Immaculately preserved in Durham University's Palace Green Library are a range of documents relating to the English Poor Clares. Catalogued over a decade ago, the collection includes seven hundred ninety-six printed works and seventy-four manuscripts, constituting a new and important resource for scholars interested in the history of English women religious, recusant Catholic spirituality and experiences of exile in general.Footnote 1 Yet the collection has remained relatively obscure and underutilized by scholars of the religious orders, symptomatic of a wider failure to recognize the importance of the English Poor Clares in a growing historiography concerning women religious in the early modern period.Footnote 2 This article will argue for the usefulness of the collection in shedding new light on the experiences of the English Poor Clares in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, proposing it brings fresh insight into the mystical spirituality of the nuns. In attempting to rediscover this spirituality through the collection, this article will also address the challenges it poses to scholars, engaging with issues around identity and anonymity that the collection presents.
The history of the English Poor Clares, like many other groups of monks and nuns in the early modern period, is one of disruption and disconnect. After the dissolution of the monasteries, many English women religious returned to their family networks.Footnote 3 Some, such as Elizabeth Throckmorton, the last abbess of Denny Abbey, endeavored to continue living a monastic life. She, along with two or three other nuns from Denny, was lodged in an upper room of a family member's house, continuing to wear their habits and follow the Rule of St. Clare as closely as possible.Footnote 4 The first Poor Clare convent for English women after the Reformation was established in 1609 in Gravelines, although several Poor Clare nuns from the nearby Walloon convent and eight English women, including one Mary Ward, had established themselves in rented accommodation in the town a year before this while the convent was built.Footnote 5 These nuns began taking the Spiritual Exercises under the guidance of the Jesuit Roger Lee. A similar arrangement with the Jesuits existed in the English Benedictine convent in Brussels, which had been established in 1598. Despite the popularity of such spiritual direction, Jesuit General Claudius Acquaviva warned members in Flanders that they were to avoid taking on the responsibility of directing women religious if possible.Footnote 6 Like many convents, Gravelines suffered its fair share of setbacks and misfortunes. In 1626 a fire consumed everything but the choir, kitchen, and infirmary, forcing the nuns into temporary housing. In 1654, a powder arsenal explosion, which destroyed much of the town, flattened most of the convent. This was in addition to the more common problems which faced most convents in the period: economic uncertainty, political unrest, and the spread of disease.Footnote 7
Internal turmoil within the convent at Gravelines, as well as at the Brussels convent of Benedictines, soon proved the Jesuit General right in his cautionary warnings about Jesuits directing women religious. Between 1620 and 1623 there were several clashes at Brussels, which was a well-established center of Ignatian piety in the period. Internal conflicts over limiting the influence of the Jesuits saw several nuns leave to establish a more openly pro-Jesuit convent at Ghent. Two more were sent to instill Ignatian piety at the new Benedictine convent in Cambrai in 1623, which caused further issues after the arrival of Augustine Baker as spiritual director there in 1624.Footnote 8 Similar issues emerged with the Poor Clares at Gravelines in 1626 when the primacy of Jesuitism at the convent was challenged by the resurgence of the English Franciscan Order, which was revived in 1618 and claimed authority over the convent as part of a wider effort to restore the English Franciscan Province.Footnote 9 Two Franciscan friars inspected the convent and deposed Abbess Elizabeth Tyldesley, replacing her with the pro-Franciscan Margaret Radcliffe. What followed was a period of “civil war” that divided the cloister.Footnote 10 One nun, Catherine of St. Magdalen (d. 1668), more frequently referred to by her birth name Elizabeth Evelinge by scholars, aided Franciscan friars with publications and translations which “framed the Gravelines house as a symbol of English Franciscanism.” Her publication of the Colettine reforms to the Rule of St. Clare, for instance, reflected disputes over the limits placed on absolute poverty at the convent, while also positioning the Franciscan friars as having sole authority over the Poor Clares.Footnote 11 With most nuns objecting to the deposition of Tyldesley, eleven dissident nuns, including Evelinge, who supported a vow of strict poverty and Franciscan spiritual direction, moved to establish a new convent at Aire in 1629.Footnote 12 It is from this convent, as well as the later foundation at Rouen in 1644, that the vast majority of the Durham manuscripts originate.Footnote 13 Many of the conclusions arrived at in this article can be said to apply to Aire and Rouen with far more confidence than to the other convents of Gravelines or Dunkirk (founded in 1652), a problem that will be returned to in the conclusion.
Section one of this article addresses the interlinking themes of mysticism and anonymity among the Poor Clares in surviving manuscript material. It proposes that there was a dual understanding of the concept of unio mystica, or mystical union, in the convents. As well as the more traditional concept of mystical union between the individual and God, it suggests that there was also a symbolic mystical union of the entire convent community. In line with the Franciscan emphasis on poverty and humility, it is argued that this manifested itself as a form of identity poverty. This was a conscious rejection of individuality similar to the self-abnegation (that is, the denial of the self) outlined in accounts of mysticism. It is suggested that the Poor Clares not only displayed the characteristics of anonymity and modesty expected of women religious in the period, but they took this to the extreme by rejecting individual literary and authorial identity. The second section explores the characteristically Franciscan focus of the mysticism in the convents, revealing how Christ's passion and the Eucharist featured prominently in the manuscripts. Finally, the third section explores how the concepts of death and exile featured in the manuscripts of the nuns, detailing how the nuns understood there to be a physical and spiritual element to both themes. Overall, exploring the manuscripts for these elements of mystical spirituality will not only reveal the importance of the collection but also outline its usefulness to future research on women religious and monasticism.
