manuscript of the first chronicler. In the catalogue created by archivist Sister Mary Salomé of St Augustine’s Priory in the 1970s and 1980s, the ‘5 Small Books’ are designated ‘The Little Chronicles’ MSS C15–19 and ‘The Old Book’ is now catalogued as MS C2.4 The manuscripts appear to be descended from 3  Douai Abbey Archive, Box W.M.L. L., MS L3 ‘Miscellaneous’. This notebook contains lists of trustees, deeds, baptismal registers and library books, amongst other things. Pages unnumbered. W.M.L. stands for ‘Windesheim, St. Monica’s, Louvain’. 4  Reading, Douai Abbey Archive, Box W.M.L. C., MSS C15–19. In the early twentieth century, MSS C15–19 were catalogued as ‘Little Chronicles’ volumes 1–5. These volumes are wrapped in brown paper dust-jackets and given the following descriptors: ‘Vol. 1. Beginning of St Monica’s Louvain to 1622; ‘Vol. 2 Little Chronicle 1622 to 1632’, ‘Vol. 3, Little Chronicle 1632–1643’, ‘Vol. 4, Little Chronicle 1649–1658’ and ‘Little Chronicle Vol. 5 1652–1680’.

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a common ancestor, which was most likely lost or destroyed during the French Revolution, when the community was forced to return to England.5 The hand of the main scribe of MS C2 – writing in a clear, accomplished italic – is datable to the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century. ‘The Little Chronicles’ may be dated to the second quarter of the eighteenth century on the basis of internal dating evidence. MS C2 is quoted from here on the basis that it is probably the oldest version of the text, but citations to ‘Little Chronicles’ and the print edition will also be made, where relevant. The next section reveals the identity of the first Louvain chronicler, followed by a detailed account of the manuscript versions. The First ‘Louvain Chronicle’ Author The original Louvain chronicler apparently intended to remain anonymous, simply stating at the beginning of her narrative that it is ‘written by one of the Religious’ of Louvain. She describes her methodology: A History hath been faithfully written vpon the relation of the Persons themselues concerning their Parents and their own comming & calling to holy Religion and for the more surety after the writing it was again shewed to the same persons, that they might see whether all was right written and nothing mistaken.6

Within the context of this declaration of communal narrative construction, it might seem futile to seek out a single creative author rather than a dutiful scribe or scribes. However, two features of this narrative invite us to seek out the former: first, there is narrative unity across the individual stories, and secondly, there is copious integration of written sources into the narrative. It is abundantly clear that the chronicler used profession vows and obituaries, papal bulls, official letters, wills, deeds and so on. She also makes explicit use of the Life of Mother Margaret Clement, written by a St Monica’s founder, Sister Elizabeth Shirley, as a resource for constructing the English nuns’ experiences at St Ursula’s and the foundation of St Monica’s.7

5   If St Monica’s manuscripts were ever seized by revolutionary forces and housed in Louvain state archives – like the Cambrai Benedictines’ papers, which are housed in the state archives in Lille, France today – these would have been destroyed during the severe bombings and invasion of Louvain in the First and Second World Wars. 6  MS C2, p. 2; MS C15, p. 1; Chronicle, p. 24. All transcriptions are by the author who retains V/U, I/J, ‘y’ thorn, silently lowers superscript letters, and expands abbreviated letters and indicates these in italics. 7   Elizabeth Shirley. The Life of Margaret Clement, in ‘Life Writing’, ed. Nicky Hallett, English Convents, vol. 3, pp. 1–34.

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The discord between the first chronicler’s actual practice of combining oral and written sources, and her declared method of simply writing down oral stories is important. The discord does not undermine her authority or truthfulness, rather it tells us something about how she conceived of the document and herself. By telling her readership that her narrative has an oral foundation, she marks it as a collaborative undertaking, and defines herself as just one authority amongst many: the result is a third-person narrative with a first-person ring to it. This is a text punctuated by eyewitness description and reported speech which readers can accept as genuine because they have been told the stories are first- or good second-hand oral accounts, carefully transcribed. Whatever the precise balance between written and oral sources, the omniscient quality of the narrative appears to be born of some kind of communal authorship and collective memory exercise, and fortified by the chronicler’s incorporation of written documents. This fluid omniscience makes it difficult to pinpoint which events were experienced by the chronicler and which she relates on behalf of others. Internal textual evidence declares our author was writing at least as early as 1631. In reference to Anne and Barbara Wiseman, sisters of St Monica’s first prioress, Jane Wiseman,8 the chronicler writes: … the two eldest came over seas and becam Nuns of St Bridgits Order, and haue both gouern’d the Monestery as [sic] Lisbon in Portugal, being chosen at seuerall times by mutual interchange Abbesses, for their Order is to change at som years, & at this present 1631 the one is Abess & the other Prioress.9

The chronicler states at the beginning of her narrative: ‘this being the first draught of the History which reacheth vnto the full fifty years from the Cloisters Erection. but beginneth aboue fifty years before from al the Inglish that begun it’.10 The cloister was founded in 1609, making 1659 the earliest possible end-date of the first chronicler’s activities, which also happens to coincide with the convent’s jubilee year. However, the scope of the first chronicler’s activities seems to go further than this statement suggests: the chronicle begins with events from 1535 and a consistent prose style continues until 1660, which suggests that the chronicler intended to get as far as 1659 and then kept going after reaching her goal. Knowing that the author was writing between 1631 and 1659 does not help much in narrowing down the pool of possible authors. According to  8   Anne Wiseman (d. 1650), LB169, prioress in 1607, abbess in 1614; Barbara de Sta Maria Wiseman (d. 1649), LB170, abbess in 1621, 1634, 1642, and Mary Wiseman (1595– 1633), LA303, prioress 1609–33.  9  MS C2, p. 96. 10  MS C2, p. 2.

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search results from the ‘Who were the Nuns?’ (WWTN?) database, seventy of St Monica’s nuns were at the convent during this period. Therefore further criteria must be developed in order to sift out the author. Some known convent chroniclers undertook the task as an offshoot of their conventual duties as abbess, prioress, subprioress, acaria, or procuratrix.11 However, while it is plausible that the chronicler held an important post at the convent, it is by no means certain that all chroniclers were postholders: there were well-educated nuns of high birth in Louvain who did not have a large enough dowry to become full choir nuns, and so professed as lay sisters instead. Helen Draycott, whose dates fit the basic criteria for the chronicler, is described as follows: ‘being a gentlewoman by birth yet hauing but smal means & a strong body was well content to be a work sister. She was daughter of Alban Dracut of Pensley in Staffordshir but a yonger Brother whose father had sufferd much for his Conscience.’12 With few limiting criteria emerging from the database it is necessary to consider the linguistic and episodic content of the ‘Louvain Chronicle’ itself. Are there episodes that sound as though they are narrated from first-person experience even if subsumed into the third-person voice? As it happens, there are. The siege of Louvain in 1635 stands out as an event that distinguishes between the perspective of those nuns who stayed at the convent and weathered the siege, and those who were given permission to leave out of fear for their lives: … our Reverend Mother consulted with our fathers what was best to be done, & at first they thought we must all haue fled the danger being so eminent, but afterwards it was agreed that only first they that were most fearfull & timorous should go. & the rest to stay with our Mother till this toun was in more danger, for as yet the Prince [of Orange] lay here with his Army … our Reverend Mother with a heauy hart gaue free leaue vnto all that would, to fly, & she prouided means for them as also ordain’d that our Second father Mr White shall haue care of them. The rest that wou’d stay with her behind, til more danger had also freedom to do as liked them best, then did half the Convent Chuse to fly, & the other half chose to stay, & all things were ordered in the best maner we could, tho’ with most bitter affliction in our harts, & within a day or 2 Waggons were prouided & 35 persons went away upon St Antony of Paduas day, as also almost all the Religious Wemen of this Toun fled We then remain’d here in great fear & suspence.13

11  See Anne Neville, ‘Abbess Neville’s Annals of Five Communities of English Benedictine Nuns in Flanders 1598–1687’, ed. M.J. Rumsey, Miscellanea V, CRS, 6 (London, 1909), pp. 1–72. 12  MS C2, p. 299; Helen Draycott (c. 1625–65), LA085. 13  MS C2, pp. 394–5. Emphasis added.

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The wording of this episode and the detail of the siege that follows strongly suggests that the chronicler stayed behind. Yet, even if this was the case, it is little use in narrowing down the list of seventy women, including choir nuns, white sisters, lay sisters, novices and scholars associated with the convent at this time. This is where the ‘very imperfect’ manuscripts of ‘Little Chronicles’ come into their own – offering crucial evidence that is lacking in MS C2. ‘Little Chronicles’ volume 5 (MS C19) contains two invaluable lists that enable one to narrow down the possible candidates considerably: one naming those who stayed during the siege (Plate 1), and a second naming those who left. Table 5.1 reproduces the relevant lists – preserving the order of names in the manuscript, which appears to reflect date of profession and rank – but using the spelling of names as they appear in the WWTN? database. Table 5.1

Canonesses who stayed and left during the siege of Louvain

Those who left

Those who stayed

Frances Burrows Anne Bromfield Helen Copley Helen Briton Winefride Blundel Anne Worthington Benedicta Coleman Anne Giffard Frances Babthorpe Augustina Bedingfield Catherine Clapton Agnes Tasburgh Clare Copley Margaret Plowden Lioba Morgan Frances Smith Clementia Skinner Frances Parker Christina Jerningham Anne Stamford† Dorothy Musgrave Mary Wiseman Paula Herbert Anne Vavasour

Magdalena Throckmorton Elizabeth Shirley Mary Copley Monica Hatton Mary Windsor Susan Brook Teresa Golding Frances Kempe Frances Fortescue Mary Clapton Elizabeth Godwin Mary Lamb Catherine James Margaret Lutenor Anne More Anne Evans Mary Barney Mary Worthington Elizabeth Clifford Cornelia Fermor  Frances Blase Catherine Noe Martha Holman Elizabeth Burrow

naming names

Those who left

Those who stayed

Mary Philpot Winefrid Thimelby Grace Bedingfield Jane Stonebergh† Mary Reading [Agnes] Anne Watson Mary Cobbs† Helen Bagges Dorothy Brook Agatha Brook Frances Thimbelby

Anne Stonehouse Mary Thorsby Elizabeth Wickam Anne Mortimer Ursula Wittall Elizabeth Lombard Catherine Collins Alexia Hobdy Helen Draycott Elizabeth Miller Anne Reading Mary Stonehouse Steven Barnes [confessor] ‘Mr Johnson’ ‘Our servant Gilles’

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Key: Choir nun Lay sister White sister Scholar Notes: Names of nuns are given as they appear in the WWTN? database rather than the manuscript spellings. † indicates the names of girls who did not later profess, and who are not in the database. These spellings are given as they appear in the manuscript. Textual evidence strongly indicates that the ‘Louvain Chronicle’ was authored by a nun, therefore the male associates listed under ‘Those who stayed’ are not included in further tables of possible authors.

In Table 5.2 the names of those who stayed in Louvain are combined with details of each woman’s profession and date of death, also drawn from the WWTN? database. This information narrows down to a list of fourteen nuns who were at the convent during the siege, and professed at St Monica’s between 1631 and 1659. Those nuns whose dates are shown in black are possible chroniclers or rather, women who cannot be ruled out on the basis of their dates alone. This list includes some very unlikely candidates for the chronicler, such as Cornelia Fermor or Farmer, a white sister who was

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Table 5.2 Dates of profession and death for nuns at the siege of Louvain, 1635

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bedridden for thirty years and blind towards the end of her life. Two of the lay sisters, Catherine Noe and Mary Thorsby, lived just long enough to meet the date criteria of 1631–59, though, as already indicated, there is strong textual evidence that the chronicler was writing as late as 1660. Most notably, there is a vast shift in the chronicle style in 1660 from prose to a series of lists. The significance of this shift will be discussed in further detail below. Table 5.3 provides excerpts from the ‘Louvain Chronicle’ pertaining to each of the 14 candidates delineated in Table 5.2. In the entries for all but one nun there is a phrase or another piece of information which suggests they were not the author. For instance, the chronicler often refers to women as coming to ‘our monastery’ or being ‘professed here’, suggesting she was already at the convent when that person arrived. These verbal tags occur for Monica Hatton, Frances Kempe, Frances Fortescue, Elizabeth Godwin, Mary Lambe and Anne More. Other entries indicate that the chronicler was at the convent when arrangements were being made for someone’s entry, as in the excerpts for Mary Thorsby, Elizabeth Wickam, Elizabeth Lombard and Helen Draycott. Another telling marker is the absence of detail in an entry – in 60 per cent of these cases a nun’s place of origin is unspecified, her mother is unnamed, or there is confusion about the names of a parent’s previous spouse or the nun’s siblings. Although it is possible the chronicler might purposely conceal her own identity, by subtly obscuring the details of her own life and connections, there is more convincing evidence that she spoke at great length about herself under the safe cover of anonymity. One of the strongest candidates in terms of her dates and her role in the convent is Prioress Magdalena Throckmorton.14 However the quotation given in Table 5.3 describing her election as prioress suggests she is not the author. This leaves Sister Mary Copley, for whom the absence of detail in the chart is based upon a variety of factors.15 The joint entry for Mary and her younger sister Helen Copley goes back three generations, beginning with their grandfather, Thomas Copley, and his conversion to Protestantism under Queen Mary and re-conversion to Catholicism under Queen Elizabeth, conversions which put him at odds with the state under both regimes. Unlike many of the other entries, this account names or provides a job-description and nationality for everyone who is mentioned. The servant who was supposed to conduct the sisters overseas to Louvain, but who was detained in London on suspicion of associating with Catholics is described in great detail:

14

 Magdalena Throckmorton (1613–68) LA267, prioress 1633–52.  Mary Copley (1612–69), LA073.

15

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Table 5.3 Excerpts from the Chronicle pertaining to those who remained in Louvain Nun

Textual reference

Magdalena Throckmorton

‘[The Archbishop] made her sit down in a Chair by him, & we came all one by one and made our Vow of Obedience vnto her (as the maner is) after that we went all to the Quier & she was enstall’d in her Place there’, p. 376

Other factors

Mary Copley Monica Hatton

‘she got meanes to come over with Mrs Brooksbey our Reverend Mothers Neece as her waiting gentlewoman, & so was receau’d into our Monestery’, p. 134

Mother not named

Frances Kempe

‘Francis came over with her father in law [and] Sister Susan Brook, & they entred togither in our Cloister where this Francis Kemp liued till she was 21 years old as a scoller’, p. 225

Frances Fortescue

‘coming after to our Monestery she liked it very well’, p. 227

Elizabeth Godwin

Mother not ‘Now to go on with our young named gentlewoman Mrs Elizabeth Godwin she having nues that her place was granted in this Monestery of St Monicas was very joyful [... she came] here to Louen [with Clare Copley] so they were both receaued’, 250–51.

Mary Lamb

‘she came over with her cosen Sister Mary Mother not Pool, & lived a good while scollar, but at named; home length was profest at the age of 23 years’. not named p. 261; ‘A very melancholy person, of good will but not much understanding’, p. 630

Anne More

‘to be brought up in our Monestery’; ‘we writ to her Mother who was then in Ingland her daughter had no mind to Religion therefore desired to send for her home’, p. 328

Cornelia Fermor

‘she had so weak a sight that she durst not bind herself to the Night Office but only the Day Office’, p. 590; was bedridden from 1625–1655, p. 602

Mother not named; confusion about stepfather

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Nun

Textual reference

Catherine Noe

Family There is very little information pertaining to Catherine in the chronicle—just records members not named of her profession, her happiness at the profession of a second lay sister to help her with the work, and a record of her death. No biographical details.

Mary Thorsby

‘she permitted [a priest] to write here in her Mother not behalf, but God knows, by what occasion named the letters between him & vs miscaried’, p. 185

Elizabeth Wickam

Mother not ‘wherevpon this Elizabeth came overseas named [...] her aunt [...] left her at her death 40 pound if she would be Religious but she had no mind to it yet, at length because all told her that if she went into Ingland she was in great danger to become an Heretick, she then got som to speak for her to be admitted here a lay sister & made her Profession’, pp. 187–8

Elizabeth Lombard ‘our Reverend Mother sent for her & took her without any more adoe’, p. 263 Helen Draycott

Other factors

Mother not named

‘[she] cam to this place by reason that being acquainted with Mr Denis Brittan, Sister Hellen Brittans Brother, he writ hither for her, & obtain’d her place to be granted’, p. 366

Key: Choir nun Lay sister White sister

… their man was stil detained in Prison, vntil that by means of the dutch Embassadour they got him released, being a stranger born of the Dutch Nation, who came after and ouertook them here at Louen, but they after this brunt had a prosperous journey, & were kindly receiued first at St Omers by Doctor Redmond their Cosen a Chanon there of that Church and great frind of this house, as also at Bruxels by Doctor Clement their Cosen who came with them himself to louain, & at their ariual the eldest sister knew & remembered

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her old acquantance so they were receaued into the Monestery with much joy especially of the Old Mother [Margaret Clement] their great Aunt.16

The chronicler’s detailed knowledge of the servant’s fate and her ability to portray complex family connections is suggestive. The Copley entry also provides acute detail of the ongoing financial burden of recusancy on William Copley, Mary and Helen’s father: ‘[he] at this present payeth the statute of 20 pound a month.’17 Moreover, note the use of ‘the monestery’ as opposed to ‘our monastery’. Mary Copley served as arcaria for 13 years before being elected subprioress, a role she held for 28 years. The Copley sisters were the great nieces of the St Ursula’s prioress, Margaret Clement, and the Copleys may very well have held a privileged position in the convent on account of this connection. The chronicler also seems to betray first-hand experience of St Ursula’s. At first this seems impossible, because none of the women professed at that convent lived as late as 1659. Yet the chronicler contrasts the food and habit at St Ursula’s with the relative ease and plenty of life and provision at St Monica’s: … the Inglish hauing bin brought vp most of them tenderly, & daintily in their Parents or frinds houses, neuertheless for the loue of Christ vnto whom they espous’d did willingly accomodate themselues to the hard fare & simple diet of the Cloister dressed after the dutch manner which was indeed so very mean as desarues to be recorded vnto posterity, that we might know with what feruour our Elders began to serue God in holy Religion. The bread was of course Rye, their beere exceeding small. their ordinary fare was a Mess of Porredg made of herbes called warremus sodden togither with water only, & thervnto they added at dinner a litle peece of black Beef about the greattnes of two fingers. & at night for Supper they had only a dish of som 3 or 4 litle peeces of mutton sodden with broth, which was to pass a table of ten Nuns.18

According to the ‘Chronicle’, Mary Copley was the only nun alive during 1631–59 who had been educated at the St Ursula’s convent school before the foundation of St Monica’s. The following entry describes Mary’s earliest inclinations to a religious life while living at St Ursula’s: [Mary’s mother] left her Eldest daughter in that space at St Vrsulas with her Aunt Prioress to be brought vp, taking the second daughter with her, the Child stayed about 2 years in the Monestery from the age of 7 til 9 and there got a 16

 MS C2, p. 129, emphasis added, Chronicle, pp. 116–17.  MS C2, p. 125, Chronicle, p. 113. 18  MS C2, pp. 25–6; Chronicle, pp. 34–5. 17

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great desire to Religion for Almighty God bestowed a calling on her in that tender age, which he had not giuen either to her Mother or GrandMother.19

Although fairly young at the time, Mary’s experience of the convent school would account for the chronicler’s knowledgeable commentary about life at St Ursula’s. In giving an account of her last days in England before travelling to St Monica’s, Mary Copley reveals something of her reading habits. During a raid on her and her sister’s lodgings in London – on suspicion of their Catholicism and intentions of travelling abroad illegally for the purpose of undertaking religious life – Mary makes reference to books in their possession: ‘[they] took such Catholick Books as they had into the bed with them, as also the monney for their Voyage and it was wisely don, for leauing only one Vain Book of Virgils that was taken away, and they saw it no more.’20 Although this episode offers little detail on what the Copleys read, it is telling that they possessed a number of books – sacred and secular – and that they were intending to travel with them and perhaps even bring them into the convent.21 The Print Edition For over a century, Hamilton’s edition has been central to studies of English Catholicism because it was one of the first English convent chronicles to be printed from the exile period. It is frequently quoted by historians, theologians and literature specialists, and is also of use to family genealogists. Most recently, the family pedigrees found at the back of each volume were used, along with other resources, in the construction of the WWTN? database, and the Chronicle is frequently cited within individual database entries for Augustinians and others.22 Following its positive reception in the periodical PSF, Hamilton and the nuns at St Augustine’s Priory agreed to print the chronicle separately and more completely. The print format of the edition announces that it 19

 MS C2, p. 124; Chronicle, p. 113.  MS C2, p. 127; Chronicle, p. 114. 21   This author’s doctoral work includes a chapter about the ‘Louvain Chronicle’ in which she considers the signifiance of this reference. The Virgil reference has been noted by other scholars, including Jane Stevenson, ‘Women Catholics and Latin Culture’, in Ronald Corthell (ed.), Catholic Culture in Early Modern England (Notre Dame, IN, 2007), pp. 52–72. 22   I would like to thank Caroline Bowden for confirming this. See, for instance, the entry for Winefrid Thimelby (1635–90), LA261. 20

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was designed to be read and consulted as a serious and worthy text. These volumes are physically impressive: measuring 25.5cm x 16cm, they are printed on good-quality laid paper, bound with red canvas-clad boards and an elegant calf spine with gold lettering. The volumes were considered handsome and were well-received, although some reviewers found the addition of para-textual material in chapter introductions to be heavyhanded or even confusing.23 In many respects, the success and perhaps even the criticisms of Hamilton’s edition may have pointed the way for other editors to undertake the publication of previously unpublished convent material. The Catholic Record Society, which began its publication activities in 1905, may have taken cues from Hamilton’s editorial work. The CRS devoted several early volumes to convent material, though the society’s interest tailed off during the course of the twentieth century. Bowden’s six-volume publication is the first significant contribution of edited English convent material from this period to be issued since the early twentieth century. Her volumes, like the early efforts of the CRS, can be seen as furthering the editorial project that started with Hamilton and his contemporaries.24 While exilic convent literature has been used throughout the twentieth century – often in order to establish credentials for English martyrs for canonization – more recently, scholars interested in nuns as writers of early modern history, biography and autobiography have turned their attention to convent chronicles.25 Isobel Grundy, Claire Walker and Caroline Bowden, amongst others, have made use of the Chronicle of St Monica in fascinating and insightful ways.26 Grundy’s work on the Chronicle has paved the way for scholars wishing to devote further attention to the text 23  Letters from Hamilton to Sister Mary Alphonse Lambert of Priory of Our Lady describe the books’ reception. These are held at the Douai Abbey Archive, ‘Historical Annex’, Box Q III MSS R&H Packet, folder: ‘Radcliffe and Hamilton to Lambert’. The letters are not individually catalogued and many are undated. Hamilton referred to the mixed reception of Vol. 1: 1548–1625 in Vol. 2: 1625–1644, but explained that he would continue using lengthy chapter introductions because he saw it as an extension of the chronicler’s original intentions. See p. viii. 24   English Convents in Exile, 1600–1800, gen. ed. Bowden (6 vols, London, 2012). 25  See, for instance, Nicky Hallett, Lives of Spirit: English Carmelite Self–Writing of the Early Modern Period (Aldershot, 2007) and all six volumes of English Convents. 26  See Caroline Bowden, ‘Collecting the Lives of Early Modern Women Religious: Obituary Writing and the Development of Collective Memory and Corporate Identity’, Women’s History Review, 19.1 (2010): pp. 7–20; and ‘History Writing’, ed. Caroline Bowden, English Convents, vol. 1, pp. xxxix–xl; Claire Walker, ‘Recusants, Daughters and Sisters in Christ: English Nuns and Their Communities in the Seventeenth Century’, in Stephanie Tarbin and Susan Broomhall (eds), Women, Identities and Communities in Early Modern Europe (Aldershot, 2008), pp. 61–76, and Walker, Gender and Politics in Early Modern Europe: English Convents in France and the Low Countries (Basingstoke, 2003).

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as a complex historical document, rich in detail about convent lives.27 Despite her fruitful engagement with the printed Chronicle and other conventual texts, Grundy describes the efforts of early Catholic editors, such as Hamilton, as ‘confusing’ and ‘incomplete’, pointing out Hamilton’s admission that he omitted certain materials ‘which the chronicler would never have wished to be made public’.28 Grundy writes: ‘It is no wonder that such confusing, incomplete and unobtrusive appearances [of women’s writings] have registered no mark on the accepted picture of early English biography, autobiography, history or herstory.’29 Given Grundy’s concern over the incomplete nature of the Chronicle in particular, it is interesting that she relied exclusively on print resources. The remainder of this chapter is devoted to a description of the ‘Louvain Chronicle’ manuscripts, and the rich evidence they contain, and calls on scholars to engage with manuscript evidence as much as possible in future. MS C2 MS C2 served as the base text of the Chronicle. Due to Hamilton’s untimely death in 1908, the print edition only covers pages 1–496 of the 670-page manuscript. MS C2 was compiled by four different hands which I designate Hands A–D (see Plate 2). Hand A is the main scribe and her stint runs from pages 1–621, the years 1535–1660. This fair copy might have been designed to be read aloud during communal meals and work periods.30 Hand B is a nineteenth-century hand that takes over midway through page 621 and is present up to page 648. Hand B’s work is not narrative, but rather comprises lists of professions and deaths in the period 1668–1793. Sometimes a death notice stretches to a few sentences, but the records are rather briefer than Hand A’s narrative stint. Of this paucity of narrative Hand B writes: Those who desire fuller particulars of the last 20 years may have recourse to 4 small books, (bound) out of which the principal events have been set down here; in order to have the Chronicles more connected. Of the next hundred 27  Of particular interest to this study of the reception of Hamilton’s edition is Isobel Grundy, ‘Women’s history? Writings by English Nuns’, in Isobel Grundy and Susan Wiseman (eds), Women, Writing, History, 1640–1740 (London, 1992), pp. 126–38. 28  Hamilton, Chronicle, vol. 1, p. xi. 29   Grundy, ‘Women’s History?’, p. 127. 30   Bowden discusses the conventual practice of reading annals and obit books aloud in ‘Collecting the Lives’, esp. p. 9.

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years very little can be said, owing to many papers having been lost at the time of removal from Louvain.31

The grammar of this sentence is a little unclear, but ‘the last 20 years’ probably refers to the period 1670–90 and ‘the next hundred’ to the period 1690–1790. Hand B might be referring to the ‘Little Chronicles’, but if so it is unclear why she mentions only four volumes, instead of five.32 It is possible that she is referring to a now-lost set of four volumes of the chronicle. On pages 640–48, Hand B gives a brief account of the nuns’ departure from Louvain during the French Revolution and the foundation of a new house called St Augustine’s Priory, Spetisbury, Dorsetshire. She concludes: ‘Here we enjoyed at last the comfort of a secluded life, and all necessary arrangements were completed in a short time. Laus Deo Semper nb the community removed from Amesbury abbey towards the end of the year 1800 and all were at Spetisbury for the feast of St Thomas.’33 Hand C is responsible for pages 649–70 and she writes about the convent’s post-exile experience, describing the community’s removal from St Augustine’s Priory, Spetisbury to a larger convent in Newton Abbot, where the nuns were granted licence to erect a school for the poor in 1822. She provides a running list of professions and deaths, and a brief account of how the nuns attempted to recover their monastic buildings in Louvain, without success. Hand C finishes her section: This account was written in the year 1836, by one who was pensioner in the school of St Monica’s in Louvain, at the time the nuns were obliged to fly, in the year 1794, and was in consequence sent home to her family. She afterwards joined them again at Amesbury Abbey where she was professed and at the time she wrote this, several of the nuns of this community, who came over from Louvain, were still living here at Spetisbury House.34

Although Hand C appears after Hand B, her text pre-dates Hand B’s. Hand B used the blank pages available to her in MS C2, whereas Hand C’s account was written into a separate booklet which is now pasted into the back of MS C2. Finally, Hand D provides the following information about Hand C in faint pencil: ‘This account was written in the year 1836, by one + Sr M. Angela Preston. She died Sept 24 1843 in the 63 year of her age She was 31

 MS C2, p. 632.   If she means four other smaller volumes, these were not catalogued in the 1980s nor do they survive at Douai. 33  MS C2, p. 648. Underlining as it appears in the manuscript. 34   Ibid., p. 670. 32

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chosen Subprioress 10 February 1828. In 1842 … she obtained leave to resign that office being unable to discharge the duties from her suffering complaint, a cancer.’35 This is Hand D’s only contribution to MS C2, and represents a unique indication of authorial identity in the ‘Louvain Chronicle’ tradition. ‘Little Chronicles’ On the first page of ‘Little Chronicles’ volume 4, there is a grammatically incomplete note about Richard White, alias Johnson, house confessor,36 which suggests he had some involvement in chronicling: ‘Chronicle of ye monastery of St Monica in Lovaine begining ye 22 of July in ye year 1652 written by ye Ghostly Father Richard Johnson for his time in ye year 1652’.37 Towards the end of volume 4, an obituary for Johnson is signed as follows: ‘this was writ by his poor devoted child,[38] that the memory of so worthy a man might not be wholy lost, especialy in a family so much obliged to him April 20 [illeg.] 1723. Sister Augustina Humberstone.’39 Several pages later Augustina is mentioned again: Austin Humberstone is yet alive as having made less profit of her time god grant she may do better for ye future & hope some good body will joyn her to ye rest of her companions with a requiescat in pace Amen she dyed soon after her companions … she was taken ill [&] made a shift to hear one mass or 2, one I saw her at at 6aclock. she dyed on ye friday following beeing ye day we solemnise ye dolors of our Blessed Lady 1727.40

Augustina’s signature against Johnson’s obituary suggests that she was the scribe of ‘Little Chronicles’ in the period 1668–1723, but given this brief obituary, and the fact that all ‘Little Chronicles’ volumes are in the same hand (with a few nineteenth or twentieth century interventions), it seems that Augustina worked in a record-keeping capacity, but was not the scribe of ‘Little Chronicles’. Whether Augustina was a chronicler or not cannot be determined at this stage; however, there is evidence that she was aware of historical projects 35

  Ibid., p. 670. Mary Angela Preston professed on 6 August, 1799.   Fr Richard White, alias Johnson (1603–87). See Aidan Bellenger, English and Welsh Priests, 1558–1800 (Bath, 1984), p. 121. 37  MS C18, vol. 4, p. unnumbered. 38  Meaning his spiritual daughter. 39  Anne Augustine Humberstone (1676–1727), LA140; MS C19, p. 1446. 40  MS C19, some pages were cropped during binding and the numbering is now lost. 36

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concerning the English convents, and other institutions in exile, on the basis that she corresponded with the Catholic priest and historian Charles Dodd about the history of St Monica’s in preparation for what would eventually be published as The Church History of England, from 1500 to 1688, Chiefly with Regard to Catholicks.41 A letter from Augustina to Dodd, dated 5 October 1718, provided him with a basis for describing the history of the St Monica’s foundation. Hugh Tierney provides Augustina’s letter in a footnote in his revised edition of Dodd’s work: Dodd’s Church History of England.42 Augustina begins her letter by explaining that the procuratrix of St Monica’s is very busy and has delegated the correspondence with Dodd to her. She answers his questions point-by-point, describing the foundation of St Monica’s from St Ursula’s. She provides a list of names, dates of profession and death for each prioress, and the information that 158 women had professed at St Monica’s by 1718, of which 54 were alive in 1718. She also remarks: As to what has been remarkable among us, though we have had several of singular piety, yet it has never been our custome to make any exterior flourishes, reserving all for the day of our Lord, when it is to be hoped all virtuous actions will appear with more lustre, the less they have been tarnished with the breath of human praise. However, this one thing I must say for ourselves, and which, I believe, all the world will allow, that we have hitherto always maintained peace and union, and hope the grace of God will conserve and augment it43

Augustina’s claim somewhat belies the nature and scope of the ‘Louvain Chronicle’ which is full of praise for the heroic deeds and sufferings of the nuns and their forebears. It may be she was deploying a humility trope commonly found in writings by devout authors – and particularly deployed by nuns who bore Paul’s injunction in mind that women should not preach – on behalf of her community, obscuring the sort of detail that Hamilton was keen to bring to the attention of the Catholic community almost two centuries later. For instance, Augustina might have mentioned, as Hamilton emphasizes, that The Life of Margaret Clement by Elizabeth Shirley and the Chronicle offer unique records of the heroic deeds of Prioress Clement’s 41  See ODNB, ‘Dodd, Charles [formerly Hugh Tootel] (1672–1743)’; Charles Dodd. The Church History of England, from 1500 to 1688, Chiefly with Regard to Catholicks (3 vols: Brussels [but probably London on the basis of English paper and English type]: 1737–42). 42  See Charles Dodd, Dodd’s Church History of England from the Commencement of the Sixteenth Century to the Revolution in 1688, Hugh Tierney (ed.) (5 vols, London, 1839–1863), vol. IV: James I. 43   Ibid., pp. 107–8.

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mother, Margaret Giggs, the adopted daughter of Sir Thomas More. Giggs is reported to have visited Carthusian monks who were incarcerated in Newgate prison for refusing to acknowledge Henry VIII as the head of the English Church. Giggs risked imprisonment and even death to sustain these monks in the face of physical neglect and starvation. Despite her efforts, the monks were eventually starved to death and later revered as martyrs by many Catholics. The Life and ‘Louvain Chronicle’ report that Giggs Clement received a reciprocal visit by the spirits of the Carthusians on her deathbed, and that they escorted her to heaven.44 In a similar vein, Hamilton celebrated sixteenth- and seventeenth-century martyr figures and identified some who had not been formally recognized in the recent wave of canonizations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. ‘Preface to Chapter the Fifth’ for instance, includes: ‘The Stonehouse and Hansom families. Cruelty of the President of the North. Elizabeth Foster, a hitherto unknown martyr … ’, and so on. Hamilton also reproduced photographs and facsimiles of relics: Sir Thomas More’s hairshirt and two letters from William Howard, Viscount Stafford, written shortly before his execution, to his daughter, Sister Ursula Howard, Augustina’s contemporary.45 Thus, despite her awareness of St Monica’s records and relics that celebrated Catholic heroism and martyrdom, Augustina appears to have consciously withheld or downplayed details of her convent’s rich heritage. Yet at the same time she played an active part in putting St Monica’s on the map for contemporary and future readers who were interested in English convents in exile and English Catholicism more broadly. Thus, while Augustina’s correspondence with Dodd was significant, the depth and complexity of St Monica’s history would only become available to a larger audience in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Shortly after the appearance of Augustina’s name in ‘Little Chronicles’, there is another revelation: ‘this following is what is calld the little Chronicle. by Sister Monica Hatton.’ This quotation appears on an unnumbered page in ‘Little Chronicles’ vol. 4, and pertains to a brief overview of significant events in the convent’s history in the period 1609– 55, the brevity of which is similar to Augustina’s letter to Dodd. Monica Hatton’s original document is not known to survive, making this the only record of her role as a chronicler. Interestingly, her obituary note in the ‘Louvain Chronicle’ reads: ‘An humble innocent soul, orderly laborious

44   This episode is narrated by Elizabeth Shirley in Life of Margaret Clement, Hallett. Mary Copley also presents this episode in ‘Louvain Chronicle’: see MS C2, pp. 4–5; and Chronicle, pp. x–xiv, 4, and 25–6. 45   Ursula Howard (1664–1720), LA241. The facsimile letters appear in Chronicle, facing pp. 32 and 46; the hairshirt image faces p. 102.

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& zealous but of weak capacity’.46 The entry for her life in the ‘Chronicle’ does not give any further information about her work as an author of any kind, but this is also true of Mary Copley and Augustina Humberstone. A Culture of Anonymity? In the introduction to each volume of the Chronicle, Hamilton explicitly thanks a host of people including John Morris SJ, Joseph Gillow, Henry Foley SJ, and the abbesses of Syon Abbey, Teignmouth and St Augustine’s Priory, Newton Abbot. In the preface to the first volume, Hamilton also mentions ‘the untiring labour of a religious of St Augustine’s Priory’ and in the second ‘the indefatigable labour and research of a religious of the community’.47 Archival evidence reveals that this anonymous contributor was Paris-born Sister Maria Heloisa Alphonse Lambert.48 It is striking that Alphonse Lambert elected or was instructed to remain anonymous in her contribution. According to letters housed at the Douai Abbey Archive, she was responsible for most of the text and para-text of the print edition. In a letter to Prioress Frances Joseph Harris49 dated June 3, 1903, Hamilton reveals the extent of Alphonse Lambert’s involvement in editing the chronicle; his role as editor and guide; and his ill health, which would snatch him from the community and the Chronicle before it was complete: I am longing to see you again, but it will perhaps be better done by my coming to you direct from Buckfast another time; I mean more safely. I am here as extraordinary and for my work on P.S.F. /p./ it is odd that I am always [able to] 1. preach 2. write, as well as ever, and have more work on hand for the press than ever. Now for the volume of your Chronicle. once I make a contract with printers, I can make no change at all without additional payment ^even for a line^, so whatever Sister Alphonse wants altered or added, must all be sent me before to the last line. I could arrange even now, but am waiting to see if she sends any more revised chapters. /p./ Of course I can wait awhile yet … I believe I shall really edit your Chronicle, despite my failing strength, and /p./ that while waiting for Sister Alphonse we shall bring vol. I down to beginning of Charles I. As soon as she tells me she has no more to add I will put materials together and send them off.

46

 MS C2, p. 625.  Hamilton, Chronicle, vol. 1, p. xiii; vol. 2 p. ix. 48  Alias de Montorsau; professed 21, November 1879). See Douai Abbey Archive, Box W.M.L. K.1, folder K19, loose item. 49  Nineteenth prioress of the community, she governed from 1896–1905: Douai Abbey Archive, Box W.M.L. K.1, folder K19, loose item. 47

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I see your Chronicle takes well with the public (Catholics and Protestants). It is the most interesting by far of that class of our Records, but it has been unmercifully pirated by other[s], and /p./ will always be so till it is published in full. So far its publication in P.S.F. has done nothing but good. God be thanked that the close of my life has been allowed to be devoted to your service. If for any motive you want me to come to you, I will always do so, even now; else I go to Buckfast on Saturday. Abbotsleigh is always the /p./ same to me. But I fancy the good Abbess here says truly, that I ought to have been in my grave before now, but the English Martyrs will not let me, till the work is done for them … pray for your most devoted brother Fr Adam OSB50

Alphonse Lambert not only transcribed MS C2, she compiled the complex pedigrees, located at the back of the volumes, for families such as the Haydocks, Howards, Cliffords, Thimelbys, Astons and Giffards, to name only a few, and she may also have composed the chapter prefaces.51 In a letter to Alphonse Lambert on the subject of pedigrees, Hamilton writes: ‘Lady Abbess here [Abbotsleigh] is as bad as yourself in her devotion to pedigrees, despite the Apostle’s warning, and wants to see a long array of them in print; on the plea that it would “add to the value of the book”.’52 Claire Walker suggests that this tension between nuns and their male advisers over genealogical emphasis was present at the time the ‘Louvain Chronicle’ was written. She speculates that the reforming house confessor Richard Johnson may not have condoned the family-focus: The annalist of St Monica’s illustrated the convent’s own happenings with detailed genealogies of prominent nuns and heroic tales of relatives who had suffered for the faith. [Johnson] might have construed this conflation of the convent’s and the nuns’ family histories as undue attachment to the world, but it cemented the exiled nuns’ sense that they were part of a wider English Catholic community.53

50  Douai Abbey Archive, Box Q III, MSS R&H Packet, folder: ‘Radcliffe and Hamilton to Lambert’. The letters are not individually catalogued and many are undated. 51  Alphonse Lambert corresponded widely with the Catholic community in order to compile the pedigrees, and boxes worth of her letters and research are housed at Douai in a collection of boxes described as the ‘Historical Annex’. 52   Ibid. The reference to the Apostle probably recalls Paul to the Romans 2:11 ‘For there is no respect of persons with God.’ 53   Claire Walker, ‘Doe not supose me a well mortifyed Nun dead to the world’: LetterWriting in Early Modern English Convents’, in James Daybell (ed.), Early Modern Women’s Letter Writing (Basingstoke, 2001), p. 162.

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Although Johnson’s attitudes towards the ‘Louvain Chronicle’ are not known for certain, nor the mechanisms by which Hamilton was convinced to allow pedigrees, the degree to which the manuscript and print versions emphasize lay family members, and their heroism, suggests that the nuns were primarily responsible for the authorial and editorial construction of this work: while they worked with confessors, they retained control over their documents. Mary Copley’s authorial undertaking of the seventeenth century, the work of various anonymous scribes, and Alphonse Lambert’s editorial work of the twentieth brought together a vast range of historical documentation and oral history: the result is a rich resource for scholars of the early modern period.

Chapter 6

Translating Lady Mary Percy: Authorship and Authority among the Brussels Benedictines1 Jaime Goodrich The feminist recovery of writings by early modern Englishwomen during the 1980s and 1990s almost completely overlooked the texts produced by the continental convents for Englishwomen for a few reasons.2 The nuns’ writings are fragmentary and scattered, and feminist critics followed an author-driven paradigm at odds with the plural authorship so common in these houses. In recent years, scholars have made headway in locating and editing the nuns’ writings, yet the problems posed by plural authorship still remain.3 Many of the texts produced in convents were cooperative ventures, as when one nun succeeded another at the task of composing obituary notices or house annals. Nuns also collaborated with men outside their houses, particularly confessors and relatives, in order to foster English Catholicism, define their cloister’s identity and transmit their devotional practices. The Cambrai Benedictines, for example, preserved and circulated the voluminous – and controversial – writings of their unofficial spiritual guide, Fr Augustine Baker OSB.4 Confessors, meanwhile, disseminated the work of their penitents, as when Fr Francis Bell OFM arranged for 1   I would like to thank my research assistants Kimberly Majeske and Ginny Owens for their diligent assistance with the Mechelen letters. 2  See, however, Dorothy Latz, ‘Glow-Worm Light’: Writings of Seventeenth-Century English Recusant Women from Original Manuscripts (Salzburg, 1989); Jeanne de Cambry, The Building of Divine Love, As Translated by Dame Agnes More, ed. Dorothy Latz (Salzburg, 1992); Dorothy Latz, ‘Neglected Writings by Recusant Women,’ in Dorothy Latz (ed), Neglected English Literature: Recusant Writings of the 16th–17th Centuries (Salzburg, 1997), pp. 11–48. 3  See Marie-Louise Coolahan, ‘Identity Politics and Nuns’ Writing’, Women’s Writing, 14.2 (2007): pp. 306–20. A recent set of volumes has made available a wide range of the nuns’ writings: English Convents in Exile, 1600–1800, gen. ed. Caroline Bowden, vols 1–6 (London, 2012–13). 4   Claire Walker, ‘Spiritual Property: The English Benedictine Nuns of Cambrai and the Dispute over the Baker Manuscripts’, in Nancy E. Wright, Margaret W. Ferguson, and A.R. Buck (eds), Women, Property, and the Letters of the Law in Early Modern England (Toronto, 2004), pp. 237–55.

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the publication of a translation by Abbess Catherine Francis Greenbury of the Third Order Franciscans at Brussels (A Short Relation of the Life … of S. Elizabeth, 1628).5 Some confessors incorporated their penitents’ writings into their own works in order to advance shared spiritual agendas. Toby Matthew composed a biography of Abbess Lucy (Elizabeth) Knatchbull of the Ghent Benedictines featuring selections from her spiritual autobiography.6 While Matthew’s biography might appear to subordinate Knatchbull’s voice, this work’s plural authorship reflects the joint religious endeavours undertaken in convent life, where confessor and penitent often developed a reciprocal and cooperative spiritual relationship. In the wake of postmodern assessments of authorship, scholars of early modern literature have usefully troubled author-centred paradigms, opening the door for recent scholarship that recognizes the complexity of convent authorship.7 Heather Wolfe’s edition of Dame Magdalena (Lucy) Cary’s biography of her mother Elizabeth Cary carefully preserves marginal annotations made by an unknown Benedictine monk as well as the author’s siblings Dame Mary Cary and Patrick Cary.8 Meanwhile, Caroline Bowden has helpfully explored the ways that obituaries could shape a convent’s corporate identity.9 The writings of Lady Mary Percy (c. 1570–1642) offer an ideal subject for considering the function of plural authorship within a convent setting.10 The daughter of Blessed Thomas Percy, who was executed by Elizabeth for leading the 1569 Northern Uprising, Percy was both the founder and second abbess of the Brussels Benedictines. While working with other nuns, confessors and religious authorities, Percy developed collaborative authorial strategies that established her authority inside and outside the convent in ways that single authorship could not. With the aid of Fr Anthony Hoskins SJ, Percy translated An Abridgment of Christian Perfection (Breve Compendio, c. 1588) by Isabella Berinzaga and Achille Gagliardi SJ into English from an  5   Katherine Francis Greenburie (1622–42), BF109. See François Paludanus, A Short Relation, of the Life, Virtues, and Miracles of S. Elizabeth, trans. Catherine Greenbury (Brussels, 1628).  6   Toby Matthew, The Life of Lady Lucy Knatchbull (London, 1931).  7  See Arthur F. Marotti, Manuscript, Print and the English Renaissance Lyric (Ithaca, NY, 1995); Jeffrey Masten, Textual Intercourse: Collaboration, Authorship and Sexualities in Renaissance Drama (Cambridge, 1997); Margaret J.M. Ezell, Social Authorship and the Advent of Print (Baltimore, MD, 1999); and Stephen B. Dobranski, Milton, Authorship and the Book Trade (Cambridge, 1999).  8  Magdalena Cary (1640–50), CB029; Elizabeth Cary, Lady Falkland: Life and Letters, ed. Heather Wolfe (Cambridge, 2001).  9   Caroline Bowden, ‘Collecting the Lives of Early Modern Religious: Obituary Writing and the Development of Collective Memory and Corporate Identity’, Women’s History Review, 19.1 (2010): pp. 7–20. 10  Mary Percy (1600–42), BB135.

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intermediary French version. The resulting translation was published in 1612 under Percy’s initials alone, obscuring the text’s collaborative nature. After becoming abbess, Percy wrote to her superiors in Mechelen and Rome with the assistance of translators who rendered her English letters into French and Latin. In these letters, Percy generally mentions the names of translators with religious clout of their own, meaning that many of her translators remained anonymous. The result of these collaborations was a nominal authorship in which Percy functioned as the primary author, even though she was not fully responsible for the finished product.11 Percy’s reliance on collaborative authorship provides an important complement to the authorcentric focus of much scholarship on early modern women writers. Percy often sought collaborators whose authority bolstered her credibility, even as their learning and connections assisted her cause. Nominal authorship thus allowed Percy and her allies a powerful means of enhancing her reputation as a writer, a nun and an abbess. Percy cultivated her collaborative approach to authorship in response to divisive clashes among the Brussels Benedictines over the role of Jesuit confessors. Many members of the convent preferred Ignatian spirituality, particularly the Spiritual Exercises, and Jesuit priests played important roles in the house’s founding and subsequent history. Percy originally considered joining an Augustinian convent for Flemish women, but Jesuit priests convinced her to establish the first continental convent for Englishwomen.12 Fr William Holt SJ found a suitable building and celebrated the convent’s first Mass, while Fr Robert Persons SJ obtained papal approval of the house’s establishment. Because the English Benedictine Order had not yet been reconstituted, the archbishop of Mechelen held jurisdiction over the convent and appointed a secular priest as the house’s main confessor. The nuns nevertheless also had access to Jesuit priests as extraordinary confessors. Within ten years, this diversity in spiritual practices had caused tension within the house, and Abbess 11  Nominal authorship bears similarities to Harold Love’s categories of executive and declarative authorship: Authorship and Attribution (Cambridge, 2002), pp. 43–46. For useful discussions of the prevailing tendency to view translation as a secondary form of writing, see André Lefevere, Translation, Rewriting, and the Manipulation of Literary Fame (New York, 1992); Lawrence Venuti, The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation (New York, 1995); The Translator as Author: Perspectives on Literary Translation, eds Claudia Buffagni, Beatrice Garzelli, and Serenella Zanotti (Berlin, 2011). 12   For Percy’s biography, see Jos Blom and Frans Blom, ‘Introductory Note’ in Catherine Greenbury and Mary Percy, eds Jos Blom and Frans Blom, The Early Modern Englishwoman: A Facsimile Library of Essential Works, series I, part 2, vol. 2 (Aldershot, 2006) and the ODNB. For an overview of the convent’s history, see Paul Arblaster, ‘The Monastery of Our Lady of the Assumption in Brussels (1599–1794)’, English Benedictine History, 25 (1999) , accessed 4 September 2012.

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Joanna Berkeley’s increasing concerns about Jesuit confessors sparked two failed attempts to create filiations in 1609.13 It is fairly well known that Lucy Knatchbull and several other postulants left that year to found a new cloister under Jesuit influence, only to return and profess at Brussels.14 These postulants may have planned to participate in a filiation proposed that March, when Berkeley and the house petitioned the archbishop of Mechelen to allow Mary Percy to found a new convent, presumably with Jesuit guidance.15 Percy, however, remained in the house, and her translation of Berinzaga and Gagliardi’s Abridgment legitimated an Ignatian-based form of monastic spirituality. Percy’s interest in Ignatian piety can be observed even in the circumstances of the translation’s composition and publication, as she collaborated with Hoskins, a Jesuit priest who served as extraordinary confessor to the convent. Baker provides an account of the work based on the testimony of a nun from Brussels who had joined the Cambrai house: … it was Translated, and Set forth in English by & under the Name of the Lady Mary Piercy … [the] preface was so Translated into English, by Fa[ther] Antony Hoskins, of the Society of Jesus … the Residue (I mean, the whole Body of the Book) being of the Translation of the Said Lady Abbesse: whom the Said Father A. Hoskins did moreover somewhat Aid (as I am likewise Informed) in the Translation of the Said Body of the Book; and did Procure, or Help for the Getting of it printed, and was the First Publisher of it … .16

Hoskins obviously had an important role as the book’s co-translator, editor and publisher, and a 1625 edition of the translation attributed the work solely to him. Percy may have decided to work with Hoskins because of his interest in printing English translations of religious material. While vice-prefect of English Jesuits in Belgium, Hoskins published three works with Jesuit associations through the English College Press at St Omer: A Briefe and Cleare Declaration of Sundry Pointes Absolutely Dislyked in 13   Joanna Berkeley (1580–1616), BB015. For more information on these tensions and failed attempts, see Downside Abbey Archives, Haslemere MS 1876, p. 52; and Chronicles of the First Monastery Founded for Benedictine Nuns (Bergholt, 1898), p. 67. For an overview of these events, see Jaime Goodrich, Faithful Translators: Authorship, Gender, and Religion in Early Modern England (forthcoming Northwestern University Press). 14  Lucy Knatchbull (1609–29), BB107. See Matthew, Life, pp. 30–32. 15   Joanna Berkeley et al. to Mathias Hovius, 31 March 1609, Archdiocesan Archives of Mechelen-Brussels (afterwards AAM), Engelse benedictinessen Brussel, 2. 16  Augustine Baker, An Enquiry about the Author of the Treatise of the Abridgment and Ladder of Perfection, Downside Abbey Library, MS 26561, pp. 8–9. For the bibliographical history of Percy’s work, see A.F. Allison, ‘New Light on the Early History of the Breve Compendio: The Background to the English Translation of 1612’, Biographical Studies, 4 (1957): pp. 4–17.

