Introduction
St. Angela de Merici established her Company of St. Ursula in Brescia in Northern Italy in 1535. “The Company was a secular organisation, profoundly spiritual, totally female, democratically organised, separated from the church and self-sufficient.” Angela’s aim for her company was essentially to ensure a new way of life for the members, a life of virginity for the service of God, but a life led in the world, outside a convent, with no public vows or identifying habit. Any activity or good work that was carried out for love of God and zeal for souls was encouraged. Members were able to decide where to live and if and when to work; they could continue in any work they were engaged in before joining the Company. They often continued to live in the midst of their own families, meeting at stated times for conferences and devotional exercises. No dowry was required by those who entered although it was a great financial help if the members could support themselves by their own labour.
The movement was taken up with great enthusiasm and spread rapidly throughout Italy, Germany and France. Within a few years the company numbered many houses, each independent. Constitutions suited to the special work of the institute were developed and completed shortly before the death of the foundress in 1540. In 1544 the first approbation was received from Paul III, and the Rule of St. Augustine adopted. Many important details were left unsettled at this time, and, as a result, several congregations developed, all calling themselves Ursulines but differing widely in dress and customs. The largest and most influential of these were the Congregation of Paris and the Congregation of Bordeaux
By 1612 the monastic Order of St. Ursula had developed from this simple secular Company. In just over seventy years after Angela’s death, her “enterprising little Company, unfettered by hide-bound rules and clerical domination, had become a religious Order with strict enclosure, public vows and strong clerical guidance.” The Council of Trent, looking for reform of feminine religious life, had enforced strict enclosure in their houses and recognised the apostolic potential of the Ursulines to help with teaching the Catholic faith. Some of the early French Ursulines themselves also recognised that their teaching was more effective and economical if they lived together under one roof, although such a change was not universally accepted especially by unenclosed Ursuline houses in the south of France. However, they gradually learnt how to combine a strict enclosed monastic life with their ever-increasing and popular teaching apostolate.
The habit of the order is of black serge, falling in folds, with wide sleeves. On ceremonial occasions a long train is worn. The veil of the professed religious is black, of the novice white. The guimpe and bandeau are of plain white linen, the cincture of black leather. There are two grades in each community; the choir religious, so called from their obligation to recite the office daily in choir; and the lay sisters. The former are occupied in teaching, the latter in domestic duties. Candidates for either grade pass six months probation as postulants in the community in which they desire to become stabilitated. This period is followed by two years of preparation in a central novitiate, at the expiration of which the three vows of religion are pronounced temporarily, for a term of three years. At the end of the third year the profession is made perpetual. In some Ursuline communities solemn vows are taken, and there papal enclosure is in force.
The Ursulines in Spetisbury
Mortain in Normandy was a house founded by the Ursulines of Avranches in 1820. This establishment had a community of 33 nuns when they joined the Roman Union in 1900. In 1904, new laws were passed in France forbidding religious orders to teach, and ordering them to leave the country.
Mère St. Ignace Loiseau, at that time the Prioress at Avranches, had already taken precautions against the inevitable expulsion, and with the help of her Jesuit brother, Père Augustin Loiseau, and the Cistercian nuns of Stapehill, she had been able to obtain a house, Allendale, in Wimborne, to which everything not needed in Mortain was transported. Meanwhile, on 15th Oct 1906, the 27 members of the community of Ploërmel in Brittany had been expelled and Mère St. Ignace offered them this house at Wimborne where they stayed until moving to Warminster, Wiltshire in December 1906.
Several months later the community at Mortain bought St. Monica’s Priory and according to the deeds, on 22nd June 1907 the property passed to:
Camille Helena Marie Leteinturier Laprise (Mère Saint-François d’Assise)
Marie Therese Mauger Lavente (Mère du Saint-Sacrement)
Anna Marie Louise Loiseau (Mère Marie-Berchmans)
A description of the property at this time states “C’était un ancient manoir datant du XVII siècle, Plusiers familles religieuses s’étaient succédées dans ces vieux murs qui avaient vu bien des transformations nécessitées par les besoins de chaque communauté, En dehors du bâtiment central, c’était un vrai labyrinthe de corridors, d’escaliers étroits, de petits appartements, mais le tout était susceptible d’amélioration, la maison était grande, possédait une chapelle et de nombreuses commodités; le propriété était spacieuse et vraiment belle. Un grand jardin planté d’arbres fruitiers, des bois pleins d’ombre et de chants d’oiseaux, une petite rivière silencieuse, au loin la jolie campagne anglaise avec ses tons indécis, tout s’harmonisait pour faire de ce prieuré un séjour de recueillement et de paix, où les exilées pourraient, en faisant des voeux pour la patrie lointaine, attendre dans le calme l’heure du retour.”
The community at Mortain was closed by order of the French government on 12th Sept 1907; the convent was surrounded by an armed force and the nuns were forced to leave and take refuge in St. Monica’s Priory. The first contingent of nuns, accompanied by a certain number of young girls, left Le Havre on 15th October 1907 and the last five left in August 1908. On 8 August 1908, L’Opinion de la Manche announced that the last five, Mesdames de Marseul, Leroyer, Vautier, Quinton et Hossard, had left Mortain the preceding Wednesday by “the first train”.
The house at Spetisbury may have been “spacieuse et vraiment belle” with a chapel and a large garden, but many alterations had been made in the house, and it was in such a bad state of repair when the Ursulines first arrived that they slept on the floor sheltering under open umbrellas from the rain falling in through the roof!