DAME GERTRUDE'S DEVOTIONS
Fr Justin McCann OSB
Ampleforth Journal 34:3 (1929) 242-46

After Father Baker, Dame Gertrude. In the last number of the Ampleforth Journal [**] it was shown that the collection of prayers known as the Ideots Devotions, which had come somehow to be attributed to Dame Gertrude, was in reality the work of her spiritual director, Father Baker, and a characteristic product of his pen. But it was admitted, at the same time, that Dame Gertrude had contributed to the collection, not only by her influence on her director, but also as the compiler of two of the sixteen parts which composed the complete work. Dame Gertrude thus takes her place, along with St Augustine, Blosius and many others, as one of the sources whence the devotions were drawn. And this contribution of hers to these devotions would seem to haye been her first literary work, or at least the first part of her work which obtained circulation ; for these devotions circulated among her sisters in the convent in her own lifetime. After her death (1633) there was found in her cell a further collection of spiritual writings. These were handed to Father Baker, and in 1635, while composing his Life of her, he put these papers in order and gave to the volume so arranged the title of Confessiones Amantis, or the Confessions of a Loving Soul. That is Dame Gertrude's other literary production, and, when we have mentioned these two productions, we have completed her brief bibliography. But we may be allowed to say a few words about each of these items separately, and so make clearer still the relation of her work to Father Baker's. And first about the Confessiones Amantis.

These Confessions, as has been seen already, were printed at Paris in the year 1658 under the title of The Spiritual Exercises of the Most Vertuous and Religious D. Gertrude More, etc., etc. We cannot now tell how far the editor (Father Francis Gascoigne) followed Father Baker's arrangement, for the original MS. has not survived. There are, indeed, seven- teenth century MSS. which contain portions of the book (Downside MS. 33 ; Colwich MSS. 22 and 23 ; Ampleforth MS. 127), but they give only selections and extracts, and they may very well be derived from the printed book. That book would doubtless discourage any further transcription of the original, and would also encourage the disappearance of MS. copies. So that, in describing this part of Dame Gertrude's work, we must treat the Paris book as the original.[1]

[ l ] Gillow (Bibliog. Diet.), under Sir Walter Kirkham Blount, has the following entry: The Holy Ideot's Contemplations on Divine Love, rendered into English by W. K. B., of Sodington 1669. Ded. to his sister Mrs. Anne Blount . This is a translation of Gertrude More's work in Latin, and is different from that of Fr. David Augustine Baker, O.S.B." I have failed to trace a copy of this book, but strongly suspect that it is none of Dame Gertrude's work. Her devotions, apart from some short citations, are all in English. If the book belong to the Baker cycle, it must be a translation of the parts of the Ideots Devotions which Father Baker left in Latin. Gillow's references here, and in his notices of Father Baker and Dame Gertrude, are vitiated by the confusion which we have been trying to remove.]

That book has been reprinted recently (1910) in the second volume of Dom Benedict Weld-Blundel's Life and Writings of Dame Gertrude More. The reprint, apart from a re-arrangement of the items and some modernisation, is a faithful one. It will therefore be best to refer to it, and not to the rare first edition, in what we have to say about the work. The contents of the volume are as follows :

(1) Pages 3—142 : Fifty-three Confessions, i.e., prayerful soliloquies very much in the manner of the Confessions of St Augustine, to whom Dame Gertrude owes a great deal. Most of these Confessions form sustained and continuous prayers, full, like St Augustine's Confessions, of affective acts. Some are so predominantly affective that they could very well be broken up into numbered acts, in the manner of the Ideots Devotions.
(2) Pages 145—206 : " Fragments," i.e. various prayers and collections of hers, found in her breviary and elsewhere, among which are four exercises in the style of the Ideots Devotions.
(3) Pages 209—290 : her " Apology," an argument in defence of Father Baker's teaching and her own practice derived from that teaching. This essay reveals Dame Gertrude as a disciple who echoes her master's instructions, and even his words, with very great fidelity. It shows her also as a trenchant advocate, to some extent more emphatic and intransigent than her master; for she omits the qualifications with which Father Baker was wont to blunt the point of his sharpest criticisms of contemporary spiritual practice.

