Women's History Review

ISSN: 0961-2025 (Print) 1747-583X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rwhr20

Collecting the Lives of Early Modern Women

Religious: obituary writing and the development of
collective memory and corporate identity
Caroline Bowden
To cite this article: Caroline Bowden (2010) 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, 7-20, DOI: 10.1080/09612020903444619
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09612020903444619

Published online: 19 Jan 2010.

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Womens History Review

Vol. 19, No. 1, February 2010, pp. 720

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Collecting the Lives of Early Modern

Women Religious: obituary writing
and the development of collective
memory and corporate identity
Caroline Bowden

The leaders of the new English convents founded in exile in the seventeenth century faced
particular challenges. With limited resources they sought to establish high standards in
their convents. Key to encouraging new members to aspire to devotion, discipline and
fulfilling the rules and constitutions of the founders was the communal reading of texts of
exemplary lives. Senior members of the convents displayed keen awareness of the kinds of
texts most appropriate. In addition to external exemplars, obituaries recording the religious
qualities of the newly deceased members and, where appropriate, praising their contributions to the life of the convent exist from the start. This article explores strategies for reading
obits from two orders of nuns (Benedictines and Poor Clares) in order to understand daily
life for English women religious in the seventeenth century.
Womens
10.1080/09612020903444619
RWHR_A_444822.sgm
0961-2025
Original
Taylor
102010
19
c.bowden@qmul.ac.uk
CarolineBowden
00000February
and
&
Article
Francis
History
(print)/1747-583X
Francis
2010
Review
(online)

Let a Register bee made, where in are to be sett downe all the names of such Religious as in the monastery departed this life and in the same also is to bee written if any
thing of noate hapned to them, either in their life or at their death that it may serve for
an Example to Posteritie, and lett these things bee reade the day before their yeares
yndes, or Annyversaryes, that peculiar care and memory may bee had of them.1

Caroline Bowden is Research Fellow and Project Manager of the Who were the Nuns? project funded by AHRC
at Queen Mary University of London (website http://wwtn.history.qmul.ac.uk/). In 2001 she established the
research network History of Women Religious of Britain and Ireland with Dr Carmen Mangion which launched
a corresponding website in 2006: http://www.rhul.ac.uk/Bedford-Centre/history-women-religious/. Caroline
Bowden has published a number of papers on womens education and learning both inside and outside the
convents including: The Library of Mildred Cooke Cecil in The Library, 2005 and Women in Educational Spaces
in The Cambridge Companion to Early Modern Womens Writing, ed. Laura Knoppers, Cambridge University Press,
2009. Correspondence to: Caroline Bowden, History Department, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End
Road, London E1 4NS, UK. Email: c.bowden@qmul.ac.uk
ISSN 09612025 (print)/ISSN 1747583X (online)/10/01000714 2010 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/09612020903444619

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C. Bowden

The rules of St Benedict, newly translated into English with additional statutes for the
English Benedictines, were quite explicit regarding the writing of obituary notices for
all the members of the convent and their purpose in convent life. They were to be read
regularly to serve as exemplars for future members in order to embed the lives into the
collective memory of the convent. The presence of specific instructions regarding the
keeping of obituaries is an indication of their importance to the Benedictines and it
became common practice in the English convents in the seventeenth century to keep
records of the lives of the members.2 This article will focus on obituary notices from
two orders, the Benedictines and the Poor Clares, in order to consider some of the
strategies adopted by the English nuns of the newly founded convents to create institutional or corporate identities.3
The Brussels convent was the first of the new English houses for women founded in
exile in 1598.4 Only the Bridgettines could claim an unbroken chain of existence from
their original foundation at Syon Abbey outside London. A small group had stayed
together after Henry VIIIs dissolution in 1539, going into exile and finally settling in
Lisbon in 1594. The Elizabethan religious settlement prevented public Catholic
worship and over the course of Elizabeths reign additional regulations made the penalties on Catholics more severe. By the end of the century, penal laws prevented English
Catholic parents from sending their children abroad to be educated or to join monasteries and convents. However, although the total number of Catholics in England was
falling, there were still devout women who wished to become nuns. Before 1600, in
spite of the regulations a number of English women had joined foreign convents: most
notably St Ursulas at Louvain in Flanders where twenty-six English women joined
between 1592 and 1606 when there was an English prioress, Margaret Clement.5 In the
1590s a small group of young English women gathered in Brussels under the leadership
of Lady Mary Percy, the daughter of the executed Duke of Northumberland, and in
1598 the first convent specifically for English women was opened there. This was
rapidly followed by others and by 1630, eleven English enclosed convents had opened
in Flanders and a further four followed before 1650 in Flanders and northern France.
The last of the English enclosed foundations was established in 1678 by the Carmelites
as a daughter house from Antwerp. Around 2,010 women (mainly English) were
professed in these convents before 1675 in spite of the efforts of the English government to prevent them joining.
The fact that these were new institutions founded in exile made the creation of a
strong communal identity very important from the outset if they were to survive and it
was understood by the founders. The vow of obedience required the individual to
surrender their individual will to live as part of the community subject to the rule and
the constitutions. The future of the new foundations depended on their ability to create
a reputation for themselves on both sides of the Channel such that they attracted
members able to bring substantial dowries and patronage from influential and wealthy
patrons. Many of those involved in the foundation movement displayed a sound
understanding of the means whereby this might be achieved. For instance, Mary Percy,
who founded the Brussels Benedictine convent, and Mary Ward, who established the
English Poor Clares at Gravelines (near Calais) in 1609, cultivated the Archduke Albert

