And in Post-Reformation England, Even More True

Amy Welborn writes for The Catholic Herald on how the Reformation did not so much help but hindered the influence of women in religious life by cutting off access to the convent:

For many years, the narrative on the Reformation and women has maintained that it must have been all good news. How could it not be? After all, Martin Luther and others had emphasised the freedom of the individual Christian believer, encouraged Bible reading and, therefore, literacy for all and, of course, had elevated and celebrated marriage. This, we are assured, was progress.

Perhaps not. As has been the case with many historical narratives and assumptions, the certainty that the Reformation produced net gains for women has been upended in recent decades. A survey of the large and continually growing body of research reveals wide agreement that is, in fact, 180 degrees away from the former view.

As Lutheran historian Kirsi Stjerna writes, “With the fading of the nuns and other related, traditionally important religious roles for women (such as the mystics and visionaries), which coincided with the theologically argued women’s domestication, women’s spiritual presence and theological voice in the church at large seemed to radically diminish.”

The Reformation was, of course, a diverse and constantly evolving phenomenon. Common to the entire movement, however, was the conviction that vowed, celibate religious life as an ideal was non-Scriptural, harmful and must be eliminated, supplanted by another model of ideal Christian life: the individual, saved by faith alone, dwelling productively in the community as believer, spouse and parent.

The strongest symbol of this “non-biblical” ideal of virginity was, of course, the monastery, so in Reformed lands the closing of male and female religious houses was a priority, and the Gospel of domesticity was preached and enforced in their stead. Every woman, it was assumed, was meant for marriage, children and the home. Gone was that space – as the convent was – for women to pursue intellectual and artistic pursuits, to provide institutionalised charity, to interact with religious, political and business interests as leaders of their communities, and – very importantly – to support the community and serve the living and the dead through their once highly valued but now “useless” prayers.

She also points out how the elimination of the commemoration of saints meant that holy women like Hildegard of Bingen, Julian of Norwich, Bridget of Sweden, and Catherine of Siena, even the Beguine mystics, were forgotten and of course, that devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary was questioned and reduced. Shutting off that avenue of vocation diminished feminine influence in the Church, not increased it.

Read the rest there.

And think about England: Henry VIII wiped out the religious vocations of his subjects, thwarting God's call to them when he dissolved the monasteries, convents, and friaries. English women, like Venerable Mary Ward, had to exile themselves from their native home to make their religious vows. 

Of course, we can't know what might have been, but think of the contributions English women religious might have made to the reform and renewals efforts of the Catholic Church--England could have its own St. Teresa of Avila or St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, influencing prayer and spirituality for centuries.

As it is, the Catholic women saints--except for Mary Ward--of the post English Reformation era are the martyrs, St. Margaret Clitherow, St. Margaret Ward, and St. Anne Line. 

Since All Saints Day is dedicated to ALL the saints, officially canonized or not, I'd like to think of all the women who remained in England, trying to remain also true to their Catholic faith, assisting priests, attending Mass and availing themselves of the other Sacraments whenever they could, teaching their children the Catechism, praying the Rosary and maintaining other devotions, celebrating the saints and feast days in the traditional way, always in hiding, sometimes in danger--and always praying that a missionary priest might be close by when they were pregnant or when they were dying, so that their babies could be baptized or they finally would receive Extreme Unction and Viaticum. Those are saints! Great confessors of the Faith!

And the exiled English sisters and nuns, far from home, praying for the conversion of England, praying for their families at home, probably particularly for their mothers, trying to live a Catholic life when it had been proscribed by the State.

All holy men and women, pray for us!!

Image Credit: St. Julian of Norwich. Mary Ward image is in the public domain.

More on the Norwich Beguinage

You might have noticed the reference to beguinages in England from the earlier post today--as in, there weren't many in England. There was one in Norwich, however:

The Briton‘s Arms is a unique survival in England of a beguinage. This was the home of a small group of single women, who had devoted themselves to a life of prayer and charitable work within the community. Such institutions were very common on the Continent in the middle ages, particularly in the Low Countries, northern France and the Rhineland, but they were very rare in England. There are some references in medieval documents to small groups of women living together, in towns such as York and Ipswich.