I. Mysticism and Identity
One of the most problematic aspects of the writings of early modern religious women is the role that anonymity played in their literary outputs, with many manuscript works failing to identify an author, translator, or transcriber. Nicky Hallett has argued that one of several reasons contemplative nuns were hesitant to claim authorship was because “self-effacement [was] central to their spiritual purpose.”Footnote 14 Modesty and humility were, of course, virtues the nuns sought to embody in all aspects of their lives, be that prayer, work or scribal activity. It has taken decades of work by scholars to positively identify women religious as literary figures, forming part of a much wider historiographical effort to recover what Joan Wallach Scott seminally referred to as “her story.”Footnote 15 Major research projects, including Perdita, Who Were the Nuns? and RECIRC: The Reception and Circulation of Early Modern Women's Writing, 1550–1700, have all aided the recovery of women's literary voices. The work of Marie-Louise Coolahan, principal investigator on the RECIRC project, has focused specifically on early modern women's “missing” texts, noting their previously unrecognized usage in classic accounts of Catholicism such as Richard Challoner's Memoirs of Missionary Priests (1741–1742).Footnote 16
While modest and humble women religious might cause headaches for scholars hunting for manuscript attributions now, it is vital we remember the power anonymity could bring in the early modern period. Marcy North notes that in early modern polemical debates, Catholics used anonymity to “conceal identity but also to control perceptions of authorship and authority.” This process of creating “complex authorial identities,” she argues, “often proved more important and more useful than names.”Footnote 17 Jenna D. Lay has applied this theory to the writings of women religious, noting how anonymity in published works by nuns was used to craft a collective and communal identity and voice.Footnote 18 Lay convincingly argues for this using the example of the nuns of Syon collectively writing to disprove the accusations levelled at them in Thomas Robinson's The Anatomy of the English Nunnery at Lisbon (1622). A similar example can be drawn from the Poor Clares, specifically the publication of The History of the Angelicall Virgin Glorious S. Clare (1635) by the nuns at Aire. Marie-Louise Coolahan has described the publication as “a prime example of the apparent indifference to attribution which often frustrates scholars.”Footnote 19 While the work was attributed to Magdalen Augustine, it was actually a translation by Elizabeth Evelinge. Yet the purpose of the text was to outline the “position of the dissenting community” of Aire and let the community as a whole “assert their pro-Franciscan identity.” This included an entirely new section, not taken from the original French source, which argued for the authority of the Franciscan friars by recounting their missionary activities around the globe.Footnote 20 The attribution to Magdalen Augustine as a senior professed nun of some standing was likely a political point scoring measure; she had left Gravelines for the pro-Franciscan Aire many years earlier.Footnote 21 Surviving material at Durham certainly supports this communal identity building endeavor. By 1685 a nun at Aire had translated a series of declarations made on the Rule of St. Clare which had been compiled by leading Franciscan Peter Marchant in 1650, including material which reasserted the ruling of Innocent IV allowing the Poor Clares to practice absolute poverty.Footnote 22 Pacificus Baker, a leading English Franciscan, visited the convent in 1758 and 1762 and approved the text. On his first visit he ordered the translation to be “read in the refectory,” while on his second visit he ordered the nuns to “duly read and observe, and no others.”Footnote 23
Yet the Poor Clare understanding of anonymity runs even deeper across the manuscripts in the collection. These were private texts, not publications, written and transcribed by the nuns purely for their own community's use. Yet an adherence to anonymity remains, with few manuscripts giving any signs that could be used to identify particular nuns as scribes or authors. This anonymity was not just a feature of manuscript material. Caroline Bowden has noted that the obituaries of the Poor Clares were generally shorter than those of contemporary Benedictine women religious. This led to a “flattening out [of] the differences between the individual lives … a number of nuns added to the reputation of the convent by their close observance of the rules rather than their individuality.”Footnote 24 Here Bowden hints at a much deeper attitude towards anonymity and a conscious, consistent rejection of individual identity which the manuscripts support. The Book of Ceremonies and Observances of our Convent, transcribed by an unknown nun in 1727, possibly at Aire, provides a critical insight into this phenomenon.Footnote 25 In a section entitled “Of Mutuall Charity and Union,” the nuns were advised that their community was based entirely around the concept of a singular unified identity. It outlined how “the Sisters are all one, for there Soules being in god & there Sisters Souls the like.”Footnote 26 This extended to the act of praying, which allowed them to “unite all there Sisters to themselves” and thus pray “not only as United but as themselves alsoe [sic].”Footnote 27 Through this, they began the communal mystical aspiration of “cohibiting [that is, restricting] their senses and imagination,” becoming “Deaf, Dum, & Blind, the End unto which they must all strive to is the union with God.”Footnote 28 This was a form of unio mystica, or mystical union, in which the nuns symbolically united their souls together with each other, as well as with God. Many medieval and early modern accounts of mysticism promoted the total subjugation of oneself to the will of the divine as a form of “fellowship” or “union of indistinction.”Footnote 29 The process of self-abnegation and purification not only prepared the soul of each individual nun for the presence of God within but also laid the groundwork for a harmonious convent community which was focused entirely on perfecting spiritual devotions. It is argued here that this language of self-abnegation and union promoted a form of authorial poverty among the Poor Clares. While they had already rejected worldly pleasures and comforts, an additional form of poverty could be found in relinquishing their own individual identities.
