English Convents in Catholic Europe, c.1600–1800, by James E. Kelly

Abstract

The key insight behind James Kelly’s meticulously researched exploration of early modern English convents in Catholic Europe is that ‘nationality was but a characteristic’ of these convents’ identities, ‘rather than the defining element’ (p. 186). In contrast to scholars who have foregrounded these institutions’ ‘Englishness’, Kelly argues that, even if they could never completely escape their national identity, English convents understood themselves first and foremost as members of an international Catholic Church. In this sense, Kelly’s work is part of a broader historiographical reaction against the exceptionalism that has traditionally dominated the study of early modern English religious history. This reaction has been particularly pronounced among historians of English Catholicism, who are increasingly coming to recognise that English Catholics at home and abroad were not isolated from the broader international movement for Catholic renewal often referred to as the ‘Counter-Reformation’, but active participants in it. Kelly’s work furthers our understanding...