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the Lately Enacted Oath of Allegiance (STC 13840, 1611); The Apologies of the Most Christian Kinges of France and Navar (STC 13122.5, 1611), and Thomas à Kempis’ The Following of Christ (STC 23987, 1613). Percy’s collaboration with Hoskins therefore had an ideological component, advancing a shared goal of supplying English Catholics with texts that supported Ignatian piety and politics. Furthermore, Hoskins’s participation in this venture probably gave the translation greater spiritual authority among those Brussels nuns who preferred Ignatian piety. It is nearly impossible to identify most of Hoskins’s contributions to the translation, but he does seem to have been concerned about the potential unorthodoxy of the Abridgment. The 1612 publication of Percy’s translation contains two para-texts that were probably Hoskins’s work: a translation of the French version’s preface, signed only with the initials ‘D. C. M.’, into English and an original preface (‘To the Reader’). Jos Blom and Frans Blom contend that Hoskins translated ‘To the Reader’, but this text has no analogue in the French version.17 Since ‘To the Reader’ refers directly to a dedicatory preface written by Percy, it seems likely that Hoskins translated the preface written by ‘D. C. M.’. More significantly, in ‘To the Reader’, Hoskins sought to pre-empt criticism of the treatise, which had already caused issues for Gagliardi and Berinzaga.18 In her dedicatory preface, Percy presents the advanced soul as experiencing complete passivity: ‘it is only a patient, and nothing is expected of it.’19 ‘To the Reader,’ however, warns readers against drawing potentially heretical conclusions from this statement: … in this Epistle … there is mention made, that when the will commeth to be united … into the will of God, that then it must be a patient rather then an agent … Thou must beware in these & the like sentences, of two severall doctrines or errors … The one, least thou thinke that a soule being come to that estate, doth not indeed work with her owne will … The other error is, that a soule … should not doe anything, but as seing herself to be cleerly moved thereunto by the will of God.20

If Percy had any reservations about this language, it seems likely that she would not have used it in the first place. It therefore appears that Hoskins hoped to ensure the translation’s favourable reception by downplaying 17

  Blom and Blom, ‘Introductory Note,’ p. xviii.   For the text’s history, see Marcel Villers, ‘La Abregé de la Perfection de la Dame Milanaise’, Revue d’Ascétique et de Mystique, 12 (1931): pp. 44–89. 19   Isabella Berinzaga and Achille Gagliardi, An Abridgment of Christian Perfection, trans. Mary Percy in Catherine Greenbury and Mary Percy, sig. *6r. 20   Ibid., sigs *8r–*9r. 18

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some of its more unorthodox elements. Even so, Hoskins played a subordinate and largely invisible role in the translation, allowing Percy a heightened spiritual authority as the translator of a popular mystic treatise. Once Percy became abbess in 1616, she began to use collaborative authorial strategies even more frequently. As she came into conflict with both confessors and nuns who opposed her policies, Percy asserted her monastic authority through French and Latin letters written to her own superiors. English nuns at Brussels and elsewhere often wrote letters to their families and compatriots, but writing to non-English speakers posed special problems.21 Because Percy could not expect her addressees to read English, she attempted to control the texts that they read by finding sympathetic translators who could render her English letters into French and Latin – languages appropriate to ecclesiastical authorities in Rome and the archbishop of Mechelen, who kept records in Dutch, French and Latin. Percy’s dependence on translators provides new insight into her knowledge of foreign languages. As previously noted, Percy had translated Berinzaga and Gagliardi’s treatise from French into English, but in 1621 she asked Revd Jacobus Boonen, the new archbishop of Mechelen, to approve an arrangement in which Fr Thomas Hallowes, prior of the English Carthusians in Mechelen, would translate her letters into Latin: ‘pour autant que je ne puisse escrire moy mesme en francois … j’escriveray mes letters en englois, au Prieur, du Chartreux, afin qu’il les mets in Latin, ce que je m’asseur [sic], il fera tres fidelement.’22 This statement might appear to be yet another example of a female writer using the humility topos, yet Hoskins did assist Percy with her translation of Berinzaga and Gagliardi. Furthermore, out of the more than nearly one hundred letters from Percy to the archbishop extant in the Archdiocesan Archives of Mechelen-Brussels, only two reveal Percy herself writing French in a sustained manner: a postscript and a brief letter.23 Percy did, however, 21   Claire Walker, ‘Securing Souls or Telling Tales? The Politics of Cloistered Life in an English Convent’, in Cordula van Wyhe (ed.), Female Monasticism in Early Modern Europe: An Interdisciplinary View (Aldershot, 2008), pp. 227–44; Claire Walker, ‘“Doe not supose me a well mortifyed Nun dead to the world”: Letter-Writing in Early Modern English Convents’, in James Daybell (ed.), Early Modern Women’s Letter Writing, 1450–1700 (New York, 2001), pp. 177–93. 22   ‘… forasmuch that I myself cannot write in French … I will write my letters in English, to the Prior of the Carthusians, so that he puts them into Latin, which, I assure myself, he will do very faithfully … .’: Mary Percy to Jacobus Boonen, 8 September 1621, AAM, Engelse benedictinessen Brussel, 12.2. Unless otherwise noted, all translations from French and Latin are my own. 23  Mary Percy to Jacobus Boonen, 20 October 1636, AAM, Engelse benedictinessen Brussel, 12.2; Mary Percy et al. to Jacobus Boonen, 1637, AAM, Engelse benedictinessen Brussel, 12.2.

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review the French translations of her letters, as several bear her corrections in French. Other Brussels nuns with knowledge of French demonstrated a similar unease about their writing abilities. Dame Potentiana (Elizabeth) Deacon,24 who also translated a French devotional text into English, both wrote her own French letters to the archbishop and relied upon translators to render her English letters into French. It is more difficult to determine Percy’s command of Latin. Percy quotes the Vulgate in her extant English works, but her proposal to use Hallowes as a translator suggests that she may have had limited Latin. If Hallowes and the archbishop were both residing in Mechelen at the time, Percy may have expected Hallowes’s Latin translations to be sent directly to the archbishop without any oversight on her part.25 Thus while Percy could read French and possibly Latin, she did not trust herself to write in these languages. As Percy’s presentation of Hallowes as a potential translator suggests, her letter-writing process was a more public exercise than modern practices might suggest. James Daybell has already demonstrated that during the early modern period, both men and women frequently used secretaries to compose their letters, which meant that letters were not necessarily private documents providing access to the unmediated thoughts of the writer.26 In the case of Percy’s letters, her translator held a role analogous to a secretary, with the power to transmit the contents of her letters to other members of the convent as well as to the outside world. Because her letters often contained sensitive material related to the convent’s quarrels, Percy selected her translators with care. In most cases, Percy does not identify her translators, yet palaeographic and intratextual evidence indicates that Percy frequently turned to translators who supported her position at the time, including confessors (Fr John Knatchbull, alias John Norton; Fr Francis Ward), fellow nuns (Dame Katherine [Thecla] Bond; Dame Mary Persons; Dame Agatha [Winifred] Wiseman) and outsiders 24

  Potentiana/Pudentiana Deacon (1608–45), BB058.   In a 1631 letter to Propaganda, Percy also mentions that articles proposed by the Nuncio had to be translated for her: ‘Articulos ipsos non habeo, quia ille qui … illos mihi interpretatus est, commissionem non habuit eos apud me relinquendi [I do not have the articles themselves, because he who translated them for me … did not have a commission to leave them with me]’: A. Pasture, ‘Documents concernant quelques monastères Anglais aux Pays-Bas au XVIIe siècle,’ Bulletin de l’institut historique Belge de Rome 10 (1930): pp. 133–223, at p. 185. 26  See James Daybell, ‘Women’s Letters and Letter Writing in England, 1540–1603: An Introduction to the Issues of Authorship and Construction’, Shakespeare Studies, 27 (1999): pp. 161–86; ‘Female Literacy and the Social Conventions of Women’s Letter-Writing in England, 1540–1603’ in Early Modern Women’s Letter Writing, pp. 59–76; ‘Scripting a Female Voice: Women’s Epistolary Rhetoric in Sixteenth-Century Letters of Petition’, Women’s Writing, 13.1 (2006): pp. 3–20; and Women Letter Writers in Tudor England (Oxford, 2006). 25

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(Gabriel Colford; Fr Thomas Hallowes; Fr Charles Préau, archdeacon of Cambrai).27 Significantly, Persons served as Percy’s translator until 1628, when the appointment of Fr Anthony Champney, a well-known foe of Jesuits, split the house and caused Persons to side with the faction opposed to Champney and Percy.28 Persons then began to translate letters written by Percy’s opponents, and she eventually left the house, along with other dissident nuns in 1632.29 Yet after her return to the Brussels house, she was translating for Percy once again by 1640, suggesting that the earlier rift had healed by this time.30 In one notable case, Percy used the public nature of her letter-writing to her own benefit by asking Norton, one of her main antagonists during the early 1620s, to translate a letter requesting permission to resign her abbacy, shrewdly disclosing this act of humility to her detractors.31 On occasion, Percy mentions high-profile translators whose authority enhanced her own credibility, including Hallowes and Préau. By highlighting her connections among local ecclesiastical authorities as well as English Catholic exiles, Percy signalled their approbation of her conduct. As abbess, then, Percy cannily exploited the quirks of collaborative authorship in order to demonstrate her monastic authority. This authorial fluidity was especially useful to Percy as a source of self-fashioning after she changed her mind about the value of Ignatian spirituality within a monastic setting and attempted to sever the convent’s ties with Jesuit priests, as demonstrated by her letters to the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith in Rome (Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide), hereinafter referred to as Propaganda. Percy began writing to Propaganda in 1629 in response to the previously mentioned controversy over Champney, which resulted in a lawsuit filed by pro-Jesuit 27   Katherine Thecla Bond (1619–55), BB025; Marie Persons (1608–42), BB137; Agatha Wiseman (1603–47), BB199. For Colford, see Paul Arblaster, ‘G. C., Recusant Prison Translator of the Japonian Epistells’, Recusant History, 28.1 (2006): pp. 43–54. 28   For this conflict, see Claire Walker, Gender and Politics in Early Modern Europe: English Convents in France and the Low Countries (Hampshire, 2003), pp. 138–42; Paul Arblaster, ‘The Infanta and the English Benedictine Nuns: Mary Percy’s Memories in 1634’, Recusant History, 23.4 (1997): pp. 508–27; Peter Guilday, The English Catholic Refugees on the Continent 1558–1795, vol. 1, The English Colleges and Convents in the Catholic Low Countries 1558–1795 (New York, 1914), pp. 257–65. 29  See, for example, her translation of a letter written by Elizabeth Southcote, 16001631 (BB166), one of Percy’s principal adversaries: Elizabeth Southcote to Jacobus Boonen, 24 April 1629, AAM, Engelse benedictinessen Brussel, 12.1. 30  See Mary Percy to Jacobus Boonen, 14 March 1640, AAM, Engelse benedictinessen Brussel, 12.2 and Mary Percy to Jacobus Boonen, 26 July 1642, AAM, Engelse benedictinessen Brussel, 12.2. 31  Mary Percy to Jacobus Boonen, 19 January 1624, AAM, Engelse benedictinessen Brussel, 12.2.

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nuns who sought the right to choose their own confessor. After failing to avert the lawsuit, Percy repeatedly wrote to Propaganda as the case progressed. Scholars have already shown that secular women collaborated with secretaries and other male advisers to write letters that afforded the female letter-writer political agency.32 Percy’s collaboration with the translator of her letters to Propaganda, possibly Champney himself, functioned in a similar manner, as the translator added rhetorical flourishes and information designed to substantiate her credibility.33 Complete copies of her original English letters are not extant, but doctored snippets of three such letters from Percy to Propaganda during 1631 survive in a 1634 polemic supporting Percy’s position (Innocency Justified and Insolency Repressed, BL MS Harley 4275).34 Of special interest is Percy’s letter to Propaganda on 23 August, which requested that the lawsuit be decided according to the alleged charges rather than other factors. The English and Latin versions of this letter differ in two significant ways. First, the translator reworked Percy’s text in order to underscore her authority and thus to advance her suit with Propaganda, which could alter the ongoing judicial proceedings. Secondly, the English version included in Innocency Justified has been edited so that it retroactively supports the polemic’s contentions and defends Percy’s actions to an English audience. Percy’s letter to Propaganda was of the utmost importance since she was writing to complain that the papal Nuncio – whom Propaganda itself had appointed as a judge – was conducting the trial unjustly. The translator seeks to make this letter even more effective through a number of small changes that reinforce Percy’s self-presentation as a selfless abbess experiencing unjust tribulations. For example, Percy notes that she has attempted to end the controversies by offering to resign her position: ‘That I might reduce peace into our Monastery, whence it hath been for a long tyme banished I resigned twice my prelacy’.35 The translator slightly tweaks this statement: ‘Ut pacem et concordiam, quae multis jam annis e monasterio nostra exulavit, reducerem, me praelatura sponde [sic] abdicavi’.36 By rendering ‘peace’ with the doublet ‘pacem et concordiam’ 32  Daybell, ‘Women’s Letters’ and Women Letter-Writers; Erin A. Sadlack, ‘Epistolary Negotiations: Mary the French Queen and the Politics of Letter-Writing’, Sixteenth Century Journal, 41.3 (2010): pp. 691–711. 33   If Champney did not translate Percy’s letters to Propaganda, he certainly collaborated with her since he wrote a letter on 12 June 1631 that borrows language from her letter of 7 June, 1631: Pasture, ‘Documents,’ pp. 167, 170. 34   These letters are from 23 August, 29 August and 20 September. 35   BL MS Harley 4275, Innocency Justified and Insolency Repressed, f. 56v. 36   ‘In order to bring back peace and concord, which have been exiled from our monastery for many years already now, I voluntarily removed myself from the prelacy’: Pasture, ‘Documents,’ p. 175.

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(‘peace and concord’), the translator emphasizes Percy’s irenic stance, even as he underscores her humble willingness to abdicate her position by adding ‘sponde’ (‘voluntarily’). Meanwhile, the translator heightens the pathos of Percy’s situation by emphasizing the convent’s fiscal troubles. Percy laments the cost and effects of the ongoing lawsuit, stating that ‘the Monastery … is in that necessity that wee live of borrowing, to say nothing of the scorne of heretiques whereunto we are exposed by these occasions.’37 The translator embellishes this sentence to paint a more compelling picture of the monastery’s distress: ‘ad eas angustias redactum sit, ut nonnisi mutuatis pecuniis victum ipsum comparemus. De catholicorum scandalo et haereticorum ludibriis, quibus hac ratione expositae fuerimus, supervacaneum est dicere.’38 This translation makes the monastery’s plight more concrete by rendering ‘we live of borrowing’ in more specific terms (‘victum’: ‘food’). Furthermore, the translator parallels ‘the scorne of heretiques’ with an even more worrisome concern: ‘catholicorum scandalo’ (‘the scandal of Catholics’). This interpolation raises the possibility that damage to the house’s reputation among English Catholics would further complicate its spiritual difficulties. Finally, the translator helps Percy shape an authoritative voice by adapting her own strategy of biblical citation as a means of self-authorization. Percy incorporates a citation from Psalm 119 into the letter to demonstrate her blamelessness: ‘I may most trueley say; Cum illis quae oderunt pacem eram pacifica, with those whoe have peace in hatred I have been peceable, and when I have treated with them they have impugned mee without cause.’39 Later in the letter, Percy prosaically states that she will ‘expect your Eminencies Judgment’ regarding her suit.40 The Latin translation, however, substitutes the second verse of Psalm 16 for this phrase: ‘postea vultu vestro iudicium meum prodeat.’41 This artful citation casts Percy as a wronged David and Propaganda as a just God by invoking David’s request for divine protection from his enemies. While Percy does omit material from this letter in preparation for its inclusion in Innocency Justified, she seems unlikely to remove passages so favourable to her cause, suggesting that these alterations are the handiwork of the translator. As in the case of her earlier collaborations, Percy clearly selected

37

  Innocency Justified, f. 57v.   ‘It has been reduced to these straits – that we do not buy food itself unless with borrowed money. Of the scandal of Catholics and the jests of heretics, to which we have been exposed for this reason, it is superfluous to speak’: Pasture, ‘Documents’, p. 176. 39   Innocency Justified, f. 56v. 40   Ibid., f. 57r. 41   ‘Let my judgment come forth from thy countenance’ (Douay-Rheims): Pasture, ‘Documents’, p. 175. 38

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a translator who supported her position and therefore worked to enhance her original letter’s impact. The version of Percy’s letter found in Innocency Justified also provides a glimpse into her collaborations with the writers of the polemic itself. The ‘Who Were the Nuns?’ database currently attributes the polemic to Percy, and it seems likely that she had a hand in its composition.42 The work, however, is written in a first-person plural voice suggesting that it represents the collective voice of the house. The fragmentary versions of Percy’s letters to Rome are one of the few moments when an individualized nun’s voice emerges, and Innocency Justified introduces these letters as factual evidence that Percy did not fear the lawsuit’s outcome. The August 23 letter, however, has been heavily revised by Percy or someone assuming her name in order to present a more favourable version of the abbess and her faction. Midway through the letter, Percy herself apparently acknowledges the omission of material irrelevant to the polemic’s larger purpose: ‘And after divers other things in the preventing or answering some objections which might bee made I concluded in these wordes’.43 Comparison of the English and Latin versions reveals several other unmentioned alterations that strengthen or explain Percy’s case. The polemic’s rendering of the letter carefully removes a potentially embarrassing introductory section in which Percy admits that she has been chastened by Propaganda to promote peace. Percy also inserts several sentences dwelling on her upright leadership: ‘I paid the fees of the Commissary and Notary for either part as well for them as for my owne. I exhibited my reprobations as the forme of lawe requireth.’44 Much of the new material provides crucial context for general readers, but would have been redundant for Propaganda, to whom Percy had been writing about the case for two years. Whereas the Latin letter notes that ‘Illustrissimo Belgii Nuncio commissa est cognitio caussae inter aliquas moniales meas et meipsam exortae’, the English version explains in detail how Cardinal Barberini submitted the dissident nuns’ petition to Propaganda, which in turn handed over the case to the Nuncio.45 Similarly, the English version includes the aims of the petitioners, surely known to Propaganda by this point, and while the Latin letter only notes that Percy has been accused of ‘criminum’ (‘crimes’), the English version offers a detailed list: ‘parricid, willfull wasting of the Monasteries 42  ‘Who were the Nuns?’ , accessed 4 September 2012. 43   Innocency Justified, f. 58v. 44   Ibid., ff. 57v–58r. 45   ‘The Most Illustrious Nuncio of Belgium was entrusted with the trial of a case that had arisen between some of my nuns and myself’: Pasture, ‘Documents’, p. 175; Innocency Justified, f. 57r.

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goods, and voluntary breach of our statutes’.46 Thus the version of Percy’s letter in Innocency Justified functions less as a faithful transcription of the original and more as a summation of the lawsuit’s history and a defence of Percy’s conduct. Innocency Justified offers a final twist on Percy’s use of nominal authorship, as the revised letter substantiates the text’s claims by incorporating language taken from the polemic itself. The anonymous authors of Innocency Justified accuse the dissident nuns of spurning Percy’s attempts to resolve the conflict: Can you deny that our Lady Abbess when you first began to tumult under color and pretence of conserving and maynteyning our statutes did give us in writing under her hand, that what statutes you would or could produce as violated by her or hers she would see repayred, if you would doe the same by those statutes which she would shewe, you did notoriously violat. And letting 20 daies passe expecting your productions of the statutes violated by her, and not hearing any thing from you, shee renued the same assurance againe in writing, & with all produced divers principall statutes not only violated by you, but troaden under foote by you … .47

The revised English letter contains nearly the same account, which does not appear in the Latin translation of the original and would have been extraneous information in a letter designed to affect the outcome of the trial: … when my Religious did violently rise against mee, pretending the reparation of our Statutes violated by mee, I calling the Convent togeather, bound my selfe by my owne handwriting to repaire all the Statutes which they should shew to bee broken by mee, upon Condition they would observe the Statutes which I would shewe to bee transgressed by them. And letting passe 20 daies expecting the production of the Statutes violated by mee, they neither producing any such Statutes, nor yet ceasing from their sedition, I called togeather againe the Convent and tendreing my former promise, produced divers principall Statutes not only broken by them but even trodden under feete and gave them in writing unto them.48

Percy clearly paraphrases the polemic, occasionally repeating it nearly word for word, as when she notes that the appellants ‘produced divers principall 46   Innocency Justified, ff. 57v, 58r; Pasture, ‘Documents’, p. 176 The English letter’s description of the trial’s proceedings on fol. 57r loosely parallels that of the letter from 7 September 1630: Pasture, ‘Documents’, p. 164. 47   Innocency Justified, f. 27v. 48   Ibid., f. 57r.

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Statutes not only broken by them but even trodden under feete’. Percy’s version furthermore highlights her own role in attempting to amend the situation: ‘I calling the Convent together … I called togeather againe the Convent and tendreing my former promise’ (emphasis added). Since this interpolated material was written after the letter’s original composition, Percy once again exercises nominal authorship by incorporating the polemic’s language into her letter. Yet the polemic’s readers, who presumably could not compare this version with the original letter sent to Propaganda, might reasonably conclude that the authors of Innocency Justified were drawing upon Percy’s letter. Thus this distinction between the text’s collective authorship and the letter’s individual authorship allows Innocency Justified to establish Percy’s letter to Propaganda as a factual and definitive account of the controversies at Brussels, further supporting the polemic’s larger claims regarding the dissident nuns’ subversive behaviour and Percy’s humble leadership. Mary Percy’s writings reveal that nominal authorship could help bolster a nun’s authority both within the cloister and beyond. It might be tempting to suggest that Percy found this strategy so useful because she held a special role as a daughter of a martyr and as the founder and second abbess of the house, much as Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, received sole credit for works written in his name by Francis Bacon.49 Yet the archives of the archdiocese of Mechelen contain hundreds of letters written by other English Benedictine nuns at Brussels during the same period, very often in French, Latin, or Dutch translations composed by fellow nuns, confessors and male relatives or friends.50 These translations also exercise nominal authorship in order to convey the complainants’ cases. Further investigation of the uses and ramifications of nominal authorship among the Brussels Benedictines will eventually permit a better understanding of the way that factions operated at this notoriously divisive convent. These instances of nominal authorship are also a useful counterweight to the more typical form of joint authorship seen in Innocency Justified. Many of the manuscripts from the convents assume an anonymous stance in keeping with the collectivity of convent life, where individual property – including literary property – was renounced in favour of a communal ideal. Some nuns, however, did identify themselves as the authors of their works during their lifetimes. As Wolfe has shown, Dame Barbara Constable both advanced her spiritual agendas and acknowledged her weaknesses 49   Brian Vickers, ‘The Authenticity of Bacon’s Earliest Writings’, Studies in Philology, 94.2 (1997): pp. 248–96 and Paul E.J. Hammer, ‘The Earl of Essex, Fulke Greville and the Employment of Scholars’, Studies in Philology, 91.2 (1994): pp. 167–80. 50  Latin letters from English Franciscan convents in Gravelines and Brussels to Roman authorities are also extant: Pasture, ‘Documents’, pp. 214–17, 222–3.

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by signing her works.51 Percy’s nominal authorship functioned as an even more assertive form of self-authorization. Recognition of the multiple agents involved in writing the texts attributed to Mary Percy therefore allows for a fuller understanding of her self-presentation, connections and authority, both as an abbess and a nun.

51   Heather Wolfe, ‘Dame Barbara Constable: Catholic Antiquarian, Advisor and Closet Missionary’ in Ronald Corthell, Frances E. Dolan, Christopher Highley and Arthur Marotti (eds), Catholic Culture in Early Modern England (Notre Dame, IN, 2007), pp. 158–88.

Chapter 7

Barbara Constable’s Advice for Confessors and the Tradition of Medieval Holy Women Genelle Gertz Barbara Constable’s manuscript Advice for Confessors (1650) offers a rare glimpse of an English nun’s perspective on the priestly office of hearing confessions.1 In addition to providing absolution for sins, confessors often served as spiritual directors, instructing penitents in spiritual discernment.2 Accounts of early modern English lay women stressed the combination of these roles in a single, powerful confessor-director. For example, as Ellen Macek has argued, John Mush’s biography of Margaret Clitherow, as well as William Palmes’ biography of Dorothy Lawson, emphasize these lay women’s confession of sin as well as their ‘absolute obedience to their “ghostly fathers”’.3 In convents, the confessor and the spiritual director were often two separate priests; the confessor heard confession and the director, often chosen by nuns themselves, instructed sisters in devotional method and spiritual discernment.4 Constable herself never distinguishes 1   I have modernized the title. See note 6 for the full title and bibliographic information. I would like to thank Heather Wolfe for generously sharing her research notes on the Barbara Constable manuscripts with me, and I am grateful to several members of Downside Abbey who housed me and helped me access Constable’s manuscripts, especially Abbot Aidan Bellenger, Dom Benet Watt and Simon Johnson. Along with an anonymous reader, Caroline Bowden and James Kelly provided helpful comments on this chapter. 2   See, for instance, the definition for ‘confessor’ given in Carmen M. Mangion and Laurence Lux-Sterritt (eds), Gender, Catholicism and Spirituality: Women and the Roman Catholic Church in Britain and Europe, 1200–1900 (Basingstoke, 2011), p. 187. Confessors administered the sacrament of penance that involved hearing confession of sins and absolving them. This, in turn, prepared penitents for receiving communion. But since religious often confessed and received communion more frequently, ‘confessors took on the role of spiritual director, providing spiritual guidance and adjustment.’ 3   Ellen Macek, ‘“Ghostly Fathers” and their “Virtuous Daughters”: The Role of Spiritual Direction in the Lives of Three Early Modern English Women’, Catholic Historical Review, 90.2 (2004): p. 222. 4   The dispute at the English Conceptionist Convent in Paris, 1675, dramatizes conflict between spiritual directors and confessors. Disagreements over who had the right to officiate at Mass and take over direction of certain nuns took place between Fr Warner, a

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between these two offices, but she severely limits confessors’ powers of spiritual direction for reasons that will soon become clear. Generically, Advice for Confessors examines the office itself, differing in style and purpose from biographies that described individual confessor-penitent relationships. Constable assesses the ‘power’ and ‘authority’ – two words she uses frequently – of the confessor in both lay and religious contexts. In this manuscript, a compilation of materials on confession over 400 pages long, the Cambrai English nun boldly asserts her right to advise confessors on their handling of penitents. As Jenna Lay has shown, Constable was unique among other female religious compilers of spiritual texts, alone contributing her own commentary and analysis of the authorities she cited.5 Someone bold enough to write her own commentary on confession would also be bold enough to propose ways of reforming it. In Advice for Confessors, Constable repositions the power of the male confessor in the convent, minimizing his role in directing the spiritual lives of nuns. He is there only to provide absolution for sins, which, Constable explains, should be a short process given how strictly the nuns order their lives under the rule. At the same time, Constable increases the abbess’ authority to provide spiritual advice, claiming that the community breaks down spiritually without her direction. Yet Constable hides this proposal deep within the text. Several hundred pages into the treatise, Constable draws upon the imagery of a mother’s suckling of her child to describe the role of a female spiritual director. She explains that ‘The true natural milk which most advance[es] soules in perfection [is] the doctrine of their owne immediate superiors which is called in scripture “the breasts of superiors”’, so that nuns should ‘be content with the communications of their mother superior, unless it be in some extraordinarie occasion of doubt and difficultie’ at which point it becomes ‘convenient’ to ‘have some sufficient man to conferre freelie with’.6 The pages leading up to this, which stipulate the conduct of a confessor and his manner of directing director, and Fr Brown, a confessor. See ‘Convent Management’, ed. James E. Kelly, English Convents, vol. 5, pp. 423–39. 5   Jenna Lay, ‘An English Nun’s Authority: Early Modern Spiritual Controversy and the Manuscripts of Barbara Constable’, in Mangion and Lux-Sterritt (eds), Gender, Catholicism and Spirituality, p. 104. For related work on Constable see Heather Wolfe, ‘Reading Bells and Loose Papers: Reading and Writing Practices of the English Benedictine Nuns of Cambrai and Paris’, in Victoria E. Burke and Jonathan Gibson (eds), Early Modern Women’s Manuscript Writing: Selected Papers from the Trinity/Trent Colloquium (Aldershot: 2004), pp. 135–56, and ‘Dame Barbara Constable: Catholic Antiquarian, Advisor, and Closet Missionary’, in Ronald Corthell, Frances E. Dolan,Christopher Highley and Arthur F. Marotti (eds), Catholic Culture in Early Modern England (Notre Dame, IN, 2007), pp. 158–88. 6  Constable, Advises for Confessors & spirituall Directors for the most part taken out of the lives of late holy persons, by the most unworthy Religious S. B. C, Downside Abbey Archives 82146/629 (1650), pp. 418 and 421. Hereinafter cited as Advises.

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souls, are re-contextualized and now jettisoned at this moment, applying to spiritual direction outside the convent rather than within it. The audacity of Constable’s text becomes clearer in relation to both the medieval model of the confessor-penitent relationship, and the early modern one in the cases of Lawson and Clitherow,7 and, additionally, within Constable’s own Benedictine community at Cambrai. Following the recent trend in medieval and early modern studies to read across the Reformation divide, I will explore in this chapter how Constable’s manual makes an important intervention in the dominant medieval and early modern model of confessor-penitent relationships.8 I will also show how it complements, in interesting ways, the independent model of female penitence portrayed in the fifteenth-century Book of Margery Kempe. Medieval Holy Women and Their Confessors Barbara Constable belonged to a community that was renowned for its procurement and preservation of medieval saints’ lives and mystical texts, but these sources are surprisingly absent in her manual on confession.9 Constable instead cites non-native, post-medieval authorities, especially Carmelites or their advocates, such as Teresa of Àvila, Francis de Sales and Pierre de Berulle. Though she transcribed Julian of Norwich’s Revelations, Constable would not have known the Book of Margery Kempe, the vita of a fifteenth-century holy woman who visited Julian for spiritual advice, and which contains the most detailed portrayal of an English lay woman’s interaction with her confessors. The portrayal of holy women’s spiritual direction in Kempe’s Book differs in important ways with the relationship described by medieval male biographers of their female penitents. Medieval male biographers, as shown in John Coakley’s work on continental holy women and their confessors, stressed the orthodoxy of their penitents while also conveying the mutual support both parties could provide one another. Kempe’s contemporaries Catherine of Siena and Dorothea of Montau had confessor-biographers that, under the new suspicions about discernment of spirits, emphasized the process 7

 See note 3.  On the importance of cross-period scholarship, see Brian Cummings and James Simpson (eds), Cultural Reformations: Medieval and Renaissance in Literary History (Oxford, 2010); Margreta de Grazia, ‘The Modern Divide: From Either Side’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 37 (2007): pp. 453–67, and David Aers and Nigel Smith, ‘English Reformations,’ Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 40 (2010): pp. 425–38. 9  See Nancy Bradley Warren, The Embodied Word: Female Spiritualities, Contested Orthodoxies, and English Religious Cultures, 1350–1700 (Notre Dame, IN, 2010), pp. 63–76. 8

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of confession in the vitae they wrote of holy women.10 Male confessors ‘highlighted their ability to witness to the women’s orthodoxy and holiness by relating what they heard in the rigorous and all-revealing forum of confession’.11 For Raymond of Capua, confessor of Catherine, this turned upon a clear division of religious authority between male ecclesiastics and women. According to Coakley, ‘Raymond pictures himself prominently as a party to interactions with Catherine in which she has access to the divine in a way that he does not and that, as he would have it, supply deficiencies in himself.’12 This mirrors the kind of relationship portrayed in the Book of Margery Kempe where confessors learn divine revelations about their ministries from Margery herself.13 The confessor-penitent relationship experienced in the Middle Ages at times became one of mutual support, where male confessors helped to promote, through spiritual direction, a female penitent’s mysticism or piety even as they attested to the spiritual benefit a holy woman brought them. But this was not always a positive or supportive relationship for holy women. By definition, the relationship was hierarchical and exclusive, requiring the confessor’s single authority over the soul of his penitent.14 However, even in the relationships that Coakley describes where confessors developed partnerships with spiritual penitents, and which they wrote about in biographies of holy women, male confessors naturally stressed the importance of their own spiritual direction of female penitents. By contrast, the Book of Margery Kempe portrays a far more expansive model for holy women’s spiritual direction, even as it reveals the 10   In other words, the primary reason we know about male confessors and their direction of holy women is because of increased suspicion toward women mystics. The discernment of spirits was championed at the Council of Constance in 1415, by the chancellor of the University of Paris, Jean Gerson, who cautioned any confessor of a holy woman (they were at the time considering Bridget of Sweden for sainthood) to ‘resist her, upbraid her harshly, scorn her for her pride rather than “praise” her for exceptional living’. See John Coakley, Women, Men, and Spiritual Power: Female Saints and Their Male Collaborators (New York, 2006), p. 211. See also Rosalyn Voaden, God’s Words, Women’s Voices: The Discernment of Spirits in the Writing of Late Medieval Women Visionaries (Woodbridge, 2000). 11  Coakley, Women, Men, and Spiritual Power, p. 212. 12   Ibid., p. 218. 13  Kempe, The Book, ch. 33, for instance, tells of the German confessor Margery is led to in Rome: ‘Desiring to please God, he followed the counsel of this creature [Margery] and made his prayers to God as devoutly as he could every day that he might have grace to understand what the foresaid creature would say to him’, p. 60. All quotations are from The Book of Margery Kempe, trans. and ed. Lynn Staley (New York, 2001). Margery also reveals to Richard Caister, Vicar of St. Stephen’s, Norwich, that he has seven years to live: p. 31. 14  See Dyan Elliot, ‘Women and Confession: From Empowerment to Pathology’, in Mary C. Erler and Maryanne Kowaleski (eds), Gendering the Master Narrative: Women and Power in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY, 2003), pp. 31–51.

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ways confessors are needed to authenticate a holy woman’s visions during a climate of widespread suspicion about women’s spiritual gifts. The question of who authored Kempe’s Book serves as a starting point to the question of how this text handles the relationship between devout women and their confessors. An entire sub-field of Kempe studies exists on the matter of proving authorship of a text for which we have no autograph manuscript. But it can reasonably be argued that Kempe’s Book is a form of self-writing narrated by an illiterate woman who collaborated with a series of priestly scribes in her employ.15 It is therefore not likely that the Book was composed by an individual confessor for the purpose of winning his penitent’s spiritual renown. In seeming proof of this point, no one confessor looms large in Kempe’s vita, though certain priests do provide more sustained spiritual direction. Regardless of what can be determined about the circumstances of its authorship, the Book makes clear that Margery’s spiritual choices secure for her a measure of independence when it comes to her relationship with confessors, allowing her to make use of confession while not binding her in obedience to an appointed chaplain. These choices are aligned with her status as a religious woman rather than a woman religious, or avowed nun. Without the imposition of clausura, Margery could move from confessor to confessor during her travels. Nuns could also choose their own directors, but they were limited to priests who had access to the convent. This distinction between simple-vowed Beguines (religious women) and enclosed nuns (women religious) held the same before and after Trent, though Tridentine reform, which held stricter standards for enclosure, emphasized the importance of contemplation, and thus spiritual direction, in convents.16 In the Book, Margery’s free-agent approach to spiritual direction results in a model of religious supervision that authenticates but does not fully constrain her spiritual choices. She signals her desire to live a religious life by gaining authorization to take communion regularly (as opposed to the onceyearly requirement), donning white clothing and adopting celibacy. These choices align her with avowed, enclosed women even while she lives outside 15   For an expanded study of the question of authorship and attribution of material to different scribes mentioned in The Book of Margery Kempe, see Nicholas Watson, ‘The Making of The Book of Margery Kempe’, and Felicity Riddy, ‘Text and Self in The Book of Margery Kempe’, in Linda Olson and Kathryn Kerby-Fulton (eds), Voices in Dialogue: Reading Women in the Middle Ages (Notre Dame, IN, 2005), pp. 395–457. 16   Claire Walker illuminates how the confessor-spiritual director (one priest who combined roles that were sometimes separated between two priests) took more prominence within the convent as a result of the ascendancy of contemplation under Tridentine enforcement of clausura. ‘The confessor-spiritual director who monitored collective and individual piety was most often intent upon channeling the faithful into officially-sanctioned religious observances,’ Walker explains. Claire Walker, Gender and Politics in Early Modern Europe: English Convents in France and the Low Countries (Basingstoke, 2003), p. 134.

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enclosure or rule, features Kathryn Kerby-Fulton relates to the Beguines.17 Margery’s frequent use of communion means that she must be absolved of sin beforehand, but the Book usually downplays this aspect. Instead, Margery often reveals knowledge of the salvation of souls during confession and, additionally, shares visions pertaining to confessors’ spiritual lives. Passing references to confessors in the Book usually portray Margery’s interactions with them as exercises in self-revelation, not identification of sin. After she visits Richard Caister of St Stephen’s, Norwich, for what begins as a confession of sin, Margery seeks out the Carmelite friar, William Southfield. Christ commands her to ‘show him the grace that God wrought in her as she had done to the good Vicar before’.18 Thus, as the Book portrays it, Margery’s two-hour long conversation with Caister had not been for the purposes of confession, but rather, for the reason of telling her visions. The relation of these visions would be more in keeping with a confessor’s work of spiritual direction. In her visit to Brother Southfield, Kempe prolongs the narration of her experiences: she ‘came to the friar before noon, and was with him in a chapel a long time, and showed him her meditations and such things as God wrought in her soul’.19 Shortly after her conversation with Southfield, Margery visits the anchoress, Julian of Norwich, hoping to discern whether her visions are from God. Travelling on, Margery ‘showed her manner of living to many a worthy clerk, to worshipful doctors of divinity, both religious men and others of secular habit’.20 Her excessive use of confessors even on the matter of discretio (discernment of spirits) suggests that Margery primarily seeks an audience for her spiritual life, using the structure of confession to seek spiritual direction and not absolution for sins. Ultimately, seeking spiritual direction allows her to narrate her religious experience to the clergy. The spiritual independence manifested in the Book of Margery Kempe may explain why there never was a male biographer of Kempe, but instead, a woman writer employing a variety of scribes to pen her story. It takes a special kind of person – a strong woman – David Wallace shows, ‘to secure bookish remembrance in future times; to see her life becoming a life’.21 The strongest woman, we might add, tells her own story, or supervises the telling of it. In this case, the story of Margery’s experience of a confessor’s authority is a relatively happy one because many, rather 17   Kathryn Kerby-Fulton, Books Under Suspicion: Censorship and Tolerance of Revelatory Writing in Late Medieval England (Notre Dame, IN, 2006), pp. 247–71. 18  Kempe, The Book, ch. 18, p. 31. 19  Ibid. 20   Ibid., p. 33. 21  David Wallace, Strong Women: Life, Text, and Territory, 1347–1645 (Oxford, 2011), p. xv.

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than few, confessors affirm her spiritual vocation without at the same time rigorously prescribing its form. Early Modern Holy Women and Their Confessors There are many more stories from the early modern period depicting relationships between devout women and their confessors. Jodi Bilinkoff expertly plumbs numerous accounts of these relationships from biographies of French, Italian and Spanish Catholic women, both lay and religious.22 Again, the distinction between religious women and women religious held; some devout women decided to stay in the world, working with priests on their spiritual lives or the lives of their households. Women religious submitted to a rule and the spiritual life prescribed by enclosure. The greater number of accounts from women religious stems partly from the fact that the Tridentine Church re-emphasized clausura as the only acceptable option for women religious, which meant that a much greater emphasis was placed upon the monastic, contemplative life, and confession and spiritual direction. Clausura also increased the time a nun had available for reading and writing, and while medieval English nuns read saints’ lives and works on contemplative devotion as well, they did not appear to write as much, or as reflectively, as early modern nuns (in part because they had less schooling and fewer texts available to them in print or manuscript).23 As Jodi Bilinkoff also shows, confessors prompted holy women’s writing as testimony to spiritual achievement attained under their direction. Cambrai founder Gertrude More’s Spiritual Exercises demonstrated the effectiveness of Augustine Baker’s spiritual direction, for instance, by embodying devotions he taught her. Some women religious chose to write about the positive direction they received from spiritual directors, but described in passing how they had also suffered under unsuccessful ones.24 Both Teresa of Àvila and Gertrude More lamented their poor treatment by incompetent directors. Teresa, most famously, ‘painfully recalled how “half-learned” and unsympathetic directors dismissed her supernatural experiences and 22   Jodi Bilinkoff, Related Lives: Confessors and Their Female Penitents, 1450–1750 (Ithaca, NY, 2005), pp. 65–75. 23  Marilyn Oliva, The Convent and the Community in Late Medieval England: Female Monasteries in the Diocese of Norwich, 1350–1540 (Woodbridge, 1998), pp. 67–72, identifies medieval nuns’ ownership of English and French devotional works, saints’ lives, and Bibles. Wolfe, ‘Reading Bells’, pp. 142–8, richly describes how the private papers of the Cambrai nuns revealed their ‘efforts to write themselves into a higher level of contemplation’ as a result of seeking to follow their spiritual director’s counsel. 24  Bilinkoff, Related Lives, p. 77.

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methods of prayer, confused her, scolded her, and tried to persuade her that her visions and voices were demonic rather than divine’.25 In the Discalced Carmelite Order she founded, Teresa ensured that nuns would have the right to choose and change their own directors. Gertrude More described an unhelpful director in her ‘Apology’, a defence of her revered director, Augustine Baker, written c. 1630 but published in 1658 with her Spiritual Exercises. More’s unperceptive spiritual director, ‘by his writings, words and sermons … in all things … misunderstood [her] case … he was far short of being able to direct a soul to Contemplation.’26 More cited important religious authorities, however, who, like her, resisted unsympathetic directors and still flourished. She confides that ‘a soul shall always find contradiction from some Superior or other, and yet, if the soul live in her interior as she should’ (that is, follow her internal promptings even when they oppose a confessor’s command), ‘it will be no impediment to [the soul’s] progress, no more than it was to S. Teresa’, or ‘Johannes de Cruce’. These contemplatives, ‘though they might seem to others to have varied from true Obedience, yet the effect showed they were far from such matter.’27 Adherence to the interior spiritual call results in ‘a more seeming disobedience than heretofore because’ of the present shortage of ‘Superiors’ who ‘will concur or approve’ of ‘contemplative souls’.28 In her nostalgic lament for ‘contemplative souls’ now taken in ‘seeming disobedience’, More highlights the minority status of mystical spirituality under the dominant strain of Ignatian spiritual direction heralded by the Jesuits. Her appointed, unsympathetic confessor, Dom Francis Hull OSB, imposed Jesuit methods of meditation upon her and opposed Baker’s teachings as well as the contemplative form of prayer he advocated. More’s ‘Apology’ was itself written as a defence of Baker and his devotional teaching after Hull accused him of heretical teaching before the General Chapter of the Benedictines.29 Yet More stood her ground and ‘even became the “head of a faction of disobedience and opposition against the Abesse,” who supported Father Hull’ over Baker.30 25

 Ibid.  More, ‘Apology’, in Arthur Marotti (ed.), Gertrude More, Printed Writings 1641– 1700: Series II, Part Four, Volume 3 (Farnham, 2009), A 99. There are two Arabic numeral systems in this text; Part ‘A’ refers to the ‘Apology’ by More and ‘C’ refers to the Confessiones Amantis or Spiritual Exercises of the Most Virtuous Religious Dame Gertrude More. 27   Ibid., A 103, original emphasis. 28  Ibid. 29  Augustine Baker, Life and Death of Dame Gertrude More, ed. Ben Wekking, Analecta Cartusiana, 119.7 (2002), pp. xiii–xiv; Anthony Low, Augustine Baker (New York, 1970), pp. 43–5; Marotti, Gertrude More, p. xi. 30  Marotti, Gertrude More, p. xi. 26

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It is therefore surprising that Constable never mentions Baker, either by name or anonymously, in her manual compiled precisely for confessors. Baker departed Cambrai in 1633 and Constable joined the convent in 1638. But Constable had reason to know his work and legacy of instruction: as the chief copyist of the house, Constable had transcribed several of Baker’s treatises and she defends ideas in Advice for Confessors that are attributable to Bakerism, such as the need for a soul’s independence in determining her spiritual path.31 Constable likely knew Gertrude More’s ‘Apology’ for Baker, though it did not take that title until the 1658 printed version of the Spiritual Exercises. At the beginning of the ‘Apology’, More refers to Baker as her ‘Maister, and Father in a Spiritual life’.32 But Constable names another confessor at the opening of her text, dedicating her literary labour to Fr Benedict Stapleton, nephew of Cambrai’s abbess, Catherine Gascoigne. Fr Stapleton, as the nephew and thus family subordinate of Abbess Gascoigne, ironically foreshadows the power structure Constable sketches for persons qualified to hear confession in convents. Constable envisions that the male confessor becomes subordinate to the abbess and accepts her authority over the community’s spiritual life. Constable’s source for this position is Jacques Ferraige’s 1628 biography of Mère Marguerite de Sainte-Gertrude d’Arbouze, the powerful abbess of Val-de-Grâce in Paris and friend of the Queen Regent, Anne of Austria.33 Abbess d’Arbouze was revered for her level-headed powers of spiritual direction and advocated her own authority to direct the spiritual lives of the women in her convent, including hearing their confessions.34 Here she single-handedly took over the two priestly roles in the convent – confessor and spiritual director – though she would not have been able to absolve the sins of her penitents after hearing their confession. Constable clearly indicates her appreciation and respect for Abbess d’Arbouze, ‘of whose opinion’, she reveals, ‘I am and ever shall be.’35 The notoriety and authority wielded by d’Arbouze in Paris provides an example of how English women religious in exile could take advantage of non-native religious models to suggest reforms for their own monastic houses. 31  On Constable’s role as copyist of Baker’s work in particular, see Claire Walker, ‘The English Benedictine Nuns and the Baker Manuscripts’, in Nancy E. Wright, Margaret W. Ferguson and Andrew R. Buck (eds), Women, Property and the Letters of the Law in Early Modern England (Toronto, 2004), p. 247. 32  More, ‘Apology’, A 8. 33   Jacques Ferraige, La vie admirable, et digne d’une fidele imitation, de la B. Mere Marguerite d’Arbouze, ditte de Saincte Gertrude (Paris, 1628). I would like to thank Jaime Goodrich for helping me find Ferraige’s life of Mother d’Arbouze. 34  See later, pp. 135–7 35  Constable, Advises, p. 390.

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Textual Framing, Authority and Audience in Advice for Confessors Barbara Constable’s manual falls within the tradition of monastic florilegia, or spiritual commonplace books, designed around topics of a monk’s choosing.36 But, as its title also indicates, it uses florilegia primarily for the purpose of instructing holders of religious office. Her two other advice manuals, Speculum Superiorum and Considerations for Priests, offer guidance in such matters as a mother superior’s obligations to the community, and priests’ obligations to uphold virtue.37 She movingly counsels readers of Considerations, for instance, that priests are called to ‘oppose the power of great ones, the strength of the sturdie, the wiles of the craftie, the close practices of the wicked’, while vigilantly striving to ‘aduance good, leaue unprofitable discourses, destroy vice, plant virtue, chastise delinquents, recompense men of merit, protect the poore, iustifie the innocent’.38 One of the greatest ethical responsibilities of priests, according to Constable, is the obligation to provide spiritual guidance for a soul. In the dedication to Advice for Confessors, which Constable made to her own confessor, Benedict Stapleton, she reminds her superior of how ‘greate a burthen … the charge of soules is’ and implores that her own compilation will ‘proove a consolation & incouradgement’.39 This desire to provide spiritual help through authorship accords with the aims of the Cambrai house generally, which, under the direction of Baker several years before, gathered, preserved and disseminated medieval mystical and devotional texts. Baker compiled several treatises based on these texts which, as previously mentioned, Constable copied, adding to her familiarity with the genre of compilation and advice. We have no external evidence of whether Constable’s own relationship with Stapleton was enabling or antagonistic. But in her dedication to Stapleton, Constable quickly defers to the ‘infinite obligations … I must needs acknowledge to have to your paternitie’ and she entreats him to ‘accept … this small present of my paines w[i]th as good a will as I offer it to you’. Most telling is her awareness of how she subverts the normal boundaries of church hierarchy, denying to Stapleton that ‘I have any intention heerbie to teach you any thinge; for that is farre from me who know too well how farre you are from needing any thinge my poore capacitie can produce.’

36

 Lay, ‘An English Nun’s Authority’, p. 104.   These other advice manuals are also in manuscript form. Speculum Superiorum is Colwich MS 43 (1650), and Considerations for Priests is Downside MS 82145/552 (1653). 38  Constable, Considerations for Priests, p. 60. 39  Constable, Advises, no pagination. 37

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Constable’s use of the modesty topos begs the question of why she wrote four hundred-plus pages of advice, if not for instructing her superior and any other monastic or lay reader who picked up her rubricated, italichand, red-lettered volume. Her ‘Preface to the Reader’ makes another predictable apology for having written at all, except, of course, that the great dearth of texts on spiritual direction required her authorship. We do know that several of the treatises in the Cambrai library, including some of Constable’s transcriptions of Baker, were sent to other Benedictine monasteries and to England. Heather Wolfe has located marks on Constable’s manuscripts attributing ownership to other monks and members of the Constable family. From this evidence, Wolfe posits ‘close manuscript ties between the English Benedictine monastic communities on the continent’ that ‘are suggestive of the courier role played by monks going on the mission or providing support to the nuns’.40 These external readers, imagined generally by Constable’s preface, can form a community of ‘humane …. helps’ for fit spiritual directors. For when we assume that all spiritual directors are ‘fitte’, Constable warns, we only need ‘daylie experience’ to ‘shewe us the Contrarie’. The inadequacy of confessors, envisioned primarily in the ways they ingratiate themselves to the powerful and wealthy, builds as a topic throughout the treatise, leading to Constable’s final, extensive critique of male confessors who direct female religious. Before this moment, Constable focuses on spiritual direction outside of convents and monasteries. General devotional ideas such as vigilance against sin, the work of salvation, and a pastor’s sacrificial care for his sheep are supported with biblical and devotional references. Then she turns her focus within the walls of the convent and ‘the prime spouses of Jesus Christ’, pointing to the better authority of mother superiors in directing the spiritual lives of women religious.41 Bound before God with the ‘charge of souls’, abbesses ‘have so greate an account to give to god for [souls] as everie one knows’.42 But confessors often obstruct the abbess’ ‘full power over the religious in all things’, especially her ability to ‘meddle’ with souls, or steer nuns toward God.43 Barbara Constable’s Advocacy of Female Direction To secure the ‘meddling’ authority of the abbess, Constable clearly delineates the confessor’s role in the convent. A confessor should ‘be content only to 40

  Heather Wolfe, ‘Dame Barbara Constable’, p. 166.  Constable, Advises, p. 380. 42   Ibid., p. 438. 43   Ibid., p. 436. 41

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heare the confessions of the religious & assist them in general & particular with such things as onlie belonge to his priestlie dignitie & function’.44 Constable focuses here on priestly sacramental powers unavailable to an abbess, namely hearing confession and absolving sin, or, under his ‘general’ powers, officiating during Mass. Though the abbess could hear confession in the absence of a confessor and assign penance, she could not absolve sins, so the need for an actual male confessor always remained. Beyond acknowledging the need for male confessors’ sacramental powers, Constable finds little other use for their presence. For one, she greatly suspects the relationship between male confessors and women mystics, not primarily because of possible sexual impropriety, noted by Frances Dolan as a ubiquitous trope in anti-Catholic literature.45 Though Constable raises the example of at least one confession that led eventually to sexual union, she objects to the pairing of mystics and male confessors on grounds that it breeds arrogance.46 ‘John of the Cross advises confessors’, she says, ‘not to give credit to visions and revelations especially of women who are very easy to be deceaved thinking themselves the more holie by how much more they have of such things, whereas it is best to adheare to god with the spirit of simplicitie in naked faith and practice virtue more solidelie.’47 Confessors who take pride in the revelations or devotions of their penitents (and here Constable implies the work of spiritual direction rather than absolving sin; she never calls spiritual directors anything other than confessors) not only feed egos, but waste time. ‘Many confessors permitte themselves’, says Constable, ‘to be so carried away with an opinion of some of their penitents (especially if they be … devoute) that they can doe nothinge but talke of them and wearie out all the world with their praises.’ In a moment of candour she adds, I have seen so much the experience of these things that I cannot but wish confessors to be more warie and discreete in this point and to be reserved in expressing any good opinion or esteem they may have of their penitents to any … but above all they must be warie not to lette the soules themselves know any thing … since some doe so relie upon the opinion of their confessors that they will not care what all the rest of the world saies of them.48

44

  Ibid., p. 435.   Frances Dolan, ‘Why Are Nuns Funny?’, Huntington Library Quarterly, 70.4 (2007): pp. 509–35. 46  Constable, Advises, p. 321. An ecclesiastic mentioned in the life of Mary of the Incarnation ‘was so transported with foolish love to one of his penitents that he would needs turne hereticke to marrie her’. 47   Ibid., p. 360. 48   Ibid., p. 362. 45

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Elsewhere in her manual, Constable defends the right of souls ‘to goe every one their owne waies … how strange and unusual soever they be’, and she expressly includes in this category of strangeness ‘extraordinary waies of ravishments, extasies unions, visions’.49 What bothers her is not mysticism per se, but the dynamic between confessors and penitents built upon mystical experience. The interests of each side, from her perspective, result in mutual ego-stroking that influences the penitent to take her confessor’s word as final authority. Constable rehabilitates the ecclesiastical authority of the abbess by arguing that the male confessor can sabotage an abbess’ administrative agenda and undermine her leadership. Citing Mother D’Arbouze, she insists that The confessor must not meddle with the government of the house, which immediately belonges to the Abbesse nor must he give any publicke penance to any of the religious nor grante them any leaves particular or general nor any waies dispose of them nor any thinge belongeinge to them, nor put out of office, nor into office any one, for all these things belonge onlie to the Abesse.50

Constable identifies one effective management strategy for combatting a confessors’ power: cut his time. Frequent access only breeds trouble: ‘You should see all the day longe the parloyrs full of severall fathers and religious women … you should see them come from their conferences everie one with a different opinion and spirit and neither perhaps the spirit of the rule nor observance.’ Constable emphasizes that, to correct this problem, Mother D’Arbouze ‘so disposed of the time that she left the religious very little to spend at the grate even with their confessors or any other spiritual persons’.51 According to Constable, eventually this change bred greater respect for the abbess among her inferiors, which enabled ‘free communica[tion] with her of all their interior pains and difficulties that they might not need external conferences either with ordinary or extraordinary confessors’.52 The abbess thus becomes a trusted spiritual director to the members of her congregation. Her effectiveness is measured by how infrequently nuns feel the need to confer with a priest. Though Constable extols in other parts of her text many of the qualities of a good confessor, she makes an important critique of the relationship between male spiritual directors and female penitents generally. Though the director-directee relationship was, in several cases, extraordinarily 49

    51   52   50

Ibid., p. 429. Ibid., p. 397. Ibid., p. 399. Ibid., p. 408.

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successful for medieval holy women and later, for early modern women both lay and religious, Constable argues in her text that confessors finally detract from enclosed women’s achievement of spiritual perfection; as male clerics, confessors ultimately stand for what is external to the convent. Citing Mother d’Arbouze, Constable charges that ‘although … confessors … we have little acquaintance with may be good, yet … the religious … [should] keepe themse[l]ves … hidden from others’ because ‘their lives were hidden in Christ.’53 Constable restricts from this model unreformed houses, where those who live outside the rule have ‘need of a confessor at their girdle to conferre with all’ whereas in ‘those houses that are well reformed [nuns] can be content with the communications of their mother superior, unlesse it be in some extraordinarie occasion of doubt & difficulltie.’54 Beyond this argument for the sufficiency of reformed convents, Constable’s critique of male confessors is also based in the ideology of strict enclosure propounded by the Council of Trent. By recognizing the confessor as external to the convent, Constable draws upon the rhetoric of clausura to enhance the powers of the abbess. This was one way of working the increased restrictions of counter-reformation monastic policy to nuns’, or more specifically, abbess’ advantage. For Constable, confessors intrude upon the community itself, causing dissension and a lack of trust in the spiritual mother. Constable’s experience was shaped as well by the culture of contemplative revival in France and female leadership of this movement, in so far as texts about these leaders were available to her. Cambrai was part of Flanders until 1678, yet Constable’s house founded a new convent in Paris in 1651. French women religious were particularly active in leadership of convent reform, and Paris saw the construction of at least 48 religious houses for women between 1604 and 1650 (whereas men’s new religious houses amounted to half that number).55 As Barbara Diefendorf has documented, when Spanish Carmelite fathers came to Paris and tried to displace the French Carmelite prioresses as spiritual directors, they were resisted by the French nuns ‘on the ground that this would deprive them of their “freedom to disclose to the prioress the very depths of their soul”’.56 French Carmelite women, supported by their male Carmelite superiors, held on to the original Teresian endowment of female superiors with powers as spiritual guides, while Spanish Carmelites lost these powers under imposed constitutional revisions by the Spanish Carmelite fathers.

