The Catholic Historical
Review
VOL. LXXXVJANUARY, 1999No. 1

MULIERES RELIGIOSAE, STRICTLY SPEAKING:
SOME FOURTEENTH-CENTURY
CANONICAL OPINIONS
BY

Elizabeth Makowski*

At the start of the fourteenth century, a religious woman was defined
by canon law as one who had not only taken the three vows of poverty,
chastity, and obedience, but who had also made solemn profession in an
already existing religious order.1 Additionally, solemn vows committed
the mulier religiosa to strict claustration.2 Community life absent
*Dr. Makowski is an associate professor of history in Southwest Texas State University,
San Marcos.

'The Fourth Lateran Council (1215) forbade the founding of new religious orders and
stated that henceforth anyone who wished to become a religious would have to enter
one of the already approved orders: Joannes Dominicus Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum

nova et amplissima collectio (Florence, 1759-1798;rtp.Graz, 196l),XX, 1002; an English
facing-text of the council's decree can be found in Norman Tanner (ed.), Decrees of the
Ecumenical Councils (Washington, D.C., 1990), p. 242. The canons of the Second Council of Lyon (1274) repeated the Lateran ban, adding that any new order which had arisen
since 1215, without express papal confirmation, was to be suppressed: Tanner,Decrees, p.
326. This decree was incorporated into the collection of canon law known as the Liber
Sextus {VI 3.17.1), published in 1 298, and medieval canonists would cite it from this collection. Pope Boniface VIII subsequently removed any ambiguity about the way in which
an approved community could admit new members. The candidate for religious life
would not only pronounce the traditional vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, but
also make formal profession. The public act of profession, signified by the assumption of
a distinctive habit, was considered the action by which the vows of religion were made
solemn: VI 3. 1 5- 1 ; the Latin text can be found in the standard modern edition of the body

of medieval canon law: Emil Friedberg (ed.), Corpus iuris canonici (Leipzig, 1879; rpt.
Graz, 1959), II, 1053.

The 1298 Bonifacian constitution Periculoso {VI 3. 16.1; Friedberg, Corpus, II, 10531054) stipulated that all professed nuns observe cloister regulations. Claustration rules
strictly limit the occasions on which outsiders, even members of the clergy, could enter a

2

MUUERES REUGIOSAE, STRICTLY SPEAKING: SOME FOURTEENTH-CENTURY OPINIONS

one or more of these characteristics was regarded as semi- or quasireligious, and while this juridical status did not automatically involve
ecclesiastical censure (both Franciscan and Dominican tertiaries

flourished with papal approval), it could. This was especially true for
semi-religious women who, in the absence of formal religious profession, lived in uncloistered communities—the well-known condemna-

tion of the Béguines at the Council ofVienne being a case in point.3
Despite the threat of inquisitorial investigation, however, quasireligious women's groups continued to thrive. In the Southern Low
Countries, the Béguines found local patrons and new, unenclosed, female religious orders emerged; Italianpinzochere and uncloistered penitential groups abounded, and in Germany canonesses maintained their
venerable, if irregular, community life.4 And while there are many reasons for quasi-religious resilience, one stands out in sharp relief: Alongwomen's monastery, and they forbade unauthorized exits, save for emergencies. For a detailed study of this decree see: Elizabeth Makowski, Canon Law and Cloistered Women:
Periculoso and its Commentators 1298- 1545 (Washington D.C., 1997). Although I disagree with Katherine Gill's statement that"Periculoso did not represent either a dramatic
turning point or a culmination in the history of women's religious institutions" —general
acceptance of a papal ruling being only one measure of its significance—her observation
that the decree might actually have encouraged the spread of semi-religious communities
is noteworthy. See Katherine Gill, "Scandala: Controversies Concerning Clausura and
Women's Religious Communities in Late Medieval Italy," in Christendom and Its Discon-

tents, edd. Scott Waugh and Peter Diehl (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 177-203.
»With the publication of the decree Cum de quibusdam by Pope John XXII in 1317,
Béguines, whose semi-religious status defied traditional categorization, found themselves
forced for nearly a century to defend against charges of hypocrisy, heresy, or both. The decree was published in the last official decretal collection known by canon lawyers as the
Constitutiones Clementinae or Clementines. A summary of its chief points will follow.
For a survey of the consequences of this legislation for the Béguines see Ernest McDon-

nell, The Béguines and Beghards in Medieval Culture (New York, 1969).
4On Béguines in the Southern Low Countries see Walter Simons, "The Beguine Movement in the Southern Low Countries: A Reassessment," Bulletin de l'Institut Historique

Belge de Rome, 59 (1989), 63-105; Joanna Ziegler, Sculpture of Compassion: The Pietà
and the Béguines in the Southern Low Countries cl300- 1600 (Rome and Brussels,
1992), and Ziegler,"The Curtis Béguinages in the Southern Low Countries," Bulletin de
l'Institut Historique Belge de Rome, 57 (1987), 31-70. For the new unenclosed orders
see Craig Harline,"Actives and Contemplatives: Female Religious of the Low Countries be-

fore and after Trent," Catholic Historical Review, 81 (October, 1995), 541-567. Gill, op.
cit., y Pennings, "Semi-Religious Women in 15th Century Rome," Mededelingen van bet

Nederlands Historisch Instituut te Rome, XLVU/n.s. 12 (1987), 1 15-145, and essays in E.
Ann Matter (ed.), Creative Women in Medieval and Early Modern Italy (Philadelphia,
1994), illustrate the variety of semi-monastic religious life for Italian women. On the
longevity of the institution of canonesses see Joanna Ziegler, "Secular Canonesses as Antecedent of the Béguines in the Low Countries: An Introduction to Some Older Views,"
Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, 13 (1991), 1 17-135.

BY EUZABETH MAKOWSKI3

side of the narrow canonical definition of the mulier religiosa there existed a broader, popular definition which had been gaining currency
since the twelfth century. According to that definition, devotion, piety,
and striving for Christian perfection, a vita apostólica, not permanent
vows and cloistered spaces, made a woman religious.5
Not surprisingly, founders of, and apologists for, female semi-religious,
throughout the fourteenth century, preferred this broader definition.6
But by the start of the fifteenth century, curial judgments favoring quasireligious women were handed down on the strength of opinions solicited, not from partisans, but from canon lawyers—a group that we
might well expect to be strict interpretationists and zealous guardians
of the letter of the law.7 For example, canonistic support for the cause
of the Brethren of the Common Life— a "brotherhood" with an ironi-

cally disproportionate number of female members—led the Council of

Constance (final session, April, 1418) to rule that the group was entirely
above suspicion in spite of the fact that its members followed no approved rule nor took permanent vows.8
5On the twelfth-century idea of the vita apostólica, see Herbert Grundmann, Religious
Movements in the MiddleAges, trans. Steven Rowan (Notre Dame, Indiana, 1995), chap. 1 .
First published in 1935, Grundmann's analysis of women's religious activity in the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries remains a classic. It is telling that early Béguines were referred to
as religious women even by those within the hierarchy (like the Dominican, Humbert of
Romans) who were less than happy about the behavior of some of their number: Grund-

mann, op. cit. , p. 1 40; Ziegler, Sculpture, p. 69. And while notions of what constituted the
"apostolic" or devout life would change in course of a century—by the fourteenth century communal life supported by manual labor, rather than by mendicancy was favored—
supporters of quasi-religious women's groups continued to defend them in language that
was virtually the same as that used by the earliest supporters of the Béguines, e.g. Jacques
de Vitry. On the history of the word and concept of religio see : Peter Biller,"Words and the

Medieval Notion of'Religion,'"/o«rna/ ofEcclesiastical History, 36 (July, 1985), 35 1-369.
'Gerard Groóte (d. 1 384), for example, defended his Sisters of the Common Life, arguing that devout women serving God in the privacy of their own homes, without taking
monastic vows, were just as religious as the nuns in their convents; on Groote's attitudes
toward semi-monastic life, and much else, see R. R. Post, The Modern Devotion (Leiden,

1968), chap. 1.
The conservative bent of late medieval canonists when dealing with religious women
is indeed evident in their academic commentary (see for instance the treatment of Periculoso, Makowski, op. cit.). Furthermore, modern historians often use terms like "churchmen" or "the hierarchical church" when referring to the late medieval opponents of
semi-religious organizations, thus reinforcing the impression of monolithic high-church
structure in which the leading canonists would have had a vested interest. In these instances, however, more accurate reference might be to "conservative elements within the
hierarchy."

"Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum, XXVIII, 386-394, contains a summary of the council's
proceedings in this case. For an analysis of the relationship of the Sisters of the Common

4

MUUERES REUGIOSAE, STRICTLY SPEAKLNG: SOME FOURTEENTH-CENTURY OPINIONS

Commenting on the remarkable victory of the Brethren of the Common Life at the Council of Constance, R. W Southern states that an understanding of why the Brethren attached so much importance to living
without vows would allow us to "understand why [canon] lawyers who
shared their feelings interpreted the law in their favour."9 Because it
seemed to me that the support of canon lawyers in this instance was at
least as noteworthy as the victory of the Brethren, I began an investigation of legal literature written in the century preceding the council in
the hope of finding precedent for this decision. The preliminary results
of that study, presented here, suggest the extent to which fourteenthcentury canonists, influenced by popular notions of female religiosity,
supported the legitimacy, if not the superiority, of quasi-religious status
for women, thus anticipating the landmark decision at Constance.10
Academic Commentary
Recent scholarly interest in the Béguines has made Pope Clement Vs
decree Cum de quibusdam the best-known piece of fourteenthcentury legislation concerned with quasi-religious women. Yet the canonical collection in which this decree was published, the Clementines,
contains laws pertaining to the much older semi-religious group known
as secular canonesses. Long before 816, when the Council of Aachen
officially recognized their institution, secular canonesses provided a
quasi-religious alternative to convent life for aristocratic women in Germany, France, and the Low Countries. Taking no vows, these women retained rights to private property and the ability to leave their convents
Life to the Béguines, see Florence Koorn, "Women without vows. The case of the Béguines
and the Sisters of the Common Life in the Northern Netherlands," in Elisja Schulte van
Kessel (ed.), Women and Men in Spiritual Culture XLV-XVII Centuries (The Hague,

1986), pp. 135-147.
'R. W. Southern, Western Society and the Church in the MiddleAges (Harmondsworth,
Middlesex, 1970), p. 343.
'"Robert Lerner, The Heresy of the Free Spirit (Berkeley, California, 1972), p. 162, notes
the special significance of the council in the history of quasi-religious women: Attempts
at neat chronology are most often artificial, but an argument can be made that the concerted campaign against béguines, beghards, and antinomian heretics was abandoned at
the Council of Constance, exactly a century after John XXII had promulgated the persecuting decrees of the previous ecumenical Council of Vienne." Note also that the attitude
of the council fathers supports John Van Engen's observation: "The most striking feature
of the fifteenth-century European church was its forbearance with a complex variety of
institutional and personal expressions that its sixteenth-century heirs would not allow."
John Van Engen, "The Church in the Fifteenth Century," in Handbook of European History 1400-1600, edd. Thomas Brady, Jr., et. al. (Leiden, New York, 1994), 1, 309.

BY EUZABETH MAKOWSKI5

at any time." The Clementine decree Attendentes, which deals with the
visitation of nuns, concludes with a reference to this suspect, yet enduring, group:
We also order, by our apostolic authority, that these women who are commonly called secular canonesses and who lead a life like that of secular
canons, making no renunciation of private property and no profession,
should be visited by the local ordinaries. ... By this, however, we are not intending to approve the status, rule or order of secular canonesses.12

The noted Bolognese law professor and author of the standard (ordinary) gloss (running commentary) to the Clementines, Johannes An-

dreae (d. 1348), singles out this reference in Attendentes." Citing the
words secular canonesses, he draws the reader's attention to three

pieces of previous ecclesiastical legislation. The earliest, included in
Gratian's Decretum, declared that the inheritance of clerics who died

intestate, as well as that of women referred to simply as sanctimoniales, devolved to the church which they had served in life.14 The second
supporting text, Pope Honorius HFs reply to a petition from the abbess
of Quedlinburg, sought to solve a disciplinary problem at the abbey. Although making it clear that the abbess lacked the power to excommunicate recalcitrant canonesses and clerics under her jurisdiction, the
pope confirmed her rights over her subordinates in no uncertain
terms.15

Johannes' third proof text was a decree of Pope Boniface VII which
dealt with the election of monastic superiors in nunneries.16 Boniface
"See Ziegler, op. cit., on the importance of recognizing fundamental similarities between quasi-religious canonesses and Béguines. Suzanne Fonay Wemple, Women in

Frankish Society: Marriage and the Cloister 500 to 900 (Philadelphia, 1981), pp. 168174, provides an introduction to the subject of secular canonesses.
12C/eȔ.3.10.2.The Latin text can be found in Friedberg, Corpus, II, 1168-1169.
"Johannes Andreae, Glos. ord. to Clem., 3.10.2, ad verbum: canonicae seculares, in
Corpus iuris canonici (Venice, 1584), p. 216. A gloss is a series of marginal comments traditionally copied around the edges of a manuscript page with the text at the center. For
an introduction to the work of Johannes Andreae, as well as to the methods of medieval
canonists in general, see James A. Hrunàa%e,Medieval Canon Law (New York, 1995).

'This declaration ex concilio Triburiensi is cited by Johannes as 12 quit. cult. [C. 12.
q.5. c.7]. As with the designation religious women generally, the term sanctimoniales
(holy nuns) is not used with consistency in medieval ecclesiastical sources. Here, with the
addition of some details regarding the possession of private property,Johannes clearly believes that it designates secular canonesses. Note that the rule of life devised by the Council of Aachen for secular canonesses was entitled the institutio Sanctimonialium.

"de mato. & obe. dilecta [X, 1.33- 12.] .This petition is included in the Decretals of Gregory LX, more commonly known as the Liber extra, hence the abbreviation, x.

'6de elect. c.indemnitatibus,penul lib. 6 [VL 1.6.43].

6

MULIERES REUGIOSAE, STRICTLY SPEAKING: SOME FOURTEENTH-CENTURY OPINIONS

required that his guidelines for nuns be applied equally to secular
canonesses, with the exception that since secular canonesses did not
make religious profession they were naturally exempt from the requirement that candidates for the office of abbess be fully professed
members of their communities. "By this, however," Boniface had immediately added, "we do not wish nor intend to approve their status, order,
or rule."

Johannes Andreae does not comment on any of his above-cited authorities, at least two of which betray no animus toward the institution
of secular canonesses; but it is not difficult to see that they are united by
a common theme. Whether the issue is one of the retention of personal
property in the absence of a vow of poverty (and hence canonical con-

cerns about inheritance rights), jurisdiction over clerics, or the disregard of solemn religious profession, with all that entailed, secular
canonesses lived lives of"irregularity" in relation to the life outlined for
mulieres religiose, strictly speaking. This fact alone accounts for the ambivalence of the authorities that Johannes cites, and, ultimately, for his
own negative judgment.
When glossing the word approbare (to approve), as it appears in Attendentes, Johannes writes cryptically: "rather it [the status or order of
secular canonesses] seems to be disapproved."17 To support his terse
conclusion, Johannes appends a final proof text, a decree from the Second Lateran Council, 1139:
We decree that the pernicious and detestable custom which has spread
among some women who, although they live neither according to the rule

of blessed Benedict, nor Basil nor Augustine, yet wish to be thought of by
everyone as nuns, is to be abolished. For when, living according to the rule
in monasteries, they ought to be in church or in the refectory or dormitory
in common, they build for themselves their own retreats and private
dwelling places where, under the guise of hospitality, indiscriminately and
without any shame they receive guests and secular persons contrary to the
sacred canons and good morals. Because everyone who does evil hates the

light, these women think that, hidden in the tabernacle of the just, they
can conceal themselvesfrom the eyes oftheJudge who sees everything; so
we prohibit in every way this unrighteous, hateful, and disgraceful conduct
and forbid it to continue under pain of anathema.18
"Johannes Andreae, Glos. ord. to Clem. 3.10.2, p. 216, ad verbum approbare. "immo
reprobari videtur 18. q.2. pemiciosam [C.28 q.2 c.25]."
'This English translation (emphases mine) is found in Tanner, op. cit., p. 203. This decree is included in the Decretum at C.28 q.2 c.25, and the Latin text can be found in Friedberg, Corpus, 1, 836.

BY EUZABETH MAKOWSKI7

A condemnation not of secular canonesses in general, but only of
some alleged abuses among them, this harshly worded Lateran decree
with its emphasis on potential deception—a theme that will emerge
again and again with reference to the Béguines—sufficed to justify Johannes Andreae's negative opinion.
As the ordinary gloss on the Clementines, Johannes Andreae's
opinions circulated widely and influenced subsequent generations of
canonists. We see this influence at work in the treatment of secular

canonesses by another notable jurist, Cardinal Franciscus Zabarella (d.
1417). 19 When glossing the relevant section of Attendentes Cardinal
Zabarella begins with Johannes Andreae's condemnation and concludes that the status of secular canoness, while allowed to exist, is one

fraught with peril for the women involved.20 Citing the rule of law: "He
who is silent does not openly confess [to something] , but neither does
he undoubtedly deny it," the cardinal warns that mere permission of the
papacy cannot be equated with approval of a state of life that might certainly lead to sin.21
Cum de quibusdam, a more famous Clementine decree, ruled
against the newer, less socially privileged, and even more amorphously
organized quasi-religious Béguines. It referred to them as "certain
women, commonly called Béguines who . . . promise no one obedience
and neither renounce property nor live in accordance with an approved rule, and consequently can in no wise be considered religious. . . ."22
"For a biographical sketch of this canonist, who is perhaps best known for his defense
of conciliarism during the papal schism, see The New Catholic Encyclopedia (New York,
1 967), XTV, 1 10 1 ; on his work see J. Friedrich von Schulte,öfe Geschichte der Quellen und

Literatur des canonischen Rechts von Gratian bis aufdie Gegenwart (rpt. Graz, 1956),
II, 283-285. See footnote 24 below for another illustration of the impact of Johannes Andreae's trendsetting interpretation of the law on semi-religious women.

"Franciscus Zabarella, Lectura super Clementinis (Venice, 1499), gloss to Clem.,
310.2, pp. 136-138. The cardinal says that he follows Guilelmus de Monte Lauduno (see
below) as well as Johannes Andreae in this opinion, and he notes the former's reference
to Boniface VLTTs decree Periculoso: Nuns are supposed to be enclosed, and canonesses
subvert this ruling.
"Ibid., p. 137 ad v. Illas:". . . propterea papa non approbat sed permittit nee propter
talem permissionem est earum status sine vicio cum sit de se malus." The cardinal uses
proof texts such as Saint John Chrysostom on the permissibility of second marriages
(C.3 1 q. 1 c.9) to illustrate that the pope might unwillingly permit something that is not in
itself good, since "it is impossible to completely prohibit mankind's evil inclinations." The
rule of law cited is regular XLV: Is, qui tacet, nonfatetur; sed nee utique negare videtur.

"Clem. 3.11.1. The Latin text can be found in Friedberg, Corpus, II, 1169-1170. See
Jacqueline Tarrant, "The Clementine Decrees on the Béguines: Conciliar and Papal Ver-

8

MUUERES REUGIOSAE, STRICTLY SPEAKING: SOME FOURTEENTH-CENTURY OPINIONS

The stern language of the decree was considerably modified, however, by its conclusion. In what constitutes a saving clause, women living "as the Lord shall inspire them . . . chastely together in their
lodgings," even if they take no vows, are excluded from condemnation
as long as they express no heretical views.
Needless to say, the vagueness of this directive caused considerable
confusion among ecclesiastical authorities, especially in Germany. In his
gloss to Cum de quibusdam, Johannes Andreae alludes to this confusion, but does not elaborate on it.23 He presents instead a most conservative reading of the text: This constitution damns and abolishes the way
of life of the Béguines and excommunicates their followers and those
religious who give them aid and counsel, albeit a penitential way of life

humbly practiced by women is not thereby prohibited. The three vows
of poverty, chastity, and obedience constitute the essence of religious
life, and they alone are the marks of a true religious. Thus, the sisters of
the third order of St. Francis (those tertiaries who still live with their

spouses albeit abstaining from sexual relations certain days of the week
as part of their way of life [modus vivendi]}, are not religious strictly
speaking, but, unlike the Béguines, they are above suspicion since they
make a promise of obedience and their way of life has been approved
by the Holy See.24
While not elaborating on the exact nature of the Beguine way of life,
Johannes clearly believes that the principal fault of these women was

that they imitated religious life, while forgoing its essentials, the simulation of sanctity being compared to the "double iniquity" of sham jussions," Archivum Historiae Pontiflcae, 12 (1974), 300-308, for an examination of the
often misunderstood texts of both Cum de quibusdam and Ad nostram. Note that Ad
Nostram {Clem . 5 . 3 . 3) also mentions the "faithless " Béguines but focuses on eight specific
doctrinal errors attributed to the "abominable sect of wicked men, commonly called

Beghards," as well. I do not include this decree since the commentarial literature that I
have looked at contains references only to points of doctrine and not to the question of
quasi-religious status.
23Johannes Andreae, Glos. ord. to Clem. 3-11.1 in Corpus iuris canonici (Venice,

1584), p. 2l6:"Dicitur quaedam declaratoria super hac constitutione émanasse, quam de
curia habere non potui, et a quibusdam audivi quod a curia non manavit.Vidi autem duas
contrarias, & ut puto in Alemania compositas, quarum altera videbatur edita ad consultationem episcopi Argentinensis." As Tarrant {op. cit. , p. 307, footnote 22) notes, Johannes
is referring to a letter sent in 1318 by Bishop Johannes de Dirpheim of Strasbourg describing the confusion caused by the implementation of the Clementine decrees in his
diocese and elsewhere in Germany.

24Lbid., pp. 215 and 216, ad verbum obedientiam. Note that Tarrant credits Johannes
Andreae with setting the tone for other glossators in his reading of Cum de quibusdam
as a general condemnation of all Béguines.

BY EUZABETH MAKOWSKI9

tice—doubly evil since the evil done entirely consumes the good.25 Finally, he underscores the distinction between Béguines and the "humble penitents" that Cum de quibusdam exonerates by appending a
lengthy discussion of the vital (and essentially monastic) virtue of humility.26
Both Cardinal Zabarella and his distinguished student, Petrus de An-

charano (d. I4l6), glossed Cum de quibusdam, and neither proved
sympathetic to women living in the unstructured manner that the decree outlined.27 Cardinal Zabarella employed the time-honored image of
the wolf in sheep's clothing with reference to the "deceptive" grey- or
brown-habited German Béguines, "many of whom live[d] beyond the
Alps."28 Both men drew the connection between Béguines and those
other unlicensed religious innovators commonly referred to as fratricelli,fratres depaupere vita, bicochii, or bighmi, and treated their readers to second-hand reports about the lascivious ways of the Béguines as
well.29

Although Lapus Tactus (d. 1320) and Panormitanus (Niccolo de Tudeschi, d. c. 1445, perhaps the most influential of the late medieval canonists) wrote commentaries on the Clementines, Lapus chose not to gloss
Cum de quibusdam and Panormitanus merely restated a few key
points made in the ordinary gloss. It is only with the publication of
Pope John XXIIs decretal, Ratio recta (1318), that we have an indication that not all influential canonists favored denying Béguines orthodox, and even religious, status.30
"Lbid.,p. 217, ad verbum sanctitatis.
26Lbid.,p. 217, ad verbum humilitatis.

27Franciscus Zabarella, Lectura super Clementinis to Clem. 3.11.1 (Venice, 1499), pp.
138-139; Petrus de Ancharano, Lectura super Clementinis to Clem. 3.11.1 (Venice,

1493), p. 77-78. On the work of Petrus de Ancharano, see Schulte, op. cit., ?, 278-283.
2,Zabarella, Lectura, p. 138. For a discussion of the significance of the style of clothing
worn by Béguines see: Kate Galea,"Unhappy Choices: Factors That Contributed to the Decline and Condemnation of the Béguines," Vox Benedictina, 10 (1993), 56-73.
29Zabarella, loc. cit.; Petrus de Ancharano, Lectura, p. 77, reports that ". . . dum mariti
earum per tres dies in ebdomoda iuxta ritum ipsarum abstinebant a thoro Ulis diebus biganatum cum suis amoratoribus duplicabant."
30A year earlier, Pope John XXII had issued the decree Sancta Romana, condemning
the Spiritual Franciscans. Although aimed at "those men commonly called Fraticelli, or
fratres de paupere vita or Bizochi or Beghini ..." the decree did spark persecution of
both male and female extraregulars, especially tertiaries (see McDonald, op. cit., p. 537).

Note too, that while Zenzelinus de Cassanis (d. 1 334), compiler and author of the ordinary
gloss to the Extravagantesfohannis XXII (the canon law collection in which Sancta Romana appeared), makes no mention of quasi-religious women in his gloss of the decree,
he cites Cum de quibusdam several times as a proof text: Zenzelinus de Cassanis, Glos.

10

MUUERES REUGIOSAE, STRICTLY SPEAKING: SOME FOURTEENTH-CENTURY OPINIONS

Published in response to the undifferentiated persecution of German
Béguines, Ratio recta was a vigorous restatement of Cum de quibusdam's final clause. It sternly warned against harassing those Béguines
who "live with relatives or in their own homes, lead a life beyond reproach, attend church regularly, and submit to local clergy."31 Because
Ratio recta clearly distinguished between orthodox and heretical Béguines, it gave at least one canonist the opportunity to employ popular
usage. Next to the decretal's list of "good" Beguine characteristics,

Guilelmus de Monte Lauduno (d. 1348) penned the short but telling
note: "What religious women ought to do."32
Decisions of the Roman Rota and Consilia

Without significant exception, the academic commentary of the
fourteenth-century lawyers reviewed above gives no indication that
canonists would be among the defenders of quasi-religious women, as
well as men, at the Council of Constance. When we turn our attention

to another genre of legal literature produced during this period, however, the picture is not so bleak. In judicial decisions, and in the legal
opinions {consilia) rendered by fourteenth-century jurists, we see
lawyers facing squarely some of the practical problems created by the
less than clear-cut distinctions between canonical and popular notions
of female religious status.33 Two decisions of the Roman Rota, included
ord. to Exrav.Jo. XXII, 3.7.1, in Corpus iuris canonici (Venice, 1584), pp. 70-75. For the
Latin text oí Sancta Romana see: Jacqueline Tarrant (ed.), Extravagantesfohannis XXLI,

in Monumenta iuris canonici, Corpus collectionum, Vol. 6 (Vatican City, 1983), c. 10, pp.
198-204.

ilRatio recta is found in a final collection of sixty-nine decretals called the Extravagantes communes {Extrav. comm.) at 3-9-1. The Latin text is in Friedberg, Corpus, II,
1279-1280. Guilelmus de Monte Lauduno (Willam of Mont Lauzan) wrote the ordinary
gloss to this collection.
"Religiosae mulleres quodfaceré debeant. Guilelmus de Monte Lauduno, gloss to Extrav. comm. 3.9- 1 in Corpus iuris canonici (Venice, 1584), p. 303- On the life and work of
Guilelmus see Schulte, op. cit.,l\, 197-199.
"Characteristic legal genre of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (as distinguished
from those of the classical period) include legal monographs and consilia. By the fourteenth century decisions of papal courts, especially those of the Roman Rota, as well as
privately solicited consilia, were used to clarify the law and even to create it via decision

instead of decretal. See: Brundage, op. cit., pp. 56 and 180-181, and the introductions to
Norman Zacour,/ews and Saracens in the Consilia of Oldradus de Ponte (Toronto,
1990), and Peter R. Pazzaglini and Catharine Hawks, Consilia.A Bibliography ofHoldings
in the Library of Congress and Certain Other Collections in the United States (Washington D.C., 1990). For some examples of the impact of consilia in fourteenth-century

legal proceedings see: Malcolm Lambert, Franciscan Poverty (London, 1961), pp. 223-

BY EUZABETH MAKOWSKI1 1

in a collection made between 1372 and 1374, focus on such practicalities.34

The first decision concerns the question of whether unprofessed
women, living in communities that have not been papally approved,
should be accorded ecclesiastical immunity. The auditors reply that as
long as these women are in the service of the Church, or wearing reli-

gious habits, they ought to enjoy ecclesiastical immunity. "Although
such women may contract marriage defuturo, they nevertheless live as
religious in the present. It therefore appears that they are ecclesiastical
persons just as those in lower orders (simple clerics), while not bound
by vows, are still ecclesiastics."35
In the second decision, the right to be a patron of a Beguine community is classed as an ecclesiastical right of patronage since, "although
they are seculars, Béguines live religiously and wear a religious habit
and hence do not appear to be merely laity."36
Both Rotal decisions presuppose the valid existence of female quasireligious communities since they debate, not the right of those communities to exist, but, the particular fiscal and legal privileges attending
membership in them. In this respect they seem to anticipate fifteenthcentury ecclesiastical accommodation of the laity as it sought to claim
many of the privileges and practices that had previously been the exclusive preserve of the clergy, monks, and nuns.37 Criticism and suspicion had not ceased, of course, and semi-religious communities
continued to need defense. In a legal consultation that might be re224; and Kenneth Pennington, The Prince and the Law, 1200-1600 (Berkeley, California,
1993), p. 270.
^Decisiones antiquae et novae rotae romanae, a variis auctoribus collectae et editae (Rome, 1483), Hain #6049. The decisions in question are #167, fol. 87, and decision
#332, fol. 88. 1 have also examined these decisions in Decisiones rote nove et antique
cum additionibus casibus dubiis et regulis cancellarie apostolice, diligentissime emendate (Lyon, 1507). On the collection of Rotal decisions see: G. Dolezalek and K. W Nörr,
"Die Rechtsprechungssammlungen der mittelalterlichen Rota," in Handbuch der Quellen
und Literatur der Neueren Europäischen Privatrechtsgeschichte, ed. Helmut Coing (Munich, 1973X1,851-856.
"Decisiones antiquae, clvii, fol. 87: "nam licet mulieres tales possint contrahere matrimonium in futurum tarnen quia de presentí religiose vivunt videntur tarnen ut alie persone ecclesiastice ut clerici simplices aliquo voto non ligati privilego immunitatis gaudere
debent. ita tenet rota."

^Decisiones antiquae, cccxxxii, fol. 88: "quia pósito quod tales beguine sint seculares
religiose tarnen vivunt et habitum portant religiosum ideo non videntur mere laice."
"Van Engen, q/? cit. ,p. 321.

12

MUUERES REUGIOSAE, STRICTLY SPEAKING: SOME FOURTEENTH-CENTURY OPINIONS

garded as a prelude to the Council of Constance, canon lawyers proved
themselves willing and able to mount such a defense.

In 1397, inquisitorial suspicion of the Sisters of the Common Life encouraged the redoubtable Brethren to solicit opinions from the law faculty at the University of Cologne among others.38 The lawyers consulted
steadfastly approved the common life of the Sisters, absent a monastic
rule, in spite of the fact that they followed a semi-monastic routine and
received direction from an "abbess-like" superior (the argument being
that elements of monastic practice do not ipso facto make a monastic
community). And while it had been common practice in earlier decades
to defend the Sisters by denying that they had anything at all in common with Béguines, Everard Foec, a consultant from Utrecht, preferred
a quite different approach. Instead of reading Cum de quibusdam as a
blanket condemnation of all Béguines, he cited it as a proof-text in support of the Sisters: Cum de quibusdam condemned only those Béguines who preached erroneous doctrine; Dutch Béguines were not
among those condemned; therefore, even if the Sisters are equated with
Béguines, it is with this approved group that they must be classed.39
In 1401, on the basis of this consultation, the bishop of Utrecht issued
an order approving the institution of the Brothers and Sisters of the
Common Life, and accumulated legal opinion prepared the ground for
the decision returned at the Council of Constance.40 As summarized by
the chancellor of Paris,Jean Gerson, that decision directly countered the
Dominican Matthew Grabow's proposition that religious perfection required monastic profession; all, Gerson noted, are called to the religion
preached by Christ and all may become perfect without taking vows of
any kind.41

38R. R. Post, op. cit., pp. 280-284. While most of the canonists who replied remain
anonymous, one of them is known to have been Abbot Arnold of Dikninge, professor of
canon law at the University of Cologne.
"Ibid., pp. 28 land 283.
*°Lbid., p. 288.
41Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum, XXVIII, 391. "Religio Christiana non obligat ad observantiam consiliorum, ñeque cum voto ñeque sine voto. Patet quia jam non essent consilia
sed praecepta. Religio Christiana potest absque voto obligante ad consilia, perfecte immo

perfectissime observari. Patet de Christo qui non legitur vovisse consilia; qui fuit tarnen
suae legis perfectissimus observator. Patet insuper de Apostolis et discipulis et christianis
in primitiva Ecclesia, quorum multi erant uxorati, multi possessiones habuerunt, quidam
in communi, quidam in proprio. . . ."

BY EUZABETH MAKOWSKI13

Lawyers attempting to interpret fourteenth-century canon law concerning quasi-religious women encountered legal confusion indicative
of the perplexity of the ecclesiastical authorities responsible for issuing
that legislation. Popes acknowledged their duty to oversee and regulate
secular canonesses (in the same way that they oversaw the activities of
religious women, strictly speaking) while refusing them formal recognition; councils condemned some Béguines as heretics while defending
the right of any laywoman to live devoutly in any way that her conscience dictated. Fourteenth-century canonists dealt with this confusing legacy in different ways and to different ends.
When writing scholarly glosses and commentary on major legislation
dealing with quasi-religious women, jurists tended to be strict interpretationists, giving no quarter to arguments that might obscure distinctions between the mulier religiosa of canon law, and that of
popular devotion.42 When serving as judges or hired legal consultants,
however, canon lawyers might choose instead to exploit the legal ambiguity surrounding quasi-religious women.43 At times, the needs of a
case were best served by arguing that quasi-religious were something
more than mere laity. Thus, the Rotal auditors accorded rights associated with religious women, strictly speaking, to their quasi-religious

counterparts. In other cases, such as the 1374 consultation, the technically lay status of quasi-religious women served as a defense against the
charge that they were violating the papal ban on the formation of new
orders.

In sum, judicial decisions and consilia provide evidence that some
fourteenth-century canonists were receptive to broad, popular notions
of what constituted a quasi-religious woman. That receptivity allowed

"Some outstanding jurists of the century, such as Lapus Tactus, did not choose to comment on that legislation in treatise or gloss, and, as we know from the legal maxim, silence
must not automatically be construed as agreement with reigning opinion.
4,A conservative commentary and an innovative judicial decision might, in fact, be produced by the same canonist! Panormitanus, it will be recalled, wrote a terse, derivative,
gloss on Cum de quibusdam in his Glossa Clementinae but later highlighted the ambiguity of that and other legislation in his consilia finding in favor of a quasi-religious com-

munity. See Panormitanus, Consilia (Strasbourg, 1474), consilia Iv. Although this decision
merits consideration as a full-blown example of a lawyer's recognition of the rights of

quasi-religious, it was probably rendered sometime in the 1420's, and thus falls outside
the limits of this paper. It remains to be seen whether other canonists who, in their academic commentary, interpreted the law on religious women strictly, would show greater
flexibility in their roles as legal consultants.

14

MUUERES REUGIOSAE, STRICTLY SPEAKING: SOME FOURTEENTH-CENTURY OPINIONS

them to mitigate the rigor of canonical definitions and to use the very

ambiguity of papal decrees in defense of the legitimacy of quasireligious practice. An in-depth look at fourteenth-century consilia
may reveal even more innovative legal interpretation on behalf of quasireligious women.44

"Recent scholarship encourages this line of inquiry. See for example Gill, "Scandala"

p. 182 n. 12, which mentions the "well known legal experts" who helped resolve a
fifteenth-century dispute involving resistance of some Perugian tertiaries to strict claustration. Even when consilia collections do not contain decisions given over entirely to

the question of female quasi-religious status—as in the case of the collected opinions of
Oldradus de Ponte (d. 1337) and Johannes ab Imola (d. 1436) for instance—references
imbedded in seemingly unrelated consilia can prove telling: see, for example, the argument of Ludovicus Pontanus (d. 1439) that the third order of Saint Francis is more cor-

rectly regarded as a way of life than as religious fife—an argument used to support the
feudal rights of a woman who had become a tertiary: Ludovicus Pontanus, Consilia sive

responsa . . . domini Ludovici Pontani romani (Venice, 1568), C.367#14,p. 260.

THE PAULINE CULT IN MALTA

AND THE MOVEMENT OF THE COUNTER-REFORMATION:
THE DEVELOPMENT OF ITS INTERNATIONAL REPUTATION
BY

Thomas Freller*

The erection of Christian sacred shrines and places of worship is a
historically complex phenomenon. It goes back to the very early beginning of Christianity. These concrete manifestations despite substantial
differences due to time and place share common elements. As an object
of research it cannot, of course, be isolated from its cultural context. Es-

pecially in early modern times the revival or erection and installation of
a place of worship and devotion was always a product of various factors: intellectual activity, topographic and administrative organization,
and pastoral, theological, and often political endeavors.1

This essay tries to outline aspects of this phenomenon vis-à-vis an im-

portant shrine neglected by international research: the Grotto of St.
Paul at Rabat in Malta, the center of the Pauline cult in the island. Since
it can be claimed that there has been cultural continuity in the Christian
Mediterranean from the period of late Antiquity, the time of the Fathers
of the Church, up to the beginning of the nineteenth century (with the
possible exception of the Arab period), where does the sacred Pauline
shrine in Malta fit in this picture?

*Mr. Freller is a lecturer in German studies at the Junior College (Malta) and the University of Malta. He holds an MA. degree in General and Comparative Literature from the
University of Mainz (Germany). He was granted a scholarship by the state of Rheinland-

Pfalz (Germany) to carry out his doctoral studies about early modern Malta and the
Mediterranean travel routes.

'For examples of the genesis and development of Catholic sacred shrines and places of
devotion see Luca da Monterado, Storia del culto e del pellegrinaggio a Loreto (secoli
XLV-XV) (Loreto, 1979), and Antonio Rigon, "Déviation et patriotisme communal dans la
genèse et la diffusion d'un culte. Le bienheureux Antoine de Padove surnommé le 'Pellegrino,'" in Faire croire (Rome, 1981), pp. 259-278.

15

16THE PAUUNE CULT IN MALTA AND THE MOVEMENT OF THE COUNTER-REFORMATION

Traveling to visit Christian cult centers is a phenomenon known
since the fourth and fifth century when Christianity finally established
itself as the dominant religion in the Mediterranean. Those self-imposed
exiles, those peregrinations and often dangerous voyages were undertaken for the sake of purification of the soul and spiritual salvation. In
many cases also material ends and the desire to break away from the
dependence on the ruling class mattered. Places of miracles, martyrdom, death, and resurrection and burial sites of holy men and women of
Christianity caused Jerusalem, Rome,2 and Santiago de Compostela3 to
become the most important pilgrimage centers of the Christians. This
pilgrim traveling continued into the early medieval period and grew
considerably in extent in high and late medieval times.4
However, during the time of the Reformation, especially in the third
and fourth decades of the sixteenth century, pilgrimages fell into disrepute in Protestant countries although they retained their popularity in
the Roman Catholic countries of southern Europe, in spite of the attacks by Luther, Melanchthon, and Erasmus. Nevertheless, the Roman
Catholic Church was becoming highly aware that the people were not

rallying behind a mere theological formula any more. As an answer, they

made efforts to renovate and re-establish concrete objects of veneration
and cult. The initial revival of places of devotion in the late sixteenth
and early seventeenth century was far from random but part of a carefully planned program of Catholic policy.5 Although it had existed beThis phenomenon and its mechanism is discussed in general by Alphonse Dupront,
"Anthropologie du sacré et cultes populaires. Histoire et vie du pèlerinage en Europe

occidentale," in Miscellanea Historiae Ecclesiasticae, V (1974), 235-258. Cf. for a comprehension Pietro Bargellini, L'anno santo nella storia, nella letteratura e nell'arte
(Florence, 1974).
'For the origin and early development of the cult of St. James see Bernhard Schim-

melpfennig,"Die Anfange des heiligen Jahres von Santiago de Compostela im Mittelalter,"
Journal ofMedieval History, 4 (1978), 285-303.
4For a collection of papers on the various aspects of medieval and early modern pilgrimages and their main cult places see the catalogue Wallfahrt kennt keine Grenzen.
Themen zu einer Ausstellung des Bayerischen Nationalmuseums und des Adalbert

Stifler Vereins, München, edited by Lenz Kriss-Rettenbeck and Gerda Monier (Munich,

Zurich, 1984).
'For the various aspects of this revival see Robert Sauzet, "Contestation et renouveau

du pèlerinage au début des temps modernes," in Les Chemins de Dieu, edd. Jean Chélini
and Henry Brantomme (Paris, 1982), pp. 235-258, and René Moulains,"Le pèlerinage victime des lumières," ibid. ,pp. 259-292.

BY THOMAS FRELLER1 7

fore the specific revival in the first decades of the seventeenth century,

the movement of the Pauline cult in the Mediterranean island of Malta

had a direct connection with the Counter-Reformation program of the
Catholic Church, with its roots in the Council of Trent. Architecture, art,
and literature had to state the 'grandeur' and importance of the Catholic

Church in order to attest the truth of the Faith. Art had to visualize this

spiritual program and helped to develop a baroque style which was
now highly visual. A most significant part of this ecclesiastical program
was the revival of the holy traditions of the pilgrimages and their aims
by rebuilding or extending old monuments in a baroque style, thereby
practically creating new ones. However, not in every case of the revival
or new installation of centers of Christian devotion in the late sixteenth

century or the beginning of the seventeenth century can the main and
only motive be traced back to the concept of the Counter-Reformation.
This paper tries to single out the special case of the increase of the
Pauline devotion in the sixteenth century in the island of Malta. The example presented by the shrines of St. Paul in Malta and the "Grotta di S.
Paolo" as its center of worship features as a very special manifestation
of early modern spirituality and mentality. It reflects that there was a
multitude of special reasons and determinations which made a place
become a site of worship and cult.

?

With the coming of the Knights of St. John to Malta in 1530, and es-

pecially with the consequent Great Siege of 1565, not only the geography, topography, and contemporary history of Malta were put on the
European map but also (and this is not so well known) the local existing Pauline cult gained a tremendous recognition throughout Europe.
In fact, in medieval times, by reason of mistaken terminology and cartographical errors, the island of 'Melita' (i.e., Malta) in the European context was generally not regarded as the actual location of the Pauline
shipwreck.6 This might be demonstrated by the itinerary to the Holy
Land written by a north German monk from Hude, Nikolaus. In ca. 1350
this monk carried out the redactionary work of an older manuscript by

the Osnabrück-born traveler Ludolph of Suchen and inserted a passage
which points to the Dalmatian island of Mljet as the location of the ship'Cf.Acts 27-28

18THE PAUUNE CULT IN MALTA AND THE MOVEMENT OF THE COUNTER-REFORMATION

wreck and the miracle of the viper.7 Therefore, it does not come by surprise that also the late medieval (now lost) Shipwreck scene at the

basilica of S. Paolo fuori le Mura in Rome seems to refer to the Dalma-

tian island of "Meleda" (today Mljet) as the locality of the shipwreck. Already at the end of the twelfth century, the German cleric Konrad of
Querfurth wrote a letter reporting the island of Capri (s/c!) as the locality of the shipwreck.8 This type of confusion was continued by the late
medieval pilgrims Jacob of Verona9 and Felix Fabri.10 Medieval writers
and travelers usually do not hesitate to report the deeds and miracles of
St. Paul in Italy, Crete, or the Holy Land as well as Pauline cults in the
south of Italy, Sicily, or Crete, but always fail to mention a connection between St. Paul and Malta.11 On the other side there is enough evidence
of a local Pauline devotion in late medieval Malta. A testament which

Henri Bresc has unearthed in the Archives of the Crown of Aragon in
Barcelona proves that the cathedral of Mdina (Malta) was already dedicated to St. Paul in 129912

7The medieval confusions in terminology about the islands or locations of "Milicena,"
"Mitilina," "Melita," "Manta," "Gaulometin," or "Mauta" cannot be dealt with here in detail.
The monk Nikolaus used the name "Milicena." See Archive de l'Orient Latin, II (Paris,
1884), 305-378, here p. 331 For a short basic handling of this matter refer to the author's

Visitors ofSt. Paul's Grotto. Pilgrims, Knights, Scholars and Sceptics (Malta, 1995), p. 46.

For a more detailed and updated investigation see the forthcoming article, "Ludolph von

Suchen und Malta," Jahrbuch für Niedersächsische Kirchengeschichte, 94 (1996),

139-152. For the confusion in cartographical works see the map in the world-history
'Polychronicon' written by the English monk Ranulph Higden. The scholar and historiographer Higden was a contemporary of Ludolph of Suchen and Nikolaus of Hude. For an
analysis of this map, see Konrad Miller (ed.), Die ältesten Weltkarten (6 vols.; Stuttgart,

1895-1898), III, 91 ff, 96 ff. For another example, see the early thirteenth-century "Bea-

tusmap" in the Cathedral Library of Burgo de Osma in Castille. For a printed copy, see Walter Rosien,ZJie Ebstorfer Weltkarte (Hannover, 1952), plate 25; see also the "Beatusmap"
of St. Sever (eleventh century) in the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris.

8Cf. Monumenta Germaniae Histórica, Scriptores (Hannover, 1869), Vol. XXI, p. 196.

The Pilgerfahrt of Jacob of Verona (in original: Münchener Codex, MS. germ. 235) is
printed in excerpts by Reinhold Röhricht and Heinrich Meisner (eds.), Deutsche Pilger-

reisen nach dem Heiligen Lande (Berlin, 1880), pp. 45-64, here p. 49.

'"Here quoted from Felix Fabri, Fratris Felicis Fabri Evagatorium in Terrae Sanctae,
Arabiae et Egyptiae Peregrinationem (Stuttgart, 1849), Vol. Ill, pp. 292 f.
"See the voyage of Burchard of Straßburg to Egypt in 1 175 or the pilgrimage of Nicolas Martoni of Carinóla in 1 394. For Burchard of Straßburg, "Relatio de itinere in Terrain
Sanctam," in Monumenta Germaniae Histórica, Scriptores,Vol. XXI, pp. 233 f. For Nicolas
Martoni, "Liber peregrinationis ad Loca Sancta," Revue de l'Orient Latin, IH (1895); for
Malta see pp. 578-579. Concerning the visitors to Malta in medieval times, see Alberto
Pertusi,"Le isole maltesi dall'epoca bizantina al periodo normanno e svevo (sec. VI-XIII) e

descrizioni di esse dal sec.xn al sec. XVI,"Byzantinische Forschungen,V (1977), 253-306.

"Here quoted from Henri Bresc, "Malta dopo U vespro siciliano," Melita Histórica, VI
(1974), 318.

BY THOMAS FRELLER1 9

The earliest mention of the Grotto of St. Paul and its nearby "cimiterium" which has hitherto been found figures in a land grant made by
Bishop Ylario to a certain Bochius de Bochio in I366.13 In 1549 the rector of S. Paulu di Fora (Rabat, Malta), Matteo Surdu, complaining that the
old devotion had decreased, proposed to revive this devotion to the
Grotto and its cemetery.14 According to Maltese tradition, the apostle
made use of the Grotto during his Maltese sojourn.15 That St. Paul lived
in the sacred Grotto at Rabat may be just a pious legend without any
historical basis, a legend, however, which has brought fame to the
grotto more than truth itself. Thus the devotion to and worship of St.
Paul's Grotto were promoted by a legend based on unreliable traditions
mostly fabricated by the Maltese clergy desirous to boost the cult

with historical evidence. For that purpose, especially in the sixteenth

and early seventeenth century, insufficient historical and literary facts
and material had to be complemented with new legends and inventions.16

The Order of St. John soon realized the religious and ideological potential of this historical and devotional connection, up to then a restrained local cult, and in an attempt to foster and secure its widespread
recognition, tried to use aspects of this same cult and the devotion to St.
Paul for its own iconographical and ideological purposes. When the
cult of St. James in Spain and the pilgrimage to Galicia's Santiago de
Compostela reached its peak in high medieval times, it was decisively
shaped by the threat to Christendom by the Moors and Arabs. St. James
had become one of the symbols in Spain's Reconquista. Although the
Pauline cult in Malta had never reached such an importance and such a
European impact, its use and presentation by the Knights of St. John—
the sworn enemies of the infidels—had had a similar philosophical and
spiritual background. The Apostle of the Gentiles, very often depicted
with sword and book, soon became the central figure of Malta's Christian identity and singularity. So for Malta and the Order of St. John the
Pauline cult had considerable political, devotional, and ecclesiastical implications, as St. Paul was seen to have promoted the Maltese ecclesias"This document is published by Godfrey Wettinger, "A Land Grant by Bishop Ylario to

Bochius de Bochio at St. Paul's Grotto 1366," in John Azzopardi (ed.), St Paul's Grotto,
Church and Museum at Rabat, Malta (Malta, 1990), pp. 313-316.
"Mdina (Malta), Cathedral Archives, CEM, Acta Originalia 464, fol. 103.

"Cf. Giovanni Francesco Abela, Delia descrittione di Malta, isola nel Mare Siciliano

(Malta, 1647), pp. 348-355.
"¦Concerning one of those "historians" see Vincent Borg, "Gerolamo Manduca, His Life
and yf/orK Melita Historical (1978), 237-257.

20THE PAUUNE CULT IN MALTA AND THE MOVEMENT OF THE COUNTER-REFORMATION

tical as well as the national and cultural identity and prestige. To have an
important Pauline shrine in its dominion raised the prestige of the state
of the Order of St. John too. It was only logical that the Grandmasters
should try to exploit this cult to further their own power, history, and

glory. Following permission received from the Pope, on April 24, 1617,

the administration and guardianship of the Grotto passed to the Grandmaster of the Order of St. John.17 Shortly afterwards Grandmaster Wignacourt erected an institution for chaplains looking after the Grotto.
The chaplains resided in a Collegio' just across the road from the
Grotto. The Spanish hermit Juan de Venegas was nominated the first
rector of the new institution. The bequests and support of the various
Grandmasters for St. Paul's Grotto make it evident that the Order of St.

John kept on fostering the Pauline Tradition also to further its own political ends.

The promotion on a European scale of Malta's Pauline traditions

served to enhance their international prestige. In 1609 the hermit Juan

de Venegas had erected a first chapel dedicated to St. Publius. After

1660, during the magistracy of another Spaniard, Grandmaster Nicolas

Cotoner, it was rebuilt in the high baroque style by Francesco Buonamico.18 In 1609 when Venegas erected the chapel, three wooden statues
representing St. Paul, St. Luke, and St. Publius were in the Grotto. In 1718
they were replaced by a new marble statue of St. Paul by Melchiorre
Gafà and Ercole Ferrata and a wooden statue of St. Luke. These statues

soon became far more than simple artistic representations intended to
inspire the faithful or to educate the illiterate. Instead they, like the
Apostle himself, enjoyed a special relationship with the divine power.
As several of the pious seventeenth-century visitors stated, they participated directly in the existence and the being of the persons they represented.19 According to the baroque concept of religious art, the image
and atmosphere of the Grotto's interior and works of art brought the
pious visitor into direct visual contact with the person represented. To
be in their presence was to look into a window into the other world,
and correspondingly to be seen by the person in the other world.
'Tn those days Aloph de Wignacourt (1601-1622). See Abela, op. cit. , pp. 348-355.

'"For the planning and design of St. Paul's church, see Denis de Lucca and Conrad
Thake, The Genesis of Maltese Baroque Architecture: Francesco Buonamici (Malta,
1994), pp. 11-13.

"See Jean Coppin, Le Bouclier de l'Europe ou la Guerre Sainte . . . (Lyons, 1686), p.
36I, and Vincenzo Maria di S. Catarina da Siena, // Viaggio all'Indie Orientali . . . (Rome,
1672), Libro I, Cap. II, p. 1 1 .

BY THOMAS FRELLER21
m

Paradoxically, it was at a time when the principal pilgrimages to Santiago de Compostela or Palestine in the sixteenth century witnessed a
noticeable decrease as a result of the new concept of Lutheran and
Calvinist ideas spreading in central Europe, that the Pauline cult in
Malta and the attraction to St. Paul's Grotto rose to significant proportions and into the limelight of international interest. An increasing interest in the middle and the second half of the sixteenth century saw

the Pauline cult in Malta with the Grotto as its center profoundly an-

chored into European awareness. A wide variety of writers such as Sebastian Münster (1 544/1 569),20 Tommaso Fazello (1558),21 Giulio Ballino
(1 569),22 Tommaso Porchacchi (1 572),23 and of course the Orders' chap-

lain Quintin D'Autun (1536)24 and his epigones and copyists,25 as well as

a number of visitors such as André Thevet (1549),26 Nicolas de Nicolai
(1551),27 Gio Battista Leoni (1581/158228),29 Michael Heberer von Bret20See Sebastian Münster, Cosmographey (Basel, 1 569),Vol. II, p. CCCLXLÜJ.
21See Tommaso Fazello, Siculo or praedicatorum de rebus Siculis decades duae
(Palermo, 1558), pp. 10-11.

22See Giulio Ballino, De'disegni dellepiu illustri citta etfortezze del mondo (Venice,
1 569), for Malta pp. 46 ff. , here p. 46'. This reference was brought to my attention by Mr.

Stephen Degiorgio.
23See Tommaso Porcacchi, L'Lsole piu famose del Mondo (Venice, 1572); here quoted

the Padova, 1620, edition, Libro I, p. 596.

24Here quoted the edition of H. C. R. Vella, The Earliest Description of Malta (Lyons

1536) byJean Quintin D'Autun (Malta, 1980), p. 44.

"See "Relatione dell'Isola di Malta et Religione dal primo giugno fino al primo dicembre anno . . ." (Biblioteca Vaticana, Urbin. Lat. 833, fols. 137'-147')· Here quoted from

Alexander Bonnici, ll-Maltin u L-Lnkizizzjioni f'nofs Is-Seklu Sbatax (Malta, 1977), p.

209. Another author who quoted Quintín in his description of Malta was C. S. Curione in

the course of his De Bello Melitensi—Histora nova (Basel, 1567), pp. 32-33.
26André Thevet, Cosmographie Universelle (Paris, 1575), Livre I, p. 27.

"Nicolas de Nicolai, Xe Navigationi etViaggi nella Turchia (Antwerp, 1576), Libro I,
p. 37.