Much of this has to do with the prevalence of mysticism within the Poor Clare convents. While we will explore the specifics of this in sections two and three of this article, it is worth briefly exploring the type of mystical works that were available to the nuns as preserved in their manuscripts.Footnote 30 An unattributed transcribed work entitled A Method of Meditation for Beginners, preserved in a manuscript from Rouen, outlined a classic threefold definition of mysticism for the nuns. It divided mysticism into the purgative, illuminative, and unitive stages, describing how the final stage of union was a “love of God above all things” which could lead to an “elevating, purifying and inlightening [of] the understanding with so much wisdom and knowledge … that the soul is ravish'd out of herself … [and] transported with love towards him.”Footnote 31 Another Rouen manuscript containing material “drawn out of some Homelies upon the prophet Jeremy” was equally encouraging of mystical experience. Describing mysticism as the “excellent fruits of solitude,” it outlined the path for individuals to enter “into an intimate union with God, to contract with him a holy familiarity, to adhere to him without divisions, without medium.”Footnote 32 It encouraged the nuns to view their solitude as a path towards mystical union, inviting them to “unite your selves to him by as many tyes as he has broken to put you in this great disengagement.”Footnote 33
The nuns of Aire also had a connection to the mysticism of Augustine Baker, the architect of the English Benedictine mystical revival in the convents at Cambrai and Paris. Baker composed a work in 1638 entitled The Summarie of Perfection, which was written specifically for the Aire nuns. It outlined the path towards spiritual perfection, including the various processes of self-abnegation and purification along with the submission of individual will to that of God. He advised that “the longer the soule lives faithfullie prosecutinge such her actuation, the more abstruse, simple, pure & intense or strict & permanent or stable doe her unions with God grow to be.”Footnote 34 Baker assured the nuns that the teachings and Rule of St. Francis were analogous with those of St. Benedict, for “purity of heart & continuallnesse of prayer doe as well apperteine … to all other contemplative orders.”Footnote 35 Such actions would eventually allow the individual to “gette & passe simplie into God … & becommeth united to him.” This was not a union of essence or substance, but rather “of their wills, loves, or affections.”Footnote 36 Other extracts taken from Baker, thus likely also originating from Aire, are found in a manuscript containing substantial transcriptions of numerous mystical works, including those of Harpius, Blosius, William Peryn and Meister Eckhart. Material in the manuscript from Baker includes extracts from his works Doubts and Calls and Treatise of Confession, as well as a copy of his translation of the Twelve Mortifications of Harpius. Either the nuns had requested this material from Baker or copied it from manuscripts from the Cambrai and Paris convents of Benedictines, possibly with the intention of fostering similar mystical outpourings at Aire.Footnote 37 Another treatise in the manuscript entitled Misticall or Spiritual Divinity, identified for the first time here as the work of the Franciscan Boniface Maes (1627–1706), outlined every element of the mystical path. Such a work is representative of the breadth of mystical material available to the Poor Clare nuns both by contemporary Franciscans and Benedictines, as well as past mystic authors.
This emphasis on a poverty of identity may explain why the surviving manuscripts contain little to no actual descriptive accounts of mystical experience written by the Poor Clares themselves. The difference is startling when compared to their English Benedictine contemporaries, especially nuns such as Gertrude More, Catherine Gascoigne, and Barbara Constable.Footnote 38 These women were open about their authorship and, in the case of Constable, even wrote works advising on the purpose and power of confessors.Footnote 39 Those such as More also had their accounts of mystical experience published and advanced as models of Catholic mystical piety.Footnote 40 Yet, as we have seen, such activities among the Poor Clares would have clashed with a commitment to a communal vow of poverty towards authorship and identity. Everything was written by the community and for the community. Evidence from the surviving manuscripts supports this conceptualisation of a poverty of identity. A manuscript copy of Bonaventure's Mirror of Novices was completed through the combined effort of at least six different nuns. Each change of hand continues the text effortlessly from where the previous scribe had finished. No one nun attached her name to the manuscript, with the final scribe finishing the work with a simple request for the reader to “pray for all the wryters.”Footnote 41
There are many examples that could be given to reaffirm this concept. The tireless translation and transcription work of Cecily Cornwallis (1656–1723) at the Rouen convent went unattributed in most manuscripts, while the beautiful works produced by Mary Mylott (d. 1770) at Aire often only featured her initials. Even in the case of Elizabeth Evelinge, who was central to the establishment of a more pro-Franciscan ethos at Aire, there was no direct association of Evelinge with the published works she helped produce. Goodrich rightly concludes that “Evelinge's refusal of an authorial voice was most likely due to her own deep humility … to take public authorship of her work … interfered with her own personal conception of the poverty appropriate to her order … so Evelinge divested herself of public ownership of her translations.”Footnote 42 Other manuscripts containing a diverse range of prayers, sermons, meditations, transcriptions, translations, litanies, and aspirations were written in the hands of various nuns who left no indication of who was undertaking such scribal activity.Footnote 43 Scholars attempting to make sense of this cannot help but be overwhelmed by the effectiveness of this anonymity. There was a bewildering display of literary and scribal activity undertaken with no trace of the individuals behind it. This may well have been exactly what the nuns sought to achieve. Anonymity gave them a communal and singular voice free of individuality and difference, it facilitated a form of unio mystica in which the nuns united to each other, as well as God, through self-abnegation and a poverty, or relinquishment, of individual identity.
II. The Crucifixion, the Eucharist and the Sacred Heart of Jesus
While there was little in the way of descriptive mystical experience written by the Poor Clares themselves, there is evidence that accounts from other women religious were read with interest by the nuns. A manuscript dated 1736 in the hand of Aire nun Mary Mylott transcribed the visions of Margaret Mary Alacoque, a seventeenth-century French mystic, concerning the Sacred Heart of Jesus, as well as comments by her spiritual director Claude de la Colombière. It was a classic description of mystical experience. Alacoque outlined how she begged God “incessantly that I may be annihilated Unknown & buried in Oblivion” and that the divine presence in her soul caused her to “prostrate & Anihilate myself in his divine presence.”Footnote 44 Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus combined late medieval piety with early modern French spirituality, especially that of Francis de Sales. The image of the Sacred Heart typically consisted of a heart anchoring a cross inscribed with the names of Jesus and Mary, normally pierced by two arrows or spears and surrounded by a crown of thorns. Mylott had beautifully decorated the frontispiece of the work in the manuscript with exactly such an image.Footnote 45 Alacoque's account is a useful example of how contemplating the suffering and saving grace of Christ, as well as undergoing the process of self-abnegation, could result in mystical experience. The manuscript cites a number of past authorities on the subject, including Bernard of Clairvaux, Catherine of Siena and St. Clare. Also cited is a passage from the eleventh-century ascetic Peter Damian which emphasized a constant devotion to Christ's passion and suffering as the gateway to mystical experience:
