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English Benedictine Congregation

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English Benedictine Congregation
AbbreviationPost-nominal letters: O.S.B.
NicknameEBC
Formation1216
TypeBenedictines
HeadquartersEngland
Region served
Austrailia, Ireland, Peru, Sweden, UK, United States, Zimbabwe
Members
17 monastic communities; 268 monks & nuns (2022 figures)
Abbot President
Christopher Jamison, O.S.B.
Parent organization
Roman Catholic Church; Order of St. Benedict; Benedictine Confederation
Websitewww.benedictines.org.uk Edit this at Wikidata

The English Benedictine Congregation (EBC) is a congregation of autonomous abbatial and prioral monastic communities of Catholic Benedictine monks and nuns. It is technically the oldest of the nineteen congregations affiliated to the Benedictine Confederation.

History[edit]

Pre-dissolution Congregation[edit]

The EBC claims technical canonical continuity with a congregation of Benedictine abbeys in England erected by the Holy See in 1216. These communities were the product of the 10th cent English Benedictine Reform of St. Dunstan and the monastic principles laid down in the Regularis Concordia.[1] They could claim a material continuity with the first English Benedictine communities founded by St. Augustine and his companions in the Gregorian mission of the 6th cent; and the many great Anglo Saxon Benedictine saints and foundations such as St. Ethelreda and St. Sexburga of Ely Abbey, St. Erkenwald of Chertsey Abbey, Ethelburga of Barking Abbey, and St. Mildred of Thanet Abbey. The congregation also claimed a moral continuity with St. Benedict Biscop, St Wilfred, the Venerable Bede, and their communities in spite of the material link being broken by the Viking invasions.

The 13th cent congregation ane the ancient traditions of English Benedictine life completely ceased to exist at the dissolution of the monasteries under King Henry VIII 1535–1540. Like all the professed monastic, canonical, and mendicant religious at the time of the Henrician dissolution, English Benedictine priests or scholars were assumed into the reformed secular clergy of the Church of England if they assented to the Supremacy. Other priests, lay brethren, and nuns of the congregation were pensioned off if aged, sought lay employment or marriage accepting effective laicisation, were left to vagrancy, or went into exile in the Abbeys of continental Europe if they wished to maintain conventual observances, or lived as covert eremites in England. A relative few were martyred, with some monks tortured to death by being Hanged, drawn and quartered, some in provocative locations like their own Abbeys and associated holy sites or in the place where common criminals were executed on their abbatial estates. These included three beatified abbots and the brethren of their communities who died with them; the last Abbot of Glastonbury Bl. Richard Whiting, executed on The Tor with fellow Glastonbury monks Bl. John Thorne, and Bl. Roger James; the last Abbot of Reading Bl. Hugh Faringdon, executed in the inner courtyard of his Abbey with fellow Reading monks Bl. John Eynon, and Bl. John Rugg; and the last Abbot of Colchester Bl. John Beche, executed in a common hanging place on his monastic lands.[2]

Post-dissolution Congregation[edit]

Mary I briefly restored Westminster Abbey to 14 English Benedictine monks, professed either in pre-dissolution or continental houses, under Abbot John Feckenham of Evesham on the Feast of the Presentation of St. Mary (21st of Nov) in 1556 and they admitted a small number of new brethren to profession. This very modest revival was again suppressed on the 12th of July 1559 under the Elizabethan Religious Settlement.[3]

During the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I English exiles with monastic vocations joined houses of the Cassinese Congregation in France, Spain, and Italy. The present congregation was established by English Catholic expatriates in France and the Low Countries at the start of the 17th century encouraged by the Holy See.[4]

Formal Reestablishment

As more rampant persecution emerged in reprisal to the 1605 Gunpowder Plot and fearing the congregation would die with him the last of the Westminster monks professed under Abbot Feckenham, the aged Dom Sigebert Buckley O.S.B, "aggregated" Doms Robert Sadler and Edward Mayhew O.S.B, two English monks, priests, and missionaries of the Abbey of Santa Giustina, Padua, and four other lay brothers and oblates to the near-extinct Chapter of Westminster (and thereby the English Benedictine Congregation) on the 21st of November 1607. The Deed of Aggregation was an unofficial, clandestine affair, treasonable under English law and without prior papal consent, with only Buckley, Sadler, and Mayhew personally present. The Deed was later ratified by Pope Paul V’s in the brief Cum Sicut Accepimus (24th December 1612).[5]

