by Karen Rushton
The Ordinale and Customary of the Benedictine Nuns of Barking Abbey. University College, Oxford, Ms. 169 [image to be inserted if permissions are obtained]
Katherine Sutton, Abbess of Barking between 1358 and 1377, has now been recognised as the earliest named English woman playwright. She made adjustments to the Easter Plays that were to be performed in the abbey church, with the aim of better engaging the local population with the liturgy and the abbey in general. Her three Holy Week liturgical dramas, Depositio, Descensus/Elevatio, and Visitatio sepulchri, survive in one manuscript, University College, Oxford MS 169. A important figure in her own right, Sutton’s contribution has to be understood in terms of the long tradition of literary culture at Barking Abbey.
Barking Abbey was established in c.666 as a double house with Ethelburga as its first abbess. Viking raids in the late 9th century led to an apparent pause in activity at the site until it was reestablished as a single sex Benedictine monastery in c.965. It continued on this site as one of the country’s wealthiest female religious houses until the dissolution in 1539.
Throughout its history the importance of reading, writing and education is evident in the number of surviving manuscripts with links to the Abbey. The nuns and abbesses of Barking were known to be authors, copyists, consumers, and commissioners of literature.
The earliest known writings, frustratingly, do not survive, but are referenced by Bede in his Ecclesiastical History and have come to be known as the ‘Lost Book of Barking’. Bede acknowledges this lost book as the source of much of his information on Barking Abbey as well as the East Saxon royal family, the implication being that the book is a chronicle of the Abbey’s early history and that of the surrounding area. It is likely to have been written during the time of Barking’s second abbess, Hildelith, and may be seen to be an astute, political move on her part as she sought to cement the importance of the abbey and its links to local centres of power.
The 12th century is known to be one of significant literary output at Barking, with two of the most notable writings being the Life of St Catherine of Alexandria by Clemence of Barking and the Life of Edward the Confessor by an anonymous nun of Barking. Both were translations with significant additions and alterations made by the two women and are demonstrative of a highly educated and highly literate community of women.
We know that the Lost Book of Barking and the two aforementioned saints’ lives were copied and distributed much further afield. The nuns in the early 8th century were also in close communication with the likes of Bishop Aldhelm and Saint Boniface. Clearly, Barking was not an isolated community, but one with an active role in literary networks across England and Europe.
Credit: Mike Quinn, The Curfew Tower of Barking Abbey CC BY-SA 2.0 via wikimedia commons.
Today in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, the Curfew Tower of Barking is still standing; the rest of the abbey is in ruins, and its rich history of women’s literature especially, is often underplayed or little understood. An ongoing project funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and the Council called ‘A Magnifying Glass on Barking Abbey’s Archaeology’ is seeking to undertake a more in-depth analysis of the existing archaeological finds held at Valence House Museum to enhance our knowledge of the site. It is hoped that the archaeological evidence will go some way into filling gaps in the written record and help to build a greater picture of life at Barking Abbey to be shared with the local community. The above is merely the tip of the iceberg in the story of Barking Abbey, and is something we are very excited to be exploring further.
Further Reading
1.Editions and Translations
Bede, The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. Judith McClure and Roger Collins (Oxford: World’s Classics Series, 1994).
Clemence of Barking, ‘The Life of St. Catherine’ in Virgin Lives and Holy Deaths: Two Exemplary Biographies for Anglo-Norman Women, ed. Jocelyn Wogan-Browne and Glyn S. Burgess (London: Everyman, 1986).
2. Secondary Sources
Jane Bliss, ‘The Anonymous Nun of Barking’ and ‘Clemence of Barking’, Donna Bussell, ‘Barking Abbey’, and Sue Niebrzydowski, ‘Katherine Sutton, Abbess of Barking,’ in The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Medieval Women’s Writing in the Global Middle Ages ed. Michelle M.Sauer, Diane Watt and Liz Herbert McAvoy (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan: 2024).
Jennifer N. Brown and Donna Alfano Bussell, Barking Abbey and Medieval Literary Culture: Authorship and Authority in a Female Community (York: York Medieval Press, 2012).
Diane Watt, Women, Writing and Religion in England and Beyond, 650-1100 (London: Bloomsbury, 2019).
