¹ Aungier, G. J ., The History and Antiquities of Syon Monastery, London 1840;Google ScholarTate, M. B., ‘The Brigittine Monastery of Syon’, unpubl. DPhil diss., Oxford 1975;Google ScholarKnowles, D., The Religious Orders in England, Cambridge 1961, 3. ch. xviii.Google Scholar

² Dunning, R. W., ‘The building of Syon Abbey’, Transactions of the Ancient Monuments Society NS 25 (1981), 16–26.Google Scholar

³ Harvard, Houghton Library, fMs Eng. 1015, fo. 98 which records the transactions involved in the gift of a relic of St Magnus from Syon to the parish of St Magnus by London Bridge in 1514.Google Scholar

⁴ For Bonde and other Syon authors see: Cusack, B., ‘A Critical Edition of William Bonde's “Consolation of Timorous Consciences’”, unpubl. MA diss., London 1963, 56–62.Google Scholar

⁵ Caraman, P., ‘An English monastic reformer of the sixteenth century’, Clergy Review NS 28 (1947), 1–16;Google ScholarWilliams, G., ‘Two neglected London-Welsh clerics: Richard Whitford and Richard Gwent’, Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion i (1961), 23-44;Google ScholarRichard Whytford, ed. Hogg, J. (Elizabethan & Renaissance Studies lxxxix, 1979), vols 1-5Google Scholar (hereafter cited as Richard Whytford), vol. i. pt 1 and pt 2 for many valuable references to Syon literature.Google Scholar

⁶ BL, MS Harley 2321 betrays some inconsistency, stating that there are twelve days in the year when a plenary indulgence is available there (fo. 27V), and then claiming that a plenary indulgence could be obtained there every day of the year (fo. 29). The pardons listed in this MS show a considerable increase over those recorded in MS Harley 4012, fo. 110.Google Scholar

⁷ Oxford, Balliol College, MS 225, fo. 175V: ‘in monasterio Syon, quod vulgus vocat Scheen’; Tanner, N. P., The Church in Late Medieval Norwich, Toronto 1984, 125, 235. The two sets of pardons were often recorded in close proximity, as in Bodleian Library, MS Douce 54, fos 35-6, and further confused by reference to hallowed beads that seem to have been common to both Syon and Sheen, although they were used with different devotions.Google Scholar

⁸ Neame, A., The Holy Maid of Kent, London 1971, 198.Google Scholar

⁹ E.g. Bodleian Library, MSS Gough liturg. 19, fo. 2iv; MS Douce 54, fo. 35V; MS Laud misc. 19, fo. 31V; BL, MS Harley 541, fo. 228v; 494, fo. 106. Dr A. I. Doyle has identifiedthe scribe of Harley 494 as Robert Taylour, who also wrote the unique MS of The Myrroure of owe Ladye (see Early English Text Society, extra series 19, vii-viii, hereafter cited as EETS ES, or EETS os for the ordinary series) and MS Harley 554.Google Scholar

¹⁰ The beads are illustrated in Bodl. Lib., MS Gough liturg. 19, fo. 2 iv but not in the correct order.

¹¹ Bodl. Lib., MS Douce 54, fo. 35; Brown, C. and Robbins, R. H., Index of Middle English Verse, New York 1943, 1703. The Pater noster, Ave and Benedictus were sometimes added to the end of the first five lines of the verse.Google Scholar

¹² English versions include Bodl. Lib., MS Tanner 407, Lyell 30, BL, MS Harley 172 and 2398; it was printed c.Google Scholar1523 by Fawkes, R. (who also printed The Myrroure of owe Ladye for Syon):Google ScholarPollard, A. W. and Redgrave, G. R., Short-title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland and Ireland 1475–1640, 2nd edn, London 1976, 1986, 1991 (hereafter cited asSTC), 14550; Latin MS versions include Bodl. Lib., MS Auct. D. infra 2. 11, Cambridge University Library MS Ee. 6. 6 and Ii. 6. 43 and BL, MS Royal i7.C.xxvii. A version in English verse from BL, MS Sloane 3548 is given in EETS os 178, xxxviii.Google Scholar

¹³ In one case, Bodl. Lib., MS Douce 42, the woman is named as St Mawde and an elaborted version of the vision is followed by The Golden Litany which has been attributed (Ampe, A., Ons Geestelijk Erf 38 [1965], 236 n. 52) to Sr Magdalena Bentler von Kenzingen (or, von Freiburg).Google Scholar

