English Catholic Research Articles

Chaucer and Religious Controversies in the Medieval and Early Modern Eras

Chaucer and Religious Controversies in the Medieval and Early Modern Eras

Chaucer and Religious Controversies in the Medieval and Early Modern Eras

Chaucer and Religious Controversies in the Medieval and Early Modern Eras

Resettlement of British and Irish Catholics to Continental Europe in 16<sup>th</sup>—18<sup>th</sup> Centuries

The problem of large-scale migration of British and Irish Catholics to continental Europe in the 16th—18th centuries is investigated. The relevance of the study is due to the fact that the religious schools of Catholics in Europe were seen as examples of pious communities, the foundations on which the emerging traditions of religious tolerance, stability and commercial prosperity were built in England. It is noted that this fueled the arguments of the supporters of liberal religious reforms in the UK in the 19th century. The novelty of the study is seen in the fact that the study of the movement of Catholics to Europe makes it possible to reveal the degree of influence of religious schools on British politics and public opinion, to understand how the expatriate community in exile functioned, adapted and communicated. Migration has been proven to be most intense during the Elizabethan period and early Stuart reign, but its impact on religious life in Britain and Ireland was felt over a longer period, until the end of the 18th century. The authors conclude that for Catholics who remained in England, religious institutions in Europe were not only a source of supply of missionary priests and religious literature, but also a link with the continental Counter-Reformation.

The False Dmitry and James the Old Pretender: Mary Pix’s The Czar of Muscovy

The British dramatist Mary Pix’s (1666–1709) play The Czar of Muscovy (1701) has received limited and inconsistent critical attention compared to her other plays. This paper offers a fresh analysis of the play, which depicts the rule of the Russian pretender Dmitry Ivanovic, which lasted from 1605 to 1606 when he was killed in an uprising. The reading centralizes the history of false Dmitry during the Time of Troubles and his dramatic role as a figurative representation of the English Catholic pretender James Edward Francis Stuart (James the Old Pretender). Pix manipulates the public and private image of the False Dmitry (called Demetrius in the play) to undermine the Catholic pretender James’ claim to the English throne. This can be seen through a comparison of their public image and similar biographical details. Demetrius’ private image displays his tyranny and effeminacy, which are exposed through his treatment of the key women in his life: Queen Marina, his supposed mother Empress Sophia, and his captive Zarriana. In their own ways, the three women help him to reach the throne only to destroy him. Their dramatization as powerful agents who face oppression and achieve triumph is a message to Pix’s female audience to emulate the female characters and prevent the restoration of the pretender. Thus, Russian history emerges as a dynamic and unifying force that transcends time and geography.

The English Catholic Dream of Gerontius: An Aesthetic Synthesis of Newman and Elgar

Due to inherent paradoxy and limited sample size, fin-de-siècle English Catholic aesthetics are difficult to define, especially in the case of music. At the turn of the nineteenth century, English music and Catholic theology underwent a period of intense development and reconstruction, yet the intersection of theology and musical aesthetics in this era is largely under-researched. This paper identifies one such intersection using two monumental figures in theology and music: John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890) and composer Edward Elgar (1857-1934). Newman’s theology provided a basis on which fin-de-siècle artists and poets could express their faith; such figures are associated with decadence. For both Newman and Elgar, decadent Catholicism combined with the traditionally Protestant English environment resulted in a complex relationship with their country and the continent. This paper examines this complex and paradoxical relationship between faith and nationality, and thus defines English Catholic aesthetics as they are expressed by Newman and Elgar.

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

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...

Prize Announcement: The British Catholic History Best Article Prize

Prize Announcement: The <i>British Catholic History</i> Best Article Prize

Encounters with Music in Rudolf II's Prague

AbstractThis article uses three well-known members of Rudolf II's imperial court—the astronomer Johannes Kepler, the composer Philippe de Monte, and the adventurer Kryštof Harant—to delineate some ways music helped Europeans understand identity and difference in the early modern period. For Kepler, the unfamiliar intervals of a Muslim prayer he heard during the visit of an Ottoman delegation offered empirical support for his larger arguments about the harmonious properties of Christian song and its resonances in a divinely ordered universe. For Harant, listening and singing were a means of sounding out commonalities and differences with the Christians and Muslims he encountered on his travels through the Holy Land. Monte sent his music across Europe to the English recusant William Byrd, initiating a compositional exchange that imagined beleaguered Bohemian and English Catholics as Israelites in exile, yearning for Jerusalem. Collectively, these three case studies suggest that musical thinking in Rudolfine Prague did not revolve around or descend from the court or sovereign; rather, Rudolf II's most erudite subjects listened, sang, and composed to understand themselves in relation to others.

