The Abbey of Romsey and St. Etheldreda

The BBC reports on efforts to identify whose hair was found in a coffin under Romsey Abbey in the nineteenth century. There have been theories of course:

. . . about who the hair might have belonged to but nothing more than that. Frank Green, who is the archaeological adviser to Romsey Abbey, has been wondering about it for years.

"[We've always believed] it was a person of some significant status because there was originally an outer wooden coffin and an inner wooden coffin inside the lead one."

Over the years there has been speculation that it was the hair of a saint.

"The two saints are St Morwenna who was the first abbess here and St Ethelflaeda, who is our patron saint," Romsey's vicar, Reverend Canon Tim Sledge, explains.

"And I think that's the rather romantic, hopeful, aspirational thing about this. These two saints are unique to Romsey - no one else has ever heard of them. They are our two saintly celebrities."

The BBC story describes the testing that has been conducted so far and archaeologists can date it to the mid to late Saxon era.

Of course, the Abbey was dissolved by Henry VIII as recounted by British History Online:

Elizabeth Ryprose, the last abbess, was elected on 15 December, 1523. The documents relative to this election are set forth in great detail in the episcopal registers. (fn. 35) The temporalities were restored in the following month. (fn. 36) In November 1537 the abbey, alarmed at the fate of the smaller houses, procured an elaborate inspection and confirmation of all their royal charters from the time of Henry I. downwards. (fn. 37) But this was so much waste of parchment and fees.

Sir Richard Lister wrote to Cromwell in September, 1537, informing him that the nuns of Romsey, hearing they were in danger of suppression, were making leases and alienating their goods. He desired to know whether he was to stay them in this. (fn. 38)

On 28 December, 1538, John Foster reported to Sir Thomas Seymour as to the state of the house of Romsey. He pronounced the house out of debt; that the plate and jewels were worth £300; the bells worth £100. The church is described as a great sumptuous thing, all of freestone and covered with lead, and worth £300 or £400 more. The annual rents are returned at £481 1s. 8d. The names of the abbess, Elizabeth Ryprose, the prioress, Edith Banester, and the subprioress, Katharine Wadham, are set down, together with twenty-three other nuns. Mr. Foster wrote: ' In answer to your letter by Mr. Flemynge, whether the abbess and nuns would be content to surrender their house, the truth is, that, in consequence of the motion made by your kinswomen and other friends, they will be content to do you any pleasure, but they would be loath to trust to the commissioners' gentleness, as they hear that other houses have been straitly handled.' (fn. 39)

Nearly a third of this community had made their religious profession in July, 1534, very shortly before the beginning of their troubles. One of these was Katherine, youngest daughter of Sir Nicholas Wadham, Governor of the Isle of Wight, whose sister Jane had also been for some years a professed nun of the same abbey. John Foster, whose letter to Seymour has just been cited, lived at Baddesley near Romsey, and was convent steward. His reference to ' kinswomen' applied to the two Wadham nuns and to another nun of the name of Elizabeth Hill. Sir Nicholas Wadham's first wife was a daughter of Robert Hill of Antony, and his second was Margaret, sister to Queen Jane Seymour and Sir Thomas Seymour. Through their influence it was hoped that a quiet surrender would be made. (fn. 40)

Whether this was effected or not cannot now be asceertained, for there is no extant formal surrender. But the abbess and convent in January, 1539, had licence to alienate their lordships or manors of Edingdon and Steeple Ashton and all their lands and tenements in Hampshire and Wiltshire to Sir Thomas Seymour.

Notice that detail: "Nearly a third of the community had made their religious profession in July, 1534"--therefore this was an active, growing community with recent vocations and younger nuns. So now these young nuns were to be paid small pensions, not allowed to marry, cast out into the world by Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell, still bound by their vows but unable to live their vocations. This website offers more information about the abbey, which had suffered great losses during the Black Death, and other ups and downs through its history. 