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Womens History Review 9

and Archduchess Isabella at Brussels, both of whom were intensely religious and
sympathetic to their cause. Through their court contacts the founders were able to
negotiate tax concessions and were introduced to lay and ecclesiastical authorities able
to provide them with the legal documents needed to open their convents and to
patrons able to provide support in the long term.
The experience of exile and the requirement that they take in only English women as
choir nuns placed national identity at the heart of concerns of the new convents and
influenced the selection and writing of appropriate texts in English for the communities. Central to the religious life of the nuns were books needed for the performance of
the office in Latin: these were bought or donated locally. Most of the texts in English
would have to be created within the new communities. It is clear from the documents
that have survived which texts were priorities for the new foundations: they were the
rule of the order followed by the constitutions setting out the detail of daily life for each
convent in English. Following these as part of creating an institutional identity were
records of the members, histories of the convents and texts supporting the religious life
of the nuns such as exemplary lives and meditations. The Poor Clares at Gravelines
maintained a Chronicle over a number of years, taking the practice with them when a
daughter house was founded at Rouen in 1644. Among the documents of greatest
importance to a convent, the Benedictine Anne Neville, abbess at Pontoise, identified
annals, chronicles and a book of benefactors where the Chantress was to see that the
name of the Religious is to be set downe with what hapneth extraordinary in theyr life
or death. She was also to make sure that the book was to be read in public annually.6
Part of a significant body of copied texts from the Benedictines at Cambrai for individual reading and study are copies of the writings of English medieval mystics such as
Walter Hilton and Julian of Norwich. Heather Wolfe argues that in doing so they were
consciously providing English Catholics with an institutional memory.7
Corporate Identity
Marie-Louise Coolahan, writing about the Poor Clares in the seventeenth century, has
pointed out that nuns wrote according to the requirements of their own communities, but also to proclaim and sustain a variety of collective identities. On one level
they had a transnational identity as a Poor Clare or Benedictine nun; on another level
an identity as an English nun in exile; on another, loyalty to their own particular
convent. She argues that the tensions between these identities are never fully
resolved.8 For members and potential members there was a strong sense of the separate identity of each order (Benedictine, Augustinian, Poor Clares, Franciscan, etc.)
Benedictine life focused on the performance of the liturgy and entailed a life of reading, study and contemplation based on moderation. The English Poor Clares sought a
life of poverty and austerity following the revisions of the Rule by St Colette in the
early fifteenth century.9 Within the order each convent had its own identity based on
modifications of the constitutions which were drawn up separately for each house.
For instance, the spirituality of the Benedictine convent founded at Cambrai in 1623
by the English Benedictine Congregation where Father Augustine Baker was spiritual

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C. Bowden

director between 1624 and 1633 was very different from the convent at Brussels which
had adopted Jesuit practices.10
The constitutions defined each community and directed every part of the day:
from, on the one hand, externals such as gesture and clothing to, on the other, the
interior life of the members including spirituality and attitudes. Once a woman had
chosen an order she had to decide on a particular convent and apply to enter. She
might have a relative in the convent, or have been given advice from a chaplain at
home or have heard of the high reputation of a particular convent. According to
Nicky Hallett many reasons are given in Carmelite sources for a particular choice of
convent, ranging from pure chance to inspiration derived from reading the works of
Teresa de Avila.11 The community they joined became the family of the newly
professed with its own antecedents and ancestors and would in turn have successors.
Obituaries were one way of keeping alive the memory of previous members and
contributing to the creation of a sense of corporate identity. The convent was a
community created in religion by law rather than by marriage and blood ties; its identity had to be created self-consciously. A strong sense of the new family was developed
in conventual documents: for example, by using familial language, as we will see in
the obits of the two abbesses. The Poor Clares in their annals stated, All Religious
ought to consider their Superior as given them of God to be their true Mother, both
in nature and spirit, first in providing with continuall solicitude and care all things
necessary for their temporall subsistance and secondly for their spirituall good and
advancement.12 Here, and in Anne Nevilles own advice for Benedictine convents,
the abbess should treat those in her care as daughters, showing motherly affection.
Nuns were also known as Sisters and must take a sisterly care for the others in the
community.
Biographical or Life-Writing in English Convents
In the introduction to her recent book, Lives of the Spirit, Nicky Hallett discusses the
particular conditions generating a considerable volume of life-writing and influencing
the way English women religious wrote both biographies and autobiographies. She
argues that writing in exile altered the circumstances in which English women were
writing compared with their medieval forebears; nevertheless, there was some continuity with earlier styles of spiritual self-writing and their writings had some influence on
English Catholic perceptions of religious renewal.13 Life-writing takes a variety of
forms in early modern English convents and much of it has survived despite many
forced closures at the time of the French Revolution and other catastrophic events. As
well as the obits (discussed in detail below), we have autobiographical and biographical
texts, spiritual self-writing, and conversion narratives.14 Several extended lives exist for
the convents under consideration in this article. We have, for example, at Cambrai in
addition to obits, manuscript lives of Gertrude More and Margaret Gascoigne. The life
of Sister Clare of Jesus (formerly Lady Warner), who died at Gravelines in 1670, was
published in England in 1692. According to the preface, the documents for this life
were gathered initially by Abbess Anne Neville who wanted to facilitate publication.

