Stepping onto the grounds of the Charterhouse, it quickly becomes evident that women have been present on the site throughout its history.

A portrait of Queen Elizabeth I hangs proudly in The Great Chamber, calling attention to her visits to, and stays at, the site during her reign. Upon entering the Chapel, you can find the graves of women who chose the Charterhouse to be their final resting place.

However, to date, much of the scholarly work completed on this fantastic site has focused on the institution, its key events, and many of the important men integral to the Charterhouse’s history such as Thomas Sutton, its charitable founder. There is much to say about the Charterhouse. It’s 700-year history since the land which is now Charterhouse Square was first leased in 1348 as a Black Death burial ground, offers such interesting twists and turns and overlaps with numerous seminal historical events. Its institutional transformation from monastery to mansion over the course of the shattering English Reformation years before finally settling as a charitable institution, has understandably received scholarly study. The stories of the Carthusian martyrs and the later formation of “Sutton’s Hospital” have in particular gained much attention.

My question though, is how do women fit into this history? The Charterhouse spent almost 200 years as a monastic site, and the Carthusian order that inhabited the monastery followed 12th century Carthusian legislation ‘The Consuetudines’ which banned women from entering charterhouses. So, it might appear that women were entirely excluded from this period of the site’s history. However, already my research has identified that this is not true!

Over the last term, I have unpicked a story of the familial connection between one of the Charterhouse monks who was infamously martyred – Sebastian Newdigate (1500-1535) – and two very interesting women both named Jane Dormer. The first Jane Dormer (c.1496-1571) was the sister of Newdigate, and is a fascinating study. Her life is almost solely preserved in a contemporary biography written about her granddaughter by Henry Clifford entitled ‘The Life of Jane Dormer’, with one story being of particular note. Upon hearing that her courtier brother had become a monk, Jane Dormer promptly rode to the London Charterhouse to voice her disapproval. She advised the Prior that it was unlikely that Newdigate would “on the sudden be fit for so strait and austere a religion” (Clifford, 1887, p.21). As the story goes, to appease her, the Prior presented her brother who was much changed and not the courtier he once was. This brought her to tears, and satisfied she went on her way. This story is significant as Jane Dormer’s presence on site at the London Charterhouse directly opposed the rules of the Carthusian order which banned women from the sites.

The other Jane Dormer (1538-1612) was the granddaughter of the elder Jane Dormer and the grandniece of Sebastian Newdigate (it’s confusing – I know!). She is the primary subject of Henry Clifford’s biography and later became the Duchess of Feria. Although she never met her great uncle, being born three years after his execution, she was still involved with the Charterhouse community.

Brought up in Mary I’s household, Jane developed a strong Catholic ideology and married a Spanish diplomat Gómez Suárez de Figueroa y Córdoba. Upon Elizabeth I’s accession to the throne, Córdoba and Jane decided to leave Protestant England for the Catholic continent, and Jane insisted that Córdoba petition the Queen “to do him the favour to give him the Religious, both men and women, of her kingdom that would go with him” (Clifford, 1887, p.106). She was instrumental in arranging the travel of Catholic exiles, and a 1559 note shows her applying for passports for several Catholic individuals. The Ferias seem to have travelled with monks and lay brothers from the Charterhouse and Sheen and nuns from Sion Abbey, along with a plethora of other priests, nuns, Catholic courtiers and the elder Jane Dormer, forming a large group of up to one hundred people. Both Jane Dormers travelling abroad alongside former Carthusian monks illustrates quite strikingly that the gender separation once apparent at the London Charterhouse was now extinguished. The monks now relied upon Jane Dormer for safe passage.

The two Jane Dormers offer an interesting starting point for my thesis. To date, my research has focused mostly on the medieval and Reformation periods. Going forward, I will be pursuing several avenues through which women could involve themselves with the Charterhouse from c.1371-1750, such as being “Ladies of the House” during the site’s years as a mansion, through spatial proximity to the site, patronage and charitable giving, women’s work, and trade relations.

Victoria Sands is a first-year D.Phil. candidate in History and has a keen interest in women’s history particularly pre-1700, built heritage, and public engagement. She is studying at the University of Oxford and carrying out research in partnership with the Charterhouse. The focus of her research is illuminating the hidden lives of women associated with the Charterhouse in the medieval and early modern periods. The project is generously funded by the Open-Oxford-Cambridge Doctoral Training Partnership and the Clarendon Fund.

 Previously Victoria has worked professionally in commercial archaeology, museums, and other heritage institutions.

References

Guigo I, The Consuetudines, trans. Fr. Ugo-Maria Ginex Erem. Dioc, Third Edition (2020) [E-book].

Henry Clifford, The Life of Jane Dormer Transcribed from the Ancient Manuscript in the possession of the Lord Dormer, ed. Rev. Joseph Stevenson (London: Burns and Oates, 1887).

Simon Courtauld, Lady of Spain: A Life of Jane Dormer, Duchess of Feria (Swindon: Mount Orleans Press, 2021).

‘Note of a passport required for the Countess of Feria’, 1559, The National Archives, SP 15/9/1 fo. 87; ‘43. Note of a passport required for the Countess of Feria, with her attendants, all named, 1559’ in Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the reign of Elizabeth, 1601-1603; with Addenda 1547-1565, ed. Mary Anne Everett Green London, 1870. (London: Longman & Co, and Trubner & Co, 1870), p. 495.