We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 January 2016
In 1530 Richard Whitford published A Werke for Housholders, for ‘them that have gydyng and governaunce of any company for an order to be kepte bothe in them selfe | and in them that they have in rule and charge’. The work swiftly went through at least seven editions in as many years; Tudor householders clearly found something of value in its advice. Its author was many things: a Bridgettine monk, a humanist, a prolific author of works in the vernacular, and a survivor who went on writing and publishing even after the dissolution of his monastery. He died in 1543. His books provide some important insights into vernacular humanism and late medieval monasticism, and the often unappreciated relationship between the two, which was demonstrated by his reflections on household piety. This essay argues that Whitford’s Werke for Housholders was rooted in his monastic experience, closely linked to Syon’s pastoral role, and that ideas about the early modern ‘godly household’ should perhaps be adjusted in the light of this connection.
1 Whitford, Richard, A Werke for Housholders (London, 1530)Google Scholar, sig. Aiv.
2 See ODNB; Cunich, P., ‘The Brothers of Syon, 1420-1695’, in Jones, E. A. and Walsham, Alexandra, eds, Syon Abbey and its Books: Reading, Writing and Religion, c. 1400-1700 (Woodbridge, 2010), 39–81 Google Scholar; Hutchison, A., ‘Richard Whitford’s The Pype, or Tonne, of the Lyfe of Perfection: Pastoral Care, or Political Manifesto?’, in Saint Birgitta, Syon and Vadstena: Papers from a Symposium in Stockholm, 4-6 October 2007, ed. Gejrot, Claes, Rjsberg, Sara and Akestam, Mia (Stockholm, 2010), 89–103.Google Scholar
3 Mynors, Erasmus, Letter 191, in The Correspondence of Erasmus, Letters 142 to 297 (1501-1514), ed. R. A. B., and Thomson, D. F. S., Collected Works of Erasmus 2 (Toronto, ON, 1975), 113.Google Scholar
4 Ellis, R., ‘Further Thoughts on the Spirituality of Syon Abbey’, in Pollard, W. F. and Boenig, R., eds, Mysticism and Spirituality in Medieval England (Cambridge, 1997), 219–43, at 219 Google Scholar; Martyn, T., ‘The History of Syon Abbey’, in Saint Birgitta, Syon and Vadstena, ed. Gejrot, , Risberg, and Akestam, , 9–26, at 13.Google Scholar
5 Rhodes, J. T., ‘Syon Abbey and its Religious Publications in the Sixteenth Century’, JEH 44 (1993), 11–25 Google Scholar; Grisé, C. A., ‘“Moche profitable unto religious persones, gathered by a brother of Syon”: Syon Abbey and English Books’, in Powell, Jones and Walsham, , eds, Syon Abbey and its Books, 129–54 Google Scholar; , S., ‘Syon Abbey as a Centre for Text Production’, in Saint Birgitta, Syon and Vadstena, ed. Gejrot, , Risberg, and Akestam, , 50–70.Google Scholar
6 Pouncy, C. J., The ‘Domostroi’ : Rules for Russian Households in the Time of lvan the Terrible (Ithaca, NY, 1994).Google Scholar
7 Whitford, Werke for Housholders, sig. Aiir.
8 Ibid., sig. Avir.
9 Ibid., sig Aviv.
10 Ibid., sig. Aiiir.
11 Ibid., sig. Eiir.
12 Ibid., sig. Bviv.
13 Ibid., sig. Cviiv.
14 Ibid., sig. Ciiiv.
15 Walsham, Alexandra, Providence in Early Modern England (Oxford, 1999), 79–80.Google Scholar
16 Wooding, Lucy, Rethinking Catholicism in Reformation England (Oxford, 2000), 32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
17 Whitford, Werke for Housholders, sig. Diiv.
18 Ibid., sig. Diir.
19 Todd, Margo, Christian Humanism and the Puritan Social Order (Cambridge, 1987)Google Scholar, ch. 4; see also White, H. C., The Tudor Books of Private Devotion (Madison, WI, 1951), 159, 160.Google Scholar
20 Green, Ian, The Christian’s ABC: Catechisms and Catechizing in England c.1530-1740 (Oxford, 1996), 213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
21 Ibid. 206-7.
22 Dering, Edward, A briefe and necessarie catechisme. Verie needefull to bee knowne of all housholders (London, 1572)Google Scholar, sig. Aiir.