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Womens History Review 11

Aimed at a readership of both Protestants and Catholics, its immediate popularity can
be seen by the appearance of three editions within five years.15 All of these versions of
lives formed part of the self-fashioning of the communities: contributing to the
construction of a collective memory, reworking, compressing and moulding the written lives of individuals to create corporate identities in accordance with the rules and
statutes governing the convents.16
In the English convents, where religious discipline was strictly imposed, there were
a number of constraints on writing. While the lives of the founders and early abbesses
were in many ways remarkable, monastic constitutions reinforced notions of humility
and service to the communities and played down or even denied the role of the individual: the corporate whole was more important. Although there were variations in
practice between the convents, certain tenets and beliefs were common to all women
religious. For example, humility and self-denial were central to the religious life.
Several obits refer to requests that the subjects papers be destroyed after their death
and very little remains relating to the lives of some of the most significant abbesses as a
result.17 As with lay women in the early modern period, authorial reluctance is a
constant underlying theme. On the other hand, serving the community by writing obits
encouraged the recording of lives of women who otherwise would have remained
unrecognised and unwritten. The obits supplied the convent with texts to be read on
the same occasions as the lives of saints associated with the original foundation of the
order or English martyrs linked to families of members of the convent. The close relationship between the lives of saints and those of the nuns was demonstrated by Claire
Walker when she compared the obit of Elizabeth Evelinge from Gravelines with
Evelinges translation of the Life of St Catharine. Evelinge died havinge before her
death embalmed her preshous memory in ye fragrancy of all sortes of vertious
accomplishments adorning a Religious Proefesion. According to her obit, like the
body of St Catharine of Bologna, her body gave off a sweet smell after death and was
found to be incorrupt.18
Obituary Writing
The term obit was variously interpreted in the English convents: most frequently it
referred to death notices written anonymously shortly after the death of the member of
the community. Written into a volume, they were not intended for publication and
never left the convent buildings, although copies of extracts might be circulated. Even
within an order writing practice varied considerably.19 For instance, the obituaries
from Ghent and Paris tend to be longer than at the other convents and bring out individual traits while giving a longer account of the life of the subject, including the time
before they joined the convent.20 At Ghent, just below the heading giving the subjects
name and date of death is a summary of her chief virtues: among the characteristics
appearing frequently in this period are humility, obedience, charity and zeal. There is
enough variation to suggest that the writer has considered the choice of words
carefully, substantiating her selection in the full obit following. For instance, the virtues
of Margaret Knatchbull, who died in 1637, were said to be silence, recollection and

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C. Bowden

punctuality in observances. Dorothy Carys virtues were obedience, constancy in her

spiritual exercises and industrious zeal for the service of the community. The obit goes
on to explain that she was the scribe responsible for copying many documents for the
community, particularly meditations.21
Many of the obits at the Paris Benedictine convent are essays, falling into five main
sections: parentage of the subject, how she came to be professed, analysis of character,
the nature of her religious life, and death. As well as the more usual comment on regular observance, sweet comportment and constancy, there are references to individual
characteristics or activities: an elderly nuns knitting and sewing, the quality of singing,
the charitable habits dating from Abbess Justina Gascoignes childhood, and quotations from conversations. A significant part of each obit is given over to the process of
dying, highlighting the reaction of the subject to each stage of the illness. For nuns,
death was the way of meeting Christ, their divine spouse. Many of them on their
deathbeds expressed joy at moving on to the next stage of existence and dying well
contributed to the religious strength of the community. The obituary which records the
illnesses and death of Clementia Cary (one of four sisters who professed at Cambrai)
on 26 April 1671 alongside her significant contribution to the founding of the Paris
convent is clearly designed to act as an exemplar on dying in the convent. It shows how
Clementia Cary embraced her illness as a gift from God and how she studied to prepare
her soul. On her deathbed she was peaceful and accepting of the end in spite of her pain,
receiving the last rites as approved by the Church.22
There are only fifteen seventeenth-century obits surviving from the Benedictine
convent at Cambrai, the last death recorded being 1651.23 These are much shorter than
those from Paris and follow a literary model not seen in other convents. Mary Beth
Long has argued that they follow the pattern of earlier legendaries of saints and martyrs.
She compares elements from the nuns lives given in the obits, such as the decision to
enter the convent, with the conversion experience of the martyrs. The deathbed behaviour of the nuns she compares with the experience of martyrdom: As the translation
into a better world, death repays the sister for the choice to join the convent, completing the structural cycle that begins with her profession.24
The obits from Pontoise tend to be straightforward summaries of the lives, final
illnesses and deaths. Lucy Perkins died at Pontoise in 1662 aged fifty-seven having been
professed for thirty years: strenthned with the holy sacrements and most happily
prepared for this last howre by a singular exemplery life; shewing much Zeale in the
Quire and other dutys of Religion with great edification to all: she was a happy and
servisable member of the Community.25 Gertrude Turner, a choir nun who died in
1691, apparently deserved a long obituary: had not her humility sillencd my penn by
desiring at her death that nothing might be mentiond in this present Obit. Here it
could be argued that the absence of a full obituary is itself an example of humility to
others. However, in another case, there seems to have been little to say about Justina
Timperly, who died in 1684 after twenty-four years of profession, other than that she
died giving great edification readily serving all. On the other hand, Alexia Smith
made a great impression on the community in spite of her youth. When she died in
1666 aged only nineteen she was described as being of an excellent wit, sweet and

