Mary Ward: First Sister of Feminism by Sydney Thorne

Author:Sydney Thorne [Thorne, Sydney]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Women, Religious, Religion, Christianity, Catholic, History, Europe, Great Britain, Stuart Era (1603-1714)
ISBN: 9781399005265
Google: 7bg8EAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Pen and Sword History
Published: 2021-10-31T04:21:37+00:00

When did Mary begin to realise that obtaining recognition for her order would take far, far longer than she had ever imagined? That her life of commuting between Flanders and England would morph into a frustrating, sedentary existence in Rome, waiting for the wheels of the Vatican bureaucracy to turn another notch? We cannot know, for no word of criticism or bitterness ever passed her lips. Rather, she launched herself into a heroic campaign to lobby for her Institute, taking on the most powerful, most sophisticated institution in the Western world.

Oh yes, Rome was enormously powerful. On the macro level, power was shifting from the south of Europe to the north, but Rome itself was flexing its muscles again. Grand new buildings were transforming what had been a run-down ex-metropolis, sacked as recently as 1527, into a sophisticated European capital. Its grandest edifice of all, the new St Peter’s, was the most magnificent church in Christendom.

The new buildings and monuments were the outward expression of the Vatican’s new spirit of confidence. The Council of Trent had given Catholics a new manifesto and new zeal. Protestant minorities had been expelled from the Catholic heartlands of Italy, Spain, Austria and southern Germany, France had been recovered from the Huguenots, the wealthy cities of the southern Netherlands – Antwerp, Ghent and Brussels – had been held against the Dutch. In England, Rome was about to appoint its first Roman Catholic bishop since 1585. In the east, large areas of Hungary and Transylvania had been regained, while in Central Europe, the Battle of the White Mountain had provided the Catholic cause with a stunning victory. Tangible evidence of the victory arrived in Rome in 1623 in the form of 200 mules bearing 3,500 manuscripts and 13,000 prints looted from Frederick’s palace in Heidelberg. They were a ‘gift’ to the pope from the leader of the victorious Catholic troops, Maximilian of Bavaria.

Rome was, of course, not only the seat of the Catholic Church, but also the capital city of the Papal States. The area had to be governed, roads built, taxes raised, the valuable alum mines exploited, wars waged. The territory was sandwiched between Spanish Naples, Spanish Milan and Spanish Sardinia, so Vatican diplomacy had to reconcile backing Spain in the Thirty Years’ War with resisting Spain as a rival within Italy itself. But the Vatican establishment, with centuries of experience to draw on, took such convoluted diplomatic gymnastics in its stride. The cardinals that Mary now had to wrestle with were as well versed in European power politics as they were in Church law and the decrees of the Council of Trent.

Mary did what she could. She wrote letters to potential supporters, she chivvied sponsors like Isabella, she petitioned such Vatican heavyweights as Ambassador Vives, Isabella’s representative in Rome, she submitted and re-submitted mission statements to clarify the aims of her Institute – but it was a Kafkaesque game of Blind (Wo)man’s Buff. Mary was a woman operating in a world of men, an

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.