Have a tender Devotion toward the Heart of Jesus full of Love & Mercy beg by it all that you desire to obtain. Offer up to it all your actions because this Sacred Heart is the Treasury of all Supernaturall guifts. Its the way by which we may unite ourselves more Intimately with God & by which God Communicates himself more Amorously to us.Footnote 46
Defining mysticism as a process by which an individual could “unite … more intimately with God” was one which early modern Franciscan authors supported and advanced. In 1670, the English Franciscan friar Nicholas of the Holy Cross defined mysticism, or “mystick divinity,” as “experimental knowledge of God … by which Man tastes the sweetness of God, and by this experience teaches the understanding what God is.”Footnote 47 We might also be able to attribute another manuscript, which appears to be an English commentary on the work of Claude de la Colombière or one of his followers concerning the Sacred Heart, to Aire on the basis of its similar content, including references once again to St. Clare and Catherine of Siena, among others. This too defended the mystical outpourings such devotion could bring.Footnote 48
Thus, while there is little of the descriptive mystical accounts of their English Benedictine contemporaries, the manuscripts above, as well as other prayers and devotions guiding the nuns on what they should aspire to feel and achieve in contemplation, offers significant evidence that a Franciscan strand of mysticism focused on the passion of Christ and the Eucharist was the goal of the Poor Clare way of life at Aire and Rouen, if not elsewhere. The fact Christ's passion was a recurring focus of Poor Clare mystical aspirations should not come as a surprise considering the pivotal role it played in the spirituality of St. Francis. Francis's mysticism was centred on a form of vita apostolica which contained a radical commitment to poverty, a focus on the Gospels as a blueprint for a “performative, literal imitation” of imitatio Christi, and a core identification with the abject Christ on the cross.Footnote 49 The devotion of Francis and his followers to the abject Christ is best represented in his receiving of the stigmata, or wounds of Christ, on his body while on a spiritual retreat on Mount Alvernia in 1224. A prayer to be used by the nuns, transcribed in a manuscript originating from Aire, praised God for granting Francis the “impression of your sacred wounds” and asked God to “penetrate my hart” and “possess my soul & make all that is within me the subject of his divine will” in a similar way. “Come then O Jesus[,]” it begged, “take possession of my soul let your work govern it in all things.”Footnote 50 Unattributed material from the Rouen convent, transcribed in the hand of Cecily Cornwallis, equally encouraged the nuns to “dy to yourself & all things of this world” and “rest in the bleeding wounds & amorous hart of your crucify'd saviour.” This was to be considered the true and final “Oblation of your self into the hands of God.”Footnote 51
Mary Mylott also translated a number of French works focused on Christ's passion in the same manuscript as the mystical account of Margaret Mary Alacoque. She dedicated these to her fellow Aire nuns, whom she described as “Faithfull Adorers of your Crucifyd Lord Jesus! & Devout Contemplators of the Dreadfull Misterys of Mount Calvary.”Footnote 52 In 1728 she also undertook the massive task of translating the four-volume work of Henri-Marie Boudon, a seventeenth-century French spiritual author. His Les Saintes Voyes de la Croix, or The Holy Ways of the Cross, advocated a form of mysticism that again focused on the passion of Christ, this time situating “divine innihilations,” “a passive state of suffering,” and “interior pains” as essential parts of following in the footsteps of Christ.Footnote 53 While Mylott normally only initialed her translations or left them entirely anonymous, the manuscript presents a rare example of her writing a preface to her fellow nuns, offering a tantalizing snapshot of the spirituality of Aire. In it Mylott outlines her own “tepidity” compared to the other sisters, praising how they “with pleasure … Embrace Crosses since your happy Espousalls with your Crucified Saviour”. She also praised them for having “Embraced & Espous'd the Cross … in imitation of our Suffering Saviour.” Perhaps conscious of this rare autobiographical passage, Mylott does not initial her preface or the work itself, simply signing it “Your most Unworthy Sister.”Footnote 54
Additional manuscript material reaffirmed Mylott's description of her fellow nuns as “Devout Contemplators of the Dreadfull Misterys.” Material that likely originates from the Aire convent reveals that the nuns were to use both the physical presence of a crucifix in the convent and a spiritual emulation of Christ's death to inspire deep contemplative and mystical outpourings.Footnote 55 Material in the same manuscript encouraged the nuns to conceive of their daily prayers as reflective of the stations of Christ's passion, with each intended to inspire a spiritual reaction within them. The prayer for Monday focused on the flagellation, in which the cords used to beat Christ symbolized the nuns’ desire to “tye up my passions & sensualities & bind all the faculties of my soul to the love of thee.”Footnote 56 Similarly, Tuesday's prayer related to the crown of thorns, with the nuns requesting Christ to “wound my hart with thy love,” while Thursday's description of Christ carrying his cross was intended to inspire “compunction & tears.” Friday's prayer focused on the Crucifixion itself, in which the “sacred wounds” of Christ were understood by the nuns to “heal my defects & enflame my hart.”Footnote 57 A final “devout prayer” concluded this spiritual imitation of Christ within the soul of the nuns. “Take possession of my hart & body” it requested, “unite & transforme me into yourself & become for the future the soul of all actions & Modell of my Life.” This process of mystical transformation resulted in an act of union, “you may live in me & I in you that all I do may be animated with your devine spirit.” This was an “unseperable bond of love” that united the nun and Christ, one which “neither Deathe nor Life nor creature whatsoever may be able to separate us for one moment.”Footnote 58
Unsurprisingly, mystical sentiments centering on the crucifix and Christ's passion were especially intense around the time of Lent and Easter. Material from the Rouen convent contains prayers which connected specific days and events with different mystical stages. As Easter approached prayers requested the soul be reduced “unto its Centor which is thy self O my God” to the point that “I wear entirely in possession of God & to be totally possest by him,” with prayers growing in intensity as the final feast days approached.Footnote 59 Palm Sunday, for example, mirrored Jesus's arrival into Jerusalem with the personal arrival of Christ in the soul. The crucifixion on Good Friday and Christ's earthly death were paralleled with the washing away of sin and worldliness in the soul, while Holy Saturday outlined periods of spiritual desolation the nuns might feel. “In the all saving Ocean of thy mercy I plunge myself,” the nuns were encouraged to pray, “& in that probatique flood of thy precious blood I desire to bathe my soul & wash it from all that is displeasing.”Footnote 60 All this culminated with Christ's resurrection, which was expected to inflame the heart and unify the soul of the believer to Christ. His subsequent appearances to his disciples reflected the many times in which he would encourage others to follow his example. “Inflame my hart that I may so run & never cease untill I have found you” the prayers concluded.Footnote 61