2*Printed dates give the years when the travelers visited Malta.
2'See "Relazione dell'Isola di Malta fatta alla S.tà di N. S. Papa Gregorio XIII Dell'Anno

1 582." The manuscript, preserved in the Library of S. Salvatore in Bologna (Codice 1467),
was printed in Archivio Storico di Malta (Anno VII, 12 Aprile 1936),Vol.XrV,Fasc.III,pp.

286-303. There are various manuscript versions of Leoni's description of Malta. See the
original version of the "Relazione dell'Isola di Malta e dei suoi Cavaglieri" written by Giovanni Battista Leoni: "A short distance from the said Rabat, there is a church dedicated to
St. Paul in memory of his shipwreck; it is visited with deep devotion, particularly on account of the Grotto, which lies beneath the said church, where St. Paul is said to have
dwelt, and from where one can dig that miraculous stone against the bite of serpents."

22THE PAUUNE CULT IN MALTA AND THE MOVEMENT OF THE COUNTER-REFORMATION

ten (1 585/1 588),30 Samuel Kiechel (1587),31 Hieronymus Megiser (1588)32
Barthold of Gadenstedt (1588),33 Duke Ludwig of Anhalt-Koethen
(1598),34 or Duke August the Younger of Braunschweig-Lüneburg
(1599)35 give ample evidence to this new European awareness. Although otherwise visibly disapproving of the Catholic world, the chronicler of the voyage of a group of "foure Englishmen and a preacher" in
1600 did not hesitate to mention the Pauline devotion at Malta, an island otherwise known for its "viperous people ."36
We also have to consider the increasing prosperity and European
economic 'opening' to Malta in the "Post-Great-Siege" period as a crucial
factor in the European awareness of the Maltese islands and its cultural
and folkloristical heritage. The tremendous increase of foreign influx to
Malta in the second half of the sixteenth century is maybe best reflected in a short statistical note. In the restricted span of time between
summer 1588 and summer 1589 when Malta and its Pauline cult were

sought and described by the north German nobleman and poet
Barthold of Gadenstedt, by the adventurer, student, and soldier of
fortune Michael Heberer von Bretten, and by the historian and linguist
Hieronymus Megiser, the total number of known registered foreigners
(excluding members of the Order of St. John), who visited the island ran
around 940 individuals.37

The excerpt here quoted is from the "Relazione dell'Isola di Malta e dei suoi Cavaglieri" printed inArchivio Storico di Malta (Anno IV)1VoI. IV (1933), XI-XII, pp. 28-51;

see p. 38. The original manuscript is preserved in the Bibliotheca Angelica in Rome (MS.
1479).

'"Michael Heberer von ftœtlen,Aegyptiaca servitus (Heidelberg, 1610), pp. 419, 436 ff.
"Samuel Kiechel, Die Reisen des Samuel Kiechel. Aus drei Handschriften heraus-

gegeben von Dr. K. D. Haszier (Stuttgart, 1866), p. 197.
"Hieronymus Megiser, Propugnaculum Europae (Leipzig, l606),p. 23.

"See Karl Steinacker, "Italienische Studienfahrt eines Ostfalen und ihre Auswertung
zur Zeit beginnender Barockgesinnung," Braunscbweigisches fahrbuch, 3d series, 3
(1941/42), 3-120,here p. 39.
"Ludwig Fürst zu Anhalt-Koethen,"Reisebeschreibung," in Johann Christoff Beckmann,
Historie des Fürstenthums Anhalt (Zerbst, 1710-1716), Vol. 5,p. 270.
"See "Des Herzogs August d. J. zu Braunschweig und Lueneburg Ephemerides sive Di-

arium von 1594. April 10 bis 1635 April 16." (The manuscript is preserved in the Biblioteca Augusta of Wolfenbüttel, Germany.) For the Pauline cult see fol. 18.
*The Travels offoure Englishmen and a preacher into Africa, Asia, Troy,Bythinia,
Tracia and the Black Sea (London, 1612), p. 3-

"Cf. the Magna Curia Castellania (Mdina, Malta), Registrum Rev. Mancip. 1 588- 1617, no
pagination. As quoted by Carmel Cassar, "Popular Perceptions and Values in Hospitaller
Malta," in Victor Mallia-Milanes (ed.), Hospitaller Malta 1530-1798. Studies on Early

Modern Malta and the Order ofStJohn ofJerusalem (Malta, 1993), pp. 429-473, here p.

433- For the opening of Malta to the European economy cf., e.g., V Mallia-Milanes,"English

BY THOMAS FRELLER2 3

There is enough evidence to conclude that guided tours of visitors of
Malta included also the "Theatrum Sacrum" of Rabat with its complex of
churches, sacred mound, cemetery, etc. The clear majority of noblemen

or other persons of consequence who took notes about their visit to

the island in the second half of the sixteenth and the entire seventeenth

century recorded how knights or other members of the Order, following a general visit around the Grand Harbor area, did not hesitate to
guide them to St. Paul's Grotto at Rabat. Many of these were also taken
to St. Paul's Bay ("Cala di S. Paolo") as the site of the supposed place of
the shipwreck. Therefore, in the late sixteenth century most travelers
from Roman Catholic countries passing through Malta were aware of
and more receptive of the cult connected with St. Paul's Grotto. This
conclusion is further supported by the visits to the Grotto by such distinguished personalities as Don Gianandrea Doria, "Generalissimo delle

Armi Spagnuolo nel mare." In September, 1584, Doria and a part of his

fleet called at Malta and the Generalissimo paid a prestigious visit to the
Grotto, "accompagnato da tutta la Cavalleria deWisolaP"
In this context we cannot forget another compelling reason for the

increasing interest in St. Paul's Grotto in the sixteenth century. For the

vast majority of Christians, in view of costs and dangers, especially during the aggressive Turkish policies in the sixteenth century, a pilgrimage to the Holy Land was far too risky. Instead they sought an escape
from their everyday existence by finding a place not so far removed
physically from their familiar surroundings and yet sharing with the
great shrines of Palestine a direct connection with divine power. In fact,
in the second half of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the
seventeenth, many French, Spanish, German, and Polish visitors came to
Malta exclusively motivated by their devotion to St. Paul. German, Austrian, and French travelers such as Johannes Fuchs (in the Italianized

version Giovanni Volpe) in 1614, Ulrich Neult (I6l6), or Jean Tacie
(loi 3) expressly mentioned St. Paul's Grotto, when they were asked the
reason for their visit.39

Merchants' Initial Contacts with Malta: A Reconsideration," Melita Histórica, VI (1975),
342-361, and idem, Venice and Hospitaller Malta, 1530- 1798:Aspects ofa Relationship
(Malta, 1992).

"See Padre Pelagio, "Relazione intera e distinta délia Santità Culto Venerazione, e progressi della Ven. Grotta di San Paolo Appostolo, e délia Chiesa Collégiale di S. Publio ..."

Mdina (Malta), Cathedral Archive, ACM, Misc. 263, p. 69-126, here p. 83.

"See the "Registrum Revelationum" (Rabat, Malta) dealing with the arrival of pilgrims
and visitors to St. Paul's Grotto. Made known by Carmel Cassar in Azzopardi (ed.), op. cit. ,
pp. 75-77. About the large stream of devout visitors, see also the contemporary manuscript by Dott. Marc'Antonio Asciac,"Relazione della rinovata e grandissima Divozione in-

24THE PAUUNE CULT IN MALTA AND THE MOVEMENT OF THE COUNTER-REFORMATION

All these might be valid reasons which explain the extraordinary
growth of the international popularity of the Pauline cult in Malta.
These reasons can be also classified as piloted' or rationally 'promoted.'
However, one might ask why the House of Aragon or the late medieval
religious institution in Malta had not made better use of these extremely powerful and symbolically potential dimensions of the Grotto
in Rabat. Why did the cult of anti-viperine earth of St. Paul's Grotto appear in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and not before? Why
did the holy Grotto in Malta stimulate so many late-sixteenth-, seventeenth-, and eighteenth-century descriptions? It is as if the increasingly
rational world and the increasing magnetism of the transatlantic world
provoked an imaginative recoil toward the timeless, biblical-classical
heritage of the then marginalized, 'anachronistic' Mediterranean.
Furthermore, in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century a
complex new sensibility to nature and biblical history had developed.
There can be no doubts that, apart from any possible historical connection with St. Paul, the Grotto as such profited from its being a hollow
within Mother Earth and from quasi-universal ancestral memories of
the classical age. This new sensibility to nature and history found one of
its deepest and multifaceted echoes in a tremendous interest in grottos,
caves, and the subterranean world. These indeed became the concern
of science as well as art and literature. One might recall here the various
grottos in the baroque garden architecture or the various depictions of
grottos and caves by such seventeenth-century artists as Carel Cornelisz
de Hooch, Abraham van Cuylenborch, Philips Wouwerman, and Herman van Swanevelt. The grotto features as a place for hermits, as a catalyst for religious devotion, as a shelter. Moreover, it not only instilled
mystery but also provided aesthetic attraction, apart from scientific interest and investigation. Many of the then revived or completely newly
installed places of worship and devotion were centered around, or connected with, grottos or caves. These aspects of religious contexts and
connotations of grottos are featured in a paradigmatic way in Herman

van Swanevelt's painting "Landscape with the Holy Bruno" (1638-1640,

oil on canvas).40 Here Herman van Swanevelt presents an evening scene
trodotta nella Sacra Grotta di S. Paolo nell'Isola di Malta, con una breve raccolta delle cose
notande, ed antichità di dett'Isola," National Library of Malta, Ms. 515, fol. 5".
"The Dutchman Herman van Swanevelt {ca. 1600-1655) worked in Rome between

1624 and 1641. In 1641 he moved to Paris, where he died in 1655. The "Landscape with
the Holy Bruno" was executed in Rome ca. 1638- 1640. It was commissioned by the Marquis Castel Rodrigo, the ambassador of King Philip IV of Spain. Consequently it was trans-

ferred from Rome to the palace of Buen Retiro near Madrid. It is now preserved in the

BY THOMAS FRELLER2 5

with mountains, rocks, and trees in the background. In the foreground
of the painting are depicted a garden of flowers, the saint, and on the
right side a grotto with a small altar for devotion. In a different way

Philip Wouwerman's "Travelers in a Grotto" (ca. 1650, oil on canvas)41

reflects the aesthetic and scientific qualities and aspects of this new fascination with grottos and caves. In this painting the artist shows a
group of travelers visiting a grotto. In this grotto the visitors try to decipher an inscription on an old monument, which is already in ruins. In
another rather symbolic context of the time we find this motif of a cave
or sheltered place hollowed in the earth, for example, in the very beginning of John Bunyan's famous Pilgrim's Progress (first edition, London, 1677):
As I walk'd through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain
place, where was a Denn; And I laid me down in that place to sleep. And as
I slept I dreamed a Dream . . . 42

The extraordinary interest in the "Grotta di San Paolo" in Malta in
early modern times must be explained as the outcome of the amalgam
of all these aspects. For a contemporary scientific approach to St. Paul's
Grotto one might quote the famous Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher. In

June, I637, on the occasion of his voyage to Malta he attended Mass at

St. Paul's Grotto43; later, owing to his strong interest in minerals and natural science, Kircher carried out intensive research at the "Crypta S.
Pauli" too. In his bestseller Mundus Subterraneus he describes how he

excavated the famous antipoisoning earth from the Grotto with his
own hands: "Ad cryptam S. Pauli, ex qua ego ipse manibus meis non
exiguam copiant una cum glossipetris erui, de quibus amplissimé
suo loco."44 Later on, these objects were brought to lurcher's wellPrado Museum. For a reproduction of the painting see the catalogue Die Sammlungen

des Prado. Malerei vom 12.-18.fahrhundert (Oldenburg, 1995), p. 451.
41Philip Wouwerman was born in 1619 in Haarlem. Between 1638 and 1640 he worked
in Hamburg. In 1668 he died in his hometown, Haarlem. His "Travelers in a Grotto" belongs to the works of his early period. The painting is preserved in the Polish National
Museum of Warsaw. For a reproduction of the painting see the catalogue Europäische
Malerei des Barock aus dem Nationalmuseum Warschau (Braunschweig, 1990), p. 88.

"John Bunyan, The Pilgrim 's Progress (London, 1677), Part I, here quoted from The Pil-

grim's Progress from this World to That which is to Come, edited by James Blanton

Wharey, second edition, revised by Roger Sharrock (Oxford, I960), p. 8.

45See the diary of Fabio Chigi, Chigi Archives, Vatican Library, a. I. 8 (4), fol. 101'. The

code F. Ch. a. 1. 8 (4) marks Chigi's diary from March 18, 1634, to August 19, 1637.
"Athanasius Kircher, Mundus Subterraneus, 3d ed. (Amsterdam, 1678),Vol. I, p. 359; in
another passage of this work Kircher classifies this Grotto under the title "Antra Sanctorum Eremicolarum": ???.?,?. 120.

26THE PAUUNE CULT IN MALTA AND THE MOVEMENT OF THE COUNTER-REFORMATION

known "Museum Kircherianum," a meeting point of European scholars
and scientists who visited Rome. As an example of a typical mixture of
devotional and aesthetical approaches to the sacred Grotto one can
quote the description of the Spanish traveler Bartholomé Pancorbo de
Ayala y Guerra:
La Cueba de San Pablo (...) mantiene sobre si una muy buena Iglesia, dedi-

cada à este Glorioso Apóstol, y en ella se halla un dedo del mismo,
guardado, y tenido con muy grande devoción; y estando en silencio, se oye

como si fuesse una confusa voz, que causa en el corazón un dulce
movimiento; se tiene una excessiva veneración a un a las mismas paredes,
de que se faca tierra, que sirve contra los animales venenosos. A este Lugar
arribo el Glorioso Apóstol, después de los grandes riesgos, y borrascas, que

passö en el Mar, quando lo conducían preso à Roma, y en él predico à los
Gentiles con tal zelo, y fuerza, que su foz se oyó en la distancia de quattro

leguas. Demos infinitas gracias à Dios, que es admirable en sus Santos.45
IV

The strong interest of the Zeitgeist of the Counter-Reformation in the
combination of grottos, hermits, and holy men of Christendom found
one of its exponents in the pious Andalusian noblemen Juan Venegas de
Cordoba. Between 1599 and 1622 this Juan de Venegas, whose original
ancestry hailed from Granada,46 played a key role in the exceptional development of the Pauline cult in Malta centered around St. Paul's Grotto
at Rabat.47 Whilst in Malta, during the first decades of the seventeenth
century, he became known as "Fra Giovanni della Grotta di San
Paolo"49 In fact, it was his Moorish ancestry which prevented Venegas
from being accepted as a full Knight within the Order of St. John when
he arrived at Malta. He later achieved his ambition and reception as a
Knight of Obedience.49 Thanks to him and his international connec"Bartholomé Pancorbo de Ayala y Guerra, La Flor del Mundo, o sea la Europa en su
mayor explendor . . . (Madrid, 1745), pp. 337 f.
KSee. L. P Harvey, "Yuse Banegas. Un moro noble en Granada bajo los Reyes Católicos,"
Al-Andalus, XXI (1956), 297-302, and Dario Cabanelas, "Pedro Venegas de Cordoba; embajador de Felipe II. en Marruecos," Boletín de la Universidad de Granada, XXII (1973),
129-144.

"Italianized as Giovanni de Benegos. For "Fra Giovanni de Beneguas, Spagnuolo da Cordova [sic\], denominate di S. Paolo" and his activities, see Padre Pelagio,"Relazione intera
e distinta della Santità Culto Venerazione e progressi della Ven. Grotta di San Paolo Apos-

tólo . . "Mdina (Malta), Cathedral Archives, ACM, Mise. 263, pp.83-125.

«See National Library of Malta; Liber Bullarum, AOM, Vol. 455, fol. 292'.
4'See*tá.,Vol.459,fol.367',fol.422.

BY THOMAS FRELLER27

lions, in the seventeenth century the Grotto became one of the "musts"
for visitors of Malta. In 1607 Venegas obtained Pope Paul Vs permission
to look after the crypt, an action that was eventually to lead to the dismemberment of the crypt from the church of St. Paul in Rabat. This decision was to be a milestone in the history of this shrine.50 Venegas soon
erected a new chapel above the Grotto in honor of St. Publius and built
a college across the road from the chapel. Duke Ferdinand of Mantua

(1620) enriched the Grotto with a fragment of the arm-bone of St. Paul,
and the 1615 pastoral visitation of Bishop Baldassare Cagliares records

five altars at the Grotto.51

A most significant part of this religious program of the CounterReformation was the revival of the holy traditions of the pilgrimages
and their aims by rebuilding or extending old monuments in a baroque
style, thereby practically creating new ones. The restoration and the
subsequent rebuilding of St. Paul's Grotto and Church during the seventeenth century is a tangible proof of this movement.52 The apologetic
or propagandistic' mission adopted by the Catholic Church and the
Order of St.John helped to create a very impressive place of devotion in
St. Paul's Grotto and Church. In the eyes of the artists, writers, and travelers of the beginning baroque period, St. Paul was a confessor of the
Faith, demonstrating the Faith by word, deeds, martyrdom, and an ascetic life. So St. Paul's Grotto, its works of art, and its relics were ever-

changing into an allegoric idea of Christian life. Baroque Christianity

was characterized by a powerful desire to find the presence of the
'other world,' the world of Christ, the Virgin, and the Saints, and to find
it near at hand. Especially in the presence of relics, the people felt closer
to the saints and their spiritual powers. In search of visual and spiritual
identifications, the pilgrims and early baroque travelers translated again

the glories of the biblical past into a spectacular scenery repeated in their

own era. This extended baroque promotion of the Pauline cult gave rise
to an even wider 'utilization' of the places connected with St. Paul. It
was no coincidence that in these same decades the small chapel in St.

'"Rocco Pirri recalls the religious history of Malta and refers to the special situation of

Mdina and Rabat in his Sicilia Sacra (Palermo, 1733),Vol. II, p. 922, Pirri, an Apostolic Delegate, visited the island of Malta in the time of Benegas (1610) and took a quantity of

Terra di S. Paolo home to Sicily. See ibid., Not. VII, p. 902. The most detailed, although not
always reliable history of St. Paul's Grotto is still Giovanni Gatt Said's La Grotta di San

Paolo (Malta, 1863). For a compilation of the multifaceted aspects of the Pauline cult in
Malta see Azzopardi (éd.), op. cit.
"See Archiépiscopal Archives, Floriana (Malta), Visitatio Cagliares (1615), fol. 90v. See
also Abela, op. cit., pp. 347-354.
"See Denis de Lucca and Conrad Thake, op. cit. , pp. 11-13·

28THE PAUUNE CULT IN MALTA AND THE MOVEMENT OF THE COUNTER-REFORMATION

Paul's Bay ("Cala di S. Paolo") was enlarged and adorned with precious
works of art.53 Of course, the cult of St. Paul and the construction of the
Pauline shrines were helped also by literary means. The commemoration of the crypt in a number of Italian and Latin sonnets in the seventeenth century written in honor of St. Paul and the Pauline cult in Malta
were part of this effort to stress and strengthen the Pauline Tradition.54

The increasing European awareness of the Pauline cult in Malta with
its traditions and folk-beliefs is also reflected in the numerous paintings,

drawings, and etchings of the time which deal with the subject. Undoubtedly, the most striking 'visual' episode of the apostle's sojourn in
Malta is the event when St. Paul was bitten by the viper and harmlessly
shook it off. This dramatic episode was soon depicted in several drawings and etchings. To aid the relevance of these descriptions writers
have also included in their books a number of illustrations related to the

Pauline cult in Malta. Examples of these drawings and etchings can be
found in Hieronymus Megiser's then popular account Propugnaculum

Europae (1606, 16IO, loll),55 as well as in Johann Jacob Scheuchzer's

Kupfer-Bibel.*' Other visual reflections of the Pauline cult in Malta can
be found in Michael Heberer von Brettens Aegyptiaca Servitus. We
find here a copy of an etching of St. Paul by the Palatine court painter
Friedrich of Hammel.57 Vincenzo Coronelli and Francesco Scalletari in

their late seventeenth-century works, reproduced depictions of the
newly erected church of St. Paul at Rabat and the nearby entrance of the
Grotto designed by Francesco Buonamico.58 Following his visit to Malta
in 1664, the gifted Dutch poet and drawer Willem Schellinkx produced
two drawings of St. Paul's Grotto with its nearby sacred mound.59
"See in detail Azzopardi (ed.), op. cit.
"See Gerard Bugeja,"The Grotto Motif in Pauline Poetry," in Azzopardi (ed.), op. cit. , pp.

217-228.

"See Hieronymus Megiser, op. a?., pp. 23 ff
"See Johann Jacob Scheuchzer, Kupfer-Bibel in welcher die Physica Sacra oder geheiligter Natur-Wissenschaft deren in Heil. Schrift vorkommenden Natuerlichen Sachen
deutsch erklaert und bewaehrt (4 vols.; Augsburg, Ulm, 173 1-1735), for Malta see Vol. LV,

pp. 1367-1373;see plates DCCXXXVI, DCCXXXVII, DCCXXXVIII, and DCCXXXLX.

"Heberer von Bretten, op. cit. , plate 15.
"See Francesco Scalletari, Condotta Navale e Vera Relatione del Viaggio da Carlistot

aMalta. . . . (Graz, l688),Parte Prima, pp. 86 ff., and Vincenzo Coroneüi, Epitome Storica
del Regno di Sicilia ed isola di Malta (Paris, 1699), pp. 96 ff.

"Reproduced in Azzopardi (ed.), op. cit. , and Freller, St. Paul's Grotto and Its Visitors. The
Grotto kept its picturesque attraction up to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Late de-

BY THOMAS FRELLER29

Concurrently even cartography included these new monuments and

places of legends and devotion. In 1551 and ca. 1560 maps of Malta by

Antonio Lafreri and Giovanni Francesco Camocio show snake symbols
at the "Cala S. Paolo" (St. Paul's Bay). St. Paul's Grotto appears for the first
time in Matteo Perez D'Aleccio's map published in 1582.^ More or less,
the overnight international popularity of these aspects of the Pauline
cult seem to have become accepted and fashionable in circles of

painters from Catholic countries as well as from regions such as Flan-

ders, the Netherlands, or central Germany which were strongly influenced and shaped by Calvinism and Protestantism. The reason for this is
seen within a completely new and influential change of European
awareness toward the Maltese islands. A considerable number of fa-

mous European late sixteenth-century and early seventeenth-century

artists chose subjects connected with St. Paul's stay at Malta as recorded
in the Acts of the Apostles by St. Luke.61
VI

The local as well as foreign awareness for the Pauline heritage of
Malta also gained an essential support through a series of miraculous
folk-beliefs and legends. As early as 1533, the chaplain of the Order of
St. John, Jean Quintin D'Autun, reported that St. Paul's Grotto was daily
visited by local as well as foreign people who chipped off the soft white
stone from the Grotto's rock— the so-called Terra di S. Paolo—as an an-

tidote against poisoning and snake bites.62 In 1571 a certain visitor from
pictions of the Grotto and its visitors are shown in the English magazine The Graphic (Lon-

don, April 29, 1876) and in the much later Harper's Magazine (1923), featuring an article
about Malta with a drawing, showing Maltese women at prayer in the sacred place.

"¦See in detail Albert Ganado, "The Grotto of Saint Paul in Maltese Cartography and in

Topographical Illustrations," in Azzopardi (ed.), op. cit. , pp. 229-248.
"One might name here amongst others the works of such renowned mannerist and

early baroque painters as Adam Elsheimer's (1 578- 1610) "Shipwreck of St. Paul" (London,
National Gallery), Maerten De Vos's (1532-1603) "Miracle of the Viper" (Paris, Louvre),
Domenico Beccafumi's (1486-1551) "Shipwreck of St. Paul" (Private Collection), David

Tenier's (1582-1649) "Miracle of the Viper" (Utrecht, Zentraalmuseum), Adriaen Pietersz

van de Venne's (1 589- 1662) "Miracle of the Viper" (Leningrad, Hermitage), Frederick van
Valckenburg's (1566-1623) "Shipwreck of St. Paul" (Prague, Museum of Halcany), Giovanni da S. Giovanni's (1592-1636) "St. Paul and the Viper" (Cathedral of Volterra), and
Palma il Giovane's (1544-1628) "St. Paul in Malta" (Private Collection).
"See H. C. R.Vella, op. cit., pp. 43 ff. For an early reference see also Andrea Pietro Mattioli, Petri Andreae Matthioli Medici senensis commentant, in libros sex, Pedaci
Dioscorides Anazarbei, de Medica Materia adjectis quam plurimis plantarum & ani-

malium imaginibus, eodem authore (Venice, 1554), p. 694.

30THE PAULINE CULT IN MALTA AND THE MOVEMENT OF THE COUNTER-REFORMATION

Cremona to Malta, Tommaso de Bastiano,went so far as to ask for an official attestation that the stone he intended to carry away was really derived from St. Paul's Grotto.63 Monsignor Pietro Dusina, in the Acts of his

Apostolic Visit, in 1575, refers to the tradition that this cave served as

the place of residence and preaching of the Apostle and that the rock
taken from it was a sure antidote to all poisons. The Apostolic Delegate
writes:

Ex quo [saxo] fidèles quotidie fragmenta eripiunt, quae dicunt, adversum

omnia venena prodesse si immixta bibatur. Hanc gratiam in honorem D.
Pauli fuisse concessam Uli saxo permagno, in quo ipse habitavit, ita
mirabilis est Deus in Sanctis suis.64

Besides the various personal motives, the visitors of these shrines and

holy places had two main reasons. To expect to receive some kind of
blessing or help—material or spiritual (or both). The 'existence' of this

miraculous stone eventually made St. Paul's Grotto a popular sacred
place where one might expect spiritual as well as material help. This aspect of the miraculous stone or earth of St. Paul's Grotto (Terra di S.
Paolo) should not be underestimated. One of the most powerful motives that attracted sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Christians to

visit foreign places was the healing or prevention of diseases. Pounded
to powder and mixed with wine or water, the rock from the Grotto was

regarded as effective medicine to combat assorted diseases, especially
poisoning." By the end of the seventeenth century the power of Terra
di S. Paolo was considered an antidote against headaches, the evil eye,
dog bites, the plague, and colic.65 In a society still ravaged by numerous
diseases, and with no comprehensive system of medical care, the

people used to turn to saints. Some of them—as in the case of St. Paul in
Malta—had been healers while on earth and all had invoked Christ's

healing power.66 Similar to the old pilgrim badges, these stones or earth,
very often sold in Malta in form of sealed and stamped earth ("Terra Sig6JSee Letters Patent filed in the Magna Curia Castellania (Malta), Registrum Act. Orig.,
Vol. 15 (1570-1572), dated March 26, 1571. Printed in the appendix of George Zammit

Maempel, "Rock from St. Paul's Grotto (Malta) in Medicine and Folklore," in Azzopardi
{ed), op. cit., pp. 169-215, here p. 215.

"National Library of Malta, MS. 643, fol. 54.

"Cf. Ole Worm, Museum Museorum, seu historia rerum rariorum quae Hafniae
Danorum in aedibus Auctoris servantur (Amsterdam, 1655), Lib. I, Chap. IV, fol. 7.
Michael Bernhard Valentini, Natur- und Materialienkammer (Frankfurt a. M., 1714), pp.

66-67. Nicolas Lemery, Dizionario overo Trattato . . . (Venice, 1721),p. 357.
66FOr a case study of the mechanisms of folk-beliefs see Keith Thomas, Religion and the
Decline ofMagic. Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century England (London, 1971).

BY THOMAS FRELLER3 1

Mata"), were brought back by the visitors as tokens of their visit to the
shrine.

The iconographical program of the Counter-Reformation further
boosted the iconographical and architectural reflection and celebration
of the cult in the late sixteenth and the entire seventeenth century.
Therefore, it is not surprising that from the middle of the sixteenth century onwards, hundreds of travelogues and historical, geographical, and
theological works refer in detail to the 'Sicilian' Malta as the place of the
shipwreck and the miraculous deeds of St. Paul. Since Malta was often
and so well described in the geographical works and the travelogues of
the sixteenth century, there could rarely be inventions and 'travel forgeries.' The accounts of visitors must, therefore, have corresponded quite
closely to the real facts and existing descriptions and relations. According to Hieronymus Megiser, Heberer von Bretten, Samuel Kiechel, André
Thevet, Barthold of Gadenstedt, and Duke August the Younger of Braunschweig-Lüneburg, in the second half of the sixteenth century, St. Paul's
Grotto was already being visited daily by many European pilgrims and
travelers. Most of these foreigners, as well as the Maltese inhabitants
themselves—as Hieronymus Megiser explicitly mentions67—were carrying away chippings of the above-mentioned Terra di S. Paolo, which
was believed to have supernatural qualities.
The reputation of the stone of the Grotto for healing fevers and preventing poisoning had spread progressively throughout Europe. After

1600 more and more people were making their way from various Euro-

pean countries to Rabat to be healed. In a contemporary historical
work, Pierre de Boissat sums up the popular opinion:

In the time when St. Paul invoked the Holy Spirit by preaching he was bitten in the finger by a serpent. He shook the serpent into the fire and no-

body was harmed. Since those days the local people think that he blessed

the whole island. The earth of the island is really effective against serpent
bites and against every sort of serpent poison. Furthermore the earth is attributed to be helpful against fevers and other bad things. The pure earth is
supposed to be more effective than sealed earth.68

In the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, Glossopetrae, popularly known as Lingue di S. Paolo found on the Mediterranean island of Malta, were extensively used for medicinal purposes as
67See Hieronymus Megiser, op. cit. , p. 24.
^Translated from Piere de Boissat, Histoire des Chevaliers de l'Ordre de ¡'Hospital de

St.fean de Hierusalem, contenant leur admirable Institution et Police . . . (Lyon, 1612),
Vol. II, p. 516.

32THE PAUUNE CULT IN MALTA AND THE MOVEMENT OF THE COUNTER-REFORMATION

antidotes. These fossil teeth, including specimens of the "Carcharodon
Megalodon" (an extinct variant of the great white shark), were ground

to powder or used as amulet pendants and 'credence' and exported to
pharmacies and shops in various cities of Europe. In antiquity, authors

such as Pliny or Solinus, excluding any religious connotations, had regarded Glossopetrae as objects "fallen from heaven on dark moonless
nights."69 However, from the beginning of the sixteenth century the
miraculous antidotic power of the specimens found at Malta was very
strongly connected with the Pauline cult there. Up to the end of the seventeenth century the majority of scholars and travelers still connected
the healing power of the Maltese Glossopetrae or Lingue di S. Paolo
with the deeds of St. Paul. These fossils became an object of such great
demand that they had to be protected from forgeries and fakes. From
the beginning of the seventeenth century onwards the Maltese Glossopetrae were distributed with handbills entitled "Virtù della Pietra di S.
Paolo," indicating to foreigners that the relevant Glossopetra imported
into their country was really genuine.
As in so many cases found in medieval and early modern medicine
and pharmacy, the renown, collection, distribution, and use of the antidote Glossopetrae or Lingue di S.Paolo were never limited to their real
chemical and pharmaceutical properties.70 In the period of the Enlightenment and secular thinking mythic medicines such as Glossopetrae or
Terra di S. Paolo had lost their 'magical' power. From now on these
once famous medical "treasures" were strictly measured for their
proven empirical qualities. Consequently, with the beginning of the late
eighteenth century also the Maltese Glossopetrae featured in literature
were described merely as exotic objects of curiosity or symbols of an
age bound to medical superstition.71 When the religious power in Europe was being overshadowed by the movements of the Enlightenment, rationalism, and secularization in the late eighteenth century, the
attraction of St. Paul's Grotto and the Pauline cult in Malta for many travelers and pilgrims started to cease. In the notes of this new type of visi"Piny writes: "Glossopetrae linguae similis humanae in terra non nasci dicitur, sed
deficiente luna cáelo decidere, memoriae quoque necessaria (...) non modicae, ut
magi ferunt, potestatis, qui ex ea lunares motus excitari putant." Naturalis Historia,
Bk. XXXVII, Chap. 59. Cf. Solinus, Polyhistoria, Chap. XXXVII, p. 19.
7"See George Zammit-Maempel/'Handbills Extolling the Virtues of Fossil Shark's Teeth,"
Melita Historica,Nl\ (1978), 21 1-224.
''See C. S. Sonnini, Travels in Upper and Lower Egypt (London, 1800), p. 49, and

Alessandro Bisani, Lettres sur divers endroits de l'Europe, de l'Asie, et de l'Afrique, parcourus en 1788 et 1789 (London, 1791), p. 17.

BY THOMAS FRELLER3 3

tors one can notice a shift from pious devotion to mainly curious or scientific interest. A new period of thinking and perception had started.
A Quick Recapitulation

Essentially the Pauline cult in Malta is the result of the writings of the

Acts of the Apostles. However, it was not before the sixteenth century
when this local and regional cult—galvanized by new late medieval legends and traditions—developed into one of the more famous in Europe. As a matter of fact, this development must be seen in close
connection with the special political and religious situation in an island
then ruled by the Order of St. John. This essay has aimed to single out
the erection, and the widespread devotion of a place of worship, which
once enjoyed European fame.
In medieval times there was a considerable confusion regarding the
exact location of the Biblical Melita' where the Apostle was shipwrecked. In fact, the island of Malta—then known by many travelers
and geographers under various names, such as Manta,' 'Mauta,' 'Maltha,'
or Gaulometin' —was in general not regarded as 'Melita' and therefore
the place connected with St. Paul. The presence of the Knights of St.
John was the crucial factor in making Malta an attractive and desirable
destination to foreign visitors. With the Counter-Reformation, the cult
of St. Paul and the Pauline Tradition in Malta—and St. Paul's Grotto as its

principal symbol—became important factors for the propaganda of
Catholicism as well as instruments for the policy of the Order of St.
John. When it reached its golden age at the turn of the seventeenth
century, thanks to the charismatic figure of Juan de Venegas, knight of
Obedience of the Order of St. John, the Pauline cult in Malta gained
extensive renown all over Europe as can be seen in the numerous

French, German, Italian, Spanish, and English travel diaries, journals, trea-

tises, and accounts. Already in the late sixteenth century the veneration
of St. Paul and the Pauline shrines in Malta had developed far beyond a
mere regional cult. Consequently, sixteenth- and seventeenth-century
paintings dealing with this subject may be found in several Italian,
French, and German churches. In this context the numerous travel-

ogues, treatises, maps, and works of art are important examples of the
international dimension which the Pauline cult gained in early modern
times.

As it was intended to show the deeper reason for the particular configuration of the Pauline cult in Malta—which centers around the sa-

34THE PAUUNE CULT IN MALTA AND THE MOVEMENT OF THE COUNTER-REFORMATION

cred Grotto in Rabat—tracing the various stages of its development
from three main viewpoints: the concept of revival or new installation
of Christian places of worship and devotion practised in the time of the
Counter-Reformation and its visual, aesthetic, and artistic program
(which appealed to the masses), the new sensibility of the seventeenth
century toward nature, namely, the mysterious, enigmatic, and fascinating subterranean world and the particular interest in the Grotto on the
part of the Order of St. John as the ruler of the Maltese islands in the
time here referred to. The Order of St. John did not hesitate to seize
upon and exploit the Pauline cult to strengthen its connections with
the island's history, identity, and population, thus emphasizing its role
in the history of Mediterranean Christianity and culture in general. The
Grotto served also as a symbolic support afforded by divine power.
With the increasing popularity of the miraculously healing stone of St.
Paul's Grotto, the Pauline cult in Malta promoted anew the old type of
pilgrimage or journey in the hope of a miraculous cure.
The seventeenth century was designed to revive the custom of the
pilgrimage. Again European travelers and pilgrims journeyed in large
numbers to St. Peter's shrine in Rome, to the Holy Land, or to St. James's
shrine at Santiago de Compostela or to the numerous smaller Catholic
shrines. As in the case of the many shrines and places of worship in the
seventeenth century, the successful promotion of the sacred Grotto at
Rabat needed the active help of the high church authorities in Rome
and secular benefactors and protectors. And in fact it was Pope Paul V
who played a widely supporting role for the Grotto. One of those im-

portant moments for promoting St. Paul's Grotto came in 1620 when
the duke of Mantua, Ferdinando I, donated the armbone of St. Paul to

the Grotto. As the veneration of the relics in the period of the CounterReformation and throughout the seventeenth century received again a
considerable boost in Europe, the Grotto and the Pauline cult in Malta
became at that juncture increasingly popular.
It was natural that the Pauline cult in Malta and the "Theatrum

Sacrum" of Rabat should display a number of general features of the revival or installation of places of worship and devotion so typical of the
Counter-Reformation. St. Paul's Grotto and the Pauline cult in Malta are

a further proof of this Christian continuity, and although the Mediterranean world underwent extraordinarily heterogeneous cultural and
political upheavals, the Christian element could never be destroyed.

SOME PRIVATE ROADS TO ROME:
THE ROLE OF FAMILIES IN AMERICAN VICTORIAN
CONVERSIONS TO CATHOLICISM
BY

Anne C. Rose*

The mid-nineteenth century was the first period in American history

when measurable numbers of Protestants converted to Roman Catholi-

cism. In a culture that remained sharply anti-Catholic, this was a bold
personal step. The converts were impelled by longings for the authority
of a historical church, the orderliness of religious hierarchy, and a spirituality evoked by rituals woven into daily routines. Behind every conversion was a history of spiritual turmoil and resolution. These personal
dramas have led scholars to picture conversion as a process of individual transformation.1 A convert's journey, however, was neither strictly
*Dr. Rose is an associate professor of history and religious studies in the Pennsylvania
State University. She wishes to express her gratitude for the advice and assistance of
Patrick Allitt, Susan K. Harris, Carolyn Lawes, and Robert Trisco. She also thanks the
Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism at the University of Notre Dame

for a grant that partially supported the research for this article.

'One reason for the individualistic focus of scholarship on conversion is that converts
in Western culture have characteristically written about themselves in highly personal
terms. Working in a long tradition beginning with Augustine's Confessions (397-398),

mid-nineteenth-century American Protestants who became Catholics produced conversion narratives, including Levi Silliman Ives, Trials of a Mind in Its Progress to Catholicism; A Letter to His Old Friends (Boston: Patrick Donahoe, 1854); Isaac Hecker,

Questions of the Soul, 5th ed. (New York: D. Appleton, 1864); and James Kent Stone, The
Invitation Heeded: Reasons for a Return to Catholic Unity, 11th ed. (New York: The
Catholic Publication Society, 1870). Building on the converts' self-perception, historians

have offered strong biographical analyses, such as John Farina, An American Experience
of God: The Spirituality ofLsaac Hecker (New York, 1981). Patrick Allitt focuses on intellectual motives in conversion, in Catholic Converts: British and American Lntellectuals
Turn to Rome (Ithaca, New York, 1997). Jenny Franchot goes further to place individual
converts in the cultural context of Protestant ambivalence toward Catholicism, in Roads

to Rome: The Antebellum Protestant Encounter with Catholicism (Berkeley, California,
1994), esp. chaps. 14- 17. There is still almost no research on the role of families in con-

version, whether conversion means spiritual renewal, the adoption of a new religion, or
both. Lewis R. Rambo points out this neglect in Understanding Religious Conversion

(New Haven, 1993), pp. 108-109, 174. One notable exception is Mary P. Ryan, Cradle of

35

36SOME PRIVATE ROADS TO ROME

inward nor solitary. Conversion had inevitable social dimensions. In private life, it was an event that took place in families and profoundly
changed families in turn.

This essay explains how commonplace American assumptions about
gender and domesticity shaped the entrance of Protestants into the

Catholic Church and determined the consequences of conversion for
their families. Both social and religious premises influenced relationships in mid-century Protestant homes. In keeping with inherited patriarchy, Victorian men behaved as heads of households on questions
affecting the family's public identity, including religious affiliation.
Women, perceived as guardians of heart and hearth, might nonetheless
claim considerable religious freedom. The fervor of the Catholic con-

vert ignited this mix of domestic traditionalism and change. Faith itself
became a form of family power, and, depending on the sex of the convert, favored male control or female self-determination. The conversion
of a husband and father brought his entire family into the Catholic
Church. A wife and mother, in contrast, might practice her Catholicism
on her own or with her children, but exercised limited influence over
her husband's faith. The convert's intimacy with Catholic kin outside
the nuclear household eased, but did not subvert, these patterns of authority at home. Individual conversions unfolded within the boundaries
set by Victorian family life.2
the Middle Class: The Family in Oneida County, New York, 1790-1865 (New York,
1981). For background on the American counterpart of the Oxford movement in the Episcopal church, the religious setting of many Catholic conversions, see Sydney E. Ahlstrom,

A Religious History of the American People (New Haven, 1972), pp. 548-549 and chaps.

36-38. On conversions among liberal Protestants, see Peter W. Williams,"A Mirror for Unitarians: Catholicism and Culture in Nineteenth Century New England Literature" (Ph.D.

dissertation, Yale University, 1970), esp. chaps. 4-5. Ahlstrom estimated that as many as
700,000 American Protestants became Catholics between 1813 and 1893 (p. 548). Franchot concludes more conservatively that there were 350,000 conversions during the

nineteenth century; approximately 57,400 of them occurred between 1831 and I860 (p.
281).

2Historians are well aware that nineteenth-century Americans identified women with

piety and that religious activity broadened women's opportunities. These conditions did
not end men's religious participation, however, particularly at moments when a family's
public religious identity was at stake. Nancy F. Cott makes an important argument for the
dual public and private nature of families, a view that helps to explain when and why men
made religious decisions, in "Giving Character to Our Whole Civil Polity: Marriage and the
Public Order in the Late Nineteenth-Century," in Linda K. Kerber, Alice Kessler-Harris, and

Kathryn Kish Sklar (eds.), U.S. History as Women's History: New Feminist Essays (Chapel
Hill, North Carolina, 1995), pp. 107-121.1 propose more broadly that nineteenth-century
middle-class men played influential roles in families, in Victorian America and the Civil
War (New York, 1992), chap. 4. When I speak here of American beliefs about family, I as-

BY ANNE C. ROSE37

Eleven American Protestants who entered the Catholic Church be-

tween 1836 and 1869 are the principal subjects of this study. Seven

were men and four were women; seven were married, three were sin-

gle, and one was widowed. Six were Episcopalians at the time of their
conversions; and five were Unitarians or Transcendentalists. These facts

alone do not convey the complexity of the converts' lives, however, or
the utility of the sample. Because religious persuasion worked powerfully through channels of kinship, this small number of converts
brought four spouses, eighteen children, and sixteen adults in extended
families into the Catholic Church during the mid-century period. More
spouses, children, and kin became Catholics later in time. Eleven cases
of conscience provide an avenue for understanding nearly fifty conversions. Nor do their stories simply represent a religious experience occurring on the margins of the Protestant world. The converts' histories
bear witness to a spiritual restlessness that reached deep into the
Protestant mainstream: only five were born Episcopalians or Unitarians,
while three others began their lives as Presbyterians, two as Methodists,
and one as a Quaker. Few mid-century Protestants migrated as far as
Catholicism. Even so, the converts underscore the presence of disquiet
and the potential for redirection in American religion.3
For most Americans, too, the family was the private setting of religious experience. This analysis approaches Victorian families as networks
sume that these views derive from the dominant Protestant culture, the background,
more specifically, of the converts themselves. It is noteworthy, however, that Colleen McDannell identifies many similarities between ideals for Protestant and Catholic households, in The Christian Home in Victorian America, 1840-1900 (Bloomington, Indiana,
1986).
'See the appendix for a list of the men and women who initiated the process of conversion in their families, along with the names of relatives who became Catholic with

them. I have not included spouses who married converts or their kin after their reception
into the Catholic Church or children born into these families after the parents' conversions. The sample of eleven represents especially well-documented cases. Their stories, as
well as many others, are described in the large body of literature on converts. Particularly
helpful sources for the nineteenth century include Katherine Burton, In No Strange
Land: Some American Catholic Converts (1942; reprint ed.,Freeport,New York, 1970);
D. J. Scannell-O'Neill, Distinguished Converts to Rome in America (St. Louis, 1907); Annette S. Driscoll, Literary Convert Women (Manchester, New Hampshire, 1928); Laurita
Gibson, Some Anglo-American Converts to Catholicism Prior to 1829 (Washington,
D.C., 1943); Paula M. Kane, Separatism and Subculture: Boston Catholicism, 1900-1920

(Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1994), pp. 180-196; and Patrick Allitt, "American Women
Converts and Catholic Intellectual Life," U.S. Catholic Historian, 13 (1995), 57-79. 1 have

discussed the movement of antebellum Protestants from one denomination or set of be-

liefs to another in Voices of the Marketplace: American Thought and Culture, 18301860 (New York, 1995), chap. 1 .

38SOME PRIVATE ROADS TO ROME

of immediate and extended kin. The breadth of this social definition

stands in contrast, however, to a narrow temporal focus. The essay limits itself to Catholic conversions of the middle nineteenth century. The
purpose is both to ensure that the conversions share religious characteristics and to identify a cluster of family histories driven by similar domestic arrangements.4 Authority and freedom coexisted uneasily in
American Victorian families. Religious conviction must commonly have
tipped the balance one way or the other. In the families of Catholic converts, the consequences of faith were dramatic.
Husbands and Fathers: Families of Male Converts

Scholars have so thoroughly documented the nineteenth-century
mind-set equating women, piety, and benevolence that we have nearly
forgotten that men still made religious decisions when they wished.5
The wives and children of Victorian men who became Catholics invari-

ably accompanied the convert into the Church. These were not simple
forced conversions. Yet persuasion and assent gained strength by following established lines of domestic power.
The precondition for family conversions was the assumption of both
husbands and wives that the man's will should prevail. The experience
'Impressionistically, it seems that the conversion of family groups was nearly a distinctive feature of the mid-nineteenth century. Later in time, conversions connected in complex ways with family problems, such as separation, became more common. The
frequency of mid-century family conversions suggests, first, that this was a period of intense religious interest that drew an unusual number of men toward religion, and, second,
that marriages at that time were less likely to be ended voluntarily. Later conversions associated with the breakup of families include those of Rose Hawthorne Lathrop (1891),
Dorothy Day (1927), and Katherine Burton (1930). See Katherine Burton, Sorrow Built a

Bridge:A Daughter ofHawthorne (London, 1937), chap. 4; Dorothy Day, The Long Loneliness: An Autobiography (1952; reprint ed., San Francisco, 1981), pp. 132-166; and
Katherine Burton, The Next Thing: Autobiography and Reminiscences (New York,
1949), chaps. 5-7. Throughout the nineteenth century, conversions associated with the
death of a spouse were common. Grief did not simply cause conversion; more precisely,

family disruption brought religious questions already being considered to the forefront.
Widows and widowers who became Catholics include Elizabeth Seton (1805), James
Kent Stone (1869), and Wilmoth Alexander Farmer (1915). See Elizabeth Seton: Selected
Writings, edd. Ellin Kelly and Annabelle Melville (New York, 1987), parts 1-3, and Fran-

chot, op. cit. , chap. 14 (on Seton); Katherine Burton, No Shadow of Turning: The Life of
James Kent Stone (Father Fidelis of the Cross) (New York, 1944), chaps. 4-6; Burton, In
No Strange Land, pp. 215-233 (on Farmer); and Farmer,^4rfa Beeson Farmer: A Missionary Heroine ofKuang Si, South China (Atlanta, 1912).
'See, e.g., Lori D. Ginzberg, Women and the Work of Benevolence: Morality, Politics,
and Class in the Nineteenth-Century United States (New Haven, 1990).

BY ANNE C ROSE39

of Cornelia Peacock Connelly (1809-1879) is an extreme though not
unique example of the sacrifices a wife made to accommodate her hus-

band's religious beliefs. When Pierce (1804-1883), an Episcopal minister in Natchez, Mississippi, decided to become a Catholic in 1835,
Cornelia, too, became convinced of the truth of Catholic doctrine and

was baptized in New Orleans. In 1840 Pierce informed her of his further intention to become a priest. Cornelia would have to consent to a
papal decree of separation and take a vow of chastity. Recovering from
the birth of her fifth child and grieved by the impending dissolution of
her family to a degree remembered years later by friends, she prayed for
guidance. Her Catholic faith supported her acquiescence. She renewed

the posture of subordination she conveyed in a letter to Pierce in 1836:

I know your heart is with me—but this must not be so, give it all to the
Church."6 On retreat in 1841, she accepted Pierce's religious calling as
the occasion of her own."Ex[amined] vocation," she wrote in her diary:
"Decided."7 Cornelia entered a convent in 1845.

Future events, however, vastly complicated what began as Cornelia's
voluntary conformity to Pierce's initiative. In 1848, three weeks after
Cornelia took final vows and became Superior of the Society of the
Holy Child Jesus in England, Pierce removed his children from their
boarding schools and traveled to Rome to press the case that he, not
Cornelia, was the founder of her order. Anxious about her children, she
was equally distressed by the prospect of Pierce's control. The "very allusion to being in the confessional with him," she wrote to Bishop
Nicholas Wiseman, coadjutor to the vicar apostolic of the London District, who had long fostered her work, "is a want of delicacy that pains
me more than I can express."8 When Rome failed to respond to Pierce's
view, he vowed to "rescue my blessed wife from the hands of devils?9
In 1849 he filed suit for her return in the English courts. By 1857, when
'Cornelia Connelly to Pierce Connelly, May 22, 1836, quoted in Positio: Documentary
Studyfor the Canonization Process of the Servant of God Cornelia Connelly (née Peacock), 1809-1879 (Rome: Sacred Congregation for the Causes of Saints, 1983, 1987), I,
102. The Connellys' story is thoroughly documented in this study. See also Kenneth L.
Woodward's excellent analysis in Making Saints: How the Catholic Church Determines
Who Becomes a Saint, Who Doesn't, and Why (New York, 1990), pp. 253-273. Other
marriages were similarly dissolved to allow religious vocations, although the Catholic
Church viewed this practice with ambivalence. One American precedent involved Virgil
and Mary Barber, parents of five children, who ended their marriage in 1820. See Gibson,
op. cit. , chap. 9. On the theological issues, see Positio, Vol. Ill, appendix I.

'September, 1841, Notebook A, quoted in Positio,l, 145.
"Cornelia Connelly to Wiseman, February 8, 1849, quoted in Positio, 1, 327.

'Pierce Connelly to the Earl of Shrewsbury, December 28, [1848], quoted in Positio, I,
307. Italics in this and subsequent quotations appear in the original texts.

40SOME PRIVATE ROADS TO ROME

the court finally ruled in Cornelia's favor, Pierce had returned to the Anglican church and become the author of anti-Catholic tracts. Catholicism required "unreasonable submission in morals," he warned the
public, setting priests "of coarse natures" to practice "impure casuistry"
on "highly gifted women."10 Sadly, his implicit contrast between the
Church's illicit designs and the legitimacy of Protestant marriage read
as transparent, if complex, autobiography. Realizing, too late, that he had
relinquished his wife, Pierce excoriated the Catholic Church for seizing
the power he had given away.
These wrenching events grew out of the Connellys' conventional expectations about their roles as husband and wife. Pierce assumed that
his wife would alter her convictions to match his changing religious

views. Cornelia shared his perception of her duty, to the point that she

agreed to end their marriage to enable his spiritual calling. Pierce became angry and indeed unbalanced when he discovered that his own

decisions had led to the loss of his wife. Cornelia, now fervently Cath-

olic, had turned from a human husband to a divine master and achieved

independent recognition in the Catholic Church, although at the high
cost of her family. Impelled by their faith, the Connellys followed the
logic of patriarchy to the system's subversion.
Few families permitted a husband's zeal to undermine the integrity
of their homes. Far more commonly, his authority became the emotional framework in which other family members examined Catholic
beliefs. Often the wives' initial dilemma was their conviction that the

Catholic Church was corrupt, an opinion they held in common with

most contemporary Protestants. This was the stumbling block for Rebecca Ives, who remained undecided about conversion until 1853, even

though her husband Levi (1797-1867), formerly the Episcopal Bishop
of North Carolina, had renounced Protestantism the previous year."Mrs.

Ives is still in her old belief," the rector of the Irish College in Rome
wrote to Archbishop Francis Patrick Kenrick of Baltimore: "But she is
"Reasonsfor Abjuring Allegiance to the See ofRome:A Letter to the Earl ofShrewsbury (Philadelphia: Herman Hooker, 1852), pp. 5,19. See, similarly, his The Coming Struggle with Rome, Not Religious But Political; or Words of Warning to the English People
(London: T. Hatchard, 1852). Here he based his argument about the dangers of Rome's political power on the experience of"my humble family," where "my wife and the mother of
my children [was] seized, in spite of her remonstrances and tears" (p. 12). Pierce's rapid
circuit from Catholic fervor to anti-Catholic stereotypes illustrates the love-hate relation-

ship of Protestants to Catholicism that Jenny Franchot develops as a major theme of

Roads to Rome.

BY ANNE C. ROSE41

much changed for the better. She is now quite happy to meet priests
and hears them even on religious subjects. I am sure she would be soon
a Catholic were she not so much tormented by her American anti-

Catholic correspondents."11 Men who freely sought conversion spoke

similarly about their resistance to Catholicism. James Kent Stone con-

fessed in 1870 "how utterly steeped I had been in prejudice" until "God

drew back the veil of my heart."12 Yet the men's difficulty was the product of their own conflicting opinions. For their wives, marriage thrust
them toward a church they were raised to disdain.