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Womens History Review 13

pleasant humour, agreeable to all she compleated a great worke in a Short time,
contemning the world in the flower of her age.26
The obits of the Poor Clares tend to be shorter than those from the Benedictine
convents. This has the effect of flattening out the differences between the individual
lives and characters if they are read consecutively from the printed page. For instance,
a number of nuns added to the reputation of the convent by their close observance of
the rules rather than their individuality. For instance, Mary Giffard, who entered
Gravelines in 1610, died there in 1633 in the twenty-fourth year of her profession. She
lived with Singular and great example of Zeal in the Divine honour and Service.27
Anne Berington, who died in 1687 after forty years in the convent, was singularly
devout and as sacristan, she kept with great neatness her Altar. Elizabeth Unsworth
was said to have described herself as the Ass of the convent because she was prepared
to load herself with each ones burdens of Laborious works before her last illness. She
died aged sixty-nine in 1700 at Gravelines. Margaret Batte served as the apothecary to
the convent for many years and was never more Cheerful & content than when she
coud by any means solace or ease the sick.28
In the larger communities it was inevitable that there were some in the community who held no important offices even in a long conventual life and failed to make
a singular impact on the community in which they lived: some of them through
extended illnesses, others because it was their nature. Their obits tend to emphasise
exact observance of the rules, humility and exemplary obedience to authority:
phrases which with repetition may sound formulaic to outside readers. At the
extreme, in terms of brevity, is Anne Perkins, who died in 1658 at Rouen having
been professed for thirty-nine years; described only as having lived very religiously
all her life.29 These obits by their very existence contribute to the identity of the
whole and by their number add to the reputation of the convent for living according
to the rule.
Attitudes towards lay sisters in the convents are reflected in their treatment in the
obituary books. They might be included in the main list with the choir nuns but more
usually appear at the end or they may even be absent. In all the convents lay sisters were
professed to do most of the domestic work in order to release the choir nuns for the full
performance of the office. In Benedictine convents lay sisters were expected to bring a
dowry or to possess some significant skills useful to the convent such as making physick
or specialist needlework. The lay sisters wore distinctive clothing and followed their
own daily pattern of work and worship. Their work was essential to the smooth
running of the convents and their identity was that of women religious. Their entrance
into the convent followed a similar pattern to the choir sisters, but with a shorter novitiate followed by profession ceremony where they took vows in English. In addition to
lay sisters, some convents employed servants to do the roughest work: in convents
where lay sisters were enclosed the servants would do external errands for the convent
such as marketing.
The variations in the treatment of the obits of the lay sisters can be seen in the records
at Pontoise, Paris and Ghent. Here if they have obituaries, the lay sisters appear with
the choir nuns, whereas for the Poor Clares at Dunkirk the lay sisters appear at the end

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C. Bowden

of the manuscript. Their obits indicate as much variety in their activities as for the choir
nuns and in many cases the importance of their contribution to the spiritual life of the
convent. Sister Francis Collet Shelly, a lay sister who died in 1714, the forty-eighth year
of her profession, was described in a way that shows the value of her religious life as well
as her domestic labour: She was zealous in the practice of mortification, prayer, silence
& recollection & performed the part not only of a Magdalen, but of a Martha also in
being always sollicitous & laborious in whatever could be any ways advantageous to this
Community. Sister Margaret Gabriel Turner:

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was Cook in the Kitchen many years; & did the laborious part of it faithfully &
devoutly; till being unable for it, she had the care of the Refectory given to her. All
the time which remained from her labours she spent in prayer, was exact in holy
poverty & truly charitable to any one in necessity. When she drew near her Jubily she
was taken to the Infirmary here she spent 11 years to the great edification of the
Community.30

