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An Analysis of the Controversy Caused by Mary Ward’s Institute in the 1620s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2015

Laurence Lux-Sterritt
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Extract

During the reign of Elizabeth I, English Catholicism experienced a degree of persecution that was meant to ensure the extirpation of the old faith. However, Elizabethan anti-Catholic laws had an ambiguous effect upon the recusant population of England. Although the Roman Catholic faith initially suffered greatly, yet by the end of the reign it was rising again with force. The unique vocation of Yorkshirewoman, Mary Ward (1585–1645), can be seen as an eloquent illustration of this new English Catholic spirit and as the embodiment of an English missionary determination to further the Catholic cause.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 25 , Issue 4 , October 2001 , pp. 636 - 647
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 2001

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References

Notes

1 General surveys of Catholicism in England can be found in works such as: Aveling, J.C.H, The Handle and the Axe. (London: Blond & Briggs, 1976)Google Scholar; Bossy, John, The English Catholic Community, 1570–1850. (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1976)Google Scholar; Dures, Alan, English Catholicism, 1558–1644. (London: Longman, Seminar Studies in History, 1983)Google Scholar; Guilday, Peter, The English Catholic Refugees on the Continent, 1558–1795. (London: Longman, Green and Co, 1914)Google Scholar; Havran, M.J., The Catholics in Caroline England. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962)Google Scholar; Leys, M., Catholics in England, 1559–1829: A Social History. (London: Longman, 1961)Google Scholar; Magee, B., The English Recusants. A Study of the Post-Reformation Catholic Survival and the Operation of the Recusancy Laws. (London: Burns & Oates, 1938)Google Scholar; Mathew, David, Catholicism in England, the Portrait of a Minority: its Culture and Tradition. (London: The Catholic Book Club, 1938)Google Scholar; Meyer, A.O., England and the Catholic Church under Queen Elizabeth. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967)Google Scholar; Morey, A., The Catholic Subjects of Elizabeth I. (London: Allen and Unwin, 1978)Google Scholar and Trimble, W.J.R., The Elizabethan Catholic Laity. (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1964)Google Scholar. See also articles by Bossy, John, ‘Rome and the English Catholics; a Question of Geography’, Historical Journal 7 (1964)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘The Character of Elizabethan Catholicism’, in Aston, T. (ed.), Crisis in Europe 1560–1660. (London, 1965)Google Scholar; Dickens, A.G., ‘The First Stages of Romanist Recusancy, 1560–1590’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, 35 (1943)Google Scholar; Haigh, Christopher, ‘The Continuity of Catholicism in the English Reformation’, Past and Present, 93 (1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and ‘From Monopoly to Minority: Catholicism in Early Modern England’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, fifth series, 31 (1981)Google Scholar.

2 The Act to Retain the Queen’s Majesty’s Subjects in their Due Obedience (1581, 23: Eliz. 1, c.1) and the Act against Jesuits, Seminary priests and such other like Disobedient Persons (1585, 27: Eliz. 1, c.2). In Elton, G.R., The Tudor Constitution. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965). pp. 422–427 Google Scholar.

3 In this article, I have mainly used the major recognised biography of Mary Ward, by Chambers, M.C.E., The Life of Mary Ward, 1585–1645. (London: Burns and Oates, 2 vols., 1882-1885Google Scholar), in parallel with the more recent work of Peters, Henriette, Mary Ward. A World in Contemplation, (trans. by Butterworth, Helen, Gracewing Books, 1994)Google Scholar. A number of biographical works have been published that cover Mary Ward’s life and her vocation in the Institute: see Right Rev. Gasquet, Abbot, The Life of Mary Ward, Foundress of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary. (London: Burns and Oates, 1909)Google Scholar; Hicks, Leo, ‘Mary Ward’s Great Enterprise,’ The Month 151 (1928)Google Scholar; Littlehales, M., Mary Ward (1585–1645). A woman for all seasons: Foundress of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, (London: Catholic Truth Society. 1974)Google Scholar; O’Connor, Margarita, That Incomparable Woman. (Montreal: Palm, 1962)Google Scholar; Salome, M., Mary Ward: A Foundress of the Seventeenth century. (London: Burns and Oates, 1901)Google Scholar.

4 Contemporary biographies comprise the Italian Vita, the English Life and a series of 50 paintings (now kept in Augsburg) acting as vignettes of the milestones in Mary Ward’s life, called The Painted Life. The biography known as the English Life was originally entitled A Briefe Relation of the Holy Life and Happy Death of our Dearest Mother; it is a posthumous Vita, written jointly by Mary Poyntz and Winefred Wigmore, Mary Ward’s closest two followers, c. 1650.