Such are the contents, and such is the character of this chief portion of Dame Gertrude's work. As her undoubted achievement, and as revealing in an intimate fashion the history of her soul, it is of the first importance. If we may sometimes be disposed to think, as we read it, that she was a very positive and somewhat self-willed character, yet the effect of the whole is different, and we cannot resist the attractiveness of these deeply spiritual Confessions.

And now let us turn to her other work, that is, to her contribution to Father Baker's Ideots Devotions. Father Baker says in his Life of her : " The second or third part, or both of them, of the bookes called the Ideots Devotions, that are in this howse, do consist of her said doengs, the author having onlie reduced them into some order and into certein exercises " (Stanbrook MS. 5. p. 187). His language is lawyer-like in its cautiousness; but, it being his custom to state the most indubitable facts with the same circumspection, we may conclude that the two parts mentioned are Dame Gertrude's genuine work. In the previous article we were not able to cite any MSS. for this part of the Ideots Devotions, and ventured the opinion that it was lost. But further research among the MSS. has revealed two which profess to give the Second Part of the Ideots Devotions, one at Ampleforth (MS. 127), the other in the Gillow Library (shelfmark 28 j). With a brief description of these MSS. our task will be finished.

(1) Ampleforth MS. 127, a volume of extracts from very various sources, evidently compiled by some devout soul for private use. XVII cent, and in the old brown leather binding. 265 pages. The extracts all have a Baker complexion. In pages 129—172 we find " Idiots Devotions ye 2d part." The first seven acts are numbered, but the writer then ceased to give numbers, evidently because the copy was a very selective one. There are about 200 acts in all, ie sufficient to make ten exercises of the normal length.
(2) Gillow MS. Another miscellaneous volume of a more substantial character and the same date. In the old parchment covers. It may be noted that this MS. contains the complete text of the devotions of Dame Margaret Gascoigne. In pages 203—244 (the MS. has 312 pages) we find "The Idiots Devotion. The second parte contracted." This MS. numbers the acts and distinguishes the exercises throughout. There are twelve exercises of twenty acts each, and besides these some acts addressed to Our Lady, in all about 250 acts. The scribe expressly says that the text is " contracted," and a comparison with the other MS. shows that he also has selected the acts which pleased him and omitted others.

In these two MSS., therefore, we have at least some part of Dame Gertrude's contribution to the Ideots Devotions. As regards the character of her contribution, it shows again her debt to St Augustine. We meet, for instance, the familiar " Sero te amavi, pulchritudo tarn antiqua, et tarn nova, sero te amavi! "

And that completes, so far as we are able to tell it, the story of the Ideots Devotions [2] In the course of this essay, we have been concerned to distinguish between the work of Father Baker and that of Dame Gertrude, and to assign the various items fairly, suum utrique. If it has been necessary chiefly to vindicate Father Baker's rights, it will be proper to conclude by reclaiming for Dame Gertrude a small piece which has gone the other way, and passed from her to Father Baker.

[2] But we have indicated only cursorily what may be called the " pre-history' or embryonic stage of the Devotions, i.e. the instructions and patterns of the treatise Of Resignation in the Book G, which forms the third part of Father Baker's Directions for Contemplation (1628-9).]]

In a Downside manuscript of Father Baker's version of Walter Hilton's Scale of Perfection (Baker MS. 18), the scribe (Dame Barbara Constable) inserts after the title and before the text the following item, which does not belong to that book:

The Short Letany of a Contemplative Soule

From multiplicity and dejection
That tends to our soules confusion,
Defend us Lord with thy benediction.
All sinne hath multiplicity in it: and therefore prayeinge to be preserved from multiplicity, I pray to be preserved from sinne as well as from all other distractions. Contemplation is with elevation of spirit, to which dejection is contrary : and therefore prayeinge to be preserved from dejection, I pray to be delivered from the greatest enemy of contemplation.

It is natural to suppose that this little piece, copied thus into one of Father Baker's books, is from his own pen ; but he himself testifies to the contrary. In his life of Dame Gertrude (Ampleforth MS. 125, p. 393) he tells us that she wrote, as a preservative against multiplicity and dejection, "a short kind of letanie in homelie verse as followeth:

From multiplicitie and dejection
That would breed our soules confusion,
Defend us Lord with thy benediction."

So it is Dame Gertrude's litany ; and doubtless this second, and better, text of it is the genuine one.