Lay sisters, like choir nuns, were expected to die well. The emphasis of the obit of
Sister Dorothy Barefoot (d.1634), a lay sister at Ghent, was her exemplary suffering
during her illnesses. Already sick herself, she volunteered to nurse a sister about to
be shut up in the infirmary for a month with smallpox: this was followed by her
own terminal illness.31 By their work and exemplary following of their own rule, the
lay sisters too were contributing to the collective identity and reputation of the
convent.
Jane Martin, a lay sister professed at Cambrai, who died in 1631, was the daughter
of a gentleman and therefore from a social class more likely to become a choir nun:
according to her obit she chose the humbler option in order to avoid causing expense
to those who were paying for her dowry.32 Scholastica Hodson, a lay sister, was sent
from Cambrai to Paris in 1651 to assist in the new foundation. While praising the
qualities Sister Scholastica showed in her main work in the infirmary, the obituarist
makes a point of emphasising her religious qualities: for instance, her ability to be
quiet and pray. She was able to influence all the sisters by her example: a contrast to
the rule which emphasised the reverence due to the choir nuns from the lay sisters
and the difference in status between the two.33 As well as contributing to the
corporate identity, the obituaries add to our understanding of the complexities of
conventual relationships.
Both the Benedictine communities and the Poor Clares read obits communally on
anniversaries. The regular public readings were intended to develop a sense of community values and practice among listeners who were enjoined by the constitutions to be
active. However, practice differed in other convents. For instance, the Augustinians
presented obituary books to official visitors for reading, thus communicating indirectly
to the outside world news of the inner community.34 Even though they might be
running the risk of admitting weaknesses to outsiders, Augustinian houses permitted
the recording of human failings. Sister Catherine Holland was described as having a
satirical wit and a high spirit. Her obit writer records that she had much to overcome
in her nature and the struggle between nature and grace was sometimes very apparent.35 Pascal Majrus also notes the occasional humorous comment in Carmelite

Womens History Review 15

obits: for instance Sister Mary of Jesus who was doing great charity in work, preventing
the sisters from doing the dishes.36
Abbesses

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Her humility charity and motherly hart was soe remarkable that it extended to everyone in particular, as if she had had no other or greater business then to comfort and
assist those who adressd themselves to her in theyr necessityes: & this even in the
midst & height of those many & heavy crosses which god was pleasd to favour her
with, having given her an invinsible courage, & vertue above the ordinary to support
them not only patiently, but with allacritye and cheerfulness. She was endowd with a
great & generous spirit, & all her actions were accompanyd with Justice, worth and
affability which gave that luster to them as became the nobleness of her mind & birth.
The love of god incessantly inflamd her hart with zeale & devotion as appeard in all
her pious practices.37

This extract from the obituary notice of Abbess Anne Neville, head of the Benedictine
house at Pontoise for twenty-two years, illustrates the characteristics of an abbess who
was much admired in her order. She died in 1689 aged eighty-three. Unlike the situation
for many English women of this period, we know a good deal about the life of Anne
Neville after she professed at Ghent in 1634. Some of this is revealed in the obit of just
two-thirds of a page in length; the rest can be pieced together from surviving conventual
documents.38 She was a woman who left a significant mark on the governance of the
group of five convents linked to Brussels, both by her own actions and her writings.39
For example, she was sent by the Abbess of Ghent (Mary Knatchbull) to England in 1663
to try to recover debts owed to the convent by Charles II and was partially successful in
her mission. On her return she was invited to join the newly founded Benedictine
convent at Pontoise and was elected Abbess in 1667 on a unanimous vote. Although the
convent was well connected, it was in some financial difficulty: Anne Neville managed
to resolve the short-term problems although finances at Pontoise remained precarious
and she left instructions for superiors which reveal her as an effective manager.40
My second example is taken from the obituary notice of a Poor Clare; Abbess Clare
Mary Anna Tildesley, who died aged sixty-seven in 1654 at Gravelines:
haveing ever given a very rare Example of all sorts of Vertues and Sanctity, namely of
an admirable prudence, Humility, Charity and tender Compassion towards all: she
was endued with a Singular Fortitude and Constancy of Mind with a perseverant
Confidence in the Divine Providence amidst many Afllictions and heavy Crosses,
which she sustained during the term of so long a government, being Mother of all
Cloisters of our holy Order, as well Irish as English, haveing received more than a
Hundred to the Holy Profession. She was endued with great Piety & Devotion, with
Guifts of Tears and Suffred many long & painfull Sicknesses & Infirmaty with Singular
Patience and Conformity to the Divine Will: particularly her last which was very
Violent, and wherein she rendered her Soul most sweetly into the hands of her Creatour amongst the Prayers & tears of all her afflicted Children.41

Much less is known about the life of Abbess Tildesley than about Abbess Neville: she
left no personal documents that have yet come to light. Most of what we know is