23 Ibid., sigs Aiiiir, Bijr-v.
24 Henry V, IV. 1: ‘I have built | Two chantries, where the sad and solemn priests | Sing still for Richard’s soul’.
25 Gillespie, V., Syon Abbey (London, 2001)Google Scholar; Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues, 9 (London, 2001), xlix, liv, lxii.Google Scholar Note, however, that the works were chiefly in Latin, with only one Hebrew and three Greek works.
26 Whitwell, R. J., ‘An Ordinance for Syon Library, 1482’, EHR 25 (1910), 121–3, at 121.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
27 Gillespie, , Syon Abbey, xlvii.Google Scholar
28 Green, D. H., Women Readers in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2007), 83, 144.Google Scholar
29 Cunich, , ‘Brothers of Syon’, 45.Google Scholar
30 The Myroure of Oure Ladye, ed. Blunt, J. H., EETS extra ser. 19 (Oxford, 1873), 3, 7.Google Scholar
31 Whitford, Werke for Housholders, sig. Aviiir.
32 Ibid., sig. Aviiiv.
33 Ibid., preface.
34 da Costa, Alexandra, ‘Ryght Profitable Men:The Literary Community of Syon Abbey Brethren 1500-1539’ (D.Phil, thesis, Oxford, 2009), 36–9.Google Scholar
35 Ibid. 63-4.
36 Martyn, , ‘History of Syon Abbey’, 17–18.Google Scholar
37 Ibid. 24-6; Cunich, , ‘Brothers of Syon’, 70–1.Google Scholar
38 See, in this volume, Cunich, Peter, ‘The Syon Household at Denham, 1539-50’, 174–87.Google Scholar
39 They could use these connections on behalf of others; the Carthusian work A Pomander of Prayer (London, 1530) was printed with their assistance and with a preface by a monk of Syon: Rhodes, ‘Syon Abbey’, 23.
40 Powell, Cunich, ‘Brothers of Syon’, 50–1 Google Scholar; , S., Preaching at Syon Abbey, Literary and Cultural Studies 29 (Salford, 1997).Google Scholar
41 Gillespie, V., ‘Syon and the New Learning’, in Clark, J. G., ed., The Religious Orders in Pre-Reformation England (Woodbridge, 2002), 75–95, at 80–1.Google Scholar
42 Gillespie, , Syon Abbey, xxxii.Google Scholar
43 Gillespie, , ‘Syon and the New Learning’, 95, 93.Google Scholar
44 Wooding, L., ‘From Tudor Humanism to Reformation Preaching’, in Adlington, H., McCullough, P. and Rhatigan, E., eds, The Oxford Handbook of the Early Modern Sermon (Oxford, 2011), 329–47 Google Scholar; McConica, J. K., English Humanists and Reformation Politics (Oxford, 1965).Google Scholar
45 Da Costa, , ‘Ryght Profitable Men’, 67–9.Google Scholar
46 Ibid. 66; Rhodes, , ‘Syon Abbey’, 12–14.Google Scholar
47 White, , Tudor Books of Private Devotion, 216–29.Google Scholar
48 Aveling, J. C. H. and Pantin, W. A., eds, The Letter-Book of Robert Joseph, Oxford Historical Society 19 (Oxford, 1967)Google Scholar; Catto, J., ‘Franciscan Learning in England, 1450-1540’, Clark, ed., Religious Orders, 97–104 Google Scholar; Clark, J. G., ‘Reformation and Reaction at St Albans Abbey, 1530-1558’, EHR 115 (2000), 297–328 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, ‘Humanism and Reform in Pre-Reformation English Monasteries’, TRHS 6th ser. 19 (2009), 57–93 Google Scholar; Rex, Richard, ‘Friars in the English Reformation’, in Marshall, Peter and Ryrie, Alec, eds, The Beginnings of English Protestantism (Cambridge, 2002), 38–59.Google Scholar
49 Wizeman, William, The Theology and Spirituality of Mary Tudor’s Church (Aldershot, 2006), 140–3.Google Scholar