5 For illicit Catholic schooling, see Beales, A.C.F., Education Under Penalty: English Catholic Education from the Reformation to the Fall of James II, 1547–1689, (London: Athlone Press, 1963)Google Scholar; Armitage, P., ‘Catholicism and Educational Control in North-East Lancashire in the Reign of Elizabeth I’, North-West Catholic History, vol. 13 (1986)Google Scholar; Hilton, J.A., Catholic Lancashire. From Reformation to Renewal, 1559–1991, (Chichester: Philimore, 1994)Google Scholar and Mews, S. and Mullett, Michael, ‘Catholicism and the Church of England in a Northern Library: Henry Halsted and the Burnley Grammar School Library, in Studies in Church History, Subsidia, 1999 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 For Mary Ward’s stay at the Babthorpes, see Chambers, vol. 1, pp. 40–42 Google Scholar; Oliver, M., That Incomparable Woman. (London: Sheed and Ward, 1960), p. 56 Google Scholar; Orchard, E., Till God Will (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1985), pp. xiv and 9Google Scholar and Peters, pp. 44–48.

7 For analyses of these revelations, see Clarkes, Anthony (ed.), The Heart and Mind of Mary Ward, (IBVM, 1985)Google Scholar; Orchard, Emmanuel (ed.). Till God Will. Mary Ward through her writings, (London. Darton, Longman & Todd, 1985)Google Scholar; Parker, M.P., The Spirit of Mary Ward, (London: Thomas More Books, 1963)Google Scholar; and Wetter, Immolata, ‘Mary Ward’s Apostolic Vocation’, The Way, supplement 17 (1972)Google Scholar.

8 Peters, p. 110. Ward’s companions were her sister, Barbara Ward, Mary Poyntz, Winefrid Wigmore, Johanna Browne, Susan Rookwood, Catherine Smith and Barbara Babthorpe.

9 Peters pp. 114–119 and Chambers, vol.1, pp.283–285.

10 BCA, B5, letter 4 to Mgr Albergati, 1620.

11 For literature on the Jesuits, see Bangert, William V., A History of the Society of Jesus, (Saint Louis. Mo: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1986)Google Scholar; Brodrick, James, Origins of the Jesuits, (London: Longmans, 1949)Google Scholar, and Saint Ignatius Loyola. The pilgrim years, (London: Burns and Oates. 1956)Google Scholar; Ganss, George E., Saint Ignatius’ Idea of a Jesuit University: a study in the History of Catholic Education, (Marquette University Press, 1956)Google Scholar; and Martin, A. Lynn, The Jesuit Mind: the Mentality of an Élite in Early Modem France, (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988)Google Scholar.

12 McCarthy, Caritas, ‘Ignatian Charism in Women’s Congregations.’ The Way, supplement 20 (1973): 15 Google Scholar; McMullen, N., ‘The education of English Gentlewomen 1540–1640’, in History of Education 6 (1977) 2 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pillorget, René, ‘Mary Ward ou la Ténacité (1585–1645)’ in Les Religieuses Enseignantes, Actes de la Quatrième Rencontre d’Histoire Religieuse de Fontevraud. (Angers: Presses de l’Université d’Angers, 1981)Google Scholar.

13 On the tensions between the cloister and the apostolate for religious women, see Chalender, Marie, La Promotion de la Femme à l’Apostolat, 1540–1650, (Paris: Editions Alsatia, 1950)Google Scholar; Chatelier, Louis, L’Europe des Dévôts, (Paris: Flammarion, 1987)Google Scholar; Rapley, Elizabeth, The Dévotes. Women and Church in Seventeenth-Century France, (Kinston, Ont.: McGill, Queen’s University Press, 1987)Google Scholar; Cain, James, ‘Cloister and the Apostolate of Religous Women’, Review for the Religious 27 (1968)Google Scholar; Liebowitz, Ruth, ‘Virgins in the Service of Christ: The Dispute over an Active Apostolate for Women during the Counter-Reformation’, in Women of Spirit, ed. Ruether, Rosemary Radford (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979)Google Scholar; Lierheimer, Linda, ‘Redefining Convent Space: Ideals of Female Community among Seventeenth Century Ursuline Nuns’, Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Western Society for French History 24 (1997)Google Scholar, and Cain, James, ‘The Influence of the Cloister on the Apostolate of Congregations of Religious Women’, PhD dissertation at the Pontifical Lateran University, Rome, 1965 Google Scholar.

14 I am grateful to the convent’s archivist Sister M. Gregory Kirkus, for her insightful discussions and invaluable help during my research visits to the Bar Convent. She has clarified my understanding of the IBVM and helped me to untangle the many strands which make up the rich and complicated history of the Institute.