53

    55   56   54

Ibid., p. 419. Ibid., p. 420. Barbara Diefendorf, From Penitence to Charity, p. 136. Ibid., p. 156.

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The life of Mother d’Arbouze exemplifies the prominence and authority accorded to high-ranking women religious in France. At the personal request of his wife Anne, Louis XIII appointed d’Arbouze abbess of Val-de-Grâce in 1618. D’Arbouze reformed the convent and then had it transferred to Paris in 1621, where Anne of Austria served as its patron, the latter building a convent structure that included an apartment for herself.57 Enjoying nothing less than royal patronage, d’Arbouze was noted for her wise spiritual counsel to visitors and the members of her religious community. In his biography of Mother D’Arbouze, Ferraige emphasizes the abbess’s skills in spiritual direction and counsel. As Constable would reiterate in her treatise, Ferraige ‘suggests that the abbess’ role as spiritual counselor [is] more important than the confessor’s’; the confessor, he finds, is only useful to the unreformed convents, but nuns of well-regulated houses should be ‘content to communicate their souls to their Mother’.58 Ferraige also praises D’Arbouze’s homiletic abilities and goes so far as to compare her chapterhouse exhortations with the sermons of renowned medieval preachers: ‘Her heart aflame and her mouth speaking from the abundance of her heart, her words were so many sparks of fire, which burned the hearts of her listeners and ravished them by their sweetness, transporting their souls, as that great preacher Saint Anthony of Padua was wont to do.’59 Writing from within the convent, and armed with texts of the French contemplative revival, Constable is able to assert a spiritual authority for women religious that makes it conceivable for her to compose a treatise of instruction for male clerics. Through the strong figure of Mother d’Arbouze, Constable challenges the need for male spiritual directors and limits the time confessors spend hearing confession and absolving sin. Local bishops or male superiors of the Order could also visit, but they did not keep a steady presence at the parlour grille, as confessors did, speaking with sisters of the house. What Constable does not handle, however, is the problem of abbatial direction that goes awry. She always assumes the advantageousness of an abbess’ spiritual guidance, while someone like Gertrude More found herself opposing her superior on grounds that she was inhibiting an important spiritual path for members of the convent. Constable’s categorical critique of male spiritual directors raises the question of what she felt about Augustine Baker’s prominent involvement in the direction of Cambrai’s members. Did Baker, whose departure from 57   Ibid., p. 254; Jennifer G. Germann, ‘The Val de Grâce as a Portrait of Anne of Austria: Queen, Queen Regent, Queen Mother’, in Helen Hills (ed.), Architecture and the Politics of Gender in Early Modern Europe (Aldershot, 2003), p. 48. 58  Diefendorf, From Penitence to Charity, p. 154. 59  Ibid.

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Cambrai preceded her arrival, represent something of what was wrong with spiritual directors because he encouraged mysticism in a few convent members? Was he too divisive within the community because he helped women such as More and Catherine Gascoigne achieve spiritual renown? Or was he the model director who encouraged souls ‘to go every one their own ways’, all the more revered because he was never personally known to Constable? Whereas we might assume the latter given Constable’s role as Baker’s chief copyist, her advice manual at least suggests the ways in which she could have found him problematic. What Barbara Constable’s writing achieves in the long history of accounting for the relationship between pious women and their directors is a robust defence of women spiritual directors. Biographies of medieval and early modern women written by confessor-directors stressed the male confessor’s dual powers of absolving sin and guiding a penitent on a spiritual path. The Book of Margery Kempe asserts these dual powers as well, but mitigates their effect by displaying the need for multiple confessors and, additionally, a female spiritual guide. Besides recording Margery’s choice of multiple confessors, the Book also mentions one kind of female spiritual director, the anchoress Julian of Norwich, whose mystical revelations Constable herself copied for the Cambrai library. Writing from within the convent, and after Trent, Constable also portrays the powerful possibilities of female spiritual direction, delineating in a much more detailed way how an abbess could guide the spiritual lives of the members of her house. She rehabilitates the authority of abbesses to lead their communities spiritually, arguing for the mother superior’s better understanding of her nuns in comparison to male directors. A natural mother to her spiritual daughters, the abbess becomes in Constable’s work the source of a religious community’s greater cohesion and growth.

Plate 1

The first page of the list of those who stayed at St Monica’s during the siege of Louvain, 1635. MS ‘Little Chronicles’ C19, unnumbered page: courtesy of the nuns of Dove Cottage and Abbot Geoffrey Scott.

Plate 2

MS C2, the end of Hand A’s stint and the beginning of Hand B’s stint: courtesy of the nuns of Dove Cottage and Abbot Geoffrey Scott.

Plate 3

Pilgrimage, illustration, from a history of the peregrinations of the Syon Nuns, compiled in Lisbon in the early seventeenth century (vellum), Portuguese School (seventeenth century): His Grace The Duke of Norfolk, Arundel Castle / The Bridgeman Art Library.

(a)

Plate 4 (a) and (b)

Building the Convent and Expelled from London, illustrations, from a history of the peregrinations of the Syon Nuns, compiled in Lisbon in the early seventeenth century (vellum), Portuguese School (seventeenth century): His Grace The Duke of Norfolk, Arundel Castle / The Bridgeman Art Library.

(b)

(a)

Plate 5 (a) and (b)

Fetched Back to London and Departure from London, illustrations, from a history of the peregrinations of the Syon Nuns, compiled in Lisbon in the early seventeenth century (vellum), Portuguese School (seventeenth century): His Grace The Duke of Norfolk, Arundel Castle / The Bridgeman Art Library.

(b)

(a)

Plate 6 (a) and (b)

Arrival in Flanders and Arrival at Rouen, illustrations, from a history of the peregrinations of the Syon Nuns, compiled in Lisbon in the early seventeenth century (vellum), Portuguese School (seventeenth century): His Grace The Duke of Norfolk, Arundel Castle / The Bridgeman Art Library.

(b)

(a)

Plate 7 (a) and (b)

Arrival at Lisbon and Prayer for His Majesty, illustrations, from a history of the peregrinations of the Syon Nuns, compiled in Lisbon in the early seventeenth century (vellum), Portuguese School (seventeenth century) / His Grace The Duke of Norfolk, Arundel Castle / The Bridgeman Art Library.

(b)

Plate 8

Elizabeth Clifford, oil painting: with permission of Sir David Davenport-Handley and Howard J. Green (photographer).

Plate 9

Margaret Clement, oil painting: with permission of the Community, Kingston near Lewes, Sussex.

Plate 10

Elizabeth Throckmorton, oil painting, Nicolas de Largillière: courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington. Digital image made possible by the Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund.

Plate 11

Clare of Jesus Warner, frontispiece: courtesy of the Abbess and Community at Much Birch, Herefordshire.

Plate 12

Margaret Wake, oil painting, Douai Abbey, Berkshire: with permission of the Trustees.

Plate 13

Catherine Gascoigne, engraving: courtesy of the Abbess and Community at St Mary’s Abbey, Colwich, Staffordshire.

Plate 14

Bruges Community Room, Octave Daumont, Le Cloître de Nazareth (Bruges, 1935), facing p. 298.

Plate 15

Aloysia Hesketh, oil painting: with permission of the Community, St Mary’s Abbey, Oulton, Staffs.

Plate 16

Mary Aloysia Joseph Wright, oil painting: courtesy of the Community of the Canonesses of the Holy Sepulchre, Colchester

Plate 17

The Swarbrick Doll: courtesy of Bonhams, International Auctioneers and Valuers, London.

Plate 18

Susan Hawley, frontispiece, A brief relation of the order and institute of the English religious women at Liège (1652): courtesy of the Community of the Canonesses of the Holy Sepulchre, Colchester.

Plate 19

Mary of the Holy Cross Howard, A short account of the life and virtues of the venerable and religious mother, Mary of the Holy Cross, abbess of the English Poor Clares at Rouen (London, 1767), frontispiece. By permission of Jack Eyston Esq. and the Mapledurham Trust, Mapledurham, Berks.

Plate 20

Anne Worsley: courtesy of the Prioress and Carmelite Community, St Helen’s, Merseyside.

Plate 21

Gertrude More, engraving: courtesy of the Abbess and Community at St Mary’s Abbey, Colwich, Staffordshire.

Plate 22

Magdalen Ludowick Browne, book illustration, facing p. 55, ‘Registers of the English Poor Clares at Gravelines’, eds W.M. Hunnybun and J. Gillow, Miscellanea IX, CRS, 14 (London, 1914).

Plate 23

Thomas Robinson, The anatomie of the English nunnery at Lisbon in Portugall (London, 1630 ed.), by permission of the Folger Shakespeare Library.

Plate 24

‘The Abbess of Antwerp’, John Bowles and Carrington Bowles, British Museum, Prints and Drawings © Trustees of the British Museum.

Plate 25

‘The Fair Nun Unmask’d’, Henry Morland, 1769, mezzotint, British Museum, Prints and Drawings, AN960924001 © Trustees of the British Museum.

Plate 26

‘Pastime in Portugal or A Visit to the Nunnerys’, 1811, by T. Rowlandson, hand-coloured etching, British Museum, Prints and Drawings, AN189035001 © Trustees of the British Museum.

Plate 27

‘Blue Nun teaching’, watercolour, Douai Abbey, Teignmouth Abbey archives, T.I.A.3. Photograph courtesy of Abbot Geoffrey Scott.

Plate 28

The location of the three English convents in Paris. Map: ‘Nouveau Plan de Paris, ses faubourgs et ses environs, Revu, corrigé et augmenté par le Sr Desnos, 1767’.

Chapter 8

Shakespeare’s Sisters: Anon and the Authors in Early Modern Convents* Nicky Hallett The idea that much early literature was written by ‘Anon’ is very familiar to us. It is usually followed by the question: ‘Who was she?’ after Virginia Woolf’s famous statement: ‘I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.’1 In the case of convent writing we have good reason to know that Woolf was correct. The authors were indeed primarily (though not exclusively) women, many of whom had a ‘room of their own’ (perhaps not quite the one Woolf had in mind as a necessary condition for writing). Woolf addressed her enquiry in particular to Elizabethan culture, claiming to be puzzled ‘why no woman wrote a word of that extraordinary literature when every other man, it seemed, was capable of a song or sonnet’.2 Much scholarly energy has been expended in uncovering women’s writing from the early modern period. Until relatively recently, women’s spiritual self-writing, particularly Catholic material, has received far less attention. That we doubted its existence and perhaps its value tells us a great deal about the determining parameters of literary research as well as the politics of enclosure.3 We have begun to appreciate the *  I am grateful to the Carmelite community from Lanherne, now at St Helens, Merseyside, for generous permission to use their material. For discussion of ideas in this chapter, I thank delegates at the Conference on ‘Identities, Organizations and Exile’ at Queen Mary, University of London in June 2011. In particular, I mention Caroline Bowden, James Kelly, Laurence Lux-Sterritt, Carmen Mangion, Victoria Van Hyning and the Early Modern group at the University of Sheffield for their insights about this and related work. I am grateful to the anonymous reader of this chapter for encouragement and suggestions for improvement. Personal thanks are due as always to Rosie Valerio. 1   Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own (London, 1929; rep. Glasgow, 1977), p. 48. 2   Ibid., p. 41. 3   Woolf’s general observations about women in literature can be applied to the figure of the nun: ‘She pervades poetry … she is all but absent from history’ (ibid., p. 43). Elissa Weaver, Convent Theatre in Early Modern Italy: Spiritual Fun and Learning For Women (Cambridge, 2007), p. 238, also draws on Woolf’s analogies. See also Frances Dolan, ‘Why Are Nuns Funny?’, The Huntington Library Quarterly, 70.4 (2007): pp. 509–17. 1

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nature and extent of nuns’ authorship due to recent work on unpublished manuscripts (including those made available via the AHRC-funded ‘Who were the Nuns?’ project and through the generosity of current religious communities). From this it emerges that in fact several nuns were poets in Woolf’s terms. The obituary note of the Antwerp Carmelite Anne of Jesus Keynes, for instance, records she was ‘an extream pretty writer and a very fine Poet as her many charming songs upon all subjects shew’.4 Yet we frequently find that early modern nuns were self-concealing, their authorship obscured even in personal and hand-written documents. References to their identity are often tucked away in genres that have a primary interest less in individual authorial achievements than giving guidance towards spiritual goals. These women follow a long tradition of self-secrecy and apparent authorial anguish.5 Teresa de Jesus of Àvila (1515–82), the founder-reformer of the Discalced Carmelites, justified writing her own Vida on the basis that she had been commanded to do so, that confessors may ‘help me in my weakness’ and that readers may know ‘how wicked my life has been’.6 Some centuries later wrote another, Mary Joseph of St Teresa Howard: ‘I confide in God, my intentions are good … & only to be seen by my dearest sisters & beloved children’.7 Of course, early modern contemplative nuns had several good reasons for anonymity, with self-effacement central to their spiritual purpose; their expressions of modesty accordingly were (we assume) deeply felt as well as rhetorically repetitive. Many women claim deep reluctance about writing, asserting like Teresa de Jesus that they only do so because they were instructed by their confessor or compelled by irresistible holy intervention. Some women advertise, indeed perform, their own authority; they build into their account the fact that their spiritual advisers have approved its orthodoxy, thereby being both modest and assertive in one go. Often they give utilitarian reasons for writing, claiming their work, however pitiful, 4  Anne of Jesus Keynes (1629–96), AC077. (MS Annals, vol. 1, p. 402) Unless otherwise stated, quotations are from Antwerp manuscripts now at St Helens Carmelite convent. Since one volume of the Antwerp Annals is now available in print, albeit from a different manuscript, I also cite that source for ease of reference: ‘Life Writing II’, ed. Katrien Daemen-de Gelder, English Convents, vol. 4, p. 197. Other nuns wrote commemorative or occasional verse. The obituary of the Carmelite Aloysia Francisca of Jesus (Francis Morgan: 1652–72, LC061) notes she ‘had a most sweet devout tallent in Poytre hauing left to us many Poyhims of the Blessed Virgen and the sacred Infant Jesus’. Jubilees and anniversaries were similarly marked, including the 150-year celebration of the Antwerp foundation in 1769: Anne Hardman, English Carmelites in Penal Times (London, 1936), p. 121. 5   Elizabeth A. Petroff, Medieval Women’s Visionary Literature (Oxford, 1986). 6  Preface: The Life of St Teresa of Avila By Herself, ed. J.M. Cohen (Harmondsworth, 1957), p. 21. 7  Mary Joseph of St Teresa Howard (1688–1756), AC069.

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will serve to edify their community. As Caroline Bowden has shown, group reading of such texts including obituaries served the interests of ‘strong communal identity’.8 Nuns often say they have little time to write; that their hands would be better employed in convent duties; that it is little short of a miracle (indeed it often is a miracle) that they achieved what they did under these conditions. There are various pressures evident here relating to the roles of nun, of woman and of writer, sometimes bearing separately, sometimes together. Observations about relationships between female authorship and patristic position are apposite to conditions in convents as to other rooms of women’s own elsewhere. Human writers, after all, were by definition secondary; for contemplatives, mainly focused on achieving spiritual union, all events signalled understanding of ‘first cause’, divine author.9 Some nuns carefully situate themselves in relation to a number of otherwise competing conditions in order to establish a writing position. Some claim to be mere translators, conduits of divine or other human truths; they praise holy and human accomplices who aid their authorship. This kind of performative routine is just one of several narrative strategies that nuns employ, here on occasion, paradoxically enough, to justify non-anonymity. Some women, after all, are named. We are familiar enough with writers designated on the front covers of their manuscripts and in printed material by or about them, remarkable women who might anyway have been famous if they had led secular lives: Margaret Clement, Lucy Knatchbull, Gertrude More, Anne Neville, Mary Percy, Mary Ward and others of their ilk. Other less prominent nuns were remembered in convent papers for their creative charisma or particular eloquence. Many others are largely obscured, in part by their own narrative process, in part by the editorial apparatus that later surrounded them in subsequent presentation of their work. These are nuns whose system of writing is often imbued with the wider evangelism of their convent or Order but whose identity is not always immediately evident. Such writers are integral to convent chronicling but the quickness of their hands leads us to look elsewhere to praise. Often these women only emerge as authors at their deaths, in retrospective testimony. And it is only then we see how much they shaped the preceding narrative and the historiography surrounding it. 8   Caroline Bowden, ‘Collecting the Lives of Early Modern Women Religious: Obituary Writing and the Development of Collective Memory and Corporate Identity’, Women’s History Review, 19.1 (2010): p. 8. 9   ‘The supreme and highest auctor … was indisputably male’: Alexandra Barratt, Women’s Writing in Middle English (London and New York, 1992), p. 6. Barratt suggests medieval women employed a range of tactics to circumvent restriction, several of which were used by early modern nuns: translation, claiming to be mere ciphers of a higher power, deferring to male authority.

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This is the case for those two nuns whose situation this chapter will particularly discuss: Mary Joseph Howard and Winifred of St Teresa Lingen,10 the lay sister who worked with Mary Joseph in developing the English Carmelite’s historicizing mission at Antwerp. Their influence on the convent’s life-writing was paramount, yet they remained to all intents anonymous, although editorial interventions over several centuries have added to their camouflage. The material they compiled defines much of the Carmel’s early history, from its foundation in 1619 to around 1750 – that is, through most of the community’s period of exile. Their influence is diffused through several volumes of material, encapsulating a long period of female spiritual testimony. It is the purpose of this chapter to bring them out of concealment.11 Clearly, the conditions within which life-writing was produced shaped the form and content of the narratives. Many early modern nuns were experts in strategic self-censorship, positioning themselves against inquisitorial review. Those who compiled the Lives of others were similarly cautious in the details they shared; if material was intended for ‘publication’ beyond the religious community, then authors were often concerned to protect their subjects from adverse review within and beyond their own reforming church. To this end, several testimonies were combined for choral effect, to create a subject beyond reproach because she is serially witnessed as blessed. (This is a system employed, of course, in more formal investigative reviews, like those towards potential canonization.) In the Antwerp Annals, the compiling nuns wrote a nuanced history of their community, selecting material written by individual religious and combining it with their own commentary, using information taken from profession books and elsewhere. Because the Annals in the earlier stages were drawn together long after the deaths of the nuns they commemorate, many of the sources are written documents rather than based on personal memory, though traces of oral testimony remain embedded there. Later material sometimes refers to the authors’ memories, or those of their contemporaries. The Annals are peppered with phrases that reveal editorial method: its authors quote from material ‘writ in her own hand as follows’, ‘writ by her self’. Sometimes they refer their readers to other documents: ‘she has writ an account of her own Life and great favours att large, so that it is not necessary to add any more here.’12

10

 Winifred of St Teresa Lingen (1662–1740), AC087.   I identified them first in Lives of Spirit: An Edition of English Carmelite Auto/ Biographies of the Early Modern Period, (Aldershot, 2007). This chapter explores their subterfuge in full, peeling back layers of editorial accretion that have added to their disguise. 12   ‘Life Writing II’, de Gelder, p. 197. 11

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Such processes served to obscure the authorial identities of Mary Joseph and Winifred Lingen. Research on the manuscripts they created has enabled us to identify their determining roles which later printed versions of texts additionally elided, often because their authors also employed similar systems of compilation, for reasons related to the period in which they too were writing. Since those situations continue to pertain in some areas of contemporary scholarship, and since succeeding authors have added layers of obscuration, it is important to account for later editions of Carmelite material via which many readers probably arrive at original sources. Then I will turn to the ways in which manuscript work can enlighten us about the identity of these two particular early modern female ‘Anons’. The ‘friendly pious hand’ of Henry Coleridge13 Carmelite historians have relied in many ways comfortably on the work of Henry James Coleridge (1822–93), who converted to Catholicism in 1852. In 1865, he was appointed the first Jesuit editor of The Month which incorporated the Catholic Review in 1874, and from 1881 he compiled the Catholic Quarterly Series. His own experience, in particular his conversion, can be seen to have shaped the ways in which he prepared a number of Catholic Lives, including those of several Carmelites. Coleridge’s mission is revealed in several places, including his 1893 edition of the Life and Letters of St Teresa. Its opening-page quotation from the Song of Songs 8:5 applies to the position of the convert as well as the contemplative: ‘Who is this that cometh up from the desert, flowing with delights, leaning upon her beloved?’14 Coleridge expresses a ‘special debt’ to St Teresa ‘on account of the large number of English ladies who, in the days of persecution, found a home in the communities of her Order abroad … so many of which have now in turn taken refuge on our own soil, to bring down, as we may fondly hope, the blessing of Heaven on our own country’.15 There are continuities evident here, likely to be conducive to one mindful of his own new devotional refuge. This celebratory, 13   The quotation is adapted from the Preface to the Antwerp annals where the writer apologises for ‘poorness of the style and want of meathod’: ‘I hope the goodness and substance of the matter will in time move some friendly pious hand to put it into a more advantagious light’: MS Antwerp Annals, vol. 1, p. i; ‘Life Writing II’, de Gelder, p. 2. 14   Coleridge quotes the source in Latin. The Douay-Rheims Bible glosses the verse in the same spirit as Coleridge’s citation: ‘Who is this: The angels with admiration behold the Gentiles converted to the faith: coming up from the desert, that is, coming from heathenism and false worship … ’ – accessed 1 May 2012. 15   Henry James Coleridge, The Life and Letters of St Teresa ( 2nd edition, London, 1893), p. xii.

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protectionist, philosophy also informs Coleridge’s concern to recuperate and lay bare his sources. His approach is none the less piecemeal. He interlaces original quotations with his own commentary, adumbrating readers as outsider-faithfuls rather like himself, and locating his editions with reference to previous versions. His work is in turn endorsed by other authorities. This backward-forward chain of support is reminiscent of early modern authorial devices. The effect of such accreted layering, sometimes within and between languages, is at once to allow the original self-writing subject to be heard as if authentically for the first time, and to obscure her anterior authorship by diffusing several voices through the printed work. This process also informs Coleridge’s Life of Mary Xaveria of the Angels16 which he drew from a manuscript at Lanherne where the Antwerp community settled after their return to England in 1794: ‘a spot where ... the Blessed Sacrament [has been] reserved uninterruptedly … since the change to religion in England’.17 Claims for Catholic continuity are at the heart of this enterprise. Coleridge uses the manuscript Life of Mary Xaveria by Thomas Hunter (1666–1725), who had been commissioned by the Antwerp community ‘within a few years of the death of the holy nun’.18 In fact, we know from the Antwerp Annals that this Life and other work (including the Annals themselves) had been instigated by Mary Frances Birkbeck (1674–1733, AC014) who ‘procured ye writing the lifes of Mother Mary Xaveria and Mother Mary Margarett, the first by Rd Father Thomas Hunter, the 2d by the Rd Father Percy Plowden … she took the pains her self to transcribe all the Memoires for this as she allso did when they were finish’d by the aforesaid Authours.’19 Coleridge’s orthography obscures Mary Frances’ role and establishes a reception for Mary Xaveria’s Life which has endured until recent research has shed new light on the material. He informs us his edition ‘has been conformed to the standard of our own times’, transposes the order of some of the text and subdivides the narrative. Coleridge’s own name does not appear on the title page which states it has been ‘collected from [the nun’s] own writings and other sources by Father Thomas Hunter’. After an editorial notice, signed only ‘H. J. C.’, Coleridge opens with Hunter’s Preface (not exactly identified as such, so we segue between the shared authorities of the two Jesuits). Here, the book is cautiously presented publicly in anticipation of controversy concerning women’s visions. Hunter’s system 16

  Catherine Burton (1668–1714), AC020.   Henry James Coleridge, An English Carmelite: The Life of Catharine Burton, Mother Mary Xaveria of the Angels, Of The English Teresian Convent at Antwerp (London, 1876), p. vii. 18   Ibid., p. vii. 19  MS Annals, vol. 2, p. 10. On Plowden’s Life of Margaret Wake, see below, pp. 148, 154. 17

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of authentication reveals much about the relationship between nuns and their confessors in preparing such self-writing.20 He ends his Preface with a standard protestation in obedience to papal approbation, one which effectively also underlines Coleridge’s subsequent position).21 Coleridge opens his Life proper with a chapter which he transfers from a later part of Hunter’s manuscript, ‘in order to make the reader acquainted with Catherine Burton before he [sic] begins her autobiography’:22 ‘N.B. The chapters which follow after this are written by Mother Mary Xaveria herself – ED.’23 In fact, Coleridge interweaves Mary Xaveria’s words with Hunter’s and intersperses these with his own commentary, signalling to a limited extent their different voices through punctuation and notes.24 He thereby adds further layers to a process which was already integral to Hunter’s system where he too occasionally drew attention to his assimilatory method: ‘N.B these [“] virgulas in ye margent denote some short remarks made upon her writeings by one who had sometime been her Director, but ye reader may intirely omit them without interrupting ye course of her Life.’25 Process appears to mirror content – indeed, is structured so to do, to bolster the authority of the text and its several subjects. Mary Xaveria emerges intermittently from these editorial layers; she represents herself almost as a ghost-writer of her own life-story: ‘when I read over what I have write, it seems as if I had not done it but as if some other had done it for me.’26 She defers to superior agency while also affirming her own role as a conduit, at one or more removes from her own experience. She is not, then, anonymous, but her authorial presence is available only via Confessor-compiler, editors and publishers in manuscript then printed versions of her Life. Coleridge’s Life of Mother Margaret of Jesus (Margaret Mostyn: 1625–69, AC065) similarly adds intermediary levels to original Carmelite sources that were ‘contemporaneous with its subject’.27 Again, Coleridge is just ‘H. J. C.’ after a Preface in which he attributes the work ‘to the labours of Canon Bedingfield’, that is, the nuns’ confessor Edmund 20   Jodi Bilinkoff identifies similarly ‘hybrid texts’ in which priests made ‘literary as well as pastoral decision[s]’: Related Lives: Confessors and Their Female Penitents, 1450–1750 (New York, 2005), pp. 7, 10. 21  Coleridge, An English Carmelite, p. xxvi. 22   Ibid., p. 1, n. 1. 23   Ibid., p. 13. 24   Ibid., p. 18, n. 1. 25  Manuscript Life, p. xxvi. 26  Manuscript Life, p. 8. 27   Henry James Coleridge, The Life of Margaret Mostyn (Mother Margaret of Jesus), Religious of the Reformed Order of Our Blessed Lady of Mount Carmel (1625–1679) (London, 1884), p. vii.

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Bedingfield (1615–80), who died before it could be completed. A second, unknown writer, probably another confessor, finished the compilation in around 1779. Coleridge draws on further manuscripts by Margaret Mostyn, including some not used by Bedingfield in this version. In fact, if we compare Coleridge’s printed text with surviving manuscripts by and about the nun, we can see that he weaves together a complicated melange of sources, and that there are significant omissions from material available to him in the convent archives. One particularly startling gap in Coleridge’s account is Bedingfield’s 1651 exorcism of Margaret Mostyn and her sister Elizabeth. Bedingfield wrote a detailed report of these events, one which was subsequently consigned ‘to remain in the [convent’s] chest of the three keys until such time that it pleases God they come to light’.28 Bedingfield himself did not refer to this account in his own redacted version of Margaret’s Life, written in 1679/80, just before his own death.29 These omissions by Bedingfield some 25 years afterwards, then by Coleridge across two centuries, are very instructive about ongoing concerns for the reputation of the nun, her convent and her Order. We have, then, a whole series of refractions in the manuscript and printed Lives of Margaret Mostyn which serve to objectify her subjectvoice. Coleridge is driven by a number of imperatives, revealing by omission a history of interests. Carmelite Editions by Anne Hardman: ‘a Sister of Notre Dame de Namur’ Similar silences obscure the role of Margaret Mostyn in the printed version of her Life by the distinguished editor Anne Hardman (1874–1947), a Notre Dame nun who wrote several early modern Lives and opened up a range of otherwise unknown sources.30 Hardman’s own situation in turn reveals much about authorial relationships between nuns and priestly authorities in the twentieth century. Mediation is, it seems, enduringly endemic in Catholic biographies by – as of – women.31 28  Nicky Hallett, Witchcraft, Exorcism and the Politics of Possession in a SeventeenthCentury Convent: ‘How Sister Ursula was once bewiched and Sister Margaret twice’ (Aldershot, 2007), pp. 79, 154. 29   Ibid., pp. 118–27. 30  Anne Agatha Hardman, descended from revered Catholic families, professed in 1897 as Anne of Jesus: see Sister Barbara Jeffrey, Living For The Church Before Everything Else: The Hardman Family Story (Leeds, 2012), pp. 64, 87, 100. I am grateful to Carmen Mangion for this information. 31   ‘The mediation of these biographies … corresponds to that built into Catholic worship, with priests intervening between these women and readers as they did between them

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The title page of Hardman’s 1932 Life of the Venerable Anne of Jesus, 1545–1621 simply records the work is ‘by a Sister of Notre Dame de Namur’.32 In her editorial Note (not even initialled) Hardman thanks a range of advisers including Benedict Zimmerman ODC, ‘not only for information ungrudgingly given, but also for reading and correcting the whole book when in manuscript, and writing the Foreword’.33 It was Zimmerman who later outed Hardman as the book’s author. He did so in his Preface to her English Carmelites in Penal Times in which he commends it as a work he has seen through ‘various stages of perfection’ and in which he corrected her references to a number of ‘squabbles’ affecting early modern Carmelite women ‘which for the present-day readers have little interest, and which, therefore, may well be left alone’.34 Interestingly, given Hardman’s own position, these were disputes about early modern female authority in the face of opposition from the Carmelite friars, contests which the nuns themselves held to be extremely important to their spiritual autonomy. Zimmerman dismisses these. About one, to do with translation (which the nuns in their surviving manuscripts claim to be falsification by the friars of documents from St Teresa), he archly states: ‘anyone who has had experience in the matter of translations, especially of legal documents, will understand that in translating Spanish into Latin, and Latin back into Spanish, the original wording is bound to undergo numerous changes’, which explains why the nuns ‘failed to recognise in the various sets of Constitutions set before them the ipsissima verba of their holy Mother’.35 He provides three pages of corrective commentary about the dispute. Zimmerman’s Preface to Hardman’s Life of Anne of Jesus likewise justified reduction of details: ‘Times have changed … the quarrels … are of secondary importance. A full-dress rehearsal of those events would be tedious, if not positively painful, to the twentieth century reader.’36 He thereby obscures not only Hardman’s endeavours and those of Carmelite authors whom she sought to represent, but also the ways in which women’s communities ‘consistently

and God’: Frances E. Dolan, ‘Reading, Work and Catholic Women’s Biographies’, English Literary Renaissance, 33.3 (2003): p. 333. 32  Anne Hardman, Life of the Venerable Anne of Jesus, Companion of St Teresa Avila [by a Sister of Notre Dame de Namur] (London, 1932): Anne of Jesus was a Spanish Carmelite, companion to St Teresa of Àvila. 33   George Rudolph Zimmerman (1859–1937), converted to Catholicism in 1877. 34  Hardman, English Carmelites, p. v. 35   Ibid., p. vi. An obituary to Zimmerman notes ‘His knowledge of languages’ (Catholic Herald, 13 August 1937 accessed 10 May 2012. 36  Hardman, English Carmelites, p. 11.

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legitimated their dissent and assertion of independence by reference to their foundational, translated text’.37 For several reasons, then, some of them connected to continuing interests of gender, hierarchy and internecine dispute, Hardman’s accounts were somewhat muted in particular details. Like other compilers, she too weaves together a range of sources. A 1936 review of English Carmelites notes ‘more than half [consists] of actual quotations from documents and letters.’38 Sometimes Hardman uses subtle quotation marks to indicate the words of her subject; mostly no sources are cited as such except in general terms at the end of the book: ‘No references have been given in the text lest their numbers might prove wearisome.’39 Like Zimmerman, she presumes her readers have low boredom thresholds. Hardman’s Mother Margaret Mostyn (1937), like Coleridge’s version, skirts round issues of demonic possession, although she too presumably had access to manuscripts about it in the convent archives. She merely mentions the devil ‘from whose “tyranny Almighty God had now finally freed them”’, her quote within a quote flagging yet obscuring her original source.40 Authors grind their several axes in the editorial apparatuses around this Life.41 Such interests similarly accumulate in other works by Hardman. Her Two English Carmelites (1939) includes a Life of Catherine Burton which is based in part on Coleridge’s version to which she adds details from other manuscripts at Lanherne. Her Life of Margaret Wake (1617–78, AC124) in the same volume is based on another manuscript in the convent archive, this begun in 1726 by Percy Plowden SJ (1672–1745), rector of the English College at Rome (1731–34) and spiritual director at the Antwerp Carmel for several years.42 Hardman addresses a readership which shares her aesthetic. Both she and Coleridge indeed make much use of the word ‘beautiful’ in connection with the stories they recount. They stress continuities of faith that transcend temporary Protestant interruptions, and embed the individual Lives in a narrative that emphasises lineage. 37  Marie-Louise Coolahan, ‘Identity Politics and Nuns’ Writing’, Women’s Writing, 14.2 (2007): p. 309, on the struggle for authority between the Gravelines Poor Clares and the diocesan bishop in the 1620s: ‘The translation of foundational material is more than simply a matter of instruction: they became important weapons in community controversy.’ Just such a context informs details of the Carmelite dissenting text discussed below, p. 152. 38   Catholic Herald, 18 September 1936 accessed 10 May 2012. 39  Hardman, Life of Anne of Jesus, p. 316. 40  Hardman, Mostyn, p. 47. 41  See Hardman, Mostyn, p. x: and Godfrey in ibid., p. xiii. 42  Hardman, Two English Carmelites, pp. x, 14; see above, p. 144.

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Hardman records that the nuns at Darlington, where Margaret Mostyn’s successors eventually settled after their return to England, sing her verses ‘to a quaint old tune, every day at Advent’; they possess the ‘relics’ of the Mostyn sisters, in shrines presented by current family members.43 Hardman, like Coleridge, is concerned to emphasise such heritage; both shape early modern sources to the needs of modern faith.44 Notwithstanding reservations about editorial decisions arising from their own period and position, it is clear that scholars owe a huge debt to Henry Coleridge and Anne Hardman. Indeed, my own research in Carmelite archives began when their prefatory material alerted me to original sources behind the Vatican-licensed versions I first encountered. Yet if we read only such printed versions of material, shaped by their own exigencies, our impression of convent creativity is skewed. I illustrate claims about the centrality of the nuns as authors of their own histories by returning to Mary Joseph Howard and Winifred of St Teresa Lingen. Carmelite Writers in Early Modern Antwerp: ‘shy & silent’ Strategists45 The two women worked together, taking different roles in compiling records of the Antwerp English Carmel. Like other first-wave Discalced communities, this was founded by the immediate successors of Teresa de Jesus. For succeeding generations in English convents in exile this was a formative period in which the women often faced challenges to their authority amidst complicated internal and reformist politics. For the Carmelites, these related mostly to constitutional issues to which I have already referred.46 Of these two Antwerp authors, Mary Joseph is more prominent and evident than Winifred of St Teresa, though both are obscured by the narrative they compiled. It is only as histories unfold that we eventually discover their respective roles. They based their composition on documents written by individual nuns over a long time-period from around 1619 when the English convent was founded, up to the mid-1700s (beyond this, in continuations by other compilers), beginning their process almost exactly one hundred years after first records began. Like other chronicling editors, 43

 Hardman, Two English Carmelites, pp. 58, 88–9.   Hardman’s reviewers appreciated her work for this. Two English Carmelites was valued in 1939 ‘in these days of wars and rumours of wars it is a reminder of the things that are eternal’ (Catholic Herald, 11 August 1939 accessed 10 May 2012. 45   The quotation appears below, p. 151. 46  See above, p. 147 44

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they reviewed personal papers before placing them within an overarching narrative. The genre in which they worked inevitably gave an inflection to the story told, and the anniversary of foundation was presumably important as a spur to the nuns to write their own community history. The immediate occasion for compilation also appears to have been, or coincides with, the dramatic discovery in 1716 of the incorrupt body of Mary Margaret of the Angels Wake who died in 1678 – a claim I have outlined in earlier publications.47 In essence, the find seems to have made the Antwerp Prioress even more aware of a lack of systematic chronicle of the community, and to have inspired her to assign the making of retrospective records. As well as the Annals, she commissioned two separate Lives: of Margaret Wake herself, and of Mary Xaveria Burton. The three texts closely interconnect. Cross-referencing between them enables us to date documents, and suggests they were all readily available for reference within the community. The Annals account of Margaret Wake states ‘Her singular vocation, eminent vertues and most saintly Death are writ in a book apart, as allso the dicovery of her miraculously incorrupt Body, so that we need say nothing here … .’48 That of Mary Xaveria Burton records the extent of her favours ‘would fill a whole Book as it now does being writ on order to be printed’. Mary Joseph notes: I cannot omitt this remarkable passage which her Confessor left in his own hand writeing and wch I also found writen by Rd Mother Delphina her self being commanded to doe so by her Derector and like wise incerted by Rd Mother Xaveria of the Angels in her own life which she writ in obedience to her Confessor out of which I have drawn the following account on the 8 Chap: and 2d part of the said life of Rd Mother Mary Xaveria her words are these. Allmighty God was pleased to help one of the religious by my prayers … .49

This reference is highly revealing of Mary Joseph’s system in which she interweaves statements from several witnesses, using their license and thereby concealing the individuality of originating authors. Mary Frances Birkbeck dedicated the work at the outset to Percy Plowden, deferring to him in familiar spirit to validate the narrative: if there is ‘any thing Contrary to true Doctrine or edification I beg you will please to scratch it out, as you read it, which will give more authority to 47  Nicky Hallett, Lives of Spirit: An Edition of English Carmelite Auto/Biographies of the Early Modern Period (Aldershot, 2007), p. 35. 48  MS Annals, vol. 1, p. 295; ‘Life Writing II’, de Gelder, p. 142. 49  MS Annals, vol. 1, pp. 542–3; ‘Life Writing II’, de Gelder, p. 276. On the role of Delphina of St Joseph Smith (1695–1721), Prioress 1720–21, AC113, see Hardman, Two English Carmelites, p. 106.

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what remains’.50 Her introduction is signed: ‘humble servant and poor unworthy child M. F.’.51 Mary Joseph Howard then takes over as author. She remained anonymous until her own obituary appears, at her death in 1756 when, some 700 or so pages and two volumes into a text she has been writing for over twenty years, she is identified for the first time as ‘the person who collected these lives …. from the first foundation till ye year 1750’. Then the new author follows the same method as her predecessor, incorporating extracts from Mary Joseph’s own writing into the commemorative text: she ‘left at her death an account of her own, to which she added most profitable instructions to the religious which I insert as follows’.52 These excerpts give a clear sense of Mary Joseph’s authorial mission, one which we now realize had tacitly driven her editorial decisions from the outset. Mary Joseph’s statement opens with familiarly-phrased reluctance: I have been a long time deliberating with my self if I’d leave the following lines or no, many reasons presenting on both sides, but, as I confide in God, my intentions are good … & only to be seen by my dearest sisters & beloved children. I resolved upon it, asuring my self yt I shall have their more frequent & earnest prayers when in no capacity of helping my self; and that it will allso make you praise God & be more faithfull to his graces & preventing mercys of goodness than I have been … 53

She justifies her self-writing: ‘[I feared others would] say things of me that I no ways merited, so resolved to leave ys simple account of my self.’54 She describes the events that led to her vocation and recalls that she was ‘exceeding backwards in speaking’; her ‘very shy & silent disposition’ was overcome: ‘no sooner [had I] set my foot within the monastery … but I found my self quite changed.’ She suffered from ‘a great imperfection’ in her speech until, after promising St Joseph she would rehearse his litany every day for a year, ‘I found my self quite another thing in speaking & reading.’ Her eloquence shows in her editorial interventions and her personal statement in which, in fairly florid style, she urges the nuns to ‘love one another’ in the interests of community. She reiterates her motives for compiling the Lives: to animate the nuns to maintain ‘the first observance 50

 MS Annals, vol. 1, p.vii; Mary Frances Birkbeck (1702–33), AC014.   That is: Mary Frances; see previous note. 52   In fact, if the dates are accurate here, the new compiler had taken over in 1750, several years before Mary Joseph’s death when she became incapacitated by illness: MS Annals, vol. 2, p. 241. 53   Ibid., p. 250. 54   Ibid., p. 262. 51

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of our glorious Mother St Terese’.55 The new compiler then describes Mary Joseph’s final illness and death, and proceeds with accounts of other religious. Having read Mary Joseph’s statement, we can see in retrospect how much she shaped the content and the purpose of the preceding Lives, just as we can see that the nuns themselves wrote their own accounts within a reiterative tradition. In personal and collective narratives like this, it is often hard to see where one pen stops and another begins. There are important moments, however, like this one at which Mary Joseph’s identity emerges, break-points where we get a glimpse of the textual workings. It is at another of these junctures that the second authorial figure emerges. Mary Joseph herself introduces her, almost, it appears, by accident. She had begun her work by arranging the Lives in order of the nuns’ profession – a strategy that enabled her to set out the credentials of Anne of the Ascension as the first prioress, to thereby establish the lineage of the Antwerp Carmel and outline the constitutional disputes with which it was engaged. For all her self-effacement, Mary Joseph’s is a dissenting voice in a long line of passive resistors. Her organizational prowess is evident in her scrupulous selection of material for this first Life, including details of clashes with Carmelite friars over alleged mistranslation.56 In the midst of this, appears an anecdote about the first English prioress: Upon an occation, she was speaking to an English merchant who to try in what perfection she had languages he, without her perceiving it, passd from English to Dutch, French, Spanish and lastly to Latten, when after some discourse she was at a loss to answer readily, and so reflecting with herself said ‘Why do you speak to me in latten for I cannot speak it?’ He answered ‘I see you can Rd Mother … .’57

Clearly this was one nun who would recognize ‘the ipissima verba’ when she saw it. Mary Joseph’s quietly defiant accumulation of evidence endorses her community’s long-standing claims about constitutional determination: ‘for had not our Dr Mother stood resolute, and convinced the world how much she was in the right, they would in all appearance proceeded much further, in making still more changes in those monasterys wch complyed with them.’58 Mary Joseph is, then, a canny editor. None the less, her overarching organizational method ran into an eventual problem. Given her acuity, it 55

 MS Annals, vol. 1, p. ix; ‘Life Writing II’, de Gelder, p. 3.  See above, p. 147. 57  MS Annals, vol. 1, p. 52. Reverend Mother: Anne of the Ascension Worsley (1610–44), AC140. 58  MS Annals, vol 1, p. 53; ‘Life Writing II’, de Gelder, pp. 31–2. 56

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is tempting to think she might have envisaged this dilemma and used it to the advantage of her mission. At the year 1693, five hundred or so pages into the text, she realized that there was an apparent flaw in her system: … but now coming in order of profession to our dear Sister Winifred of St Teresa who, blessed be God, is all present in perfect health and as quick in her understanding and senses as ever, only finding in some things the effects of old age, and this to the great advantage of this work, since it could not have been brought so far but by her help and knowledge [she has lived 53 years] in this house. In what follows I will place them according to the time of their death and not as before of their profession.59

This, then, is our seemingly inadvertent introduction to Sister Winifred who is in effect the secondary compiler of, and a prime mover behind, the Antwerp Annals. Again, in retrospect it is clear that she too had been invisibly present right from the start. Her own Life is included much later in the Annals, when she eventually died in 1740, at the age of 78. By reviewing material interspersed across the Annals and found in other manuscripts, it is evident she worked alongside Mary Joseph as a doubly invisible, informing-author and compiler, a key witness to important events that shaped the historiography of the Antwerp community. Her obituary in the Annals tells us that Winifred of St Teresa Lingen was born in Hertfordshire, ‘an only daughter of a most pious worthy family’; ‘of solid judgement, quick wit, apt in learning, knowing and understanding’.60 As an infant she was subject to convulsions, and after one fit was thought to be dead, being revived by a family friend. The compiler observes wryly that Sister Winifred ‘used to tell us with great resentment, that the old woman had then hinder’d her from going to heaven’.61 There is a real sense here of Winifred’s own voice and demeanour, of Mary Joseph’s affectionate pleasure in her character. (Indeed, the integration of speech patterns into formal record suggests how far orality is a general feature of this written compilation.) Winifred entered the convent as a lay sister though ‘the community, seeing her in all respects so well qualified, had thoughts of clothing her for a quire nun.’ Such was her humility that she declined the offer. The account of Winifred in the Annals is followed by details of the daily life of a lay sister, written in a different, less well-formed hand, presumably that of another lay member; hers is another hidden hand that keeps the convent functioning. The details she provides give insight into quotidian routine: 59

 MS Annals, vol. 1, p. 524; ‘Life Writing II’, de Gelder, p. 266.  MS Annals, vol. 2, p. 81. 61   Ibid., p. 82. 60

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the time for sweeping, cleaning, laying up tables, attending to the fires, the candles, the cutlery, the bread-making, the dairy. Sister Winifred, we are told, worked so hard that she weakened her back and ‘went double’ for many years before her death. She was almost blind and could not see to read or write; women of the town paid for her to have an operation which helped her condition for several years. Winifred emerges as a distinctive voice. She is an accomplice to the primary compiler, Mary Joseph, because she had lived so long in the convent and had a good memory. She was also witness to several remarkable events to which she bears semi-visible testimony elsewhere in the convent papers. These include details about the discovery of the incorrupt body of Margaret Wake, the eventual discovery, that is, in 1716. Before that Winifred is named with other nuns who searched for bodies in the crypt over several years and were disappointed when they uncovered only corrupting bones and severed limbs.62 The Life of Mary Margaret Wake by Percy Plowden records that in around 1678, several weeks after the nun’s death, Winifred witnessed incidents, details of which she later provided to her then-prioress, Mary Xaveria Burton, details which actually temporarily delayed the discovery of the incorrupt body.63 In 1716, Winifred was also present when the intact body was eventually uncovered. Indeed, it seems likely she was the lay sister who ‘being too eager to touch the body … by pulling of the head dress with too much eagerness … plucked out one of the eyes’.64 This is a textual history which shows the scaffolding of its own truthtelling. Several voices cross-reference, coincide from independent startingpoints. The authors of these narratives, including male compilers, are reluctant to speak out until their observations are substantiated. Plowden himself uses Winifred’s authority about events since she ‘remained always at Antwerp where she still lives, ready to attest the truth of all I have written’.65 Winifred continued to play a part in the Antwerp anthologizing until her death in 1740, when she fell ill in the kitchen and could not be roused. Later, having been blooded by the doctor, Winifred survived a further 62

 Hallett, Lives of Spirit, pp. 64, 65, 163, 165, 166, 169.  Manuscript Life of Margaret Wake, p. 291. 64  An appendix to the Manuscript Life of Mary Xaveria Burton, p. 488. I identify Winifred on the basis of her enthusiasm for such matters and on evidence in a separate document which attributes this action to a lay sister ‘who had been her novice and who was then living when the holy body was found incorrupt … [who] in a transport of joy eagerly took off the linen that had been put on her face when she was going to be buried, to which the eyes stuck and were thus pulled out … ’ (a document from the Lierre Carmel, recently at Darlington). 65  Hardman, Two English Carmelites, p. 125. 63

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three weeks until she died ‘about half an hour after nine in the morning, on a Tuesday, the 17 August, in the octive of the Asumption of Our Blessed Lady’. Thus ends the long and quietly remarkable life of Sister Winifred. As with the death of Mary Joseph, it is only at such break-points in the narrative that she emerges as an ‘author’. We can see in retrospect and by reference to other sources what drove both compilers: their commitment to maintain the integrity of their Carmelite history, interwoven as it was with notions of physical as well as textual continuance.66 Otherwise, both women are largely anonymous in their compilations. To be sure, Anne Hardman mentions both Mary Joseph and Sister Winifred. Her references to the former are used primarily to underline the convent’s aristocratic connections to the Howard family: ‘two of them became Prioresses’, including Mary Joseph, ‘who collected the lives of our dear deceased Religious’ and left ‘most profitable instructions’.67 She mentions Winifred several times in passing: as witness to important events;68 her oral testimony about venerated contemporaries is cited: ‘Sister Winifred Linghen when she was relating this story … ’; ‘Sister Winifred remarks … ’;69 she is signatory to a declaration about the interment of Margaret Wake.70 All such witness is woven into Hardman’s account of other, better-known women and while orality is clearly a feature of Winifred’s own testimony, her role is more textually and editorially central than such references seem to imply. All in all, then, it is clear that hidden hands played a crucial part in this sequential, multi-layered and chronologically complicated Life-writing. For now, from this material, by peeling back the layers of editors who document yet obscure their subjects, we can appreciate the vitality of nuns as early modern authors. Indeed, we can sometimes name the nun and recreate from her documents the cloistered conditions within which women’s creativity could flourish. She may not be quite ‘the dead poet who was Shakespeare’s [S]ister’ in Woolf’s designation, but here we can observe her ‘drawing her life from the lives of the unknown who were her forerunners’.71

66   This claim is pursued in my study The Senses in Religious Communities, 1600–1800: Early Modern ‘Convents of Pleasure’ (Farnham and Burlington VT, 2013). 67  Hardman, Two English Carmelites, p. 117, quoting tacitly from Mary Joseph’s writing. 68   Ibid., pp. 119, 125. 69   Ibid., pp. 133, 142. 70   Ibid., p. 152. 71  Woolf, A Room, p. 108.

Part III Culture: Patronage and Visual Culture

Chapter 9

Petitioning for Patronage: An Illuminated Tale of Exile from Syon Abbey, Lisbon Elizabeth Perry A small illuminated manuscript, now in the library of the Duke of Norfolk at Arundel Castle, is a rare representation of an English convent’s narrative of exile, told in the community’s own terms. The Spanish text carries a descriptive title, which reads in translation: The mirror of the peregrinations of the English nuns of the Order of Saint Bridget.1 The manuscript comes from Syon Abbey in Lisbon, and its illuminations likely date to c. 1616–19, when they were created for presentation to King Philip III (1578–1621) upon his visit to Portugal in 1619. A few years later (c. 1621–23), they were apparently repackaged as a wedding gift for a proposed marriage between Charles I (1600–49) and the Infanta María Anna of Spain (1606–46).2 The manuscript is comprised of three sections of Spanish text and nine full-page illuminations with Spanish and Latin captions. The Arundel manuscript has become well known since the important 1991 publication by Christopher de Hamel and John Martin Robinson of a transcription and translation, accompanied by colour photographs of the illuminations and an historical introduction.3 Since then, a number of scholars have explored the political and rhetorical significance of the texts, such as their emphasis on the convent’s Lancastrian heritage and skilful 1   The actual title is El Specio de la Peregrinaçion de las monjas inglezas de la Orden de Sta Brizida: library of the Duke of Norfolk, Arundel Castle. 2   James I (1566–1625) sought a dynastic marriage alliance between England and Spain as early as 1605. The plan coalesced around a proposed marriage between his son and heir apparent, Prince Charles, and the Infanta María Anna, the daughter of Philip III. English Catholics generally supported the ‘Spanish Match’, hoping it would lead to the restoration of Catholicism in England, while English Protestants violently opposed it. The plan fell apart in 1623, following a disastrous visit to Madrid by Prince Charles. See Alexander Samson (ed.), The Spanish Match: Prince Charles’s Journey to Madrid, 1623 (Aldershot, 2006) for an interdisciplinary study of events surrounding the proposed marriage. 3   Christopher de Hamel and John Martin Robinson, Syon Abbey: The Library of the Bridgettine Nuns and Their Peregrinations After the Reformation (London, 1991).

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use of Marian imagery.4 However, the focus has been on the manuscript as text, with only slight attention to the images or the work’s status as an illustrated book. The contribution of this chapter will be to study the manuscript closely from an art historical perspective, focusing on the illuminations rather than the text. Syon Abbey’s journey was indeed extraordinary and worthy of commemoration. Founded in the fifteenth century by Henry V (1386– 1422), Syon was a double monastery, with both male and female members under the leadership of an abbess; it was soon famous for its wealth and scholarship. When the convent was suppressed by Henry VIII in 1539, some of the nuns remained in England and some relocated to Antwerp; the community was subsequently united at Antwerp, and later moved to Dermonde. In 1557, under the rule of Mary I (1516–58) and her husband Philip II of Spain (1527–98), Syon Abbey was briefly restored to England. Following the accession of Elizabeth I (1533–1603) in 1558, Syon Abbey was once again forced into exile in the Spanish Netherlands. Their situations there were often unsafe or unsuitable, necessitating numerous moves, although they did receive a stipend from Philip II beginning in 1566. The convent moved from Dermonde (1559–63) to Zurickzee (1563–68) to Meshagen (1568–72 or 73) and then to Antwerp, Mechelen, and back to Antwerp again, as the Eighty Years’ War (1568–1648) flared around them. The community was forced to flee to Rouen in 1580, where they lived in three locations, initially under the protection of King Henry III (r. 1574– 89). As in the Netherlands, the convent was caught up in local conflict and wars of religion. Through their confessor general, Seth Foster (d. 1628), Syon Abbey was allied with the Catholic League in opposition to both Henry III and IV (Henry of Navarre, r. 1589–1610). Following Henry of Navarre’s victory at the siege of Rouen, and subsequent crowning at Paris in February 1594, the convent felt itself to be in danger of retribution. Initially they intended to move to Spain, but settled on Spanish Portugal, travelling by sea and bringing their books and sacred objects with them.5 The community, led by Abbess Elizabeth Hart (d. 1609),6 left Rouen by

4  Nancy Bradley Warren, Women of God and Arms: Female Spirituality and Political Conflict, 1380–1600 (Philadelphia, PA, 2005), pp. 139–67 and Christopher Highley, Catholics Writing the Nation in Early Modern Britain and Ireland (Oxford, 2008), pp. 151–88. 5   Caroline Bowden, ‘Books and Reading at Syon Abbey Lisbon’, in E.A. Jones and Alexandra Walsham (eds), Syon Abbey and its Books: Reading, Writing, and Religion c. 1400–1700 (Woodbridge, 2010), p. 178. 6   Elizabeth Hart (d. 1609), LB080.