The tension between seeking to please a husband and honoring long-

held beliefs easily led to personal crisis. Ann Hegeman Rosecrans of
New York City, a newlywed at the time of her husband's conversion in

1846, became seriously ill during her struggle to reconcile her love for
her husband with her commitment to Protestantism. Ironically, it was

Ann who urged William (1819-1898) to think more deeply about religion during their courtship. My "religious feelings are daily changing— ,
becoming broader deeper," William assured her in 1842, although "I do
not, and perhaps I shall never belong to any Christian sect."13 Shortly before their marriage in 1843, he told her that "my mind grows daily more
and more Catholic."14 Here William used "Catholic" to denote High

Church Episcopalian, and Ann must have been pleased because she was
raised in the Episcopal church. In January, 1846, however, William's

brother Sylvester wrote of his shock at William's conversion to Roman
Catholicism:

I cannot explain my feelings on the receipt of the intelligence your letter
brought of yourself. . . . There was the overturning of so many of my own

opinions derived from you. . . . My prejudices (perhaps ignorant & presumptuous) against the many errors—deadly practical errors in the Roman

"Rev. Dr. F. Kirby to Francis P Kenrick, May 6, 1853, quoted in John O'Grady, Levi Silliman Lves: Pioneer Leader in Catholic Charities (New York, 1933), pp. 45-46. No doubt
Rebecca's reservations were compounded by the fact that she was the daughter of a leading American Episcopal bishop, John Henry Hobart, whose views are well described in

Robert Bruce Mullin, Episcopal Vision/American Reality.High Church Theology and Social Thought in Evangelical America (New Haven, 1986), esp. chap. 3- On the other
hand, Rebecca's godmother was Elizabeth Seton, perhaps the most famous nineteenthcentury American convert who became a Catholic in 1805. See Burton, In No Strange

Land, p. 2.
invitation Heeded, p. 27.
"William Rosecrans (hereafter WR) to Ann Hegeman [Rosecrans] (hereafter AR)JuIy

15, 1842, Box 58, William Starke Rosecrans Papers, Department of Special Collections,

University Research Library, UCLA, Los Angeles, California.

14WR to AR, June 28, 1843, Box 58, Rosecrans Papers.

42SOME PRIVATE ROADS TO ROME

Branch of the Church, which I have been taught were there, are deeprooted & to disturb them makes my whole moral being rock to & fro.15

William's fervor, nurtured by his intimacy with Ann, led his family
toward religious upheaval.
No letters by Ann Rosecrans survive for a two-year period surrounding her husband's conversion. What is clear, however, is that Ann became very ill and during her illness became a Roman Catholic. Sylvester
wrote to WUliam in June, 1846, about her health and her plea for
Sylvester's conversion:
I was astonished at first & afterwards deeply affected to hear that she had

been so sick as to send her dying messages to her friends & kindred; additionally I was affected by [torn] what was her message to me. It seemed to

me that the net in which I am being drawn towards "what is now called the
Catholic Church" is strengthening & closing around me before I can see by
whose hands it is drawn.16

Perhaps Ann's illness was unrelated to her husband's conversion. But
Sylvester's anguished reaction to his brother's Catholicism in conjunction with Ann's sudden and protracted collapse suggest that she had a
hard time finding the spiritual resources to follow her husband. By the
time her letters resumed, Ann was a practicing Catholic, although still
pressured by her mother to attend the Episcopal church. A priest "most
kindly offered to administer to me the B[lessed]. S[acrament]." at home
because she was too ill to attend Mass, she told William in September,
1847, adding, "Ma asks if the place where we should [locate] in town is
very far from the Episcopal] Ch[urch] —of course not intending that
"Sylvester Rosecrans (hereafter SR) to WR, January [ca. 26], 1846, Box 65, Rosecrans
Papers. Although the exact date of Rosecrans' reception into the Church is unknown, I assume that William wrote to Sylvester, his most intimate correspondent, soon afterwards,

making the date of the conversion sometime in January, 1846. The only secondary discussion of Rosecrans' conversion places it erroneously before his marriage. Lawrence W
Mulhane cites a letter to himself by William Rosecrans, December 11, 1886, saying that

Rosecrans was baptized in 1844, in "Major-General William Stark [sic] Rosecrans," Records
of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia, 35 (1924), 266. He presumes that this was a Catholic baptism and that it preceded the marriage (p. 258). Rose-

crans was indeed baptized in the Episcopal church at that time (SR to WR, April 12,
October 17, 1844, Box 65), but he had been married in August, 1843, at St. John's Episcopal Church in New York City (WR to ARJuIy 19,August 10, 1843, Box 58).The small number of surviving letters from this period by William or Ann may account for Mulhane s
confusion. The significance of the sequence of events I propose is that Ann did not knowingly marry a Catholic.
"SR to WRJune 30, 1846, Box 65, Rosecrans Papers.

BY ANNE C.ROSE43
this should interfere with our intentions."17 Ann Rosecrans took her

husband's side by her forthright report—and effective dismissal—of
her mother's opinion.
Wives who had been married longer than Ann Rosecrans conformed
more easily to their husbands' decisions to become Catholic. Habits of
domesticity must have muted potential reservations. For Sarah Healy
Brownson (1804-1872), marriage and religious transformation were
nearly identical. In the years following her wedding to Orestes Brownson in 1827, her husband had been a Universalist, religious skeptic, Unitarian, and Transcendentalist successively, before he became a Catholic
in 1844. At the time of his conversion, Sarah was the mother of seven
children ranging in age from sixteen years to one. Writing to his son

Henry in 1868, Orestes described Henry's wife as having "all the best

qualities and virtues of your mother with more cultivation."18 Sarah's
correspondence does show that she was a thoughtful woman, but not

erudite or carefully educated. Even so, Sarah was not so thoroughly in-

ured to her husband's religious changes or so immersed in housekeeping that she did not need to be convinced to become Catholic. In 1851
Orestes told Isaac Hecker, a friend and convert who became a priest,
that Sarah's conversion was the result of Hecker's persuasion: "She is a
good Catholic, and like me owes much of her conversion to you."19 The
fact remains that Sarah became a Catholic wife with less private turmoil
than afflicted Ann Rosecrans. During a marriage of nearly twenty years,
she had learned to adapt to the passionate initiatives of her brilliant and
determined husband.

What is most arresting about the outlook of wives who would not
have become Catholic on their own was the ultimate fervor of their de-

votion to the Church. The old figure of speech that identifies the special
"zeal of a convert" might be recast to highlight the more puzzling dedication of a group of people whose conversions were not wholly voluntary: converts' wives. Sarah Brownson praised Catholicism in letters to
17AR to WR, September 1 , 1847, Box 55, Rosecrans Papers.

"Orestes Brownson (hereafter OB) to Henry Brownson, March 10, 1868, Folder III-3a-5, Henry F. Brownson Papers, The Archives of the University of Notre Dame, Notre
Dame, Indiana. Sarah bore seven children between 1828 and 1843; the Brownsons' last
child was born in 1845. Information on the children may be found in the excellent notes
to Joseph F. Gower and Richard M. Leliaert (eds.), The Brownson-Hecker Correspondence
(Notre Dame, Indiana, 1979). On Orestes Brownson's earlier religious changes, see my
Transcendentalism as a Social Movement, 1830-1850 (New Haven, 1981), esp. pp. 4449.

19OB to Isaac Hecker (hereafter IH), March 28, 185 1 , Gower and Leliaert (eds.), op. cit. ,

p. 148.

44SOME PRIVATE ROADS TO ROME

her Protestant kin. Writing to her sister Betsy in 1858, she professed her
joyous attachment to the Church, then turned to denounce Protestant
misconceptions of Catholic corruption:
I love every thing [sic] Catholic and with God's help I will live and die a
Catholic, for I think with the light and knowledge of the present day with
the church before our eyes in all parts of the world and believing that our
Savior spoke the truth when he said the gates of hell should never prevail
against it [;] and after all [there are those who say that] it became so rotten
that Luther and all protestants [sic] had to forsake it [,] I say Betsy any one
that can believe all Ulis it seems to me is past reasoning with [.]20

As her children grew up and dispersed in the 1850s and 1860's, Sarah's
letters to them chronicled her deep involvement with Catholicism: her

daily attendance at Mass, her encouragement of their choice of religious

vocations, her gift to a son of a miraculous medal, the party she held in
1869 to honor the twenty-fifth anniversary of the children's baptism.21
There is no reason to be surprised that women found Catholicism rewarding. Still, their ardent piety stands out curiously as the last stage in
a sometimes painful journey from anti-Catholic feelings through sub-

mission to husbands as the door into the Catholic Church. Their obedi-

ence to the Church and joyous participation in its rituals may have been
the way converts' wives came to terms with family pressures they could
not control. As important, the clarity of their conviction as Catholics
grew from the role of intellectual persuasion in their conversions. Patriarchy was the less-than-free setting of their religious passages, but
teaching and consent were the means of change.
The children of men who became Catholic were as dependent as
their mothers on their fathers' will. When their parents entered the
Catholic Church, children learned that their names, schooling, voca-

tions, and choice of a spouse might all be altered. The sons and daughter of Orestes Brownson worked for many years to resolve the
consequences for them of their father's conversion. On the most elemental level, Brownson's third son, ten years old in 1844 when his father became a Catholic, was renamed to reflect his father's new faith.

"Sarah Brownson (hereafter SB) to Betsy Healy Alexander, June 6, 1858, Box I-3-n,

Orestes A. Brownson Papers, The Archives of the University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame,
Indiana.

21SB to Betsy Alexander, March 13, 1850, Box I-3-j, Orestes Brownson Papers, and SB to
Henry Brownson, November 1,1867, Folder III-3-a-4; January 30, 1871, Folder III-3-a-8;
and December 29, 1869, Folder HI-3-a-6; Henry Brownson Papers.

BY ANNE C. ROSE45

William Ellery Charming Brownson (1834-1864), whose name honored
the period's leading Unitarian thinker, became William Ignatius. This revision was not a mere formality, but affected what the boy was called.
"William (we used to call him Channing)," his mother wrote to her sister in 1850, a clarification that reveals how much the family's new religious loyalty must have affected the child's sense of himself.22
The education of the older Brownson boys also took a different direction after their parents' conversion. The boys had been schooled by
liberal and radical Christians, including the Transcendentalists at Brook
Farm. But in the late 1840s and 1850's, Orestes, Jr., John, William, and
Henry attended a succession of Catholic boarding schools and seminaries. The discipline was strict, and the boys were lonely. William complained to his father from the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester,
"My Teacher [sic] strikes me over the head every chance that he can
get."23 Orestes, Jr., chafed at the cloistered schooling he received in
Cincinnati. "I will always obey you in all things," he promised his father

in 1846, but "to think of remaining here, shut up, some years yet, with-

out a friend, I mean father, mother, brother, or sister near me, it is not

very pleasant."24 John and Henry may have felt similar misgivings, but
they were enough swayed by their training to study for the priesthood,
John in Montreal around 1850 and Henry at the same time in Maryland.
None of the boys in the end chose a religious vocation, however, and
Sarah was later sorry for the decisions about childrearing induced by

her zeal. "How many times I have regretted letting my children go away

from home so young," she wrote to Henry in 1870: "We were peculiarly
situated, and wonderfully ignorant of the injustice and iniquity to which
you were exposed."25 Brownson's daughter Sarah (1839-1876), named
for her mother, escaped the rigors of her brothers' education. But her
late marriage in 1873 to William Tenney (1811-1883), a Catholic con-

vert nearly as old as her father, suggests that daughters simply experi-

enced different pressures, focused on courtship and marriage, than
"SB to Betsy Alexander, March 13, 1850, Box I-3-j, Orestes Brownson Papers. Gower

and Leliaert mention the name change in Brownson-Hecker Correspondence, n. 6, p. 1 17.
"William to OB, April 1, [1847], Box I-3-h, Orestes Brownson Papers.
"Orestes, Jr., to OB, September 7, 1846, Box I-3-h, Orestes Brownson Papers. Orestes
had most recently attended the Transcendentalist school at Brook Farm (West Roxbury,
Massachusetts), and so the transition to Catholic education was dramatic. See Katherine

Burton, Paradise Planters: The Story ofBrook Farm (New York, 1939), p. 147.
25SB to Henry, May 13, 1870, Folder III-3-a-7, Henry Brownson Papers. On the boys' education for the priesthood, see OB to IH, March 28, 1851, Gower and Leliaert (eds.), op.

cit., p. 148, and SB to Betsy Alexander, March 13, 1850, Box I-3-j, Orestes Brownson Papers.

46SOME PRIVATE ROADS TO ROME

those that faced sons.26 For all of the children of Orestes Brownson,

their father's decision to become Catholic had enduring effects on
themselves.

More deeply, the Brownsons were disturbed by strains left unresolved by formal conversion. In 1890 Orestesjr. (1828-1892), wrote an
extraordinary letter to Henry (1835-1913), his only surviving brother,
who had become their father's biographer. Composed at a time when
"I feel myself gradually and surely approaching the end of my earthly
existence," Orestes' words were a confession of how much his own

Catholicism consisted of his struggles with his father.27 Orestes remembered when his father "was a [Protestant] minister and in a great loose
silk dress used to preach with all the serious earnestness of life &
death."

He impressed me with an idea of fear, that I can never overcome—His
whole soul was in his metaphysical, philosophical & theological studies
and he saw not that what interested him could not interest his son Orestes.

Orestes still believed in God and considered himself a Catholic, but "the

problem of life is as unsoluable [sic] to me as ever."

I read the papers of the Great Catholic Congress with intense interest and
fain would discuss portions I do not agree with [,] but as ever my Charley
says "it don't pay to fight the church" and the moment any discussion begins or is understood as Contra fldem, therefore [,] I bury myself in chess
for there no one object[s] to your making any way you please—or thinks it
strange to reason for or against any line of play.28

The oldest son of Orestes Brownson was caught in his old age between
obedience to the Church and his own free reflections, a dilemma that

he sensed mirrored how much his awed acquiescence to his father had
blunted his will and deferred peace of mind.'I would like to live my life
over again," he concluded despondently, "but that is impossible." His
26Sarah married in part to escape her father, now a widower. "At first I did not want to
separate from you, because I believed that I should remain," she wrote to Orestes in July,
1873, "but as you have often told me in the last three months, that you do not wish to live
with me, that you are dissatisfied with my conduct and disposition, I should not think of
forcing myself upon you" (Folder III-3-a-ll, Henry Brownson Papers). On Tenney, see

Dumas Malone (ed.), Dictionary ofAmerican Biography (New York, 1936), XVIII, 374375.

27Orestes,Jr., to Henry, April 6, 1890, Folder III-3-d-3, Henry Brownson Papers. All subsequent quotations in this paragraph appear in the same letter.
28Orestes,Jr.,was the editor of a chess magazine (Gower and Leliaert [eds.], op. cit., a.
8, p. 65).

BY ANNE C. ROSE47

troubled spirit is a reminder that a family's conversion to Catholicism
might not resolve religious questions.
In all of these families, authority and obedience become agents of the
faith of the husband and father. On the surface, the outcome of the conversion of a head of household was simple and predictable: wives and
children followed him to baptism. Yet intense spirituality rarely conforms neatly to social systems. At times, these families accepted dissolution for the sake of celibate vocations, nurtured wives of uncommon
fervor, and suppressed corrosive doubts. Whether family order was sustained or shaken, however, it was patriarchy, allied with religious conviction, that decisively shaped these Victorian homes.

Wives and Mothers: Families of Female Converts

The domestic religious influence of mid-century American men did
not preclude the spiritual freedom of women. Wives converted to
Catholicism independently of their husbands. Their faith, like that of
male converts, reached through family relationships to draw their kin
toward the Catholic Church. Whereas the households of men traveled

quickly to consent, however, the families of women experienced division, delay, and frustration. Men's religious choices continued to set
bounds for the consequences of women's actions.

Religious compromises in the family of Sophia Ripley (1803-1861) il-

lustrate the persuasive influence of a Catholic wife as well as the limits
of her domestic power. A founder, with her husband George (18021880), of the Transcendentalist Brook Farm community in 1841, Sophia
became a Catholic in 1847, near the time of Brook Farm's dissolution

and the Ripleys' move to New York.29 It was an unmistakable sign of the

self-determination of Victorian husbands that George did not convert
with his wife. At the same time, marital intimacy brought him close to
the Catholic Church. He supported Sophia's practice. One rainy morning in 1857 he used some of the modest salary he earned as a columnist
for the New York Tribune to hire a carriage to take Sophia to the dedication of a chapel. "He said he could not go himself, but chose to be rep2The exact date of Sophia's conversion is unknown. Most scholars believe it occurred
in 1847, but may have been early 1848. Several interpretations of her conversion include
Franchot, op. cit., chap. 15; Henry L. Golemba, George Ripley (Boston, 1977), p. 105; and
Rose, Transcendentalism as a Social Movement, pp. 130-161, 185,210-211.

48SOME PRTVATE ROADS TO ROME

resented at all such occasions," Sophia wrote to her cousin Charlotte.50
His respect for his wife led to public defense of her religion. In 1855, a
time of especially vocal anti-Catholicism, George attended a lecture by
Orestes Brownson. "He wrote a beautiful report of it from memory for
the paper," Sophia told Charlotte,"& defended it warmly when it was attacked at the breakfast table" of their boardinghouse.31 Two years later,
writing an entry on "Agnus Dei" for Appleton's Cyclopedia, George put
on one of these prayer disks "with perfectly childish delight, & would
not lay it aside on any account," all the while praising the Catholic
Church as " a great institution.' "32 As a convert's husband, George Ripley
experienced genuine religious ambivalence. What he said to Sophia
about her cousin, Richard Henry Dana, Jr., were thoughts that he may
also have had about himself: "? wish I could have a talk with Richard, in

one half hour I could make him ashamed of himself that he is not a
CaLhOIiC"'33

After Sophia's death in 1861, however, George resumed Protestant

practice. He wrote to his sister Marianne in 1865 that he never missed a
Sunday at the liberal church of Octavius Brooks Frothingham. Although
he claimed that "my interest is in great part of a social nature, being very
intimate with several members & families in the congregation," religion
remained sufficiently important to Ripley for him to express satisfaction the same year that his new wife, Louisa, was "entirely in opinion &
feeling with the liberal Unitarians of the school of Mr. Frothingham—&
myself."34 The wide circuit George traveled in his religious loyalties attests to the strength of Sophia's Catholic piety and her effect on him.
Yet unlike the households of Catholic husbands, the Ripleys remained
religiously divided.
Although Catholic wives grieved over these spiritual rifts and prayed
for their husbands' conversions, they still exercised significant control
over religious practice in their families. Wilhelmine Easby-Smith (18351918) became the matriarch of a vigorous Catholic family following her
conversion in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in 1862. The baptisms of her chil30Sophia Dana Ripley (hereafter SDR) to Ruth Charlotte Dana (hereafter CD)June 21,
[1857], Box 15, Dana Family Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, Massachusetts.

31SDR to CD, [1855?], Box l4,Dana Papers.
32SDR to CD, December 6, 1857, Box 15, Dana Papers.
"George's words are quoted in SDR to CDJune 21 , [1857] , Box 15, Dana Papers.

54George Ripley to Marianne Ripley, March 26, April 9, 1865, George Ripley Letters Mi-

crofilm (1824, 1852-1882), Division of Archives and Manuscripts, State Historical Society
of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin. George and Louisa were married by Frothingham on
October 18, 1865.

BY ANNE C. ROSE

49

dren, all but one of her stepchildren, and her mother soon followed her
own. Not only was she a strenuous volunteer in the local parish, but she

literally brought her religion home when she entertained priests. She

created this Catholic environment despite the fact that her husband
had been a Know-Nothing politician. A potential candidate for either

president or vice-president in 1856, William Russell Smith (1815-1896)
placed the name of Millard Fillmore in nomination for president at the
party's convention. Not surprisingly, when Wilhelmine told her hus-

band of her impending reception into the Catholic Church six years
later, he paled and "went out, shutting the door with enough force to
make me understand how deeply he was offended."35 William imposed
limits on the household's expressions of faith. "Religious discussions,"
one daughter recalled, "had never been allowed in the home."36 Nonetheless, within months of Wimelmine's conversion, William warmed

enough to the family's Catholicism to remind one child, away at a con-

vent school, to "observe obedience to the sisters."37 In 1896, shortly before his death, he entered the Catholic Church.
Here was a pattern typical of the families of female converts: the
wife's religious influence contended quietly with the husband's will.
Witoelmine told the priest who baptized her husband that his conversion was "wonderful." It came, however, "after thirty-four years of

prayer."38 Although Wimelmine's faith made her the family's spiritual

center, the Smiths' religion rested on compromise instead of consensus.39

"Wilhelmine's recollection is quoted in Anne Easby-Smith, William Russell Smith of

Alabama.His Life and Works (Philadelphia, 1931), p. 139. On William's political involvement, see "Outstanding Events in the Life of William Russell Smith of Alabama," typescript,

William Russell Smith Papers, Southern Historical Collection, No. 1873, University of
North Carolina Special Collections, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina, Chapel
HiU.

3iEasby-Smith, op. cit. , p. 237.

57W. R. Smith to [Mary Agnes Smith] , September 18, 1862, Smith Papers.
3*Quoted in Easby-Smith, op. cit. , p. 240.
"It is perhaps an indication of the significant, if partial, religious freedom of women
that I found no families where husbands prevented the conversion of wives. Lack of evidence, however, does not preclude domestic struggles. One case of a Protestant father
and Catholic daughter, a more uneven match than a husband and wife, suggests how
Protestant men tried to assert their authority. In 1 82 5 , Wilhelmina Jones, daughter of Commodore Jacob Jones of the U.S. Navy, became a Catholic, then returned to the Episcopal
church at her father's insistence. Soon fleeing to the Georgetown Convent, neither her father nor a Protestant crowd this time dislodged her, and she eventually became a sister of
the Visitation order. See George Parsons Lathrop and Rose Hawthorne Lathrop,^! Story of

Courage: Annals of the Georgetown Convent of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin
Mary, From the Manuscript Records (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1894), pp. 247-262.

50SOME PRIVATE ROADS TO ROME

Children might claim some of the freedom left by their mothers' restricted authority. Protestant fathers commonly allowed their young
children to be raised as Catholics; older children, however, were able to

choose. This was particularly true of boys. Thomas Wren Ward III
(1844-1940), the son of a Boston financier who grew up to become a
banker himself, remained a Protestant after his mother Anna became a
Catholic in 1858. In this he followed his father, Samuel, a lifelong Unitarian who showed respect for his wife by building her a chapel on the
grounds of their country home in Lenox, Massachusetts. Thomas similarly grew up to marry a Catholic. Unlike his father, he became a
Catholic himself at age ninety-six.40
His conversion was a clear sign that religious liberty was not a spiri-

tual answer. By his own determination, he spent his adulthood in
households overseen by Catholic women; yet he continued to disdain
Catholic doctrine. "It almost convinces me," he wrote during the last

year of his life, "except for old prejudice."41 More startling, a secretary
who worked for Ward for more than a decade in the 1920's and 1930's

and recorded his anti-Catholic opinions in an article on his life was unaware that his mother had been a Catholic.42 This wealthy businessman
had no reason to suppress this information for the sake of social appearances. In connection with his wife and children, he visibly belonged to a Catholic family. Even so, his neglect to mention a fact that
complicated his quarrel with Catholicism indicates that he was still
troubled as an old man by religious and family issues provoked by
Anna's conversion. Submitting finally to baptism, he dismissed the
doubts and repaired the domestic breaches that had characterized his
life.

Seen as human experiences, Thomas Wren Ward's private struggle
with Catholicism strongly resembled the spiritual unrest of Orestes
Open conflict most likely occurred in this family because the convert was a daughter, not
a wife. Even then, the young woman's determination to become a Catholic prevailed over
her father's opposition.
"On the religious affairs of the Ward family, see David Baldwin, "Puritan Aristocrat in
the Age of Emerson: A Study of Samuel Gray Ward" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Penn-

sylvania, 1 96 1 ; Ann Arbor; University Microfilms, 1 973), P- 290; Richard D. Birdsall, "Emerson and the Church of Rome,"jimencen Literature, 31 (1959), 273-281; Margaret Snyder,

"The Other Side of the River," New England Quarterly, 14 (1941), 435-436; and letters
from Isaac Hecker to Anna Ward, November 2, I860, July 24, [1861], October 26, 1861,
February 19, 1862, February 26, 1863, Samuel Gray Ward and Anna Hazard Barker Ward
Papers, Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

¦"Quoted in Synder, op. cit., p. 435.

"The secretary was Margaret Snyder.

BY ANNE C. ROSE51

Brownson, Jr. For both, a parent's embrace of Catholicism raised lingering questions inescapably tied to conditions of family authority. There
was, however, a crucial difference: Brownson pursued his reflections inside the Catholic Church, while Ward hesitated outside. The child of a
Catholic mother, Ward was able to make his own religious decisions.
Faith and patriarchy worked at cross purposes in the families of women
converts. Independence for family members was one consequence,
though the other was domestic division.

Siblings and Cousins: Kinship and Faith
beyond the Nuclear Family

When mid-nineteenth-century Americans thought about family, they
did not limit their sights to parents and children. Families consisted of
relatives of varying degrees of kinship belonging to several generations.
Catholic converts prayed strenuously for their kin's conversions. In
their hope, they revealed how much they wished to take their own spiritual steps in the company of family. They forged more egalitarian relationships outside their immediate households.
Unmarried converts depended most clearly on the religious companionship of relatives besides a spouse. For Isaac Hecker (1819-1888) of
New York City, becoming Catholic was a process initiated by a mentor,
Orestes Brownson, yet also shared with his brother George (18181888). Brownson, sixteen years older than Hecker, was "a spiritual Parent," in Isaac's words, "a spiritual guide or Father," in the eyes of Isaac's
brother John.43 Both Brownson and Hecker converted to Catholicism in
1844. Their philosophical correspondence, sustained nearly until
Brownson's death in 1876, attests to the importance of their friendship

as a catalyst of religious conviction. Hecker, however, saw Brownson's

limitations. "He thinks for a dozen men," Isaac wrote in his journal in
1845, "yet he never moves my heart."44 It was with George Hecker, not
Brownson, that Isaac received the sacrament of confirmation on Trinity

Sunday, 1845. George had told Isaac in 1843 that he wished to live "a life

which is higher nobler more self denying than what he had done."45
Now George and Isaac were the only members of their family to enter
the Catholic Church. George was not an intellectual, but he was a
45IH to OB, [March 9, 1844] John Hecker to OBJanuary 7, 1843, in Gower and Leliaert
(eds.), op. cit. , pp. 82, 334.
"June 29, 1845 , Isaac T Hecker, The Diary: Romantic Religion in Ante-Bellum Ameri'ca,ed.John Farina (New York, 1988), pp. 321-322.
"July 5, 1&45, Hecker, The Diary, ed. Farina, p. 115.

52SOME PRTVATE ROADS TO ROME

skilled entrepreneur who left an estate of two rnillion dollars and, during his life, poured his wealth into Catholic causes. He was, in the view
of one scholar, "Isaac's closest friend throughout his life."46 In 1845 the
brothers deepened their intimacy when they sealed the ties of kinship

with a common religion.

Single women similarly became Catholics with the support of relatives. Eliza Allen Starr (1824-1901) recalled that she entered the Church
because of her acquaintance with "educated Catholics," most important, her cousin George Allen and his wife Mary.47 Raised a Unitarian in
Deerfield, Massachusetts, Starr visited her cousins in Philadelphia in
1848. The Aliens had been Catholics less than a year. Their fervor

pressed Eliza to think seriously about the Church. "Do you think I can
forget," she told them on her baptismal day in 1854,"all the prayers you

have all offered for me?"48 Their efforts at persuasion were still less overbearing than the demands on a wife. After all, Eliza took six years to
make up her mind and corresponded equally with Mary and George as
she tried to do so.49 Family influence was instrumental in her conversion, but she escaped the situations of submission or frustration that
faced Victorian wives.

Indeed, a kinswoman might lead a man to Catholicism if they were
distant relatives. Released from the inequality of couples, a woman's
spirituality was free to work persuasively across gender lines. When
"Farina, "General Introduction," Hecker, The Diary, p. 5. The classic interpretation of
the importance of same-sex friendships during this period is Carroll Smith-Rosenberg,
"The Female World of Love and Ritual: Relations between Women in Nineteenth-Century
America," in her Disorderly Conduct: Visions of Gender in Victorian America (New York,
1985), pp. 53-73.
"Autobiographical narrative, in James J. McGovern, The Life and Letters ofEliza Allen
Starr (Chicago, 1905), p. 35.

"Starr to"Dear Cousins" [George and Mary Allen], December 23, 1854, ibid., p. 67.Archbishop Kenrick of Baltimore noted the tenth anniversary of the Aliens' conversion in his
letter to Starr, October 24, 1857, p. 90.
«See letters to her cousins, November 16, 1850, through December 23, 1854, ibid. ,pp.
54-68. The conversion of Thomas Andrew Becker (1832-1899), who became, succes-

sively, bishop of Wilmington (Delaware) and Savannah, similarly extended over many
years, although the role of his family is less thoroughly documented than in the case of
Starr. Becker was influenced by the conversion of his older brother Samuel in 1846. In
1853 he was confirmed in Winchester, Virginia, where Samuel, but not Thomas, made his
home. Evidence about the brothers' communication is limited; yet both Samuel's role in
Thomas's conversion and Thomas's difficulty in reaching a decision seem clear. See
Thomas Joseph Peterman, The Cutting Edge: The Life ofThomas A. Becker (Devon, Penn-

sylvania, 1982), pp. 6-10.

BY ANNE C. ROSE53

James Roosevelt Bayley (1814-1877) left the Episcopal church in 1842,
he attributed his conversion to his aunt, Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton
(1774-1821), who had become a Catholic in 1805. "I often think," he
told his cousin Catherine, "that it has been the prayers of your sainted
Mother, that has [sic] obtained for me this blessing." Long dead, Seton
was nonetheless present to Bayley: "If the prayers of a righteous person
avail much, oh! how much more those of a saint in heaven."50 More tan-

gibly, it was Catherine (1800-1891), Elizabeth's daughter, who guided
Roosevelt from their extended family's Episcopal to its Catholic side.
Common fervor underwrote their intimacy; both soon chose religious
vocations. Warm letters between "my beloved Rosey" and "dear Cousin
Kate" sharply contrasted with the strains in contemporary marriages.51
Bayley relied no less on the Setons, mother and daughter, because they
were women and felt free to do so because their relations skirted the

patriarchy of nuclear families.
Married converts, too, entered private religious dialogues with extended Catholic kin. Most often these relations involved family members of the same sex. Here the converts could leave behind the muted

contention they found at home. Sophia Ripley, for one, was relieved that
her marriage remained cordial after her conversion. Yet she recognized
that her ties with George lacked a dimension offered by shared faith.
Where "there is any sympathy between beings of the same kindred," she

told Charlotte Dana in 1846, "there is a mystic tie of union that binds

them."52 This "sympathy" was spiritual, and it was in letters to Charlotte
(1814-1901), her cousin, that Sophia revealed her most personal
thoughts. Charlotte, who entered the Church in the mid-1 840's, was the
only Catholic in her father's household in Cambridge, Massachusetts,
just as Sophia was alone in New York. "Charlotte carried on the R. Cath.
[sic] service for the servants in the little room," her brother wrote in his
journal one Sunday; the rest of the family gathered elsewhere to hear a
'"Bayley to Catherine Seton, September 15, 1842, quoted in M. Hildegarde Yeager, The
Life ofJames Roosevelt Bayley, First Bishop ofNewark and Eighth Archbishop ofBalti-

more, 1814-1877 (Washington, D.C., 1947), p. 56.

"The salutations from their correspondence appear in Yeager, ibid., p. 53. See Yeager,
esp. chap. 2, for the letters Bayley and Catherine Seton exchanged at the time of his conversion, when he was in Europe and Catherine in New York. Bayley attended the Seminary of St. Sulpice in Paris (1842-1843), was ordained in New York in 1844, and
eventually became Archbishop of Baltimore in 1872. Catherine Seton became a Sister of

Mercy in 1846 and Mother Assistant of the order in 1864 (Yeager, p. 53, and Seton, edd.
Kelly and Melville, p. 10).

52SDR to CD, September 12, 1846, Box 10, Dana Papers.

54SOME PRTVATE ROADS TO ROME

guest who was an Episcopal priest.53 Clearly, the correspondence of
Sophia and Charlotte relieved each one's religious isolation at home.
Over time, faith might alter the dynamics of these friendships. Although William Rosecrans patiently nurtured his brother's piety, it was
Sylvester (1827-1878) who decided to become a priest. Sylvester was
so far from conviction in 1843 that he asked William, "Is there a God?"
Yet "I seek truth," he continued, and "you are my only intimate."54 Months
after William's conversion in 1846, Sylvester still worried that "to enter
the Church of Rome is to entangle one's soul."55 By October, however,
he "was convinced that "Rome is Catholic." He decided on a religious vo-

cation the following spring.56 William remained a fervent layman. He
formed a devotional confraternity for Catholic officers in the U.S. Army
in the 1850's and raised a son who became a priest.57 Nonetheless, the
direction of spiritual influence in the brothers' relations reversed when
Sylvester chose a religious life. Because patterns of power between siblings were less fixed than in marriages, spirituality worked freely to redefine the bonds among these Catholic kin.
These private religious dramas were as essential to conversion as the
understandings reached between husbands and wives. Still, a convert's
connections with extended family did not change the patriarchal
arrangements of households. Although Cornelia Connelly was a persuasive family evangelist, she honored her husband with nearly perfect
submission. By the time of Pierce's ordination in 1845, Cornelia had
convinced three of her four siblings to become Catholics, along with
their spouses, and one of Pierce's three brothers. This "charism of spiritual motherhood" was her special gift, in the words of the Positio compiled as evidence for her canonization.58 John Connelly was so loyal to
"[August] 15, 1852, Thefournal ofRichard Henry Danajr., ed. Robert E Lucid (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1968), II, 500.
MSR to WR, May 25, September 28, 1843, Box 65, Rosecrans Papers.
"SR to WRJune 30, 1846, Box 65, Rosecrans Papers.
"October 1, 1846,April 26, 1847,Box 65, Rosecrans Papers. Ordained in 1853, Sylvester
became a bishop in 1862 and, in 1868, the first bishop of Columbus (Ohio).
"The confraternity was dedicated to the devotion of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Letters
from army officers to William Rosecrans provide information on its organization. See A. T.
Monroe to WR, April 8, 1852, and R. W. M Johnston to WR, May 2, 1852, Box 2, Rosecrans

Papers.Adrian Rosecrans (1849-1876) entered the Paulist order, founded by Isaac Hecker.

^Positio, I, 182. For the names of the relatives Cornelia brought into the Catholic

Church, see the appendix. Their conversions are described in the Positio,l, 15-20, 36-37,
185-189.

BY ANNE C. ROSE55

Cornelia that he broke off relations with his brother when Pierce re-

turned to Episcopalianism. After the Civil War, John worked without
pay as a Catholic "travelling agent" as "reparation for his brother's apostasy."59 In a way, Cornelia's spiritual authority was the result of her selflessness. Pierce's involvement with his family was "shot through with
self-love," in the judgment of the Positio; Cornelia extended herself to
others.60 This made her a powerful agent of her family's conversion. Her
empathy was equally the condition, however, of her obedience to
Pierce, the breakup of her family, and the loss of her husband and children to the Episcopal church.

Conversion and Family
To recognize the role of domesticity in American conversions to
Catholicism does not diminish the importance of faith and conviction
in religious transformation. Mid-nineteenth-century Protestants became
Catholics because they believed the Catholic Church was the repository of truth. They reached this conclusion while they were members
of families, however, and family relationships shaped their lives as
Catholics in turn.

In religious matters, American Victorian families remained, at base,
patriarchal. Husbands and wives agreed that men exercised considerable control of the family's faith. Women, with some risk, might choose
where they worshiped and take their children along. Here a father's religious influence shrank to his own self-determination. The convert's
faith was the key that opened some possibilities in families and closed
others. Husbands who became Catholics produced families that were
authoritarian and religiously united. Catholic wives settled for households that were tolerant yet divided. Communication with Catholic kin
beyond the nuclear family offset, but did not resolve, the strains converts encountered at home. Piety mixed in predictable ways with Victorian domesticity to create American Catholic families differentiated
by the gender of the convert. These were the private settings where all
family members searched for religious answers.
"These phrases are found in a letter from Mother Mary Imelda White, S.H.C.J., to
Mother Theresa Walton, May 2, 1929, quoted in Positio, 1, 37.
MPositio,l, 161.

56SOME PRTVATE ROADS TO ROME

Appendix: American Victorian Catholic Converts
and their Families, 1836-1869**
Convert/Marital Status/ Religion at Birth Religion at

Year of Conversion

Kin Who ConvertedConversion

Pierce ConnellyPresbyterianEpiscopalian1836
(married)
Cornelia (wife)

Mercer (child)
Adeline (child)
Mary Peacock (sis-in-law)
Adeline Duval (sis-in-law)

Lewis Duval (bro-in-law)
George Peacock (bro-in-law)
Elizabeth Peacock (sis-in-law)
John Connelly (bro)
wife of John Connelly
(sis-in-law)?

James Roosevelt Bayley
(single)

EpiscopalianEpiscopalian1842

William Augustus Bayley
(bro)

Carleton Bayley (bro)
Isaac Hecker (single)
MethodistTranscendentalist
George Hecker (bro)

1844

Orestes BrownsonProtestant (first

1844

Transcendentalist

(married)formal affiliation

Presbyterian)
Sarah (wife)

Orestes, Jr. (child)
John (child)
William (child)

Henry (child)
Sarah (child)

George (child)
Edward (child)

"The principal sources for the table are cited in n. 3. Biographies and autobiographies
that appear in other notes provide additional information. I have placed a question mark
next to information found in some of the sources, but that is not, in my judgment, well established. The relationships noted in parentheses refer to the connection of the person to
the original convert in the family.

BY ANNE C. ROSE57

William Starke Rosecrans Methodist?Episcopalian1846
(married)
Arm (wife)

Sylvester (bro)
Henry (bro)?
Jemima (mother)?

Sophia Ripley (married) UnitarianTranscendentalist

1847

Charlotte Dana (cousin)
Sarah Stearns (niece)

Levi Stillman IvesPresbyterianEpiscopalian1852
(married)
Rebecca (wife)

Eliza Allen Starr (single) UnitarianUnitarian1854
Anna Barker WardQuakerUnitarian1858
married
child

Wilhelmine Easby-Smith EpiscopalianEpiscopalian1862
(married)
Lucy (stepchild)
Sophia (stepchild)
William Russell II (stepchild)
Mary Agnes (child)
William Easby (child)
Agnes Easby (mother)

James Kent StoneEpiscopalianEpiscopalian1869
(widowed)

Cornelia (child)
Ethel (child)
Frances (child)

BOOK REVIEWS

General and Miscellaneous

Il monachesimofemminile in Italia dall'alto medioevo al secólo XVII a con-

fronto con l'oggi. AM del VI Convegno del "Centro di Studi Farfensi,"
Santa Vittoria in Matenano, 21-24 setiembre 1995. Edited by Gabriella
Zarri. [Scuola di Memoria Storica, 6.] (Località Negarine di San Pietro in

Cariano, Verona: Il Segno dei Gabrielli editori. 1997. Pp. xx, 455. Lire
50,000 paperback.)

This study of the history of women's monasticism in Italy is composed of in-

troductions by Gabriella Zarri and Giulia Barone and eighteen articles, all but

three of which are by women. The preponderance of women authors is a
strength of this collection. The value of a woman's perspective may be illus-

trated by Francesca Medioli's history of the Vatican's regulation of the cloister

for nuns, where it becomes clear that the post-Tridentine strictness of the clois-

ter was primarily the decision of a small group of reforming cardinals. The

reader gets the sense from Medioli's careful presentation that had an abbess or
two, with their lived experiences, been present at the deliberations, the decisions of the council probably would have been very different.
There is a rich variety of interpretations in the collection. Some of the authors argue that women's religious experience, which is less well-documented

than the history of monks, was distinct from men's experience. Other articles
put the history of women religious as part of larger spiritual movements. Al-

most all of the articles are the result of an in-depth archival research. Some of
the studies are of a single house or movement, for example, Lucia Sebastiani,"Da
bizzocche a monache," whose observations upon the daily coutumier of Santa
Marta in Pavia at the beginning of the fifteenth century are fascinating; and others are good surveys, especially Maria Teresa Guerra Medici,"Sulla giurisdizione
temporale e spirituale della abbadessa."
The wide focus of the book, to look at the totality of more than fifteen hundred years of religious experience, is ambitious. That it succeeds at all is to its
credit. But it does more than succeed. The careful scholarship and deep interest

in their subjects which characterize the authors' work move the reader beyond

any easy generalizations about the history of women's monasticism in Italy. As a
synecdoche for the collection of essays, I would offer Marcella Campanelli's
58

BOOK REVIEWS59

statement of purpose in "Monache in provincia. Le canonichesse lateranensi di
Arienzo":

Ho cercato, nel mio viaggio a ritroso nel tempo, di mettere in luce cosa
abbia significato . . . scegliere la via del chiostro, Ie motivazioni che erano
alla base di tale scelta, le stratégie familiari, i ritmi e i modi di vita all'interno
del convento, gli interessi culturali che in esso si coltivavano, cercando di
delineare il modello di religiosa che veniva formandosi. (p. 372)

A notable advantage of this book to the English-speaking student is that it is

built upon previous Italian scholarship not otherwise available. One will note
especially, in this regard, the influence of Gregorio Penco. Annamaria Facchiano, "Monachesimo femminile nel Mezzogiorno médiévale e moderno," illustrates and, perhaps, overstates weaknesses of past foreign scholars, such as John
Moorman, in understanding the sources. On the other hand, some of the studies

suffer from lack of familiarity with foreign scholarship. So, for example,
Facchiano's consideration of women religious in Southern Italy, an area which
is well represented in the collection, suffers from the omission of Evelyn Jamison's study (Oxford, 1934) of Abbess Bethlem of Benevento.

On the whole, the book is a valuable addition to the study of Italian monasticism. A special note ought to be made about the fine material qualities of the

publication, which includes seven color plates and a color reproduction of a
truly beautiful Piero della Francesca fresco (detail).

Charles Hilken

Saint Mary's College of California, Moraga

Il tempo di Bernardino da Portogruaro. By Giuseppe Buffon. [Francescani in
Europa.] (Assisi: Edizioni Porziuncola. 1997. Pp. xxv, 889. Lire 55,000 paperback.)

On October 4, 1897, Pope Leo XIII formalized a major institutional reform of

the Order of Friars Minor. It was known as the Leonine Union. Four branches

of the Order (Observants, Reform, Discalced, and Recollects), each independent

of the other but subject to a common Minister General, were amalgamated to
become the modern Order of Friars Minor. Neither the Coventuals nor the Cap-

uchins were involved. According to the Bull of Union (Felicitate quadarn) uni-

fication was necessary for several reasons: the religious fervor characteristic of

each group at its birth in the sixteenth century had naturally diminished over
the centuries; the decrease in numbers and the damage to morale associated

with the suppressions and exclaustrations of modern times; exemptions and

privileges proper to each group which made it impossible for the Minister Gen-

eral to exercise his supreme authority in the Order; bitter quarrels, especially
between the Observants and the Reform, which were causing public scandal
and inhibiting the pastoral ministry of the friars. Exasperated by repeated ap-

60BOOK REVIEWS

peals for their intervention to resolve these disputes, the Congregations for
Bishops and Regulars and the Propagation of the Faith had readily agreed with
their consultors (a Discalced Carmelite and a Redemptorist) when they suggested union as the answer to the Order's difficulties. Leo XIII needed little encouragement to support the idea and insisted that the matter be discussed at

the General Chapter held in Assisi in 1895. Not without some pressure from the

Chapter President, Aegidio Mauri, O.P, and subsequent protests, the delegates
gave their assent. Two years later Leo decreed the implementation of the union.
Giuseppe Buffon examines the way in which Bernardino da Portogruaro,
member of the Reform family and Minister General (1869-1889), promoted a
renewal of the four families of the Order the ultimate consequence of which
was the union just described. In this lengthy and detailed study he summarizes
the state of the Order in Europe in the nineteenth century and demonstrates the

complexity of the issues that gave rise to such bitter disagreement between the

parties concerned and resulted in Rome's definitive intervention in 1897.

The book is divided into three sections: historiography associated with
Bernardino da Portogruaro; his life as teacher, preacher, Guardian, and Provincial

within the Venetian province until 1861 and as Procurator General of the Reform branch of the Order in Rome (1861-1869); his years as Minister General.

A portrait emerges of a friar convinced that the future of his Order depended
on return to conventual Franciscan life characterized by community living,
poverty, a love of study (especially of the Franciscan tradition), preaching, and
appropriate general legislation. Buffon pays particular attention to the way
in which that conviction was deepened, modified, and developed during
Bernardino's travels, as Minister General, to many European provinces. With
meticulous attention to detail, he illustrates how the General's proposed solutions to the Order's problems were born not only of a deep appreciation of
Franciscan tradition but also from a personal acquaintance with the friars at the
grass roots. Unfortunately, Bernardino's ideas led to irreconcilable differences
between the Stricter Observants (Reform, Discalced, Recollects) and the Observants as each side sought to maintain its own convictions concerning Franciscan life. This caused him considerable distress in the years following his
generalate, i.e., from 1889 until his death in 1895.
While students of Franciscan history will welcome Buffon's contribution as
one of the few to address the modern period with such attention to detail, others may find it valuable as a case study of renewal and reform within a religious
order in crisis and in times not too remote from our own. It should be noted,

however, that as this is a doctoral thesis, many of the findings await reformulation for nonspecialists in Franciscan history.
Maurice Carmody, O.F.M.
Auckland, New Zealand

BOOK REVIEWS61

Called by God's Goodness:A History of the Sisters of St. Francis of Penance
and Christian Charity in the Twentieth Century. Edited by Gian Ackermans, Ursula Ostermann, O.S.F., and Mary Serbacki, O.S.F. (Stella Niagara,
NewYork: The Sisters of St. Francis of Penance and Christian Charity. 1997.
Pp. xii, 325. Paperback.)
The genesis of this history began with a 1989 decision of the General Chapter of the international community of the Sisters of St. Francis of Penance and
Christian Charity. The implementation of this decision was entrusted to a team
of editors who "attempted to design a work plan that would take into account

and do justice to the variety of cultures and experiences of the ten provinces of

the congregation in the twentieth century. At the same time [they] saw the
need to present an overview of some fundamental developments within the international community" (p. xi). The first section of the book contains a brief review of the nineteenth-century history of the congregation and the overview of
the fundamental developments as reflected in community documents. For the
most part, the text and the footnotes fail to reflect the influence of church law
as it has applied to women religious except in the post-Vatican Council II period. Most of the chapters were written in the mother tongue of the author and
then translated into English.
The use of community documents as a principal source is probably the rea-

son for the paucity of reference to the universal Church and political condi-

tions; both, surely, affected the lives of the sisters in much greater detail than is
implied in this text. The authors of the postconciliar essays are more cognizant
of these factors. It is assumed that personal experience was supplemented by
more references in the community archives. The final chapter (V), "Provinces:
Recent Developments and Projects," held an outsider's interest more than the
previous four chapters. The sections within Chapter V account for difficulties,
the changes required by these difficulties, and the changes within the Church
and society. Many sections name the individual sisters involved in the new directions within the community. It is refreshing to read about sisters, other than
superiors, by name; it attests to respect for the individual within the context of
community.
Chapters one to three, were valuable for the background of a commu-

nity with which I was not familiar. Chapter III, "Spirituality: Prayer Does Not

Stand in Isolation from Life and History," does not quite live up to its title (a difficult goal to achieve). The development as reflected in the Constitutions and in
the life of the foundress is accounted for, but how did it affect individuals and
small communities after that time? Very little is said. There were many pages in
this first part where the contents seemed more suitable as encyclopedia entries
than a book-length history. The content seemed to be frequently repeated in
the province histories. The editors acknowledged in their preface,"We as an editorial team did not impose a uniform structure or style on the authors" (p. xii).
As one reads, however, it seems as if the sisters were requested to cover certain

62BOOK REVIEWS

topics, thus leading to a great deal of repetition when one reads the complete
text rather than sections of immediate interest.

Surely, the primary audience for this book is the Sisters of St. Francis of
Penance and Christian Charity. For members of the congregation, it is a valuable
reference book. For an outsider, it can, at times, be tedious reading. In the various sections of Chapter IV, "Provinces: History 1900-1989," the national context is not clear from the outset; one must read one or more sentences to locate
a province geographically. Explanatory endnotes, e.g., the note regarding the
Sisters' relationship with Propaganda Fide rather than the Roman Congregation
for Bishops and Regulars, would be more helpful as footnotes. Additionally, because it is an international community, the great amount of repetition can become burdensome, even boring, when reading the entire text. For the general

reader, interest would have been greatly enhanced by a synthesis that included

the unique characteristics of individual provinces. The original authors of each
section are to be commended for their work. Along with more histories of
American women religious, there is also a need for modern histories of international communities with provinces in the United States. As we become more
and more aware of one world, we can benefit from the experience of women
religious who have been living in an international context for many years. For
readers with no particular association with the community, I suggest reading
chapters I, II, V, and any particular section that might be of special interest.
Barbara Misner, S. C. S. C.

Sisters ofMercy of the Holy Cross
Merrill, Wisconsin

Antimodernismus und Modernismus in der katholischen Kirche. Beiträge
zum theologiegeschichtlichen Vorfeld des IL Vatikanums. Edited by Hubert Wolf. (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh. 1998.Pp. 397. 108DM.)
The contributions in this edited volume originated in two symposia that focused on the development of German theology and religious culture between
Vatican Councils I and II. Wolf's introductory essay establishes the cultural parameters of the volume. Modernization as a socio-historical concept means that
since modern society is fragmented, so are its academic disciplines. Truth, then,
can no longer be seen as absolute or objective, but now seems subjective and
partial. The Catholic Church and its theologians, therefore, have had to engage
an alien culture as well as to safeguard doctrine from what they perceived as
the atomistic Enlightenment Project.
As Wolf points out, there seems to be, at least in some respects, a direct line
between some of the modernists' ideas and those of John XXIII and Karl Rahner—not too surprising in view of the latter's transcendental subjectivity orientation. Until Vatican Council II, a centrality of control and even the
persecution of dissidents seemed to characterize the institutional Church. With

BOOK REVIEWS63

John XXIII a new correlative theology bridging the tension between Church
and world began to emerge. The essays following that of Wolf try to explore
the roots of the tension and the state of the question today.
Otto Weiss has described how modernism was nurtured in the United States,

France, Italy, and Germany. His survey is useful in seeing how gradually Christian life and faith began to reshape theology and doctrine. In fact, this ongoing
bifurcation may well be at the base of the contemporary crisis in the Catholic
Church, in which many of the faithful are declaring themselves Catholic even
though they do not accept all of the institutional pronouncements of the Magisterium. Two modernistic perspectives have provoked conflict and simultaneously helped to define contemporary theological developments. The turn to
the subject with its stress on religious immanence as well as the historicocritical methodology, while viewed with suspicion by Pius X, have become necessary to any Catholic theology that hopes to be contemporary and to
incorporate historically some modes of modern development into ecclesial and

theological discussions. Responding to some of the issues raised by the modernists, the Vatican II Church agreed that it had much to learn from the world.

All the essays are excellent and illustrate the vibrancy of the life of the
Church from 1870 to the 1960's. Martin Reis, for example, reminds the reader
that German Catholics had a profound sense of socio-cultural inferiority, since
they were restricted, for example, from developing a Catholic presence in universities. Such a lack of parity seemed to make some German theologians very
anxious to relate Catholic dogma to the secular disciplines in a way that would
allow Catholic scholarship to be located in the mainstream of German culture.
Such German Catholics as Josef Wittig were, therefore, very receptive to issues
swirling around modernist themes. Karl Hausberger has offered a stellar essay

recounting how Wittig was excommunicated in 1926. Wittig's case subse-

quently was used by Josef Cardinal Frings of Cologne during the opening sessions of Vatican Council II to attack the constraining authority of the Holy
Office.

In the final chapter, Peter Hiinermann has tried to sort out the labeling
process practiced by theologians and ecclesial leaders. Individuals have been labeled modernists, antimodernists, liberals, and conservatives. Traditional conservatism, for example, is rooted in historical development and tradition,
whereas antimodernists are seen as the defenders of the centralized Roman

Curia. To many antimodernist scholars, modernism seems to threaten the very
structure of the centralized Church as it developed after Vatican Council I. In a
sense, then, Vatican Council II has assimilated the modernist impulse to decentralize the Church, a process that is still undergoing critical reflection.
Such a brief review cannot do justice to the wealth of ideas and perspectives

that the authors have presented. What becomes clear, however, is the complexity of modernism and its continuing impact on the Church even as the new millennium approaches. The literature on modernism is replete with articles and
essays. A synthesizing monograph showing what the movement has meant and

64BOOK REVIEWS

can mean for the modern Church is needed. Perhaps this volume will convince
a contemporary scholar to assume this task.
Donald J. Dietrich

Boston College

Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions. Edited by Gerald H. Anderson.

(New York: Macmillan Reference USA, Simon & Schuster Macmillan. 1998.

Pp. xxvU, 845. $100.00.)

This massive tome fills a gap in reference works; it is needed and will be used
by all missiologists and mission agencies, but especially by mission historians. It
should be present in the library of every theological school and mission agency
around the world because it is in the fullest meaning of the words: ecumenical,
global, and scholarly.
Gerald Anderson was assisted by an Editorial Advisory Board composed of
excellent scholars from Europe, North America, and South America; this assured

a representative choice of topics and a high quality of research. The work includes articles on 2,400 people who were missionaries or who had a significant

connection with mission work. It covers the period from post-New Testament
times down to our own days. They were chosen from the Roman Catholic,
Orthodox, Anglican, Protestant, Pentecostal, independent, and indigenous
churches. The articles were written by 349 authors from forty-five different
countries. In many cases the writers are the undoubted authorities on the persons being described. All the articles are signed. At the end of each article is a
short but significant bibliography, which is not limited to English titles. While
the style of writing is diverse, the quality is uniformly good. In each article an as-

terisk appears before the name of a person mentioned for whom there is a special entry. This cross-referencing is most useful to the reader.

The dictionary is made even more useful by its extended appendix and
index. In the appendix are found the list of entries: by time period (e.g., born
before 800, born from 801 to 1500, etc.); of women; of martyrs (not just those

canonized by the Catholic Church but generally recognized as such, e.g., Arch-

bishop Romero); by region of service (e.g., different sections of Africa,
Asia, etc.); by selected major agencies, Orders (limited here to the Dominicans,
Franciscans, and Jesuits), and religious traditions; of Non-Western Persons (according to regions); and by type of work (excluding evangelism, church
planting, and education). This will prove a great help to people doing research
on a more general topic. The index is another important aid. It does not include
the biographical entries—and justifiably so—but it does list geographical
names and local institutions that are significant in the articles plus the names of
all the contributors with their entries.

