Abstract
The fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries in England saw an outpouring of vernacular religious texts that instructed an increasingly lay audience on methods of contemplation. Providing instruction on how to achieve a ‘mixed life’—a spiritually advanced life from without the confines of monastic orders—such texts demanded of their readers an intensity in meditation and self-examination that was potentially difficult to control or manage without a dedicated spiritual advisor. The challenges of such exposure to complex questions of belief, coupled with the intense self-interrogation that many advanced contemplative texts demanded, often resulted in extreme spiritual despair or ‘wanhope’, an ailment that traditionally is suffered by monastic readers but, through the vernacular book trade in late medieval England, found articulations in increasingly lay audiences. Such despair was entangled with the conviction that salvation was unachievable, and denied the grace and benevolence of God.
This chapter, within the context laid out above, explores Syon Abbey’s influence on this religio-literary culture of complex vernacular theology in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. In particular, the chapter focuses on one of three prolific brothers of Syon who were active in the early years of Henry VIII’s reign—William Bonde and his A deuote treatyse for them that ben tymorous and fearefull in conscience. Bonde’s Treatyse—initially written at the personal request of a sister of Syon—entered lay circulation of print books twice, in 1527 and 1534 in two editions. The text seeks to provide a remedy for the ‘scrupulosity’ of readers and practitioners of complex meditative exercises, outlining specifically how such contemplation can cause a deterioration in mental faculties and health in general. Perhaps most interestingly, Bonde draws upon a fourteenth-century writer for the basis of his remedies. William Flete’s Remediis contra temptaciones was written, like Bonde’s later text, at the behest of a nun who was under Flete’s spiritual guidance. Flete’s text was then translated multiple times, finding traction among vernacular audiences throughout the fifteenth century. Through these writers, the chapter traces the sustained and continued concern over the mental health of readers who were exposed to the complexities of late medieval vernacular theology.
My thanks are due to Dr Stephen Kelly for his meticulous feedback on an early draft of this chapter. I use in this chapter the phrase ‘late medieval ’ very loosely to denote c.1370–1530, setting aside periodising narratives of the Middle Ages that might restrictively class the writers I discuss as ‘post-medieval ’. Examining the materials in this way allows us to see how such writers based their considerations of mental disorder on texts written firmly ‘within’ the Middle Ages.
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Notes
- 1.
Bonde , sig. E2v.
- 2.
The MED entry for ‘mocion’ defines the term as ‘An impulse; inner prompting, inclination; desire, wish’, and even possibly ‘motive’ or an ‘instigator’. The term is not to be confused with the modern emotion.
- 3.
Bonde , sig. A4v.
- 4.
Another type-set of the text (STC 3276) includes additional paratextual detail: the treatise was ‘sent to a deuote Relygiouse woman of Denssey. At þe instance of one of her sprituall frendes. And by that same frende ouerseen and deuyded in to xx. Chapitres to the more comforte of the Reders’. This additional editorial involvement, occurring after the death of Bonde , has also provided an alternative title for the text: ‘the Consolatori of Timorouse and fearefull consciencys’.
- 5.
For an excellent account of the religious vernacular book culture in England at this time, see Bose (2005).
- 6.
See, for example, Walter Hilton’s Mixed Life.
- 7.
- 8.
- 9.
See Gillespie (2001).
- 10.
- 11.
See especially Hellinga (2010).
- 12.
For information on the life of Lady Margaret Beaufort, see Jones and Underwood (2004).
- 13.
Powell (2011) provides a very useful overview of the advanced materials that were printed and distributed in this period.
- 14.
- 15.
See especially Kelly and Perry (2011).
- 16.
Da Costa (2012) has examined Syon ’s outpouring of religious texts, with specific reference to Bonde , Whitford and Fewterer.
- 17.
Sig. E1v.
- 18.
For an excellent corrective to such periodising and secularising narratives, see Davis (2008).
- 19.
- 20.
Sig. C2r.
- 21.
Sig. D4r.
- 22.
Sig. A3r.
- 23.
Sig. B1r.
- 24.
Sig. B2r.
- 25.
It is possible that such ‘ymaginacions’ could be read as the malfunction of meditative techniques provided in vernacular devotional materials. More work (outside the scope of this chapter) needs to be done on this prospect.
- 26.
See Brown (1987).
- 27.
- 28.
For details on the textual transmission of De remediis, see Hackett et al. (1964).
- 29.
- 30.
This is important to our discussion because Gerson is Bonde ’s most-cited authority in his treatise.
- 31.
See Kolnai (1957–58), an article which makes the distinction between ‘overlain consciences’––i.e. those that accept a different moral framework (as is the case in heresy) and ‘erroneous consciences’ as consciences that malfunction.
- 32.
Sig. F1r–v.
- 33.
Sig. F1v.
- 34.
Sig. A3r.
- 35.
Sig. B1v–B2r.
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Calder, N. (2018). Remedies for Despair: Considering Mental Health in Late Medieval England. In: Tweed, H.C., Scott, D.G. (eds) Medical Paratexts from Medieval to Modern. Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73426-2_6
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