¹⁴ The XV Oes were included in numerous MSS and printed Horae, in Latin or English, and printed separately in STC 20195-20196. 5; a facsimile reprint of the first edition was published by Stephen, Ayling, London 1869.Google ScholarSee also White, H. C., Tudor Books of Private Devotion, Madison 1951, ch. xiii.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Sarum, Horae, 1531 cited from EETS os 178, xxxvii.Google Scholar

¹⁶ In STC 11617. 6. ‘Item for bedes bought at Syon v⁸ x^c’, PRO E 36/214 3, April 1506, and the box-wood beads given to the party from St Magnus in 1514, Hough ton fMS 1015, fo. 9V might have been 63-bead rosaries.Google ScholarSee Thurston, H., ‘The so-called Bridgettine rosary’, The Month 100 (1902), 189–203Google Scholar and Rhodes, J., ‘The rosary in sixteenth-century England, I’, Mount Carmel 31 (1983), 180-91 at p. 183.Google Scholar

¹⁷ For MS versions of the Revelations see EETS os 178 and 291; extracts were printed with The Golden Epistle in STC 1915ff and 23964ff.Google ScholarSee Ellis, R., ‘Flares ad fabricandam...coronam: an investigation into the uses of the Revelations of St Bridget of Sweden in fifteenth-century England’, Medium Aevum 51 (1982), 163-86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁸ STC 4602;Google Scholarsee Lucas, P. J., ’, The Library⁵ 25 (1970), 1–10.Google ScholarBridget's life was not included in the English version of The Golden Legend.Google Scholar More generally see Johnson, F. R., ‘The English cult of St Bridget of Sweden’, Analecla Bollandiana 103 (1985), 75–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁹ Hodnett, E., English Woodcuts 1480–1535, Oxford 1973, nos 457, 2277, 2379.Google Scholar See Cusack, “Bonde's ‘Consolation’”, 22 n. 20 and especially, Driver, M., ‘Pictures in print’, in Sargent, M. (ed.), De Cella in Seculum, Cambridge 1989, 229-44, at pp. 242-4.Google Scholar

²⁰ Bateson, M., The Catalogue of the Library of Syon Abbey, Cambridge 1898;Google ScholarTate, M. B., The Brigittine Monastery, chs vii-viii.Google Scholar

²¹ Ingeneral : Eisenstein, E.. The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, Cambridge 1979;Google ScholarHirsh, R., Printing, Selling and Reading, Wiesbaden 1967;Google ScholarChartier, R. , The Culture of Print, Cambridge 1989,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and more particularly, Aston, M., Lollards and Reformers, London 1984, esp. ch. vi ‘Lollardy and literacy’.Google Scholar

²² Respectively, A dayly exercyse, STC 25414, sig. D. 6v and A Dialoge... For Preparacion unto Howselynge, STC 25413. 5, sig.^*4.Google Scholar

²³ Ellis, R., ’, Analecta Cartusiana 68 (1987) 122–3.Google Scholar

²⁴ Ker, N. R. , Medieval Libraries of Great Britain, London 1964.Google Scholar

²⁵ Durham University Library, MS Cosin v. iii. 16; Dr A. I. Doyle considers the hand of this letter to be that of the Syon monk, Thomas, Betson, whose Ryght Profitable Treatyse, STC 1978, ends with the injunction ‘Lerne to kepe your bokes clene &c’.Google ScholarSee also Erler, M., ‘Syon Abbey's care for books’, Scriptorium 39 (1985), 293–307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁶ The Myrroure qfoure Ladye, EETS ES 19, 65–70.Google Scholar

²⁷ CUL, MS Dd 2. 33, The Instruction of Novices, bk. Ill , process 7, ch. 1 places holy reading first among the five things helping to contemplation.Google Scholar

²⁸ STC 922. 2 preceded Whitford's translation of St Augustine's Rule, and Betson included a version of Bernard's Golden Epistle in his Ryghl Profytable Treatyse; there was also another translation of the Golden Epistle circulating at the same time as Whitford's, and both are printed, with an apology, in STC 25412.Google ScholarOn Whitford as translator of The Imitation, STC 23961-23964. 7, see Richard Whytford, vol. i, pt. 2, 80-99, 235—7;Google ScholarCrane, D., ’, Recusant History 13 (1975), 79–100, accepts Whitford as translator.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁹ STC 922. 3 Rule of saynt Augustyne sig. A iv.Google Scholar

