Table Of Contentc
o continuity
n
the authors and editors: this volume contains a broad review of recent scholarship on t
i
n
Saint Birgitta and the Birgittine order. The twenty-three papers were and
Mia ÅKeStaM, Stockholm university u
i
originally presented at the third international Birgitta conference at t
BRandon aLaKaS, university of alberta –
y
augustana dartington hall, devon, in July 2015. The conference celebrated the a change
n
KeVin aLBan, St Mary’s university, London sexcentenary of the foundation of Syon abbey, and eleven of the twenty-
d
eLin andeRSSon, national Library of Sweden three papers focus on the english Birgittine house. c papers from
h
RogeR andeRSSon, Stockholm university The remarkable story of Syon’s continuous existence prompted the a
the birgitta
n
ViRginia BainBRidge, Bath conference’s broader theme of continuity and change in the Birgittine g
conference
e
order. over the centuries, the order has seen many changes: periods of
eRiK BiJZet, amsterdam
at dartington
growth and decline, expansion and retrenchment, patronage and per-
teKLa Bude, oregon State university
2015
secution. are there any constants, something intangibly, indefinably
daVid caRRiLLo-RangeL, university of
Barcelona Birgittine? is Birgittine identity about adherence to an essence or ideal,
eRiK cLaeSon, Lund university or something that is worked out in practice?
cLaeS geJRot, national archives, Stockholm The interdisciplinary conference gathered scholars specializing in var-
ingeLa hedStRÖM, national archives, ious fields, including archaeology, art history, Literature, Musicology,
Stockholm
and Philology.
e. a. JoneS, university of exeter
KaRin StRinnhoLM LageRgRen,
edited by elin andersson, claes gejrot, e. a. Jones and Mia Åkestam. The
Linnaeus university, Växjö
volume is a collection of 23 papers. For information on the authors, see the
thoMaS W. LaSSen, nørreballe
inside cover flap.
MaRKuS LindBeRg, Sancta Birgitta convent
Museum, Vadstena
caRMen M. Mangion, Birkbeck, university
of London
VeRonica o’MaRa, university of hull
toRe nyBeRg, Syddansk universitet, odense
eLiZaBeth PeRRy, Framingham State k
o
university n
f
e
SaRa RiSBeRg, national archives, Stockholm r
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n
eVa LindQViSt SandgRen, uppsala s
e
university r
isbn 978-91-7402-449-4 9
3
hiLKKa-LiiSa VuoRi, university of the arts, issn 0348-1433 kungl. vitterhets historie
helsinki | cover: Fragment of medieval stone-
K och antikvitets akademien
V work from Syon abbey, isleworth; now
For full author profiles, see pages 411–415.
www.vitterhetsakad.se ha konferenser 93 at Blessed Sacrament church, heavitree,
http://vitterhetsakad.bokorder.se a exeter. Photo: graham Fereday.
kvhaa konferenser 93
Continuity and Change
Editors
Elin Andersson, Claes Gejrot, E. A. Jones
& Mia Åkestam
.
Continuity and Change. Papers from the Birgitta Conference at Dartington 2015. Kungl. Vitter-
hets Historie och Antikvitetsakademien (KVHAA), Konferenser 93. Stockholm 2017. 415 pp.
aBstraCt
The volume comprises a broad review of recent scholarship on Saint Birgitta and the Birgit-
tine Order. The twenty-three papers were originally presented at an international conference
at Dartington Hall, Devon, in July 2015. Eleven of the essays focus on Syon Abbey, the Eng-
lish Birgittine house, whose sexcentenary was celebrated in this year. The conference theme
of ‘continuity and change’ is reflected in the volume’s wide chronological span, which ranges
from the earliest foundations of the Birgittine Order through to the twentieth century. The
authors come from a range of institutional and disciplinary contexts, including Archaeology,
Art History, Literature, Musicology and Philology.