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C. Bowden

derived from the obituary with additional information from Annals and a Chronicle of
the Gravelines convent. The obit refers to afflictions and heavy crosses sustained.42
The Chronicle reveals that some of these were caused by the actions of a friar who
imposed his own will on the convent in 1626, deposing Abbess Tildesley and insisting
on the election of his own candidate. The situation was only rectified after a catastrophic fire, an event seen by many in the convent as a divine judgement on the actions
of the friar. Because she commanded great loyalty and respect from her nuns Abbess
Tildesley was re-elected, but the row dragged on, ending finally in 1629 when the Pope
intervened to exclude the friars from any involvement in the convents affairs. The fact
that Abbess Tildesley had adhered to the rules and the affection with which she was
regarded served to protect her in the long term and is reflected in the obit. This was a
particularly bitter struggle but one which most convent sources omit. If revealed to the
outside world, it would damage the reputation of the convent. Convent registers
confirm that Elizabeth Tildesley professed around a hundred and ten novices during
her thirty-nine years as abbess. These novices, bringing with them dowries, were vital
for the maintenance and survival of the convent. The Annals confirm that in 1644 Clare
Mary Anna Tildesley was granted the title of Mother Superior of all English and Irish
Poor Clare Cloisters by Pope Innocent X. There were convents at Aire, Gravelines and
Rouen and in Ireland, six smaller houses including Dublin and Galway.43 The expansion of the foundation is a mark of Abbess Tildesleys success as leader: like Anne
Neville her influence extended beyond her own convent and in Abbess Tildesleys case
the influence was felt overseas. A measure of the respect in which she was held can be
seen in the three dedications of new translations into English between 1620 and 1623.
The dedicatory prefaces would bring to the attention of the outside world the standing
of religious practice in the convent she led. John Heigham, in his 1622 edition of The
life of our blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus, asked rhetorically for to whom could I better
dedicate it, then to those who first induced me to compose it?44
Later notes added to the Annals give us the inscription on her tombstone which (in
translation) recorded:
Here pilgrim, you look down and tread upon someone of great reputation, the mother
of so many young women; and yet herself a virgin: Sister Clare Mary Anna Tildesley:
intellectually humble but steadfast in spirit: she was able to strike down evil and was
not overcome. Experienced in administration: lavish in good works: in all things
outstanding in her generosity. This convent of English and Irish people of this order
recognised her as Mother Superior and loved her. She died aged 68; Professed 44;
Abbess 39.45

The tone of the language on the tombstone is more robust than the obit, emphasising
the abbesss management experience, the way she was not overcome by evil (perhaps
her survival of the attack on her leadership by the friar), her great reputation and
outstanding generosity.
In some ways there are similarities between the obits of these abbesses: both the
extracts emphasise humility and charity and motherly qualities. They stress the ability
of both abbesses to overcome pain and suffering with patience: both showed appropriate qualities of leadership to those in their care. A key difference lies in the words

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Womens History Review 17

chosen to describe virtues reflecting the spirit of their orders. The Benedictine Abbess
Neville is endowed with invinsible courage, a great and generous spirit; reference is
made to the nobleness of her mind and birth. These outgoing characteristics were
qualities fitting the moderation of Benedictine life. By contrast, for Abbess Tildesley the
chosen words describe a more retiring character and inward qualities: admirable
prudence, singular fortitude and constancy of mind; reference is made to her gifts of
tears and her singular patience and conformity to the Divine Will. For the Poor
Clares, the spirit of their order was to be found in poverty and austerity. In this obit,
there are few overt references to the characteristics which drew so many recruits to the
Poor Clares while she was abbess.
This difference in tone can be seen in other obits of abbesses in the same period. In
the obits for the Poor Clare abbesses who founded convents in the first half of the
seventeenth century there is the same emphasis on humility, obedience and the burden
of leadership. They are said to have exercised their authority with compassion, displaying exemplary virtues. The obituarists chose to focus on the terminal illnesses and the
good deaths of the abbesses. All of this contributed to the high reputation of the English
Poor Clare convents, which consistently attracted recruits (some 250 by 1675) during
this period. Variations in recruitment levels can be explained by many factors but the
quality of leadership is demonstrably crucial in all the English convents. For instance,
when the Brussels Benedictine convent was riven by a dispute originating in the choice
of confessor that lasted more than twenty years the number of recruits fell to only three
from a high of thirty-one in the decade 16091619.46
Conclusion
As we have seen, all nuns, whether novices or professed, choir or lay sister, abbess or
junior member, could contribute to the well-being of the convent by exactly following
the rule as it applied to them so that the convent was recognised inside and outside the
enclosure as disciplined and well governed. Many of the members contributed a great
deal more than this. As new foundations operating in exile, they were responsible for
creating their own identities and reputations in difficult circumstances. Writing the
lives of their own members played a significant role in creating their identities and
establishing institutions likely to attract strong candidates for membership and to
appeal to patrons. Each order and convent identified with its own line of saints and
founders and linked the present with the past by writing up their own heroic conventual founders efforts in the form of obituaries.
It is much harder in the case of the shorter obituary notices to distinguish between
the tone of the writing from the different orders, although we can clearly see that
humility and service were of particular importance to the Poor Clares. Rather, we are
left with a collective impression of a body of sisters who were zealous in their observance, and conformity with lives that were important to the rest of the community as
exemplary lives. For their contemporaries hearing readings as they were intended on
anniversaries, the individual life would make a greater impact. The nuns continuous
observance of the rules and dedication to the religious life had earned them a place in

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18

C. Bowden

the obit book, and an annual commemorative reading to the rest of the community
perhaps adjacent to a saint. These carefully crafted brief lives need to be refracted
through the lens created by annals, chronicles and visitation records: the obits are part
of the self-fashioning of a communitys identity and the creation of a collective
memory. The choice of language is indicative of characteristics and behaviour that was
considered important to a particular convent.
The obits are a unique collection of (mostly) brief lives of a substantial group of
women whose aim was to collect a body of exemplary lives to honour their predecessors
and in so doing to develop collective memory and a corporate identity for their new
institutions. The obits cover the whole range of members of the convents including lay
sisters, postulants who died before taking their final vows, senior office holders, and
jubilarians who had spent more than fifty years professed. The language represents both
the ideals laid down in the rules that English women religious aspired to as well as the
reality of life in the English convents in exile. Set in the context of other conventual
sources, the obits contributed to a reputation among contemporaries for strict observance of the rules. Once voiced outside the convent walls these exemplary lives helped
to attract fervent English women to their doors as potential recruits and inspired acts
of patronage which sustained all except one of the convents until the French Revolution
at the end of the eighteenth century. Obituary notices are important sources for studying
a little-known but substantial and significant group of early modern English women.

