Frances Bedingfeld, I.B.V.M. (1616–1704) led the first foundation in England of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, better known as the

Sisters of Loreto The Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, whose members are commonly known as the Loreto Sisters, is a Roman Catholic religious congregation of women dedicated to education founded in Saint-Omer by an Englishwoman, Mary Ward, in 1609. The cong ...

, which had been founded by the

Venerable The Venerable (''venerabilis'' in Latin) is a style, a title, or an epithet which is used in some Western Christian churches, or it is a translation of similar terms for clerics in Eastern Orthodoxy and monastics in Buddhism. Christianity Cat ...

Mary Ward. In 1677, Bedingfeld founded Bar Convent in York, the oldest surviving Roman Catholic convent in England and also the first Roman Catholic School for Girls in Britain ( Bar Convent School For Girls).

Life

Frances was the daughter of Francis and Katherine Fortescue Bedingfeld.Sheils, William Joseph. ‘Bedingfield family (per. 1476–1760)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2009
/ref> Born in

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

, England, in 1616, she came from a recusant family which had remained Roman Catholic through the Reformation. She and her 11

sisters A sister is a woman or a girl who shares one or more parents with another individual; a female sibling. The male counterpart is a brother. Although the term typically refers to a familial relationship, it is sometimes used endearingly to refer to ...

all entered religious orders.Crowne, J. Vincent. "Frances Bedingfeld." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 2. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907. 10 Oct. 2014
/ref> Sent to the continent for her education due to the Penal Laws then in effect, Bedingfeld enrolled at the school run by the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

, then in the

Electorate of Bavaria The Electorate of Bavaria (german: Kurfürstentum Bayern) was an independent hereditary electorate of the Holy Roman Empire from 1623 to 1806, when it was succeeded by the Kingdom of Bavaria. The Wittelsbach dynasty which ruled the Duchy of Ba ...

, known there as the "English Ladies". She later entered the Institute herself in Rome and was professed in September 1633 in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore. She later became the superior of the mother house of the order in Munich. After spending a number of years teaching at the school, in 1669 Bedingfeld was sent back to England due to a request of Queen

Catherine of Braganza Catherine of Braganza ( pt, Catarina de Bragança; 25 November 1638 – 31 December 1705) was Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland during her marriage to King Charles II, which lasted from 21 May 1662 until his death on 6 February 1685. She ...

to found a school of the Institute in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. With a group of other English Sisters, she set up a school for young women, first at St Martin's Lane, with the support of the Queen. Once back in England, due to continued persecution, she wore a plain gray dress and used the alias of "Mrs Long".Upon the death of Charles II, finding their tenure so near to the court to be rather insecure, Frances Bedingfeld obtained, with the help of the Queen Dowager, a large house at Hammersmith with a spacious garden.

Bar Convent

From this community, she founded Bar Convent in

York York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...

in 1677, at the invitation of Sir Thomas Gascoigne. This was the first Convent to be opened in England after the dissolution of Monasteries in 1536 by Henry VIII."The Loreto Convent School Timeline", Loreto Convent School, Pretoria
/ref> First they set up a boarding school for Catholic girls, and this was followed in 1699 by a free day school. Both houses continued despite frequent harassment by local authorities for their ties to the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

, being suspected of harboring Catholic priests. Bedingfeld supervised both communities until 1686, when she settled in York. Bedingfeld's family connections often helped her to avoid major punishment, even though the community endured repeated searches and destruction of their house. Bedingfeld was arrested three times: London (1674), York (1679), and in 1694, she and her great-niece, Mother Dorothy Pastor Bedingfeld, were summoned before a magistrate and briefly committed to the gaol at Ouse Bridge in York.''Publications of the Catholic Record Society'', Volume 4, Catholic Records society, 1907
/ref> The community was attacked in 1695, at which time the house was almost destroyed. In 1699 she resigned as Superior in favor of her niece and moved back to Munich, where she died on 4 May 1704. A house at St Mary's School, Ascot, which her successors founded in 1885, was named in her honour. According to William Shiels, the Bedingfeld women "provided spiritual leadership to religious communities spread across five European states and stretching from York to Munich, as well as an enduring network of contacts for English Catholics abroad. ...and the importance of these women in sustaining English Catholicism by providing education for gentry children and hospitality to travellers cannot be overestimated." Although the convent school was closed in 1985, Bar remains the oldest surviving Roman Catholic

convent A convent is a community of monks, nuns, religious brothers or, sisters or priests. Alternatively, ''convent'' means the building used by the community. The word is particularly used in the Catholic Church, Lutheran churches, and the Anglic ...

in England. But her work still persists to this day as an integral part of Catholicism in Yorkshire and in the diocese of Middlesbrough, as the Coeducational Comprehensive Secondary School: All Saints Roman Catholic School

Life

Bar Convent

References

Further reading