Franciscan Nuns in England, the Minoress Foundations Andtheir

chapter 20 Franciscan Nuns in England, the Minoress Foundations and Their Patrons, 1281–1367

Anna Campbell

This chapter seeks to pose a number of questions regarding the foundation of Franciscan nuns—and more specifically, the establishment of the order of Minoresses, or Sorores Minores—in England in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. The first Franciscan friars had arrived in England in 1224, but it was not until 1293–1294 that Franciscan nuns were permanently estab- lished in the country, though there had been earlier attempts to do so: a Damianite house in Northampton had lasted only twenty years, while plans for an Urbanist foundation in Newcastle-upon-Tyne never materialized. The Minoresses, however, put down resilient roots in England that were to last until the Dissolution of their convents in 1539. It is the purpose of this chapter to examine some of the reasons for their longevity and success. We need, therefore, to consider the institutional development of the movement that was associated with St Clare of Assisi. Between 1212, when Clare fled her family to join Francis, and 1263, there were six Rules written for the so-called ‘second order’ of Franciscans. The English Minoresses followed the ‘Isabella Rule’ for sorores minores that had been co-authored by Isabelle of France, sister of Louis ix, and Franciscan masters of theology at the University of Paris. There is a strong suggestion that one of the reasons for the Minoresses’s initial popularity in Eng- land was due to the nuns being the ‘right’ kind of Franciscan nun, with clear links to the highly popular Friars Minor. Such overt, papally sanctioned, institutional relations between the first and second orders has to be one of the main reasons why it was the Minoresses that met with great favour among patrons. Nevertheless, it is also the case that one of the key strengths of the Minor- esses lay in their links to the royal and noble houses of England and France. The London house was founded by Edmund, earl of Lancaster, brother of Edward i, and his wife, Blanche of Artois, niece of Isabelle of France and Louis ix. The house at Waterbeach was founded by Denise de Munchensey, who, through birth and marital links, was one of the ‘chief ladies’ of the realm;1 likewise,

1 Frederick M. Powicke, Stephen Langton: Being the Ford Lectures delivered in the University of Oxford in Hilary Term 1927 (Oxford, 1928), 6–7.

Marie de St Pol, foundress of Denney Abbey, was the grandniece of Edmund, duke of Lancaster, and Blanche of Navarre.2 Marie’s family had very close links with France and was almost completely French: her father, Guy de Châtillon, count of St Pol (d. 1317), was a leading French magnate. Her mother, Marie of Brittany, however, was the granddaughter of Henry iii. Finally, Bruisyard was founded by Lionel of Antwerp, duke of Clarence, son of Edward iii and his queen, Philippa of Hainault. It is something of a paradox that a religious order that found fame in St Clare’s love of poverty and the virtue of humility should have been brought into being by a princess of France, and was rooted in a specific sector of English society where at least fifty out of sixty of the order’s patrons and benefactors over twelve generations could all be plotted on a single family tree.3 The support that the nuns received from such Anglo-French aristocracy is all the more intriguing given the political context of the time. There are, therefore, immediate contradictions regarding the founding of the Minoresses in England, which this chapter will seek to elucidate through an examination of the order’s beginnings and patronage both in France and England in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. On the one hand, the Minoresses had a clear identity and Franciscan origins and institutional associations, but they were also socially exclusive in the years covered by this volume. Beyond 1350, there are changes in the nature of the social make-up of the convents and their benefactors, which are beyond the scope of this chapter, but which will be considered in the concluding remarks. ∵

Recent scholarship and increased interest in St Clare have challenged the tra- ditional narrative that St Clare—or even St Francis—was the sole founder of such an order. As Sean Field notes, such a view ‘leaves little room for compet- ing visions of female Franciscanism in the thirteenth century’, of which there were many.4 Few of the female communities that associated themselves with

2 Marie Neville, ‘Chaucer and St. Clare’, Journal of English and Germanic Philology 55.3 (1956), 423–430; Anne F.C. Bourdillon, The Order of Minoresses in England (Manchester, 1926), 18–19. 3 Bourdillon, Minoresses, 15. 4 S.L. Field, The Rules of Isabelle of France: An English Translation with Introductory Study (St. Bonaventure, ny, 2013), 10. For recent scholarship on St Clare and the evolution of what is known as the second order of St Francis, see Lezlie Knox, ‘Audacious nuns: institutionalising the Franciscan order of St Clare’, Church History 69.1 (2000), 41–62; Bert Roest, ‘Rules, customs, and constitutions within the medieval order of Poor Clares’ in Consuetudines et Regulae, ed. C.M. Malone and C. Maines (Turnhout, 2014), 305–330; Bert Roest, Order and Disorder: