Clemence of Barking

Abstract

Clemence was a nun at Barking Abbey during the latter part of the twelfth century. This monastery was a female community of nuns following the Rule of Saint Benedict. Their status as Benedictines encouraged them to achieve a high level of education and literacy even though they were women; many were from the higher ranks of society. Because of the Abbey’s prosperity and its links to the monarchy, it was a hub of cultural activity which included visitors from across the intellectual world of its time. It is not possible to identify Clemence except by her work, to which she appended her name; her Life of Saint Catherine is translated and adapted from a Latin source. She says this work will be more pleasing if it is in French. It is not known whether she wrote anything else. Anglo-Norman literature, written in the French that was used in Britain during the Middle Ages, abounded in saints’ lives as well as many other works of literature and devotion. Saints’ lives were very popular and often read communally to accompany meals; they were considered to be morally improving, as well as entertaining as stories, and thus more proper for such occasions than general conversation. Clemence celebrates the life of Catherine of Alexandria by stressing the power of a woman’s voice as the saint overcomes numerous learned but pagan antagonists with her rhetoric, thus demonstrating the author’s own skill and the power of her own female voice.