Confessional Mobility and English Catholics in Counter‐Reformation Europe. By LiesbethCorens. Oxford University Press. 2019. xiii + 240pp. £63.00.

Confessional Mobility and English Catholics in Counter‐Reformation Europe. By LiesbethCorens. Oxford University Press. 2019. xiii + 240pp. £63.00.

Renewing the Auld Alliance: Marie Stuart’s poetics and the Catholic League’s politics☆

AbstractFew historical sovereigns’ political fate and posthumous image have been as influenced by creative literature as those of Marie, Queen of Scots, yet comparatively little attention has been paid to how she depicted herself in her own poetry. Most research devoted to her verse over the past two decades has been undertaken by scholars of English literature, despite the fact that Marie Stuart was neither English, nor did she write poetry in that language. Acknowledging that Marie considered France her homeland and French her mother tongue, this article examines the poems contained in Oxford MS. Add C.92, fol.22 as works of Francophone literature and situates them within a transnational historical context that has also been understudied: the intersection of the English Catholic exile cause in Paris with the politics and propaganda of France’s Catholic League, led by Marie’s cousin, Henri, Duke of Guise. It seeks to clarify not only the language and meaning of the poems themselves, but also to highlight how they draw from and contribute to a larger pool of French poetic and political discourse during the French Wars of Religion.

Representing England in Rome: Sermons from the Early Modern English College to Popes and Cardinals

ABSTRACT This article explores how preaching at the English College in Rome, c.1580–1603, can illuminate questions of national identity, Anglo-Italian exchanges, inter-confessional conflict and the symbiotic relationship of religious and national identities for English Catholics. It investigates in detail texts from a hitherto little-studied manuscript at the English College, Rome, whose large collection of homiletic and other rhetorical texts offers an unequalled insight into preaching at the College and adds valuably to our knowledge of preaching in Counter-Reformation Rome. The article looks at how English College preachers dealt with subjects such as persecution and martyrdom, England's ‘apostasy’, England's history and relations with Rome, and their place in the international Church. It reveals how the College and its members positioned themselves in both their English and their Roman contexts.

The King’s Psalms — or the Pope’s? Katherine Parr’s Psalms or Prayers, Scriptural Collage, and English Catholic Devotion

ABSTRACT Scholars have long known that early modern Protestants adapted Catholic devotional texts for their own religious purposes, yet early modern Catholic uses of Protestant devotional material are rare. This article focuses on a surprising fact: that one of the most important English Catholic devotional texts, the Manual of Prayers (first ed., 1583), incorporates three psalms from Katherine Parr's Psalms or Prayers (first ed. 1544). Parr's text translates John Fisher's Psalmi seu Precationes (ca. 1525), a collection of collage psalms assembled from scripture; her translations are credited with an important role in shaping Protestant piety and popularizing collage psalms. But they were also easily assimilated to English Catholic devotion. The case of the Manual's use of Parr’s use of Fisher’s use of the Bible testifies to the popularity and flexibility of collage psalms across confessional lines, and to the importance of found language in early modern devotion.

Priestly playwright, secular priest: William Drury’s Latin and English drama

This article examines the literary career of the secular priest William Drury, with an emphasis on his drama. The Latin plays which he wrote for performance at the English College in Douai are among the best-known English Catholic college dramas of the Stuart era; markedly different from the Jesuit drama which dominates the corpus of British Catholic college plays, they suggest conscious dissociation from that imaginative tradition. Hierarchomachia: or the Anti-Bishop, a satirical closet drama which intervenes in the controversy surrounding the legitimacy and extent of England’s Catholic episcopacy, can also be attributed to Drury. In both his Latin and English drama, Drury draws imaginative stimulus from his ideological opposition to Jesuits and other regulars. Yet his characteristic blend of didacticism and comedy, and his sympathy for the plight of all English Catholics—surely fomented by the death of his Jesuit brother in the notorious “Fatal Vesper”—point to broader priestly concerns.

