Lucy Menzies

Lucy Menzies (1882–1954) was a Scottish spiritual writer, translator, editor, retreat-house warden, and Anglican mystic. Her work centred on Christian sanctity, spiritual biography, and the transmission of mystical and devotional literature to modern English-speaking readers. She wrote studies of Saint Columba and Saint Margaret of Scotland, translated works by François Malaval, Henri de Tourville, and Mechthild of Magdeburg, served as warden of the retreat house at Pleshey, and acted as literary executor for Evelyn Underhill.

Menzies's writings explored Christian holiness in medieval, mystical, and modern Anglican contexts. Later scholarship has emphasized her ecumenical interpretation of medieval Scottish saints, her role in twentieth-century Anglican spirituality, and her work in preserving and extending Underhill's legacy. She was awarded an honorary doctorate in divinity by the University of St Andrews in 1954 and is commemorated in the calendar of the Scottish Episcopal Church.

Early life and education

Menzies was born in 1882, the daughter of the Scottish minister and scholar Allan Menzies and Mary Elizabeth Honey. Her father became professor of Biblical criticism at the University of St Andrews, and Menzies formed a lifelong association with St Andrews. In the same year she wrote a memoir of her father for A Study of Calvin and Other Papers.

Her first major work in the field of spirituality was Saint Columba of Iona, published in 1920. It was followed by several works on saints and sanctity, including A Book of Saints for the Young (1923), The Saints in Italy (1924), Saint Margaret Queen of Scotland (1925), and Mirrors of the Holy: Ten Studies in Sanctity (1928). Margaret Cropper later described the friendship as marked by spiritual seriousness, affection, freedom, and humour.

In her translator's note, Menzies emphasized both the rarity of the original text and the significance of Malaval's blindness for understanding his imagery of light and darkness.

Menzies also translated Henri de Tourville's Letters of Direction, published in Westminster in 1939 with an introduction by Underhill. Her last completed book was a translation of Mechthild of Magdeburg's The Flowing Light of the Godhead, published in 1953.

According to Barkway, Menzies also did much of the editorial work for The Letters of Evelyn Underhill, although Charles Williams was credited as editor.

The book was introduced by Arthur Winnington-Ingram, former Bishop of London, and its royalties were directed to St Peter's, London Docks, which had been damaged during the Second World War. She presented him as a modern Anglican counterpart to the Curé d'Ars.

Later life and death

After leaving Pleshey, Menzies returned to St Andrews. Despite declining health and eyesight, she continued to write, translate, and edit. Her later works included Father Wainright: A Record, an edition of Edward Keble Talbot's retreat addresses, and her translation of Mechthild of Magdeburg.

Menzies died in 1954 and was buried in the graveyard adjoining St Andrews Cathedral. A plaque in the Sacrament Chapel of All Saints' Church, St Andrews, marks the place where she often prayed.

Honours and legacy

In 1954, the University of St Andrews awarded Menzies an honorary doctorate in divinity. She is commemorated on 24 November in the calendar of the Scottish Episcopal Church.

Hyland argues that Menzies's books on Columba and Margaret were important landmarks in historical and ecumenical study because they avoided the polemical treatment of the so-called Celtic Church common in some earlier Protestant writing. He also places her among Anglican women writers who made historical and spiritual scholarship accessible to lay readers.

Her legacy is also connected with the preservation and transmission of Underhill's work. As Underhill's literary executor and editor, Menzies helped preserve and circulate Underhill's retreat addresses, papers, diaries, and devotional writings after Underhill's death. Her own translations of Malaval, Tourville, and Mechthild contributed to the English-language recovery of contemplative and mystical texts in the twentieth century.

Selected works

Saint Columba of Iona: A Study of His Life, His Times, & His Influence (1920) A Book of Saints for the Young (1923) The Saints in Italy: A Book of Reference to the Saints in Italian Art and Dedication (1924) Saint Margaret Queen of Scotland (1925) Caucasian Folk-Tales, selected and translated from Adolf Dirr (1925) Mirrors of the Holy: Ten Studies in Sanctity (1928) The First-Friend: An Anthology of the Friendships of Man and Dog (1929) François Malaval, A Simple Method of Raising the Soul to Contemplation, translated by Menzies, with an introduction by Evelyn Underhill (1931) Henri de Tourville, Letters of Direction, translated by Menzies, with an introduction by Evelyn Underhill (1939) Evelyn Underhill, Light of Christ, with memoir by Menzies (1944) Evelyn Underhill, Collected Papers of Evelyn Underhill, edited by Menzies (1946) Charles Kingsley, The Water Babies, abridged with a memoir by Menzies (1946) Father Wainright: A Record (1947) Evelyn Underhill, Shrines and Cities of France and Italy, edited by Menzies (1949) Mechthild of Magdeburg, The Revelations of Mechthild of Magdeburg; or, The Flowing Light of the Godhead, translated by Menzies (1953) Evelyn Underhill, An Anthology of the Love of God, edited by Lumsden Barkway and Menzies (1953) Edward Keble Talbot, Retreat Addresses, edited by Menzies (1954)