While there are biographies of people born before 1800 (four pages of
names), the overwhelming majority of them are of people born after that (al-

BOOK REVIEWS65

most nine full pages of names). The lack of names of women before 1800 and
the proportionately fewer names after that is not the fault of the editor. He and

his colleagues have done their best to include as many significant women as

possible, but the sources are lacking. This is often evident in the bibliographies
attached to the biographies of women. But from these listings it is obvious that
the work will be more useful to historians of the modern mission period than
those of the ancient, medieval, or Reformation periods.
It has been estimated that there have been over ten million persons who
have served as foreign missionaries or cross-cultural home missionaries down
through the ages, and therefore a choice had to be made. The editor consulted
with fifty scholars from around the world before settling on the 4,500 included
in the volume. The criterion used for choosing these was that they made a significant contribution—often in a pioneering role—to the advancement of

Christian missions. Some readers may find some of their "favorite" names miss-

ing, especially in the earlier periods, but in reading the articles they will see that
each entry deserves to be there.
It is often said that the era of missions is over. However, the editor points out
that there are far more missionaries working today than ever before in history
(403,000 in 1997), many of these coming from non-Western Churches. This is a
resource that will need to be up-dated regularly.
Gerald Anderson has done a great service to missiologists and missionaries
throughout the world. By making his choice so ecumenical and so global he has
made it possible for scholars and missionaries to become more aware of the

richness of the diverse Christian traditions and to be inspired by the generosity
and commitment of missionaries down through history from all traditions. He
has done more than provide a valuable resource; he has made an important theological statement.

Lawrence Nemer, SVD.

The Missionary Institute
London

Medieval

Forgetful of Their Sex: Female Sanctity and Society, ca. 500-1100. By Jane
Tibbetts Schulenburg. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1998. Pp. xii,
587. $40.00.)
This book represents nearly twenty-five years of research into the lives of female saints for the years 500 to 1 100. In addition to the introduction which outlines her methodology and sources, Schulenburg describes the various aspects
of saintly women in eight chapters before her concluding epilogue titled "The
Celestial Gynaeceum." As might be expected, the saints from this time in the

66BOOK REVIEWS

early Christian Church became saints because of local, popular support rather
than through a formal process of papal canonization. In her identification of
over 2,200 female and male saints in western Europe reviewed by the author to
write this book, Schulenburg found that about one in seven were women or

around fifteen percent of the total for the years of her study. But the book is
more than just a "nimbus count," although the statistical data are there for those

who are interested.

If Schulenburg's account about holy women sounds familiar it's because portions of Chapters 1, 2, 3, and 5 appeared in previously published collections of
essays. The author was drawn to the field of hagiography with its disadvantages
and limitation as source material because her focus on women's history for the
early medieval period is one where documentation on women is notably
scarce. Schulenburg acknowledges the problems of authenticity but claims that
social historians can find in these holy vitae incidental facts that are impossible
to find from any other source. Moreover, the sheer volume on the holy dead
provides rough data that can be useful to make comparisons between saints
both male and female over the time period of the book's focus. Schulenburg argues that she was more successful by studying the vitae collectively rather than
in isolation, but she needed to apply textual criticism when reading each life as
well as comparing information from other sources like calendars and liturgies
when available.

Early Church Fathers are cited by the author to establish the standards required of women to be saintified. Practices on fasting, vigils, and enclosure were
expected and numerous examples were provided testifying that holy women
followed those standards. In particular, women needed to guard their virginity
both physically and spiritually. If nuns remained spiritually chaste, the fathers
were willing to accept the loss of virginity due to rape, but some female religious preferred to remain physically pure by resorting to self-disfigurement
such as cutting off their noses and lips as defense against would-be rapists.
In the chapters not previously published, Schulenburg writes convincingly
on gender relationships within families as well as with friends. Saintly women
formed strong bonds with family members and when dislocated from kin developed a network of friends who helped them in their religious Uves. She
found, however, that if one is looking for a "golden age" in which women enjoyed equality with men, it cannot be found in the saints of the early Middle
Ages.
Schulenburg's thematic approach forced her to repeat some material. In
Chapter l,for example, she details the sources used on Queen/Saint/Nun Radegund. Then in all the remaining chapters, save one, reference is made to this
same woman as it applied to the subject in that chapter. Moreover, to illustrate
such subjects as miracles, the author sometimes was forced to cite late medieval
accounts which were outside the book's time frame. Also questionable was a
conclusion in which the book's contents were not summarized. In its place,
Schulenburg elected to cite today's method of canonization and the naming of

BOOK REVIEWS67

saints, especially that during the pontificate ofJohn Paul II. She also noted isolated twentieth-century examples in which young Catholic girls were instructed by clergy to guard their virginity in the same way that paralleled early
medieval behavior.

Schulenburg's twenty-four illustrations of early medieval nuns and female
saints are captioned with sufficient detail that reference to all these illustrations
was not needed in the text. The book's jacket cover in both front and back has
colorful details of women saints whose likenesses were reproduced by the author herself in the opus anglicanum style of embroidery. The notes/bibliography are excellent and the University of Chicago Press is to be complimented for
an exceptionally high quality of book publication.
While the writing of this book was a long time in the making, Schulenburg
could not have written Forgetful of Their Sex fifteen or even five years ago.
In the past decade there has been an explosion of work published on medieval
religious women. Schulenburg has benefited from this scholarship, but it can

also be argued she has been a frequent contributor to it as well. Forgetful ofTheir

Sex is a welcome addition to the field of women's history in the Middle Ages.

John A. Nichols

Slippery Rock University

Admonitio und Praedicatio. Zur religiös-pastoralen Dimension von Kapitularien und kapitulariennahen Texten (507-814). By Thomas Martin
Buck. [Freiburger Beiträge zur mittelalterlichen Geschichte: Studien und

Texte, Band 9] (New York: Peter Lang. 1997. Pp. xlv, 427. $76.95 paperback.)

In this study, reflecting a thorough knowledge of the manuscript remains and
of modern scholarship derived from his work on the new edition of the Frank-

ish capitularies being prepared under the direction of Hubert Mordek, Thomas

Martin Buck seeks to throw light on the religious-pastoral dimension of Frankish capitulary legislation from 507 to 814. In his view, the exploration of this neglected aspect of capitulary research will additionally reveal the value of these

legal texts to scholars in disciplines other than history and jurisprudence.

Buck devotes the first four chapters of his study to a discussion of challenges
facing those seeking to interpret the capitularies. These problems stem from a

variety of factors having to do with past scholarship, the nature of the capitulary genre, the methodologies utilized to decode their meaning, the circumstances surrounding their promulgation, and the impact on their content

of a particular Herrschaftstheologie undergirding Frankish lawgiving which
equated earthly rulership with enacting the will of God.

A lengthy fifth chapter explores ways of dealing with these problems within
the framework of a particular issue: the religious-pastoral dimensions of Frank-

68BOOK REVIEWS

ish legislation. Buck's treatment unfolds along two interconnected tracks. The
first part of his fifth chapter treats selected texts as examples: a capitulary as an
order to pray (MGH, Capit. Nr. 21); a capitulary as an admonitio (MGH, Capit.
Nr. 23); a capitulary as a sermon (MGH, Capit. Nr. 121). Each text is addressed
in terms of manuscript remains, decisions made by previous editors, dating, the
situation surrounding the promulgation of the text, authorship, intended audience, form and structure of the text, language, sources from which the content
of the text is derived—all complex matters having major implications for textual interpretation. Buck then turns from an exemplarish to a systematisch
methodology in which he examines in chronological order a series of enactments dating from the reign of Clovis to the death of Charlemagne in quest of
information Ülurninating the intrusion of religious elements into legislative

texts. His inquiry, stressing a methodological approach focused on clusters of

interconnected texts rather than individual capitularies, reveals the progressive

inclusion in capitulary texts of provisions positing knowledge of the true faith
and its proper practice both liturgically and ethically as the foundation stones
of an earthly order pleasing to God. These programmatic concepts in turn led
to pragmatic directions cast in pastoral terms aimed at the correctio of those
who did not know or had strayed from right belief and practice. Programmatically, religious-pastoral concepts found their most mature expression in Charlemagne's reign, especially in the Admonitio generalis of 789 and the Capitulare
missorum generale of 802—and perhaps in a non-capitulary entitled by
Boretius Missi cuiusdam admonitio (MGH, Cap. Nr. 121), to which Buck devotes unusual attention in an attempt to figure out what this enigmatic text
represents as an expression of the religious-pastoral dimension of Frankish legislation.

This truncated description of Buck's book could easily lead to the conclusion
that his study rehashes well worn themes related to religion and law in Frankish
governance. Quite the opposite: This study marks an important step forward
not only in establishing the religious-pastoral dimension of Frankish legislation
on a solid basis substantively and chronologically but also in providing valuable
methodological lessons pointing to a more fruitful reading of the enigmatic
array of texts that share the designation "capitularies." And it leaves no doubt
that a new edition of the capitularies is needed. This work will long remain an
indispensable tool for the study of Frankish legislation and its import.
Richard E. Sullivan

Michigan State University

Anglo-Saxon Church Councils, c. 650-c. 850. By Catherine Cubitt. [Studies in
the Early History of Britain.] (Leicester University Press. Distributed in the

United States by St. Martin's Press, NewYork. 1995. Pp. x, 363. $59-00.)

An excellent contribution to the history of the early English church, this
book offers both a specific focus on ecclesiastical councils and an encompassing assessment of the growth and development of religious culture in the early

BOOK REVIEWS69

Anglo-Saxon period. Anglo-Saxon Church Councils is organized into two parts.
Three succinct essays in Part One explain the organization of synods, their frequency, location, and other matters; the actual business of the synods, which
ranged from questions of doctrine to the adjudication of disputes concerning
church property; and diplomatic (or textual) matters and procedure. Five chapters in Part Two analyze major councils— "Clofesho" (held in 747), Chelsea

(816), and councils convened by papal legates visiting York and Canterbury
(786)—and charter evidence of synods held during the late eighth and early
ninth centuries, a period when Mercian kings exercised political ascendancy
over the Church in regions south of the Humber. Two appendices (together
over seventy pages) summarize the evidence for each synod discussed and supply maps showing the location (or probable location) of the synods and other

useful data.

Eighth-century councils brought about fundamental organizational changes
that reflected the Church's need to consolidate its position. Early in the ninth

century, Cubitt argues, the political significance of the synods diminished as

bishops became more concerned with protecting their privileges and less concerned with reforming ecclesiastical practices. The bishops' authority in judicial matters (including disputes about property) waned as West Saxon kings
undid the older political order created by Mercian kings; thereafter synods focused more narrowly on ecclesiastical issues.
As Cubitt notes in her introduction, scholarship on Anglo-Saxon synods is
scant. The two most important early councils— "Clofesho" and Chelsea—are
not included in Dorothy Whitelock's influential English Historical Documents
(which does include a compressed version of the papal legates' report); the
standard edition of conciliar texts by Haddan and Stubbs is over 125 years old.
Cubitt suggests that the synods have been ignored for three reasons: manuscript evidence is limited (especially in comparison to continental synods);
the Anglo-Saxon Church was long thought to have lacked distinctive conciliar
traditions (synods were seen as extensions of royal councils instead, and indeed
those synods dealing with political matters rather than ecclesiastical reform are
those Whitelock and others regarded as most important); and Anglo-Saxon
church history has been predominantly monastic in emphasis, while the history
of synods is the history of episcopal rather than monastic authority (pp. 2-3)·
But at least in matters involving famous Anglo-Saxon clerics, synods have not
been entirely ignored. Cubitt examines Boniface's possible influence on the decrees of "Clofesho" (pp. 101-110) and explores the relationship of Charlemagne's celebrated Admonitio Generalis to the Legatine Councils of 786 and

to the work of Alcuin (pp. 164-166).

Many points of departure are suggested by Cubitt's work. Cryptic and formulaic, ecclesiastical records communicate little of the tension or ambiguity of the
meetings whose proceedings were recorded. Of special interest, then, is the use
of direct speech, or "dramatic report," as it is called here (p. 83), which Cubitt
sees as evidence of possible papal models for the English synods. The texts'

70BOOK REVIEWS

mixture of direct and indirect discourse might carry other significance as well.
Groundbreaking work on the problem of decoding synodical records was

undertaken by Samuel Laeuchli in Power and Sexuality: The Emergence of
Canon Law at the Synod of Elvira (Philadelphia: Temple University Press,
1972). Laeuchli divided the terse canons of Elvira (a.d. 309) into linguistic units

and then classified the canons into six "decision patterns" in order to shed light

on the debates and struggles that had been part of the synod. "The bishops and
presbyters are long gone from the fertile plain of Granada," Laeuchli wrote. Yet,
he added, "we are not left in the dark. In the canons that have survived, the ob-

server discovers traces of a human drama in the inferable procedures and patterns of group confrontations" (p. 9).
One would like to see similar linguistic analysis of the ecclesiastical records
Cubitt writes about—and of others, of course. The use of direct speech in accounts of synods found in other genres—for example, letters by Boniface, and

Bede's Ecclesiastical History (Book IV, chap. 5; see Cubitt, p. 83, notes 26-27)—

communicates something of the atmosphere of such gatherings. It would
surely be profitable to analyze the canons for evidence of differences in style
and idiom that might reflect divergent sources and other circumstances relevant to their composition. For example, Cubitt points out that three canons
of the "Clofesho" synod discuss almsgiving, psalmody, and relations with the
laity at unusual length (p. 101). Inquiries into these and similar anomalies
would illuminate methods of composition and might also reveal more of the
political atmosphere in which some ecclesiastical records took shape.
Cubitt gives generous credit to the scholars who have been remedying the
neglect of these vital sources (Hanna Vollrath, Ian Wood, Patrick Wormald, and
others), but even with this work acknowledged she finds herself with a large
and fertile field to plow. Cubitt has produced a richly detailed and careful account that gives this important aspect ofAnglo-Saxon church history the prominence that is its due.

Allen J. Frantzen

Loyola University Chicago

La prédication en Pays d'Oc (XLL'-début XV siècle). [Cahiers de Fanjeaux: Collection d'Histoire religieuse du Languedoc aux XIIP et XIVe siècles,Volume

32.] (Toulouse: Éditions Privat. 1997. Pp. 428. 170 FF paperback.)

This volume, the thirty-second in the Cahiers de Fanjeaux series, considers
the subject of preaching in the Midi between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries. However, the chronological scope of the majority of the articles is much
narrower, concentrating on preaching activity in the thirteenth century. The
work itself consists of fifteen articles, an introduction and conclusion, and abstracts both in French and English. It is divided into three sections treating in

BOOK REVIEWS71

turn (1) Preaching at the Time of the Crusade; (2) the Mendicant Pastoral, and
(3) Preachers and their Audiences. This volume is a very welcome addition to
the growing field of sermon studies.
Section one, touching upon preaching at the time of the Crusades, is a curious mélange of articles ranging from the pastoral endeavors of Augustinian
canons in Catalonia to the sermons of four preachers (Héliland of Froidmont,
Jacques of Vitry, Philip the Chancellor, and Eudes of Châteauroux) against
Cathar teachings. Unfortunately, only one article, "La prédication dissidente" by
Jean Duvernoy, raises the issue of heterodox preaching in the Midi.
Section two contains five articles; two of these examine southern French

mendicant exempta collections. The three others consider the sermons of

Robert of Uzès, the two sermons preached by Armand of Belvezer on the life of
Thomas Aquinas, and the sermons delivered by Bonaventure in the Midi. In this
last article, Jacques Paul addresses the claim that Bonaventure, while in Montpellier, preached in gallico. Paul offers some innovative suggestions about what
possible nuances this phrase could have.

The most impressive section of this volume, section three, is comprised of

five articles which consider the audience of the preachers. In this section, Jean
Longère examines preaching in the southern French synodal statutes of the
thirteenth century. He concludes that they were heavily indebted to earlier collections of synodal statutes from northern France (Paris c. 1205, Angers 1225).

In "La prédication dans les universités méridionales" Jacques Verger explores
both the preaching personnel of the southern French universities (primarily
mendicant) and the relationship between academic and non-academic preach-

ing. As an example of the symbiotic relationship between university and civic
preaching,Verger notes that during an academic strike in 1427 the University of
Toulouse expelled and excommunicated two Franciscans for refusing to obey
the strike measure and continuing to preach. The provincial Parliament intervened and asked the University first to repeal the sentence of excommunica-

tion and second to permit the Franciscans to preach. It justified this request on

the basis that the lack of preaching threatened the salvation of the faithful and
scandalized the populace. Despite the strike measure, the University obeyed.

The remaining three articles in section three examine the sermons of three
Avignon pontiffs (John XXII, Benedict XII, Clement VI), the sermons of Jean of

Jean, abbot ofJoncels, and civic preaching in Montpellier in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries.

The work is well indexed and includes both maps and illustrations. One of
the illustrations is sadly out of focus; the volume also contains numerous typographical errors. These faults, however, should not detract from what is otherwise a very useful collection of articles.
A. G.Traver

Southeastern Louisiana University

72BOOK REVIEWS

Per Déu o per diners: Els mendicants i el clergat al Pais Valencia. By Jill R.

Webster. [Col.lecció recerca i pensament, Vol. 6.] (Catarroja and Barcelona:
Editorial Afers. 1998. Pp. 202. Paperback.)

Conflict between diocesan and regular clergy is one of those issues that has
lingered on the periphery of medieval ecclesiastical studies. Jill Webster brings
this question into the forefront with a study set in fourteenth-century Valencia.
Prefaced by Robert I. Burns, SJ. , who argues to the centrality of the mendicants

within Valencian society, the study begins with a brief description of the Valencian church and its twofold mission to serve Christians and convert Muslims

and Jews. Webster paints a gloomy picture of the secular clergy of this era,
plagued with problems of absenteeism and poor education. Her treatment of
the mendicants is far more positive. It begins with a description of the mendicant presence in Valencia. The fullest treatment is accorded to the Franciscans,

who are the subject of Webster's Els Menorets (1993), from which much of
this material is drawn. Essentially new is the overview given to the Carmelites
and Augustinians, while the Dominicans are hurriedly passed by. Anecdotal detail concerning individual friars and convents adds texture. Another topic deals
with the advantages that the mendicants enjoyed over their diocesan rivals. The
first is royal patronage that derived from a strategy to utiliZe the friars as missionaries to Jews and Muslims as well as from the king's appreciation of the friars' following among the bourgeoisie. The second is a popularity among
urbanités that grew out of the friars' superiority at preaching and an admiration
for mendicant spirituality, particularly as exemplified by St. Francis. The third
derives from papal privileges that exempted friars from episcopal control and
granted them virtually unlimited access to the laity. This placed the mendicants in a position where they could seriously challenge the function of local
parishes and, by diverting revenues to themselves, undermine parochial finance.

Webster sees the ensuing jurisdictional conflicts over preaching, the sacraments, and burial to be inevitable and gives specific examples drawn from
throughout the entire Crown of Aragon that illustrate the universality and pettiness of the problems. Particularly contentious was burial because of the offerings and legacies left behind by the deceased. While a modus vivendi was often
negotiated that divided oblations between the friars and parish clergy, still disputes arose concerning prominence and position within the ceremonies of
death. Webster argues that the situation grew more serious in the economic
downturn of the later fourteenth century that eventually shrank the pool of offerings from which both seculars and mendicants drew. In an effort to restore
peace, the Valencian clergy, diocesan and mendicant, reached an agreement in
1406 (whose text Webster has transcribed) over the conduct of funerals and
the sharing of revenues that remained intact until the sixteenth century.
This topic is an important one that addresses such varied issues as popular
spirituality, parochial life, the balance of power between bishop and pope, and
the varieties of religious life and experience. Webster's study has implications

BOOK REVIEWS73

beyond Valencia and the mendicants and so makes a valuable contribution to
our consideration of these issues.

James William Brodman

University of Central Arkansas

Dynast und Kirche. Studien zum Verhältnis von Kirche und Staat im
späteren Mittelalter und in der Neuzeit. By Alfred A. Strnad. Edited by
Josef Gelmi und Helmut Gritsch in collaboration with Caroline Baldemair.
[Innsbrucker Historische Studien, Vols. 18/19·] (Innsbruck: Studien Verlag.

1997. Pp. xxxii, 688. ÖS 650.00.)

This is a collection of twenty-three studies, six of which were hitherto unpublished, by the Ordinarius for modern history at the University of Innsbruck,
the chair established originally in 1887 for Ludwig Pastor, the well-known historian of the popes. The anthology was edited by his students on the occasion
of his sixtieth birthday. It reflects the honoree's distinguished career as a historical researcher. Having obtained his doctorate under Alphons Lhotsky, the
Nestor of Austrian medievalists, he then worked in the Institut für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, that nursery of painstaking diplomatics, as assistant

to its director, Leo Santifaller. In 1964 he transferred to the department for historical studies at the Austrian Cultural Institute in Rome, where he remained for

thirteen years before he took up his present appointment in 1976. Much of his

time there was spent in the Vatican Archives, particularly for his study of the
earlier career of the humanist Enea Silvio de' Piccolomini, the later Pius II, and
the Piccolomini family, who were closely involved in Austria. While most of this
collection deals with the later Middle Ages, some articles spill over into the
early modern, particularly the Counter-Reformation, period. The last one takes
us even to the end of World War I. One of the purposes the editors had in
mind in pubUshing these studies was to fill a perceived gap in the historiography of the late medieval Habsburgs, especially their ecclesiastical policy.
Whereas this work may not fulfill the desideratum completely, it certainly lays
the groundwork for such a book. With the possible exception of the first study,
the essays reflect a good old-fashioned German approach to the writing of history, namely, a conscientious and minute search for, and examination of, relevant
sources, including what to us may seem trivial biographical data of semiobscure personalities. But in a surprising manner Strnad is able to use these details to shed light on broader issues. Sometimes he finds it even necessary to
correct his old mentor, Lhotsky.
The only truly interpretative study is the first one, his unpublished "The Holy
Roman Empire in the Late Middle Ages: Insights into Imperial Concepts." In it
we have a sweeping but acute interpretation of the notion of the medieval Empire and the part that the Habsburgs played in it from the death of the Hohenstaufen Emperor Frederick II to the Imperial reformulation at the time of the
Habsburg Emperor Charles V Using the overarching idea of a universal Empire

74BOOK REVIEWS

that would bring about peace and justice as found in Dante's De Monarchia,
Strnad gives us an outline, albeit subjective at times, of the character and policy
of the various German kings or emperors. His account clearly shows that his

sympathies lie with the Habsburg dukes in their rivalries with the Imperial
rulers of the Luxemburg line. It does not prevent him from disapproving the

vacillations and indecisiveness of the Habsburg Frederick III. This survey sets
the tone for much that is to follow in the subsequent articles, many of which are
concerned with the attempt of the Austrian territorial rulers to seize control
over the church within their lands, a struggle that involved them, inter alia,
with the prince-archbishop of Salzburg, the see of Passau, and the Luxemburg
Emperor Charles IV, not to speak of their own intra-family quarrels.
For example, in his second study, also unpublished, the author traces the history of the diocese of Seckau in the province of Styria, which was started os-

tensibly as a suffragan see of the metropolitan of Salzburg in 1 164, but became

a point of friction between the archbishop and the territorial ruler over the appointment of the bishop. Somewhat similarly the see of Passau became a pawn
in the power struggle between the Austrian and Bavarian dukes. Although the
Passau suffragan had his seat outside the duchy of Austria, the Austrian rulers
looked upon him as their own "territorial bishop," and sought reliable supporters within the chapter who had the right of election. By devious but successful
diplomacy they usually managed to occupy the see with either their personal
protégés or Austrian nobles closely tied to them. Some articles shed light upon
the early history of the University of Vienna and its struggle to compete with
the older and more distinguished learned institution in Prague. But in general
the articles deal with the ecclesiastical careers of individuals and their relation-

ship to the local dukes. The final essay, also previously unpublished, summarizes

region by region the influence the Austrian state exercised over the nomination
of bishops, beginning with St. Stephen of Hungary in 1000 and ending with the
collapse of the Habsburg empire at the close of World War I, an appropriate
conclusion.
Hanns Gross

Loyola University Chicago

Early Modern European

Machiavelli's Three Romes: Religion, Human Liberty, and Politics Reformed.
By Vickie B. Sullivan. (DeKaIb, Illinois: Northern Illinois University Press.

1996. Pp. xi, 235. $30.00.)

Sullivan advocates a novel interpretation of how Christian and classical elements in Machiavelli's thought relate to each other. Drawing primarily upon the
Florentine Histories, The Prince, and the Discourses, she argues that Machiavelli described three distinct "Romes": (1) the Christian one, dominated by
the papacy; (Z) the pagan (specifically, the ancient Roman Republic); and (3)

BOOK REVIEWS75

an idealized "Rome" of Machiavelli's invention that could transcend the political
defects of the other two.

Part One details Machiavelli's view of the deleterious effects of the papacy
and the Church upon contemporary politics. To a fairly conventional interpretation Sullivan adds two novel elements: (a) that "the tyrant from whose grip

Machiavelli would see humanity extricated is the Christian god" (p. 4), and (b)

that neither Christianity nor pagan religion is ultimately a useful instrument of
politics. Part Two furthers the argument, showing the inadequacy of republican
Rome in preventing ambitious men from seizing power. Sullivan's Machiavelli

holds that Christianity replicated pagan Rome's tensions between the demands
of religion and those of politics so that, like ancient tyrants, the popes promised

unseen lands (in their case, lands beyond human experience) as a means of
shoring up demagogic power. In Part Three, Sullivan claims that Machiavelli envisioned the establishment of a new Rome, an "irreligious republic" that "utilizes
elements of both paganism and Christianity in order to subvert both" (p. 24).

This third "Rome," while earthly, can transcend present political crises and potentially last forever—a position that Sullivan views as a direct challenge to the
Christian conception of eternity.

While surely original, Sullivan's thesis fails to convince, primarily because she
does not adequately establish the idiosyncratic interplay of Christian and pagan
elements that is central to her argument. In analyzing Machiavelli's diction, she

privileges Christian meanings over classical ones despite his own scholarly
focus upon classical Rome. Frequently she interprets words that had common

secular as well as sacred meanings as masked but unambiguous referents to
Christian themes. For example (p. 52), she claims that Machiavelli's use oiconfessare in Discourses 2.1.1 evokes Christianity, when, like the Latin conflteri, it
could also mean simply "to admit." Similarly, she reads the Latin superbe and
humiliter and the Italian peccati and adorare as indicating Christian subtexts,

when they need not have done so.

Throughout, Sullivan attends insufficiently to the literary, personal, and polit-

ical contexts in which Machiavelli wrote. Unlike recent contributions such as

John Najemy's Between Friends (Princeton, 1993), which compellingly situates
the composition of The Prince in the midst of contemporaneous correspondence between Machiavelli and Francesco Vettori, Sullivan's book focuses al-

most exclusively upon internal textual dynamics. Machiavelli's quest for an

eternal republic on earth, however, may best be understood less as a challenge
to Christian eternity (a dialectic that Sullivan never adequately documents)
than as an attempt to transcend the decay and political upheavals that marked
Florentine and Italian politics within the author's experience. One may wish

that Sullivan's evident enthusiasm and engagement with her subject had issued
in a monograph grounded not just in political theory but in history as well.

Kenneth Gouwens

University of Connecticut

76BOOK REVIEWS

The World of Catholic Renewal, 1540-1700. By R. PoChia Hsia. (New York:

Cambridge University Press. 1998. Pp. xi, 240. $54.95 cloth; $16.95 paper-

back.)

A new textbook on Catholic Reform and renewal is long overdue; the stan-

dard, The Counter Reformation by A. G. Dickens, was published in 1968 and
has never been revised. Hsia's World of Catholic Renewal seeks to fill the gap
left by three decades of research. While not flawless in its achievements, this

book is well done and very welcome.

Hsia focuses on traditional aspects as well as newer interpretations: the
Council of Trent, religious orders, Spain, Philip II, reforming bishops, and saints
and martyrs. The bibliographical essay is of great value, critically noting both
old standards and new publications. Hsia gives pride of place to the Jesuits in
both renewal and revival, but gives due coverage to other new and reformed orders, particularly Capuchins. This book is best when it focuses on more recent
historiographical concerns. Hsia has benefited from the work of Louis Chatellier on missions in Europe,Jodi Bilinkoff on Teresa of Avila, and Peter Burke on
early modern sainthood. The long sections on Poland and Ireland go far to redress the neglect of those areas in more general studies. The chapter on art and
architecture smoothly fits into the whole; a supplementary chapter on music
would have been appreciated. He gives equal time to missions in the East and
West, deftly dealing with the enormous spectrum of issues in Spain, Portugal,
and the empires.
In the context of general praise, I have a few specific criticisms. I took exception to the statement, "For many bishops, Jesuit colleges served as substitutes for the diocesan seminaries" (p. 33). This was not true in Italy, and Hsia
does not give geographical information to understand the claim better. The Jesuits did not succeed in keeping themselves separate from diocesan seminaries
(as the General Congregations advised), but I know of no bishop who ordered
secular clergy to attend Jesuit colleges—or even diocesan seminaries—for pastoral training. In some areas, seminarians took classes at colleges of religious orders (not just Jesuits), but still attended diocesan institutions for other studies,
including music. On another subject, Hsia sometimes refers to Carlo Borromeo

as the model bishop (p. 106) and sometimes assigns that role to another, e.g.,

Gabriele Paleotti (p. 103). His extended discussion on sainthood omits Vincent
de Paul and his faithful correspondent, Louise de Marillac, who is absent from
the discussion on female religious. I hoped for a more detailed focus on printing and censorship; these topics are only briefly and narrowly addressed (e.g.,
printing in the context of the Bollandistes) and neither appears in the book's
index.

Specialists in Catholic Reform may be nonplussed by the late beginning date.
The fifteenth-century roots of the reform movement are widely accepted; yet
Hsia began in 1540. The explanation for this must lie in two of the book's major
claims: first, that the Society ofJesus is central to Catholic renewal, and second,
that "renewal" refers both to Catholic Reform and Counter-Reform. Without

BOOK REVIEWS77

disputing either claim, I still regret the lateness of the terminus. Early attempts
at reform are neglected—the work of Philip Neri and the (in)famous Consi-

lium, for example—and despite Hsia's other work to the contrary (e.g., not
reducing the early modern Catholic Church to the Inquisition), a sense of
Counter-Reformation is in danger of dominating. On the other hand, I was
pleased to note the extent of Catholic renewal into the eighteenth century.

On balance, I would recommend this textbook, provided it were supple-

mented by a work which focuses on the early stages of reform. In this way historians can finally lay Dickens' work to rest.

Kathleen M. Comerford

Benedictine College
Atchison, Kansas

Religion and Culture in Early Modern Russia and Ukraine. Edited by Sam-

uel H. Baron and Nancy Shields Kollmann. (DeKaIb: Northern Illinois University Press. 1997. Pp. viii, 213. $35.00.)

This collection of essays, drawn from a conference held at Stanford Univer-

sity in 1993, purports to address the failure of modern historians to grasp the

significance of the Russian Church in modern times. With enviable financial and
institutional support, Stanford convened a number of researchers from the
United States, Canada, Russia, and Ukraine,"with the goal of developing the field
of early East Slavic studies." Charged with this daunting mission and eager to
break down "the barriers created by established historical paradigms or by disciplinary or generational boundaries," the editors of this volume present ten essays on various aspects of early modern Russia and Ukraine, selected from a
larger pool of papers presented at the meeting.
Michael Flier augments his earlier thoughts on the Palm Sunday ritual of Pa-

triarch Nikon's day. Eve Levin studies supplicatory prayers as popular religious

culture. Robert Crummey reflects on schismatic hagiography and its treatment
of the martyrdom of Old Believers. Isolde Thyrêt examines miracle stories as
"gender-specific religious experience." Viktor Zhivov raises highly original notions of how personal individuality was encouraged by religious and cultural reform in the aftermath of the Time of Troubles. Engelina Smirnova studies the
iconography of Simon Ushakov within medieval traditions. David Frick warns
against simplistic identification of individual cultural identity in the disorderly
borderlands and clashing cultures of Eastern Europe. The methodology and innovative approaches of these pieces are diverse enough to interest most scholars of religion for one reason or another.
But not all these offerings treat Russian Orthodoxy directly. Specialists in social studies (and the general reader) probably will benefit more from the remaining chapters, which mesh only loosely with their companions. Janet
Martin re-examines the backwardness of Russian peasant agriculture of the sev-

78BOOK REVIEWS

enteenth century and its consequences. Nancy KoUniann, always worth reading, uses her considerable anthropological skills to bring forth fresh ideas concerning social self-identification at local levels. Frank Sysyn analyzes the
Khmel'nyts'kyi rebellion in Ukraine and the social tensions that helped create a

new social order. Called upon at the end to offer spiritual and scholarly bou-

quets, Edward Keenan pens a showy postscript most useful for admitting that
the current low level of Western knowledge of early Russian religiosity hardly
qualifies us to offer "any very confident pronouncements about these subjects." Like the American medievalist who once opined that references to Ivan
the Terrible's desire to "serve in the Passion" revealed his homosexual proclivities, new generations of would-be religious and cultural scholars must initially
learn the patience needed to amass the factual, spiritual, and confessional base
from which valid historical inquiry can proceed, along with some appreciation
of the dogma and moral order of the highly mystical church they propose to
study. Newcomers to this exacting field of investigation might find this book an
education, and an admonition.
Joseph L.Wieczynski

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

The Questfor Compromise: Peacemakers in Counter-Reformation Vienna. By
Howard Louthan. [Cambridge Studies in Early Modern History.] (NewYork:

Cambridge University Press. 1997. Pp. xvi, 185; 14 Illustrations. $5995)

This book can best be appreciated against the conceptual background of
confessionalism and confessionalization in early modern Europe. Louthan sets
out to describe an Austrian "middle way" that during a time of intensifying religious conflict sought peacefully to reconcile the differences between confessional parties in the Empire. To designate this middle way he uses the term
"irenic" or "irenicism," and stretches it to comprise not only those who sought
a form of theological agreement but also those who looked to apolitique settlement, that is, one that advocated toleration of differing groups within the
state, or Empire in this case, for the sake of peace and the general common
good. The supporters of this middle way enjoyed their greatest influence at the

imperial court of Vienna from 1568 to 1572 during the reign of Maximilian II,

but its origins reached back to the rule of Ferdinand I and it continued into that
of Rudolf II. Maximilian himself embodied its spirit; he saw himself, as he once
put it, as neither Catholic nor Protestant but Christian.
Louthan's method is to look carefully at four figures whom he sees as representative of the middle way. Lazarus von Schwendi stands out as the first and
most interesting. A German military man who initially served Charles V during
the Schmalkaldic War, Schwendi came to realize during the negotiations over
the Peace ofAugsburg the need for religious toleration in order to preserve and
strengthen the Empire, which was his goal. Schwendi was essentially a poli-

tique. Louthan analyzes carefully the Denkschriften which he prepared for

BOOK REVIEWS79

Maximilian in the 1570's, which had little eventual impact, and his role in the attempt from 1577 to 1581 to establish Archduke Matthias as governor in the
Netherlands in an effort to end the conflict there. Two other figures are the Italian antiquarian and architect, Jacopo Strada, and the Dutch humanist Hugo
Blotius, who became imperial librarian. Louthan finds in their return to the classical past and cosmopolitanism an effort to raise the status of the imperial office
so as to enable it to control confessional conflict in the interests of a unified

world. The fourth figure, Johannes Grato, a product of Silesian humanism and
personal physician to Maximilian and Rudolf, exhibited more genuinely theological interests than the other three. A chief concern of his was the creation of
a creed that would bind together most of the Protestant churches.
The movement failed, and Louthan shows us why. It was elitist, fuzzy in its
theological thinking, and confronted by militants on all sides. He might have
brought out more the lack of leadership on the part of a hesitant and uncertain
Maximilian II. He himself, Louthan tells us, pursued theological understanding
and ultimately considered toleration as a hindrance to it. So he did not share the

politique vision, which was the principal intellectual factor in the development
of toleration, especially when it saw toleration to be in the best interest of religion as well as of the state.
This is a thought-provoking and extremely learned book. It helps make the

case that there was an alternative to the confessional war that erupted in 1618.

Confessionalism, a term that I wish Louthan had carefully defined, did not necessarily lead to the Thirty Years' War. Also, it would have been useful had both
the irenicists and Louthan distinguished between a Habsburg program for the
Empire and one for the hereditary lands where the ruler could exercise considerably more power.
Well-chosen illustrations enhance the book.

Robert Bkeley, SJ.

Loyola University Chicago

Blaise Pascal: Reasons of the Heart. By Marvin R. O'Connell. [Library of Religious Biography] (Grand Rapids, Michigan:William B. Eerdmans Publishing

Co. 1997. Pp. xxi, 210. $16.00 paperback.)

Of the introductory biographical studies of the life and works of Blaise Pascal

(1623-1662) that have appeared in English in recent years, Marvin O'Connell's

Blaise Pascal: Reasons of the Heart is among the best. It is probably the most
readable.

Whereas most of Pascal's recent English-speaking biographers have sought to
stress his "modernity," Father O'Connell's new study solidly anchors Pascal's

life and works in the context of post-Tridentine Catholic history and theology.

Nowhere in the book does O'Connell do this better than in his insightful analysis of the text known as the Mémorial (Chapter 5, "The Night of Fire").

80BOOK REVIEWS

Modernists, always anxious to portray Pascal as on the verge of falling into religious doubt, have again and again returned to a specific line in the Mémorial:

"Mon Dieu, me quitterez-vous? Que je n'en sois pas séparé éternellement" ("My

God, will you leave me? Let me not be separated from Him eternally"). Whereas
the modernists see this line as a cri d'angoisse bordering on despair, O'Connell
ever so justly describes it as a "sacramental cri de coeur only a Catholic would
have written," and identifies it as "a word for word translation from the prayer

said just before the reception of Communion at Mass" (p. 101).'

Much scholarly ink has also been spilled over the significance of Pascal's final
words before his death: "Que Dieu ne m'abandonne jamais!" How, it has been
asked, could the author of the Mystère deJésus have been so terrified by the approach of death? Once again, O'Connell puts the line into its sacramental context by reminding us that these words were pronounced at the moment Père
Beurrier, "in accord with custom, gave the final blessing with the ciborium
containing the sacred Hosts" (p. 190). O'Connell makes these words,"May God
never abandon me," the title of his final chapter. This account of Pascal's final
three years constitutes an admirable synthesis of biography and of analysis of
key passages drawn from the Pensées and other late writings.
Some may wish that O'Connell had devoted an entire chapter to the Pensées.
However, given the complexity of the notes for the Apology and their attendant
textual problems, such resumes have generally proved unhelpful in introductory biographies of Pascal. O'Connell was probably wise to focus instead on the
Provinciales (chapter 7), a work more relevant to the biographical and historical orientation of Reasons of the Heart.
The chapters on "The Ghost ofAugustine" and "Port-Royal" constitute a highly
successful synthesis of the theological and historical background of Pascal's
Jansenism. Erudite, yet accessible to the non-specialist, these chapters include a
particularly useful and readable account of how the neo-Augustinian movement
came to reach Port-Royal and then Pascal. O'Connell advances a view of neoAugustinianism perhaps too neglected by scholars in recent years. Jansenius'
Augustinus, he maintains, was aimed "as much at rescuing Augustine from the

Protestant embrace as at combatting the plague of neo-Pelagianism" (p. 43).

In his "Note on the Sources," flawed only by his inattention to Philippe SeIlier's (at least for the moment) definitive edition of the Pensées. O'Connell calls

Leszek Kolakowski's recent God Owes Us Nothing "a splendid exposition of
the Augustinian controversy" (p. 198). One would have found it fascinating and
instructive to learn what O'Connell thinks of Kolakowski's new and revolution-

ary thesis. By ultimately condemning Jansenism, Kolakowski asserts, the
Catholic Church found a way to abandon its thousand-year adherence to Au'Subsequent editors of the Pensées will appreciate O'Connell's elucidation of this reference. I always supposed the line to be an allusion to the Anima Christi. Philippe Sellier,

in his edition [(Paris: Bordas, 1991), p. 547, n. 12], calls the line a"souvenir de la messe:'Fac
me tuis semper inhaerere mandatis et a te nunquam separan permitías .'"

BOOK REVIEWS81

gustinianism and to embrace a modified form of Pelagianism which remains the
unofficial position of the Church today.2
David Wetsel

Arizona State University

Late Modern European
Säkularisierung, Dechristianisierung, Rechristianisierung in neuzeitlichen
Europa: Bilanz und Perspektiven der Forschung. Edited by Hartmut
Lehmann. [Veröffentlichungen des Max-Planck-Instituts für Geschichte,
130.] (Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Rupprecht. 1997. Pp. 335. DM 72.00.)

This is a very valuable compendium of the papers presented at a conference
on religious history in 1994 in Göttingen. The organizer of the conference and

the editor of this volume, Professor Hartmut Lehmann, summed up the principal question, that of the problems of religious history. "Did secularization
mean dechristianization?" (pp. 11,1 5). "About these and other questions we still

have no answers." Friedrich Wilhelm Graf: "The material available in the older

statistics of religiosity [Kirchlichkeitsstatistiken] hardly allows us to reach conclusions about the history of mentalities" (p. 51). The problem is not one of
quantities but of qualities. "Are we at all capable of reconstructing what "cer-

tainty in faith" [Glaubensgewissheit] in a pious person meant? . . . Can histori-

ans of mentalities 'look into the hearts' of others? whoever maintains a

minimum of religious wisdom must be ready to recognize the limits of an ana-

lytic rationalism" (p. 66). Martin Greschat deals with the same problem: what

are working definitions of dechristianization and secularization? Herman
Wellenreuther: "More than in any other research field, research on the progress of secularization encounters major methodological problems" (p. 101).
Essentially the same concerns illuminate the lucid paper of Claude Langlois
about religion in France (pp. 154 ff.) and that of Markus Mattmueller about
people in Switzerland (pp. 228 ff.). The contribution of Professor Lavinia Anderson is very learned but not sufficiently clear, since she—at least indirectly—

contradicts the caution of Lehmann and of others: "Only when we penetrate

the inner lives of Catholics will we comprehend not only their acts but also, the
meaning of their acts" (p. 217). About the twentieth century the paper of Peter
van Rooden concerning the Netherlands ("In the course of one generation, traditional Christianity, for all practical purposes, has disappeared from the great

cities in the western part of the country," p. 132), and that of Leonard Luks
("The unique path of Polish Catholicism 1945-1989," pp. 234 ff.) are remark-

able, as is the concluding paper ofWolfgang Schieder. According to him the his-

2Leszek Kolakowski, God Owes Us Nothing: A Brief Remark on Pascal's Religion

and on the Spirit ofJansenism (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1995), pp.
108-109.

82BOOK REVIEWS

tory of religion in Europe of the Modern Age cannot be treated as a unit; it
varies too much from country to country. Also: "A single church [i.e. parish]
community can never be representative of an entire church" (p. 310). Much of

this accords with the inclination of this reviewer (tentatively proposed in his
presidential address of 1977 (ante, LXTV [April, 1978], 153-167) that histories of

religious belief in the Modern Age, and especially in the age of great masses,
pose questions and problems of method whose consideration may still be in its
beginnings.

John Lukacs

Phoenixville, Pennsylvania

Johann Sebastian Drey. Mein Tagebuch über Philosophische, Theologische
und Historische Gegenstände, 1812-181 7. Edited and introduced by Max

Seckler. (Tübingen: Francke Verlag. 1997. Pp. LVII, 628. DM 164,-.)

Grounded in the developmental methodologies of German romantic and historical idealism, the Tübingen School of Theology (1817-1850) began formulating perspectives that have helped nurture the reforms of Vatican Council II.
The founder, Johann Sebastian von Drey (1777-1853), left behind his fivevolume, unpublished Tagebuch (1812-1817) in the Wilhelmsstift in Tübingen.
These papers have for the first time been fully edited by Professor Max Seckler.
The Tagebuch makes clear that at the very inception of his career, Drey was
committed to an organic conception of development as well as to the use of
Schelling's philosophical and historical models.
Seckler's introduction has analyzed the earlier work on Drey and the Tübingen School, which was done by Karl Adam, Stephen Lösch, and Josef Rupert
Geiselmann. These earlier scholars had to demonstrate that the Tübingen theologians did not fall into the so-called "errors" of modernism, which viewed the

historical and individualistic turn to subjectivity as a danger to the faith.
Excerpts of the Tagebuch were published by Geiselmann in 1940, but Seck-

ler has advanced beyond this minimalist stage by organizing and editing Drey's
material from all five volumes. Seckler's footnotes on Drey's sources and the inclusion of Drey's marginal comments can help the scholar understand the flow
of Drey's thought in his early career. The Seckler edition contains material used
in Drey's lectures, heterogeneous reflections, and the extended ruminations of
his thought processes. Such material can help Drey scholars understand his mature commitment to the concept of the organic development of Catholic tradition with its ongoing comprehension of revelation.
The Tagebuch itself originated in Drey's Ellwangen years and ends when he
assumed his professional career in Tübingen. Drey can be observed as a theologian struggling to assimilate into Catholicism the philosophical and theological
perspectives of his culture. Drey's lifelong reflections acted as a very clear signal to his theological successors that theology has to engage culture from a

BOOK REVIEWS83

non-defensive posture in order continually to nourish the Catholic tradition, in
which doctrine was to be seen as a riving organism.

Drey and his pupils were determined to maintain the living unity and the in-

tegrity of Catholic doctrine, while they tried simultaneously to illustrate how
tradition was related to revelation and how both have historically unfolded to
meet the needs of mutable cultures. The Tübingen School began to establish
the Catholic foundation for ecumenical thought, which has flourished in the
twentieth century, by insisting that revelation through the Bible and Tradition
has historically been comprehended and has provided each generation with
the nourishment needed for its own reflections. In the light of Vatican Council
II and the subsequent decades of discussion, Drey's stress on revelation, located
in the Bible and Tradition, has helped theologians nuance even current thinking
about the relationships among religion, revelation, and the Church. Drey's and
his pupils' works should encourage contemporary theologians to engage their
culture with the same spirit of adventure as that displayed by the Tübingen
School.

Donald J. Dietrich

Boston College

The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman. Volume VII: Editing the
British Critic, January 1839-December 1840. Edited by Gerard Tracey.
(New York: Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press. 1995. Pp. xxvi, 550.
$95.00.)
This latest volume of John Henry Newman's Letters and Diaries, for the

years 1839 and 1840, sees Newman at the very height of his powers as an Ox-

ford High Churchman and redenner of the Anglican Via Media, and as leader of
the Tractarian crusade to recatholicize the Church of England. The volume also
contains the first evidence of his unsettlement, which led to his conversion to

Roman Catholicism in 1845. The reader's first impression, however, is of the

sheer volume of the literary productions by which Newman was known to the
world outside Oxford. Between 1838 and 1840, he was editor of the British
Critic, for which he wrote ten substantial articles and a good deal more besides.
Other essays in the journal, like John Keble's review of the young Gladstone's
first book on Church and State, are still of importance to historians. The modern
editor will wryly recognize Newman's difficulties with dilatory and reluctant

contributors: "if you were Editor of a Review," he wrote to Henry Woodgate,
"and had to extemporize four or five sheets on a sudden.you would feel for me.
I was writing last week till my hand ached again."

Newman also republished his earlier patristic essays as The Church ofthe Fathers, brought out the fourth and fifth volumes of the Parochial Sermons, and
wrote four of the University sermons later published in 1843- He oversaw the
translations of the Catena Aurea of St. Thomas and of Fleury's Ecclesiastical

84BOOK REVIEWS

History undertaken by his younger followers. He was involved in the publication of the two final volumes of Froude's Remains, in the Library of the Fathers, and in the projected Library ofAnglo-Catholic Theology. He translated
the Greek devotions of Lancelot Andrewes, which appeared as Tract 88. His
own private study advanced through the acts of the Council of Chalcedon and
the Monophysite controversy. We are reminded that underlying everything that
Newman did or wrote was this steady, continuing program of his study of the
Fathers, begun in 1828 and climaxing in his translations of St. Athanasius. There
are also references to his never-completed edition of the works of St. Dionysius
of Alexandria. And at the end of 1840, he began to write Tract 90, from which
further controversy would come.
This great endeavor in these years, a superlative combination of scholarship,
homiletic, and journalism, was also sustained through the large body of letters
published here, which are evidence for both the stormy passage of the Oxford
Movement and the elements in its dissolution. This is the undercurrent of the

numerous episodes, both grave and gay, in which Newman and his friends tried
their political strength or were denounced for Popery: from the endeavor
to embarrass them by erecting a memorial to the Protestant martyrs in Oxford,
to the controversy over the eccentric John Morris, who from Newman's pulpit,
infuriated the Vice-Chancellor by preaching that on fast days, animals should be
compelled to fast. Newman wrote of this, "May he (salvis ossibus suis) have a
fasting horse the next time he goes steeple-chasing."Another theme is the temptation of Newman's younger followers to Roman Catholicism. Newman counsels Robert Williams, the first to get Roman fever, that any such move to Rome
on his own part would require two or three years of preparation. Newman
magnificently states the dissuasives to Romanism in his letter of September 1,
1839, to Henry Edward Manning, in spite of his own admission to his sister
Jemima that "the Fathers do teach doctrines and a temper of mind which we
commonly identify with Romanism."
Events sharpened this concern. There was the misunderstanding over Newman's misjudged resort to the Bishop of Oxford about an allegation that his curate had bowed his head at the elevation of the host in a Catholic family chapel.
There is the asperity of Newman's rebuke to Bishop Hopkins of Vermont for
consorting with Irish Protestants. Much as he would have disliked the description, letters came to Newman as the leader of a new High Church party reconstructing the Church of England at home and throughout the world.
Then there are the pastoralia. Newman consoles Pnsey on the death of his
wife. Pusey writes that this "was like the visit of an angel"; the letter of condolence which Newman wrote to him could have come from one. There is his

continuing concern for the health of Pusey's children. Newman buys land at Littlemore, the rural end of his parish, for the 'monastery' which was to become
his retreat from Oxford during his last years as an Anglican. He plans stained
glass windows and, with his sisters, an altar cloth for Littlemore church. He catechizes the schoolchildren of the village, and teaches them to sing Gregorian

BOOK REVIEWS85

chant with his own violin as accompaniment. His sculptor-friend Richard Westmacott completes the memorial tablet in the church for Newman's mother. His
relations remain difficult with his brothers, the ne'er-do-well Charles, and Francis, who becomes a crypto-Unitarian. Newman has sufficiently softened his line
against Dissenters to fraternize "with a very interesting American Congregationalist," Dr. Leonard Woods of Maine (in fact a Presbyterian); but he still
draws the line at Unitarians. His important letter to Francis of November 10,

1840, sets out the essentials of his argument for doctrinal development.

There are comic pieces: my favorite is Newman's enquiry to Pusey about
whether it is "lawful under any circumstances to wear false teeth, they being (if
so be) the parts of other bodies, perhaps not Christian, who shall hereafter rise
again and claim them? Does this apply to a wig?" Pusey's solemn reply, by way
of "an Arabic work of Bar-Hebraeus, (taken chiefly from Greek sources)," suggests that bishops' wigs were made of goat hair, and nicely balances the issue of
the licitness of false teeth with both theological and utilitarian arguments, concluding that his difficulty in throwing doubt about the use of them was "that I
am not likely ever to want them."
Not all the correspondence is unpublished. Some of its more important parts
have been quoted to appear in the Apologia, in Anne Mozley's edition of Newman's Anglican letters, in the compilation by Father Francis Joseph Bacchus,
Correspondence ofJohn Henry Newman with John Keble and Others 18391845, and in various biographies. These familiar friends include Newman's famous epistle to Frederic Rogers (September 22, 1839) about Nicholas Wiseman's essay on Donatism which, Newman says, "has given me a stomach-ache,"
so that his Via Media has "sprung a leak." So too, most of the famous letter of
October 26, 1840, to Keble, in which Newman states his wish to withdraw from
the University Church of St. Mary's, his fears that he was leading others to
Rome, and that he had spoken too strongly against her, first appeared in the
Apologia; the republication of the original version shows the accuracy of Newman's own transcription, punctuation excepted. But we are now given all Newman's extant letters for these years in full, with seventy complete letters and
further parts of letters to Newman, and a vast amount of information in both
the footnotes and index about Newman's correspondents and the persons and
incidents mentioned by them. And there is often the marvelous phrase or sentence, like Manning's to Newman: "I am sending owls to Athens so no more."
The editor, Gerard Tracey, is to be warmly congratulated on a magnificent
achievement, and for a scholarship both accurate and informative. Of the thirtyone projected volumes of the Letters and Diaries, there are now only the years
1841 to 1845 still to come in volumes VIII, FX, and X, linking up with the beginning of the already published volume XI and its sequel volumes, which collectively cover Newman's whole life after October, 1845, when he became a
Roman Catholic.
Sheridan Gilley

University ofDurham

86BOOK REVIEWS

What Will Dr. Newman Do? John Henry Newman and Papal Infallibility,

1865-1875- By John R. Page. (Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical

Press,Michael Glazier Books. 1994. Pp. vi, 458. $24.95 paperback.)

The fact of Newman's struggle with Pastor aeternus' definition of the papal
exercise of the Church's infallibility is perhaps as well known as the balance of

his famous Letter to the Duke of Norfolk is appreciated. John R. Page's What

Will Dr. Newman Do? contributes a definitive narrative of the precise contours of that struggle in the years immediately preceding and following Vatican
Council I. One finds a painstaking and exhaustive treatment of Newman's extant letters and private memoranda on the subject together with a discussion of
the letters and editorials to which he responded. Page masterfully employs
Newman's diary entries to set the correspondence in context. The reader gains
a vivid awareness of the complexity of Newman's efforts adequately to explain

the Council's definition. Moreover, Page repeatedly underscores the apparent

inconsistency of some of Newman's replies to disparate queries and challenges.
Although Page does cite Avery Dulles in support of this claim (p. 421 n. 65),
Page remains engaged in the primary sources and shows comparatively little interest in finding his interpretation corroborated by other Newman scholars.
Nor does Page contend with theological ramifications of Newman's struggle; it

would be fascinating, for example, to consider whether Newman's understanding of Pastor aeternus might assist in interpreting the teaching authority of the
ordinary and universal magisterium today.