However, Norwich is the only English city where there is definite evidence for informal female communities following a religious vow. One thing which links all these places is a strong trading connection with north-east Europe. This may have influenced Norwich merchants to support beguinages in their own city. There are references to three such communities in late medieval Norwich. They are called "poor women" or "sisters" who are "dedicated to chastity" or "dedicated to God". One of these groups is known to have lived in the churchyard of St Peter Hungate in the first half of the fifteenth century, and the Briton‘s Arms was almost certainly their home.

This is shown by several features of the building. The construction methods and the type of brick used are typical of the fifteenth century. The really telling factor is the door to the churchyard, and the unusual plan of the building, with a series of independent heated rooms. This provided ideal accommodation for a group of women living together, but also engaged in private prayer.

We have only a limited idea of how the women who lived in the beguinage passed their time. Unlike the nuns of Carrow Abbey, to the south of the city, they were not enclosed within a convent. Nuns tended to be the daughters of gentlemen and wealthy merchants, whereas the beguines were usually poorer women. They would have supported themselves through work such as spinning (the term ‘spinster‘ for a single women dates from the medieval period), as well as begging for alms. They also undertook charitable work in the local community, caring for the poor and sick. They would no doubt have worshipped in St Peter Hungate church, with easy access to the churchyard through the door in the rear wall.

Late medieval Norwich had a rich devotional and spiritual culture. There was the great Cathedral, the nunnery at Carrow, nearly fifty parish churches, and four large friaries. One of these, the Dominican Friary, stands opposite the Briton‘s Arms. At the Dissolution it was purchased by the City Corporation and made into a civic hall, as which it still serves.

There were also many anchoresses in Norwich - women who were enclosed in a cell attached to a church, and dedicated to a life of contemplation. The most famous of these was Julian of Norwich. Another anchoress, Katherine Manne, was attached to the Dominican Friary church - the arches of her cell can be seen through the gate opposite the Briton‘s Arms. Both the anchoresses and the beguines were supported by the ordinary people in the city, and played an active and important role in the spiritual life of the community.

Please note that St. Julian of Norwich and Katherine Manne are from quite different eras: Katherine Manne's tenure as an anchorite dates from the English Reformation period--she had a copy of Tyndale's English translation of the Holy Bible and of his Obedience of a Christian Man, according to Norman Tanner's history of the Church in Norwich in the late middle ages. Katherine Manne is also featured in Women, Reading, and Piety in Late Medieval England by Mary C. Erler from Cambridge University Press:

Women, Reading, and Piety in Late Medieval England traces networks of female book ownership and exchange which have so far been obscure, and shows how women were responsible for both owning and circulating devotional books. In seven narratives of individual women who lived between 1350 and 1550, Mary Erler illustrates the ways in which women read and the routes by which they passed books from hand to hand. These stories are prefaced by an overview of nuns' reading and their surviving books, and are followed by a survey of women who owned the first printed books in England. An appendix lists a number of books not previously attributed to religious women's ownership. Erler's narratives also provide studies of female friendship, since they situate women's reading in a network of family and social connections. The book uses bibliography to explore social and intellectual history.

Table of Contents
Acknowledgments

Prologue
Introduction: Dinah's story
1. Ownership and transmission of books: women's religious communities
2. The library of a London vowess: Margery de Nerford
3. A Norwich widow and her devout society: Margaret Purdans
4. Orthodoxy: the Fettyplace sisters at Syon
5. Heterodoxy: anchoress Katherine Manne and abbess Elizabeth Throckmorton
6. Women owners or religious incunabula: the physical evidence
Epilogue
Appendices
Notes
Select bibliography
Indexes

See, I found someway to bring us back to the subject of the English Reformation even as I discussed the Beguines and beguinages in Belgium!