NYPL Researcher Spotlight: Marilyn Oliva
Marilyn Oliva after a winter dip in the ocean at Coney Island.
This profile is part of a series of interviews chronicling the experiences of researchers who use The New York Public Library's collections for the development of their work.
Marilyn Oliva is an independent scholar. Her areas of interest include medieval and early modern English religious women who lived in the East Anglian counties of Norfolk and Suffolk.
Could you expand a little on these research interests?
My primary interest has been East Anglian nuns and their monastic houses from 1350 until the mid-1530s. The 1530s is when Henry VIII broke with the Church in Rome, established the Church of England, and the convents were shuttered. Topics I’ve covered include the nuns’ social status, the meritocracy of officeholding within their convents, the identities of their chaplains, and the nuns’ post-reformation lives. Primary sources I have used include medieval wills, household accounts, bishops’ registers, and the records created by Henry VIII’s reformation, such as inventories of household and chapel furnishings, charters, and notices of the transfer of ownership from the nuns to lay people.
Jernegan book of hours, late 15th century, folio 52r.
Tell us about your current project.
My current project is an investigation of English recusant women, that is, women who refused to conform to Henry VIII’s Church of England practices and beliefs and remained Catholic well into the reign of his daughter Elizabeth I. Specifically I am interested in the female line of a woman named Bridget Jernegan, who lived in the 16th century in the county of Suffolk. Her daughters, granddaughters, and nieces remained Catholic, were imprisoned or fined for their beliefs, and lobbied for the release of their remanded male kin who remained Catholic as well. I am interested in these women as activists in their own right, and how their actions and appeals to the Crown may or may not have been gendered in tone and substance.
Anne Jerningham (d.1581), Lady Cornwallis.
What led you to this project?
My interest in Bridget Jernegan came out of research I carried out on a book of hours that belonged to her, which is now part of the medieval manuscript collection of the Huntington Library in San Marino, CA. I wanted to see where Bridget’s book went after she died and, while investigating that, I came upon female relatives from both her natal and married families who were listed as recusants but about whom little is known. I want to know more about these women and the network of female activists they created. Pictured here is Bridget’s daughter Anne Jernegan (or "Jerningham"), who appears to have been a formidable land manager and matriarch.
What brought you to NYPL?
Access to everything I might need for this project! For an independent scholar, the resources available to researchers not affiliated with an academic institution are invaluable. Particularly important to me are antiquarian histories of medieval and early modern families and their land holdings, as well as 19th-century genealogical tables that often are more detailed than the earlier pedigrees. These sources are part of the Library’s genealogical collection. The Library’s “Articles and Databases” tool is another important resource that I use to see articles in journals like The Library, Recusant History, and British Catholic History. The Library’s interlibrary loan service is also incredibly helpful.