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ship during Holy Week, and arrived in Lisbon in May 1594. They would remain in Lisbon until the nineteenth century.7 The manuscript consists of four parts. The first part is the dedication to the Infanta María Anna, who is hopefully addressed as ‘The Princess of Wales’.8 Because her father and grandfather had supported Syon Abbey in its exile, the community hoped that if they could secure her interest, the Habsburg princess might make their triumphal return to England a primary project of her potential future royal patronage in England. The dedication is signed ‘Sister Barbara Wiseman Abbess and the other English nuns of the Order of St Bridget’. The title of the second, and main, text, The mirror of the peregrinations of the English nuns of the Order of Saint Bridget … again makes explicit that this is the story of the English nuns of the community. Both of these texts are written in the first-person plural, and the writing is rather literary in style with many Biblical quotations and references. The third part of the manuscript is the series of nine illuminations, each with an historical caption and biblical quotation. The final part of the manuscript, also written in Spanish, is titled The Explanation of What the Previous Pictures Show. This part of the manuscript, written on slightly thinner paper/vellum and exclusively in the third person, closely follows the accounts written by male clergy and may have been the contribution of Syon’s confessor general, Seth Foster. By the second decade of the seventeenth century, Syon Abbey had survived an impoverished and unstable early period in Lisbon and had entered a time of relative prosperity. The dowries of several daughters of the English nobility and the inheritance of a Portuguese noblewoman and choir nun, Sister Bridget of St Anthony,9 had enriched the convent.10 But Syon Abbey was by no means luxurious; documents show that after twenty years in Lisbon, the convent’s church was still not completed.11 Although there was now some income coming from England in the form of dowries, the convent would remain dependent on its yearly pension from the Spanish crown. The pension had been paid very irregularly  7  See Ann M. Hutchison, ‘Transplanting the Vineyard: Syon Abbey 1539–1861’, in Der Birgittenorden in der Frühen Neuzeit/The Bridgettine Order in Early Modern Europe (Frankfurt, 1998), pp. 79–107 for the most complete scholarly study of the period of the travels.  8   If the Spanish princess had married Prince Charles, as hoped, she would have held the title Princess of Wales.  9   Bridget of St. Anthony Mendanha (1602–55), LB118. 10   For the Portuguese presence at Syon Abbey in this period, see ‘The Life of Leonor de Mendanha’, in ‘Life Writing’, ed. Nicky Hallett, English Convents, vol. 3, pp. 35–105, 376–82. 11   The convent annals state that the church was completed with a load of wood sent as the dowry for Mary Smith (1643–99), LB 149, who professed in 1643: ‘Annals’, p. 14. University of Exeter Library, Syon Abbey MS, p. 14 (formerly in Box 28, Syon Abbey, Devon).

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until the community’s 1594 arrival in Portugal, when Foster secured Philip II’s pledge to continue the patronage. In the words of the convent’s eighteenth-century chronicler, the pension had been ‘puncttely paid every week’ since.12 The community was looking forward to the visit of their current royal patron Philip III to Portugal, postponed several times, but now scheduled for the spring of 1619.13 The visit of the Spanish king was an important event for Syon Abbey. The nuns wanted to ensure that Philip III, and later his son, would continue to see the English convent as a Habsburg spiritual responsibility. The purpose of the king’s voyage was largely to ensure the continued support of the Portuguese nobility for the rule of the future Philip IV (1605–65), who in 1619 was 14 years old and recently married. While Philip III and his family prepared to strengthen their ties with Portugal, Syon Abbey prepared to make the most of a visit from their royal patron. As was traditional practice on such occasions, a gift would be required.14 The decision to create an illuminated manuscript of their exile as their gift to be presented to the King was a stroke of brilliant originality. Although decorated manuscripts were considered appropriate gifts to royalty, there was no precedent for the kind of book the nuns of Syon Abbey created and presented to Philip III. It was both a history of the convent’s exile and a kind of sermon on the proper response – of kings and nuns – to the will of God. It showed the king the divine nature of the bond between his ancestors and Syon Abbey. While gift exchange, including manuscripts, was normal and routine in both courtly and monastic contexts, this particular gift book was exceptional because of its content.15 Its singular genius can best be explained through consideration of the woman most likely responsible for its creation, Abbess Barbara Wiseman.16 Barbara Wiseman and her sister Anne17 were the daughters of a prominent recusant family in Essex. Their parents provided their eight

12

  ‘Annals’, p. 5.   The official chronicle of the visit was João Baptista Lavanha’s, Viagem da catholica Real Magestade del Rey D. Felipe II N. S. ao Reyno de Portugal (Madrid, 1621). 14  Lavanha states that the convents and monasteries of Lisbon showered the royal family with special gifts and entertainment. Although he claims that Philip visited all of the convents and monasteries of Lisbon, Syon Abbey is not specifically mentioned (a visit to the nearby convent of La Esperança, which had close patronage ties to Syon Abbey is briefly discussed): ibid., p. 159. 15   Claire Walker discusses strategic practices of gift giving among the exiled English convents in Gender and Politics in Early Modern Europe: English Convents in France and the Low Countries (Basingstoke, 2008), pp. 106–15. 16   Barbara Wiseman (d. 1649), LB170. 17  Anne Wiseman (d. 1650), LB169. 13

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children with a humanistic education, including training in Latin.18 Two of the sons became Jesuits, and all four of the daughters became nuns on the continent. Barbara and Anne professed with the Bridgettines, probably at Mechelen in 1577,19 and arrived in Lisbon from Rouen along with Abbess Hart. Their sisters Jane and Bridget joined the Flemish Augustinians of St Ursula’s in Louvain, subsequently becoming founding members of the English convent of Augustinian canonesses at Louvain. In 1598, their widowed mother, Jane Vaughan Wiseman (d. 1610) was imprisoned for practicing her faith and harbouring priests; at one point, she was even sentenced to death, which was commuted to life imprisonment. She was released with the accession of James I in 1603. Her daughter, Jane, in religion Mary Wiseman, was a Latin scholar honoured for her ‘singular learning’, who served as prioress from the time of her arrival at St Monica’s until her death in 1633.20 In Lisbon, her sisters also rose to power. Barbara Wiseman was first elected abbess upon Abbess Hart’s death in 1509,21 and together with Anne, who served as abbess between 1612 and 1615, the Wisemans ruled Syon Abbey for 34 years, until Barbara’s death in 1649. Under Barbara’s leadership, the illuminated gift for the king was conceived and executed as a combination of a petition for patronage and a definitive statement from the nuns on their experience of exile. The need for patronage has already been discussed, but what was the impetus for Abbess Wiseman to create a definitive statement of the women’s experience of wandering Europe in exile? Virginia Bainbridge has identified the earliest mythology of the socalled ‘Wanderings of Syon’ with Seth Foster and the recusant community at Rouen.22 The earliest published narrative appeared in Madrid in 1594, almost immediately following their arrival in Lisbon. This small book, 18   The Chronicles of the English Augustinian Canonesses Regular of the Lateran, at St. Monica’s in Louvain (now at St. Augustine’s Priory, Newton Abbot, Devon) 1548–1644, ed. Adam Hamilton (Edinburgh, 1904), pp. 46–55. 19  An early document states that when Barbara Wiseman died at age 92 in 1649, she had been a professed nun for 72 years, and that Barbara and Anne professed together: University of Exeter Library, Syon Abbey Collection. 20   Prioress Wiseman was praised for her ‘singular learning’ in the dedication to an English translation of Antonio Molina’s A Treatise of Mental Prayer (St Omer, 1617). Cited in Retha M. Warnicke, Women of the English Renaissance and Reformation (Westport, CT, 1983), pp. 174, 183. 21   Her signature as abbess appears on a c. 1610 document reproduced in Adam Hamilton, The Angel of Syon: The Life and Martyrdom of Blessed Richard Reynolds (Edinburgh, 1905), p. 96. 22   Virginia Bainbridge, ‘Propaganda and the Supernatural: The Bridgettine Nuns of Syon Abbey in Exile, c.1539–1630’, in Fiona Reid and Katherine Holden (eds), Women on the Move: Refugees, Migration, and Exile (Newcastle upon Tyne, 2010), pp. 31–3.

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Relacion que Embiaron las Religiosas del Monesterio de Sion de Inglaterra, que estavan en Roan de Francia, consisted of an extensive letter written by Abbess Hart detailing the events surrounding the community’s decision to leave Rouen, with a preface detailing their complete travels in exile written by the prominent English Jesuit Robert Persons, based on information he received from Seth Foster.23 Persons began his history with the founding of the community by Henry V in 1415; because both Henry V and the Portuguese royal family were of Lancastrian descent, this established a link between Syon Abbey and Portugal. Another longer and more detailed manuscript account of the travels was created within the community c. 1608–28.24 An eighteenth-century copy survives in the convent archive now at Exeter University.25 This longer account shifts between first- and third-person plural points of view. It has been attributed to Seth Foster, possibly with one of the nuns under his direction or in collaboration with him, and Barbara Wiseman has been suggested as his likely assistant.26 Perhaps the experience of working on Foster’s chronicle spurred Wiseman to create an account from the nuns’ point of view. The illuminations include no images of male members of the community, even though this is a serious inaccuracy. For example, eight men arrived at Lisbon along with the nuns, but none are pictured in the illumination illustrating the arrival at Lisbon. The dedication, signed by ‘Sister Barbara Wiseman Abbess and the other English nuns of nuns of the Order of St Bridget’ does not even include the signature of Foster, who was said elsewhere to have heroically led them through the voyage. These omissions suggest that the manuscript was self-consciously a nuns-only statement. This is interesting in light of Claire Walker’s recent discussion of the issue of the power balances between the nuns in exile and their confessors.27 It should also be remembered that Wiseman would have been about 62 years 23  Robert Persons, Relacion que Embiaron las Religiosas del Monesterio de Sion de Inglaterra, que estavan en Roan de Francia … llegada a Lisboa de Portugal, trans. Carlos Dractan (Madrid, 1594), preface. 24  Ann M. Hutchison, ‘Syon Abbey Preserved: Some Historians of Syon’, in Jones and Walsham, Syon Abbey, pp. 239–51 examines the various accounts of the ‘Wanderings of Syon’. 25 ‘   An Account of The Travels dangers and wonderful Deliverances of the English Nuns of the famous Monastery of Sion From their first leaving England to their Settlement at Lisbon in the Kingdom of Portugal’. Copied from a ‘much decayed original’ in 1769. University of Exeter, Syon Abbey MS (formerly Box 28 at Syon Abbey, Devon). 26   Hutchison suggests the possible dates and authorship given here in reference to a nineteenth-century copy of this account published by Adam Hamilton in The Poor Soul’s Friend in the early twentieth century: ‘Syon Abbey Preserved’, p. 250. The eighteenth-century copy in the convent archives appears to be essentially the same text. 27   Claire Walker, ‘Continuity and Isolation: The Bridgettines of Syon in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’, in Jones and Walsham, Syon Abbey, pp. 166–7.

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of age at this time, and would be witnessing the deaths of women who had shared that experience. Therefore, the idea of a definitive account from the nuns’ perspective may have presented itself to the convent community with some urgency for a number of reasons. In creating their own narrative of exile in the form of an illuminated manuscript, the community was highlighting an art form very closely associated with the abbey and its magnificent library. The nuns had dragged five crates of books across Europe during their travels, and even, as noted earlier, stated that they had selected Portugal rather than Spain as their destination so that they could more easily travel by sea with their many books and liturgical items. Beyond their roots in an abbey famous for its scholarship, the sisters were Bridgettines, a religious Order for women with a pronounced reverence for books. In telling their story in the form of an ornate, handmade book, the nuns must have felt they had done as much as was possible to ensure its permanence and survival. The singular nature of the manuscript should be placed within the context of what has recently been termed the ‘transnational community of letters’ of early modern women.28 The form of the manuscript – as a mirror – was ubiquitous in the time period, and appropriate for the project’s didactic purpose. The fifteenth-century Myroure of Our Ladye, reprinted by the convent in 1530, was a fundamental devotional text for the Syon nuns.29 Just at the time of the creation of this manuscript, in 1618, Thomas Everard had dedicated his English translation of Lucas Pinelli’s devotional treatise The Mirrour of Religious Perfection to Barbara Wiseman.30 Perhaps this dedication spurred Abbess Wiseman in creating her own mirror, that of the peregrinations of the sisters of Syon Abbey: a spiritual history, a book of meditation and guidance for the king of Spain, and a petition for continued patronage from the Habsburg dynasty. The community may also have been looking beyond the response of Philip III in planning their gift, realizing that noblewomen residing in a number of Spanish convents would also have a keen interest in the manuscript and the story it told of Habsburg support of the exiled nuns. For example, Philip III might well have shared the charmingly illustrated book with his aunt the Archduchess Margaret of Austria, who had professed at the Franciscan Descalzas Reales as Sister Margaret of the Cross in 1582. Recent scholarship has emphasized the power of a number 28  See, for example, Sarah Gwyneth Ross, ‘Esther Inglis: Calligrapher, Miniaturist, and Christian Humanist’, in Julie D. Campbell and Anne R. Larsen (eds), Early Modern Women and Transnational Communities of Letters (Farnham, 2009), pp. 159–82. 29  Ann M. Hutchison, ‘What the Nuns Read: Literary Evidence from the English Bridgettine House, Syon Abbey’, Mediaeval Studies, 57 (1995): p. 208. 30   Cited in Bowden, ‘Books and Reading’, p. 184.

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of such Habsburg women and their piety at the court of Philip III.31 The nuns of Syon Abbey may well have been cognizant of the ease with which their small book could bring their story and plea for patronage to the notice of such sympathetic and influential women. The most significant difference between the nuns’ account of their exile and the versions authored by the male clergy, including the final section entitled The Explanation of What the Previous Pictures Show, is the primacy given St Bridget in the nuns’ version of the story. The manuscript begins and ends with St Bridget of Sweden (1303–73). She is represented as the frame and key to the convent’s story of exile, and she is the source of their spiritual power. The first illumination represents St Bridget setting out on pilgrimage in the year 1350 (Plate 3). At the call of God, Bridget had travelled to Rome to straighten out the affairs of the papacy, then journeyed to the Holy Land, and later died in Rome. Above Bridget, an angel appears in glory, revealing the book of the Revelations of St Bridget. Five Bridgettine nuns prepare to follow Bridget on pilgrimage, while the background depicts the Holy Family’s flight from Egypt. The title and caption of the illumination are in Spanish: the title translates as Pilgrimage and the caption reads: ‘This glorious Saint, like St Joseph spouse of Our Lady and, like the patriarch Abraham, was instructed by God to become a pilgrim.’32 Following this is a quotation in Latin from Chronicles, which translates: ‘For we are sojourners before thee, and strangers, as were all our fathers.’ The next line of the scripture is not inscribed here, but would have been well known in the hearts of the nuns: ‘Our days upon earth are as a shadow, and there is no stay.’ Immediately the image and text seek to relate the spiritual meaning of life to the situation of the exiled community with the assertion that we are all strangers on earth because this is not our true home. Everyone, from the king of Spain to the humble nun, needs to be mindful of one’s purpose and actions in this life. In fact, the narrative will make clear that that God’s plan for Philip II and his dynasty is to support the exiled Church in a time of heresy and godlessness (specifically through the patronage of Syon Abbey). The theme of this image is divine calling and human compliance. God calls, and must be obeyed. The angel represents this calling from above; the divine experience is translated into the image of a golden book. Through the caption and the background image of the Flight of the Holy Family, the 31  Magdalena S. Sanchez, The Empress, the Queen, and the Nun: Women and Power at the Court of Philip III of Spain (Baltimore, MD, 1998), pp. 49–51. 32   The translations for the historical captions given in this article largely follow those published in De Hamel and Robinson, Syon Abbey, and the translations of the Latin vulgate inscriptions are from the Douay-Rheims edition of the Bible.

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Revelations of St Bridget are paralleled with biblical text. The angel warned Joseph to flee Bethlehem, to protect the Christ child from the vicious King Herod, and in the same way, God called Abraham to journey to a new land. Every nun experiences this calling: it is her vocation. In these images, the nuns seek to instruct King Philip in his calling as a Christian king. The women who follow Bridget on pilgrimage are her daughter Katherine and the other founders of her Order, but they are also the entire family of Bridgettines, and most especially the nuns of Syon Abbey. They too were forced to journey to strange lands; somehow, they trusted it was part of God’s plan. The image of Bridget the pilgrim and her spiritual daughters was very important to the nuns of Syon Abbey.33 The same iconography of Bridgettine pilgrimage appeared in a large oil painting that hung in their convent church.34 In this first illumination, it is already clear that Barbara Wiseman and the nuns of Syon Abbey are giving the king of the Spanish empire a lesson in spirituality. The illuminations are in the format of devotional reading with story, symbolic typography, and readings – all for the meditation and edification of the king, and, subsequently, for his daughter. The artist who made this image understood how to represent the human figure; the proportions and anatomy appear largely natural. The materials – gouache on vellum – are handled with skill. The artist used subtle shading to round the figures and make them appear lifelike, and the figures cast shadows on the ground to enhance the illusion. The Holy Family in the background is reduced appropriately in size, showing the artist’s understanding of the basic principles of perspective. Although clearly not the work of a professional artist, this is a confident, well-painted image. Turning the page, the next two images face each other, and have been designed to work together. On the left is the image entitled Building the Convent (Plate 4a).35 The caption reads ‘Henry V, King of England, on account of the great fame this order had for sanctity, founded this convent at Syon in the year 1413.’ Only now, after the primacy of St Bridget has been established, do Henry V and the Lancaster coat of arms appear. The biblical quotation reads ‘With the joy of the whole earth is Mount Sion founded.’ On the right is the image entitled Expelled from London (Plate 4b). Its caption reads ‘Henry VIII, King of England, expelled these nuns from their convent at Syon in the year 1539.’ And the biblical quotation is another psalm: ‘Upon the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept: when 33  See Claire M. Waters, ‘Holy Familiars: Enclosure, Work, and the Saints at Syon Abbey’, Philological Review, 87 (2008): p. 142. 34   The painting was formerly in the possession of the nuns of Syon Abbey in Devon. 35  All of the captions in the manuscript are in Spanish and the Biblical quotations in Latin, as stated in n. 32.

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we remembered Zion.’ The word ‘Zion’ refers to the citadel of Jerusalem, upon which Solomon built his temple; it also refers to the Heavenly Jerusalem. Henry V building Syon Abbey is a type of Solomon building God’s temple. The king is building God’s church on earth. He was called, and he responded to God’s will. This second illumination (Plate 4a) has an old-fashioned appearance, not only because Henry is depicted in antiquated costume, but because of its style. The workmen in the foreground look like dwarfs compared to Henry and the nuns. The image has the look of a medieval manuscript with symbolic rather than naturalistic scale. The workmen are small because they are not important persons. This was clearly a deliberate choice and not a lack of skill, because the artist had no difficulty with naturalistic perspective in the first illumination. The archaic style evokes the values of the past period; it creates a sense of a golden age when kings were good, and Syon was new. Although slightly awkward and naïve, the image has charm and grace that reveals itself in the details. The artist used a very tiny brush – the height of the page is only about 7½ inches in all. Gold is used to enhance the details – even the sky is golden with the sun setting under beautiful rainbow-coloured clouds. A lovely detail is the way the tunic of one of the workmen in the background is blowing in the wind; such details reveal how the images arose from the lived experience of the nuns. It was windy along the River Thames where Old Syon was situated, and windy along the Tagus River in Lisbon where this illumination was made. In the third illumination (Plate 4b), King Henry VIII has expelled the nuns from Syon Abbey into the wilderness. This image is very impressive in the way it speaks of the circumstances of the nuns’ first expulsion. Eight communities of expelled Syon nuns have been identified in the immediate dissolution period – seven communities living in private homes in England and one group taking refuge in the Bridgettine convent of Maria Troon (Mary’s Throne) in the Netherlands.36 The image shows the nuns caught between the River Thames and the sandy shores of the ocean. It is the negation of the image on the left, which depicted the building of God’s church. Here is the loss of God’s church through Protestant heresy. Without the sheltering presence of the church, the nuns are exposed and vulnerable in a wild and frightening place. The emotional intensity of this image of casting out is heightened by one of the most poignant passages in the Bible, Psalm 137: ‘by the rivers of Babylon’. Like the Israelites, the religious of Syon were captives of Henry VIII’s Babylon. And they do sit down to weep by the river, and in a telling detail one seated nun holds her prayer book tightly, as she and her sisters gesture and ask each other what to do next, and how they can go 36

  Hutchison, ‘Transplanting the Vineyard’, pp. 83–7.

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on living. While the figures in the illuminations might initially seem stilted and emotionless, they in fact are expressive of great, restrained emotion. These images with their accompanying biblical quotations speak of the lived experience of the nuns, their understanding of their place in sacred history, and their daily liturgy with its treasury of psalms, hymns and readings. Surely the nuns of Syon must have wept a little when they were called to sing the lines of Psalm 137 together in choir, and surely they believed that these words were about their own exile. The next two images show the convent’s restoration under Mary I and second expulsion under Elizabeth I. In this and the following scenes of travel, the artist has raised the viewpoint above the landscape, in a bird’seye view, and depicted the nuns as small in scale. The fourth illumination (Plate 5a) is entitled Fetched Back to London, and the caption reads: ‘King Philip II, being married to Mary, Queen of England, brought these Religious back from their exile in Flanders to their convent at Syon in the year 1557.’ The biblical text is from Ecclesisaticus: ‘[He] comforts the mourners in Zion.’ The image that faces it is titled Departure from London (Plate 5b). The caption reads: ‘Queen Mary being dead, King Philip himself obtained permission for this convent to leave England for his estates in Flanders in the year 1559.’ The quotation is from Psalm 80: ‘Thou hast brought a vineyard out of Egypt; thou hast cast out the Gentiles and planted it.’ If the illumination had been painted with the Infanta María Anna in mind, this scene surely would include the image of Mary I, who formed the central link in a conceit of the ‘Three Marys’ (the Virgin Mary, Mary I and the Infanta herself) sacred in the patronage history of Syon Abbey offered by Abbess Wiseman to the princess in her dedication. Instead King Philip alone is depicted. Once again the composition of the two pages is well planned. Under a looming watercolour sky, the black-clad figure of Philip II faces opposite directions as he links the facing pages together compositionally. The king never did actually visit the nuns or the convent at any time, let alone greet them by the shore. The figure of the king is clearly modelled on an engraving. All of the source materials for the imagery in this manuscript would have been available for the artist to copy from the books and manuscripts in Syon Abbey’s library. The nuns are now small. This is a way of showing respect for Philip II; he is large and important, and the nuns appear humble and weak. But it is more than this. The women are small in scale with the open landscape, and they huddle together. The artist is using scale again symbolically; this time the intention is not to evoke nostalgia for a golden past, but is to express emotion. There is a sense of the sublime and of grandeur in the landscape, but the small size of the nuns also evokes vulnerability and fear. Royal patronage is of supreme importance, and they are at the king’s mercy.

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The next pair of images tell of Syon Abbey’s long years of wandering in the Netherlands and France. The sixth illumination (Plate 6a) is titled Arrival in Flanders and the caption reads: ‘The same King Philip received them in Flanders and later, in the year 1563, he gave them a convent in Zeeland called Bethany.’ The caption is from Psalm 30: ‘thou hast set my feet in a spacious place.’ The community spent 31 years in Flanders and the Netherlands, moving at least six times. In 1580, religious war and upheaval necessitated a move to Rouen. The image describing this is aptly titled Arrival at Rouen (Plate 6b). The caption explains: ‘Because of the rebellions in Flanders these Religious fled to Rouen in France where the same King sustained them as he did in Flanders.’ This time no one greets them, and the tiny nuns appear fearful indeed, although there were years of great peace at Rouen as well as dangerous and fearful ones. The quotation is from the Book of Job: ‘the stranger did not stay without, my door was open to the traveller.’ This seems to refer to the support they received from the French King Henry III and the large Catholic community at Rouen, as much as the continued support of Philip II, since their pension from Spain had remained unpaid for most of their time in Rouen.37 The wide expanses of landscape and open sea experienced in the period of their travels must have made a tremendous impression on the cloistered nuns of Syon Abbey. The image of the harbour at Rouen in its illumination appears more specific and detailed than the earlier image of the port in Flanders, its depiction lacking even a city name. The departure from Rouen had only occurred some 25 years before; the artist herself may have had some recollection of the appearance of the harbour. But no aspect of the illuminated landscapes is more striking than the purples, blues and golds of its fantastic painted skies. Syon Abbey in Lisbon was built on a steep hill overlooking the Tagus River, and from the mirante38 of their convent the nuns had a spectacular bird’s-eye view of sky and river. The bird’s-eye views of sea and land with their colourful skies depicted in the illuminations were strikingly like those so much an everyday part of the community’s life; the artist who created these images could have viewed such spectacles on a daily basis from within the cloister. The final two illuminations in the manuscript are set in Lisbon. The eighth image is titled Arrival at Lisbon (Plate 7a). The caption tells the king: ‘Having fled from France to Lisbon they were received by the same King and given a Royal pension of fifty Reales per day for their sustenance in the year 1594.’ Unlike all the other illuminations, the image depicting 37   John Rory Fletcher, The Story of the English Bridgettines of Syon Abbey (South Brent, 1933), p. 77. 38  A mirante is a screened room on the roof of Portuguese convents designed to catch the breeze and view, while preserving the nuns’ privacy.

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the arrival at Lisbon has two biblical quotations; the first is from Psalm 17: ‘He sent from on high, and took me: and received me out of many waters.’ The quotation has the tone of completion and deliverance. The second quotation is from Genesis 45: ‘Thou shalt be near me and there I will feed you.’ Superficially this refers to the nearness of Portugal to the king of Spain, but on a deeper level it shows that the convent had been thinking about how they would behave after they, and Catholicism, were restored to England. The quotation is from the moment in Genesis when Joseph forgives his brothers who sent him into exile. In the larger passage, Joseph explains how both the trials of his exile and his present position of honour were an expression of the will and agency of divine providence. This sense of divine destiny is precisely what the nuns of Syon Abbey believed about their own circumstances. The final illumination is titled Prayer for His Majesty (Plate 7b). The king and his son, accompanied by St Bridget and four Bridgettine nuns, kneel in devotion at an altar dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The caption states: ‘The perpetual obligation and prayer that this glorious St Bridget and her daughters offer up for his Royal Majesty are portrayed.’ The quotation is from Psalm 60: ‘Thou wilt add days to the days of the King: his years even to generation and generation.’ This image shows what the convent has to offer the king in exchange for his patronage: the supernatural blessings of St Bridget offered through the prayers of her daughters. The image recalls the initial one of Bridget as pilgrim. That first image spoke to the past and ancestry; this final image speaks of the future and the realm of the eternal and godly. This image has been identified by Robinson as Philip II with the young Philip III,39 but I propose that it represents Philip III in the Lisbon convent with young Philip IV on the occasion of their 1619 visit to Portugal. The Infanta María Anna had also accompanied her father with her brother and his wife on their visit to the Bridgettine convent, but apparently at the time of the creation of this illumination her presence was not seen as significant enough to include (this is another example of how the illuminations were not made with her in mind). In all of the previous captions, Philip II is referred to as ‘King Philip II’ or ‘that same King Philip II;’ in contrast, this caption states that the prayers are offered for ‘His Royal Majesty’, which would be the correct title for the current king (who was Philip III at the time this illumination was made). It should also be noted that the present tense is used for the first time in this caption. Syon Abbey’s support for Philip III and his dynastic line is the subject of the image and its text. The event in this final image is depicted as occurring in a specific earthly as well as spiritual plane: the lower choir of Syon Abbey. Although no evidence survives of the appearance of the interior of the first church 39

 De Hamel and Robinson, Syon Abbey, p. 9.

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at Syon Abbey Lisbon before the 1651 fire, a written description of the remodelled church before the Lisbon earthquake records grey stone, gilded woodwork, coloured marble, and painted wooden sculpture, precisely as seen in the illuminated image.40 The proportions of the nuns, secure within their convent, have become normal once again, yet St Bridget strangely towers over the kneeling king. She places her hand on his shoulder in an encouraging and protective way, very like the Tridentine iconography of the Guardian Angel. In the Mirror, Wiseman speaks to the king of his role as Syon Abbey’s Guardian Angel: ‘Your Royal Majesty … kept watch over all our toils and wanderings … [you were] our angelic companion and consort. The protection that the angel Raphael gave Tobias on his journey … you, O, most powerful King, gave to this humble and exiled convent … .’41 The illumination shows the relationship between the convent and the king in its true reciprocal essence. Through the prayers of the nuns, St Bridget and divine power protect the king and his family for ‘generation to generation.’ Close examination of the illuminations makes it very apparent that they were not created for the Spanish Infanta, and the texts of the manuscript supply further evidence of this. Wiseman’s dedication explains to the Infanta that the following ‘account’ had already been presented to her late father on the occasion of the royal visit to the convent, but was now being presented to her in light of her proposed upcoming marriage. The text reads: … although this account of the pilgrimage of these humble subjects of your Highness was presented to your Royal Father (God rest his soul) when our lord the King with our lady the Queen and Your Highness was in this kingdom and convent, nevertheless it must, in keeping with the special occasion of the present time, be particularly offered and presented to Your Highness as a matter appropriately of concern to Her …42

In the quotation above ‘Our Lord the King’ refers to Philip IV (not yet king in 1619, but king at the time the dedication was written) and his wife Isabella of Bourbon, who, along with the Infanta María Anna had accompanied Philip III to Lisbon (Philip III’s wife Margaret of Austria had died in 1611). The nuns clearly state that ‘this account’ of their travels in exile is the same as that given Philip III at the time of the royal visit. However, the word ‘account’ is somewhat ambiguous – was the king simply given a written account? A copy of the 1594 publication prefaced by Robert Persons? A play or skit performed at the convent? Evidence 40   The description of the church at Syon is found in Hístóría dos mosteiros, conventos e casas religiosas de Lisboa, vol. 2 (Lisbon, 1950) and dates to a c.1704–8 manuscript. 41  De Hamel and Robinson, Syon Abbey, p. 28. 42   Ibid., p. 23.

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is found within the manuscript itself in the title of its final section: The Explanation of What the Previous Pictures Show.43 Because this section, also addressed to Philip III, refers to previous pictures in a text, the ‘account’ could only have been an illuminated manuscript (the one titled The Mirror of the Peregrinations … ). The fact that this ‘Mirror’ was a copy was also emphasized within its own title: The mirror of the peregrinations of the English nuns of the Order of Saint Bridget which they presented to their Royal Patron, the Most Puissant King of the Spanish realms, Philip III. Since the present manuscript re-presents an earlier one given to Philip in 1619, it is not surprising that, except for the dedication to the princess, the entire text and its images are addressed solely to Philip III. Study of the illuminations also reveals many subtle clues to the identity of the artist, who was likely one of the nuns of the community. Although Old Syon was not particularly noted for artistic activity, other sixteenthand seventeenth-century Bridgettine convents did have active scriptoriums and even printing presses. Both illuminated manuscripts and woodcuts were created at the Bridgettine convent of Marienwater. Marienwater was the motherhouse of the Maria Troon convent where the nuns of Syon Abbey had lived for 14 years in two different periods of their sixteenthcentury exile, witnessing the active engagement with illumination and printmaking of these Bridgettine women.44 In addition to the monastic tradition of manuscript illumination, miniature painting emerged in the sixteenth century as a major courtly art form. It was deemed an appropriate skill for gentlewomen, such as the ladies who made their way to the exiled Syon convent. Sources state that none of the English nuns spoke Portuguese,45 and although likely exaggerated, the statement does point to the extreme difficulty of collaboration between the nuns and a Lisbon artist in producing a book with a series of images as complexly particular as this. The illuminations speak very intimately and repeatedly to a lived experience of the nuns that could not have been easily imagined by an 43   The de Hamel and Robinson translation reads ‘A short explanation of what the following pictures show’ (p. 30, emphasis added), but the Spanish original reads ‘una breve declaracion de lo que muestran las figures atras contenidas’, referring to the pictures behind or previous, as I translate here (and the illuminations are indeed placed before this section). 44   Ursula Weeks, ‘The Interplay between Prints and Illuminated Manuscripts in Bridgittine Convents of the Low Countries During the Sixteenth Century’, in John Lowden and Alixe Bovey (eds), Under the Influence: The Concept of Influence and the Study of Illuminated Manuscripts (Turnhout, 2007), pp. 161–6. Early modern Bridgettine nuns produced other forms of art as well. Sor Teresa del Niño Jesús (1662–1732) produced largescale art for the Bridgettine convent at Valladolid: Mindy Taggard Nancarrow, ‘The Artistic Activity of Spanish Nuns during the Golden Age’, in Liana De Girolami Cheney (ed.), Essays on Women Artists: ‘The Most Excellent’, vol. 1 (Lewinston, NY, 2003), p. 44. 45   ‘Life of Leonor de Mendanha’, p. 69.

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outsider. A close collaboration between Wiseman and a nun with skill in miniature painting would have been all that was required to create this very special work. Considering the little that we know of the Wisemans or Syon Abbey in this period, the collaborator could even have been Anne Wiseman, who had, like her sister, travelled that path of exile. At some point between 1621 and 1623, the abbess and nuns of Syon Abbey assembled this elegant gift for the Infanta María Anna, their now hoped-for patron and future queen.46 A book was both symbolic of Syon Abbey and an appropriate wedding gift; it would travel lightly with the infanta to her new home. In her dedication, Barbara Wiseman reminded the princess of the good works of her grandfather and the continuous prayers of the nuns for her body and soul. And, the abbess asked, who knows what destiny God has planned for the princess? The nuns bound the manuscript in blue brocade velvet with colourful silk and metallic embroidered thread.47 Such embroidered bindings were luxurious and fashionable: a visitor to Elizabeth I’s private library in 1598 had noted that her books were all ‘bound in velvet of different colours’.48 The manuscript’s blue cover also spoke of the close relationship of the princess and the Bridgettines with the Holy Virgin. The book may have been assembled in a bit of haste, because the last two illuminations show the transfer of wet paint from one page to the next. Unfortunately, the marriage alliance between Spain and England did not occur; the manuscript, never given to the princess, remained in the convent library until the nineteenth century.49 The cover is very worn. Over the long years of its stay in the convent, the nuns must have looked at it many times in wonder. It was both a petition and a teaching of sacred history addressed to the highest level of political power. It explained the role of kings and the role of nuns, in the cloister and in the world. It was, and is, a book to meditate upon, a window into the exile of an English convent, and the meaning of that exile from the point of view of the women themselves. The daughters of St Bridget understood the value of books; in this small manuscript, Abbess Wiseman and the sisters of Syon Abbey created a truly noble mirror of their extraordinary peregrinations. 46  See Jenna Lay’s article in this volume for the setting of the nuns’ gift of this manuscript, and other voices about/from Syon Abbey into the wider political context surrounding the ‘Spanish Match’. 47   Bound within the convent, rather than professionally, the book is sewn together a bit too tightly, causing the pages to resist opening flat. My thanks to Sara Rodger for this point. 48   Philippa J. M. Marks, The British Library Guide to Bookbinding (London, 1998), p. 57. 49   The Abbess Dorothy Halford brought the manuscript to England, where it was purchased by the Earl of Shrewsbury c. 1810. It has been in Arundel Castle since 1856: De Hamel and Robinson, Syon Abbey, pp. 131–2.

Chapter 10

Parlour, Court and Cloister: Musical Culture in English Convents during the Seventeenth Century Andrew Cichy Writing more than twenty years ago, Peter Holman identified a sizeable blind spot in musicological scholarship. Englishman Peter Philips, he argued, had distinguished himself as a composer at the Royal Court in Brussels, yet his contribution had been all but ignored. Too foreign to be English and too English to be foreign, Philips’s music was a victim of ‘musical chauvinism’, in which exiles and immigrants – and most others outside the national ‘mainstream’ – were largely disregarded.1 Similarly, music at the English convents in continental Europe, although looming large enough to have been noted by historians, has stood squarely in what, from a musicological standpoint, is no man’s land. This complete absence of musicological study necessitates a broad historical survey of the musical practices in English convents. The subject and its potential scope are vast – some 22 convents established in continental Europe between the Reformation and the French Revolution – and so some constraints are needed. Using a series of case studies, this survey will explore the repertoires, musicians and musical practices of three English convents in the Spanish Netherlands from their establishment until the mid-seventeenth century: the Benedictine Monastery of Our Lady of the Assumption in Brussels, and the Augustinian convents of St. Monica at Louvain and Our Lady of Nazareth at Bruges. In selecting these convents, no claims are made for their representativeness of musical circumstances at other English convents during the same period. None the less, this selection may give some indication of the factors affecting musical practices in other places. The Monastery of Our Lady of the Assumption, Brussels Established at Brussels in 1598, the Monastery of Our Lady of the Assumption has been long-associated with music because John Bolt and 1

  Peter Holman, [Liner Notes] in Motets by Peter Philips [CD] (Hyperion, 1996), p. 1.

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then Richard Dering were employed by the nuns as monastery organists. Bolt, who was born at Exeter around 1563, was a musician in the Chapel Royal, and highly regarded by Elizabeth I for his talents. When he fled Court for reasons of conscience, she ‘would have flung her slipper’ at the chapel-master’s head in anger for letting this musician leave: she would have been pleased to overlook his conversion to Catholicism if only he would have returned to her chapel.2 After teaching music in a number of Catholic households,3 he was arrested in March 1593/1594, and interrogated by Topcliffe. Released through the intercession of Penelope Rich, Bolt fled to the continent, and after studying at St Omer, became the organist to the Brussels convent.4 Dering seems to have converted to Catholicism after visiting Rome around 1612, and is known to have been at the Brussels convent from 1618, when he published his Cantica Sacra and dedicated it to the abbess, Mary Percy.5 After noting these facts, and speaking in general terms about the monastery’s musical reputation, most musicological scholarship has stopped short: with no musical manuscripts from the monastery known to have survived the French Revolution, traditional lines of musicological inquiry have failed. Noel O’Regan’s study of music at Santissima Trinità dei Pellegrini in Rome 6 has demonstrated that by considering a wide variety of non-musical sources, including ecclesiastical records and financial accounts, a good sense of an institution’s musical activities can be achieved. This approach is robust because it recognizes that music-making in ecclesiastical institutions is not an isolated activity, and that locating the music within its performance contexts provides insights that a score by itself cannot give. Music at the Benedictine Monastery in Brussels was performed against the backdrop of the convent’s Benedictine charism,7 which provided the essential framework within which music was to be used.

2  Adam Hamilton, The Chronicle of the English Augustinian canonesses regular of the Lateran, at St. Monica’s in Louvain (now at St. Augustine’s priory, Newton Abbot, Devon) [1548–1644] (2 volumes, Edinburgh, 1904), vol. 1, p. 42. 3   For a discussion of John Bolt’s connections to John Petre and his household, see James E. Kelly, ‘Learning to Survive: the Petre family and the formation of Catholic communities from Elizabeth I to the eve of the English Civil War’, unpublished King’s College, London PhD thesis (2008), pp. 115–17. 4  Hamilton, Chronicle, vol. 1, p. 42. 5   For a fuller treatment of Dering’s life, see Peter Platt, ‘Dering’s Life and Training’, Music and Letters, 33 (1952): pp. 41–9. 6  Noel O’Regan, Institutional patronage in post-Tridentine Rome: music at Santissima Trinità dei Pellegrini 1550–1650 (London, 1995). 7   For a brief introduction to Benedictine spirituality, see Columba Stewart, Prayer and Community: The Benedictine Tradition (London, 1998).

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The first chapter of the monastery’s constitutions is a rich source of information about the monastery’s liturgical practices and their implications for music. The convent used the Roman form of the Divine Office, and was to sing all of the canonical hours on the ‘principallest’ feasts of the liturgical year, and according to their customs, on feasts of the patron saints of the Benedictine Order and of their chapel, and also on the anniversary of the dedication of the chapel.8 In addition, the daily conventual Mass was to be sung unless the abbess, for a just cause, decided otherwise. Once each week, the Mass of the Holy Ghost was to be sung, and a votive Mass of the Virgin Mary was offered on those Saturdays when the Office of the Virgin Mary was said.9 It is clear therefore, that the community must have sung a great deal of plainchant. Little remains of what must once have been a substantial collection of graduales and antiphonales. None the less, a single copy of the Graduale Romanum from this community does survive, and is preserved in the archives of Douai Abbey in Berkshire. Published in 1607 at Antwerp by Joachim Trognaesius and edited for the Archbishop of Mechelen, it suggests that the convent’s musical repertoire drew upon the sources available locally. Its publisher also suggests a connection with the monastery’s buying agent, Richard Verstegan, who was closely associated with Trognaesius and published some nine of his works through this printer between 1587 and 1604.10 The grandson of a Dutch emigrant, Verstegan converted to Catholicism and fled from England to the continent after being apprehended for publishing a pamphlet on the death of Edmund Campion. On the continent, he acted as a buying agent and publisher of books for the English Jesuits and other religious Orders, including the Brussels Benedictines.11 While it is clear that plainchant formed the core of the monastery’s repertoire, ‘musick’ (differentiated in the constitutions from plainchant – which is called ‘cantum’ – by use of the term ‘musicum’) was also permissible, although the constitutions urged that it be used in moderation, and that all music sung should be ‘truly grave and modest’.12 The responsibility for selecting both the ‘musick’ and which nuns would perform it fell to the chantress, without whose permission nothing could be sung in the

 8   Statues Compyled for the Better Obseration of the Holy Rule of … S. Benedict … Delivered to the English Religious Women of the Monastery of Our Blessed Lady of the Perpetuall Virgin in Bruxelles and to all their Successors (Ghent, 1632), pp. 9–10.  9  Ibid. 10   Paul Arblaster, Antwerp and the world: Richard Verstegan and the international culture of Catholic Reformation (Leuven, 2004), p. 53. 11  Ibid. 12   Statues Compyled for the Better Obseration of the Holy Rule of … S. Benedict, p. 11.

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chapel.13 Prima facie, this would suggest that both Richard Dering and John Bolt were employed by the convent solely as organists. None the less, the possibility that either or both Bolt and Dering had additional duties that included providing the nuns with music to sing and giving them music lessons cannot be discounted entirely. Dering was particularly active as a composer during his time at the monastery, when he published several books of motets through Pierre Phalèse at Antwerp and – as Leech has pointed out on the basis of their texts – possibly also composed at least some of his few-voice motets.14 The seemingly subordinate role of polyphony at the monastery in its early years points to its origins as an institution of recusant women. Although it could not draw on a long institutional history for its musical heritage, the nuns’ previous experiences of music in the contexts of recusant liturgy and devotions must have made a deep impression on their perceptions of liturgical music and its proper place in the convent. Very few of the nuns must have had much experience of a sung liturgy before entering the convent. William Weston remarked upon sung Mass at a gentleman’s house15 in his memoirs precisely because the event was remarkable; among the many Masses that the itinerant priest had said in other places, this one stood out in his mind as worthy of mention and description because it was not at all usual. The most common experience of Mass for recusants during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries was of necessity the Low Mass. Certainly, it is true that some households, such as Lord Petre’s seat in Essex, were well-protected and supplied with musicians,16 but this can hardly have been representative of the experience of most Catholics during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Of all the nuns who professed between 1598 and 1630, only Martha Colford (who professed in 1611)17 can be connected with the Petre household, and therefore with one of the few places in England where Mass was sung regularly. Even then, the link is indirect, coming through her father,18 who evidently knew William Byrd, 13

  Ibid., p. 52.   Peter Leech, ‘Book Review: Richard Dering, Motets for One, Two or Three Voices and Basso Continuo. Ed. by Jonathan P. Wainwright’, Music & Letters, 92.2 (2011): pp. 282–5. 15  William Weston, The Autobiography of an Elizabethan, trans. P. Caraman (London, 1955), p. 71. 16   For details of musical activities in the Petre household, see Kelly, ‘Learning to Survive’, pp. 113–15; Andrew J. Hanley, ‘Mico and Jenkins: “Musitians of Fame under King Charles I”’, in Andrew Ashbee and Peter Holman (eds), John Jenkins and his time: studies in English Consort Music (Oxford, 1996): pp. 161–9. 17  Martha Colford (1592–1634), BB039. 18   Gabriel Colford moved in circles with a good number of musical connections, including that of Richard Verstegan, with whom he had contact because of his work as a book smuggler. See Arblaster, Antwerp and the world, p. 48. 14

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because the two men were accused of attempting to convert the Wrights of Kelvedon to Catholicism.19 The experience of sisters Catharine and Margaret Paston (who professed in 161320 and 162421 respectively) would appear to be more representative of music-making in recusant households during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, albeit on a somewhat grander scale. Their father, Edward Paston (c. 1550–1630), amassed what was arguably the largest private collection of music in England at the time. John Milsom has argued that the seemingly haphazard and fragmented compilation of Paston’s manuscripts precluded their liturgical use,22 and the case is made very strongly – for the purposes of sung liturgy, since they do not contain either full Mass settings, nor even a full cycle of propers. If, however, the compilation is viewed simply as a collection of motets (overlooking the secular music that is also included in the partbooks, but is of no relevance in sacred contexts), a much stronger case for their liturgical use can be made. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in addition to their use in private, devotional contexts, motets were sung, for example, at the offertory, elevation and after the Mass (and in many other ritual contexts).23 Even though the Pastons may not have been able to use their music collection for sung Mass properly called, it certainly provided them with suitable music for Low Mass at their small chapel near the family house in Norfolk.24 With this kind of experience of liturgical music in England, the reason that so few of Dering’s works from his time in Brussels seem to have a specific liturgical function becomes clearer: having become accustomed to using polyphonic music in a devotional manner rather than to supply the necessary texts of the liturgy, the nuns gave polyphony a similar place in their convents to that which it had been allocated in recusant households. Although the Paston daughters’ experiences of the usages of sacred music might be regarded as representative of those of their confreres, their musicianship must be regarded as unique. Their father’s collection 19  See John S. Bumpus, A history of English cathedral music 1549–1889 (2 vols, London, 1908), vol. 1, p. 63. 20   Katherin Paston (1593–1640), BB132. 21   Francisca Paston (1604–52), BB133. 22   John Milsom, ‘Sacred Songs in the Chamber’, in John Morehen (ed.), English Choral Practice 1400–1650 (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 161–79. 23  See, for instance, Anthony M. Cummings, ‘Toward an Interpretation of the SixteenthCentury Motet’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 34.1 (1981): pp. 43–59; John T. Brobeck, ‘Some “Liturgical Motets” for the French Royal Court: a Reconsideration of Genre in the Sixteenth-Century Motet’, Musica Disciplina, 47 (1993): pp. 123–57. 24  Hamilton, Chronicle, vol. 2, p. 101–2.

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of music was noteworthy not only for the wide range of both English and continental sacred and secular works that it contained, but also the ways in which it was rearranged for various combinations of lute and vocal ensembles, which varied depending on how the lute and vocal books were used together. Although it is possible that other nuns at the convent had some experience of this kind of rearranging, it could never have matched for sheer breadth the Paston sisters’ experience of their father’s extensive collection of music.25 The usefulness of their experience with rearranged and edited works can only be imagined: works originally scored for mixed voices could be rearranged for those nuns in the convent who had some experience of singing or playing musical instruments before entering the convent. It even raises the possibility that Dering’s 1618 Cantica Sacra could have been performed at the convent with some judicious rearranging of parts and voices. The Pastons were not alone, however, in their musical connections: Elizabeth Digby and Mary Philips, both of whom were chantresses at the Brussels monastery, came from family backgrounds that are demonstrably musical.26 Elizabeth Digby’s brother, Sir Everard, is noted in John Gerard’s account of his time on the English Mission as a good musician,27 and since she was probably cared for by her brother after the death of their father, there is every reason to believe that Elizabeth Digby participated in household music-making. Mary Philips was the daughter of the famed English exile-musician Peter Philips, who in 1597 was appointed organist to the chapel of Albert VII in Brussels.28 It is important to bear in mind that there were few opportunities for musical training after a woman had entered the convent (especially in the archdiocese of Mechelen, where Archbishop Mathias Hovius devoted much attention to enforcing the decrees of the Council of Trent pertaining to the

25   For an overview of Edward Paston’s collection of music, see Philip Brett. ‘Edward Paston (1550–1630): A Norfolk Gentleman and His Musical Collection’, Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, 4 (1964–8): pp. 51–69. 26   Elizabeth Digby (1611–59), BB063; Mary Philips (1616–54), BB139. For a more detailed discussion of the nuns’ musical backgrounds, see Andrew Cichy, ‘The English Benedictine Nuns of Brussels and their musical traditions’, forthcoming 2014. 27   John Gerard, The condition of Catholics under James I: Father Gerard’s Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot, ed. John Morris (2nd edition, London, 1872), p. 87. 28  Although there has been some debate about whether the Peter Philips who is listed as the father of Mary Philips was in fact Peter Philips, the English musician, recent findings seem to suggest that the long-held assumption is true. See Anne E. Lyman, ‘Peter Philips at the court of Albert and Isabella in early seventeenth-century Brussels: an examination of the small scale motets, including an edition of Deliciae Sacrae (1616)’, unpublished University of Iowa DMA dissertation (2008), p. 19.

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monastic enclosure),29 and so a nun’s experience of music before entering the convent was formative. At Brussels as in other places therefore, much can be discovered about a convent’s musical capabilities by considering the musical experience of its nuns. St Monica’s Convent, Louvain St Monica’s Convent was established in 1609 by a group of nuns who had been professed for some years at St Ursula’s, an Augustinian convent founded at Louvain in 1415. Perceiving the need for an exclusively English convent, the nuns petitioned the archbishop of Mechelen and were granted permission to leave St Ursula’s and establish a new convent. What is notable about the account of the separation of the two convents is the extent to which music is mentioned explicitly: Beside this the Bishop had ordered that the cloister [St Ursula’s] should allow them a little church-stuff, and some song-books, which they might well do, in respect that when they undertook the Roman Office, all the nuns were provided of books by the charity and contribution of the English, as also the Choir stored with song-books. Wherefore, of five great Massbooks that were given, they allowed them two, and other old song-books, as also some antiphonaries and versicle books.30

Regardless of whether the ‘song-books’ that were provided by the ‘charity and contribution of the English’ were produced by the English nuns at St Ursula’s, supplied by their families and benefactors, or purchased for the convent using their financial contributions, they are indicative of the extent to which the music at St Ursula’s was connected with the specifically English nuns. This suggests that although the English nuns were foreigners in a long-established convent, rather than subrogating their musical interests to those of the convent, they were permitted to play a role in the convent’s musical life. This is particularly remarkable given that St Ursula’s was not as ready to accommodate the English nuns and their needs in other matters: one of the reasons given by the English nuns in their petition to the archbishop of Mechelen for the establishment of the new convent was that the ‘diet of the Dutch nation [was] not so agreeable to the English, nor convenient for their health.’31 Although St Monica’s 29  See Craig Harline and Eddy Put, ‘A Bishop in the Cloisters: the visitations of Mathias Hovius (Malines, 1596–1620)’, Sixteenth Century Journal, 22.4 (1991): pp. 611–39. 30  Hamilton, Chronicle, vol. 1, p. 66. 31   Ibid., p. 64.