While mysticism could be inspired by specific feasts or times of the year, it could equally be inspired daily through the presence of the nun before the Eucharist at times of prayer. This again had Franciscan roots, especially focused on the experiences of St. Clare. While she has been the patron saint of television since 1958, Clare was better known in the early modern period for her miracle concerning the Eucharist in 1224, in which she held off an entire army from pillaging Assisi by praying to God with the Blessed Sacrament in hand in front of the soldiers. Clare was renowned for her devotion to the sacrament, recorded as visibly shaking and weeping whenever she received the body of Christ.Footnote 62 Due to the central nature of Clare's life, writings and spiritual experiences to the Poor Clares, it is unsurprising that devotion to the Eucharist features in so much of the material the nuns chose to translate or transcribe. Prayers to St. Clare were common, with one from the Rouen convent requesting she help individual nuns to quiet and calm their “distracted wandering spirit” and replace it with a “pure & continual prayer” and the “contemplation of those heavenly joys which you possess for all eternity.”Footnote 63
Much like Clare herself, the nuns were encouraged to believe that prolonged exposure to the presence of Christ within the Eucharist during mass and periods of prayer could inspire mystical and devotional outpourings. One meditation, transcribed in the hand of Rouen nun Cecily Cornwallis, encouraged the nuns to devote their undivided consideration and praise to Christ's real presence within the Eucharist. They were reminded of the examples of Catherine of Siena and Angela of Foligno, as well as others such as Magdalen of Pazzi who “visited every day her aimable Spouse thirty times in the most holy Sacrament” and Francis Xavier who “lay very often in the Sacristy to pass more easily a part of the night before the most holy Sacrament.”Footnote 64 Contemplating Christ's perfect attributes, as well as his sacrifice, could soon turn positive affective outpourings into something akin to the via negativa tradition of mysticism which rejected all descriptions of the divine as flawed. The mystery of Christ's presence was thus a reminder to the nuns of the mystical aspect of their spirituality and the classic mystical trope “we never speak better of God, than when we confess that we cannot speak worthily of him.”Footnote 65 This revelation was described for the nuns in detail, outlining how the individual would be plunged into “an abyss of astonishment, & admiration” wherein:
the spirit discovering an immense glory is oblig'd to shut its eyes which too great a light blinds by its clarity, the soul then finding itself introduced in sacred darkness, in divine nights, in mists terribly holy, where she sees & thinks nothing but that her God is above all sight & all thought, that he is quite another thing than what is thought, or what is said of him.Footnote 66
Like the exemplary mystic Teresa of Avila, the work advised that the nuns were to aim to be “penetrated with divine light” and remain “interdicted & without a word for she sees in this light, that this mystery surpasses all her thoughts; she looses herself in an abyss of admiration … for she knows that if a creature could speak the language of men & Angels, she could not express the goodness of this God of mercy in the dwelling he has chosen amongst us in the holy Sacrament.”Footnote 67
The act of receiving the Eucharist could also inspire a deep mystical experience within the souls of the nuns. An unattributed prayer in a manuscript from Rouen outlined how the nuns were to express their desire to be worthy to receive it. “My Soul desires you O my God,” one prayer exclaimed, “you are the only refreshment she can have in the ardours which oppresses her.”Footnote 68 Another meditation, also from Rouen, described how the presence of God should be the first thing to enter a nun's mind when waking, while the act of receiving communion should inspire devotional outbursts such as “My Soul, my Body, my mind longs to receive you.”Footnote 69 Advice to the nuns outlined that the night before receiving the sacrament they were to attend confession and also “purifie your heart from all vitious, vain, and terene affections, and love to creatures.” According to the Aire manuscript of mystical extracts, the night was to be spent deep in contemplation of the divine and mysterious qualities of God.Footnote 70 Extracts from the works of Bonaventure reinforced the idea that the sacrament enabled the nuns to be “more nearly united unto Almighty God” and “obtaine some especiall benefit of God.” Such communion would instil godly characteristics in the nuns, including purity of heart, humility, charity, obedience, contempt of the world and mortification of the body.Footnote 71
Instructions transcribed by Cecily Cornwallis at Rouen reminded the nuns of how they should act in the time before receiving the sacrament. When each nun approached the altar she was to repeat the phrase “Cast O Lord some spark of that divine fire which you came to bring upon earth … since you are a devouring fire, purify my soul by your love … make me tast how sweet you are, touch the most sensible & intimate of my hart … unite your self to me, grant I beseech you that I may unite my self to you.”Footnote 72 A prayer transcribed in a manuscript from Aire reveals that each nun was to reflect after communion that she now had in her something which “the world cannot comprehend.” The prayer encouraged the nuns to rejoice that their soul had been gifted with the presence of God and, while not worthy of such a gift, each nun should offer all her devotion, admiration, praise, and thankfulness for such a blessing.Footnote 73 Another prayer from Aire encouraged the nuns to interpret receiving the sacrament as receiving God as “the bridegroom of my soul.” The arrival of this “celestial spouse” enabled them to “melt and be absorpt into your love.”Footnote 74 The act of physically receiving the sacrament thus had a spiritual and mystical parallel. Just as the nun consumed the host, their soul would in turn be purified and sanctified when consumed by the presence of God within. “O flames burn me, consume me, annihilate me” one prayer transcribed at Rouen requested, “come to unite yourself to me … sanctify my body & soul & to make me live a divine life.”Footnote 75 The act of receiving the host, the physical union of two bodies, was also paralleled with a spiritual union between the nun and Christ internally during which the nun asked Christ to “unite yourself to me & me to you.” The “inseparable union” that occurred was celebrated by contrasting the nun's old characteristics with those that union with Christ had inspired: misery turned to mercy, darkness to light, weakness to power and poverty to riches.Footnote 76
Both receiving the Eucharist and performing their daily prayers in front of it could, therefore, inspire mystical experience within the nuns. When combined with the focus on Christ's passion within the convents of Rouen and Aire, we can begin to understand the centrality of mysticism to the ritual lives of the Poor Clares at these convents. It was a mysticism in which the events of the passion of Christ and the act of receiving the Eucharist were intimately intertwined. A series of prayers transcribed at Rouen made this link clear. Christ's loving sacrifice on the cross was to inspire “the greatest devotion you are able in humble gratitude,” while the Eucharist was to be received “as your Viaticum.”Footnote 77 Thus the death of Christ on the cross was mirrored with the death and purification of self that was to precede receiving Christ into the body. The very word “viaticum,” Latin for “provision for a journey,” links to the final defining characteristic of the mysticism of the Poor Clares that this article will address; the concept of life as a spiritual journey and the importance of the end goal of reaching the “heavenly Jerusalem.”
