ABSTRACT
Richard Fox’s version of the Benedictine Rule for women, Here begynneth the Rule o f seynt Benet, is a remarkable window into the lives of early modem Englishwomen. In 1516, three abbesses and a prioress of the diocese of Winchester asked Fox, their bishop, to translate into English the Latin Benedictine Rule, which was originally written in Italy about AD 640 for the guidance of St Benedict’s monks. Fox made his translation during the autumn and winter of 1516. He put words into female form and deliberately crafted his phrases in ways that would make his version of the Rule so readable and vivid that the nuns of the diocese of Winchester would immediately understand it and its implications, and shape their lives by it.