³⁰ McConica, J. K., English Humanists and Reformation Politics, Oxford 1968, 56.Google Scholar

³¹ E.g. William, Bonde, Pilgrymage of Perfeccyon, 1531, STC 3278, fos 143, 151, 215, 279, 295;Google ScholarThomas, Presitus in CUL, MS Dd. 2. 33, fo. 35V and Myrroure of oure Ladye, EETS ES 19. 7–8.Google Scholar

³² Thomas Prestius of Syon translated David of Augsburg; for that and other versions see Jolliffe, P. S., ‘Middle English translations of De exterioris el inlerioris hominis compositione’, Medieval Studies 36 (1974), 259-77.Google ScholarA translation of the Directorium aureum compositione contemplativomm by Herph, (much cited in Bonde's Pilgrymage) was re-copied for the nuns exiled in Meshagen in 1571 by the English secular priest, Edmund Hargat.Google Scholar

³³ Bonde's, Pilgrymage, Bk III day 5 made extensive use of De septem donis spiritus sancti; David of Augsburg (Prestius), Bk II claims to be based on his Destructory of vice;Google Scholar Whitford translated two alphabets, STC 3273. 3, 3273. 5 and in 25412. See Distelbrink, B., Bonaventurae scripta, Rome 1975.Google Scholar

³⁴ STC 4815 and edited from MS in EETS os 258. See Denise, M., ‘The Orcherd of Syon: an introduction’, Traditio 14 (1966), 269–93;Google ScholarHodgson, P., ‘The Orcherd of Syon and the English mystical tradition’, Proceedings of the British Academy 1 (1964), 229–49.Google Scholar

³⁵ STC 14553. Most of the narrative text was from Ludolphus, , Vita Christi, but the prayers were from Jordanus' Meditationes, STC 14789.Google ScholarSee Salter, E., ‘Ludolphus of Saxony and his English translator’, Medium Aevum 28 (1964), 26–35;CrossRefGoogle Scholar also Conway, A. C., ‘The Vita Christi of Ludolph of Saxony’, Analecta Cartusiana 34 (1976).Google Scholar

³⁶ English recusant publications stressed their orthodoxy by insisting on due authority, citation of sources and official approbations; they too were under pressure from Protestant opponents.

³⁷ Aston, M., Lollards and Reformers, London 1984, 212ff.Google Scholar

³⁸ STC 21471. 5, 21472. See Reed, A. W., ‘The regulation of the book trade before the proclamation of 1538’, Transactions of the Bibliographical Society 15 (1918), 163–6.Google Scholar

³⁹ Rhodes, J., ‘Private Devotion in England on the eve of the Reformation’, unpubl. PhD diss., Durham 1974, part I, ‘Protestant treatises’.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ See Doyle, A. I., ‘Thomas Betson of Syon Abbey’, The Library ⁵ 11 (1956), 115–18;CrossRefGoogle ScholarEllis, R., ‘Further thoughts on the spirituality of Syon Abbey’ (forthcoming).Google Scholar

⁴¹ STC 6833-36. This and most of the other works discussed in the course of this paper are described in more detail in Rhodes, ‘Private devotion’.Google Scholar

⁴² With seven surviving editions 1530-7, STC 25421. 8-25425. 5, it rates as the bestselling religious book of the decade. (Reprinted in Richard Whytford, vol. v, 1-62.)Google ScholarSee White, , Tudor Books of Private Devotion, 157-61 and Rhodes, ‘Private devotion’, 176ff.Google Scholar

⁴³ E.g. Dyumallfor Devoute Soules, c. 1532, STC 6928-288, also copied in BL,Google Scholar MS Harlcy 494, but not recognised by Jolliffe, P. S., Checklist of Middle English Prose Writings of Spiritual Guidance, Toronto 1974, H.8, O.14;Google ScholarHilton's, Medled lyfe, STC 14041 and in 4602 and 14042;Google ScholarPantin, W. A., ‘Instructions for a devout and literate layman’, in Alexander, J.J. G. and Gibson, M. T. (eds), Medieval Learning and Literature: essays presented to R. W. Hunt, Oxford 1976.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ An overt example was The Abbaye of the Holy Ghost, STC 13608. 7-13610;Google ScholarJolliffe, , Checklist, H.9 and references. Was its popularity a reflection of lay people's need?Google Scholar