In 1619 the 4 extant male Priories of exiled English speaking monks (Douai English priory, forerunner to the Downside, Ealing, and Worth communities; Dieulouard English Priory, forerunner to the Ampleforth community; St Edmunds Priory Paris, forerunner to the Douai community; and the extinct Priory of Saint-Malo) were united by another brief of Paul V, Ex Incumbenti. The documents issued in Paul’s papacy were further ratified by a bull issued 12th July 1633 by Pope Urban VIII titled Plantata.[6] The EBC's claim of continuity thus depends entirely on the 1607 Deed of Aggregation and the briefs of 1612 and 1619, not on any direct line of continuity with regular conventual English Benedictine life prior to the Dissolution. The present congregation owes its original spiritual identity primarily to the Spanish Cassinese communities its monks were formed in, the dangerous situation of persecution, the need for priestly and catechetical workers in the English mission, and the general climate of Tridentine monastic reform.[7]

English Benedictine Houses in Exile

In 1598 Lady Mary Percy O.S.B established the first religious community for English exiles under the Rule of St. Benedict for nuns at Brussels (the ancestor of the Abbeys of East Bergholt, Oulton, and Teignmouth).[8] These communities remained unaffiliated from any Benedictine congregation including the EBC.

In 1607 a Priory dedicated to St. Gregory the Great, the first monastic community for exiled English Benedictine monks (ancestor of Downside Abbey and its daughter houses Ealing Abbey and Worth Abbey) was established at Douai in Flanders by St. John Roberts and other English monks from Spanish monasteries, particularly the Royal Abbey of San Benito, Valladolid.[9] In 1608 another community (ancestor of Ampleforth Abbey) was established in the disused collegiate church of Dieulouard, dedicated to St. Laurence of Rome, in the Duchy of Lorraine (modern France). Two further houses in the Kingdom of France followed, the first in 1611 at Saint-Malo in Brittany, and the second in 1615 in Paris founded by Dom Gabriel Gifford O.S.B (ancestor of todays Douai Abbey) as a daughter house of St. Laurence Priory, Dieulouard dedicated to St. Edmund the Martyr King. In in 1632 the Paris community settled on the Rue Saint-Jacques where King James II was later buried in the Chapel of St. Edmund. The final community for monks was established in a disused collegiate church dedicated St Adrian and St Denis, Lamspringe Abbey (ancestor of Fort Augustus Abbey), in Upper Saxony in what is now Germany.

The missionary work of the EBC monks among the recusant Catholics in England began to attract women to the monastic life and 8 postulants travelled to Flanders with Dom Benet Jones lead by Gertrude More, great-great granddaughter to St Thomas More, settling near Douai. The community was established in 1623 at Cambrai and dedicated to Our Lady of Consolation (ancestor of Stanbrook Abbey). By 1645 the Cambrai community under Abbess Catherine Gascoigne had increased to 50 nuns, and was living in conditions of extreme poverty. On 6 February 1652, a new priory was established in Paris dedicated to Our Lady of Good Hope with Dame Bridget More as Prioress (ancestor of Colwich Abbey).[10]

Sexual abuse scandal[edit]

Main article: Sexual abuse scandal in the English Benedictine Congregation

The sexual abuse scandal in the EBC around the turn of the 21st century was a significant episode in a series of Catholic sex abuse cases in the United Kingdom. The events concerned ranged from the 1960s to the 2010s, and led to a number of EBC monks being laicized, convicted and imprisoned for the sexual abuse of children and vulnerable adults.

Structure & Membership[edit]

Every four years the General Chapter of the EBC elects an Abbot or Abbess President from among the ruling and former ruling abbots and abbesses of the houses of the congregation. He or she is assisted by a number of officials, and periodically undertakes a Visitation of the individual houses. The purpose of the Visitation is the preservation, strengthening and renewal of the religious life, including the laws of the Church and the Constitutions of the congregation. The President may require by Acts of Visitation, that particular points in the Rule, the Constitutions and the law of the Church be observed.[11]

The current Abbot President is Abbot Christopher Jamison, former Abbot of Worth Abbey.[12][13]

In 2020 the EBC had houses in the United Kingdom, the United States, Peru, and Zimbabwe. In 2022, three communities of nuns – Kylemore Abbey (Ireland), Mariavall Abbey (Sweden) and Jamberoo Abbey (Australia) – were accepted into the EBC,[14] bringing the number of houses and communities to 17.