Keywords
Saint Birgitta, the Birgittine Order, medieval history, medieval literature, medieval manu-
scripts, medieval art, monasticism, theology, nuns, liturgy, church art
© 2017 The authors and KVHAA, Stockholm
isBn 978-91-7402-449-4
issn 0348-1433
Publisher: Kungl. Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien
(KVHAA, The Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities)
Box 5622, SE-114 86 Stockholm, Sweden
http://www.vitterhetsakad.se
Distribution: eddy.se ab, Box 1310, SE-621 24 Visby, Sweden
http://vitterhetsakad.bokorder.se
Illustrations: See captions
Cover image: Fragment of medieval stonework from Syon Abbey, Isleworth;
now at the Church of the Blessed Sacrament, Heavitree, Exeter. Photo: Graham Fereday
Cover and graphic design: Lars Paulsrud
Printed in Sweden by Elanders Sverige, Mölnlycke 2017
Contents
Preface ................................................................ 7
tore nyBerg: Similar but Different? The Two Convents of the
Birgittine Abbey ................................................... 13
roger anDersson: Messenger Manuscripts and Mechanisms
of Change ......................................................... 24
mia Åkestam: Creating Space – Queen Philippa and Art in
Vadstena Abbey .................................................... 41
hikka-iisa vori: The Great Matins Responsories in
the Birgittine Sisters’ Liturgy of Hours – ‘An Ode to Petrus
of Skänninge’ ...................................................... 64
kevin aBan: Some Aspects of Carmelite Involvement in the
Early Years of the Abbey of Syon ................................... 82
ein anDersson: Thomas Fishbourne at the Curia: An
Informatio Brevis on the Birgittine Order ........................... 95
Caes gejrot: The Swedish Sisters of Syon Abbey ................... 109
virginia BainBriDge: Syon Abbey and Nation Building:
Patronage by Political Elites and their Regional Affinities in
England and Wales c. 1415–1558 ..................................... 128
erik Caeson: Imitatio Christi – Spiritual Marriage, Female
Role Models and the Passion of Christ in Fifteenth-Century
Vadstena Abbey .................................................... 144
DaviD Carrio-range: Textual Mirrors and Spiritual
Reality: Exempla, Mnemonic Devices and Performance in the
Birgittine Order ................................................... 160
marks inDBerg: The Addiciones Prioris Petri: Rules and Reality .. 184
thomas W. assen: The Monastery and its Town: The Maribo
Statutes 1488 ....................................................... 191
sara risBerg: Petrus Ingemari and his Advocacy of Katarina of
Vadstena ........................................................... 203
teka BDe: Saint Katarina in England: Evidence from the
Processionals of Syon Abbey ....................................... 220
eva inDqvist sanDgren: Prosperity and Poverty in Vadstena
Abbey in the Sixteenth Century .................................... 232
BranDon aakas: Scrupulosity and Heresy: William Bonde’s
Reply to Evangelical Views of Christian Freedom and Salvation
in The Directory of Conscience ....................................... 251
ingea heDström: Vadstena Abbey and the Printed Word ......... 268
veroniCa o’mara: A Syon Scribe Revealed by Her Signature:
Mary Nevel and Her Manuscripts .................................. 283
eizaBeth Perry: Art and Identities at the Lisbon Church,
1594–1861 .......................................................... 309
karin strinnhom agergren: A Reformed Cantus
Sororum in Maria Refugie around 1800 ............................. 325
erik Bijzet: The Rediscovery of the Syon Virgin and Inventories
of Syon from the Eighteenth and Twentieth Centuries .............. 339
Carmen m. mangion: Syon Abbey’s ‘Second Summer’, 1900–1950 .. 367
e. a. jones: Syon at 500: Quincentenary Celebrations at Syon
Abbey, Chudleigh, in 1920 ......................................... 389
The Authors .......................................................... 411
Preface
In jy 2015 some sixty Birgittine scholars gathered at Dartington Hall,
Devon, in South-West England, for the third Birgitta conference. The oc-
casion was also a celebration of the six hundredth anniversary of England’s
only house of the Birgittine Order. Syon Abbey was founded by Henry V in
1415 at a site in Twickenham, South-West London, but its long and unbroken
history took in suppression and exile, years of wandering in the Low Countries
and France, and a long sojourn in Portugal, before the community returned
to England in the nineteenth century and settled in Devon, most recently at
Marley House, near South Brent, half a dozen miles from the conference venue
at Dartington.