⁴⁵ E.g. Bossy, J., The English Catholic Community, London 1975, ch. iii;Google ScholarMartin, A. L., The Jesuit Mind, Ithaca 1988, 10–11, isf, 201-5;Google Scholar and Collinson, P., Godly People, London 1983, chs. iii, vii. The kind of minor gentry to whom the Protestant, Thomas Becon, dedicated his works of religious instruction and prayers was characteristic.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ STC 25421, fo. 181, (n. 47) reprinted with introduction, Richard Whytford, vol. i, pt 2, vols ii-iv. It accuses brethren in some monasteries of writing, illuminating, painting, and making clavichords for personal profit and some nuns of sewing, embroidering, weaving, doing silk-work, teaching children and taking lodgers.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Noted but not identified by Latz, D., Glow-worm Light, Salzburg 1989,Google Scholar 21 and by Rogers, D., ‘Some early English devotional books from Cambrai’, Downside Review NS 38 (1939),Google Scholar 458-60 who failed to notice that the translation of St Bernard's De precepto et dispensation occupies fos 112-170V;Google Scholar part III section 2 of The Pype is devoted to poverty, and may be De paupertate spiriluali, although it is not admitted to be a translation.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Scrupulosity was widely discussed, e.g. in A Little Short Treatise, CUL, MS Ff. 6. 33, fo. 98v, a Syon-related MS :Google ScholarJolliffe, , Checklist, K. 4. Interestingly, Erasmus blamed Gerson for the problem of scrupulosity, STC 10498 sigs. D. 4ff, H. 4.Google ScholarSee also Kirchberger, C., ‘Scruples at confession’, Life of the Spirit 10 (1955-1956), 451-6, 504-9 and Rhodes, ‘Private Devotion’, 134-43.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ STC 3274. 5, 3275-6. See Cusack, , ‘Bonde's “Consolation”‘, passim.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ STC 3276. From 1506-9 Bonde was a fellow of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, whose founder also founded the Franciscan convent of Denny, Cambridgeshire, and charged the fellows with care of the spiritual welfare of the nuns of Denny.

⁵¹ E.g. Hodnett, , English Woodcuts, nos 1515-21, ⋆1356a and Rhodes, ‘Private Devotion’, 593-618.Google Scholar

⁵² STC 25413. 7, 25414-5. Reprinted in Richard Whytford, 5. 63–108.Google Scholar

⁵³ Erasmus', writings on death included the satirical Funus, 1534, STC 10453. 5;Google ScholarDe contemptu mundi, 1532, STC 10470. 8, 10471,Google Scholar and Preparation to Deathe, 1538, STC 10505 and STC 10476. 3.Google ScholarFor Lupset see Beaty, N. L., The Craft of Dying, New Haven 1970, ch. ii, and for the many treatises of the 1530s concerned with death, including Whitford, Erasmus and Lupset,Google Scholarsee Rhodes, , ‘Private Devotion’, 488-575.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ I am not persuaded by Peters, W. A. M., ‘Richard Whitford and St Ignatius’ visit to England’, Archivum Historiae Societatis Jesu 25 (1956), 3–25, who suggests Whitford's possible influence on Ignatius.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Pilgrymage, STC 3728, fo. 72V, cf. fos 15 iv, 274;Google ScholarAumann, J., Christian Spirituality in the Catholic Tradition, London 1985, 148: ‘Medieval spirituality was explicitly directed toward contemplation and mystical experience’.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Ibid.

⁵⁷ About a fifth of the second edition, STC 3278, was taken up by expositions of the Pater, Ave, Creed and of the (illustrated) star of grace, tree of virtue and of vice. Similarly David of Augsburg/Thomas Prestius, Instruction of Novices and Hilton, , Scale of Perfection.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ STC 3278, fo. iv, for a list of authorities and a description of the work's genesis.

⁵⁹ Ibid.

⁶⁰ Ibid. fo.2.

⁶¹ Ibid. fo.285.

⁶² E.g. STC 3278 fos 289V-300. For the background: Hirsh, J. C., The Revelations of Margery Kempe, Leiden 1989, ch. iii, ‘The extension of mysticism’;Google ScholarKieckhefer, R., Unquiet Souls, Chicago 1984, ch. vi ‘Rapture and revelation’;Google ScholarRiehle, W., The Middle English Mystics, London 1981, chs vii-viii.Google Scholar

⁶³ Notably STC 3278, Bk III, day 6, chs 45-6, 49-61.