If the meticulous chronological approach Page adopts occasionally tempts
the reader to impatience, it at once lends a certain suspense (implied in the
book's title), "captur[es] . . . the depth of the dilemma" (p. 12), and sheds radiant light on Newman's personality, not to mention his deep pastoral solicitude
for those troubled by the Ultramontane interpretation of the conciliar definition. Page, who generally lets his lively narrative, the estimable writing of which
is crowned by copious quotations from Newman, take center stage, speculates
especially at the end of the book that Newman experienced Vatican Council I
not only as a difficult theological challenge, which he only ventured fully to an-

swer after the publication of Gladstone's Expostulation, and as a source of un-

settlement for many who sought his pastoral guidance, but even as a "shock and
offense to his own faith" and a "personal struggle" (p. 407), albeit one from
which he emerged gracefully.

Page appropriately pays close attention to Newman's battle with the Ultramontane party and in his presentation of the Letter to the Duke ofNorfolk centers "the human drama" (p. 12) there more than on the concerns represented
by the other two "chief" "audiences" Newman kept in view, "Gladstone
and Protestant England" on the one hand and "Döllinger and his followers on
the Continent" (p. 414) on the other. If Page dwells relatively little on theological analysis of the Letter's understanding of conscience, it is perhaps because
for him the greatest interest lies in Newman, "a vital human person, struggling
to keep faith alive and vibrant in an uncertain and contentious time, ever con-

BOOK REVIEWS87

scious that we see now through a glass darkly, and continually pleading for a

wise and gentle minimism until that time has passed away" (p. 428).

Gerard H. McCarren

Immaculate Conception Seminary
Seton Hall University

Religion in Victorian Britain. Volume V: Culture and Empire. Edited by John

Wolffe. (Manchester University Press in association with the Open Univer-

sity. Distributed in the United States and Canada by St. Martin's Press, New
York. 1997. Pp. viii, 359. $24.95.)

In 1988 the Open University created a course on "Religion in Victorian
Britain," accompanied by four volumes of texts and readings with the same title.
The course and books successfully reflected the state of the field at that date,
but a decade of further scholarship has convinced the Religious Studies faculty
that a fifth volume should be added to cover cultural and imperial contexts
omitted from the original set. There are three substantial essays on the topics of
gender, church music, and colonial missions, and three case studies, two on authors whose work involved mission themes and one on colonial religions in
Britain. The second part of the volume consists of documents keyed to the essays.

John Wolffe's "Introduction: Victorian Religion in Context," in addition to a

useful survey of the recent literature, makes the interesting suggestion that

Georgian Britain was not less but rather differently religious, leaving Victorian
religion with no fixed reference point for its development. The first essay, by
Frances Knight on questions of gender, covers a field in which most of the literature is recent, dealing with the separation of workplace and home, constructions of middle-class femininity and masculinity (including "Christian
manliness"), single women and education, and women's philanthropy and ministry. Wölffe supplies a long essay on hymns and church music, a vital part of the

Victorian religious experience, but omitted from many surveys because it falls
between disciplines. Terence Thomas gives a general account of the British missionary movement, largely based on the Indian experience, examining the rela-

tionship between missionary and imperial expansion. The first case study, by

Gerald Parsons, is a moving re-evaluation of Bishop John William Colenso of
Natal, notorious for his biblical criticism, which has obscured his constructively
liberal theology which respected the God-given dignity of the natives whose
rights he upheld. Gwilym Beckerlegge's study of Max Müller similarly interre-

lates scholarly and missionary concerns: the contest for the Sanskrit professor-

ship at Oxford is shown to center on differing views of the relation of
philological studies to mission work; and Müller's later work in comparative religion was affected by his concern for the common bond shared by Christianity
and primitive Indian religion. The final essay by Beckerlegge on the presence of
Islam and South Asian religions in Britain itself is truly pioneering. He finds that

88BOOK REVIEWS

non-Muslims (except for Parsis) came as individuals and did not form communities, but they brought new influences to some English individuals in theosophy and Vedanta; Islam produced an English community with a mosque in
Liverpool led by a convert, Abdullah Quilliam, of whom he gives a fascinating
account.

This useful volume does not stand alone: not only is it conceived as part of an
ongoing course, but its essays complement and enhance those of the original
volumes for scholars. Collectively, they represent the maturation ofVictorian religious history.
Josef L.Altholz

University ofMinnesota

Glorious Battle: The Cultural Politics of Victorian Anglo-Catholicism. By John
Shelton Reed. (Nashville, Tennessee: Vanderbilt University Press. 1996. Pp.
xxiv, 357. $34.95.)
The subtitle of Reed's book indicates his approach. In dealing with the "Ritu-

alist" phase of the Anglo-Catholic revival, one engages practices as much as doc-

trines, practices that constituted "symbolic affronts to central values of
Victorian middle-class culture" and in some cases "actual threats to those val-

ues" (p. xxii). Clerical dress, liturgical vocabulary, liturgical artifacts and
gestures, the practice of auricular confession, eucharistie devotion, the establishment of sisterhoods functioned as signs of identity to those who converted
to the movement and generated vocal, occasionally violent, and eventual legal
opposition from without. Reed addresses the problem of why a style of religious behavior that had been abandoned in the Church of England succeeded
in attracting active partisans. In answering it he explores the institutional context of the Church of England and the broader social context of demographic
and technological change. He does so as a sociologist, adopting a social movement perspective on the revival that views it as a countercultural movement.

Reed is judiciously modest in his claims here. He does not argue that this is the

only, or even the most important way of positioning Ritualism. But he does propose that "a number of the movement's otherwise puzzling characteristics become perfectly understandable when viewed in this light" (p. xxiv). Moreover,
this is not a case of a sociologist using historical data to test sociological theory.
The product of some two decades of research, the book shows a grasp of the
sources that is both broad and deep. The sociological perspective orients the
historical analysis; it does not overwhelm it. Indeed, the narrative would not suffer if more were made of the sociological infrastructure.
The account begins with the relationship of Ritualism to the Tractarians, delineating continuities between the two phases of the revival, as well as differences introduced by the expansion of a lay following. Its development through
the 1840's and 1850's, into the 1860's is set out, highlighting the practices

BOOK REVIEWS89

adopted, their relation to doctrine, factors that favored their adoption and
spread, as well as those which hindered their control and containment. The interaction of Ritualists with other portions of the Church of England, especially
its right wing, is explored.
The core of the analysis focuses on the types of people who converted to the
movement and, to a lesser degree, who opposed it. Each of the groups attracted
to the movement—clergy, urban poor, women, and young men— "can be seen
as culturally subordinate or in decline" (p. xxiii). This general observation is
translated into specific factors which fostered the adherence of members of
each of these categories. The principal themes of the opposition are taken up,
with a separate chapter devoted to the Public Worship Regulation Act (1874)
and its failure to achieve its intended result. Some of this failure must be attrib-

uted to developments internal to Ritualism. As it attained middle-class respectability, as its first generation of converts gave way to those born and raised
in the movement's practices, and as these practices influenced other portions
of the Anglican Church, Ritualism progressively lost its countercultural character. By the 1890's a "movement that had once protested bourgeois values was

itself becoming middle-class, even suburban" (p. 263).

There is a lot to like in this book. Reed's style is a refreshing change from the
convoluted writing stereotypically associated with social scientists. He is able
to do justice to some of the eccentric characters attached to the movement and
some of its more amusing events without losing the balance provided by his analytical focus. A helpful glossary of ecclesiastical terms is provided. Flaws are
exceptional (Trappists do not take a vow of silence, as on p. 73). In light of the
wealth of available material on the Tractarians this study redresses the relative
neglect of their ritualist contemporaries and successors. It combines historical
erudition, an illuminating orienting perspective, and an engaging style of presentation, with much to interest the specialist while remaining accessible to the
general reader.
CJ.TTalar
St. Mary's Seminary and University, Baltimore
Louis Veuillot. By Pierre Pierrard. [Politiques & Chrétiens, 12.] (Paris: Beauchesne Editeur. 1998. Pp. Lx, 273. 180 FF paperback.)
M. Pierrard opens his book with a disclaimer that he has never liked people
filled with certitude, especially in religious matters. Nevertheless, he accepted
without hesitation the invitation to write a book on the "Catholic absolutist"

editor-in-chief of L'Univers, Louis Veuillot. Pierrard believes Veuillot was probably the greatest Catholic journalist of all time and one of the very best in the

nineteenth, journalism's golden, century. He asserts that contemporary histori-

ans' tendency to ignore Veuillot derives from the evolution of religious sensibility against intransigence and leads to a wide gap in the understanding of the
period.

90BOOK REVIEWS

Veuillot is described as "an autodidact of genius," an excellent writer whose
best work was as a journalist. Although his private life was distinguished by gentleness, modesty, and politeness toward his family and friends, his journalistic
career was marked by strident polemics, irony, and cunning wit. A convert to
Catholicism,Veuillot used his pen as a sword against "libres penseurs" and to defend "the true faith."

Convinced throughout his life that he expressed the opinion of the great majority of Catholics, Veuillot's career was marked with disagreements with many
bishops as well as other lay leaders. Mgr. Sibour, Archbishop of Paris, and Mgr.
Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans, felt that Veuillot was overstepping his role as a
lay journalist and introducing demagogy and laicism into the Church. But other
bishops, like Mgr. Parisis of Arras, defended Veuillot, claiming that in a time
when priests were not heard in the world at large, lay preaching through the vehicle of the press was necessary. Ultimately, the ultramontane Veuillot was defended by Pius LX, "his pope," whom he championed at every turn.
Pierrard does an excellent job of outlining the major issues Veuillot dealt
with during his journalistic career, especially the quarrels between intransigent
and liberal Catholics within the "Catholic party" over political and religious

questions from 1840 through the late 1870's. However, Pierrard fails to acknowledge any work published outside of France on Veuillot and the quarrels
of the nineteenth-century Church. Most importandy he does not cite Marvin
Brown's extensive biography of Veuillot (1977), which made masterful use of
much contemporary monographic research. One of his most notable interpretive disagreements with Brown's work is that he believes that Veuillot is a precursor of the turn-of-the-century anti-Semites, Drumont of Libre Parole and
Bailly of La Croix, while Brown asserts that Veuillot's attitude was rather medieval—seeking the conversion ofJews, as of all unbelievers.
An appended essay by Emile Poulat examines Veuillot's legacy, raising tantalizing questions regarding the continued struggle between the Church and
modernity and underlining the contradictions implicit in Veuillot's unique position as a lay person, who spoke as the self-anointed defender of the hierarchical Church. Neither Pierrard nor Poulat seems to recognize Veuillot's increased
significance as current studies in the history of religion focus on the reemergence of intransigence in the world-wide struggle in many religious denominations against modernity.
Anita R. May
Oklahoma Humanities Council

The Oscar Wilde Encyclopedia. By Karl Beckson. (New York: AMS Press. 1998.

Pp. xviii, 456. $125.00.)

A writer and wit with as much appeal to a wide-reading public and drama
devotees as to literary critics and academics, Oscar Wilde has been the subject

BOOK REVIEWS91

of more than 14,000 books and articles. Over the past twenty years, he has received more attention than most other nineteenth-century writers. On Febru-

ary 14, 1995—the 100th anniversary of the premiere of The Importance of

Being Earnest—he received formal recognition in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. A window bearing his name, year of birth, and year of death was
officially set in place. Even during his most egocentric phases the poseur Wilde,
who often boasted that he dedicated his genius to his life rather than his art,
never dreamt that his name would be enshrined in the Abbey, where such literary luminaries as Chaucer, Browning, and Tennyson are entombed and where
such other famous figures as Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Dickens, and
T. S. Eliot have memorials of one sort or another.

This encyclopedia, the first of Wilde to appear, is a comprehensive guide to
the massive amounts of material on Wilde's life and art. Its author, Karl Beckson,
who has concentrated a lifetime of study on Wilde and his circle, has written
some 750 entries on the most important matters pertaining to a remarkable figure whose extraordinary success and precipitate fall are reminiscent of classical
tragedy.
Several entries cover significant cultural and literary conceptions of Wilde's

period. Each of his works, major or minor, is accorded a separate entry and is

followed by biographical information relative to initial publications and subsequent appearances in revised forms. Entries on his lectures, with a special emphasis on those he delivered during his 1882 tour ofAmerica, are also included.
The many different individuals who played a major role in his life, from George
Alexander and William Archer to James McNeill Whistler and Walt Whitman, are

profiled; and appended to each biographical entry are short lists of useful books

and articles on that artist or writer, actor or producer, publisher or political figure. Additionally, Wilde's 100 or so poems are likewise discussed in proper detail, those he supervised into print as well as those published posthumously.
That Wilde was a sensitive poet, an inimitable wit, and a superb playwright is
far more widely known than his life-long interest in Catholicism. His first baptism, a private affair arranged by his mother, took place when he was four or
five; the second, the dramatic death-bed scene of November 29, 1900. "Catholi-

cism," he had once quipped, "is the only religion to die in." Between his two

baptisms his concern for the Faith can be discerned in much that he did and
said. The Church, in short, provided him with a means to express personal and
aesthetic tensions between Hellenism and Hebraism, indulgence and renunciation, the flesh and the spirit.

Inasmuch as most of Wilde's biographers and critics have been non-Catholic,

for all their scrutiny of his character and philosophy they have generally ignored or misinterpreted his attraction to the Church. They prefer to quote his
flip remark about religion: "Really, you know, I don't think I have any. I am
an Irish Protestant." Beckson, however, treats Wilde's interest in Catholicism

with circumspection and objectivity, as he does all aspects of Wilde's life and
works. There is nothing captious or caviling, tendentious or promotive in any of

92BOOK REVIEWS

the entries. Enhancing the usefulness of this valuable reference tool, furthermore, are a detailed four-page chronology and a thorough thirty-two-page general index.
G.A. Cevasco

St.John's University, New York

Creative Tension: The Spiritual Legacy of Friedrich von Hügel. By Ellen M.

Leonard. (Scranton: University of Scranton Press. 1997. Pp. xv, 237. $24.95
clothbound; $18.95 paperback.)

Ellen Leonard's study of Baron von Hügel focuses on his spiritual legacy,
which, she says, "includes his writings and the example of his life." And her
book, accordingly, is divided almost evenly between an account of his life and
his various writings, including his letters. An appendix of thirty pages reprints
the second chapter of the first volume of von Hügel's Mystical Element oj Religion, and this is appropriate because it is in this chapter that von Hügel gives
his preliminary explanation of the three elements of religion which form both
the theoretical and practical frameworks of his own religious life and that
which he articulated to others who sought his help.
The first part of this study will be disappointing to anyone familiar with von
Hügel's life and thought, and for one being first introduced to the man it will be
misleading. Instead of allowing von Hügel's voluminous writings, both published and unpublished, to shape her interpretation of his life, Leonard relies
too heavily on the secondary literature of others for the framework and categories of her own study. Often she states an opinion of a previous writer about
the Baron and then leaves that opinion to stand as though it is also hers, but
without explaining why. Elsewhere she suggests the inadequacy of an opinion,
but without giving sufficient explanation for its rejection. She mentions, for
instance, Maisie Ward's theory of "the two von Hügels," only to reject it, but
with an inadequate explanation. She accepts Nicholas Lash's ultimately meaningless remark that von Hügel was an "immensely learned amateur," as well as
Marvin O'Connell's irrelevant observation that von Hügel "risked nothing professional in the scholarly wars . . . because he had no profession to risk." She
can accept these characterizations because she herself places von Hügel in a
false historical framework. She speaks of his giving his life to the "academic"
study of religion, and elsewhere of his embarking on a "career as a scholar of religion." The Baron's lifelong pursuit of the truth of religion as the means for
making sense of his life had nothing to do with either the academy or a career,
but rather with his own existential need and faith commitment. The particular
form of his relationships with Troeltsch, Eucken, Holtzmann, and of course

Tyrrell, Loisy, and a host of others, can only be understood within that very personal search. Other inaccuracies also weaken one's confidence in Leonard's

control of the historical data. Von Hügel's diaries do not give "detailed accounts
of his daily activities," as she states they do; nor does it make sense to say that

BOOK REVIEWS93

"English Catholicism became his spiritual home." And to call Merry del VaI the
"English member of the Vatican" requires more than a little explanation!
The second part of this study which deals with von Hügel's writings is somewhat more successful in its achievement than the first. Yet even here, theological theorists like David Tracy and Elizabeth Johnson seem to influence Leonard
more than what von Hügel actually wrote. Of course, von Hügel had the ordinary limitations of time, place, and information common to all mortals. But
surely we do not condescend to the Synoptics, to St. Augustine, to St. Bernard,
or to any other spiritual giant of on-going importance to lived Christianity because they lacked the specific insights of late twentieth-century postmodernists! A careful reading of the Baron's essay on "The Place and Function of the
Historical Element in Religion" might have modified Leonard's assertion that
"Von Hügel, who shared the nineteenth-century approach to history with its
emphasis on development and progress, had a naive faith in 'historical facts'
which did not recognize the interpretative nature of the historical task. Nor did
he recognize the discontinuities as well as the continuities of human history."
The Baron's essay contradicts that judgment.
Lawrence Barmann

St. Louis University

Lettere di Ernesto Buonaiuti ad Arturo Carlo Jemolo, 1921-1941. Edited by
Carlo Fantappiè; introduction by Francesco Margiotta Broglio. [Pubblicazioni degli Archivi di Stato, Fonti, 24.] (Rome: Ministero per i beni culturali e ambientali, Ufficio centrale per i beni archivistici. 1997. Pp. 299.)
The writer of these letters, Ernesto Buonaiuti (1881-1946), was the famous
Catholic modernist, priest, and professor of religious history at the University of
Rome. The recipient, Jemolo (1891-1981), the distinguished jurist and historian, best known for his Church and State in Italy (1948, abridged 1955, Eng-

lish translation I960), was unceasingly loyal to Buonaiuti while remaining a

practicing Catholic and maintaining a critical distance from the latter's unquenchable modernistic reform optimism. Thus, after a whole series of ecclesiastical suspensions and excommunications, when Buonaiuti was deprived of
his university chair on January 1, 1932, as a consequence of a special provision
of the concordat between the Holy See and Italy in the Lateran Pacts of 1929,
Jemolo tried his best to marshal legal arguments to prevent the injustice. The
correspondence peters out after this, though not from any detectable chill in
the relationship, but rather because Jemolo came to the Roman university in
1933 and they could stay in contact by telephone more easily.
The edition, for the most part helpfully and carefully edited, does not change
the overall picture of Buonaiuti's well researched career and history of his conflicts with church authority. To the surprise of this reviewer, at least, it is full of
references to professors and chairs of ecclesiastical law (lemolo's specialty).

94BOOK REVIEWS

These ecclesiasticisti were primarily concerned with the law of the State in regard to the Church, but also with canon law. Buonaiuti displayed a keen interest
in the historical aspects of their work, not just in Jemolo's studies, e.g., on
Jansenism in Italy.
Buonaiuti, of course, published his own interpretation of his vicissitudes in
the autobiographical Pellegrino di Roma (1945). Like George Tyrrell (whom he
and his editor spell "Tyrrel"), he was firm in his attachment to the Catholic
Church and its priesthood, to which he clung. It is evident from these letters
that this was no development of his later years; again and again he mentioned
his determination to make it manifest by continuing to wear the soutane. Only
the threat of Mussolini's police could induce him to appear in a black suit with
clergyman's collar. There are any number of other indications here of the halflife in Mussolini's Italy of the modernist and integralist clashes of the pre-WorldWar-I period. Agostino Gemelli, O.F.M., the founder of the Catholic University of
the Sacred Heart in Milan, and Enrico Rosa, SJ. , of the Civiltà Cattolica are two
of the villains who appear, Gemelli sometimes trying to "help" Buonaiuti and his
friend, Jemolo. Cardinal Gasparri absolved Buonaiuti of one early excommunication without obtaining at that time what the Vatican was after, namely,
Buonaiuti's complete retirement from the scene. But on all such figures and incidents, other studies (duly noted) would have to be consulted for a balanced view.
Paul Misner

Marquette University
The Living ofMaisie Ward. By Dana Greene. (Notre Dame, Indiana: University
of Notre Dame Press. 1997. Pp. xii, 255. $25.00.)
Dana Greene's biography, The Living of Maisie Ward, provides us with a
highly contextualized, readable account of the evolution of a remarkable
woman: street preacher and apologist for the Catholic Church in London's
Hyde Park and on Wall Street in New York, biographer ofJohn Henry Newman
and G. K. Chesterton, historian of the Oxford Movement and its subsequent
ramifications within the English Catholic Church, co-founder of Sheed and
Ward, the publishing house that made the fruits of the Catholic intellectual revival widely accessible in England and America by the middle of this century,
and later in life, global activist for affordable housing (a commitment she considered a direct mandate of the Mystical Body of Christ). Greene's book is more
than an overdue biography of a Catholic writer and activist, however. In writing
the life of this exceptional woman, who lived from 1889 to 1975, Green reconstructs the several worlds inhabited by her protagonist, worlds which need to
be reinstated within the Catholic historical memory.
Ward's story has its origins in the insular world of Victorian and Edwardian
English upper-class Catholics captured in a different voice in Evelyn Waugh's
Brideshead Revisited. It shifted direction in the wake of the Great War when

Ward encountered the Catholic Evidence Guild, an expanding microcosm

BOOK REVIEWS95

where Ward, a convent-educated gentrywoman, could share a Hyde Park
podium with a cockney charwoman, an Australian law student (her future husband, Frank Sheed), and a growing number of volunteers from the working and
professional classes dedicated to explaining what it meant to be Catholic to
anyone who would listen. The Guild, which reached its peak in the 1930's,
helped Ward to find her voice and her vocation as a Catholic writer and publisher and led to her marriage and collaboration with Frank Sheed, with whom

she founded Sheed and Ward in 1926. Sheed and Ward, both the publishers and

the traveling lecturers, provided access to the works of the Catholic intellectual
revival underway in Europe, England, and America for a growing readership,
and thereby transformed the meaning and experience of theology and spirituality for the generations ofAmerican and English Catholics who came of age be-

tween the late 1920's and the early 1960's, the eve of Vatican Council II. In

1956, when Sheed and Ward were at the peak of their success and Ward was
sixty-seven, she established the Catholic Housing Aid Society, which signaled
her recognition that the changing world of Catholic literature, theology, and
spirituality constructed in Sheed and Ward publications led necessarily to "a
new theological understanding that insisted on engagement in and for a suffering world" (p. 161). Here Ward, ally of the French priest-worker Henri Perrin
and of Dorothy Day, Catherine de Hueck, and Caryll Houselander, helped to
point the way to a new post-conciliar Catholic world.
Ward, whose "pattern was not to replace one engagement with another, not
to jettison anything, but to add commitment on commitment" (p. 130), thrived

spiritually amidst the turbulence of the 1960's and '70's, even as her health de-

teriorated. She could always make the connections: between early Christian
saints and martyrs and struggling mothers in the secular city, between the
dilemma of the modernist and the challenge of the priest-worker. Greene's biography, which pays close attention to the coherence of Ward's private and
public lives and richly reconstructs the contours of her life, constitutes a model
for biographers of modern Catholic women to follow.

Debra Campbell

Colby College

Konfession und Nationalsozialismus: Evangelische und katholische Pfarrer
in der Pfalz 1930- 1939. By Thomas Fandel. [Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für Zeitgeschichte, Series B: Forschungen, Band 76.] (Paderborn:

Ferdinand Schöningh. 1997. Pp. 669- DM 98,-.)

In the field of German church history, Catholics and Protestants tend to be almost completely isolated from each other. Practitioners of the confessional subfields use different archives; they receive funding from different sources and
publish in different series. In some cases, they work in different departments
and institutions. As a result, comparisons between Catholics and Protestants are
underexplored, and the story of Catholic-Protestant interaction in Germany—

96BOOK reviews

the largest European nation in which the two groups are close to equal in number—remains for the most part untold. This deficiency is especially noticeable
for the Nazi period because of the vast literature on the churches under Hitler.
It is especially regrettable when so much recent attention has turned to the
involvement of "ordinary Germans" in the Third Reich. Surely relations be-

tween the churches that together accounted for over 95% of Germany's popu-

lation and whose mutual suspicions ran deep in the culture must be part ofthat
history too.
Since the 1960's there have been efforts to remedy the dearth of integrative
studies, in English most notably by John S. Conway, in German by Haus
Scholder. Thomas Fandel's superb account of Catholic and Protestant clergy in
the Palatinate from 1930 to 1939 is a significant and appropriate continuation
of the labors of those masters. Fandel demonstrates how much we can learn

about both churches and the society in which they existed by examining
Catholics and Protestants in a specific regional setting. His is an account of
segregation, coexistence, and conflict, but also of occasional surprising cooperation and often destructive rivalry. Fandel's ambitious and compelling
book merits wide circulation, not only among church historians, but among

anyone interested in the dynamics of Nazi society.

Fandel's book is big but it is worth the effort to read it. The 600 pages permit

him not only to cover Catholic and Protestant clergy throughout a tumultuous
decade but also to balance informed generalizations and statistical overviews
with lengthy biographical excursions and local detail. Fandel's methodology
combines social history of religion with case studies in local, everyday history.
It is an effective blend that gives readers a sense of the "big picture" with its
complexity and nuance but also communicates a feel for the human face of developments in specific parishes. Konfession und Nationalsozialismus is regional history at its best: firmly anchored in time and place yet always relevant
to the broader context.

The Palatinate offers an excellent regional study for a number of reasons. The

population was fairly evenly divided between Catholics (42%) and Protestants

(56%) (p. 16); the church and its clergy still dominated daily life, particularly in

the many rural areas; and the geography, history, and Nazi party definition of the
region meant that the Saar plebiscite in 1935 played an especially important
role there. Fandel develops his discussion chronologically, moving from the
often-neglected years at the end of the Weimar period, when democracy was all
but dead but National Socialism had not yet taken power, to the eve of war. Fandel does not discuss the war itself but does provide fascinating information
about postwar denazification in the churches. Most parts of the book deal first
with the Catholic clergy and then the Protestants, although Fandel makes explicit comparisons and discusses interconfessional relations. Thematic chapters
explore persecution and resistance as well as the Christian clergy's views of
Jews and Judaism. With the exception of a few repetitive or overly detailed passages, the writing is energetic and elegant.

BOOK REVIEWS97

Fandel's main arguments are convincing precisely in their subtlety. Catholic
and Protestant clergy had a very different relationship to National Socialism al-

ready before 1933, he tells us, to a large extent because of their political traditions. For priests, the Nazi party posed a direct threat to the Catholic parties:

the Zentrum and the Bayerische Volkspartei. For Protestants, the Nazis represented hope for an ecclesiastical and social renewal that would include curtailing Catholic power. From those points of departure the two churches' clergies
diverged and converged around issues such as confessional versus integrated

schools, intermarriage, police surveillance, and Nazism as a worldview. If the

Protestant clergy played a more obvious legitimizing role for the regime (p.
488), their Catholic counterparts too could hardly be classified as resistors (p.
402). Their concern was above all to preserve the autonomy of the church; although many priests suffered disadvantage and violence for their rejection of
the total demands of National Socialism—56.7% of those in the Palatinate by
Fandel's estimation (p. 405)—they remained largely silent on the broader
abuses of the regime, in particular its attacks on the Jews. In sum, Fandel's is a
sobering account of accommodation, illusion, opportunism, professional politics, denunciation, and compromise. It is small comfort that Protestant pastors
come off even worse in this even-handed treatment. Perhaps more consolation,
but also a challenge, emerges from those few examples Fandel so sensitively
presents of decency and courage.
Doris L. Bergen

University ofNotre Dame

"Und Sie hatten nie Gewissensbisse?"Die Biographie von RudolfHöß und die
Frage nach seiner Verantwortung vor Gott und den Menschen. By Man-

fred Deselaers. (Leipzig: Benno Verlag. 1997. Pp. 424. DM 39,-.)

The Nazi concentration camp Commandant in the film Schindlern List is portrayed as a sadistic killer who, for amusement, shoots prisoners at random from
the front porch of his house with a telescopic rifle. Following the camp's liberation he is shown standing beneath a gallows with a noose around his neck,
clutching a rosary. Rudolf Höß, Commandant at Auschwitz, shot no prisoners
for amusement. He ended, however, like the colleague portrayed in the film.
Höß, the subject of this gripping book by a priest of the Aachen diocese who
has lived at Auschwitz since 1990, was responsible for cruelty on a monumental scale. But he was no sadist and was not personally cruel. Examining this
paradox is a central theme of Deselaers' work. He begins with a 200-page biography of Höß, based on the autobiography which he wrote in prison at Krakow,
before his trial at Warsaw, on the records of the psychiatrist and prosecutor
who questioned Höß before his execution in the Auschwitz concentration
camp on April 16, 1947, and on interviews with Auschwitz survivors. Höß was
unique among major Nazi criminals: he denied nothing and took full responsibility for his crimes.

98BOOK REVIEWS

Höß was the product of a Catholic upbringing so strict that it may be said to
have substituted fanaticism for love: his father vowed that young Rudolf would
become a priest. Deselaers sees a key to Höß's early abandonment of Christian
faith, and his later fanatical devotion to the Nazi idols of Volk and Blut, in this
lack of love in his formative years. A friend of Bormann and Himmler in the
1920's, Höß joined the SS in 1934 and served at Dachau and Sachsenhausen be-

fore being appointed Commandant at Auschwitz in 1940. That the camp's ma-

chinery of death functioned so well was due to his organizational ability, hard
work, and unremitting pursuit of the ideal imparted to Höß by his SS training:
"I wanted to be notorious for toughness, never soft."
The lengths to which Höß took this toughness may be seen in his account of
die execution of a fellow SS-officer at Sachsenhausen shortly after the outbreak
of war in 1939. The victim, in his mid-thirties with a wife and three children,
had been ordered to arrest a former communist. Because the man had been a

friend, he permitted him to take leave of his wife at home. The prisoner escaped. Höß commanded the firing squad at the officer's execution. "Only the
day before we had sat in the mess, chatting about the executions we had to
carry out. Now it was his turn. It required all the self-discipline I could muster
to place my pistol on his temple for the coup de grace, so that the bystanders
would not see how upset I was," Höß wrote. His greatest mistake, Höß lamented
repeatedly, was not to have found the courage to tell his superiors early on that
he was unfit for concentration camp work, and request transfer to military duties.

Höß went underground at war's end, but was arrested in March, 1946, on a
farm near Flensburg, on the German-Danish frontier. Called as a witness before
the International War Crimes Tribunal at Nuremberg, he impressed the court
with his frank and detailed account of Nazi crimes. Immediately thereafter he
was transferred to Poland for trial in that country. In Polish prisons he experienced a religious conversion and asked for a priest to hear his confession. Five
days before he was hanged in the camp he had once commanded he received
Communion in his prison cell at Wadowice (the birthplace of Pope John Paul
II), weeping as he did so. On the following day, he wrote the following Declaration, published here for the first time:
In the isolation of my prison cell I have come to the bitter realization of
how terribly I have sinned against humanity. As Commandant of the
Auschwitz death camp I helped carry out the cruel program of human de-

struction planned by the "Third Reich." ... I am to pay for my responsibil-

ity with my life. May the Lord God forgive me one day. I ask forgiveness of
the Polish people. In Polish prisons I have experienced humanity for the
first time. Despite all that has happened I have received treatment which I
never expected, and which has deeply shamed me. May the facts now
emerging about the horrible crimes against humanity make impossible the
repetition of such cruelty for all time.

BOOK REVIEWS99

What caused this change of heart? In addition to the humane treatment mentioned several times over by Höß himself, Deselaers points to the psychological

trauma experienced by Höß at the sudden and total collapse in 1945 of the ide-

ological world in which he had believed so passionately.

The second half of the book is a philosophical and theological consideration
of the questions posed in the subtitle. Appealing to the philosophy of the
French Jew Emmanuel Levinas, and others, Deselaers develops a theoretical
model of moral responsibility, guilt, and repentance. He applies this to Höß in
the book's conclusion.

Historians will appreciate especially the author's diligence as a biographer, in
particular the critical spirit in which he examines each of his subject's statements. It would have been easy for Deselaers, as a Catholic priest, to exploit
Höß's repentance as an example of Catholicism's spiritual power. There is no
hint of such triumphalism in these pages. Repeatedly Deselaers points out the
limits of Höß's repentance, especially his failure to mention Jews in his final
declaration. In explanation (not amelioration) Deselaers cites the observation
of a prison chaplain: few criminals express any regret for their crimes at all; and
when they do so the change of heart comes slowly, so that (humanly speaking)
one can expect no more than the beginning of repentance.
On no page of this impressive work, for which Deselaers was awarded the
doctorate in theology summa cum laude by the Papal Academy of Theology
at Krakow, does he lose sight of his stated aim: "I dedicate this work to the
victims of Auschwitz."

Archdiocese ofSt. Louis

John Jay Hughes

Kardynal Adam Stefan Sapieha. By Jacek Czajowski. (Wroclaw: Ossolineum.
1997. Pp. 225. Paperback.)

Although Cardinal Prince Adam Stefan Sapieha (1867-1951) belonged to the

highest Polish aristocracy, and though he permanently inscribed himself in the
Polish national pantheon, littie was written about him in the past. Yet forty-six
years after his demise, Dr. Jacek Czajowski, a junior faculty member at Jagiellonian University in Cracow, came out with a full-scale biography of him.
According to the author, the cardinal disliked all pomp and magnificent religious services. He was reserved and self-effacing. On occasions, however, he
could be quick-tempered, ready to reprove and proverbially stubborn, a feature
inherited from his Sapieha ancestors. The prelate was a Polish patriot and cared
for the national heritage, and he most enthusiastically greeted the birth of the

Second Polish Republic in November, 1918. Then, he got actively involved in
Poland's struggle for its frontiers in 1918-1921.

100BOOK REVIEWS

Czajowski claims that the archbishop of Cracow was neither a prominent
theologian nor a charismatic orator. But he was a born organizer. He decided to

divide large parishes (30,000 faithful or more) into smaller ones. He aimed at

providing the congregation with an easy access to the clergy. Sapieha particularly cared for close links between the laity and clergy. To facilitate such a close
association, he fully supported the founding of lay communities at the parish
level.

The prelate was open to liturgical and other novelties inaugurated by Pope
Leo XIII, the Benedictines (the cardinal particularly favored them), and others.
Furthermore, he wanted each rural community to have a church or at least a
chapel. Sapieha often inspected the parishes under his jurisdiction. In addition,
he got actively involved in charity work, which activity was particularly evident
during World Wars I and II. Then, too, he was a compassionate person. He did

much to alleviate the plight of the needy. He also cared for orphanages and
homes for the elderly. The cardinal frequently appealed to the rich not to forget
about the poor. At the same time, he was relatively conservative; he condemned
the class-struggle theory, advocating social solidarity in its stead.

With regard to the State, Sapieha was a firm advocate of Church autonomy.

He was, for example, opposed to concordats and energetically fought against
that of 1925, concluded between the Holy See and Poland. At the same time,

Pope Pius XI favored them. The author also speculates on the reasons for
Sapieha's relative isolation under his pontificate. He developed a conflict with
the future Pius XI when Achille Ratti was the Papal Nuncio in Poland. Furthermore, his persevering opposition to the 1925 concordat, his cold relations with

the Sanacja regime (1926-1939), his obstinacy, and other reasons could in no
way endear him to the Holy Father.

Early in 1939, Czajowski states, the prelate felt old and physically exhausted

and, therefore, he petitioned both Pius XI and his successor to let him resign.
Yet the rapidly worsening international situation influenced him to remain at
his post to the great relief of Pope Pius XII.

Sapieha particularly distinguished himself in 1939-1945, when Poland was
ruled by the Third Reich. As the most senior archbishop left in the occupied

country, the old prelate not only reconstituted the Polish Episcopate but became the recognized spokesman of the Polish nation under Nazi rule. His chief
adversary in occupied Poland and its proconsul with the title of GovernorGeneral, Hans Frank (1900-1946), was a tough and pitiless individual. Yet
Sapieha proved a match to Frank. He constantly appealed to Berlin, the Governor-General, and other Nazi officials to save lives or bring some relief to the
population. The prelate defended everybody, the Jews singled out for physical
extermination included. He never provoked the Nazis, but did not hesitate on
occasions to use bold language. The archbishop particularly protested against
the Nazi principle of collective responsibility and hostage taking. His international renown was such that the Nazis did not dare to arrest him or to violate

BOOK REVIEWS101

the sanctuary of his palace. Thanks to the activities of Sapieha and many others,
Nazi efforts to change the Poles into slaves by eliminating their elites and destroying their culture did not succeed. The prelate never believed in Adolf
Hitler's final triumph. He expressed such views in his letters to the Holy Father,
skilfully smuggled out of occupied Poland.
Once the war was over, the archbishop (a staunch enemy of communism)
showed an unusual pragmatism and flexibility with the new Moscowsponsored rulers of Poland. In the first years in power, the Polish communists
(some 30,000 firm believers in the communist bliss in a predominantly Catholic
society of about 24 millions) felt isolated and tolerated the Catholic Church.
Once firmly in control, however, the Polish Stalinists became increasingly totalitarian. Apparently, as Czajowski writes, they even envisaged putting Sapieha on
a show trial. He himself did not exclude such an eventuality. Following his
death on July 23, 1951, an even tougher line against the Catholic Church was

adopted, and it was to last until October, 1956, when a softer team, headed by
Ladislas Gomulka (1956-1970), himself a victim of Stalinist purges, assumed
power in Poland.
Returning to Sapieha, Pius XII fully approved of his virtual leadership of the
Polish Catholic Church under the Nazis and made him a cardinal in 1946. One

should add that during one of his pastoral visits prior to World War II, Sapieha
spotted at Wadowice (a small town in southern Poland) a young and brilliant
high-school student. He took him under his wings under Nazi rule, and once the

war was over, the future John Paul II (ordained priest in 1 945) was sent to Rome
for advanced theological studies.

Czajowski's study is good, interesting, though certainly not free from factual
errors and tiresome repetitions. As the study was not editied with adequate
care, the final touch is missing. The study under review can only be considered
to be an introduction to a solid scholarly work. The Vatican and other nonPolish archives will have to be examined to produce something good and lasting. Cardinal Sapieha served faithfully and with zeal the Catholic Church and
the Polish nation. He fully deserves that such an effort be undertaken.
Adam A. Hetnal

The Higher School ofEducation in Kielce (Poland)

Nihil Obstat:Religion, Politics, and Social Change in East-Central Europe and
Russia. By Sabrina P. Ramet. (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University

Press. 1998. Pp. xi, 424. $69.95 hardcover; $23.95 paperback.)

Sabrina R Ramet, professor of international studies at the University of
Washington, has written an interesting book on the relationship between
church and state in communist and post-communist countries. The focus is on
Christian churches in Russia, Ukraine,Yugoslavia, East Germany, Poland, Czech

102BOOK REVIEWS

Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, and Albania. The study demolishes

a series of myths regarding religion in Russia and East Central Europe, which per-

sist to this day. The author shows that the Communists failed to annihilate religion, that not all religious ministers were heroic characters, that the Communist
governments geared religious policies to specific churches and conditions, and,
finally, that not all Communist policies were bad for religion. The book examines at length the Evangelical Church in Germany; the Orthodox Churches in
Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria,Yugoslavia, Romania, and Albania; the Uníate Catholic
Church in Ukraine; the Roman Catholic Church in Poland, Hungary, the Czech
Republic, Slovakia, and Albania; the new evangelism sweeping Eastern and Central Europe; and the political background of church-state relations throughout
Eastern Europe and Russia. Ramet carefully describes religious-political interaction, explains the paradox of strong religious life in post-communist countries,

and then reveals the dilemma and opportunity which churches now face: they

no longer confront an easily identifiable demon in the Communist regimes and
are free to expand, that is, nothing stands in their way, but they find themselves
facing a gray, amorphous reality of seemingly infinite moral complexity.

Nearly half of the chapters in the book have been previously published in
journals or collections, but the new writing, combined with the convenience of
placing scattered writings in one place, makes the book a solid contribution to
the history of church-state relations in Communist societies. The author is wary
about the expansionist plans of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches.

She fears that they might try to dictate morality for all citizens. She is especially

concerned about the churches' position on abortion and homosexuality. She
wants the churches to expand and grow, but she also desires them to change
and open themselves to the realities of the human condition.

The author is too optimistic about her claim that nothing now, with the fall of
the Communist regimes, stands in the way of religious expansion. Restrictions
and difficulties continue in many of the countries. The Russian government, for
example, has recently restricted religious activity by Western religions. In addition, religious attendance is down throughout Eastern Europe and Russia. What
stands in the way of religious expansion is growing moral relativism, the democratization of morality, the secularization of society, the lack of role models of
moral substance, the manipulative use of religion for political and ethnic strife,
and the general lack of contagious enthusiasm over the Christian message and
of creative approaches to spreading the gospel, which one expects from the
leaders of the Christian churches.

Dennis J. Dunn

Southwest Texas State University

BOOK REVIEWS103
American

TheApalachee Indians and Mission San Luis. By John H. Hann and Bonnie G.
McEwan. [Native Peoples, Cultures, and Places of the Southeastern United
States.] (Gainesville: University Press of Florida. 1998. Pp. xiv, 193; 120

color illustrations. $4995 clothbound; $19.95 paperback.)

The only true Mississippian culture in Florida, with a ceremonial mound center at Lake Jackson, Apalachee occupied an area ideal for agriculture between
the Ochlockonee and Aucilla Rivers. When visited by explorers Panfilo de
Narváez in 1528 and Hernando de Soto in 1539, the chiefdom had two para-

mount villages, Anhaica and Ivitachuco, and a population of 50,000 to 60,000,
who spoke a Muskhogean language. The founding of St. Augustine in 1565 did

not immediately lead to missions in Apalachee. By the time Franciscans com-

menced conversions in the province in 1633, epidemic disease had reduced the

population by half. Not all the Apalachee were in accord about the Spanish
presence, especially after a band of soldiers arrived to act as middlemen for the

governor's trade with the nations to their north. In the Apalachee Revolt of

1647 the non-Christians burned seven missions and killed the deputy governor
with his family. The whole province was punished with a labor draft for service

in St. Augustine. By 1675 epidemics of yellow fever and measles had reduced

their numbers to 10,000, in thirteen missions. South Carolinians and Creeks

combined to raid the province for slaves in 1704 during Queen Anne's War. The

refugees dispersed in all directions, and the province became a "despoblado"

In 1983 the State of Florida acquired fifty acres on a hill in Tallahassee and
launched an ambitious program of archaeological and historical research and
museum interpretation, for the hilltop was the site of the Spanish-period mission of San Luis, religious and military center of long-lost Apalachee province
and at one time the only Spanish settlement outside St. Augustine. Mission San
Luis is now an archaeological park and museum, with a living history program
and outdoor exhibits to interpret the site's material life and reconstructed
buildings: a church, a friary, the fort, three Spanish houses, a chief's house, and,
dwarfing other structures, a council house 120 feet in diameter, the largest
historic-period Indian building ever found in the Southeast and evidence of the
survival of native authority.
Providing fine-grained information about the seventeenth-century province
and its capital, this book is a product of the partnership which prevails in
Florida between historical archaeologists and historians. Bonnie G. McEwan is
Mission San Luis's director of archaeology; John H. Hann, author of Apalachee:
The Land between the Rivers (1988) and books on the Calusa and Timucua In-

dians, is its research historian. Thanks to the thrifty reuse of exhibit paintings,
drawings, and digital art, the volume is copiously illustrated. This feature, along
with an easy-to-read layout, clear style, and a focus on real people, makes the
book accessible to the younger reader. The more sophisticated reader will recognize the fruits of years of scholarly research on every page.

104BOOK REVIEWS

Unlike the missions of California and Paraguay, Florida missions were not economic enterprises dominated by friars, nor were Spanish settlers numerous
enough to overwhelm their hosts. The Apalachee Indians and Mission San
Luis unequivocally shows that on the strategic frontier of Florida, native cultures retained their vitality and chiefs their power.
Amy Turner Bushnell

College of Charleston

The Paths of Kateri's Kin. By Christopher Vecsey. [American Indian Catholics,
Volume IL] (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press. 1997.
Pp.xvi,392.)

This is the second component of a planned trilogy with the overall title,

American Indian Catholics. It is, severally and collectively, an outstanding contribution to scholarship that will set new standards in the field for quite some
time to come. The first installment was On the Padres'Trail, a study of Spanish
Catholicism among Native Americans, and this second contribution surveys
French activities in a similar context. One anticipates the third volume as covering English efforts, thus regarding the entire oeuvre as fruit borne from seeds

planted a generation earlier (1965) by John Tracy Ellis in Catholics in Colonial

America.

The author informs readers (p. xi) that his primary interest is in the
twentieth-century practice of Indian Catholicism, understanding the particular
forms of Catholic life that have derived from within native experiences. While
today's practices may be the ultimate focus, every reader of this journal knows
that a firm grasp of prior history is essential to reaching present times, and author Vecsey provides materials in abundance for this grasp. His researches in
the United States and Canadian locations (in this volume, United States and
Mexican in the previous one) afford a wealth of detail to show how Indians
"have adopted Catholic forms, adapting them to their own culture and at the
same time modulating themselves to the demands of their new religious complex."
We gain a better sense of this book's scope by applying various classifications. Geographically, we visit locations on the Atlantic shoreline in Nova Scotia
and Maine, then move westward through the Great Lakes and down the Mississippi to Louisiana, concluding eventually in Oregon and Washington on the Pacific seacoast. Active missionaries are predominantly Jesuits, though other
participants include Recollets, Capuchins, Sulpicians, Hospitaliers, Ursulines,
Oblates, and secular clergy. Missionaries with European origins other than
French came principally from Belgium, Italy, and Germany. Among the native
groups studied here in gratifying detail are the Hurons of Quebec Province, Algonkians of New England, the Ojibways, Ottawas, and Potawatomis of the central Great Lakes region, the Houmas of Louisiana, and the Flatheads, Blackfeet,

BOOK REVIEWS105

and Salish of the Rockies and beyond. Kateri Tekakwitha serves as a thematic
figure for all these peoples. As a seventeenth-century convert, half Mohawk and

half Algonkian, she epitomized two-part cultural identity. As one pronounced

blessed, June 22, 1980, she offers hope and inspiration to all of us but perhaps
especially to Native American Catholics.
This splendid work has been a long time in coming. The wait was well worth
it. In partial explanation of what lies behind its production, it thanks eighty-five
different people for their help and specifies eleven archives that provided aid to
the author. Its bibliography covers both primary and secondary sources in helpful detail. The text is richly descriptive and fair in its analysis. The scope is ambitious; the narrative unfolds at a persistent pace, and the unifying theme of
Indian-Catholic synthesis recurs with instructive regularity. On a final note, this

reviewer finds himself corrected at several places in the present publication

and is happy to acknowledge the fact. Vecsey's study furnishes more information, presents it from a more nuanced perspective, and supersedes all previous
contributions in this genre. It moves us to a new plateau of missions scholarship, improving on past efforts and thus eliciting better ones to come.
Henry Warner Bowden

Rutgers University

Houses of God: Region, Religion, and Architecture in the United States. By
Peter W Williams. [Public Expressions of Religion in America.] (Urbana and
Chicago: University of Illinois Press. 1997. Pp. xix, 321. $34.95.)
Construction, modification, closure, and demolition of Roman Catholic

churches are topics of heated debate among and between the nation's clergy,
laity, design professionals, and preservationists. The inherent value of Catholic
churches, in regard to either Catholic theology and liturgical practices or Amer-

ican urbanism, is unresolved within these controversies. Soundly reasoned
judgments regarding these buildings' status that are capable of superseding
the vicissitudes of liturgical revisionism, personalities, or aesthetic trends are
required. Identifying a building's worth, i.e., the role it plays within society, is
one of architectural history's traditional tasks. This generally requires synthesizing pertinent information that scholars in various fields have compiled, in conjunction with analyzing buildings' physical and aesthetic attributes. To identify

the inherent value of America's Catholic churches, background scholarship
would include histories of the American Catholic experience, of Catholic ecclesiological concerns, and of the broader pattern ofAmerican church building.
This book by Peter W. Williams, a professor of religion and American studies, is

of the third category and as such is a welcome addition to the scholarly discourse.

Williams' study addresses the places of worship built by America's major
Christian and non-Christian denominations, and is divided into seven chapters

106BOOK REVIEWS

based on geographic regions. He identifies "cultural hearths" within regions,
through which specific religious values and aesthetics became normative.
These include the Puritans, Evangelical Protestants, Quakers, Mormons, and

Spanish Colonial Catholics. Williams' methodology muminates the relationship

between religious values and architectural form most effectively when dealing
with the Puritans, Quakers, and Mormons, but this review focuses on his observations regarding Roman Catholic churches.
Williams falters in recognizing Roman Catholic "hearths" and in his judgment
of which architectural forms achieved prototypical status. Failing to recognize
Collegeville, Minnesota, as an important cradle ofAmerican Catholic twentiethcentury liturgical reform and its aesthetic expression is a serious omission.
Williams also argues that the architectural form of the Mission and Baroque-

styled Spanish colonial churches did not become influential prototypes within

their regions of origin or nationally, stating that they seldom rose above the
level of "craft," and "seem to lead practically nowhere." This ignores Catholic,
Protestant, and secular "high-style" versions of New Mexico's colonial mission
architecture, like Santa Fe's St. Francis Auditorium (1916), Laboratory of Anthropology (1930), Cristo Rey Church (1939), First Presbyterian (1939), or S.
Maria de la Paz (1994), and similar structures built in the Spanish Baroque style
in Texas, California, and throughout the nation. This book also contains disturbingly frequent inaccuracies and omissions regarding American Catholic his-

tory and building practices. These include: (1) identifying the Bishop of Quebec

as the ecclesiastical authority for all of North America prior to the establishment of the See of Baltimore; (Z) labeling the episcopal reigns of George
Mundelein (1909-1939), John McNicholas (1918-1950), and James Gallagher
(1915-1937), "mid-century," and (3) ignoring the comprehensive medieval

monastery plan's iconic status within Catholic religious communities in the or-

ganization of their religious, educational, and social-outreach facilities. Episco-

pal churches and their architects dominate Williams' discussion of "high-style"

church design, while ignoring many Catholic examples, such as Cleveland's
now demolished St. Agnes Gohn Comes), Wheeling's St. Joseph's Cathedral
(James Weber), Detroit's Duns Scotus College (Wilfred Anthony), and Min-

neapolis' Basilica of St. Mary (Emmanuel Masqueray). Nevertheless, this book's
analytic approach is groundbreaking, exceeding the descriptive character of ex-

isting scholarship to broach the interpretation and evaluation of America's religious architecture.
Matthew E. Gallegos

Texas Tech University

BOOK REVIEWS107

Reflections of Faith: Houses of Worship in the Lone Star State. By Willard B.
Robinson, with the Assistance of Jean M. Robinson. (Waco, Texas: Baylor

University Press. 1994. Pp. xxii, 268. $45.00.)

This beautifully illustrated and clearly written volume is a brilliant contribution to the religious historiography of Texas. With this effort the late author has
left a profound testimony not only to religion in Texas, but to his own stature as
having been one of Texas' most prominent students of religious architecture.
In no other book can the observer of the Christian and Judaic legacy in Texas
see the faith of those peoples—from an architectural perspective—more profoundly depicted. While other religions, such as Islam and Buddhism, and even
non-doctrinal Unitarianism, are represented in Willard's study, as would be expected their histories in the spiritual life of Texas fail to attract the attention
that the Christians—Catholics and Protestants alike—and Jews do.
Divided into five lengthy chapters buttressed by three hundred illustrations,
mostly photographs, Reflections of Faith reveals to the casual reader and the
scholar as well how Christians and Jewish peoples centered much of their religious profundity on the construction of churches and synagogues. Kneaded
through each chapter is a fascinating narrative of the emergence of the multifarious ethnic and national identities that came to make up the citizenry of the
Lone Star State, showing how such was interconnected with the historical maturation of Texas. In the context of that, the author focused on the construction

not only of the most well-known churches and synagogues in Texas, but of the
less famous ones as well.

Here one can find, for example, historic Catholic churches such as San Antonio's La Iglesia de Misión San Antonio de Valero (better known to history as
the Alamo), la Misión de San José de San Miguel de Aguayo (queen of the
Texas missions and established under the leadership of Fray Antonio Margil de
Jesús), and San Fernando Church (later Cathedral); Galveston's St. Mary's Cathedral (Texas' first diocese after independence); and Panna Maria's Church of the
Immaculate Conception, which Polish immigrants to Panna Maria erected

shortly after their arrival in 1854. But many others, such as the Chapel of
Loretto Academy in El Paso, too are represented. Strangely, St. Patrick's Cathedral of Fort Worth, one of Texas' proudest Gothic churches, is absent from
Robinson's pages. A similar focus in the history of their religious edifices can be
seen in the Protestant and Jewish worlds of Texas.

Robinson's five chapters trace the religious story in Texas from its roots
found in the mission establishments of the Spanish and Mexican Franciscan friars to the present day. In chapter one, "Iglesias Hispánicas" Robinson lays that
Franciscan Catholic base, wherein not only is the Catholic faith that the Franciscans brought to Texas discussed, but also key historical developments featuring prominent personages emerge as well as economic, social, and political
realities as the Hispanic Catholic account matures. Chapter two, "Antebellum
Churches," introduces Protestant churches to the Texas scene. Then, from

108BOOK REVIEWS

chapters three through five respectively, "Victorian Elegance," "Stately Formality," and "Modern Aesthetics," the drama continues to unfold.
That all of this history is presented within the milieu of telling the story of architectural evolution in Texas' churches and synagogues is a compliment to the
knowledge and talent that WUlard B. Robinson had. Reflections of Faith:
Houses of Worship in the Lone Star State is a tome that any student of the religious development of Texas should study seriously.
Patrick Foley

Editor, Catholic Southwest

American Originals: Homemade Varieties of Christianity. By Paul K. Conkin.

(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 1997. Pp. xvii, 336. $55.00
hardcover; $18.95 paperback.)

