Syon Abbey: Foundation, Suppression, Exile, Return and Decline

This book, which I purchased, tells the story of Syon Abbey. As the publisher Gracewing describes it and the author:

The 25th Day of November the house of Syon was suppressed into the King’s hands, and the ladies and brethren put out, which was the most virtuous house of religion that was in England.

So wrote the chronicler Charles Wriothesley in 1539. But the story of Syon Abbey did not end with the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Founded by Henry V in 1415, England’s only house of the Bridgettine Order had been one of the richest monasteries of medieval England. Now the community went underground; they returned briefly under Queen Mary, only to leave again with the accession of Elizabeth. They were to spend more that half a century ‘wandering’ - through the Netherlands and France, an exodus that brought them, in 1594, to Lisbon in Portugal. Here they remained until 1861, when circumstances at last allowed them a return home to England. They settled in Devon, where the remaining sisters now live in retirement.

The history of Syon Abbey is an inspiring story of faith and fortitude, of an enclosed, contemplative community that found itself living through persecution and martyrdom, wars and revolutions, fire and earthquake, over six centuries of unbroken tradition and unyielding faith. This book celebrates the sexcentenary of that community in 2015.

E A Jones is Associate Professor of Medieval English Literature and Culture at the University of Exeter and director of the research project ‘The English monastic experience, 15th-21st centuries: Syon at 600’.

I have to admit that at the end of the book I thought: what Henry VIII was not able to do in the Sixteenth Century, the Sixties in the Twentieth Century were able to do. Henry VIII suppressed the Bridgettine Order in England and sent the nuns and brothers into exile but they survived. Changes in society and perhaps some of the "reforms" dictated by the Second Vatican Council led to a precipitous drop in vocations and to the closure of their last convent with the last three Bridgettine nuns moving into retirement in 2011. But it really all started with the suppression by Henry VIII, followed by the second suppression of the order in England by Elizabeth I.

Through their exile Syon Abbey struggled to fulfill St. Bridget of Sweden's vision for their community, especially after the Council of Trent mandated changes to their Liturgy of the Hours and the leadership of the Abbess, and they lost part of their structure when vocations to the male part of their dual monastery dried up while they were in Lisbon. The exiled Bridgettines wandered through Belgium (the Spanish Netherlands/the Low Countries) and France for a time as wars and insurrections made life unstable there and then moved to Lisbon. Professor Jones notes, however, that after they'd left Belgium more Catholic exiles established monasteries there and the Bridgettines were relatively isolated from the core Catholic community in the North. The Bridgettines survived the 1755 earthquake in Lisbon but the Napoleonic wars and great unrest in Portugal led to their eventual return to England.

Even back in England, however, they wandered, trying to find the perfect place and a message of outreach from their cloister, choosing prayer for the Poor Souls in Purgatory. The Bridgettine Order's unique structure and charism didn't seem to survive the renewal of consecrated life urged by the Second Vatican Council. That section in the last chapter confused me: instead of returning to Saint Bridget of Sweden's original vision of a dual monastery with an Abbess in charge of both houses, male and female, with the male house serving the spiritual needs of the nuns and the nuns devoted to prayer and meditation on the Passion of Our Lord, why did Syon Abbey focus on modernizing, abandoning Latin, simplifying, adapting to contemporary fashions? It seemed to me they lost much of what made them unique. Jones comments, however, that vocations were slowing down before the changes made in response to Perfectae Caritatis and Ecclesiae Sanctae (Pope Paul VI's encyclical letter)--and they'd long lost the brotherhood. But the two pictures on page 126, showing the community in 1961 and then in 1982, poignantly depict the decline in numbers and the increase in age of the nuns of Syon Abbey.

But those are last thoughts. The beginnings of Syon Abbey in England under Henry V in 1415, the growth and influence of the Abbey through the priests and brothers and its relatively short golden age are also part of the story. Syon Abbey's library, the publication of devotional works by the priest-brothers in the 1520's and 1530's, the fame of those priest-brothers, including Richard Reynolds, William Bonde, and Richard Whitford, made it one of the most important Abbeys in England. It was a site of pilgrimage and maintained Royal favor throughout the divisions of the Wars of the Roses and the changes of dynasty from Lancaster to York to Tudor. Then comes the King's Matter, the Oaths of Succession and Supremacy, conflict among the priests and brothers, the martyrdom of Richard Reynolds, and dissolution of the monastery, exile, brief return during the reign of Mary I, and exile again under Elizabeth I.

Professor E.A. or Eddie Jones tells this story very well; he is scholar much dedicated to understanding medieval religious life but he writes this comprehensive general history of Syon Abbey with a narrative style accessible to the general reader. He narrates their sometimes complicated struggles to survive and remain faithful to their foundress and their charism clearly and sympathetically. Well-illustrated, documented, and presented by Gracewing too.

Contents:
Foreword by Sr. Anne Smith, abbess of Syon 1976-2011
Preface
Outline Chronology
Prologue (Mass at the closure of Syon Abbey on August 6, 2011)
Chapter 1. Beginnings
Chapter 2. Medieval Syon
Chapter 3. The Road to Exile
Chapter 4. Wanderings
Chapter 5. Lisbon
Chapter 6. Return
Chapter 7. The Final Century
Suggestions for Further Reading
Index

Seal of Syon Abbey (Public Domain)