The Nuns of St. John in England

On the blog of the Museum of the Order of St. John, Nancy Mavroudi writes about the nuns of the Order:

If we were to generalise, we would probably say that Hospitaller women were primarily wealthy, noble women, from aristocratic or powerful families who, in many cases were even forced to join the Order by their families for spiritual benefits – the Order’s blessing for the family. However, although popular, such generalisations are not always accurate. To start with, there is evidence that many women joined voluntarily, simply because they so wanted. Joining a community of Sisters could bring about a change in their lives in which they themselves might have found comfort – especially given that, as discussed in further detail below, the Order could potentially be a more privileged and safe space to be.

Also, not all women had to be wealthy to become Sisters, although this would have been an advantage. There is often evidence that women from all walks of life would be admitted to the Houses, regardless of their financial situation but rather because of their skills that might have matched the practical needs of specific Houses. Those skills ranged from baking and cooking, to farming and to numeracy/literacy, and administration skills. For example, according to the religious tradition around St Ubaldesca (whose portrait can be found in the Order Gallery in our Museum) she came from an underprivileged background. Her father was a baker and their family was struggling to make ends meet; still she was able to join the House in Pisa and was later renounced (sic) Saint.

She describes their duties and contribution to the work of the Order:

Being in charge of a House came with all the responsibilities of running a small community, as well as a religious institution with charitable operations. They were Sisters, as well as carers and nurses (when a Hospital was attached to the House), but they were also administrators, managers, and governors. Perhaps more evident in the independent female convents with their relative autonomy and self-regulation, these female communities had to manage their affairs efficiently in order to be able to survive – from bookkeeping and general administration duties, managing estates, purchases and stock checks, to building maintenance and repairs – especially at times of limited funding when external assistant was not an option. There is evidence that in mixed Houses the Sisters would often come together as collective agents in order to achieve fairer conditions for them, and demand more reasonable funding for the improvement of their lives in the House by organising against the Brothers who felt gave them an unfair share to cover their everyday needs. For example, in Mynchin Buckland (England) the Sisters ‘revolted’ against the Brothers because of unfair treatment in the distribution of the assets between the men and the women and it was serious enough to result in the need of the Prior of England’s intervention to resolve the issue.

Hospitaller women did occupy in many ways positions of leadership and the existence of a Prioress in medieval times was not uncommon. We know from the records saved that in Mynchin Buckland, for example, the Prioress was voted for by her fellow-Sisters, and that in Siena (Spain) the Prioress was ruling over both the Sisters and the Brothers. They had created what was, in many ways, hubs of community support for each other, where levels of independence were often different to what they might have had experienced in their life outside the House. Joining as a Sister opened possibilities for them in areas that were often inconceivable -the example of referring other female family members to the House in order to bypass gender restrictions in the passing of property between them was once such strategic move among others.

The house of Mynchin Buckland, according to British History Online, was founded in 1166:

Soon after the sisters of this order that were scattered in several commanderies in England were gathered together in one house at Buckland, so there was attached to the preceptory the only priory in England of Sisters of the Order of St. John. In later times, because they adopted the rule of the Austin Canonesses for their daily life, these sisters have sometimes been referred to as sisters of that order. The sisterhood began with eight members. Milsant was transferred from the commandery at Standon in Hertfordshire; Johanna also from Standon; Basilia from Carbrooke in Norfolk; Amabilia and Amica de Malketon from Shingay in Cambridgeshire; Christina de Hogshaw from Hogshaw in Bucks; Petronilla from Gosford, and Agnes from Clanfield in Oxfordshire. (fn. 9) These were now gathered at Buckland. The house however was not independent. It was a preceptory with preceptors in charge, and a priory of sisters dependent on it, but governed by a prioress.

Nobles and royalty granted pensions to the nuns in the twelfth through fourteenth centuries. It was, of course, dissolved under Henry VIII:

On 10 February 1539 (fn. 35) the sisters appeared in their chapter-house and formally surrendered their house and its endowments to the king at the hands of John Tregonwell and William Petre. The Popham family had obtained a large amount of their property on lease, and the action of the prioress accounts probably for the favourable arrangements which were made for her and the sisters. The prioress received a pension of £50 a year, and pensions were granted to thirteen sisters as well as to Sir William Mawdesley, confessor to the house. (fn. 36) The prioress also received a gift of £25 (fn. 37) by way of gratuity.