Religious liberty not only keeps denominations from shooting each other, but
it also clears and fertilizes the ground so that new religions may sprout and
grow. This is especially true where, as in the United States, no lengthy tradition
of a national church leaves a heavy heritage that retards or restrains. Innovation
conquers inertia.
With great skill, Paul Conkin of Vanderbilt University plows this fertile soil of
religious novelty in America. Limiting himself to Christianity—which for most
of the nation's history is no severe restriction—he classifies the "originals"
according to the following types: restoration (Christians and Disciples), humanistic (Unitarian and Universalist), apocalyptic (Adventists and Jehovah's
Witnesses), Mormons, spiritualist (Christian Science and Unity), and ecstatic
(Holiness and Pentecostal). These groups, he explains, are more than simply
schisms or separations, of which it would be difficult for anyone to keep count.
They are, rather, "new departures in basic doctrines and practices" (p. x). The
author has also chosen to concentrate on "the largest and most influential" innovations, believing that in his six types he can find "well over 90 per cent of
Americans who have embraced new or original forms of Christianity" (p. viii).
Conkin cannot hope to present a full history of each representative of his six
types. Rather, he concentrates on the early years of each body and the role of
the founders or the fresh voices. His careful "reading guides," however, enable
the interested student to pursue a far more detailed examination. These six
chatty bibliographies are up to date and useful. They are designed, moreover,
not to show how much the author has read, but how much the non-expert can
call upon for guidance and help.
Conkin writes with empathy and insight, though he has wisely called upon a
few members of the groups under discussion for comment and correction. Yet,
to the whole he gives his own interpretive "spin." In his afterword, he looks for
commonalities within what is admittedly a disparate assembly, but he does not

BOOK REVIEWS109

press too hard to find agreements where none exist. He sees his "originals" as
resembling each other chiefly in what they reacted against, and in their accommodations, conscious or not, to the demands, needs, and desires of nineteenthcentury Americans.
Edwin S. Gaustad

University of California, Riverside

Primitivist Piety: The Ecclesiology of the Early Plymouth Brethren. By James
Patrick Callahan. [Studies in Evangelicalism. Volume 12.] (Lanham, Maryland: The Scarecrow Press, Inc. 1997. Pp. xix, 287. $48.00.)
In this study based on his doctoral work at Marquette Universityjames Callahan presents an intricate yet fascinating picture of the essence of Plymouth
Brethren self-identity in the early 1800's. Scholars have often characterized the
group as restorationist or primitivist, using the terms interchangeably. The author insists that such an analysis fails to discern an important conflict in
Brethren thought between primitivism and restorationism.
Callahan follows an introductory historiographical essay with four heavily
documented chapters in which he briefly chronicles the early formation of the
group, its place both among and against other British dissenters, and its role in
British millenarianism and prophecy conferences. Ernest Sandeen characterized the Plymouth Brethren, particularly as seen in the theology ofJohn Nelson
Darby, as a dispensational premillennial sect. One of Callahan's contributions in
the book is to demonstrate that the group's primitivist ecclesiology, founded on
a literalist reading of the New Testament, was responsible for Brethren eschatology rather than vice versa.
The major argument of the book, however, is found in chapters six and seven.
Here the author carefully delineates Brethren ideas of primitivism and restorationism. The difference is epitomized by, though by no means confined to, the

stances of early leaders Anthony Groves and J. N. Darby. For Groves, true piety
was wrapped up in a rigorous effort to bring Christians—all those saved by

Christ—to an understanding of the primitive beliefs and practices of the early
church and to restore those items in the churches. Darby and the majority of
early Brethren rejected the possibility of such a restoration. True ecclesial piety
meant separating from the evil and apostasy in the existing churches and
humbly obeying God's word. The Bible never instructs believers to restore a dispensation lost to apostasy, Darby insisted. Darby's sectarian primitivism eventually won the day, not the restorationism of Groves. Callahan sees this point as a
corrective to previous interpretations. He is careful to caution readers against
reducing the identity of the Brethren movement in the 1830's to this debate,
however, showing the movement's interaction with both the millennial Irvingite and primitivist Tractarian movements.

110BOOK REVIEWS

As a member of a historically primitivist tradition (the Stone-Campbell Movement) familiar with much of the recent scholarly literature on primitivism, my
first reaction was that Callahan was trying to separate the bone from the marrow. In his final chapter, however, he is most convincing. Some may believe the
conflict devolves into a matter of semantics. If so, Callahan has defined and explained his terms well in the context of an interesting re-examination of this important group.
Douglas A. Foster

Centerfor Restoration Studies
Abilene Christian University

Tejano Religion and Ethnicity: San Antonio, 1821-1860. By Timothy M. Matovina. (Austin: University of Texas Press. 1995. Pp. xiv, 168. $24.95.)
This reviewer apologizes for delaying so long in bringing this important
monograph to the attention of the readers of this journal. This small book offers
a lot more than its title might indicate to the unaware. It is a timely landmark in
ethnic studies, Mexican-American studies, and studies of religion in the United
States.

In ninety-three pages of text and sixty-two pages of critical notes and bibliography, Matovina presents a thoroughly researched and tightly packed analysis
of the complex interplay of ethnic, religious, and political allegiances in the formation of the self-identity of Téjanos (Texas residents of Spanish or Mexican descent) in the first crucial decades of their interaction with Anglos in San
Antonio. That town was the first major Mexican population center to be gradually absorbed into the expanding Anglo-American empire. In 1821 it was still a
Mexican Catholic town in the new nation of Mexico, which had just gained its
independence from Spain. But the Téjanos in Texas gradually lost ground, figuratively and literally, to Anglo foreigners who were allowed to immigrate into
their country. The Téjanos were subordinated to an Anglo-dominated regime

after Texan independence in 1836, underwent annexation to the United States
in 1845, and by I860 had become an ethnic Catholic minority in Texas and
even in San Antonio itself.

Some of Matovina's most original work is his demonstration that the people's
Mexican Catholic religion was a major and indeed crucial element in the development and strengthening of their self-identity as a people within this broader
social reality. He details how the bases were laid in San Antonio for an alternative to the standard United States ethnic model which posits eventual assimilation into the dominant culture. The historical Tejano cultural foundations of
San Antonio and the subsequent somewhat balanced tricultural (Mexican,
Anglo, German) society of the city after annexation appear to have been important factors.

BOOK REVIEWS111

Matovina does an excellent job of analyzing in a very careful and nuanced
fashion the specific political, cultural, and religious choices which defined the

Téjanos in San Antonio as neither Mexican nor United States nationalists, but

rather as people whose loyalty was first and foremost to their own local people,
place, and ways. He details how traditional public rituals of Tejano Catholic
faith manifested and strengthened resistance to assimilation, and how incoming
non-Mexican Catholic clergy participated in and thus "blessed" these Tejano
faith expressions and supported the maintenance of Spanish in education and
worship. Thus there was forged a cultural link between pastors and local
people which gave institutional confirmation within the new social order.

On the other hand, Matovina points out that the new clergy also criticized

other Tejano religious or cultural features, such as a perceived lack of doctrinal
formation and a great love of dancing. A further interesting aspect of this study
is the author's analysis of the probable reasons for an almost complete absence
of Tejano conversion to Protestant groups during this period.
As today's residents of an increasingly multicultural—especially Hispanic—
and interfaith United States continue to be confronted with multiple decisions
about cultural, political, and religious relations, Matovina's monograph provides
an invaluable service in analyzing how the San Antonio Téjanos and the
Catholic Church of those times responded to these challenges.
Further questions which are little addressed by this study are what differ-

ences there may have been in ethnic self-identity and response between the native Téjanos and the sizable immigration from Mexico into San Antonio after
1836 (constituting almost half the "Tejano" population in the 1850's); how

social-class differences among Téjanos may have affected their responses; and
what role the strong non-Mexican and non-Anglo (especially German) element
in San Antonio after 1845 played in the Tejano experience. All three of these issues have significant parallels in today's ever more culturally and economically
complex Hispanic reality and in that of the United States Church and society in
general.
Robert E.Wright, O.M.I.

Oblate School of Theology
San Antonio, Texas

Contested Eden: California before the Gold Rush. Edited by Ramón A. Gutiér-

rez and Richard J. Orsi. [California History Sesquicentennial Series. Vol. 1.]
(Berkeley: University of California Press. Published in association with the

California Historical Society. 1998. Pp. xi, 396. $60.00 cloth; $27.50 paper.)

Contested Eden is the first of four volumes to be published as the California
History Sesquicentennial Series in association with the California Historical Society. Richard J. Orsi is the series editor, with a different coeditor assisting on

112BOOK REVIEWS

each of the four volumes. These works deal with a variety of approaches to understanding the complexity, richness, and implications of early California. They
cover the area's natural history and remarkable resources, the precolonial ex-

perience of the aboriginal population, the Hispanic era of Spanish and Mexican
colonization, and the early years after California's entry into the United States.

This book, a collection of articles authored by individual scholars, begins
with a thoughtful preface which articulates the complexities of recent Cali-

fornia history as a context for appreciating the importance of the state's equally

complex natural and historical roots. Twelve chapters deal with a variety of approaches to California's natural and human history. A final section, virtually a visual thirteenth chapter, offers a remarkable collection of fourteen original
paintings, sketches, maps, and photographs, all but one in color, depicting representative art, people, places, flora, and fauna of early California. This is in addi-

tion to the photographs, illustrations, and maps which complement the text

throughout the book. Each article or chapter is followed immediately by notes
which cite the authors' primary and secondary sources. The volume concludes
with a helpful index. With the exception of a rare typographical error ("for" instead of "far," p. 245) and the unfortunate typographical or conceptual confusion between Erasmus and Erastianism (p. 155), the articles are well written and
carefully edited.

On pages 375-377, there are descriptions of the contributors which cast
light on one of the strengths of this volume. These authors represent a diverse,
skilled band of scholars whose fields include geography, anthropology, feminist
studies, environmental science, ecology, ethnic studies, as well as history. They
are diverse as to age and gender as well, ranging from the venerable voices of
Iris H. W Engstrand and Doyce B. Nunis,Jr. , to newer names already making significant contributions to understanding California.
This rich assembly of contributors is central to the goal of the book which
Ramón A. Gutiérrez asserts in the introductory chapter. This goal is to "significantly revise" early California history by broadening the context to include the
natural history of the region and by emphasizing the experience of the Native
American population both before and after the arrival of European colonizers,
as well as by including the reality of both indiginous and mestiza women as a
key aspect of the story.
Although references to religion occur in many of the articles, chapters six,
seven, and eight treat issues of Hispanic Catholic missionary and ecclesial activity most specifically. Each of these authors is aware of the tension between
hagiographic-romantic interpretations of the missions and the more recent antimission historiography which construes the Hispanic incursion as virtually
genocidal. While being critical of mission realities where necessary, the authors
generally strike a balanced tone which stays faithful to the goal of the volume
by emphasizing the richness and complexity of the context for all the protagonists. They aspire to the ideal of a "new school" of historiography, as described

BOOK REVIEWS113

by James A. Sandos (p. 222), which uses this broader context to transcend the
older dichotomy between pro-mission and anti-mission interpretations.
Michael Charles Neri

Saint Patrick's Seminary
Menlo Park, California

The Minds of the West: Ethnocultural Evolution in the Rural Middle West,
1830-1917. By Jon Gjerde. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina

Press. 1997. Pp. xiii,426. $39.95.)

The Minds of the West is a challenging work by a writer conversant with the
latest trends in immigration history. His greatest contribution in this work, however, is the emphasis he places on two neglected areas ofAmerican history. Historians of immigration or ethnic history have been little attracted to the
foreign-born who peopled rural America. Professor Gjerde's world is the rural
Middle West. In his introduction he observes that by 1880 over half of the farmers in the tier of states stretching from Wisconsin to the Dakotas were foreign-

born. He has depicted to a greater degree than anyone, perhaps, the tensions

and problems of adjustment of the ethnic farming communities scattered in
checkerboard fashion over the Upper Middle West. Likewise historians of the
West (with the notable exception of Ferenc Szasz) have shown little interest in
religion. Professor Gjerde has also demonstrated the centrality of religion in the
development of these communities in a "heavily churched landscape." A
Catholic weekly of Dubuque, Die Iowa, is perhaps his most frequently cited
source.

In Part One, "The Region," the author explains the attraction of a frontier
stretching from Illinois to the Dakotas, where immigrants had the freedom to
recreate the peasant villages they had left behind. These efforts aroused the
alarm of such venerable nativists as Lyman Beecher and Samuel F. B. Morse, and

later Josiah Strong, as well as the apprehension of the "Yankee" pioneers who
settled next to them. Part One also focuses on the immigrants' need to adjust to

American freedoms and American pluralism. Part Two, "The Community,"
demonstrates how chain migrations created the network of kinship communities that constituted the demographic base of the region described. Part Three,
"The Family," compares the inner dynamics of the immigrant patriarchal family
with those of the neighboring "Yankee" family. It also reveals the mtrafamilial
stress that resulted from a need to adjust to an emerging national and capitalist
economy. Part Four, "The Society," describes the impact of secular values and
liberal politics on the ethnic communities of the Middle West at the end of the
nineteenth century. The author shows how such issues as the public school,
prohibition, and woman suffrage served to intensify ethnic identities. In the
struggle, he also reveals, Catholic immigrants brought German Catholic corporatist ideology to their defense.

114BOOK REVIEWS

The author makes a strong case against the assimilationist assumptions of
such historians as Oscar Handlin. He emphasizes the persistence of immigrant
traditions and social patterns that even World War I did not entirely eradicate.
For Professor Gjerde, however, Norwegian Lutherans and German Catholics are
paradigmatic of the ethnocultural configuration of the Upper Middle West. He
paints a landscape of almost unrelieved stolidity, industry, and seriousness of
purpose. Neglected are the Irish, and even more the Czech, Polish, and FrenchCanadian populations of the prairies and plains, often consigned by historians
exclusively to the eastern proletariat. He has, nevertheless, produced a work
that is rich in original insights.
Thomas W Spalding, CEX.

Spalding University
Louisville, Kentucky

Father PeterJohn DeSmet:Jesuit in the West. By Robert C. Carriker. [The Oklahoma Western Biographies, Volume 9·] (Norman: University of Oklahoma
Press. 1995. Pp. xx, 266. $24.95.)
Published as Volume 9 for inclusion within what seems a mistitled series

known as "The Oklahoma Western Biographies," this book is described (p. xiii)
by the series editor to be an "exceptionally thorough and detailed biography of
Father Peter John De Smet" (the well-known pioneer and ubiquitous Jesuit
priest of the nineteenth-century American frontier). Although I found the book
to be neither thorough nor detailed, I do recommend it on other grounds.
Namely, since historical documents are quoted without attribution, it will appeal to the many college students and casual readers who do not read footnotes
or endnotes. Lacking this scholarly format, Carriker's work will cast its spell
upon those who seek but a general impression of the material treated.
Fortunately, preceding a helpful "Index" are four pages of a semi-annotated
bibliography which offer resources wherein one might find further illumination of the text's persons and events. Researchers are thus provided commentary on the "DeSmetiana" they might wish to investigate. However, while
Carriker dismisses John Killoren's "Come Blackrobe,"DeSmet and the Indian
Tragedy as a biography that only "emphasizes a single aspect of DeSmet's life," I
consulted Killoren's work for details and citations not found in Carriker! More-

over, I could not determine what "single aspect" he thought Killoren addressed.
Besides documenting its sources, "Come Blackrobe" was more extensive in
its coverage than was Jesuit in the West which, strangely enough, deserves
commendation because of a brevity that general audiences probably will appreciate.
While only researchers will consult Chittenden and Richardson's four-volume classic on DeSmet (1905), and while college teachers will rely on Killoren's excellent resource, less sophisticated readers now have Carriker for easy

BOOK REVIEWS115

access to a man whose life sheds light on the often-misunderstood interaction
of Catholic missionaries with government personnel, Native people, and sundry
other folk who met on the frontier. While some commentators offer the undis-

criminating assessment that "Christian missionaries" were in league with every
other non-Native profiteer or military man during this period, Carriker's West is
more multi-dimensional. For example, his DeSmet castigates both State and Federal officials for their lax protection of Indian peoples against bootleggers. Similarly,Jesuits are shown as not always walking lockstep with one another while
"on mission."

Without my prompting, a college student chose to report on Carriker's biography for a class I conducted. The student said that she was pleasantiy surprised
thatJesuit in the West kept her attention. Similarly, Carriker's biography so renewed my interest in DeSmet and his era that I was moved to visit, and learn
more from, Jesuit biographer Killoren—who is himself a kind of modern-day
DeSmet now in residence at St. Louis University. While there, I walked turf that
was well known to the nineteenth-century priest, and then concluded my journey with a prayerful pilgrimage to Florissant, where he is buried. In light of this
activity, I am perhaps giving Carriker's book a pretty decent recommendation.
Either that, or I am simply testifying to the appeal still cast by Peter DeSmet,
one-time Jesuit in the West.
Michael F. Steltenkamp, SJ.

WheelingJesuit University

Getting Sense: The Osages and Their Missionaries. By James D. White. (Tulsa,
Oklahoma: Sarto Press. 1997. Pp. vii, 389. Paperback.)
In his valuable work Getting Sense: The Osages and Their Missionaries,
James White traces the history of the Catholic mission to the Osage Native
Americans. At the start of his book he identifies a mystery or paradox concerning the Osages: they asked for Catholic missionaries but were reluctant to convert. White begins his book with a useful and concise summary of the history
and religion of the Osage Native Americans to the 1870's. In this summary he
covers the Osages' contacts with missionaries and provides an insightful account of the Osages' political, economic, and religious history.
White then discusses the effects of President Grant's Peace Policy on the
Osage Mission. Under the terms of the Peace Policy the Department of the Interior gave the Quakers the exclusive right to evangelize the Osages despite the
fact that the Catholics had a historic relationship with them and that the Osages
requested Catholic missionaries for their tribe. White suggests that many of the
full-blood Osages may have preferred the Catholic missionaries to the Quakers
not for religious reasons, but rather because the Catholics were not as strict as
the Quakers and because the Osages opposed a Protestant government agent
who they believed wasted their tribal funds. Furthermore, he says that the

116BOOK REVIEWS

Catholic missionaries had more success with the Osages of mixed ethnic heritage, many of whom sent their children to the Catholic mission school. White
also chronicles the trip of an Osage delegation in 1874 to Washington to request Catholic missionaries and a Catholic government agent for the reservation.

After providing an account of the decline of the "Peace Policy," White then
describes the struggles to establish Catholic schools for the Osages. He provides a detailed history of the struggles of the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions with the Commissioners of Indian Affairs, Thomas Morgan and Daniel
Browning, who sought to dismantle the practice of the federal funding of contract (religious) schools. Also crucial to the survival of the Catholic schools was
Mother Katharine Drexel, and White describes how this heiress became in-

volved in the financial support of the Osage mission schools when the Indian
Office began to withdraw its support of these schools.
White's book is a solid and useful history of the Osage Mission which is based
on extensive research. At times the book is encumbered by more detail than is
necessary, but on the whole the book is a valuable contribution to the study of
the Osage mission.
Ross A. Enochs

Manchester by the Sea, Massachusetts

A History of the Poles in America to 1908. Part III: Poles in the Eastern and
Southern States. By Wactaw Kruszka. Edited, with an Introduction, by
James S. Pula. Translated by Krystyna Jankowski. (Washington, D.C.: The
Catholic University ofAmerica Press. 1998. Pp. viii, 394. $59.95.)
This is the third of four projected volumes combining and translating the
original thirteen-volume Polish-language work written by an immigrant Polish

priest around the turn of the century. Father Kruszka's History of the Poles in

America is the magnum opus of a prolific author and offers readers the insights and opinions of an immigrant intellectual focused on the largest Slavic
immigration. As a priest he was concerned mainly with the development of religious institutions. Now more of a primary than a secondary source, the work
has a unique value since Kruszka had access to documents since lost, as well as
a broad personal acquaintance with the clerical leadership of these numerous
newcomers at the height of their entry into the United States.
As in previous volumes, the work is meticulously endnoted under the competent editorship of James S. Pula. The citations are particularly relevant to
scholars, but the explanatory notes serve to clarify references or figures now
obscure in a work accessible to any interested reader. The translation is fluent
and the reorganization of the volumes from thirteen to four has been structured
logically through grouping states by region of the country, as noted in the subtitles.

BOOK REVIEWS117

The contents range from brief histories of less than a page to long descriptions of major parishes. The short entries typically locate the church geographically, followed by a listing of pastors and often information on membership and
societies. The existence of a school if present is invariably noted, a reflection of
Father Kruszka's strong interest in education. He is best at the large colonies

where background on settlement development provides a helpful context to
congregational histories. His extended treatments are heavily biographical with
an emphasis on clerics. The parish leader, known to but not necessarily admired
by the author, evokes strong opinions that enliven the pages. A good example is
his lengthy and insightful discussion of Father Dominik Kolasinski of Detroit's
St. Wojciech (Adalbert) Church. A controversial figure in his own time, he
emerges from the pen of the Ripon priest as blessed with social graces but
willful, demagogic, and a burden to his bishop. Bishop Caspar Borgess does
not escape criticism for his clumsy handling of the situation, and Kruszka's
description emphasizes his sense that in America the opinion of laypersons
must be consulted, though not always be determinant. The History offers an alltoo-rare sense of the flavor of life in a new ethnic community by an intellectual

from the leading stratum of this largely peasant group. For scholars the vol-

umes, enriched by the notation, offer a readable and stimulating source of information on the formative years of American Polonia.
William J. Galush

Loyola University Chicago

Catholic Converts: British and American Intellectuals Turn to Rome. By Patrick Allitt. (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. 1997. Pp. xiii, 343.
$35.00.)
"Nearly all the major Catholic intellectuals writing in English between 1840

and I960 were converts to Catholicism" (p. ix). This is Allitt's thesis. Its signifi-

cance becomes clear in the light of Newman's lament in 1853 that English was
a Protestant tongue (p. 12). The first significant Catholic intellectual conversation in the English language since the Reformation, Allitt claims, was shaped
decisively by the Catholic converts whose lives he chronicles in this book. Old
Catholics in both England and the United States belonged to a small and longembattled minority. Immigrants swelled their number during the nineteenth
century. But neither group was well positioned to participate in the intellectual
life of the dominant Protestant culture. This engagement fell to the converts. As
Scott Appleby has noted (America, February 28, 1998), the effect of Allitt's
book is to make his thesis appear "self-evident."

The book's thirteen chapters follow the chronology of European Catholic

history with the study's subjects appearing at appropriate points. The first four
chapters set the stage in post-Reformation England and introduce the first
nineteenth-century English and American converts. John Lingard and Nicholas
Wiseman are small islands of Catholic intellectual life in the English Protestant

118BOOK REVIEWS

sea. Lord Acton is "more nearly than any other figure the exception to the rule
that the Catholic intellectual revival was a convert phenomenon" (p. 37). Future cardinals Newman and Manning, the architect Augustus Pugin, and various
representatives of the "American Oxford movement" figure prominently. Chapter IV has a good section on Newman and Orestes Brownson. Ultramontane
Catholicism's hardening against modernity is seen through the lives of Isaac

Hecker and Richard Simpson (Chapter V) and St. George Mivart and George
Tyrrell (Chapter VI). Chapter VH's women converts include the historian Elizabeth Kite, author Katherine Burton, and social scientist Eva Ross.
The final six chapters treat the twentieth century with emphasis on the converts' role in creating, between the two world wars, a transatlantic, Catholic literary revival for which Frank Sheed and Maisie Ward provided the books. Allitt

conveys the revival's disillusionment with secular rationality and its conflicted
relationship with totalitarianism. Chapter XI, on the historians Carlton Hayes
and Christopher Dawson, and Chapter XII, on the novelists Evelyn Waugh and
Graham Greene, are especially worthwhile. The preface and introductory chapter summarize Allitt's argument well.
In the main, the argument succeeds. But there is one group Allitt ignores.

Bishops such as John England, Francis R Kenrick, his brilliant and cantankerous
brother Peter, Martin Spalding, and clergy such as James Corcoran, Herman
Heuser, and the Roman-trained priests of the NewYork "Accademia," all carried
on a formidable intellectual life. They belonged to a Latin-language, Romewardlooking, transnational intellectual culture, the eclectic modern scholasticism
that preceded the Thomistic revival of 1879. Though their engagement with
American culture was in the "immigrant" style, they stand, along with the bish-

ops and clergy associated with the Americanist movement at the turn of the
century, as a challenge to Allitt's construal of the intellectual life.
Allitt thinks it time to offer "at least a guarded tribute" (p. 14) to the convert
intellectuals and their work. He shows a genuine appreciation for their sensibilities and keeps his thesis sufficiently in the background that each figure
breathes freely. His pages succeed in bringing the convert intellectuals to life.
William L. Portier

Mount Saint Mary's College
Emmitsburg, Maryland

An American Abbot: Boniface Wimmer, O.S.B., 1809-1887. ByJerome Oetgen.
Revised edition. (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America
Press. 1997. Pp. xxi, 466. $39.95.)
In 1976 Jerome Oetgen published An American Abbot. It was the first critical and comprehensive study of the life of Boniface Wimmer. With its appearance, Oetgen was able to introduce a host of new readers to the formidable
personality and historically influential trajectory of the founding abbot of the

BOOK REVIEWS119

first Benedictine community in North America. Publication of this new edition
of the work more than two decades later is significant for several reasons. It is a

credit to Oetgen that he has made this a true revision. He has incorporated ma-

terial from a wide range of important works in American Catholic historiography that had not been accessible in the original work. He also did an extensive
re-examination of his original sources, refining and re-evaluating earlier historical interpretations. The result is a substantial improvement over the original.
The Catholic University of America Press also deserves credit for agreeing to
publish this new edition and thus ensuring a wider reading audience.
Dominating Oetgen's perspective is a conviction that Wimmer's role has
been underestimated in the history of American Catholicism. Despite the fact
that no less a scholar than John Tracy Ellis described Wimmer as "the greatest
Catholic missionary of nineteenth-century America," this patriarch of American
Benedictines has been largely overlooked in most historical surveys of the
Catholic Church in the United States. Oetgen's intent has been to redress that
oversight and insert Wimmer's life and work in the context of that history.
Like so many of the seminal figures of American Catholic history of the last
century, Wimmer's life bridged two continents and cultures. Born and raised in
Bavaria,Wimmer studied for the priesthood at the University of Munich when it
was just beginning its period of revitalization under such luminaries as Johannes Ignaz von Döllinger and Francis Bader. Wimmer, as a newly ordained
priest, entered the Benedictine Abbey of Metten shortly after the restoration of
monastic life in Bavaria under King Ludwig I. The story of Wimmer's plan to
carry monastic life to North America and the obstacles he overcame in bringing

his first followers to Pennsylvania in 1846 is an Odyssey that ranks with the best
of his contemporary religious founders. Oetgen is able to document not only
the manifold leadership qualities that Wimmer brought to the task, but also the
wider vision that was behind this pioneer Benedictine enterprise in the New
World. It was a vision characterized by service to the sacramental and educational needs of an immigrant Church, as well as a missionary thrust that pulsed

by turns to the American South and Midwest, to German and Czech-speaking
immigrants, African-Americans, and Native Americans.
Like most of the dominant founding figures of his time, Wimmer was not
without his flaws. Oetgen does not spare the reader any of the many controversies that seemed to be constants in the abbot's life: those with bishops and religious women, and his own monks who criticized both his activist strain of
monasticism and his authoritarian mode of governance.Yet friend and foe alike
freely admitted that the legacy left by Wimmer to the American Catholic
Church was as considerable as the power of his personality. Anyone wanting to
obtain an understanding of the extent ofthat legacy will find Oetgen's book an
excellent starting point.
Joel Rippinger, O.S.B.
Marmion Abbey
Aurora, Illinois

120BOOK REVIEWS

St. Francis Seminary: Sesquicentennial Essays. Edited by Steven M. Avella. (Mil-

waukee, Wisconsin: St. Francis Seminary. 1997. Pp. v, 175. Paperback.)

These essays were put together to celebrate the sesquicentennial (1995) of

St. Francis de Sales Seminary in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The book is divided into
two parts. The first part contains critical history essays by Joseph White, Philip
Gleason, and Avella. These essays outline the pre-Vatican Council II history of

American Catholic seminary education (White), compare nineteenth-century
seminary education in Chicago and Milwaukee (a previously published essay by
Gleason), and analyze the reciprocal interaction between the seminary and the
regional and urban social world in which it existed (Avella). In the second part
current professors at the seminary detail the history of worship and prayer at
St. Francis (Michael Witczak), focus upon the significant changes in seminary

curriculum during the crucial years from 1969 to 1974 (Stephen Lampe and
Barbara Turner), and delineate the origins and development of education for lay
ministry from 1972 to the present (Gary Pokorny).

There is no overall thesis in the text other than the argument that seminary
education in the United States has undergone a host of educational and institutional changes since its establishment in 1790 and that those changes are
shaped by and help to shape the Catholic culture and the social world in which

Catholic life is experienced. That thesis is illustrated by the experience of St.

Francis, which was, at least at the end of the nineteenth century, one of the four
most important free-standing Catholic seminaries in the United States.
One expects and one gets a good critical and comparative historical analysis
of seminary education from White, Gleason, and Avella, but their historical studies extend only to the end of the pre-Vatican Council II era. One wishes that the
essays by White and Avella had extended to the present, providing us with a
critical analysis of the significant changes in the past thirty years. The three es-

says that describe the most recent history of the seminary are more descriptive

than critical and analytical. At least this reader would like to have seen a more
systematic and critical analysis of the limits as well as the benefits of the significant changes in seminary life during the last thirty years. Perhaps we are all too
close to those developments to provide a dispassionate examination of their

meaning. The essays on the most recent history, nevertheless, are helpful on another level. They describe in some detail the kind of reasoning that went on

within the seminaries as they tried to meet the changing needs of the society
and the culture in the post-1960's period, and they show concretely the revolutionary and precipitate decline in the number of seminarians and the corresponding rise in lay ministry students.
Historians of American Catholicism will find this a useful volume that hopefully will provide an incentive for further research and examination of the history of other local seminaries.
Patrick W. Carey

Marquette University

BOOK REVIEWS121

Building Sisterhood:A Feminist History of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. By the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of
Mary, Monroe, Michigan. [Women and Gender in North American Religions.] (Syracuse, NewYork: Syracuse University Press. 1997. Pp. xxxi, 392.
$49.95 clothbound; $24.95 paperback.)
Joining the long list of American women religious community histories, this
book takes a novel approach. Instead of a comprehensive and chronological account it consists of thirteen essays, divided into four groupings, each introduced with commentary by Professor Margaret Susan Thompson of Syracuse
University, who also wrote the general introduction. The essays, each by a different member of the community, view the IHM historical experience from
varying disciplinary perspectives. The result is incomplete, uncoordinated history, but it provides interesting insights into the mores and practices of community members over the more than one hundred years of community
existence.

The four essay groupings are subtitled (1) "Groundings," (Z) "The IHM Life
Cycle," (3) "Authority, Leadership, and Governance," and (4) "The Ministry of Education." The first grouping contains three essays with the first two covering
the foundation and early years of the community—well researched history. The
central figure is a fascinating "woman of color," Theresa Maxis, who helped
found the community and was its first superior. She had a small strain of Negro
blood from her Haitian grandfather, sufficient in those days to classify her as
"colored." She was also one of four black women who had founded the Oblate

Sisters of Providence in Baltimore in 1829. In 1845 a Redemptorist priest, Louis
Gellet, recruited her for his frontier parish in Michigan and along with two
other women founded this apostolic community. The third essay of this first
grouping deals with IHM spirituality and the evolution of devotional practices
over the years.
The second grouping of five essays deals with the life styles of the community members over time. Essays provide candid and sympathetic descriptions of
sister-life, rules and actual practices regarding personal friendships, and de-

scriptions of physical and mental health care. They treat subjects such as friend-

ships between sisters and relations with outsiders. These essays convey vivid
insights into the daily lives of IHM sisters as they sought to adjust individual
temperaments to community rules.
The third grouping of two essays treats community government with emphasis on discipline and obedience. The first essay portrays community practices prior to the Second Vatican Council, while the second essay covers the
problems encountered in the 1970's in attempting to implement the perceived
changes ordained by the Council.
The fourth grouping of three essays concentrates on education, a fitting closure subject for a community founded to teach. Experience with Immaculata
High School in Detroit mirrors what happened to hundreds of schools over the

122BOOK REVIEWS

nation during the 1950-1970 years. Of interest are the IHM participation in the
Sister Formation movement and the vital role played by Sister Mary Emil Penet.
The outstanding feature of this book, something not found in others of this

genre, are the descriptions of personal relationships among and between sisters
and intimate details of daily convent life—all additions to feminist history.

This volume has an appropriate foreword, list of contributors, introduction,
afterword, appendix, bibliography, and index.
George C. Stewart, Jr.

Fayetteville, North Carolina

Madeleva: A Biography. By Gail Porter Mandell. (Albany: State University of

NewYork Press. 1997. Pp. xv, 303. $17.95 paperback.)

As the history of women in the Church is gradually pieced together, it is increasingly evident that among women who held major administrative roles in
the United States and acquitted themselves well in them were several generations of nuns who founded, financed, and directed hospitals, colleges, and charitable institutions. Sister Medeleva Wolff of the Sisters of the Holy Cross,

president of St. Mary's College at Notre Dame, Indiana, from 1934 to 1961, is
one of those women.

In addition to a 1994 study of her spirituality by Mandell, a privately published "pictorial biography" by Maria Assunta Werner, C.S.C. (1993), and articles
in NotableAmerican Women and The Encyclopedia ofAmerican Catholic History, the reader has Madeleva's autobiography, My First Seventy Years (1959).
Mandell has supplemented these sources by drawing on Madeleva's letters in

archival collections in Berkeley and Notre Dame, interviews with people who

knew and worked with her, and a close study of her poetry for what it might reveal about her thinking and her state of mind at various times in her life. The result is a nuanced study of Madeleva's life that supplements her autobiography,
often by exploring topics that Madeleva chose to omit, such as her intimate
friendship with the Reverend Cornelius Haggerty, C.S.C.
Madeleva Wolff took a doctorate in English at the University of California,
Berkeley, in 1925, one of the first two nuns to do so. She was assigned by her

community in 1926 to be the foundress and first president of St. Mary of the
Wasatch College in Salt Lake City, and in 1934 she was installed as president of
the Holy Cross Sisters' St. Mary's College at Notre Dame. Over the next twentyseven years she transformed that institution, introducing a new liberal arts curriculum and the study of Christian culture according to a plan worked out by

the British scholar, Christopher Dawson. In 1944 she established a School of Sacred Theology at St. Mary's, which became the only Catholic educational institution in the world where women could study for a doctorate in theology. In

BOOK REVIEWS123

the 1950's Madeleva was one of the promoters of the Sister Formation program.
A scholar in her own right, Madeleva did postdoctoral studies at Oxford, had
more than fifteen volumes of her poetry published in her lifetime, traveled
widely as a lecturer, and numbered among her friends and correspondents
Henry and Clare Booth Luce, Thomas Merton, and C. S. Lewis.
Madeleva belonged to a generation that saw a far-reaching transition in the
role of women in the Church. Among the first nuns to do a number of things,
she lived to see a profound change in the education of women, a change to

which she contributed much. She died in 1964 at the mid-point of Vatican

Council II, which would open the door to even more changes. One might wish
that Mandell had situated Madeleva more clearly in the context of her times and
of Catholic higher education in America. A good index is one of the admirable

features of this book.

James T. Connelly, C. S. C.

University ofPortland

A Cautious Patriotism: The American Churches & the Second World War. By

Gerald L. Sittser. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 1997. Pp.
xi, 317. $39.95.)

Sittser's book has taken us a fair distance across one of the largest gaps in our
knowledge ofAmerican religion, the role that the churches played in World War
II. Sad to say, he has not led us all the way across, though his work will serve as
a useful foundation for further studies of the topic.

The study begins logically with an examination of the churches and the in-

exorable movement of the 1930's toward the war, then proceeds through a discussion of such topics as conscription, conscientious objection, and the atomic
bomb, and concludes with a set of reflections on the churches and the postwar
world. The high point of the book is the author's examination of that disastrous
epic in American history, the incarceration of the Japanese-Americans. Most his-

torians are probably unaware of the remarkable relief efforts carried out by sev-

eral Protestant denominations on their behalf. We have assumed (incorrectly)
that the churches blithely ignored the camp-system, as did the rest of the American public. Not so, Sittser shows convincingly. A small group of Protestant
church-goers, led by their zealous ministers, brought the camps' inmates muchneeded assistance, and they also put themselves at considerable risk by publicly
condemning the government's policy of "resettlement," as it was euphemistically called. Students of American religion will serve themselves well if they
carefully read this part of the book (pp. 169-178).
If the story of the Japanese-Americans is the book's summit, then its nadir is
probably the author's inexplicable failure to make use of documentary materials. The book rests almost entirely on magazine articles and denominational re-

124BOOK REVIEWS

ports, and it rests uneasily. It has a thinness and a once-over-lightly quality that
not only weakens its thesis and robs it of richness of detail, but also leaves the
reader with the nagging feeling that the whole story has not been told. One
finds none of the inside stories, the conflicts, the private successes, that make
up the stuff of history. The book tells only the published part of the story, thus
serving its topic and the work's readers poorly.
To say that the author has neglected to use such sources is not to say that
they do not exist. For Catholics, he could have used the rich archival sources
available at The Catholic University of America or at the University of Notre
Dame; for Jews (whom he ignores, save for the Holocaust), he could have
worked with the excellent Jewish collections available at Brandeis University;
and for Protestants, he should have taken a long look at the Protestant collections located across the country, but especially that best of denominational

archives, the Presbyterian Historical Society in Philadelphia. I am surprised that

my quondam publisher let this get by.

Nor does the author's writing help his case. The reader's patience will be
strained by his fondness for clichés, his excessive use of the verb "to be" and the
passive voice (I counted ten instances of these two troublemakers on page 197

alone), his use of undefined technical terms such as "theodicy" and "dispensa-

tional theology," by unidentified names that simply float into the essay and then
float out, and by using the same words in too close proximity (I find five uses of
the word "agency" in six sentences on p. 141). Major difficulties with writing
often reflect major lapses in critical thinking, and I fear that such was the case
here.
One also looks in vain for some concrete references to the war itself. How

did the churches respond to Pearl Harbor, to the Normandy Invasion, to the
campaign in Italy? We have no answers to any of these questions. Sittser has attempted to describe his topic as a set of theological abstractions completely removed from the struggle itself. It has not worked, and what a great opportunity
has been missed here.

These difficulties not withstanding, one can be grateful that the author has
given us what we so badly needed—a first look at the response ofAmerican religion to the most calamitous war in human history. The epic of the churches
and the war is one that surely merits that much-overused description, a
"turning-point" in American religious history.
Donald F. Crosby, SJ.

Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley

BOOK REVIEWS125

American Catholic Pacifism: The Influence of Dorothy Day and the Catholic
Worker Movement. Edited by Anne Klejment and Nancy L. Roberts. (West-

port, Connecticut: Praeger Publishers. 1996. Pp. xi, 198. $57.95.)

This collection of essays sets for itself the threefold goal of (1) placing the
Catholic Worker Movement within the wider context of American peace activism; (2) presenting the theological and spiritual roots of Catholic pacifism;
and (3) interpreting the Catholic pacifist response to, and the impact upon
Catholic pacifism of, certain periods of crisis, such as World War II and the war
in Vietnam. This goal has been well met by the authors.
Perhaps, above all, this volume serves as a documentation of the immense
and consistent influence which the Catholic Worker Movement exercised over

the development of pacifist thought within American Catholicism. Even more
so, it documents how that influence bears the personal stamp of Dorothy Day.
While many contemporary readers may remember the Catholic Worker in
reference to the protests surrounding the war in Vietnam, this volume provides
the reader with a feel for the rich history behind those protests, which dates
back to before World War I. In the development of this history several of the essays (by Charles Chatfield, Anne Klejment, and Patricia McNeal) demonstrate
how the personal and intellectual development of Dorothy Day both tied the
development of American Catholic pacifism to the wider currents of American
peace activism, and also gave to Catholic pacifism a unique non-ideological spiritual character. It was this spirituality, with which Day infused the Catholic
Worker Movement, that made pacifism a cornerstone of its foundation, enabled
it to survive and adapt, and which, most significantly, enabled the Catholic
Worker and Dorothy Day to midwife the birth of other Catholic peace organizations and to support their divergent tasks.
The essay by Francis J. Sicius shows the trauma of the debate over pacifism
within the Catholic Worker during World War II, and how Dorothy Day imposed
pacifism as a cornerstone of the Catholic Worker Movement. Eileen Egan's account of the development of the organization PAX gives a personal feel for how

the Catholic Worker could spawn and support other groups. It also shows the

significance of the Catholic Worker's use of the just-war tradition of the Church
to challenge the moral justifications of modern war, and how that challenge was
taken up by other groups, like PAX, to eventually effect changes in Church
teaching, both at the Second Vatican Council and in the United States Bishops
Conference, to reflect the acceptance of the pacifist option among Catholics.
The treatment of the Catholic Worker's response to the war in Vietnam, by
Anne Klejment and Nancy Roberts, reflects the inner struggle of Day and other
Catholic Workers to define the limits of non-violent pacifist resistance, which
constituted the cutting edge of where Catholic pacifism was going in the sixties
and seventies. The inclusion of previously unpublished correspondence between Day and Thomas Merton provides a precious personal feel for the
thoughts and relationship of the two people who probably had the greatest

1 26BOOK REVIEWS

spiritual and intellectual influence on the contemporary development of American Catholic pacifism.
In the end, this is a volume well worth reading and study for anyone wanting
to understand the roots and development of pacifism in the American Catholic
community.
William A. Au

Baltimore, Maryland

His Eminence of Los Angeles:James Francis Cardinal Mclntyre. By Francis J.
Weber. (2 vols.; Mission Hills, California: St. Francis Historical Society. 1997.

Pp. v, 327; 328-707. $38.75.)

Monsignor Weber has written an engaging biography of one of the outstanding bishops in the pre-Vatican Council II Catholic Church in the United States;
unfortunately, Mclntyre's tenure lasted into the early postconciliar Church, a period in which he became one of the most publicly vilified prelates in the coun-

try. As Charles Morris has suggested, had Mclntyre died prior to 1962, he would

be remembered more fondly, and his place in history would be more celebrated.

This book is well researched and well written; it charts Mclntyre's life from
his early years in New York through his episcopacy in Los Angeles. In 1948,
Mclntyre was named archbishop of Los Angeles and in 1952 he became the first
cardinal on the West Coast. Early in his priesthood he became known for his
"capacity for business management." As archbishop he successfully managed
the expansion of the Church during an era of explosive growth in southern California. Catholic institutions of every sort were built, staffed, and funded
through Mclntyre's efforts. The number of Catholics in his archdiocese tripled
during his tenure, as did the number of Catholic schools. Dozens of new
parishes were created. Mclntyre diverted funds intended for the construction
of a new cathedral to poor, Mexican parishes to enable them to construct parish
schools. Mclntyre oversaw the extraordinary growth and building program, all
the while keeping the Archdiocese of Los Angeles on a firm financial basis. To
this point his achievements were in the mold of the great preconciliar bishops.
Weber does an excellent job with this part of the story. His narrative is enhanced by a selection of wonderful photographs that ably depict each era.
The main problem with this biography is that it does not explore Mclntyre's
complexity. Why did one of the Church's most devoted and loyal prelates have
so much difficulty with the postconciliar Church? Weber attempts to explain
every action Mclntyre took at the Council and afterward and suggests that
Mclntyre did support and implement the Council. Why not simply acknowledge Mclntyre's difficulty with the changes brought by the Council? His difficulty would resonate with the experience of many other Catholics from the era
who were less than inspired by the Council.

BOOK REVIEWS127

Why not acknowledge the difficulties Mclntyre faced in coming to grips with
the social turmoil of the 1960's? The Cardinal's celebrated conflicts with Father

William DuBay, the Immaculate Heart of Mary Sisters, and various civil rights
groups are all recounted, but they are presented in such a way that every Mclntyre decision is justified and defended. Again and again we are reminded of
Mclntyre's wisdom. These chapters are most unsatisfying. Mclntyre was unpre-

pared for the ecclesial and social traumas of the 1960's. He had little comprehension of the forces that exploded in Watts. By acknowledging Mclntyre's
limitations in confronting these troubling issues, a fuller, more complex portrait
of Mclntyre could have been created.

Nonetheless, Weber has written a most useful biography, chock-full of interesting facts and stories. These massive tomes will be the standard reference
work on Mclntyre for generations to come, and will serve as a starting point for
future discussions on the Church on the West Coast during an extraordinary
time of growth and turmoil.
Jeffrey M. Burns

Chancery Archives, Archdiocese of San Francisco

Reluctant Dissenter: An Autobiography. By James Patrick Shannon. (New

York: The Crossroads Publishing Company. 1998. Pp. ix, 228. $19.95.)

James Patrick Shannon is a name for American church history, if only as a footnote, because he is one of a rare breed—a bishop who resigned and married. In
this autobiography he tells his story, or at least part of it. True to the title, he is

reluctant to tell it; in fact, the manuscript of this account was completed in
1980. He admits that rejection by two different publishers reinforced his reluctance. Both in the dedication and the preface he credits his wife, Ruth, for the
encouragement needed to overcome his reluctance. The dust jacket shows him
as a young priest, as a bishop, and as a husband alongside his wife.

The family background is clearly one of determination and hard work. His
mother, left widowed with four children, was living in one room and working as
a waitress until she owned two restaurants and a hotel. His father came from

Ireland to establish a prosperous business in cattle trading. Young James was a
good student and a properly devout seminarian. His observation that the orthodoxy of the seminary professors often allowed them to turn in shoddy performances because they could depend on doctrinal purity to cover their
pedagogical deficiencies is a fairly common truism, but whether he realized it at

the time or only after his experience at Yale he does not say.

He was ordained June 9, 1 946, for the Archdiocese of St. Paul. His early priest-

hood was spent at the cathedral, where he was master of ceremonies for the
archbishop. He went on to teach in the seminary, get a doctorate atYale, and become president of St. Thomas College, where he successfully raised funds for a
new campus. While at this assignment the "certified confidential letter" came

128book reviews

from the Apostolic Delegate asking him if he would accept elevation to the

episcopacy. He accepted. He was made bishop March 31, 1965. He now asks

whether the decision to accept was a mistake. His answer:"On what grounds?"
There is no further reflection on the matter.

He participated in the final session ofVatican Council II with the St. Paul delegation: Archbishop Binz, Auxiliary Bishop Leonard Cowley, and Father Kenneth Pierre. Interestingly enough, he has nothing to say about either Cowley or
Pierre.

Shannon involved himself in civil rights at Selma, in the anti-Vietnam War
movement, and with the dissent to Pope Paul VTs encyclical Humanae Vitae.
He reproduces a copy of the letter he sent to the Pope indicating his difficulties
in assenting to the Pope's position. What may be new in his saga is the treatment he received from Cardinal Mclntyre and the Apostolic Delegate, Luigi Raimondi. While the Delegate's conduct fits in with the general appreciation of
Vatican diplomacy, the claim that Mclntyre was able to terrorize all the bishops
of the executive committee of the U.S. Bishops' Conference seems a bit of a
stretch. Some explanation and reflection on these events would have added to
the bare narration.

It soon became clear that he would never get a diocese of his own. He reflects on a "close friend" who knew he would be an auxiliary bishop for the rest
of his life. This could have been his colleague Leonard Cowley, who became an
auxiliary bishop in St. Paul in 1957 and died in that post in 1973. In this context
he confesses, "I dreaded the prospect of becoming only a 'confirming' bishop
for the rest of my life." He went on a leave of absence, became Vice President of
St. John's College at Santa Fe, New Mexico, resigned the active ministry, got
lonely, contacted a widowed divorcee he had previously met, and married her.
His career from bishop to husband took about four years. The rest of his life
until retirement in 1988 was spent teaching, earning a law degree, and serving
as CEO for a series of foundations. He now lives with his wife, Ruth, in the vicin-

ity of St. Paul, where he was born in 1921.
It is a quick read and an interesting story.
John R. McCarthy
Cleveland, Ohio

The Spirit of the Sixties: Making Postwar Radicalism. By James J. Farrell.

[American Radicals Series.] (New York: Routledge Press. 1997. Pp. 360.

$19.99.)

Toward the end of World War II Jean Paul Sartre wrote to Denis de Rougemont, "You Personalists have won . . . everybody in France calls himself Personalist." James Farrell has affirmed Sartre's concession with his new book on
postwar radicalism. According to Farrell, Personalism provided the common
thread that wove through the crazy quilt of Sixties radicalism. Perhaps Farrell

BOOK REVIEWS129

has gotten it right. An era that defies coherent explanation possibly can only be
defined by a philosophy that defies consistent definition. As John Hellman has
pointed out,"Personalism . . . can only be described by its characteristics."And
Farrell has done just that. He has presented American Personalism through
characteristics of radicals who probably never read or even heard of this French
philosophic movement. But as the author points out, although they had never
been introduced to the theory of Personalism, many American radicals in the
postwar era certainly acted as if they had.
As with the French personalists, the dignity of the person remained at the
core of radical action in the postwar United States. These new radicals, according to Farrell, rejected the cult of liberal individualism and proposed that the
person was created for community and each person had a moral responsibility
for the other. The author notes that "communitarian spirituality" was in fact the
most distinctive aspect of Personalism.
According to Farrell, Peter Maurin, the French peasant who along with
Dorothy Day founded the Catholic Worker movement in NewYork, brought the
idea of Personalism from the salons of Paris to the streets of New York, and
through the Catholic Workers Personalism became intertwined into the fabric
of American radicalism. He gives the Catholic Worker a heretofore ignored significance in postwar radicalism. Farrell supports his contention by including an
impressive group of radical leaders that claim a Catholic Worker connection.
Among the graduates of the Catholic Worker school of Personalist radicalism
are the Berrigan brothers, Dave Dellinger, Cesar Chavez, Michael Harrington,
Robert Coles, Tom Cornell, Karl Meyer, and Ammon Hennacy.
Farrell weaves the thread of Personalism through every radical movement of
the postwar era. However, its eclecticism makes it very difficult to place every
display of postwar radicalism into one philosophic repository. For example, the
pacifism of Martin Luther King fits nicely, but the Black Panthers' philosophy of
armed resistance does not. The fact remains that there existed much radical ac-

tivity in this era that could not be called "Personalist."
Nevertheless, Farrell has written an important book. He has given us a new
definition of radicalism, one that draws on sources older than our Enlightenment tradition and at the same time reaches beyond it. Elliot Gorn and Harvey
Kaye deserve credit for including this book in their series on American Radicalism. Personalism, with its links to religion and its antimodernist flavor, has been
shortchanged by historians. But as the modernist synthesis comes under closer
scrutiny, the Personalist view, which offered "a modern anti-modernism against
the established disorder of rationalism, scientism, and dehumanizing industrialism," will certainly gain credibility, and Farrell's work will be recognized as a
groundbreaking work in intellectual history.
St. Thomas University
Miami, Florida

Francis J. Sicius

130BOOK REVIEWS

Thomas Merton's American Prophecy. By Robert Inchausti. (Albany: State University of NewYork Press. 1998. Pp. x, 210. Paperback.)
Of the writing of books about Merton there is no seeming end. This is not a
lament, just a statement of a publishing fact-of-life. Thomas Merton's American
Prophecy, one of the more recent texts to analyze this century's most famous
American monk, is a very fine entry indeed into the ranks of his thoughtful commentators. The author is professor of English at California Polytechnic State
University, San Luis Obispo.
The task Inchausti sets himself is significant and provocative: to place the figure he calls "a God-intoxicated man" (p. 142) within the wider literary and intellectual fabric of his time. Merton emerged as an "intellectually engaged

dynamo" (p. 1 28), as the "premier American outsider in that international cadre
of honest souls" (p. 151) that includes George Orwell, Albert Camus, Simone
Weil, Arthur Koestler, Boris Pasternak, and Czeslaw Milosz.
The text provides a concise biography of Merton (not excluding the item that
he was under FBI surveillance for counseling Vietnam-era draft resisters), and is
especially helpful in discussing The Seven Storey Mountain as a "vast moral
reclamation project" (p. 39) in its wider cultural and intellectual framework.
One section provides a studied contrast between Merton's Mountain and Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead, both published in 1948. In his later de-

velopment, the Gethsemani monk is shown as an intellectual of the 1960's, but

with critical distinctions: "He believed in original sin, in the intoxication of
power, and in the amnesia of the masses, and so he placed his hope not upon
the natural man but upon the divine light" (p. 108).
Near his conclusion, Inchausti also engages Merton in dialogue with postmodern thought. A chronology of the monk's life and a "Merton Dictionary"
round out this relatively brief but thought-provoking volume.
Clyde F. Crews

Bellarmine College

Our Lady of the Exile: Diasporic Religion at a Cuban Catholic Shrine in
Miami. By Thomas A. Tweed. [Religion in America Series.] (New York: Ox-

ford University Press. 1997. Pp. xv, 224. $35.00.)

Thomas Tweed's thorough study explores the development and significance
of the Nuestra Señora de la Caridad del Cobre (Our Lady of Charity of Cobre)
shrine in Miami. Drawing on primary documents and extensive interviews and
observations at the site, he examines the shrine as a focal point for contested religious meanings and, more conspicuously, as a hallowed center where Cubans
construct their national identity in exile.
Cuban devotion to la Caridad dates from her reported appearance off the
shores of Cuba in the early seventeenth century. Proponents of Cuban inde-

BOOK REVIEWS131

pendence from Spain appealed to her for protection during their 1895-1898
war of independence; afterwards veterans of this conflict successfully petitioned Benedict XV to proclaim her Cuba's national patroness. Two years after
Fidel Castro's 1959 ascent to power, some twenty-five to thirty thousand people
gathered at Miami Stadium for their patroness's feast day, a celebration highlighted by the presentation of a Caridad image that devotees had smuggled out
of Cuba. Five years later diocesan officials and the Cuban exile community
founded the "Hermita de la Caridad" in Miami, expressing their devotion in a

provisional chapel until the completion and formal dedication of the current
shrine in 1973.

