A Cloistered Entrepôt: Sir Tobie Matthew and the English Carmel in Antwerp

Abstract

To escape religious persecution in England, English Carmelite nuns took refuge in Antwerp, where in 1619 Anne of the Ascension (Anne Worsley, 1588–1644) and Lady Mary Lovell (c.1564–1628) had founded a convent expressly for exiled young English ladies. Although insulated from the world by enclosure and obedience to the rule, the Antwerp Carmel was not cut off from its surroundings. A careful perusal of the foundation's “Chronicle” and the vast correspondence left by the women religious exposes an interesting jigsaw of intersections between the private and the public, and the religious and cultural worlds of the early modern period. The Carmelite community indeed patronized artists outside the convent walls, commissioning for instance an English translation of the Life of St Teresa from Sir Tobie Matthew (1577–1655), who also produced a hitherto unknown Life of one of the Carmelite nuns.

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