15 Schola, point 5: ‘Therefore, the aim of this Institute is as follows: Firstly, that reflecting on the shortness of life and on the eternity that is then to follow, we may make timely provision for our own salvation by a complete renunciation of the world. Then, in accordance with the capacity of our own sex, we may devote ourselves to the Christian education of maidens and girls whether outside or inside England’ (emphasis added). The plan is analysed in Peters, pp. 124–132.

16 Schola, point 14: ‘far from having the house open to all, we desire rather to have cloister so strictly observed that no access is to be allowed to any extern whatsoever’.

17 Ratio; the text is analysed in Peters, pp. 199–203.

18 This Plan has recently been presented and its importance explained to the Congregation of the IBVM by Mother Immolata Wetter in the Fourth Letter of Instruction in November 1970

19 Institutům, f.19.

20 Ibidem.

21 Ibidem., f. 22.

22 Ibidem.

23 Text transcribed in Chambers, vol. 2, pp. 183–186, and analysed pp.44–46; also Peters, pp. 338–346.

24 Chambers, vol. 2, p. 183.

25 PRO. SP 16 ff. 40 v; Mutius Vitelleschi’s letter, dated 19 July 1623: directions for the colleges of Louvain and St Omer.

26 Chambers, vol. 2, p. 186. Ward’s followers were also mockingly called ‘wandering nuns’ because of their refusal to accept traditional enclosure. In her article “Wandering Nuns”: The Return of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary to the South of England, 1862–1945’, Recusant History 24:3 (1999), pp. 384–96, Sr. M. Gregory Kirkus, IBVM explores what she calls ‘the purposeful mobility’ of the members of the Institute.

27 Although Mary Ward herself never wished to challenge Church authorities, her vocation was, unwittingly, rocking the foundations of a patriarchal hierarchical system.

28 Ratio, f. 3. and Schola, point 2.

29 Schroeder, H.J., Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent. (Rockford, Ill: Tan Books, 1978). pp. 220–21Google Scholar.

30 In this respect, we adopt a methodological process similar to that described by Newman, Barbara in From Virile Woman to Woman Christ. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1995), p. 2 Google Scholar: ‘All the essays [in this collection] take misogyny more or less for granted, noting its repercussions in women’s lives without attempting to trace either its historical origins or its psychological roots. The complex beliefs and practices surrounding female subordination [. . .] seems to constitute one of the few melancholy universals to be observed across the immense range of human cultures.’

31 Chambers, vol. 1, p. 408.

32 Chambers, vol. 2, p. 183.

33 Ibidem.

34 Chambers, vol. 2, p. 183.

35 Ibidem.

36 Bull; also discussed in Chambers, vol. 2, pp. 386–87 and analysed in Peters, pp. 565–67.

37 Bull, ff. 1–4.

38 Northern Catholics have been the subjects of pioneering works in the field of regional studies: J.C.H. Aveling. Northern Catholics: the Catholic Recusants of the North Riding of Yorkshire, 1558–1790, and The Handle and the Axe, (Blond & Briggs, 1976)Google Scholar, and ‘Some aspects of Yorkshire Catholic Recusant History: 1558–1791’ in Studies in Church History IV, 1967 Google Scholar. Also Hilton, J.A., Catholic Lancashire, From Reformation to Renewal, 1559–1991, (Chichester: Philimore. 1994)Google Scholar; Dickens, A.G. ‘The First Stages of Romanist Recusancy, 1560–1590’ in Yorkshire Archeological Journal, 35, (1943)Google Scholar; Leatherbarrow, J.S. ‘Lancashire Elizabethan Recusants’ in Chetham Society, 110, (1947)Google Scholar.

39 See Bossy’s, J. theory of a Northern Catholic matriarchy in The English Catholic Community, 1570–1850. (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1976)Google Scholar.

40 BCA, B5/6, f. 17. Memorial dated January 1622.

41 Cover, Jeanne, Love, the Driving Force. Mary Ward’s Spirituality: Its Significance for Moral Theology. (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1994)Google Scholar.

42 BCA, B5/82, f. 93a. A Declaration of Mary Ward from the Angers Prison, Munich, to the Roman Congregation, Holy Office, 27 March 1631.

43 BCA, B5/6, f. 17.

44 BCA, B17, certified copy of ‘Three speeches of our Reverend Mother Chief Superior made at St Omer having been long absent’; originals kept in the archives of IBVM, Miinchen-Nymphemburg.

45 Ibidem.

46 BCA/B5/f. 90. Letter to her congregation, 17 February 1631, when in prison in Angers.

47 In the Archives Départementales de la Haute-Garonne, there is evidence among the Ursuline papers that the early Congregation of Toulouse accepted enclosure as a means to an end. In 221H-37, we are told that despite the Congregation’s great popular success, its safety was jeopardised by its informal status. Margueritte de Vigier, then acting as Superior, resolved to ask for enclosure in order to ensure the future of her community.