The shrine is under the auspices of the Miami archdiocese. However, Santería

rituals and devotions are also practiced there despite the shrine clergy's attempts to discourage these practices. In addition, the divergent religious mean-

ings devotees attach to the shrine encompass gender and generational
differences. Women tend to offer more prayers for personal needs while men
are more apt to offer petitions for nationalistic concerns. Shrine visitors are also

disproportionately middle-aged to elderly. While the relative absence of the

young is not a new phenomenon in religion in the United States, the comparatively smaller number of young Cuban visitors at the shrine also reflects their
growing distance from the intense experience of exile that draws their parents
and grandparents to the Cuban national patroness.
The memories, narratives, theology, artifacts, and rituals that Cuban devotees
associate with the shrine mediate a fusion between nationalism and religion.
Tweed's abundant evidence for this pervasive element of the shrine's meaning
leads him to formulate some initial insights about a "theory of diasporic reli-

gion." In particular, he postulates that religion among displaced peoples is both

"translocative" and "transtemporal" (p. 139), enabling practitioners to symbolically move between their land of exile and their homeland, between the past of
memory and a desired future.
Tweed's clear analysis does not deter him from suggesting alternative inter-

pretations of the shrine's meaning. For example, he points out that one Cuban

observer disagrees with his contention that Cubans construct national identity
at the shrine, claiming instead that they reinforce a pre-existing national identity in public devotions and celebrations for their patroness (p. 85).
Few readers familiar with the saga of Cuban exiles will be surprised by the
conclusion that the Caridad shrine is a center of diasporic religion. Nonetheless, the careful research and analysis presented in this volume make it a valuable source for scholars and students of Latino religion and religious studies
generally, as well as American and ethnic studies, anthropology, and American
Catholicism.
Timothy M. Matovina

Loyola Marymount University

132BOOK reviews
Latin American

Indian Freedom: The Cause of Bartolomé de las Casas, 1484-1566. A

Reader. Translations and Notes by Francis Patrick Sullivan, SJ. (Kansas City,
Missouri: Sheed & Ward. 1995. Pp. iv, 371. $24.95 paperback.)
The late Frank Sullivan put together this fascinating collection of excerpts,

mostly from his unpublished Las Casas translations, when the Angel of Death
was hovering too close. A prolific writer of poetry, fiction, and essays, he was
losing a long battle with cancer, and this reviewer was unable to recheck and

make suggestions for what was to have been a great anthology.

The resulting full-size paperback, almost four hundred pages, is a good bargain for the price. So I heartily recommend it, with reservations, as a classroom

aid for teachers in the early Spanish colonial field and for persons interested in
the Discovery and Conquest. Indian Freedom fits into a current new approach:

Las Casas as literature. Thus, a recent monograph describes the supposed
fictional form used by Bartolomé for a biographical sketch of a character in Sul-

livan's "Rogues' Gallery" — "Hojeda the Furious" (pp. 108-118). Also, the four-

part arrangement of the pieces in this book is ingenious and thoughtful: I. The
Destructive Pattern (Columbus and the first conquistadors in Hispaniola and
the Spanish Main); II. The Rise of Conscience (partly focused on Las Casas himself); HI· Making Pro-Indian Law (from his tracts for the New Laws); and IV Defending Pro-Indian Law (The "Rules for Confessors" after revocation of the main

law, the two defenses against Sepúlveda, and a defense of Indian sovereignty in
Peru). And the choices reveal the great variety of styles in the dozen volumes of
Las Casas' Complete Works—powerful or pithy narrative (pp. 17-129); scholastic disputation (Anti-Slavery Tract, pp. 255-277, with its deliberately overloaded
citations); and persuasive numbered argument (pp. 240-241, and especially
313-323). Further, the collection contains some unusual novelties. See, for ex-

ample, a summary of the reconstructed version of The Only Way (Paulist, 1992)
and choice items from Las Casas' neglected Peruvian period (pp. 201-221 and
312-352).

But I must make one serious caution, which paradoxically leads into the real
contribution of Indian Freedom. Because of the persistent large gaps in Las
Casas' life story—the definitive biography should be available at last for
the Bimillennium—twentieth-century writers and scholars have interpreted

Bartolomé according to their own background and viewpoint. Sullivan, as a
theologian-poet, is no exception. In his brief introduction, prenotes, and the selections themselves, he ignores Las Casas' many brilliant practical ideas and
achievements: creation of free Indian towns under the Crown, the alternative to

brutal encomiendas; promotion of peaceful peasant emigration, and profitable
Indian agribusiness; repatriation and relocation of freed slaves; naming of a
spokesman for Indians at each Audiencia (High Court) in the Indies; the forging
of ecclesiastical tools for future generations of reformist bishops; abolition of
lethal personal services; and, finally, appointment of a General Indian Advocate

book reviews133

at court (he held the post himself for thirteen years) to watch over the Council
of the Indies, recommend appointments to the New World, appeal individual
cases, and correct continuing and new abuses. Likewise, Sullivan is unaware of

Las Casas' importance as a seminal thinker; The Limits of Royal Power, abstracted without explanation (pp. 324-327), actually reveals Bartolomé as a precursor of democracy.

Instead of any such holistic approach, Sullivan's last book concentrates on a
single moving aspect of Las Casas' fifty-year struggle on behalf of the native

Americans. It uses Bartolomé's very words to paint his vivid and accurate pic-

ture of the Indians' sufferings under Spanish conquest and oppression, their essential humanity, and his own heartbreaking and unrealized plea for their total
freedom. Coincidentally, Indian Freedom is probably the last and surely the
most eloquent personal view of Bartolomé de las Casas.
Helen Rand Parish

Bancroft Library
University of California-Berkeley

Idolatry and Its Enemies: Colonial Andean Religion and Extirpation,
1640-1750. By Kenneth Mills. (Princeton: Princeton University Press.

1997. Pp. xv, 337. $55.00.)

In this well-researched work, Mills continues an inquiry into mid-colonial religious life begun in his earlier publications including An Evil Lost to Viewy (Liv-

erpool, 1994) and "The Limits of Religious Coercion in Mid-Colonial Peru,"

(Past & Present, November, 1994). The chronological and geographical scope of
this new study is much broader than these earlier pieces. Mills's sources are
rich and varied, encompassing documents such as idolatry testimonies, ecclesiastical letters, catechisms, books of sermons, and pastoral guides as well as the
contemporary religious chronicles. The perspective presented is twofold: first,
Mills seeks to understand the religious mentality of mid-colonial Indians; second, he also examines the religious assumptions and cultural filters through
which the priest-extirpators themselves viewed Andean religious practices.
Despite relying on documents created by European missionaries, Mills tries

to highlight the indigenous perspectives in them. The difference in perspective

is significant. Contemporary extirpators conceptualized Christian and pagan
practices as a strict polarity. The indigenous religious beliefs and behaviors uncovered by the extirpators illustrate that they were not.
For a variety of reasons, conversion in Peru proceeded at a slower pace than
in New Spain. In the mid-seventeenth century in the Archdiocese of Lima, an
ambitious campaign of investigation and punishment against idolaters and religious objects was undertaken to finalize the rupture with pagan religious practices and finally secure the triumph of Christianity. Yet, the extirpators'
misunderstanding of the nature and significance of Andean religious objects,

134book reviews

practices, and religious practitioners, combined with the adaptability of these

things to a changed religious climate, ultimately undermined these extirpation
efforts. Mills finds evidence tiiat the extirpators themselves suspected this.
While it is clear that Christianity increasingly penetrated Andean religious practices in the mid-colonial period, it does not seem to have been because of the
success of the extirpation campaigns.
Mills's findings challenge two of George Kubler's conclusions: that the midcolonial church was more tolerant of idolatry and that at this same time Christianity finally took hold with the natives. Mills finds the situation on both issues
to have been much less clear-cut. In particular, he finds the pace of religious
change to have been more uneven and more gradual than previously thought.
His point is that there is no one level of Christianization in the mid-colonial

Andes. The term "mid-colonial Andean religion" encompasses a multiplicity of
observances reflecting holdovers and new adaptations of Andean practices
(which were not homogeneous even before the introduction of Christianity),
mixed with varying amounts of Christian theology and practices. The resulting
religious observances fall along a continuum with European Christianity at one
extreme and pre-Columbian Andean religion at the other. Most Andeans would
fall somewhere in between the poles in their mid-colonial religious observances. The chief agents in this process of religious syncretism were the
Andeans themselves, and the choices and adjustments they made to the introduction of Christianity by the Spaniards.
Victoria H. Cummins

Austin College
Sherman, Texas

SorJuana Inés de la Cruz: Religion, Art, and Feminism. By Pamela Kirk. (New

York: The Continuum Press. 1998. Pp. 180. $34.50.)

A first acquaintance with Sor Juana in 1988 moved Pamela Kirk to write this
work, which is mostly an analysis of the religious writings of Sor Juana Inés de
la Cruz: her sacramental dramas, the meditations for the Virgin Mary, her villancicos or poems to be sung on special church celebrations, and her famous
Carta Atenagórica, an analysis of the finest gifts of Christ to humanity. Also included is the story of her controversial relationship with the bishop of Puebla,

Manuel Fernández de Santa Cruz, embodied in a response to his critique. Less
ambitious than George Tavard's Theology ofBeauty, this book seems to aim at

a general reader with interest in how religious women writers of the past tackled the challenge of interpreting theological teachings.
Sor Juana needs no introduction to any student of Latin American colonial literature and history. Famous as she was in her own times, her reputation began
to rise again early this century and has reached a climax of popularity never envisioned by the nun herself. She has become a literary icon in Mexico. Literally

BOOK REVIEWS135

thousands of works have been written on her work, since the facts about her
life are meager in comparison with her prodigious production.Yet, it is also true
that, until recently, interest in Sor Juana's spirituality remained largely unex-

plored. The greater appeal of her plays, her poems, the philosophical poem

"First Dream," and the writings resulting from her troubled relationship with
the bishop of Puebla have overshadowed most other aspects of her life and literary production.
Kirk's survey of Sor Juana's religious writings leans on well-known and solid
bases. For those acquainted with the recent copious analyses of Sor Juana's
works, there are no surprises here. Her study of Sor Juana's iconography follows
an interpretation that will be of interest to scholars and the reading public. Kirk
supports a view of Sor Juana's writing as "feminist." Many critics and historians
feel more comfortable assuming that Sor Juana defied the male world rather

than adopted a conscious ideological feminist position.

Unfortunately, this work has missed the most revolutionary re-definitions of
SorJuana's relation with her confessor and a revision of the meaning of some of
her writings, disclosed during several conferences held to observe the 300th

anniversary of her death in 1995. Archival work carried out by the Mexican
scholars Elias Trabulse and Father Aureliano Tapia Méndez, has revealed that the

addressee of her response to the Carta Atenagórica was not the bishop of
Puebla but her ex-confessor Antonio Núñez, SJ. Ten years ago Tapia Méndez
published a letter in which Sor Juana dismissed Núñez, and although some
raised doubts as to its authenticity, Trabulse's analysis of a long-buried symbolic
poem by Sor Juana makes it clear that Sor Juana was not criticizing the deceased Portuguese theologian and preacher Antonio Vieira, S.J., reinforcing
Tapia's finding. Further, while Trabulse has proved that the archbishop of Mexico had, indeed, threatened Sor Juana with an inquisitorial investigation, a recently disclosed inventory of her cell also proves that she did not give up
writing, as most of us used to believe.

Despite this key handicap and a number of minor historical errors, this work
serves adequately its purpose of making SorJuana's spiritual writings known to

the English-reading public, which otherwise may never get a glimpse of the
wealth of writings in Spanish about the nun, let alone this rather neglected

facet of her personality. A woman whose "state" in life was that of a professed
member of a cloistered order deserves to have that aspect of her life revisited.

Hopefully, this introduction to Sor Juana's spirituality will lead readers to delve

deeper into her life, and how monastic vows impinged over her literary production.
Asunción Lavrin

Arizona State University

136BOOK REVIEWS

The Mystic ofTunja. The Writings ofMadre Castillo, 1671-1742. By Kathryn
Joy McKnight. (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. 1997. Pp. xix,
282. $45.00.)

In The Mystic ofTunja Kathryn McKnight embarks on a thorough analysis of
the writings of the only Latin American colonial woman except for Sor Juana
Inés de la Cruz to be regularly anthologized, Francisca Josefa de la Concepción
or Madre Castillo (1671-1742). Born into a family of the local governing elite,

Madre Castillo entered the Poor Clares in 1689 and held a variety of offices, including novice mistress and abbess (three terms). Family played a great role in
the convent itself. Madre Castillo was descended from one of the founding
nuns, and when she entered one of her aunts was already a nun in the convent.
During her lifetime eight of her nieces and two of her sisters (as widows) entered the convent, and this in a period when the number of professed nuns av-

erages about thirty. In spite of enforced enclosure she was able to exert
influence beyond the convent, not only through her family but through more

than ten confessors, and through her contacts with the convent's financial representatives. Inner-conventual squabbling features as part of the trials Madre
Castillo undergoes, and a consistent refrain in her vida is her criticism of enemies and tormenters within the convent who are against her because of her
attempts to institute a stricter order. Madre Castillo is not the engaging personality that was Teresa of Avila.
In addition to her spiritual autobiography she wrote two collections of spiritual writings, one entitled Sentimentos espirituales, the other Affectos espirituales. Again in contrast to Teresa ofAvila she is less interested in the inner path
of mysticism than in the production of exterior signs of mysticism in both the
body and text of the mystic. She also is more interested than Teresa in the relationship of the intellect to mysticism as is demonstrated by a number of her
short pieces which are clearly of didactic or catechetical intent.
In this outstanding contribution to the ongoing effort to explore the history
of Latin American women writers, McKnight begins with a careful setting of the
parameters of her own discourse which is feminist and deconstructionist, providing a wealth of information which serves to build the methodological frame
of her analysis, and including a brief history of the development of the genre of
the vida espiritual in Spain and Latin America. As she combines research from
the convent archives with Mother Castillo's own autobiographical writings,
McKnight gives a fascinating demonstration of the tension between the subjective, partial rendering of spiritual autobiography which operates in the landscape of interior goals, strivings, disappointments, advances, and retreats with
minimal reference to outside events, and the material evidence culled from mu-

nicipal and convent archives, which however are not without their own subjective bias. As background for her study of Madre Castillo's writings McKnight
develops a "representative" —though not "exhaustive—view of the state of critical scholarship" on the tradition and strategies of women's writing in Spain and
Spanish America. She also paints a vivid picture of the complexities of convent

BOOK REVIEWS137

life in the early eighteenth century. McKnight has done an admirable job of illuminating the intricacies of women's writing while simultaneously introducing
the reader to a complex and vital personality in Madre Castillo.
Pamela Kirk

St. John's University,
New York

Antigua California: Mission and Colony on the Peninsular Frontier, 16971 768. By Harry W Crosby. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.

1994. Pp. xvii, 556. $37.50.)

Harry Crosby has written an intriguing and useful history of the Spanish development of Baja California (California Antigua) during the Jesuit period. Although at times he seems captured by an older narrative style of history, the
compensating consideration of structural and social history makes this a very
rewarding read.

The book results from more than thirty years of research on the topic and the
utilization of an enormous array of archival and printed sources. Obviously, he
relies heavily on traditional materials: Jesuit chronicles, as well as the reports,
letters, and inventories found in the Mexican national archives, but he has gone
farther afield to consult a variety of sources not usually explored. These include
the notary archives of Guadalajara and various sections of the Archivo General
de Indias in Seville and the Archivo General Nacional in Mexico dealing with
personnel issues. Probably the greatest new insights gained from the study re-

late to the character of the community of the gente de razón who were em-

ployed by the Jesuits derived from these new sources. These men—and their
families—played a major (and surprising) role in the acculturation of the Indians and the success (such as it was) of the Jesuit enterprise.

The book is arranged in three parts: the first half-century, the organization
and operation of Jesuit California, and the decline and fall of Jesuit California.
The first section is the most narrative of the three. The lobbying efforts to obtain crown approval for the venture, the political maneuvering surrounding Jesuit control of the effort, the travail of expansion, and the conflicts with
indigenous cultures structure the narrative. In this section, Crosby uses archival
material to expand upon, and critique the chronicles, particularly the work of
Venegas, but he adds little that is surprising or unexpected to the picture.

The emphasis here is on the Jesuit view of conditions and on Jesuit aims. The

author makes it very clear that it was the Jesuit goal to establish a frontier environment which isolated the inhabitants of the peninsula from the corrupting
influence of all outsiders, but that the missionaries were as set on the Europeanization of the indigenous populations as they were on converting them to
Christianity: indeed, the two objectives were inseparable in their minds.

138book reviews

They succeeded in imposing isolation, in large part due to the absence of resources, particularly water and verified mineral deposits, which would have attracted a settler population. They also succeeded in destroying indigenous

societies and culture; by the 1740's the surviving populations had become entirely acculturated. But the cost was enormous: a decline in Indian population

and the condemnation of the indigenes to a marginal existence on the periphery of hispanicized life. Crosby does not deny the sincerity, courage, or dedication of the Jesuit missionaries, but there is a poignancy to the description given
by one missionary, Father Francisco Inama, in 1755: "[the natives] entertain
for us a deferential affection, a blind obedience, a child-like confidence, and are
most concerned for our well-being. It is precisely these characteristics that
cause us missionaries so much concern, work, poverty, and numerous privations in our vocation—and at the same time render it light and joyful. Here we

must be, day and night, 'all things to all,' as well for their body as for their soul,

and sacrifice ourselves all the more because they receive no other help, counsel, guidance, or care" (p. 263). He had made himself a revered father by making

the Indians beloved children.

Nevertheless, Crosby's primary concern in this study is not for what the Je-

suits destroyed, but rather for what they created. There is a supreme irony, given

Jesuit emphasis on isolating their missions from outside influences, in his

strongly argued position that most of the social and economic construction
which took place up to 1767, was due to the presence ofJesuit lay employees.
In parts two and three he explores this development providing a most interesting examination of the presidio and town of Loreto, a detailed study of the mission of San José de Comandú, and portraits of the pioneering soldiers, artisans,
and their families. His biographies of the extended family of Captain Esteban
Rodríguez, particularly his son-in-law Manuel de Ocio, and of Captain Bernardo
de Rivera, are among the significant contributions of this volume. These individuals not only formed the basis of the Hispanic community which would per-

sist beyond 1767 but they were also—and most importantly—the critical

ingredient in the acculturation and survival of the indigenous population
through their teaching of the practical skills of"civilized life," and their behavior
as role models. In this regard, women played as important a role as men.
In sum, this is an excellent study of the decline of a Utopian theocratic colony
and its evolution into a more viable structure. Although Crosby throughout the
book defines the limitations of what he describes as a "severely paternalistic
system," he is certainly not anti-Jesuit and does not even suggest that there was
an alternative to the Jesuit paradigm. Rather than stew in a moralistic lament for
what was lost under the mission system, he devotes his efforts to the new creation and through his portrait of a frontier community composed of acculturated indigenes and Hispanic immigrants, shows us the parameters of what
would become the territory of Baja California.
James D. Riley

The Catholic University ofAmerica

book reviews139

Entre la ideología y la compasión: Guerra y paz en Cuba, 1895-1903: Testimonios de los Archivos Vaticanos. By Manuel P. Maza Miquel, SJ. (Santo
Domingo, Dominican Republic: Instituto Pedro Francisco Bono. 1997. Pp.
559. $25.00.)
Manuel P. Maza Miquel has mined the Vatican Archives for information about
the Catholic Church during the transformation of Cuba under three administrations: Spain, the United States, and Cuba. Maza Miquel's detailed history of
Cuba's church-state relations under three flags is a significant addition to the
historiography of Spain's colonial regime and the early Cuban Republic. An appendix contains copies of twenty-four Vatican documents as well as a list of
papal nuncios in Madrid and one for bishops and archbishops of Havana and
Santiago de Cuba.
Although Maza Miquel focuses on Cuba from 1895 to 1903, he extensively reviews nineteenth-century developments in Cuba, Spain, and the Vatican. The
core of the book, however, concerns the bishop of Havana, Manuel Santander y
Frutos, and the archbishop of Santiago de Cuba, Francisco Saenz de Urturi y
Crespo, both of whom served during and after the Cuban-Spanish-American
War. Prominent Vatican officials featured in the account are Cardinal Mariano

Rampolla del Tindaro, the nuncios in Madrid, and Archbishop Placide Chapelle of New Orleans.
Church politics existed at several levels. In the Vatican, Pope Leo XIII sought
to build European political support for his efforts to get Italy to return church
lands. Thus, the Pope worked to strengthen his ties to Spain and the monarchy;
he strongly supported Spain in its colonial wars in Cuba and the Philippines.
Nevertheless, Bishop Santander, who assumed his Havana assignment in
1887, repeatedly challenged Spanish officials and resisted Spanish law that
threatened ecclesiastical privileges. On the island divisive church-state issues
concerned baptismal certificates, civil marriages, cemeteries, education, and
clerical appointments; there were also financial irregularities. Some church-

state disputes continued during the Spanish-Cuban war.

When the Cuban insurrection began, Santander believed God was punishing
the irreligious, both Cubans and Spanish officials, for Masonry and liberalism.
Archbishop Saenz, who arrived in Santiago de Cuba in 1894, ascribed the war to

Cuban religious superstition and ignorance. Both Santander and Saenz supported Spain's military efforts, and later they recorded Cuban suffering as star-

vation and disease decimated the island.

With respect to Spain, Maza Miquel reviews the Vatican's attempts to try to
prevent a catastrophic Spanish-American war. These centered on encouraging
Spain to offer a suspension of hostilities in Cuba.
After the United States won the brief war, the Vatican sought to protect
church interests on the island by naming Archbishop Placide Chapelle as Apostolic Delegate. Chapelle set out to conserve church properties and to improve

1 40BOOK REVIEWS

the position of the clergy in Cuban society. Cuban patriots despised both Saenz
and Santander, and Chapelle urged their replacement. Saenz was eager to leave
the island, but Santander clung to his office. Accordingly, Chapelle wrote a stinging condemnation of Santander's administration, a copy of which has been
translated from French and placed in the appendix. Despite the Church's proSpanish stance, Cuban nationalists and United States officials showed little vindictiveness. Cuban nationalists, however, worked assiduously to fill church
positions with insular patriots, and under the new Republic they eventually got
their way.
John L. Offner

Shippensburg State College, Pennsylvania

The Mexican Right. The End ofRevolutionary Reform, 1929-1940. ByJohn W
Sherman. (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger. 1997. Pp. xxii, 154. $55.00.)
Anyone who has watched pilgrims walking on their knees to get to the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico City on the evening of December 1 1
knows that Mexico is a deeply religious country. However, until a few years ago,
the Catholic Church and the Mexican government had an extremely uneasy relationship, at least in terms of public pronouncements. There was often a similar bifurcation between the attitudes of the hierarchy of the Mexican Church
and those of its lower clergy. For example, two of the most important leaders of
the Mexican independence movement—Miguel Hidalgo and José María Morelos—were priests whose bishop firmly supported the Spanish Crown. This split

continued after the Revolution of 1910 and manifested itself again from 1926 to

1929 when the faithful, furious with a governmental anticlericalism that would
deny them the rites of the Church, went into battle in the name of "Cristo el
Rey!," catching the upper clergy and the Vatican completely off guard.
In his book, The Mexican Right, Professor Sherman has compiled a wellorganized selective narration of the events of the period from 1929 to 1940,
that tries to prove that a powerful conservative (some might say traditionalist)
movement developed in response to President Calles' anticlerical programs and
to President Lázaro Cárdenas' determination to expropriate more land and to
mandate socialist education. Further, he attempts to argue that the next presidential candidate, Manuel Avila Camacho, reacted to the strength and determination of that movement by abandoning Cárdenas' progressive agenda and
moving decisively to the center.
There are two significant problems with this book. First, the author does not
grapple with the role of the Catholic Church either as a political or a spiritual
institution when he shows how the movement evolved. For example, he refers
to Pope Pius XFs encyclical "On Atheistic Communism," published in March,
1937, at greater length than a special encyclical/'Religious Situation in Mexico,"
issued that same month in which the Pontiff stated that Mexican Catholics

should "continue to exercise their political and civil rights and obligations in

BOOK REVIEWS141

defense of personal and Church rights," but not in a specifically Catholic political party. Regrettably, the full text of neither encyclical appears in an appendix.
The author interprets the papal statement against specifically Catholic parties
to mean that the Church had removed itself from politics when nothing could
be further from the truth.

The book cries out for the kind of micro-historical analysis pioneered in Mexico by Luis González y González where a scholar writes the history of a small
town or area. Only through that kind of technique could a scholar attempt to
understand the "mentality" of devout Catholics when faced with the possible
destruction of the only institution that gave meaning to their lives. Instead, the
author makes no attempt to analyze why the faithful marched and wrote and
joined conservative groups and ran for office. There is no discussion of the relationship between local priests and their flocks, nor is much written about
women's contributions to the cause.

The second problem appears near the end of the work when Professor Sherman attempts to give the conservatives more power over Mexican politics than
they deserve by coming to conclusions about the events from 1939 to 1941
from a single perspective. During those years, President Franklin Roosevelt and
many others believed it essential to ensure Mexican loyalty should the United
States enter the war in Europe on the Allied side. Beginning in 1939, the United
States made a concerted effort to court Mexico in a variety of ways from coparticipation in art exhibits to easing up on demands that Mexico repay the former owners of the oil industry it had expropriated in 1938. In exchange, first
President Cárdenas and then President Avila Camacho easily saw the benefits of
a steady drift to the right that has continued, almost uninterruptedly, until the
present.

Ultimately these failures weaken the work, depriving it of the depth of analysis needed to sustain its arguments and transforms a promising study on a neglected subject into a catalogue of events.
Barbara A. Tenenbaum

Hispanic Division

Library of Congress
African

The Kongolese Saint Anthony, Dona Beatriz Kimpa Vita and the Antonian
Movement, 1684-1706. By John K. Thornton. (New York: Cambridge Uni-

versity Press. 1998. Pp. viii, 228. $49.95 clothbound; $15.95 paperback.)

The kingdom of Kongo was the only major African polity to adopt a Catholic
identity from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. Many scholars have assumed that the Kongolese appropriated only the trappings of this identity, and
they have taken the Antonian movement, with its rejection of orthodoxy, as a
notable proof of the superficiality of Kongolese Catholicism. After much
sharply focused research, Professor Thornton reassesses the whole episode.

142book reviews

The documentary sources for this period of Kongo history are relatively
abundant; the problem, as in so much of African history, is that these sources
were almost entirely produced by aliens, in this case Capuchin missionaries
from Italy and a few Portuguese accounts from Angola. By drawing on the insights of anthropologists and linguists, and by carefully using oral traditions,
Thornton is able to reconstruct the political, social, and even intellectual world
of Dona Beatriz and her contemporaries. It is a most impressive study.
The author dissects the multiple internal rivalries which beset Kongo, and he
vividly portrays the suffering caused by the warfare and violence of the late seventeenth century. By placing these developments within the context of the Atlantic slave trade, he demonstrates the global significance of the Antonian
movement, and much of his social analysis and description is of wide comparative importance for the study of precolonial Africa.
Besides these achievements, he opens up the intellectual aspects of Beatriz's
career at a far deeper level than previous studies. He begins by insisting that
Beatriz did not seek to lead an anti-Christian movement. As a member of the

lesser nobility, she had close contacts with Kongo teachers and interpreters.
She knew the principal Catholic prayers and probably acquired a fair acquaintance with the catechism as taught by these teachers. Even at the height of her
confrontation with the Capuchins, she never renounced this basic Christian
identity.
Her iconoclasm and her emphasis on the fundamental importance of intentions rather than ritual might at first glance suggest an influence from Protestant slave traders. Thornton argues convincingly, however, that this emphasis
reflects a Kongo understanding of spiritual powers and of the nature of evil. Her
conviction that she had become possessed by St. Antony reflected her experiences as a diviner-healer and perhaps as a member of a traditional secret society. But it also was produced by the deeply embedded cult of St. Antony, and by
the fact that in the feast of All Souls Kongolese beliefs had been incorporated
with Catholicism. As a black St. Antony she sought a radical restructuring of
Christian history.
At some minor points Thornton seems more conversant with the Kongo than
the Capuchin background, and at others he is inclined to disparage the religious
commitments of Beatriz's Kongo opponents, but his study provides a fascinating illustration of the necessity, nay inevitability, of inculturation in Christian
evangelism, as well as of its difficulties and tragedies.
Richard Gray

University ofLondon

BOOK REVIEWS143
Chinese

Earthen Vessels and Transcendent Power:American Presbyterians in China,

1837-1952. By G. Thompson Brown. [American Society of Missiology Series, No. 25.] (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books. 1997. Pp. xxiii, 428.
$40.00.)

Attempting to write a history of the entire American Presbyterians mission

venture in China is a daunting task, particularly at a time when most China

scholars are focusing on local history and those working on China missions are
concentrating on single missions or stations. The strength of Brown's work is
that it provides an overview of the Presbyterian missions and lists all of them,
along with lists of all their hospitals, schools, and personnel, in a published
work for the first time. However, the book also has many shortcomings which

detract considerably from its value. Unfortunately, the author was unable to de-

cide whether he wanted to write a history of China, a history of the Presbyterian missions in China, or a memoir of his childhood experiences at a mission in
China. The result is that there is far too much on the history of China, which is
better covered in works by China historians—for example, much of the first
chapter could have been condensed into a paragraph or two and Brown's account of the Boxers would have benefited from a careful reading ofJoseph Esherick's award-winning Origins of the Boxer Uprising. The amount Brown
writes on each station is uneven—only two sentences on the Hengyang station
(p. 170) but much more on other locales. The personal reminiscences of China
appear late in the book and seem curiously out of place, as though the reader
somehow slipped into another work. There is virtually no analysis of any of the
events described, and sometimes crucial history has been omitted. Brown
writes that the Lienchow station was begun in 1883 (p. 89), when actually it
had been visited by Henry Noyes in 1872 and by B. C. Henry on several occasions before a chapel, served by an ordained Chinese, was established there in
1882. Statistics for various mission locales are given, but there is no attempt to

place them in context. Anyone working on China missions knows such statistics are subject to dispute as backsliders or those who were excluded from fel-

lowship for various sins were rarely listed and in many cases the "numbers"
preached to were at best guesses. Unfortunately, poor proofreading, or perhaps
no proofreading, has resulted in many errors: John Linton Stuart appears as

both Stuart and Stewart on the same page (87); the captions on the pho-

tographs of Drs. Mary Niles and Eleanor Chestnut are reversed; the Hainan station at Nodoa, now Nada, inexplicably is located at Ledong, which is more than
fifty miles away! Scholars working on the histories of various Presbyterian mis-

sions will probably learn little from this book. It will be most useful for the non-

scholar who wants to know where those missions were located, the names of

the Presbyterian hospitals and schools and who served where and in what
years, although the last is misleading for those who had been born in China as

144BOOK REVIEWS

Brown's list employs the term "Arrived in China," when what is meant is "Year
mission service began."
Kathleen L. Lodwick

Pennsylvania State University/
Lehigh Valley

The Conversion ofMissionaries: Liberalism in American Protestant Missions
in China, 1907-1932. By Lian Xi. (University Park: The Pennsylvania State
University Press. 1997. Pp. xvi, 247. $38.50.)
This is an excellent book, which I recommend highly to all with an interest in
China missions, the course of liberalism in American missions theology and

American Protestantism in general, or the subtle relationships between foreign

missions and theology on the home front. Lian Xi, who is professor of history at
Hanover College, Indiana, has given us a thoroughly researched, well argued,
and elegantly written monograph.
The author's purpose is to explore the "unraveling" of nineteenth-century
missions certainties and the emergence of "liberalism" among an important
sector of American missionaries in China between about 1910 and the 1930's.

The "liberalism" discussed throughout the book is very much in the tradition of
that in several works by William Hutchison of Harvard Divinity School, by
whom Lian Xi has been strongly influenced.
The book has two parts, which are quite distinct. Part I has three chapters
summarizing the careers of individuals representing the loss of evangelical faith
and the growth of sympathetic, even syncretistic, views among some American
missionaries concerning the relationship between Christianity, native Chinese
religions, and Chinese society. The three are Dr. Edward H. Hume, a pioneer of
the Yale Mission in Changsha after 1905 and president of Yale-in-China until
1927; Reverend Frank J. Rawlinson, who came to China as a Southern Baptist
evangelical in 1902 and later was editor of the influential Chinese Recorder
from 1914 to 1937; and Pearl Buck, Pulitzer and Nobel Prize-winning author,
who grew up in China in a Presbyterian missionary family and who herself was
officially a Presbyterian educational missionary from 1914 to 1933. The chapters profiling these individuals are concise and clear, though ample information
on all three is available in other scholarly works.
Part II of the book, more ambitious, has three chapters tracing the evolution
of liberalism in China missions from the unionist institutional initiatives of the

early twentieth century, through the devastating impact on missions of a newly
assertive Chinese nationalism in the 1920's, to the final denouement of surrender by some liberal missionaries of any claim to Christian distinctiveness and rejection altogether of the traditional missionary program. These chapters are

well executed, and firmly set on the Chinese scene. They include brief portraits
of often overlooked parts of the picture, for example, the Bible Union of China

BOOK REVIEWS145

(the conservative/fundamentalist backlash to Modernism), the quixotic Gilbert
Reid and his International Institute, and the Laymen's Inquiry and Report of
1932 (which marks the end of the coverage of the book). Lian Xi's conclusion
stakes out a more ambitious claim, which cannot easily be proven: that the mission experience, especially in China, shaped the emergence of liberalism in
North American theology on the home front during these decades. Here he
makes some good points, such as the centrality of missions to Presbyterian conservatives as the focal point of their protests against liberalism, and the large
number of liberal ex-missionaries who came home to teach in major seminaries.

My major criticism of this work is that by ending in the early 1930's it gives

the impression that the liberal/modernist impulse carried the day in missions.
However, as a new work byJoel Carpenter, Revive UsAgain: The Reawakening
of American Fundamentalism (Oxford, 1997), makes clear, a resurgence of
conservative Christianity, including a strong thrust in foreign missions, was beginning just in these years. That impulse has been dominant in American Protestant missions in the decades since; today, liberal missionaries like those
described so well in this book are few, while fundamentalists on the mission
field abound.
Daniel H. Bays

The University ofKansas
Philippines
The Church and Its Social Involvement in the Philippines, 1930-1972. ByWiIfredo B. Fabros. (Manila: Ateneo de Manila University Press. 1988. Pp. xii,
202.)

In the late 1970's and early 1980's,the Reverend John N. Schumacher, S.J., prepared and presented an "elective" course, on the "History of the Catholic
Church's Involvement in the Philippine Social Problem," at the Loyola School of

Theology in the Ateneo de Manila University. Father Schumacher was commit-

ted to ensure that the up and coming clergy under his care were provided with
an historical, social, and political perspective of the Church's involvement in
the Philippine social problem and a scientific, historical, and analytical methodology to investigate such involvement. Some of the results of his efforts were a

master's thesis on"Catholic Social Action Prior to World War II" (1986) by Victor
Ibabao and a doctoral thesis on "The Church and Its Social Involvement in the

Philippines between 1930 and 1972" by Father Wilfredo Fabros. If anything, the
publication of Father Fabros' dissertation is a testament to Father Schumacher's
success in educating the young Philippine clergy to take up historical research
work in the Philippines, be this at the level of the local or national church.
Father Fabros' book covers the period from before World War II (the 1930's),
after World War II (mid-1940's), after the Second Vatican Council (mid-1960's),

146BOOK REVIEWS

up to 1972, when Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in the Philippines and
began his fourteen-year, one-man rule over the Philippines. Father Fabros' description of Catholic Social Action prior to World War II (the 1930's) is sketchy.

This is understandable in that he concentrates his efforts, and much of the contents of his book, on events after World War II (1945- 1972). The master's thesis
of Victor Ibabao provides a more detailed account and analysis of Catholic Social Action in the Philippines prior to World War II (1930's). Father Fabros' publication provides firsthand data on events after World War II.
In terms of future historical work in the years covered by Father Fabros'
book, i.e., 1930- 1972, there appears to be a need to undertake further historical
research in the areas of the ideological, social, political, and religious linkages
between Catholic Social Action in the Philippines on the one hand and Catholic
Social Action in Western Europe, the United States of America, and Central and

Latin America on the other hand. In the Philippines, prior to and after World
War II (1930-1960), such linkages would come primarily from Western Europe
and the United States of America. Prior to and after Vatican Council II

(1960-1972), such linkages would come primarily from Central and Latin

America.

Victor B. Ibabao

Washington, DC.

NOTES AND COMMENTS

Association News

At the installation of the Very Reverend David M. O'Connell, CM., as the fourteenth president of the Catholic University of America on November 19, 1998,
the American Catholic Historical Association was represented by the Reverend
John W Witek, SJ., of Georgetown University, a former member of its Executive
Council, as its delegate.
Meetings, Conferences, Symposia
The annual dies academicus of the Accademia di S. Carlo was held in the

Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan on November 20, 1998. The theme was "Cultura e religione nella Milano del Seicento: Le metamorfosi della tradizione 'bor-

romaica' nel secólo barrocco." Copies of the program are available from the
secretary, R Fedele Marelli at Piazza Pio XI, 2, 20123 Milano MI, Italy; telephone: 02 80.692.1; fax: 02 80.692.212; www.ambrosiana.it; electronic mail:
frnerelli@tin.it.
The California Mission Studies Association will hold its sixteenth annual con-

ference at Mission Santa Inés in Solvang, California, on February 12-14, 1999.

More information may be obtained by writing to the Association at Post Office

Box 2609, Santa Barbara, California 93120; telephone: 805-687-2957, or by visiting its website: www.camissions.org.

The sixth annual meeting of the Society for Reformation Studies will take

place in Cambridge, England, on April 7-9, 1999- A copy of the program may be

obtained from Paul Ayris by telephone: 0171 380 7834, fax: 0171 380 7373, or
electronic mail: p.ayria.@ucl.ac.uk.

A conference on "The Bible and the Spanish Renaissance: Cardinal Ximénez
de Cisneros and the Complutensian Polyglot" will be held at Loyola University
Chicago on June 10-13, 1999. Further information may be requested of David

Aune in care of the Department of Theology, Loyola University, 6525 North
Sheridan Road, Chicago, Illinois 60626.

"Saints" will be the special theme of the International Medieval Congress that
will be held in Leeds, England, on July 12-15, 1999· Full information may be obtained over the Internet: www.leeds.ac.uk/imi/imc/imc99.

147

148NOTES AND COMMENTS

Boston College will sponsor a conference on "Christian Life and Thought:
Confronting Authoritarianism/Totalitarianism in the Twentieth Century" on
September 15-17, 1999- Proposals of papers should be submitted by April 1 to

the chairman of the Department of Theology, Donald J. Dietrich, at Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts 02 1 67; telephone: 6 1 7-5 52-4799; fax: 61 7-5520794; electronic mail: donald.dietrich@bc.edu.

A conference on "The Crusades: Other Experiences, Alternate Perspectives"
will be held at Binghamton, New York, on October 15-16, 1999· Abstracts of
proposed papers should be submitted by February 1. All correspondence
should be directed to Khalil I. Semaan at the Center for Medieval and Renais-

sance Studies, State University of NewYork, Post Office Box 6000, Binghamton,
New York 13092; telephone: 607-777-2730; fax: 607-723-7193; electronic mail:
ksemaan@binghamton.edu.
Siena College will sponsor its fifteenth annual, international, multidisciplinary conference on World War II on June 1-2, 2000, under the title "World War
II—A Sixty-Year Perspective." It will be focused on 1940, although papers dealing with broad issues of earlier years related to the anniversary year will be accepted. Inquiries should be addressed to the co-director of the conference,
Thomas O. Kelly, II, in care of the Department of History, Siena College, 515

Loudon Road, Loudonville, New York, 12211-1462; telephone: 518-783-2512;

fax: 518-786-5052; electronic mail: Iegendziewic@siena.edu.

For the Nineteenth International Congress of Historical Sciences, which will
take place in Oslo on August 6-13, 2000, the Pontifical Committee on Historical
Sciences is organizing a round table on the theme "The Catholic Church and National States in Europe in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries."The following main speakers and their topics have been assigned: Ernst Suttner of the
University of Vienna for the Slavic world; Konrad Repgen of the University of
Bonn for central Europe; Donal Kerr of St. Patrick's College, Maynouth, for "the
case of Ireland"; Nicola Raponi of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart,
Milan, for "the case of Italy"; and Jean-Marie Mayeur of the University of Paris La
Sorbonne for a general synthetic overview. Professor Mayeur will also be the
chairman of the round table.

Two of the specialized themes that have been announced for the International Congress are "Religion and Gender," organized by Phyllis Mack of the
United States and Marian Schwegman of the Netherlands, and "Christian Missions, Modernization, Colonization, and Decolonization," organized by Andrew
Walls of the United Kingdom.
General information on the International Congress and a registration kit may
be procured by writing to the Nineteenth International Congress of Historical
Sciences, University of Oslo, Post Office Box 1008, Blindem, N-0315 Oslo, Norway; fax: +47 22 85 47 00; electronic mail: oslo2000@hf.uio.no. The registration
will begin in September, 1999. The deadline for the payment of the normal registration fees is April 1 , 2000.

NOTES AND COMMENTS149
Exhibition

An exhibition of twenty-two paintings, engravings, manuscripts, and sculptures in ivory, crystal, and stone, entitled "The Jesuits and the Grand Mogul: Re-

naissance Art at the Imperial Court of India (1580-1630)," was opened at the

Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, a branch of the Smithsonian Institution, in Washing-

ton on September 27,1 998, and will remain there until April 4, 1 999. The works

illustrate a period of cultural exchange between Europe and Mughal India that
affected art, politics, and religion. A few of the works exhibited were created by
European artists, but most of them exemplify the successful attempts of artists
at the Indian Islamic court to emulate the Christian subject matter and Late
Renaissance style of art brought to India by Jesuit missionaries under two great

Mughal emperors, viz., Akbar (reigned 1542-1605) and Jahangir (reigned
1605-1627). Both these rulers were known for their appreciation of the arts

and their open-minded exploration of world religions; they invited Jesuits to
their capitals at Fatehpur Sikri, Agra, and Lahore; the two sides held discussions
and exchanged works of literature and art; in the evenings representatives of
world religions engaged in debates. Accompanying three Jesuit missionaries in
1595 was at least one Portuguese artist who was kept busy painting in oils
scores of Christian scenes and copying the imperial collections of European religious pictures and prints; unfortunately, his name has not been recorded. Soon
Akbar and Jahangir were directing their own artists to produce images of Christ

and Christian saints. One of the objects displayed is a rare rock-crystal figure of

Christ mounted with gold, rubies, and sapphires, one of only three in the world,
made by an Indian or Sri Lankan artist; it is closely related to ivory figures of the
same theme that were made in the Portuguese enclave of Goa or in Sri Lanka.
Perhaps the most exotic piece is a statue of Christ the Good Shepherd, carved
from ivory and showing Him on a hillock ornamented with grazing sheep,
birds, and other decorations. There are also miniature paintings of the Madonna
and Child, the birth of the Virgin, and other Christian themes. Catholic imagery
perfectly served Akbar's wish to create a state ideology combining aspects of

Islam, Hinduism, Christianity, and other religions in his efforts to bring the
Hindu majority under his command. In contrast to the many idols of Hinduism

and the iconoclasm of Islam, Catholic images were considered relatively neutral
and easier to reinterpret to the emperor's purpose.
The guest curator, Gauvin Bailey, assistant professor of art history in Clark
University, commented: "In a way that astonished generations of Europeans,
these paintings from the Muslim court feature devotional images of Christ and
Christian saints. Instead of perpetuating the notions that the works were either
exotic caprices or capitulations to Western art, the exhibition shows how art
was central to the formulation of imperial Mughal propaganda, as the emperors
sought to assign Indian and Islamic meaning to the images and thus convert
them into manifestations of their divine right to rule."
Accompanying the exhibition is Volume 2 in the series of occasional papers
published by the Sackler Gallery and the Freer Gallery of Art (which together

150NOTES AND COMMENTS

form the national museum of Asian art in the United States). The fifty-six-page

book by Dr. Bailey ($15.95 paperback) draws upon his extensive research to explore more deeply the themes raised in the exhibition. Dr. Bailey, an Episco-

palian, who assembled these works over a two-year period, is completing a
book that will bear the title "Art on the Jesuit Missions in Asia and Latin Amer-

ica, 1540-1773"; it will be published by the University of Toronto Press late in
1999.

Archives and Manuscripts
A new site on the World Wide Web, the United States Catholic Documentary

Archive, was inaugurated on September 30, 1998. This on-line directory of
Catholic archives may be visited at www.uschs.com. In the first of the three
projected phases of the project the name, address, and a standardized summary
description of the holdings of each archival collection listed in the directory are
given. In the second phase, for which funding is being sought, a more detailed
summary of each collection will be provided. In the third phase scanned images and documents from these collections will be made available. The project
was initiated by the U.S. Catholic Historical Society of New York through its
Archival Committee, which is composed of several prominent Catholic archivists; it is being carried out in conjunction with the Association of Catholic
Diocesan Archivists, the Archivists of Congregations of Women Religious, and
the archivists of several Catholic universities and colleges.

The personal papers and historical materials of Robert S. Weddle, amounting
to approximately thirty linear feet, have been given to the Catholic Archives of
Texas. The collection consists of correspondence, manuscripts ofWeddle's published books, translations, transcriptions, and copies of documents from Spanish and French archives, and miscellaneous material gathered for informational
and research purposes.
C.Albert Shumate, who died on September 30, 1998,at the age of ninety-four,
in his will bequeathed to the Archives of the Archdiocese of San Francisco all
his papers and books relating to the Cadiolic Church.

Bibliography
ABC-Clio has released HistoricalAbstracts on the World Wide Web. Each year

approximately 20,000 new citations of dissertations, books, and articles published in more than 2,000 scholarly journals (the Catholic Historical Review included) are added to the database. The materials pertain to world history
outside the United States and Canada from 1450 to the present. The website is
www.abc-clio.com.

NOTES AND COMMENTS151
Grant

The Daniel Murphy Foundation has given the Santa Barbara Mission Archive

Library $10,000 to undertake the binding of its photocopies of mission registers, which are among the sources most frequently consulted by researchers because of their value to genealogists and students of mission Indian history.
Causes of the Saints

On October 3, 1998, at the national Marian Shrine of Marija Bistrica in Croa-

tia Pope John Paul II beatified Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac (1898-1960), whom he

called a martyr. Although the Archbishop of Zagreb "did not shed his blood in
the strict sense of the word," the Holy Father explained, "his death was caused
by the long suffering he endured: the last fifteen years of his life were a continual succession of trials, amid which he courageously endangered his own life in
order to bear witness to the Gospel and the unity of the Church."
On October 11 in St. Peter's Square the Supreme Pontiff canonized Edith
Stein, in religion Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (1891-1942). In his homily
he quoted her words spoken before her arrest at the Carmelite convent in Echt,
The Netherlands, and her deportation to the concentration camp at Auschwitz:
"Why should I be spared? Is it not right that I should gain no advantage from my
Baptism? If I cannot share the lot of my brothers and sisters, my life, in a certain
sense, is destroyed."
On October 25, also in St. Peter's Square, the pope beatified (along with two
European priests and one Brazilian) Mother Théodore-Anne-Thérèse Guérin
(1798-1856), who came from France to Indiana in 1840 and founded the Sisters
of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods.
Symposium
On October 31,1 998, at the end of the three-day international symposium on
the history of the Inquisition organized in Rome by the Central Committee for
the Great Jubilee of theYear 2000 and closed to the public, Pope John Paul II received the approximately fifty renowned historians, both Catholics and nonCatholics, from various countries of Europe and from America who had
participated in it. He said that the historians were not being "asked to make an
ethical judgment, which would exceed their sphere of competence, but to help
in the most precise reconstruction possible of the events, customs, and mentality of the time, in the light of the era's historical context. Only when historical
science has been able to determine the true facts," he continued, "will theologians and the Church's Magisterium itself be in a position to make an objectively well-founded judgment."

152NOTES AND COMMENTS

Publication

The issue of U.S. Catholic Historian for summer, 1998 (Volume 16, Number
3) is devoted to the theme "Sources of Social Reform." Part One contains the fol-

lowing articles: Dièdre M. Moloney,"Combatting 'Whiskey's Work':The Catholic
Temperance Movement in Late Nineteenth-Century America" (pp. 1-23); Patricia A. Lamoureux, "Irish Catholic Women and the Labor Movement" (pp.

24-44); Cecilia A. Moore, "Tb 'Be of Some Good to Ourselves and Everybody
Else': The Mission of the Cardinal Gibbons Institute, 1924-1934" (pp. 45-66);

David W Southern, "But Think of the Kids: Catholic Interracialists and the Great

American Taboo of Race Mixing" (pp. 67-93); and C. Joseph Nuesse," 'Catholic
Sociology': Memoir of a Mid-Century Controversy" (pp. 94-1 10). Part Two is a
"review symposium" on The Poor Belong to Us: Catholic Charities andAmerican Welfare by Dorothy Brown and Elizabeth McKeown (pp. 111-122).

Personal Notice

Lawrence Nemer, S.VD., has been appointed president of the Missionary Institute London for three years in the first instance.

Letters from Authors and Replies from Reviewers
August 24, 1998
Dear Editor:

In the October, 1997, issue of the Catholic Historical Review (Volume

LXXXIII, Number 4, pp. 776-777), Bernard Reilly authored a review of my book
Possessing the Land. The review, unfortunately, contains numerous errors that
demand correction; not only do they sometimes misrepresent my position on a
matter, but the reviewer also commits errors of historical fact that are in turn
used to criticize the book.

I begin with Reilly's assertion that it is unwise on my part to rely on a charter
of confirmation of the Leonese ruler Alfonso VII to establish the custom of the

nobility of Aragon. He cites my use of the document on page 276, but the same
document is also used on pages 123 and 130. Reilly does not say what Alfonso
VII confirmed, but he suggests that the document is Leonese and perhaps dates
from the thirteenth century: "The diplomatic is strange by Leonese standards,
and its language and orthography strongly suggest the thirteenth century rather
than the twelfth century."
If I am unwise in using this document to establish the custom of the
Aragonese nobility then so are such scholars as José María Lacarra, Thomas Bisson, Antonio Ubieto Arteta, Angel Canellas López, Lynn H. Nelson, and José

NOTES AND COMMENTS153

María Ramos Loscertales, but neither is this estimable group of scholars nor am

I unwise in doing so. In his edition of the document, the one I cite on page 276,

Canellas López explains what the Leonese ruler Alfonso VII confirmed: "Alfonso
VII . . . confirma los fueros y usos de los infanzones y barones de Aragón concedidos por Pedro I" (Colección diplomática del concejo de Zaragoza,\o\. 1,
no. 10, p. 92). The document also clearly records that the custom of the
Aragonese nobility was confirmed in this instance: "carta de fueros et usaticos
quod habuerunt infancones et barones de Aragone cum rege don Petro." (Here
I cite Lacarra's edition found in his "Honores y tenencias en Aragón: Siglo XI," in
Colonización, parias, repoblación y otros estudios [Zaragoza, 1981], p. 149)
The document bears the date of 1 134 as well.

The document is unclear about who actually redacted it; but Lacarra believes
that the Aragonese nobility presented it to the Leonese king: "El texto fue presentado por los barones de Aragón a Alfonso VII" (p. 137 of "Honores y tenencias"). In fact, this document is well known in Aragonese history as one of the
cornerstones of the Aragonese nobility's independence from royal rule, and any
historian who knows its history would be greatly surprised to hear that Alfonso
VII was confirming Leonese custom. In his The Medieval Crown ofAragon:A

Short History (p. 18), Thomas Bisson writes: "In 1134 the 'infancones and

barons of Aragon' insisted, in one of the earliest of Europe's 'great charters,' on
having their customs confirmed as they were in the time of Pedro I." The reviewer alleges that the use of this document evidences the book's lack of "a
wider frame of reference." On the contrary, the document is placed in its proper
context in Possessing the Land. Perhaps Reilly has a bone to pick with how this
document has been used; if so he should say so, rather than charging the book's
author with using it foolishly, which he clearly has not done.
Reilly also asserts that a problem with the book is that it requires the reader
to rely on the author's research, which is limited, if not in some cases wrong.
Reilly simply errs with the regrettable statement about the research being limited. As for the other accusation, that of the author being frequently wrong, it is
the reviewer who can be found entangled in errors, not the book's author. As an
example of the book's wrong research, Reilly cites the fact that the Aragonese
lord Fortún Aznárez was tenant of Tarazona after 1 126, which is true, and that
this bears on my argument concerning Alfonso Fs use of French nobility in

Aragonese lordships. Fortún, though, could still be lord of Tarazona today, and
this would not affect my argument in any way. I argued that Alfonso placed

southern French relatives in important lordships to exclude the native Aragonese nobility, an effort that was in full swing by 1123, but something that
Aragonese nobles had checked sometime in 1124 (cf. pp. 128-129). Fortun's
lordship of Tarazona in 1124 (something I note on page 129) supports my argument; it does not detract from it. True, Fortún is mentioned as lord of Tarazona in 1132, which I do not mention, but he does disappear from Aragonese

documents as lord of Tarazona from 1126 to 1132, when other persons are

cited as the town's lord, including Centullo of Bigorre and Gaizco, facts Reilly
fails to point out. (These facts about Tarazona can be verified in Agustín Ubieto

154NOTES AND COMMENTS

Arteta's Los "tenentes" en Aragon y Navarra, p. 163) The reviewer has misrepresented a significant argument in the book, and offers irrelevant evidence in
support of this misrepresentation.

