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)

This Morning: Saints Richard Reynolds and Saint John Stone

Just a reminder that I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show talking with Anna Mitchell about two more of the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales: Saint Richard Reynolds, who suffered with the Carthusian Priors on May 4, 1535, and Saint John Stone, who refused to acknowledge King Henry VIII's supremacy when the Austin Friary in Canterbury was being suppressed in 1539. He was martyred on or about December 27 that year.

Please listen live here; the podcast will be archived here.

But I would be totally remiss if I did not remember St. John Fisher on the anniversary of his beheading on Tower Hill on June 22, 1535 or St. Thomas More, on their shared feast.

Saint John Fisher's last words 485 years ago today:

Christian people, I am come hither to die for the faith of Christ's Catholic Church, and I thank God hitherto my courage hath served me well thereto, so that yet hitherto I have not feared death; wherefore I desire you help me and assist me with your prayers, that at the very point and instant of my death's stroke, and in the very moment of my death, I then faint not in any point of the Catholic Faith for fear; and I pray God save the king and the realm, and hold His holy hand over it, and send the king a good counsel.

More about St. John Fisher here.

Saint John Fisher, pray for us!

Saint Thomas More, pray for us!

Saint Richard Reynolds, pray for us!

Saint John Stone, pray for us!

Preview: Saints Richard Reynolds and John Stone

I'm particularly pleased that Anna Mitchell and I will talk about St. John Stone on Monday, June 22 in our Son Rise Morning Show series celebrating this year's 50th anniversary of the canonization of the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales. We never have the opportunity to talk about him because he was executed after Christmas in 1539--and the Son Rise Morning Show hosts and producers are off the air celebrating Christmas!

We'll also talk about Saint Richard Reynolds, who was executed on May 4, 1535 with the Carthusian Priors. And we can't forget to honor Saints John Fisher and Thomas More, whose feast we celebrate on June 22, the date of Fisher's beheading, also in 1535.

Since Saint Richard Reynolds, a Bridgettine or Briggitine monk of Syon Abbey, suffered first, here's some background on him:

Like the Carthusians the Bridgettine nuns of Syon Abbey were regarded as exemplary religious in England. Reynolds was also known as a monk of great learning--like the three Carthusians with whom he suffered he had studied at Cambridge University (Corpus Christi College!). Reynolds had joined the Bridgettine Abbey of Syon as Chaplain in 1513 and was called the "Angel of Syon".

The Abbey, founded by King Henry V in 1415 as The Monastery of St Saviour and St Bridget of Syon, of the Order of St Augustine, was rich and shared plentifully with the poor around London. There were separate houses of men and women with the Abbess as the highest authority. The abbess at the time of Reynolds' martyrdom and the dissolution of the abbey in 1539 was Agnes Jordan.

In his Defense of the Unity of the Church, the public letter he wrote to Henry VIII to remonstrate with him and call him to repentance, Reginald Pole highlighted the martyrdom of Reynolds:

One of these martyrs I must not pass over without a special notice, as he was intimately known to myself. Reynolds was his name, and he was one who, for the sanctity of his life, might be compared with the very first of those who profess the more exact rule of conduct, according to the discipline of Christ. . . . To manifest to all future time the praises of his sanctity and doctrine, and to show the height of his piety to Christ and his love of his country, it was ordained that in company with the other heroes he should, in this time of so great need, give testimony to the truth with his own blood. He gave it in truth, and was among the first to give it, and that with such constancy of mind, that as I was told by one who was present at the spectacle and had observed most attentively all that took place, when he put his neck within the murderous halter, he seemed rather to be putting on a regal chain than an instrument of death, such was the alacrity manifested in his countenance. O Blessed man! truly worthy of the fullest confidence of thee, O my country!

It's also important to note that Reynolds was the last to suffer execution and consoled the four men (the Carthusians and Blessed John Haile) as they endured their brutal tortures at Tyburn.

St. John Stone, in contrast, died alone in Canterbury, probably on December 27, 1539. Although the date is not completely certain, we know exactly what his execution cost. We also know nothing about St. John Stone before his arrest, trial, and execution, except that he was a Canon in the Austin (Augustinian) Friary of Canterbury. As British History Online describes the events in Kent:

The bishop of Dover, who came to Canterbury on 13 December, 1538, to negotiate the surrender of the friaries, found the Austin Friars specially in great poverty. (fn. 37) Their debts were £40, and their implements not worth £6, except a little plate weighing 126 oz. He reports to Cromwell that at the Austin Friars on 14 December, 'one friar very rudely and traitorously used himself,' and declared he was ready to die for it that the king might not be the head of the Church, but it must be a spiritual father appointed by God. This was probably Friar Stone. .  .

The Bishop of Dover was a former Dominican friar and prior, Richard Ingworth, who had been rewarded with that see in 1537 because he "had taken great pains in the king's matters" and readily submitted to the Oaths required and the surrender of King's Langley Priory in Hertford (which property he also received). He was then "commissioned by the king in February 1538 to visit all friaries in England, (fn. 68) and in May he was ordered to put their goods into safe custody and take inventories of them, (fn. 69) evidently in preparation for suppression."

The Midwest Augustinians's website offers these details of what happened to Friar Stone:

. . . All the other Augustinian Friars signed the document, but John refused.

John was arrested and thrown into prison in the Tower of London. He remained firm in his refusal to accept the King as head of the Church. While in jail, he spent many hours in prayer. One day, God spoke to him, encouraging him to be of good heart and to remain steadfast in his belief, even if it meant death. From this point on, John felt great strength. 

And British History Online provides the data about the cost of his execution and the labor involved:

and the sequel is thus noted in the City Accounts (1538-9):—Paid for half a ton of timber to make a pair of gallows to hang Friar Stone, 2s. 6d.; to a labourer that digged the holes, 3d.; to four men that helped set up the gallows for drink to them, for carriage of the timber from Stablegate to Dongeon (i.e. Dane John), 1s.; for a hurdle, 6d.; for a load of wood and for a horse to draw him to the Dongeon, 2s. 3d.; paid two men that set the kettle and parboiled him, 1s.; to two men that carried his quarters to the gates and set them up, 1s.; for halters to hang him and Sandwich cord and for straw, 1s.; to a woman that scoured the kettle, 2d.; to him that did the execution, 3s. 8d. (fn. 38)

Another Augustinian history website provides additional detail about the date of his execution:

Usually such a sentence was carried out without delay but in this instance an extraordinary event complicated matters. Anne of Cleves, who was coming to England to be the fourth wife of King Henry VIII, was due to arrive on Sunday, 7th December 1539, and would be stopping at Canterbury overnight on her way to London.

Her arrival, however, was delayed by bad weather. Her visit and John Stone’s execution probably happened on Saturday, 27th December 1539. As bizarre as it sounds, John Stone's execution was timed to be part of the reception festivities arranged for Anne of Cleves, despite the shortness of her stay. This conclusion is deduced from the extraordinary expenses for the execution and from the fact that the paraphernalia needed for it were removed only after her departure. . . .

What a welcome to England for Henry VIII's (briefly) fourth wife! A brutal, bloody execution!

Saint John Fisher, pray for us!

Saint Thomas More, pray for us!

Saint Richard Reynolds, pray for us!

Saint John Stone, pray for us!