III. Exile and Death: Anticipating the heavenly Jerusalem
Exile and death are themes that constantly reoccur in the manuscripts of the Poor Clares. This section will argue that both these themes had a duality to them which incorporated both the practical reality of the lives of the nuns as well as their spiritual aspirations. We have already explored the prominent role self-abnegation had in texts transcribed by the nuns, both in terms of shedding individual identities and preparing the souls of the nuns when contemplating the Passion or receiving the Eucharist. While this concept of a “mystical death” was well established, this section also connects the concept to the very real threats facing the nuns due to plague and other natural disasters. Equally, exile had a two-fold meaning, both that of physical exile from England as well as a spiritual exile from God. Both exile and death were intricately linked with the concept of the heavenly Jerusalem, or the eternal bliss the nuns would experience in heaven after a lifetime of hardship and sacrifice.
Exile was a theme intricately linked to the nuns’ understanding of their own identities as “pilgrims.” Manuscript material surviving from the Rouen convent, written in the hand of Cecily Cornwallis, reveals how central this concept was to their spirituality. It is unclear if Cornwallis was the author or transcriber of the manuscript, which bears the title A pilgrimage to the heavenly Jerusalem.Footnote 78 The opening pages reference St. Clare and an understanding of the Poor Clares as pilgrims and strangers, suggesting the work was aimed directly at the nuns of Rouen, rather than transcribed from a text intended for a more general audience.Footnote 79 The series of meditations on various Psalms which make up much of the manuscript may well have been written by Cornwallis for the benefit of her community. Regardless, each Poor Clare was advised in the work to look “upon herself as a pilgrim & stranger in the world.”Footnote 80 This represented the practical reality of the nuns as literal exiles and pilgrims from their homeland of England, as well as pilgrims exiled on earth awaiting reunion with God. One section compared a traveler far from home constantly asking for news of his country with the “pilgrim soul” of the nun who “begs of God to let her know the number of her days” until she will be reunited with him.Footnote 81 While women religious were physically exiled, research has revealed the intricate network of links convents had to Catholic circles in England.Footnote 82 Despite “complex interlocking networks of contacts which crossed national and local boundaries,” the nuns tried as much as possible to “maintain and emphasise their English identities.”Footnote 83 The Poor Clares certainly prayed for the reconversion of England; their Rouen convent in 1644 was partly founded on the understanding of its benefactors that it would pray for the homeland's conversion, while the Aire convent was commissioned in 1700 to say a weekly mass for the conversion of England.Footnote 84 Yet other groups of nuns, especially the English Benedictines, hoped to end their exile by taking a more proactive role in the political machinations to restore Catholicism in their homeland.Footnote 85 A small verse written in Cornwallis's hand at the beginning of a second copy of the work reaffirmed a spiritual, rather than physical, end to exile for the Poor Clares. “Sweet refreshing Spirit blow, & coole the clime thro[ugh] which we go,” it asked, “making a pilgrimage with paine, Our blessed Country to attaine.”Footnote 86
Another theme linked to pilgrimage and attaining the heavenly Jerusalem was that of death. While A Pilgrimage had advised the nuns to be strangers to the world, it also cautioned that each should have “death alwaies before her eyes.”Footnote 87 We can broadly speak of two interconnected tropes or types of death that the nuns understood themselves to experience: the mystical “death” of the self during enclosure and a literal death at the end of life. The first of these “deaths” links strongly with the wider concept of a monastic life as one of self-denial, or a rejection of the world and all its distractions. A list of “brief rules” for pilgrims in A Pilgrimage outlined the various characteristics the nuns were to aspire towards. They were to be “deaf, dumb & blind” to the world, love “silence, recolection & prayer” and practice such traits “as much as their employments will permit.”Footnote 88 Most importantly, the nuns were to “look upon themselves as pilgrims & strangers in the world & sigh without intermission for that happy hour which will finish their exile.”Footnote 89 A pilgrim soul was prepared for her own death through the process of self-annihilation and being “dead” to the outside world. Thus the pilgrim nun was not to “follow her passions” or distract herself with “evil desires” but rather empty her heart “of the love of all created things” and instead focus on God alone.Footnote 90 Recognizing the uncertainty and temporality of her life, the pilgrim nun was described as one who “looks upon the things of this world as nothing” and instead “fastens herself to God alone.”Footnote 91 The nun who achieved this was one who devoted her life to raising herself “continually towards heaven & sighs after the celestial Jerusalem.”Footnote 92
This mystical death contrasted with the rather more practical concern of literal death in the convents. As A Pilgrimage advised, when the nuns had achieved a life of self-denial, they were to be always “ready to depart, when her master calls her to himself,” suggesting an immediacy and uncertainty about mortality and life expectancy.Footnote 93 The chronicles of the Rouen convent, for example, were punctuated with accounts of plague and the sudden suffering endured by certain nuns. One particularly devastating bout of plague hit in 1668. Immediately following the death of their elderly confessor Robert Rockwood, the community was “afflicted with the plague, which had been all the summer in the town.” The chronicle describes how the nuns had underestimated the danger, thinking it safe due to the low number of deaths in the town. Thus, when plague spread, it first claimed the lives of two young students, catching the whole community off-guard. One of these, Catherine Cornwallis, “fell into a fitt of vomiting & shivering” during Evensong.Footnote 94 In the face of this suffering, the abbess gathered the community in the refectory, reassuring them that this was an “amourous visitation of their heavenly Spouse & that they were not so much to look upon it as a scourge.” Instead, the crisis was to be used to reaffirm the nuns’ dedication to “abandoning themselves entirely into the hands of the divine providence” and an opportunity to show courage, compassion and love in the face of death.Footnote 95
The threat of death, especially in times of plague, was thus a chance for the nuns to strengthen their dedication to being “dead to the world.” Having no fear in the face of death was one such way of showing that they had truly discarded their current lives as having any value, instead embracing God's will should they be called. Despite this, manuscript material occasionally reflected the practical ways in which plague could be prevented from spreading unnecessarily. A work entitled The Hidden Treasure of Religious Perfection by “Brother W. L & Brother A. J,” written as a guide for women religious, if not specifically for the Poor Clares themselves, advised of the dangers of “receiving too frequent visits, and intertaining yourself with Seculars.” It paralleled the spiritual diseases of worldliness and temptation, which could be received through the grate via the presence of friends, family and other distracting guests, with the very real threat of plague:
Avoid as much as possibly you can the Grates and Speak-houses, they're holes through which the bad aire of the world subtly enters in and infects Religious Women … they are little windows through which death often creeps in to Cloisters, and makes strang havock … in reality, would you willingly go into a place where many have catched the Plague?Footnote 96
These warnings continued when discussing what was to occur during engagements with men at the grate. Here the nuns were warned to “never place yourself too near ‘em, for their very breath exhales I know not what infectious vapours.”Footnote 97 While death and suffering were to be met with humility and courage as part of God's providence, it was clear that the nuns still tried to avoid unnecessary risk.