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owed part of its identity (as indeed some of its chattels) to St Ursula’s therefore, it seems that the newly founded convent’s musical identity was at least in part due to influences from outside the cloister – and across the Channel. Like the Brussels Benedictines, it seems that at least some of the nuns at St Monica’s must have brought their musical experience with them from their English homes. In the case of Mary Skidmore,32 not only did she bring her musical experience to the convent, but also a pipe organ, which was donated by Fr Pits,33 an English priest who had brought her to St Ursula’s, where she made her solemn profession in 1606. When some of the English nuns moved to St Monica’s, they took the pipe organ with them, but left Mary Skidmore behind.34 There was a certain amount of cunning in their actions: although Skidmore was not in the first group of nuns to move to St Monica’s, she reasoned with the procuratrix of St Monica’s that if the organ was left at St Ursula’s, as the only sister there who knew how to play, she would never receive permission to move to the new convent. With the organ at St Monica’s however, Skidmore was transferred in November 1609. Little is written about her role as an organist, beyond a brief description of her obvious usefulness when she arrived at St Ursula’s: The choir … was heavy and painful, for they had no organ, until Sister Mary Skidmore came, and so the burthen of all the service lay upon their voices, and they sang Matins very often. Besides this, the old Office was longer and more painful than the Roman, which they took on them, and they rose at midnight as we now do.35

The chronicler indicates that the role of the organist was to relieve the burden of singing the entire Office. This suggests that as well as accompanying the voices, the organist was expected to replace them entirely at certain points. 32

 Mary Skidmore (1606–25), LA232.   Ibid., p. 244. This ‘Fr Pits’ was probably Fr Arthur Pitts (see Anstruther I, p. 277), who lived with the Stonors of Blount Court, Oxfordshire, and is known to have been in England from 1623. He was last recorded in continental Europe in June 1602, when he ceased to be dean of Liverdun. Although the Chronicles list Skidmore’s uncle as a ‘Sir Richard Farmer’ (see Hamilton, Chronicle, vol. 1, p. 78), it is more likely that his surname was spelled as ‘Fermor’, since this was the spelling of Skidmore’s mother’s maiden name. Sir Richard Femor owned the manor at Somerton (also in Oxfordshire), suggesting that Fr Arthur Pitts may have moved around the county, and in this way come into contact with Fermor’s niece, who he accompanied to Louvain. For further details about Sir Richard Fermor, see David Miles and Trevor Rowley, ‘Tusmore Deserted Village’, Oxoniensia, 41 (1976): p. 311. I am indebted to James Kelly for his suggestion for the identification of Fr Pitts. 34  Hamilton, Chronicle, vol. 1, pp. 65–6. 35   Ibid., p. 36. 33

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The practice of alternatim, that is, alternating strophes sung in plainchant by the choir with strophes played on the organ, was well-established by the seventeenth century, and it seems likely that this was Mary Skidmore’s principal role as the convents’ organist, given the demands of the chanted Office. As an already experienced musician and in the absence of any other organist, it seems likely that she was permitted to play more or less what she wanted, perhaps having brought some music from England with her when she entered St Ursula’s, although in the absence of any further information about either the convent’s manuscripts, purchases of printed music, or of Skidmore’s musical training, it is difficult to be more specific. The importance of music in the new convent’s devotional and liturgical practices seems to have been established from the outset: [T]he first thing they did was to dress the altar in that little chapel which is the gallery above by the dormitories, and then their Rev. Father Fenn hallowed some water, which being done, they sung all together the antiphon of the Blessed Trinity with the collect. Next, Ave Regina Coelorum with a collect unto our Blessed Lady; then an antiphon and collect of our Holy Father St Augustine, and lastly an antiphon and collect of St Monica our Patroness.36

Although singing was clearly an important element in the convent’s liturgical practices, determining precisely what was sung and when is difficult: the phrase ‘said or sung’ is used repeatedly in the convent’s constitutions37 in connection with the Divine Office, and although there is also a description of the ceremonial and music at sung Mass, the days on which Mass is to be sung are not specified. These instructions for sung Mass are revealing: the entire choir sang the Introit, Gloria (and also presumably the Kyrie that preceded it), Credo, Agnus Dei and Communio together.38 The Alleluia and Tract were sung in the middle of the quire in the chapel by two nuns alone, the rest of the nuns joining in at the last verse of the latter.39 Nothing is said of how or by whom the Offertorium was to be sung, although it is mentioned that the nuns were to sit during it.40 It may well be that the Offertorium was entirely replaced by organ music, which was permitted from at least 1600, when it is mentioned in the Caeremoniale Episcoporum promulgated by Clement VIII. A calendar of feast days dating from 1629 suggests that sung Mass was not a daily occurrence, but does not indicate whether Mass was normally sung on 36

  Ibid., p. 70.  MS Constitutions St Monica’s, Louvain AD 1609, Douai Abbey, Berks. 38   Ibid., fols 37–38. 39   Ibid., fol. 37. 40  Ibid. 37

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Saturdays and Sundays, as was often the custom in other places.41 In addition to these Masses, the constitutions indicate whether (and in some instances how many) Requiem Masses were to be sung for a deceased member (or relative of a member) of the community.42 Similar obligations are listed in the constitutions of the Brussels Monastery. Unlike the Brussels Benedictines’ constitutions, the Louvain constitutions do not provide any details about what types of music were sung during the liturgy. The only surviving seventeenth-century musical sources from St Monica’s are handwritten books of plainsong.43 The earliest of these – a book of responsories – may even be one of the books taken from St Ursula’s, when the new convent was established in 1609. The assumption that the choir sang only plainchant, however, seems untenable, given what is written in the Chronicles about the convent’s music as part of John Bolt’s44 obituary: Upon the 3rd of August 1640, after midnight, died our reverend good priest, Mr John Bolt, alias Johnson … He had about seven years or more before his death been taken with the gout, insomuch that for four or five years he was wholly lame therewith, and we were forced to have our lay sisters to bring him up unto the organ upon great feasts, when he was to play and govern the music … .45 He grew still weaker and weaker towards his end, yet at great feasts, when he was carried up into the organ-house, and our Sisters came there to him, the musicianers and others, he would speak so well of good things unto them as showed his fervent spirit. He would also sing to the organ sometimes with great devotion … .46 He left after his death our Sisters so expert in music by his teaching, as they were able to keep up the same without any other master or help for many years. Sister Anne Evans was then our organist, who, having learnt in the world 41

 MS Kalendar for the year 1609, Douai Abbey, Berks.  MS Constitutions St Monica’s, Louvain AD 1609, Douai Abbey, Berks, folio inserted between fols 68 and 69. 43   These sources, although uncatalogued, are held on deposit with other papers from St Monica’s, Louvain in the collection owned by the Augustinian Canonesses, Kingston near Lewes, now held at Douai Abbey, Berks. 44  After some years with the English Benedictines at Brussels, Bolt went to test his vocation as a Benedictine, but finding that he was too frail, eventually arrived at St Monica’s Convent, Louvain, where he remained for the rest of his life. See Hamilton, Chronicle, vol. 1, pp. 42–3. 45   Ibid., p. 184. 46  Ibid. 42

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to play upon the virginals, was since become so skilful upon the organ by his teaching, she was able to keep up the music as before. And Sister Lioba Morgan was also very skilful in prick-song, so as with the help also of others, they kept up the music to the honour of God … .47

If the 1609 Constitutions are silent on the matter of musical style, this could well be because Bolt – and the potential for further musical development – did not arrive at the convent until 1613. None the less, his brief obituary provides a number of salient details about the convent’s musical practices. Apart from being the convent’s organist, John Bolt directed its ensembles, and taught organ and polyphonic choral music. The meaning of the term ‘musicianers’ is ambiguous and could refer to an ensemble of singers (‘prick-song’ was the term commonly used during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries for polyphonic vocal music), instrumentalists, or perhaps a combination of both. In any event, it is clear that on important feast days, there was music apart from plainchant during the liturgy. Perhaps on the less important feast days, in view of Bolt’s fragile health, his student, Sister Anne Evans, played the organ. That Bolt trained the musicians of the convent also indicates that it preserved a distinctively English musical identity and – unlike its Brussels counterpart – was probably less susceptible to local influences during Bolt’s lifetime. None the less, the cloister was not entirely impermeable: the convent’s surviving books of chant were clearly compiled from post-Trent (and necessarily continental) sources. The Monastery of Our Lady of Nazareth, Bruges Established in 1629, the Monastery of Our Lady of Nazareth was a filiation from the English Augustinian Convent at Louvain, which, twenty years after its foundation, was ‘overcharged with religious.’48 Among the first nuns sent to Bruges was Elizabeth Lovell and ‘having a good voice, she was made their chantress.’49 Apart from a brief and unsuccessful period as procuratrix to the community, Lovell seems to have retained the office of chantress until her death in 1634.50 In its liturgical musical practices, it can be safely assumed that the Bruges convent took its lead from Louvain: the oldest copy of the constitutions at Bruges was written for Ursula Babthorpe, 47

  Ibid., p. 185. Anne Evans (pf.1632), LA088; Lioba Morgan (1625–63), LA187.  MS The Chronicles of Our Monastery of Regular Canonesses in Bridges dedicate to the Most Blessed Virgin of Nazareth from its first foundation to almost the year 1730, Monastery of Our Lady of Nazareth, Bruges, fol. 1. 49  Hamilton, Chronicle, vol. 2, p. 79; Elizabeth Lovell (1621–34), LA172. 50  MS The Chronicles of Our Monastery of Regular Canonesses in Bridges, fol. 13. 48

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who professed at Bruges in 1642,51 by her sister, Frances Babthorpe, a nun at Louvain.52 In spite of the great musical activity at Louvain, however, there is little evidence to suggest that there was nearly as much musical activity at Bruges during its early years: burdened by illness and financial pressures, the inclination and means to further develop the convent’s musical activities seem to have been almost entirely absent. Although the procuratrix’s accounts at Bruges survive from 1639 onwards, there are no corresponding outlays for items related to music until 1650. The first mention of music in the Bruges chronicles occurs in 1640, when the community sang a votive Mass in honour of the Holy Ghost before electing a new prioress, following the death of Mary Pole.53 A seventeenth-century manuscript of the convent’s liturgical ceremonies for clothing, profession and jubilees, as well as a list of Mass obligations and sung Masses, however, provides some interesting insights into the convent’s musical practices.54 Dating this document precisely is difficult: it is written in two hands, and the first half appears to be older than the second. The second of these two hands is similar to the hand used in the convent’s financial accounts, although this does not narrow down the range of dates beyond suggesting that this part of the manuscript dates from the late 1630s at the earliest until sometime in the 1660s. The rubrics of the clothing ritual demonstrate that by the midseventeenth century, the nuns at Bruges had introduced instrumental music into their chapel: while the new nun was being dressed in her new habit, they were instructed to ‘play musick’.55 Although it is not entirely clear what kind of music they were playing, the convent’s surviving financial accounts provide some good indications. While the purchase of viols is never mentioned in the accounts or the chronicles, payments for viol strings are recorded from 1653.56 An organ was installed in the convent’s chapel in 1650 (the same year that the new chapel was built),57 and there were payments to an organ and also a music ‘maister’ from 1652, although

51

 Monica Babthorpe (1622–62), BA009.  Agnes Babthorpe (1634–91), BA012. 53  MS The Chronicles of Our Monastery of Regular Canonesses in Bridges, fol. 31; Mary Pole (1622–40), LA203. 54  MS Ceremonial, Reverend Mother’s Archives, Monastery of Our Lady of Nazareth, Bruges, (H.III.C). 55   Ibid., fol. 7. 56  MS ‘Our Rd Mothers Reckoning’ (1653) in Procuratrix’s Reckonings 1639–1660, Monastery of Our Lady of Nazareth, Bruges. 57  MS Procuratrix’s Reckonings 1639–1660, Monastery of Our Lady of Nazareth, Bruges. 52

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not annually.58 Given the strictness with which monastic enclosure was maintained (and this is mentioned repeatedly in the chronicles), the organ must have been either outside the enclosure (as at the Benedictine convent in Brussels), or in an area bordering the enclosure where it could be accessed without encroaching upon the enclosure unduly. There is little information however, about the configuration of the chapel before it was demolished when a new chapel was built in 1736. This makes it difficult to determine where the organ stood in relation to the choir and the musicians and therefore, whether the organ could have been part of the ‘musick’ at clothing ceremonies. Another indication of the structure of the ‘musick’ is given in the obituary of Gertrude Brooke: On the 13 of October [1684] Str Gertrude Brooke departed this life in the 55 year of her age, and 32 of her holy profession. She had been brought up here from a child and was of a sweet pious temper, preventing and willing to oblige. She had a very good voice and did good service to the Quire, helping the musick also by playing on the violin.59

The Bruges Chronicles also note that Brooke was at the convent school in 1649,60 and would most certainly have been present at the convent through a period of significant expansion in the convent’s musical activities. Given also that she had been brought up at the convent, it seems most likely that this is where she learned to play the violin. Purchases of ‘viol strings’, therefore, ought not to be understood as purchases for viols alone, but rather for a variety of string instruments owned by the convent. That Brooke was taught to play violin at the convent suggests that there was a nun sufficiently competent to teach it, since there are no payments recorded to a ‘music maister’ until 1668 – by which time Brooke had been professed some eight years. Who this nun was, however, remains to be seen. The purchase of a ‘pair of virginals’ in 165461 is interesting: virginals could hardly have been of much use in the chapel, which had in any event been supplied with an organ only four years earlier. It is more likely, therefore, 58  See, for instance, the mention of payments for an ‘Organ Maister’ under ‘Receits for Schollers and Conuictrices more then is in ye Procuratris Reckoning (1652)’ in MS Our Rd Mothers Reckoning (1653) in Procuratrix’s Reckonings 1639–1660; payments for a ‘singing master’ and ‘new books’ under ‘Our Rd Mothers Accounts (1667)’, and payments for ‘music masters and violl strings’ under ‘Expence upon ye Receite’ (1668) in MS Procuratrix 1660– 1702, Monastery, Bruges. 59  MS The Chronicles of Our Monastery of Regular Canonesses in Bridges, fols 161–2. 60   Gertrude Brooke (1629–84), BA034. 61  See payments for ‘organ master’ and ‘virginals’ under ‘Accounts for the Convictrises’ (1554) in MS Procuratrix’s Reckonings 1639–1660, Monastery, Bruges.

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that this purchase had a recreational, rather than liturgical purpose, or that the instrument was used in the convent’s school, where young girls were sent by their recusant parents to receive an education that was appropriate for a Catholic woman, who when she returned to England would be well prepared for life as a wife.62 In general terms, women’s education during the seventeenth century steered away from more serious subjects, such as philosophy and theology, and focused on foreign languages, dance, music and other areas that were thought to be more in keeping with the needs of a seventeenth-century lady.63 It seems likely therefore, that music was among the subjects taught at Bruges, although the nuns seem to have hired music teachers from outside the convent, as the accounts in 1667 record a payment to the ‘Singing Maister’ and then to the ‘Music Maisters’ in the following year.64 None the less, it would have been the nuns themselves who supervised the students during their lessons and practice, and as a result, it seems possible that stylistic aspects of domestic music exerted some influence on sacred music at the convent, and potentially even the introduction of what in non-English convents would have been considered ‘secular’ traits into liturgical contexts. This kind of mingling of the sacred and the secular was hardly unknown to English Catholics during this period: for the English nuns, their family homes often also served as churches, when spaces were adapted for liturgical use. McClain notes how recusants were able to adapt otherwise secular spaces for religious use, largely through a process of mental reconstruction, rather than physical adaptation.65 Through a similar process of reconstruction, domestic music could have provided the building blocks of a recusant musical language for liturgical contexts. Although it is true that Byrd’s association with the Petre family and presumed composition of the Gradualia for use at Masses on the family’s estate provides a counter-pole of sorts with a clearer sacred ‘style’, even in this context, the household’s domestic music-making needs to be taken into account, since the family did not have sufficient musicians in its pay to supply all the parts for Byrd’s choral works, suggesting that either the family or servants had a role in playing and singing the music at Mass. The continued interaction between sacred and secular music at the 62   Caroline Bowden, ‘Community space and cultural transmission: formation and schooling in English enclosed convents in the seventeenth century’, History of Education, 34.4 (2005): p. 381. 63  Anne Laurence, Women in England, 1500–1760: A Social History (London, 1996), p. 170. 64  MS Procuratrix 1660–1702, Monastery, Bruges. 65  Lisa Renee McClain, ‘Without Church, Cathedral, or Shrine: The Search for Religious Space among Catholics in England, 1559–1625’, The Sixteenth Century Journal, 33.2 (2002): p. 384.

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English convent in Bruges, therefore, ought to be seen in its true light – that is, as the continuation and preservation of an aspect of cultural identity that was distinctively English and recusant. At the same time as the cloister was absorbing influences from England, however, it seems possible that recusant households in England were receiving new musical styles and trends with their daughters, who returned home from the continent with a convent education. Although there is no explicit reference to outlays on books of music in the surviving Bruges accounts, there are no mentions of purchases of viols or violins either, but they were clearly acquired by the convent at some stage, either through purchases or donations. The convent acquired liturgical books (such as breviaries) locally, so it is possible that they acquired their music from the publishers in Antwerp and Brussels as well. The influence of continental European art on English culture has been cast largely in terms of either trends at Court or the Grand Tour. These were largely male-dominated activities, however, and the system of convent education suggests a female role in the importation of new musical styles that has yet to be fully recognized. Conclusion Even with the little evidence of music-making that survives from the English convents during the first half of the seventeenth century, it is quite clear that music played an important part in convent culture. Taking into account the nuns’ musical training before entering the convent, and the liturgical practices to which they were accustomed in England, an interesting picture of the convents’ musical practices emerges, upon which domestic music casts a long shadow. This is not easily explained away as a consequence of the strict enforcement of monastic enclosure: the adoption of local editions of plainchant indicates that the cloister was not impermeable to foreign influences. Rather, it points to the connection between recusant devotional and liturgical practice, and the cultural identity of the newly established English convents in exile, in which the boundaries between sacred and secular music were blurred. After the destruction of all Catholic institutions during the Reformation and its aftermath, a new English Catholic cultural identity emerged, in which the church and home were more closely connected. By virtue of this new identity, the home and cloister also became more closely connected: the women who had lived their lives ‘hidden from history’ in their fathers’ homes moved to convents where they continued this kind of existence. Largely having never experienced the solemnity of the High Mass in England, they transplanted their experiences of liturgical music in clandestine Masses into the liturgical practices of their respective convents. If polyphonic and instrumental forms of sacred music should

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seem incidental in convent liturgies, this reflects the uses of polyphony in recusant contexts. Having mostly never sung ‘the Mass’, plainchant must have seemed to fill a long-felt need for the nuns, while the polyphonic motets that they had used in England could continue to play an incidental role in their liturgy. The foregoing might suggest a notion of ‘convent as musical repository’, only preserving what was imported into it, yet the historical fact of students returning from the convent to their English homes suggests further interaction and interchange, and perhaps even a means of importing new musical trends into England, brought from convents that were conscious of their duty to prepare their charges for all the challenges and trends of the seventeenth-century world. The convents in exile provided important, albeit unrecognized forums for musical exchanges and interactions between England and continental Europe; a rich and complex musical, cultural and theological history awaits further investigation.

Chapter 11

Cloistered Images: Representations of English Nuns, 1600–1800 Geoffrey Scott Despite the current interest in English portraiture, there has been little interest shown in post-Reformation portraits of English nuns, possibly because examples of these have been dispersed widely, and because they do not appear to have any coherence as an artistic genre. This chapter is a first attempt to bring together the scattered examples of these portraits and to try and identify their types and categories (see Table 11.1). The advantage of the lengthy period studied, 1600–1800, allows us to observe developments in the medium used and to relate these portraits to more general trends in portraiture in England and Europe. The common satirical representations of nuns are alluded to because so many ultimately derive from original portraits. Doubtless more portraits will come to light in the future and this chapter will hopefully be useful in providing a context for them. English and European Portraits, Dolls and Miniatures At the Reformation, nuns disappeared almost entirely from England and from public consciousness. In Catholic Europe, by contrast, nuns, including English nuns, continued to be part of the local church, and thus the majority of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century portraits of English nuns have a continental origin. Many early modern English Catholics believed themselves to be the heirs to a continuous religious history stretching back to the Middle Ages where nuns had been a common feature, and post-Reformation portraits of nuns thus served as English emblems of this continuing historical tradition. Post-Reformation oil portraits of individual English nuns often accompanied by verses from the Song of Songs or from Psalms 43, 72, or 84 – which articulated the sense of exile and which were reinforced by the presence of a dove, a crucifix and skull – become a recurrent feature from the early seventeenth century, although details of the European artists, patrons and specific dates of the portraits are usually lacking. These portraits have often moved from their original home and many have not survived.

Arundell, Cecily Clare Arundell, Dorothea Bagnall, Catherine Bedingfield, Augustina Bedingfield, Margaret Bedingfield, Mary Berkeley, Joanna Blount, Frances Bradshaigh, Anne Colette Bradshaigh, Elizabeth Clare Browne, Anne (Magdalen) Burton, Mary Xaveria Clement, Margaret Clifford, Elizabeth Compton, Aloysia Constable, Barbara Gage, Susanna Gascoigne, Catherine Gough, Mary Hawley, Susan Hesketh, Aloysia Howard, Mary of the Holy Cross Jones, Clementina

Subject RP004 BB002 GP019 LA023 LC006 GB018 BB015 BB020 GP047 GP048 GP052 AC020 LA058 LA049 BB046 CB043 GP126 CB074 GP143 LS101 GB102 RP101 LA153

Database ID Poor Clare Benedictine Poor Clare Augustinian Carmelites Benedictine Benedictine Benedictine Poor Clare Poor Clare Poor Clare Carmelite Augustinian Augustinian Benedictine Benedictine Poor Clare Benedictine Poor Clare Sepulchrine Benedictine Poor Clare Augustinian

Order

Table 11.1 Images cited in Geoffrey Scott’s essay

1663–1717 1600–13 1691–1736 1622–61 1673–1714 1649–85 1581–1616 1737–40 1630–66 1630–39 1619–59 1694–1714 1557–1612 1615–42 1712–58 1640–84 1610–15 1625–76 1597–1613 1642–1706 1739–after 1748 1675–1735 1752–84

Profession–death Oils Illustration in book Illustration in book Oils Illustration in book Illustration in book Image of seal in book Oils Illustration in book Illustration in book Illustration in book Illustration in book Oils Oils Illustration in book Illustration in book Illustration in book Illustration in book Illustration in book Title page Oils Mezzotint; portrait Oils

Medium

Convent Title page: Convent Douai Abbey

Douai Abbey

Private collection

Convent National Trust

Private collection

Provenance

Augustinian Augustinian Augustinian Augustinian Augustinian Poor Clare Carmelite Poor Clare Augustinian

GP270 LA279 LA280 LA281 LA285 RP191 AC124 GP303 PA200 AC140 LS246

Worsley, Anne Wright, Mary Aloysia Joseph

Carmelite Sepulchrine

Augustinian

PA169

Throckmorton, Eliz. Teresa Pulcheria Tildesley, Elizabeth Tunstall, Anne Tunstall, Cath. Francisca Tunstall, Cecily Tunstall, Mary Vavasour, Margaret Wake, Mary Margaret Warner, Teresa Clare [Hanmer] Wollascott, Anne Frances

Benedictine Poor Clare Benedictine Benedictine Benedictine Poor Clare Benedictine Benedictine Benedictine Benedictine Poor Clare Augustinian

OB076 GP189 CB135 CB137 BB135 GP218 BB140 CB150 CB179 CB103 GP263 PA168

Markham, Mary Frances (?) Martin, Mary More, Bridget More, Gertrude Percy, Mary Petre, Helen (Mary Felix) Pigott, Mary Ursula Plumpton, Mary Angela Swinburne, Mary Teresa Swinburne, Margaret Taylor, Louisa Throckmorton, Anne Frances

1610–44 1768–1819

1610–54 1696–1758 1696–1738 1704–75 1701–70 1727–79 1634–78 1667–70 1727–54

1714–60

1776–1824 1788–1829 1630–92 1640–84 1600–42 1716–79 1742–96 1713–79 1707–62 1685 or 1686–1741 1626–67 1687–1734

Oils Illustration in book Frontispiece Frontispiece Tombstone [book illustration] Illustration in book Illustration in book Illustration in book Watercolour miniature Private collection Watercolour miniature Private collection Illustration in book Oils National Trust, Coughton Court, Warwicks. Oils National Gallery, Washington, DC Illustration in book Miniature as book illustration Miniature as book illustration Miniature as book illustration Miniature as book illustration Oils Convent Oils and book illustration Frontispiece Oils Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide Oils Convent Oils and book illustration Convent

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Invariably, these are portraits of aristocrats and gentlewomen who became choir nuns and not lay sisters. Portraits were commissioned for a variety of reasons. For instance, daughter houses sometimes requested portraits of foundresses. It also seems to have been the practice in some convents to have portraits of superiors painted for community rooms. Many families commissioned portraits by continental artists of their daughters exiled in European convents. Portraits of widows who had taken the veil also often found their way back to England, like that of the widow and later canoness Elizabeth Clifford née Thimelby1 (1615–42) LA059, now at Bramhall Hall, Cheshire (Plate 8). Sir Robert Throckmorton of Weston Underwood, the third baronet (1662–1721), had four portraits of his nun ancestors hanging in his home. One was actually a ‘convictress’ or aspirant, rather than a professed nun which is presumably why Sir Robert noted she ‘hath no book in her hand’ (see Plate 9).2 In 1729, the fourth baronet, another Sir Robert (1702–91) commissioned the court artist, Nicolas de Largillière (1646– 1756) to paint his own oil portrait and another three of his aunt, sister and cousin, canonesses in Paris, with the symbols of their office (see Plate 10).3 Largillière had begun painting the family of James II in 1685 and continued after the Revolution. He was later commissioned by exiled Jacobites to paint family members, as here, and thus became the only society painter of this time known to have painted portraits of nuns. Many of his portraits were copied as engravings by Pieter Van Schuppen, such as that of Lady Warner (Plate 11),4 discussed below, thus reflecting an increasing demand

1   Elizabeth Clifford (1615–42), LA059. Portrait identified by James Kelly on the basis of habit and inscribed year. See Plate 8. 2   The original portrait of Margaret Clement (1557–1612), PA058 (see Plate 9), a foundress, is in the English Convent, Bruges, and a copy was left at the convent in Louvain. The portrait of Augustina Bedingfield (1622–61), LA023, prioress at Bruges 1641–61, is in the same style as that of the Clement portrait . For other portraits, see Warwickshire Record Office, (WRO), CR 1998/CD/ Drawer 3/8, ‘Memorandums of Sir Robert Throckmorton’, p. 14, July–August 1685, for the no longer extant portraits of the Louvain canonesses Francis Smith (1625–70), LA236, Clementia Skinner (1625–75), LA233, Elizabeth Smith (d. 1651), LA235), and the Ghent Benedictine Elizabeth Markham (1632–64), GB139. 3   The original portraits of the nuns Anne Throckmorton (1687–1734), PA168, Elizabeth Throckmorton (1714–60), PA169 and Mary Wollascott (1727–51), PA200 are now at Coughton Court, Warwicks., National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (see Plate 10), and Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide. For Largillière, see Edward T. Corp and Jacqueline Sanson (eds), Le cour des Stuarts à Saint-Germain-en-Laye au temps de Louis XIV (Paris, 1992), p. 108. 4   Trevor Hanmer [Warner] (1667–70), GP303. When she first entered religious life at the Sepulchrines, she was known by her maiden name, Hanmer. See Plate 11.

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for images by Jacobite partisans of the exiled king and his followers.5 Oil portraits of nuns which were painted in England for a family are rare until the nineteenth century and they were sufficiently sober so as not to flaunt the excesses of popery in a Protestant country. The English Benedictine nun and Yorkshire heiress, Angela Plumpton, for instance, had her monastic veil and wimple replaced on her portrait by widow’s weeds.6 Seventeenth-century nuns’ portraits painted in oils in England were typically stiff and spare, like Milton’s ‘devout and pure’ nun in Il Penseroso of 1645. They often marked professions or a premature death. Such portraits sometimes bear the nuns’ family’s arms, quartered with those of their convent, and perhaps because of their controversial content are rarely signed and dated by the artist, unless a continental artist was commissioned by the family to paint them. A poignant reminder to the family of a daughter who had entered religious life and exile is the unique portrait of a Carmelite of Antwerp dressed as a bride of Christ before her clothing in the religious habit and presumably brought with her from England (Plate 12).7 More numerous than the portraits commissioned by families in England were those ordered by the convents themselves (see Plate 13).8 Some communities traditionally had the portraits of their superiors painted, 5   For Throckmorton portraits, see Geoffrey Scott, ‘The Throckmortons at Home and Abroad, 1680–1800’, in Peter Marshall and Geoffrey Scott (eds), Catholic Gentry in English Society: The Throckmortons of Coughton from Reformation to Emancipation, (Aldershot, 2009), pp. 191–2, 196. 6  Richard L. Williams, ‘Cultures of Dissent: English Catholics and the visual arts’, in Benjamin Kaplan et al. (eds), Catholic Communities in Protestant States: Britain and the Netherlands, c.1570–1720 (Manchester, 2009), pp. 235–6; Joseph Gillow, ‘Records of the Abbey of our Lady of Consolation at Cambrai 1620–1793’, Miscellanea VIII, CRS, 13 (London, 1913), facing p. 62, for Plumpton portrait which originally belonged to the Anne family of Burghwallis Hall, relatives of the nun; Angela Plumpton (1713–79) CB150. 7   Mary Margaret Wake (1634–78), AC124 as a bride before her clothing in 1633. See Plate 12. 8  Douai Abbey archives, T.I. A3, 14 July 1764, transcript of correspondence of D. Xaveria Pearse (c. 1720–67), DB123, describes portraits of foundresses of English Benedictines of Ghent hanging in refectory of Irish Benedictine nuns at Ypres. Also at Douai Abbey are photographs of the portraits in oils of two Rookwood canonesses from Coldham Hall, Suffolk. For tombstone portrait of Abbess Mary Percy (1599–1642), BB135, see Chronicle of the first monastery founded at Brussels, facing p. 147. The quality of the bust portraits in oils of some of the abbesses, such as Margaret Vavasour (1727–79), RP191, of the Poor Clares, Rouen, now at Much Birch, Herefordshire, suggests they were the work of a local artist commissioned by the nuns themselves. For a copy of crayon portrait of Bridget More (1630–92), CB135, see Robert Eaton, The Benedictines of Colwich, 1829–1929 (London, 1929), frontisp.; Gillow, ‘Records of … Cambrai’, CRS, 13, facing p. 40, for a copy of the engraved portrait of 1652 of Abbess Catherine Gascoigne (1625–76) (See Plate 13), CB074, by Johann Hainzelman (1641–93), a German engraver in Paris who usually engraved directly from his drawn portraits.

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such as the English canonesses at Louvain and their daughter house at Bruges. Here, the portrait of the foundress, Margaret Clement,9 who was related to Sir Thomas More, is perhaps the earliest extant portrait of an English nun (Plate 9) and may have served as a model for others. It was evidently important to secure portraits of founding mothers for posterity The prioress holds a rosary, indicative of the more systematic form of meditation adopted from the early sixteenth century in houses of canonesses attached to the devotio moderna (see Plate 14).10 Seven portraits in oils of abbesses of the Gravelines Poor Clares11 survived until the early twentieth century, significantly commissioned by the same community to which Sr Teresa Clare Warner belonged, whose portrait is discussed later.12 They show the usual accoutrements of Franciscan cord, crucifix, skull and prayer-book. These portraits seem to have all been executed immediately after the election of each abbess and evidence the development from the stiffer seventeenth-century portraits to the fleshier and more rubicund nun portraits of the more secular eighteenth century. Surviving fine portraits of nuns who did not aspire to become superiors were probably commissioned by families in England who then presented them as gifts to the various convents. A striking example of one of these is the unusual life-size portrait in oils of about 1740 of the Lancashireborn Mary Hesketh13 wearing a spinnaker veil in front of the Benedictine monastery in Ghent revealed under fluttering drapes (Plate 15). It is the sole survivor of a number of similar large portraits given by English Catholic families to these Benedictines in Ghent. Her sister Frances later became abbess in Ghent in 1797 and was responsible for cutting the portrait from its frame and rolling the canvas under her cloak when she fled to England during the French Revolution. As Dame Aloysia was only 28 when she died, this stunning portrait of a youthful nun must have been presented to her, presumably by her family, at her profession in 1739. (For a copy of  9

 Margaret Clement (1557–1612), LA058. See Plate 9.  Octave Daumont, Le Cloitre de Nazareth (Bruges, 1935), facing p. 298, showing portraits hung in the Community Room at Bruges; see Plate 14. Wybren Scheepsma, Medieval Religious Women in The Low Countries (Woodbridge, 2004), pp. 108–9, 181, 184, for canonesses and the rosary. 11  Mary Gough (1597–1613), GP143; Elizabeth Tildesley (1610–54), GP270; Susanna Gage (1610–15), GP126; Magdalen Browne (1619–59), GP051; Louisa Taylor (1626–67), GP263; Elizabeth Clare Bradshaigh (1630–39), GP048; Ann Colette Bradshaigh (1630–66), GP047; Catherine Bagnall (1691–1736), GP019; Helen Petre (1716–79), GP218; Mary Martin (1788–1829), GP189; see Hunnybun, ‘Gravelines’, CRS, 14, frontisp., facing p. 36, pp. 38, 55, 62, 64, 65, 115, 132, 163, for photographs of Poor Clare portraits from Gravelines once with the Ursulines in Greenwich. 12  See pp. 199–200. 13  Mary (in religion Aloysia) Hesketh (1739–48), GB102. See Plate 15. 10

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another portrait of a nun – Mary Aloysia Joseph Wright (1768–1819) – who never became a superior, see Plate 16.)14 Two forms of representing nuns were popular in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries on account of their portability: dolls, dressed as nuns, and, secondly, miniatures of nuns. In Europe, such dolls were clothed in distinctive nuns’ habits and were later formed into collections. The Victoria and Albert Museum possesses an eighteenth-century French collection of 50 wax nun dolls in different habits. Surviving nun dolls in England, however, had a different purpose, being designed either as aids to prayer or as mementoes of exiled daughters. A devotional item in the ‘Derwentwater Treasure’ from Dilston, Northumberland, which forms part of a collection of personal items and relics relating to the Jacobite martyr, James Radcliffe, 3rd earl of Derwentwater (executed in 1715), is a seventeenth-century ebony and glass-fronted cabinet from the continent containing three dolls of Dominican saints with labels, two of them nuns. They are surrounded by an enclosed garden, a ‘hortus conclusus’, a common feature in contemporary reliquaries.15 The mid-seventeenth-century ‘Swarbrick Doll’ (Plate 17) probably represents a Carmelite and was smuggled over to England in a wooden box by a relative, the Jesuit James Swarbrick, who died in prison in 1719.16 The engaging Poor Clare or Carmelite wax nun doll from the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century, preserved in her family home at Little Malvern Court, Worcestershire, sits sewing in her fully furnished cell with her work basket on the floor and her few belongings around her. Cruder examples are the mid-seventeenth-century paper cut-outs of Louvain canonesses, three of whom are named, which remained in Flanders, and were probably the work of pupils in the convent school. Miniature portraits of English nuns of the same period served the same purposes as the dolls. The early eighteenth-century miniatures of two Swinburnes of Capheaton, Northumberland who became English Benedictine nuns of Cambrai were returned to the family home; both significantly have dolls’ faces and were therefore probably not meant to be exact likenesses. To the family home also 14

 Mary Aloysia Joseph Wright (1768–1819), LS246 – see Plate 16.   Victoria & Albert Museum, no. 1212:12-1905.l. Frances Dickinson, The Reluctant Rebel. A Northumbrian Legacy of Jacobite Times (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1996), p. 104, illustration of the Dilston cabinet. The dolls of nuns represent Ss Catherine of Siena and Agnes of Montepulciano. A Dominican friar was the missioner in Hexham, near Dilston, in 1716. 16   For the Swarbrick Doll (Plate 17), see The Times, 14 May 1996, p. 9 and Bonham’s Sale Catalogue, Sale 16877 (London, 2009), Lot 174. The Louvain cut-outs are at Douai Abbey, Archives of the English Canonesses of Louvain, and may have been provided as visual aids for girls in the Louvain canonesses’ school or for aspirants. People ‘tweaked’ the nuns’ habits and personalized them, wandering from the originals. Enclosed Orders like the Carmelites circulated dolls dressed in the proper form for isolated communities so that they knew the correct dress: my thanks to Margaret Panikkar for these points. 15

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came the miniature of the youthful Catherine Compton,17 who professed as an English Benedictine of Brussels in 1712. The four miniatures of Tunstall girls who became canonesses in Louvain must have been commissioned by the family, but these remained in their convent.18 The engraved record of nuns’ portraits for an English readership took time to develop. In the Elizabethan period, it may have been too shocking to publish an engraving of a nun, and so her coat-of-arms might suffice. However, the portrayal of Anglo-Saxon royal and aristocratic nuns who became saints began to appear during the 1620s and 1630s when antiquarians began to delve into the medieval period. The portrayal of these royal saints thus became more frequent after Queen Henrietta’s Catholic household had been established at St James’ Palace in London, and when some of the major English antiquarians who had an interest in the medieval period were beginning to publish their research.19 An engraved portrait of 1652 (Plate 18), showing an English canoness of the Holy Sepulchre from Liège20 in full choir-dress which was designed to stimulate vocations and recruitment to the nuns’ school, has a style and a subscript reminiscent of many of the engravings of nuns found in antiquarian works such as the Monasticon Anglicanum of William Dugdale (1605–86).21 From Dugdale derived the engravings of nuns published in the works of the Catholic John Stevens (c. 1662–1726) and the Franciscan antiquary, Anthony Parkinson (1666–1728). Many of 17   The Swinburne watercolour miniatures of Mary Theresa (1707–62), CB179, and Margaret Swinburne (1686/6–1741), CB183, are at Capheaton Hall, Northumberland. See Chronicle of the first monastery founded at Brussels for English Benedictine nuns A.D. 1597 (1898), facing p. 175, for Aloysia Compton (1712–58), BB046. 18  Adam Hamilton, The Chronicle of the English Augustinian Canonesses Regular of the Lateran, at St Monica’s in Louvain, vol. 1 (London, 1904), facing p. 86 for Tunstall miniatures: Anne Tunstall (1696–1758), LA279; Catherine Francisca Tunstall (1696–1738), LA280; Cecily Tunstall (1704–75), LA281; Mary Tunstall (1701–70), LA285. Stanbrook Abbey, Wass, North Yorkshire, possesses a late eighteenth-century miniature of an anonymous young English Benedictine nun of Brussels. 19  Richard Verstegan’s translation of Pietro da Lucca’s, A dialogue of dying wel (Antwerp, 1603) carries a dedication to Abbess Joanna Berkeley (1581–1616), BB015, a founder of the English Benedictine convent in Brussels and appended to it is a lozenge bearing her family coat-of-arms surmounted by her crozier. For nun saints, see Apostolatus Anglorum Benedictinorum in Anglia, (Douai, 1626); tp. J. Porter, The flowers of the lives of most renowned saincts of the three kingdoms (Douai, 1632), tp., pp. 173, 593; The admirabile life of Saint Wenefride, trans. J. Falconer (St Omer, 1635), frontisp.; The lives of the saints, trans. W. Kinsman (Rouen, 1636), tp. T. Messingham, Florilegium insulae sanctorum (Paris, 1624), tp. and p. 189. 20   A brief relation of the order and institute of the English religious women at Liege (1652), frontisp. See Plate 18. 21  William Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum (London, 1655–73).

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these figures were adopted from popular contemporary European fashion manuals of the various religious habits which, as we shall see, stimulated in turn English eighteenth-century satires of nuns.22 By the end of the seventeenth century, the frontispiece engraving of a nun in an oval frame on an inscribed plinth, sometimes based on a lost painted portrait, became more acceptable. Perhaps the most influential of these engraved frontispieces, published in 1691, was that of the Gravelines Poor Clare, Teresa Clare Warner (Plate 11).23 This was the work of the Flemish Pieter van Schuppen after an original portrait, now lost, by the artist Nicolas de Largillière. Its superior quality suggests that the original was commissioned by the nun’s family, rather than by her religious community. The Life of Lady Warner by Edward Scarisbrick SJ was published secretly by the English Jesuit press at St Omer three times between 1691 and 1696, an indication of the measure of its popularity during the period following the Revolution of 1688–89 when English Catholic publications were very uncommon. Moreover, the book draws female religious life on to the central stage of English politics and society for the first time. It tells the remarkable story of a husband and wife, both gentry converts from Anglicanism in 1664, who mutually agreed to forsake the married state and embrace the religious life abroad. Sir John Warner became an English Jesuit, and provincial in 1689, and his wife, Lady Trevor (née Hanmer), was professed as a Poor Clare. To a Protestant readership, in the aftermath of the Revolution, the story must have been shocking and disturbing, especially as the couple’s daughters also became nuns, as well as Lady Warner’s sister-in-law. But it is the context of the book which highlights its particular significance. For the book is dedicated to Queen Mary of Modena,24 then exiled in France, and the author, recognizing the 22   J. Stevens, Monasticon Hibernicum, or The Monasticall History of Ireland (London, 1722), facing p. 358; J. Stevens, The History of the Antient Abbeys, Monasteries, Hospitals, Cathedral and Collegiate Churches (2 vols., London, 1722 and 1723), vol. 1, p. vii; Martin Murphy, ‘A Jacobite Antiquary in Grub Street: Captain John Stevens (c.1662–1726)’, Recusant History, 24.4 (1999): pp. 437–54. Memoirs of the Antiquities of Great-Brittain, relating to the Reformation &c. (London, 1723), pp. 45, 91, for an anti-popish attack on Stevens’s depiction of nuns; A.P. (Anthony Parkinson), Collectanea Anglo-Minoritica, or, A Collection of the Antiquities of the English Franciscans, or Friers Minors, comonnly call’d Gray Friers (London, 1726), part 1, facing p. 1; part 2, facing p. 1. Examples of fashion books are Adrian Schoonebeek, Histoire des ordres religieux (Amsterdam, 1695) and Filippo Buonnani SJ, Ordinum religiosorum in Ecclesia militanti, eorumque indumenta iconibus expressa (Rome, 1706–7), 3 vols and many later edns. These were the basis for Histoire des Ordres Monastiques (Paris, 1714–19), 8 vols, and many subsequent editions (vol. 1, pp. vii–xxxiii looks favourably on Dugdale’s work), and for Histoire du clergé et regulier (Amsterdam, 1716), 4 vols. 23   Teresa Clare of Jesus Warner (née Hanmer) (1667–70), GP303. See Plate 11. 24  Mary of Modena, like her husband James II, lived in exile after 1688.

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queen’s interest in saintly lives, was not only at pains to explore the fruits of exile experienced by both the queen and Lady Warner and her family on account of their faith, but also to give hope to the queen by emphasizing that her exile would be brief. An earlier work, The English Nunne (1642), provides a parallel to Lady Warner’s biography, for it describes how the opposition of a family to a daughter becoming a nun is overcome through dialogue, and how mother and sister also become nuns in the same convent in the Low Countries whilst the father pursued a vocation as a Capuchin.25 Similar in style to the engraving of Warner, but some decades later and of undoubted English provenance, is the engraved bust portrait of 1767 of a mature Mary of the Holy Cross Howard (Plate 19),26 by Johann Sebastian Miller (or Müller) which does not seem to be based on the portrait of the young abbess which is still with her community’s descendants. This engraving has in the background billowing drapes, a feature in grander eighteenth-century portraits, and a lighted lamp and smoking thurible, both unusual in contemporary English portraits. Miller (1715–92) was a German immigrant who had some Catholic patrons and specialized in producing botanical prints. Here, in the engraving’s corner, springs a leafy branch of Mediterranean myrtle, symbol of immortality. As a girl, to escape the attentions of Charles II, Mary had fled to Europe, where she converted to Catholicism. There is some mystery about her family circumstances which she never revealed to her community, and this work seems to have been commissioned by the London Vicar Apostolic with the consent of her community at Rouen, rather than by her noble relatives. Its survival as a single sheet as well as a frontispiece suggests it was printed separately for popular distribution as a ‘holy picture’.27

25   [Edward Scarisbrick], The Life of Lady Warner. Written by a Catholic Gentleman (London, vere St Omer, English College press, 1691, 1692, 1696, and London, 1858). Lady Warner’s daughters were Susan Warner (1686–1711), DB179, and Catherine Warner (1680–96), DB180, and her sister-in-law was Elizabeth Warner (1667–81), GP302; Laurence Anderton, The English Nunne, N. N., (London, 1642), p. 162. 26   Her surname is given variously as Howard, Talbot, Parnell: Mary of the Holy Cross Howard (1675–1735), RP101. See Plate 19. 27   A.B. (Alban Butler) [previously attributed to Ann Bedingfield], A short account of the life and virtues of the venerable and religious mother, Mary of the Holy Cross, abbess of the English Poor Clares at Rouen (London, 1767), frontisp.; Joseph Gillow, A Literary and Bibliographical Dictionary of the English Catholics (London, 1887), vol. 3, pp. 435– 8; English Catholicism 1680–1830, ed. Michael Mullett (London, 2006), pp. 67–89. The Howards of Norfolk were among Alban Butler’s patrons. The oval portrait in oils on wood of the abbess, originally from Rouen, is now at the Monastery of the Poor Clares, Much Birch, Herefordshire.

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Emblems and Mystics The European nun who principally provided by her spiritual teaching an inspiration and role model for seventeenth-century English nuns was Teresa of Àvila (1515–82), reformer, mystic and foundress of the Discalced Carmelites. The diffusion of her portraits throughout Europe as devotional aids helped to create graphic stereotypes of the mystical life by means of the figure of a nun, and in England, Teresa’s portraits introduced nuns to viewers, starved of any mental picture of the female religious life. Antwerp in the Spanish Netherlands had welcomed in 1612 the establishment of a convent of Teresa of Àvila’s reformed Carmelites by a companion of Teresa herself; this was followed by the founding in 1619 of an English reformed Carmel in the same city. These English Teresians were justly proud of their direct descent from the saint and sought to highlight the attachment by a tradition of portraiture maintained in the convent. Fray Juan de la Miseria’s famous 1576 portrait of Teresa, aged 61, shows her in her habit with a typically Spanish banderole issuing from her mouth, ‘Misericordias Dei in eternum cantabo’.28 Engraved by the Flemish print-maker Martin Vanden Enden, it formed the frontispiece to Sir Tobie Matthew’s English translation of Teresa’s autobiography of 1642, which was commissioned by the Antwerp English Carmelites. These nuns already possessed an early Spanish copy of the 1576 portrait on which was modelled the full-length portrait of their first prioress, Anne Worsley,29 who in her early religious life had belonged to the Antwerp Spanish Carmel founded in 1612 (Plate 20). Even closer to Fray Juan’s portrait was the posthumous drawing of Prioress Mary Xaveria Burton.30 Elsewhere, Fray Juan’s work was extensively copied in various states with embellishments added. Richard Crashaw (c. 1613–49), the English metaphysical poet, for instance, included a French version of Fray Juan’s portrait of St Teresa in the random collection of engravings accompanying his volume of sacred poems of 1652, dedicated to the Countess of Denbigh. Crashaw was deeply influenced by Teresa’s mystical writings and here her portrait accompanies his hymn in her honour, Love thou art absolute sole lord.31

28

  ‘The mercies of God I will sing for ever’: taken from Psalm 88:2.  Anne Worsley (1610–44), AC140. See Plate 20. 30  Hardman, Two English Carmelites, frontispiece portrait of Burton: Catherine Burton (1694–1714), AC020. 31   Cathleen Medwick, Teresa of Avila (London, 2000), pp. 6–7; (T. Mathew, ed.), The flaming hart or the life of the glorious S. Teresa (Antwerp, 1642), frontisp. An Antwerp portrait of St Teresa is now at the Carmel in St Helens, Lancs. R. Crashaw, Carmen Deo Nostro (Paris, 1652) where the hymn precedes another entitled ‘The flaming heart. Upon the book and picture of the seraphical Saint Teresa, as she is usually expressed with a seraphim beside her’. 29

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Crashaw’s book contains religious emblems, probably his own work, and the seventeenth-century religious world was steeped in such emblematic imagery. The figure of the nun as an emblem of perfect Christian virtue or mystical introversion, or the nun depicted alongside potent religious emblems, thus becomes common during this time, even in some rare English Catholic books published by religious Orders, such as the Franciscans and Benedictines. The great emphasis given to nuns’ adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in this period, which must have enhanced their ecclesiastical status, is commonly exemplified in devotional art with the figure of the nun before the emblematic host exposed in the monstrance. It is found famously in Philippe Champaigne’s The vision of St. Julienne de Mont-Cornillon (c. 1647), now at Birmingham University, where the saint prays before a hanging pyx with a full moon, a lunar host, outside the window, but the figure of the nun before the monstrance is also included in a number of engravings in English Catholic works.32 Communities must have instructed artists about their preferences, and portraits were not always commissioned merely as an illustrated record for posterity. The seventeenth century witnessed a huge expansion in the female religious Orders spurred on by renewal, reform and return to a primitive austerity. Founding mothers and reforming mothers had a particular vision, and their portraits thus had the quality of emblems which helped to instil that vision into the minds of their daughters. Thus we find pasted into an English nun’s book of devotions, engravings of European reformers of female religious Orders.33 Most famous of the period’s emblematic depictions of a foundress’s mystical experience are Philippe de Champaigne’s spare compositions of the nuns at Jansenist Port-Royal, especially the picture known as the Ex-voto de 1662, which he vowed to paint following the miraculous cure of his daughter, a nun at Port-Royal. 32   G. Cotton, trans., The contempte of the worlde (Douai, 1604); tp. W. Stanney, A treatise of penance, with an explication of the rule … of the third order (Douai, 1617); tp. R. Mason, The rule of pennance of … S. Francis. The First Part (Douai, 1644); tp. J. Miles, Brevis catechismus pro hereticis (Naples, 1635), p. 62; The first rule of the glorious virgin S. Clare (St Omer, 1665), frontisp.; R. Mason, A manuall of the Third Order of … St. Francis (Douai, 1643); tp. Geoffrey Scott, ‘The Image of Augustine Baker’, in Michael Woodward (ed.), That Mysterious Man. Essays on Augustine Baker OSB, 1575–1641 (Abergavenny, 2001), pp 111–15; Philippe de Champaigne (1602–1674), eds A. Tapié and N. Sainte Fare Garnot (Lille, 2007), pp. 178–9. 33  St Mary’s Abbey, Colwich, Staffs., MS 22, c. 1657, contains engraved portraits of St Catherine of Siena (c. 1333–80), Maria Vittoria Fornari (1562–1617), foundress of the austere Celestial Annunciades, and Marguerite d’Arbouze (1580–1626), the reforming abbess of the royal abbey of Val-de-Grace in Paris. At Colwich is also C. Fleury, La vie de la vénérable mère Marguerite D’Arbouze … du Val-de-Grace (Paris, 1684), with frontispiece portrait. For discussion on the influence of Marguerite D’Arbouze and Barbara Constable at Cambrai, see the chapter by Genelle Gertz in this collection.

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His use of subdued shades of grey highlights the luminous faces reflecting the inner life and strength of the abbess and young nun, who are shown in a bare cell with a stone floor and a simple cross on the wall as they await God’s grace. De Champaigne’s central subject is the inner illumination that these nuns felt in their hearts as they realized God would answer their prayer for a cure from physical infirmity.34 We need to appreciate hints of a similar mystical state in the more understated portraits of contemporary English nuns such as the three English Benedictines of Cambrai, one a foundress, who were deeply imbued with the mystical theology of Dom Augustine Baker (see Plate 13).35 Henry Hawkins SJ (1577–1646) was indisputably the greatest seventeenth-century English Catholic emblematicist. Hawkins’s translation, The devout hart or royal throne of the pacifical Salomon (Rouen, 1634), opens with a monk, nun and gentlefolk, a collective symbol of the Church, who are heaving an enormous dilated and flaming Sacred Heart, a common figure of the period. Another translation of his, The admirable life of S. Aldegond princesse and foundress of the dames chanonesses of Mauberge in Haynalt, (Paris, vere St Omer, 1632), introduced this mother foundress to English readers. Its frontispiece portrait is strongly emblematic and shows the Holy Spirit dropping the veil over the nun’s head from which topples a crown.36 The period’s fascination with emblem as a form of religious language, a ‘speaking picture’, occasionally encouraged the employment of the emblem in portraits of English nuns. An engraved portrait frontispiece of the English Benedictine mystical writer, Gertrude More,37 has the subscript ‘Magnes Amoris Amor’ (‘love is the magnet of love’) (see Plate 21). To understand the full import of this text, we should remember that Our Lady was being described similarly at this time in Jesuit emblem books. Furthermore, Jesuit emblematicists like Athanasius Kircher (1602–80) were fascinated by magnetism as both a spiritual and physical force.38 Emblems of the rose, the cross and flickering candle, are also to the 34

 Tapié, Champaigne, pp. 209–15.   Gillow, ‘Records’, frontisp., and facing pp. 12, 40 and Scott, ‘Image’, pp. 106–7, Figures 3 and 4 for the Cambrai nuns Gertrude More (1640–84), CB137; Catherine Gascoigne (1625–76), CB074, and Barbara Constable (1640–84), CB043. See Plate 13. 36   This illustration in The devout hart, a translation of a work by Etienne Luzvic SJ, is one example of the popular ‘cardiomorphic’ allegories of this period. S. Aldegond was a translation of the nun’s life life by Etienne Binet SJ (1569–1639), who was a close friend of Abbess Marguerite d’Arbouze and published the lives of holy foundresses as emblems of the religious life. For Hawkins, see Michael Bath, Speaking Picture: English Emblem Books and Renaissance Culture (London, 1994), pp. 178–80. 37   Gertrude More (1625–33), CB137. See Plate 21. 38  Scott, ‘Image’, p. 106. Mario Praz, Studies in seventeenth-century imagery (Rome, 1964), p. 488; Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680), ed. Brian L. Merrill (Provo, UT, 1989), pp. 6–7. 35

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fore in the extraordinarily impressive portrait in death painted in 1665 of Ann Browne, abbess of the Poor Clares of Gravelines (Plate 22).39 Satire and Sympathy Although the depiction of nuns in illustrated social satires was common in Europe throughout the seventeenth century, and especially in France and the Low Countries, nuns were too rare a phenomenon in English society to have yet lent themselves to portrayal in this genre. The nearest contemporary English artists came to these satires is the well-known The anatomie of the English nunnery at Lisbon in Portugall with six impressions between 1622 and 1662 (Plate 23).40 In it, a chaplain of the nuns graphically exposed all the vices good Protestants and the film-maker Ken Russell would have expected to find in a convent of supposedly celibate women. The author’s images were probably not English, but were borrowed from common European satires. They were employed by the playwright, Thomas Middleton, in his A Game at Chess (1624), satirizing the future Charles I’s proposed marriage to the Catholic Infanta of Spain.41 Later, during the Popish Plot scare and Exclusion Crisis (1678–81), nuns were shown in the ‘solemn mock processions’ as vulnerable women enslaved to the pope, a foreign tyrant. Even stronger was an engraving of c. 1680 which showed two nuns sitting on eggs and hatching a friar and a nun. Its quality and venom suggest this engraving was German, but the descriptive verses attached to it indicate it was also destined for an English readership.42 Satirical illustrations of nuns become much more frequent in eighteenthcentury England and have some bearing on portraiture. Around the same time as the previously mentioned engraving of Mary of the Holy Cross Howard was published (1767), there appeared a mezzotint, ‘The Lady Abbess of the English Nuns at Antwerp’. The Antwerp abbess engraving purports to have been executed by John Faber the younger from a now lost portrait by Gabriel Mathias and was published by Thomas and John Bowles, probably between 1753 and 1767. Mathias (1719–1804), a pupil in London of the painter Allan Ramsay, would have become familiar with 39

  Hunnybun, ed., ‘Registers’, facing p. 55: Ann Browne (1621–65), GP052. See Plate 22.   Thomas Robinson, The anatomie of the English nunnery at Lisbon in Portugall (London, 1622), with illustrations on the tp., and, later edns. In 1623, 1630, 1637, 1662 with unsold sheets reissued. For further discussion of connections between this text and the Bridgettine convent in Lisbon, see the chapter by Jenna Lay in this collection. See Plate 23. 41   Thomas Middleton, A Game at Chess (London, 1624). 42   Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires … in the British Museum, ed. F.G. George (London, 1870), nos 1079, 1084, 1101. 40

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Catholic culture when he studied in Italy (1744–48) and resided with Pompeo Batoni in Rome in 1745. While many of his portraits were indeed turned into mezzotints by Faber, the leading exponent of the process in the mid-eighteenth century, there are some unusual features of this portrait which have been overlooked even by specialists who have been led astray into simply suggesting the subject was one of two prioresses of the English Carmelites in Antwerp, Mary Joseph of St Teresa Howard or Teresa of Jesus Howard.43 The Bowles brothers were mainly publishers of satirical prints, certainly not producers of Catholic holy pictures. However, more intriguing are oddities in the portrait itself. The Carmelites had prioresses, not abbesses, as superiors; a Carmelite nun neither wore a Franciscan cord nor a rosary attached to it as here; the traditional skull next to the subject’s hand has been provocatively tipped onto its side and resembles an open hand-bag. In any case, skulls had fallen into disuse as accoutrements in nuns’ portraits of the later eighteenth century. Nuns are invariably shown standing in their portraits, a mark of their humility in the presence of others; this is the first sitting nun I have seen in a portrait up until this date. Faber’s engraved portraits tend to direct the viewer away from the sitter and towards the tone of the whole scene depicted. This engraved portrait is too flamboyant for a nun; here we have the pretty young face staring intently at the viewer, the flounced habit and fancy rosary-cum-necklace, and the enticing raised right hand. This ‘nun’ is more of a erotic courtesan than a religious. Arguably, this is a unique satirical engraving, perhaps based on an equally satirical original portrait, and not an engraving accurately copying the formal portrait of a religious superior. All three nuns supposedly connected with this portrait were Howards and one is, therefore, led to ask whether Faber’s print is perhaps a mischievous satirical riposte to the popularity in England of the near-contemporary engraved portrait of Abbess Mary of the Holy Cross (Plate 19).44 There is one further development in the depiction of nuns in eighteenthcentury England which might also throw light on the curious mid-eighteenthcentury engraving of the abbess of Antwerp. From the first decade of the century, the Meissen porcelain factory in Germany had begun to produce quality rococo figurines of nuns and monks, usually depicted sitting and reading books, and probably derived from religious costume books. These 43  Mary Joseph of St Teresa Howard was prioress at Antwerp in 1735–50, and Teresa of Jesus Howard was prioress 1750–63: other Howard nuns were Mary Howard (1708–56), AC069, and Bridget Howard (1711–64), AC065. 44   The author possesses an early undated copy of the Antwerp abbess engraving published by Thomas and John Bowles, and its popularity can be adduced from many later impressions by John Bowles and Carrington Bowles; see British Museum, Prints and Drawings, 1872.0511.424, 1865.0224.392, 1902.1011.1530, 1902.1011.1529, 1902.1011.1531. See Plate 24.

