"NO OTHER MEANS THAN BY PEN”: LETTERS FROM EARLY MODERN ENGLISH NUNS IN EXILE

This thesis explores how early modern English nuns in exile on the European continent purposefully utilized letter writing as a strategy of communication with the outside world.Cut off from their homeland and families by both geographic distance and physical enclosure, letters provided women religious with a medium to ensure their convents' survival and preserve English Catholicism.This critical analysis of nuns' letters reveals the multidimensional nature and intentional construction of their correspondence.Nuns made deliberate epistolary choices.They employed strategic language, utilized flattery and humility, as well as exaggeration and gossip to achieve their objectives.A comparison of individual epistolary experiences demonstrates that letters were vital for maintaining familial and kinship ties, financial and spiritual economies, political engagement, and the transnational diffusion of information.fragmented preservation of letters from this period, this thesis will not be constrained to one particular order.Instead, it will focus on the letters of women religious from the Benedictines, Poor Clares, Carmelites, and Augustinians.Largely excluded from this examination are the Dominicans, Bridgettines, Third-Order Franciscans and Sepulchrines due to a lack of available evidence.Discussion of the Mary Ward institute will also be omitted given that these sisters were not enclosed, as such, letter writing would have held a very different meaning and purpose.5 Nonetheless, this thesis it will examine the letters of women religious from different orders to show how letter writing served as an invaluable tool of communication.By comparing individual experiences and uses of epistolary space, we gain a greater understanding of the complex ways in which women religious utilized letters.Comparison exposes common features, including the use of letters to maintain emotional bonds, remain informed and involved in political or worldly affairs, provide spiritual services, sustain economic connections, solicit new recruits, and navigate convent disputes.We will see that although the tone and content of their familial letters differed, Winefrid Thimelby and Mary Caryll were both deeply concerned for their respective family's spiritual well-being as well as the security of their convents.Analysis also the letters preserved only provide us with one side (usually the nuns') of the conversation, adding a further challenge for those seeking to reconstruct these histories.5 For a selection of historical scholarship on Mary Ward and her institute, see Jennifer Cameron, A Dangerous Innovator: Mary Ward (1585-1645) (Strathfield: St Pauls, 2000); Peter Guilday, The English Catholic Refugees on the Continent 1558-1795 (London: Longmans, 1914), 163-214; Laurence Lux-Sterrit, "Mary Ward's English Institute: The Apostolate as Self-Affirmation," Recusant History 28, no. 2 (2006): 192-208; Laurence Lux-Sterrit, "Mary Ward's English Institute and Prescribed Female Roles in the Early Modern Church," in Gender, Catholicism and Spirituality, ed.

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