Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T02:02:20.881Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 5 - Syon Abbey and the Birgittines

from II - Circles and Communities in England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2023

Corinne Saunders
Affiliation:
Durham University
Diane Watt
Affiliation:
University of Surrey
Get access

Summary

The rich textual history of Syon Abbey, the only English house of St Birgitta of Swedenߣs Order of St Saviour, is the focus of this essay. Although there is limited evidence of English Bridgettine nuns authoring their own texts, St Birgitta, Syon Abbey, and its community of nuns as well as monks had profound and multiple influences on womenߣs literary culture in fifteenth- and early-sixteenth-century England. While the significance of Syon within the late medieval English cultural landscape cannot be overemphasised, its (textual) community is also representative of the intricacies of womenߣs literary culture. Syon women, including as well as superiors aristocratic lay women with close ties to the abbey, were engaged in the commissioning of texts. The Syon community, led by Abbess Elizabeth Gibbs, was quick to exploit the new technology of printing, and also supported by the patronage of wealthy noble women, such as Lady Margaret Beaufort. However, the textuality of the abbey expanded beyond these powerful women to include the wider community of Syon nuns, and beyond England into continental Europe.

Type
Chapter
Information
Women and Medieval Literary Culture
From the Early Middle Ages to the Fifteenth Century
, pp. 104 - 123
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Further Reading

Bell, David N. (1995). What Nuns Read: Books and Libraries in Medieval English Nunneries, Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications.Google Scholar
da Costa, Alexandra (2012). Reforming Printing: Syon Abbey’s Defence of Orthodoxy 1525–1534, Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Hamel, Christopher (1991). Syon Abbey: The Library of the Bridgettine Nuns and the Peregrinations after the Reformation, London: Roxburghe Club.Google Scholar
Ellis, Roger (1984). Viderunt eam filie Syon: The Spirituality of the English House of a Medieval Contemplative Order from Its Beginnings to the Present Day, Salzburg: Analecta Cartusiana.Google Scholar
Erler, Mary C. (2002). Women, Reading, and Piety in Late Medieval England, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Claes, Gerjot, Risberg, Sara, and Åkestam, Mia, eds. (2010). Saint Birgitta, Syon and Vadstena. Papers from a Symposium in Stockholm 4–6 October 2007, Stockholm: Kungliga Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien.Google Scholar
Gillespie, Vincent (2002). Syon Abbey: with the Libraries of the Carthusians, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues 9, London: British Library.Google Scholar
Grisé, C. Annette (2002). The Textual Community of Syon Abbey. Florilegium 19, 149–62.Google Scholar
Hutchison, Ann M. (1995). What the Nuns Read: Literary Evidence from The English Bridgettine House, Syon Abbey. Mediaeval Studies 57, 205–22.Google Scholar
Jones, E. A., and Walsham, Alexandra, eds. (2010). Syon Abbey and Its Books: Reading, Writing, and Religion, c. 1400–1700, Cambridge: Boydell & Brewer.Google Scholar
Powell, Susan (2017). The Birgittines of Syon Abbey: Preaching and Print, Turnhout: Brepols.Google Scholar
Warren, Nancy Bradley (2001). Spiritual Economies: Female Monasticism in Later Medieval England. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×