English Women’s Spiritual Utopias, 1400-1700: New Kingdoms of Womanhood (The New Middle Ages)

English Women’s Spiritual Utopias, 1400-1700: New Kingdoms of Womanhood uncovers a tradition of women’s utopianism that extends back to medieval women’s monasticism, overturning accounts of utopia that trace its origins solely to Thomas More. As enclosed spaces in which women wielded authority that was unavailable to them in the outside world, medieval and early modern convents were self-consciously engaged in reworking pre-existing cultural heritage to project desired proto-feminist futures. The utopianism developed within the English convent percolated outwards to unenclosed women's spiritual communities such as Mary Ward's Institute of the Blessed Virgin and the Ferrar family at Little Gidding. Convent-based utopianism further acted as an unrecognized influence on the first English women’s literary utopias by authors such as Margaret Cavendish and Mary Astell. Collectively, these female communities forged a mode of utopia that drew on the past to imagine new possibilities for themselves as well as for their larger religious and political communities. Tracking utopianism from the convent to the literary page over a period of 300 years, New Kingdoms writes a new history of medieval and early modern women’s intellectual work and expands the concept of utopia itself. Acknowledgments 6 Praise for English Women’s Spiritual Utopias, 1400–1700 8 Contents 9 Abbreviations 10 List of Figures 11 Chapter 1: Introduction: Cities of Women–A New History of Utopia 12 The History of Utopia 15 Convents, Women, and Utopia 17 Religion and Utopia 19 Bricolage Futures 22 Utopian Failure 27 Utopian Friendship and Desire 29 Overview of the Book 30 Chapter 2: Mirrors of Our Lady: Utopia in the Medieval Convent 43 Convents as Utopias and as Heterotopias in Religious Rules 46 A Woman’s Rule at Syon Abbey 51 Performing Future Utopias in Convent Liturgy 61 Chapter 3: These Most Afflicted Sisters: Old and New Futures in Early Modern English Convents 79 Two Futures 82 Nuns’ Typology and an English Utopian Future 85 Nuns’ Actions and Contingent Futures 98 Utopian Failures 107 Chapter 4: Not Yet: Aspirational Women’s Communities Beyond the Convent 124 The Convent as Allegory for Secular Utopia 126 Bricolage in an Anglican Convent 132 Mary Ward’s Englishwomen’s Empire 140 Chapter 5: Convents of Pleasure: English Women’s Literary Utopias 160 Friendship as Utopia 164 Enclosed Friendship 166 Agonistic Friendships and Self-Critical Utopias 171 Utopian Impossibility and Utopian Desire 180 Conclusion 186 Works Cited 199 I. Manuscripts and Early Printed Books 199 II. Editions 200 III. Secondary Sources 204 Index 226