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were the work of Johann Joachim Kändler, master sculptor from 1733 until his death in 1775, and his assistants Johann Friedrich Eberlein and Peter Reinecke. At least one figurine was made for the Lutheran abbess of Herford in Westphalia, an Augustinian canoness and imperial princess. By the 1750s, copies of these delightful objects were being produced at the Bow and Chelsea porcelain manufactories for the English market. Surviving English figurines of nuns are now dispersed throughout various collections, but their date, the pose adopted and the popularity of these objects as decorations for the dessert table, suggest they might have provided a model for the contemporary Antwerp abbess engraving.45 The discovery at Antwerp in 1716 of the incorrupt body of the English Carmelite, Mary Margaret of the Angels Wake,46 who had died in 1678, provoked enormous interest in the city. The relics of a saintly English nun might still excite popular interest in Catholic Europe even in the enlightened eighteenth century.47 But by contrast in England, it was becoming so fashionable in London print shops for the day’s beauties to be portrayed as nuns that eventually ‘nun’ became synonymous with ‘prostitute’ (see Plate 25).48 This caricaturing of the figure of the nun came at the same time as ‘nuns’ made increasing appearances in masquerades and literature, and when actresses portraying ‘nuns’ on the English stage became more frequent.49 In the context of the Catholic 45   Figurines in Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, C.3034-1928 (Bow, 1752–55) and Victoria & Albert Museum, C.205-1940 (Chelsea, c. 1752–55). An eighteenth-century Liverpool white porcelain figure of a nun is at Saltram, Devon. There are over thirty figurines of nuns, monks and canons in the Sheila Pettit Collection at Wallington, Northumberland; see Anthony du Boulay, ‘Religious Rococo Revived: The Pettit Collection at Wallington, Northumberland’, Country Life (5 June 1986), pp. 1636–8. I thank Patricia Ferguson for this information. 46  Mary Margaret Wake (1634–78), AC124. (p. 195 above.) See Plate 12. See Francis Young, English Catholics and the Supernatural, 1553–1829 (Farnham, forthcoming 2013), pp. 104–8, and p. 103, copy of the mezzotint commissioned by Sir Thomas Gage. 47  Hardman, Two English Carmelites, facing p. 150 for drawing; Thomas Hunter, An English Carmelite (London, 1876), chap. xxx. 48  Yale University, Lewis Walpole Library, PM I.130, 167, ‘The March of the Chevalier de St. George’, 1711, broadsheet; British Museum, Prints and Drawings, AN977322001, Henry Morland, ‘The Fair Nun Unmask’d’, (London, 1769): see Plate 25; Peter Wagner, Eros Revived (London, 1988), p. 80. By the 1770s, such ‘nuns’, often ‘blue-eyed’, were grouped into three classes according to their beauty, examples at Yale University, Lewis Walpole Library. 773.2.10.1p, 773.3.22.1p, 773.24.1p, 773.4.26.1p. 49   British Museum, Prints and Drawings, Satires 10347, ‘Preparing for a Masquerade’ (London, 1802); Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy (London, 1770), vol. v, frontisp., ‘The Abbess of Andoulliets’; William Shakespeare, ‘The Comedy of Errors’, in Bell’s Shakespeare (London, 1785), frontisp.; the Catholic authoress, Elizabeth Inchbald (1755–1821), dressed as an abbess: ‘Eloisa to Abelard. By Mr. Pope’, in The Cabinet of Genius containing Frontispieces and Characters adapted to the Most Popular Poems (London, 1792), plate II;

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Relief Acts of 1778 and 1791, these developments presumably made nuns generally more acceptable to English public opinion, although there were lingering suspicions that nuns in France might turn into emancipated revolutionary collaborators and that their newly won freedom would encourage immorality. In the last decade of the eighteenth century, the French Revolution’s attack on the Church produced a spate of French satires depicting nuns willingly leaving their convents and going on to marry ex-monks. By contrast, more conservative Counter-Revolutionary prints showed them as allies of the papacy and clergy.50 The hasty flight of communities from Europe to England during the Revolution and the confiscation of convents and their furnishings caused the disappearance and destruction of many portraits.51 As the first waves of English refugee nuns entered England during the early 1790s, any suspicions turned to sympathy, and this was soon harnessed to anti-French propaganda. These returning exiles also aroused the curiosity of the English public to the extent that there was a revival of earlier fanciful stereotypes depicting apprehensive English tourists visiting convents abroad and conversing with attractive young nuns behind the bars of the grille. These were the prisons, it was insinuated, from which the expatriate nuns had now been mercifully freed (see Plate 26).52 Behind all the turmoil of the revolutionary period, a quieter revolution was taking place which would bring future benefits. From the late eighteenth century, we begin to catch glimpses of how English girl pupils saw life in their convent schools abroad. These charming vignettes reveal for the first time in England easy relations between nuns and their pensioners. We see a seated young English Blue Nun of Paris holding the hand of a uniformed pensioner while the nun reads to her, and in another drawing by a young English girl, a French Ursuline presides over

British Museum, Prints and Drawings, AN00754423001, actors as a monk and nun in a gothic cell (Edinburgh, 1795); BM, Prints & Drawings, Satires no. 8275, ‘Returning from a Review at the Champ de Mars in Paris’, 1790; ‘Memoirs of the Benedictine Monk, and the Eloping Nun of Hampstead’, in The Town and Country Magazine; or, Universal Repository of Knowledge, Instruction, and Entertainment, Supplement for 1790, pp. 578–81. 50   Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, De Vinck collection, for a comprehensive collection of these engravings; Antoine de Baecque, La Caricature Révolutionnaire (Paris, 1988), passim. 51  See St Mary’s Abbey, Colwich, P.9.MS 45b, for the entry on the destruction of ‘several Pictures Large as life of the first beginers of the Nuns’ in the English Benedictine monastery in Paris during the French Revolution: Annals … of Ghent, p. 62. 52   BM, Prints and Drawings, Satires 8274, ‘A Visit to the Convent at Amiens’ (London, 1803); BM, Prints and Drawings, AN189035001, ‘Pastime in Portugal or A Visit to the Nunnerys’ (London, 1811), by T. Rowlandson. See Plate 26.

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her young charges playing games and sewing (Plate 27).53 According to the expectations of the Commission of Regulars which was appointed in France in 1768 to reform the religious Orders along utilitarian lines, nuns had to demonstrate, if they wanted to survive, the benefits they might give to society. Teaching was one way of showing this, and it was the nuns’ aptitude in the classroom which had distinguished them in ancien régime France and which now gained them the respect of Protestant public opinion, once the exiled convents had settled in England and begun to revive their schools. Given the turbulence of the times, newly executed portraits of nuns are rare in early nineteenth-century England, suspicion still hung about the presence of nuns. At Coldham Hall, Suffolk in 1807, for instance, the two seventeenth-century canonesses were reputed to have descended from their portraits as ghosts in secular dress and terrified the superstitious Protestant household. A detailed mezzotint commemorated the sighting. But as convents became more settled, so did commissions for major portraits of superiors become more popular, especially by communities which ran schools where the new portraits lined the walls enhancing the prestige of the community and its school.54

53   Joseph Gillow and Richard Trappes-Lomax, The Diary of the ‘Blue Nuns’ or Order of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady, at Paris, 1658–1810, CRS, 8 (London, 1910), facing p. 129; Douai Abbey, Teignmouth Abbey archives, T.I.A.3. The Jerningham Letters, ed. Egerton Castle (London, 1896), vol. I, facing p. 399, and vol. II, facing p. 33. See Plate 27. 54   For nuns in nineteenth-century convent schools in England, see examples in the portrait collection of Augustinian canonesses at Douai Abbey, near Reading.

Part IV Identity

Chapter 12

Archipelagic Identities in Europe: Irish Nuns in English Convents Marie-Louise Coolahan The profession book of the English Poor Clare convent at Rouen testifies to the enduring reputation of one Irish entrant: [In 1666] made her Profess: Sr Brigitt Joseph Barnwell of the Irish nation aged 18 dyed the 16:th of Dec: she lived 21 years here, then went to Ireland lived 29 years dyed in 1715 aged 67, the inconstancy of temper of the Irish which wee had experience off, made the Community decree never more to take any that was Irish both by father & mother.1

The obituary writer departs from her bare formula (name in religion, date of profession and date of death) to remark on national identity. Notwithstanding historiographical debates as to the emergence of concepts of nationhood, it is clear from such sources that identification by means of nation was not unusual.2 Writing in Gaelic Irish began in the early seventeenth century to incorporate a sense of national consciousness, evident in the introduction of the words ‘nasión’ and ‘Éireannach’.3 As construed here, the singular personality trait – inconstancy of temper – slides easily into national characteristic. All Irish are tarred with the same brush and henceforth barred from entry. But ethno-cultural origin is 1   I am indebted to Caroline Bowden for bringing this to my attention. The manuscript of the Rouen profession book is held at the Monastery of the Poor Clares, Much Birch, Herefordshire. 2  See, for example, Adrian Hastings, The Construction of Nationhood: Ethnicity, Religion and Nationalism (Cambridge, 1997); Richard Helgerson, Forms of Nationhood: The Elizabethan Writing of England (Chicago, IL, 1992); Philip Schwyzer and Simon Mealor (eds), Archipelagic Identities: Literature and Identity in the Atlantic Archipelago, 1550– 1800 (Aldershot, 2004). For a recent survey from an Irish perspective, see David Finnegan, ‘Old English Views of Gaelic Irish History and the Emergence of an Irish Catholic Nation, c.1569–1640’, in Brian Mac Cuarta (ed.), Reshaping Ireland 1550–1700: Colonization and its Consequences (Dublin, 2011), pp. 188–90. 3  Mícheál Mac Craith, ‘Literature in Irish, c.1550–1690: From the Elizabethan Settlement to the Battle of the Boyne’, in Margaret Kelleher and Philip O’Leary (eds), The Cambridge History of Irish Literature (2 vols Cambridge, 2006), vol. 1, pp. 207–9.

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discerned in genetic terms; the bar applies to those dually descended from Irish parents, leaving the door open to the offspring of mixed marriages. While we have a good overall picture of the activities and locations of Irish male religious in continental Europe during the early modern period, we lack an equivalent account of Irish nuns.4 Unlike the male religious, who founded colleges across the continent, houses for Irish women religious were not supported. There were only two expressly founded for Irish nuns: the Dominican convent of Bom Sucesso at Belém, Lisbon, founded by Fr Dominic O’Daly in 1639, and the re-foundation of the English Benedictine convent at Ypres as an Irish convent in 1684.5 By contrast to the longevity enjoyed by a number of exiled English convents, the story of Irish convents is one of shortlived foundations followed by dispersed exile. The Poor Clares established the first post-Dissolution convent in Dublin in 1629, whence they were moved on in October 1630 to Lough Ree in Westmeath. Named Bethlehem, this convent spawned sister-houses at Drogheda (relocated to Waterford in 1641), Galway, Wexford, Athlone and Loughrea. A Dominican house was founded in 1644 in Galway, and an Augustinian house in the same city in 1646. Following Cromwell’s banishment of all religious in 1653, the nuns were exiled.6 Many of these women – such as the five founders of the Poor Clare convent in Dublin – had initially professed in exiled English convents. They often returned to seek refuge in continental houses. As yet, we have no comprehensive picture of the places and locations occupied by Irish women religious across Europe. This chapter begins the task of mapping these women by outlining the ways in which sources relating to exiled English convents can be mined for information about Irish nuns. It interrogates the circumstances in which Irish origins are remarked in those sources in order to explore constructions of national identity within the exiled communities. The degree to which ethnic origins determined the country or convent of

4  See Edel Bhreathnach, Joseph MacMahon and John McCafferty (eds), The Irish Franciscans, 1534–1990 (Dublin, 2009); Óscar Recio Morales, Ireland and the Spanish Empire, 1600–1825 (Dublin, 2010); Patricia O’Connell, The Irish College at Alcalá de Henares, 1649–1785 (Dublin, 1997), The Irish College at Lisbon, 1590–1834 (Dublin, 2001) and The Irish College at Santiago de Compostela, 1605–1769 (Dublin, 2007); Thomas O’Connor (ed.), The Irish in Europe, 1580–1815 (Dublin, 2001); Thomas O’Connor and Mary Ann Lyons (eds), Irish Migrants in Europe after Kinsale, 1602–1820 (Dublin, 2003), Irish Communities in Early Modern Europe (Dublin, 2006) and Strangers to Citizens: The Irish in Europe, 1600–1800 (Dublin, 2008). 5   For studies of these convents, see Honor McCabe, A Light Undimmed: The Story of the Convent of Our Lady of Bom Sucesso Lisbon (Dublin, 2007); Patrick Nolan, The Irish Dames of Ypres (Dublin, 1908). 6  See Helena Concannon, The Poor Clares in Ireland (A.D.1629–A.D.1929) (Dublin, 1929); Marie-Louise Coolahan, Women, Writing, and Language in Early Modern Ireland (Oxford, 2010), pp. 63–101.

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destination is considered in the context of arguing for an extension of the archipelagic paradigm to include the Iberian Peninsula. The best quantitative data we have had is derived from Claire Walker’s 2003 analysis of English convents in France and the Low Countries, 1591–1710. That study of 22 expatriate houses found that, of 1,063 total members, 998 (93.7 per cent) were English. The Dutch – at 31 members (2.9 per cent) – formed the second-largest group; the Irish came third, with 19 members (1.8 per cent7). The ‘Who were the Nuns?’ database, with records of 3,271 professed nuns in 22 convents, offers the prospect of adding to these numbers. The database records Irish identity only when it has appeared on a source document derived from a convent. As we shall see, nationality is not always recorded in these sources, meaning that reliable final figures are likely to remain elusive. Searching for Irish members of the 22 exiled English convents depends on two modes of identification: the noting of Irish origins in the convent records and a posteriori surname analysis. Where Irish parentage or origin has been registered, a search of the database convent field, entering Ireland as the ‘place association’ yields 88 results. As noted above, this type of search is dependent on the convent records themselves noting Irish ancestry. Therefore, a woman such as Dame Mary Alexia Legge (1666–83, DB094), co-instigator of the Benedictines’ project for an Irish foundation in the 1680s, is omitted.8 Sr Bridget Barnwell (or Barnewall; 1666–1715, RP011), with whom this chapter began and whose Irish identity is foregrounded in the Rouen profession book, is also concealed from view following this search method.9 However, Barnewall was a longestablished name in the anglicized Pale region; a surname search includes the biographical information revealing Sr Bridget to be Irish. An approach that supplements this is to search the online editions of chronicle records available on the ‘Who were the Nuns?’ website, using the search terms ‘Ireland/Irish’. This produces additional names, such as Magdalen Clare Nugent and Mary Peter Dowdel (or Dowdall) of the Poor Clares, or the Darrell sisters at the Paris Conceptionist convent, whose mother was Irish.10  7   Claire Walker, Gender and Politics in Early Modern Europe: English Convents in France and the Low Countries (Basingstoke, 2003), pp. 38–9.  8   That the surname was present in Ireland is evident from another nun, Elizabeth Mary Legg (1669–91), CB118, who was born in Ireland in 1643.  9   Editors’ note: The problem outlined here points to a current (2012) limitation of the search mechanism of the database and lack of genealogical data relating to members with Irish connections. The need for further research in this area is recognized: this in turn will provide material to make good the gaps which are hampering identification of Irish members using present search tools. 10  Magdalen Clare Nugent (pf. 1625), GP206; Mary Peter Dowdel (pf. 1625), GP102; Christina Barbara Darrell (1677–99), PC023; Jane Henrietta Clementia Darrell (1677– 1739), PC024.

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The second method, surname analysis, entails manual searching of all women listed in the database in order to detect surnames known to have been established in early modern Ireland. There are a number of problems with this. First, it depends on presumptions of ethnicity. The native, Gaelic, or Old Irish community were, and are, most easily identified by means of the prefixes ‘O’ and ‘Mac’. The Old English, descended from the twelfth-century Normans, who often married into Gaelic Irish families and tended toward bilingual competency, and the class known as New English – mainly Protestant settlers arriving in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries – are more problematic. All these groups were subject to the fluidity of confessional, political and cultural allegiances. The classification of early modern Irish society according to these distinct ethnic groupings is convenient, and attested in contemporary sources. However, the boundaries were porous, involving intercultural exposure and exchange at all social levels. The Butlers – a dominant Old English dynasty primarily based in Kilkenny – illustrate the point. The earls (later dukes) of Ormond were the leading Butler house. ‘Black Tom’, the tenth earl, was educated a Protestant and was a favourite at Queen Elizabeth’s court. His descendants who aspired to high office remained Protestant, whereas their relations were often Catholic. Of the twelve Butlers listed in the ‘Who were the Nuns?’ database, six are from Lancashire. Two are listed as having Irish fathers and may, therefore, be safely identified as Irish or part-Irish. Another two were nuns at the Irish convent of Ypres meaning that, despite the lack of biographical information, we might assume they were Irish. A further two Butlers were members of the Poor Clare convent at Rouen, and the Benedictine convent at Ghent, but we lack further biographical information for them.11 Conversely, the surname Marshall is not one a historian of early modern Ireland would immediately identify as Irish. But two of the five Marshalls in the database (Clare and Helen) were sisters from Ireland, members of the Mary Ward Institute during the seventeenth century.12 Hence, the use of surname analysis to determine national origin is not straightforward. The relatively substantial narratives provided in convent chronicles contextualize these women, supporting more qualitative analysis regarding attitudes toward nation. Walker’s statistical results on the nationalities in the English convents led her to conclude that they practised a bias against ‘foreign’ entrants and that, ‘Despite common traditions of Protestant persecution … Rome’s adherents in the British Isles maintained

11  Similarly, of eleven professed nuns with the surname Preston in the database, six are of Old English extraction. 12   Clare Marshall (1630–after 1640), MW104; Helen Marshall (1629–34), MW105.

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discrete identities.’13 As historians and literary scholars have brought an archipelagic, or ‘Three Kingdoms’, perspective to bear on the study of early modern identities, we might ask whether such perspectives are evident among the populations of exiled English convents.14 Does exile – the moment of arrival, the experience of migration – sharpen notions of national identity; does the collision of cultures it entails provoke a heightened sense of what national identity meant? The discursive chronicles written within these communities are rich sources for the exploration of these questions. Moreover, they can sate the curiosity aroused by sparser narratives such as the Rouen profession book and its intriguing rejection of the Irish on the basis, apparently, of a single nun. In fact, as the Rouen chronicles tell the story, it was their experience of two turbulent Irish nuns that set the congregation against receiving any more. Barnwell (or Barnewall) came to Rouen from Ireland with her uncle, Fr Netterville. The daughter of Lord Trimleston, she ‘had no fortune times being extreamly hard in Ireland’. She was clothed in June 1665 and professed on 2 July 1666. The chronicler recounts that she ‘was very good for some years after till to her great misfortune Sister Clare Loudivick (alias) Tuite with leave of superiours came from Dieppe her monastery there being broke up in time of the War’.15 Tuite was one of two Irish Poor Clares who had been based at the convent of Bethlehem near Athlone. An earlier chronicle entry dates her arrival to May 1664 (prior to Barnwell’s). The transnational character of religious vocation determined her attraction to the English convent and while she was differentiated in terms both of nation and house, she was accepted: … for altho’ she was of another nation, & Convent, yet in consideration of our holy Order, & foundresses, whose habit she had with so much vertue worne for so many yeares, she was not only made a member of the Community, but also after some years chosen Discreet, & was in all things as much respected as our ancient Sisters.16

13

 Walker, Gender and Politics, pp. 38–9.  See, for examples, Brendan Bradshaw and John Morrill (eds), The British Problem, c.1534–1707: State Formation in the Atlantic Archipelago (Basingstoke, 1996); Brendan Bradshaw and Peter Roberts (eds), British Consciousness and Identity: The Making of Britain, 1533–1707 (Cambridge, 1998); J.P. Kenyon, Jane Ohlmeyer and John Morrill (eds), The Civil Wars: A Military History of England, Scotland, and Ireland 1638–1660 (Oxford, 1998); John Kerrigan, Archipelagic English: Literature, History, and Politics 1603–1707 (Oxford, 2008); Schwyzer and Mealor, Archipelagic Identities. 15   ‘History Writing’, ed. Caroline Bowden, English Convents, vol. 1, p. 155; Clare Tuite, RP188. 16   Ibid., pp. 81–2. 14

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Assimilation led to preferment and approbation. A different entry on another Irish Poor Clare, Sr Catherine Magdalen Boork (or Burke) fills in the blanks about the Dieppe house: [Burke] with six more, & the Superiour, went [from Ireland] into Spaine, in hopes to have gotten a Convent, to enclose themselves, & all the rest; but not finding the success they desir’d came into France, where they liv’d for 9 yeare in a secular house at Diepe, where this poor Sister fell into a consumption, which she endur’d with great patience for 4 years suffering very much by reason of their poverty: she infinitly desir’d to dy in a Religious house, & therfore made earnest suit to come & dy in this Community, & writt to Sister Clare Ludovick.

Again, vocation transcended nation and the English house was the most appealing. Burke acquitted herself well in the exiled English community, where she died after three months on 24 January 1666, admired for her pious devotion and cared for ‘as if she had been a Queen, & one of our own Sisters’.17 Her success is marked by her treatment on the same basis as that of her host community. But Tuite was restless and, worse, a fomenter of rebellion in her countrywoman, Barnwell. The source of this turmoil was expressly denoted as nation. Tuite’s discontent came to a head at the election of Abbess Giffard in March 1670. As she had professed in a different convent, Tuite was disqualified from voting. Furthermore, there was a clash within the exiled English Order regarding the male authorities to which they were subject, the Gravelines and Rouen convents adhering to the diocesan bishop as opposed to those of Aire and Dunkirk, which operated under the Franciscan Order.18 Tuite may have exploited this contentious split. The chronicler alleges that she cited her disenfranchisement as the pretext for release from the convent: … saying she was no member of the house, & desir’d nothing more then to go from us, seeing as she cou’d not live as she said, according to her profession, in being under the Order. But this was thought only a pretence to get away, she never mentioning the same till she saw she cou’d not get out otherwise.

By February 1671, Tuite had her way. She left for Paris in the (unrealized) hope of being placed in another convent. At first, she lived there in a secular house but returned to Rouen, where she was refused re-entry to the English convent. After three months of uncertainty, the English nuns 17

  Ibid., p. 83; Catherine Boork (d. 1666), RP028.  See Caroline Bowden, ‘The English Poor Clares in Aire-sur-la-Lys 1629–1799: Strategies for Survival’, in Études Francisaines (forthcoming, 2013). 18

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funded her return to Ireland in October 1671 where she reportedly settled, appointed as superior of an unnamed convent at Athlone.19 Her influence over Barnwell was apparently lasting and the latter’s discontent festered over a number of years. This is attributed to Tuite’s awakening in her of patriotic feeling. The chronicler relates that both women ‘began to talk much of their friends & country, Sister Bridget began also to fall from her duty & take haughty airs & quarel with the young about place & such like follys, neglecting her observance & submission to superiours. It is easily to be imagined’, the chronicler laments, ‘that a Religious living in this manner would soon be disgusted with her state.’ In an effort to appease her, Abbess Giffard ‘according to her disires got her Confessors of her own nation’.20 Fr Bonaventure Giffard, the abbess’s cousin and visitor to the community in 1679, ‘labour’d much, & took great pains with our Irish Sister, Sister Brigit [Barnwell], to have made her settle to her Religious dutys’. This was to no avail and the chronicler indicates the threat to corporate reputation, without specifying her misdemeanours: ‘She promis’d him faire, but in effect did nothing of what he ordain’d her, & he seeing there was no hopes of her amendment, & that she gave publick scandal in the Community, & perpetually disquieted their repose, counsell’d Mother Abbess to let her go’.21 Her uncle Netterville sought to place her in the Athlone convent where Tuite had gone, but Barnwell refused and her departure in March 1685 was for Dublin to live with her brother. Ultimately, Barnwell returned to religious life, dying in 1715 in an Irish convent where, the chronicler writes, ‘we have reason to hope she became a good Religious & did penance for her past follys having wrote twice to Reverend Mother very handsomly; & several times to Sister Cicely Clare [Arundel] to beg books beads, medals &c. which was sent her.’22 It is intimated that her disruptiveness was rooted in a heightened awareness of nationhood. This coloured her behaviour within the community but also, it is hinted, threatened to spill over into the public realm. For a convent tasked with supporting a flood of noble refugees arrived from England in the aftermath of the 1678 Oates Plot, any public scandal held the potential to jeopardize funding. The English nuns’ frustration with their two volatile Irish nuns resulted in ‘a resolution never to receive any more of that nation’. But the decision was not uncontroversial: ‘Our Superiour & many of our friends seemed not edified that we made exceptions against the Irish.’23 Moreover, they 19

    21   22   23   20

‘History Writing’, Bowden, pp. 129–30. Ibid., p. 155. Ibid., p. 150. Ibid., p. 156. Ibid., p. 156.

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did not stick to it. The reception of two half-French/Irish pensioners in 1762 and 1766, an Irish choir nun in 1763, and a pensioner by the name of Connelly the same year are recorded in the chronicle’s second volume.24 The first volume records that the house accepted one Irish woman and ‘another young Lady descended of Irish parents, but born, & brought up in Spain’ in 1771.25 Both these women ultimately decided against the novitiate. The community’s eventual resolution of the issue avoided discrimination on the basis of national identity but insisted upon sincerity of vocation, ‘whether English or Irish’, and on the English character of the convent itself: ‘They must also be very careful not to turn the house into any other nation than English since it was founded for them it is just that preferably to any others, they should find a shelter here from the dangers of their heretical country.’26 We might expect, from the very nature of the international religious order, that the collectivity of communal identity would suppress national affiliations. In many cases, national identity comes to the fore when problems arise – when the community is threatened by fracture and secession. The Rouen convent’s experience of Tuite and Barnwell is a striking example of this. Their attraction to an established, enclosed religious house motivated the relocations of Tuite and Burke. But Tuite’s arrival upset communal identity. Its contagion ruptured the community and that threat to unity led to the English nuns’ rejection of any future vocations descended from dual Irish parentage. The identification of members of a community as Irish also occurs when a new foundation is intended. This is the case in the Registers of the Gravelines Poor Clares, which groups the five nuns who left in 1625 thus: ‘These five Religious are of the Irish Nation; who made here their Holy Profession, and went afterwards to found in Ireland.’ The Register records that each is of the Irish nation, but employs a passive construction to narrate their patriotic mission. They were ‘takein forth to begin a house of the same Nation in Dunkerk’. Thence to Nieupoort where they professed another ‘2 of their own Nation and then wear Translated into Ireland’. Whether or not their actions were the result of a patriotic impulse on their own initiative is unclear. But such actions were not necessarily construed as divisive in Gravelines, as suggested by the obituary of Abbess Clare Tildesley, who died at Gravelines in 1654: ‘being Mother of all Cloisters of our holy Order, as well Irish as English, haveing received more than a

24

  Ibid., pp. 280, 284, 281, 282, respectively.   Ibid., p. 156. 26   Ibid., p. 156. 25

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Hundred to the holy Profession’.27 Here the third-person plural speaks to archipelagic ties uniting at least these two of the ‘four nations’. That national identity was a source of contestation and strife is most apparent in the records of the Benedictine convent at Ypres. Originally founded in 1665 as an English foundation, by 1680 the abbess, Marina Beaumont,28 was struggling with a lack of vocations. A confluence of events merged to form a perfect storm. Beaumont sought to hand Ypres over to another English convent, approaching the Benedictines of Pontoise and Paris. At the same time, Abbess Caryll29 of Dunkirk decided to relocate her community. Two Irish members, Mary Joseph Ryan and Mary Alexia Legge, obtained permission to travel to Ireland to raise funds in order to refound Dunkirk as a convent ‘for the Irish nation’.30 En route, they stopped at Ypres, where Beaumont urged them to return there. The obituary of Mother Elizabeth Catherine Conyers,31 written in the Paris Benedictine convent where she had professed, reveals the fragility of maintaining exiled English convents. It tells how Beaumont arrived in Paris in 1680, anxious about the convent’s situation: For her Ladyship happening to have been many years in her Monastery without having profess’d any (excepting one Lay-Sister) and the hous being also ready to fal on their heads, and they in so great poverty of friends & money, that they werre in an impossibility of repairing it, the grand Vicairs of the place, by the long experience they had had of her conduct, dispareing of her ever bringing it to any-thing, threaten’d to give it to the French if she did not very soon get a supply from some Monastery of her own Nation.32

The opposition of French to English lays bare the rivalries contained within the international order.

27   ‘Registers of the English Poor Clares at Gravelines’, CRS, 14 (London, 1914): pp. 34–5, 37 accessed 5 November 2012. The five nuns were Martha Marianna Che[e]vers (1620–c.1646), GP068; Cecily Francis Dillon (1622–53), GP100; Eleanor Mary Joseph Dillon (pf. 1622), GP101; Magdalen Clare Nugent (pf. 1625), GP206; and Mary Peter Dowdel (or Dowdall; pf. 1625), GP102. 28  Marina Beaumont (1637–82), GB011. 29  Mary Caryll (1650–1712), GB040. 30  Nolan, Irish Dames, p. 43; Mary Joseph Ryan (1670–1719), DB144. 31   Elizabeth Catherine Conyers (1665–1703), PB020. 32   ‘Notes and Obituaries of the English Benedictine Nuns of Our Blessed Lady of Good Hope in Paris’, ed. Joseph S. Hansom, CRS, 9 (London, 1911), p. 378 accessed 5 November 2012.

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From Paris, Catherine Conyers was sent to Ypres with her sister Lucy33 and two other nuns. They expended great energy and money on repairs and buildings, even expanding the membership to include English and Dutch (but apparently no French nor Irish) members. Unfortunately for the Paris community, on Beaumont’s sudden death in August 1682, they realized that they had been deceived. The Paris-based annalist recorded that ‘the Religious of Gant, Dunkerk & Pontoise’ had all the while been negotiating with Beaumont ‘to have got it for the Irish Dames Profess’d at their Monasteryes’.34 That the conflict was perceived as one with a strongly national bias is evident from the reported, notarized declaration of Abbess Beaumont herself: That the possession of her Monastery should belong to the English Nunns, which she declared before a Notarie, a little before her Death … in these Express Terms, ‘que plutôt que de souffrir qu’on etablisse en sa maison des Religieuses Irlandoises, elle viendroit a Paris, sur ses 4 pattes’ [That, rather than suffer Irish nuns to be established in her house, she would come on all fours to Paris].

As Nolan drily observes, ‘It mattered little what her intention was, as the monastery was not hers.’35 Nevertheless, her determination to maintain its English character against the threat of its being placed first in French and now in Irish hands chimes with the resolutions of the English Poor Clares at Rouen, who also resolved upon preservation of their convent’s English character. In Abbesss Neville’s annals, the role of the Irish nuns in this intrigue is more fully narrated. On returning from Ireland, Dames Legge and Ryan found themselves embroiled in negotiations in Paris with the Conyers, Abbess Mary Knatchbull36 of Ghent and Abbess Caryll at Dunkirk (who had changed her mind about relinquishing that convent). They enlisted ‘many other frends, espetially Irish, that did endeavour to promote the work’. The matter was decided in favour of the Irish, but not without a final fight. In Neville’s version, the English sisters were the cause of the strife. Dames Ryan and Christina Whyte arrived at Ypres in 1682 (Legge had died in Paris), … but did not enter that Monastery. In regard that Dame Conniers with company from England beeing arrived, stole first into the monastery, disputing 33

 Lucy Conyers (1665–1714), PB021.   ‘English Benedictine Nuns of … Paris’, p. 379. 35  Nolan, Irish Dames, p. 71; his translation. 36  Mary Knatchbull (1628–96), GB118. 34

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and making great clamours but at last, by the authority of very Reverend Father Shirborn, then president of the English Munks, conditions were agreed uppon and the tow Dame Conniers were returned to Paris, Dame Ryan and Dame Christina enterd that monastery.37

Beaumont’s efforts were in vain and the convent was ceded to the Irish. The Ypres convent remained fractious, however. Shortly afterwards, the community spawned two rival missions in Ireland. Dame Mary Joseph Ryan returned again in 1685 and stayed there, co-opting the support of the archbishop of Dublin, Patrick Russell, in founding her own Benedictine school and convent at Channel Row. However, on King James’s accession, he and Lord Deputy Tyrconnell prevailed upon Dame Mary Joseph Butler38 (then abbess of Ypres) to begin a foundation in Dublin. In September 1687, Abbess Neville sent English nuns from Pontoise to help this convent at Ship Street; Butler herself arrived over a year later in October 1688. On the other side, Abbess Caryll sent reinforcements for Ryan at Channel Row from Dunkirk. The controversy that ensued pitched Dunkirk against Ypres, archbishop against lord deputy, Ryan against Butler. Furthermore, Ryan’s obituary and track record suggest that she acted on her own initiative and on a consciously patriotic impulse whereas Butler’s elbow was twisted. Neville recounts how her community was approached by Lady Tyrconnell, ‘in so obliging a manner as coulde not be refusde, the desighne beeing soe much for Gods Glory, and goode of Religion, as obligde vs to send some that might be of aduauntage for such a work’.39 Indeed, the Dublin foundation was described by Neville, in a revealing echo of colonial terminology, as ‘that new plantation’.40 Ryan had lost the support of Archbishop Russell by September 1687. But Butler – who was related to the duke of Ormond and whose brother, Francis, was cup-bearer to James II – had been invited by Lord Deputy Tyrconnell, at the king’s behest. A royal patent was issued in 1689, conceived as ‘our first and chiefe royal monastery of Gratia Dei’.41 The support of the Catholic king was, however, a poisoned chalice. Both convents were broken up after the Williamite wars, that in Ship Street sacked in July 1690. Butler returned to Ypres and Ryan, some years later, to Dunkirk. Despite appearances, this 37   ‘Abbess Neville’s Annals of Five Communities of English Benedictine Nuns in Flanders 1598–1687’, ed. M.J Rumsey, CRS, 6 (London, 1909), pp. 45–6; Christina Whyte (1673–83), OB142. 38  Mary Joseph Butler (1657–1713), OB019. 39   ‘Registers of the English Benedictine Nuns of Pontoise’, CRS, 17 (London, 1915), p. 275 accessed 5 November 2012. 40   ‘Registers of the English Benedictine Nuns of Pontoise’, p. 292. 41  Nolan, Irish Dames, p. 162.

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was less an internecine struggle of the Irish Benedictine community than one of authority, politically as well as spiritually motivated. The moments of starkest clarity and differentiation on the basis of nation, then, occur when such affiliations caused disruption and division in the exiled convents. However, the shared sympathies of English recusants and Irish Catholics are evident in the records where the division of the community is not an issue. Such cases are explicitly framed in archipelagic terms. More importantly, this attention to mutual experience materializes when the coup of securing an eminent noble (or concomitant financial support) accrues prestige to the community. Lady Honora Burke, daughter of Ulick, marquis of Clanrickard and Anne Compton, is a good example. Her obituary in the Ghent Benedictine archive foregrounds the shared ordeals of the 1640s: ‘In the time of those Great and Generall Broyls which Crumwell the cruell Tyrant and usurper had made in England and Ireland, my Lady Marquis came to Ghent with her two Daughters to recide a while, but my Lady Honora was so taken with the monastry that she never left.’ As with the Gravelines Poor Clares, two of the four nations are elevated as allies here. The point is reiterated: ‘she was most piously inclin’d not withstanding all distracted occasions which over run our poor nations.’ But the particular value of Honora’s entry to the novitiate was worldly. She was a high-profile catch. Accordingly, the shared values of the aristocracy are reflected in the shared sufferings of nations. She defied her parents, who had planned for her a socially advantageous marriage. Honora is presented as resisting ‘the contradictions of her mother, who ever had a severe way towards her’. She fell ill, and her eventual deathbed profession is presented as a last-minute escape from her secular fate: The very Day of her obsequies, the Marquis Clynrikett had sent an express to town for her convoyance away from Ghent to prosecute the agreement of a match between my Lady Honora and one of the nobles, little knowing how his family had been lately Illustrated in her espousalls to the king of all true nobility.42

Here, the nun’s status and profile reflect in vindicatory fashion on the community itself. The ironic final twist in the tale casts it as a triumph of spiritual over worldly goals.43 42   ‘Obituary Notices of the Nuns of the English Benedictine Abbey of Ghent in Flanders, 1627–1811’, CRS, 19 (London, 1917), pp. 53–4 accessed 5 November 2012; Honora Burke (1652– 1652, GB032). 43  See the analogous case of Cicely Clare Arundell (1663–1717, RP002), who joined the Poor Clare convent at Rouen to escape an undesired match, although with her father’s consent; ‘History Writing’, Bowden, pp. 226–7.

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Similarly, the English Dominican convent at Brussels was pleased to receive Elizabeth Boyle in 1664. Their records hail not only a convert from Protestantism, but one who was ‘Sprung from the Counts of Cork & Burlington’.44 A scalp from the heart of the Protestant New English aristocracy was worth celebrating. The narrative of her life is careful to hit an inclusive note in its embrace of a unified, shared faith: Under God’s Providence she left Ireland when still a girl, destined to adorn first England & afterwards Belgium with the brightness of her youth & early years … she especially displayed [prudence], when she determined to abjure Protestantism, & embrace the saving Roman Catholic Faith, the ancient faith of the three Kingdoms.45

The discourse of nation, then, is not solely employed to narrate situations of strife. In cases where an Irish novice brought social cachet and a vocation out of the ordinary that endorsed the convent, the more mutual vocabulary of the archipelago was deployed. However, that shared identity is strongest when invisible; when the markers of nationhood are so unimportant as to be entirely unremarked. This is the case with the Bagenal sisters, both members of the English Poor Clare community at Gravelines. Catherine Dominic Bagenal was abbess of this convent from 1705 until her death in 1736. She had professed, with her sister Mary, in February 1691.46 They were daughters of Dudley Bagenal, a prominent Jacobite. Walter Bagenal, their grandfather, had been a Confederate executed by the Cromwellians in Kilkenny in 1652. His son Dudley (b. 1638) was taken into the care of the duke of Ormond, but reverted to Catholicism. His Carlow estates were sequestered and restored by King Charles II in 1660 – and attainted again following his support of King James at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. Dudley went into exile with James’s Court at Saint-Germain, acting as his gentleman usher; he died in Bruges in 1712.47 Of his four daughters, two became Poor Clares and two married English Catholic baronets. Dudley left three bequests in his 44   Her parents are recorded as Thomas Boyle and Alice Modant. Although her father was likely related to Richard Boyle, second earl of Cork and first earl of Burlington, he was not in the direct line: Elizabeth Boyle (1664–1717), BD008. 45   ‘Records of the Nuns of the Second Order’, CRS, 25 (London, 1925), pp. 198–9 accessed 5 November 2012. 46   Catherine Dominic Bagenal (1691–1736), GP019; Mary Bagenal (1691–1709), GP020. 47  Dudley’s eldest son, Walter, converted to Protestantism to regain the family estate, Bagenalstown. For a list of senior household servants including ‘Dudley Bagnoll’ as groom of the bedchamber, see Edward Corp, A Court in Exile: The Stuarts in France, 1689–1718 (Cambridge, 2004), pp. 359, 361.

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list of legacies. The first of these is made ‘To the poor Nuns of Gravelin to pray for the soule of my Grandmothr the Lady Joan Butler’. Joan Butler was daughter to Walter, eleventh earl of Ormond. This is Ualtéir na bPaidrín (Walter of the Beads and Rosary), nephew to Black Tom, the tenth earl, and supporter of Elizabeth Cary, whose infamous conversion to Catholicism in 1626 happened at his London home.48 The other two bequests were conditional, with provisos that they revert to the nuns. One was made out ‘To John Corbett If he has any children lawfully begott but if not to the poor Nunns of Gravelin to pray for his conversion’. The other is less proselytizing and testifies to the importance of the extended family network: ‘To the only son of my kinsman James Buttler of Ballynekill in the County of Tipperary, but if he be dead to the poor Nunns of Gravelin to pray for their souls’.49 The Bagenal sisters were intimately connected with the Irish nobility and royalist activism. But the Gravelines Poor Clare Register makes no reference to their Irish descent nor birth. Their identification as Irish rests on non-convent sources. In some senses, of course, this is as it should be. The religious order is a transnational institution; national and individual identity should be subordinated to, or even subsumed by, the identity of the order and the collective identity of the religious house. It suggests that Irish Catholics living successfully in English convents felt no need to draw upon nor draw attention to affiliations of nation. John Bergin’s study of Irish Catholics who practised law successfully in eighteenth-century London traces their networks, arguing that they were ‘connected by kinship and friendship to each other and to Irish banking and merchant families … [and] represented the political interests of a broader Irish Catholic constituency in London’.50 As Bergin suggestively implies, the Irish Catholic gentry were closer to English elite recusancy than we might assume.51 Moreover, the Bagenal sisters demonstrate that Irish identity was not necessarily of note where the women had settled well into the English convent. In these English convent records, where allusions are made to a sister’s Irishness, these are often as a result of friction, departure, or the urge to establish Irish foundations. The archipelagic frame for understanding 48   Heather Wolfe (ed.), Elizabeth Cary Lady Falkland: Life and Letters (Cambridge, 2001), p. 130. 49   I am indebted to John Bergin for sharing his research on the Bagenals with me. The document quoted is in Staffordshire Record Office, Stafford family collection, D/641/2/K/2/3/3. 50   John Bergin, ‘The Irish Catholic Interest at the London Inns of Court, 1674–1800’, Eighteenth-Century Ireland, 24 (2009): p. 38. 51  See also the working relationship between Abbess Bagenal and the Blundell family of Lancashire: Janet E. Hollinshead, Women of the Catholic Community: The Blundells of South Lancashire during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Wigan, 2010), pp. 117–19.

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shared suffering surfaces in cases where the Irish woman religious is of particular nobility and/or well-financed. It is status, profile and prestige that matter here. The flipside is that, where the social capital of nobility, or the fracturing of community, do not come into play, Irish descent tends not to be noted at all. Many Irish women religious also sought sanctuary in Catholic Spain and Portugal; an archipelagic paradigm that embraces the Iberian Peninsula as well as the English convents in the Low Countries and France would capture such exiles.52 As we have seen, nuns like Tuite and Burke headed first for Spain in the hopes of founding a new convent. Spain was an attractive destination for many Irish refugees, offering military employment and pensions as well as a welcoming environment for persecuted Catholics. Kinship networks played a major role in determining the destination of choice (as, indeed, was the case for English women deciding which order and convent to join). Sr Bridget Barnwell was brought to the English convent at Rouen by her uncle. Similarly, Catherine Quinigham (or Cunningham) joined the English Carmelites at Lierre as a lay sister, having visited her uncle, Edmund Trohy, a doctor who testified to the discovery of Mary Margaret Wake’s incorrupt body at the Antwerp Carmel. As a contrast to Barnwell, it is interesting to note that Quinigham’s obituary remarks: ‘She was naturaly of a hott temper, but constant vigilance gave her an intire conquest over it.’53 It appears that self-discipline might overcome national predisposition. The argument that the country of choice was shaped by ethnic origins – that the Old English preferred France and the Gaelic Irish Spain – has been dominant and heavily influenced by some ‘high profile ethnically framed disputes’ within some of the expatriate male Irish colleges. But this view has been subject to sustained critique over recent years. As Finnegan argues, ‘there is no evidence that the Old English attended French educational institutions any earlier or in significantly greater numbers than the Gaelic Irish; the sources suggest rather the contrary.’54 The complexity of the picture is borne out by analysis of the members at Ypres and Lisbon. Of the 41 nuns based at Ypres from 1682 to 1795 listed by Nolan, 11 names are classed as pre-Norman, Gaelic Irish, or anglicized versions of Gaelic Irish surnames by MacLysaght.55 Sixteen are classed as 52  See also Andrea Knox, ‘The Convent as Cultural Conduit: Irish Matronage in Early Modern Spain’, Quidditas: The Journal of the Rocky Mountain Medieval and Renaissance Association, 30 (2009): pp. 128–40. 53  Nicky Hallett (ed.), Lives of Spirit: English Carmelite Self-Writing of the Early Modern Period (Aldershot, 2007), p. 235. 54   Finnegan, ‘Old English Views of Gaelic Irish History’, pp. 203, 202. 55  Arthur, O’Connor, O’Neile, Wyre, Creagh, Malone, O’Moore, Reilly, Byrne (2), Neville. See Edward MacLysaght, A Guide to Irish Surnames (Dublin, 1964).

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Old English surnames settled since the twelfth-century Norman invasion.56 These figures suggest a 40:60 balance in favour of the Old English but by no means dominance by this ethnic group. Of the 138 names in McCabe’s list of sisters professed at Bom Sucesso, Lisbon, between 1640 and 1796, surnames are supplied for 48 nuns, with the noble parentage of a further three identified. Of these, 41 are of Irish or English ancestry (the remainder Portugese or Spanish, with one Flemish). Of these, 23 are Gaelic Irish, 13 Old English, and five either New English or English.57 The Gaelic Irish make up just over half the sample, but the other communities are healthily represented. Indigenous, rather than exiled, convents could be equally attractive to Irish women with vocations. In his study of Irish exiles in Galicia, Ciaran O’Scea describes a community of five Old Irish Dominican lay nuns (beata). One of their number, Geronima O’Connor, left her house to the local Dominican convent. Two more, Leonor O’Sullivan and Elena McMahon, hoped to enter that convent. The Old English Comerford-Lynch family had one second-generation daughter join the Clarissian convent in Santiago and two women of the next generation in the convent of St Barbara, La Coruña.58 Irish women whose male kin perished in the Spanish army of Flanders petitioned the crown for entry to convents.59 The historian of Irish Franciscans, Benignus Millett, cites a letter of February 1654 from the minister general to Cardinal Barberini, in which he states that ‘he had received three parties of female religious from Ireland, placed them in [presumably Spanish] convents, and given them a gift of many thousands of ducats.’60 There is evidence that the exiled queen, Mary of Modena, sought to place some Irish women in French rather than English convents. In a letter written between 1706 and 1709 to Abbess Beauvais of her preferred convent at Chaillot, she referred to an Irish nun, Eleanor MacCarthy, and her efforts to place MacCarthy’s niece in a suitable convent: 56   Butler (2), Goulde (3), Aylmer, Mandeville, Archbald, Browne (2), Dalton, Nagle (2), Sarsfield, Lynch (2); Nolan, Irish Dames, insert. 57   Gaelic Irish: Shanly, Muscry [Muskerry], O’Daly, Tuomy, MacCarthy, MacCrohan, O’Carroll, O’Kennedy (2), Cleary, O’Ferrall, O’Byrne, O’Thomas, Murrough, Concannon (2), Egan (2), Msc [sic] Donnell (2), O’Neill (2), O’Flynn. Old English: de Burgho, de Butgho [that is, Burgho], ‘daughter of Countess of Fingal’, Barry, Plunkett (2), Tuite, Fanning, French, Lycet [or Lyvet] (2), Scurlog [Sherlock], Archdeacon. New English or English: White, Fox, Springler, Oates, Brett. McCabe, A Light Undimmed, pp. 245–8; MacLysaght, Guide to Irish Surnames. 58   Ciaran O’Scea, ‘The Devotional World of the Irish Catholic Exile in Early Modern Galicia, 1598–1666’, in O’Connor, Irish in Europe, p. 36, n. 37; pp. 40–43. 59   Gráinne Henry, The Irish Military Community in Spanish Flanders, 1586–1621 (Dublin, 1992), p. 75. 60   Benignus Millett, The Irish Franciscans 1651–1665 (Rome, 1964), p. 226.

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A l’esgard de ma S. M. Eléanor de Macarti, je ferai ce que je pourrai pour que l’on garde encore quelque temps sa niece dans le monastère ou elle est, mais cela ne sera pas aisé à obtenir, car ils ne l’ont jamais fait que une fois et ce n’estoit pas à ma recomandation, mais de leur choix.

Some time later, a Chaillot nun writes of her success: ‘La Reine … ordonna pourtant à nre Mère de mander à la Sr M. Eléonore Macarty à St. Antoine qu’elle payeroit la pension de sa nièce la Delle Baret [Barrett] et qu’elle la fit placer à Paris.’61 But despite Irish women’s entry and assimilation into indigenous convents, an insistence on national devotional character could remain important. This is evident in the chronicle of the Irish Poor Clares written in Madrid by their exiled former abbess, Mary Bonaventure Browne. Browne recounted the dispersal of her former community among convents of various Orders in Bilbao, Madrid, Maqueda, Orduña, Salamanca and Valladolid, but remarked that ‘none of those convents aneers, to the stright observance of fasting, sylence, dispropriety, and such other Austerities, of the forementioned convents of Ireland’.62 Sources relating to the exiled English convents supplement our understanding of Irish nuns on the continent in this period, both in numerical terms and with regard to national identity. It is clear that the identification of a nun as Irish occurred when her national affiliation was perceived to have led to tensions within the community. Where deviation from devotional conformity had a national complexion, this was remarked. This is as suggestive of the dominant English character of the exiled convents, and its fragility, as the assertion of Irish identity. The departure of Irish nuns expressly to found convents in Ireland was not in itself construed as divisive. However, it is important to note that the Dublin foundations pursued by the Poor Clares and the Benedictines 61   ‘With respect to Sr Eleanor MacCarthy, I will do what I can in order that her niece may stay longer in the monastery where she is, but this is not easy to achieve, as they have never done that before and it does not depend on my recommendation but on their decision … The Queen has instructed that Sr Eleanor MacCarthy at St Antoine be asked to pay the pension of her niece, Dame Barrett, and that she would place her in Paris’ (my translation): Falconer Madan (ed.), Stuart Papers Relating chiefly to Queen Mary of Modena and the Exiled Court of K. Janes II (2 vols, London, 1889), vol. 1, p. 192; vol. 2, p. 413. King James founded a French school for Irish boys in Paris, 1698, and another in 1701 for Irish girls at Saint-Germain (run by Les Soeurs de Saint-Thomas de Villeneuve); Mary of Modena established a ‘Communauté Royalle de demoiselles angloises, ecossoises et irlandoises de St Germain en Laye’; she also left 6,000 livres in her will to the ‘Communauté des Demoiselles Irlandoises’: Corp, A Court in Exile, p. 150. See also Corp’s essay, ‘The Irish at SaintGermain’, in O’Connor, Irish in Europe, pp. 143–56. 62   Chronicle of Mother Mary Bonaventure Browne, MS, Galway Monastery of the Poor Clares, fol. 10. For a modernized edition, see Celsus O’Brien (ed.), Recollections of an Irish Poor Clare in the Seventeenth Century (Galway, 1993).

