The thirteenth century saw a decline in Benedictinism, which has been linked to economic changes. Convents were generally small and relied on barter and their own industry in order to survive. Poor harvests, crop failures, bad management and internal disputes all served to weaken the fabric of monastic life. Convents were also made weak through the practice of having to accept noblewomen who had no serious commitment to religious life. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the number of nuns in convents fell. In France and England, the Black Plague and the Hundred Years’ War contributed to the demise of many convents. When the Protestant Reformation brought about the complete suppression of the English monasteries, nuns were forced to either abandon religious life or flee to continental Europe. By 1539, there was no longer ‘a single convent in England’.8 However, this was not the end of the English convents; in the century that followed, the English convents in exile joined other communities on the Continent and new convents were founded. The first post-Reformation community of English Benedictines to be established on the Continent was the monastery of the Glorious Assumption of Our Lady, founded by Lady Mary Percy in Brussels in 1598.9
Lady Mary Percy, foundress of the monastery of the Glorious Assumption of Our Lady, Brussels (1598).
The foundation in Brussels, which was made by Lady Mary Percy, was intended for English women who wanted to follow the Benedictine way of life. Until its foundation, such women had ‘no choice but to join existing communities on the Continent’, even though they often did not speak their language.10 The Brussels foundation had the support of missionaries in England, who recruited postulants, and it flourished. As the congregation expanded, it became clear that filiations, or daughter houses, were needed to help accommodate the growing community. A convent was established in Cambray (Cambrai) in 1623 and another was founded in Ghent in 1624.11 In turn, the convent at Ghent became the mother house to four Benedictine houses: Boulogne (1652), Pontoise (1658), Dunkirk (1662) and finally Ypres (1665).12
The Ghent convent, known as the Abbey of the Immaculate Conception of Our Blessed Lady, was founded by a group of nuns from the Brussels convent, under the spiritual guidance of Jesuit confessors.
In 1665, a daughter house of the Ghent community was founded at Ypres, when the Bishop of Ypres, Martin de Praets, invited them into his diocese. The bishop was familiar with the work of the Benedictines in Ghent and, wanting a similar foundation for Ypres, he made a special request that Dame Marina Beaumont be appointed to lead the new foundation on account of her ‘fluency in languages’.13 In 1665, Dame Marina Beaumont became the first lady abbess of the Benedictines in Ypres and nuns from the communities in both Ghent and Dunkirk were chosen to join her.14 The Ypres monastery, known as Gratia Dei, was ‘the last foundation of English Benedictine nuns in exile’.15
Bishop de Praets had acquired temporary premises to serve as a convent and had promised to support the building of a more permanent abbey. However, when he died within a year of the arrival of the nuns, the future of the community was uncertain. In the preceding years, the situation in Ypres had been difficult as the nuns were unable to expand their community. Although a number of nuns had been sent from the Benedictine communities in Ghent, Pontoise and Dunkirk, to help with the foundation, none remained long.16 Until 1681, the only two constants in the Ypres community were Abbess Beaumont and Dame Flavia Carey.17 In 1671, the little community had to give up their house but a new abbey was secured in Rue St Jacques. It would serve as home to the Ypres community for the next 243 years.
To expand the community, Abbess Beaumont entered into negotiation with the Abbess of Pontoise, Anne Neville. Abbess Beaumont had hoped that if she surrendered the Ypres foundation to the community in Pontoise, ‘Ypres would be supplied by subjects from them and so by consequence to be by consent of all for future times to be dependant [sic] on that of Pontoise.’18 No agreement was reached and Abbess Beaumont subsequently approached the Paris community for help in the matter.19 According to Abbess Neville, in 1681, ‘My Lady Marina [Beaumont] made conditions with the Benedictine Dames at Paris and took two of theirs away with her … [and] by the favour of friends my Lady Marina procured some good charities and a yearly pension from the King of France, so she and her company returned home with much joy.’20
The Irish Dames of Ypres
Encouraged by support from the community in Paris, the Dames of Ypres became more optimistic for the future of their foundation. However, this period of tranquillity was short-lived. In 1682, Abbess Beaumont died and confusion around the affiliation of the house emerged. According to the Ypres Annals:
The Nuns of Ypres, discontented with the translation of their house, informed the Community of Gent of Lady Beaumont’s transaction. Lady Knatchbull, then Abbess of Gent, engaged Lady Caryl, Abbess of Dunkirk, to go to Ypres in order to keep the house for the Congregation, to take with her sufficient subjects to elect an Abbess for a Community of Irish; as she always intended that the house of Ypres should serve for that nation …21
The Dames from Paris were forced to relinquish their claims on Ypres and they returned to their Mother House. The annals record:
As soon as Lady Caryl [Abbess of Dunkirk] received the account of Lady Beaumont’s death (which happened on 27 August 1682), she came to Ypres, with four of her religious, two of whom being Irish, she desired they should join the Nuns of Ypres house and elect an Abbess; that the person elected was to be chosen in quality of the first Abbess of an Irish Community …22
The Abbess of Ghent, Abbess Knatchbull, directed that the Benedictine filiations of Ghent send some of their professed Irish-born religious to complete the foundation in Ypres. Among the first Irish Dames of Ypres were Dame Ursula Butler (Ghent); Dame Mary Joseph O’Bryan (Dunkirk) and Dame Mary Joseph Butler (Pontoise).23 On 19 November 1682, Dame Flavia Carey was appointed Lady Abbess of the Irish Benedictine foundation in Ypres, henceforth ‘dedicated to the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin, under the title of Gratia Dei’.24 From this time, the community in Ypres became known as De Iersche Damen (the Irish Dames).
Two Dublin Foundations, 1687–9
Finally established in Ypres, the pioneering nuns set about securing the future of their foundation. There were several expeditions to Ireland, to gather pupils for their school and postulants for their novitiate. In 1684, Dame Joseph Ryan returned from one such expedition with six young girls for the school and two postulants and the future must have looked promising.25 The impact of penal laws on Irish Catholics had caused those who were wealthy to send their daughters abroad for their education. Dame Joseph Ryan knew that the school could attract more young Irish women and she embarked on another journey, questing for vocations in Ireland.26 However, while she was away, the community suffered a setback when the Lady Abbess, Dame Flavia Carey, died. There were only three choir nuns in the community at the time and the Ypres nuns were required to obtain assistance from the other Benedictine houses in order to appoint a successor.27 Dame Mary Joseph Butler was subsequently elected Lady Abbess, a position which she retained until her death in 1723.28