ABSTRACT
This chapter is about Mary Bedingfield, wife of Thomas Eyre, left her family home at Eastwell in Leicestershire accompanied by her three youngest daughters, expossing her owne person to the trouble of a tedious journey' to Flanders. Several members of the family were nuns at the convent. Given the nuns' need to interpret the meaning of their revelations in order to progress devotionally, it is to be expected that much of their meditative writing is occupied with unravelling the conundrum of spiritual knowledge. All in all, for better or worse, the senses were thought to create a direct and vulnerable line to the passions, initiating rippling somatic effect with impact on memory. Whether it was moral purpose or more fundamental psychic health that needed to be safeguarded, Mrs. Eyre was wise to protect her daughters. The nuns use alteration' to describe their deep-seated reaction at moments of acute, unwonted awareness of the impact of other' on self.