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appear to have been motivated at least as much by their male superiors as products of the nuns’ own enterprise. Irish identity is positively represented in these sources when it is aristocratic, and consequently draws honour to the community. In such cases, Irish nobility serves a useful function in validating the convent itself. But Irish nuns whose national identity is inconspicuous are those who settled successfully into the English convents. Such acclimatization, even naturalization, reminds us that our figures for Irish nuns in exile may remain inconclusive; and that future research on Irish women in the indigenous convents of France and the Spanish territories must be sensitive to the circumstances informing visibility. Irish identity occupies a wide spectrum, from the Bagenals’ assimilation to Barnwell’s alienation. If we conceive these relationships through an archipelagic lens, we can be more attuned to the dynamic ways in which they were shaped, defined and absorbed by their host communities.

Chapter 13

Divine Love and the Negotiation of Emotions in Early Modern English Convents Laurence Lux-Sterritt … no love is true but that which is in Him, and for Him, and without impediment to His love. All other loves are false, slippery, perverse, and vain, as not being founded in God, the ground of all true and happy love.1

Thus wrote Gertrude More 2 on the subject of divine love, a spiritual emotion she described as antithetical with its earthly counterpart and which, to her, was the source of all other godly feelings. Her dual interpretation of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ emotions owed much to the widely held belief, derived from Ss Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, that ‘passions’ were symptoms which emanated from the body in order to manifest the disorders of the soul. This perception was a direct consequence of the anthropology of the age, which often opposed the spiritual to the carnal. It suggested that there were two types of emotions: bodily (or worldly) emotions, which were deemed dangerous, and spiritual emotions, which appeared valuable. The study of emotions has recently become the focus of interest in research centres worldwide.3 It has attracted funding from the most prestigious awarding bodies and generated a wealth of excellent publications exploring the new field of ‘emotionology’.4 The lens of emotions studies 1   The Writings of Dame Gertrude More, ed. by Benedict Weld-Blundell (London, 1910), p. 149. 2   Gertrude More (1625–33), CB137. 3   To cite but a few: Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Studies of Emotions (University of Western Australia, dir. Philippa Maddern); Centre for the History of the Emotions (Queen Mary, University of London, dir. Thomas Dixon); CHEP (‘An International Network for the Cultural History of Emotions in Premodernity’); and EMMA (‘Pour une anthropologie historique des émotions au Moyen Âge’, dir. Damien Boquet and Piroska Nagy). 4  Amongst many others, these general publications on emotions in history are most useful: Lucien Febvre, ‘La sensibilité et l’histoire: Comment reconstituer la vie affective d’autrefois?’, Annales d’histoire sociale 3.1/2 (1941): pp. 5–20; Daniel M. Gross, The Secret History of Emotion: From Aristotle’s Rhetoric to Modern Brain Science (Chicago, IL,

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has been used to offer new readings of religious experience(s) in general, and I believe it can yield new and revealing insights into the history of early modern nuns.5 This chapter explores the affectivity of the English Benedictine nuns in exile in the seventeenth century in the Southern Netherlands and in France, and relies mostly on documents which belonged to the houses at Cambrai and Paris.6 Many were never expected to be read beyond the walls of the enclosure.7 I have deliberately chosen to quote them abundantly, in the hope of allowing the nuns’ voices to speak out for themselves, on that most intimate subject of emotions. In conventual writings, the ‘terrene’ affections which emanated from the senses and gratified the appetites were unanimously condemned, whilst only one emotion was praised as holy and spiritual: that of divine love. Zealous contemplative nuns embarked upon a personal crusade against their natural emotions, which they envisaged as obstacles separating them from their divine lover. To achieve their goal, these nuns had to die to the world and to themselves, forsaking any interaction with mundane society and abandoning any sense of their own self-worth. In order to meet such stringent demands, religious women followed various paths, and whilst some found solace in the Jesuit Spiritual Exercises, others such as the Benedictines of Cambrai adopted different types of spiritual techniques to tame their worldly emotions. Yet regardless of the methods they chose, all nuns strove towards the same goal: they hoped to become strangers to the world and to themselves, in order to become wholly available to divine love. Only then, once they were free of all human feelings, could these contemplatives experience perfect union with their heavenly bridegroom. 2006); William M. Reddy, ‘Historical Research on the Self and Emotions’, Emotion Review, 1.4 (2009): pp. 302–15, and The Navigation of Feeling: A Framework for the History of Emotions (Cambridge, 2001); Barbara H. Rosenwein, ‘Worrying about Emotions in History’, American Historical Review, 107.3 (2002): pp. 821–45; Richard Soradji, Emotion and Peace of Mind: From Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation (Oxford, 2000). See also Peter and Carol Stearns, ‘Emotionology: Clarifying the History of Emotions and Emotional Standards’, American Historical Review, 90 (1985): pp. 813–36. 5   The modern taxonomy of ‘emotions’ is used in this chapter as a general term, although the primary sources documenting seventeenth century convents preferred terms such as ‘affects’, ‘appetites’, ‘passions’ or ‘humours’, which all convey similar, though not strictly identical meanings. 6   The Order first settled in Brussels in 1598. This was followed chronologically by another foundation in Cambrai (1623 – under the authority of the English Benedictine Congregation), Ghent (1624), Paris (1650), Boulogne (1652, relocated to Pontoise in 1658), Dunkirk (1662) and Ypres (1665). Ypres ultimately became an Irish house. 7  On the functions of reading and writing in the convent, see Heather Wolfe, ‘Reading Bells and Loose Papers: Reading and Writing Practices of the English Benedictine Nuns of Cambrai and Paris’, in Victoria E. Burke and Jonathan Gibson (eds), Early Modern Women’s Manuscript Writing (Aldershot, 2004), pp. 135–56.

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The Badge of Contemplative Perfection: Dying to the World, to Others and to Oneself ‘Oh, that I could esteeme all things as dunge and filth!’: such was Gertrude More’s cry, as she expressed her determination to feel nothing but disgust for earthly matters.8 Yet in that very exclamation, the tension is clear between her godly intentions to detest the world and her natural tendencies to cling to it despite herself. The personal writings of her sisters at Cambrai show that these feelings were shared by others in the community. How could one hope to know the divine love of God if she remained hindered by lowly human affections? This seemingly unsolvable problem was at the core of all religious life, and especially of female contemplative life, since early modern standards credited women with a more sensual and emotive nature than men. The Catholic Reformation reflected these gendered prejudices when it extended its conception of male religious life to include new, active forms of life, whilst on the contrary reinforcing strict medieval rules for all female religious. In convents, everything was devised in order to curtail women’s reputed natural inclinations to sensual pleasures and to mitigate their emotional weakness. When they joined contemplative communities, women became enclosed in accordance with the 1563 decree of the Council of Trent, later strengthened by Pius V’s 1566 constitution Circa Pastoralis. As new English convents settled in Northern France and in the Spanish Netherlands,9 they had to adapt the architecture of the buildings they purchased to ensure a complete physical separation from the outside world: high walls were built around the houses and gardens, bars were added to windows, parlours were fitted with grates draped in cloth.10 The passing of small items was negotiated through ‘turns’, ingenious swivelling devices which permitted the exchange of goods without any contact between the people involved.11  8   Gertrude More, The Holy practices of a Devine Lover, or the Sainctly Ideots Devotions (Paris, 1657), p. 262.  9   The only exception was the house of Syon, a Bridgettine foundation which settled in Lisbon. 10   On the difficulties of some of these adaptations, see Caroline Bowden, ‘Community Space and Cultural Transmission: Formation and Schooling in English Enclosed Convents in the Seventeenth Century’, History of Education, 34.4 (July 2005): pp. 365–86. 11   In the Constitutions of the Benedictine houses, the chapter on enclosure occupies an important place. See the Brussels Statutes Compyled for the Better Observation of the Holy Rule of the Most Glorious Father and Patriarch S. Benedict (Ghent, 1632), chapter 5, ‘Of the Inclosure’, pp. 18–22. The terms of the enclosure appear particularly rigorous in the Constitutions pour l’observance de la règle du glorieux père et patriarche sainct Benoist, dans le monastère des religieuses bénédictines angloises du titre de Notre–Dame de Bonne– Espérance, sous la supériorité de Monseigneur l’éminentissime cardinal de Retz, archevêque de Paris, et ses successeurs, Bibliothèque Mazarine, Paris, Ms 3326.

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But the idea of separation from the world applied to more than geographical location. The link with the outside had to be broken psychologically as well as spatially; correspondence, the exchange of gifts, even conversations were limited to the minimum and then only under the supervision of the abbess or the prioress.12 Such stringent rules were meant to ensure that new entrants ‘died to the world’ and abandoned the worldly affectivity which was deemed incompatible with the vocation of a contemplative nun.13 In his vivid depiction of life in the Franciscan Dutch convent of Bethlehem in Louvain, Craig Harline showed the dire consequences of laxity in this field: enslaved by their affection for the people they had left behind, indiscreet nuns spent their days at the grate and favoured human company over divine contemplation. Their levity caused public scandal but also affected the convent from within when their unbridled worldliness divided the community into cliques and factions.14 In order to avoid such pitfalls and prepare for divine love, nuns were encouraged to go much further than simply shun the outside world: they had to abandon mundane attitudes even inside the cloister. Prescriptive literature warned them against the dangers of particular friendships (or any particular enmities) and demanded they show the same indifference to one and all.15 One of the English Benedictines from Cambrai testified to the difficulty of such detachment when she confessed her inability to break her friendship with one of her sisters and asked for spiritual guidance on the matter. She felt guilty about this relationship which, although born inside the convent 12  See chapter 40 of the Benedictine Rule, ‘How it is Unlawfull for the Sisters to give or receave any letters or Presents’, or chapter 9, ‘Of letters and Messages’, of the Brussels Statutes; yet, Claire Walker has shown the remarkable discrepancy between the Rule, or the clerical instructions which prohibited correspondence as a threat to the nuns’ commitment to enclosure, and the reality of cloisters’ epistolary activities. See ‘“Doe not Supose me a Well Mortifyed Nun Dead to the World”: Letter-Writing in Early Modern English Convents’, in J. Daybell (ed.), Early Modern Women’s Letter Writing 1450–1700 (Basingstoke, 2001), pp. 159–76. 13   If dying to the world was the ideal of a spiritual life, it was rarely possible to achieve it fully; publications have shown that nuns maintained daily commerce with the outside to ensure the survival of their institutions, and sometimes even to support the Catholic cause outside the convent. For the English Benedictines, see, for instance, Caroline Bowden, ‘The Abbess and Mrs Brown: Lady Mary Knatchbull and Royalist Politics in Flanders in the Late 1650s’, Recusant History, 24.3 (1999): pp. 288–308; Claire Walker, ‘Prayer, Patronage, and Political Conspiracy: English Nuns and the Restoration’, The Historical Journal, 43.1 (2000): pp. 1–23 and ‘Loyal and Dutiful Subjects: English Nuns and Stuart Politics’, in James Daybell (ed.), Women and Politics in Early Modern England, 1450–1700 (Aldershot, 2004), pp. 228–42; or Heather Wolfe, ‘Dame Barbara Constable: Catholic Antiquarian, Advisor and Closet Missionary’, in R. Corthell, F.E. Dolan, C. Highley and A.F. Marotti (eds), Catholic Culture in Early Modern England (Notre Dame, IN, 2007), pp. 158–88. 14   Craig Harline, The Burden of Sister Margaret. Inside a 17th-Century Convent (New York, 2000). 15  See the Benedictine Rule, chapters 53 and 56.

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walls, remained of the same nature as the worldly passions of the secular world. The reply she received was virulent, to say the least: its author took on the voice of God and, in this persona, reproved the penitent: … through a complacence which she hath for a gentlewoman that is in the convent … she loves better to comply with her then me & to be tyed to her then me. When this creature comes to see her in her cell, she chases me away from her to receave her, & she thinkes no more on me, but thinkes only of deverting herselfe with her … Thus they spoyle one another, & incourage one another to love the world, instead of incouraging one another to love nothing but me.16

This passage illustrates why it was so essential that a religious woman should die to all other creatures: her passions ‘spoiled’ her, they contradicted the very raison d’être of her religious vocation, since they distracted the soul from God. Interestingly, the object of the nun’s affection is referred to as a ‘gentlewoman’ rather than a nun. She may have been a secular woman boarding for a time with the nuns, but it is equally possible that the term was used slightingly as an indictment of the worldly temperament of a woman who should have been more spiritually inclined. The perfect religious was supposed to consider secular affectivity as incompatible with her godly vocation. In Cambrai, Gertrude More made it clear that earthly love turned the soul into ‘a slave’ of passions.17 God only should be the object of a nun’s emotions, whilst she should remain indifferent to everything else: ‘Shall I any more be so miserable as, by loving, having, adhering to, or desiring any created thing, to become estranged from Thee, in Whom I have placed all my hope, love, and desire?’18 These feelings were shared by her co-sister, Margaret Gascoigne,19 who was determined to free her soul of worldly attachments: O love, how strong art thou! Thou, O love, I say, that wast able to draw my Saviour & Redeemer into this vaile of miserie; when wilt thou forcibly draw me from the love of earthly and faiding things, & farther from the inordinate & pestilent love of my owne selfe that is the root and spring of all other my corrupt & vitious love?’20

16  Archives départementales du Nord (hereinafter ADN), Lille, Ms 20H–43: Just reproaches of our Lord to a soule who will not free herselfe from the love of a creature, nor herselfe. Considerations to love our Lord, & that a creature is unworthy to be loved by us for her owne sake, or in regard of herselfe. 17   The Writings of Dame Gertrude More, p. 20. 18  Ibid., p. 13. 19  Margaret Gascoigne (1629–37), CB077. 20   Ibid., p. 66.

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Those were strong words, opposing divine union to a human love which was described here as ‘corrupt’ and ‘vicious’: it was an animal emotion born from the baser instincts of flawed, carnal individuals who sought nothing but their own gratification. Such emotions were not only considered misdirected, they were to be shunned as degenerate and sinful. And as Gascoigne’s quotation indicates, the root of such evil was to be found in the most ‘pestilent’ sort of love, which was the love of oneself. Thus, in the same way as nuns died to the world outside and to other people, they also endeavoured to leave behind their secular selves and their emotional weaknesses. Their new names in religion, which replaced those they were given at birth, symbolized the death of their secular beings and the birth of a new religious identity inspired by the holiness of the saint whose name was adopted. In the cloister, the self was to be progressively subdued in order to allow nuns to become blank slates on which the divine spirit would inscribe its will. This could be achieved through mortification of the senses (through physical asceticism), as well as the humiliation of emotions (through moral asceticism). It required constant effort on the part of the nun, who was to wield a daily battle against temptations. Christina Brent,21 who served as abbess of the Cambrai Benedictines between 1641 and 1645 and again from 1677 to 1681, wrote soliloquies in which her intellect warned her soul of the dangers to which it was exposed. The soul’s enemies, she wrote, were ‘the world, the divill and our owne sensuality’. Freeing one’s soul from these perils was ‘the payne upon which in effect all our successes depend’.22 Acutely aware that affections were natural to her, she urged her soul to embrace this fight with unfailing courage. From the moment she became a novice, Christina Brent viewed her vocation in terms of hardship and struggle: Our life is truly said to be a warfare upon earth, there being a continuall combat to be undertaken against the world and the divill besides our owne evill affections & unruly passions which joyne with our enemies, in which respect it is necessarie to be ever armed both with expectations of difficulties and resolution to go through them, always calling to mind that glorious victories are only gained in hard enterprises … .23

Thus, the pursuits of a religious woman became shrouded with the aura of a mystical quest, a mission in enemy territory. One was to fight every moment of every day to overcome one’s ‘passions’ and navigate through a minefield of temptations and sins. 21

  Christina Brent (1629–81), CB015.  ADN, Ms 20H–10, f. 771. 23  ADN, Ms 20H–10, Reflexions when she was Novice, f. 815. 22

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Conventual manuscripts portrayed emotions as factors disrupting a life which was otherwise regulated in its smallest details.24 Such disorders, emanating from the body, were impediments to a contemplative vocation. Christina Brent even compared those who followed their worldly feelings to horses and mules and chastised them for ‘becoming slaves to creatures, lyeing, groveling in the base filth of earthly pleasures, no otherwise then as beasts following their sensuall Appetites, or rather being inthralled unto them’.25 To her, those religious who slavishly complied with the demands of what she called ‘the inferior portion of the soule’ betrayed their very purpose in life; they partook of the great lie which gave false value to earthly things.26 As such, they were guilty of abandoning God’s design for them by not exercising the spiritual or intellectual portion of their souls. Similar opinions were voiced by many nuns, and echoed clerical treatises.27 When the prioress of the Paris community, Justina of Santa Maria Gascoigne28 encouraged her sisters ‘to forsake & renounce your selfe’, and ‘to [l]earne to acustome your selfe to mortifie your undue inclinations & affections’.29 In order to domesticate ‘unruly passions’, religious women must mortify natural feelings such as ‘anger, impatience, melancholy, fear, or scrupulosity’ and cultivate ‘peace, tranquillity, and cheerfulness, not suffering passions to be raised in our mind’.30 Paths to Contemplative Perfection: Choosing One’s Way to God The raison d’être of any contemplative vocation was to forsake one’s personal affective bonds to the world in order to give oneself entirely to God. As they endeavoured to shake off the shackles of earthly emotions, religious women were helped by a great abundance of prescriptive literature and clerical guidelines. Most influential were the three monastic vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, designed to guard nuns against sin, and to which the Benedictines added a fourth promise of ‘conversion of [their]

24  St Augustine, bishop of Hippo (354–430) and St Thomas Aquinas (1224–74) strongly influenced the early modern approach to emotions. 25  ADN, Ms 20H–10, f. 781. 26   Ibid., f. 783. 27   See Book II, chapter IX on ‘The mortification of the affections’ by Augustine Baker, in Contemplative Prayer: Ven. Father Augustine Baker’s Teaching thereon from “Sancta Sophia”, ed. by Benedict Weld-Blundell (London, 1907), pp. 138–40. 28   Justina of Santa Maria Gascoigne (1638–90), CB075. 29   Colwich Abbey, Ms H71, Justina Gascoigne’s Instructions to Chapter, ff. 38–39. 30  Augustine Baker, in Contemplative Prayer, Weld-Blundell, p. 70.

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manners’.31 At Cambrai, Christina Brent referred to these four vows in martial terms, as weapons which allowed her nuns to win their battle against their worst enemies.32 The goal was to crucify the flesh through abnegation and a ‘mortification of the senses’.33 The vow of chastity ‘disengages & purifies the heart from sensuall & carnall affections’;34 what is meant by chastity here does not encompass sexual urges only, but all sensuality. It is well-known that, in some Orders, particularly zealous individuals acted against their bodies with sometimes troubling violence. Some ate only the leftovers of their sisters’ meals. Others poured ashes on their portions to spoil the taste and quenched their thirst only with vinegar. Others still used the discipline until their habits and the walls of their cells were stained in blood.35 On the other hand, English Benedictines generally (and those in Cambrai more specifically) appear to have been somewhat wary of such excesses, which could cause overzealous nuns to think themselves more deserving than their sisters.36 With few exceptions, the English Dames preferred less ostentatious exercises of abstinence, whose only goal was to please God in all humility, through His will rather than their own. Such abnegation aimed at freeing nuns from their own self-will and vanquishing all sense of their own selfworth; it was a form of spiritual obedience to God. In a manual destined for the novices at Cambrai, the author reminded new recruits that the vow of poverty was also a precious ally in the humiliation of the self. Since most English Benedictines came from the upper echelons of society, they had been raised with a certain sense of their social worth; many were used to being addressed with deference and enjoyed delicate apparel as well as the finer things in life.37 When they abandoned these privileges to enter the convent, they became equal in religion to the other choir sisters, their private property became communal and their natural pride was chastised. 31  See, for instance, ADN, Ms 20H–11: ‘Povertie, Chastitie and Obedience and Conversion of my manners’, profession of faith by Joan Seller, 20 March 1631 at Cambrai. 32  ADN, Ms 20H–10: ‘It is an empire conquest commaund not over men but the spiritual enemies of our souls, the world, the flesh, the divill, by a religious poverty, chastitie and obedience.’ 33  ADN, Ms 20H–37, Love of God, f. 145. 34  ADN, Ms 20H–17, A Short Treatise on the Three Principall Vertues and Vows of Religious Persons, ff. 129–130. 35  See my Redefining Female Religious Life: French Ursulines and English Ladies in Seventeenth-Century Catholicism (Aldershot, 2005), pp. 168–74. 36  ADN, Ms 20H–31, Advice to Beginners. 37  See the Brussels Statutes, chapter 2, ‘Of Povertie’, pp. 11–14. See also Silvia Evangelisti’s study of Italian convents, ‘Monastic Poverty and Material Culture in Early Modern Italian Convents’, Historical Journal, 47.1 (2004): pp. 1–20.

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Moreover, monastic vows were buttressed by clerical guidance on how to tame natural inclinations. Nuns were taught to rely upon the counsel of their directors and advised never to enter into any spiritual exercises unsupervised since, despite their good intentions, the outcome was likely to be blighted by their flawed nature. They were warned that, if they relied on their own decisions, they would misuse their time according to ‘their fancy’ and stray in their choice of books or their practice of meditation. They would not see ‘their vices, their Passions and spiritual necessities which, for want of that assistance, lurk in them undiscovered or if seen they appear in borrowed dresses, which self love never fails to clothe them with’.38 It was taken as a universal truth that clerical guidance was crucial to the progress of religious women. Jesuit direction was in great demand in continental convents in the post-Trent Spanish Netherlands and France. This did not apply only to active congregations, but also to enclosed teaching Orders and sometimes to more traditionally contemplative institutions.39 In the particular context of English Catholicism, it also seems likely that many nuns would have had prior experience of Jesuit confessors at home, in their recusant circles; amongst the Benedictines, several sisters counted Jesuits amongst their close kin. It is therefore not surprising that many Benedictine convents should have relied on Jesuit directors and spirituality, especially since several of them were founded before the revival of the English Benedictine Congregation.40 However, supervision by Jesuit directors did not suit all nuns, especially when, with time, the initial flexibility of Loyola’s Exercises evolved towards a set method of meditation which tended to exclude mystical forms of spirituality.41 Amongst the English Benedictines, some communities argued about the thorny issue of spiritual directors. Although the house in 38

 ADN, Ms 20H–28, Directions for the Retreat.   The Jesuit example influenced the missionary vocation of Mary Ward’s institute; see M.C.E. Chambers, The Life of Mary Ward (1585–1645), 2 vols (London, 1882–85); Henriette Peters, Mary Ward: A World in Contemplation, trans. by Helen Butterworth (Leominster, 1994); or Immolata Wetter, ‘Mary Ward’s Apostolic Vocation’, The Way, supplement 17 (1972): pp. 69–91. It also had great impact upon teaching Orders such as the French Ursulines; see Philippe Annaert, Les Collèges au féminin: Les Ursulines; Enseignement et vie consacrée aux dix-septième et dix-huitième siècles (Namur, 1992); or Marie-Andrée Jégou, Les Ursulines du faubourg Saint-Jacques à Paris 1607–1662. Origines d’un monastère apostolique (Paris, 1981). 40   The revival of the English Benedictine Congregation began in 1607 and was made official in 1633 by Urban VIII’s Bull known as ‘Plantata’. 41   Claire Walker notes that ‘One of the proponents of this school was Alfonso Rodríguez whose Practice of Perfection and Christian Virtues reduced Loyola’s spirituality to conventional practicality’. See Gender and Politics in Early Modern Europe: English Convents in France and the Low Countries (Basingstoke, 2003), p. 141. 39

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Brussels had initially allowed Jesuit confessors, Abbess Joanna Berkeley42 soon wished to withdraw her community from the Society’s influence. This provoked the outrage of some of the sisters, such as Lucy Knatchbull43 or Mary Roper Lovel,44 who decided to leave the house with the intention of founding a new one under the Society’s direction. Although this early 1609 attempt failed, it foreshadowed the developments of 1624, when Lucy Knatchbull was part of a small group who left Brussels to found a new community in Ghent under the Jesuits’ spiritual care.45 In the late 1620s and early 1630s, the already troubled house in Brussels became divided into two clans: those who insisted upon Jesuit confessors and those who, on the contrary, would not have them.46 The Brussels dispute has been the object of fine studies, and it is not the purpose of this chapter to try to unravel the complex factors which caused such troubles in the community.47 It will suffice to say that this episode was revealing of the nuns’ commitment to self-determination in matters of spiritual direction. If they were to ‘kill the old Adam in [themselves]’,48 religious women ought to be allowed to choose a method which was suitable to their personal inclinations and which they found helpful, rather than restrictive or burdensome. In the pursuit of appropriate means to seek divine love, some felt that the structure of the Ignatian Exercises did not bear fruit, and opted for a different type of spirituality. Thus, in Cambrai, the community came to reject Jesuit direction as unsuited to Benedictine life. In an echo of the complaints made by her sisters in Brussels,49 Dame Gertrude More explained that, though the Exercises were perfectly suited to the Jesuits, they were not at all so for enclosed nuns, since Loyola had

42

  Joanna Berkeley (1581–1616), BB015.  Lucy Knatchbull (1611–29), BB107. 44  Mary Roper Lovel (1564–1628, left before her clothing). 45   The community at Pontoise – a daughter house from Ghent – later became another staunch defender of the method propounded in the Spiritual Exercises. 46   Claire Walker, ‘Securing Souls or Telling Tales? The Politics of Cloistered Life in an English Convent’, in Cordula Van Wyhe (ed.), Female Monasticism in Early Modern Europe: an interdisciplinary view (Aldershot, 2008), pp. 227–44. 47   Peter Guilday, The Catholic Refugees on the Continent, 1558–1795 (London, 1914); David Lunn, The English Benedictines, 1540– 1688: From Reformation to Revolution (London, 1980); Claire Walker, ‘Securing Souls or Telling Tales?’. 48   Tobie Matthew (ed.), The Life of Lady Lucy Knatchbull (London, 1931), p. 394. 49  Agnes Lenthall had complained to Archbishop Jacob Boonen: ‘the speret and derections of the fathers of the Societie of Jesus is quite diferent from the simplicities of our holye Rule, and that ther directions and examples hath wrought such effects that ther is little left since of the Rule of S Benedict amoungst us … ’, in AAM, Fonds Kloosters, Englese Benedictijnen/12, Agnes Lenthall to Jacob Boonen, 18 January 1629. 43

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devised his method for men in an active vocation, and never intended them for female contemplatives.50 Cambrai was somewhat atypical, since it was to develop its own unique spiritual identity. In July 1624, the newly established community had welcomed a member of the freshly restored English Benedictine Congregation, Augustine Baker (1575–1641), as their spiritual guide. During his nine-year stay, Baker transformed the spiritual course of the community, to the extent that Cambrai’s very identity became known as ‘Bakerite’ and remained so long after Baker’s departure in 1633 and his death in 1640.51 In this particular brand of spirituality, nuns were allowed to undertake their spiritual journey at their own pace, improving their contemplation gradually, according to their own capacities.52 Gertrude More expounded this flexibility, which she opposed to the Jesuit practices which ‘all uphold the same form, and grow in all things too rigid for other Orders.’53 Baker’s way, she claimed, allowed her ‘to reform [her]self in all inordinate affections to created things, and this more by quietness than by extraordinary force’. She believed with Baker that, if rid of its earthly hindrances, the soul would naturally follow its spiritual vocation and soar toward God. She wrote: ‘If we should die unto ourselves / And all things else but Thee, / By natural impulse would our souls / Ascend and closely be / United to our Centre dear, / To which our souls would hie, / Because as proper then to us / As fire to upwards fly.’54 Gertrude More praised the simplicity of Baker’s way, which sought to empty the penitent of all worldly emotions or representations, to allow her to be penetrated by the Holy Spirit. She implicitly criticized the Ignatian method when she wrote that ‘every image of a created thing is an impediment to the said simplicity, and therefore it is to be rejected when the soul applieth itself immediately to God.’55 Contrary to the Ignatians, Baker gave much leeway to the penitent soul to follow her own path, without relying on specific exercises or images. The nun was to abandon herself to God entirely. Through this vacuum, she became an expression of 50

  The Writings of Dame Gertrude More, pp. 250–52.  On the subject of Augustine Baker’s manuscripts and spiritual heritage, see Anselm Cramer, ‘“The Librarie of the Howse”: Augustine Baker’s Community and their Books’, in Analecta Cartusiana, 204 (2002): pp. 103–10; Claire Walker, ‘Spiritual Property: The English Benedictine Nuns of Cambrai and the Dispute over the Baker Manuscripts’, in Nancy E. Wright, Margaret W. Ferguson and A.R. Buck (eds), Women, Property and the Letter of the Law in Early Modern England (Toronto, 2004), pp. 237–55. 52  See David Lunn, ‘Augustine Baker (1575–1641) and the English Mystical Tradition’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 26.3 (July 1975): pp. 267–77. 53   The Writings of Dame Gertrude More, p. 251. 54  Ibid., p. 33. 55   Ibid., p. 229. 51

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the medieval ‘empty vessel’, a holy receptacle to be filled with the divine.56 One nun used this image in a lovely metaphor, urging her sisters to make themselves available to God: ‘Thou art to be fild with good. Poure out the evell. Imagin that God would fill thee with hony: if thou art filld with vinegar, where wilt thou put the hony.’57 This pure soul, or virgin spirit, became ‘as a cleare glasse without spot’.58 From this stage onwards, divine love would fill the soul entirely and make it ever purer, in a selfperpetuating process. As the example of Cambrai illustrates, nuns strongly believed that the wrong type of guidance was likely to hinder their spiritual journey and to foster worldly emotions – such as frustration, desperation, anger and fear – all of which conspired to keep them away from the one, perfectly spiritual emotion which they sought: divine love. Divine Love as the Ultimate Spiritual Emotion On the way to perfect union with their heavenly bridegroom, women religious practised devotional exercises meant to effect a deep change in the inner portion of their souls. Yet despite their best efforts to soar towards the divine, they remained beings of flesh and blood; time and again, they bemoaned this obstacle to mystical union, this flesh upon the wings of the soul ‘which makes it unable to fly’.59 The Platonic image of the soul as entombed in the body was recurrent in their writings; Gertrude More, for instance, referred to her carnal shell as a ‘grievious burden of flesh and blood’.60 Later, Christina Brent lamented: ‘The bodie is my onlie burden.’61 Since the body was such a hindrance to contemplative perfection, many nuns looked forward to death as a happy moment, a long-awaited passage to a better state where they would be free from the slavery of base human emotions. One author argued that those who truly love God ‘court eternall life, they lament the delay’.62 Death, the object of so much trepidation in most living creatures, became a desirable liberation, a liminal moment in which the nun would finally be born unto her spiritual self. Gertrude More, in her exercises, envisaged her own death as a deliverance: ‘who 56  See Caroline Walker Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA, 1987). 57  ADN, Ms 20H–40, writings on Love, ‘God is to be loved before all things’ (item 2). 58   Ibid., item 10. 59  ADN, Ms 20H–40, item 23. 60   Gertrude More, The Holy Practices of a Devine Lover, p. 56. 61  ADN, Ms 20H–10, f. 287. 62  ADN, Ms 20H–40, Writings on Love, item 4.

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shall deliver mee from the Bodye of this Death? … I desire to be dissolved, and to be with Christ.’ To her, this life on earth was a time of trial and spiritual death and, in reverse, she expected her physical death to usher her spiritual renaissance in perfect union with her heavenly spouse. She longed for death, which alone would allow her finally to know divine love: ‘When shall this earthly Tabernacle be dissolved, and my soule be made one with thee?’63 Such rhetoric was common in the devotions of early modern religious women, and typical of the Benedictines of Cambrai. For the accomplished religious, death was therefore not a source of anxiety or fear, since it put a stop to decades of slavery to the body, its distempers, and its vile natural emotions. Death heralded the beginning of a truly spiritual fulfilment in which the nun, united with God, would experience the only supremely worthy emotion of divine love. On her deathbed, the zealous contemplative took care ‘to dispose her soule for the sweet embraces of her heavenly spows’,64 before she ‘passed to her reward’ or ‘rendered her pious soul into the hands of her creator’.65 From this perspective, death was understood as freeing, since it allowed, finally, the full experience of divine union.66 It was when contemplating this blissful prospect of disembodied divine union that nuns resorted to the most affective language to be found in their manuscripts. In evocation of their bridegroom, in expectation of his love, these censors of worldly passions wrote with nothing less than intense emotions. ‘O my Happynesse! O my only delight! O joye of my hart! O my Hope, my sollace, my beginninge, and end!’67 The breathless rhythm of Gertrude More’s short interjections combined vividly with the repetition of exclamation marks to communicate the ardour of her emotions and the fire of her desire for her divine lover. With the reiteration of the pronoun ‘my’, More expressed her affective bond with her God, her sense of belonging to Him, and of being nothing but Him.68 In the happy state she dreamed of, after her liberation from human weakness and debilitating 63  Augustine Baker (ed.), The Spiritual Exercises of the Most Vertuous and Religious D. Gertrude More, pp. 139 and 150 respectively. 64   ‘Abbess Neville’s Annals of the Five Communities’, ed. Mary Justina Ramsey, CRS, 6 (London, 1909), p. 31; Eugenia Pulton’s obituary. 65  Obituary of Mary Vavasour, in Obituaries of the Brussels Benedictines, Downside Abbey, ff. 90–91. On the functions of obituary writing in the convent, see Caroline Bowden, ‘Collecting the Lives of Early Modern Women Religious: Obituary Writing and the Development of Collective Memory and Corporate Identity’, Women’s History Review, 19.1 (2010): pp. 7–20. 66   Gertrude More, The Holy Practices of a Devine Lover, p. 68. 67  Baker, The Spiritual Exercises, p. 152. 68  See Marion Norman, ‘Dame Gertrude More and the English Mystical Tradition’, Recusant History, 15.1 (May 1979): pp. 196–211.

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passions, her ‘Happynesse’, ‘delight’, ‘joye’, ‘hope’, or ‘solace’ all sprang from union with Jesus Christ and were therefore divine in nature, to be differentiated from the baser kinds of natural emotions. Such heightened feelings were the goal for which all zealous nuns yearned in their pursuit of spiritual perfection and divine love. More’s co-sister, Margaret Gascoigne, also proclaimed her longing for this holy union: Yet art thou my most true Lord & lover, & I will yet farther presume to say, & againe & againe to say, that thou art hee whom my soule desireth, longeth, & coveteth to love … Come, O come, my most sweet Lord, into the garden of my soule, & gather the fruites of my labour; Come I beseech thee, on whom I desire to bestow the fruites of all mine actions.69

In Gascoigne’s writings, the word ‘desire’ featured recurrently, as did evocations of ardour, yearning, longing and pining. The same longing was also expressed poignantly in this anonymous document: O my dearest Lorde and my God, O my best beloved spouse and friend choosen above all others. O my love, my refuge, my joy, and whatsoever my heart can desire? … O that my soule with all its powers myght perfectly be united unto thee, never more to be separated from thee, but allwaise to rest in thee, that so enjoying thy sweet embraces it may be drowned and melted into thy owne divine substance.70

In this passage, as in so many others, the nun conveyed her anticipated happiness at the time of her intimate union with the divine lover through highly sensual prose in which she called upon all of her senses to represent the perfection of her bliss. Thus, she could feel her bridegroom’s ‘sweet embraces’ and through the common metaphors of drowning or melting, she merged entirely with God and became lost in His immensity. Gertrude More used the same images when she wrote of being ‘drowned and swallowed up in that ocean of Divine Love’ or of melting away through the excess of her passion.71 She yearned to be penetrated and filled by divine love and she called, breathless: ‘O love! love! flow into my soul that I may sigh and pant after God alone and praise this my Beloved for all eternity!’72 Such emotive prose was typical of that left by her Benedictine sisters at Cambrai, and it echoed the rich heritage of the European mystics who have 69

  Ibid., p. 58.  ADN, Ms 20H–37, On the Love of God, f. 185. 71   The Writings of Dame Gertrude More, p. 77. 72   Ibid., p. 108. 70

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fascinated both historians and literary scholars for decades. Divine love was, in turn, a burning furnace of love, a dart piercing the heart through and through, an ocean in which to swim or drown, or a vivifying fountain at which to quench one’s spiritual thirst. These images were reminiscent of those used by holy exemplars such as St John of the Cross, or Teresa of Àvila. Through the ages, mystical union with God was ever expressed in the language of the senses and emotions. The physical and affective nature of the mystical experience was actually one of the reasons why the clerical authorities of Teresa’s Spain held the alumbrados in the highest suspicion, and why Teresa herself had to prove the godly origin of her ecstasies.73 The emotive expression of the spiritual experience of divine love was as mysterious to contemporaneous witnesses as it is now. Modern studies of mysticism have duly noted the vibrant sensuality, or indeed the eroticism, of the accounts documenting mystical encounters with God.74 Yet, the nuns’ amorous longings and their experiences of divine penetration may not be best interpreted as sexual arousal or indeed orgasmic pleasure.75 These modern and secular readings fail to take into account that the religious women who felt such physical expressions of their union with God experienced them as entirely different from animal appetites. As the brides of Christ sought to unite with their heavenly bridegroom, they were consumed by a desire which far transcended any human love: these were the spiritual affects of spiritual creatures.76 If any confusion between divine love and its base human counterpart was permitted, the fault lay with the very limits of human language, since divine lovers had no other words but those of earthly love to express their spiritual transports. Those were constraints which could not be overcome. Reflecting upon this seeming contradiction, French philosopher Simone Weil once wrote that ‘To reproach mystics with loving God by means of the faculty of sexual love is as though one were to reproach a painter with making pictures by means of colors composed of material substances. We haven’t anything else with which to love.’77 And indeed, many times did nuns lament the 73  See Gillian T. W. Ahlgren, Teresa of Àvila and the Politics of Sanctity (Ithaca, NY, 1996), p. 15; and Stephen Haliczer, Between Exaltation and Infamy: Female Mystics in the Golden Age of Spain (Oxford, 2002). 74  Amongst others, see Amy Hollywood, Sensible Ecstasy: Mysticism, Sexual Difference and the Demands of History (Chicago, IL, 2002); Elizabeth Petroff, Body and Soul: Essays on Medieval Women and Mysticism (New York, 1994). 75   Caroline Walker Bynum (ed.), Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender and the Human Body in Medieval Religion (New York, 1992), p. 86. 76   Thomas Dubay, S.M., Fire Within: St. Teresa of Àvila, St. John of the Cross, and the Gospel – On Prayer (San Francisco, CA, 1989), p. 41. 77  Simone Weil, The Notebooks of Simone Weil, trans. Arthur Wills (2 vols, London, 1956), vol. 2, p. 472.

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inadequacy of such words to convey divine emotions; Gertrude More herself remarked: ‘Who can express what passeth between such a soul and Thee? verily neither man nor Angel is able to do it sufficiently.’78 What was expressed in the language of emotions was in fact experienced on a different level altogether, spiritually, and that only when the bride of Christ had managed to eradicate her own, human passions. Successful nuns became one with their God by transcending the humours or passions of this mortal coil. In this heightened spiritual experience, Augustine Baker explained, ‘The soul is now so elevated in spirit that she seems to be all spirit, and, as it were, separated from the body.’79 Thus it appears that the early modern understanding of emotions or ‘passions’ as the undesirable affects of distempered bodies led religious women to consider feelings as contradictory with a contemplative vocation. Helped by their monastic vows, and guided by prescriptive literature and clerical advice, zealous nuns tried to root out emotions from their lives: they cut themselves off from the pleasures of the world, forsook personal friendships and sought humility in an effort to experience the affective vacuum which alone could allow them to be entirely receptive to divine love. This life on earth was a time of trials where contemplatives attempted symbolically to die to the world’s physicality, which kept them away from their spiritual rebirth in Christ; yet there was hope, for successful abstraction from emotions was rewarded with divine union: … as soon as the world is cast forth & the heart is cleansed from all longation of sinn & affection to creatures, presently the entire satiating & ravishing Love of the eternal spouse Jesus Christ Crucified enters and takes full possession thereof.80

Women religious’ rapport with emotions was, however, more complex than this dichotomy between evil, worldly feelings and godly, spiritual affects. In the case of the Bakerite spirituality embraced by the English Benedictines of Cambrai, union with God was experienced in highly physical, emotive ways. The Cambrai nuns owed much to the mystical heritage of earlier times and although they themselves did not report divine visions, raptures, or ecstasies, they partook of the same movement which valued an immediate (unmediated) experience of divine love. What they felt during moments of perfect prayer, in contemplation of their heavenly bridegroom, was by necessity experienced through the body and 78

  Ibid., p. 8.  Augustine Baker, in Contemplative Prayer, p. 412. 80  ADN, Ms 20H–17, A Short Treatise on the Three Principall Vertues and Vows of Religious Persons, ff. 122–23. 79

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its emotions. Although these spiritual emotions were construed as entirely distinct from animal passions, they did find their source in the body, and expressed themselves in joy, tears, or sensory images such as burning or drowning. Hence, it seems that the corporal shell which nuns sought to subjugate – or even to escape altogether – if it could be a hindrance to contemplative perfection, could also be the very locus of the experience of divine love, and the opportunity for spiritual bliss.

Chapter 14

Avoiding ‘Rash and Imprudent Measures’: English Nuns in Revolutionary Paris, 1789–18011 Carmen M. Mangion Introduction Late eighteenth-century outbursts of French republicanism and anticlericalism threatened the security of the communities of English nuns who had lived in exile in France since the mid-seventeenth century.2 The English religious communities were not suppressed in 1790 as were the French religious, but after the French Revolutionary Wars began in 1793, English convents were targeted for closure and appropriation, and several communities were imprisoned. Each community had its own stories of the perils of living in a revolutionary state and, for those who fled, the hazards of their journey and sometimes a surreptitious escape, to England. This chapter will focus on the experiences of the three communities of English nuns residing in Paris – the Augustinians, the Benedictines and the Conceptionists – in order to understand how English communities in the French capital avoided ‘rash and Imprudent Measures’ through selective compromise and accommodation and engaging in the political act of petitioning. The chapter is divided into three sections. The first reveals the relationship of the English communities with ‘intruded’ clergy (those who took civil oaths required by the French state) and revolutionary officials. The second recounts the nuns’ prodigious efforts at continuing their spiritual lives and following their Rule despite the illicitness of their religious activities. The third examines the political discourse used by the English nuns in order to maintain their religious life and retain their properties. Primary sources disclose women fearful of imprisonment and

1   I am indebted to Laurence Lux-Sterritt, Caroline Bowden, Gemma Betros, Tonya Moutray and the anonymous reviewer of this chapter for their concise comments and critiques of this chapter. 2   For more on the English convents in exile see ‘History Writing’, ed. Caroline Bowden, English Convents, vol. 1, pp. xxxix–xlii.

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violence3 but willing to take risks to maintain some semblance of their spiritual lives. They were doggedly convinced of their rights as British and French subjects to maintain their way of life as well as the property they owned and managed. The lives of the English nuns were shaped by the events of revolutionary France, although the legislation was directed towards the French Catholic church. After the creation of the National Constituent Assembly4 on 9 July 1789, anticlericalism, rationalism and utilitarianism shaped state policies. The early years of the French Revolution5 dramatically altered the relationship between church and state: church privileges were eliminated and church properties confiscated.6 Religious life, and contemplative religious life in particular,7 was seen as non-productive, disloyal to the state and incongruent with Enlightenment values, but perhaps more saliently, religious communities were seen as wealthy enough in property and goods to bolster the finances of the nation. Legislation on 28 October 1789 forbade the admission of new entrants to religious communities; solemn vows were suspended and finally banned in February 1790.8 Throughout 1790 and 1791, municipal authorities visited religious houses creating an inventory of their property and material contents, sometimes vehemently reminding their occupants that they were free to leave.9 On 12 July 1790, the Civil Constitution of the Clergy nationalized the church, placing it under government control; in November, the government required all members of the secular clergy to swear an oath to the Constitution. Because of clerical resistance in Paris, on 11 April 1791, all non-juring 3  Olwen Hufton recounts several violent reprisals against French nuns including the public thrashing of nuns by les dames de la Halle in Paris. Betros notes female religious were attacked in at least ten Parisian parishes: Olwen H. Hufton, Women and the Limits of Citizenship in the French Revolution (Toronto, 1992), pp. 73–4; Gemma M. Betros, ‘The female religious communities of Paris during the French Revolution and First Empire, 1789– 1815’, unpublished University of Cambridge dissertation (2007), p. 82. 4   The National Constituent Assembly, hereafter the National Assembly, was created on 9 July 1789. It was replaced by the Legislative Assembly on 1 October 1791. 5  Most historians date the French Revolution to the storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789: T.C.W. Blanning, The Origins of the French Revolutionary Wars (Harlow, 1996), p. 36. 6  Nigel Aston, Religion and revolution in France, 1780–1804 (Basingstoke, 2000). 7   The religious state has two main forms. Contemplative, solemn-vowed women religious led lives of prayer within cloister walls. Simple-vowed women religious, in France filles séculières or congréganistes, taught and nursed outside the cloister. See Ralph Gibson, A Social History of French Catholicism, 1789–1914 (London, 1989), pp. 105–7. 8   The chronology of the events that follow can be found in Colin Jones, The Longman Companion to the French Revolution (London, 1988), pp. 240–46. 9   Elizabeth Rapley and Robert Rapley, ‘An Image of Religious Women in the ancien régime: The états des religieuses of 1790–1791’, French History, 11.4 (1997): p. 388.

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churches were shut. The one exception was convent chapels, though they were closed to the public.10 The Legislative Assembly replaced the National Assembly in October 1791 and quickly unleashed a new succession of anticlerical legislation. In the weeks just before and after the overthrow of Louis XVI in August 1792, French religious houses were evacuated, female religious institutes (contemplative Orders as well as teaching and nursing congregations) suppressed, ecclesiastical clothing forbidden and a new oath, the Liberty/Equality oath, was required of the clergy and those employed by the state. This abolition of religious life was not, as revolutionary authorities had presumed, an easy undertaking. It was, as this repetitive legislative activity suggests, a slow, faltering process hampered, at least partly, by women religious. Gemma Betros convincingly argues that the implementation of early decrees were hampered by petitions from French religious who adopted the language of the Revolution to argue for their rights as citizens, thus making the suppression of religious communities by the state more difficult to accomplish.11 After 1791, many nuns, to the surprise of the Legislative Assembly, did not take advantage of their ‘liberty’, and even worse, actively supported non-juring clergy and persisted in remaining with their religious communities and in religious habit. Women religious became enemies of the state. Historians such as Olwen Hufton, Elizabeth Rapley, Mita Choudhury and more recently Gemma Betros, have addressed the tenuous balance of French female religious communities’ resistance and accommodation to the French state and revealed how their actions influenced the course of the Revolution.12 The activities of English nuns during the French Revolution and the French Revolutionary War, have received little scholarly attention,13 10  Nigel Aston notes that the English convent chapels were also used as non-juring chapels. Aston, Religion and Revolution in France, p. 233 11   Gemma Betros, ‘Liberty, Citizenship and the Suppression of Female Religious Communities in France, 1789–90’, Women’s History Review, 18.2 (2009): p. 313. 12  Hufton, Women and the Limits of Citizenship; Rapley and Rapley, ‘An Image of Religious Women’; Elizabeth Rapley, ‘“Pieuses Contre-Révolutionnaires”: The Experience of the Ursulines of Northern France, 1789–1792’, French History, 2.4 (1988): pp. 453–73; Mita Choudhury, Convents and Nuns in Eighteenth-Century French Politics and Culture (London, 2004); Betros, ‘The female religious communities of Paris’; Betros, ‘Liberty, Citizenship’. 13   There has been some published work on the nuns’ return to England. For example: Dom Aidan Bellenger, ‘France and England: The English Female Religious from Reformation to World War’ in Frank Tallett and Nicholas Atkin (eds), Catholicism in Britain and France Since 1789 (London, 1996), pp. 3–11; Dom Aidan Bellenger, ‘The Brussels Nuns at Winchester, 1794–1857’, paper presented at the English Benedictine Congregation History Commission Symposium, 1999; Robert Eaton, The Benedictines of Colwich, 1829–1929: England’s First House of Perpetual Adoration (London, 1929); Margaret J. Mason, ‘The Blue Nuns of Norwich: 1800–1805’, Recusant History, 24.1 (1998): pp. 89–122; Margaret

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perhaps because there were so few of them (probably 40014 were English nuns in France as compared to the 55,500 French women religious15). This chapter will examine the three English communities of nuns in Paris and consider their experiences to identify how religious and national identity influenced their resistance to the French state.16 The oldest Parisian community, the Augustinian Canonesses Regular (known popularly at the time as the Austin nuns) were established in Paris in 1634 by Prioress Mary Tredway.17 They instructed the daughters of leading Catholic families including the Pastons, Towneleys, Fermors and Blounts in their convent school. They were well connected in the circles of English Catholic exiles and entertained England’s King James II and Mary of Modena and their children while in exile.18 They remained in Paris throughout the revolutionary period and their convent in the rue FosséesSt-Victor became a prison that held the Benedictines (7 November 1794– March 1795) and the Conceptionists (14 November 1794–March 1795) of Paris as well as other religious Orders and a ‘motley throng of prisoners’.19 At its largest, this convent prison, which housed approximately 21 nuns before the Revolution, contained over 130 prisoners.20 In March 1795, the gaolers and guards were withdrawn and all prisoners were set free. The second community, a small group of Franciscans, arrived in Paris in 1658 and founded the English community of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady, known as the Conceptionists, or more commonly, the Blue Nuns.21 They had a history replete with numerous financial crises until J. Mason, ‘Nuns of the Jerningham Letters: The Hon. Catherine Dillon (1752–1797) and Anne Nevill (1754–1824), Benedictines at Bodney Hall’, Recusant History, 23.1 (1996): pp. 34–78; Francis Young, ‘Mother Mary More and the Exile of the Augustinian Canonesses of Bruges in England: 1794–1802’, Recusant History 27.1 (2004): pp. 86–102. 14   Compiled from the ‘Who were the Nuns?’ database accessed 10 October 2012. 15   Claude Langlois, Le Catholicisme au féminin (Paris, 1984), p. 78. 16   For a map of the English convents in Paris, see Plate 28. 17   Claire Walker, Gender and Politics in Early Modern Europe: English Convents in France and the Low Countries (Basingstoke, 2003), p. 16. Mary Tredway (1615–77), PA178. The Augustinians will be referred to as the Austin nuns in this chapter. 18  Walker, Gender and Politics, pp. 124, 126. 19   John G. Alger, Englishmen in the French Revolution (London, 1889), p. 156. 20   Comtesse de Courson, ‘The Story of Abbe de Salamon during the Reign of Terror’, The Dublin Review, 302/303 (1912): p. 75; L’Abbé F. M. Th. Cédoz, Un Couvent De Religieuses Anglaises À Paris De 1634 À 1884 (Londres, 1891), pp. 246–7. 21   The rather complex story of how a group of Franciscans came to follow the rule of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady is told in Joseph Gillow and Richard TrappesLomax, The Diary of the ‘Blue Nuns’ or Order of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady, at Paris, 1658–1810, CRS, 8 (London, 1910), pp. viii–xi. The Conceptionists will be referred to as the Blue Nuns for the remainder of this chapter.

