Joanne Berkeley

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Joanne Berkeley
Born1555/6
Beverston Castle
DiedAugust 2, 1616
NationalityKingdom of England
Occupationnun
Known forabbess of a Convent in Brussels

Joanne Berkeley (1555/6 – August 2, 1616) was an English abbess of the Convent of the Assumption of Our Blessed Lady, Brussels which was established by and for English Catholic women.

Life[]

Berkeley was born in Beverston Castle in Gloucestershire.[1] Her parents were Frances (born Poyntz) and Sir John Berkeley.[2]

On 14 September 1580 Berkeley received the Benedictine habit at the French monastery of Saint-Pierre-les-Dames, Reims, in a clothing ceremony that was recorded in some detail.[3] Berkeley spent seventeen years as a nun at Rheims.

In 1598 Mary Percy, desiring to live as a nun in an English community, decided to found an English Benedictine monastery in Brussels.[4] This was the first community of English nuns to be established since the Reformation, but it was followed by over a dozen others within the subsequent few decades. Percy asked Berkeley to join the monastery and lead it.[2]

On 14 November 1599 Mathias Hovius, the third Archbishop of Mechelen, installed Berkeley as the first abbess of the English Benedictine monastery in Brussels. The new convent had been approved by the pope and the local authorities and it was funded by Mary Percy who was one of the first nuns.[2]

In 1608 Mary Lovel entered the English Benedictine convent in Brussels, attracting criticism for giving her two children into the care of others in order to do so. Lovel left the community again the following year, as Berkeley sought to limit nuns' access to outside confessors. The abbess first sought to establish a separate house for those nuns who insisted on having Jesuit confessors, but was unable to get the necessary permission. She then decided to ban Jesuit confessors from visiting, which caused Lovel, Elizabeth Knatchbull and to leave the house in protest. After another sister interceded, Knatchbull and Digby returned to the community in 1609, but Lovel did not.[2]

Berkeley died in 1616 and she was succeeded by Mary Percy.[2]

References[]

  1. ^ "Who were the Nuns?". wwtn.history.qmul.ac.uk. Retrieved 2021-02-12.
  2. ^ a b c d e "Berkeley, Joanne [name in religion Joanna] (1555/6–1616), abbess of the Convent of the Assumption of Our Blessed Lady, Brussels". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/105817. ISBN 9780198614111. Retrieved 2021-02-12. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  3. ^ Catholic Record Society. (Great Britain) (1914). Miscellanea IX. Kelly - University of Toronto. London : Privately printed for the Society at the Mercat Press, Edinburgh. p. 175/6.
  4. ^ "Percy, Lady Mary (c. 1570–1642), abbess of the Convent of the Assumption of Our Blessed Lady, Brussels". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/66980. Retrieved 2021-02-12. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
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