By Olivia Johnson, Carrie Paveglio, and Emily Tujaka
Convent writing inhabits a unique place in current scholarship on early modern women’s writing. Due to the conditions of exile and mobility that impacted the production and circulation of early modern English nuns’ writing, scholarship on their writing lags behind that of other early modern women writers (Coolahan 257-58). Gertrude More, a Benedictine nun, is perhaps one of the most important authors to emerge from the English convents on the Continent and thus occupies a unique place within the canon of early modern women writers. As a writer, More was influenced by the famous English Catholic mystic Augustine Baker, who encouraged a “thriving hub of devotional writing” at Cambrai (Coolahan 258). Previously, More has been known mostly in relation to her famous ancestor, Thomas More, and to Baker. However, due to the recent increase in attention to Catholic women’s devotional writing, it is becoming essential to situate More’s work within the broader canon of women writers from which it has historically been absent. In creating this edition, we aim to increase the inclusion of Catholic women writers in the canon. This critical introduction, then, explores how More provides a unique religious, historical, and political perspective through her writing, which makes her work not only worthy of scholarly study but crucial to understanding the development of the early-modern-women literary canon.
In her essay “Poor Clare’s Legacy: Catherine Magdalen Evelyn and New Directions in Early Modern Women’s Literary History,” Jaime Goodrich explores the literary legacy of Catherine Magdalen (Elizabeth) Evelyn—who was a poet, translator of Franciscan texts, and a member of the Poor Clares. Goodrich places Evelyn’s writings within the context of the Poor Clares, showing the ways that the monastery’s agendas impact contemporary ideas about early modern women writers. Yet as Goodrich explains, monastic writers like Evelyn have remained outside the canon. Prominent scholars have already studied the works of Protestant early modern women, so it is now time to bring Catholic writers into the conversation and explore how their unique social contexts shaped their work (Goodrich 6).
The work of Kimberly Anne Coles provides a useful example of the prevailing tendency to focus on Protestant women’s texts. In her book Religion, Reform, and Women’s Writing in Early Modern England, Coles argues that early modern women writers were not only shaped by their unique social contexts but were active cultural agents who participated in the shaping of sixteenth century England’s literary, religious, and political culture. Focusing exclusively on Protestant women—Anne Askew, Katherine Parr, Mary Sidney Herbert, Anne Vaughan Lok, and Amelia Lanyer—Coles explores how the works of each defy the contemporary view of early modern women’s writings as marginal and insignificant in shaping history. Coles insists that by not considering these women writers as political, religious, and literary reformists within sixteenth century England, much of our knowledge of the development of its cultural history is misconstrued (12). While Coles does not consider Catholic writers, More was also an influential religious and political figure whose anti-authoritarian poetry explored an immediate access to God that was extremely radical for women in the convent during this time. Editing and analyzing works by Catholic nuns like More can thus allow us to expand our ideas of the types of texts early modern women were producing during this time and their historical, cultural, and political impact.
As part of their vocation, nuns produced texts for political purposes as well as to advance their relationship with God. Because of this, a distinct type of monastic literary production and circulation occurred. Goodrich notes that Catholic men were often not interested in preserving the works of their female counterparts (25). However, More’s situation is unique because Baker—who, as previously mentioned, was a spiritual guide in More’s convent—produced The Life and Death of Dame Gertrude More, which explores passages from her writing. This text and the 1658 edition of More’s writing indicate that she was radical for her rejection of the commonly used form of Ignatian prayer in favor of Baker’s methods, which involved an open and direct relationship with God as opposed to prescribed prayers. More’s poetry and prose shows clear support of Baker’s method, as in the excerpt from “Amor Ordinem Nescit”:
My soul, where is thy love & Lord,
Since him thou canst not find?
O cheer up, heart, be comforted,
For he is in thy mind;
To him relation one may have,
As often as he goes
Into the closet of his heart,
His griefs for to disclose.
(ll. 49-56)
In this passage, More explores the concept of God existing directly in one’s mind and heart as opposed to a more distant relationship mediated by a priest or other male religious guide. More’s rejection of religious tradition shows how women in monasteries produced texts that expand our understanding of the social, cultural and political impact of early modern women writers. The fact that this religious rejection was so controversial within Catholicism—coupled with the fact that Catholicism itself was illegal under the reign of Protestant England—caused her radical works to be excluded from the canon. More was not the only convent writer to reject certain ideas set forth by the Catholic Church in her writing; Coolahan details, among others, the story of Mary Ward, whose controversial writings angered the church and were made almost entirely inaccessible. Because of this, Mary Ward is “representative of the tardy arrival of nuns’ writings to scholarly debates about early modern women” (261).
More’s convent writing has been studied by feminist scholars such as Dorothy Latz; however, due to her unique positionality as a Catholic Englishwoman writing during the early modern period, her work and her biography have not received the sustained critical attention that they deserve. Incorporating More into the canon will illuminate qualities an early modern nun’s writing could in fact reflect: political, devotional, anti-authoritarian, and revolutionary. Coolahan explains that the act of writing within the convent was “central to these women’s vocations and practice, especially when controversy arose” (275). Though accessibility has been a legitimate concern inhibiting scholarly examination of these writings, “writing generated in early modern convents … warrants investigation for its perspectives on historical events as well as for the negotiation of internal politics and spirituality” (275). Paying critical attention to convent writers such as More would revise the canon so that it is more comprehensive and reflective of the diverse politics, religious views, and literary styles of early modern women’s writing.
Works Cited
Coles, Kimberly Anne. “Introduction Making Sects: Women as Reformers, Writers, and Subjects in Reformation England.” Religion, Reform, and Women’s Writing in Early Modern England, pp. 1-16. Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Coolahan, Marie-Louise. “Nun’s Writing.” A History of Early Modern Women’s Writing, ed. Patricia Phillippy, pp. 257–275. Cambridge University Press, 2018.
Goodrich, Jaime. “A Poor Clare’s Legacy: Catherine Magdalen Evelyn and New Directions in Early Modern Women’s Literary History.” English Literary Renaissance, pp. 3-28. John Wiley & Sons, 2016.