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the opening of a small school for the children of the English elite in the 1700s.22 Their convent in the rue de Charenton in the Faubourg St Antoine near the Bastille also became a prison on 14 October 1793, eventually housing the 18 Blue Nuns and 40 English women.23 In November 1794, the Blue Nuns were moved to the Austin nuns’ convent prison.24 The third English convent, an offshoot from the Cambrai Benedictines, was instituted in Paris in 1652 as the English Benedictines of Paris;25 by 1788, the community consisted of 13 choir nuns, three lay sisters and three novices.26 They were imprisoned in their own convent at the rue de Champ de l’Alouette27 from 3 October 1793 with a ‘keeper’ (a gaoler) arriving the next month.28 They were soon joined in their convent prison by 80 men and women.29 On 16 July 1794, after a sleepless night watching armed men search their premises for pious material, non-juring priests, arms and defamatory correspondence, they were transported to the Chateau de Vincennes prison nine miles away. Four months later, they were relocated to the prison at the Austin nuns’ convent. When the keeper announced their liberty in March 1795, they began preparations to return to England.30 The paper trail documenting the experiences of these three communities is surprisingly sparse. The paucity of convent sources during the revolutionary period can be easily explained. Many of the customary epistolary activities that were part of religious life such as business and 22

 Walker, Gender and Politics, pp. 18–19.   John Goldworth Alger, ‘English Eyewitnesses of the French Revolution’, Edinburgh Review, 168 (1888), p. 157. 24  The Edinburgh Review article says they entered the Benedictine convent prison a month later, but Alger’s book and the annals written by the Blue Nuns, agree that they were in their own convent prison for 13 months: ‘English Eyewitnesses’, p. 158; Alger, Englishmen in the French Revolution, pp. 221–2; Gillow and Trappes-Lomax, The Diary of the ‘Blue Nuns’, p. xv. 25   ‘Account of the Community during the French Revolution’ in ‘Convents and the Outside World’, ed. Carmen M. Mangion, English Convents, vol. 6, p. 295. Some sources indicate a foundation date of 1651 as this is the year the Benedictines arrived in Paris. 26   Janet E. Hollinshead, ‘From Cambrai to Woolton: Lancashire’s First Female Religious House’, Recusant History, 25.3 (2001): p. 478. 27   The street was later renamed rue des Anglaises. 28   The keeper’s responsibilities were essentially to guard the prisoners; some keepers, like the one the Benedictines refer to, were authoritative and threatening. The annalist wrote he ‘Shew[ed] his powers in form’ and was willing to accept bribes. When the Benedictines were transferred to the Vincennes prison, their new keeper was much more conciliatory and allowed them to keep their breviaries in order to say the Divine Office: ‘Convents and the Outside World’, Mangion, pp. 308, 313. 29   ‘English Eyewitnesses’, p. 160. 30   ‘Account of the Community’ in ‘Convents and the Outside World’, Mangion, pp. 314, 328. 23

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personal correspondence and the writing of community chronicles ground to a halt after 1793 when these three communities were imprisoned. Convent documents and manuscripts (contemporary and historic) were regularly appropriated during surprise raids by civil authorities in search of evidence of anti-revolutionary sentiment. Some community manuscripts were surreptitiously hidden away and later transported back to England, including the Austin community Diurnalls. Volume 3 of this set of manuscripts indicates visibly the disruption of the Revolution. The June 1793 entry abruptly ends with a thick, dark line underneath the date. Below this line, the annalist penned: ‘From this time nothing was written down on account of the Revolution, and the frequent visits that were made for papers, every thing of consequence was hidden.’31 The four short pages that follow, likely written before 1802 after which the customary journal entries appear again, recount the Austin nuns’ experiences of the Revolution. The Blue Nuns appear to have written very little of this period, perhaps because of their ever-shrinking numbers and their subsequent dispersal in 1810. Much of what we can trace of their experiences comes from the Jerningham correspondence and material published in the nineteenth century.32 The richest source of revolutionary experiences is a 173-page account attributed to Mother Theresa Joseph Johnson, prioress of the English Benedictines of Paris 1789–1807.33 It is difficult to pinpoint exactly when it was written, although the details suggest it could be dated shortly after their return to England. The depth of these notes suggests an aide-memoire was used to recount certain dates and events. In using these convent sources, we must consider the place of memory, especially given the trauma these women faced. Those nuns who survived their imprisonment witnessed and endured physical and mental hardships, torments and uncertainties that would have been in marked contrast to their lives prior to the French Revolution. The psychological impact of these events is not the subject of this chapter, but must be considered when examining these documents. These extant texts are not a simple recounting of events; they reflect the perceptions of past experiences of those author nuns who had survived frightening times. The writings, created years after the events, recount stories of survival that were culturally produced and meant to be consumed by other nuns or friends of the community. 31

  ‘Diurnall’, vol. 3 (1792–1876) in ‘Convents and the Outside World’, Mangion, p. 353.   Gillow and Trappes-Lomax, The Diary of the ‘Blue Nuns’, is an edited collection of documents by the Blue Nuns but has only two short sections on the revolutionary experiences (pp. xiii–xviii, 188–9). Egerton Castle (ed.), The Jerningham letters (1780–1843) (London, 1896); Alger, Englishmen in the French Revolution; ‘English Eyewitnesses’. 33   Theresa Joseph Johnson (1777–1807), PB046. 32

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These are, as scholars of memory studies remind us, selective memories and accounts that need contextualization.34 Some context can be found in the Archives nationales in Paris.35 Though the numerous searches of convent properties produced much fear and anxiety, the removal of convent correspondence and manuscripts has resulted in an unparalleled collection of documents on French religious life including registers, annals, business letters and personal correspondence. In some of these texts, we can read both the nuns’ public and private voices remarking on revolutionary events, family and convent matters and concerns for the future. While some of the English nuns’ material resides here, it remains rather broadly catalogued, so material from specific English convents is difficult to locate and it appears likely that some material has already been culled. Of course, problematically, what remains of this corpus of primary sources is rather one-sided. This is very much the English nuns’ version of events – though some material from the Archives nationales includes reports by local officialdom that can corroborate details and flesh out the events as remembered. The techniques of microhistory are helpful in this sort of historical analysis. By examining in detail the experiences of these three communities, I hope to uncover a more personalized historical narrative which allows these exiled nuns to become visible, active agents. This methodology can be used to tease out historiographical difference and new meanings in historical interactions, in this case the interaction between the nuns and revolutionary authorities. Carlo Ginzburg, the pioneer of microhistorical analysis, insists that the difference between past and present becomes more evident with microhistory.36 This methodology, I hope, will encourage a rethinking of the relationships between the threatening revolutionary authorities and the imprisoned nuns. There was much more complexity to the actions of both parties; it was not simply an oppositional relationship. That said, we must be cognizant of the allure of the antiquarian case study. It is important to interact with historical grand narratives in order to nuance our understanding of the French revolutionary period and religious life.

34  Astrid Erll, Memory in Culture (Basingstoke, 2011); Alistair Thomson, ‘Fifty years on: An international perspective on oral history’, The Journal of American History, 85.2 (1998): pp. 581–95; Paul Thompson, ‘Problems of method in oral history’, Oral History, 1.4 (1972): pp. 1–47. 35  The Archives nationales in Paris contain in série S4619, S4617, S4618 and AN H5 convent records appropriated by the state during convent searches and reports created by revolutionary authorities about the English convents. 36   Carlo Ginzburg, Clues, Myths, and the Historical Method (Baltimore, 1989).

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Relationships This first section reveals the complex relationship of the English communities with ‘intruded’ clergy and the revolutionaries. The Civil Constitution of the Clergy, issued by the National Assembly on 12 July 1790, severed the relationship between Rome and the French clergy by subordinating the Roman Catholic church to the French state.37 On 27 November 1790, the state required all members of the secular clergy to swear an oath to ‘be faithful to the nation, the law and the king and to preserve the Constitution decreed by the National Assembly’, dismissing clergy who did not take this oath.38 Several thousand of these non-juring clergy39 fled to England and elsewhere.40 Those who remained were often judged harshly by supporters of the papal church and considered traitors to the Roman Catholic faith. Mother Clare Conyers of the Poor Clares from Aire remarked in a January 1791 letter to her second cousin that the oath was ‘Contrary to God, Concience [sic] & Religion and what no good Christian neither Can nor will take, tho there is already Some priests has taken it.’41 In 1791, the English Benedictine nuns of the rue de Champ de l’Alouette were asked by the Paris authorities to celebrate the installation of the new constitutional Archbishop Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Gobel (1727–94),42 by ringing their chapel bell. Reverend Mother Johnson noted:

37  Aston, Religion and revolution, pp. 140–62. As Aston makes clear, French Catholics were divided into those who backed the Revolution and the new church scheme, and those who supported a papal church. 38   Jean Comby, ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Principles for a Nation and for a Church’, in Claude Geffré and Jean-Pierre Josua (eds), 1789 The French Revolution and the Church (Edinburgh, 1989), p. 20. 39   Those who did not take the oath were called non-juring clergy, or refractory clergy. Clergy who took the oath were sometimes called constitutional clergy, or juring clergy. 40   From the period 1793–1800, over 5,000 exiled clergy resided in England. After the Concordat of 1801 between the French government and the papacy, most of the French clergy returned home: Dom Aidan Bellenger, The French Exiled Clergy in the British Isles after 1789 (Bath, 1986), p. 3. See also, Kirsty Carpenter and Philip Mansel, The French Émigrés in Europe and the Struggle against Revolution, 1789–1814 (Basingstoke, 1999). 41  Letter from Mother Clare Conyers (1749–1833), AP031 to Isaac Young of Kingerby (1731–92) dated 3 January 1791, ‘Convents and the Outside World’, Mangion, p. 386. There is no evidence in convent sources that the English nuns took the liberty-equality oath in order to obtain their pensions from the state, though this does not eliminate this possibility. For more on nuns and the liberty/equality oath see Betros, ‘The female religious communities of Paris’, p. 139. 42   Gobel was consecrated archbishop of Paris on 27 March 1791 (and guillotined in 1794 due to his opposition to Robespierre’s Cult of the Supreme Being). He had replaced

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We did not know whether it was Lawfull or no to do it: yet for this reason, as they were then attacking Religion and, even was this Lawfull, they might afterwards come to require what was not Lawfull we thought it better at all event to Shew our Sentiments from the beginning and we refused to do it. the Commissaire threatened us but no other harm came by it.43

This response was curiously practical and based on her observation of the instability and confusion in the profusion of laws being enacted by the National Assembly. The response was derived less from the authority of the new archbishop as a member of the constitutional clergy, and more on the instability of the state and the legitimacy of its laws. Johnson in her writing suggests that today’s legal act could be construed as illegal in the future, so the Benedictines did what they thought was safest and declined to ring the chapel bell. Of course, this was also in compliance with their religious inclination, but this appears in this excerpt as secondary. It seems too, that they were testing the waters; how far could they refuse the revolutionaries? In this instance, their refusal led to threats, but no maltreatment. When the Benedictines were later requested to use priests approved by the new intruded archbishop, their response was resolute: ‘we absolutely refused, telling them that we could not nor would not Acknowledge any other but our own Archbishop who was then at Chamberry.’44 In this much stronger voice, Mother Johnson refused to recognize the juring priests ordained by the constitutional archbishop, insisting forcefully that the State Church was not the papal church. She then noted the surprise of the authorities: … though they had been so artfull and so Earnest to get it done without our understanding what they were about, yet when they found we understood and Stedfastly refused they were not offended but behaved with the greatest respect wishing us all Prosperity and assured us of their Protection.45

Mother Johnson recognized the patronizing stance of these officials; they expected the English nuns to readily obey state diktats. When they didn’t, Johnson notes their steadfastness was rewarded, not by punishment, but by the ‘greatest respect’. These relationships between the authorities and the nuns often depended on individual circumstances. Other historians Archbishop Antoine-Éléonor-Léon Leclerc de Juigné (1728–1811), who had fled with the Bourbons to Germany: The History of Paris, vol. 1 (Paris, 1825), pp. 46, 74–5. 43   ‘Account of the Community’ in ‘Convents and the Outside World’, Mangion, p. 305. 44   Ibid., p. 305. 45  Ibid.

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have noted similar reactions in French communities. Olwen Hufton notes how in rural villages, officials turned a blind eye to some decrees regarding the suppression of religious houses if the services rendered by the religious communities were difficult to replace.46 Mita Choudhury, too, argues that particularly from 1789–91, a process of compromise between revolutionaries and the French nuns meant that friction between the two was minimized.47 In this example, a commitment to the Revolution’s principles did not always obviate what Mother Johnson interpreted as respect for the religious state.48 This accommodation went both ways. When the local parish curate, an intruded priest, requested that the Benedictines receive the procession of the Blessed Sacrament into their church from the parish on the feast of Corpus Christi, they prevaricated: …we first alledged the Church doors being shut up; but he said he would take care to have them oped. We then told him that if he meant to Employ force, we Could not resist; but if he askd it of us, that we Could not open the doors to him he not being the Lawfull pastor of our parish, and he not being a violent Man contented himself with our refusall.49

They were later approached by another member of the local government to open the doors of the church for the procession; they again refused. But when asked if they would hang banners in the streets,50 they replied in the affirmative and ‘he seemed quite astonishd to think he could gain any thing and asked severall times over to assure himself it was not a misunderstanding and even came another day before the time to be well assured of it.’51 This ‘give and take’ reflects efforts of compromise and accommodation between the Benedictines and revolutionary authorities. Mother Johnson admitted to the pressure of balancing the needs of their faith with those of the state:

46

 Hufton, Women and the Limits of Citizenship, p. 76.  Choudhury, Convents and Nuns, p. 167. 48   Though this chapter concentrates on Parisian communities, other historians have noted similar acts of accommodation. Margaret J. Mason notes that some latitude was given by the mayor of Bruges who allowed the Augustinians to take private vows for life though perpetual vows were legally forbidden: Mason, ‘Nuns of the Jerningham Letters’, p. 360. 49   ‘Account of the Community’ in ‘Convents and the Outside World’, Mangion, pp. 305–6. 50  Sadly, there are no details as to the content of these banners. 51   ‘Account of the Community’ in ‘Convents and the Outside World’, Mangion, p. 306. 47

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… the Anxiety and fear of being surprised into any wrong step was the most alarming, desiring on one side steadily to adhere to the church, and freely confess our religious sentiments whenever it was Necessary: and on the other to avoid all rash and Imprudent Measures that might draw mischief on the Community, without being any advantage to the cause of Religion.52

Yet Mother Johnson was willing to push the boundaries of this potentially fraught relationship. On the authorities’ initial visit to search convent premises, she demanded they show her their authorization despite their insistence that they needed no paperwork to search the convent; she remained resolute despite their threats. They left and returned later with written orders authorizing the search.53 These searches occurred numerous times, and the account notes not only the nuns’ fears during these events but also their small victories: … in these searches they learned to know the different Marks of our Linnen which was in common viz the Refectory, Infirmary &c and they thought we must have hid it some where which was in effect true: but they never found it out: for we had made the best table Linnen into petticoats in order to carry it off as we were continually threatend with another Prison.54

It seems as though a game was being played by both the nuns and the authorities. One which, at least in this round, the Benedictines brandished their cunning and their success. These reflections were, of course, written years after the events described and in a place of safety. They document a relationship between the authorities and the nuns that reportedly pushed the boundaries, but only so far. There are elements of compromise and accommodation from both parties; the chronicler wants her reader to know that the Benedictines were not powerless, but chose their battles as shrewdly as they could. But while the temporal elements of their lives could be negotiable, spiritual matters, as the next section demonstrates, were less open to negotiation. Spiritual Lives The French Revolutionary War (1793–1801) changed the parameters of the engagement between English convents in exile and the state. France declared war on Britain and Holland on 1 February 1793 and nine 52

  Ibid., p. 306.   Ibid., p. 310. 54  Ibid. 53

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months later, the Legislative Assembly decreed the seizure of British goods and British subjects. Guards surrounded the Austin nuns’ convent on 10 October 1793. Two Commissaries of the Revolutionary Club, a cobbler and a ballad-singer, along with a justice of the peace, became the guardians of the convent. As they prepared for the disposal of the convent, they sealed all its doors and windows and recorded in detail the names and ages of its occupants.55 In October 1794, the Austin nuns’ convent became a convent prison with over 130 prisoners, including the Blue Nuns and the Benedictines. Father Hurst (1737–93), the Austin nun’s confessor, was taken away for questioning and imprisoned on 15 October 1793. Concerned for his health, and their own spiritual succour, the nuns solicited local authorities for his return. He was released on 30 October, but within two weeks had died, his ill health likely worsened by his prison ordeal.56 Having lost their confessor, the Austin nuns sought spiritual sustenance elsewhere. They were rewarded by the cunning of a fellow prisoner, an English Carmelite nun, Londoner Mary Stewart,57 who frequently obtained permission to see her ‘attorney’, Mons De Sambucié until March 1794.58 He was a Catholic priest who surreptitiously provided the sacraments to the Carmelite nun and the Austin nuns.59 The Austin annalist recorded their efforts at maintaining some semblance of their religious duties despite being ‘deprived of all spiritual succor’. She noted, ‘We said the Devine office and other Duties as much as we could together, but sometimes we could not do that, for fear of being heard.’60 Communal prayer life was the raison d’être of contemplative life, and the Austin nuns continued their efforts to maintain the tenor of their religious life despite its dangers. The Benedictines too were deprived of their confessor from December 1793, when 69-year-old Placid (John) Naylor OSB (1724–95) was imprisoned at the Scotch College next door. Though in no position to 55  Cédoz, Un Couvent De Religieuses Anglaises, pp. 265–7. These official visits occurred quite frequently from 1790 until the English nuns were imprisoned; the report of the 1790 visit to the Austin convent can be found in the Archives nationales, Paris, France, S 4618, ‘Procès verbal, Religieuses Anglaises, Rue des Fossés St Victor’ 23 Juin 1790’. Unfortunately, the 1793 Procès verbal has not been located. 56   ‘Diurnall’, in ‘Convents and the Outside World’, Mangion, p. 354. 57  Mary Angela of the Angels Stewart, AC145, entered the French Carmelites in Paris but was imprisoned because she was English. She later returned to England and joined the Carmelites of Antwerp in Lanherne: Anne Hardman, English Carmelites in Penal Times (London, 1936), pp. 132–3. 58   This is likely the name of her attorney, not the unnamed French priest; no other information about M De Sambuie has been discovered. 59   ‘Account of the Community’ in ‘Convents and the Outside World’, Mangion, p. 354. 60   ‘Diurnall’ in ‘Convents and the Outside World’, Mangion, p. 354.

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make demands, Mother Johnson, concerned about the health of their elderly and infirm confessor, requested repeatedly that he be sent a bed and a warm blanket. The Benedictines sent Naylor money and provisions until he was moved to the English Benedictine monastery prison in the rue St Jacques. They were without the sacraments from 25 November 1793 until 17 January 1795, the deprivation of which was fiercely felt.61 Mother Johnson complained to the guard and requested a chaplain but ‘she told him we should be no Means accept of any one they would give’, thus inferring the nuns would not accept a constitutional priest. The guard’s response was to threaten her with removal to another prison.62 The Benedictine nuns maintained the authority of the papal church, thus obstructing the machinery of the French state despite the potentially severe consequences. For them, this point was non-negotiable. In January 1795, when all three communities were imprisoned together in the Austin convent, there appeared to be a loosening of supervision over the nuns. Mother Johnson remarked that the keeper and guards of the Austin nuns’ convent ‘are very assiduous in helping them’.63 Benedictine Henry Parker (1752–1817) was encouraged by the Benedictine nuns to see his cousin, the Blue Nun Mary Bonaventure Parker,64 as the prison guards had given the nuns permission to see family members. The guards, according to Mother Johnson, ‘did not seem to take any Notice of his being a Priest’. They did not monitor these visits and after visiting his cousin, and presumably offering spiritual sustenance to the Blue Nuns, Mr Parker was given permission by the guards to see the Benedictines under the ‘plausible pretence’ of family affairs.65 The French guards, Mother Johnson implies, had some sympathy for the spiritual needs of the nuns, and allowed Mr Parker’s repeated visits. The following month, the Austin nuns obtained an altar and permission to hear Mass privately in their rooms. A short time afterwards, the Blue Nuns confessor, Thomas Shelley (1737–1807),66 was released from prison and ‘they got leave for him to come in to breakfast and so that was another occasion to profit by and in this manner we had the happiness to communicate several times before we could have mass.’ All three communities of English nuns joined together in reciting the Veni Creator 61

  ‘Account of the Community’ in ‘Convents and the Outside World’, Mangion, p. 326.   Ibid., p. 308. 63   Ibid., p. 327. 64  Mary Bonaventure Parker (1758–99), PC082. 65   ‘Account of the Community’ in ‘Convents and the Outside World’, Mangion, pp. 326–7. 66  Mr Shelley may have been related to the Austin nun, Dorothy Joseph Shelley (1762–97), PA149. 62

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before Mass and Te Deum afterwards. From then on, the English nuns had one, sometimes two, Masses daily.67 What this suggests is that by 1795, there was a loosening of regulations regarding the nuns’ religious practice, though whether this was officially sanctioned or personally motivated by individual guards is difficult to ascertain. These excerpts demonstrate that women religious, despite their fears of violence, clandestinely continued some forms of religious practice despite their illegality. By 1795, prison guards were complicit in aiding English nuns in receiving spiritual sustenance. Petitioning English nuns also used political channels to protect their religious life. In early 1791, the Austin nuns addressed a published petition to the National Assembly requesting ‘the preservation and security of their existence and their property’.68 In framing this petition, they immediately emphasized their support for the French state by setting out that they ‘beg leave to testify their approbation of the wisdom of their decrees’. They based their case on legal premises and what they asserted was a reciprocal arrangement between the English convent and the state: … founded on the most sacred and most respectable disposition of the law of nations, of hospitality, of public faith pledged to strangers by a great nation. It is grounded on the confidence we place in your promises, on our exact compliance with all the conditions annexed to our establishment.69

Next, they requested that their property ‘be preserved to them, not as a favour, but as a matter of justice, arising from the foundation and the nature of their settlement’. They reminded the National Assembly that their properties were purchased by English monies and not part of the patrimony of the French state, adding ‘our Convent has never occasioned the least expence to the French Government.’ At the petition’s end, they claimed their rights as naturalized French subjects and insisted on the protection of the state:

67

  ‘Account of the Community’ in ‘Convents and the Outside World’, Mangion, p. 327.   Douay District’s Proceedings relative to the British Houses with their Answer of their Deputies also the Memorial of the English Austin Nuns at Paris (London, 1791): this section draws on pp. 15–18. 69   Ibid., pp. 17–18. 68

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The English Nuns, though strangers, have been naturalized, and have acquired all the rights of French subjects. They have always paid their share of the public burdens, they have never been any expence to the French nation; as a religious community they are of great use to their country, and they beg leave to urge all these titles to the protection of the French kingdom, and to solicit and to expect from the justice of the Representative Body the preservation and the security of their existence and their property.70

In summary, they acknowledged their Englishness having only accepted into their convent ‘English women, or women born of English parents’ while at the same time arguing that as French subjects, they fulfilled their responsibilities as French citizens. They re-emphasized their usefulness, not as contemplatives, but as educators of young girls.71 Another set of petitions were written by the Austin nuns and the Blue Nuns after they were released from prison, demanding from the state the pensions they were due when their properties and rentes were confiscated. Times correspondent John G. Alger published an excerpt of the Blue Nuns petition in his Englishmen in the French Revolution (1889): While prisoners we were at least sure of food, but we are now reduced to starvation, subsisting only on the scanty alms of charitable persons acquainted with our situation. Our property is not restored; we are despoiled of everything. We have no family, and shall have no country if the Republic abandons us. You will not suffer despair to reduce us to regret having escaped the axe of assassins. Grant us temporary shelter and succour until you have decided whether our property shall be restored. We shall not cease to bless your justice, and to cry ‘Viva la République Francaise, vive la Convention Nationale’.72

The Blue Nuns were quite strident in complaining how they were treated while imprisoned. They decried their poverty, threw themselves on the mercy of the French state, referring to their statelessness and emphasizing their reliance and devotion on the Republic. Their use of revolutionary language and their awareness that the French state had promised to protect its citizens signified they kept close watch on revolutionary events outside convent walls. They successfully obtained 2 francs per person daily.73 70

  Ibid., p. 18.  As Mita Choudhury has argued, ‘the themes of utility and patriotism were not lost on women religious’: Choudhury, Convents and Nuns, p. 167. 72  Alger, Englishmen in the French Revolution, p. 162. 73   Ibid., p. 162. The use of the term ‘franc’ became more frequent during the Revolution as a variant of the livre. Two francs would be equivalent to 40 sols, thus equivalent to what the Benedictines received: Jones, The Longman Companion to the French Revolution, p. 236. 71

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The Benedictines likewise petitioned the French authorities for their pension. Mother Johnson noted that having lost their rentes when their property was taken, they sought to obtain their allowance of 40 sols per nun per day. Before they left for England on 22 June 1795, the Benedictines received the accumulated payment for two months.74 Once the Austin nuns were given their liberty in 1795, they repaired their convent, creating a small chapel in the infirmary. They were advised to flee France as there ‘was no security nor even Liberty to practise our Religion’, so they grudgingly made plans to depart in 1799 when Napoleon ordered the sale of all British properties. In 1800, convinced by friends they could regain their properties, they stayed75 and remained in France until 1911, when they relocated to Ealing, London. Here they remained until the dearth of novices led to the convent’s closure in 1996.76 The Blue Nuns also waited a few years, but when their property was sold by the Directory on 9 October 1799, the balance of the community, because of deaths now numbering only six nuns, left for England and arrived in London on 29 January 1800.77 With the support of Lady Jerningham, a former convent-school pupil, they relocated to Cossey in Norfolk. The community, plagued by illness and a lack of novices, dispersed in 1810 with the death of Abbess Mary Bernard Green.78 The remaining nuns entered other communities and the last of the Blue Nuns died in 1838.79 Only the Benedictines voted overwhelmingly (bar one) to return to England shortly after they were released from prison in March 1795.80 Four months later, 15 Benedictines arrived in London. They found suitable accommodation initially at Marnhull, Dorset (1795–1807) and in 1807 at Cannington, Somerset. In 1836 they relocated to their final monastic home, St Benedict’s Priory (later renamed St Mary’s Abbey) in Colwich, Staffordshire where they still reside today.

74

  ‘Account of the Community’ in ‘Convents and the Outside World’, Mangion, p. 327.   ‘Diurnall’, in ‘Convents and the Outside World’, Mangion, pp. 355–6. 76   ‘Mother Mary Benedict Brown’ accessed 10 October 2012. 77   On 22 August 1795, the Constitution of 1795 was ratified and the October National Convention was dissolved in favour of a five-man executive Directory and two legislative bodies. On 9 November 1799, Napoleon overthrew the Directory. 78   Elizabeth Green (1757–1810), PC040. Tonya Moutray’s research suggests they may have dispersed in 1805. See Tonya Moutray, Refugee Nuns and the French Revolution in British Literature (Farnham, forthcoming). 79   Gillow and Trappes-Lomax, The Diary of the ‘Blue Nuns’, p. xvi. 80   ‘Account of the Community’, in ‘Convents and the Outside World’, Mangion, p. 328. 75

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Conclusion So how did religious and national identity influence these three English convents’ resistance to the French revolutionaries? At the forefront was their religious identity as Catholic nuns. Their first priority was maintaining the regularity of their spiritual endeavours whilst keeping their community intact and in situ. Thus, they were willing, to some extent, to compromise and accommodate the requests of revolutionary authorities, but only to the extent that these requests didn’t impinge on the nuns’ religious responsibilities and the primacy of papal authority. Their spiritual life was particularly important and they went to great efforts to maintain a life of prayer. In this, they were aided, especially after 1795, by their gaolers who appeared to be sympathetic to the spiritual needs of the nuns. Much of the historiography of the French Revolution engages with the animosity of revolutionaries to religion, but here we see compromise and accommodation on the part of both groups. The English nuns were shrewd judges of the politics of revolutionary France. As we can see from their use of petitions, they understood the patriotic language and the claims of the French state; they used this knowledge to further their aims. They relied on their English identities as well as their status as French subjects to meet their objectives; they did not seem to feel a tension between these two identities. They were heavily invested in Paris, temporally, emotionally and spiritually; they could not conceive of losing this investment for what could be a less secure situation in England. The English convents in Paris were active participants in the revolutionary events in France; through their support of non-juring clergy, they were far from harmless and vulnerable. It would be too easy to take these stories as a nunnish pyrrhic victory over the revolutionaries. It wasn’t. These examples of agency and cunning were rather minor victories when compared to the disruption, distress and eventual remigration to England of these communities. This chapter has only begun to explore the experiences of the last of the nuns in exile: the remainder of this story still needs to be told.

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Index Tables and notes indexed as t and n. abbesses, and responsibilities  12, 133, 135, 138 Advice for Confessors (Constable)  123, 124, 124n6, 131, 132 The Aeneid (Virgil)  73n5 Alger, John G.  250n19, 251n23, 261, 261n72 Allison, Antony F.  3n6, 49n74, 112n16 An Abridgment of Christian Perfection (Breve Compendio) 110–11, 112, 113, 113n19 The Anatomy of the English Nunnery at Lisbon in Portugal (Robinson)  5, 10, 54n3, 71, 72, 74, 76–7, 79–80, 83, 84, 85, 86, 204 Anne of Jesus Keynes  140, 140n4 anonymity  106, 139, 140, 151 Anstruther, Godfrey  41n33 anti-Jesuits  49–50, 51, 116 Antwerp Annals  142, 143n13, 144, 153 Approbation Controversy  2–3, 3n6, 49 Arber, Edward  80n26 Arblaster, Paul  28, 28n38, 30n44, 111n12, 116n27/28, 177n10, 178n18 Arundel manuscript  159–60, 162, 165 illuminations  166, 167–74 Arundell, Dorothy  19, 19n2, 20, 21, 22, 23, 23n, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31 Arundell, Gertrude  27, 28, 29, 31 Aston, Nigel  248n6, 249n10, 254n37 Augustinians  26, 28, 99 Bruges  35, 37–8, 43, 57, 61–2, 175 Louvain  35, 37, 41, 43, 48, 57–8, 67, 87, 87n1, 163, 175, 181, 185 Paris  36, 55–6, 63, 247

Augustinian canonesses  250 Austin nuns  250, 251, 252, 258, 259, 260, 261 authorship  132, 155 devices 144 nuns  139–40, 146 Bainbridge, Virginia  163, 163n22 Baker, Fr Augustine OSB  109, 112n16, 129, 130, 130n29, 131, 132, 137–8, 239, 239n51, 241n63, 244 Baker, Geoff  64, 64n45, 65 Barnwell, Bridget  14, 211, 213, 216, 217, 218, 225, 228 Barratt, Alexandra  141n9 Bartoli, Danielo  21, 22, 23, 24n17, 25n23, 28n37 Bath, Michael  203n36 Bedingfield, Canon Edmund  145–6 Beguines 127–8 Benedictine Statutes  59 Benedictines  28, 35, 49, 130, 133, 177, 202, 221n37, 235, 237n40, 251n28, 256, 257, 258, 259, 262 Brussels  35, 36, 39, 40, 41, 42, 44–5, 47, 48, 51, 57–8, 109, 111, 175, 176, 177, 181–2, 184, 197–8 Cambrai  35, 41–2, 47, 48, 55, 109, 197, 130, 232, 233, 234, 236, 239, 240, 242–3, 244 Dublin 227–8 Dunkirk  43, 44, 67, 219, 221–2 English  111, 230, 232–3, 236, 238n47, 247, 251, 252 Ghent  43–4, 44, 59, 61–2, 110, 196, 214 Irish 221–2

274

The English Convents in Exile, 1600–1800

Paris  55–6, 66, 219, 230, 247, 252 Ypres  119, 220–22, 225–6 Bennett, J. S.  39, 39n18, 40n21 Bergin, John  224, 224n49/50 Berkeley, Joanna  112, 112n13, 237–8, 238n42 Bickley, Ralph SJ  46 Bilinkoff, Jodi  129, 129n22/24, 145n20 Birkbeck, Mary Frances  144, 150, 151n50 Blue Nuns  250, 250n21, 252, 252n32, 258, 259, 261–2 Blundell, Margaret  64, 64n45 Bolt, John  41, 175–6, 176n3, 178, 184, 184n44, 185 book culture  72, 75, 77, 78, 79, 165 corrupt monastic  86 Book of Margery Kempe (Kempe)  125, 126, 127–8, 138 book production  75, 82 Bosgrave family  24 Bossy, John  1, 1n2, 8, 8n25, 36, 36n10, 37n15 Boult, Mary  42n34 Bowden, Caroline  2n5, 7, 7n21, 13, 65n46, 71–2n2, 99n22, 100n26, 101n30, 140–41, 160n5, 188n62 Brent, Christina  9, 234, 234n21, 235–6, 240 Bridget of Sweden, St  166, 172, 174 Revelations 166–7 Bridgettine convent  47 Lisbon  10, 20–21, 27–8, 30–31, 55–6, 76, 78n17, 78–9, 81, 165, 170–71 restoration to England  171 Rouen 42 Briggs, Nancy  45n52 Brooke, Gertrude  187, 187n60 Broomfield, Anna  43 Brussels Benedictines  2, 11, 13, 20, 21, 44, 48, 51 Bumpus, John S.  179n19 Burton, Mary Xaveria of the Angels 144–5 Byrd, William  41, 178–9, 188

Caister, Richard  128 Capern, Amanda  5n17 Capuchins 200 Carmelites  9–10, 58n24, 66–7, 128, 143, 145, 201, 258 Antwerp  36, 38, 42, 43–4, 140, 142, 149, 152, 195, 201, 225 English  59, 142, 205 French women  136–7 Hoogstraten  59, 61–2, 66 Lierre  38, 67 Spanish 136–7 Carthusians 104–5 Cary, Clementia  66, 66n50 Catholic Church  25–6 Catholic community  20, 51 Catholic struggles, in England  27–8 Catholicism 99 alternative meanings  14 converts 143 post-Reformation 8 religious bequests  42n39 Challoner, Richard  20n3, 21, 21n7 Champney, Fr Anthony  116, 117, 117n33 chantresses  177–8, 180, 185 Chideock community  20–21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27 Choudhury, Mita  256, 256n47, 261n71 Chronicle of St Monica 100–101 Chronicle of the First Monastery  20n3, 21n10, 28, 28n35, 30n42, 31n46 The Church History of England, from 1500 to 1688, Chiefly with Regard to Catholicks 104 Clay, Christopher  34n3, 39n17 Clement, Margaret  196, 196n9 Coakley, John  125–6, 126n11 Coleridge, Henry James  143, 143n14/15, 144, 144n17, 145n27, 148, 149 collaborative authorship  111, 114, 116, 117, 118–19, 127 College of Holy Apostles (Jesuit)  37–8, 38t2.2, 38–9, 40, 42 community:

Index

formation 67–8 history 150 Conceptionsts 138 Paris  53, 53n1, 55, 61, 61n31, 62, 63, 65, 123–4n4, 213, 247 see also Blue Nuns confession  123, 127, 134 reforming 124 time spent on  137 confessors  123n2, 123–4, 125–7, 127n16, 128–9, 131, 133–4, 135, 258–9, 258  9 chaplains  12, 44, 49, 108 Jesuit 237–8 male  125–6, 138 penitents  109–10, 126 personal choice  116–17 Considerations for Priests (Constable) 132 Constable, Barbara  12, 121–2, 123–4, 124n6, 125, 131, 131n31/35, 132, 132n38/39, 133n41, 134, 134n46, 136–7, 138 contemplatives nuns  30–31, 130, 140–41, 230, 239, 245 vocation 235  continental convents  4, 33 domestic poltitics  44 for Englishwomen  111 convents changing  63n39, 66, 67n55 English women  27 Irish women  226 prisons  6, 207, 232, 258–9 recruitment 6, 13–14, 16I.1, 44, 51 early leavers  54–6, 62, 66 Conyers, Mother Elizabeth Catherine  219, 219n31, 220 Coolahan, Marie Louise  14, 109n3, 148n37 Copley, Mary  97n15, 98–9, 106, 108 Cornelius, John  13, 20, 20n, 21, 23, 25, 26, 27 Council of Trent  2, 9, 56, 127, 136, 138, 180–81, 231, 237 Crawshaw, Richard  201, 202

275

Curry, John  25 d’Arbouze, Abbess  131, 134, 136, 137 Davidson, Peter  6 Daybell, James  115, 115n26, 117n32 De Champaigne, Philippe  202–3 De Hamel, Christopher  77, 76–7n10, 78n18, 79n19, 79n21, 159, 171n39, 172n41, 173n43 Dell’istoria della Campagnia di Giesu: L’Inghilterra parte dell’Europa (Inghilterra)  21, 22 Dering, Ricahrd  175–6, 178, 179, 180 Dickinson, Frances  197n15 Dickens, Arthur G.  1n1, 33n1 Dido  73–4, 74n6, 74n7, 76 Diefendorff, Barbara  136, 136n55, 137n38 Digby, Elizabeth  180 Discalced Carmelites  130, 140, 149, 201 Divine Love  229, 230, 231, 238, 240, 242, 243, 245 Divine Office  177, 183 Dodd, Charles  104, 104n41/42, 105 Dolan, Frances E.  5n16, 71n2, 72n4, 134, 134n45, 139n3, 147n31 dolls dressed as nuns  197 Dominicans Brussels 223 Doña Maria, Infanta  10 Douai Abbey  88n3, 88n4, 106, 195n8 dowry  43, 61, 62, 63, 65–6, 66–7 Edwards, Arthur C.  40n22 Elizabethan Settlement  20 emotions  229–30, 230n4/5, 231, 233–4, 235, 235n24, 240, 241, 242, 243–4 enclosed convents  29, 55 enclosed women  56n11, 127–8, 129 and confessors  136 English Catholicism  1–2, 4, 6, 84, 99, 105, 109, 237 English Catholics  2, 8, 77 English Civil War  33–4

276

The English Convents in Exile, 1600–1800

English convents  54, 56, 58, 59, 60, 64, 103–4, 105, 213, 225, 227 in Paris  263 English martyrs  100, 107 English Mission  37, 45, 51, 180 Essex 33 Catholics 35 convent recruitment  34–5t2.1, 36, 37 Parliamentarian 34 Everard, Thomas  165 Faber, John  204–5 Ferraige, Jacques  131n33, 137 figurines  206, 206n45 finances  65–6 Finnegan, David  211n2, 225, 225n54 Fletcher, John R.  77n10, 80n27, 170n37 florilegia  132 Floyd, Henry S. J. (Pater Symons)  45–6, 47, 48 Foley, Brian C.  40n23 Foley, Henry  20n3, 22n13, 23n15, 37n13 Fortescue, Lucy  65, 65n47 Foster, Fr Seth  72, 74–5, 82, 85, 160, 161–2, 163 Franciscans  25, 38, 56, 121n50, 196, 202, 216 Bruges 55 Brussels 110 Descalzas Reales  165–6 Louvain 232 French convents  57 French Revolution  15, 176, 196, 207, 247, 252 abolition of religious life  249, 253 Catholic Church  248–9, 254 English nuns  249–50, 253, 254–5, 257–8, 263 Gaelic Irish  14, 211, 214, 225–6, 226n57 Gascoigne, Margaret  242 Gee, John  54n3, 71n1 Genesis 45  171

Gerard, John SJ  41, 43, 46–7n56, 180n27 Gertz, Genelle  12 Gibson, Jonathan  5n16, 124n5, 230n7 Giggs, Margaret  104–5 Gillow, Joseph  53n1, 55n8, 63n40, 65n47, 195n6, 203n35, 208n53, 262n79 Ginzburg, Carlo  253, 253n36 Glickman, Gabriel  4, 4n10/12, 34n2 Gobel, Archbishop Jean-BaptisteJoseph  254–5n42, 255 God  166, 168–9, 203, 231, 233, 235, 236, 239, 240, 241, 243, 244 Goodrich, Jaime  4, 11, 112n13 Greenbury, Abbess Catherine Francis 110 Grundy, Isobel  100–101, 101n27 Halford, Abbess Dorothy  174n49 Hallett, Nicky  5n16, 11, 58, 58n22, 67n56, 88, 100n25, 146n28, 154n62, 225n53 Hamilton, Dom Adam  87, 99, 100, 100n23, 101, 101n17, 104, 105, 106, 106n47, 108, 176n2, 198n18 Hamilton, Lucy  57, 57n16 Hammer, Paul E. J.  121n9 Hardman, Anne  146, 146n30, 147, 147n32, 148, 148n39/40/41/42, 149, 149n44, 154n65, 155, 201n30, 206n47 Harline, Craig  232, 232n14 Hatton, Sister Monica  105 Hawkins, Henry SJ  203 Henry VIII, King of England  168–9 Hesketh, Mary  196 Highley, Christopher  78n16, 79n24 Hills, Helen  9n28, 137n37 Historia Particular (Yepes)  21–2, 23, 28 Holman, Peter  175, 175n1 Holt, Fr William SJ  28–9, 111 holy women  125, 126, 126n10, 127, 136 and confessors  129 writing 129

Index

277

Holman, Peter  175 Hoskins, Fr Anthony SJ  12, 110, 112, 113–14 Howard, Mary Joseph of St Teresa  140, 140n7, 142, 143, 149, 150–54, 155, 205n43 Howard, Mary of the Holy Cross  200, 204, 205 Howard, Philip, Earl of Arundell  25 Howard, Ursula  105n45 Hufton, Olwen  256, 256n46 Hull, Dom Francis OSB  130 Humberstone, Sister Augustina  103, 103n39, 104, 105–6 humility topos  114 Hunter, Fr Thomas  144–5 Hutchison, Ann M.  164n24, 165n29, 168n36

and Thomas Middleton  71 Jesus Christ  242, 243 Johnson, Mother Theresa Joseph  252, 254, 255, 256–7, 259, 262 Johnson, Richard  107–8 Jones, Colin  248n8 Julian of Norwich  125, 128, 138

identities  214–15, 215n14, 219, 220, 263 Irish  224, 227–8 Infanta Maria of Spain  78–9, 79n20, 161, 169, 171, 172, 174 Innocency Justified and Insolvency Repressed (Percy)  117, 118, 118n37/39, 119, 120, 120n46/47, 121 Irish convents  212, 212n4, 213 Irish male religious  212, 225 Irish nuns  213–15, 217–18, 224 in English convents  14, 211–12 Irish self-identity  14, 217–18

Lake, Peter  1n3, 45n50 Lambert, Sister Alphone  106–7, 107n51, 108 Langlois, Claude  250 Largillière, Nicolas de  194, 199 Latin  13, 67, 111, 114–15, 147, 163 letters  117, 118, 119, 120, 121 Latz, Dorothy  109n2 Laurence, Anne  188n63 Laven, Mary  53n2 lawsuit  116–17, 118, 119 Lay, Jenna  10, 124n5, 132n36, 174n46 Leech, Peter  178, 178n14 letters  115, 117, 117n33, 119–20, 121, 164 Life and Letters of St Teresa (Coleridge) 143 The Life of Father John Cornelius (Arundell)  19, 19n, 20n, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27 Life of Lady Warner (Scarisbrick)  199 Life of Mother Margaret Clement 89, 104–5, 105n44 Life of Mother Margaret of Jesus (Coleridge) 145–6 Life of the Venerable Anne of Jesus (Hardman) 147

Jacobites  4, 7, 194, 195, 197, 223 Jesuit confessors  35, 40, 48 priests as extraordinary  112 Jesuit historians  22 Jesuit mission  28–9, 33, 37 alms 36 Suffolk 47 Jesuits  35, 44, 45, 49, 130, 163, 199 direction 237 and disputes with secular clergy  48 emblem books  203 Ghent  35, 238 support for  36, 42

Kändler, Johann J.  205–6 Kempe, Margery  126, 127, 127n15, 128 128n17 Kilroy, Gerard  41n32 kinship  25, 225 Knatchbull, Abbess Lucy  110, 110n6, 112, 112n14, 238, 238n43 Knell, P. R.  46n56, 46–7n56, 48, 48n62 Knowles, David  76n10 Knox, Andrea  225n52

278

The English Convents in Exile, 1600–1800

Lingen, Winifred of St Teresa  142, 142n10, 143, 149, 153, 154n64, 155 literary techniques  82 ‘The Little Chronicles’  88–9, 92, 103, 105 liturgies  13, 177, 179, 183, 184, 186, 187–8, 189–90 Loomie, Albert J.  22n12, 30n43/45 Loudivick (alias Tuite), Sister Clare  215, 216–17, 218, 225 Louvain 13 canonesses 92–3t5.1 Louvain Chronicle  89–91, 93, 94–5, 95t5.3, 97, 99n21, 100–102, 104, 105–8, 101 author  89–91, 93, 94–5, 97; MS C2  101–2, 102n31/32/33, 103 nuns  94t5.2, 95–6t5.3, 97–8 siege of  91–2, 93 Lovell, Elizabeth  185 Low Countries  29, 200, 204, 213, 225 Lowe, Kate J. P.  53n2 Loyola, Ignatius, St  113, 116, 130, 237, 238 Lux-Sterritt, Laurence  9, 56n9 McCabe, Honor  212n5, 226 McClain, Lisa  6n, 188, 188n65 McCoog, Thomas  3–4, 4n9, 20n4, 29n41, 36n8, 37, 37n, 39n16, 46–7n56, 50–51n76 Macek, Ellen  123, 123n3 Marks, Philippa J. M.  174n48 martyrs 105 Mary Magdalen’s Funeral Tears (Southwell) 25 Mary Margaret of the Angels Wake  150, 154, 206n46, 225 Mary of Modena, Queen  199, 199n24, 200, 226 Mary Ward Institute  8, 214, 237n39 Mass  134, 177, 179, 183, 186, 259–60 Low  178, 179 music  188, 189–90

sung 183–4 Matthew, Toby  110, 110n6 Matthew 7:15  82 meditation  130, 196 Medwick, Cathleen  201 mezzotints 205 Micro, Edward SJ  39 Middle Ages  126, 191 Middleton, Thomas  71, 204, 204n41 Milsom, John  179, 179n22 miniatures of nuns  197 The Mirror of Religious Perfection (Pinelli) 165 Miseria, Fray Juan de la  201 Monastery of Our Lady of the Assumption, Brussels  175–6 constitutions 176–8 Monastery of Our Lady of Nazareth, Bruges  185, 186, 186n54 monastery organists  176, 182 Monson, Craig A.  53n2 Montague family  24 The Month 143 More, Gertrude  129, 130, 130n26, 131, 131n32, 137, 203, 203n37, 229, 229n1, 231n8, 233, 233n19, 238, 239n50/53, 240 More, Henry SJ  46 Mostyn, Margaret  145–6, 148, 149 motets  179, 179n23 motivation 64 Murphy, Ruth  53 music  13, 41, 175, 189 Louvain 185–6 non-music sources  176, 181–2 Paston collection  179–80 women’s education  188 mysticism  135, 137–8, 202, 203, 234, 242–3 national identity: discourse  223–4, 227 and French state  250 state 14–15 national church  1, 6 nominal authorship  111n11, 120, 121–2

Index

non-anonymity 141 North, Marcy  81, 81n29 nuns  57, 60–61, 71–2, 77, 85 Chapter rejections  62–3 commitment to life  58–9, 63 early leavers  66, 67–8 Examinations 63 lack of health  62, 66 parental influence  65 withdrawals  64, 64n44 withdraws to other Orders  66 as writers  100 see also professions Oates, Titus  39 obedience  82, 130 absolute 123 false doctrine  75 obituaries  110, 141, 222n42, 241n65 ‘The Old Book’  88 Offertorium 183 Oliva, Marilyn  129n23 oral stories  90 O’Regan, Noel  176, 176n6 organs 187 Owen, Lewis  77n11 Oxley, James E.  33n pamphlets  5, 71, 75, 80, 83–4 Paston, Edward  179 collection of music  179–80, 180n25 patronage  2, 33, 39–40, 44, 48–9, 78n18, 161–2, 163, 166 Royal 169–70 Patton, Elizabeth  23n16 penance 134 penitents  123, 124, 125, 134, 135, 138, 233, 239 Percy, Abbess (Lady) Mary  11–12, 27, 29, 31, 48, 63, 109, 110, 110n10, 111, 111n12, 112–13, 114, 114n22/23, 115n25, 116n30/31, 117, 118–22, 176 Perry, Elizabeth  10, 11 Persons, Fr Robbert SJ  77, 77–8n13, 111, 116, 164, 164n23, 172 petitions  247, 260–62

279

Petre, Sir Francis  44 Petre, Sir John  40, 41 Petre, William, 2nd baron  42 Petre family  2, 40, 41, 176n3, 188 fate of  39–40 and Jesuits  41, 42–3 Petroff, Elizabeth A.  140n5 Philip II, King of Spain  171 Philip III, King of Spain  159, 162, 165, 166, 167, 172–3 Philip IV  172 Philips, Mary  180 Philips, Peter  175, 180, 180n28 Pinelli, Lucas  165 Pits, Fr Arthur  182, 182n33 plainchant (also plain chant)  177, 183, 185, 189–90 Platt, Peter  176n5 Plowden, Percy  154 polyphony  178, 179, 185, 189–90 Poor Clares  26, 58, 199, 212n6, 213, 215, 254 Aire 254 Dublin  212, 227–8 English 216n18  Ghent 222 Gravelines  14, 26, 43, 47, 196, 199, 203–4, 218–19, 219n27, 223–4 Irish 216 Rouen  67, 211, 214, 215, 222n43 Poor Souls Friend and St Joseph’s Monitor  87, 87n2, 99, 164n26 popery 195 portraits  191, 195–6, 202, 207–8 of choir nuns  193–4 in death  203–4 of English nuns  191, 192–3t11.1, 196–7, 200 engraved records  197–9 by European artists  191–2 of founding mothers  196 oil 194–5 of Teresa of Avila  201 Post-Reformation England  20, 72, 191 Catholic familial groupings  24 Essex 33 in exile  84

280

The English Convents in Exile, 1600–1800

poverty, vow of  236 prayer  129–30, 244 priests: provision of spiritual guidance  132 sacramental powers  133–4 Priory of Our Lady, Haywards Heath 87 professions  56, 63 early leavers  67–8 English convents  56, 58 forced 53–4 French convents  57 Italy 56 motivation 58 parental influence  64–5 records 55 Protestants  6, 26, 66, 77–87, 80, 107, 148, 204 conversion to Catholicism  223 English  77–8, 80 Essex 33–4 persecution 14 propaganda  71, 79, 86 Psalm 16  118 Psalm 30  170 Psalm 60  171 Psalm 80  169 Psalm 119  118 Psalm 137  168, 169 Purnell, E. K.  7n20 Questier, Michael  24, 24n, 45n50, 49–50n74 Radcliffe, Dorothy  64 Radcliffe, James  197 Ramsay, Allan  204–5 Rapley, Elizabeth  57, 57n14, 58 Raymond of Capua  126 recusants  34n, 42, 98, 162–3, 178, 188, 222, 224 and music-making  179, 187–8, 188–9 Reformation 125 nuns, English portraits  12, 191 religion 8 religious emblems  202

religious Orders  3, 49, 54, 177, 202, 208, 250 religious women  127, 129, 230, 233, 234, 235, 241, 244 and clerical guidance  237 death 241 devotional exercises  240 Requiem Masses  184 Rigoulec, John  59 Robinson, John Martin  159, 171n39, 172n41, 173n43 Robinson, Thomas  5, 5n18, 6, 10, 12, 47, 47n60, 54n3, 71, 71n1, 71n2.72, 72n3, 74, 75–6, 77, 80, 81–4, 85, 86, 204n40 Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith in Rome (Propaganda)  116, 117, 117n33, 119, 120 Sander, Elizabeth  77 Scarisbrick, Edward SJ  199, 200n25 Scott, Geoffrey  5–6, 12, 192–3t11.1, 195n5 Scott, Thomas  79, 79n23 secretaries 115 self-concealment 11 self-writing  144–5, 151 seminaries, Spain  78 Sepulchrines  38–9, 55n6, 61n32, 67 Liège  62, 66, 67 sequestration 34 sexual impropriety  134 Shakespeare, William  71–2, 72n3, 85n33, 139 Sheils, William  34n Shirley, Sister Elizabeth  89, 89n7, 104–5, 105n44 Simeons, Joseph  38–9 sins  133, 134, 235 absolving  128, 131, 137 confession of  123, 128 temptations to  9 Skidmore, Mary  182, 182n32 Smith, Helen  5 Smith, Bishop Richard  2–3, 49, 51 social satires  204

Index

Somerset, Katherine  42–3 Song of Songs  191 ‘song-books’ 181 Southcote, Elizabeth  40–41, 48, 48n63, 49–50, 51 Southcote family  45, 46, 48 Southfield, William  128 Southwell, Robert, St  25, 25n Spain  22, 225 Spanish Low Countries  29 Spanish Netherlands  175, 237 Speculum Superiorum (Constable) 132 spiritual directors  123, 124–5, 126–7, 129–30, 133, 134 abbess  135, 237 female  124, 131, 138 male  126, 137–8 and female penitents  135 unhelpful 129–30 spiritual education  26 Spiritual Exercises (More)  129, 130, 131, 230 spirituality  44–5, 51, 112, 239 St Monica’s Convent, Louvain  181–2 Stanley, William  29 Stapleton, Benedict  132 Stevens, J.  199n22 Stourton, Lady Anne (Stanley) 19, 23, 24 Syon Abbey  71–2n2, 76, 76n10, 77, 77n10, 78, 78n14, 79, 80, 80n25, 81, 84, 159n3, 159–61, 161n7/10, 163, 164, 164n24, 166, 166n32, 171–2172n41 book production  75 exile  28, 28n, 159, 160–61, 174 expulsion of nuns  168 Lisbon 171–2 manuscript response to Robinson  86 Syon community  10 Teresa of Avila, St  10, 125, 129–30, 201, 243 Three Kingdoms  214–15 translators  115–16, 117–18, 119, 121, 141

281

transnational community of women 165 Trappes-Lomax, Richard  53n1, 55n8, 56n10, 63n40, 65n47, 208n53, 262n79 Tregian family  24 Tremaine family  24 Tridentine Catholicism  2, 3, 9, 9n29, 14, 15, 127, 129 Trumbull, William  6, 7 Turberville, Margaret  62, 62n36 Two English Carmelites (Hardman) 148 Tyrconnell, Lady  221 Vaux, William, 3rd baron Vaux  36–7 Verstegan, Richard  177, 198n19 Vickers, Brian  121n49 Virgil  73, 73n5, 74, 76, 99 visions  128, 129–30, 134 vocation, sense of  58, 59–60, 64, 167, 232, 233, 234 voting, in Chapter  60 Vox Populi (Scott)  79 Waldegrave, Barbara  40n25 Waldegrave, Hieronyma  40n24, 48–9 Walker, Claire  4, 4n11, 7, 7n21, 14n32, 28n34, 35n4, 44, 45n49, 48, 48n64, 49n71, 56, 56n13, 57, 57n15, 58n23, 71–2n2, 100n26, 107, 114n21, 127n16, 162n15, 164, 164n27, 214 Wallace, David  128n21 Walsham, Alexandra  2, 2n4, 28n34, 72n2, 77n10, 160n5, 164n24/27 Warner, Teresa Clare  199, 199n23, 200 Warren, Nancy Bradley  5n16, 71n2, 79n24, 84n32, 125n9, 160n4 Waters, Claire M.  167n33 Weaver, Elissa  139n3 Weeks, Ursula  173n44 Weston, William  178, 178n15, 179 Whitbread, Thomas SJ  39–40 ‘Who were the Nuns?’  54–5, 57n19, 90–91, 119, 119n42, 130–40, 213, 214, 250n14

282

The English Convents in Exile, 1600–1800

Willeck, Elizabeth Joseph  65n49 Williams, Richard L.  195n6 Wiseman, Abbess Barbara  162, 162n16, 163, 163n19/20, 164–5, 167, 169, 172, 173–4 Wolfe, Heather  5, 5n16, 110, 110n8, 121, 122n51, 129n23, 133, 133n40, 224n48, 230n7  women in literature  139n3 women religious  4, 7, 9, 43, 54n3, 129–30, 131, 133, 137, 260 Elizabethan period  23 French  136, 137

Irish 224–5 Woolf, Virginia  139, 139n3, 140, 155 writing  11, 90 convent 139 female monastic  76, 252–3 in Gaelic Irish  211 and nuns  86, 100, 109 Yepes, Diego de  19n1 , 20n3, 21, 21–2n11, 77–8, 77–8n13 Zimmerman, Benedict ODC  147, 147n35