Meditation

In 1545, Catherine Parr published Prayers or Meditations — the first book published in English in England by a woman under her own name. Prayers or Meditations followed Parr’s anonymous publication, one year earlier, of Psalms or Prayers (1544). Parr positioned her devotional works as the private counterpart to Archbishop Thomas Cranmer’s Exhortation and Litany (1544), the earliest authorised service in English. Meditation was a devotional activity at the centre of the reformed Church of England and Parr’s project underscores three key facets of meditation in the early modern period: (1) its percolation across the religious divide; (2) its practice by women, and across social strata; and (3) its association with Psalms, prayers, and private devotion. Many theorists and practitioners recorded and shared their experiences of meditation in prose and poetry. These texts give fascinating insight into the evolution of meditation across the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

During the early modern period in Europe, two broad traditions of meditation grew out of medieval monastic practices, giving rise to many different understandings of the term. The first of these traditions — the continental, scriptural, or deliberate form of meditation — was inspired by the model of Christ alone in the wilderness. This was a rigorous, intellectual form of meditation originally intended to equip Jesuit evangelists with the necessary discipline and conviction to undertake their work in politically hostile environments. Such meditation was aimed at strengthening the mind and will, and deepening understanding of scripture. Practitioners meditated on events in Christ’s life, or significant points of scripture. The objective was to imagine oneself within the event, to feel the suffering or emotion, and, therefore, to take the meaning to heart. It was codified by Saint Ignatius of Loyola (1491– 1556), founder of the Society of Jesuits, in his Spiritual Exercises (c. 1522).

‘Examen Conscientiæ’ from Ignatius of Loyola, Exercitia Spiritualia (Rome, 1596). Public Domain Mark 1.0.

The second tradition was the occasional, indeliberate, or extempore meditation. This was inspired by Christ’s use of parable and allegory. Occasional meditation was developed for the busy Protestant labouring and merchant classes and, consequently, was more flexible and less strenuous than the Ignatian method. Bishop Joseph Hall’s paradigm Occasional Meditations (1630) teaches the practice through one-hundred and forty exemplars. These demonstrate meditation on ‘The Book of Nature’ or ‘occasions’ encountered in everyday life. Hall intended that observations ‘Upon a Cloud’, ‘Upon a Worm’, or human activities ‘Upon the Quenching of Iron in Water’ would augment understanding of scriptural lessons encountered in sermons and religious publications. Meditation, in this occasional sense, thus enabled the laity to bring religion into their lives; imbued the natural world with religious significance; and countered the loss of ritual and magic as society became more divided and secular.

Joseph Hall, The Works of Joseph Hall B. of Norwich (London: Miles Flesher, 1647). Thomas Clifton (2018), by permission of The Cadbury Research Library.

These meditational practices, moreover, occurred across the religious, and oftentimes political, divisions of society. Mary, Queen of Scots, for instance, wrote a poem ‘Meditation on the Inconstancy and Vanity of the World’ in response to a treatise (c. 1571) by John Leslie, Bishop of Ross, whilst both were prisoners of Queen Elizabeth I. Mary’s poem considers the Protestant concept of pre-ordination and the Catholic concept of good works. An entry titled ‘On the Passion of our Lord and sauiour Iesus’ found in Constance Aston Fowler’s verse miscellany (c. 1621 – 1664), meanwhile, preserves the Ignatian meditation alongside Protestant and secular poetry. Susanna Hopton’s A Collection of Meditations and Devotions (1717) is similarly ambiguous. These collections suggest that value was placed in the meditative function of a text over the distinct religious confession of the author.

Frontispiece from Susanna Hopton, Daily Devotions (London: Jonathan Edwin, 1673). 

Thomas Clifton (2019), by permission of The British Library.

At a more personal level, meditation allowed increasingly literate individuals the freedom to read, write, publish, and expand their minds with little supervision; some clergy cited the inability to police individual interpretations of scripture as the reason for their opposition to the practice of meditation. As meditation encouraged examination of scripture and the world, it also created opportunities for introspection. The widow of a merchant, Katherine Austen contemplated not only the Psalms, but her ‘monitions’ of death and her legal trials in Book M (c. 1662). She included an expenses sheet to ‘account’ for her soul and this habit of collecting disparate texts was common. The meditational works of Presbyterian itinerant John Flavel (c.1627–1691) are littered with quotations drawn from his reading. In Husbandry Spiritualised (1669), he draws analogies from farming methods to instruct his readers in meditation as a means of assessing the condition of their souls. After the deaths of his wife and children, retired courtier Charles Howe (1661–1742) found consolation in private meditation. These were first published anonymously as Devout Meditations in 1751.

The popularity of meditation in the early modern period coincided with new definitions of privacy and growing interest in biographic writing. Concern for public and private identities led writers to protect their personal expressions or to project an ideal. Elizabeth Grymeston complied Miscelanea, Meditations, and Memoratives (1604) as a guide for her son; it was published posthumously to popular acclaim. Church of England clergyman Thomas Traherne wrote his manuscript Centuries of Meditations (c. 1670) expressing distinct views on innocence for his unnamed female ‘friend’. Katherine Austen warns that her Book M ‘doth not aduantaige any’, and the chemist Robert Boyle disparaged his ‘Trifles’ in Occasional Reflections upon Several Subjects (1665). Many writers left notes instructing their heirs to burn their manuscripts. However, self-denigration and modesty were common tropes employed by writers of the period. In adolescence, Lady Elizabeth Delaval (c. 1648 - 1717) meditated on vanity, profligacy, and marriage arrangements. Later, as a Jacobite exile, she refashioned her manuscript into a biographic text including letters, memoirs, and contextual notes which suggest she sought a wider audience.

Meditation in the early modern period was a complex and contested term: as traditions of practice evolved, individuals adapted forms of meditation to advance personal, political, or religious aims. As a source of solace, as a means of understanding daily life, of sharing learning, or of coming to terms with one’s soul, meditation provided a framework for individuals in the early modern period to pause and reflect on themselves and on their place in the cosmos.

Thomas Clifton is a PhD Candidate in the Department of English at the University of Birmingham.

28 May 2021.