Membership Numbers

In 2022, membership of the constituent houses was as follows.[15]

House Bishops Monks Nuns Novices
Downside Abbey 0 14 0 0
Ampleforth Abbey 0 45 0 0
Douai Abbey 0 21 0 0
Stanbrook Abbey 0 0 23 0
Belmont Abbey 1 27 0 4
Curzon Park Abbey 0 0 5 0
Ealing Abbey 0 9 0 0
Buckfast Abbey 0 8 0 0
Saint Anselm's Abbey 0 12 0 1
Worth Abbey 0 19 0 0
Portsmouth Abbey 0 12 0 0
Saint Louis Abbey 0 21 0 0
Kylemore Abbey 0 0 12 0
Jamberoo Abbey 0 0 22 0
Mariavall Abbey 0 0 12 0
Total 1 188 74 5

Houses[edit]

Houses of the Congregation in exile[edit]

Religious house in Europe Location Dates Successor house in England
St. Gregory's Priory, Douai Douai, France 1607–1798 Downside Abbey
Dieulouard Priory France 1608–1798 Ampleforth Abbey
St. Malo Priory St. Malo, Brittany c.1610 – late 17th century n/a
St. Edmund's Priory, Paris; later St. Edmund's Abbey, Douai Paris 1615–1798 (Paris); 1818–1903 (Douai) Douai Abbey, Woolhampton
Cambrai Priory Cambrai, Flanders 1625–1794 Stanbrook Abbey
Our Lady of Good Hope Priory, Paris Paris 1651–1794 Colwich Abbey
Lamspringe Abbey Lamspringe, Lower Saxony 1630–1803 Broadway Priory, 1826–34; Fort Augustus Abbey, 1886–1998

Houses of the present Congregation[edit]

England

Australia

Ireland

Peru

  • Priory of the Incarnation (monks), fdd 1981 in Tambogrande, from 2006 in Pachacamac and from May 2018 transferred to Lurín, in the buildings of the former Cistercian nunnery, daughter house of Belmont

Sweden

United States

Zimbabwe

Defunct houses of the present Congregation[edit]

Notable English Benedictines[edit]

Reformation Martyrs

• Saint John Roberts O.S.B. Monk, priest, and missionary, first prior of Douai. Born at Trawsfynydd in Gwynedd Wales c 1577. Martyred at Tyburn 10th Dec 1610 (aged 32 - 33). Feast(s) 10th Dec, 25th Oct.

• Saint Ambrose Barlow O.S.B. Monk, priest, and missionary. Born at Barlow Hall, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Lancashire c 1585. Martyred at Lancaster 10th September 1641 (aged 55-56). Feast(s) 10th Sept, 25th Oct.

• Saint Alban Roe O.S.B. Monk, priest, and missionary. Born at Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk on 20 July 1583. Martyred at Tyburn 21 Jan 1642 (aged 58). Feast(s) 21 Jan, 25th Oct.

• Blessed Philip Powell O.S.B.

• Blessed Maurus Scott O.S.B.

• Blessed Thomas Pickering O.S.B.

• Blessed George Gervase O.S.B.

• Blessed Mark Barkworth O.S.B.

References[edit]

  1. ^ Benedictine Yearbook 2020 p. 19
  2. ^ Benedictine Yearbook 2020 p. 19
  3. ^ http://www.plantata.org.uk
  4. ^ Benedictine Yearbook 2020 p. 19
  5. ^ H.Connolly, 'The Buckley Affair', in Downside Review 30 (1931) 49-74
  6. ^ http://www.plantata.org.uk/documents.php
  7. ^ Benedictine Yearbook 2020 p. 19
  8. ^ Nolan, Patrick. "English Convents in the Low Countries", The Irish Dames of Ypres, Benziger, 1908, p. 16Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  9. ^ Zeller, Dom.Hubert Van (1954). Downside By and Large. London: Sheed and Ward. p. 3.
  10. ^ Benedictine Yearbook 2020 p. 19
  11. ^ "English Benedictine History". plantata.org.uk. Ampleforth Abbey Trustees. Retrieved 25 August 2021.
  12. ^ Lamb, Christopher (1 August 2017). "Christopher Jamison appointed Abbot President of English Benedictines". The Tablet. London, UK. Retrieved 25 August 2021.
  13. ^ "Abbot Christopher Jamison elected new President". benedictines.org.uk. 1 August 2017. Retrieved 25 August 2021.
  14. ^ "English Benedictine Congregation welcomes three new communities". benedictines.org.uk. July 2022. Retrieved 26 July 2022.
  15. ^ The Benedictine Yearbook. London: English Benedictine Congregation Trust. 2023. p. 26. ISBN 978-0-901089-58-8.

External links[edit]

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