“Under Revolutionary France’s Civil Constitution of the Clergy of January 1, 1791, every bishop, parish priest and curate had to take an oath of fidelity to the new Constitution or lose their positions. The Decree of the French Legislative Assembly of August 26, 1792 aimed to rid the country of those clergy who did not take the oath – non-oath takers were ordered to obtain a passport and say which country they wishes to go to or face to French Guiana. This led to an emigration of Catholic French clergy to several European countries including Protestant Britain. At this time Catholicism in Norfolk was mainly confined to around the stately homes of important recusant families, including the Bedingfelds at Oxborough; the Jerninghams at Costessey, near Norwich, the Gages at Hengrave, near Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk; and, the Huddlestones at Sawston, Cambridgeshire. Three orders of nuns took refuge in East Anglia in the 1790s along with many French priests. This included a community of thirty-six Benedictine nuns who moved to Bodney Hall, Breckland, Norfolk. On September 2, 1793, the nuns were housed at Diss and were given 20 guineas by the Committee. Shortly afterwards they requested and were awarded £35 a month to subsidises their living ‘Educating Young Ladies’. After nearly half a century at Bodney and Heath Hall, they settled in Princethorpe, Warwickshire.”
French Refugee Clergy
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