The reviewer's statements about the book's discussion of the French bishops
in the Ebro is even more puzzling. Truly strange is Reilly's contention that
Bishop Michael of Tarazona was Aragonese and the brother of Fortún Aznárez,
and that I err in stating that Bishop Michael was perhaps from Toulouse. If nothing else, Michael's name suggests his French origins. It is a name brought to
Iberia by Frenchmen that Iberians such as the Aragonese adopted, as Pilar Gar-

cia Mouton has noted in the Archivo de filología aragonesa, 26-28 (1979),

82-83. José María Lacarra believed Michael to be southern French, and he is not

alone. In his article in the Gran enciclopedia aragonesa (Vol. 12, p. 3160) on

the diocese of Tarazona,José Luis Corral Lafuente writes that Alfonso named as
bishop ofTarazona"un francés llamado Miguel." In his Spain in the MiddleAges
(p. 87), Angus McKay writes this about the cleric: "Bishop Michael of Tarazona,
who was almost certainly a Frenchman." In his genealogical work on the
Aragonese nobility published in the second volume of the 1977 Homenaje a
José Maria Lacarra, Agustín Ubieto Arteta outlines, on page 29, the genealogy
of Fortun's family and records as male siblings only a brother named Pedro.
Bishop Michael is nowhere to be found in the family tree. Perhaps Reilly is
aware of a source confirming Michael's Aragonese origin and blood relationship
with Fortún Aznárez. If so, I, and other scholars such as Corral Lafuente, would
be grateful if he revealed it. On the other hand, perhaps the reviewer has erred
about Bishop Michael ofTarazona by not placing him in his proper context, and
instead has asked his readers to trust his assertions "excessively."
Reilly also criticizes another aspect of my discussion of French bishops in the
Ebro, by noting that Bishop Peter of Zaragoza was perhaps not from Beam. I do
acknowledge that the case is not conclusive, with this careful statement on
page 225: "Bishop Peter of Librana probably came from Beam." Again, the reviewer has carelessly treated an important point in the book. Moreover, the reviewer fails to place Bishop Peter in his wider frame of scholarly reference,
which holds that he was most likely French. Reilly notes that Lacarra, the preeminent historian of medieval Aragon, is my source for his probable French origin, and for once the reviewer is correct. Additional confirmation of Peter's
probable French origin comes from the article on the diocese of Zaragoza in
the Diccionario de historia eclesiástica de España, which had this to say
about the diocese's first post-conquest bishop: "Gelasio II . . . comunica el nombramiento del futuro prelado, el francés Pedro de Librane" (Vol. 4, p. 2806).
Thus, for me to describe Peter as probably southern French hardly evidences a
lack of research on or understanding of his probable origin.
There are other points on which Reilly faults the book that need explanation.
For example, Reilly criticizes my failure to cite Luis Rubio's Los documentos del
Pilar, siglo XLL A careful comparison of this work with Lacarra's masterful Ebro
documentary collection reveals that Lacarra edited every document of Al-

NOTES AND COMMENTS155

fonso's reign that Rubio did. Thus, I decided to rely on Lacarra's work. Reilly also
scoffs at my statement that any Aragonese lord could field a force of two or
three hundred knights. He does not mention it, but I am referring to the

Aragonese lord Fortún Garces Caxal (p. 139). Reilly may well be right here, but

a wider frame of scholarly reference for Fortún than Reilly has provided reveals
that Charles Julian Bishko accepts the contention that this wealthy Aragonese
nobleman could field such a force. (See Bishko's work on Fortún in Estudios en
homenaje a Don Claudio Sánchez-Albornoz, Vol. 2, pp. 284-285.) Reilly also
scolds me for not using Dufourcq's Histoire économique et sociale de l'Espagne chrétienne. It is true that it is neither cited directly in the text nor listed
in my select bibliography. By the way, Dufourcq's work is not found in the bibli-

ography of either Reilly's Contest of Christian and Muslim Spain or his book
on Alfonso Vl.

This review's misrepresentation of the arguments and facts contained in Possessing the Land, coupled with the review's historical errors, renders its evaluation of the book dubious, if not unfair.
Clay Stalls

University of California
at Los Angeles
September 14, 1998
Dear Editor:

The business of a reviewer is to state as accurately and briefly as possible the
nature of a scholarly work for the benefit of future readers. In my review of the
author's book, I cited its importance for future work in the field at the same
time that I pointed out its limitations as they then appeared to me. I would
stand by that judgment now.

Particular points made by the author deal largely with matters of fact that can

be controverted. His complaints in the matter of the charter of 1 1 34, of the family of Bishop Michael, and of the size of military hosts of which a noble was capable, run largely to the fact that I disagree with the authorities on whom he
relied. Indeed I do. Research continues and revisions will be made. It is the nature of the beast.

Scholars and particular students of the matters at issue might further consult

my The Kingdom of León-Castilla under King Alfonso VII, 1126-1157
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998).

Bernard F. Reilly

Villanova University
October 20, 1998
Dear Editor:

There are several not insignificant errors in the review of my book, Studio e
scuola in Arezzo durante H Medioevo e il Rinascimento: I documenti

1 56NOTES AND COMMENTS

d'archiviofino al 1530 (Arezzo, 1996), recently published in The Catholic Historical Review [LXXXIV QuIy, 1998), 541-542]. The reviewer, Paul Grendler,
states, "As Black informs the readers, he has not uncovered anything new of sig-

nificance before 1384." However, I wrote on page 4:"I1 periodo dal 1300al 1384
era di minor interesse per Pasqui e Wieruszowski: non sorprenderá quindi che
nuove ricerche di archivio abbiano portato alla luce un certo numero di docu-

ment! non conosciuti e per noi interessanti in Arezzo." My statement here is
confirmed by pages 185-194 and 305-333, where I publish twenty-one documents from the period before 1384 which no previous scholar had either referred to or published; I also publish thirteen documents which had been
previously referred to by scholars but which had never been either published
or published in full.
Grendler also states,"On the whole, the communal Latin and abbaco schools

were successful and continuous." However, I wrote on page 159,"In Arezzo ci
furono pochi insegnanti di abaco prima della meta del Quattrocento ed un incarico regolare inizia solo verso Ia fine del secólo."This statement is supported
by the fact that, before 1480, there are only twenty-eight documents referring to
abacus teaching in Arezzo published in my book, in contrast to more than five
hundred referring to grammar (Latin) teaching.
There is also a significant internal contradiction in his review: on the one
hand, he states, Arezzo's "university . . . flourished in the early thirteenth century"; on the other, he writes, "The university . . . probably was very small, perhaps eight professors in 1255. . . ."
Robert Black

School ofHistory
University ofLeeds
Reply dated November 4, 1998: "Professor Grendler suggests that interested
readers should read the book, the entire review, and then reach their own conclusions."

Correction

Errors occurred in the address of the Reverend James Connelly, CS.C. ,in the
issue for April, 1998 (Vol. LXXXIV, No. 2, p. 370), where his appointment to the
chairmanship of the committee organizing the spring meeting in 2002 at the

University of Portland was announced. It should read: telephone: 503-943-7343;
fax: 503-943-7399; e-mail: connelly@up.edu.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE

general and miscellaneous

Das Theologische an der Kirchengeschichte. Isnard Frank, O. P. Trierer Theologische Zeitschrift, 107 (3, 1998), 191-210.
Religion and the Historical Discipline: A Reply to Mack Holt and Henry Heller.
Susan Rosa and Dale Van Kley. French Historical Studies, 21 (Fall, 1998),
611-629.
Per l'analisi delle decisioni dei concili ecumenici e generali. Giuseppe Alberigo.
Cristianesimo nella storia, XLX (June, 1998), 399-403.
Der Zölibat in der Ostkirche. Thomas McGovern. Forum Katholische Theolo-

gie, 14 (2, 1998), 99-123.
Momenti essenziali della storia costituzionale dell'Ordine Cistercense. Ferenc

Polikárp Zakai. Analecta Cisterciensia,\Xñ (Jan. -Dec, 1997), 208-365.

Some Thoughts on Christopher Columbus's Libro De Profecías on the Quin-

centenary of His Third Voyage to America. David M. Traboulay. Zeitschrift
für Missionswissenschaft und Religionswissenschaft, 82 (3, 1998),
147-169.

Produire des catéchismes ou modeler des peuples! De l'Europe continentale au
Québec, en passant par l'Angleterre, l'Irlande et les États-Unis (XVT-XLX'

siècles). Raymond Brodeur. Revue d'histoire de l'Église de France, 84

(Jan.-June, 1998), 39-54.

Jean Leclercq and the Concept of Monastic Tradition. Gregorio Penco, O.S.B.
American Benedictine Review, 49 (Sept., 1998), 233-255.

"Lera post-cristiana" di É. Poulat. Le parole e la storia. Maria Paiano. Cristianesimo nella storia,XDÍ (June, 1998), 383-398.

Entre Concile et initiative pontificale: Paul VI en Terre sainte. Claude Soetens.
Cristianesimo nella storia, XLX (June, 1998), 333-365.

Imperial Ideology in the Making: Eusebius of Caesarea on Constantine as
"Bishop." Claudia Rapp. Journal of Theological Studies, 49 (Oct., 1998),
685-695.
The Life of St. Nino: Georgia's Conversion to Its Female Apostle. Eva M. Synek.
Ostkirchliche Studien, 47 (Sept., 1998), 139-148.
157

158periodical literature

The Representation of Christ in the Apses of Early Christian Churches. J.-M.
Spieser. Gesta, XXXVII (1, 1998), 63-73.
Una testimonianza di Facondo d'Ermiane su Ambrogio di Milano. Luigi Fatica.

Asprenas, 45 (Mar., 1998), 39-52.

"Sofisti" e "Santi": Due esemplarità a confronto nell'Impero Romano-Cristiano
dei secoli W e V d. C. Francesco Paolo Rizzo. Cristianesimo nella storia,

XLX (June, 1998), 243-253.
Abbots and Monks in the Dialogues of Gregory the Great. Christine McCann.
Studia Monástica, 40 (1, 1998), 11-21.

MEDIEVAL

Para el estudio de la Iglesia medieval castellana. Iluminado Sanz Sancho. Estudios Eclesiásticos, 73 (Jan.-Mar., 1998), 61-87.
vEthelthryth: A Conventional Saint? Susan Kosset. Bulletin of theJohn Rylands

University Library ofManchester, 19 (Autumn, 1997), 15-24.

La "plebs de Publicis" e le chiese di San Giovanni e di Santa Maria. Rinaldo Merlone. Bollettino Storico-Bibliografico Subalpino, XCVI (Jan.-June, 1998),
5-63.

The Old English Life of Saint Pantaleon and Its Manuscript Context. Joana
Proud. Bulletin of theJohn Rylands University Library ojManchester, 79
(Autumn, 1997), 119-132.
Peter Damian's Liber Gomorrhianus: The Text Vs. the Scholarly Tradition. Ken-

neth C. Russell. American Benedictine Review, 49 (Sept., 1998), 299-315.

The Bishop's Chapel of Hereford Cathedral and the Question of Architectural

Copies in the Middle Ages. Hans J. Böker. Gesta, XXXVII (1, 1998), 44-54.

Was Bernard a Friend? A Question Revisited. Richard Upsher Smith. Analecta
Cisterciensia,Ull (Jan.-Dec, 1997), 15-44.
Les relations entre Etienne Harding, Bernard de Clairvaux et l'abbaye de
Molesmes. Laurent Veyssière. Analecta Cisterciensia, LIII (Jan.-Dec,
1997), 45-72.
Tra riforma e tradizione: un abrégé del Decreto di Burcardo di Worms. Roberto
Bemni.Aevum, LXXII (May-Aug., 1998), 303-334.
Richard Lionheart and the Episcopate in His French Domains. Ralph V. Turner.
French Historical Studies, 21 (Fall, 1998), 517-542.

Apocalypse XXI-XXII et l'iconographie du portail central de la nef de Vézelay.

Marcel Angheben. Cahiers de civilisation médiévale, 41 (July-Sept.,
1998), 209-240.
Esercizio sulla mano destra: gestualità e santi nel Medioevo. Laura Corti. Annali

délia Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, series IV (1-2, 1996), 39-49.

periodical literature159

An Early Image of a Mass of St. Gregory and Devotion to the Holy Blood at Weingarten Abbey. Michael Heinlen. Gesta, XXXVII (1 , 1998), 55-62.
The Cistercian Order as Portrayed in the Speculum Ecclesiae of Gerald of
Wales. Joseph C. Castora. Analecta Cisterciensia, LIII (Jan.-Dec, 1997),
73-97.

Bilder als Zeichen der Herrschaft. Die Silvesterkapelle in SS. Quattro Coronati
(Rom). Andreas Sohn. Archivum Historiae Pontificiae, 35 (1997), 7-47.
Monasterios franciscanos de la Diócesis de Cuenca durante la Edad Media.Jorge

Díaz Ibáñez. Archivo Ibero-Americano, LVIII (May-Aug., 1998), 31 1-336.

Arnolfo, Non-Arnolfo: New (and Some Old) Observations on the Ciborium in
San Paolo fuori le mura. Anita E Moskowitz. Gesta, XXXVII (1, 1998),
88-102.

Palamas and Barlaam Revisited: A Reassessment of East and West in the Hesychast Controversy of 14th Century Byzantium. Reinhard Flogaus. St.

Vladimir's Theological Quarterly, 42 (1, 1998), 1-32.

Un inventaire de la bibliothèque de Fontcaude en 1352. Anne BondéelleSouchier.^4n«feci« Praemonstratensia, LXXIV (1-2, 1998), 5-40.

Tres memoriales hispánicos para el Abad de Cister, 1422-1427. Josep Torné
Cubeüs. Analecta Cisterciensia, LIII (Jan.-Dec., 1997), 98-129.

The Columba Altarpiece and the Time of the World. Alfred Acres. Art Bulletin,
LXXX (Sept., 1998), 422-451.
U testamento e la biblioteca di Ambrogio Griffi, medico milanese, protonotario
apostólico e consigliere sforzesco. Paolo M. Galimberti. Aevum, LXXII
(May-Aug., 1998), 447-483.
Religiöses und gesellschaftliches Bewußtsein. Stadträte und Franziskanerklöster

im Schlesien des 15. und 16.Jahrhunderts. Gabriela Was. Wissenschaft und
Weisheit, 61 (1 , 1998), 57-97.

SIXTEENTH CENTURY

L'acció tutelar dels abats de Montserrat sobre la reforma monástica de Sant Feliu

de Guixols (1510-1 523). Francesc Xavier Altés i Aguiló. Studia Monástica,
40 (1,1998), 65-92.

The Christian Clergy in the Early Modern Holy Roman Empire: A Comparative
Social Study. Luise Schorn-Schütte. Sixteenth CenturyJournal, XXLX (Fall,
1998X717-731.

Einige Beobachtungen zu den zwischen 1518 und 1526 im deutschen Sprach-

bereich veröffentlichten Dialogflugschriften. Alejandro Zorzin. Archiv für

Reformationsgeschichte, 88 (1997), 77-1 17.
Die gemalte Theologie in der Sixtinischen Kapelle. Teil IV Heinrich Pfeiffer.
Archivum Historiae Pontificiae, 35 (1997), 49-88.

160periodical literature

The Role of Godly Magistrates in the Church: Melanchthon as Luther's Inter-

preter and Collaborator. James M. Estes. Church History, 67 (Sept., 1998),

463-483.
Unterschiede und Gemeinsamkeiten bei der Durchsetzung der Reformation in
den Hansestädten Wismar, Rostock und Stralsund. Werner Troßbach.

Archivfür Reformationsgeschichte, 88 (1997), 118-165.

Das württembergische Bilderdekret vom 7. Oktober 1537—ein unbekanntes
Werk Ambrosius Blarers. Rainer Henrich. Blätter für württembergische
Kirchengeschichte, 97 (1997), 9-21 .
"In Search of Local Knowledge." Rewriting Early Modern Italian Religious History. Simon Ditchfield. Cristianesimo nella storia, XIX (June, 1998),
255-296.

Religious Refugees from Lucca in the Sixteenth Century: Political Strategies and
Religious Proselytism. Simonetta Adomi-Braccesi..ArdWi>/wr Reformationsgeschichte, 88 (1997), 338-379.

Obéir aux commandements de Dieu et de l'Église: culte paroissial et contreréforme gallicane. Katharine lualdi. Revue d'histoire de l'Église de France,

84 (Jan. -June, 1998), 5-19.
Felipe II y la nueva Reforma de los religiosos descalzos. José García Oro and
María José Pórtela Silva. Archivo Ibero-Americano, LVIII (May-Aug., 1998),
217-310.

Durham and Winchester Episcopal Estates and the Elizabethan Settlement: A

Reappraisal. Brett Vshei.Journal ojEcclesiastical History, 49 (July, 1998),
393-406.

How Socially Conservative Were the Elizabethan Religious Radicals? Peter Iver

Kaufman.Albion, 30 (Spring, 1998), 29-48.

La reforma del monestir de Montserrat a finals del segle XVI. Epistolari del

monjo i abat fra Andrés de San Román (1562-1589). Bernât Hernández.

Studia Monástica, 40 (1, 1998), 23-63.

Confessionalizzazione e identità collettiva—Il caso italiano: Siena 1575-1800.

Oscar Di Simplicio. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 88 (1997),
380-411.

Daniel Toussain (1541-1602): Auteur inconnu d'un traité contre les luthériens
(1576) et éditeur inattendu d'un texte de Martin Bucer. Reinhard Bodenmann. Archivfür Reformationsgeschichte, 88 (1997), 279-321.
Christian Pessimism on the Walls of the Vatican Galleria delle carte geografiche.
Walter Goffart. Renaissance Quarterly, LI (Autumn, 1998), 788-828.
Ecclesiae militantis triumphi: Jesuit Iconography and the Counter-Reformation.
Kirstin Noreen. Sixteenth CenturyJournal, XXLX (Fall, 1998), 689-715.
Un manuscrito inglés inédito del "Libro de la Vanidad" de fray Diego de Estella.
Jesús Llanos García. Archivo Ibero-Americano, LVIII (May-Aug., 1998),
369-380.

periodical literature161

Pharisees and Hypocrites: A Public Debate over Church Discipline in Leiden,

1586. Christine Kooi. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 88 (1997),

258-278.

A Saint for a City: Mariana de Jesús and Madrid, 1565-1624. Jodi Bilinkoff.
Archivfür Reformationsgeschichte, 88 (1997), 322-337.

SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

Una embajada de demente VIII a Persia (1600-1609). Carlos Alonso, O.S.A.
Archivum Historiae Pontificiae, 34 (1966), 7-125.
"Rome's Snaky Brood" : Catholic Yeomen, Craftsmen and Townsmen in the West
Midlands, 1600-1641. Marie B. Rowlands. Recusant History, 24 (Oct.,
1998), 147-165.
Die Germaniker und die Reform des Zisterzienserordens 1602-1604. Leonhard

Scherg. Analecta Cisterciensia, LIII (Jan.-Dec, 1997), 130-207.
Geschlechterspezifische Lebensplanung und innereheliche Dynamik in württembergischen Pfarrfamilienzyklen des 17. Jahrhunderts. Johannes Wahl.
Blätterfür württembergische Kirchengeschichte, 97 (1997), 59-82.

Bellum iustum, pax aeterna et consolatio militantium. Theologie und Ethik
lutherischer Trostschriften zur Zeit des Dreißigjährigen Krieges. Johann A.

Steiger. Zeitschrift für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte, 50 (4, 1998),
298-316.

Au coeur religieux du ministerial. La place de Dieu dans le Testamentpolitique

de Richelieu. Françoise Hildesheimer. Revue d'histoire de l'Église de

France, 84 (Jan.-June, 1998), 21-37.
Licensing, Censorship, and Religious Orthodoxy in Early Stuart England. An-

thony Milton. HistoricalJournal, 41 (Sept., 1998), 625-651.

Breaking the Vessels: The Desacralization of Monarchy in Early Modern England. Robert Z&ller. Sixteenth CenturyJournal, XXDi (Fall, 1998), 757-778.

Il p. Antonio Vieira a Roma. José Vaz de Carvalho. La Civiltà Cattolica, 149, 1
(Feb. 21, 1998), 368-380.

Locke's Political Arguments for Toleration. Selina Chen. History of Political

Thought, XLX (Summer, 1998), 167-185.

Cardinal Decio Azzolino and the Problem of Papal Nepotism. Marie-Louise

Rodén. Archivum Historiae Pontificiae, 34 (1996), 127-157.

"Yes, My Lord": Some Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Bishops and the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary. M. Gregory Kirkus, I.B.V.M. Recusant His-

tory, 24 (Oct., 1998), 171-192.

Abadologio (siglos X-XLX) y Libro de gradas de los monjes (1715-1833) del
monsterio de Santa María La Real de Nájera. Ernesto Zaragoza Pascual. Studia Monástica, 40 (1, 1998), 121-158.

162periodical uterature

La casa di esercizi spirituali di Foligno (1729-1773). Anna Rita Capoccia.
Archivum Historicum Societatis Lesu, LXVII (Jan.-June, 1998), 161-206.

Le origini redentoriste in una relazione del cappellano maggiore del 1736. Giovanni Orkmdi. Spicilegium Historicum CSSR, XVVI (1, 1998), 9-24.
Lopera litúrgica del canónico G. Di Giovanni (1699-1753). Pietro Sorci.//o Theológos,XV0, 1997), 399-423.
A Theology Thesis Defended by an Irish Clerical Student in Paris in 1739.
Thomas O' Connor. Archivium Hibernicum, LI (1997), 3-15.

Gilbert Talbot and the Talbot Case. Geoffrey Holt, SJ. Recusant History, 24
(Oct., 1998), 166-170.
The Limits of Latitudinarianism: English Reactions to Bishop Clayton's An Essay

on Spirit. Nigel Aston. Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 49 (July 1998),
407-433.

William Law, Behmenism, and Counter Enlightenment. C. D. A. Leighton. Harvard Theological Review, 91 (July, 1998), 301-320.
Pietro Berardi, auditeur de la nonciature et l'Eglise de France (1759-1760). Alain

üoussaná. Archivum Historiae Pontificiae, 35 (1997), 89-160.

Irishmen Ordained at Rome, 1760-1800. Hugh Fenning, O.P. Archivium Hibernicum, LI (1997), 16-37.
La diócesi di Adria durante l'episcopato di mons. Amoldo Speroni degli Alvarotti: il vescovo, il culto, i fedeli (1766-1800). Dante Fornasiero. Palestra
del Clero, 11 (Jan-Feb., 1998), 97-120.
"The Difficulties of Protestantism": Bishop Milner, John Fletcher and Catholic
Apologetic against the Church of England in the Era from the First Relief

Act to Emancipation, 1778-1830. Peter B. Nockles. Recusant History, 24

(Oct., 1998), 193-236.
Cause de béatification du Serviteur de Dieu Pierre-Adrien Toulorge O.Praem.
(1757-1793). Documents. Première et deuxième partie. Bernard Ardura.
Analecta Praemonstratensia, IXXTV (1-2, 1998), 49-135.

NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH CENTURIES

Chiesa e società nell'Italia napoleónica. Rassegna di studi recenti (1989-1996) e

proposte di ricerca. Simone Bonechi. Cristianesimo nella storia, XLX
(June, 1998), 297-332.

Église et esclavage dans les vieilles colonies françaises au XLXC siècle. Philippe

De)IsIe.Revue d'histoire de l'Église de France, 84 (Jan.-June, 1998), 55-70.

La théologie critique au service de l'émancipation bourgeoise: David Friedrich
Strauß (1808-1874). Friedrich Wilhelm Graf. Revue de Théologie et de
Philosophie, 130 (2, 1998), 151-172.

periodical literature163

Parish-Church Cathedrals, 1836-1931: Some Problems and Their Solution. P S.

Morrish./oMm«/ ofEcclesiastical History, 49 (July, 1998), 434-464.

Political Union without Social Revolution: Vincenzo Gioberti's Primato. Bruce

Haddock. HistoricalJournal, 41 (Sept., 1998), 705-723.

Le Père Jean-Baptiste Muard (1809-1854) et Cîteaux. Denis Huerre. Collectanea

Cisterciensia, 60 (3, 1998), 234-250.
Relazione ufficiale sul conclave del 1846. Giacomo Martina, S.L, and Wiktor

Gramatowski, S.I. Archivum Historiae Pontificiae, 34 (1996), 159-212.
Nineteenth-century French Missionaries and fa'a Samoa. Andrew Hamilton.
Journal of Pacific History, XXXIII (Sept., 1998), 163-177.
La vision d'un âge éthique non ecclésial du christianisme: Richard Rothe

(1799- 1867). Völker Drehsen. Revue de Théologie et de Philosophie, 130
(2, 1998), 173-192.
Autour de l'épisode des Frères-Mineurs belges à Amiens (1851-1852).

L. Ceyssens. ^rc/Wfo Ibero-Americano, LVIII (May-Aug., 1998), 353-368.
Leaving the Walls or Anomalous Activity: The Catholic and Jewish Rural Bour-

geoisie in Germany. Jakob Borut and Oded Heilbronner. Comparative

Studies in Society and History, 40 (July, 1998), 475-502.
Republicans, Catholics and Social Reform: Lyon, 1870-1920. Timothy B. Smith.
French History, 12 (Sept., 1998), 246-275.

Un "famigerato vescovo antifallibilista." Pio LX e il vescovo Strossmayer dopo la
fine del Vaticano I. Con documenti inediti. Giuseppe M. Croce. Archivum

Historiae Pontificiae, 35 (1997), I6I-I8I.
Intervención del card. Rampolla en los nombramientos de obispos españoles
(1875-1903). Vicente Cárcel Ortí. Archivum Historiae Pontificiae, 34
(1996), 213-244.

Andrea Busiri-Vici (tl9H),architetto-ingegnere del Capitolo Lateranense.le sue

scoperte, i suoi progetti e le polemiche. Filippo Tamburin!. Archivum Historiae Pontificiae, 34 (1996), 245-268.

Il beato Giovanni Battista Scalabrini: vescovo, fondatore e padre dei migranti.

Piersandro Vanzan. La Civiltá Cattolica, 149, II (May 2, 1998), 225-236.

J. G. Pfleiderers Amerika-Reise 1880 und seine ökumenischen Erfahrungen.
Beobachtungen im Vorfeld der Gemeinschaftsbewegung. Karl Heinz Voigt.
Blätterfür württembergische Kirchengeschichte, 97 (1997), 98-128.

Les protestants réformés face à la laïcisation de l'école au début des années

1880.André Hncvewt.Revue d'histoire de l'Église de France, 84 (Jan.-June,

1998), 71-96.
Gender and the Limits of Anti-clericalism: The Secularization of Hospital Nursing in France, 1880-1914. Katrin Schultheiss. French History, 12 (Sept.,
1998), 229-245.

164periodical literature

Orientamenti della curia romana e dell'episcopato italiano sul voto politico dei
cattolici (1881-1882). Andrea Ciampani. Archivum Historiae Pontificiae,
34 (1996), 269-324.
Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu. Un catholique libéral devant l'orthodoxie. Jean-Marie
Mayeur. Cristianesimo nella storia, XLX (June, 1998), 371-380.
The Aix Affair of 1891: A Turning Point in Church-State Relations before the
Separation? Joan L. Coffey. French Historical Studies, 21 (Fall, 1998),
543-559.
La Universidad Gregoriana y la formación teológica del clero español
(1892-1936). Vicente Cárcel Ortí. Archivum Historiae Pontificiae, 35
(1997), 183-223.

Die Eparchien der Russisch-Orthodoxen Kirche und die Reihenfolge ihrer Hier-

archen in der Zeit von 1893-1996 (Fortsetzung). Coelestin Patock, O.S.A.
Ostkirchliche Studien, 41 (Sept., 1998), 149-193Der Kampf gegen die "Liguorimoral" (1894-1905). Otto Weiss. Spicilegium His-

toricum C.SS.R, XLVI (1, 1998), 103-256.
The Ecumenical Movement in Its Early Years. David Cutter.Journal of Ecclesi-

astical History, 49 (July, 1998), 465-485.

I cappellani militari italiani nella storia política e religiosa del Novecento. Maurilio Guaseo. Humanitas, LIII (June, 1998), 457-470.

Early American Missionaries in Llocos. L. Shelton Woods. Philippine Studies, 45
(3, 1997), 303-328.

Two Autobiographical Narratives of Conversion: Robert Hugh Benson and

Ronald Knox. George Marshall. Recusant History, 24 (Oct., 1998),
237-253-

French Politics and Alfred Loisy's Modernism. Harvey Hill. Church History, 67
(Sept., 1998), 521-536.
The Perraud Affair: Clergy, Church, and Sexual Politics in Fin-de-Siècle France.

Thomas Kselman./owrra«/ ofModern History, 70 (Sept., 1998), 588-618.

I tentativi di pace della Germania e della Santa Sede nella I Guerra Mondiale:

L'attività del deputato Erzberger e del diplomático Pacelli (1916-1918).

Stefano Trínchese. Archivum Historiae Pontificiae, 35 (1997), 225-255.
Archbishop Randall Davidson, Russian Famine Relief, and the Fate of the Orthodox Clergy, 1917-1923. Charles M. Edmondson and R. Barry Levis.Journal

of Church and State, 40 (Summer, 1998), 619-637.

Archbishop Kelly and the Quarantine Station Incident of 1918. Jeff Kildea./li«-

tralasian Catholic Record, LXXV (July, 1998), 326-334.

Die Aufnahme diplomatischer Beziehungen zwischen dem Hl. Stuhl und dem
Deutschen Reich (1920). Stefan Samerski.Archivum Historiae Pontificiae,
34(1996X325-368.

PERIODICAL UTERATURE165

Improving the Housing Conditions for the Irish Migratory Potato Workers in
Scotland: The Work of the Bishops' (Gersham) Committee, 1920-1923.

Heather Holmes. Rural History, 9 (Apr, 1998), 57-74.

Le rôle des publications chrétiennes dans la résistance au nazisme en Suisse de
1933 à 1945.Victor Conzemms. Istina, XUII (July-Sept., 1998), 298-328.
Religious Persecution, Anticlerical Tradition and Revolution: On Atrocities
against the Clergy during the Spanish Civil War. Julio de la Cueva.Journal

of Contemporary History, 33 (July, 1998), 355-369.

Die Theologische Fakultät Innsbruck zwischen "Anschluß" und Aufhebung
(1938). Andreas Batlogg, SJ. Zeitschriftfür Katholische Theologie, 120 (2,
1998), 164-183.
Edith Stein dans les griffes de la Gestapo. Précisions nouvelles sur son envoi en

déportation. Bernard Dupuy. Istina, XLIII (July-Sept., 1998), 259-297.

"Befreien sie unseren Landesbischof aus seinem unwuerdigen Hausarrest und
Bewachung." Die "Beurlaubung" und die "Schutzhaft" von Theophil
Wurm in Herbst 1934 und ihre Bedeutung für den Kirchenkampf in
Württemberg. Joachim Botzenhardt. Blätter für württembergische
Kirchengeschichte, 97 (1997), 129-155.

"È lora di Dio! Dio Io vuole." Contrapposizioni politiche e ripercussioni eccle-

siali nell'azione pastorale di mons. Toccabelli a Siena e nella provincia
senese. Bruna Bocchini Camami. Rivista di Storia e Letteratura Religiosa,

XXXTV (2, 1998), 279-304.

The Limits of Totalitarianism: God, State and Society in the GDR. Mary Fulbrook.

Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th series, VII (1997), 25-52.
Father Manuel Peypoch, SJ. Miguel A. Bernad, SJ. Philippine Studies, A4 (3,
1996X392-411.

Père Christian de Chergé. Lettres à un ami moine. Vincent Desprez. Collectanea
Cisterciensia, 60 (3, 1998), 193-215.

Theology as Entertainment: Oral Debate in American Religion. E. Brooks Holifield. Church History, 67 (Sept., 1998), 499-520.
Halle Pietism in Colonial Georgia. Renate Wilson. Lutheran Quarterly, XII (Autumn, 1998), 271-301.

"What will become of our young people?" Goals for Indian Children in Moravian Missions. Amy C. Schutt. History of Education Quarterly, 38 (Fall,
1998), 268-286.
Friends Becoming Enemies: Philadelphia Benevolence and the Neglected Era of
American Quaker History. Bruce Dotsey.Journal of the Early Republic, 18
(Fall, 1998X395-428.

166periodical literature

Peter Williams, Jr.: New York's First African-American Episcopal Priest. John H.
Hewitt. New York History, LXXLX (Apr. , 1 998), 1 0 1 - 1 29.
Madame Guyon and Experiential Theology in America. Patricia A. Ward. Church

History, 67 (Sept., 1998), 484-498.

Proscribed Preachers, New Churches: Civil Wars in the Illinois Protestant
Churches during the Civil War. Byron C. Andreasen. Civil War History, 44
(Sept., 1998), 194-211.
The Evangelist at Our Door: The American Jewish Response to Christian Missionaries, 1880-1920. Yaakov Ariel. American Jewish Archives, XLVIII
(Fall-Winter, 1996), 139-160.
American Baptists' Involvement among Sacramento/Mayhew Japanese Baptists.
Hannah Satow. American Baptist Quarterly, XNH (Sept., 1998), 203-212.
Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Gender Roles, and the Decline of Devotional
Catholicism. Timothy Kelly and Joseph KeHy.Journal ofSocial History, 32
(FaU, 1998), 5-26.
God and Labor in the South: Southern Baptists and the Right to Unionize,

1930-1950. H. B. Cavalcanti. /owrra«/ of Church and State, 40 (Summer,

1998), 639-660.
The Shift from Character to Personality in Mainline Protestant Thought,

1935-1945. Heather A. Warren. Church History, 67 (Sept., 1998), 537-555.

Dr. John W Thomas: American Baptist Servant and Advocate. George D.
Younger. American Baptist Quarterly, XVII (Sept., 1998), 150-191.
The U.S. Supreme Court in Religious Freedom Cases, 1970-1990: Champion to
the Anti-Religion Forces. Barbara M. Yamold.Journal of Church and State,
40 (Summer, 1998), 661-672.
LATIN AMERICAN

Juan Nuix i Perpinyà, S.J., contra Bartolomé de las Casas, O.P (continuación). Isacio Pérez Fernández, O.P. Studium, XXXVIII (1, 1998),81-114.
Espíritu y Sangre de Santa Teresa de Jesús en Pasto. Emiliano Díaz del Castillo
Zarama. Boletín de Historia y Antigüedades, LXXXV (No. 800, 1998),
187-212.

Los comienzos de las Reducciones de la Provincia del Paraguay en relación con

el Derecho Indiano y el Instituto de la Compañía de Jesús. Evolución y con-

flictos. Martin M* Morales, SJ. Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu, LXVII
(Jan.-June, 1998), 3-130.

Gregorio XIII, Felipe II y el mestizaje indiano. Calumnia de un franciscano americano contra el Rey de España. Juan Olaechea Labayen. Archivo IberoAmericano, LVIII (May-Aug., 1998), 337-352.

Pedro Claver un santo controvertido. Tulio Aristizábal, SJ. Boletín de Historia y
Antigüedades, LXXXV (No. 800, 1998), 99-128.

periodical literature167

Crosses, Caves, and Matachinis: Divergent Appropriations of Catholic Discourse in Northwestern New Spain. Cynthia Radding. The Americas, 55
(Oct., 1998), 177-203.

The Customs of Our Ancestors: Cora Religious Conversion and Millennialism,
2000-1722. Philip E. Coyle. Ethnohistory, 45 (Summer, 1998), 509-542.
A formaçâo do clero no Brasil colonial e a influencia do Uuminismo. Ney de

Souza. Revista Eclesiástica Brasileira, 58 (Sept., 1998), 618-633.

Pedro José Márquez (1741-1820) e l'immagine del Messico antico nella sua
opera sull'architettura precolombiana. Antonella Romani. Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu,IXNII (Jan.-June, 1998), 131-160.
Agio, clero y bancarrota fiscal, 1846-1847. Brian Connaughton. Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos, 14 (Summer, 1998), 263-285.
Viajes Misioneros. La prima presencia de los Redentoristas en América Latina,

1859- 186 Í.Alvaro Córdoba Chaves. Spicilegium Historicum C.SS.R.,XWl

(1,1998), 25-101.

La Obra Histórica de Monseñor José Restrpo Posasa. Luis Cario Mantilla Ruiz,
O.F.M. Boletín de Historia y Antigüedades, LXXXV (No. 801, 1998),
389-409.

OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED

[Books that were sent to scholars to be reviewed but of which no review has

been received are indicated by an asterisk.]
Adams, Ann Jensen (Ed.). Rembrandt's "Bathsheba Reading King David's Letter!' [Masterpieces of Western Painting.] (New York: Cambridge University
Press. 1998. Pp. xiv, 215. $54.95 hardback; $15.95 paperback.)
*Andretta, Stefano. La venerabile superbia: Ortodossia e trasgressione nella
vita di suor Francesca Farnese (1593-1651). (Turin: Rosenberg & Sellier.
1994.Pp. 255. Lire 37.000 paperback.)
"Arias, David. Spanish Cross in Georgia. (Lanham, Md.: University Press of

America. 1994. Pp. xxii, 220. $39.00.)

Behlmer, George K. Friends of the Family: The English Home and Its
Guardians, 1850-1940. (Stanford: Stanford University Press. 1998. Pp. xiii,
455. $55.00.)
BeIz, Herman. A Living Constitution or Fundamental Law? American Constitutionalism in Historical Perspective. (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield

Publishers, Inc. 1998. Pp. viii, 276. $68.00 cloth; $24.95 paperback.)

Blankenhorn, David. Fatherless America: Confronting Our Most Urgent Social
Problem. (New York: Basic Books. A Division of HarperCollins Publishers.
1995.Pp. viü, 328. $2300.)
Bristow, Edward (Ed.). No Religion Is an Island: The Nostra Aetate Dialogues.
(New York: Fordham University Press. 1998. Pp. xi, 184. $35.00 hardcover;

$18.00 paperback.)

Burgess, Stanley M. The Holy Spirit: Medieval Roman Catholic and Reformation Traditions (Sixth-Sixteenth Centuries). (Peabody Mass. : Hendrickson
Publishers. 1997. Pp. xi, 252. Paperback.)

Calvez, Jean-Yves. Le père Arrupe: L'Église après le Concile. [L'histoire à vif.]

(Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf. 1997. Pp. 224. 125 F. paperback.) Reflections of

a Jesuit who was assistant general of the Society ofJesus for fourteen years
and a devoted lieutenant to the general.
Clarke, Peter B. (Ed.). New Trends and Developments in African Religions.
[Contributions in Afro-American and African Studies, Number 186.] (West-

port, Conn.: Greenwood Press. 1998. Pp. xiii, 304. $59.95.)

168

OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED1 69

Clogan, Paul Maurice (Ed.). Medievalia et Humanística: Studies in Medieval
and Renaissance Culture. [New Series, Number 25: Transitions] (Lan-

ham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 1998. Pp. xiii, 177. $68.00.)

Among the six articles published in this volume is "A Life Reconstituted:
Jacobus de Vorágine, Erasmus of Rotterdam, and Their Lives of St. Jerome,"
by David J. Collins, SJ. (pp. 31-51).

Critchlow, Donald T, and Charles H. Parker (Eds.). With UsAlwaysA History of
Private Charity and Public Welfare. (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield

Publishers, Inc. 1998. Pp. vi, 270. $56.00 cloth; $22.95 paperback.) Contents: Charity and Poor Relief in Early Modern Europe: Charles H.

Parker, "Poor Relief and Community in the Early Dutch Republic" (pp. 1333); Kathryn Norberg, "Religious Charity and Cultural Norms in CounterReformation France" (pp. 35-54); Thomas M. Adams, "The Provision of

Work as Assistance and Correction in France, 1534-1848" (pp. 55-76); Brian
Pulían, "Good Government and Christian Charity in Early Modern Italy"

(pp. 77-98); Anthony Brundage, "Private Charity and the 1834 Poor Law"
(pp. 99-1 19); United States Relief and Welfare in the Nineteenth and

Twentieth Centuries: E. Wayne Carp, "Orphanages vs. Adoption: The Triumph of Biological Kinship, 1800-1933" (pp. 123-144); Elizabeth McKe-

own,"Claiming the Poor" (pp. 145-159); Ellis W. Hawley, "Herbert Hoover,
Associationalism,and the Great Depression Relief Crisis of 1930-1933"(pp.

161-190); Alice O'Connor, "Neither Charity nor Relief: The War on Poverty

and the Effort to Redefine the Basis of Social Provision" (pp. 191-210);Donald T. Critchlow, "Implementing Family Planning Policy: Philanthropic
Foundations and the Modern State" (pp. 21 1-240); James T. Patterson," 'Re-

forming' Relief and Welfare: Thoughts on 1834 and 1996" (pp. 241-259).

Cummins, J. S. (Ed.). Christianity and Missions, 1450-1800. [An Expanding

World: The European Impact on World History, 1450-1800, Volume 28.]

(Brookfield, Vt. :Ashgate, Variorum. 1997. Pp. xxxviii, 381. $118.95.) This
volume seeks to present the older, classical and the new revisionist viewpoints, which latter have been stimulated by developments in social an-

thropology, by modern feminism, and, above all, by the impact of the

Second Vatican Council. It contains the following twelve articles, all previously published: 1. Charles-Martial de Witte, "Aux origines de la 'Congréga-

tion' indienne de l'Ordre des Frères prêcheurs (1546-1580)" (pp. 1-36); 2.

John Patrick Donnelly, "Antonio Possevino's Plan for Word Evangelization"

(pp. 37-56); 3. Joseph A. Griffin, "The Sacred Congregation de Propaganda

Fide: Its Foundation and Historical Antecedents" (pp. 57-95); 4. Benedict
XV, " 'Maximum LUud': On the Propagation of the Faith throughout the
World (Apostolic letter, November 20,b 1919)" (pp. 97-115); 5. David Brad-

ing, "Prophet and Apostle: Bartolomé de las Casas and the Spiritual Conquest of America" (pp. 117-138); 6. John Leddy Phelan, "Pre-Baptismal
Instruction and the Administration of Baptism in the Philippines during
the Sixteenth-Century" (pp. 139-1 59); 7. C. R. Boxer, "A Note on Portuguese

1 70OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED

Missionary Methods in the East: Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries" (pp.
161-174); 8. C. R. Boxer, "The Problem of the Native Clergy in the Portuguese and Spanish Empires from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Centuries'Xpp. 175-195); 9. Magnus Mörner, "The Guaraní Missions and the

Segregation Policy of the Spanish Crown" (pp. 197-216); 10. David E. Mun-

gello, "Sinological Torque: The Influence of Cultural Preoccupations on
Seventeenth-Century Missionary Interpretations of Confucianism" (pp.
217-235); 11. John Thornton, "The Development of an African Catholic
Church in the Kingdom of the Kongo, 1491-1750" (pp. 237-257); 12. Harry
Kelsey "European Impact on the California Indians, 1530-1830" (pp. 259276); 13. Judith Shapiro, "From Tüpä to the Land without Evil: The Chris-

tianization of Tupi-Guarani Cosmology" (pp. 277-290); 14. Francis R.

Merkel,"The Missionary Attitude of the Philosopher G. W von Leibniz" (pp.
291-302); 15. G. Baez-Camargo,"The Earliest Protestant Missionary Venture
in Latin America" (pp. 303-313); 16. Ernst Benz,"Pietist and Puritan Sources
of Early Protestant World Missions (Cotton Mather and A. H. Francke)"
(pp. 315-342); 1 7. James Axtell, "Were Indian Conversions Bona Fide?" (pp.
343-367).
Davis, James E. Frontier Illinois. [A History of the Trans-Appalachian Frontier.]
(Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press. 1998. Pp. xxiii, 515.)
"Davis, Nathaniel.;! Long Walk to ChurchA Contemporary History ofRussian

Orthodoxy. (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press. 1995. Pp. xxiv, 381. $75.00
cloth; $28.50 paper.)

De Felice, Loretta (Ed.). Fontiper la storia del brigantaggio postunitario consérvate nell'Archivio centrale dello Stato: Tribunali militari straordi-

nari. Inventario. [Pubblicazioni degli Archivi di Stato, Strumenti CXXXI.]
(Rome: Ministero per i beni culturali e ambientali, Ufficio centrale per i

beni archivistici. 1998. Pp. xx, 611.)

Duby, Georges. Women of the Twelfth Century. Volume Three: Eve and the
Church. Trans. Jean Birrell. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

1998. Pp. v, 122. $30.00 cloth; $14.00 paperback.) First published as

Dames du XIIe siècle, \o\. Ill: Eve et les prêtres by Éditions Gallimard in
1996.

Echard, Siàn: Arthurian Narrative in the Latin Tradition. [Cambridge Studies

in Medieval Literature, 36.] (New York: Cambridge University Press. 1998.
Pp. xi, 256. $69.95.)

"Erasmus, Desiderius. Collected Works of Erasmus: Controversies. Ed. J. K.
Sowards. [Collected Works of Erasmus, Volume 71.] (Buffalo: University of

Toronto Press. 1993. Pp. lii, 190. $85.00.)

Fagerberg, David W. The Size of Chesterton's Catholicism. (Notre Dame, Ind.:

University of Notre Dame Press. 1998. Pp. vii, 214. $25.00 cloth; $18.00

paperback.)

OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED171

Faggen, Robert (Ed.). Striving towards Being: The Letters of Thomas Merton
and Czeslaw Milosz. (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 1997. Pp. xii,
178. $21.00.)
"Fitzgerald, Thomas E. The Orthodox Churh. [Denominations in America, Number 7.] (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. 1995. Pp. xiv, 240. $65.00.)
Geary, Patrick J. (Gen. Ed.). Authors of the Middle Ages. Historical and Religious Writers of the Latin Wfesi.,Volume IV,No. 12:"Gregory the Great" by
Carole Straw, and No. 13: "Fredegar" by Roger Collins. (Brookfield, Vt.:
Variorum. Ashgate Publishing Company. 1996. Pp. vi, 138. $55.95.)
"Grendler, Paul F. Books and Schools in the Italian Renaissance. [Collected
Studies Series.] (Brookfield.Vt. Variorum, Ashgate I^bUshing Co. 1995. Pp.
viii,273.)

Gyger, Patrick J. L'épée et la corde: Criminalité et justice à Fribourg (14751505). [Cahiers lausannois d'histoire médiévale, 22.] (Lausanne: Section
d'histoire de l'Université de Lausanne, Bureau d'histoire médiévale. 1998.

Pp. 422. Paperback.)

"Henze, Barbara. Aus Liebe zur Kirche Reform: Die Bemühungen Georg
Witzeis (1501-1573) um die Kircheneinheit. [Reformationsgeschichtliche Studien und Texte, Band 133] (Münster: Aschendorff. 1995. Pp. viii,

430. 138,- DM paperback.)

Higonnet, Patrice. Goodness beyond Virtue:Jacobins during the French Revolution. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. 1998. Pp. xi, 397.

$59.95 cloth; $24.95 paperback.)

Horowitz, David. The Politics of Bad Faith: The Radical Assault on America's
Future. (NewYork: The Free Press. 1998. Pp. Lx, 214. $25.00.)

"Kidwell, Clara Sue. Choctaws and Missionaries in Mississippi, 1818-1918.
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. 1995. Pp. xvi, 271 . $32.95.)
Kraemer, Ross Shepard. When Aseneth MetJoseph:A Late Antique Tale of the
Biblical Patriarch and His Egyptian Wife, Reconsidered. (New York:

Oxford University Press. 1998. Pp. xviii, 365. $60.00.)

Lincoln, Henry. Key to the Sacred Pattern: The Untold Story of Rennes-leChâteau. (New York: St. Martin's Press. 1998. Pp. vii, 225. $26.95.)
Matsuda, Takami. Death and Purgatory in Middle English Didactic Poetry.

(Rochester, N.Y: D. S. Brewer. 1997. Pp. x, 278. $63.00.)
Matthews, Gareth B. (Ed.). The Augustinian Tradition. [Philosophical Tradi-

tions.] (Berkeley: University of California Press. 1999. Pp. xix, 398. Paperback.)

McKinnon, James. The Temple, the Church Fathers and Early Western Chant.
[Variorum Collected Studies Series.] (Brookfield, Vt.: Ashgate. Variorum.
1998. Pp. Xu, 300. $89.95.)

172OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED

Merton, Thomas. Thoughts in Solitude. (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
1998. Pp. xiii, 130. $17.00.) First published in 1958.
Mich, Marvin L. Krier. Catholic Social Teaching and Movements. (Mystic,
Conn.: Twenty-third Publications. 1998. Pp. xi, 475. $29.95 paperback.)
This textbook, intended for college and seminary students, covers in a concise fashion the major encyclicals and the movements and personalities in
the Catholic social tradition.

"Murphy Roseanne, S.N.D. de N.Julie Billiart: Woman of Courage.The Story of
the Foundress of the Sisters of Notre Dame. (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press.
1995. Pp. viii, 230. $17.95 paperback.)
Newell, Margaret Ellen. From Dependency to Independence: Economic Revolution in Colonial New England. (Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell University Press.
1998. Pp. x, 329.)
O'Callaghan, Joseph F. Alfonso X, the Cortes, and Government in Medieval
Spain. [Variorum Collected Studies Series.] (Brookfield,Vt.: Ashgate. Variorum. 1998. Pp. x, 309. $94.95.) Among the fifteen articles published here
(all reprinted except one) are "Alfonso X and the Castilian Church" and
"The Ecclesiastical Estate in the Cortes of León-Castile, 1252-1350."
Paoloni, Giovanni, and Stefania Ricci (Eds.). L'archivio della Giuntaper I'lnchiesta agraria e sulle condizioni della classe agrícola in Italia (Lnchiesta
Jacini)— 1877-1885. Inventario. [Pubblicazioni degli Archivi di Stato,
Quaderni della Rassegna degli Archivi di Stato, 84.] (Rome: Ministero per i
beni culturali e ambientali, Ufficio centrale per i beni archivistici. 1998. Pp.
vi, 183. Paperback.)
"Páramo, Martha Susana. Historia de La Iglesia en Mendoza:Documentos Eclesiásticos Siglo XLX, I. (Mendoza, Argentina: Universidad Nacional de Cuyo.
1994. Pp. 323. Paperback.)

Pibiri, Eva. Sous la férule du maître: Les écoles d'Yverdon (14e- 16' siècles).

Avec une étude de Pierre Dubuis, Les écoles en Suisse Romande à la fin
du Moyen Age. [Cahiers lausannois d'histoire médiévale, 23] (Lausanne:
Section d'histoire de l'Université de Lausanne, Bureau d'histoire médié-

vale. 1998. Pp. 245. Paperback)

"Pulían, Brian. Poverty and Charity: Europe, Italy, Venice, 1400-1700. [Collected Studies Series.] (Brookfield, Vt.: Variorum, Ashgate PubUshing Co.
1994. Pp. x, 339.)
"Reynolds, Philip Lyndon. Marriage in the Western Church: The Christianization ofMarriage during the Patristic and Early Medieval Periods. [Sup-

plements to Vigiliae Christianae, Texts and Studies of Early Christian Life
and Language, Volume XXIV] (Leiden: E. J. Brill. 1994. Pp. xxx, 436.

$108.75.)
Rossé, Gerard. The Spirituality of Communion:A New Approach to thejohan-

nine Writings. (Hyde Park, N.Y: New City Press. 1998. Pp. 124. $9.95 pa-

perback.)

OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED173

Sánchez, Magdalena S. The Empress, the Queen, and the Nun: Women and
Power at the Court of Philip III of Spain. [The Johns Hopkins University
Studies in Historical and Political Science, Ho1" Series, 2.] (Baltimore: The
Johns Hopkins University Press. 1998. Pp. xii, 267. $3995.)
Sarna, Jonathan D. (Ed.). Minority Faiths and the American Protestant Mainstream. (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. 1998. Pp. xi, 377.

$46.50 cloth; $21.95 paperback.] Among the ten essays published here are
"Catholicism and American Culture: Strategies for Survival," by Jay P. Dolan
(pp. 61-80); "Protestant Immigrants and the Protestant Mainstream," by

James D. Bratt (pp. 110-135); "Exodus Piety: African American Religion in

an Age of Immigration," by David W Wills (pp. 136-190); "The Bible, Minority Faiths, and the American Protestant Mainstream, 1860-1925," by Mark A.

Noll (pp. 191-231);"Missions and the Making ofAmericans: Religious Competition for Souls and Citizens," by R. Scott Appleby (pp. 232-278); "Minority-Majority Confrontations, Church State Patterns, and the U.S. Supreme
Court," by Robert T. Handy (pp. 305-334); and " 'God's Right Arm'? Minority
Faiths and Protestant Visions of America," by James H. Moorhead (pp. 335362).
Schulze, Hagen. Germany: A New History. Trans. Deborah Lucas Schneider.

(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. 1998. Pp. xii, 356. $27.95.)
Segers, Mary C, and Ted G. Jelen. A Wall of Separation? Debating the Public
Role of Religion. [Enduring Questions in American Political Life.] (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 1998. Pp. xx, 189. $48.50

cloth; $14.95 paperback.)
Smith, Charles V Dalkey: Society and Economy in a Small Medieval Irish
Town. [Maynooth Studies in Local History, Number 9] (Portland, Ore.: Irish

Academic Press. Distributed by ISBS. 1996. Pp. 63. $9.95 paperback.)

Stouck, Mary-Ann (Ed.). Medieval Saints:A Reader. [Readings in Medieval Civi-

lizations and Cultures: IV (Orchard Park, N.J.: Broadview Press. 1999. Pp.
xxiv, 637. $22.95 paperback.) This "Reader has been designed with an undergraduate audience in mind, as an introduction to the study of primary
materials from the late classical and medieval phases of the cult of the
saints."

Tierney, Brian. Rights, Laws and Infallibility in Medieval Thought. [Variorum
Collected Studies Series.] (Brookfield, Vt.: Variorum. Ashgate I^ibushing
Company. 1997. Pp. x, 340. $94.95.)
Vitali, Stefano (Ed.). Archivio Gaetano Salvemini, I:Manoscritti e materiali di
lavoro. Inventario. [Istituto Storico della Resistenza in Toscana, Pubblicazioni degli Archivi di Stato, Strumenti CXXXIL] (Rome: Ministero per i

beni culturali e ambientali, Ufficio centrale per i beni archivistici. 1998. Pp.
857. Paperback.)

"Vo Dú'c Hanh, Etienne. La place du catholicisme dans les relations entre la
France et le Viêt-Nam de 1870 à 1886, Tome I: Texte, Tome ILiVotes.Tome

174OTHER BOOKS RECErVED

III: Documents, Tome IV: Index. [Publications Universitaires Européennes,

Série XXXI: Sciences politiques, Vol. 186.] (NewYork: Peter Lang. 1992.Pp.
xxii, 754; 755-1566. $103.80 paper.)

Waldfogel, Jane. The Future of Child Protection: How to Break the Cycle of
Abuse and Neglect. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. 1998. Pp.
Lx, 285. $39.95.)
Walsh, George. The Role ofReligion in History. (New Brunswick, NJ. transac-

tion Publishers. 1998. Pp. viii, 196. $34.95.)

Walton, Clarence C . Archons andAcolytes: The New Power Elite. (Lanham, Md. :
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 1998. Pp. xii, 267. $50.00.)
Whedbee, J. William. The Bible and the Comic Vision. (New York: Cambridge

University Press. 1998. Pp. xii, 315. $59.95.)

Zardin, Danilo (Ed.). Corpi, "fraternità", mestieri nella storia della societá eu-

ropea. [Quaderni di Cheiron, 7.] (Rome: Bulzoni Editore. 1998. Pp. 376.

Lire 50.000 paperback.)