Reflection on Syon’s unique experience lay behind our choice of theme for
the conference: continuity and change.1 Somehow the Syon community main-
tained its identity over six hundred years, taking in four different countries, and
at least twenty changes of site. They sometimes enjoyed their own purpose-built
monastery, at others they made do with rented secular property. Birgitta’s vision
for her order had to be reinterpreted as numbers fluctuated, and in particular
after the brothers died out at the end of the seventeenth century, when the
community was in Lisbon. The rule and constitutions have been translated
and re-translated, and adapted to new circumstances and new contexts. The
office has been sung in Latin, abandoned for the Roman breviary, restored in
Latin, and translated into English.2 The community has seen kingdoms rise and
1 The terms purposely echo those of John Paul II’s Post-Synodal Exhortation on renewal in the
religious life, Vita Consecrata (1996), c. 2, ‘Continuity in the work of the Spirit: faithfulness
in the course of change’, see http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_exhortations/
documents/hf_jp-ii_exh_25031996_vita-consecrata.html.
2 The English translation of the office used at Syon since the 1960s is now available: Daily Office
of Our Lady: The Syon Breviary (Plymouth, 2015), see http://syonbreviary.co.uk/.
8 kvhaa konferenser 93
fall; lived through war, fire and earthquake, and responded to the councils of
Constance, Trent and Vatican II.
At the same time, the wider Birgittine Order, over its more than six centuries
of existence, has seen many changes: periods of growth and decline, expansion
and retrenchment, patronage and persecution; individual houses have been
suppressed and restored, declined, revived, relocated, and finally closed; the
Birgittine vine has put out new branches, some of which have taken, and some
not.3 What, if any, are the constants? Is there something intangibly, indefin-
ably Birgittine? Is Birgittine identity about adherence to an essence or ideal,
or something that is worked out in practice? How to understand the ‘spirit of
the founder’, and how to live out that spirit in contexts that the founder herself
can hardly have anticipated?4 Is the idea of charism useful, or an obstacle to
historical analysis? And if not, or not only, by some unvarying essence, how
else is continuity maintained? What are the roles played by shared traditions,
collective memory, textual communities, or the cultivation of a sense of history?
These are the questions that lie behind many of the essays that are contained
in this volume.
The essays are arranged, rather loosely, in broad chronological bands. The first
group is concerned with the establishment and early years of the Birgittine Or-
der. In ‘Similar but different? The Two Convents of the Birgittine Abbey’, Tore
Nyberg investigates and compares the contents of two early, essential Birgittine
texts. What does the Regula Salvatoris say about the brothers and sisters and the
division between the two convents, and how is this reflected in the papal bull of
1370 which permitted the establishment of ‘two monasteries’? In his contribu-
tion, ‘Messenger Manuscripts and Mechanisms of Change’, Roger Andersson
discusses various ways in which the Vadstena brothers received, copied and
transmitted ideas and topics, internally as well as externally. Mia Åkestam places
the emphasis on space and materiality when she shows how the young Princess
Philippa of England emerged as the Queen of Sweden, Denmark and Norway.
Important factors in this process were the Birgittine Order, Vadstena Abbey
and the founding of Syon Abbey. Hilkka-Liisa Vuori’s contribution, a selective
summary of her 2011 thesis in musicology, deals with the development of the
Great Matins Responsories in the Cantus Sororum, with special focus on the role
of Birgitta’s confessor Petrus of Skänninge.
3 See http://birgittaskloster.se/.
4 The ‘spirit of the founder’ was a central term in Perfectae caritatis, Vatican II’s directive on ‘The
Adaptation and Renewal of the Religious Life’ (1965).
Description:THIS VOLUME CONTAINS a broad review of recent scholarship on Saint Birgitca and the Birgittine Order. The twenty-three papers were originally presented at the third international Birgitca conference at Darcington Hall, Devon, in July 2015. The conference celebrated the sexcentenary of the foundation