⁶⁴ Ibid.. ch. 51, fo. 247.

⁶⁵ Ibid.. Bk III, day 6, chs 53-9. The same division was commonly made: e.g. Edmund's, Myrrour of the Chyrche, 1521—9, STC 965-7;Google ScholarLove's Speculum vite Cristi [in English], 1484-1530, STC 3259-67;Google ScholarThe .vii. Shedynges of the Blode of Jhesu Cryste, 1500-9, STC 14546, 14546. 3;Google ScholarSimon's Fruyte of Redempcyon, 1514-32, STC 22557-60.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ STC 3278, Bk III, day 6, ch. 60. It was copied anonymously by Robert Tayour for Anne Bulkley in BL, MS Harley 494 and by a priest, B. Langforde, in Bodl. Lib., MS Wood empt. 17 (rep. in Henry Bradshaw Society xxvii [1904], in ignorance of its source). The fullest allegorical exposition of the life of Christ and the mass was in book II of Gararde's Interpretacyon and Sygnyfycacyon of the Masse, 1532, STC 11549.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ STC 14553. The sixty-five prayers of the main section were from Jordanus, , Meditationes, STC 14789;Google Scholar they were copied in Latin by John Cressener in 1495, Durham University Library MS Cosin V. v. 12. The MS was later in the possession of Clemence Tresham, a nun of Syon. The English translation of Fewterer was printed separately in STC 20193. 5; see Rhodes, J., ‘Devoute prayers in englysshe of thactes of our redemption’, The Library 28 (1973), 149–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶⁸ Also used by Bonde, in the meditations of Simon's Fruyte of Redempcyon, in Love's Mirror of the life of Christ, and in The .vii. Shedynges of the Blode of jhesu.Google Scholar See Rhodes, ‘Private Devotion’, 390-446; Despres, D., Ghostly Sights, Norman 1989, chs i-ii.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ E.g. Guevara's, Mount Calvarie, 1594-1618, STC 12448.5-12450.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ STC 14553, fo. 57.

⁷¹ STC 3278, fos. 250V-Q51. Bonde also used the image of the construction of a ‘tonne’ or barrel, fo. 274V, citing St Thomas, Summa, I I . ii. q. clxxxiv, art. 3 and q. clxxxvi—vii; Whitford, , of course, took the figure as the basis of his Pype or Tonne.Google Scholar

⁷² STC 15707, 15707. 5 and in numerous MSS e.g. Bodl. Lib., MS Douce 42, Lambeth Palace Library, MSS 542, 546, BL, MS Arundel 285; it was recommended in Whitford's, Werke of Preparation, STC 25412 sig. B. 3.Google Scholar

⁷³ STC 25421. 2-.6 on which see Horsfield, R. A., ‘The Pomander of Prayer. Aspects of late medieval Carthusian spirituality and its lay audience’, in Sargent, M. (ed.), De Cella in Seculum, Cambridge 1989.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ STC 25414, Dayly Exercyse, sig. D. 6v.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ For the allegorical interpretation of the mass, Pilgrymage, Bk III day 6, ch. 60 see n. 66 above. Ch. 15 of the Treatyse probably circulated separately before it was included (anonymously) in the popular Recusant Manual, STC 17263 etc and copied c. 1595 by Peter, Mowle in Oscott College Library, MS 10.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ A much abbreviated copy was written out in the second half of the sixteenth century: St Paul's Cathedral, unnumbered MS.

⁷⁷ The fact that the community survived can hardly have mitigated the effects of the dissolution: individuals may have retained books, but dispersal in England and the hard years of no fixed abode, nearly forty years, before they settled in Lisbon must have taken their toll on any books and manuscripts they had carried with them from England. For identified survivals see Ker, N. R., Medieval Libraries of Great Britain, London 1964.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ Whitford's translation of Chrysostom was not printed until 1541 in STC 25420.

⁷⁹ E.g. the pardon beads of Syon with their thirty-three words representing the years of Jesus' life; the twenty-four sections of The Dyetary, one for each hour of the day; and the seven days into which Bonde's Pilgrymage was divided.Google Scholar

⁸⁰ ‘ye religion of Christe… is better and more perfectly and precisely kepte in religion monastical, than in any of the other states’: Whitford, , Pype, fo. igv. Cf. fo. 235 and Bonde, Pilgrymage, STC 3278 fo. 15V.Google Scholar