Alma Mater
Run 3: 26th-29th March 2026
Katherine
a Novice
Age:
late teens - mid 20s
Psalm 5: But as for me, I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy: and in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple.
Themes:
Betraying others; blood relatives; high birth; subordinate status
High birth may justify high power, but it will not set you free from sin. So you have always thought, and so you have made it your mission to lead to a life of piety and prayer. Better still if you can help others to be as virtuous as you.
Your ambitious family intended that you should make an advantageous match in marriage. With that in mind, you spent a single season at court in the service of Queen Anne, but found it not at all to your taste. The morals seemed very loose to you, and you didn’t have the ambition which would justify the constant risks of court life.
As a child, you had often seen the nuns of Whitwood giving alms in your village and heard in the distance the beautiful singing of their psalms. The court seemed to be a place of vice and sin, and your family was more than happy to allow you to become a novice after your parents saw how miserable that world was making you, despite your best efforts to hide it from them. You persuaded them to send you as a novice to Whitwood - a natural choice because your aunt Sybil was already a nun there. You have been trying your best to complete your novitiate and take your vows ever since.
Role:
Sisters who are preparing to take vows, novices are still in the process of learning all that is required of them in their life in the community. The usual time to be a novice is one year, although it can extend to two years if she is finding it challenging.
Connections:
Sybil, the Almoneress
With the family’s local connection to Whitwood, it is no surprise that you have a relative at the abbey - your aunt Sybil. She has been here so long that you have never really known her, but you are eager to get to know her now. You have always been taught that blood supports blood above all things - this is how a family grows and prospers. Sadly, she is also the only person in the abbey so far you have let down.
Blanche, a nun
Secrets:
You had a dream that the Abbey would prosper
Whitwood can be intense. The quiet and peace bring an inner, illuminating light that shines both day and night. Your dreams have in this place grown more and more powerful. Recently, you dreamed of a booming voice. It spoke of the love it held for you and for the abbey, and lay before you shining fields, rich with crops, and in amongst them Whitwood. Its walls were not of stone, but of shining gold, and it in its roof were rubies and emeralds. This dream is burned into your memory, but you have not yet told anyone of it.
You lost a purse of alms