In Cardinal Pole's pension list, 1556, there are payments entered to seven sisters still alive and drawing their pensions.

Note that the Museum of the Order of St. John, while reflecting often on the pre-Reformation Hospitaller Order is a modern foundation, as its website states:

The modern Order of St John in England was granted a Royal Charter by Queen Victoria in 1888. Humanitarian in its aims and purpose, the modern Order recognised the need for public First Aid and ambulance transport services, as no such system existed in newly industrialised England. In addition, the Order established an eye hospital in Jerusalem, following the principles of the Order’s first hospital, treating all those in need, regardless of faith or wealth. The Order’s full title is The Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem. Its principal charitable foundations today are the St John Eye Hospital in Jerusalem, and St John Ambulance.

Rumer Godden's Brede and Dame Gertrude More

Dorothy Cummings McLean reviews Rumer Godden's In This House of Brede for Crisis Magazine:

Novels are what we read when we should be reading something else—or are they? Currently I should be reading Henri Nouwen’s “modern spiritual classic,” The Way of the Heart: The Spirituality of the Desert Fathers and Mothers, but in fact I have just finished Rumer Godden’s novel, In This House of Brede. And I feel no embarrassment in saying that the laywoman’s novel taught me far more about the way of the heart than the priest’s meditations. After decades of preaching the virtues of a low fat diet, nutritionists now tell us our dietary culprit isn’t fat. Apparently we have always needed good fat in our diet. Godden’s novel runs with rich oils; Nouwen’s book strikes me as sugary.

I first heard of In This House of Brede when I went to the Solemn Profession of a young nun to the Abbey of Saint Cecilia at Ryde on England’s Isle of Wight. Saint Cecilia’s, I was told, was one of the models for Rumer Godden’s fictional Brede. As my visit to the abbey was one of the most edifying trips of my life, showing me how beautiful enclosed life can be, I resolved to read this book.

The abbey Godden more closely based her work on was Stanbrook Abbey, which is now in a different location than when she knew it, but has its roots in the English exiles of the Reformation and Recusant eras, who founded the house in Cambrai. One of the founders was St. Thomas More's great-great-granddaughter, Helen More--Dame Gertrude More in religion:

St Thomas More's great-great-granddaughter, Helen, left England at the age of seventeen as a key figure in a new venture: the foundation of a monastery for Englishwomen under the aegis of the English Benedictine Congregation. Suitable, though dilapidated, buildings were found in the city of Cambrai. There, together with two of her More cousins and six other young Englishwomen, Helen was clothed in the Benedictine habit on 31 December 1623 and professed as Dame Gertrude on 1 January 1625. The monastery of Our Lady of Consolation, now at Stanbrook Abbey, Wass, had come into being.

Dame Gertrude herself was utterly miserable. A lively extrovert, she was not born to a life of prayer and had not particularly wanted to enter a monastery, though she had kept that to herself. She tried to read spiritual books, consult different confessors, but in vain. In November 1625 she was so desperate that she went to the man she had hitherto ridiculed, Father Augustine Baker.

Within a fortnight her life was changed. What had seemed impossible was 'made by him so easy, and plain,' she recalled. Once she had learnt to put aside self-will, she was free to recognize God's voice, the 'call' or prompting of the Holy Spirit in her heart. Her fear and despair gone, Dame Gertrude was at last flying 'freely with wings of Divine love'.

I certainly agree with McLean that Godden's novel is a masterpiece. I read nearly all of Godden's books and always appreciated her excellent story-telling and sometimes adventurous technique, usually dealing with time and place (Take Three Tenses: A Fugue in Time; China Court: The Hours of a Country House, etc). Little, Brown has been re-issuing some of her novels in paperback with new covers as part of the Virago Modern Classics series.