Notes
1

[1] Statutes compyled for the better observation of the Holy Rule of the Most Glorious Father and
Patriarch S Benedict, Gant, [1632] The first parte, p. 60.
[2] I am deeply indebted to the abbesses and archivists at Syon Abbey, Clare Abbey, Darlington
and the late Dame Mildred Murray Sinclair at St Marys Abbey, Buckfastleigh for their hospitality and permission to read the manuscripts which form the basis of this article. My thanks
are also due to the archivists of the other convents whose documents have provided the data
behind this study.
[3] Most of the obituaries used in this article have been published by the Catholic Record Society:
(1917) Obituary Notices of the English Benedictine Abbey of Ghent in Flanders 16271811,
Misc. XI, Vol. 19; (1915) Registers of the English Benedictine Nuns of Pontoise OSB, etc.
contr. by the Lady Abbess of Teignmouth, Misc. X, Vol. 17; (1913) Records of the English
Benedictine Nuns at Cambrai 16201793, Misc. VIII, Vol. 13; (1911) The English Benedictine
Nuns of Our Blessed Lady of Good Hope in Paris, Misc. VIII, Vol. 9; (1914) Registers of the
English Poor Clares, Gravelines with notes of Foundations at Aire, Dunkirk, and Rouen 1608
1837, Misc. IX, Vol. 14.
[4] This foundation movement has been discussed by Peter Guilday (1914) The English Catholic
Refugees on the Continent, 15581795 (London: Longmans Green) and Claire Walker (2003)
Gender and Politics in Early Modern Europe: English convents in France and the Low Countries
(Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan).
[5] The term Flanders here refers to the Spanish Netherlands which broadly covered the area now
known as Belgium.
[6] Clare Abbey, Darlington, MS Gravelines Chronicle; MS Rouen Chronicle (3 vols): Buckfastleigh MS No. 13 (now at Douai Abbey, Berkshire), Abbess Anne Neville, Instructions for
Superiors, 1676, f .110.