Г. К. ЧЕСТЕРТОН ЯК ПРЕДСТАВНИК АНГЛІЙСЬКОГО КАТОЛИЦЬКОГО ВІДРОДЖЕННЯ І ЙОГО СТАВЛЕННЯ ДО БРЕХНІ

The article is dedicated to the issue of lying revealed in works of G. K. Chesterton, first of all in his “Orthodoxy”. This thinker reveals the most serious mistakes in the manner of thinking of his contemporaries, because he sees the danger of deadlock in such scenario of scientific development as well as the threat to ruin the foundation of common sense, reason and mind. Chesterton is one of the most prominent writers of English Catholic Revival style of the first part of the XX century. The activity of representatives of this style is connected with the attempt to answer to the challenges of their time, which have the attitude to appearance and development of new tendencies in philosophy and culture. The representatives of these tendencies rejected Christian manner of viewing a person and the world, the result of which was the anxiety and confusion. These tendencies also implicated the disguised lack of congruence as well as substantial errancy; – the consequence was the ruin of inner world of a person. Chesterton’s “Orthodoxy” is closely connected with his wish to unmask the vices of his time and to communicate his own understanding of the Truth. The writer tells about his own way to find the truth in Christianity and in the same time he reveals the disguised lying. One of his approaches to prove his point of view is to analyze the facts and to do it fairly and in integral way. With this aim he uses the logic, which operates the facts and does it in proper way, considering the true and real facts. This logic has the intention to move ahead and avoid the tendencies to be reframed into the vicious circle. The other important and interesting approach of Chesterton in the course of facts interpretation is rather “illogical” and includes the faith as the ground for the very possibility of thinking, and therefore for the very existence of logic. He states that there is no sense to set a question of choice between the faith and logic, because the very logic is the question of faith – our thoughts have to be admitted as the ones which have the attitude to reality, and this is the matter of faith.

A Stylistic Study of English Catholic Death Prayers

A Stylistic Study of English Catholic Death Prayers

Englishwomen at Madrid and Brussels in the 17th century: women’s patronage and English Catholic exiles overseas

The article presents an attempt to reconstruct a communication network of Jane Dormer, Duchess of Feria). A lady at the court of Mary I of England and a wife of a Spanish grand, she was a powerful patroness of English Catholic exiles and helped them enter the Habsburg patronage network. The analysis of political activities of the Duchess of Feria (which included exchange of political information and patronage) compared with that of other women patronesses, first of all, Anne Percy, Countess of Northumberland made it possible to define parameters of women’s patronage. It has been shown that connections to the court of Mary I of England that was partially integrated into the system of Habsburg courts made it easier for the former Marian courtiers to find patrons within transnational clientele of the Habsburgs

Liesbeth Corens. Confessional Mobility and English Catholics in Counter-Reformation Europe.

L<scp>iesbeth</scp> C<scp>orens</scp>. <i>Confessional Mobility and English Catholics in Counter-Reformation Europe</i>.

Confessional Mobility and English Catholics in Counter-Reformation Europe, by Liesbeth Corens

Confessional Mobility and English Catholics in Counter-Reformation Europe, by Liesbeth Corens

:Confessional Mobility and English Catholics in Counter-Reformation Europe

:<i>Confessional Mobility and English Catholics in Counter-Reformation Europe</i>

England and the Catholic Reformation: The Peripheries Strike Back

Abstract Although the Protestant Reformation has traditionally been the focus of research on early modern England, the last two decades have witnessed a rapid increase in scholarship on the experience of the country’s Catholics. Questions surrounding the implementation of the Catholic Reformation in England have been central since the topic’s inception as a subject of academic interest, and the field has more recently captured the attention of, amongst others, literary scholars, musicologists and those working on visual and material culture. This article is a position paper that argues early modern English Catholicism, though not doing away with all continuities from before the country’s definitive break with Rome, was fully engaged with the global Catholic Reformation, both being influenced by it, but also impacting its progression. Whether through reading and writing, or more physical expressions of mission and reform, English Catholicism was a vital part of the wider Catholic Reformation.