Other manuscript material reflected the uncertainty of life in the convent. Repeated several times across the manuscripts are prayers for a “happy death.” One such prayer, to be said every day, made the comparison between the nun and the good thief at Christ's crucifixion: “O divine ears hearken with the same clemency to my prayer as you did to that of the good thief, that at the moment of my death I may deserve to hear that sweet sentence: this day thou shalt be with me in paradise.” The prayer continued to ask for Jesus's help in “taking the last and dangerous step that must lead me to Eternity.”Footnote 98 Praying every day in case of a sudden death reflected an uncertainty which manifested itself in several forms. At the start of each week, the nuns were to pray for grace in case they “should be call'd out of the world before the end of the week,” at which time their prayers would ensure they were “prepar'd for a happy death.”Footnote 99 In the morning each nun was also to pray to her guardian angel for protection so she would not be “supris'd by a sudden death, but may have a blessed & happy end.”Footnote 100
Material transcribed by Cornwallis at Rouen in 1712 in another manuscript outlined “some chief points of our holy ceremonys” for the nuns. The manuscript features several other translations and transcriptions of prayers and instructions, making it likely that Cornwallis was adapting parts of St. Clare's Rule and other material into an easily accessible form for her fellow nuns. Here it was highlighted that a nun was not to “stay up thro any pretence of devotion which can never be pleasing to God.” Rather, as soon as the bell was heard, the nun was to kiss the ground and then “enter into bed as into their grave.” In some cases, this was more than a metaphor. The nun was to sleep “not knowing if they shall rise anymore- happy is that Religious whose last action is an act of obedience.”Footnote 101 This harsh reality was once again framed within the concept of the nun as a “pilgrim soul.” As the nun had relinquished all cares for earthly things, as well as her earthly body, she was to welcome death as the final stage of her “pilgrimage” out of this life. “Death is a great good for a pilgrim soul.” A Pilgrimage advised, “she ought to desire it with ardour & to rejoice when it comes.”Footnote 102
There was thus a two-fold focus on death among the English Poor Clares. The first was the concept of self-abnegation as a form of death, a mystical death of the self in which the nun, acknowledging her status as a pilgrim destined for greater reward, discarded all attachment to the world and her own status. The second was the reality of a literal death, sometimes brought about by a plague spread through the locality. The death of the self through enclosed life, as well as the earthly death of the body, combined at the end of a nun's life to justify her greater and ultimate reward: eternal life with God in the kingdom of heavenly Jerusalem. A poem entitled “Sighs of decaying years,” written by Rouen nun Cecily Clare Arundell (d. 1717), likely toward the end of her life, balanced these themes beautifully. The poem laments how the “clayie wall that keeps me prisoner” from God, that is the body and human nature, forced her soul to live a life of darkness, entrapped in the “chains of Captivity.” Because of this, life was lived with a constant wish that the earthen clay vessel of the body would “to ashes fall and not detaine me longer from thy light but give me freedom.”Footnote 103 Arundell requested her soul to awaken in light of her human “decaying nature” beginning to return to “Mother earth from whose cold bosome, she first took her birth.” As the body grew weak and frail, it would add fuel to the fire of the soul, allowing it to “rise up higher Like to a candle; drawing to an end its brighter flames.” As the inflamed soul burned ever brighter, Arundell encouraged it to send “sighs as harbingers before unto thy heavenly home.”Footnote 104 This was the ultimate reward of the life of poverty and negation a Poor Clare had undertaken. “Thy mortall pilgrims life is past,” she celebrated, “be rejoyn'd, unto thy noble Center and to his bosome.”Footnote 105 Thus the ultimate and final union with God occurred when the soul returned to its creator. “This small drop may to its ocean run,” she exclaimed, “this little ray rejoine unto its Sun’.Footnote 106 The final lines of the poem describe how a physical death transformed the temporary mystical sight of God into a more permeant union:
This final “blest region” was the eternal kingdom of heavenly Jerusalem. Such an image was popular in convents from the medieval period onwards. June L. Mecham notes, for example, how the nuns of the Cistercian nunnery of Wienhausen in Germany combined elaborate artwork within their convent with their performance of the Stations of the Cross to enter a space of “theological imagination” that “transformed the monastic complex into the city of Jerusalem.” Thus “material objects and artwork reinforced this identification of the inner cloister with … the heavenly Jerusalem.”Footnote 108
When a Poor Clare nun contemplated the heavenly city “without cease,” she could often find herself “in a holy transport” or “taking her flight towards her soveraign good.” A Pilgrimage equated contemplation with the process of sighing; each nun had to “sigh continually after the Eternal kingdom,” desiring it and focusing on it with all her heart.Footnote 109 Once they had glimpsed the beauty and glory of the holy city, as well as viewed how the “children of God live & reign with him … adorn'd with the precious crown of immortality,” their soul would experience an even greater yearning to travel there and end their pilgrimage. Tears, sighs, desire and an inflamed heart might all follow as symptoms of this yearning.Footnote 110 This glimpse of the heavenly Jerusalem would be replaced at death by the final reward of being able to behold “God face to face, & contemplate forever his ineffable beautys.”Footnote 111 An unattributed meditation, contained within a multilingual collection of translations and transcriptions, advised the nuns to keep the image of the heavenly city “in the very center of your hart” to the point they should “tell every flower of your garden you are shortly to goe to the spring garden of Paradise; whose flowers never fade & plants never dye.” In several subtly beautiful lines, the work advised the nuns to run to the windows of their cells when the stars appeared at night and “talk with them of Eternity, Learne some newes of them of your heavenly country.” They were to ask about the “Torrents of Creame” and “fountaines of honny,” as well as hills of rubies, mountains of emeralds, and quarries of diamonds. Then, as soon as the sun rose in the morning, they were advised to “demand of him whether this be your Last day in this Miserable world or no & if he say it is not, with angry voice bid him why.”Footnote 112