Womens History Review 19

[7] Heather Wolfe (2007) Dame Barbara Constable: Catholic antiquarian, advisor, and closet
missionary, in Ronald Corthell et al. (Eds) Catholic Culture in Early Modern England (Notre
Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press), pp. 158188.
[8] Marie-Louise Coolahan (2007) Identity Politics and Nuns Writing, Womens Writing, 14(2),
pp. 306320, p. 316. Coolahan discusses the way the Poor Clares at Aire used particular translations as a means of articulating their own identity after the dispute in the Gravelines
convent.
[9] For printed versions of the constitutions and rules see, for example, (1621) The Rule of the
Holy Virgin S Clare, together with the Admirable Life of S Catharine of Bologna of the Same
Order; Alexia Gray (Trans.) (1632) The Rule of the Most Blissid Father Saint Benedict: Statutes
Compyled for the Better Observation of the Holy Rule of the Most Glorious Father and Patriarch
S Benedict.
[10] For a discussion of the influence of Father Augustine Baker and his spiritual direction of the
nuns at Cambrai see Heather Wolfe (2004) Reading Bells and Loose Papers: reading and
writing practices of the English Benedictine nuns of Cambrai and Paris, in Victoria E. Burke
& Jonathan Gibson (Eds) Early Modern Womens Manuscript Writing (Aldershot: Ashgate),
pp. 135156.
[11] Nicky Hallett (2007) Lives of Spirit: an edition of English Carmelite auto/biographies of the early
modern period (Aldershot: Palgrave), pp. 12, 1617.
[12] Clare Abbey, Darlington, MS Gravelines Chronicle, p. 48.
[13] Hallett (Ed.) Lives of Spirit: see particularly the discussion in the introduction, pp. 129.
[14] Examples of published life-writing by English women religious can be found in the following
books and journal articles: Tobie Matthew (1931) The Life of Lady Lucy Knatchbull (London:
Sheed & Ward); M. C. E. Chambers (1882) The Life of Mary Ward (London: Burns &
Oates); C. S. Durrant (1925) Link between Flemish Mystics and English Martyrs (London:
Burns & Oates) contains the conversion narrative of the Augustinian Sister Catherine
Holland, pp. 272306; Nicky Hallett (2002) as if it had nothing belonged to her: the Lives
of Catherine Burton (16681714) as a discourse of method in early modern life-writing,
Early Modern Literary Studies, 7(3), pp. 130. For other examples of conventual life-writing
see the bibliographies on the History of Women Religious Website, http://www.rhul.ac.uk/
bedford-centre/history-women-religious/index.html (accessed 17 October 2007).
[15] These have been published: Augustine Baker, The Life and Death of Dame Gertrude More, ed.
Ben Wekking (Salzburg: Institut fr Anglistik und Amerikanistik, 2002); Augustine Baker,
The Life and Death of Dame Margaret Gascoigne (Salzburg: Institut fr Anglistik und
Amerikanistik, 2006); Edward Scarisbrike (1691) The life of the Lady Warner of Parham in
Suffolk, in religion calld Sister Clare of Jesus written by a Catholic gentleman (London: Tho.
Hales), also 1692, 1696 revised editions.
[16] For the purposes of this article collective memory has been understood as the way members
thought of the community, and corporate or community identity as the way the convent
appeared to the outside world, including potential benefactors and future members.
[17] See, for example, the obituary of Lucy Knatchbull, Abbess of Ghent, who died in 1629: the
destruction of many of her papers limited what Tobie Matthew could write about her.
Obituary Notices of the English Benedictine Abbey of Ghent, p. 11.
[18] Claire Walker (2006) The Rule of the Holy Virgin S Clare : Elizabeth Evelinge III (Aldershot:
Ashgate), p. xiii; death of St Catharine on p. 148.
[19] In addition to the five convents linked to Brussels, Ghent, Dunkirk, Pontoise and Ypres
were the two foundations made by the English Benedictine Congregation at Cambrai and
Paris.
[20] Only a Register Book exists in print for the Brussels Benedictine convent.
[21] Obituary Notices of the English Benedictine Abbey of Ghent, pp. 22, 56.
[22] The English Benedictine Nuns of Our Blessed Lady of Good Hope in Paris, pp. 339346.
[23] Records of the English Benedictine Nuns at Cambrai, pp. 7381.
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[24] Mary Beth Long (2003) We who shee has left behind her in this miserable world: survivors as
hagiographers at the Benedictine Convent at Cambrai, paper delivered at the Historians of
Women Religious of Britain and Ireland Conference, London, October 2003; now part of her
Ph.D. thesis (2004) Reading Female Sanctity: English legendaries of women c.12001650
(University of Massachusetts, Amherst).
[25] Registers of the English Benedictine Nuns of Pontoise, p. 274.
[26] Ibid., pp. 282283, 286, 293.
[27] Registers of the English Poor Clares, Gravelines, p. 38.
[28] Ibid., pp. 6263.
[29] Ibid., p. 53.
[30] The jubilee was celebrated at fifty years of profession. Ushaw College, Durham, MS XVIII D.
2.24, Register of Poor Clares of Dunkirk, 16521807, ff. 165 and 168.
[31] Obituary Notices of the English Benedictine Abbey of Ghent, p. 19.
[32] Records of the English Benedictine Nuns at Cambrai, p. 73.
[33] The English Benedictine Nuns of Our Blessed Lady of Good Hope in Paris, p. 362.
[34] Pascal Majrus (2005) Requiescat in Pace: obituaries of nuns as a source of monastic history,
paper presented at the Perdita Conference, St Hildas College, Oxford, July 2005; and
LAbrg de Vertus [Obituaries] chez les Religieuses Anglaises des Pays-Bas (XVIIeXVIIIe
Sicles): Panegyrique ou rglement de Compte?, AFCHAB, Ottignies-Louvain-La-Neuve 2004
(2007), pp. 592602.
[35] C. S. Durrant (1925) Flemish Mystics and English Martyrs (London: Burns, Oates &
Washbourne), p. 306.
[36] Majerus, LAbrg de Vertus, p. 597.
[37] Buckfastleigh MS (now at Douai Abbey, Berkshire), Registers of Pontoise, f. 82 and printed in
Registers of the English Benedictine Nuns of Pontoise, p. 273.
[38] See Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/
40630?docPos=2 (accessed 5 October 2007).
[39] Brussels founded 1599, Ghent (1624), Boulogne, which moved to Pontoise (1652/58),
Dunkirk (1662), and Ypres (1665).
[40] See M. J. Rumsey (Ed.) (1909) Abbess Nevilles Annals of Five Communities of English Benedictines now at Flanders 15981687, Catholic Record Society, Misc. V, Vol. 6: Buckfastleigh
MS No. 13 (now at Douai Abbey), Abbess Anne Neville, Instructions for Superiors, 1676.
[41] Registers of the English Poor Clares, Gravelines, pp. 3637.
[42] Clare Abbey, Darlington, MS Gravelines Chronicle, pp.145155; and MS Annals of Gravelines, pp. 1920.
[43] Clare Abbey, MS Annals, p. 19.
[44] John Heigham (1622) The life of our blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus (St Omer); Francisco Borja
(1620) The practise of Christian Workes (London); Jacques Brousse (1623) The life of the
Reverend Father Angel of Joyeuse (Douay).
[45] Clare Abbey, MS Annals, p. 20. I am very grateful to Mike Shaw for his translation of the
inscription and his scholarly comments.
[46] For further details of this dispute see Guilday, English Catholic Refugees, pp. 259265.
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