Reading and Writing during the Dissolution

Monks, Friars, and Nuns 1530–1558

Mary C. Erler

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781107039797
• eBook ISBN: 9781107440432
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: English Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

In the years from 1534, when Henry VIII became head of the English church until the end of Mary Tudor's reign in 1558, the forms of English religious life evolved quickly and in complex ways. At the heart of these changes stood the country's professed religious men and women, whose institutional homes were closed between 1535 and 1540. Records of their reading and writing offer a remarkable view of these turbulent times. The responses to religious change of friars, anchorites, monks and nuns from London and the surrounding regions are shown through chronicles, devotional texts, and letters. What becomes apparent is the variety of positions that English religious men and women took up at the Reformation and the accommodations that they reached, both spiritual and practical. Of particular interest are the extraordinary letters of Margaret Vernon, head of four nunneries and personal friend of Thomas Cromwell.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Reading and Writing During the Dissolution
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Chapter one Looking backward?
• Chapter Two The Greyfriars Chronicle and the fate of London’s Franciscan community
• Chapter Three Cromwell’s nuns: Katherine Bulkeley, Morpheta Kingsmill, and Joan Fane
• Chapter Four Cromwell’s abbess and friend: Margaret Vernon
• Chapter Five “Refugee Reformation”
• Chapter Six Richard Whitford’s last work, 1541
• Appendix 1 Anchorites of All Hallows London Wall parish, 1402–1537
• Appendix 2 Will of Simon Appulby
• Appendix 3 Letters of Katherine Bulkeley, Morpheta Kingsmill, and Joan Fane
• Appendix 4 Letters of Margaret Vernon to Thomas Cromwell
• Appendix 5 Life of Elizabeth Woodford
• Appendix 6 Excerpt from Richard Whitford’s sermon “On Detraction”
• Bibliography
• Index