Finally, we should note that the nuns could repurpose the lives of exemplars to reinforce the concept of the heavenly Jerusalem as the final reward for a life of poverty as a Poor Clare. In The Life of Blessed Sainte Euphrosina, written by Aire nun Elizabeth Evelinge, we see the culmination of Euphrosina's life as the fulfilment of the journey to heavenly Jerusalem. Euphrosina was a fifth-century Egyptian saint known for disguising herself as a man to enter a monastery and avoid an arranged marriage. While the poem reflects many of the values of the nuns themselves, such as the rejection of the secular world and the institution of worldly marriage, we will here focus briefly on how Euphrosina served as an exemplar for the journey each nun undertook to the heavenly Jerusalem.Footnote 113 Evelinge devoted several pages to describing how Euphrosina's life of “holye contemplations” and “inflamed fervour, and devotion” was punctuated by tastes of her future rewards:
She continued to describe how richly the heavenly Jerusalem was decorated, noting the pavements of “transparent gold,” the vast fields of flowers, the bountiful fruit trees and the “Faire Christall fountaines.” The “heav'nly ayre” was described as being full of “fragrant sweet perfumes” as well as “musique rare resounding.”Footnote 114 So great and overpowering was the image that Evelinge described how Euphrosina prostrated herself at the feet of the saints and “celestiall Ghests” at the feast and beseeched that “by their holye prayers and merites, she may be conjoin'd to their Society.”Footnote 115 The account ends with Evelinge describing how Euphrosina arrived at “heav'ns safe Port” at the end of her life. Evelinge requested that the saint now look kindly on the Poor Clares attempting to follow the path to heavenly Jerusalem she had walked, asking the saint to “forget not her, that in the surging Seas, Lost in the Waves doth still in danger row, Doubtfull, if she shall safe arrive, or no.”Footnote 116
IV. Conclusion
This article has outlined the rich vein of mysticism present in the manuscripts of the Poor Clares. A dual understanding of the concept of unio mystica encouraged the nuns to think of their purpose not only as striving to achieve union with God, but also with each other. The prevalence of mystical texts at the convents of Aire and Rouen certainly suggest that such mystical aspirations were common among the nuns. A typically Franciscan focus on the passion of Christ and the sanctity of the Eucharist, inherited from the teachings of both St. Francis and St. Clare, informed the nature and character of these aspirations. There was again a duality to this; the nuns could be inspired both from the physical presence of a crucifix or receiving the Eucharist, but also by contemplating on the suffering, sacrifice and saving grace of Christ which both represented. Finally, a conceptualization of the lives of the nuns as pilgrims in exile from the heavenly Jerusalem was not only a spiritual one, but one based on the nuns’ lived experiences of exile, illness, and death.
The collection at Durham is not without its problems. As we have seen, the poverty of identity which seems to have been prominent among the nuns has resulted in modern scholars struggling to identify individual nuns as scholars and scribes beyond the examples of Evelinge, Cornwallis, and Mylott. Yet even without inscriptions or authorship details in much of the material, the collection is useful nonetheless as a snapshot of the spirituality of the nuns. We may not know who transcribed material, or even the source of the material in some cases, but the very fact it was transcribed or translated suggests that the nuns found it relevant to their spiritual aspirations and compatible with the spirit of poverty and humility found within the Rule of St. Clare. Thus, while we cannot talk with confidence about the mystical experiences of individual English Poor Clare nuns like we can with the English Benedictines, it is clear the convents of Aire and Rouen had mystical aspirations which matched their contemporaries. Texts in the surviving manuscripts repeat the same themes time and time again: the death of the self when aspiring to individual and communal perfection, the centrality of the crucifixion, the importance of the Eucharist, and the final glorious reward for pilgrims striving to reach the heavenly Jerusalem.Footnote 117 As a result, we can still gain an understanding of the importance of such concepts to the English Poor Clares.
Much of the material in the collection that can be identified has come from the Aire and Rouen convents. It is likely that little remains from Gravelines or Dunkirk as a result. The bulk of the material is likely from the seventy-nine crates of possessions the Aire nuns managed to transport back to England with them during the French Revolution. Many convents experienced sudden banishment, imprisonment or execution during the period, resulting in the loss of many monastic libraries and archives in the chaos of persecution. Only further research will enable scholars to identify if any material from the other convents made its way into the collection. If most of the material did indeed come from Aire, then it is possible that the conclusions reached here apply specifically to the more pro-Franciscan convent. Yet the repetition of the themes explored in this article in manuscripts from Rouen suggests that this may not entirely be the case. Rather, despite the internal turmoil over Jesuit and Franciscan dominance, it would seem the Poor Clares still maintained a shared ethos and spirituality across their convents. We might tentatively suggest that this was also the case at Graveline and Dunkirk as a result.
While this article has drawn on some of the seventy-four manuscripts within the Durham collection, the seven hundred ninety-four printed works demand more time than can be dedicated in a single article. Since obtaining the Darlington Poor Clare manuscripts, Durham has also received a donation of manuscripts from a group of Poor Clares from Woodchester in Gloucestershire. Currently in the process of being catalogued, we must assume many collections like those from Darlington and Woodchester still remain within surviving convents and are relatively unknown to scholars. There is still much work to be done on the collection that will undoubtedly lead to rich and insightful scholarship. By continuing to focus attention on newly discovered sources, and digging deeper into existing manuscripts, it is hoped groups such as the Poor Clares can retake their place as central to the effort to reconstruct the lived experience of exiled English women religious.
